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Open Petition to the News Networks:

I’ve had enough. I no longer wish to designate my precious – and slowly shrinking – brain capacity to the Anna Nicole Smith tragedy. I don’t believe the story qualifies as news any longer. It did when it first happened. Nobody can blame you for the first 36-48 hours of round-the-clock news coverage. However you have now crossed the line from legitimate news to entertainment and sensationalism. You didn’t devote this much airtime to President’s Ford passing. I really do miss the days when news networks actually reported on *gasp* the news.

The very idea that Anna Nicole Smith’s death is somehow STILL more tragic than the real horrors happening every day astounds me. Everyday people in our hometowns, and around the world, are dying from hunger and poverty. People are dying from horrible diseases that we can cure. People are dying from diseases because they can’t afford the cure. Children are dying from neglect and abuse. Babies are dying.

I implore you from the bottom of my heart. Please cease the 24/7 Anna Nicole Smith death/muder/legal battle/paternity suit/ SOAP OPERA and show me something that I can actually care about. Thanks.

I never did understand how gossip rags like The National Enquirer stay in business. I guess this stems from that.

If you agree leave me a comment. If not, leave me a comment. Appreciate it!�

I flew to Chicago on Saturday afternoon to visit with my friend Scott… at least that was the plan. It never happened. I missed my flight.

I suppose I can look at it only having been a matter of time before I missed a flight. It always seemed like something I would be capable of.

I’m not really a frequent flyer by any means. I fly maybe 3-4 times a year. Sometimes more. Rarely less. I’ve been on close to 20 business trips in the past 3 1/2 years. And yet, I’ve never even came close to missing a flight.

Being a holiday weekend, hopping on the next flight out was easier said than done. Who knew so many people took advantage of Presidents Day?

I’ll reschedule with Scott and get out to Chicago soon – maybe even next month.

Snowy Stairs and Gate – Click to Enlarge

Truly, getting snowed in with your wife and daughters on Valentine’s Day is one of the greatest joys of life. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

We graphic designers get the reputation of being able to identify any typeface (or font) upon command.

“What font is that?”

“Helvetica Condensed.”

“How can you tell?”

“Just look at the capital R! It’s so obvious.”

I guess it’s a somewhat well-founded stereotype. However, now and again you do run across a mysterious font which you need to replicate. How do identify it?

I came to this precise predicament not too long ago. We have a new client who supplied us a hard copy of their current catalog. We were asked to design another piece of collateral, but were not supplied their corporate font package.

I discovered a resource called Identifont.com. I call it a “resource” because it is so much more than just a cool website.
The folks over at Identifont have developed a sophisticated web-based interface which allows someone to – coincidentally enough – identify a font. By placing numerous, specific qualifiers on each font family and then asking you to pick between 4 choices on each qualifier, the system slowly whittles down the possible fonts based on your answers.

And it works! I found my font with very little effort. Once your font is identified, they even go so far as to tell you the origin of the font. Designer. Year created.

And of course, there is a marketing tie-in with the various font distributors, allowing you to purchase the font in the event that you don’t already own it.

My few, loyal blog readers… I would like to take this opportunity to give free publicity to a fantastic blog I recently discovered. The blog’s name is KidSpeak and the author will be examining, dissecting, reviewing and critiquing children’s literature from the point-of-view of an early childhood educator, mother and children’s book fanatic.

KidSpeak promises to be very thoughtful, well-researched and intelligent writing on an important topic that all of us – especially parents of toddlers and early readers – should be more informed about.

I hope you take the time to click over to KidSpeak and read the author’s opening two posts about the direction she would like to take the blog. Like all bloggers, feedback is always appreciated. So if you feel the urge to leave a comment on her blog, I hope you do.

And, oh yeah, one last point. The author is my wife. Her previous endeavor, The Cozy Blog, will fade into the darkness of the blogosphere, never to return.

Go visit KidSpeak! Don’t forget to bookmark it! It’s gonna be fun.

Things I learned after 8 days in San Antonio, Texas:

• Only tourists pronounce the “io” in Antonio. It’s San Antone to those in the know.
• If there’s not a hefty portion of pepper in your food, it’s not done yet.
• Apparently the rules of southern hospitality prevent a waitress from simply taking your order, bringing your food followed by the check – for simply doing those few tasks might seem like she doesn’t really care… Instead, with each visit to my table, a 10 minute conversation needs to take place.
• Walking around in a big cowboy hat somehow doesn’t look out of place.
• As many times as I’ve eaten at a “Mexican” restaurant, I’ve never actually had real Mexican food until my friends DJ & Eric took me out to Mi Tierra. Wow.
• It does get cold in southern Texas. Quite cold.
• People actually like the Spurs.
• Texas is Ford Country.
• The Alamo Mission was not the disappointment others had me anticipating.

Being away on business always has a way of putting things in perspective for me. I’m away from my family and friends, my home, my pets, my comforts – being away on these week long trips heightens my appreciation for these things and more.

I was in Atlanta, Georgia the past two days and, nothing against the fine Georgians, but nothing about the city of Atlanta really impressed me. Tonight I flew from Atlanta to San Antonio, Texas. It’s 11pm (local time, but my body thinks it’s midnight) and I’ve just checked into my hotel room. It’s raining and cold. As tired as I am, I can’t stop thinking about my flight.

We had a mostly full flight and roughly 50 of the passengers were males between the ages of 18-22. All their heads were shaved and they were all wearing similar outfits. No, not some weird religious cult. It was an Army platoon in their fatigues. They had just finished their 9-week boot camp training at Fort Benning, Georgia and were all en-route to Fort Sam Houston, here in San Antonio, Texas to continue their training as combat medics (and hopefully future doctors).

As I sat among them, and spoke with them, and eavesdropped on their conversations, and studied their faces I was overcome with a crystal clear sense of perspective.

Here are these kids – and they were just kids – who have just completed one of the most difficult challenges of their life, are about to begin more rigorous battlefield training, and hadn’t a clue as to where on the globe they might be in two months.

And I’m peeved that our flight is a little delayed, and wondering if there will be free wifi at my hotel or not (there’s wifi, but it’s not free).

I’ve always had great respect for our military – with a special affect toward the Army since my Dad served in the Army – but rarely have I had the chance to be among so many wide-eyed, brave young men and women.

You don’t have to like the war – or our President – to respect these kids. They serve our country, voluntarily, in a time of war. That’s how I define heroism. God bless these kids.

Here we are again, the 79th Academy Awards® are right around the corner. The official nominations will be announced on January 23rd. Ellen DeGeneres will be hosting, which is a shame – only because I think Jon Stewart did an incredible job last year and should have returned to helm the ship.

At this point, I’m not sure if we’re going to dust off ye ole’ movievoter.com this year or not. I haven’t discussed it with my partner in crime. Brandon and I usually have the discussion mid-January to see if we’re willing to go for it again.

As I perused the list of 307 films produced in 2006 that are eligible to win an Academy Award, I was shocked – SHOCKED! – at not only the tiny quantity of films I saw this year, but also the TYPE of films I saw. Surely the burdens of life have clouded my ability to choose decent, award-winning films.

Not so long ago they would release the list of films nominated for Best Picture and I would have already seen 4 of the 5, if not all 5. As I look down my list below, I’m not sure I’ve seen any Best Picture candidates this year.
Here’s the run down in alphabetical order…

• AQUAMARINE [trailer] (I simply MUST qualify this by saying it was screened at 30,000 feet on an in-flight movie when I couldn’t sleep and had already finished the book I was reading.)
• THE BREAK-UP [trailer]
• CHARLOTTE’S WEB [trailer] (Not great, but will be remembered as my 2-year old’s first theater movie.)
• CURIOUS GEORGE [trailer]
• THE DaVINCI CODE [trailer]
• THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA [trailer]
• INVINCIBLE [trailer]
• LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE [trailer]
• LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN [trailer]
• A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION [trailer]
• SUPERMAN RETURNS [trailer]
• THANK YOU FOR SMOKING [trailer] (Probably my favorite film on this list.)

So, what’s your favorite film from 2006?

Describing color is a lot like describing a fine wine. With wine, you reflect on it’s body, it’s flavor, it’s aroma and you come up with clever, colorful descriptions to convey your findings to those around you. I see color the same way.

Never do I look at a blue and see only blue. Or a white and see only white. The descriptors for color range from intensity level to saturation to hue to brightness. Surfaces in which color is presented are being affected by everything around it. A white wall is being influenced from the bluish-white light coming from the window, to the yellow-orange bulb from the nearby lamp, to the green carpet to the curtains diffusing the light.

The next time you see a big fluffy cloud in the sky, look at its color. Ask yourself what color is it. Is it really white? Or do you see violet. Do you see blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. How many colors make up that “white” cloud.

As I enjoy my first moment of down-time this week, I’m thinking about how Christmastime in Boca Raton is weird. Looking out from my pink stucco terrace toward the Atlantic Ocean on another sunny 80-degree day, I gaze at the white 10 million dollar yachts docked in the ICW…. and something flashes to catche my eye.

One of the bigger yachts, The Claire, is adorned with white icicle lights, big green wreaths with red bows, a string of mistletoe across the back deck and a Christmas tree. The only visible reminder that it’s December.

I come here in mid-December annually on business and each year the Christmas tree in the main lobby of the resort is bigger and more majestic. But it doesn’t convey Christmastime to me. It conveys decadence to me. This whole place conveys decadence and unmeasurable wealth, and during the holidays it only seems worse.

I go from finding and decorating my tree, shopping with my family for presents, and listening to Christmas music to sunny Florida, hotel air-conditioning and 5-star food. It’s all quite surreal and it yanks me right out of the Christmas spirit, right when I was starting to get into it. This is my fourth December in a row in Boca and I never get used to the weirdness.

The fact that the lobby tree is roughly 15X the size of the little 6′ tree we got for our living room, and how The Claire has more Christmas decor on its back deck than in my entire house, only magnifies my uncomfortable-ness.
I just prefer a more humble, less flashy feel to Christmas. Tomorrow morning I fly home. I can’t wait to come back to my family and my 6′ Christmas tree.