Help us Daorcey-Wan. You're our only hope.

If you haven't seen the boy recently chances are you haven't seen his new face-do. He's managed to grow a beard. Reactions range from "Oh," to "You look like Ewan McGregor in Star Wars," to my mom's reaction "Eeew." My grandmother asked why he grew a beard. I really don't care as Daorcey is still cute and promises me when he shaves it, he will turn it into muttonchops. Daorcey likes loves his new look because most people think he looks like Obi-Wan Kenobi and that is his key motivator to keep it.

In other non-facial hair news, I was made a permanent employee at work. I get benefits, a health plan and other neat stuff. I'm getting use to the work culture and working with engineers but it's weird to think I will be working for the next 35-40 years of my life.

There are days when I miss being a student. Especially when it's sunny, warm and I can see the Boston Pizza patio out my window. But that is balanced out by a paycheque, the ability to use my degree and come home and play video games and not feel guilty. I'm assuming I'll get use to the 8-5 grind but it's going to take a while. Life would be way more fun if it was more like an RPG. I could see my stats, how much experience I've accumulated and how much more experience I need to gain before I level up.

Oh yeah, I turned 25 this past weekend. Now I can yell at kids to get off my lawn and muse about the days where candy cost a nickel.

I am not Model Man

... but I could have been.

Ronaye called me a couple of weeks ago to see if I wanted to play the part of a character called Model Man in an ad for Modelland. I was interested, but doubted I could take a day off work. Instead, I suggested that Garett might be able to play the role. But I could understand that he might have some reservations given that he's not the most extroverted person I know.

On Sunday, Ronaye forwarded me the finished version of the ad. I think it's great and pretty funny to boot. It's possible that Natalie and I find it funny because we know Garett (The REAL Model Man), but I'm pretty sure it has legs beyond Garett's social circle. Let me know what you think.



I think Karissa made fair comment when she says that if I'd appeared as Model Man, I would have lost a significant amount of my credibility with some of the media and clients who see it. I can already imagine the call from Glenn at CityTV... yeah...

What do I do?

If you haven't heard my go on and on about my job before, I just wanted to let you know that I really like the work I do. Where I work is great, but I think it's the type of work that really gets to me.

I write, I read, I work with organizations to help them tell the stories that are important to them and the people they represent (both corporate and non-profit). To use even more romantic language, I'm a story-teller that uses symbols including words and images to tell a story well.

For those who've asked, you know I can go into the specifics: tales of problems, events, ethics and sometimes even the mundane daily stuff... Like this:
You're looking at our nation's wordmark. Chances are you've seen it before. I love it. This little image is Canada's logo--its brand image. And the Feds have done a good job of using it to identify our country/government since it was created in 1980. In a survey, 77% of respondents recalled seeing the workdmark before... that's pretty good recall for a logo. Wikipedia has a bit more about it here.

So you want to know what I do? I geek out about things like this. I get excited to learn that the font for this is a modified version of Baskerville and that they use serifs on this but not other versions to focus on readibility for headers. And, on a good day, mentioning serifs will lead to further discussion on the uses for serif versus sans serif fonts. Yeah...

I guess every person has something they geek about that's related to what they do. Do civil engineers love to look at pictures of new buildings or bridges while rubbing their ring? Do pharmacists enjoy the latest dirt on the drugs that accidentally kill people? What makes you geek out at work?

UPDATE: For more great, unique Canadian design, check out the Canadian Design Resource.

Arone's grad and my tech failings

Well, my big little brother graduated to the fanfare that comes with university convocation. Or, in the words of Allan, Arone "convoked." (That sounds like an unfortunate way to die).

It was the end of a busy weekend and the beginning of a busy week. On Saturday, Natalie and I drove to Banff for a wedding at the Banff Springs Hotel (swank) and then came back to Calgary that night so I could sleep a bit before Sunday morning when I would drive (all by my lonesome) to Edmonton to hang with the sibling.

I went up on Sunday for two reasons:

1. I wanted to hang (as I've mentioned previously)
2. Convocation festivities began at 7am on Monday

7am!? It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Rather, the U of A treated Arone, Kristi and me to a complimentary breakfast filled with free food and awkward banter with other arts grads: "so... what are you doing now...?" The breakfast was the pre-covocation event. An opportunity for the Dean to send off his grads with a more personal (1000 people in the room) touch that couldn't be achieved at the more formal event at the Jubillee Auditorium later in the morning.

I was quite impressed by the breakfast function, actually. I remember when my Dean held a cocktail party to send off her faculty of grads. I think maybe 50 people attended and it was just an opportunity for James, Will and I to eat tiny vittles and talk about we'll miss the post-secondary shenanigans. While the U of A function was less personal, it sure had a good turnout and was punctuated by a great presentation from a U of A Arts alumnus and Edmonton Journal colunist Todd Babiuk. It was just a short presentation but at lot more fun/motivational than other speeches we'd here that day. He took a realistic approach and spoke about his "loser story" that had him sleeping on friends' couches and becoming aneimic following his graduation. But it ended with a positive twist that elaborated on the real opportunities that arts grads have in our world. I was pretty charged up after listening to him.

Which was unlike how I felt after listening to the the person who received the U of A's honourary degree later that day. Throughout that presentation, you couldn't help but feel that this was a degree that had been purchased, or, at the very least, had been given to encourage more philanthropic action to come the way of the U of A. After a speech about the challenges of following your dreams while being independantly wealthy followed up by a sickly sweet "did you know" story about JK Rowling, U of A officials tripped all over themselves to thank their recipient for being such a wonderful person.

Don't get me wrong, philanthropy to the arts and education is a wonderful thing. In fact, I hope to be able to do the same one day. But a convocation just didn't seem to be the right venue for a show of appreciation... or maybe I'm just reacting to a poor speech. Maybe I was spoiled by having convoked with Romeo Dallaire. I just think that this is a great opportunity to inspire new grads to do something brilliant with their education. And this time around, that didn't happen. I almost wish Todd Babiuk had got that honourary degree... it'll happen eventually, Todd, I'm sure.

I wore my new khaki suit jacket, jeans, shirt and a pink paisley tie. Apparently, it's quite a bright and, um, immasculated combination of clothing.
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OK, so Natalie and I have a blog and a new digital camera. When was the last time we took a photo? Three weeks ago... before we went camping, to the wedding in Banff or to Arone's grad. When was the last time we updated the blog? Three weeks ago when I talked about how I don't update the blog enough.

Something's gotta change here. We've got all this technology and don't use it for the reasons we have it. I should learn to update the blog in the evenings like the rest of the world, who are embarrassing me with the frequency of updates. Just check out some of the side blogs and you should see a few that are updated almost daily (except for James... who even has good news to share but must be too busy doing something else in the 'Fax). Yeesh!