It’s a blog!

I noticed a new feature on LinkedIn today:

What am I working on?
I appreciate the attempt to mimic Twitter, and Facebook, and probably every other social networking site by now, but I can’t tell you what I’m working on. Sorry.

There’s a lot of adjusting to work life. I’ve already had to get used to using two computers, but now, I’ve got a new cell phone, so I will be getting rid of my old one, and thus stop paying $70 a month for service I barely use.

Anyway, I found a service called Grand Central. It was recently purchased by Google. It’s a free service in beta, for the time being. What it does is it gives you a phone number that you can forward to up to 6 phones (i.e. home, office, cell). It also gives you a voicemail that you can check over the phone or online, and it allows you to keep your contacts online, which you can click to call, and it will show up on the recipient’s caller ID as your GC number (in theory, I’ve never tried that particular feature). There’s even a mobile access site for your internet enabled phone.

One potential drawback I’ve noticed is that I seem to get occasional spam calls. I’ve registered the number with do not call, but they still seem to go through. I can set certain numbers to spam, and they won’t ring you, but still allows the caller to leave a message.

I am going to attempt to distribute a new number to everyone in my address book. If you need my new number(s), feel free to email me.

Well, I’m back in Atlanta, and I feel like crap, and it’s not just because I’m back in ATL. This cold or whatever I caught only got worse. Despite the sickness, the trip was pretty awesome.

Friday started a little late because Kevin had an appointment early in the day. So I got a bit more rest than normal. My friend Veronica was in town from Dallas, so she came out to Venice (location of Prologue Films) and we had lunch. Sounds like things in Dallas haven’t really changed.

I got a chance to talk a couple of people around Prologue. I found two guys that lived in Denton while I was in school there. It’s a small world. I also got some great links for tips on motion stuff. I’ll post it later for all those interested.

After Kevin got off work, he showed me around L.A. some. We stopped at a sushi restaurant in Malibu on the way back to his house. It was the best sushi I’ve ever had. And on the way in we saw a really, really tall blonde woman, probably only the second one I’ve ever seen. It was pro volley ball player Gabrielle Reece.  That’s bascially it for the celebrity watch.

Anyway, when we got back, Kevin showed me some work from himself and Prologue. I’m not allowed to say what I saw, so please, don’t try and get me drunk and ask me questions.

The flight back home sucked. I’m half dead. I’m not moving until Monday. I’ll try and write more about the trip once I have time to re-organize my thoughts.

Out.

I thought I had really bad jetlag, but it turns out that I have a cold. I’ve been absolutely miserable in the absolutely gorgeous weather.

Things are pretty quiet around Prologue, but it’s only quiet on the surface. Everyone is pretty much nose to the grindstone around here. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to talk to people about their work, but I get to catch a glimpse over people’s shoulder’s every now and then, and I haven’t seen a single thing that isn’t gorgeous.

And if you were wondering, Keith, Kyle’s been on “vacation” this week, which means he’s not in the office. He had a meeting somewhere else at 11 this morning, and then he had to go speak at AIGA in San Diego, the same place Hank was speaking at earlier. It’s a small, small world.

But Kevin has been a great guy to learn from. I kept asking questions on the way to work, though we had to stop several times so he could answer calls and distribute information correctly. Kevin’s roll at Prologue is to bascially make sure the whole opperation runs smoothly. He’s involved with every project that runs through here, though he’s not always in the design process. His knowledge of the industry is uncanny, and I feel that just by talking to him, I’ve gained a lot of insite into what it’s really like.

And I don’t just mean about design. He’s had ups and downs in his life due in part to his passion for his work. It basically led to his divorce. He said that being married to another desinger is one of the greatest things in the world. And while his current job doesn’t allow for a lot of creative work, he talked to me about being able to actually make enough money to support you or your family, and how that might mean doing something different than you originally intend. I’ve always heard the flowery speach about doing what you love and other stuff they tell you in school, but the truth is you have to live. If you can make money doing what you love, that’s great.

After talking to Andrea and Kevin, I am getting more of a perspective on interactive design. Not a lot of people really know what’s going here at Prologue, and Andrea and Kevin don’t really know that much about interactive. It really is my passion. I love the idea of design that isn’t stagnant, that changes every time you look at it, that adapts to what you do.

Most of what happens at Prologue isn’t anything ground breaking, at least from my point of view. The stuff is killer, and totally brilliant, but I don’t really see any more signifigant advances in one way communication, other than getting it faster, at a higher resolution, and more realistic.

Exploring uncovered territory is what gets my blood flowing. I always seem to get bored by the same routine. I’m looking forward to getting my head back into the interactive mindset. This place is cool, but I’m thinking it wouldn’t really be the fit for me that I once thought it would be. It would still be cool.

And I think I saw Ricky Gervais getting coffee today.

Incase you don’t know, I’m in L.A. spending time with my friend Kevin at Prologue Films.

I woke up at 5.30A, rediculously early, to catch the MARTA to ATL. I missed a flight once, so I err on the side of caution. It did give me time to fix the site I’ve been working on for months now. The functionality of the site is down cold. Now all I need is to finish laying out the pages and it’s done. Oh, and devise a way to run a proof system with as much automation as possible.

It’s now almost midnight for you ATLiens, but here, it’s almost 9, and we’re still at work. That’s right, I’ve been put to work while I’m here. It’s sort of complicated and I’m not sure what I can and can’t talk about, but I’ve been busy. To give you a hint, I was told that I can’t be caught taking pictures. We’ll try to get a few for you, my adoring public. No promises though. Plus, I left my camera cord at home, so no pics until at least Saturday.

Anyway, I landed at LAX at about 12p, local time. I was going to blog about something cool on the plane, but since I can’t upload the picture, I’ll wait til I get home. This is really a reminder for me to do it later. Kevin’s wife Andrea (also a designer) picked me up from the airport, and she had a lot of good input on industry stuff.

She drove me over to Prologue where we met up with a rather distaught Kevin. Things here are pretty crazy. He had a conference call right after lunch, and his headache magically went away after the call. I then sat down on a meeting he had with Paul, and Kevin really carried himself like a design director. The conversation honestly sounded a lot like an exchange you would get between a student and instructor at PC, except of course for the real world implications/limitations. But I was put to work on research for the account, before Kevin wanted a whole slew of ideas. So, I might have to use my brain soon.

Veronica, if you can read this, call me.

I came across this page today. It’s set up as a petition to God. I’m assuming the petition was set up as a joke, but it’s funny to read some people’s comments. It’s either christians that are offended by the idea of a petition against God, athiest bashing the christians for believing in God, or people who seem to understand that it is a joke. It brings up a lot of the intolerance and misunderstanding that lies just below the surface of polite society.