Sometimes I scare myself

Well, that strap is awfully annoying.

There. That's better.

So, that was… something

So ends my two weeks away from work and school. Just for the record, I spent 12 hours working for the day thing and 16 hours in clinicals. So, not so much a real vacation (also add in family obligations, etc).

But I hate having all these plans for my time off. I barely got any writing done (less than 200 words or so). Didn't get t-shirts designed (well, I did get one design and then got turned off by setting up the store). Didn't get my study materials ready for the registry.

I do have my books ready for next semester. I found a few freelance accounts that hadn't settled and sent out second notices. Started bringing in the holiday decorations (since it's going to be below 0 for the next few nights I didn't want to fill up the garage to dry the decorations out and have my car freeze up outside).

With the day thing it's stressed me out so much that I've been overeating. I started having the Sunday night blahs on Friday.

I just realized I never let you all know how last semester sorted out. On all my classes I got As (for that 8 hours at 4.0). Two of those were by the skin of my teeth. Clinicals was a B (3 hours at 3.0). I missed an A there by 2 points. Anyway, so for the semester it was a 3.7, and that brings my over all GPA to 3.9. Somewhat disappointing, but I'll take it. This fall was the toughest semester (3 classes, 23 comps). Next semester has 24 comps, but only 2 classes, but there are complications with clinicals (6 weeks in an outpatient facility, and 2 weeks in CT… so that lowers opportunity to get comps). Did I mention I also helped my class make $800 for our graduation (because of our last Summer classes, we don't graduate with the rest of the students so have to float our own ceremony)?

So, that was something. For the next 7 to 8 months it's going to be crazy schedule. Hope we all survive.

Not Exactly Holiday Playlist - Code Monkey

Because of the events of today, I've been hitting repeat on this song for the past hour.


Code Monkey… much rather wake up, eat coffee cake, take bath, take nap, this job fulfilling in creative way such a load of crap.

How's your day?

The Treachery of Images

Of relevance to the day thing, it was time to revamp this classic.

Also
Ceci n'est pas une author.

And End of Summer

Session that is. My 8 weeks of classes and clinicals are over. So now I get to do all the normal, living things in the next 6 weeks, when Fall starts.

I have the preliminary grade for our "Seminar" class (1 credit). It's an A. The instructor would like to submit the presentation board I did to the OSRT (the Ohio Society of Radiologic Technologists). So I think I did good there. Not sure how I did on clinicals, though. My guess is the best I'll get is a B. Might be a C. I failed a lot of competencies (doing the actual procedures perfectly). Mostly on minor things (not like I x-rayed the wrong part or anything).

But the schedule for Fall is just as crazy as this summer. More so, actually. In fact, I have no idea how I'm going to accommodate classes and work. And that leads me to the difficulty. I might not be able to both continue classes and work at the day thing. So I need to figure out how to juggle both or figure out an alternative plan.

So far my logic flows in this direction: I need to the job to keep going to classes, I don't need the classes to keep going to work. It's going to suck either way.

A Benny shaved is a Benny urned

It's been long time coming. Well, not that long, but I've been meaning to do it for a while. I just changed my 401k allocations.

Here I'll remind everyone, I'm not a professional investor, I'm not a financial planner, I'm just some schmuck trying to wade through the crap that is the modern retirement programs. So, before you decided to change your investment strategy, consult one of those professionals, your spouses, beneficiaries, gods, whomever you think you should talk to about these things.

I think I've pointed to This PBS Frontline special on the Retirement Gamble before. If you haven't watched, please do (also note just where the professionals put their own money). For me, it's been something I've been thinking about for years, and most recently when we changed our 401k provider and "they were so helpful in choosing which plans my money should be transferred to" I've been meaning to review it all. Because, you know, Grue forbid that we should pick our own funds and investment strategy. In my previous allocation I chose pretty darn carefully to match how I wanted my money to grow and how much They would suck my money away. I didn't get that chance with the new portfolio. So for a little over the year I've been getting halfway through the process of choosing my own mutual funds and then running out of time.

Well, I just sucked it up and did it.

So, what's my strategy? Well, I choose index funds. I'll note here that most funds "try to match the performance of Jim-Bob's Fortune 1 Million Index" or some such. But I would suggest choosing funds that are actually 1) indexed (that is the fund buys the stocks in the index) and 2) is an index you've heard of (or is in the news often). Also, check the fees listed for each fund. Previous to this change my average fees were 0.65% with a 0.5% management fee on top. Now? Average is 0.05% with a 0.02% management fee. Yeah, you're going to look at yours right now, aren't you?

If you can get it, chose one that's indexed to the Dow Jones Industrials (I have one, but with a former plan, so I can't continue to contribute to it, sad face). I can't recommend this highly enough (as long as the fees are low, and they should be because no one at the investment firm is really doing research or anything). Why? Here's the dirty little secret. The Dow Jones has a handful of actual stock, so you're not diversified over a large base (yes, that's the opposite of what they'll tell you in all the 401k education programs, it's called "contrarian thinking"). And the big one, the Dow Jones is engineered to go up. The DJI is a marketing tool. The people who pick those stocks do so to get people into investing. Yes, stocks can always go down (any stock can lose money). In fact the DJI crashed in the last financial crisis. Did you know it's been hitting all time highs lately? Ever notice how many times you hear that phrase, "The Dow hit an all time high today…"? Ever notice you hear about how the DJI is not reflective of the wider economy? It isn't an accident. Wink, wink.

Unfortunately I don't have that option with my current mix, but I do have one fund that's indexed to the S&P 500. Take a guess where 80% of my contribution is now going? Now, the S&P 500 isn't as good as the DJI. The S&P 500 was created to take a broader pulse of the stock market because investors weren't getting that from the DJI (hint, hint). But, again, look at how much less my fees are and the performance isn't all that "worse" (with the reduction of fees, my guess is it'll actually be better).

The remaining 20% is now going into a bond fund that is doing about 1% worse than the PIMCO (which was the old fund), but, again, the new fund cut my fees by factors of 10.

So that's it. That's Uncle Steve's 401k strategy. Use at your own risk (I'm not a pro… blah, blah, blah).

Finally Can Talk About It

Since the middle of this past summer I've been working on our semi-secret project at work. And now I can share a little of it.



I didn't work on the video (other than critique/post-production direction), but I did do a lot of things for our program. I can't share everything about it (I can't even tell you why we're releasing some of the information now). But since it's now up on YouTube, I can share what little is there.

Very proud of this, for many damn reasons.

It's beginning to look like Xmas… 2013

At the day thing I'm constantly frustrated by the last minute nature and planning of current business. Some of it is just the inability to schedule work and plan for what is coming down the pike. "ZOMG, I need this RIGHT NOW! Stop everything and get this new thing done!" That kind of stuff tends to blow everything out of the water. And if I told you that happens at least twice a week, I would be lying. But only because I'm low balling the number.

What is particularly frustrating is this is an example of the industry I come from and have worked in for 20+ years…

That's right. At this moment, out in the wild universe of design, the decisions are being made for Xmas 2013 (this is very similar to publishing calendars, BTW, so when writers talk about how slow publishing is, I see it as "that's what it should take" - here I should clarify that I mean publishing schedules, you don't want to know what it takes to publish a calendar for commercial sale). Designs won't be finalized until January or February, but they're developing them right now. Next Halloween… done already. Next 4th of July… China is already producing the products to get ready for shipment before the end of next month.

So, yeah, with a major project with a deadline of tomorrow looming and we're nowhere close to finished, ask me how much time I've been able to spend on it today. The answer would be zero, zilch, nada, nyet, none. Take your pick.

When I talk about eating because of the stress, now you have a little window into what it's like.

Yes, I know, every place has their issues. There's always last minute fires to put out. And lead times have been shrinking ever since I've been working professionally. The day thing, however, has made it an art form of its own.

So, should I rush this rush job before the rush job I was behind on because of the previous three rush jobs, just because you rushed in?

Creative salaries for creatives

For that other part of my life, the writing fiction part, there's been a lot of people who have been open with various figures on their earnings, advances, etc. Which I have to say is totally fabulous and for any aspiring writer one should find those to have a big dose of reality. And I thank all those who have done that sharing (Tobias Buckell, Jim Hines, and John Scalzi leap immediately to mind)

For the day thing, fortunately we have a few organizations who started publishing salary and compensation data about a decade ago. This was a way for us to judge just how well we were being compensated (the design field had been notorious for under payment and wage theft, although I think we've hammered through most of that now). So here is one of those for the current year (please note, they're lumping a lot of regions and job responsibilities together for these numbers - one of the other reports typically runs about 30-40 pages- but I am slightly sad to see I'm on the lower end of my range - possible combination of smaller market, depressed conditions, and working "in house").


Find design jobs and careers at HOW Design.

In case you're wondering about your own field, Indeed.com has a nice little salary tool you can use to enter the position title and your location to see how you compare (note, I don't know what data Indeed is using for their tool, but that's just because I haven't taken the time to research it).

The universe's perverse sense of humor

Sort of started back into working out and writing having slain the previous "all hands on deck" chinese fire drill at the day thing. And BOOM! another big project strikes keeping me late at work and mandating weekend hours (landed on Tuesday). Just thought you might want an update. Also, so you know the scope of what I'm talking about when I say the universe is keeping me from writing.

The universe giggles at me

You know that second really big project at the day thing that kinda side tracked my exercise and writing habit at home? You know, the one that sent me into work on Sunday, and kept me at work for 54 hours this week (okay, 8 hours of that was holiday pay)? Yeah, the one that absolutely, positively, just had to be done last week. The one with multiple parts, required me to beat up our outside sources and put them through the wringer, and bust some management to make a groove. That one.

At 4pm today it was "put on indefinite hold" (reading the reasons why, that means more than likely next calendar year sometime).

That's not thunder you're hearing, that's giggling.

But, hey, on the plus side. That first big project that got an extension? Yeah, everybody is going to be in the office next week and today (also at 4pm, coincidence? I think not) we had a big tele-meeting about how we're all going to need to crunch on it next week. Have I mentioned that for the amazing amount of graphics work I'll need to do for it, I've got diddly over squat for actual data to go from?

Laugh it up, fuzzball.

Reboot!

So, there's been updates on the Reboot Project. Two weeks ago I went and had a physical and blood tests to see if the immunizations took. Because, you know, it would be good to know if the Hep B series stuck as that's an 8 month process. Good news is that I'm good to go.

Which is also good because I was offered the chance to start the Evening and Weekend Nursing program early. Which I took a pass on, but made sure they had my test results anyway. The E/W Nursing program is Plan B, and I applied just in case things went south with the day job.

Which it's a good thing I passed on the Nursing because yesterday I was offered an opportunity to start the Radiology Tech Program a year early. And I'm taking that. So this Fall I'll be a full time student and working full time. Yeah, it's going to be crazy.

Just told the day thing today. There are small freakouts going on in the background. I'm pretty sure I've convinced my bosses that it'll be okay. They just won't be able to grab me at anytime and add to my workload. Which, I have a feeling, the people who use that the most are the ones panicking. Unfortunately since I'm late to the program, I can't get the best choice of lab times, so things this Fall are going to be even more hectic than I had wanted.

But when I left college the first time with my BFA, I had to quit 2 jobs (Admissions Office and Bookstore), stop painting houses on the weekend, and drop a few clients (they weren't paying hardly at all anyway). While I'm not as young as I was then, I think I can pull this off.

When I'm going to get writing done or any sleep for that matter, is anybody's guess.

So here I am crossing my fingers.

Linkee-poo where are you

Sorry. Yesterday was Diet Hell. Today was Hell Full Strength. Tomorrow looks to be Hell On Wheels. Really hoping this weekend doesn't turn out to be Hell Flambé.

Dear Universe, it would be a nice time to win the lottery. Just saying.

Random Holiday Advertising Thoughts

Stop it with the Carol of the Bells already. No, really, there's like a thousand other holiday songs/Christmas Carols. How about a little The Holly and the Ivy, or something like Good King Whatshisname. It's not that hard.

So is it just me, or does anybody else thing the elves in the T-Mobil commercial are actually singing, "Walking in an Orgy Wonderland"? I know it's supposed to be "4G", but that "f" is real soft. Might have chosen a different song.

Or, in other words, changing a holiday song to fit your product? Don't be a jerk, okay?

Give Santa a break. I mean it's not like we don't work the poor guy to death one day out of every year. But you guys aren't helping.

It's also about the Anglo-Germanic-Nast-ian view of the holidays, isn't it? Even the whole "Bad Santa" sub-genre. There are plenty of other traditions that include Santa and holiday decorations, how about we mine those a little?

If you attempt to do the "tear-jerker" routine, I'm turning the channel. Thanks, already have enough of that in real life, don't need it on the TV. (I'm looking at you, Sarah McLachlan)

The whole "older son in (college, military, other state) coming home for a surprise Christmas visit" has also been done to death. And given the prevalence of both home security systems and concealed carry laws, your premises don't work very well. Plus, you know, most of those kids are living at home these days because of the economy.

Giving a car for Christmas? Wow, are you talking to the top 10% or what. Or, in other words, "fuck you, nobody who has a real life does this."

The "save so much so you can…" or just in general the "give yourself a gift at Christmas" ploy? Glad we're not being cynical about American Culture here.

On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour

One of the things I like about the day job is that I get to do cool things like this. Occasionally. This is one of a series of similar graphics intended for use on our large screen TVs around the company.

I share it here as a way to honor all my friends who have served. Thank you.

She'll tune in until the dial comes alright

Things are going to be silent here, or a little less than normal, for a while. Working on a catalog at work, which is rough stuff, and it takes up all my time. So I might not be as effluent as before.

Sorry. Pappa has got bills to pay.

Of course, when I've said this before I get all explody with the posts. So this might come to nothing. But understand that from now until December, I'm under a super-heavy workload. Like I didn't have enough to do before. No rest for the wicked and all that.

Hey, on the plus side this might actually lead to more original content than links (although I like the linkee-poo, but man he could drink his wine, and he always had some mighty fine wine).

Oh, and blogger, really hate the new look. Nice idea, poor implementation.

PSA on email etiquette #54

Let us assume you use email in lieu of a phone conversation to hash out details (which you really shouldn't, but that's another PSA, but let's be honest, if you work in an office/collaborative environment, this happens, doesn't it?), when you send the final art, project, work, whatever, you should recap all the decisions made that affect how the work will be continued instead of thinking your recipient will:

• Remember all the details of your project when meshed with the other 12 things that are a priority on their desk


• Find and review all twenty previous emails, each of which hashed out a different detail, and read through the histories to find the final correct datum


• Remember just exactly WTF we were talking about two weeks and 139 emergency rush projects ago


• Able to shave off two weeks from their estimates of time needed, especially when you're two weeks late with your part.

The more you know.

PS, and even if you use an actual 10 minute phone conversation instead of 60 emails stretched over 3 days, you should recap the information. Be Capt. Obvious, you're fellow employees will appreciate it.

One of those days

I don't often do a whole post on the day jobbery, but today was bad. And for no real reason except some people are upset they got the grand pee pee whack yesterday. It was a self-inflicted wound. It really was a minor correction, basically saying, "No, that isn't correct, you will do it this way."

Well, some people are not much more emotionally advanced than 2-year olds, especially in business. Today was the corporate equivalent of, "I won't eat my peas, I will show you just how horrible I can be about it." It also has to do with corporate change management.

What they don't understand is that what happened was only a minor correction and they're spoiling to have an elbow thrown.

"Look," I wanted to say, "you're out of your weight class here. No, this isn't because of your communication issues (of which they've blamed problems on before), this isn't because 'I don't know your business.' This is about your deliberate attempt to sabotage the work. I have your emails to prove it. Say, like the train where you're looking at the same piece of art, and it's wonderful, but you think I missed adding something. When I explain, 'No, it's right there," (a "tag" line which doesn't need to be in anybody's face, it's just a corporate requirement) suddenly you don't think you can approve the design because you don't like it? But thanks for asking the third party for us. Oh, BTW, this 3rd party (another company) isn't doing us any favors by allowing us to showcase their tech in our booth. We purchase their product and offer it as an extension to our own offerings. We're helping them out. And this is our booth."

Yes, they were all ready to "approve" the art when they thought is was "wrong." Then when they discover that I did it correctly, suddenly they don't like it. All in the space of 10 minutes.

I'm sure they didn't like it when, after they cc'ed some of their executive chain (who, BTW, were also involved in the correction) gloating on how I missed a standard communications piece, that I also included those executives in my response where I proved they were wrong. But thems the rules they set up. I thought I was very polite in correcting you.

Sometimes you need to throw an elbow. Their mental problems are not my fire drill.

Now is the Summer of Insanity

The day thing has just gone insane. It seems like one of those wave things happens and too many people need too much stuff for which they waited way too long to get in the pipeline. I have two major projects of which I can't get to work on because of all the other last minute work.

Dear people, waiting until the last minute will not get you bumped up in the queue, nor will it lead to an automatic, "yeah, whatever you want to do" response. What it will lead to is your not getting your work done properly or on time.

Say, have I mentioned I'm the only designer for a $0.5 billion dollar company? Yeah. I work like two to three designers tied together in symbiotic siamese twin designer tour de force. But that's still not enough.

So, tomorrow I jump back into the shark pool again. Because that's the way I'm built.

On the cover of the Rolling Stone

Web friend and fellow writer (and VPer) Chang asked on twitter if it was okay to just change a logo (because of a website design). Well, 140 characters just doesn't cut marketing/business advice, but this was the best I could do.

RuleO'Thumb, <1 yr / <1% of possible market, go crazy. >1 yr / >5% mrkt, change ID as few times as necessary. Learned behavior.

There's a lot of caveats and provisionals there. But logos deal with learned behavior. Reading is a learned behavior. And people learn to read words, not letters. And when you're reading a book, you're actually reading groups of words, not every letter. Your logo is the lingua franca of your business. People learn it. The entire look becomes your name in the way they process visually. Now, words actually have a lot of readability and you can play with the legibility and still maintain recognition of the word.

Logos function the same way. However, change too much on the legibility side and you break the readability.

So, first up is if it's a logotype (ie. your logo is the name of the business, or trade name), you're a little looser on the rules. Logotypes, which the name is primary, are easier to relearn and transfer in the consumer's head.

If your logo is a mark (as in a graphic without any type), lean toward the conservative end of making changes. Unless your business is in dire straits, or you've gone up 300% and are now making doodads as well as widget, just say no. If you've dropped 50% and used to make doodads but can now only handle widgets, that's also a reason.

Just because you're sick and tired of seeing it isn't a reason to change. Your customer, if they're a very, very good customer will see your ID about 2% of the time you do. They aren't tired of it, they just got used to seeing it.

And then we go into the argument about what is and isn't really a logo and what is a graphic. Some business people mix those terms freely, and it's permeated out into the general public. They aren't the same.

Such as John Scalzi's "Whatever" type at the top of his blog. Some people will see that as an ID of his site (and when he changes there's a good portion of his audience that gets upset because they have to relearn it). It's actually a graphic. It can change without changing his exposure in the market place, and whatever is a destination, not a product (insert marketing screed about what is what and what John is doing with Whatever, blah blah, it's still not a logo, okay?).

AT&T's globe is the alternative version. How many of you are old enough to remember when that was a bakelite phone (or a bell - bwahaha that's what they were Mom Bell) up there? Yeah, they changed in the 80s to the globe. And they haven't changed (much) since then (they've widdled at the edges).