uniqlock >>

          
have to say that I found this via davidthedesigner and just liked it. there are many so applications out there, but this I thought was very interesting and sufficiently different, that's why its here.

I am not that sure either >> (.ppt)

after a comment from davidthedesigner to do with the use of powerpoint. I did indeed follow a big route round russelldavies land. so many good things to see and learn, agree with disagree with but well worth checking. well worth checking his stuff on youtube too.
any way this led me on to dave funkypancake and this powerpoint presentation that in its self is a bit special and uses the presentation programme in its real sense. it is a shame that so many of the presentations I have watched, help make, & a long time ago made my self weren't as entertaining. but as to future use of the thing I am not that sure either.

lemon curd >> a rabbit?

I believe in concious streaming, I don't mean going with the flow but stopping to take note of a stream of thought. I had already decided was I would be writing this blog about today when I was in the kitchen & carol asked me for a lemon curd sandwich!
I have never liked lemon curd and so never taken much notice of the stuff. but the making of the sandwich changed things I looked at the label and almost made me want to even eat the stuff, excellent piece of marketing and design. the change didn't stop there I have just been on the curd making company's web site bitontheside it is a really good site in my opinion and I realised that I have been enjoying the more savoury fayre they provide for a while.


never mind concious streaming I still keep thinking of the rabbit and the butcher joke on davidthedesigners blog, have a look it is a good one. and what is more it doesn't matter, the blog that was planned can wait for another time.

rationalisation started >>

I have been doing even more thinking than usual. instead of finding things to take a picture of and write some inane comment about, I thought I would rationalise this blog malarkey (or try to).
I have spent hours considering whether it is worth carrying on with this blog every day.
as with so many things I am not doing it for money, but I am doing it for me and hopefully you.
just a short comment from davidthedesigner last week, he has known me since I was a little student, (more than 27 years) so he is allowed to question me. followed by a conversation later on with carol, who said 'she must thank david for pointing out the bleedin' obvious that I couldn't see for myself'.

so rationalisation started, no more podcast, no more davo - (mobile), might even stop doing some other stuff. I have taken off two of the six email addresses that forward to my blackberry, I mean how important do I think I am! stuff can wait!

any way the rationalisation starts as of now
I will only update the blog monday to friday.
I will try to keep it positive and for the most part design based.
I will obviously include surfing stuff when ever I can.

one (extra) thing I will not stop doing is the surf writing and obviously surf98 website.
I have to finish the next article for Go2 magazine July's edition to finish by monday night. good news Go2 it now available online as a .pdf file so you can read it anywhere in the world.

it feels as though I am starting again with a clearer mind so I have changed the look and feel of the blog and actually feel happy about it again, that has got to be good.

now I might concentrate on my day job a bit more!

intense >> too serious >> sponge bob

firstly, over the last few days my real work has been intense and I have been in working a stressy and not very productive way. I have noticed that the blogs I have been posting seem a bit heavy, rather long and a little rambling.
so I decided too lighten it a little and post a picture especially for micky in france.



secondly, I just have to direct you to davidthedesigner's blog for today the 20th april '07 it is a great true story.

what more surfing >> design has not been forgotten

I feel a bit bad/lazy having two posts in a row with a video from youtube in them.
gabes sent me the link and it made me feel so happy I had to share it.
it has such a great feel about it really makes me remember just how many great days at the beach I have had with hopefully many more to come.
even the song is written by: (b. gallagher/g. lyle), who funnily enough I went to see at the brighton dome in 1976, with due reverence to davidthedesigner's post today with the fabulous stevie wonder youtube clip, giving me an idea.
granted gallagher & lyle live was not the best concert I have ever been to but the surf film is so good and the music fits it.



strange then at the same time I was in deep consideration about some of the interesting thoughts muted by digital nomad & others got side tracked in to looking at fusionview however both blogs are well worthy of a look.

I am the one who introduced the 'innovation equation' you know (insight/ideas/impact) in to the conversation but I do like the idea that information + experience = knowledge taken directly from soho-quest friday the 13th post.

perhaps I should watch the donavon frankenreiter (green board-shorts) & rob machado (multi coloured board-shorts) surf clip again? yes, do you I think I will.

early post >> hopefully short as well

a couple of people have mentioned today that the last few posts have been to long and rambling so I am going to make this short, I have to get some work done as well.
in the past as some of you will know I never used flowers in my design work. for some reason I have changed I not only embrace flowers in my design work and photos (check my flickr). I also happily wear flower designs have a look at the fabulous billabong shirt I got yesterday (left).











another surf/design related thing that in the past annoyed me was the idea that you had to have a vw camper to be a surfer (I have nothing against vw campers it is the stereotyping of the surfer I hate). well don't worry I haven't got a real one but carol sneaked one in the house in the form of a money box a few weeks ago, and yesterday bought another one. do you know I don't dislike them so they are even allowed to be kept in the kitchen in the area that I sit to have my coffee and work on my laptop when I need to think. is the boring old fart (me) excepting change? I doubt it.

special mention to davidthedesigner for posting two video clips on his blog in the last few days that gave me a very good retro feeling and a laugh as well thanks d~the~d.

today went to fast >> sunshine and thoughts of summer

today went too quickly I only had a short time it seemed until I was eating lunch with maria and jules. I couldn't resist taking this picture. It was of part of my lunch, it looked so good in the spring sunshine. after that the day simply flew past.
we had sunshine pretty much all day today. just spoken to gabes he was full of the joys of a spring day he had got down to the beach even had a skate as well. specially for him I thought I would add this publicity picture for the 60's film endless summer a surfing classic. it says a lot about how things have changed but even gabes at nearly 14 can relate to parts of the surfing lifestyle or his perception of the that lifestyle, any way it is a great picture.

whilst on a nostalgic theme I have to include a picture of a man that I hold in particular high esteem, george greenough (pictured here in about '73) who was and still is a phenomenal surfer and photographer and if that wasn't enough a very creative designer as well. surf boards, it was george who really brought kneeboarding to the notice of other surfers and non-surfers in the late 60's early 70's.
he is responsible for designing the 'spoon' the board he is holding in the picture. as well as camera housing equipment, and inspired many through his use of film images set to music. echos (pink floyd) at the end of the classic surf film crystal voyager being his most famous film. It is amazing how different a day can be just because it is bright and sunny, I was busy all day but don't really feel I produce much of the things I wanted to do.

I did finally get my podcast to work check it at dgthekneelo.podbean by going round in circles but eventually sorting it out. then after that davidthedesigner left me a very welcome message telling me about some audio software audacity (I had not heard of) I also downloaded an extra patch in addition to audacity enabling me to export to mp3 LAME no excuses now.
already I have had a play with and it seems it is an answer to making the audio podcast bursts I have been trying to create for the past couple of weeks, at what is good is that it is free! thanks for the tip davidthedesigner.

any way must get on I have too many projects on the go at the moment and to really need get back in to the design for 'the hub'.

found a nice pencil >> what do you always carry with you?

a few weeks ago my friend davidthedesigner posted on his blog a picture of his favourite pen a 20 year old rotring. at the time I wanted to respond with a picture of a muji pencil (silver, right) that I thought was my favourite, but at the time couldn't find it. in a way I am pleased that I didn't because the fact that I couldn't find meant that I wasn't really using it. it wasn't very comfortable to write with but it looked so good. since then I have found the bic mechanical pencil in the photo (below black/silver) which I have now replaced as my favourite. it is a budget mechanical pencil but it is just so nice to use and it looks good as well.

I got to thinking in this world of technology and digital applications why is it that I still am excited about a cheap mechanical pencil?
I have a pda, and a mobile phone that is with me almost all the time.
I thought about what I always carry with me whether working or not. I consider the glasses I wear when needed a piece of clothing, as I do my watch (as these are a given rather than considered). I though it would be interesting to find what others cannot be separated from.
I have to add that my real job is that of an ICT & enterprise teacher so I work with computers (& students) all day. with so much of my work automated it would be easy to not write anything by hand.
I could probably have one flash drive with me (as some colleagues do) and still be able to function well in my job, moving between different computers.

the picture (bottom) shows what goes with me everywhere. my filofax (I did use a pda every day for a year or so but I really missed writing on paper), the bic mechanical pencil, a 1GB flash memory drive, for documents and animations, presentations etc, and a 2GB flash memory drive for images and video.
now I realise no matter how much technology I have around me I still want to be able to write with a pencil on paper sometimes. that's why I will alway carry one with me, along with filofax (for me an 80's throwback) and my 'geek sticks'.

what do you carry with you every day?

a walk to the shop >> then I noticed the signs

it is funny that I genuinely have no idea what i am going to add to this blog for day to day.
today I was at home with my 8 year old son ben it was a lovely sunny day in cornwall. ben decided it would be nice to go out for a walk in the sun, good idea.
we walked along the road, very near where we live the road I drive out of every working day. strange that you notice different things when you walk, as soon as I saw the first sign a real cast metal sign (top left) that is probably older than me I thought of davidthedesigner he would have approved.
we went to the shop and bought some lunch and ice cream I even had a milk shake as it was buy 1 get 1 free (won't be doing that again) at least ben loved his strawberry milky thing.
we left the shop to be met by the second photo (top right). already i was thinking again of david and also ben of noisy decent graphics.
when we turned into the road we live in another sign greeted us (bottom left) I was amazed that I have driven, sometimes walked by these signs nearly every day and not really noticed them before (& I consider my self visually aware!). at least as I walked towards my home I was reassured that my chimney that I really like (bottom right) I know many in the area don't like delabole slate used in this way and regard it as is ugly, but ugly or not the craftsmen that made it as the craftsmen who made the first sign actually cared. the same can't be said of the other signs.

going a bit botanical >> sunlight

it was nice to come home to find amongst the bank statements and my orange mobile bill a brown envelope containing a copy of 'digital diversity' a catalogue published for the exhibition of 'digital botanical illustrations' by niki simpson in collaboration with peter barnes at the botanishches museum berlin-dahlem, berlin.

it was sent to me by davidthedesigner, of celsuis (thanks david) as I was one of 5 winners of his great friday givaway competition last week. david mentioned when I contacted him earlier in the week that my interest in flowers was blossoming! (I think he must be correct) a coincidence perhaps? but before I went into my house to collect the post this afternoon, I spent a good 40 minutes taking the photos that accompany this blog.

I was scrambling around in the front garden because the sun was shining across the plants. I spent most of the time lying on the wet muddy grass desperately trying to get the right amount of sunlight to shine through to show the greenness of the different plants (it was good fun!).
as I mentioned before I have never really been that interested in flowers and never referenced them in any design work previously but I can't seem to get enough of them at the moment, well as far as images and photos anyway.
I must be getting in touch with my flowery / green / botanical side!

lazy day >> papers and non-achievement

hardly done anything today, a long (well sort of long) look / read of the newspaper this morning and watched the rugby this afternoon.
so many ideas that I have been thinking of don't as far as design stuff and software stuff have been moved aside by other stuff but they are still in there.
had a nice chat with gabriel today "go with what you will be interested in for two years and remember there will be many boring bits!"

I will have to make some time to get the work stuff done tomorrow.

I have played around with the Firefox browser a bit downloaded/updated some of the new add ons. I like it, really useful stuff (it's cross platform so works as well on Linux, Mac and Windows) oh dear! I am even beginning to a bit too geeky even for me. must remember that it is the design and usability that is important. I will just have to think 'cow gum', to make me get things back it to perspective!

friends >> davidthedesigner

I have been looking at loads of blogs and was pleased to find longtime friend david hyde has been publishing stuff for a while. david, a very successful designer and a really good man is posting the sort of things that would interest me any way, so I count myself lucky that I can call him a friend. the link and words from his site are just a bonus. check out his article hanging out with the surf dudes while you are there have a good look round so much good stuff to read and see. thanks david, it would be nice to meet up sometime soon.