Lego Town House Model - Take 1

My big order of custom bricks arrived on Saturday. Today, I took the first stab at a recreation of our town home. This was more of a conceptual build. I knew that I was well short of pieces. I just wanted to build enough of a skeleton to get a rough idea on size, scale, and a couple of building techniques.


Overall... I couldn't be more pleased! The pictures below show about an hour or so of work. And everything is coming together quite nicely. The entire model will be completely rebuilt (with lots more detail), but I think I know what I really want to do now with this house!


I've promised myself that I won't by any more bricks until my birthday, though. :-)

Review: Non-Designer's Design Book

When you stumble upon a book several times in your online world of blogs, podcasts, and other web sites, you just have to give it a read!

That's what happened to me with The Non-Designer's Design Book. This book is targeted to anyone who has done (or needs to do) any type of design work. Whether it's for a web site, a news bulletin, the community news letter, business cards, or even a report -- this book is for you.

The author covers some very basic principles of design, including: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. "Dull" examples are shown, followed by ones that use these simple concepts to make the design very interesting.

If you are like me, you will quickly notice the dull designs as something you normally do! The illustrations are fantastic, making the read very visual and enjoyable at the same time. Even better: this is a book that you can polish off in 2-4 hours.


The book also gets into some very basic color theory and typography theory as well. Although, I wish a little more time was spent on these sections. Overall, I am quite impressed and will gladly recommend this book to anyone interested in improving their design skills.


Pro's: Quick read. Easy concepts. Fantastic illustrations. Very visual books. All examples list the fonts used (very cool).


Cons: A little too short. I wish the book would have gone a little more into color and typography theory and usage.


Overall: This is a great book. Everyone who has a need to design web sites, web pages, news letters, PowerPoint presentations, and even reports will get something out of this book.

Lego Art.

Neya and I spent some time tonight making some Lego art:

Green Grocer Finished.

Neya and I finished building the Green Grocer on Saturday.


Here are some pictures:


More pictures available here.

More Lego Building

For Christmas, I got a Lego set called Green Grocer. It's a three story building that features a grocer on the bottom store, and two apartments above it. The set weights in at over 2500 pieces at will probably take me around 10 hours to fully assemble. The set has a huge amount of detail: a mouse that hides under the stairs and eats cheese, a dairy cabinet stocked with juice and milk, vegetable bins, checkout counters, mailboxes, etc.


Neya and I started to assemble the bottom floor on New Years day. Here are some pictures below. We had a lot of fun putting it together. Sometimes, getting my 5-year-old daughter involved slows the process and tests my patience, but it's totally worth it!

All of the pieces spread out on the table (for the first floor). It really pays to have a big table! (thankfully, Lego organizes the bags for the pieces by floor).

Goals for 2009.

I'm not one to spend a lot of time reflecting, so here are my personal and professional goals for 2009.

Note: My prior comments about uninspired work may have confused some people, so let me clarify: I love working at Versatile. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I've done good, solid work. My customers have been happy, my employer has been happy (I think!), and overall I have been happy. However, I tend to evaluate my work output probably much more critically than most people I know, and I really want to do something much better!


Onto the list!


Loose 40 Pounds - Started off good last year. We'll see if I can do it this year! Rebuck - I'll be calling you for trips to L.A. Fitness!


Get On the Raquetball Court (and beat Rebuck) - This will take a lot of work (just getting on the court... not beating Rebuck ;-)). I love raquet sports, and I miss playing them with Mark. I hope to get my ankle in good enough shape to play again!


Family - I really want to be a better husband and father. I need to be more patient with my kids (which surprises me -- I am usually a very patient person). Overall, I need to spend more time with my family... which leads me to my next goal.


Work - Just say NO to work. I work a lot. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I enjoy it. I love what I do, and I love the challenges of the things that I get asked to deliver. But, I plan to be saying NO a little bit more to my co-workers, managers, and bosses a little more this year. My family deserves it!


Work - Do something KICK ASS. I cannot predict what I will be working on next year (our industry and my company moves way too fast), but I really want to do something really cool. I have a good shot early this year. We have a project code named Sheep Metal at work. It's a really good chance to right some wrongs, and do something really good. We'll see!


Books - I need to read more this year. And reading more does not mean "Spring in Practice, version 2.5" and "Mastering Regular Expressions". I need to finish Cryptonomicon! My goal - read 10 non-technical and non-work-related books this year! (note: Audiobooks will count for me!)


Explore More Music - I need to stop downloading safe music from iTunes. I need open my ears and listen for new stuff.


Focus - My level of focus just has not been consistent over the last 2 years. I've had those 20% moments of being in the zone. I've been much better since coming back to work after the ankle injury, but I really need to focus on this area.


Build the Business - Wally and I have a great business concept, and I plan to test it in 2009. Very exciting!!!!


Finish Playing Legend of Zelda (Twlight Princess) - I've had this game since I purchased my Wii. There is nothing wrong with it... in fact, it's fantastic! For some reason, I've never been able to get myself to finish the game.


Get Matt Hurne to purchase Little Big Planet. - Need I say more?


Get More Out of My NetFlix Membership - I love NetFlix. However, I run into stretches where I do not rent movies for months. I usually make this up by watching tons of movies in short spurts, but I really need to make more out of my membership!


Quit Playing oGame - I will do this once I get my Death Stars. I promise! (stop laughing, Andy!)


Build a Lego House - My daughter and I have been building Lego sets (using the instructions that they give you in the box). I want to do some serious building on my own. My first creation for this year will be a re-make of our home. This should be good fun!


Work-Related Goals:

Learn JavaFX - It's probably too little, too late for Sun, but I still think it's the right thing for Sun to do. I'll be learning this new technology stack soon.


Work on Design - I've always been a student of graphical design. Over the last couple of years, I've been lucky enough to put more of it into practice. I've already ordered some bibles of graphics design, so I am excited to learn more!


Learn a Functional Language - Scala, Erlang, etc. I should do this. I think this is really more hype than practice at the moment, but the mental gymnastics will be good for me.


Use More Regular Expressions - I know RegEx. I just don't use them enough. That changes this year!


Be Smarter About Tools - There are lots of tools out there that help to make me more productive. I'm going to start paying more for good software development tools.


Learn Something Completely New - I want to learn something completely new in the I.T. field. We'll see where the year takes us.......


Happy New Years!

The Year In Review...

Before coming to grasp with 2009, I guess it's best to take a brief look at my life in 2008.

The year of 2009:

Collin - Jenn and I both wanted another child, and I really thought it would not be until 2009 before our next child would be born. We were lucky! Collin entered our lives in December and it's already getting hard to remember life without him.

Neya - Neya has changed quite a bit this year! She now has many friends, goes to school, and will even stay over at people's houses. She had a great Christmas with her grand parents. She is really coming out of her shell.

Personal Triumph - Breaking my ankle was a real eye-opener. It took a good 4-5 months to get over this. I actually walked downstairs (fairly) normally for the first time just last night!

Personal Health - I started the year strong by losing 20 pounds. Stress at work and my ankle injury threw a complete monkey wrench into my exercise plan.

Work - I had a really uninspiring year at work this year. I really will not look back at this year and say "wow.. you did really good work". I did not produce anything at all that I am particularly proud of. I improved some of my web-monkey skills, but that's about it.

Home Improvement - Big year for this! We finished our basement, painted the house, and expanded our deck! Jenn did a lot of the real work as I was immobilized much of the time due to my ankle injury.

Books - Sadly... I did not read many books this year. I read Prey by Michael Chrichton - good, quick, breezy read.

Music - Sadly, my sheltered world of iTunes has kept me from exploring new music. Although, I started listening to Girl Talk at the end of the year, and I've been loving it.

Games - This was a great year for gaming. But with my busy schedule, it's really hard to keep up with the scene. Although my ankle injury afforded me the time to play and master: Mario Kart, Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy, Da Blob. I also played of Goo, Call of Duty and way too much oGame this year.

Business Ideas - My friend Wally and I have been working on a side project that we think could be very profitable. I'm really excited about it, and should probably be working on it right now rather than working on this blog post.... more details next year as the ideas turn into real products!


Next blog post - Goals for 2009!