So Far in 2005…
Posted by Chris | Filed under Design, Family
Welcome back to Chris and Jenn dot net - The internet home of Chris and Jen Armstrong.
This is my “Year In Preview” post. Enjoy.
Jen and I went to the doctor today. We thought this would be the day that we found out if we were painting the room blue or pink. But alas, she is only 15 weeks, 5 days so it would be really tough to tell and might not be very accurate. We did get to hear the heartbeat though. This was Jen’s second time to hear and my first, and I was just awe-struck! It just makes it that much more real that we’re having a baby. We’re still not agreeing on girls’ names yet - which is partly why we’re a little disappointed about not finding out the sex, we have another month of arguing over girl names. I’m really fond of Brooklyn, while she like Ryan or Tyler. She’s really into the “boy names for a girl” thing. We’ll work it out.
Another big announcement: We’re moving back to Tulsa!!! Yep, that’s right — the Armstrongs are heading back to Oklahoma. Every time we think we’re out, it just pulls us right back in. I’m currently looking for a design job in Tulsa, but they seem pretty scarce.
Speaking of design jobs, Jen and I are putting more energy into armstrong design with a relaunch of armstrongdesign.us and a more aggressive marketing campaign. The new site should be up in less than a month, but there are no guarantees beyond that. The new site is going to include a more detailed portfolio of websites, business cards, print work, and some Flash banner ads. The site will be more of an integration between HTML and Flash, as well as some backend C# code.
In December 2004, I graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in Business Administration. I majored in General Business, which is a great degree because you get a little bit of everything. But you also get a little bit of everything. You never dive too deeply into one subject. Anyway, I finished up my last class, Business Ethics, over the internet and reading more books in a semester than I’ve ever read. Some were good books, some were horrible. Maybe someday I’ll put up my review of each. One book I do recommend is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
I think I’m going to have to dub this year “The Year of the Nerd.” Every day, I notice my inner geek coming out more and more. While coding the new armstrong design site, I had to “break in” to the Blogger CSS file. I don’t know if it’s illegal, but I didn’t steal anything from it. I simply found how to do a couple things and changed it to fit my needs. There was no copying nor pasting. But just the fact that I did that seems to make me more of a nerd. I also have been reading more on web standards. One of my favorite sites is Stopdesign. Stopdesign is a design consulting firm owned and operated by Douglas Bowman. He has some pretty good articles and has really good links that I seem to be clicking on more and more often.
I also have to admit I watched American Idol last night! I know that this is the factor that contributes most to my nerd-dom, but the first couple episodes are definitely the best. Jen and I love it when they show the guys and girls with zero talent but think they are going to be the next AI. We do feel sorry for them, but we can’t feel too sorry for them. I mean, c’mon. You have to know that you can’t sing, but you go on the show anyway! Seriously.
Well, this concludes my “Year In Preview.” Hope you enjoyed it, and please, leave me some comments.
one love.
