Regularly scheduled publishing will return here sometime soon (there’s a lot to catch up on when that does happen), but until then, enjoy some new tunes courtesy of the first, as-yet unfinished mixes from the band kinda-sorta formerly known as The Darns, now going under the moniker “George”.

We spent two days at Sleepytown Sound in the east-end of Toronto this past weekend to begin recording an EP which will eventually be released in some form or another, possibly a limited run of vinyl.

The songs here are unmixed, unbalanced and still in need of a few touch ups. That said, please enjoy. On behalf of Ed, Tom, Kevin and myself, we’d love to hear what you think of them, good or bad.

Bonus points if you can pick out what font that is in the logo ;-)

SXSW Interactive 2008 is almost upon us — only a couple days left before a large part of the population of design/web and interactive geeks from around the world descend into Austin for a 4 days of panels, parties, and socializing.

The new (yay!) Wishingline Design Studio, Inc. office will be closed while I’m away for the conference and to spend some time with clients, but I’ll do my best to stay on top of e-mail and voicemail.

And if you happen to be in Austin for SXSW, please do say “hello”. Ask nice and I might have a button or two for you as well.

On Tuesday, Steve Jobs was quoted in the New York Times when commenting on Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader device as saying:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.

This caught my eye in particular and stopped me in my tracks as it relates to a trend I’ve noticed on Apple’s own site over, let’s say, the last year or so. Less text. More graphics. More video.

Apple’s website, in particular, prior to the big design change that rolled out last year was full of text content. Nearly every page, for virtually every product was loaded with well-written marketing copy. Now, not so much, at least in terms of the amount of text content. It’s still exceptionally written, full of beautiful graphics, strategically on target with Apple’s raison d’étre and Jobs’ infamous RDF — there’s simply less to read.

Jobs goes on to say:

Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.

I find these comments fascinating due to the proliferation of book stores here in Toronto and around the world — the big chains and small independents over the last 10 years. It’s completely contrary to my own experience. If I had to guess, I would say my local and extended (interweb-related) social circles read more, not less. Based on my book spending and reading habits over the last few years, I certainly wouldn’t fall into that 40%.

Whether there is any direct connection between Jobs’ feelings on the matter of reading and the amount of text content on the Apple website is not for me to say with any absolute certainty since I do not work for Apple, nor do I have any information on the inner workings of Apple’s web design/content teams, but it does strike me that such a connection could be drawn to explain what happened to all the content.

Although I’ve not really done a lot of “looking back” over the last couple of years, 2007 has been notable enough that it seems foolish not to turn the mirror around to see how I got where I am now.

While 2007 has generally been a good year, it’s also been one of the toughest I can remember. The specifics of this will be explained in due time but not necessarily here and now.

Looking back, I can see how the previous few years led me here and how I’ve learned and used many valuable lessons that continue to drive me forward both in my work, at home, and in the rest of my personal life. I can see where I made mistakes or the wrong choices too. Now, currently about three weeks into my month-long sabbatical, I’m starting to revisit those lessons — take stock of what’s working, what’s not, and getting things in order to start 2008 off on the right foot.

So what happened in 2007?

Around the World

While my travel exploits don’t compare to certain others, and although it’s still tough to be away from my family, I definitely did more travelling than I think I ever have before in a single year.

A few of the places I visited in 2007:

• Austin, Texas (3 times)
• London, England
• Chicago, Illinois
• Portland, Oregon
• Reston, Virginia

As much as I might not enjoy living out of a suitcase, I got to put faces to names and feel like I made some great new friends, many of whom I expect to see again in January at WDN08 or in March for SXSWi and hopefully later in the year as well. I’ve also got a handful of new people who I’m looking forward to meeting in person in 2008. Social networking sites like Facebook,Virb, and Twitter are one thing, but cannot complete with actually connecting face to face with people.

Unfortunately I’ve not done the same kind of networking in the local Toronto web and technology communities; something which is high on my list of things to remedy in 2008. I’ve already got a good start and have a few opportunities already lined up to help move this along.

Business is Good

This year was one of growth and change for Wishingline. As a business entity, the company changed from a sole proprietorship to a full-fledged corporation with all the extra paperwork, meeting minutes and common shares that involves.

The employee roster also grew (officially) to two with the addition of Shawn Frair, who came on board at the beginning of December to take over the books, because, frankly, I’m not an accountant. Emily did a great job in helping get me through until now, but we’re both relieved to have this in Shawn’s hands now.

Aside from being a great friend, music lover, occasional blogger, and expert balloon animal maker, Shawn is filling an important need and taking charge of a core piece of the business that I really shouldn’t be too actively involved in. It’s a great relief to have the books in such capable hands, especially since it frees me to focus on both the creative and technical sides of the business along with simply growing the company.

Bringing one new person into the mix also meant that I started to put more serious thought into growth — beefing up the client roster, adding new talent, and moving the office. Although running the office out of the house has never been an issue with clients, it feels like the right time to start the search for proper office space especially if I plan on increasing the number of people actually doing the work beyond myself.

In the short term, the office has been reconfigured to add a second desk in preparation for adding employee number three. So, yes, that means officially I’m in hiring mode. This is the first of several self-induced kicks in the pants. More on this soon.

In terms of actual work — this year was a doozy. A couple of weeks ago, prior to starting my sabbatical I took a look back and assembled a near complete list of projects from the last year. It was so long that I nearly fell out of my seat. I had no idea how much I really accomplished; and as much as it kind of frightened me, it was also impressive.

Although my focus has been primarily web projects, I’ve had opportunities to work on print projects, ads, identity design and just about everything in between. Unfortunately, due to being so busy with client work meant that a few more personal projects fell by the wayside and got little, if any attention. Again, something that will be remedied in 2008 based on the planning I’ve been doing during my time off.

Musical Side Projects

In my musical world, 2007 also brought some changes. The Darns unfortunately disolved, but not without a new group rising out of the ashes. We moved out of our permanent rehearsal room in the west-end of the city and still haven’t bothered to come up with a name, but we’ve made great progress in writing new songs and are starting to put together a plan to do some recording in early 2008 with the possibility for an EP release. Might need to get that name thing worked out before that though…

At Home

The biggest adjustment in 2007 continued to be adapting to having a new baby in the house. Thankfully Gillian couldn’t be a better baby. She sleeps well, eats well and is incredibly good natured virtually all the time. We really couldn’t ask for more.

It’s been so much fun to watch her grow (she turned one in October), babble, crawl, laugh, splash around in the tub, chase the cats — it reminds me that even if I have a lousy day at the office, there’ll always be a smiling face waiting at the end of the day. To top her first year off right, we’re really looking forward to Gillian’s debut modelling appearance in the February 2008 issue of Style at Home magazine (page 24 I’m told).

Aside from all the changes revolving around Gillian, this year brought an opportunity to finally come to terms with many other life changes such as moving (twice), two summers of major home renovations and the psychological changes involved with going from being an employee to the boss. It was a nice break this summer not to have to also play the role of construction site foreman at the same time as attempting to work through it.

On Deck for 08

I’ve got what I think are notable goals and changes lined up for 2008 and we’ll see how I end up doing by the end of the year but I’m optimistic that the time off I’ve given myself has allowed me the chance to slow down, reflect and really think about the last year and what I want and need to accomplish in 2008. I think it’s only by looking back at our successes, and perhaps more importantly, our mistakes, that we truly learn.

So, cheers to 2007 and hello 2008.

2007, now coming to a close has been a really good year. It’s also been a tough one on a number of levels and the culmination of many changes that have slowly been creeping up and wearing me down. The European vacation Emily, Gillian and I took back in September was a good start at getting away, taking care of myself, ignoring the business for a brief period and simply regaining the sense of being grounded, despite it since proving not to have been enough.

So, because I need to, and because I can, I’m taking a brief sabbatical through the remainder of December to the second week of January 2008. This means the office is closed. I will not be doing anything resembling client work, probably not answering e-mails (not promptly at least) and instead just doing whatever tickles my fancy at that particular moment.

Thanks to friends, family, clients for your support. Happy holidays to all of you and see you in ‘08!

In July I bought an iPhone while down in Austin on a business trip with the understanding that although I would be able to activate it, allowing me to use it as an iPod with WiFi functionality, the phone-related features would not be functional until someone figured out how to un-tether the device from AT&T so that it could be used on the networks of other, non-US carriers such as Rogers in Canada.

In late August, the iPhone was unlocked by a group of industrious hackers. The unlock process wasn’t that simple, but certainly nothing insurmountable for those with a bit of technical knowledge, and made easier shortly after by the release of GUI tools to accomplish the task.

The various tools developed by those interested in the iPhone as a new platform, and otherwise unsatisfied with Apple’s web-oriented SDK, allowed the installation of additional applications on the device — both commonly used open-source applications and software designed just for the iPhone thus making the device even more appealing to many. Games, servers, ringtones, theme customizations and more.

Everything was golden until last week when Apple released a new version of the firmware software for the iPhone which would, in essence, cripple hacked phones. Although this was not unexpected, it essentially sent that group of hackers back to the drawing board to find new methods to activate and unlock the device.

The reason I can live with my iPhone as-is for now is simple: there’s no official word on a Canadian launch of the device. Unless a new method of activating and unlocking the device are developed, I will not be upgrading my iPhone to version 1.1.1 or newer.

My speculation is that by the time Apple and Rogers, the only carrier in Canada with the network capabilities to handle the iPhone (can you say lack of competition?) come to any licensing and marketing agreements, a second generation device will be on the market or near ready for release.

At that point or whenever there is an official release in Canada, moving to an un-hacked, official device will (should) be as simple as purchasing a new iPhone and inserting my existing SIM card from Rogers or getting them to switch the SIM associated with my account. This should mirror the process existing AT&T customers went through when they switched to an iPhone. I do not expect that an existing device purchased in the US will function, even with a valid SIM card.

At least I hope it will be that simple.

The real problem as I see it, ultimately, is two things: Rogers and Apple. There’s no cellular competition in Canada. There’s Bell, Rogers, and Telus. Rogers owns Fido, so they don’t count. Neither Bell nor Telus support GSM so they’re immediately ruled out, leaving only Rogers as a possible carrier. To some extent I think this puts Rogers on the high ground in negotiations, not Apple.

As most Canadians using any kind of smart-phone, mobile carrier data pricing is off the charts, something a lack of competition does not help. $20 a month for 5MB of EDGE data is shameful and unrealistic.

This presents a problem for Apple because they need to force a sea change in how data plans are priced on the chosen carrier here in order to make the iPhone appealing to both existing and new customers. I don’t expect people would stand for an iPhone-only data plan that is miles better than those offered for other devices.

Time will tell how this will all play out in Canada but for now I will continue to happily chirp away on a 1.0.2 firmware version of the iPhone. Oh — and yes, the phone part is actually good. I’m considerably happier with it than the Sony Ericcson device my SIM card came from.

It’s amazing what a break can do for you. Emily, Gillian and I recently got back from a long-overdue and much needed vacation in the United Kingdom to visit friends and family and to just get away from it all for a couple weeks. It was just what the doctor ordered.

The last few months have been very challenging — transitioning the business from a sole proprietorship to a corporation, ongoing projects, new ones starting up — the process of simply finding the motivation and inspiration to get the job done has been a constant struggle; the pressure building up more and more each day.

Although I was able to get away for a couple days here and there, it never left me with a real opportunity to disconnect, so being away never felt like truly being away.

Two weeks in the UK, much of the time without e-mail or internet access was refreshing. I didn’t have to worry about a predictable daily routine or the near-constant beeping of Twitter, e-mail or news feeds which all helped drop my stress level which I could feel building up the last while. I woke up each morning relaxed.

Coming home, despite knowing what was waiting for me, I felt ready to tackle things again. Motivated. Refreshed. Inspired. Hopefully this also means I’ll find the energy to frequently blog again and even start tackling a number of personal projects that have been sitting idle for some time now.

It’s good to be back.

In releasing Creative Suite CS3, Adobe forgot, or for whatever reason decided not to update the Flash Player icons as part of the general installation thus adding one of a few rough edges around what is otherwise a pretty good software package (truly horrible and inconsistent software updaters aside).

Although there are a number of different sets of replacement icons for the various Creative Suite applications to be found around the net, for myself at least, I prefer having something that blends in seamlessly with the originals, at least until Adobe releases a proper update (since we know they’ve designed the icon already). Therefore I took it into my own hands to put something together and have decided to share it.

Included are resources for the Mac OS X and Windows versions (sorry, no 512 px versions yet) along with 16, 32, 48 and 128px transparent PNGs. I will not be releasing the PSD source for this, so don’t bother asking. Thx.

Download the Adobe Flash Player (Standalone) Icons

My good friend, and one heck of a funny guy, Garrett Murray asked if I’d be interested in sponsoring a little contest he’s having to rename his critically-acclaimed comedic podcast, and of course — how could I say no?

The rules are simple: send in your ideas on a new name for the podcast (full contest details here). Send as many entries as you like before June 1st to qualify for the chance to win a spiffy new 4GB iPod nano in your choice of colours, a set of DS Buttons and a personalized message from Garrett and his partner in hilarity, Shawn Morrison. There’s even a pair of runner-up prizes which aren’t half bad either.

What are you waiting for? Get on it!

SXSWi 2007 is now over and I’m back home in Toronto. What a week away! I’m sure I’m still a bit out of it after being awake for over 24 hours (8:30 AM Thursday though 9:30 PM Friday) so hopefully I’m somewhat coherent.

My 6AM Friday flight back to Toronto left me feeling particularly paranoid about sleeping through an alarm, so I stayed up chillin’ at my bud Rob Jones’ place in Austin until it was time to leave. I had to gas up the rental car, drop it off and then do all the usual stuff at the airport. Luckily, no problems with my connecting flights and I actually made it home a few minutes earlier than expected.

Back to South By…

March 9th through the 16th was a crazy week and I’m flat out exhausted. SXSW was a great time and a nice break from work, allowing me to finally put faces and personalities to the names I mostly knew only online via Flickr, Twitter or other social networking sites.

The web standards/design community has a lot of great people in it; folks I admire and look to for advice, encouragement and inspiration. People from the Canada, the US, UK, Australia and elsewhere — all of whom came together to what is truly an international conference like no other.

Panels

Based on what I heard from numerous people who’ve attended previous South By conferences, this one, in terms of the actual conference panels was a bit of a let-down. The talks were often less interesting, less focused and poorly prepared.

In some ways, looking at the names of panellists, it stuck me as a bit of a changing of the guard in some respects. A lot of names I didn’t know with only a handful that I did. As such, I found myself spending more time socializing with my peers outside the panels, at various restaurants or bars around the 6th Street area rather than actually attending the panels. The handful that I did attend in general were good or at least passable.

Given that this was my first South By I find it hard to judge fairly aside from saying that these panels were generally much less well prepared than those at Apple’s WWDC conference, RailsConf or other conferences I’ve attended in the past. I think some of the panels touched briefly on topics that overall would have been more interesting than what the panellists actually spoke about.

Unfortunately, I think I missed just about all of the really good panels such as Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton’s panel on Web Typography, Khoi Vihn and Mark Boulton’s grid design panel. Luckily there are podcasts to make up for that in the same way Apple provides WWDC attendees video/audio and PDFs of the sessions each year.

THE Social Conference

Aside from the panels, and as I hinted at earlier, SXSW is really a massive social experience, even more so than I expected. Meeting the people and personalities I’ve almost exclusively known online and having them all turn out to be really cool, fun, and down to earth was the icing on the cake. Although I didn’t get to meet everyone I would have liked or had enough time to chat with the ones I did, I can’t complain.

I was fortunate enough to get to meet and/or hang out with folks like Dan and Alex Rubin, the entirely awesome Blue Flavor posse, Tiff Fehr, Matthew Pennell, Derek Featherstone, Veerle and Geert, Andy Budd, Paul Boag, Robert Scales, Mark Bixby, Brian Warren, Steve Smith, Patrick Haney, Jina Bolton, my homie Mike Stickle, Dave Shea, Jason Santa Maria and his lovely wife Liz (your mugs are in transit), Shaun Inman, Jesse Bennett-Chamberlai, Jon Snook, Faruk and his Apple Web Store cohorts, Anton Peck, Greg Storey, Bryan Veloso, Scott Raymond, Garrett Dimon, the Veer gang (Grant, Brock, Aaron, Issa and Yuval), Sean from frogdesign and undoubtedly many more who I’m blanking on right now.

I also finally got to meet the business partner of Theresa Neil with whom I’ve been working on the FiveRuns application for the last year - Rob Jones, a former frogdesign(er) and who’s just the best. Rob rocks, and along with his girlfriend Shara, was kind enough to put me up for my last couple nights in Austin while I was takin’ care of business.

The Year Of The Button

2007 was the year of the button. I’m nearly positive I’m heading home with more 1” buttons than business cards. I can think of a few folks though who I just realized I never snagged a card from and a few who just didn’t have any at all. But the buttons seemed to really be a big hit all around. They’re fun and it’s just something a little different.

I’m still adamant that the Wishingline Design Studio, Inc. popsicle buttons were the only ones that were hand-made (by my lovely wife). I think they turned out fantastically given the fact they weren’t printed and assembled until just hours before I left to come down to Austin.

There’s still a small handful of those buttons left for anyone who didn’t get one that wants one. Just send me an e-mail or IM me with you deets and I’ll get something in the mail for you.

About SXSW’s Idiotic Registration Process

As I said to Bryan Veloso when we briefly chatted during his and Dan Rubin’s Live from the 101 podcast, my biggest complaint about SXSW, aside from some bad or uninteresting panels and poor scheduling was the absolutely ridiculous registration process and just some generally bad conference structuring problems in terms of the location of things, including the panels.

Assuming you pay $300 to go to the conference, I think there’s a pretty darn good chance you’ll actually go.

Taking that into consideration, badges should have all been pre-printed for registrants like at every other conference in the world so that when you go to register, everything is just waiting for you. Having to wait in line, fill out a card with info they already have, possibly get your photo taken, then wait around for someone to print out your badge and yell out your name before you can actually finally get your badge. That’s just inefficient and stupid if you ask me.

For a conference with as much history as SXSW, that seems like a lesson they perhaps should already have learned. The same goes for putting the registration area right in the middle of a major throughway of people going to and from panels. Apparently much of this was worse last year which is a scary thought.

A Few Fun Moments

Other random fun moments - the Trailer Park Boys wandering around the convention centre, some dude dressed as Superman though with a cellphone and Blackberry case attached to his bright yellow belt, and apparently missing Paul Rudd as we left the trade show area. I’m also still convinced I saw Tarantino a few times on Saturday or Sunday night too when we were all out partying.

In terms of parties, I had a great time at just about all of the ones I made it out to - definitely the Blue Flavor party being my fave and MediaTemple one being possibly the most pretentious and possibly dull (hence my early exit) even though I made it into the “VIP” area.

The fact that Monday’s events were on my birthday made them particularly memorable and the most fun. Thanks to all for the birthday wishes and Twitters and to Mark Bixby and Brian Warren for filling me full of beer and assorted alcohol.

Monday the 12th was also made special by the Veer gang for taking me out for a big birthday steak dinner at Fleming’s. I know everyone loves Veer - but those guys really are the coolest, and if I didn’t enjoy working for myself, I could see having a lot of fun working with them. Right, Grant?

Lunch with Jesse Bennett-Chamberlai, Mark Bixby, Brian Warren, et al on Tuesday at Halcyon was also a real treat. Sure we got a bit wet (damn rain) making our way back to the convention centre for the afternoon but it was more than worth it.

It was nice to get away for a week though I missed Emily and Gillian and was very happy to get home. Talking with them on the phone or via IM just isn’t the same. I’m still filtering through pics to upload to Flickr, but should have the ones I want to post all up soon enough.

Thanks again to all my South By peeps, it was a blast. See you next year!

Last week after a bit of a slow patch, a stint of writers block perhaps, The Darns decided to call it a day. Yep, the band is no more; well, sort of.

You can still buy all 3 releases from the band on iTunes or can order a physical CD copy of the band’s last full release, “What It All Turns Into” from thedarns.com. We sold more than enough to cover manufacturing and marketing expenses so, for the foreseeable future they’ll be on sale at a discounted price for anyone that wants one.

SXSW attendees can request one in the comments and I’ll bring some along with me next month.

Now, back to the earlier sort of comment. Ed, Kevin, Tom and I are continuing on as a unit but shifting musical gears. We’re simplifying and refocusing. It may be 4 of 5 members, but it will not be the same band. It’s a fresh start.

Although we’re debating what to do about a singer long-term, Ed has currently taken up the challenge while we focus on the task of songwriting. Starting fresh means leaving behind years of material, but that, ultimately will be a good thing for us.

Although we thought we had turned a corner last night following us receiving what seemed like the first real diagnosis of Newton’s recent illnesses, I’m incredibly sad to report that the little guy just didn’t have any strength left and passed away last night.

Emily and I are both pretty upset but are glad we were able to go visit him at the vet hospital one last time yesterday afternoon.

Newton, the spunky brown tabby we brought home around 3 years ago has had better days. He’s had better months. And for the last couple of months he’s certainly had it rough.

Newton has been sick a few times over the last year and a half. He gets crystals which is not that unusual for male cats. Newton, of course being the special cat that he is, gets an uncommon type of crystal; one that is more difficult to treat. This problem has recurred a few times, requiring late night trips to the emergency vet clinic as it always happens on the weekend when our regular vet is closed.

After his last bout of crystals he seemed to be bouncing back, at least for a short time when the crystals reared their ugly head again at which point we had to begin looking at other options for treating the problem since it was becoming expensive (think $1,500 or more per incident). After the last incident we decided the best option was for him to have a perineal urethrostomy.

The result of the surgery was that he had to suffer the great indignity of wearing one of those radar cones for a few weeks during which he was clearly depressed and couldn’t really eat without us taking the cone off.

We were also charged with carefully monitoring him, and as we have two other cats, he had to be isolated and was no longer allowed outside. This didn’t help the depression or his appetite.

During that time he essentially stopped eating or ate very little and lost weight — a lot of it in fact.

When he was last weighed his weight was down to around 8 1/2 pounds. As you might expect, this is bad for a cat that previously weighed somewhere between 12 and 13 pounds.

After numerous vet trips for checkups and to be weighed; during which we were force-feeding him by hand, he continued to lose weight and sank deeper into a funk we couldn’t break.

Jump ahead to a couple weeks ago.

Newton was in for a precautionary x-ray, which later showed that his intestine was, well…full…of poop. Possibly weeks worth of it.

The doctors quickly flushed him out, something which I’m sure he didn’t enjoy even though he probably felt a bit better in the end. Unfortunately this still didn’t do much for his appetite and he continued to refuse to eat and was generally uninterested in food.

Down to our last resort we opted to have a feeding tube put in so we could better control his eating. Minor surgery for a cat, but still a scary prospect.

Newton was put on a high fat diet (basically kitten food) to help kickstart his appetite and put some weight back on. This went fine for a couple days and became more and more challenging as he would become much less tolerant of us pumping food into him through a syringe (and a tube in his neck). He also still continued to be uninterested in eating on his own.

Today we brought the poor little guy back to the vet for a check-up. The vet, concerned about a number of things took more x-rays and did more blood work. As it stands at the moment, Newton is slightly jaundiced and may have “fatty liver disease”, which as our regular vet described to us as (and I’m paraphrasing here), “a very bad thing.”

And so the saga continues…

On Monday night at 9:38PM Eastern Standard Time, Emily and I were blessed with the newest addition to our family — our new daughter, Gillian Audrey. It was a long day getting from home to the hospital and then through to the final delivery and recovery, but we’re all still here and all still slightly crazy.

I had originally planned on taking up my bud Matt’s call to do a play-by-play as he did prior to the birth of his son, in as much as Emily would allow me, but things didn’t quite work out as expected.

We had a scheduled ultrasound on Tuesday and weren’t expecting the baby to make it’s grand entrance until later in the week whether of its own accord or on our terms. Already past her due date, apparently Gillian had plans of her own and decided early Monday morning that she was ready to come out and join the party. Of course she decided to make this abundantly clear in the middle of the night. The point I’m trying to make here is that we were… how do you say… a little unprepared. And by a little, I mean not at all.

So at around 4AM Monday morning we started timing contractions and gauging exactly where we were in terms of labour stages. It felt to me like we went straight to the finish line, but that may have just been the fact that I was a bit of a zombie and wasn’t really sure what was going on. Not yet in any case.

By around 5 we called Emily’s sister and told her we were getting ready to go to the hospital since she was going to be joining us to help out during the delivery. It was during this time I was running around the house like a blind, slightly delusional maniac trying to get all the things we should have packed in a bag a couple weeks ago as well as making sure things were set for the cats since we were somewhat unexpectedly going to be leaving them to their own devices for a couple of days.

After packing the bag, making some coffee and feeding the cats, stuffing Newton into his cat carrier since he was due to have the stitches from his most recent surgery in our battle with crystals and calling the necessary family to tell them what was going on, we headed out the door in the direction of the downtown core and Women’s College Hospital.

We were checked in with triage by 7 or 7:30 AM, admitted and in a delivery room by around 9. When we arrived and after being examined we found out that Emily was 5 cm dilated and things were moving along.

We’d only heard good things about Women’s College Hospital and had a close friend who gave birth to both her kids there, and luckily it’s all true. The nurses were all wonderful, very friendly, attentive and informative. They do one-to-one care at this particular hospital and we couldn’t have asked for better care during our stay.

By noon, Emily was a full 10 cm dilated and pretty much ready to get the show on the road. And so on we went though an epidural, hours of contractions and numerous top-ups and such to try to ease the pain of the contractions; none of which really helped. Add on an hour and a half of pushing before conceding that Gillian just didn’t want to come out the old-fashioned way. In order to finally resolve the pain problem, the epidural was re-done in preparation for a now-scheduled C-section. This time it took and she was finally pain-free (and felt like “a million bucks” to quote my wife).

A C-section is a scary thing even though there’s such a large percentage of women who either opt for having one, or end up having one due to circumstances out of their control — I believe it’s something like 25% of all women at Women’s College Hospital. Anyhow, as nervous as we all might have been, everything went exactly as it should and out came little Gillian, who, technically remained nameless until Wednesday morning.

Since then we’ve been attempting to recover and learn how to take care of our new little pumpkin. I’ve changed a few diapers, cleaned up some slimy poop, learned how to wrap a baby up like a burrito, how to give her a bath, and kissed her and cuddled with her as much as I possibly can. It’s a truly amazing thing, and no matter what anyone tells you, you can’t prepare for the experience or how you feel the first time you set your eyes on your child. It’s truly the greatest feeling in the world. Definitely better than the lack of feeling in my arms after the first night of sleeping on the fold out chair in our recovery room ;-)

Gillian is everything we could have hoped for and we both feel unbelievably blessed.

Thank you to everyone who’s sent us an e-mail, text message, called to ask how we’re doing or offering to help with anything we might need. It’s greatly appreciated. We’ll do our best to get back to everyone as quickly as Gillian will allow us. And hopefully I’ll be back cranking out work shortly. Right after I get some sleep.

On one final note, a massive thank you to Anna (Emily’s sister), and all the nurses and doctors at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto - Kristine, Carrie, Grace, Myrna, Pat, Fernanda, “Dragon”, Dr. MacKenzie, Dr. Zaltz, and all those I’m forgetting. You made the last few days as easy as possible and Emily, Gillian and I can’t say thank you enough.

Oh, how time flies when you’re having fun…

So, what’s new? Glad you asked.

The renovations are done. The new Wishingline Design Studio, Inc. office looks great although we’re still not completely done with it yet. Everything turned out really well and we’re exceedingly happy to finally have an end to the dust, piles of 2x4’s and plastic sheets.

The newest Wishingliner seen here is now less than two weeks away. A big congrats to my buds Luke and Matt on their latest additions.

On the business front, things have been a bit crazy. Work is good. Too much work all at once is also good, but in a painful kind of way.

We recently completed some additional work for Toronto Life although it hasn’t gone live yet. We’ve also been working with some new and some old clients on identity design, web application and site designs and redesigns with more on the way.

Some of this work literally just wrapped so it’s still a bit early to really say much, but when it’s time you’ll hear about it. Until then, here’s a bit of a tease.

The Darns were nominated for a Toronto Independent Music Award for “Best Alternative Act”, but sadly did not win. Maybe next year. And the band is finally celebrating the release of “What It All Turns Into” on November 18th with a big CD release bash in Toronto. Next up — something that hopefully resembles a tour.

There’s also been a few small changes and tweaks made to the site such as the newish homepage graphic, the little availability info on the homepage (also repeated elsewhere through the site), and an upgrade of MovableType and the newly released phpFlickr 2.0 scripts which use Flickr’s new serialized API. I only had to modify one line of code to update my scripts to work with the new release which was a nice surprise.

That all aside, there’s still a boatload of work piled up and I should probably start in on it now. I’ll try not to let another month slip by…

While likely not featured in the new 2007 catalogue, Ikea may have invented the greatest little plastic tool I have ever seen. It’s ingenious in its simplicity and sheer usefulness and while I’m amazed it’s taken this long to come up with such a great piece of engineering, I’m happy someone did. It saved my fingers this past weekend.

It looks like this:

What does it do you ask? Very simple. It holds those tiny finishing nails they give you to attach the back board to many of their pieces of furniture such as bookcases, cabinets and wardrobes. No more hitting your fingers with the hammer. No more crooked nails breaking through the back of the bookcase in the wrong spot. Perfect every time.

Thank you Ikea!

It’s hard to reflect on where you’re going and how you got there when you can’t take your eyes off the road and your foot off the gas.

To try to keep things relatively sane around here I decided to keep this somewhat under wraps, but now’s a suitable time to spill the beans publicly. I promised something about this [about two weeks ago][twoweeks] and it’s time to make good on that.

The Scoop

First, the Wishingline Design Studio, Inc. site is on track to launch as part of the May 1st CSS Reboot. This is big since I’ve been struggling for the better part of two years to find the time and energy to do something about it. Still, it’s not just a random occurrence that this is happening now… which leads me to points two and three.

In recent months I’ve been gathering contacts and sourcing out opportunities to strike out on my own in a much larger way than the bits of freelance work I’ve been doing for a number of years now. What this means is that Wishingline Design Studio, Inc. is a full-time gig now(!), and as such the site needs to be done. For real. And it will be.

…But what about Masterfile you ask? Well, timing is everything really. As I was contemplating this and discussing the ramifications with Emily given that we were about to move to a new house; things were starting to wind down on a few active projects and it just happened to be a good time. There are some fantastically smart people who work at Masterfile and I feel I did good work and helped contribute to what is now a better site than where it was when I started.

From a front-end code perspective, the site is certainly more standards-compliant and (hopefully) leaner than before considering the big features such as SimSearch, weighted search and floating thumbs which were all added in the last year along with a major re-branding (and one colour change with another on the way). For me it’s been a good opportunity to work in a different kind of team environment and to learn things along the way that I can now use to good advantage, and make my own. All the best to the new media department in the massively big upcoming project. I’m sure it will turn out great.

Our Operators Are Standing By

And now for the big plug… If you know of companies in need of web or print design, Mac-focused technical consulting or training services, please drop me a line.

In general, I will be looking for projects in the local Toronto area though I can, and have worked with international clients (big and small). I will be starting to accept new work at the beginning of June 2005.

I’m not sure who first said this, but it rings true to me and should for anyone else who feels as though their sense of ambition is squashed based on their working environment: “How can I soar with eagles when I work with turkeys?”.