Finally after nearly 3 months of going into the studio, Brandon and I finished the Skin Pink Album.  It wasn’t a stressful process at all, as it has been in the past when I went into the recording studio with my previous band, Paperhouse.  The recording process is a very robust emotional experience that entails frustration, love, hate and competition. It taking everything that want, and setting it in stone.

Brandon and I have been friends since mid-high school, but only recently did we start playing music together.  We each, for the most part of our friendship, had our own respective bands, and rarely, if not ever, played together.  About a year ago, upon a quick visit to Pittsburgn (where Brandon went to college at Dusquesne), we went to a Bob Dylan show and wrote our first song together named “Drink It Quick”.  An experimental country tune, I think we both realized that maybe we could make something together that was unique, yet completely accessible even to the popy-ist ears.

This experimental pop, if you will, matched our personalities perfectly, as well as our conventions in songwriting respectfully.  I am more of a pop writer.  I have never found interest in experimental sounds.  To me, anyone can sit down and make sounds that sometimes, out of pure luck, produce a song that sounds interesting or really conveys a powerful emotional response.  Now in pop music, and by pop music I mean music that makes you want to tap your foot, dance, sing out loud and is so accessible it appeals to every audience.  I do not mean music that is produced by major labels with tons of production and requires almost no intelligence to create.  Ok, off that tangent and back to pop music.  Pop music, to me, has the unique ability to touch some kind of inner part of us that appeals to everyone in some profound way and is at the same time insanely creative.  I love that. That is what I want to create, listen and ponder when it comes to music.

Brandon, on the hand, takes all of this one step further.  He is an experimentalist.  A crazy man who throughs himself into a black hole of originality, and comes out perfectly understandable to those who are willing to listen.  Yes, sometimes it comes off as abrasive.  But almost all of the time, it is deep and relatable, and makes you either laugh or cry.  And I mean these things in the best possible way.  He is by far and away, the most original and creative individual I know.  And when it comes to music, his experimental side really creates an experience to listen to.

Now when you combine the both of us together, you get our new album.  It’s a pop artist, and an experimental veteran of creativity.  Boom. Experimental Pop.

The album starts with a straight up rock-punk piece thats about devotion and the absurdity of love.  Then goes on to detail a psychedelic paranoia adventure of the anxiety of growing older, back to the timeline of love from knowing how deep it goes to experiencing its end.  The lyrics that Brandon wrote, are beautiful.  I highly recommend you listen to what its trying to say as much as how it sounds.

I couldn’t be happier with it.

Download Here

I guess this means I have to start writing more….

Mac and I started working together at a marketing firm located in Georgetown, DC where we both found common ground on web practices and standards based solutions.  Over time, I became increasingly frustrated with the firm with their lack of web 2.0/3.0 practices, and eventually left toward the end of summer 2008.  Mac worked there for a while longer before moving to Chicago doing exclusively remote work for the company, until finally leaving to start Pixel Dreamer.

After enough money was saved, we decided to make a run for our money and start preparing Pixel Dreamer for launch this past September.  At its core, we wanted Pixel Dreamer to be done right from the get-go.  We setup our online client management tools, invoicing systems, work-spaces, and various other communication tools. Just for reference, here are the tools that we use to get things done:

• Backpack – 37 Signals – For notes, ideas, and write-boards.
• Highrise – 37 Signals – Contact Management
• Action Method Online – Behance – Task Delegation
• Rackspace Hosting – Our Cloud Hosting Solution

Believe me, these weren’t the first system that we tried out.  We tested about 20+ management/administration tools that are available and we finally settled with this list.

In addition to opening ourselves up for business, we also created PD.AM – a URL shortener that was to be used with twitter to save character space in tweets.  We are currently in the process of improving the API documentation so that PD.AM has a chance at becoming integrated with popular twitter clients such as Tweetie, Tweetdeck, and Twhirl.  I believe we have a good chance since we still have the shortest URLs that can be found.  If you haven’t tried it yet, head on over to http://pd.am and shorten your important links!

Aside from Pixel Dreamer, I am also finishing up my studies at university.  Oddly enough, I will be receiving a BA in Philosophy of all things…nothing to do with web development.  I was in Computer Science for a long while, until I discovered web programming and realized that’s what I was really interested in.  At University of Maryland, they do not touch upon web programming languages in Comp-Sci, so I had to learned everything I know on my own, on my own time.  Having some Java programming experience did not hurt either .

Anyways, I am looking forward to the upcoming year, great things will happen with Pixel Dreamer.

Can I get a timeline on when the site will be finished?

No, you can’t.  It’s not that I don’t want to give you a specific time when the project will be finished, its just that too much of it depends on you (the client).  You need to sign my contract, give me content, feedback, reviews, and opinions.  The process of creating and implementing a website is a two party business.  Giving you a timeline is like saying, “Hey! I like that date, it makes a smiley face on my iCal if I make your entire project due here!”.  It’s that arbitrary.

I want to use the logo my wife made and have that as a basis for the whole site.

Sir, honestly, its drawn in pencil.  It lacks color, depth, and professionally.  Why do you even want a website?  Are you marketing your brand/self or just want to showcase your wife’s ability to use a #2?  Use it for a basis for the whole site?  No sir, no.  This is just a bad representation of yourself and your site.

So I want a website with a back end, custom design, and a year worth of dedicated hosting.  Can you do it for like $300?

I certainly can, but I won’t.  People STILL have no idea what it takes to deliver a fully functional, hosted, robust website.  Web developers put tremendous amount of time into the tiniest aspects of a website, so at first your misunderstanding of the value of this work is acceptable.  But to give me that sad-puppy-dog-face when I explain how I can’t do it for that amount is just heartbreaking.  I’m sorry already!  I really wish I could drop half of my serious clients and do your website for you in 2 days with a $300 dollar budget, but….I just can’t: it’s like throwing away the business!  Make me some kind of Indian god with 8 arms, then I will show you some awesomeness for $300, but that surgery would be quite expensive.

Can you make the content text something other than Georgia (or tahoma, verdana, arial, courier…)?

No, I cannot.  I already explained how these fonts are standardized amongst all browsers and OS’s.  No, I know you have heard of sIFR, but it is insane to apply it to the entire document. (I know I know, wait till CSS3 rolls out)

I would love it if you made a flash splash page before visitors got to the main site!

What, you mean like this?  No.  Bad design choice.

UPDATE:

So if you make me the website, can you also make me #1 on Google search results?

Sigh.  Ma’am, do you know how many websites there are?  Your business is called ‘Susane Boyle’s Cupcakes’.  Havn’t you seen her youtube video?  It’s been viewed 41,000,000 million times.  How. The. Hell. Am. I. Going. To. Compete. With. This?  (thanks @gayadesign)

While walking to class today, I had a pretty sad epiphany.  I will be working for the rest of my life; constantly.  As I approach the end of my academic life, I have been getting more and more detached from school and social life, and more integrated into the professional work lifestyle.  Clients are becoming more available, I have become ever more skilled in my trade, and I find myself enjoying what I do far more than going to school.  And its worthwhile.  I see results from my web development, and I also have been receiving recommendations from previous clients happy with my work.  I think its safe to say that I have started to make a name for myself.

But, this is the end. This is the last year that I can goof off and relax more than normal.  Its sad to say the least, because I have some qualms with my current direction.  Success is nice, but I feel like I now know how to make this transition while staying happy and relaxed.

Do something you love, and make sure you explored the possibilities.

I love what I do.  Its just that simple.  Most people go into a general discipline that they think they would like to work in, but that will most likely lead to unhappiness.  You need to experiment!  I switched my majors about 5 times.  Here they are in order, so you can see the progression:

1. Undecided
2. Music
3. Film
4. Psychology
5. Neurochemistry and physiology
6. Philosophy
7. Computer Science
8. Undecided
9. Philosophy

I mean come on! I thought it was only 5, but I guess I have changed my major 9 times!  I consider this to be a good thing however, because i tested my tolerance to what I would like for four years, and finally settled on just doing philosophy to graduate and go into web development full time.  My journey led me to web development, and after all of this exploring, I have strong cause to believe in my cause.

You have all the time in the world.

I will be in school for an extra year, but I really don’t care.  You have all the time in the world to graduate, there is no point in sacrificing sleep and stress to graduate when everyone else does.  When you graduate has no measure whatsoever in how successful you will be.  I see too many people who are a mission from hell to graduate on time, and honestly they are unhappy.  This also follows from the previous section in that you are working so hard to graduate at some date, that you never take a minute to explore other disciplines.  This is what I believe causes so many people to eventually become what they worked so hard at becoming, but realize after all that work that they may be interested in something else.  Such a common mistake.

Don’t follow family trends simply to impress

I also never understand why people whose whole family’s members become a lawyer, feel that they should also become a lawyer.  Think for yourself!  You are not your parents, and honestly, there is no gene that you get from heredity that predisposes you for a particular discipline.  Maybe you are good at math, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be specifically a mathematician.  You could truly do anything in the science field.  If this is you, you are limiting yourself so much, I beg you to just take a semester or two to just take classes outside of what your parents took, you are not them.

I know this post came out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the web, but every once in a while I will be posting more personal thoughts that I have.  Hope you all don’t mind.
Evan