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Wednesday, June 26th, 2002 | <7:37AM>

Spent most of last night working on the website re-coding pages and wrapping up a few sections that were unfinished. I still have some work to do, but the entire site seems to load faster. If anyone on a peecee sees anything wacky, let me know, will ya?

http://www.skaines.com/
Tuesday, June 25th, 2002 | <8:27AM>

According to everyone in this business, you only win about 10% of all pitches. I'd settle for that. Unfortunately, we got the news yesterday that our efforts weren't enough -- another agency (and a really good one at that) won the account we worked so hard for. I'm proud of the work we did even if it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to.

Mom came up yesterday to stay with jen for the week. I drove to denton last night to visit her and cullen while jen was at rehearsal. He like to play catch with a big beach ball. :)

Good god. I don't know if it's the new dog food I bought or what, but kasha is about to make me pass out from ass rot! Damn! Stupid dog has been farting all morning. Ugh! Time to go outside doggies. I think I need to fumigate the house now, JEEZ!

A big bus full of church kids from garland crashed yesterday on I-20 killing 4 teenagers and the driver who fell asleep and crashed into a concrete overpass. Makes you think about how often we put our lives in the hands of others and think nothing of it until something like this happens. I mean, here they are, a group of teenagers going to church camp and a bus driver they've never met falls asleep (speculation) and just like that, it's over. I feel sorry for their parents.
Sunday, June 23rd, 2002 | <7:01AM>

Golf. What a frustrating way to spend a saturday afternoon.

There aren't too many things more frustrating than paying 30 or 40 bucks to whack a little white ball around a nicely landscaped golf course. I've never been a good golfer. My swing, grip, stance and form are about as consistent as the texas weather. I usually enjoy the game despite my skill, but some days you wish you'd just stayed home instead. Yesterday was one of those days.

I wanted to play a new course, so I got todd and a few of his buddies to come play bridgewood in wylie. Woodbridge is a nice course. Really nice. We paid twilight fees and teed off at 2:55 for a reduced rate of $32 apiece. Not bad considering this course is one of the most difficult in north texas and home of the texas open. Slow play from the foursome in front of us made it a five hour round. Ugh. WAAAAY too long to be out in the heat. Maybe next time I go play I'll figure out WTF is wrong with my form and have a better time.

On friday, I managed to enjoy a summer day and jessie and I went to see minority report. What an awesome movie. Go see it if you have the chance.

Saw jennifer yesterday before golf. David is out of town for the week and she brought cullen down for a visit. We met jessie at willowbend for lunch and cullen got to run around the breakfast playland for a while. The girls were patient enough with me while I ran around my playland for a while, the apple store, and checked out the new eMac. Cool little box. I took a few pictures of cullen that further confirms my theory he is the cutest kid on the planet.

Mom comes to town tomorrow with my aunt kay and maw-maw. Jamie and Lisa might finally make the trip to dallas this weekend, too. Looks like I'm in for a fun-filled sunday of yard work and house cleaning. Whooopie!

I shaved my goatee last week and two people noticed. Not sure how long it will be before I grow it back. I look like I'm frickin' 12 years old now.
Thursday, June 20th, 2002 | <8:19PM>

I found a secret for running farther -- run slower. Damn. I never used to sprint when I ran, but the past few mornings I've paced myself quite a bit slower and run a lot further and longer than before.

Work is going well considering the crappy economy we're in. I feel blessed to have a job. The interactive sector ain't what it used to be (but you already knew that). I heard the pitch went well on monday, but we'll have to wait until the weekend's over before we know anything. The good news is our hard work didn't go unnoticed -- the client told us we were the most buttoned up of all the agencies that pitched. Pretty impressive considering we had about half the time the others did. We kick ass when our back's against the wall...

My mom was supposed to be in town this week, but her plans changed. Skainesmom will be here next week instead. I hope my dad tags along, too.

Ebay is a good hiding place for scammers and scum. Right now I'm in the process of trying to retrieve $300 from mr "pixelpatch" who proceeded to take my money, send the wrong damn merchandise and then drop off the face of the earth. Pisses me off. I bought a laptop screen through "buy it now" with the sole intention of re-selling it. I even had a buyer on the line who sent me a payment that I had send back from the screw-up. Looks like I learned my lesson -- feedback ratings can be deceiving. What's to stop someone from saying "the hell with it" and screw people out of several hundred dollars for their own gain? A fraud claim, I hope. I'm not the only one he did this to, either. My only hope is someone in illinois hunts him down and gives him a good 'ol country ass-whupin'. I'm considering sending him a special package just to say thanks.

Tomorrow is friday and I plan on taking a summer day. If everything goes just right I'll be teeing-off with lauri brian at 1:00 for an early game of golf. The rest of the weekend is open for discussion.
Monday, June 17th, 2002 | <6:25AM>

I slept late yesterday for the first time in a few weeks. I needed the rest, though. Decided to get some exercise with a brisk morning jog in the cooler than normal temperatures and noticed a sharp increase in houses for sale around the neighborhood. That time of year, I suppose.

Called my dad and wished him a happy fathers day. Wish I could've been there to celebrate, but living 300 miles apart usually throws a damper on things like that. I might see him this weekend if I go down for a wedding I gave my rsvp for last week. Not sure yet if I'm up for another trip just yet. We'll see.

Jessie came over around 10:30 and spent the day with me. I proved to be less than exciting as I mowed the yard and took care of some domestic chores. She was sweet enough to help out and for grass as long as mine, I wasn't surprised yard work took almost three hours to finish.

Dinner and a movie for the final act. I "convinced" her to go see the bourne identity at vista ridge mall -- a theater we don't normally frequent, but it was in the area, so... All was great with the movie and we were really into it despite the annoying fatty mcbutterpants loud talker behind us. Then, about five minutes left and seconds before the climactic finale, the film melted on us. It was kinda funny, but there were a lot of pissed-off people during the ten minutes or so it took to splice the burn and get the film going again. Of course, we missed the final climax and jumped ahead 3 or four minutes, but I think we filled in the blanks good enough. Good theater managers wait outside the door with free passes to make up for their mistake -- shitty mall theatre managers do nothing until an angry mob forms outside the theater and then ask people to wait around why they look for a solution. Whatever. I guess the trick worked, I said the hell with it and left -- and for the debacle, I'll never go back to that theater again. Problem solved. :)

I'm up early this morning and will be leaving shortly for work. We've got a run-through on the big pitch at 10 and I need to be there in case there's any problems. I really hope I get to sit in on the run-through -- I want to see if they overcomplicate things or just get to the frickin' point already and not bore the client to death with powerpoint slides. Zzzzzzzzz. I've seen it happen before.

I really hope we win this one, though.
Sunday, June 16th, 2002 | <9:40AM>

Exhausted.

Spent just under 14 hours at work yesterday pining away at a big pitch coming up on monday. I plan on enjoying my sunday.
Thursday, June 13th, 2002 | <8:41AM>

Hellooooooooooooooooo jennifer. And a big howdy to all the other unknown skainesblog watchers out there. Gimme a shout out if you happen across something amusing here.

I'm working this weekend. That's cool. It's been awhile. I do need to find time to mow my yard though sometime before then -- pretty soon I'll have grass tall enough to play hide-and-go-seek in.

What's the deal with all these f'd up college frat boy shaggy hair cuts I see on these days? Will someone please tell them to stop trying to look like a cross between "Hyde" from that 70's show and the blond curly-headed fruit from the blue lagoon; it looks like shit.

Just had to get that off my chest.
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002 | <7:36AM>

I need to go to bed earlier at night. It used to be, I could stay up until the wee hours of 2 or 3 AM and still make it into work and function properly. Not any more. I stayed up too late working on the next big office project and I'm having trouble clearing the cobwebs this morning.

Of course, last night I was working, but usually I'm up to no good at that hour of the night. You'll typically find me in my office surfing ebay or watching the tv. I guess I'll learn one day.

I also took the time to finally upload the revised version of skaines.com last night. I'm about 75% done with it, but at least the majority of my work is now online for the world to view (as if anyone cares) and the WWWelcome is gone. Now leave me alone. While I was checking it out, I noticed that my experiments with a javascript action made the site run sluggish as hell. I looked at the source code and found miles of endless tags that made everything more complicated than in needs to be. Crap. I'll have to spend the next week or so stripping down the clutter and reload everything when I have time to finish. Grrrrrreat.

While checking apple's website last night, I came across their new campaign to increase the number of mac users of windows. The new campaign titled "switch" are :30 testimonial spots of former windows/PC pundits who made the switch and feel the love from owning and operating an apple computer. I think the ads are pretty damn smart -- the people look "real" (not actors) and the message is clear and simple -- Macs are hands-down a nicer computer experience than windows. The spots and the top reasons a windows user should switch can be found here.

There's been a lull in the world of simpsons action figures for the past few months. Anyone who's ever seen my office knows about my little "world of springfield" I keep on display. The entire collection since playmates first came out with series one in march of 2000 sits in my office. I found out last night the latest figures and a few other exclusives should be hitting the store shelves any day now. It's about time for another hunt.

Oh, and by the way -- who the hell works for fleishman-hilliard? I've noticed from that URL has been coming to the skaines blog quite regular lately from the site log, but I don't know anyone who works there (at least I don't think I do...). Hmmm. Welcome and thanks for visiting, I guess -- I'm just curious who you are. Hope you enjoy the mindless brain farts...
Monday, June 10th, 2002 | <7:33AM>

I forgot just how damned humid it gets in houston. Maybe it's the global warming or I was just too young and stupid to remember what it's like to pour with sweat every time you go outside. I don't know how people do it. Dallas is hot enough for me without the humidity.

Jessie and I left friday afternoon for the weekend in h-town. We hauled bones down I45 at 4:00 and arrived around 8:00 for dinner with my parents, les and jamie at a new brazilian churrasco in clear lake. Similar to a fogo de chao or a texas de brazil, but crappy service and not quite the selection. It wasn't bad though. Any other night might have been a better idea considering what was to take place early the next morning.

We woke up at 7AM saturday for the fun run. Neither one of us felt much like running 5k, but after a hi-carb breakfast we made it to the high school with enough time to stretch and get some liquids in our system. At 8:00 the run started and at about a quarter mile into it, I knew the "all you can eat meat" buffet the night before was a REALLY bad idea. Not only did I have the hot weather to deal with, but I felt like I was running with lead weights attached to my midsection. Uuughh. I managed to get to the halfway point before I took a little breather and made it back along the home stretch rather sluggishly. I managed to finish at 29:01. Jessie finished in 36:15. We both suck. :) Oh well, at least we crossed the finish line.

Played golf later in the day with my dad at beacon lakes and managed to screw up one of my better rounds with sevens on the last three holes. Wonderful. I had a good time playing with my dad, though.

Saturday night I caught up with some of the old high school cronies for a night of wings & beer. I figured I pretty much negated anything I did earlier that morning with a tremendous helping of grease and beer. Mmmm.

Spent all day yesterday driving back and doing some website work for the week coming up. I've got a busy one.
Wednesday, June 5th, 2002 | <8:10AM>

If you're looking for rain in texas all you have to do is wash your car. So much for the beautiful shine the car wash guys put on the altima yesterday at work. At least the inside is clean for once. Two big dogs tend to leave quite a bit of hair behind...

I started working on a refresh for skaines.com last weekend. After trying to figure out just what the hell I was going to do with it for months, I finally came up with a simple, easily updated design that better organizes my portfolio. After all, my portfolio was the reason I ever bought skaines.com in the first place. I haven't updated the design since I graduated college, so it was a little overdue. I'm learning quite a bit about golive 6 in the process and I'm happy with the results. Between my site and my dad's, I have more than enough to keep me busy this weekend if I have any down time in houston.

The Stanley Cup is underway between the carolina hurricanes and one of the greatest teams ever assembled -- the detroit red wings. Carolina was an underdog the entire year while it would be nothing less than a disappointment for detroit to walk away with anything but the cup. I like carolina. Unlike everyone in the media, I think they have a shot at beating the boys from hockey town. So, when the odds for carolina paid 5-1 to win the stanley cup, I plopped down thirty bucks on sportsbook.com and anxiously awaited game one.

Carolina put the biscuit in the basket 58 seconds into overtime and dealt a major upset to the motor city. You gotta respect the scrappy dawgs every once in a while. :) Three more wins... three more wins...
Tuesday, June 4th, 2002 | <8:17AM>

Welcome to June. The first year of the month you start to really feel the heat of a texas summer. Already it's getting warm outside and the mild days of spring are now in the rear view mirror. Let's hope we won't set another drought record this summer.

This weekend I took it easy and avoided doing anything of much importance. Like every weekend, I had shit to do, I just decided it could wait.

On friday we kicked off summer days at work and everyone was out of the office by 1:00. Lauri brian and I got our round of golf in a riverchase finally. I shot a 95 and managed to hit my driver without slicing the living daylights out of it for the first time in about a year. Of course, the trade-off being my normally solid irons went straight the hell. I couldn't hit one to save my life. I might have had one of my best rounds ever if I could've done so. We had a lot of fun anyway and I'm sure before the summer ends we'll sneak in a few more rounds for good measure.

Saturday morning I dragged jessie with me for the early morning garage sale tour of carrollton. Carrollton is a garage sale mecca. Every weekend all you have to do is drive in any direction and you'll see the signs. We managed to find over 20 within a 5 mile radius. The biggest score of the day? A $20 ping pong table. Forrest Gump would be proud.

We also caught the latest tom clancy movie this weekend -- "the sum of all fears". Good movie, but I think it might have been better if hollywood wasn't so damned politically correct. In the movie, the terrorists are neo-nazis instead of muslim extremists like in the book (which I did not read). Neo-nazis??? I kept waiting for john belushi to show up and say "I hate illinois nazis." All-in-all a damn good movie that hit a little too close to home with the impending nuclear showdown in the middle east. I swear, one day some crazy bastard is gonna have the balls to blow one up and we'll all be screwed.

Four more days to the fun run and I'm in pretty bad shape. I just hope my dad doesn't beat me to the finish line. :)