Thursday, July 30, 2009
Father Stephen Freeman on beauty:
We see beauty not simply by looking at a thing — but by seeing it.
And:
There is much in our life and culture that pushes us away from beauty. Mass production and the nature of our economy (marked by a level of productivity unknown in human history), are driven by questions other than beauty. Beauty has value as it can be marketed, but too often is absent in any depth from much of our experience. […]
Deeply distressing is the drive to “utility” in our lives. Value is given to that which is “useful.” Beauty thus becomes an avocation, a luxury not seen as useful or necessary to our existence. Of course, this is a deep miscalculation of the nature of human existence. Human beings do not exist well without beauty — and in most of human culture throughout most of human history, beauty has been valued beyond many of the things which we think of as “useful.”
The article is foremost regarding beauty within Christianity — specifically within the Eastern Orthodox Church — but also all of life in general. It has me thinking further on the concept …
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Answering phone calls on the old brown phone, the one without caller ID. Talking to people on the phone more often than email correspondence. Not using Twitter (again). Not using IM as much. Going to actual websites to see if they have been updated instead of using a feed reader. Seeing the project schedule take form on the calendar instead of just on a to-do list. Having Bruce announce each hour on the hour instead of seeing the clock constantly on the screen. Spending a greater amount of time reading books. Working on projects around the house with my dad. Going out with my wife to watch the sun set, the river flow, birds fly. Listening to the quiet.
Friday, July 24, 2009
I received these instructions for navigating our local government’s website after inquiring about making exterior changes to our home, which resides in a historic preservation district. This much instruction shouldn’t ever be necessary to get a person to a particular page on your website. In this case, a simple link to the appropriate page would’ve worked just fine. I’m not sure if they were trying to address my ‘ignorance’ or reveal their stupidity. Ironically, their website has a Best Of The Web badge for the years 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
In my archives I have new starts on Dressed In Value’s website design dating back five years. I’ve got something different for just about every season since 2004. There’s always been this desire to start completely from scratch, throw out whatever design I had going and start anew. Evidence of this from just the last couple of years can be seen here, here, here, and here. I have begun to see that this isn’t always such a great approach.
What I’ve been learning is exactly what Cameron Moll was talking about in his surely now-classic article Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign. Over the past several months I’ve been tweaking the design of this website — adding things, subtracting things, rewriting things, moving things around — so much so that it looks entirely different from where it started. It’s not a new design, it’s just a lot of tweaking. I did this not because …
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Dressed In Value has a new homepage.
This new design does 2 important things.
First, it introduces a new identity-illustration that our friend Tyler Deeb made especially for Dressed In Value. He was commissioned for it, and sent a handful of design ideas before coming to this image. This was my response to him exactly:
Aha! This is by far my favorite. A worried lion. What irony! The lion is the boldest, most courageous, and fearless creature. Yet here is one who appears to be afraid. You see, this parallels something I have long written about myself:
I want to see, experience, and know our world; hear life stories of wise, zealous, and humble people; be part of something larger than myself, learn more than I already know, read books that I haven’t read, and hear music I haven’t heard. I cherish change, love adventure, and I’m scared to death of most of it.
Tyler did great work with this, and I’m happy to show it to you. Please join me in welcoming the lion.
Second, …
Monday, July 20, 2009
I got my computer back on the fifth day. They replaced the logic board, I/O board (the paperwork doesn’t indicate this, but they mentioned it), the SuperDrive, and the top case — which I believe includes the track pad and button; it feels new, old wear and scratches gone. It was all covered by that extended warranty I purchased when I got the machine a couple of years ago (I highly recommend it). Back in business.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
We’ve been leaving him outside when we leave lately. (He’s otherwise put away in “Rocky’s house” which I can’t imagine he enjoys too thoroughly.) It seems we can trust him. No obvious attempts to escape, or signs of him bothering passersby — the exception being his especially recent excessive barking, at men in uniform particularly.
I left him today for not more than an hour while I rode my bike around the neighborhood. When I came home, he was there, as usual, as expected. We went inside and I noticed his right eye was closed and orange stuff was all over his face. So, it appears, someone sprayed him with some pepper. I’m guessing it was the mailman. It’s frustrating that he’d do that, especially as Rocky is no real threat behind the small fence, despite him sounding vicious. I’m not convinced the pepper spray will have the desired effect on him, but, I gotta say, he had it comin’ to him.
I rinsed his face and eyes and walked to the store to get him some eye drops. He’s fine now, and he still barks.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Since Apple released the 10.5.7 system update — and I installed it — the MacBook Pro that runs Dressed In Value hasn’t been doing so well. My problems haven’t been as terrible as some, but have been particularly annoying.
It began with a reboot that took me to a blank, black screen. A phone call to Apple Care got me up and running again, and also got me in the habit of unplugging the machine and temporarily removing the battery to “fix” it whenever it blacked out again, which has been often. This measure does something like drain the ‘short term memory’ of the computer. (I’m a bit of a computer nerd, but not that much.)
Yesterday I installed the Safari 4.0.2 update, which required restarting, and it unsurprisingly brought me to a blank screen. Per my new routine, I unplugged it, took the battery out for a while, and turned it back on. But, nothing happened. I called Apple Care. They had me do a few things, none of which worked. They scheduled an appointment for me with an Apple Genius today at our local Apple store.
I tried turning …
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Hereto is an answer for why one might patronize their local economy ever before supporting the global and mainstream alternative. I mean this not as any religious writing, but am certainly using Christianity as a foundation to these thoughts.
The epitome and very central teaching of Christianity are two things which are also the same: love God and love your neighbor. The latter is something I would expect any decent human, despite religion or belief system, to agree is a good thing. It is logical to follow, of course — as did the thoughts of a man two centuries past — with the question, who is our neighbor?
When we ask ourselves this question it would be right to respond with another question, who is not our neighbor? Anyone that surrounds us in a way physical, emotional, intellectual, or other is our neighbor. By this we can determine that everyone — from our closest family and friends, to strangers in other continents and faraway countries — are indeed our neighbor.
I have thought that in the case of a dire emergency, such as if there was some …
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Photo by Carrie Neumayer / a pretty pickle
Carrie Neumayer has got some great photos of a Louisville building I’ve been long wanting to visit. Kaden Tower. As she points out, the building is often said to be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright — I’ve been confused about this myself — but she says it “was actually designed by Wright’s protegé and son-in-law William Wesley Peters.” Be sure to see this!
