This blog has been horrifically overdue for a jump-start for far too long now. I can’t imagine anyone disputing that my blogging report card this past year is one giant F-. Why, I even had the audacity to “relaunch” with a new design a little less than a year ago. Since then, I’ve posted three (3) full blog posts, and possibly a dozen aside updates. I should be ashamed of myself, and as luck would have it, I am.

Fortunately, as luck would further have it, I’m not too ashamed to admit my mistakes and move past them. And in this case, moving past them looks a whole heck of a lot like what you’re seeing right now.

I started the redesign process with some vague ideas and sketches in early June, but it wasn’t until mid-July that I really started to spend a significant amount of time on it. One big hurdle was that I wanted to design it from scratch myself. This being the first site that I’ve ever actually designed as opposed to just focusing on the code, it took a good deal of practice, experimentation, scrapped ideas, and helpful feedback from a few friends. In the end, I ended up picking a color scheme and general visual style and running with it, designing it largely as I coded it.

Early on, I was significantly influenced by the hyper-retro visual and musical style of the iPhone game, Eliss, as well as the indie, subtley-throwback sound of Phoenix’s latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Clearly, these weren’t direct inspirations, but they helped point me toward the style I eventually went with, and I think the blog still considers them grandfather figures.

So now, two months, dozens of hours, a thousand lines of CSS, and countless iTunes playlists later, it’s live. Still a work in progress, mind, but live and functional. I’m definitely happy with where it is, and very excited about getting back into the habit of posting new content.

And yes, as the Recent Cabeebage section of the sidebar may lead you to believe, I am going to start putting up some technical (by my standards) posts. And Websinal? Well, I suppose it’s those posts that fall somewhere between Personal and Technical. Gadgets, apps, life on the web, social media, technology, etc. It should probably be called Geeksinal.

I should probably be called Geeksinal.

My reason for bringing this up post-fact is that while we were on the trip, we were making periodic updates to http://www.snowjutsu.com, a site that Josiah and I slapped together for this trip at the last minute. If you have a spare minute or seven, take a stroll through and look at some of the ridiculous things we thought it pertinent to share.

Already planning the next trip.

I took an early lunch to try to beat the crowds – and good thing too. When I walked up, there were only 3 people in front of me. When I left just shy of an hour later, there were several dozen people in line. The fact that Apple has made a product that is so coveted that people are still scrambling to wait in line for the opportunity to emphatically throw $300 at the feet of Steve Jobs and another $100 a month to AT&T for the next stage of life has to be making several Apple executives sleep very, very soundly these days.

All that aside, the whole purchasing experience was a conflicting, humbling one. Apple has long been seen as the trendy choice for young 20-somethings with hip jobs like web or graphic design, who spend their afternoons at Starbucks on their Macs, listening to Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band on their iPods. Oh, by the way, that’s me.

As I walked into the Apple store that fateful Wednesday morning, it hit me even more how much I had whored myself out to the trends. There I was in my faded jeans, indie band t-shirt and green canvas conductor hat, messenger bag comfortably slung over my shoulder, walking into the Apple store to buy an iPhone. Yep. I was that guy. And I hadn’t even planned on going to the Apple store that day; I’d just woken up and dressed like any other day.

Damn it, I really am that guy.

Ahh, who’m I kidding? I love being that guy. Like they say, if the shoe fits… they’re good shoes? you should buy them? they were made for a foot very similar to yours? Come to think of it, how does that saying even end? Has anyone even ever finished that sentence? I’m going to go with “If the shoe fits, I hope its match is nearby, or else you’ll be walking with a slight limp.”

Alright, this has just turned into one of my rambling, incoherent posts. Time to wrap it up. I’m the trendy, young, Apple-loving, web-designing guy that you’re parents warned you about, and I’m fine with that. It’s who I am. Apple’s products are incredible. So what? I like the way these jeans fit me, and that hat is super-comfy and saves me the trouble of having to do anything with my hair. Boo ya. The iPhone is possibly the most well-conceived, sleek and powerful consumer electronic product on the market today. And I’ve got one. Is it my fault if my tastes are shared by the majority of a particular demographic?

That demographic being “everyone else.”

While it’s a largely subjective concept, one way to quantitatively track your online fame is to see how high you rank on search engines.

For instance, the super-net guru of Fuor/ninja/best friend, Josiah Platt is the third return you get when you type “Josiah” into Google. It might not sound like a huge deal, but trust me, it is. One that he’s spent a significant amount of time and effort bringing to fuition.

I, on the other hand, am the 99th Caleb. Right at the bottom of the 10th page. Not exactly anything to scoff at, because Caleb is a fairly popular name, but it leaves me lots of room to move up. “Caleb White,” on the other hand, lands me right at the top of the search returns.

Charles is impressively the 10th return on a search of his name. Impressive because Charles Williams is a pretty common name, and it is also the name of an early-20th century British author. One of my father’s favorites, I might add.

Ryan is the first search return with his full name, but searching either just “Ryan” or “Loewe” he’s completely off the radar. But, his site doesn’t actually exist yet really, so that’s not terribly surprising.

Now, dear Brett has some obstacles to overcome. Not sure if it’s a hit on Brett or further praise to Josiah, but when one searches “Brett Tilford” on Google, Josiah Platt is the first return. Brett Tilford.com is, interestingly enough, fifth on the list.

Josiah got a little carried away with his conquering.

1) In an attempt to boost the online presence of Fuor, of which I am a founding partner, we have all decided to revamp our blogs and become more active in the blogging world (ie blogosphere).
2) This design is pretty much a near-direct rip of another site originally meant only to be a temporary filler.
3) Cabeeb’s new layout will integrate my identity in several outside web-aps in one place and hopefully make the site more dynamic.

Stay tuned.

I’m going to better myself. I’m going to read more. Play more music. Get my finances in order. Hone my web skills. Spend more time with people. Get in better shape. Write more. Listen to new music. Be more proactive at work. Journal. Be outside more. Make new friends. Be a better friend to the ones I’ve got. Pray more.

Expand my horizons.

I’m tired of working until 5:00 every day, going home, and biding my time until I go to work the next day. Naps, video games and television shows fill my free time. And I’m tired of it. I keep putting off living my life until some indistinct time in the future when it’s more convenient. I’m living my life right now one way or another whether I want to or not. And looking back on my 18-year-old self and not seeing much growth since then doesn’t make me feel too swell.

So, for various reasons, both conscious and sub-, I’m in that mood today. Motivated to better myself. And I’m hoping that by writing them out and posting them up while I’m motivated to do them, I might actually do some of the things listed above when I’m not.

Oh, and get a haircut.

For me, life isn’t much different than it was when I was in school. And not because I am being lame and just doing the cop-out. Because for a week and a half after graduation, life was great. I could come home from work and do have little or no resposibilities. There wasn’t homework to be done, tests to stress over, or classes to register for. I could just come home and do whatever come into my mind until the next morning. I was able to put a lot of time into music, and biking, and reading, etc. It was great.

All the while, I’ve been doing a little bit of work here and there for Fuor, a company that some friends and I are slowly getting off the ground. Late last week, though, we got the go ahead on several project at the same time, and they all need to launch by September 1st (this Saturday). So, we’ve been scambling trying to get the work done in time. That has turned into me working late last Friday night, from noon until about eleven on Saturday, from 3:00 to 10:00 on Sunday, and from shortly after I get home until midnight every night this week so far.

So, life is feeling much like it did when school was in full swing. Probably even a bit worse. Fortunately, the work I’m doing for Fuor is a lot of fun, and it hasn’t been super-stressful in of itself yet. It’s just taking up a lot of time.

Still, post-college life is highly recommended.