all the kids are doing it.

thought i'd give myself a haircut.

i used to shave my head every two weeks.

scratch that, when i lived with my parents, my dad would shave my head, now my wife shaves my head.

i've been sloppy in my old age, letting it grow out for months at a time. i hadn't shaved my head since the day after halloween. which i had to do that day, i had shaved portions of my hairline to mimic peter griffin's.

i decided to do something i've dreamed of since i was a punk rock teenager (i'm now a mid twenties metal head)

give myself a mohawk:


the sad thing is, i'm a fat man with a mohawk... not the height of any fashion. and i've begun wearing polo shirts more often than t-shirts. so it doesn't really look proper, which makes me all the more proud of it.

it would have looked better on me in my prime teenage years, when i weighed a little less than half of what i do now:

pardon the bad photo of an old driver's license. you may notice the comically oversized glasses... that's what you get when you try to find horn-rimmed glasses to fit your huge head when you live in alaska... but i digress.

i have sported a mohawk before, but because i spent 9 years working at video stores, i knew that my mohawk would be frowned upon and my poor mohawks never survived past the weekend.

i usually saved my mohawks for weekend's when my band played, to try and look just a little cooler than i really was.

why a mohawk now? why wear a hairstyle that defies my weight?

because i can! i finally have a job as a graphic designer where i'm free to do everything short of offend coworker's realistic sensibilities.

i even tried to pussy out. my boss greeted me on monday and said he loved my mohawk, i instantly asked him if he thought it would be a problem with clients. he has no problem with it.

so i proudly wear my 3 quarters cold hairstyle, giving little old bigoted ladies a new reason to clutch their purse as they walked by (remember, i'm half black, and short of that they might think i'm mexican or native american, both of which evoke the same reaction here in duluth/superior)

viva la outdated/outmoded hairstyle!

i also spent a good portion of my evening placing a mohawk on my favorite candidate running for election next year to make a few bucks. i'll blog about that once i submit the final version to the folks putting it into print. (foreshadowing!!!!!!!!)

two new shirts to vote on.

I seem to have a thing for skulls lately. You can vote here and here.

big little monster.

i spent a little time making a cartoon of my daughter's story and artwork:

early adventures in design.

i began design by simply playing around in mspaint. creating random internet pictures trying too hard to make internet friends.

one of my favorite early mspaint designs was for my dad's birthday. i had taken an image of his head, slapped on his (early) nickname with some "typography skills" and made some shirts for the family.

i no longer have the still image (and the business that originally printed the shirts lost the screen) so this annoying animated gif will have to suffice.



a year later, my mspaint skills had increased slightly, and my dad had another birthday, so the branding continued:



after seeing some of the random designs i had put together and made into shirts, a blockbuster coworker (i worked there for 7 years out of a 9 year video store career) who was in school for design started a fire under my ass suggesting i get into school for graphic design.

a year later, i decided to go for it and started some schooling. here is the second design i made for school, mind you, we had yet to touch the macs or any adobe programming, so this is still very much an mspaint project:



not the best looking work ever, but i'm still proud of my roots.

halloween curse.

the annual curse has taken place.

3 months prior, i get stoked for a costume idea.

1 month prior, i begin planning everyhting down to the smallest detail.

2 weeks prior, i finally nab all the gear i need.

1 week, 6 days and 23 hours prior, i finally see that my costume looks nothing like i had planned it.

1 week, 6 days prior, i run back to each and every store and return items and swap out for alternates.

1 week, 5 days and 23 hours prior i remain dissatisfied.

3 days prior i come to grips with how bad it looks.

1 hour before going to work, i contemplate leaving it all behind.

3 minutes before work, i sink low in my car's seat hoping the only people to see me are my few coworkers and my family.

to leave on a happier note, here's a few where everything turned out nicely: