My dad and I spent a week back east to pay our respects to Grandpa Jack. Mourning aside, it was nice to spend time with the family, see the rich, green countryside, and explore cities dating back to the colonial era.

Fripp Island, SC

The south eastern coastline is amazingly different from what I’ve grown accustomed to here in California. Rather than a solid strip of beach and rocky cliffs that go on unending for hundreds of miles, the Carolina sea front is a network of waterways and small, flat islands. This marsh a grey area between the land and sea, making it an ideal habitat for a wide range of wildlife.

Savannah, GA

When it came time to leave Fripp Island we decided to head south into Georgia and check out the historic district of Savannah for the day. There are parks on just about every other block; crowded by old oak and magnolia trees with their beards of spanish moss. I was struck by the amazing amount of detail in each building’s design; in every stone and fence were characteristics of a time when distinction trumped conformity. We topped it all off with a bowl of shrimp n’ grits and a visit to the old Fort Jackson.

Charleston, SC

Savannah is a tough act to follow, but Charleston has some charm of its own. In terms of historical significance it seems to pull more weight with its Civil War monuments, towering memorials and steeples. After a hefty lunch of fried catfish at Poogan’s Porch we headed over to the aquarium to check out the otters and an albino alligator.

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I remember the day I bought my first computer. I was nineteen and just starting out in graphic design school. This wasn’t by far the first computer in our family household, but my first personal computer. The hot thing at the time was the iMac DV Special Edition and my credit card was burning a hole in my pocket. Along with the computer I would of course need all the accessories, including a printer. So the computer salesman eagerly escorted me to the display of ink jet printers, which they were practically giving away to anyone who bought a computer. Being the fool that I was (and still am at times) I took one.

The world of computer printing devices is large and confusing, but the manufacturers have made it easy for the average consumer by designing these inexpensive machines that purportedly produce illustrious, full-color, photo quality images. On the outside it seems like the obvious choice. Do I want to be able to print in color instead of plain ol’ greyscale? Well yes, certainly I do! Do I want to pay a lot of money for this device? No way, I’m on a budget! Do I want to replace ink cartridges every three months regardless of how much I actually used them? Oh yeah… wait, what?

It didn’t take long before I was hit by the reality of the ink jet phenomenon. These machines are probably the biggest scam that exists on the computer peripherals market. I’ve owned three of them since I bought that first computer in 1999, and will never buy one again if I can help it. All of these machines died on me after about a year of unfaithful service. I still have one at work that sits under my desk, but only because there’s an attached scanner that does still work. The printer part of it no longer functions. The problems that I’ve experienced with ink jet printer isn’t just limited to the cheaper ones either. I’ve had the displeasure of having to operate some $500+ models during my time working at Platt College, and they suffered from the same issues as any other I have used.

The number one problem with these things is their namesake ink jets. The hassle of cartridges begins from the moment you have to figure out which ones to buy, and then shell out a good chunk of cash for them. Don’t forget you’ll also need expensive, high-quality, ink jet specific paper so that your colors won’t bleed through the page like a Sharpie pen. But this is just what you have to do if you want to print glorious colors right? So you get the fresh cartridges to your office, install them and wait fifteen minutes for the machine to calibrate its damned self. While it’s whirring and buzzing you find yourself a nice photo to make your first print, or if you’re a nut like me you make a test pattern in Adobe Illustrator so you can check the color output. The noise finally subsides and it’s time to fire up the jets. The machine begins printing and you sit there watching it like a hawk as it comes out line by line by line by… There’s lines all across your print. So begins the endless process of trouble shooting the inconsistencies in your image. Did you run the head cleaning program? Did you set the output level correctly? Did you use the right paper settings? Maybe you just have to print a few more out to warm the heads up. Maybe it’ll clear up after it finishes drying. If you’re lucky enough, you might get a few good shots out of the thing but this won’t last for long.

Eventually the heads die. They become clogged beyond repair. You check your ink levels in the software and it’s saying you have 50% cyan, but there’s not a drop to be found on your print. Meanwhile there are plenty of drops of magenta, but they look like they were sprayed on with a garden hose. Looks like you’ll just have to go get some more cartridges. These old ones you could take to a recycling center, but it’s halfway across town and they’re not open on Sundays… aww, fuck it. Just throw ‘em in the trash. What I’ve been told it that in order for the heads to stay clog free you have to use them on a regular basis. Which I guess is about six times a day.

I think I could go on for days about how much I hates these things but what it boils down to is that these consumer grade ink jet printers are a total gimmick product. They attract buyers with their supposedly amazing features and low initial price, but hide their long term flaws and maintenance costs. Then the consumer is trapped in their dreams of creating beautiful color prints at the push of a button even though they understand nothing about how real printing is done. If I really needed to print a photo I’d want it to be the best quality I could possibly get, and that would be better handled by a photo processing center. I’ve had two digital photo teachers that swear by Costco for their photo printing. Hell, if you need some quick and dirty color reports printed you can get it done on a Kinko’s copier.

After burning through so many of these machines I sat down and thought about what kinds of things I really needed to print. The majority of my printing wasn’t photos or artwork but documents. Plain text documents. I was printing lots of maps too, which may look nice in color but is hardly necessary.

So the logical choice for my next printer was a greyscale laser, and I have to say that it’s the best printer I have ever owned. It’s fast for one thing. It spits out pages in a matter of seconds. Not as fast as a photocopy machine but for my intents and purposes it’s just fine. The pages stack nicely on top of the machine and not it some obtrusive drying tray. I’ve owned the laser printer for more than two years and have printed over a thousand pages on it. Not once have I changed the cartridge. I actually bought an extra cartridge when I got the machine (still being in my ink jet mindset) but it’s just sitting, opened in the box for the day when I’ll actually need it. The cartridge comes with instructions on how to send it back to the factory once the toner is exhausted so that it can be recycled. I can run cheap paper through it and still get crisp lines. I don’t think they even make a high quality laser paper. It’s just unnecessary. The laser printer cost me a little over two hundred bucks, but it’s reliability more than compensates for that.

The only ink jet printer I’ve used that I can say works well is the big one that we have at the office. It’s about five feet wide and costs twenty thousand dollars. We’ve had our share of difficulties with it, mostly software related, but once we got all of the settings straightened out it started making some nice stuff. But this machine is a completely different animal from the consumer level printers out there. This is an industrial machine for businesses that make prints for profit. So unless you’re a pro graphics shop you probably don’t need an ink jet printer.

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This morning Damion came into the office all excited about a coyote he saw out in the parking lot. Taking any opportunity I can to get out of my chair, I grabbed the camera and went outside. Turns out I could have just turned around in my chair because the thing was right outside the window. It was surprisingly calm given that Damion, Jeff, and I were staring at it from only about 40 feet away, but the beast seemed more concerned with it’s breakfast. On today’s menu was head of domestic feline, garnished lightly with dirt and grass clippings. It wasn’t so much gruesome to watch as it was to listen to the crunching of canine teeth on cat skull.

I lost my own cat recently. His fate was probably similar to the one here. Although, I can’t be sure since he just vanished, but coincidentally there were signs posted on the mailbox about coyote sightings only a few days after Bucky’s disappearance. It’s unfortunate but it’s nature. This is their land, not ours. We are their inconvenience, and for that they demand a sacrifice whenever possible.

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After only a year of somewhat faithful service I’ve had to let the beach cruiser go. Not that I didn’t enjoy using it, although I had to deal with some chain drops here and there. I just wasn’t getting much use out of it here in Yorba Linda and there’s no room for another bike in the apartment (or so my girlfriend claims). I’ve had quite a good run with it though. Originally I was just in need of a bike for my 2008 Burning Man trip. Although the Burners’ guide recommended bringing an old used bike I was more inclined to having a cool new bike that was inexpensive, and I knew I could probably get a good deal on a beach cruiser from American Flyer Bicycles.

The Surf Cycle came “as is” which meant merely a few paint chips in the finish. I could live with that. The plan was to adorn the thing with crazy crap anyhow. So I made a stop at the local dollar store and grabbed up some fake roses, daisies, and ivy, and two rubber snakes that I could wrap around the tubes and chain stays, but this was only the garnish. I needed a heavy hitter for the centerpiece. I found what I was looking for in a store on ebay called VDAVISHORNS, which sells almost nothing except animal horns (mostly those of Texas longhorn steers and bighorn sheep). Some of these skulls were selling for as high as $350, but there were other less desirable shapes and sizes going for as low as $65. So I put in a bid for one of the more economical sets and waited for the auction to draw to a close. “This should be easy,” I thought. The guy had rows of things, each held up for the camera by a skanky, mexican mamacita. I had never realized how competitive ebay actually was until then. Thinking I had it in the bag, I was ready to put up my feet and relax, but somehow I got bid out at the last billionth of a second! I was furious at losing but my lesson was learned.

I knew that Damion had wasted a ton of time and money buying John Elway junk on ebay, so I asked him for some tips on bidding. If I didn’t win this time I was going to be screwed, because there wouldn’t be any more auctions closing in time to get the thing delivered before my trip. This time I ran two bids simultaneously and stayed aggressive on bidding at the bitter end. I was running the risk that I might actually end up winning both, but if that happened then I would just sell one or gift it. Finally, I did end up winning one skull and had it expressed delivered to the tune of about $85.

With the centerpiece in hand it was time to dress up the bike. I cinched down the skull with zip ties and hemp twine to the extra wide handlebars. The bones fit in like a glove, giving the option of steering with the grips or the ends of the horns. To top it all off, Dan loaned me a string of LEDs which I taped into the eye sockets and ran along the underside of the top tube to a battery pack under the saddle. When it was all lit up at night it looked like something straight out of hell. The Surf N’ Turf was born!

Into the cargo van it went, and we were off to the burn. The bike earned me a few compliments around Black Rock City, but it was a mere drop in the bucket of everything else going on there. I was still quite proud of my creation though. Riding along with Dan, whose bike was wrapped in plastic bones, we were shouted at by a man atop a parade-float car, “Hey, why don’t you bury those things?!” The vibration from riding around BRC did cause most of the teeth to fall out of the skull, but these came in handy for trading and as gifts.

Upon our return I decided it would be best to dismantle my creation. As cool as it would’ve been to ride such a beast in the middle of downtown Fullerton I might as well have put a big “Steal Me!” sign on it. The bike needed a thorough cleaning anyhow since it was soaked in corrosive playa dust. Even after restoring the cruiser to it’s original state it still would turn heads as I rode it around town. It was great bike for lazy Sunday rides or a quick trip to the liquor store.

I was sad to let this bike go, but it’s better served to someone who can use it than to just let it collect dust on my patio. The steer skull now hangs on the wall above my fireplace. One of the hardest parts about moving is learning to let go of old things. I find that I put a lot of sentimental value into stuff that I might not even have much practical use for. I really want and need to simplify. The weight of all this junk sometimes feels like an anchor, but you never know when you might want to play that guitar again or pull out the old marker pen set.

Anyhow, so long my friend, wherever the path may take you!

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So if you’re actually reading this and visited my previous site you’ll notice that there’s not much to see here yet. I’m currently constructing a new site that has a whole new structure based around the blog more than the portfolio. This may seem like a strange move for a graphic artist, but I’m trying to find ways to improve the way I build sites for my clients. Using the blog as the central component of the home page ensures that the freshest site content is the first thing that a search engine robot sees when it comes here. This will hopefully improve my search engine ranking a bit as well as regular traffic. It also gives me incentive to make regular updates, something which I was negligent about with my last site.

So hang in there while I piece this thing together. There will be a new template design and image gallery soon. I look forward to seeing what becomes of this and who will stop by.

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