The only positive thing to come out of my brothers departure from Charleston has been the fact he overbooked himself and couldn’t use his Band of Horses tickets. So I took one for the team and partied on a school-night. bummer.

About a year ago, these guys were hands down my favorite band. Their first album in particular helped me get through a pretty rough patch in my life. They’re Charleston locals, so every once in a while they do a “surprise” show with little notice. This was one of those shows – I think tickets were sold out before my brother even told me about the show. Hence why scoring his was a bonus…. Jeffy, this one is for you, their “pretend last song” of the night, funeral.

Went to the Pour House last night w/ the little brother – haven’t seen decent live music in a while so it was a rare treat. That and $1 PBRs (let’s just say we had quite the beer wall by the end of the night). Hadn’t heard that much of the Whigs prior to the show, but they rocked it with two opening bands Mean Streets and The Features….

UPDATE: On future review, found this nice little jem of a song on my iphone. Jeff, wait till the end for some quality banter. Something tells me we drank some PBR that night….

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My current morning practice is to get up a bit early and get in an hour+ of design work in, or read a good book to get my day off on the right foot. For the moment, that book is “inside Steve’s brain” – one that’s become increasingly popular around my company, and for good reason. As the company grows, they are increasingly looking for a brand to consolidate their array of products. And looking at the process of design, as the company shifts from one that makes software to one that is selling a brand. Increasingly, design leads such as myself are being looked to for advice – again opportunity.

This morning was Chapter 2: Despotism: Being a one-man focus group. Some really interesting take-always for me, especially considering I’ve been functioning as a one-man design show for years and the context of my new position. A lot of what I read has been reassuring in many ways – coming at design from a different direction than those building the product, gives you a unique understanding. Steve’s main asset isn’t that he understands the technology as well as the engineers creating it, but that he understands the users and is always pushing design. This is a strong concept for me, as it helps me think about where my value as a designer is to a company that writes software and needs that outside voice to help understand how to package and interact with the things they create.

1. Cars: My god, I’ve never seen so many accidents in my life. It’s like people say hello by hitting each other with their cars, and they are friendly here.
2. Dogs: everyone has them, I’d like one too.
3. Rain: it happens. In fact, it’s a pretty much guaranteed that there will be a hair-raising thunderstorm roll through at some point in the afternoon.
4. Boats: also, everyone has at least one if not two in their front yard, I’d like one or two as well.
5. Surf: there is none, but what little they have is fun.
6. Water: It’s everywhere and it’s beautiful
7. Bridges: a result of #6, and also everywhere
8. Bugs: comes along with #6
9. Sunshine: wonderful when not #3
10. Humidity: combine #3, #6 and #9 and there you have it.
11. Small, Friendly City: It’s really cool how friendly people are here. I’ve been here only a month now, and I shit you not, you WILL bump into people you know. Pretty cool.

Got co-opted into my younger brothers kickball team – AWESOME! Nothing like drinking a few beers and pulling out a quad kicking a stupid red rubber ball! We found out last minute we made the “play-offs” (pretty sure everyone makes the playoffs) so team super-bad took the field for one more attempt at glory. good times.

Also had my first going out in the Chuck-Towne downtown; Not too shabby for a random Tuesday night. This could probably grow on me….

as a footnote, the new job is an ass-kicker, which is good! and I’m still talking to myself as according to wordpress the site has 0 traffic, which is actually more coforting than one would think….

Getting settled into that second week of living in Charleston; the odd ins and outs of the new commute; a new place to live; and a new work environment. The first week started with epic rain storms – nothing like arriving at day one of a new job in thunderstorms. Everything becomes quickly familiar by that second week… then something beautiful happens, and the sun catches the clouds just right as you drive home across the bridge back into downtown, and you notice that you’re beginning to fall in love with your new surroundings. Having gone from a 4 mile commute along the beach in California, to find these moments puts the smile back on my face.

So as the date approaches for me to hit that airplane and leave California in the dust, all sorts of shit is coming to mind that I’m going to miss that I probably didn’t think too much about when I went gun-ho after a job in South Carolina. And on the eve of my last full weekend in the south-bay, so we start the sad list of things I’m going to miss:

1. Living on the beach in some sweet digs
2. Surfing every morning
3. Sunday Morning breakfasts w/ Heidi
4. Avoiding yoga
5. the 4 mile commute to work along the coast
6. the ability to bike to work (not that I do because I’m too lazy and would rather enjoy #2)
7. surfing on my lunch breaks
8. surfing after work
9. Saturday morning: shotgun a beer, surfing for 2 hours and on to OB’s for breakbast + bloody marys
10. Followed by the beach and pub crawling the south bay on bikes
11. the Poop Deck on a sunny Saturday afternoon
12. Sunday Fun-day
13. Grant’s boat on clear Sunday mornings
14. My Trader Joe’s home-made pizza
15. ‘course, good friends and a few beers on the weekend
16. sunsets down 42nd Street…

If I thought I had an obsession, this guy actually made a video about it…. LOL, he’s so correct about hot soccer moms in yoga clothes: http://www.thesneeze.com/2009/the-tjs-song.php