November 2009

This is truly fascinating...

Submitted by jgrubb on Sat, 11/07/2009 - 5:57pm

A glimpse into design and corporate culture, and where the two often clash.

Dear American Airlines | Dustin Curtis

And I bid you goodnight...

Submitted by jgrubb on Wed, 11/11/2009 - 9:03pm

Well, campers, the day has come. Regular readers of this blog might be a little less surprised about this particular piece of news, but I'm pretty surprised to be writing it. I've been writing it in my head for a few weeks now, but now that I'm sitting here, I don't really know how to put it.

I joined this band at the age of 24 to accomplish a few objectives. I was barely a year out of college and was already tired of washing dishes and rolling burritos for a living, so I prayed for a gig. I met John Skehan within a week, and the rest is history. What I wanted then was to get out of the kitchen and play professionally (with my college educated hands), to travel, and to learn about the music business. Check, check, and check. I never intended to be a touring musician for the rest of my life, and have proceeded to plan my life with my wife and our son and our dogs accordingly. We played Red Rocks a couple of months ago. Icing on the cake.

Programmers, please enter -->

Submitted by jgrubb on Sat, 11/14/2009 - 6:42pm

I have this crazy hope inside of me that some of the IT professionals who have expressed their disdain for the field since my last post will find a way to quit their crappy jobs and go do something that they can put their hearts into. Life is too short to be stuck.

Thank you.

1st set meditation

Submitted by jgrubb on Sun, 11/15/2009 - 3:03am

Lots of personal posts to come these next few weeks, I expect. I wanted to take this opportunity during setbreak in Woodstock to set down a few things that I was thinking about during the first set.

Now what?? //part 2

Submitted by jgrubb on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 4:18pm

The ongoing sorrow in my life is this ->

You can build an awesome website, and then where are you?

The answer is that you're ahead of at least some of the craptastic pack. The rest of the answer is that you've just taken a major step into proving that you take yourself seriously on the internet. You have opened Pandora's box, my friend, and if you think you can shut it, the world will know just what a punk you are. After all, the days when your website was the totality of your internet presence have faded into our collective long-term memories by this point.

Now what?? //part 1.

Submitted by jgrubb on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 4:36pm

The problem I have with the world is this ->

It's too friggin hard to build a good website.

I spent the better part of 2009 studying this problem. I was bummed out about RRE's website and the fact that it was just a little too static, a little too disconnected from the rest of the internet.

Now what?? //part 3

Submitted by jgrubb on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 6:13pm

Shouldn't it be a little more like this ->

You're a new user to the iBD CMS. The initial login screen is simple, clean. It has 3 fields that you need to fill in to register - Your name, your password, and your band's name. You press the submit button and that's it. Your new website is active. The second screen you come to asks for your Facebook login information.

The creative fire

Submitted by jgrubb on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 1:30pm

I just finished "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in the ATL airport yesterday. I tried to read it in college and failed miserably - it was just way too wordy and too deep for 20 year old me. For some reason about a month and a half ago I picked it back up and gave it another try, shortly before I started coming to grips with the fact that my spell in RRE is drawing to a close. It's basically the tale of a man and his son on a road trip. The man has battled mental illness in the past, the memories which were erased by shock therapy.