D E S I G N /// ck

At the office late tonight...
lots of projects to work on.
Taking a break, I found that on Google that I'm the third hit "christopher king knoxville", close to cracking the the first page of results for "christopher king architect," though I only show up on the sixth page for just "christopher king." A rising star on the internet!
Back to work...

My MacBook Pro is bonking out again. Now it seems that the screen doesn't want to come on when it boots up. So I'm going back to the Apple Store tomorrow...
I didn't have any problems for a year and a half until I upgraded to Leopard OS X in December. I'm going to tell the guys at the store to downgrade me back to Tiger. Screw you, Leopard! You've brought me nothing but pain and anguish.

Well, I have a lot on my plate right now. Projects at work have exploded, I'm trying to finish the construction budget for the bank for the house we're buying (and finishing).
Here's a photo of it:

On top of that, I've got to finish up the graphic work for my step-dad's political campaign. Drew, I PROMISE I'll work on it this evening.
Busy times, exciting times.

And now for something completely different!

I love these instructions:

I had seen these "instructions" around, but Will brought them back to my attention. The man nursing one is my favorite. Don't do it!!!

This is an interesting article about the patterns of generations and how they affect the leadership of our country. The "greatest" generation lead our country from 1961 to 1993. They were all young adults by WW2. The next generation (born 1928-1945, my Dad's generation) haven't had a single president. They were adults in the Korea and Vietnam era. Those darn Boomers are in their heyday now, which every single candidate (including Obama, just barely) is a member (except McCain). The predictions for how Generation X (my generation, 1964-1980) and Generation Y (1981-2000, the "Echo Boomers") will perform are very interesting.

I wish someone would pay me to set something like this up.

My laptop finally came back from Apple repaired. All is right in the world again.

It was warmer on the way up, but the temperature was dropping.
This is how it looked the next morning on the way off the mountain.

I had a good adventure this weekend. I went on an "expedition" of sorts: me and three other guys climbed Mt. Le Conte (the third highest and most remote of the Appalachians) in the dead of winter. Most of the year this is only a strenuous day hike on the ol' Alum Bluffs Trail, about 6 miles each way. What made this more of an adventure was that the rangers had shut down the Cherokee Road because of the snowy weather, making it impossible to get to the trailhead. Feeling gung-ho, we decided to go ahead and tackle it all the way from Sugarland. For those of you who don't know the Smokies, Sugarland is the visitor center at the entrance to the Park, also one of its lowest points. Le Conte was ten miles away and 5000 feet higher. And it was going to get dark in four hours. And it was starting to snow. What else was there to do? We went for it.
I'll post some pictures and give a more extended description this week, but long-story-short: we made it back, clocking 20 miles in 24 hours, 5000 feet of elevation gain, and 6 hours of very cold semi-sleeping. I loved it.

Talking chickens are the coolest.

This may be the worst site I've ever seen. My eyes hurt just looking at it. It's even more embarrassing that it's a Christian site. Unfortunately, the message of Christ and good design rarely go hand in hand. But this is a new low.
Found here- good tips on web design and accessibility.

I guess I'm the newest David McCullough fan. I started reading 1776 last night and I'm hooked. They call his style "historical narrative." Not a historical novel, and not a straight up history book. He paints the characters vividly, and really shows how preposterous it was for the Americans to think they could win against the greatest empire in the world (at the time) and how much they were risking for their ideals. It's amazing to me that such a group of men were all born in the same place and same time, and came together to create a new idea. And then had the bravery to fight for it, no holds barred. Sounds like maybe a greater power was moving through all this, eh?

I've been fooling around with the thought of a logo/central concept for this thing- it's an evolving idea that's moving towards what my [future] design firm might be like. "Outside the box" was clever back in the day, but has since become cliche. Yet the original thought behind the phrase is intriguing. With the box representing conventional thought, the phrase suggests that somehow we can get beyond into the implied infinite space "outside." The problem is that the box keeps expanding, and what was outside yesterday is inside today.
My thought is: let's unfold the box. Conventional thinking has much to offer. Let's disassemble it and understand where we came from. Let's explode the pieces and then glue them back together in a new form. Let's examine why some things are inside and others are outside.
Of course, the implication unfolding is that you have to already be outside the box in order to do all that. Without actually stating it. Anyone who has to say they're "outside" probably isn't. I'm not sure where I am, but I'm trying to take "the box" apart and to understand both sides, inside and out. Who knows, maybe there isn't even a box.
How's that for post-modern thinking? Tomorrow's cliche- you heard it here first.

Here's a "greatest hits" from MXC, one of the funniest shows around. Alice and I have literally been rolling on the ground laughing when we've watched this. They've taken one of those crazy Japanese game shows, which is hilarious by itself, and dubbed over with a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle jokes. Listen for "rectal shaver" from the announcers.

Well, 2008 is off to a rough start for my blogging. But it seems to be like that for everyone, given the low number of posts on all the blogs I check regularly (especially the wigshop crew).
It's been a busy few weeks for me. The hard drive of my beloved MacBook Pro fried. I finally found out on Friday that it's a total loss. Luckily we have Apple Care, so it's all covered. I should be getting it back (fixed, but completely blank) by the end of the week.
One reason things are hectic: we're probably buying a house. The bank gave us preliminary approval last week. So we've been alternating between being stoked to freaking out all weekend thinking about it. More on all that later...

This morning on the way to work there were clouds massed on the eastern horizon. They extended from the ground up to what must have been several miles high. In the morning sunlight it looked like huge snow-covered alpine mountains had grown overnight next to the city. It was cool.
I love mountains. Imagining the Alps next to Knoxville was more exhilarating than I expected. I really do love them. Not that the Appalachians are not good enough, but big untamed jagged mountains get to my soul and imagination.
Just a short thought I wanted to share...

one step closer to the inevitable. Happy New Year!