It’s been about three months since myself and corporate America parted as friends. I’m still eating well (possibly, a bit too well), I have heat, and my bills are paid. One aspect that I am still struggling with is the constant sense that I am not doing what I’m supposed to be doing to survive. Don’t get me wrong, I am not anxious at all. In fact, it’s the lack of the familiar anxiety and stress that feels foreign – even three months later. What I currently do for income doesn’t feel anything like what I’ve done for the last fifteen years of my life. I have to keep reminding myself that this is exactly where I am supposed to be and doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I just have to get over the fact that I feel like I’m on vacation.

I just read a great article regarding Doing what you love and starving. At the bottom is some key points to doing what you love:

Remember that, in the end, the key to career contentment is a job that:

— isn’t too hard or too easy

— has a boss who’s kind and helpful

— involves an ethical product or service

— requires a reasonable commute

— pay reasonable well and offers benefits

— doesn’t require 70 hour work weeks

— offers opportunities to learn and grow.

You can see the animation here.

There is something to be said about home cooking, especially when it’s done by someone else. Jill gave me some potato soup she had made and might I say, it was exceptional. I invite myself over for dinner frequently to help rid them of their potential leftovers. It’s a small contribution to the family, but everyone must do their part.

When we sit down to eat, after Gus says grace, we go around the table with “best and worst”. What was the best thing that happened to you today and what was the worst? Sometimes, it’s the same thing. What this game does, besides generate interesting dinner table conversation, is it makes you take inventory on your day. What did you do today, what happened to you, was it good or bad?

Okay, here’s mine…

Best –

I had lunch with Larry at Monterrey’s today and we caught up.

Worst –

I left a load of towels in the washer for a couple of days.

How about you?

If you’re interested, (Click Here) here’s the animation.

It’s Flash.

This is what I’ve been working on all day. Sometimes, I get my creative fix with someone else’s idea. This is the map to the swamp project I’ve been working on. I know Tim Hynes would think it looks cool. He’s an incredible illustrator. I have to admit, I wouldn’t have taken Flash as far as I have regarding graphics if Tim didn’t show us what exactly was possible. Now, that was a neat experience, to see raw talent push a tool to do things it wasn’t intended to do. His vision just had to come out and he wasn’t going to stop until it did.

And it did.

It is really difficult to put a value on something like that. What makes Tim any different than any other pioneer in their field? Most other professions have what they call ROI Which is Return on Investment. If you build a better widget than the competition, that makes you money. Better still, you can figure out how much it’s going to cost to develop the better widget and how much more you’ll earn over time as a result of the initial investment. If you take vector shapes and create a brilliant piece of art and it takes eight hours, it’s not worth the effort. Especially if you can buy a stock photo of the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

So much for the practical application…

Bummer, Kevin. We need more unicorn poop, Dude.

This is what I have been working on today. I wanted to show what the scene looks like “put together”.

My house has been taken over by pre-teen boys, therefore, my entry will be truncated due to the overwhelming desire to play Minecraft. Unfortunately, this is the best computer to play on and I don’t really have the strength to argue.

This is what I’ve been working on today. Not really a sketch, but it’s from my head and hands, so it qualifies. There will be a lot going on in the center of the image. I am developing some animal characters for it as well.

This is Flash. I use it mostly for animations and such. The graphics were created in it. If you think my stuff is good, Tim Hynes has perfected the skill of vector graphic creation in Flash. Here are some prime examples; Drum, Comic, Lunchbox and Helmet.