Shane Recommends

Here are the best things I came across on the infinite abyss I like to call the Interweb in 2009. If you pay any attention to my tweets or my “Net Worthy” section on the right side of my blog you most likely already saw all of these. Enjoy™

The Four Ways People Decide

Style VS. Design

Creating a Timeless User Experience

Goodbye, Google

The secrets of Google’s design team

10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

Can You Be a Web Designer?

Start-up Metrics that Matter by Dave McClure

Great Designs Should Be Experienced and Not Seen

Handcrafted CSS

Still Fighting

Sunday I was driving home from church and I was listening to Ben Folds Five and this song came on and it seemed to perfectly tell the story of my life and where I am right now, and my sentiments.

Good morning, son.
I am a bird
Wearing a brown polyester shirt
You want a coke?
Maybe some fries?
The roast beef combo’s only $9.95
It’s okay, you don’t have to pay
I’ve got all the change
Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It’s so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We’re still fighting it, we’re still fighting it
And you’re so much like me
I’m sorry
Good morning, son
In twenty years from now
Maybe we’ll both sit down and have a few beers COKES
And I can tell you ‘bout today
And how I picked you up and everything changed
It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you’d feel the same things
Everybody knows
It sucks to grow up
And everybody does

You’ll try and try and one day you’ll fly
Away from me
Good morning, son
I am a bird

And you’re so much like me
I’m sorry

I edited it a bit, but included the song below for your listening pleasures.

As the years go along in my life I learn more and more about my faults, and how life is such a beautiful struggle and a constant battle between myself. Then I look into my children’s eyes and their innocence, purity, and love radiates from within their young souls. I begin to think about the conversations we will have in the future when the innocence slowly wears thin, and the world begins to bring it’s awful woes. When the storm clouds of reality begin to flood their life, and the bitterness that accountability will bring. The greatest advice ANYONE can give is that, “Everybody knows it hurts to grow up, but everybody does. The years go on and we’re still fighting it.”

Then I think about the conversations I wish I could have with my father at this episode of life. What advice and wisdom would he be able to give me over a coke and some fries? How much did his life change when he picked me up? Perhaps he would give the same advice as Ben Folds…

Keep the fight alive, and never give up… Endure to the end.

Enjoy™

Two Weeks: Grizzly Bear

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Beautiful music, and an amazing video. What is more amazing is the fact that this isn’t even the actual video.

“This is a fan video I’ve been working on for a few months now. Not to be confused with the official music video which is really cool. Hope you like it.”

Here’s the actual music video for a comparison.

Stop following directions and start designing

“Of course it is totally understandable to take the ideas of those that pay our bills as gospel. But we should also be reminded that those same people hired us for our expertise. If they just wanted someone to follow orders, they’d probably have hired someone else.”

Read the entire article.

Read Me the Apple Tree Book

For the past week or maybe two every night I carry Hannah to bed and then she says, “Will you read me the apple tree book?”

So I read her the book, and I think I have the first half of the book memorized. Tonight I was able to read it without looking at it. Luckily it’s a great story, it reminds me of our relationship with Heavenly Father. At the same time it is a perfect life lesson as the boy is always wanting worldly things, like first he comes and says he needs money to make him happy, and so the tree offers him her apples to take and sell so that he will have money and be happy. Next he wants a house and a wife, so the tree offers up her branches so he can build himself a house. When he returns sad and depressed again he thinks he needs a boat to make him happy, so the tree offers up her trunk to make him happy, and finally he returns an old and dying man, and all the tree has left is a stump for him to rest upon, and that is when the boy realizes (I hope) that none of that stuff brings happiness, but true happiness comes from US being MORE like the tree and giving, and giving, and giving. The more we forget about ourselves and instead care for others is when we truly understand love & life.

The only thing that saddened the tree was when the boy didn’t come around, but when the boy was around the tree was anxious to give itself to the boy entirely. The act of giving is what constantly brought happiness and meaning to the trees existence.

So let us all give a little more, and let us all not care so much about money, cars, houses, TV’s, computers, toys, & other worldly things that only bring temporary happiness as it quenches our appetites for only a short amount of time. Instead let us be anxiously engaged in helping and giving of our time, talents, and efforts to others.

Fifty People, One Question: New York

“We asked the same question and it took us somewhere new. Gone were the lazy days of summer. A cool breeze swept the streets with leaves under foot and the familiar hustle of the city…welcome to autumn in New York.”