Robocon

Does anybody remember Robocon? I used to like this guy when I was a kid for some reason. I can't remember why.

I had this cool toy that looked almost just like the one shown here. He had all these neat gadgets. You could turn his eyes into different expressions, his antennae could be turned around, you could pull his arms and legs out accordian style, he had wheels on his feet, and you can open his chest hood thing to reveal his "engine" parts.

Really strange character when you think about it. Just another one of those weird Japanese creations. I had nearly forgotten all about him until one day about 10 years back I was walking around downtown and I walked into this collectibles store. I saw the exact same Robocon toy sitting in a glass shelf and the guy was selling it for something like $70!!

I was tempted to buy it. Just for the nostalgia. I would kill to see a Robocon show or something to remind me where I must have seen him before. Kind of the same feeling I got watching Kikaida again years later. These are shows I used to watch when I was no older then 4 or 5.

I'm old.

Deep thoughts

I don't know where this thought came from but it just did one night. I remembered one day in high school some of the guys were sitting around on the school lot somewhere just talking.

One guy, Mel, suddenly turns to me and says, "Raph, you got no ass". ..........................

Yeah! Exactly! What do you say to that? I don't remember if I said anything. What do I say? "Um..ok" I think ever since then I've had a complex about my ass hahah. Maybe I need to invent an ass bra.

Then I got another Seinfeld moment. The episode where George had a comment from a coworker "The ocean just called, they're running out of shrimp." He didn't know what to say but spends the entire episode trying to rebutt that with, "Oh yeah?! The jerk store just called, and they're running out of YOU".

So now I'm thinking of my answer almost 15 years later.... "WTF are you looking at my ass for anyway Mel?" Heheheh. I mean, seriously...... how gay is that? Definitely "jerk store" material.....

Fishes in the sea

...ok. Not in the sea. It's my fish tank. I have 3...NO, 2 fishes left in it. How incredibly pathetic.

Last week I found out my fish XiaoHouXi ("little monkey") ended up missing. Missing usually means he's in the belly of one of the other remaining fishes. When I populated this fish tank about 9 months ago now I had 3 feeder fishes and about 15 blue neon tetras.

One by one the tetras would disappear suddenly and I SWEAR the big fat feeder fish would be innocently swimming around the tank whistling to himself.

Then finally all I had left was the 3 feeder fish. I told myself, "well, at least XiaoHouXi" is here. He's an ugly feeder fish but I was proud of him because he was the tiniest fish in the tank at one time (thus the name -- tiniest rascal in the tank) Now even he's gone. I only have these 2 fish here.... this psycho Jack Nicholson fish who's probably eyeballing the other one right as we speak. /sigh.

I woke up at 4am today and then I made the mistake to think about my project in bed. End of story...I couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up to see if Christy was awake...sure enough she was! It was nice having her to talk for a while until I got back to bed. She's doing alright except for a flu she picked up the other day. No...not bird flu. At least I hope not!!

The project I was thinking about is the Lawyer one. It's actually coming out quite nice, I'm pretty happy with it so far. But what I might like could end up being trash to my client so I've learned not to celebrate this early in the process. I just have to do the best I can then offer this to them and see what they like or dislike.

It's very bold...strong colors. The cool thing about it is that I managed to actually make use of the practice photos Andy and I took the other week. So this camera is working out for me already. Because it's such a hi-rez, I managed to used the cool shapes and patterns I found around the building itself. Hard to explain but I'm pretty excited about how it's turning out.

I have to reveal the first take to them on Wednesday. I pray to god they like it. This one could be a little dangerous because so far they're doing "design-by-commitee". They go around asking everyone to comment on it. While this is a natural thing for people to do, it doesn't bode well for the design process because you can never make everyone in an office happy. You still need one person who can make a decision and stick with it. I have my fingers crossed....lawyers should be decisive right? RIGHT?!

Going to take a work break today. Shopping for X-mas already..... help me.

Promises

So my girlfriend and I had our first .... misunderstanding....the other day.

I had promised to take her to see many things when she comes. The Hawaiian sunset, the beach out at Lanikai, sample the mac pancakes over at Boots & Kimo....etc. You know...the good stuff!

I blame context. We were talking and all of a sudden she says "What did you say?". What did I say? Here I am trying to dig through my memory of all our months of conversation wondering what I might have told her and forgotten.

"You aren't joking? You really forgot?" EEEEP!! Pressure!!

I finally decide to take the noble road and say "Baby, I really forgot.... ". *Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* I'll take 'what is a wrong answer for 100 please'.

Later I finally dig it out from her that it was all the former promises from the trip. I further complicate the issue by saying "Those weren't promises....I would take you to all those places anyway". *Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Suffice to say I think she was upset. I think this is fundamental between guys and girls. This is exactly why they can have so many shows on TV where the guy is always the dufus and the girl is always the poor soul who has to put up with him.

What I'm saying, and what she's hearing is totally different. I'm saying "I have a mad crush on you, so I would have taken you to the moon whether I had promised you or not". She's hearing "You would have taken me anyway....so these things are not special for me" Right?

Hmmm...all's well though. It was just our first tiny thing and it's over. I can see all my married friends rolling their eyes thinking "That's just the beginning Raph" hahah.

My chocolate lady logo client cancelled yesterday. It's not that she didn't like it. But it sounds like something came up and she had to cancel plans. Kind of disappointing because I had really enjoyed making the logo...but such is life and business.

Thanksgiving was good, had a feast over at my Aunt's house. Our once-a-year gettogether. I had fun playing with a family dog named Samo (after Samo Hung...very little resemblence don't you think?). Adorable little guy. I want a dog.

Well....back to work! Gotta jam on the Lawyer's site. A prelim is due on Wednesday so I better get working. I have it all in my head but now it's just crunching down with Photoshop for a few hours to get it all visualized. I think the idea I have will be cool I'm sure of it. It's something I had an idea for a few years back but never had the opportunity to use.

Work work work.....

Playing tourist

Worked right up till midnight again...sometimes this is rough. I'm tiiiiiiiiiired. "Don't complain Raph... "

Today I managed a little fun though... went out to practice photography with an old coworker from a few years back named Andy. He's apparently been taking photography as a serious hobby now for like 3 or 4 years. In the case of photography, I learned not only is it HOW you use it, it really DOES matter how big it is too. Bigger camera lenses as big as my forearm are pretty kickass when you're wanting to catch a photo of someone scratching their ass halfway across town!

Anyway, I managed a few good shots today I'm pretty proud of. We walked around a few places around downtown. It was good...I got a few tips from Andy. My main problem right now as an amatuer is learning how to compose a shot. There's an art to making a photo look good so that it's compelling for someone to look at. There has to be a focus too.

I like the first building shot. That was taking from the top of Aloha Tower. It's a great vantage point but what sucks about it is that it's not open early enough to get the sunrise, nor open late enough for the sunset. Both magic hours for good photography. Anyway, that building is where my law firm client is at. I think that will work well on a design I'm working on for them. It's a bit under-exposed but my camera brakets different exposures for me and this one I like because it brings out the window reflection better and I can see the details of the clouds.

Later I went down to the bottom of Aloha Tower itself and took one. This one turned out pretty nice. Pretty decent angle. I think the only thing preventing it from being a perfect shot is that I should have stood just a little bit to the right to capture those trees on the right side as well. Otherwise, I love the blueness of the sky.

The last one was a pretty boring shot in terms of any object to look at. I should have picked something to focus on. But I love the colors that I got this late afternoon. Very serene!!! Aaaaaaah.

Not bad for a newbie photographer eh? Hot diggity!!! .................. where did that come from?

Pee & Poo

Oh my god...this is funny. Someone created Pee and Poo dolls! I actually think they're kind of cute heheh. I can see why they're selling though.... sometimes it's worth a laugh. Can you imagine opening this up for Christmas?

I need to come up with something like that. Someone will ask me, "What did you make?" "Oh I just created shit," I'd answer.

Been spending my last couple days drawing like a madman. Yes...drawing. Paper and pencil. I'm finding out I'm still a lot faster getting my ideas out on a piece of paper rather then on the computer. That's surprising considering how much more time I've spent using my computer as a tool for design. But sometimes the old school way is still the best way... and it's the fastest way. I save costs by doing things fast.

I sketched out some logo ideas for my chocolate client. Hahah. I shouldn't be giving my client's names (at least not till the job is done) so I'll call her the "Chocolate lady" Anyway, it seems like she's caught a liking to maybe 2 out of the 9 I presented to her. That's good. I'll show the whole series here one day once the final logo is completed. Sometimes I like watching how other artists work their process....so I'll show mine.

Then tonight I had to jam on sketching out a concept for a fitness club gentleman I met. This one will be fun but I suspect it might be expensive to get my idea on the screen as I would need a good photographer and a stylist. I'm trying to get some good old fashioned Hawaiian themed images based off of their old sports and Makahiki games.

OOH, darn...just remembered I still need to do color-scheme work tonight for my law firm clients. UGH.... I guess I'm not off duty yet.

The nice thing that I discovered lately was this old stash of art supplies I had in my closet. Art pencils, rulers, tracing paper, bezier curve stencils, protractors, color pencils & pens, etc etc. They were given to me by an old elementary school friend named YJ that had visited me once after many years I hadn't seen him. There were 2 guys in elementary I would consider as better sketch artists then me at the time.... Mel and YJ.

Anyway, YJ had given me ALL his art supplies after having gone through college art school. At the time, I was like "oh thanks.... " I mean, I appreciated it, but how was I to know how much until this weekend when I really was looking for EXACTLY those things.

I had lost track of YJ again....for all I know he's in Korea doing god knows what. He was a good friend.... we just drifted apart findig different interests. I hope he's doing well out there. THANKS FOR THE ART SUPPLIES YJ!!!

Back to work....

Late

I got fined my first late fee in years by my new business credit card. I had a perfect spotless record so far too in all my credit reports. DAMN!

What happened was I have this new credit card with Bank of America and a new business account with Central Pacific Bank. CPB has pretty friendly staff people, but I find their online services are about 4 years behind.... transactions take 24 hours to show up, and the system is just horribly designed.

For my personal account I had been using First Hawaiian for years. Their online banking system is much better, I have it do almost all my bill payments and that's how I basically have never missed a due date.

It's good practice to give it a 5 days lead time to have checks processed to the recipient. But I found 1st Hawaiian's system to be efficient enough where I can cut it pretty close to the date due and it would still get there on time.

CPB on the other hand, promised me 2 days for electronic payment to my card, but after the date it was processed it reported it would take 5 days!!! ACHK. /sigh. so much for a spotless record to my business. It's my fault for not being more careful though.... another early business mistake.

I guess we all have to learn the hard way sometimes.....

Sleeeepy...

Tired...so so tired. Almost every night I work till about 12 - 12:30am. By the time I sleep it's maybe 1am - 1:30am in the morning. Get up at about 8am and power though again.

I mean, it's work...or work related stuff that I'm ending up spending my day in. For example, yesterday:

8am - check email
9am - gym
11am - buy lunch, get home, work on Flash project
2pm - wash my car, practiced photography for about 2 hours
5:30 - midnight. Worked on Law firm project.

Today:

8am - check email
9am - shoot photography for my client for 2 hours
11:30am - helped a buddy get his biz license
1:30pm - work on Flash project
3:30pm - talked with Christy for a bit
4:30pm - worked on Law firm project
8pm - drove out to bookstore to work on Logo project & buy photography book
9pm - dinner...almost every place was closed...came home and ate cup-o-noodles. Sad.
10pm - sitting here unable to think... doing my best zombie impression.

So I wouldn't pretend my time is completely maximized and efficient, but I DO keep pretty occupied. Weekends are the same schedule really. This is how self-employment is.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to plop my butt down at some Starbucks and brainstorm logos all day. I have these two fat books called "The Big Book of Logos" (good name huh?) that has something like 2500 logos each. Sometimes it's the best way to jar your mind into coming up with ideas.... if that fails at least the books are heavy enough to slam over my head to knock the ideas out of me. Or they make good seat stools so I can look that much more taller then everyone else.

Tubby

Spent my day working. I forget where this quote was from....was it Ferris Bueller? "Funny thing when your unemployed, weekends and holidays don't mean quite as much."

It's so true! Sometimes I don't even know what day it is. I'm working right on through the weekends, days & night. The tradeoff is that I can decide to go to the beach in the middle of the day or catch a matinee movie on a whim if I want to.

Today I got a contract signed. Fair enough to say it was with Tiki's Grill and Bar. Super nice guys there and the food is just awesome. Try this kiawe grilled fish dish there, that's ONO! Today I had this grilled chicken pasta that was great too but a little heavy, I couldn't finish it. It's best I don't give too many details of what I'm doing for them, but I'm pretty happy about it.

Anyway, this will be a huge project that will tide me over till January along with all the other project commitments I have.

I had debated doing a spur of the moment trip in Christmas to surprise Christy....but at this point I think I might be too busy this season. Might have to pick something else to surprise her with.

My stomach is a little sore. I recently picked up doing abdomen exercises to my regular gym routine. There's this machine that does these super crunches.... first time I did it a few weeks ago I swear I had a hard time sitting up for 3 weeks. I guess since I'm sore, it's effective?

I gotta get my stomach tone back. There's probably nothing worse for a skinny guy like me to have a paunch belly....like a starving Ethiopian. .................. ok, that wasn't very P.C. but you know exactly what I mean don't you? I used to be able to see bricks in high school, but that was cheat because I was so skinny there was probably no natural fat at all to cover it.

I'll get there. It's slow going though...getting rid of stomach fat is super hard. Even when I was running a lot, I was losing fat in every area except my tubby tummy. Summmammabeeetch!

Ah! Judge Judy is on!!!! Signing off....

Credit cards

God I HATE using credit cards. I spent 3 years finally getting all my personal credit debt out of the way now I have this business one that's building up. Of course, the rule is not to spend what I don't have... but to have a balance sitting there at ALL is driving me nuts.

They always say -- Build your business credit, pay off total amounts, but let the balance sit on the card till it's due so that your money can earn that interest while still in your bank.

True. I understand the concept. But AAAAH, I hate looking at the balance add up like that! No Sir I don't like it.

SPOILER ALERT!! Skip to the next paragraph if ya haven't watched LOST yet!

LOST was fun to watch yesterday. I KNEW that chick was going. There was just no story left for her. The whole step brother thing didn't work out so what's left for her to do? Besides, she wasn't that great an actress. Boy I love this show. Oh now there's going to be hell to pay for that Michelle Rodrigues character huh?!!!

OK, spoil info pau.

Well.... gotta practice with my camera each day. This thing is nuts. The manual itself is THICK! It was about an inch thick when I first picked it up but I realized 2/3rds of it was foreign language. It's still a huge amount of info though. My eyes glaze over. This is definitely fun!

Business is strong so far. I'm so grateful. There's people looking out for me, clients giving me advice, good friends giving me support.......... this is the best time I've had in years.

Suuuuhweeeet!!

INCONCEIVABLE!!!

What a day....

So I go off to the camera store today and ended up walking out after spending $1060 on a freakin' camera. Buyer's regret? Uh....I had one or two moments of it yes. The funny thing is, I've spent more then that amount of money before on stuff. My bass guitar, my computers, my audio equipment, etc.

But with a camera, I don't have a point of reference. Take a computer for instance. I know how much it how much it should be if you want a high end model, how much it is if you mail order it, how much it is if you build it yourself... so I can tell someone intending to spend $1000 on it and say "yeah, that's a pretty good deal."

But a camera....I have no clue. The last one I bought was about 5 years ago when 1.3 Megapixels was the shizznit. And then I spent $300 on that one. Now I'm jumping from that to $1000? Yikes! So that's where I hesitated.

ANYWAY, I ended up getting this sweet Olympus DSLR camera that came with 2 lenses. 8MP. Ask me anything else about it and I'll give you a blank stare. F-stop, ISO, Aperture, blah blah....I have no clue. Sad huh? But I needed this for a client next week...there's no way I'm bringing my dinky 1.3 camera on a project at this point. They'd laugh in my face. This way I can get some quick great shots and have great fun too!

I think my dad was more excited about this then I was. I brought him with me to the store and he was asking questions about it that I wouldn't even use. "How big a print does this do?" "Does this fit my lenses?" What!!? Who's buying this camera? Heheh. It helped to bring him along though...

I'd go back to that store again. Kaimuki Camera. Great place...SUPER friendly owner. I had heard they were good and I can see why. The owner Neil knew I didn't know a THING yet he took the time to answer all my questions. I think that was worth at least a portion of this investment to be able to go back there as a regular and seek his help. I guess that's what you get when you give good customer service. Duly noted.

OK, so now I get home reeling from this big purchase. Lo and behold I get a call.... I landed a huge high-profile client today. More then covered the expense of this camera and then some. SWWEEET! Damn this business thing is fun!

Now if only I can take a focused shot with this camera..........

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

Hahahah. I made Christy try to say that Hawaiian word. I'm so cruel. Here I am trying to make a person who can speak more English then I can speak Chinese, pronouce one of the longest Hawaiian words in existance! I think it's cute. She tried so hard. I told her that's the password into my house...otherwise she'd stand outside like a crazy girl yelling "HumuhumunuuuukuNUKUAPUUUUUAAAAAAh AAAAHHH" I'm bad.

Work is both good and nuts at the same time. Stacked up. Which is great I can't complain. It's just a little work keeping things running smooth and not going into pure panic mode where nothing gets done. I keep having to tell myself, "One thing at a time Raph, you can do it". I really should post giant notes on my wall with stuff like that.

I got a logo to design. A Flash movie. A Law Firm website. A Insurance website.

On top of that I have 2 others lying in wait for my client to tell me to proceed. And 3 other proposed projects with positive signs they'll sign. Whoa nelly. But no complaints from me. Just gotta keep my head down and working hard. I don't even have time for grocery shopping, my refrigerator is empty I've been going out for lunch and dinner.
Yeah I know, the time spent getting my meals I could be grocery shopping. But the thought of spending a couple hours wading through crowds of people is not something I normally enjoy.

I have to buy a camera this week. Next week I need it for a job. Such a hard decision because there's so many. The camera I KNOW I like is a billion gaggilion dollars *finger to my mouth*
Canon Digital Rebel XT. Whereas this is a less professional camera for about $200 less, not even counting the lenses. Panasonic FZ30. No doubt the Canon is a proven camera. But I think I'm not worthy. So now, do I settle for less? That's not my usual method of operation. Such a tough choice. I need to purchase something tomorrow I think....ugh.

Well, time to make my coffee and work.....

Cool gift!

My sista made me this cool shirt using stencils. Cool huh? Had to make pictures here to give it mad props. So sweet...

But now people can look at the t-shirt, and then look up at me and go "What happened?!"

OK, the damn thing is backwards because I'm taking a goofy picture in the mirror ok? How mental is that.... taking a picture of myself in the mirror.

I've stopped pretending. I'm about one notch short being declared "completely and irrevokably insane." As if my 2nd picture isn't proof enough.....

Crazy schedule

OK OK OK OK OK OK OK. Calm down Raph. I suppose this 2 cups of java I just had right now isn't helping me calm my nerves.

I'm in one of my mad semi-panic phases where I'm looking at all the projects and commitments I have and I'm fighting panic. I don't suppose everyone goes through life like this...especially in my line of work. I'm sure there are designers who look at all the stuff they do and just wade through it calmly.

But I don't. I've been in these situations before and they always come out fine. But it's not without a good amount of good old fashioned panic where I'm just trying to do 10 things at once. The funny thing is, I don't usually like this feeling, but history has taught me I thrive best when I get in this situation. It's like it pushes me into the zone where I can just bang out the work.

So I almost welcome this feeling as crazy as it sounds. I bury myself in work till I get paniced and then get it all done. Weird huh?

It's crazy all the stuff I have to do this week. 4 project commitments...not all of them are due but they're certainly enough to keep me well occupied and juggling my time schedule. I most certainly have to start pushing new customers off till December. Which shouldn't be so bad since that's only 3 weeks away. Time passes way too fast!

Let's see...today. My damn bathroom light is near death...it's 75% dimmer this morning and it's flickering in this near-epileptic inducing rate it's making me feel like I'm in some Matrix movie as I'm brushing my teeth this morning. I'll have to swing by home depot tonight.

Dad's birthday dinner tonight too. Same place it seems....Fook Yuen. Or commonly known as "Fuck You In" if you don't know any better. I swear, sometimes foreign language speakers need to consult with the native business people before naming their restaurants. Right next to Fook Yuen is Phuket Thai. Dear God. A lot of Phuks over there in that one area. Yes, it's immature of me to think of it, I know the proper pronunciation....but don't tell me you didn't THINK the same thing to yourself.

Phone calls.... briiiing.

Ah, my upstairs neighbor needs help typing up an invoice. AAAH Another task on my endless schedule.

Time to dig in and work!!

Business Psychology

Business is 95% human psychology and only 5% work.

Seriously... the time you take setting up the advertising, meeting the customer, writing up a proposal, having the meetings, drafting an agreement, planning a solution, finding vendors, etc are all having to do with with managing human expectations.

Only 5% of your time is actually doing the work. That sucks donkey dung.

Every person you talk to, you're deciding how much you can push or draw back. Everyone wants every their way, so we're all just ultimately pushing to see how much pissing territory we can claim for ourselves.

If I push too light, I end up getting the short end of the stick. Push too hard, I look like an ass & I lose business. So it's all just mind-reading to determine what you can get away with.

They don't teach this in business college. They really should make psychology a part of the curriculum.

Today was all about contract negotiation bullshit. Can you tell I'm frustrated about it? UGH. It's the worse. Right up next to dealing with taxes as the most dreadful, but necessary, part of business. That old country song should be the theme of the day "...know when to hold em, know when to walk away"

I held out for somethings. I walked away for others. I guess ultimately I'm proud of having stood up for my business, but sick of having to do it at all. /sigh.

Rant done. I feel better.

Whereas this, whereas that....

Kind of weird right now. I have a lot of work, yet I don't? Does that make sense?

Well, to put it clearer, I have a lot of commitments made to people, but none of them are ready. So here I am sitting on a mound of work I can't start yet. I don't really like being put in this situation but that's the way it is in this business. What's likely to happen now is that they all come in at once and say they're finally ready to go. Then I would be burning the midnight oil like crazy to get everything done.

But I'm not complaining. It's still good to have commitments then none at all.

Today I had to deal with contracts. Not only am I giving them out to people, but I'm also having to make commitments to others...everything from referral contracts, terms of services, non-disclosures, etc. All of which makes me and my company liable for these promises I make. It all comes with the territory but I sure as hell aren't a lawyer. Some of these things can make my head spin and I often have to read these things several times over to make sure I don't make promises I can't keep, or worse yet, make a promise that will fuck my company up for an indefinite period. Legal terms suck.... this is a conspiracy by lawyers to make things so hard you can't understand it. Why can't people say things in these contract that are just plain English?

No siree. I watch enough Judge Judy during my lunch breaks now to know contracts are important hehe.

I picked up my first "big" company equipment purchase last week. A Treo 650 phone. The one that's like a phone and a PDA. I've been good at restricting my spending so far, but the offer just looked too good. Not to mention I had a friend who hooked me up. That's always good huh? The thing is neat.... I now have a wireless headset and I can do all my scheduling on it too. All my contacts email address & phone numbers. My 1216246 passwords. I can even do my Word & Excel stuff on it...AND check and reply to my email as well. It's a geek's paradise I tell you. Once I sell my other PDA I think I should be within my desired spending limit on it.

It just feels uncomfortable making such a big purchase. Still....I'm not in debt. Yay!! Gotta keep an eye on that.

Christy's doing great. Love of my life. Hahaha. Has it gone that far? Yeah, I'm afraid it's progressed to the point where we're pretty much in that phase of a relationship where we're already dropping the pet nicknames. Remember that Sienfield episode where Jerry and his girlfriend where doing all the "shmoopy" pet names and it was driving George and Elaine crazy? Well..... I think we're well into the shmoopyness hahah.

So shameful....we're both aware of the silliness of it all too. Here we are...a Master's Degree registered nurse, and a Graphic Designer with a new business talking like a couple of school kids. I guess it's the new relationship "magic" and I'm fully aware that this magic doesn't last forever. It either mutates to something else -- better or worse. So we're juicing it for all it's worth now!!