so i’m sitting in a little coffee shop off of lyndale in minneapolis, using my newly aquired wireless card to sap a free internet connection. in turn i’m using the free internet connection to surf out random bits and pieces of info on the web, email friends and family, and, perhaps narcisistically, bantering off here, to my website. sipping my chai lattÔø‡ i can lean back and sigh (as a bevy of indy-rock fills my headphone covered ears) fully content in the fact that i am yuppified.

oi!

and how truly easy it is to change and transfer lifestyles for the young and mobile these days. two months ago i could qualify as an adventuresome world traveller, two weeks ago a dutiful son, two days ago an unemployed twenty-something, tomorrow a design nerd, and two months from now a granola-eating ground-pounder (read: trail construction in sequoia national park). i’ve spanned a great many roles in the last year alone, and a great many more are to come.

as for the immediate future, i’ll be designing again as i wander back to aid and abet the happenings at those who helped launch me as the designer i am today - storeworks. in light of the fact that i’ll be returning to work (and building up to be a more current design Ôø‡ber nerd than i have been lately), some fun links:

first off, you can nail down that ever elusive color and astrology reading in an official manner thanks to pantone. my life can be handed down to a very specific shade of earthy-green: pms 18-0332. go figure that my cynical self is actually quite pleased with the color - kind of a favorite o’ mine. will the wonders never cease?

second, turn off the tube, and get the hell outside, into a book, into conversation, into anything other than the television set. this week is tv turn-off week. namely, it’s a week with a stated goal of getting people to spend that (very usable) 1-5 hours a day doing anything other than watching commercials. and yes, that includes movies too. do yourself a favor and grab onto the spring weather before it moves on - celebrate it regardless. rainy and cold? in august you’ll crave it, enjoy it now like you would then. dig into a book you’ve been aching to for years/months/days and hide with it in a corner until you’re done. grab a friend, grab some coffee/wine/beer/water/whatever and chat it up until dawn. engage in human contact, the simple miracle of life, good music, anything.

and, finally, a good way to feel slightly depressed, but greatly enlightened - take a tour of your daily ecological footprint on the planet at myfootprint.org. if everyone lived as i did (though i had to fudge some answers due to my ‘homeless’ status) we’d need 16 earths to support us all. give it a shot - the answers might surprise you.