I just won my first award, and you know what? It’s totally bitchin’. Like, hyper-super bitchin’.

When I say first, I mean my first award outside of the various awards you pick up in college. You know the kind, Best Portfolio, Best Projectile Vomit, Student Gone the Longest Without Showering, etc.

No, this one is an Applied Arts Interactive Award.

The redesign of Gelaskins.com done by the great people at Teehan+Lax is what scored. On the team specifically, was Shannon Weir and Christy MacLeod (Project Managers), Steve Taubman (Designer, now Art Director) and myself.

I did it. I made the jump. I’m leaving Teehan+Lax.

Let’s just let that sink in.

Still with me? Good. This was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made, but ultimately, the best one for me at this moment. I joined the team at T+L in the fall of 2008, it was a bold move knowing the caliber of work and the amount of really f’n smart people that were behind it. We’re talking, like, really, really smart. I was coming from a place where I was THE front-end developer – the mack shit, if you will – and was quickly knocked off that pedestal when introduced the work of the other developers. Not just the work, but what they were capable of, and what was expected of them. These guys could build anything and everything – and in probably less than an hour.

Humbling? Hell yes.

It wasn’t just the devs, but also the brains behind the projects. To put it bluntly, the partners at T+L are brilliant people. All of them understand the web unlike anyone I’ve ever met before. They take risks, they know what works (and what doesn’t), and how to connect everything together.

I’ve learned more than I ever thought my brain handle, and built things I never thought I could build. I’ve been pushed to be the best I could be and step up my game in all aspects of my career. I’ve met people that have challenged me, supported me and exposed me to all sorts ridiculous cute animal videos.

So why am I leaving?

Relish Interactive is a small shop and I’ll be heading up their front-end development. I’ll be able to collaborate on creative projects, help form dev best practices, and have the opportunity to create amazing things. Not to mention, I get a shitload of vacation and a desk near Sacha.

The guys at Relish are not only good looking and full of charm and charisma, they’re also badass and very involved in the Toronto interactive community. They produce great work, support a creative environment, and bathe regularly. I really couldn’t ask for more and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of their team.

A few weeks ago, I met with Grant Van Gameren. This was the first time I had met him, but definitely not the first time I had tasted his tongue. You see, Grant Van Gameren is the co-owner and chef at The Black Hoof, and his Tongue on Brioché is quite easily the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

As much as I wanted to indulge in bone marrow and foie gras, this meeting was strictly business.

Currently, Grant is using his blog, Charcuterie Sundays, as the main online presence for The Black Hoof. Looking to move from Blogspot to WordPress, we talked about a few options. After a lot of discussion, we figured out that developing an entirely new website with blog integration would be the best option. A quick call to John Thai, and 10 minutes later we’re onboard for doing a complete design and build for The Black Hoof.

Really fucking cool, right?

After brainstorming with John for a few hours, I can say I’m really, really , really excited for this one. We’ve got some great ideas and Grant seems to be really into them. Amazing!

In the spring of 2009, I started a small project to help build my Javascript skills, and you know what? It’s kinda almost sorta completed – but not really. I wanted to make things extremely difficult challenge myself to learn the basics of Javascript, without the help of libraries and thought that creating a slider puzzle would be a great thing to build.

I’ve been fairly eager to share this project with everyone, and had planned on waiting until it was fully complete, but I started thinking that it would be interesting to document the project in stages.

Here’s the first iteration.

First thing you’ll notice, yeah it’s kind of backwards.

Some things I want to have in the future:

• Randomization of the pieces onload aka works the way it should
• Some sort of “Hurrah” message if you complete the puzzle
• Fancy-pants animations
• Some sort of easter egg involving cats or zombies

I also want it to be fairly customizable and accommodate different sized images, variable grids, completion messages etc. Once I get all these features implemented I’ll post the code and you guys can do what you will with it :D

Works in IE6 – 8, Firefox 3, Safari 3… still need to check it in Opera and Chrome.

I was recently going through my bookshelves at home, trying to find some books I could sell or donate. After scanning past titles like The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan and Bitter is the New Black, I came across all my old textbooks. It got me thinking about my days in college and all the people I used to look up to when I was a student, people like Molly Holzschlag, Dan Cederholm, Elliot Jay Stocks, Derek Featherstone and Jason Santa Maria. I looked up to these people as mentors and inspiration, hoping that one day I would be just as bad-ass as they were. I remember asking myself on every project “How would Dan build this?” or “Would Molly be satisfied with how my site validated?”. At some point, I became out of touch with these people. I didn’t have enough time to keep up with their blogs. I didn’t read their new books. I lost interest. And during that time, I had somehow become ok with it.

Fast forward 3 years, 2 jobs and 2,492 hours developing sites for IE6, I’m here at Teehan+Lax, literally just getting off the plane, returning from Carsonified’s FOWD in NYC where I was given an amazing opportunity to hear those very people speak. The first workshop I attended was Molly Holzschlag’s Open Web Standards for the Rich Web. Molly spoke about standards, about her career and about the future of web apps. Hearing her speak about these things made me think about my own career and my approach to web standards and exactly how important they really are. The next workshop was presented by Steve Smith from Ordered List and dabbled heavily in HTML5 and CSS3 with amazing demos of both. Seeing where HTML and CSS are headed was incredible. I had known about a lot of the new tags and CSS rules for some time, but seeing them implemented really made these things a reality.

About an hour into Molly’s workshop, I suddenly felt something. I had this fire within me that I needed to get out. After a few more hours, I could barely sit still. I knew that by the end of the conference I would desperately need to get back to my job and apply everything that I had learned. It was then that I realized how important it is to be inspired.

I started taking a look at how other people found inspiration. One of the best examples I found was Austrian designer, Stefan Sagmeister. He will take a one year sabbatical every 7 years or so where he doesn’t take on any work from clients and uses this time to really rediscover himself as a designer. He has a great section on his website dedicated to inspiration that can be found here.

Now, you may be like myself and not so um, financially stable, and aren’t really able to take a year off work, so lets look at some other ways to find inspiration! This can vary from person to person, but for me, I’m inspired by many things: vintage horror posters, photography, and people. Whether it be art, nature, or even an inanimate object, like a stuffed alligator head (which is available for purchase at The Evolution Store NYC), it’s so very important that you find that thing that inspires you. And that inspiration will push you further than you ever thought possible.

So here I am. Going back through my bookshelf, skimming past titles such as Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies and The Barefoot Contessa: Barefoot in Paris, and I find myself thinking more about what I have around me and where my next inspiration will come from, and if you’re so inclined, follow me on Twitter and find out firsthand.

Originally posted here.

Oh. My.

Just got back from Las Vegas and here are a few things I never want to experience ever again:

1. Spending money – The whole idea of just spending money makes me feel really awkward now, and frankly, I’m tired of it.

2. Buffets – Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

3. Total disregard for personal health and hygene – After spending a week walking behind obese smokers and sitting down at a restaurant to see someone order 2 main courses followed by 1 litre of soda and dessert, I have the sudden urge to spend the next month at the gym.

4. Complaining – I’ve spent the last week with someone who could not stop complaining about every single thing. In turn, John and I complained about him – in fact, I’m still complaining. Sigh.

5. Addiction – Just because you’re playing a Survivor themed slot machine, does not make it ok to spend all your money in the first day of your trip.

I’m sure I could go on… but it’s my birthday and I’m tired – photos up on Flickr.

Looking back on what probably was one of the worst years of my life, I can say with utmost conviction, “Fuck you 2009. Pack your f’n bags, I don’t want to see your face ’round these parts no more. You dirty whore, you’ve done enough damage to myself, my friends and basically anyone else lucky enough to fall into your path of destruction.”

I could go on, but I’d like to keep things clean for the ladies.

Among the things that happened in 2009 (affairs, executions, injuries, death, war, famine, pestilence etc.), the one event that shook me most of all happened on July 14. I had been working on a project since mid April that required the usual suspects: HTML, CSS, Javascript. Now, most of you know that I’ve struggled with Javascript in the past, however, I felt this project was a perfect opportunity for me to dive head first into it.  The functionality required seemed basic at first – a rotating big daddy carousel. Easy peasy! Surely I could figure this out. But wait! There’s more! Google Maps integration you say? Sure! I’ll learn that too!

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to figure much of this out, so naturally, I asked for help as soon as I realized how far in over my head I was. Luckily, there was more than enough time left so that the other developers were able to jump in and help me out, finishing the project smoothly and on-time!

Oh how I wish that was how it actually happened!

I sincerely thought I would be able to figure it out, right up until I had the breakdown at my kitchen table where I wrote a tearful email to my boss at 11pm the night before I was supposed to deliver explaining that it wasn’t getting done. Oh, and that it probably wouldn’t be done for another 2 weeks. And that I would need the help of other developers who were also on tight deadlines. You can imagine how well that went over.

I don’t want to be so arrogant as to say this was the first time that I’ve ever fucked up or failed at something, but it was the first time that I really, really, really screwed something up. I felt stupid and ashamed. Walking into the office the next day was the lowest I had ever felt. After spending countless late nights, sacrificing weekends, the summer and nearly my sanity, I had nothing to show except an email admitting defeat.

3 weeks and 4 developers later, the project was completed.

Now that it’s all over, I can look back at the situation and laugh… Did I say laugh? I lied – I definitely don’t laugh when I think of the situation, but I don’t get upset either. It taught me a lot about myself, about my job and the importance of being able admit when you don’t know how to do something and that it’s ok to ask for help. Oh, and how I plan to never, ever, let something like this happen again. I hope that in sharing my experience that someone else can learn from this and not let the same mistake happen to them.

Oh right, July 14. That was the day that I cracked. And luckily enough, I documented it!

I’ve gone done something foolish and made myself a blog.

Over the past month, I’ve spent time humming and hawing over potential themes or topics I could bitch about – I mean, write so eloquently about, not only for my first post, but as a reoccurring topic. I’ve thought about gaming, thought about movies, thought about code, thought about fashion – anything that interested me really. In the end, I’ve decided to not really pigeon hole myself, but to keep things open to anything I really feel like talking about.

I’m not going to try to be someone I’m not, nor will I pretend to be an expert about anything, and you can be rest assured that a post about social media and how great it is will never grace this HTML. I’m going to be honest, opinionated and I’m going to talk about things that I want to talk about, and if that interests you, then fantastic, we’ll be BFFs.

I’m eager to get people’s feedback and read your comments. Naturally, trolls will not be tolerated as I am, in fact, a Lvl. 29 Paladin and will exercise my mana if necessary.