Conversation: Creative and an AE

Creative: Do you have the itinerary?

AE: No.

Creative: What time is breakfast?

AE: 8:30

Creative: You just said you didn't ahve the itinerary?

AE: I don't, but I know what time everything is.

Creative: What time is the presentation?

AE makes a scrunched face

Creative: Are you pooping?

Happy St. Paddys Day

Hope you are all having a very happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Leroy's Funny Dog Toys

I might be guilty of purchasing my dog toys that make him look a little silly. Oh well. 

Damn Good Advice - George Lois

Damn Good Advice is just that, a book filled with advice from advertising great George Lois. Below are some of my favorites.

2: I am what I am.
8: Always go for the Big Idea.
13: The computer won't come up with the idea.
23: Never listen to music while concepting.
37: Ideas won't sell themselves.
53: Don't work for bad people.
54: Never eat shit.
60: 80% is showing up.
94: The only thing that gets better when it gets bigger is a penis.
105: Do something productive.
110: Work comfortably.
119: Be courageous.

These are just a few. I suggest you pick up the book and spend an hour learning from such a great advertising creative. 

Photograph: Lonely Car

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you are having a great Valentine's Day! My little man is my Valentine so I got him a love bug. . . I think he likes it.

Sending Love to Afghanistan

A buddy of mine is in Afghanistan right now and I like to send him care packages every once and a while. Meet George. I know, I know good name right? Please excuse his creeper 'stache. I'm chalking it up to being in the middle of no where.

      

I met George the summer of 2005 while I was working at Virginia Tech. I was running rugby drills half ass attempting to stay in shape for the coming Fall. Out of no where here comes George and some other rugby guys. Let's just say my half ass attempt went to a full ass attempt trying to keep up with them. That Fall I went from a Loose Prop to an Outside Center.

Anyway, that's how I met George. After VT he decided to up and join the Marines. Even though we are a Navy family, I like to send George care packages when he's on tour. It's what friends do.

This last package I sent was a little late for Christmas but it arrived safe and sound. I shoved as much shit in this box as I could. There was the normal cleaning supplies, Kleenex, hand sanitizer and such. There was a bunch of food, cookies, crackers and the much requested Twizzlers. A movie, magazine and goodness. I included miniature bows on everything and tucked notes on almost everything.

It's not any fun being away from family during the holidays, so you have to make sure they know how much they are missed!

If you don't know someone serving overseas but would like to send a care package, there are a lot of organizations that send packages all the time.

Operation: Hang Huge Whiteboard

Whiteboards are how I keep my life together. If I didn't make lists, I would probably be running in seven different directions trying to figure out which way to go. Whiteboards give me the flexibility to scribble things down, erase and see the bigger picture without wasting paper or needing a charged iPad.

When I worked at Y&R we moved to the 9th floor while our 8th floor was being remodeled. After moving back to the 8th floor, they allowed us to scavenge the 9th floor and take furniture that would otherwise be disposed of. I found a giant whiteboard that was a little beat up, along with some other things.

Now that I have purchased my own house it was time for that whiteboard to find it's permanent position in the office. There were a lot of screws taped to the back along with some funny looking fixtures. Everything I've ever hung either used a good old nail or those ridiculously expensive removable sticky tabs.

Enter YouTube. This is where I find the best how-tos so that I can do it right the first time and not waste a lot of time. Here is the video I used to learn how to correctly hang a whiteboard. It's not a great video, but it completely did the trick. I had the fixtures they had in the video and then smaller hooks for the top.

I used a Zircon Stud Finder to find my wood studs because it was too hard to tell the difference in my walls. It was quick and a lot easier than drilling/filling a bunch of holes. 

Mark the center of your studs next with a pencil. A white rub eraser will get the pencil off your wall the cleanest. 

These are the hooks for the top. I was nervous about them not being strong enough but once they are screwed into the wall I was fine. They weren't going anywhere.

I use masking tape instead of a chalk line. I have a light tan carpet and do not need any colored chalk all up in that. Too messy. Measuring from the ceiling ensures a straight and level mount.

Time to secure the bottom brackets. Make sure to measure where the holes are on the bottom of the board so you only have to drill one hole.

Make sure not to secure the screw too tight, the fixture has to be able to be scooted up to the bottom of the board.

Once the whiteboard is on the wall, push the bottom mounts up to the whiteboard and screw the secure screw into the bottom. This makes sure the board doesn't rock and ruin the walls.

Ta-Dahh, a beautiful and securely mounted 60 inch whiteboard for all my organizational pleasure.

Happpppy New Year!!

This holiday season has been incredibly busy for us at the agency, but the one thing I have learned and am incredibly grateful for is the team work in this place. I know that if I need something or nothing, there is going to be someone on my team right there with me.

You hear a lot about how creatives and account people don't get along, that couldn't be farther from the truth at this place. We eat lunch together, we make fun of each other and we laugh together. Soon we will be playing ping pong together. We are one big family.

To my office family, thank you for making me feel so welcome in such a short amount of time. I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us.

Creative Challenge: Christmas Leftovers

Sometimes I like to challenge myself with a creative project outside of advertising. Something, I can do that will still make me solve problems, but use some different brain muscles (nerdy, I know). The challenge this weekend was the Christmas Leftover Challenge. It has nothing to do with food but with those ugly leftover Christmas decorations in the store that they can never seem to sell. 

The Challenge: 

The weekend after Christmas, take $100 and decorate an entire 6.5 foot Christmas tree.

This took some serious creativity. Have you ever been in a craft store after Christmas? It's scary, there are women everywhere digging through bins and trying to find anything that remotely matches. I ended up going to Joann and Michael's for the challenge. I would normally go to Hobby Lobby, but I had been there the week before and there weren't any holiday things left (they already had spring stuff out). 

Starting at Joann, I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Of what they had left most of it was neon purple glittery. All Christmas was 80% off, so I was going to make something happen.

There were some gold and brown things left, so I decided to try and stick to a classy gold/cream/brown color scheme. 

After digging through 15 boxes of picks I found 5 of the gold glitter poinsettias and about 15 gold glitter snowflakes. 

Okay, I'm now covered in glitter. Check. Onto the other ornaments. I found 5 of these great brown snowflake bulbs mixed in with the purple ones that look just like it.

There were only two of these bells but I really liked the small pop of red they had on them. So in the basket they went. They can be nice surprise finds when someone gets close to the tree.

These glass pine cones fit the color scheme perfectly. There were only two of the shiny gold pine cones, but there were five of the brown pine cones. My buddy Cory said the brown ones look like turds with glitter on them. Thanks.

     

Four wooden candy canes came in one package. It was the last one. There were six of the gold ornament. They are plastic but still show nicely on the tree.

         

One store down, on to Michael's. 

Michael's was interesting they had more leftovers than Joann. Though it was a huge cluster fuck. There were two aisles of Christmas stuff, one end cap of ornaments and about 15 women trying to maneuver around it all. Let's just say my claustrophobic tendencies were starting to show. I ended up finding some ornaments I really liked. 

The first find were these Cardinals. Yes, I am a Cardinals football fan, but I also got them because my Grandmother loved them. This was our third Christmas without her, so it was a nice little reminder of her. I lucked out, there were six of these left.

I wasn't sure about these Santa's, I thought they might come off as too cartoonish. In the end I took the two left of Santa in the sleigh with no reindeer and the four of Santa with a reindeer.

Next up are the orange bulbs. Four of these babies in a pack are $10 bucks normally. Not for me I picked them up for $2. I had to dig through a few shelves of hot pink and neon colored ornaments to find a few boxes of these. 

The other thing that was added to my tree was a spool of gold mesh and a few yards of cream colored ribbon with gold glittered holly. The tree was pre-lit so I didn't have to worry about lights. 

Below is the finished tree. 

Holy Rainbow!

I got off work early the other day and it was kind of cloudy, until I came up over the curve and saw this amazing rainbow. Enjoy.

Best Friend Christmas Traditions

I've known my best friend since elementary school. We grew up on the same block and have developed some much loved traditions over the years. One of those traditions is going around looking at Christmas Lights on Christmas Eve. Sadly, this year my best friend couldn't come home because she is preparing to defend her PhD thesis.

While school is important, one could argue Christmas is more important. So this year, I went around, looked at lights and took pictures for her. Leroy came with to keep me company. Here are some of the houses from around town. Enjoy.