Me: Timeline

A timeline of personal events and achievements.

I try to find at least one personally significant event per year of my life for the last however many it works out to. Sometimes, because of the level of personal commitment I make to my work, the personal and professional overlap.

2004

early:: For the first time in over a decade I was given the joy of a real snowfall, with snowball fights, snow angels, snowmen, and the hushed beauty of gracefully fluttering snow. Even more wonderful, I got to experience the day through the eyes of a six year old, an eight year old, and a thirty-something who had never before in his life seen snow. (See: Snow! and Still Snowbound)
midway:: With deep gratitude for the wonderful people, culture, and experience of working for Adobe, I took my leave from that great company to return to a full-time freelance career—in graphic design, training, and journalism.
late:: Through hopping all over North America training hundreds of people to use Adobe, Quark, and other creative programs, I found myself in places I never imagined I'd be. I've walked around a United States Nuclear Missile Arsenal. I have been to some of the most secured places in this country. I have visited NASA. I viewed conceptual and marketing paintings of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter before its construction began. I experienced the horror of the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Bureau's hospitality to visiting workers. I have been buzzed by F-18s. I stood on the assembly line of the F-16, watching blocks of raw steele refined into panels, rails, and body parts that were assembled into the workhorse of American and international air defense. I stood in the center of a hurricane as branches as thick as my thigh rained down around me.

Even better, I met hundreds of interesting people and made wonderful new friends.

2003

early:: I met the woman about whom I have dreamt since I was a little boy. Look for mentions of Strawberry Blonde on my blog, especially in the Heart • Soul category.
midway:: During seminars at the 2003 HOW Design Conference in New Orleans I received some valuable advice: Be in the moment instead of trying to accomplish so much at one time that the moment slips away. I began integrating this philosophy and others key to quality of life and work satisfaction.
late:: My estranged father had a triple-bypass (more), the revalations of which are leading toward a new relationship between us.

I moved in with Strawberry Blonde and her incredible little girls, psuedononymously, Mojo and Sassy.

2002

early:: I smartened up and came back from the three-plus-year hiatus under which I had placed my own life and heart and needs to try (in vain) to help another find herself and grow into a full person.
midway:: I fell in love with some wonderful kids, Micheal, Cerrissa, Elizabeth, and Hunter.
late:: I'm slowly, a step at a time to keep it fun, getting back into creative work, primarily freelance.

2001

: I moved from Daytona Beach, FL to Portland, OR, and began a much deserved and much needed break from a fourteen year career in graphic design and advertising that had stopped being fun.

2000

: I spent the entire year working balls-to-the-wall on big accounts like Black Crow Broadcasting^TM, Senor Shades^TM, and Playboy Sun®. I did other work that year, of course, but the Playboy Sun account was the most personally and professionally significant to me. It was, as the year drew to a close, the high note on which I would go out.

1999

1998

: I was booked as the guest speaker (twice) to discuss advertising and design and how to get into the industry at my sister's school.

1997

: I met my best friend, Chris, over the chess table and a couple glasses of Mom's Morphine (a non-alcoholic frozen coffee drink) at Daytona's Java Lava.

1996

1995

: I founded Imaginations UNlimited, my graphic design and advertising firm.

1994

: I moved out to Daytona Beach and was inspired by the nuggets of wisdom passed down from my then-boss Peter Balise, founder of The Publishing Company of North America.

1993

: I received a shakabuku, a swift spiritual kick to the head. After very nearly dying of acute spontaneous pneumal thorax—and consequently spending several months convalescing—I made dramatic changes in my life, my career, my environment, and my attitude.

1992

: I published two issues of On Night's Wings, a phenominally successful international mature readers magazine for fans of the horror and vampire and gothic genres of fiction, film, and music.

1991

: Compliments of Prodigy, I discovered the magical and vast world of cyberspace, with its access to a rainbow of people and all their different thoughts and opinions.

1990

: I was assaulted with brass knuckles, leaving the left side of my face completely shattered until a highly skilled surgeon put me back together again with steel and cartilage and nary a trace of the extensive damage I had suffered.

I acted, sang, and danced in the dual roles of William The Horse and a Wildwooder (a weasel) in the community theatre musical production of "A Wind In The Willows."

1989

: As soundman and band artist for the Central Florida hardrock band Forgotten Prayer (formerly Xavier, later Sinister Bob) I had a blast riding the dials, warming up gig crowds, painting the instruments, occassionally doing backup vocals, and always winning groupies away from guitarist Brad Parker, bassist Johnny Capuana, vocalist Kyle Fuqua, and drummer Jay (something).

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