mattsdesigns.com blog

Office Space

Matthew — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:45:41 +0000

Well, I haven’t really posted anything in a long time, so you’re probably annoyed at my blog, but I just moved into a new office today, so I actually have something to say… sort of. I mean there’s still not a lot to say. I just have my desk and laptop in here right now, so actually it feels a little more like I’m confined to a padded room, but I guess that’s not so bad either, huh?

Anywho, my office is located on the loop in the Central Park Office Complex (I don’t even know my address yet). It’s the building right behind Coldwell Banker and right next to Rudy’s BBQ. Come and see me.

Well now that I’m going to have a somewhat disciplined schedule (at least I’m trying), maybe I’ll blog a little more. So check back soon and see if I’m lying or not. Okay, I better get to work. Later.

I’m Back!

Matthew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:22:46 +0000

Well, it’s been about 3 months since I’ve posted. My life has been chaotic with work and a new baby. I’m totally swamped with work right now, which is a good thing, but I’d like to catch up a little. Also, Paradigm and Nine30 have started back up now, so that’s another thing that takes some time.

I know, my website is totally out-of-date right now, but I hope to post some new items to my portfolio soon. When my computer crashed a while back, I lost the source file for my website. So I’m not able to update everything… unless I recreated it from scratch (Yeah Right!).

Kendi is getting freakin’ huge. Instead of posting some pictures, I think I’ll just tell you to go to facebook and check ‘em out. There’s lots of pictures of her under Matthew Simmons, Sarah Simmons, and Pearl Merchant. Enjoy!

Anyway, I just thought I’d make a quick post since I haven’t in forever. Back to work!

Kendi In Da House!

Matthew — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:36:43 +0000

So obviously I wasn’t very good about updating on Kendi. But anyway, here are a couple of pics. You can see a lot more on facebook. She was 6 lbs. 14 oz. and was 19″ long. She was born on June 18th at 1:57 p.m. It’s been a lot of fun being a dad (a lot of work too). I just don’t understand why babies don’t just tell you what they want instead of crying continuously. That would be much easier. Everyone has been so nice and helpful to us… offering to help out or bringing us meals. So thanks to everyone. We appreciate it so much. You can’t imagine how much it helps. Well, that’s it.

Kendi is Coming!!

Matthew — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:58:42 +0000

Sarah started having random contractions yesterday evening, but then they got really consistent early this morning around 5:00 am. So we got to the hospital around 6:15 a.m. this morning. We’ve just been hanging around triage waiting for Sarah to progress a little more before they give us a room. Her contractions at this point are around 3 minutes apart. But everything is going well so far. We’re just excited and I’ll keep everyone updated. See ya.

Impatiently Waiting Patiently

Matthew — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:39:31 +0000

Okay, so Sarah has to give birth this week. It is mandatory, or I will gouge out my own eyes with a fillet knife… removing only the whites of my eyes, of course. Sarah is 5 days overdue now. But definitely if she hasn’t had the baby by June 19th, they will schedule an induction. All I have to say is, “Kendi, you better come before Father’s Day! You don’t want to get started in life on the wrong foot. It’s in your best interest to come before then.” So yeah, I guess that is all I have to say. Take ‘er easy.

Humperdink the Sasquatch

Matthew — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:31:51 +0000

Most of you know Jon Taylor… the most incredible sound technician on this side of the Milky Way! Anyway, he’s going through a name change and a rebranding process. He got me to do this new logo. But I can take little credit. He showed me another guy’s artwork that he liked and wanted me to do something in a similar style. I love the line drawing approach. It’s completely different from most logos. That’s why I like it so much. And obviously because it features a sasquatch named Humperdink. Well, that’s all for now. No baby yet, but hopefully very soon. Take ‘er easy.

The eCommerce Beast

Matthew — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:19:03 +0000

For a long time I’ve avoided building my own shopping cart and online store, but now it’s time. It’s always just seemed like a beast that was too big to tackle… a big ugly online store beast with bucked teeth and a mole that has its own mouth. But as it turns out, it’s not that bad. So now my clients and I don’t have to pay extra for the shopping cart. I really wanted to build it in asp.net, but I went ahead and settled for classic ASP. I’m just now learning some asp.net, but don’t have a good enough grip on it yet to take on the shopping cart (although from the sound of it, I can snap my fingers and asp.net will do whatever I want). I’m sure it’s probably pretty easy once you get the hang of it, but from what I’ve seen so far, there’s so many more lines of code and stuff that doesn’t make sense yet. Anyway, you’re probably hating this post so far, since there’s probably no one that reads my blog that even knows what asp.net is. I’m just talking to myself basically. So what should I write about now, Matt? – I don’t know, Matt. You’re the brains of this operation. You tell me. – Okay, well let’s tell everyone that doesn’t care, how addicted to golf I am. – I’m really addicted to golf!

So we’ve gotten all of our bags ready to take with us to the hospital when Kendi finally decides to come. Doesn’t she know that it’s been 37 weeks and that’s technically full-term and it’s okay if she comes now??? She’s just being lazy. She’s been sticking her knobby little head almost all the way through Sarah’s belly. Anywhootinany!! I guess I’ll say good night. Peath!

My Left Gluteus Maximus

Matthew — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:03:49 +0000

So less than a month until I’m a dad. Crazy! The waiting is wearing me out. I don’t think taking care of a kid could be any more work than waiting. Sarah and I are working on a cool art project for the walls in her room. It’s this two foot tall scene that goes all the way across two of the walls in her room. It’s going to be a really cool collage made of newspaper, fabric, cardboard, markers, paint, and other papers. It will be a scene that is a little abstract, but definitely not too ‘kid-like’. Hopefully it can be a cool piece of art in any room, not just a baby’s room.

I went bowling Monday night and bowled 7 games. Yeah, I’m pretty pathetic like that. I love bowling, or really any game. My left leg, foot, and gluteus maximus are ridiculously sore. I guess I don’t have very good form and put all my weight on my left side every time. Plus playing 7 games doesn’t help. Ouch!

So business is so inconsistent these days. I’m either super busy, or doing nothing. But while I’m doing nothing, I found that CrowdSpring site to keep me busy. I blogged about it a while back. Well I won another project. It’s nice to have that to fall back on during slow times. Here’s the logo I created that won. It’s for some Atlanta activist organization or something.

My Stomach Hates Me

Matthew — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:16:17 +0000

I’ve been trying to be really disciplined with what I eat. Actually more with how much I eat. I’ve always been a pretty heavy eater and it’s really painful to cut back. My stomach hates me. It actually just told me that. I’m a good 20 lbs heavier since I got married. Why does it feel so good to stuff your belly? I’m going to try and play as much golf as I can also… walking the whole course is actually a pretty good workout. Depending on where you go, you could walk 4 – 6 miles with your golf clubs on your back. Anywho, like anyone cares.

The Dodgers just won… YEAH!

We’re about to paint Kendi’s room. We’ve never done anything with our other rooms as far as painting goes. This is a bold move for us. We’ll see how it turns out. I really think the color combo will work well together. The walls will be a medium to light blue with just a hint of a purple-ish tint, and the room has quite a bit of lighter green in it. I don’t know if you can see it in your head, but it should work. I love working with colors obviously (Sarah calls me the color Nazi), but painting a room stresses me out because I can’t just hit Ctrl + Z to undo it if I don’t like it. Hmmm… there’s a thought. I wonder if I could invent a wall that could digitally change colors. Or they could be like those billboards where the panels flip around and reveal a different ad, only it would be a different color. I’m going to go ahead and declare myself the “Changing Wall Color Inventor Genius”. That would be the answer to all of life’s problems and we’d totally shut down the paint industry… who we all know is the downfall of this country. So don’t steal my idea for color changing walls, seriously.

I’m humming the alphabet as reference for what letter I shall type next… “N”.

That was a good letter. Here’s a logo I just did. I kinda like it and thought I’d share. See ya.

Sulker is now a word.

Matthew — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:45:11 +0000

So Ashley Jones will release her CD on May 2nd at J&B Coffee… uh, sometime that night. Can’t wait to hear & see it. I finally added it to my website portfolio along with a few other things. Check ‘em out. Hopefully I’ll have more stuff to add soon. I’ve been doing mostly Flash animations lately… like website banners and such. Nothing too crazy. I wish I could post those in my portfolio, but they don’t work exactly right as is. When my computer crashed, I lost my .fla file for my website, or I would set it up so that I could post my flash work. But there’s no way I’m completely redoing my website. What a bummer though. Every day I realize more and more how much I lost. If anyone knows how to recover my files from my busted hard drive, I’d pay… but not too much. As it stands, my best option is to send it off to a data recovery company, but that’s going to run me a couple grand. As much as I think it’s worth it, it just ain’t happenin’ real soon. Anyway, enough sulking for now. I’ve been a pretty bad ‘sulker’ lately. Is that even a word? Well it is now.

I played golf again today. So I found a course that is really cheap ($10 after 3pm on weekdays). But, of course, it sucks. Even when you’re in the fairway, you’re still hitting off of concrete-like dirt with a little bit of that hairy substance they call ‘grass’. So this was the craziest day of golf I’ve ever had (in this sense). I played almost my best golf on the front 9 and my worst on the back. I was only 3 over on the front nine, which is pretty good for me. And as soon as I started the back nine, I fell apart. I went double-bogey, triple-bogey, triple-bogey, double-bogey all in a row. How does that happen. I seriously didn’t know what was going on and it killed my score. But I got a birdie on the very last hole in the dark, so that made it all better. My legs are pretty worn out too. I always try to walk when I play by myself for exercise, but I’ve been really out of shape, so they hurt right now. Yeah, I know, and that’s just from walking. Well, I’m tired of jibber-jabberin’ for now. Take it easy, japanesey.