A great collection of photos of heavy metal bands from the early 80’s on Flickr. Looks like most of these were shot at shows, a nice slice of metal history. (via Kottke)
Archive for the 'Life' Category
I attended the 4th Annual Magic of Memories Dinner on April 28th, 2007 with my good friend Angela Cronk. In November of last year, Angela asked if I’d be interested in helping design the logo, in-store posters and invitations for the Magic of Memories fundraising campaign. The campaign’s goal was to raise money with Paul Mitchell the School and benefits Leeza’s Place, The Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation, and Vidal Sassoon’s Hairdressers Unlocking Hope on behalf of Habitat for Humanity.
It was a honor to have been involved in this project, and to have been invited to the dinner as well. It took place at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach, and was hosted by Leeza Gibbons and Winn Claybaugh. Representatives from each organization spoke about their involvement, what they benefit and followed with a video presentation for the audience as well.
Mike Helm, from The Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation spoke about Andrew Gomez, a student who tragically took his own life during personal hardships, the goal of their organization is to provide help to those in need, much like Andrew did during his own lifetime.
Leeza Gibbons and Dr. James Huysman spoke about The Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, which was started to benefit caregivers and families of individuals with declining mental health. Leeza Gibbons’ own mother suffered from Alzhiemers disease before she passed away and now she is calling attention to millions of families, like her’s, that know the frustration and heartache of memory disorders. It was an honor, and humbling, to meet Ms. Gibbons and be personally thanked for my involvement in the project.
Vidal Sassoon spoke about Hairdressers Unlocking Hope, which is an organization that is working with Habitat for Humanity to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina by rebuilding New Orleans. He painted the picture of his own upbringing and life story of being an orphan and homeless in London during World War II and now is working to prevent others from suffering from homelessness as he once did. Mr. Sassoon gave a very passionaite and moving speech.
I was a great experince to have worked with these organizations and have attended the dinner, I applaud them for what they’re doing to give back to the community and those in need. I recently updated my portfolio with examples of the work that I contributed to this project, which can be viewed here.
As of the beginning of April, I’ve left my job as Senior Web Devloper at Evolve Media, to work for myself and build a business doing graphic design and web development. I’ve recently updated my portfolio with some new projects, but I have a lot more work to add and I’m working on updating my website as well.
If you’re in need of some help with some work, feel free to use the contact form or drop me a line scott@scottorchard.com.
I got a last minute call from my friend Dan on Friday, he’d scored two tickets to Street Scene in San Diego, I couldn’t refuse. After a nice long drive, traffic wasn’t too bad, we got in around 9 and the place was packed. I heard that it used to be in the Gas Lamp District, hence the name, “Street Scene,” but ths year it was in the Qualcom parking lot.
There was a variety of bands and acts set up for the two day event, yet we showed up at 9, which was fine in my book, I only wanted to see two performances that night, Bad Religion and Wu-Tang Clan. Of course, they were scheduled to perform at the same time, but Bad Religion was on a little earlier so we thought we could get a little bit of both.
Before I describe the night, let me let anyone know that though I own almost all the albums of each group, I’d never seen them live. This is the opposite of Dave Matthews Band, I didn’t own any of their albums and my first experience was a concert, I was sold after that and saw probably two shows a year for about five years. I was pretty stoked to see both groups in the same night.
We headed over to Bad Religion first, they started earlier than Wu-Tang and the Wu was a bit late anyway, so we wanted to catch a bunch of songs before we headed over to the other stage. I was blown away, I’d seen some old local bands such as Pennywise and Farside around here back in the day, but Bad Religion went off, they’re still just as good as they’re albums, they did “You,” “Generator,” and a couple from the newer albums, but the energy was intense, a couple of pits in front of the stage and a bunch of people floating with a little help from the crowd, I was just signing along with the songs like it was ten years ago.
After a bunch of songs, we had to head over to the Wu stage, you need to understand I’m a huge fan, and I missed out on a concert about ten years ago when they were supposed to perform with Rage Against the Machine, before Wu-Tang dropped the LA shows, I sold my tickets after that.
Damn, they rocked the house! Everyone was there, with the exception of O.D.B.(RIP), they had the crowd singing along with all there songs, and it wasn’t limited to the groups’ somgs, they did a couple of Meth and Raekwon’s songs, it was sick! The whole crowd was into it, they has such a presence on stage. Kanye West came on after them, but it was a hard act to follow, Kanye’s got some talent, but I’m sick of him saying how great he is. Wu-Tang doesn’t need to pull that, they are one of the greatest, it goes without saying, and it’s obvious when they’re on stage. “Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to fuck with!”
All in all, it ws a great trip, I got to see a couple of legends on stage. It was funny, a friend of mine didn’t care about Bad Religion, he said, “I don’t want to see a bunch of old guys still trying to rock,” how wrong you were, they both rocked the house and next year I need to be there for both days.
Never miss a chance to see your favorite artists on stage.
That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing, but its a good thing. I’ll be updating my portfolio with some new projects if I can make some time. Busy at the day job as well, lots of exciting projects, so stay tuned.
I just wanted to wish Happy New Year to all my friends and family, 2005 has been a great year, but I think that 2006 is going to bring a lot positive things for myself and others.
I just bought a new model, Powerbook G4 1.67GHz, 15-inch screen with 1 GB of RAM. I’ve been stuck with an aging PC at home and an iBook I received from my parents not too long ago. I’m hoping the new laptop will replace both machines at home and increase productivity. Right now, my 1 GHz Pentium III system at home can barely run Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time.
Besides that I’ve been pretty busy with various freelance projects and I can’t wait to add some new stuff to my portfolio and get back to cover interesting things.
Now for the worst part, waiting…
I’m very disappointed with Arrested Development being cancelled, just as I thought they had a good thing going with the new season, FOX pulls the plug. I’m sure we’ll have plenty more crappy FOX shows to watch that will bomb, some won’t even make it past the first episode, but it will be too late, the cast and crew of the Bluth residence will have moved on to new projects. I thought the acting and direction were great, everybody had chemistry, but I guess it wasn’t popular with everyone.
Again, evolution is challenged in Kansas, but now it they have rewritten the definition of science, which is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. Intelligent Design will be taught alongside evolution, which seems utterly ridiculous to me.
I would hope that schools would teach science based on fact, hard evidence and years of scientific data. Now they will cop out and say, “evolution is a theory, and life here could be too complex, so there must have been a creator.” That sounds like creationism to me, God and science don’t usually mix well. Read more…
That’s what I looked like when I went into EZ Lube yesterday, a mark, someone that has no idea about preventative maintance for your car, and they were ready to offer every service in the book. Granted, I can change my breaks, disc brakes at least, I’ve replaced and alternator in a ’67 Cadillac, but I’m not always the best when it comes to the things beyond the oil change.
Of course when I discuss this with my roomate, he just laughs, “you paid how much…they did what?” Thats when I began to feel like a heel. Now, I understand that many of the cars that come in for service there may need some extra things done to keep them running well, but I’d wager that the majority of cars don’t need every service they recommend.
As discussed in, Freakonomics, a rather interesting book, mechanics have an informational advantage over the common car owner. After all, they learned their trade just like anyone else, though you may have studied biology, real estate ot computer science, you and the mechanic will both use that information to your advantage in your career. I don’t want to sound pretentious, I drive a Lexus IS 300, my truck was wrecked earlier this year, so I was able to afford something a little better than I had before. Its a 2003, with roughly 38,000 miles on it, runs great, so why did I let them talk me into more than an oil change?
I think it has to do with their informational advantage, they march me out of the waiting room, show me some things that look dirty and I better get everything done or my car could seriously breakdown. Their knowledge of maintanance plays on my lack of knowledge and the fear of my car breaking down, and I help them make some extra money. When you consider that my car is basically a luxary Toyota, this means that though it has some nicer features that a Toyota model of the same class, it has the same (or better) parts that are in every car built by one of the markets’ most reliable car manufacturers. Even though I bought a K&N air filter, to negate extra charges for a replacement air filter, I was still suckered into the other things that I probably didn’t need done. Radiator flush, power steering flush, fuel injection cleaning, etc., granted these things can help my car run better, should I have even bothered, at least so soon?
I know they try and tell everyone that they need an oil change every 3000 miles, I think this applies mainly to older cars, I believe most new cars can go longer without service. I’ll go 5000 miles without an oil change, I could probably go more since I use Mobil 1, 100% synthetic oil, without needing to add a quart. I hope more people learn from experiences like this, I know I need to educate myself more to prevent being out a chunk of change for something I didn’t really need. I’d recommend that others do the same, consult multiple sources and find out what maintance you really need and which services are just a waste. For me, this is a lesson learned.
Comments