Last week I moved into my new office space in Park City's Bear Hollow neighborhood, thus ending the "maybe I'll shower tomorrow" era of my career. I'm still working for FetchDog in Maine, but I now have the ability to work from home or "the office". Working from home had its benefits, but I missed some fundamental and highly underrated aspects of the daily grind.
I rarely left the house during the week. Although I had the freedom to work out or go for a bike ride after work, I rarely did. without the structure of a daily routine, I lacked the motivation to leave my cozy little house.
I had little to no social interaction. I loved having my dogs lay next to me all day, but they were horrible creative consultants and frankly their gas was unbearable.
I never actually LEFT work. Working in an office allows you to turn off your work-related stress (assuming you experience any) at the end of the day. Now I have a place to leave it at night.
Anyway, my new office is in an commercial building within a high-end residential complex beneath the ski jumps of Park City's Olympic Park. It's a mile or two down the road from the entrance to The Canyons resort and it's offers direct access to Park City's great mountain biking and other local activities. Plus, I'll actually be in town when someone says "hey, wanna go for a bike ride?" or "hey, wanna grab a drink?"
The space is a 10x12' room I'm subleasing from an interactive agency called Flashpoint. They all seem very nice and welcoming as they're letting me share their kitchen, conference room, wireless internet/utilities, and printers etc. I'm also sharing the space with my friend Max, who you may remember as my office-mate at American Skiing Company. Max works independently as a web designer and developer. Out my office window is a nice view of the dog courtyard, complete with poop-bag stations. So the dogs may come in on occasion if need be.
So here's hoping that this new development means more biking and more fun this summer.
This Winter, FetchDog investors David Shaw and Glenn Close came to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. Sarah and I were fortunate enough to meet them at the Egyptian Theatre and then to ski with them at Sundance Resort for Sarah's birthday. While riding the lift with Glenn, Sarah and I suggested that she should feature Sundance Ski Patroller Tracy Christensen on her Lively Licks Blog. Tracy is a great patroller but he's also the handler of Mick, one of Sundance's Avalanche Rescue Dogs. We explained the important role that Avy dogs play at Utah's ski resorts and how sophisticated their training is. We also encouraged her to participate in Mick's training by allowing herself to be buried in a fake avalanche to let Mick show off his talents. She was of course completely game, and went along with the idea.
Upon meeting Tracy and Mick, Glenn was immediately impressed and couldn't wait to feature them on FetchDog. She also had her step-son Ben shoot some video for the blog post which is now live at FetchDog. The video shows Glenn and David being buried into the snow at Sundance and waiting for Mick to rescue them in a very realistic simulation.
You'll also be able to make a donation to Sundance Avalanche Rescue Dogs in Tracy's Charitable Shop. Just start your shopping with Tracy's recommendations and a percentage of sales (of those items or not) go to benefit Sundance's Avalanche Rescue Dogs and their vital training.
WOW! Just as I was writing the last post I got word from Adobe that they've elected to feature DiscreteSport.com as tomorrow's site of the day. Check it out!
This is my 4th site of the Day from graphics industry standard software developer, Adobe. It's always an honor since I check their showcase every morning for inspiration. My previous winning submissions were Northeastern University's "Discover Northeastern Flash Tour", Sunday River's Interactive Golf Course Tour, and American Skiing Company's MeTicket.com.
Again, it's not a big deal. But once in a while it's nice for a designer's ego to know that colleagues think you're doing something right. Discrete is a site I did a while back for Utah-based freeskier, Julian Carr. Julian and the late Billy Poole founded Discrete Sport, an enigmatic, ski inspired headwear brand focussed on the individualistic lifestyle-oriented pursuit of Newtonian research. That's long-hand for the fact that they love to jump off stuff. Billy, who recently gave his life to this pursuit, is remembered by the big-mountain skiing community on this site and others around the industry.
You can also vote for this site's recognition at MyDesignAward.com
or vote for Fetchdog and/or Joe-art.com (please).
In the wake of "Tase-Gate", you may be asking yourself "Where can I see MORE tasings?" Fear not. Today, my friend Chris let me in on his dark and twisted side. Apparently he gets a sadistic kick out of watching impudent morons rendered even less coherent by the stun of non-lethal force. And I love him for it. In fact, his new site Tase.tv will let you in on his delightful perversion with clips and stories of all the best tasings from around the internet world. It's so much fun it's shocking. He he he. And the best part is that most of the people you'll see getting tased COMPLETELY deserve it. There are some cases where the use of force was with questionable judgement but what's NOT up for debate is that it's hilarious. See for yourself!
http://www.tase.tv/
