Only a year, and already I'd like to move back to the sticks and out of this city. Reminiscent of days gone by, when random discharges of firearms in our backyard provided easy entertainment. And grass - you could let it grow wild and tall - anybody who happened to pass by just assumed you were making hay.


Front of notice:


Back of notice:


Offending yard in question: (1 day after I got the notice)

At my workplace, designers and developers rarely talk to clients. Instead, "project managers" who serve as go-betweens, handle the majority of interaction. Reasons for this are obvious. The foremost being that your average designer or programmer - while being skilled in his craft, may not be that particularly skilled at dealing with executive managerial types. Case and point: me. Not a business guy. Not a "let's do lunch" kind of faceman. You don't want me talking to the executive about the project. Particularly if your executive has secretaries who have secretaries who have administrative assistants.

Not proud of my handicap - it's just me. I don't speak the boardroom'eese language. Not yet anyway. ...Trying to think of something to compare this to... Um. Pro football players. They have agents. Why? Because their time is better spent practicing their proffession than studying up on how to word their next contract.

So I work through project managers who are great at keeping things organized and well executed. A good, well oiled project where I spend more of my time designing and less of my time playing email tag and getting a group of decision makers to agree on particulars and scheduling is a thing of beauty. It really is. And I haven't always looked at it that way.

Most of the time it really pays off in terms of awareness and productivity. A good project manager spends that extra time to make sure all the popcorn pops. They can speak two languages fluently: The language of the client, often inflated with corporate techno-latin and hollow process terminology, and the language of "getting it done": the What, How, When, ..simple dialogue of production that we speak in-house.

The two worlds can collide, however, when for one reason or another things don't go too smoothly.

You know you've done something wrong, ..you've forgotten an important detail, you've screwed up, when some of the tactical managerial-speak of a project manager finds it way through to your inbox, and language of thier world spills over into your cozy forgetfull world. Those kind of emails usually start out like:

"Drew, as previously discussed.."

or..

"Drew, per our conversation yesterday..."


In laymen's terms, either of those introductory comments will almost certainly translate to:


"Drew you're an idiot, you forgot to..."

or

"Drew, we've already talked about this twice. Would you like for me to come administer a severe beating around your head and neck area?"

Sunday we made our way down to the Arkadelphia Wal-Mart SuperCenter, Clark county's center of culture and commerce, to see a lady about a weiner dog. Wal-Mart is the location of choice for people inclined to sell dogs or meet people about dogs. Occasionally cats.

Come to think of it, directions to ANYTHING in Arkansas seem to involve where they are located in relation to the nearest Wal-Mart.

So we meet a lady in the parking lot. She has driven up from Magnolia with a large laundry basket in her back seat filled with weiner dogs. Why she would drive an hour to meet someone who may or may not spend $250.00 is beyond me. Maybe the puppy mill industry isn't as glamorous as they make it out to be on TV.

Blah blah blah, etc etc etc, we bought one male puppy, leaving the remaining seven to some other demise, AND NOW WE HAVE A DOG.

I will go short on details, but suffice to say that this particular dog will live very differently from all other dogs I've been associated with in the past. This particular dog has already received professional medical care from someone called a "veterinarian".

And you could feed a large Sub-Saharan family of 12, for at least a year, with the money we managed to spend at PetSmart last night. For this I am deeply ashamed.