Garbunzl.com

…that’s what the Times said this morning in big, bold letters. I have to admit I was elated to hear the news. While the M’s have had many great players leave over the years, when Griffey left it felt like he took a piece of me with him. Ever since, it’s been quite a roller-coaster of emotions with the repeated rumors and speculation of his return always resulting in disappointment.  Griffey has always been a player that I had a lot of respect for and is really the reason I was so interested in baseball and baseball card collecting as a kid. He has always kept things very simple, play hard and have fun. The skill he has been blessed with combined with his undeniable love for the game has always made him my favorite player to watch.  I am thrilled at the opportunity to watch him as a Mariner one more time.

The first single from the new album, “No Line On The Horizon” is streaming online today.  The album comes out March 3rd. Hard to believe it’s been more than 4 years since U2’s last album.  I remember trying to buy tickets to see them for the Vertigo tour and being unsuccessful, due to website issues.  I also remember they had a huge problem with scalpers then and a lot of people were upset.  U2’s been my favorite band since my dad bought me the Joshua Tree album when I was a kid…but I’ve never seen them live!!!  If they come anywhere near here this time, I plan to see them.  I think it would be awesome to see them at the Gorge.

I like the track. The guitars have somewhat of an Achtung Baby feel to them. 

Here’s the link if you want to give a listen:  http://goyb.u2.com/

Well, we just rolled out a new look for the Gautier Designs website. The other site was working fine, but Jenn wanted to give it a more refined look. One improvement is a pretty cool Flash image fader I created for the home page. She chose a different color scheme of lavender and dark brown, which I think works well. Additonally, we redid the product images, now including multiple images and closeups of the products, to give customers a better idea of the detail of the items. Take a look and let me know what you think.

I had put together a shopping cart for Jenn’s scrapbooking website over the past few months and it went live (quietly) a few weeks ago. With almost no advertising we’ve gotten pretty good traffic and she has just processed her second order!!! Seperate from her custom scrapbooking service, the Gautier Designs Boutique is her storefront for selling premade page layouts and cards. Since she makes stuff all the time and always has an inventory, it made sense to open a web store that’s always available to potential customers. Once we get used to it and iron out any kinks, we’ll start some Google/Yahoo advertising.

Congratulations on your second order Jenn! I’m sure there’ll be many more to come!!

Spring has sprung and baseball is in the air…even if it’s still a bit blustery. The Opening Day Ceremonies were held today for Nick’s Little League. Thankfully there was a long enough break in the hail and snowstorms for the teams to file onto the field for the league picture, national anthem and speeches. Nick also got his new uniform today, which he loves. Though a different group of kids, his team is once again the Pirates. This year he got a black cap with a yellow “P” and black shirt that says “Pirates” on it. His first game is on Monday and they’ll be taking on the Blue Jays. On Thursday they’re going up against the Brewers, then they are off the following week for Spring Break.

I’m pretty excited about the MLB season getting underway too. The M’s also play their first game of the season on Monday, against Texas.

A final note, I know he debuted last year but I just find it amusing that the Reds have a pitcher named “Homer Bailey”. While I hear he has definite potential, I just think that name is a bad omen for a pitcher.

I’ve been meaning to post a scan of this really cool Yoda drawing my sister, Marie, gave me this past Christmas. I’m blown away at the detail and shading…better than that of some artist’s hired by Lucas himself. She has come a long way from the not so proportionate drawings of elves and mermaids of her early years. As a matter of fact, she is now an aspiring tattoo artist as well. She actually just got her own tattoo gun for Christmas. Speaking of guns…perhaps I’ll have to have her put this Yoda on my right bicep! Yeah! Ok, probably not…but I’ve always wanted a tattoo of the Rebel or Imperial emblem!

As the fantasy baseball season draws near, the battle for free agents has begun. Myself excluded, it has been somewhat of a heated battle among team managers. Take a look at Johnspach’s (notice the out of place “h” Jonspach?…payback! ) post here.

Perhaps one of the coolest happenings this year is the upcoming release of a groundbreaking concert film called, very simply, “U23D”. Releasing on Feb 22nd, the film uses new 3-d filming technology which has been used in filming sporting events, such as the Super Bowl. U2, having been one of my favorite bands since my dad bought me the Joshua Tree album all those years ago, is the perfect choice to pioneer this new technology in a concert film. Shamefully, I have never seen U2 in concert so this movie will be the next best thing. I tried to get tickets for my dad and I to their Vertigo tour in 2005 but they were impossible to get, especially due to a major scalping problem. Apparently much of the movie’s footage was taken durin the Latin America leg of the tour. Maybe I can get my dad to come up and we see this together instead. Heck, depending on the theater, the acoustics could be even better than a live concert anyhow.

Check out this cool widget from the official site to view the trailer.

Here’s a picture of the “Simpsonized” version of my family:

Jenn and I had a lot of fun with this and apparently it’s all the rage as a guy at my work also did everyone in my department.

Click this link for some “Simpsonizing” magic:

http://simpsonizeme.com/#

Well, it’s been several weeks since my last update. I’ve been very busy working on a few different websites. My friend and Pastor of Education at our church, James, is starting his own school of theology so I’ve been posting more content on his site Jcroone.org

I’ve also been working on another group of Christian sites, one of which will sell various apparel. For this site I’ve been learning a lot more about the capabilities of Flash in terms of coding and animation methods to design the intro. You can see it here While this has been pretty cool, my client has some pretty specific ideas of what they want and it tends to conflict with my personal tastes. I prefer a cleaner look and feel and more subdued colors. Oh well, that’s what this site is for…which reminds me, I’m planning to overhaul the look of this blog when I get some spare time. Yet another site I’ve been working on is Jenn’s custom scrapbooking site, gautierdesigns.com I setup a pretty nice gallery to display her custom designs and pre-made products she will be selling. Now we just need to get more images posted. She also setup an eBay seller account for her company so I have a gallery specifically for auction items, so she can display as many images as she wants without having to pay eBay.

On to the real reason for this post…I’ve finally posted Ella’s professional portraits. I was very impressed with how these pictures turned out. The scans don’t quite do them justice but you can really see how red her hair is against the black background.

Until next time…