The night before

by aaron on September 23rd, 2008

I had this dream the night before finding out we were pregnant:

I was on a school bus, coming back from school, maybe college. The bus was dropping us off at this huge mall to find our cars (my friend Mark was there, I don’t really remember anyone else) … I got off at the wrong end of the mall and had to find my way through the mall to get to the other side, but the mall was closing … I started trying to find a way around everything, another way to get through the mall, but instead I asked the guards to let me through the first door. I pled my case, and they let me through. I did the same with the next guard, and pretty much the whole way through the mall … when I got through to the other side, there was a staff retreat in a park setting … there was the gazebo type thing that they are building at Elmington Park on West End, but the place looked more like Montgomery Bell Park … and I walked around but then sat in this ampitheater where a bunch of people were. I might have been sitting at a school desk, and I had a huge metal bowl of fruit of all kinds, and I was eating them, stuffing my face like I had never tasted fruit so good … huge blackberries, grapes, raspberries, these weird things that reminded me of oversized okra or small corn on the cob, but instead of kernels, they were little grapes, and then the last thing I ate was this wonderful plum, and I just couldn’t get enough of it, I was stuffed but it tasted so good I just couldn’t stop myself.

Then I woke up at 7:24am, a mere six minutes before finding out the biggest news of my life.

Completely awesome

by aaron on September 22nd, 2008

Sebo slept from 8 until 3am … which is a full seven hours! It’s the second time he’s ever done that. Then after a brief feeding he didn’t wake up again until 6. Which is typically when he’d be up for the day, but I fed him and fell asleep holding him in the glider and he didn’t wake up again until 8.

While we were sleeping in the glider, I had a dream that he was a twin. In my dream, I was holding him there in the glider, and Michelle was holding his twin brother. I thought it was crazy that his brother was wiggling and he would wiggle in unison. Then his brother wiggled again, almost like he was jerking around or vibrating, and my Sebo would be doing the exact same thing. Which woke me up in real life because I could feel that he actually was vibrating in real life, and I jerked my head down to see what was wrong and I got to see him, for the first time, laughing in his sleep. I felt tears come to my eyes because the idea that our three month old son was dreaming about something that was making him laugh is so unbelievably amazing and incredible to me that I just couldn’t stand it.

Wednesday evening

by aaron on September 17th, 2008

• Today is ending and it was my second day working 100% freelance. It’s strange and I don’t have a routine in place yet, especially in trying to take care of the kid. But I’ll get there. I will say it’s completely awesome though :)

• I’m photographing an awards banquet downtown tomorrow at the Renaissance. I’ve never done one this big, but I’ve done events like this, where you go around and ask people to stand together and take their photos. That’s probably my least favorite thing to do as a photographer. I just don’t like walking up to strangers and taking their photos. But hey, I gotta pay for all this new camera equipment! (Which I will have done after this shoot.)

• The other day I was out downtown with my camera and a guy came up to me and was completely convinced I was paparazzi, even though I told him it was just a coincidence that I was standing outside The Palm. He thought I was waiting for someone famous to come out. He thought I was just not wanting him to know that I was really paparazzi. He happened to be what he called a Grapharazzi … someone who gets autographs. He’s collected over 400 just by walking around downtown Nashville and seeing famous people. He says that Little Richard lives at the Hilton right now and has turned him down for an autograph 27 times. This guy carries a Little Richard album around with him wherever he goes. He pulled out his camera and showed me a recent photo of him and Jessica Simpson. I just kept thinking, crap, I wonder how often I’m going to run into this guy from now on?

• For the record, I pretty much think that paparazzi are scum of the earth.

• I’m crossing my fingers that the Feds will decide to bail me out.

• I’m toying around with the idea of getting on Twitter. At first I thought it was a dumb idea, but the more I’ve been following a few people, the more I’m getting interested.

• Sebastian’s laugh gets stuck in my head and it’s the greatest sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

Last Day

by aaron on September 12th, 2008

Today is my last day working at the church. It’s a really strange feeling. I’m going in to do a couple final small projects, wrap up loose ends, erase myself from my computer, and say goodbye to everyone. Or at least to the handful of people who actually work on Fridays. The big goodbye was at Tuesday’s staff meeting. Everyone said some really nice things, and it made a world of difference.

I think Michelle and the baby will come in this afternoon to see everyone.

And then next week will be completely different.

Recent

by aaron on September 10th, 2008

• So it’s Wednesday night and I remembered I have a blog. I’ve been a little extra busy this week since it’s my last week at my “real job” and there have been lots of things to tend to. I had a really great, long overdue, 2-hour talk with my pastor about the layoff situation and some things that have happened in the past 30 days that have really bothered me. I felt it was necessary to put everything out on the table before I left, and I am really glad that I did, because everything was met with genuine sincerity and I feel much better about everything.

• I am excited about tomorrow afternoon because I’m going downtown to photograph Hatch Show Print, Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and Universal Music Group. It’ll be my first field test with my new camera.

• Sebastian is so awesome right now. He’s smiling, giggling, and he’ll have long conversations with you. He’s growing so fast. We’re trying to make sure he wears all his clothes before he grows out of them.

• We’ve decided to actually NOT WORK this weekend. Saturday and Sunday will be ours.

• I really like the new Coldplay album.

• I watched a special on the Science channel about this and I’m actually really excited about this.
“The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot “soup” of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved … They say the experiment has the potential to confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson — sometimes referred to as the “God particle,” which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass … Fears have emerged that the collider could produce black holes that could suck up anything around them — including the whole Earth.”

• Things that I once thought were horrifically awful, but now that I am home more and have given them the chance, I no longer have the same feelings:
— 1) The View. I used to think they were just chatty women talking about celebrities without any substance. Then I actually watched an episode. And another. And another. It’s actually really interesting seeing them talk about issues because they bring up great points and don’t agree on lots of things.
— 2) What Not To Wear. I thought a show with two fashion “experts” walking around acting all high-and-mighty telling people how ugly they dress was just pitiful. But they actually seem to care about the people they’re helping and try and bring out the inner beauty that was being covered up. Not bad, actually.
— 3) Diet Mountain Dew. Used to think it tasted like poisoned tap water. For some reason I gave it another chance and it was pretty good compared to the regular stuff.
— 4) Walking to places. Last weekend my car died in the Kroger parking lot. That was a real bummer. Jumping it off didn’t work. But Kroger is right down the road from where we live, so I did something I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I walked home. It took me ten minutes, and except that I was pissed about the car and wearing flip-flops, I really enjoyed it. If I lived downtown where people walk everywhere I wouldn’t think anything of it. But living in the ‘Burbs where people don’t really walk that many places, I feel strange walking. I have no idea why. But I think that’s going to change now that I had this experience. I repeated my walk twice the next day until the tow truck came and got the thing. (Turns out the onboard computer had locked up and they had to reboot it … would not have guessed that.)

• This is the precise reason why I want a Wii and Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas:

The first ten years

by aaron on September 3rd, 2008

Ten years ago today I began my career as a graphic designer.

I’d been working at Sam’s Club at the time, hating every second of it after enduring it for two years. I was good friends with Michelle at the time, and she had been interning for a couple weeks at this new design company in Nashville called Creative Access. They were looking for another intern and she asked me if I was interested. At first I declined, because for some reason I didn’t think I could work in Nashville and continue taking classes. I was an idiot. Luckily for me, she persisted and eventually drove me in for an interview. Lee hired me on the spot.

I hardly knew anything. I’d been one of the weird ones in school who hadn’t learned to design on a computer, and instead pretty much learned to manipulate a color copier to do the things I wanted. Looking back, that was pretty amazing that I was able to get by using a copier as a computer, but then again it gave my work a unique feel. And it also showed that a computer can’t design for you. So I kind of stretched the truth about my actual knowledge of programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, and the Mac in general, all staples of the design world. But Lee was very gracious and patient with me as I learned on the job. He was paying a couple interns six bucks an hour to make him a bunch of money, and we were getting amazing, real-world experience that none of our other friends were getting. From the beginning he let us be part of every piece of the puzzle, which was rare in the biz, especially for a beginning designer.

I worked at Creative Access, alongside Michelle, for the next six years, and although they are no longer in business, I still keep in touch with nearly everyone I ever worked with at the company.

In the summer of 2004, Michelle and I were sitting in the church we’d been attending for two years, and she saw a program insert that she immediately shoved under my nose. They were looking to hire a full-time graphic designer. Just like back in 1998 when she first told me about Creative Access, my immediate first thought was, “Well that’s nice, but i can’t do that, I have a job.” See a pattern? She insisted I drop my portfolio off at the church, and I did. After a couple meetings, they hired me, and that’s where I’ve been for the past four years.

In 2006, the unthinkable happened. Our very beloved lead pastor, in a weekend that will go down in infamy, was fired by the elders. It was absolutely insane. People were furious, More than half the members left, and for the first time, I was really wondering what I would do if I woke up one day without a job, especially since we were relying completely on my income. I had already been doing a little freelance here and there, but this led me to think about freelance as a permanent supplement to my income. And so that’s when I really started doing more. We bought a new computer and set everything up at home to start designing, and for some reason, work just started coming my way. I’ve never really had to pursue it, I’ve just opened myself up to it. I am hoping this will continue to happen as I am transitioning over to a full-time freelancer.

I always thought I would eventually work for myself. I honestly didn’t think it would take ten years, but here I am, nearly to the exact day ten years later, and Tinymusicbox Art & Design is on the cusp of being my main gig. Over the course of the past ten years, Michelle and I have won over ten Addys between us and have had work in Print magazine. Photography had been a surprising and accidental addition to my resume, and it accounts for probably 7-10% of my business. And I think that, instead of trying to build up more design clients, I am going to invest more time in the painting side of my life, and pursue new venues outside of Nashville.

A decade ago I couldn’t have imagined I’d be walking out on faith like this with a mountain of debt, a wife, and a 3 month old baby. But over the years I have seen the undeniable role God has played in our lives, through career challenges and changes. It won’t necessarily be easy, but things always have a way of working out.

I really can’t predict what the next ten years will involve. I hope they will include watching our son grow into an amazing little man, watching our marriage grow stronger and closer than ever, painting more and showing around the country, maybe getting a book or two published, and moving into the home of our dreams.