I’ve been here in Chattanooga for about 7 weeks. I came here for a variety of reasons, the most-pertinant (to blogging at least) being working as an in-house freelancer for Tubatomic Studio on a trial basis to see if it was a good fit for all parties involved. That was originally a three month trial period, but since it’s apparently all good in the ‘hood, they hired me today.

In addition to that nice news, I move into my new apartment downtown on Saturday afternoon. This means i’ll actually have an address in Nooga and can finally get busy checking off the massive to-do list labeled “Things To Do When You Finally Have An Address.” That list has things like:

2. Go buy furniture and fixings at IKEA

3. Order checks.

5a. Buy Ryan Hale paintings
5b. Buy Matt Curry paintings

7. Other things I don’t talk about on this blog. (You don’t think I tell you all my secrets, do you?)

In other words, i’ll be a busy boy until the New Year. But a HAPPY busy boy. I need your help with something though. I’m getting Tubatomic business cards soon and around these parts they tend to have three word job title thingies. Think along the lines of “Producer :: Graphics :: Punk” or maybe “Code :: Design :: Peon” (or something that might even actually be real and/or pertinent to me.)

I tend to hate all the recent hipster job titles (with any of the following words and their ilk: evangelist, architect, archaeologist, agent, guru, minister, champion, etc.) mainly because I think they sound overtly pretentious and sub-mainly because i’m not the guru of much of anything so i’d just be a poser. However, there is something oddly inspiring about fitting titles, even if I do feel like titles are somewhat meaningless. That being said… i’ve got a few ideas in mind, but feel free to interject any word descriptors that you might think are appropriate for me in my role as a designer guy these days. No promises i’ll use them, but I dig opening the comments up to random internet feedback. (Please be nice. I don’t want to walk away wounded. I’m emotionally fragile.)

Last night I went on a little adventure. Let me tell you about how I fought the guardrail and the guardrail won. (And lest you think i’m a bad driver based on this and other occurences, I assure you, i’m a good driver. I think.)

On the way back from SC I hit parking-lot-esque traffic on I-85 South before I even got close to Atlanta, so I decided I was in no mood for such holiday shenanigans and took a right off into the country in search of a shortcut to I-75 North. There’s something mildly enjoyable about not knowing exactly where you are (especially when you do know the general direction you need to be going in.)

The “shortcut” consisted of Route 20 West to 575 North (you would think that 575 would join in to I-75 at some point, but you would be very, very wrong) which ends into Route 5 North which takes you to places no one lives. At this point, I knew I was heading North towards Blue Ridge, GA and needed to take a left at some juncture in order to find my way back to I-75. I did. But unfortunately, instead of choosing 76 West, I chose Route 2 West.

Let’s dig deeper into the genetic makeup of this famed Route 2 West. I hear it’s a beautiful drive, and i’d probably agree based soley on the number of scenic view pullover spots there are. However, such beauty and lush scenic viewing opportunities were lost on me in the middle of the night as I was driving through alternating rain storms and mile-wide fog banks. Also, scenic Route 2 is the most singularly curvy road I have ever driven on, doing its best impersonation of a sidewinder for the better part of 20 miles, up Fort Mountain and back down.

I tell you all that to let you know that it really wasn’t my fault when I hydroplaned around a curve DOING 20 MPH and not-so-delicately bounced off a guardrail somewhere amongst the scary woods, oddly pitched animal shrieks, and special effects crew of The Fog.

It’s fairly amazing that the hood of my truck doesn’t have a wrinkle in it, but just below the hoodline, the front passenger-side corner dents in at about a 45 degree angle now. That headlight shines about ten feet into the air somewhere close to the driverside now, and I also managed to somehow hit the back passenger-side corner on the guardrail too. Whenever I make a left turn, the plastic from the displaced front bumper makes the worst sound ever as it’s slowly worn down by my tire.

Here’s to guardrails, holiday adventures, getting intentionally lost in the Georgia hills, and beginning to suspect my Honda Passport is making a play to be a more memorable vehicle than my beloved, though wretched, ’89 Isuzu Trooper.

Hm… WordPress is being stupid today and doesn’t seem to have any of my posts available.

It was actually a brief, though unsettling, server-side error. All tidy now.

I love technology.