I like to check out the wallpapers at Smashing Magazine. They put together a post at the end of each month with appropriate & stylish wallpapers for the following month. I bookmarked this link so that it’s easy to check out the new designs.

Here’s the wallpaper I’m rocking now…

“Everything around you that you call life,
was made up by people that were no smarter than you.
And you can change it.
You can influence it.

You can build your own things that other people can use.”

From Thanksgiving 2010

Tis the Thanksgiving season, I thought I’d share one of the very few dishes I can make. This recipe was passed on to me from my mom (I’m not sure where she got it). It’s broccoli cheese casserole, and it’s pretty amazing. Even if you are not a fan of broccoli, this dish can make it taste pretty good!

It is pretty easy to make (hence why I can make it). So give it a try, take a photo, and leave a comment letting me know how it went!

Ingredients:

• 2 – Large bags of broccoli (or 1 huge bag from Wal-Mart)
• 2 – Stacks of Ritz crackers
• 2 – Sticks of margarine
• 1 – lb of sliced Velveeta cheese

Directions:

Melt one stick of margarine in a small bowl. I like to add a little garlic salt to the melted margarine. Crush the stacks of Ritz crackers and mix with melted margarine.

Distribute the broccoli in a 9? x 13? glass dish. Cut the other stick of margarine into slices and place all over the broccoli. Lay all the slices of cheese on top of the broccoli and margarine. Finally, spread the crushed cracker mix on top of the dish.

Bake dish in oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

To avoid a runny casserole, it’s very important to let the dish cool for about 15 minutes. If this step is skipped, the cheese will be very liquid and runny.

Just to add some technology into this post, Epicurious is a neat app for iPhone/iPad that can be really useful in the kitchen. It’s FREE, check it out in the iTunes app store.

I was having a lunch meeting with some friends opening a new business in Racine, WI. We were discussing details about their website I am currently developing when we saw crowds of people gathering along the street. We decided to join them and capture the glimpse of the motorcade. It’s sort of random; I know. But I need to start using the sweet HD video recording capabilities of my iPhone 4! And I really need to start posting more on here!

Conduit used to stop the auger

So I live in Wisconsin, and us folks (along with others who live in cold areas) have to deal with this thing called snow accumulation. My dad owns two snow pushers; both are single-stage machines. One of them is a Craftsman something-or-other (pictured left), and it needed a new auger. So my dad ordered a new auger (which is not too cheap by-the-way) and we began to replace it.

I’m posting this because we had a heck of a time getting the old one off, and I thought I’d share our method…

My dad and I had the hardest time getting the auger off of the snow pusher. So the auger has a reverse thread (or one that is the opposite of “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey”). The blade will keep spinning when you attempt to loosen it from the end. In other words, we needed to stop the  blade from spinning in order to loosen it off. We found 2 pieces of conduit, about 3 feet in length, from the garage to put through an opening in the auger. The conduit pieces were just enough to keep it from spinning.

Next, you just have to loosen the auger. It took the two of us to break it free. One to crank on the wrench, and the other to hold the machine applying force in the opposite direction. Tip: eat some wheaties before attempting to remove the auger.

I understand this was an unusual post, but what the heck!? The Internet is an endless network of knowledge, and I might as well contribute something! I hope this post finds people in need of this specific solution.

Happy Winter!

My sister Gia got engaged to James in late 2008 and decided to plan for a destination wedding in January 2010. I was privileged and honored to be able to design & create their save-the-date. Last September, the three of us spent a really enjoyable hour or so shooting pictures at my parents’ residence on Lake Elizabeth in Wisconsin. Having a Key West-destination theme, I wanted to include the lake as much as possible.

The color of the bride’s maid’s dresses are the bright pink color that I chose for the background of the front and back of the piece. I chose a single fold 5″x5″ because it’s not a standard size…it’s different. I wanted it to stand out from the normal pieces of mail. I really like the size, however, it is a little more costly to mail. I also really like the tall portrait shape of the inside and how well it worked with the photo of the couple walking on the pier in the background.

In addition to the save-the-date, I was also very honored to be a part of their wedding in Key West by standing as a groomsman. The wedding was beautiful and every minute was a blast! I’m looking forward to doing their invitation for the reception which is to be held in June.

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite photos from the shoot. Let me know what you think! You can also view my MobileMe album.

[For the photogs: Canon 50D, 24-105mm f4L, Aperture, macbookpro]

Enough of the busy excuses and onto the beef of this post! First off, I could not have made this new site without the help of some great people! I started learning how to web design by teaching myself HTML and using Frontpage back in circa 1999. Some time in the early 2000s, my friend Nick Galich helped me learn to use Dreamweaver (at that time it was Macromedia Dreamweaver). he taught me CSS basics and I was still using tables to form my layouts.

Throughout college I continued to make websites using Dreamweaver, basic CSS, and HTML. I was always struggling with the strategy of using tables as the ground work for the whole layout. I wasn’t able to really get elements on the page where I wanted them. Then comes along this idea of using Photoshop to create a mockup!

And in comes Josh Betz. Josh was a senior at Wilmot when I first got hired as the new technology teacher and webmaster. I was very interested in this new way of designing for the web (new to me at least). He created a new design for the school’s website, and I learned a lot from him as the site transitioned to the new look. I used www.travalingtunes.com, and Josh’s help, to experiment with creating a site using this Photoshop mockup way of designing.

Then I started working on this project. I started with a design I called Argyle (you’ll see why if you look here). To make a long story short, I stopped because I thought the design was too busy and started to look hideous! I wanted a very basic, clean, and easy-to-read appearance. I think I have achieved that. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

I also added another challenge. Not only was I still learning the basics of using CSS to convert a Photoshop mockup, but I also wanted to learn how to make it a WordPress theme. Again, I owe much thanks to Josh for helping me learn how to do this. In addition to the great teaching of Josh, I spent many hours watching, reading, and re-watching screencasts and posts by web designer, and now author, Chris Coyier, of CSS-Tricks. His screencasts were very helpful and his website has a lot to offer for beginners and intermediates. He makes it all look too easy in the videos, but that’s where the benefit of rewinding came in!

I really love the idea of taking a Photoshop design and converting it into HTML using CSS because it really allows the designer to put the design in the front spotlight. The layout and look of the site is the what a designer is really trying to achieve and I think creating that design in Photoshop first is the way to go. Then- just about anything can be achieved using CSS, HTML, and JQuery to get the mockup to come alive. I definitely don’t know everything about web design and never will, but it sure helps to have great resources! And that’s also the beauty of it- there’s always more to learn and challenges to take on.

I wrote this post to explain how I got this website from an idea to published. I especially want to express my gratitude and acknowledge those that were of incredible help. Thank you again to Josh Betz and Chris Coyier for sharing their invaluable knowledge. I should probably also mention Pat Hartl for his help too, or he might do something bad to my mac lab! Pat helped me get the Twitter statuses on my site, but mostly, he helped me get the site done by uplifing my motivation to make time to get it done!

Applications I used & love:

• Coda
• Firbug (Firefox Plugin)
• Firefox
• Photoshop CS4
• Transmit