We a few other projects that we are in the beginning process of, making estimates and such. The project that we have right now is pretty big and is taken all our time.

As far as the new website design for randyhumphries.com, it’s coming along. Scott is working his arse off developing it and I owe him some more design work. I’m honestly too slammed with our current project to give him anything. But soon the new website will be launched, it’s just getting paid to design is far more important right now.

Bumps in the road

There has been many bumps in the road as we start this new business/company I’m not really sure what it is yet but we are working through it all. Later I’ll post a “post-mordem” of our trials and errors as we work through this all. In the mean time watch this space. Very soon that the site re-launch could happen or it could be very far in the future. Scott might be a little bit crushed with our project very soon.

Homepage revised

Portfolio page

Testimonial page

Again leave any comments you want positive or negative.

• Using a carrot for a bullet
• Using bullets as an indicator that the text following is a link
• Using Helvetica for all the text on the page
• Setting all body copy at 10px

I know it seems trivial but it just bugs the hell out of me.

I’m not complaining and actually think it’s a good thing that Facebook does this. I sure don’t want it to turn into the utter mess that MySpace is. Some times censorship is good. Even though I was posting about a news story, a ridiculous one actually. I’m glad they have that censorship in place.

NBC had 4 years to design and develop this website and this is the best they can do? The animation at the top is absolutely horrible not to mention it uses Silverlight. I had to download it, install and relaunch my browser. I don’t even know where to begin with the design, it’s just horrible.

The “Download Video” section requires: Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Media Center Edition or Windows Vista. Come on now this is 2008, you can’t give me that platform issue excuse anymore. Not to mention once you navigate to the “Video Downloads” the navigation completely disappears.

There are so many issues with this site that I could go on and on about. It’s the Olympics I want to be impressed. Come on NBC you can do better than this.

So the band is Modest Mouse. I’ve wanted to see them forever, even more now just to see the former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Not that I actually listen to the Smiths but I do appreciate the influence they have on much of the music that I do listen to.

Starts bad and only gets worse

First, I was not happy about the price of the tickets, they where $30.00 plus the Ticketmaster fees. I think my total cost was over $40 for the tickets. This didn’t upset me too much because it was a band I really wanted to see. A co-worker of mine told me that the venue was an ice rink and it’s a horrible place to see bands. Needless to say I was not happy to hear that after just spending $40 on tickets. In my mind I was convincing myself that it’s still worth it and I’m going with a good friend of mine and we will have a good time.

I show up at the venue and it’s a long wait of cars to get to the parking lot. I’m shocked to see the amount of teenagers, I was expecting to see more people around the age of 30 like myself. I notice the rent-a-cops and I pull up and see the sign for $5 to park and my first glimpse of the Rostraven Ice Garden. Not only am I upset of forking over $5 to park but one look at the exterior of the Ice Garden I knew this was going to be bad. The rent-a-cops directed me to park in the grass field. It’s been raining for days and it was pretty muddy.

I make my way through the parking lot and get inside the building. The interior is very dilapidated and was probably built in the late 60’s early 70’s and hasn’t been touched since then. I get to the rink part where the opening band was playing and was happy they actually melted the ice, I’ve heard sometimes they just lay carpet over the ice and it becomes a big slushy mess, someone actually recommended that I should wear snow boots.

I take a look at the sound system and the engineers which appeared to be high school teenagers that would be running sound at a high school musical production. The place sounded horrible, everything echoed. I was feeling anxious to see Modest Mouse and was praying the sound would be better. I look over at the beer cart and the choices are Miller Lite or none, so I chose none.

Finally Modest Mouse

They show up on stage and all the teenagers go crazy and push towards the stage. If you never heard of Modest Mouse, I’ve made a muxtape so you can listen. They have a very interesting sound that I can’t really explain. Needless to say they have two drummers, guitars, bass and keyboards. Also they switch it up with other instruments like the Upright Bass, Banjo, Squeeze Box and assorted other instruments.

The sound seemed to get a little better but it still echoed. It was interesting to see Isaac Brock use two different mics for vocals for his different vocal styles. I was happy to finally see them play, they impressed me but it was unfortunate that the sound sucked and the venue was horrible.

It only gets worse

So the show is over, I got to see Modest Mouse finally, I was pleased but not happy. It’s pouring outside and thousands of teenagers are trying to leave a drenched parking lot. I get to my car and don’t move for about 45 minutes. Kids are stuck in the mud everywhere they don’t know what to do to maneuver the car to get out of the mud so they just put the gas peddle to the floor and dig themselves even deeper into the mud. I can’t help but to chuckle a bit. I’m wondering why I paid $5 to park because noone is directing traffick and it’s a total cluster fuck of teenagers all trying to exit the parking lot. Some attempt bold moves to get around the stagnant traffic and wind up in ditches. It’s almost a scene from a post apocalyptic movie. All I could do is feel sorry for all these kids, they paid good money for this show, paid to park and the venue failed on them and didn’t help with directing traffic and providing safety.

I will never go to Rostraven Ice Garden ever again, not even if John Lennon rose from the grave and the Beattles did one more show at the Ice Garden.

Enjoy Modest Mouse (I couldn’t add songs from a few albums due to DRM)