Hold, Please :)

You’ve reached the Doolittles.

We are out of the house and will return on April 4.

Normal business hours are every other day of the year, from whenever to whenever. Walk-ins welcome.

Please try your call again later.

Thank you and have a nice day.

It’s not my fault. It’s Asphalt.

Just jumping in here to say… there hasn’t been time to post anything good this week, because I am working on one of my biggest regular projects, Asphalt Magazine.  Did you know there is an Asphalt Institute?  And that it is headquartered in Lexington, KY? And they put out a 48-page, full-color trade magazine three times a year? And that I have been doing the design and layout for that magazine for the past six years or so?

Well, now you know 🙂

I will resume regular posting just as soon as I can get this magazine put to bed. In the meantime, may the road rise up to meet you… and may it be smooth, quiet and black.

Everyone say “Hi” to Sylvie. [Hi, Sylvie!]

My birthday was yesterday, and it was great. We really didn’t do anything, which was nice after a long week. I got to sleep in, hang around the house, and watch some TV. My parents called me for the annual “stereo parents” version of the Happy Birthday song. For dinner we got subs and watched a movie at home. Oh! And we bought some refrigerated cookie dough and ate some fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. How great is that?

A friend of mine from college also shares my birthday. Sylvie and I were recently reconnected through Facebook, and we spent the last week making sure that all our other friends knew about our big day on Saturday. Sylvie lives in Atlanta where she has a business making glass beads… AND she is a fellow blogger. So the purpose of my post today is to introduce everyone to Sylvie’s blog and her bead website.

I’m also adding her blog to my sidebar.

Hope you enjoy the link love, Sylvie! 🙂

A Fun Exercise

I was reading my friend Sarah’s excellent blog today and she did this nifty thing where she went back through her blog archives and posted the first sentence from the first post on her blog for each month in 2008.  It’s kind of an interesting way to get a glance back at the year, so I thought I’d do the same thing here. If something piques your interest, you can go back and explore my blog archives yourself to get the full story 🙂

Jan. 2
“Ahhh, the Pymatuning Spillway… an exotic getaway for vacationers who want to drive to the middle of some farmland in northwestern PA/eastern OH to see humongous carp writhe around on each other while the ducks and geese skitter across the top of them.”

Feb. 2
“On the back of this old photo, my Mom’s handwriting reads, “Dec. 1975 – Laura on Church porch” (sorry, the face was pretty well blown out by the flash… )”

Mar. 3
“Dear Dad, Happy 67th birthday.”

Apr. 2
“It’s Brent’s turn to submit some drawings he did recently.”

May 2
“I am not a big jewelry person.”

June 3
“Dear George, Happy 44th birthday.

Jul. 1
“I stopped at Wal Mart after my volleyball match last night.”

Aug. 2
“Here’s a helpful hint: sewer clean-outs should be sealed!”

Sep. 6
“We took Brody to our favorite local park this evening so he could get in a good run.”

Oct. 5
“So, I started making granola from scratch earlier this year.”

Nov. 1
“Some photos and brief stories from Homecoming Weekend (last weekend)…”

Dec. 1
“This photo is blurry, my camera was not on any kind of good setting for low light photos… but it’s good enough to show you.”

That was fun, if not mysterious in some cases… don’t you think?

Why typography matters.

Look at this image. Perhaps you have even seen this in a grocery store checkout line. What does it say? Technically, there is nothing incorrect about it. But in my field, this is a prime example of why typography is important.