My brother came up for the weekend. It had been a couple months, and with recent events in our family, it was really great to spend time together. We went to Rainbow Guitar and he bought a new amp and selected a new guitar that he will be purchasing as soon as he finishes his taxes. We went out for sushi and he taught me some new songs he had learned. All in all, it was a very simple weekend and one I relished.

I love my brother. He is one of the most amazing people I know. He often chooses to love when others would judge and he seems almost untouched by this harsh world, even though he and I have seen our share of hardships.  He has a simple wisdom that I fear I have all but lost. He is most often selfless and gives what ever he does not need. He is compassionate and always kind. He has a sincerity about him that many of us couldn’t even attempt to fake. There are no facades to him, only honesty. He seeks God with passion, but without ambition. My brother is honestly filled with love and a heart greater then many have had the joy of seeing in any single person. He commands a great deal of my respect, and he deserves all I can give him.

I have been meaning to sit down and write about this for the past week, but things have gotten a little crazy and so I am just now getting to it.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Molly E Holzschlag last Friday, and it was really an amazing meal. We talked about everything that we both are passionate about and I learned a great deal in the comparably short amount of time that we spent eating sushi. I rarely get to sit down and talk real web talk, and so it was a real treat to do so with someone such as Molly. At the risk of sounding like a fan boy, it was great to finally meet the woman who’s  books I have read and blog I have followed for so long.

Molly, thanks for lunch!

P.S. Such a fan boy

So, I am going to An Event Apart next month in New Orleans. It will be my first web design conference and with speaker of such caliber as Andy Clarke, Cameron Moll, Dave Shea, Jeff Veen, Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Aaron Gustafson, and Jason Santa Maria just to name a few, it promises to be a good one. I am really looking forward to this conference.

When did this happen?

Today actually. My Dad offered to pay for air fair for a conference and I had been debating whether or not this would be the one or not. Jeffrey Zeldman made a quick post on twitter today and it pushed me over board. I called my Dad to make sure the offer still stood, check with the boss to make sure it was cool, and then booked everything then and there.  It would be nice if work was paying for it, but oh well. I am really looking forward to this conference.

Never Before!

As previously mentioned, this will be my first conference, but surely not the last. I originally hope to attend SXSW, but that didn’t pan out. Honestly though, I think this will be a better event to attend being my first time doing this sort of thing. SWSW is so huge and busy that it can be a bit overwhelming and hard to meet people. This will be smaller and more manageable for a newb like my self. I am really looking forward to this conference.

Any last requests?

I hope to meet some of my heros at this conference. I have followed Andy Clarke and Dave Shea for some time now, and I am a big fan of Cameron Moll’s work. And of course there is the great Zeldman and Meyer duo. You can’t be in the same room as those two without being greatly impacted. Did I mention that I am really looking forward to this conference?