And the winner is...

Dan Layus, vocals, piano, guitar - Josiah Rosen, lead guitar, vocals - Jared Palomar, bass, keyboards, vocals - Justin South, drums

I went to a Maroon 5 concert Saturday night and after it was all said and done, I found that I liked the opening act better than Maroon 5 or Counting Crows (who also played before M5). But I have to say, I really enjoyed CC too. Augustana's sound has been described as a "fusion of European rock and organic Americana." I don't know what that means, but I liked them. It seemed very soulful and genuine to me. And if Wikipedia is to be believed, two of the founding members are from Greenville, IL - just a few miles away from where I'm sitting! Fun.

Maroon 5's show was very static and "canned" in my opinion. They sounded great, but the show was lackluster.

Counting Crows' show was really good! They just didn't know when to stop playing. It kind of dragged on too long with montages of Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel... i dunno. Still very good though.

Deal or No Deal

I'm normally not one to pontificate on political matters, but hey, my retirement account is taking a hit! This bailout of these key financial institutions is sending up red flags for me. I know something needs to be done quickly, but I think our president and congressmen are in the knee-jerk reaction phase. It seems to me there should be a way to entice public sector money to swoop in and facilitate the buyout. To mix metaphors, these institutions are wounded ducks, ripe for the picking! And as for the political grandstanding going on, McCain had a play to make here, and I think it was the right thing to do for his campaign, but he has played it poorly and is coming off like an oaf. Obama is kind of milling about in Washington because that's where McCain went, but he really has nothing to do, so he also is coming off as inept. And thanks to our American media, we're getting a smattering of unrelated soundbites from Sarah Palin sounding dumb as well. I'm not aware of what Biden is doing, so that's clearly in his favor.

Ultimately, I'm glad we're not taking the first deal to come along. I want to get this as right as we can. And I want capitalism to come to the rescue, not the federal government. But it doesn't look like that's in the cards. But who knows?! I don't expect any deal for a few days. I doubt it is in place by Monday. I really am not worried about a "panic" either though.

What if...

What if we rode this out and let the natural progression of a capitalistic economy process this downturn. I wonder what would happen. Depression? Probably. But I heard a line in a movie that actually resonated with me. I'm paraphrasing here, but, "It's only natural for an overgrown forest to have a purging fire." But if it means I'll go broke in the process... well I wouldn't be fan. Pun intended.

[Trumpet Fanfare...]

It's a new header for my new blog! Very album-cover, isn't it? And how about that haircut... what a nice block in the back - where my mullet used to be. Ahhh. All kidding aside, I think its a good design for a blog. Oceans of possibilities, thoughts, ideas. Or sometimes a big blank.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I have control issues, I guess.
I live in Glen Carbon, IL. Each summer our little village celebrates "Glen Carbon Homecoming." It's kind of like a street fair - carnival rides and games, etc. So I thought it would be nice to give it a graphic identity. The village events committee agreed and I donated my time and skills to create this sort of logo for the event. I gave them the graphics files and explained what each file should be used for. Some versions work best for web, some better for print, and some better for being cut in vinyl. As my boss says so eloquently, "It's like throwing pearls before swine." Every time I saw it in print or on the web, it was distorted and/or pixelated! I was not happy. Because after all, I put a lot of time and effort into the design, only to see it bastardized. And a lot of my friends/coworkers, etc. knew I created it - and it looked awful! So the village wants me to update the logo with subsequent years - all the way up to 2011 (I think they believe the world is coming to an end in 2012...) and I'm leaning toward not doing it. Bad thing is, they'll do it themselves and it will look even worse most likely. What to do, what to do...

Halloween Illustrations

I've illustrated our favorite monster in action. It seems like every year at this time Frankenstein's monster is run out of town. The poor fella is always misunderstood.

This started as a pencil sketch during a moment of boredom and got me on the road to creating 4 more Halloween illustrations. I scanned the sketch and brought it in to Illustrator and Photoshop to paint it. I used the same process to complete the following illustrations. I learned a lot while working on these images.