Please note the new sidebar section.

Here we go again…

And of course we have the obligatory chocolate cake pictures. Enjoy.

And just for kicks and grins, that one there at the end is a reminder of what he looked like this time last year.

*Sniff* My little boy’s growing up so fast!

• Crawling

PS. I’m still trying to figure out how to use Premiere/AfterEffects to clean up the video a little bit. I know I just have a crappy consumer-grade DV camcorder, so I’m not expecting Lord of the Rings or anything. But cleaning up the graininess and evening out the lighting just a bit would be nice. If only I could edit video in Photoshop… *sigh*

On some level, I think, this is something of a polar opposite to what Se7enet was. When it was in its heyday, and I was a young and dumb college kid with all the time in the world, Se7enet was a place where I poured my creativity, such as it was, into the design of it. Admittedly, I don’t think I was ever that good. But I was proud of it, for whatever that’s worth. I would spend hours, days, weeks even, playing with Photoshop and 3dsmax and all kinds of programs that, if I am being totally honest with myself, I had no business playing with (at least then… now I’ve actually got formal training in some of them, so I’m a bit better off, right?), just to make something that, in my mind, looked awesome. Form over function, and all that rot. Hell, the entire existence of the site was because of some crappy desktop wallpaper I made back in high school where I’d stuck some goofy logo and the words “The Se7enet Project” down in the bottom corner.

Anyway, excepting the lovely Silk icons that adorn the various post details, there are exactly three images that comprise this site design. And two of those consist entirely of typography – which, for certain things, I am too much of a perfectionist to rely on a browser and your computer’s font selection to render. Every other part of the site is made with pure HTML and CSS. Rounded corners (for those of you using a real browser, anyway), padding, margins, floats, all that stuff… that’s what I do now. That’s what I like, and that’s what I like to spend my time on. That, and typography. Actually, come to think of it, given an unlimited supply of cash and the ability to change careers on a dime, I think typography designer would give game builder a run for it’s money. Graphics and all that Photoshopped goodness, all it does is get in the way, I think. (Believe me, I know better than anyone how insane and sacrilege that sounds, coming from me.)

So, welcome. This is me, now. Closing Se7enet was among the hardest things I’ve ever decided to do. But it was a necessary evil, and I am glad I did it. Because, like I said, this is me, now. Welcome to the new Jamin.