Pocket Revolutionary

We launched the official Vintage 56 blog over at MarketingDilemma.com this week. It’s based on Basic Maths by Khoi Vinh, and has just enough tweaks right now to make me happy that it’s not totally stock. Honestly, I think they started with a template this time around to keep me from fiddling too much and just launch it by the end of the week.

Anyway, the new blog is up as a group project from the whole Vintage 56 crew, and I think it will be a great place to hear some of my friends talk about current projects and what we’re all learning about video, graphics, audio, iPhone development, etc. In the future, I plan on making sure that all of my most accessible web/iPhone goodness ends up on there. I’ll keep using this blog for the more personal and/or deeply nerdy discussions, though, so have no fear. I’ll also keep more sardonic posts on here. I know what you come here for.

In other news, my beautiful, thoughtful wife saw the new Vintage 56 website and blog and immediately gave me her unconditional encouragement: “You really need to update Pocket Revolutionary…  it’s pretty dated.” On that note, I’ll probably start working on that redesign right after I finish her new website.

First off, I just want to verify that I’m still alive. Writing a book in your “spare time” is an exercise in self-torture spread out over many months, but it is coming along. I’m finally over halfway through as I work on chapter 7. Throw away all of your preconceptions about how you can modify the rich-text editor interface in TYPO3. Oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Fine. Well, if you had some preconceptions about some very technical junk in TYPO3, I would be shattering them. You would be shocked. Shocked.

Aside from my attack on the bourgeoisie of TYPO3 templating, I wanted to mention my big new adventure: Vintage 56. Yes, although I may hate the escapade that was freelancing (on the side), I’m really excited about getting to form an honest-to-goodness production/design agency with some great people that I’ve worked with at Generals International for years. Basically, we’ve figured out how to make our own mark doing web, iPhone apps, graphics, video, and audio production with clients we love and help out a ministry by donating a large portion of our profits to Generals. Actually, we’re helping a lot of ministries and medium-size companies right now because they’re getting the full agency treatment without the full agency budget. Basically, I get to work with really talented people, and I wanted to brag on them. You can check out http://vin56.com to see what I’m talking about (yes, the video works on iPads, iPhones, and iPods).

p.s. – You need to check out our graphic designer’s blog…  she’s awesome.

p.p.s. – We will be launching another blog for Vintage 56 soon, but I’ve been slacking off– writing a frickin’ book. Stop pestering me. Seriously. I need to go.

I am officially working on my first dead-tree book. I know I technically spilled the beans on Twitter at the end of last week, but this is my official announcement. I was approached by Packt publishing a couple weeks ago to see if I would be interested in writing a book on building and pimping out (not their words) templates in TYPO3. I decided that I’ll never know how little sleep I can live on until I really push it and accepted the challenge. So, over the next six months, I will be writing, screaming, crying, and having at least a couple breakdowns just so I can officially say that I’m a published author. I can only imagine that as a published author I’ll be able to raise my hourly rates, fly first class, smoke a pipe with gusto, and generally live a life of leisure and self-imposed solitude. I haven’t decided who’s going to play me in the movie, yet, but I’m leaning towards Lyle Lovett or a very disgruntled Randy Newman.

How does this affect this blog that I’ve been trying to write in more consistently? Well, I’m forcing myself to write an extra hour a night, and at least every once in a while that has to mean something other than “the book”. In fact, in the interest of writing a clear instructional book, I will be channeling 90% of my snarkiness, obscure cultural references, and general temperament toward outlets like this and the occasional telemarketer. The remaining 10% will probably make it into the book in a much more palatable dosage. On the side of helpful effects, though, this will give me more experience writing genuinely instructive articles. I’m already planning on blogging my process a little for those who haven’t already read the thousands of blog articles covering the same topic (I promise, I’ll offer something different…  like what word processor and meth dealers I use for late night working).

One week ago, I said goodbye to my number one fan. My mom, Kathleen Anne Gabrielle, read every single word I wrote, and she’s the biggest reason that I write today. She encouraged me when I was the scrawny kid with the Tom Clancy novel on the playground and a notebook in his back pocket, and she was my most active commenter when I started blogging.

More than that, though, my mom was my model of a great writer. She spent her whole life wanting to reach people with her words, and she loved the writing freedom that came with the web more than anybody I’ve personally known. She blogged, twittered, and Facebook-ed her way into so many lives this past year, and I know it’s because she reached people with honesty. Anybody can say you should “write with honesty”, but it’s so rare to have a model of what it really means to write from your pain and to truly connect on that deepest, scarred level that we all share.

Because of this slow digression it is easy to catch myself dwelling on all the things I can no longer do or will never do again. A Coleman commercial on television reminds me that my camping days are permanently over. A Six Flags ad reminds me that my last ride on the “Superman” ride three summers ago was my last. Are these laments true? Yes. Honest? Yes. Just? not really (in my eyes) and they are certainly not pure or lovely – and contentment goes right out the door.

I will not find contentment concentrating only on the possibility of my healing but on focusing on those things that are EVERYTHING Philippians 4:8 lists. We cannot cajole anyone into their healing by carelessly quoting Scriptures or platitudes. That is exactly what Job’s friends did and in the end their voices (and I think their ears) were silenced by the booming voice of God who boldly asked Job dozens of rhetorical questions that all had the same answer – God and God alone because He IS Sovereign – period.

How Content I’m Not…  An Honest Confession – Kathleen Gabrielle

Kathleen Anne Gabrielle passed away quickly Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 in her home with her roommate and my wife by her side (and me running to the store to grab her a fan to help her breathing). She wrote many places, but the last place she wrote (with a final posting three days before she passed) was her most devoted project, An Open Heart Journal, which I recommend reading from the beginning. Many of her final posts took her almost a whole day to type (and included actual typos for the first time in her life), but she never quit. I guess that was her final lesson to me.

I tested out the new bing.com “decision engine” with a good ol’ fashioned vanity search for “Jeremy Greenawalt”. You cannot imagine my horror to see that the #8 result is this site with the words “Animated Logo designed and created by: Jeremy Greenawalt”. I will go on the record right now to any future clients and say “It’s not me”. I’m sure he’s a nice person. I feel bad knowing that my site is at the top of the list of “Jeremy Greenawalt” responses in Google and he would probably find this post in his own vanity search, but I must disavow this logo right now. I’m not sure I can legally send a cease and desist order over his name as a “designer of spinning logos”, but my lawyers are working on it right now and I will keep you apprised.