Hope you all are enjoying the extra daylight, colorful birds and spring blossoms as much as I am.

234 days in the office with an hour round-trip commute divided by 24 hours to get the number of days I've spent sitting in my car. No wonder I'm sick of NPR.

Here's a quick experiment I hacked up based on Seth's map technique.

Still not perfect, but the powers-that-be thought it looked fine in its original state so it's all gravy anyway.

Thought I'd share the best part with you - the chance to obsessively toggle back and forth between dirty & clean.

Excavator Thumb Retouch

For best results, say the words out loud as you toggle, "dirty, CLEAN!".

In the beginning, clients start off being happy with your good work. When I say, "Your good work", I mean you as a company. However, after you exceed their expectations a few times they become happy and comfortable with you, the person.

The business-to-business relationship begins because of surface-y things: A good reputation, word of mouth, etc. Long-term the client begins to develop a deeper connection secured by trust and dependence. And who can blame them? You make their problems go away. Sometimes magically.

As you grow and become busier you have less and less time to spend with each client. If you get big enough, you may have to put someone else from your company in touch with them -- hopefully someone as conscientious and service oriented as yourself. When you do, remember that the client doesn't give a rat's ass how great the new person is. They want you.

Your client can be the coolest, most rational and mature professional in the world, but when you pull the switch-a-roo be prepared to nurture them through a little pouting. And make sure your new guy has their best interest in mind, pays them some respect and gives super-human service.

Just sharing an observation. I'm not that big, yet, by the way.

Apple's doing their part to set me straight, though. They Under-Promise on the delivery date and then keep that promise.

Tough love.

It provides the sort of insider snapshot of the state of the regional tech union that we'll never get from the newspapers. Not because they self-censor, but because they don't get the 'pre-press release' insight Michael had.

Full MP3 audio of Michael DeAloia enlightening a room full of people at the Midtown Brews gathering.

Good stuff. Thanks to Vince Frantz for communicating its significance.

Performing a concert with "friends" at the Civic Theatre in downtown Akron tomorrow. Jerry Lee Lewis is a recently confirmed "friend" who will be performing, as well as the Bizzaros, The Waitresses and more.
17 minute video of her talking about how sweet Akron was, is and can be.

She's putting her money where her mouth is. Welcome back, Chrissie.

My wife, for example, successfully completed more projects in the last three months of her pregnancy than most people get done in a year. If she wasn't physically able to do it herself, she recruited me or some other available person.

If the beginning of the story was:

Colleen decided _________ needed to be _________.

What I didn't know about until recently, however, was that the arrival of children can also be a catalyst for powerful change within the father as well. Simply put: They experience a sudden and rapid growth of their inner-cajones.

Sometimes the changes are subtle: Polite and non-confrontational becomes assertive, sofa time gets replaced with sweat time, and BS tolerance plummets.

And sometimes they're conspicuous: Unquestioning loyalty to anyone outside of the family unit is displaced by a spirit of mutually beneficial collaboration and the employee transforms into the entrepreneur.

A percentage of new fathers experience inner-cajone shrinkage and bail out. Fortunately my family and peer group is full of examples of the former rather than the latter.

Some time in the early morning of Thursday, Sept. 6, a large beaver successfully felled the auxilliary trunk of a maple tree measuring 9" in diameter. The large trunk narrowly missed a large, highly populated ant hill.

It was obvious to this reporter that the beaver knew exactly what it was doing. The tree fell parallel to the beaver's path and downhill toward the pond, thus reducing the number of paces required to excavate the fallen lumber and move it to the water.

It is believed that the beaver will use the limb for construction material to augment its hut.

The actual point of this post is to share his cartoons with you.

Inspired by a chat conversation with Brad Deilman:
bdielman: Eric. What's shakin'?
bdielman is online.
bdielman: Does anyone say that anymore? ;)
Eric: siesmologists
bdielman: Ha!

The catering companies always overstaffed so the gigs were easy. Not to mention they paid well and we got to gawk into the homes and workplaces of the very rich & famous. There was always plenty of down time between setting up and tearing down so the catering folks would fade into the darkness and chat to pass the time.

On one of these occasions I crouched between luxury vehicles and smoked a cigarette with a guy named Dax. He had never had a 'real' job in his life. He felt that the nine-to-five model was very stupid because everyone knows that human beings aren't productive for eight hours straight, so why should they be expected to sit there and pretend? He and I saw eye-to-eye on that topic. The difference between us was that he had either managed to fulfill his financial obligations without violating the basic tenets of his principals or made peace with the fiscal loose ends.

For the next six years Dax maintained confidence in his writing and acting ability and continued to build his reputation. He started to land small movie roles and development deals. He persevered through tough times that would have sent most people running for the temp agency. After years of fits and starts, he made an ingenious move and all of his hard work and determination instantly paid off. He did something that would open every door in Hollywood, increase his per movie rate by millions and guarantee him the starring role in at least three upcoming films. Dax made the master stroke that spelled "check" and "mate" in the game of life.

Dax Shepard made out with Kate Hudson in front of paparazzi. Brilliant!

I know this sounds crazy, but I think something strange is happening to me. Just recently I've begun acquiring and retaining enormous amounts of knowledge. Every day when I wake up I almost feel like I'm not the person I was the day before. Rather a bigger, faster, stronger and more intelligent version.

Was I somehow born with latent superhuman abilities?

Sincerely,

Empowered
8 months old
Evanston, Illinois

Dear Empowered,

Yes, you were! In fact, in the near future your intelligence will eclipse that of your parents. Unfortunately you will continue to be dependent upon them while your motor skills catch up.

Eventually your motor skills will also be superior to those of your parents and your mind will be infinitely powerful. The ability to change the world will rest in the palm of your hand. Be aware that at this stage you will also become your own worst enemy.

Until then, enjoy the ride!

Ask a Baby Genius is the world's first on-line advice column written by babies for babies

We're still trying to get the correct venue for these meetings. Impulse, our most recent location, has the casual environment and WiFi that we need but the music is too loud and just gets louder as the evening progresses. I will miss the people watching. Top Gun blended with Saved by the Bell and a dash of MC Hammer.

Our next location should be better. Some of our friends at Cuyahoga Community College have offered to try and get us a room there, perhaps even for the next meeting.

There are enough dedicated members that we, as a group, decided to become an association. Specifically, the Cleveland Web Standards Association. Brendan Cullen will be lending his domain, clevelandwebstandards.org and/or .com to the cause and our meetup organizer, Joseph James Frantz, already has our host machine ready to go.

Bridget Stewart has a pro bono project lined up for us. We'll be redesigning a web site for Seeds of Literacy, an organization that provides assistance to adults in need of reading, writing and math tutoring with the goal of empowering them to advance in society.

The last 1/3 of the evening was spent discussing the brave new world of self-employment. A decent percentage of the group members work from home and many of them run their own businesses. It was exciting to hear about what successful business owners like Vince Frantz and Craig Minch had to say about making the leap and, most importantly, succeeding on your own once you leave the security of your full time job.

Every month, we'll design a web page in Photoshop and host a competition to see who can turn it into the best web page. The designs we release will present specific markup challenges, along with design and coding considerations for everyone from web newbies to experienced developers.

The point of CSS Off is to make you think critically about web design, and then execute it on a dime. You've got 24 hours to take our design and slice it up. Be thoughtful, be creative. Above all, use flexible markup, lean CSS, good design and your best judgment.

Dan Ott's personal site.
CSS OFF official site.

You can view the whole photo set on decaturshooter's flickr stream by clicking this photo. If you go there, view it in slideshow mode for maximum enjoyment: Set "Migration by Doug Rhödehamel" > View as slideshow.

Doug has been treating Orlando residents to a different perspective of the world for over ten years now.