Sure, why not? Since I last wrote here a few months ago I’ve done a lot. I made it through the holiday season in one piece, I redesigned the website, I’ve started a new job, I moved into a new apartment and we’ve come a long way on the wedding planning. It’s been a busy time but everything seems to be coming together nicely.

The Holidays
They were great. We stayed in Minneapolis so there wasn’t the trouble of holiday travel to deal with. We spent the holiday with Lizzie’s family mostly, great meals and great gift exchanging. Nothing to complain about. I went to North Dakota the weekend before New Years and did some snowmobiling. Without hurting myself. It was fun.

Redesigned the Web Site
It hasn’t seen much of a change since 2003, so I needed to do something different with it. I’m just never very ambitious about advertising myself, I’m better at showing off other people (companies). I made it quick, very simple but I think it’s easy to look at. Not quite the jumbled mess it used to be.

Started a new job
This has been probably the most exciting part of the past few months. Around Thanksgiving I was approached to go in and talk about a Graphic Designer & Web Designer job at a company just a few blocks away from home. Turned out the position was a nice step up for me, so after two interviews and a lot of agonizing I decided to move on. I spent three solid years at the last place, it was hard to leave but after spending just a couple weeks now at the new job I know it was the best choice for me professionally. It’s also done a number on reducing my stress level too, I’ve reduced my 1hour commute by about 98%. Heck, I can walk to work now if my car dies on me. Speaking of which, it’s -13 degrees out today, and my fuel lines are all froze up. I’m not too worried though, I can walk to work tomorrow if I have to!

Moved into a new apartment
This is kind of a funny story. We’ve been wanting to move into a bigger place for a while now. Just never had the ambition to do it. Well, the guy in the apartment above us helped us out with this decision by having a little accident. You see, one late evening at about midnight he had a few drinks and passed out in his bathroom. He must have passed out while standing as he fell onto his toilet, breaking the tank and causing water to flow all over his apartment while he lay there passed out and oblivious. Of course, eventually that water all started draining into our apartment below.

Lizzie and I awoke to flowing water. I walked to the bathroom and noticed water flowing from the vent in the ceiling down into the toilet. I don’t think I really understood what was going on at first and I went back to bed. I then woke up enough to be aware that there was kind of a problem at hand, so I got up and looked at it again, and then went down to pound on the apartment manager’s door.

After a long night, we found out the next day that our carpets & ceilings were pretty much destroyed so we had to move upstairs. The apartment we moved to had brand new hardwood floors, new appliances, and an extra bedroom that we could turn into an office. Rather than just taking it as a temporary apartment for a couple months, we told them we’ll just take the place permanently. We’ve been enjoying the extra space a lot.

Coming along on wedding planning
This weeks marks 1 year since we became engaged. We’ll be celebrating our dating anniversary on Wednesday by dining at our favorite restaurant, Ichiban in Minneapolis. We’re coming along well on the wedding planning. There are some things we’re a little behind on like tuxes but I should be taking care of that this month. I finally sat down and designed the save the dates last Sunday and got them printed. We’re now just getting some addresses together so we can get those sent out.

Not much else is new. I’ve just been focusing on the new job and trying to use my new spare time to help Liz with wedding stuff. I’ve been following the primaries and caucuses very closely and have some opinions on the matter, but I’ll save that for another day. I enjoyed the Super Bowl very much, I’m not a Randy Moss fan as I’ve mentioned before, so seeing him fail was rather fulfilling. Meanwhile, racing seasons are beginning this month so I’m looking forward to a new year of that.

So I’ll start writing here a little here and there again. Maybe once or twice a month. We’ll see what kind of time I have, and if I have anything to say. With this being an election year I’m sure I’ll have plenty to rant about.

I’ve found myself, now, at the end of a very long hiatus from writing here. Believe me, it wasn’t my idea. Life just happened that way.

I’ve sadly let this become everything I didn’t want it to be; when I started it almost 5 years ago, It was a way for me to take the jumbled, mushy mess that is my brain and apply it to something that ended up being very enjoyable for me. I felt like I was connecting with some people out there who I really had some important things to say to.

So much has changed. I’m a 24 now, living and experiencing that strange feeling that is “growing up” in both small and large doses. To be honest, that need to connect with certain people went away recently. I realized that focusing on those closest to me in life is what’s really important. Those are the people who won’t draw unfair conclusions about me. They’ll always be interested in what I have to say.

So in a couple of weeks this blog will go dark, and most of what’s here on dustinmarson.com will also be gone. A new, re-designed website that’s currently in the works will be made live which shows my professional resume and portfolio only. In the next year or two, I’ll be looking for that next step in my career so I’ll be spending a lot of my free time getting my portfolio back up to snuff. I hope to start working on my drawings again, and even dabble in painting a little bit again, just so that I can make my portfolio a little more personal.

I want to thank all of you who kept up on me for all these years, and let me keep up on you. If you want to be let in on the new installment in this little paper trail of mine called life, just email me or give me a call.

Hi there!

I’m still alive. I’ve just been very busy, yet have little to say about it.

Sorry, I’m sure I’ll have something to rant about soon. Going out to lots of movies lately. Some good, some bad.

At around midnight last night, I was sleeping well but abruptly awoken by fire truck sirens. We live close to the freeway so it’s not that uncommon to hear the occasional siren, but these were really, really nearby and it kind of sounded like they stopped right outside the window. That’s when I put on my glasses and sat up, then noticed that the whole bedroom was orange, and the orange light shining through the mini-blinds was much brighter than the orange city street lights generally are. That’s when I peeked through the blinds and saw flames directly out the window, no more than 20 feet away.

I had no idea what was going on, all I could see were flames really close, and they were very tall flames and stretched across the parking lot the length of about three vehicles. I woke up Lizzie and we grabbed the Cat. Then we ran down to the garage to jump in her car, mine was in the outdoor parking lot just a few parking spaces away from the fire. We could smell smoke in the hallway as we went down to the garage, it smelled like plastic burning, so I thought a car or cars must be on fire. You see, I was trying to logically think about what was going on out there instead of jumping to the conclusion that it was some kind of armageddon out there.

So we drove out of the garage and around the block back around to see what was going on in the parking lot. We saw the firefighters putting out a car completely engulfed in flames, and there was fire burning on the cement in front of the car as well. They put it out rather quickly.

From our perspective inside, it looked like a lot of fire and it really was pretty close to us. More fire than any little extinguisher would put out, and with it being out by cars which can explode I got a little nervous. We kept hearing loud pops as we were evacuating, probably fuel lines in the car blowing up or something of that nature.

We realized it was obviously under control, so I went out to the crowd of residents standing by the front entrance and asked what happened. No one knew for sure but it sounded like the car just caught on fire as they were driving into the parking lot. It was an 1980s Saab, probably had some electrical issues or something. No one was hurt, and no other cars were ignited.

Waking up in the middle of the night, looking outside and seeing nothing but flames right out the window is definitely a new one for me. It was pretty nerve-wracking, and I think getting the hell out of there wasn’t the worst thing in the world to do. Next time, I might grab the fire extinguisher and try to get a better view before rushing out so quickly. I couldn’t even see that it was a car from where we were, it looked like three cars on fire. I’ve never seen a car burn up quite like that.

So I got back to sleep pretty late. It took a while for the nerves to calm down. Tonight I’m tired from the lost sleep of course. At least I can feel glad it wasn’t my car on fire, and that nothing was lost but someone’s old car and no one was hurt. I feel pretty bad for whoever that was, hopefully they have better insurance than I.

Quite eventful the past couple of weeks have been. I went up to Fargo for a printing expo last weekend, saw some demos on vehicle wraps and even got to get up there and do a little cutting and squeegeeing myself. Is squeegeeing a word? Spell check doesn’t seem to think so. Oh well, you know what I mean.

Vehicle graphics is something I’ve always wanted to do, I once had big dreams of designing paint schemes for race cars. The plan was to move out to Charlotte, NC and the gig would be available instantly, of course. I’d be there in Charlotte designing paint schemes for NASCAR, and within distance to design for the open wheel teams in Indianapolis. Well, the world doesn’t work that way. I can’t see myself way out in North Carolina, I don’t know anyone anywhere near there. But, who says I have to go there? The company I work for is just getting into wide-format printing, so a little vehicle graphics might be in the question. I’ll get a little wide-format printing and signage experience and I’ll have the right stuff on my resume for it. That’s sort-of promising.

So I got to visit good old Fargo for this expo. Stayed up in Fargo at the Radisson Friday night, and then on Saturday night and Sunday I paid a visit to the family up in Cooperstown. Did a little snowmobiling on Sunday, and of course every muscle in my body was sore for the entire week afterward. It was about 50 degrees out so the snow was melting and very sticky, which made the snowmobile ride very bumpy and it was hard to turn. It was kind of like driving a car with no power steering, something I’ve had to do a few times before. It was still a lot of fun. The river was still frozen enough to ride on, and we saw a lot of deer out running around the area. One of the deer that got spooked by the snowmobile I was riding had leaped over a riverbank and landed flat on his head. I thought for certain he was a goner and had snapped his neck, but he got up and kept on running.

It was quiet around there, though. My older brother has been living in Fargo for a few years, so my visits home always included him, until this weekend. He’s moved on to greener pastures and moved out to Colorado. He made what I think is a good move and decided to use his GI bill and go to college, he found a school he liked out in Denver. He’s about 30 years old now, but I don’t think anyone’s ever really too old for college. I had classes with people older than that, one of my favorite classmates in college was as old as my parents and now he’s doing well as a graphic artist in an ad agency.

I’m quite excited for my brother, but it was very quiet and odd without him and his rambunctious yellow lab around this past weekend. Not having him nearby is already taking a toll on me. Yeah, I miss my big brother. We’ve been very close over the years, and I’ve counted on him for a lot. But he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. Who knows, maybe we’ll move out to Colorado too some day, we’ve been talking about doing that for a long time. Probably not anytime quite soon, though.

First we’ve got a wedding, and that’s going to be happening June 15th, 2008. We’re slowly moving into the planning stages, we have some time so we aren’t jumping to any conclusions yet. We know that we want it to happen in Minnesota, we’re going to check out some lake resorts up north this summer. I was informed that June 15th is also the wedding anniversary of my grandparents (on my Mom’s side) so that’s kind of cool.

I’ll keep you posted on the planning. In fact, I bought the domain name dustinandelizabeth.com so that we can have a wedding site. I haven’t decided if that’s geeky or not yet. No need for me to be self-conscious I guess, everyone thinks I’m a geek already I’m sure, and that doesn’t really bother me anymore. The dustinandelizabeth.com web site doesn’t have anything on it yet, but eventually we’ll use that for photos from the wedding, announcements, and even RSVPs. I was talking to a friend who recently got married, and he said that one of his biggest frustrations was that 75% of the RSVPs didn’t come by the deadline. Perhaps an online RSVP will cut that percentage down a little bit. I’ll announce when I have something on that new website, I just haven’t had any time yet.

Talk to y’all later… (yes I said “y’all”… I’m practicing my Charlotte, North Carolina accent dont-cha know).

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