Hello out there?!

Wow. This may have been my longest leave of absence. I don't feel like it's quite time to re-enter the blogosphere. I think I'll take my Conan-break. Actually, for those of you who care about social networking, I've decided to reinvigorate my twitter account, zoti_soli. For those of you who don't understand twitter, try it for a few days, and it'll make sense.
Anyway, I figure that I could at least give you a partial update on things in my life. I'm floating under the radar for a bit...I think...until school is out. I've had an incredible difficult time as of late focusing on things, and it really bothers me, so I'm figuring out what the best way is to go about recovering from that. Maybe meditation, maybe some holistic approach...maybe a trip to the beach. I thought Honduras would help clear my mind, but I discovered that my tendency to always find something to be too busy with follows me even to the most remote places on this earth.
In the past two weeks I've begun to care about my networking presence on the web (perhaps/hence the twitter resurrection?). Part of this is becoming extremely active in the CouchSurfing community. If you don't know what that is, you should. And to answer your question, you don't understand. It's much more frightening to be in their shoes than mine (as a host), and you can be quite discriminating while still helping people out. Anyway, I hosted a Scot last week. Bernie was a great surfer and was very independent. He walked all over Salt Lake. I picked him up at the Greyhound station on Easter night, and he left that Thursday. It didn't seem very long at all, which is to say we enjoyed having him around. Yesterday, I picked up Roman from the Flying J his cousin dropped him off at on their cross-country big-rig ride. Roman is from the Czech Republic, and we had a lot to talk about, since we've both lived in Eastern Europe. I really enjoyed Roman, and was heart-broken that while he was in Boston, he was mugged twice within 10 minutes. Great hospitality. He was nervous when he got here, but after he explained why, I decided that I would do whatever I could to help him. I helped him get his rental car this morning as he was determined to make it to beautiful Southern Utah and all of the national parks. He had a pure heart, and I'm truly grateful that we are good friends. To think that within 15 hours, two people could have such a bond...amazing.
Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. My absence will probably resume until I feel adequate to manage my blog again.
Until then.

The Future Is Coming!!

I remember, I think, seeing this at Tomorrowland in 1998 on our family vacation to Disneyland. I thought it was funny then, and I think it's hilarious now. But it also reminds me that there was a time when peoples' imagination for the future was running rampant, and the sciences that were known then (I love the "push-button interface"), while being simplistic, opened their eyes for so much more. Do we still have that love for innovation? If not, what's getting in our way?

An interesting look at typography

As Art Director and Designer for The Daily Utah Chronicle, I became enthralled with typography. It's amazing what it does to any design, but even more amazing that a lot of designers totally screw up their designs with poor type choice.
I don't claim to be the best typographist, in fact, I know I'm not, but this was an interesting look at someone who does this for a living. He's commenting on the HBO series "Mad Men," which is supposed to be an awesome period show about an advertising agency in the 60s. He goes into the general typography of the show, what is plausible and what just couldn't have been in the 60s. Take a gander, it's an interesting read.
If you want to test your skills at typography identification, here's a few quizzes: simple typography quiz, a little more difficult one.
Hats off to kottke.org for the Mad Men link.

Hi, Def!

If any of you are looking to make the jump to a high definition television, you should make sure to check out the HD Guru. While many TVs claim to be 1080p, or full HD, many make that claim by stretching the technical specifications of "HD." Here are 125 displays put through a gauntlet of HD testing, and the results.