Happy Birthday Travis

My friend Travis wanted an illustration of Teddy Roosevelt Riding a Unicorn into Battle against a T-Rex with Lasers on its back and Jesus being crucified in the background. This is what I came up with.

Happy Birthday Travis!

A Summary of My 2011

Dear family, friends, clients, and random people that stumble upon my site. This is my first attempt at a holiday letter. Feel free to skim through, as I am sending this to a wide variety of people, all with varying levels of interest in my life.

I started my new year's resolution with an intense 10-week workout program. I signed up for KOSAMA. It was pretty tough, but I enjoyed it and would recommend it. Then, Alyssa (my fiance) won a free 10-weeks at KOSAMA at a bridal show, so I signed up again to do it with her. Overall, I lost about 6% of my body fat and I looked pretty ripped.

KOSAMA stats

Alyssa moved on from DMACC to Grand View's education program. She wants to be an elementary teacher.

At my job at Gannett I design digital ads. This year I learned Adobe Flash and how to animate things. I have gotten a lot better at it over the year, and I have been assigned to many special projects for our bigger clients.

In February, Alyssa and I moved from our apartment to a duplex. We have a yard now and I have a man-cave in the basement, complete with a pingpong table, foosball table, mini-fridge, and couch. We finally have enough room to throw lavish grill outs and beer pong tournaments.

Duplex

In March, I turned 22.

In April, I bought my 1st new car. My old Buick Park Avenue became unfixable for me, so I bought a 2011 Ford Focus in white. I really like it, especially the remote start.

In May, My little cousin Kelly passed away. He had more health problems than anyone I know, but he was always smiling and laughing.

Kelly Schwarz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weekend before my wedding my best man Andy threw me an awesome bachelor party. He rented a party bus and we went downtown to all the bars. I threw up at the Hessen Haus and at Fong's Pizza and then later that night at my house. Good times. Oh and my friend Justin made me a Groom shirt that had Tweety Bird and the word "Trouble" on it.

Bachelor Party

Bachelor Party

On May 28th I got married to my love, Alyssa. We have dated since May 11th, 2007. And since then we have been inseparable.

Our photographer, Laura at LifeArtPhoto was awesome. We love all the pictures and the photo booth was a hit. Friend Alyssa on Facebook to see more wedding photos.

Our video was taken by Brad at Virtual Waters Productions. In exchange I am rebuilding his website for him. Check it out!

EPCOT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our honeymoon we went to Walt Disney World for a week. It was my first time and it was a lot of fun. We rode every ride and ate some really good food. We stayed at a resort with a pool, and we went to all the parks for a day and then went back to our favorites for the other days.

This year my freelance design business has done very well, thanks to returning clients and new.

Chris Brennick has been my biggest client and has brought me even more business with all of his connections. His fairly new Directv store, Rockstar Satellite has grown a lot this year and business is booming. I designed a vinyl wrap for his van, truck, desk and a wall inside the store. I made flyers, shirts, ads for local magazines, website animations and much more. I also had fun helping out with RAGBRAI's visit to Altoona. Chris was a major player in getting the event organized, so he had me making signs and doing promotions.

A new client, Flavors of Northwest Iowa, had me design a bunch of logo concepts and they were very happy with the end result.

Tipsy Tees is another new client. Amy was looking to start an online apparel store and she found my site. We are coming up with a bunch of fun designs and she hopes to start printing in the spring once we have all the designs finalized.

I also had many small projects throughout the year. I made ads for KOSAMA and Elite Performance in Altoona. I animated Virtual Waters Productions logo. I helped Alyssa's friend Allie with a shirt design for her Grand View class. And Alyssa and I did a couple paintings to fill our new home.

Last year I had some health problems and I ended up being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. The doctor had me taking 3 -4 pills a day. I spent a lot of time this year researching and trying new things, so that I wouldn't have to take any medication the rest of my life. I started with a Paleo diet. It is a nutritional plan based on evolutionary research into the presumed diet of wild plants and animals that we used to eat before the agricultural revolution. The biggest part that has helped me is the gluten-free diet, and it has gotten me down to taking only 1 pill a day, just to be safe. I have also lost more fat than when I did Kosama and the only exercise I get now is walks with Alyssa and weight training. If interested I suggest reading robbwolf.com and marksdailyapple.com.

I will be missing Christmas with the Briggs' this year. I am staying home with my wife for our 1st Christmas.

I will be spending New Years' Eve at Alyssa's cousin's wedding in Wisconsin.

2012

Next year I hope to learn more html and app development. I am rebuilding my website on a new platform so it will be free and after that I plan on writing more posts on my blog. I want more clients, so I am going to try to promote my business.

Alyssa and I are also looking into getting a house next year, which would be nice for when we want to start a family.

Thanks for reading and please keep in touch.

My DIY Standing Desk

I have been reading a bunch of studies about how sitting at a desk all day takes years off of your life. So I figured I should at least have a standing desk at home since I can't have one at work. This was the cheapest solution I could find for the size I wanted. I checked IkeaHackers and the closest I could find was going to be $230. What I ended up making is pretty nice so far. Just two wire shelves that were $40 each and then two 2x8's that were on sale for $7 each. The planks are just laying on the shelves right now, but eventually I am going to attach them with wire somehow. The planks bent a little in the middle when they were going edge to edge, so I moved the shelves closer together and have the planks go up against the wall on the right, which ended up looking nice.  Right now all I have is the Macbook Pro, but I built this with an iMac in mind, with the iMac on the top shelf and the keyboard on the bottom. When I get that I will need to get a bracket attached to the wall for more support.