Rob Yardman » Rob Yardman

The Most Important Things…

Rob — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:04:46 +0000

…are the hardest to say.

I just read this in a quote by Steven King and it made me think a little bit. It made me think back to all the things or situations where I avoided saying something important and meaningful to someone. The things that meant the most to me but I was afraid of someone else’s perception of me. You know those moments where you felt like the situation was immense and way too big for you. You were afraid of the reaction.

Whether it’s simply voicing your opinion or getting your true feelings off your chest, revealing oneself can be a difficult thing to contend with. The thought of rejection and humiliation can be too much for a person to deal with especially in a moment of weakness.

The entire quote:

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.”

If you’ve ever been in a moment where you felt like no matter what you say to someone your true feelings could never be truly understood then you can understand what King meant by, “words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.”

Think about that for a moment. How many times have you wanted someone to know how you felt about them but didn’t have the words to define your true sentiment. Or you just got so nervous that you weren’t even sure if you really made any sense at all. Now compile that moment with that person having a less-than-desirable response. It can hurt A LOT. We’ve all been there and know it’s not fun.

If there’s one thing age is good for, it definitely makes you wiser, but it also makes you more tolerant of how people perceive you. After a while, you really don’t give a shit. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gained a confidence that definitely wasn’t there when I was a teenager or even in my early 20′s.

I’ve always had confidence in my abilities and my talents but I was extremely conscience of how others perceived me. If I could send a message to my youthful self it would be to, “Just let it all hang out, bro! Rock out with your cock out, hold nothing back, and enjoy the ride.”

I look back to moments when I put myself out there, was rejected, and in this space and time it has no affect on me. If anything, those rejections made me a stronger and more presumptuous. The truth is, within time, you’re going to forget it all anyway.

My message: Don’t be afraid of rejection so much so that you would let it interfere with letting someone know how you feel about them. This includes family members, friends, love interests, etc. I’d be more afraid of of not knowing what would happen if I didn’t tell someone how I felt.

Hell, I recently put myself out there and I feel a lot better for it. That person knows how I feel about them and what I think about them. I went out on a limb. I feel better about that than if I had kept those thoughts and feelings to myself. Something may or may not come of it but at least the proposition is out there and declared to them.

Say what you need to say and let the rest iron itself out later. Life is way too short to hold back and every once and a while you might just be surprised at the outcome.

WordPress Client: The Santa Fe VIP

Rob — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:59:53 +0000

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I have decided to take on a few side projects. I was recently approached by a friend of mine to build his vision of a website that would highlight Santa Fe’s nightlife and daytime entertainment as well as various “exclusive” businesses. I happily and eagerly took on the project even though I knew was going to be somewhat of a difficult task because of my time constraints. Despite that, I was ready to get back into design work and this was definitely the project to get the ball rolling.

In my friend Victor’s vision, The Santa Fe VIP was set out to be an end-all be-all resource for everything related to Santa Fe and in particular, it’s nightlife. After a little deliberating and getting an understanding for his project I had him focus the scope of his website on nightlife and highlight various businesses in town on a more concentrated scale.

Instead of being “all inclusive” I suggested he make exclusivity his selling point. My idea to him was, “What would make a persons night in Santa Fe a VIP experience?” People want to know about the deals in town. They want to feel like they’re getting the hook up or they’re part of “the crew”. If anyone has ever been to a night club that had a cover charge and known the bouncer well enough to get a deal at the door, that’s a “VIP Experience” and was going to be our model.

So far, it’s working, and because of Victor’s range of friends and connections in the restaurant and night club industry he’s been able to lock in some great deals and pass them on to readers of the website. He’s locked in a following and people appreciate the service.

My Role…

My role was simply to build and maintain the website and to help Victor get an understanding of publishing web content through a Content Management System; WordPress in this instance. The website went through a slew of design changes while Victor and I deliberated over how he could manage and maintain content as well as sell the site to potential customers with ad space and exclusively offered customized web pages.

Requirements

Victor initially didn’t express many requirements or things that were a MUST HAVE which gave me complete control over the creative process. He expressed to me his idea and I simply translated that into a functional web design. Some things that he did like were rotating and dynamic content; “flashy” stuff. I had a few ideas and a couple things that I hadn’t really tried or used before. For one, this is a website that is about entertainment so it should have some entertaining value to it. This means content that changes and isn’t stale. A lot of my clients want their information out but aren’t necessarily looking for any entertaining value in their content. Victor, on the other hand was.

In order to achieve what Victor wanted I used a jquery rotating banner on the home page. This would serve as two functions: ad space for exclusive customers or content and it has an wow factor. It’s dynamic content; It’s “Flashy”.

The Logo

When creating the logo we had a lot of different opinions. I had my own vision of what I thought it should look like and so did Victor. So to remedy that issue I had him send me examples of what he liked; font’s etc. He directed me to the website of Cody Sanderson. Cody is an amazing local Native American Jeweler and Victor liked the font on his website banner. After about two days of trying to find the font that Cody used I realized it was most likely a custom font and I’d save time just making it myself. Using Trajan Normal as a template I was able to add the exaggerated columns, ornate swirls and pronounced swooshes. What transpired from that was a pretty cool font and a great logo.

Results?

So far the website has been very successful and we’ve garnished a lot of attention from different resources namely Facebook and Twitter. I’ve always been a very big advocate for Social Networking. Not as a cool toy or a way to meet with old friends and reach out to social interests, but as a way to reach out to a large audience to gain interest in your content. More specifically in this case: Santa Fe locals and tourists were the target audience and both Facebook and Twitter offered a great way to reach out to that audience.

The site is growing everyday. Throughout the last month (even before announcing a launch) the website has had approximately 7,000 hits. Victor himself has managed to sell some of his newly found web-based real estate and produce some valuable content. Although we’ve experienced a few bumps with media content, Victor has grown comfortable in publishing regular blogs and events with pictures and links.

Dear Elijah… A Letter to My Unborn Son.

Rob — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:49:26 +0000

Dear Son,

First off, I’m so proud to be your dad and I can’t wait to see your face and meet you. I have tried very hard to be there while you were growing in your mommas belly but the circumstances have not allowed me that privilege. I really hope you can understand that later in life when you can make your own judgments. You yourself will see my heart and how much I care about you and your mom.

I want you to know that I love you and no matter what hardships your mother and I go through, you mean the world to me. No one can take my feelings for you away from me. I wish things could have been different and the three of us – your mom, you and I – could have been a family but that was taken from me. I just wanted a happy family to raise you.

Son, you are my heart. You are the center of my life and I miss you so much. I didn’t get to see you grow and that has hurt me very deeply. That has tortured me to the point of crying and not being able to sleep. I miss rubbing lotion on your mommas belly every night and getting to see you move and kick. I wish I could hear your heart beat. I just wish I could feel you for a second of my life. Just a small kick or a small bump. I miss you so much…

Even without you being a complete person yet, I can’t believe how much I care about you. You’re so small and don’t know the complications of life yet. You won’t understand things for a really long time but I hope your mom and I can make everything comfortable for you as you grow up. I hope you know that I have tried for you and I have loved every step of your life. I will always care about what you go through and are dealing with. I’m always there for you, son.

When things seem hard and so complicated, I’m there for you no matter what. These are the things I have not been privileged to yet but want to offer to you as a dad and a friend. I want to be your “rock.” When your so down and need someone to love you and understand you, I will be there. I’m attached to you forever. I’m forever your man of understanding and unconditional love. I look forward to seeing you grow and becoming a person of your own. Watching you be a man of your own and having a son of your own that you can raise like I raised you.

I can’t wait to see you and meet you. I can’t wait to take you fishing, hunting and camping. I can’t wait to see your face when you catch your first baseball or football or score your first basket. I can’t wait till you grow up and experience the pleasures of being a father and a man. I will be there by your side through it all.

I will be your dad no matter what and when it matters the most, I love you and will be there for you.

Through all my recent hardships I have the thought of you to keep me going on. You are my “rock” like I wish to be yours.

Your dad,

Robert B. Yardman

Use CompizConfig To Set A Terminal Shortcut

Rob — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:46:17 +0000

Okay this a fairly easy tip but a huge time saver if your constantly using the terminal. I’ll show you a quick way to open up a terminal and set it’s window size. Obviously you need to be using Compiz along with the “CompizConfig Settings Manager”. If you don’t have CompizConfig Settings Manager installed just:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Now go to System > Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager. Inside the Settings Manager application select the “Gnome Compatibility” button. And from there select the “Commands” tab.

Within this dialog you can set the terminal command you would like to run. Typically you can just use gnome-terminal but we want to go a little further than that. Adding the –geometry tag, you can set the size of the terminal window. It should look like this:

After that you’re done. Quick and easy and now when you want a terminal: Control + Space Bar.