Michael McDonald is currently blasting through my headphones which only further solidifies my addiction to the 80's STILL. Now don't get me wrong, on my way to work, I cranked Kosheen to 15 with the windows up and jammed the four blocks to work with my ears bleeding but still, I'm not the same man (god it's weird to say that) that I used to be back in the day.

Hell, even looking back three years ago, I was almost entirely different than who I am today. I was currently reeling from a breakup of an 8-year sentence, was focusing intently on destroying my liver on a daily basis and making out with whomever would let me make out with them for an entire summer. I was going out every night and generally not giving a fuck about myself or anyone else in my life.

Now, granted, that was a GREAT time for me. It really was in a weird way. I wouldn't give it up for the world but I don't think I would do it again if given the chance. (Well, the making out with kate on two separate occasions before we officially started dating was definitely worth doing over again *wink*)

I dunno, I'm just older now. I don't feel as old as I used to a year ago thank god. I'm more confident, things seem clearer to me and I think I'm truly happy for once. Yeah I turn into an emo whiny bastard every now and again but who doesn't right?

Ok Jason, on with the point dude...

This past week was sort of a mini turning point for me. For those of you who don't know, I am getting the boot from lovely VW in a few weeks. Budget cutbacks has taken my job and I am being laid off for the second time in my life. It's sort of a scary position to be in as most of the people in the company I work for are shitting themselves. God bless the dotcom aftershock.

Anyhoo, I took to the ground running this week and called up my work pimp Mauro over at Mediabarn and he set me up right as any pimp should. I've had several interviews this week as well as multiple freelance jobs getting finished so the stress level has been really high for me. Buuut, the coolest thing that happened was when I was asked to do a small redesign for a website in 10 hours time. And even though this job wasn't officially a "test" of sorts, I treated it as such and jumped in the deep end with held breath and a pair of flippers.

I looked at it with the eyes of an art director as opposed as a designer this time. Instead of just sitting down at the computer and pushing around some pixels, I actually thought about it for once. I thought about long term, design concept vs. usability concept blah blah blah. When I had an option that I thought was done, I closed the window and started over from scratch knowing I wasn't even close.

I dunno where I'm going with this but the point I'm trying to say is that when I was just starting out in this industry waaay back in 1999/2000, I had a boss who I've mentioned before. He was like a balding god to me and I was always impressed with his way of thinking. He seemed so astute and confident and talented and god was he good and all I wanted to do was to please him and one day to be as good or better than he was. But there I was, the lowly designer who thought he was a hack every second of the day and was just waiting to be called out for it.

And over the years, I made my mistakes but I also learned along the way. My skillset became better, I became more confident with myself and I slowly started learning how things worked.

This past week sort of showed me that for almost the past 3-4 years I have been really lazy. I could have been doing so much more with my work/life but I had decided to just half-ass it to "get by". I pushed myself this week. I pushed myself fucking hard and I decided to be professional and smart and thoughtful with my work and it has paid off.

Even if I end up being an unemployed designer (that's so hip right now anyways), I will at least know I can play the game as good as anyone if need be and that's enough to keep me smiling right now.