This probably requires a little explanation. While I was cleaning the office last weekend, I came across a sketchbook that I used when I was a kid. I’m guessing the first few drawings are from 7th or 8th grade and the last few marked pages are from my senior year in high school. For me, browsing through the pages of this book is like reading an old journal. In it are loads of experiments in pencil drawing, charcoal, watercolor, stippling, colored pencil, and even some aerosol airbrush. Artistically, the contents are mediocre at best, but it was astonishing to see how engaged I once was in learning how to make art.

As I was flipping through that tattered old Mead Sketch Diary, I came across several pages containing collages of cut and pasted typographical compositions. They’re all fairly simple and rough, but that was intentional. At the time I was in my sophomore year of high school and had a very specific source of inspiration: a local zine called Delusions of Grandeur. Each photocopied issue was filled with music reviews, poetry, drawing, and witty collages of random typographical nonsense. I’m not really sure who was behind it, but it rocked.

So that’s it, really. I was inspired by something I thought was cool and wanted to do it my own way. I think that’s a lesson we could all use to re-learn every now and then. I’ve scanned the pages from this section of the old sketchbook and I’ll try to post a new snippit every week or two. I thought this particular composition was interesting as the phrase “User Friendly” has become a lot more commonplace since the mid-nineties.

Amidst the flurry of depressingly divided, emotional articles about IE8 breaking the browser market with version targeting, it was nice to see some altruistic, informative, and just-plain-fun news in my RSS reads this week:

• Sam Brown announced that Sidepath is now FREE!
• Andy Budd began a not-to-be-missed series on Design Artefacts
• Rob Goodlatte and Dan Romero released their creative Twitter app: Strawpoll

Of course, there was a lot of other great posts, podcasts and articles this week, but in trying to keep away from the M$ bashing and ensuing flame-wars, I found a few good laughs in the recent Photo Basement post: 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments. As I scrolled, laughed, pointed, scrolled and laughed again, I couldn’t help but think how similarly nerdy and awkward I was myself at that age and remembered a particular science fair project I did back in my junior high days.

The title of my experiment was What are the odds of extracting a blue M&M from a “Fun Size” bag of M&Ms? I originally wanted to do a project about BBS games, but this was a much hotter topic in 1995 as the blue M&M had just been introduced. Somehow, my piddly, bean counting project won the 1st place prize in the math category; this could be because there were only 3 math experiments that year. It was also very well received by my classmates; mostly because I let them eat the candies they helped me count. And of course it was ground-breaking statistical research! While I never published a paper on my findings, I remember that there were way more brown M&Ms than any other color, and I managed to find this flattering image in an old box of photos.

A few interesting things to note in the photo above.

• It took longer to staple all those empty bags to my board than it did to plug my numbers into Excel.
• I designed that masthead for the “School Zone” section of our local newspaper as part of a design competition the previous year.
• Yes, that’s a genuine Ironman Triathalon watch on my arm there.
• See the check on the ribbon? I apparently won some money for getting 1st place. I’m not sure, but I probably used that extra moola to buy a hackey sack or some sweet Airwalks.
• Über. Nerd.

So, there. I’ve shared with you a little glimpse into my childhood. Does anybody else have any embarrassing childhood pictures to post?

One of the many perks that comes along with having a graduate student as a spouse is that we both still get to participate in intramural sports. In the Fall, our game was softball, but last night officially kicked off the Spring season of dodgeball.

Ames and I have really been enjoying the exercise and competition, but it’s also been fun to design a shirt together each semester to go with our goofy co-ed team names. Last year, our team was Not in the face, we’re models and this is the design we came up with:

This year, our team name is Oldies but Goodies. Our friend Ashley came up with the idea of an old guy in a walker, and this is what I drew in Illustrator. The free font, Team Spirit helped to finish the design:

We actually had so many girls from the ChemE department come out this year that my wife and her close friend Eyma decided decided to branch off and start a girls only team. I suggested the name War Kittens, Eyma suggested the lolcats picture and we all agreed that the Chinese Take Away font added a lot to the design.

Pretty intimidating if you ask me…as much as we love lolcats though, the true inspiration behind that team name was this most-excellent Capital One commercial.

In case you’re wondering, the Oldies but Goodies were victorious over a bunch of law students last night, winning 9-8 in overtime. The War Kittens are getting together tonight to iron on their t-shirt transfers and have their first game tomorrow evening. Should be a fun season.