I haven’t actually wrote a useful blog entry/article in months. Last time I even posted in my blog was a month ago, and the time before that 1 month ago as well. I’ve just been ridiculously busy with other stuff.

I’ve been working on a flash portfolio that I was getting ready to launch, featuring my latest design projects and maybe a little bio, but no more blog or anything like that. Then I got sad that I will no longer be using WordPress to power my site/portfolio. So after a bit more thinking I decided I would stick with WordPress, integrate a bit of flash and a nice jQuery accordion script, with some photoshop trickory on top.

So yeah that’s all, hopefully I’ll have the new version of the site up soon, featuring my latest work.

It’s been 1 week since I moved into my apartment in Vegas and things are just starting to get situated. I’ve been working a lot, keeping busy at the same time trying to meet some new people and have some fun. My roommate Dan is cool, he’s been showing me around and looking out for me. Not only is he my roommate but he is also kinda/sorta my employer. He just started up a business called Best Odds Corp., which is a web design and development company geared towards the online gaming industry, He will pay me a salaary to maintain a bunch of sites he already has going. Dan’s a big time poker affiliate and has some great plans/ideas for his business. He wants me to be his main developer/designer of a list of his current and future websites, which are mainly poker/online casino oriented. Dan also recently purchased Omnitheme so we plan on staying in Premium Wordpress Themes market and releasing future versions.

We just got a nice office in a business park about 8 minutes from the condo, where I will be working out of once we get some furniture in there, it’s a temporary spot until we start to hire more staff and need a larger office. I wanted to buy a car as soon as I got out here, but I’m still having problems with my license, since NYS is putting a hold on it, so in the mean time Dan has been letting me use of his cars to get around. The condo I’m living at in the Panorama Towers is amazing, here are some pictures:

I’m bored at the McCarran Airport and have some time before my flight boards, so I thought I’d write a bit about some big changes in my life that I am very excited about. For the past 7 months or so I’ve been juggling both a full time IT job and doing my freelance design jobs at night, which was never that big of the deal because up until the other day I’ve been on house arrest for 6 months. So although it may seem like a lot of work to most people, it was actually time consuming and somewhat pleasurable, since I couldn’t go anywhere besides work from 9-5 M-F anyways.

Now that I’m free, I know I will never be able to get the amount of work done that I was doing during my nights. So I had to make a decision, either leave my day job and try to make a living off just my freelance work or give cut back on the amount of new design jobs and just work my day job and be happy with my salary. I came to Vegas to meet some people who I’ve been working for for the past few months to discuss future work, etc. etc. Everything went great, not only with these individuals but from the time I spent meeting new people in various poker rooms and everywhere else I met a ton of new connections who all happen to need some design work done.

So I decided I’m going back to Buffalo to quit my day job at Spinneybeck and move out to Vegas permanently to pursue my freelance career. I feel bad about leaving Spinneybeck, it’s a great company and I had such a cake job, but I have such greater expectations and goals in my life that I don’t think I would ever achieve at Spinneybeck. Plus Buffalo is cold as hell!

The real decision maker is the best part, The two guys I’ve been working for who currently live in Vegas are letting me rent out their condo in the Panorama Towers, while they move back home and visit periodically, which is the hottest place to live in Vegas. Tons of celebrities and professional poker players live there and it’s going to be an amazing experience living here. My office overlooks the Bellagio and the soon to be City Center, which is being built now, but will soon be the hottest place on The Strip. I am moving in September 8th when I drive back to Vegas with my buddy Joe, whose been living out in Vegas for a few years now. I will definitely post some pictures of the place and the view once I get moved in, but the apartment is truly amazing.

At first I was skeptical about moving away from home, I thought I’d miss all my friends and family, my job and the security of me living a comfortable life style. But in the end I think these changes are for the better, I’ll be able to come home and visit periodically and I think I’ll be alright financially between all the freelance work and my poker income.

On top of all that, I’m going to get an iPhone tomorrow :-)…Since I’ll no longer have my Spinneybeck Blackberry.

Today was Steak Day at Spinneybeck. Which basically means sales are up, so we celebrate with a really nice lunch for everyone. The food days come once a month, based on our monthly sales, some times we get Pizza and Wings sometimes even Lobster but lately it’s been Steak every month.

Anyways I found this napkin to be rather amusing, the only logical explanation I could come up with was the Cow is grillin’ veggie burgers?

click to enlarge

If you’ve visited my site within the last couple of weeks you probably bailed out right away because things were most likely out of whack. I’ve went through about 4 different custom designs throwing them out about 90% complete. I was just never completely satisfied with the way things were rolling out, so I’d start fresh. The good news is I put them off to the side and do plan on completing them soon and releasing them as free Wordpress themes.

I think I’ve came up with something I’m happy with now and will continue working out the bugs and adding more features and such. I plan on incorporating an up-to-date portfolio of all my graphic and design work that is currently floating around the internet. So that will be nice to have up finally.

Other than trying to get my site back alive these last few weeks have been pretty busy for me. I’ve gotten a bunch of contract work designing logos and customizing WP themes, I also managed to drop my Macbook on my tile floor and break the lib : (. I brought it into the Apple Store and the guys there did their best to fix it up but didn’t really do a great job. So I took it apart myself did some bending and such and now it’s pretty much back to normal, except for it doesn’t stay latched unless I apply a little pressure on it when closing the lid.

I’m really looking forward to vacation in August, I’m going to Vegas to stay with some friends. I’ve also been considering moving out there but I’m not 100% sure about this, we’ll have to see how things go with my first visit out there.

I don’t know if this is normal behavior for a developer or not, but I have a horrible habit of starting a project, getting about 90% done and everything comes to a halt. I mean the projects I’m talking about are all personal nothing for a client. Normally when i get a paid for job or contract I get those done right away, priority number 1. Within the last year or so I’ve had a handful of ideas and I would begin development and eventually just set them aside before completion and move onto something else. I really wish I could just finish everything I start 100%.

Here are a few examples of what I’m ranting about, maybe this post will inspire me to actually get to work and roll them out.

WeddingArchives.net
This project I think about all the time, I really wish I could find the time to set down and get it done. In short it will be a website or blogging community where people can create their own blog/profile site to record everything about their wedding, as far as the wedding party, guest list and photos. I plan on using Wordpress MU which is a popular CMS that allows for instant registration of blogs and users. Obviously it requires a bit of customization, which I started and havn’t finished yet. All the designing has been done as far as the number of Themes/Templates that will be offered for the user to choose from.

Devilish
I created a custom style for K2 which is an advanced Wordpress theme, with the intentions of eventually migrating the design to a complete standalone Wordpress theme.

Ciccarelli Design
I’ve got a lot of my work around the web, with no actual digital portfolio to show and potentially pick up new clients. I decided I would build a fancy portfolio in Flash. I’ve actually been working on this quite a bit lately and do intend on finishing this shortly.

Interwits
Another Wordpress Theme, that I’ve been working on. Just can’t seem to wrap it up. Although it’s pretty close. Maybe within the next week or two I’ll have it released.

There are others, of course, but these are ones I am very close to finishing, just need to stop bullshitting around and get them finished.

A good friend of mine from Buffalo moved out to Vegas a couple years ago. I was originally suppose to move with him but it didn’t work out for several reasons. Ever since I’ve wanted to go visit him, just been busy with work and other things.

On top of my buddy having a house there, I’ve been working with a few people from Vegas, that I’d like to meet in person. So I finally scheduled some vacation time and booked a flight to Vegas for this Summer.

My cousin and a few of her girlfriends are planning a trip to Vegas as well around the same time as me, so it’s going to be a riot and I can’t wait.

Well it’s that time of the year again, Happy Birthday to me! I don’t like getting old, I went skating yesterday and realized how out of shape I really am. 22 may not be exactly “old”, I’m still holding on to my youth, but just the idea of getting old really sucks.

Life really starts to fly by once you get out of school, I miss all the partying, seeing all my friends, and just having a good time with nothing to worry about. Now everything is life is about work and stress.

On a lighter note, I’ve been having a pretty good birthday so far. I was able to finally overcome a problem I was having integrating the Authorize.net payment gateway into WP E-Commerce[thanks shayne!] but I’ll be writing about that later. I was also offered a nice side job by a client of mine working out of Vegas. He runs many websites, mainly gambling/poker oriented, but he also is a very talented WP Theme Designer. He recently released Omni Theme for Wordpress. I was offered a paid moderator position on his support forums, basically to filter out spam and answer support questions, which I obviously accepted.

With all the geekery aside, I have a few friends coming over tonight to celebrate. We’ll have some beers, eat some food and try to make the best of it.

Up until last week I’ve always had to carry around 2 cell phones. A Blackberry 7250 for work which was payed for by my employer, then my personal Motorola Q which I was paying for myself. I was happy with this arrangement because the Blackberry had an unlimited data plan so I could get all my emails (personal and business related) on that device, so it wasn’t necessary for me to have data on my personal phone, which in result kept my personal cell phone bill reasonable.

One of my responsibilities at work is to maintain all the Blackberrys for our reps worldwide and I’ve been doing a good job at it for the past 2 years. Our company recently changed their expense policy so that reps can no longer submit their personal cell phone bills at month end, since we would end up paying for 2 cell phones per rep. We decided to pay for one device per rep, in result saving the company a lot of money. My boss told me to go ahead and port my personal line over to our corporate bill, upgrade my device to the latest model Blackberry and disconnect my current Blackberry. Which was needless to say great news, considering I wasn’t submitting my personal cellphone bill for reimbursement.

So now I have the latest model Blackberry (8830) with voice and unlimited data. I was able to keep my personal phone number which I’ve had for years now, and the best part about it all is I no longer have to worry about paying a monthly cell phone bill.