...went swimmingly.  In between notes, however, I doodled up this little gem:

I’ve learned two things this morning:

1. Cat paws can operate trackpads.

2. Mogwai will knock things off of my desk if he wants to lie down or is disappointed in my feng shui.

On the site side of things, I’ve implemented an installation of Lightbox for use on the blog and portfolio sections.  You should start seeing new things popping up over the next few weeks.

Exciting? Perhaps.

My wife and I went camping in the Shenandoah National Park the past few days, good times and adventures were had by all.

Some highlights:

A deer just wandered up next to us after we got out of our car, then seemed to realize what it had just done, so it ran off.

While hiking one of the trails, we saw two black bears out foraging.  We watched them for a few minutes and moved on.

Turning a corner after hearing water rushing for a while down the trail, and seeing what I can only describe as a small cove with a 40 foot waterfall.

Our friend locking herself out of her car while we were packing up to leave, then the park ranger’s “can-do” attitude about jimmying the lock (which took the better part of 45 minutes).

Update! Pictures posted to my Flickr page.

I’ve been experimenting with translating my digital inking technique to apply itself to photography - here’s the end result of a webcam shot taken with my laptop and an hour or so in Illustrator:

I’m pleased with the strength and balance of lines on this one - I may do a series of these for a work project soon.

Played some of the new Xbox Live Arcade title, Schizoid with Nick tonight - I’d have to say it’s one of the greatest cooperative titles I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a long time.

The basic premise is that each player controls a little spaceship, either red or blue.  Enemies are also red or blue, and you can only kill the same colored enemy as you.  If you ever played Ikaruga, you’re instantly familiar with the concepts presented here.  The catch, however, is that as the levels increase in complexity, you have to pull off some very tricky (and ultimately rewarding) stunts in complete coordination with your partner.

A pair of good level examples:

1. Both players start in the center of a level, surrounded by a sea of blue enemies.  The blue player must almost immediately start clearing a path for the red player to fly around in, since they cannot do anything but try and avoid getting hit while the level is cleared out.

2. A level is filled with enemies who fire the opposite color of bullets - each player must use their ship as a bullet shield while the other one maneuvers through the newfound path to kill off the enemy.

With 120 levels, a great balance of achievement difficulty, and some of the best co-op this side of Gears, this is a no-brainer to recommend.

I’d like to think I’m a fairly creative fellow, at least my friends and family say I am.

The problem is, I don’t feel like I get any satisfaction out of a lot of the so-called “creative” work I get tasked with at my day job.  Seeing as I work for the government, most of you who read this might say, “Well, Mike, what the hell do you expect?”.  In some ways, that’s a very accurate point of view, but in my experience it’s not necessarily the case.  Almost all of my immediate supervisors and coworkers help cultivate an incredibly collaborative environment for our design team, and they’re very receptive of our crazy ideas.  Hell, my boss thinks it’s hilarious that I keep a Nerf gun under my desk (hey, Dan keeps flinging rubber bands at me - he deserves what he gets!).

My main beef is with the fact that in the defense contracting world, you’re more at the whims of your client than in other situations.  For commercial or private work, you’re generally brought on as a subject matter expert, and despite any clashing with clients who are armchair designers, you’re pretty much able to let your creative juices flow.  With contracting, the attitude of your client is totally different- you had to submit bids and proposals for the work, and when you’re taken on, you are expected to ask “How high?” when they say to jump.  A lot of customers I’ve had in the past seem to think that we should be thanking them for the opportunity they are giving us.  Sound familiar?  Stick with me.

The main difference, as far as I see it, is that clients in my line of work tend to disregard anything that goes against the corporate (or military, or government) groupthink mentality.  Anything that looks unique is almost unilaterally shot down (once again, by our clients- my immediate coworkers are incredible people).  Our creative personnel are not allowed to express anything coming close to an opinion, and often times, a slick, well-designed comp we submit will be whittled down until it doesn’t stand out from any other product coming out of the other defense contractors.  Seriously, take a look at any of these websites and tell me that they do anything to try and look impressive, creative, or just plain “different”.  Hell, they’re all white and blue! (Okay, CACI uses a black background, but it has blue text!)

Even the more friendly designs out there can’t get beyond having to use the color blue as a major factor in their design.  When people I work with create sites like this or this, the problem clearly doesn’t lie with the talent.  Our clients always want what someone already has, and we are very rarely tasked with trying to break the mold.

You know what? That breaks my heart.