No fancy, existential title this time. No mystical underpinnings. Just a mix full of music I’ve been enjoying this summer and in the past few weeks. I was afraid that if I didn’t actually sit down and make a mix, some of the more summery songs on this one would never make it onto a mix. So listen to it fast. Like today, to get it in before summer’s over.

I’ve been wanting to use this fence on something for a while. I bought a house at the beginning of the summer and this picket fence has shown up in my sketches a lot. Usually it’s a sarcastic reference to the quintessential American Dream. Here’s my first use of the fence.

I made it a bit less patriotic for the mix.

Click the CD to download.

September (49) downloads so far.

I bought a house in Edmond within biking distance, so I’m happy about that. Been crazy out-of-my-mind busy with work, getting settled into the house, and slowly making my way through Lost again on Netflix.

But since starting my job, my blog has become worthless. Curiously, my job is to create blog designs. Something about coblers kids and shoes…

Also, here’s a wallpaper I made for my desktop at work. It’s at 1920×1200. There are a couple more sizes for you underneath as well.

So I checked out the hipster messenger favorites, Chrome and Timbuk2. Chrome didn’t have many options and the ones I’ve seen looked bulky, so I tried out Timbuk2. They let users post product reviews (positive & negative) on the site, which was an awesome way to learn about the bag from people riding with it, not just a flowery description. Loved the custom bag maker. I chose a monochromatic look. 2 panels of lightweight black and 1 panel of reflective restaurant-booth-style vinyl. Like an Orca.

But the most impressive part of the purchase was the personal touch they put on everything I got from them. This snippet from the confirmation e-mail was so much more entertaining than the usual confirmation receipt:

We suggest that you actually read it and like it because this is what you are getting and the address below is where we are going to send it. If you must be That Person, we can TRY our best to make changes or cancel your order.  This is only if we have had enough coffee and our warehouse hasn’t… Remember, this is only if your order is NOT IN PRODUCTION. Once your order makes it to our production line, we can’t change it for you and if it’s custom, we can’t take it back. Not because we don’t love you; but because we already have really, really nice custom made Messenger bags from Timbuk2.  It’s part of the uniform.

It was refreshing to get something with some personality. Made me feel better about spending $200 on a backpack. When I actually got the bag in the mail there was another surprise. It didn’t come in a bloated box like everything from Amazon. It came in a plastic shipping bag with a map on it. Not just any map. It’s a bike route map of San Francisco with all the locations you can buy Timbuk2 bags tagged. They encourage you to cut it out and reuse it for something. But the writing is brilliant. Not your average Starbucks corporate eco-friendly statement.

Now every time I need a travel bag, I know exactly where I’ll look first. Next time I go to San Francisco, I want to go check out their office. I couldn’t care less about visiting the Jansport factory or the Nike factory. But because of the extra personality Timbuk2 gave me, I am now fascinated with their brand and want to support anything they do.

This is powerful branding. All about knowing your audience and taking every opportunity to be genuine and personal with them. Timbuk2 has a mission and it’s not to be the biggest messenger bag company on earth. But it is to be the best. And to not destroy the earth in the process.

I’m a fan. And the bag is awesome, too.

This month’s theme is uncertainty and questions. Specifically about God. I am a Christian. I have been in a Christian family my entire life. But I never want to pretend I have things figured out. The more I learn, the less I know. So, I have questions. And that’s healthy. No one should ever stop questioning things, especially those things you profess to be guiding truths in life. So, these songs are about people asking questions about God, country, Christianity and life.

Enjoy. Because of the lateness of this mix, you might get another one in the coming weeks before May. It may or may not be inspired by a CD I found at my house in Edmond from the summer of 2006. And the cover may include a pair of cargo shorts, as did most of my clothing choices in that period of my life.

Click this link or any of these images to download.

I also did a little motion intro for it.  When I say little, I mean very little. Vimeo wouldn’t even let me upload it because it was too small. But it’s just a start for a video we’ll be making to introduce the students to U-too on the Union web site and social networks.

First thought was inspired by a tweet from @wblau:

This is what happens when one looks at a new world through the lens of his old world : the iPad-Kiosk. http://bit.ly/aCnPlW

The link is to this video. Take a look at what people are trying to do with Microsoft’s Surface tech, and see if you can figure out the problem.

What I, and @wblau, see is a product and software trying to force new technology to act like old people. Why on earth would I want to go to a table, wait in a line, pull a device out of my bag, put it down and go through all this work to buy a magazine? Seems ridiculously inefficient to me. With an iPad, the whole marketplace is in my control. I don’t need no stinking kiosk. I’m buying a digital copy of a magazine with an already-capable-and-connected device. This may be cool right now because it’s new and you can touch it, but I tried it in person and it’s pretty freaking lame. Felt like I was using a fancy ATM touch screen. Pardon the pun, but it didn’t have the “Apple touch.” It had Microsoft written all over it. Trying to play catch up with old ideas crammed into trendy crap.

I prefer this method of media consumption.

I got back today from the SXSW interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Aside from falling completely in love with the city of Austin again, we managed to get to a few sessions and do some networking with major tech players. We met some of the lead developers of WordPress and a few fellow themers and hung out with the super-cool author of WordPress For Dummies, Lisa Sabin-Wilson. We also met Darren Rowse of Pro Blogger.

SXSW is all about meeting people and taking advantage of the 100% geek saturation of Austin for 5 days. Matt Danner tweeted during the conference, “I’m looking for @adbrad. It’s like… Looking for a hipster at #sxsw.” It really was tech hipster overload, but in the coolest way possible. I’ll be going back again for sure.

So I have a lot of blogging to do about SXSW. I’ll be posting some video conversations with Matt over the next week or so on our thoughts about the conference, blogging, business and social media. They’ll be in a group of “Little Thoughts from a Big Event.”

Check out the quick blog Matt and I put up to document the trip. sxsw.ithemes.com. And look for more posts on here later this week.

But the coolest thing they’ve done lately is house shows! They clear out a house, bring in some local musicians and let the fun begin. I went to the last one with Deerpeople and it was pretty awesome. We were hanging out making movies with Nathan Poppe of On a couple months ago and he suggested we have the next one at our house. So we were obviously stoked for that.

So Sherree Chamberlain, Gentle Ghost and Jacob Abello will be playing at our house, Friday March 26. For free!

I’ve been waiting for about two months now to move into my new digs. Now that I work for iThemes, I figured it was only fitting that I move everything onto the Builder Theme and especially get everything onto WordPress. I’ve got all new work, a new blog design and a much more integrated layout overall. So instead of having an HTML web site, a blog and the snacks blog all separate and linking to each other, we’re all under one reliably-hosted roof. No more static pages and no more GoDaddy.

I’m still working out some kinks, fixing some code and trying to find a lot of images that GoDaddy apparently didn’t like. But it will be a good fresh start.

Please check out the new site and let me know what you think. Try to break it. Click any link you see. Tell me how much you love or hate it.