I didn’t think I’d use Twitter either. All it took was a few people from college joining Twitter to get me hooked. I could keep up-to-date with these people without having to email just to say, “Hey, what’s up?”

My Twitter use really started to explode when I found that companies have started using spokes-tweeple (hehe…) to tweet on behalf of their company. I began following @NAPP_News and found other like-minded designers. I follow tea companies, crafty tweeps, social media tweeps, the local newspaper… etc, etc. I can keep up with any company or person I care to just by glancing at Twitter once an hour or so.

What started this whole post was this cute video I fell upon, Twitter in Plain English. I think it does a great job explaining Twitter to people who aren’t quite interested in the latest social media for the sake of social media.

Twitter in Plain English

I’ll have to show this to John. I’ll probably just get another eye-roll but we’ll see!

I hate talking on the phone. When I hear my cellphone buzzing, my stomach starts tying in knots. “Who’s calling me?”

I rarely ask people to call me, so a phone call is never a welcomed event in my daily life. I hate chit-chat. I hate trying to find something to say in the awkward silences between topics.

The worst part is not really being able to see someone’s reaction. I get nervous when I’m writing emails and talking on the phone because I have no idea how someone is honestly reacting to what I’ve said. They can type or say that they are fine but if I was face-to-face with them I could tell.

The weirdest part about all of this is that my favorite form of communication is probably instant message. It’s faster than email and I can see how quickly someone is responding. I can tell a lot by the spaces of time in my instant message conversations—How long my friend is thinking about what they’re about to say lends a lot to the gravity of the conversation. (Especially now with the “Typing…” note that AIM/Trillian gives you as your friend is typing. You know they haven’t just stepped away.)

After reading this article and seeing the responses, I feel better about my disdain for the telephone. I’m not so weird—even for a girl—to not really like talking on the phone. “Mandy never picks up her phone,” I hear it all the time. It’s starting to become a personality trait for me: “Who are you?” “The girl that never picks up her phone.”

Detail one: Embossing the outside of the box - design for my fingers to enjoy.

Detail two: Patterns everywhere! Love it.

Detail three: Crazy 3-d box design. Whoever came up with how the inside of this box would be constructed deserves a medal for awesomeness. I wonder how long you have to sit there with some paper to figure that out.

Detail four: Taking the time to really design the stamp that goes on the chocolate. Sure, you can just throw your name on it and be done but where’s the fun in that? Where’s the need for me to pull out my camera and forever remember what your chocolate looked like?

So kudos to Starbucks for designing and not just throwing your chocolates into a crappy box. It makes the experience a little more memorable. Or maybe I just think that because I’m a designer and notice these things.

So when I saw a great website from Starbucks offering free samples, I was delighted!

The website, Starbucks Coffee at Home is an all-Flash site. On my connection at home, it loads pretty slowly.

The chalk artwork on the whole site is well worth the wait. Check out the Barista Gallery if you visit the site. I never had the patience to draw more than a little cup of soup on Crisper’s chalkboard, I don’t know how these guys did what they did.

I love how each page you go to is erased but you can still see it behind the new page, something about that is so unique but so “duh”-simple. Why didn’t I think of that? I can’t imagine what kind of Actionscript probably goes into this site. There are a lot of small touches to the site that just made me smile, like the chalk dust.

As much as I usually hate sound on a website, I do like the ambient background “music”. When I got to clicking around a lot, the chalk sounds did get annoying.

I took the “Find my Perfect Coffee” test at the bottom and got a free sample of the House Blend delivered to work. Can’t wait to try it! :9 Mmm mmm.

The packaging it came in was great. I was expecting a regular brown box and honestly, a smaller sample. The box the sample came in was computer software-style, same basic shape, smaller size with a flap in the front with more information. I absolutely love the art. That little rooster is so cute.

So thanks Starbucks for the eye and taste bud candy!

Honey bees are dying and people aren’t exactly sure why. When I first heard the news, I thought it was sad but didn’t really understand why it was such a big deal.

If honey bees and other pollinating bugs stop pollinating, all flowering plants will die. Our fruits would be gone, not to mention our honey. And when those things are gone, so are many many foods that rely on them—like icecream.

Haagen-dazs has started a campaign to help the honey bees because they have realized how imperative honey bees are to their business.

Helpthehoneybees.com is part of their campaign. It’s an all Flash site full of cute bee animations. A bee follows you around a field full of grass and pollination-dependent plants. Each page has extra little animations. There’s even a “Make & Send a Bee” area to send an email to your friends to let them know what’s going on with honey bees. It’s a pretty slow-loading site (though my connection has been pretty shoddy) but it’s worth the wait. What a great site!

I haven’t been illustrating very much lately, except for doodles in my notebooks at work. I’m sure someone would find those doodles interesting, but I haven’t taken the time to scan any of them.

The most recent work are the little illustrations made for my interactive apartment map.

Most of the pieces aren’t too old, but some of them date back to circa highschool.

All of the samples that are up there right now are examples of the work I have done while at WebSolvers - my place of work (and sometimes play). Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is always welcome.

This project has refueled my hatred for Internet Explorer 6. Double margin float bugs. Grr.

Also upgraded to WordPress 2.5… Major overhaul on the admin area design. I think I liked the last design a little better and I’m a bit annoyed that I have to relearn where everything is. Oh well. Not much I can do except not update (which is very tempting, seeing how slow my FTP has been lately).

If work is as slow next week as it was at the end of this week, I should be done by the end of next week. Woohoo! So exciting.

Until then, I’ll be helping my sister pack and move tomorrow. Can’t wait!

I’ve been busy at work and helping my sister get ready to move. Her husband is joining the Navy and they have to be ready to move out to California. I’m sad to see her go, but it will be great for them to have new places to discover and new things to do. (And I’ll have a reason to visit!)

Anyway, working on the Portfolio section today. It’ll be done some day.

Here’s the thing - it had been slow at work. All the design that I had created by that point had been created while there was no billable work to be done. I have to say, I’m pretty happy with the way that the design turned out. If I stop blogging and start cutting up my site, I could at least have a new theme for my blog done by the end of the day. For some reason I find the thought of cutting up my design on my laptop daunting. Maybe it’s because the monitor I’ve been using at work has spoiled me - it’s way bigger.

I’m going to stop complaining and start working.

Set easy goals and you’re bound to complete them.

Today, although I didn’t want to fight the crowd, I decided to go shopping! Scary. It wasn’t so bad, since John and I left around 11:30am-I think all of the crazy people had gone home to sleep.

When we got home from our shopping adventures, I finished painting the box I’d been working on. We went to Michaels last weekend because I had a strong urge to get some canvas so I could paint something for our walls. Along with the canvas, I ended up buying a wooden box to paint so that I could have a place for all of the Yankee Candle Tarts® I’ve been collecting. (These things are addictive!)

I’m pleased with the outcome, especially since I didn’t have a plan for how it should look. It was more of a free-association artistic expression. Something different from the careful planning and analysis that goes into designing a website.

For some reason, my databases for Wordpress were randomly disappearing. I couldn’t get BoastMachine to work to begin with. I followed the directions! No luck.

Hopefully there won’t be any trouble with this install. If there is, I might forget about having a blog on the domain and just continue blogging on Wordpress.com.

I’m still working on a new design for the blog and the rest of the site. I should be done within the next couple of weeks!

Savannah was gorgeous. We stayed in Savannah Bed and Breakfast Inn with a comfortable bed, quiet courtyard and delicious breakfast. Neither of us had ever stayed in a Bed and Breakfast. We were weary of not having privacy and having to make small talk with everyone staying at the inn. Not so! We were left alone when we wanted to be and helped tremendously when we needed to be helped. Everyone was so friendly, I didn’t mind talking to people. (And I am not a people-person.)

We walked around all night looking for somewhere to eat dinner once we checked into the Inn. I’d read a short review of a place called Jazz’d while searching for a B&B to stay in, so we decided to try it out. Loud music, live singer/piano player and lots of food. They served tapas, which neither of us had tried before. $55, Tapas for Two! We each had our choice of a soup or salad, we shared four tapas and we both we served our choice of dessert. Great food, great service, great price. I would recommend it to anyone (as long as you could handle the noise)!

We continued walking down River Street, bought some chocolate, took some pictures.

The next morning, we walked around like tourists, taking pictures of every monument, building, house and street we came to. It was so much fun! Of course, this was after the incredibly relaxing, quiet morning we’d had out in the courtyard of the Inn. I wish I lived there!

We ate lunch at a little cafe, then we were on our way to Myrtle Beach!

I can’t say that I was too fond of Myrtle Beach. I must be really old for 21, but it was just too bright and too crazy. It actually reminded me of a large-scale Waterford Town Center–too many teenagers and way too many things packed into one area.

We stayed at Compass Cove. It was really busy. There were a lot of children running around in wet bathing suits, shoving their way onto the elevators before anyone could even get out. The beaches were nice though and we got some really nice pictures of the sunrise on John’s camera.

After Myrtle Beach, we drove off to Outer Banks, North Carolina. Our hotel was in Kill Devil Hills–a nice little Days Inn. The whole area was beautiful. The beaches, the houses, the sand dunes everywhere.

It was quiet and slow-paced, just the way I like it. (Am I boring or what?) We ate at Miller’s Waterfront in Nags Head. AMAZING. John had fried crab cakes, I had a sampling of broiled seafood. The crab cakes were the best part, 100% crab, no fillers. So far from the Red Lobster seafood I always have. I think I dream of crab cakes at night now.

The next morning we had our continental breakfast, went out to watch the sunrise (though we were a bit late), then set out to see the lighthouses. We drove all the way down to Hatteras and back up again. I had never seen a lighthouse before, so they were pretty amazing to me. Got some great pictures.

After the lighthouses, on the way out of Outer Banks, we went souvenir hunting. I wish I had bought more for myself!

Our next drive brought us to Asheville, North Carolina. The drive there was pretty long, a nice 7.5 hours. We crossed through so many tiny towns that were sprawled out over so many miles. I don’t know how people live so far away from the nearest grocery store. I’d go nuts!

I loved Asheville! The mountains were beautiful and the people were friendly. I wish that we had had a little more time. By the time we got there, it was around 10pm, so we decided to just order some pizza and go to bed. I really wish we had gone to look for something that might have been open. I’m sure we wouldn’t have found much, considering it was also a Sunday.

The next morning, we just walked around downtown Asheville. Got some coffee. Checked out a bunch of shops. (I got the best coasters! “Mommy loves you, but if you leave a ring on my table, I’ll kick your ass.”) Ran out of money for parking, so we had to find somewhere else to go. We ended up eating at a sushi/hibachi restaurant. It was good but nothing out of the ordinary as far as Japanese restaurants go.

Then we left for home. 9+ hours of driving. It was tiring.

So, about 2,000 miles and 30-something hours of driving and we got to see some of the east coast. I loved the places we went, I almost feel homesick for them! I should probably get out of Orlando as soon as I can.