Eric Karns

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Contestant #1 me: “What is something you might see in my hometown?”

Alex: “Correct for 1,000!”

Today’s CNN headline about the prescription drugs found in U.S. tap water should now debunk most people’s previous beliefs that this was all ‘old wives’ tales… (I for one will have my makeshift, tinfoil hat on for the foreseeable future.) When is this country going to wake up? That this is suddenly big news now, after all the years of not filtering for it is insane. Somehow I don’t think Brita filters are cuttin the mustard.

“You are never too old to do what you enjoy.” This 101 year old Englishman just completed a half marathon and will be running in a full marathon soon. He smokes and drinks and stays out late and thinks he’s not doing anything unusual. Sure makes my mile-and-a-half walk to and from the metro not seem so bad now. Here’s the full story from ABC News.

If you’re like me, you’ve had a few ‘inspirational’ dreams in your day… the kind where you come up with the solution to the world’s energy crisis, or an idea to pitch at work for the next, most exciting interactive website.. etc., etc., Well folks, last night was one of those dream nights for me. In fact I was so pumped about it, I decided to record it on my voice recorder for posterity.

The following is how my AMAZING idea translated to ‘wax’ at 6:45am.

CLICK HERE to listen

So, lately things had really been rollng my way… and i KNEW it was too good to be true. New job, vacation between jobs, I literally found cash on the sidewalk, etc.

THEN… the BAD karma hit. Starting on Sunday, I was too anxious to wait at my normal haircut spot because the line was out the door, so I googled the nearest barber and got a freakin’ ROTC haircut by an 80 year old Lebanese man. It took him 45 minutes to cut my hair, and its normally a 10 minute job. I swear to God this has to be the most horrible haircut on the face of the planet, and its only my second week at my new job, so everyone’s gonna be wondering what the H is up with me.

And then, last night as I stumbled 1.5 miles home from the bar coming home from a happy hour with Steve, I got really hot. So I took off my peacoat without realizing my wallet was in the inside pocket. This morning I realized it was gone, retraced my 1.5 mile walk to no avail, canceled all my cards, and walked another 1.5 miles to the bank for some cash on my way to the metro. I DID luckily make it to work by 9:30 so it didn’t look too bad… and if you’re asking how I had the time for THIS much bad luck in one morning… yes I did wake up at like 6:45.

I have recently encountered for the first time the MASSIVE headache that is flash banner ad click tag standardization (or lack thereof). Every media vendor (in this case CNN, Fox News, and many local news sites) has a different standard by which the click tags need to be set up and most need backup .gif images as well. There is also the problematic un-standardization of banner ad sizes, both physically and file sizeally.

In non-geek speak, what I am saying is that, for every message a client wants turned into an ad there are umpteen million versions of this message which makes life very tedious for the designer. In my particular case at work, there are just 2 messages that needed to be spread to the media and has thus far taken me 3 days to create the various sizes and standards compliant versions. So in summary…. I charges by the hour SON!

Hey people’s… please go here and vote for my tshirt design - #7!!! I would really appreciate it! My submissions are #3 and #7… it looks like my #7 is in 3rd place so, maybe its the best bet to vote for. (I personally like my #3 one better though.) This contest was put on by Leo from Zenhabits.net… one of my favorite daily blog sites.

So PLEASE vote for #7… if I win 1st-3rd place I could win an amazon gift card