Willo O'Brien

Or ‘Happy Hanukkah’ or whatever holiday you may celebrate! If anything, it’s the end of another year…

Mine personally has been filled with some pretty huge life changes: Splitting up with a boyfriend of 4.5 years (who I lived w/ for 2+ of those years), moving into a new place all my own (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE), getting laid off from my job of 3 years only to start up my own business and have it be going swimmingly (yay!).

However, though seemingly sad or negative changes, it’s actually been a year of blessings in disguise. I’m so clear on who I am and am just having *the time of my LIFE*!!!

I have found such an awesome group of girlfriends and new guy friends in my life… The summer was full of so many fabulous adventures (aka getting into trouble with my new girlfriends :) and this fall/winter, I’ve found some true music buddies that have just made my rockin’ life rock even harder. Life only gets better and better!

Steamboat Update:

We have a white Christmas! yay!! Except that means my one day to go up on the mountain for some boarding isn’t gonna happen. When it’s super snowy like this, it’s just flat light that makes it horrendous to see the bumps and curves. I’m a baby about it, really, but it’s actually nice to be able to just stay in & play games with my family in our cozy house!

This morning’s present opening extravaganza was wonderful. I got some fabulous new music that was on my wishlist (yay for wishlists!) and some home stuff (such a sign of getting older) like a great set of pots/pans (with a spaghetti strainer lid, wahoo!), mixing bowls, an avocado slicer & pizza cuter – wahoo!! :) And lots of other really fun little stuff. My little sister even gave me a cool cutting board she made herself! And a great little “Kitty Treats Cookbook” with a fish shaped cookie cutter for Kazoo! He’ll love that!

My Dad loved the Old Fashioned Popcorn Maker I got him – and I even ordered these old fashioned movie popcorn boxes, too!

Well, without listing all the other things I got everyone – I’ll sign off here. I wish you all a very merry holiday & a FANTASTIC New Year!!!

p.s. I don’t have my wacom here to draw you a little Christmas snowman or anything – so here’s a tribute to Calvin & Hobbes’ fantastic snowman creations :)

Alright… I’m a total dork. I miss my computer. I miss having time to blog (err.. not that I ever really have time for it, but I make time when I can!) & catch up on all that I have to do. I need a laptop. Except that I’m rarely away from my home computer – but then again if I had a laptop, I could go anywhere!! I need to look into getting one.

I’ve had a few last things to do for some clients while I’m here, so I had to download the 30 day trials for Dreamweaver & Fireworks MX onto my Mom’s computer. I hadn’t tried MX 2004 yet & I love the new slickness of the interfaces… I must get the upgrade.

So overall I’ve been having fun here so far, despite my missing *home* and my kitty something TERRIBLY :*( I’m sure he’s just snoozing away – but man oh man do I miss snugglin that fuzzy pants!!!

My flight left on Monday at an INSANE hour: 6:20am. So you know that meant I had to get to the airport by 5:20 atleast… which meant I had to wake up at 4:30!!! Well first, guess what time I got to bed?

Ya see, I had to clean my house – because literally a HURRICANE had blown through my house over the weekend. It was the worst it had ever been – between crazy costume night and the days of unorganized clutter piling up – I had some *SERIOUS* cleaning to do – and had to cuz as messy as it gets I’m actually a total clean FREAK – and people were coming over to feed/stay w/ Kazoo – so I had to have it tip top! And of course I saved doing a load of laundry & packing till the very last minute… So – by the time I got all that done… it was 3:30am. Yup, I layed down all knowing I’d get a good 1 hour nap before getting up to fly out the next day. I’m CRAZY!!!!!

Well despite my efforts to set 2 alarms – stupid me should have set them on the annoying buzzer and remembered that the radio is just evil when you’re fast asleep & only seeps into your dreams and makes everything seem like a confusing game to sort through while you’re in a deep sleep. And that’s exactly what happened. All of a sudden I opened my eyes to see the clock said 5:30!!!! I hopped out of bed, called cab, pulled on clothes & flew out the door. The stupid cabbie didn’t speed fast enough (grr, why is it they threaten your life when you have nowhere to go – but you say “step on it!” & they drive all safe?) I was sooo pissed… and I tried to tell him the whole way there that every single minute counted since they have that 30 minute rule. But the fool didn’t speak much english and at one point when I said “I hope I make it!” He said, “Oh, you forgot something – did you need me to turn around?” …….. UG. At 5:30am with 1 hour (well, actually I guess I scored another hour by over-sleeping) 2 hours of sleep and the threat of missing my plane and spending the day in the airport, I didn’t have much patience for him.

The good news is (& to make this rambling-I-miss-blogging story as short as possible) is that even though they wouldn’t let me on that plane, I got right on the next one, and still made my connecting flight in Salt Lake and arrived in Steamboat at the same original time! What Luck!!

Here’s a photo to break up the monotony:

That’s my little sister Haley and her cutie puppy, Rosie. Rosie is *ADORABLE* and sweet as can be. This photo is from when she was a teeny puppy over the summer. But she’s still teeny – as Bichon’s don’t get much bigger. She’s probably 6lbs, which is so fun – and funny that my baby Kazoobie weights atleast 2x as much!!!

(I have been snappin photos, but don’t have a way to download* them while I’m here so I’m grabbing a few of my Mom’s computer. *Another reason to get a laptop.)

Here’s my parents house (in the summertime obviously)- Imagine it covered in snow right now:

They have a sweet hot tub in back that looks out to a beautiful view of the town/valley. I took a soak in it first thing monday night, glass of wine in hand and all. It was nice :) Then I tried to watch a movie with Haley but quickly fell asleep. Some example of the party all night older sister I am! ha!

Today it’s a beautiful day here. I wanted to go boarding today, but I really need to go pick up a few last little things, so I am heading downtown to go shopping after this. I think I’ll try heading up tomorrow after we open our presents (!)

Here’s another random photo I found on my mom’s computer:

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Hey all… I have a TON of updates to my portfolio from the last couple months.. but thought I’d show you a few things in the meantime.

#1. Photowall Design – This site was already designed by someone else, but Joe came to me in need of some improvements and suggestions. I’ve been maintaining it for the last couple months now & have made many, many improvements. Everything from centering & having the content stretch to fill up larger screen resolutions better, creating more keyword rich text on the homepage (it was all graphics before), changing an outdated navigation item, organizing his 3rd level navigation better, changing a product throughout the site, adding his Bio, adding his Chronicle news articles, adding the information about his Custom Framing business and much, much more. Joe offers a great product and has been great to work with so far. Go check out his store in Belmont (and the fancy map I made to get to his store!)!

#2. TicketWeb – I have been doing a number of fantastic projects for TicketWeb. All of which are internal client side interface designs and such that I’ll post screenshots of soon – but in the meantime, go check out their temporary holiday logo illustrated by yours truly! (and yes, we’ll be redesigning ticketweb.com soon too – yay!! it needs it!)

Ok – the rest is still wrapping up – about 4 other sites to be exact… oy! I’ve been busy! I have 3 great new projects starting in January, too. Exciting stuff!

This year I don’t want ANY spam. I hate it… so please… not even ONE piece, please.

Love,

~ Willo

Thankfully the rain has stopped today. Yesterday was so dark and gloomy! But regardless of the gray skies, I found myself with a big smile on my face from all the great memories we’d made the night before. Memories are awesome… and the process of making the memories is even better.

Yesterday, after a yummy breakfast at Boogaloos (I love their Huevos Rancheros soo much!), I came home to get some work done and accomplished one of the last 3 work things I need to finish up before I leave. yay! But, before I knew it it was time to rush out the door again.

Power was out across a lot of the city – and just getting across town was a frightening adventure! Some of the more major complicated intersections were pitch black (which seeing Market St. pitch black was *weird*) and you could tell everyone was having a hard time figuring out who was supposed to go next. Very scary, really.

After hitting a friend’s housewarming party (all candle lit since they were in the black out, too) I was feeling mellow & sleepy and the idea of a movie couldn’t sound more inviting. However, wouldn’t ya know it – the theatre had been completely shut down due to the power outages! OY! So at this point we thought we could even make it over to our original plan of going to catch Big, Big Love play at Sadie’s (we tried Manny!) but after it taking us 30 minutes to get through the insane bumper to bumper traffic jams due to all the outages we new the set had probably ended, we weren’t even wanting a drink – so we just called it a night.

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This morning I actually got up & had a workout in by 10am! Ambitious, huh!? :) It felt good and I got in some reading, which is such a huge motivator for me to go do cardio. I’m finally reading David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day. He’s so funny!!

At 11 I joined Jee, Kat & Jane for some yummy dim sum at Yank Sing. It was practically my first time even having the full blown dim sum experience, considering the first time was at The Tonga Room, which the girls declared that didn’t even count. Yank Sing was yummy and it was great to see the girls before we all go off on our holiday vk’s.

Now, as much as I want a nap soo bad, I have to clean my hurricane disaster scene of an apartment. It feels like it is *THE* messiest it’s ever been. The good news is that because Lucia’s coming over to meet my little fuzzy guy (she’s going to stay here a couple days with him while I’m away) I have a motivating factor to clean full speed ahead.

Then the countdown begins: Laundry, work on my last few work things and prepare all my client info for being away, packing and then hittin the hay so I can be ready for my super duper early flight out tomorrow morn. I have yet to feel the holiday spirit… I’ve been too busy! All I know is that I can’t believe Christmas is only days away. It really snuck up on me this year!!

I’m already missing my life here… but one week won’t kill me, I’m sure. In fact, I’m actually quite excited to have a week of R&R. Sleep a lot, watch movies (something I *barely ever* do these days). I wish I could bring my TIVO!

awww yaaa… what a night!

Somehow I got really psyched on dressing up for this party. This from a girl who totally boycotted Halloween all together this year (and even last year, too, if I recall). I’ve never been that into dressing up for some reason – mostly due to the time & energy it takes to pull it all together. But this theme inspired me and the more we started brainstorming, the more excited I got.

My friend Rebecca was a kick ass inspiration, too. She loves making costumes & dressing up, so while we were working out on on Friday morning, she gave me all sorts of great ideas. She lent me her kick ass cowgirl shirt & helped me w/ the spacey makeup, too. She rocks!

Rick’s costume was hilarious and came together so awesome. We had so much fun getting ready for the party we didn’t even leave my house until like 11:30… but with a bottle of wine & a shot of tequila in us, we were ready to party.

The party was unfortunately not as crazy as we would have hoped… a ton of people didn’t show due to the weather or something – but Rick & I didn’t care as we had our own party goin on. :)

Around 1am we went down the street to Sublounge for a drink and to scare some of the locals :) And then went back to the party for a little while after that.

As you can see, we had a kick ass time.

shower.

drive. park.

appt.

go buy costume stuff for tonite’s crazy theme party: Cowboys, Geishas & Moon Base Alpha (this is gonna be fun!)

come home.

work: 2 proposal/quotes, 1 contract, 1 site dev preview

get ready for party.

and MAYBE get to read my favorite blog or two. :( I haven’t even had a chance yet today.

running late! bye!!!!!!!!

hey there – does anyone out there reading this have their own server?

I have some random piddly sites & a bunch of random QT movies that I used to keep on my old company’s servers… but they’re moving them all around & stuff, so I need a more stable home for all of it.

It’s not that much – but I’d rather not up my hosting costs if possible… so thought I’d put it out there…

lemme know whatchoo got yo!

I need a sitewide spell checker.. This one just does one page at a time… Same w/ this one, which is lame.

This one’s the best I’ve found – however to get more than 5 pages, I have to pay a monthly fee… (!)

I wish there was something similar to Xenu’s broken link checker – I’m LOVING that handy utility!

for some of you, this might just make up for my lack of posting. and for the record, she planted it on me! aww yaaa! i’m such a lucky girl :) jem’s soo cute! and she’s got great taste in music. And, she said she’s gonna put a heart around the smooch pic & hang it on her wall. sweeet!!