The seven principles his father gave him that day would later be known as John Wooden’s 7-Point Creed, which has been used in leadership training around the world.

John Wooden’s 7-Point Creed

1. Be true to yourself.
2. Make friendship a fine art.
3. Make each day your masterpiece.
4. Build shelter against a rainy day.
5. Help others.
6. Drink deeply from good books.
7. Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

What a great legacy to leave for your children! These principles are certainly full of wisdom and good advice for all of us. Wooden’s father clearly demonstrated that one person can truly effect the lives of many. I often think to myself what kind of legacy I am leaving for my kids. What will they remember most about me after I’m gone? How will my role as their dad impact their life and the lives of others?

So what would I say to my kids that could be as impactful? Most probably, it wouldn’t be anything I say at all; they watch the things I do — my attitude and actions — and use that as a kind of standard. Hearing the story of John Wooden’s father giving him that piece of paper reminded me that being a dad is the most important job I have. Much more important than being a UX Designer.

Thanks, Mr. Wooden!

Why Minnesota?

For several years now, we’ve been wanting to move out of Texas. Somewhere closer to family, maybe. Or maybe a place with lots of trees. Or maybe to a place with mountains – or the beach. Actually, we weren’t sure where we wanted to go, but we’ve kept an open mind. We never really targeted Minnesota, but when the opportunity at The Nerdery came along, we took a long hard look at Minnesota and the more we thought about it, the more appealing it became. Yes, I know its cold there. Its cold in a lot of places. I have family in the area (I lived in Minnesota during my elementary school years before we moved to Texas) so its not a completely foreign place — to me, at least. In addition to being close to some family members, we are looking forward to lots of outdoor activities like hiking, camping, tubing, skiing and generally a slower pace of life. And yes, snow.

The Nerdery

Working at a place with outstanding company culture is huge for me. That was one of the “must have” items on my list and The Nerdery definitely embodies that. This is from the The Nerdery Profile Page on LinkedIn:

Based on staff surveys of nearly 200 web pros who blur the line between work and play, The Nerdery ranked #1 on Mpls-St. Paul Business Journal’s 2010 Best Places to Work list. A popularity contest? You bet. We’re also #6 on Minneapolis Star Tribune’s 2010 Top Workplace list. Founded by three programmers in 2003, The Nerdery has made the Inc 5000 and Biz Journal’s Fast 50 list of fast-growing privately owned companies for the past three years. The Nerdery was honored in 2010 with The Quality of Life Award and The Jefferson Award for corporate philanthropy/nerdy-deeds-done-dirt-cheap through our Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, at which volunteers have donated a million dollars worth of web development services to 39 nonprofits.

I’ll be working as a UX Designer on the User Experience Team. I’m really looking forward to joining a talented band of professionals and working on exciting web projects and expanding my skills on projects like mobile and social media applications.

These are some pretty big changes, but we, as a family, are excited about the opportunities to grow, learn and experience new things. If you have any tips for living in arctic climates or any suggestions for exploring the greater Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolitan area, please do share.

In the Galaxy

In the galaxy, spaceships fly
Traveling from planet to planet
Carrying passengers of all types
Wookies, Uganaughts, Gungans and more

 

Traveling from planet to planet
Circling around, and coming again
Wookies, Uganaughts, Gungans and more
Landing, flying and taking off

 

Circling around, and coming again
Cruisers, star fighters, and royal ships
Landing, flying and taking off
For business, vacation or Jedi missions

 

Cruisers, star fighters, and royal ships
Carrying passengers of all types
For business, vacation or jedi missions
In the galaxy, spaceships fly

 

— Gavin Mallott, age 11

Pretty dang awesome, huh?

If you your lips would keep from slips,
Five things observe with care;
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.

If your ears would save from jeers,
These thing keep meekly hid;
Myself and I and mine and my,
And how I do and did.

In the slideshow below you’ll see sites we saw on the road to and from through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California as well as the fun stuff we did in San Diego. LaJolla Cove, Laguna Beach, The Zoo and Legoland highlighted our time in SoCal. Driving through Tonto National Forest in Arizona and seeing the Palo Duro Canyon in the panhandle of Texas on the trip back home was unforgettable.

San Diego is a beautiful place, but there’s no place like home.

I started working at Rosetta Stone on the web team in 2006. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about web development and I’ve learned a great deal about myself. The company produces an absolutely top-notch product and I’m sure they will continue to be successful. But for me, it is time to move on.

Some things I will miss about working at Rosetta Stone:

Working from home

This is the big one. For most of my tenure here, I’ve been fortunate enough to work from home every day. Its something for which I will always be thankful. I’ll miss listening in on conversations as my wife homechools the kids. I’ll miss the daily chats and occasional games with my wife over lunch each day. The opportunity to have the kids nearby and watch them grow and learn every day is something I will never forget. For this reason, I think one day we’ll look back on these last 4 years as some of the best years of our lives.

The people

I’ve had the chance to work with some interesting characters and some genuinely nice people. Shared food, shared laughs and even some shared adventures will be etched in my mind forever.

Unfortunately, that’s where the list stops. The rest, as they say, is history.

My last day will be May 19th and then I plan on taking a few relaxing days off before starting up again. I will follow up with a separate post later this week explaining the next step in my career.

What I love about the web design field is that it doesn’t require any special certifications, formal education or any other traditional qualifiers. Everyone who has ever decided to start a career as a web designer has probably taken a different path to get there. The route I followed to get where I am today is unique to my life choices and circumstances. So it would be ridiculous to say that there is a preferred path or that one way will work better than another.

The great thing about it all is this: you get to choose the path! However you get there, here are some tips that might help along the way.

Read

Read everything about design/development that you can get your hands on. This is where it starts. We are fortunate, in this profession, that there is so much information available and that there are so many generous folks out there willing to share what they know for free. Read design magazines. Read tutorials and how-tos. Read some design books. The sources are virtually unlimited — you just have to want the knowledge enough and take the time to go get it.

Listen

I think I’ve mentioned before how hearing Jeffrey Zeldman speak at Web Design World in Boston in 2002 changed my whole perspective on web design and subsequently kicked my career into gear. If you’ve never been to a design conference, do yourself a favor and sign up for one. It really can change your life. I would highly recommend one of the An Event Apart conferences.

Practice

Publilius Syrus, a 1st Century Roman author said, “Practice is the best of all instructors.” This is probably the most important part of the journey to become a successful web designer. Like any worthwhile endeavor, if you want to get better at it, you have to practice. If you want to become a web designer, then just start doing it.

I started off by looking at the code of other designers to see how they achieved certain effects. I spent a lot of time copying/pasting and deconstructing other designers’ websites. I’ve also spent countless hours pouring over my own HTML or CSS code trying to perfect just the right look. It all takes time — and lots of practice.

So that’s pretty much it. There are many ways to get there, but if you want it bad enough, then reading, listening and practicing will be your loyal companions along the way.

Where’s my spaceship?

When I was a kid — maybe 10 or 11 years old back in the mid ’80s — I would fantasize about the future. I thought that the year 2010 was almost unseeable. Were we lucky enough to make it that far, there were two things I was sure I’d have: a flying car/spaceship and a jet-pack.

Needless to say I have neither of those items today. Its funny how technology has advanced in ways a kid like me would never have thought about. I may not have a jet-pack, but I do have an iphone, a Macbook Pro connected wirelessly to the internet and a DVR connected to my TV. Who woulda thunk it?

Looking Forward

I’m usually not the type to set major goals for the year, as I like to see how things turn out without a lot of over planning.

However, I would like to document a couple things I’d like to do this year.

• Write a book with my son. Actually, he wants to write it, I’m going to illustrate it. Should be fun – more details later.
• Develop my own HTML/CSS framework. Instead of starting over every time I create a new site, I need to have a “site starter” of common elements and basic CSS (grid infused) to jump start the development process. Maybe I’m make it available for download, maybe I won’t. We’ll see how it turns out.
• Master Javascript/jQuery. Jared Christensen says that “JavaScript is still a black box to me. A sexy,
  enticing black box which I will one day unwrap.” I have felt the same way for a long time. This is the year I unwrap that box.
• Read 25 books. I’ve tried reading 25 for the past couple of years. Twenty-one in 2008 and only 17 in 2009. Here’s the list I’ve compiled so far for 2010 on Readernaut. Never hurts to try, eh?

So that’s what the future holds for me this year. That and a whole lot of other things I can’t even imagine at this point. And I’m looking forward to every minute!

The morning of September 11, 2001 was a pretty busy morning for me. I woke up super early and went to work to get a good start on a top priority project I was working on. I arrived at the office a couple of hours before sunrise. At that time, I was working in downtown Dallas at a mortgage company. As the Communications Manager, one of my jobs was to create corporate presentations, usually delivered by the CEO or other executive.

PowerPoint was my trusted tool of choice at that time, but since this particular presentation was so important, I decided to use a new way of creating and delivering presentations – Macromedia Flash!

So I was knee-deep in Flash – fiddling with keyframes and motion tweens – listening to Third Day blare through my headphones throughout the morning. I barely noticed the lights switching on and the slow trickle of coworkers filtering into the other cubicles around me.

I don’t remember the exact time, but my friend Bob, who sat in the cubicle behind me tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. I took off the headphones and he said, “A plane just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.” I asked him what kind of plane and he said he didn’t know. I put my headphones back on and got back to work. While I was working, I thought to myself, “What kind of idiot would fly a plane into a tower that large, thinking it was a small private plane of some sort.” I also remember wondering how many people could have been injured and hoped everyone was ok.

About 10 or 15 minutes later, Bob tapped me on the shoulder again and said, “Another plane just hit the other tower.”

At this point, I put the headphones down completely and called my wife, who was 8 months pregnant with our second child. She was at a doctor’s visit and was watching it all on the TV in the waiting room. She was pretty distraught about it all and I remember hoping that this would not induce an early labor.

From that point forward, my day was pretty much like everyone else’s. We spent most of the day watching CNN on the large screens in nearby conference rooms. I thought for sure we would all be sent home, especially since we were in one of the taller buildings in Dallas, in a very nearly-direct flight path to Love Field. No one was sure if there were more attacks planned.

Looking back, I wish now that I had come straight home, but at the time, I don’t think I even comprehended the enormity of it all. I ended up leaving work early, listening to the radio the whole time. We went to a prayer service at church that night and prayed. I don’t even know what I prayed for. What can you possibly pray for at a time like that?

That was 8 years ago today. This is the first year we have sent our kids to public school, where we have a 5th grader and a 2nd grader there. I sent an email to the 5th grade social studies teacher the other day asking what the school had planned in terms of remembering 911. Here was his response:

“We don’t talk a lot about 9-11 or go into great depth because of people’s different beliefs and feelings related to what happened. In the older grades they do go into more detail because the students are more able to form their own opinions and thoughts about the information presented. I hope that makes sense.”

Make sense? No, that doesn’t make sense! So people’s different beliefs and feelings prevent us from talking about one of the worst catastrophes in our country’s history? Are we also not going to talk about slavery or the Holocaust? I’m sure there are lots of different beliefs and feelings related to those aspects of our checkered past.

I think whatever you tell your kids, either at home or at school, should be age appropriate, for sure. I’m not advocating showing CNN footage of the day’s events to the kids or showing any gory photos of people jumping out of skyscraper windows, but by all means, can’t we find a way to remember the day? Don’t let it go by without acknowledging what happened.

Too many people were killed. Too many heros gave up their lives to save others. Our country has changed too much to let this day go by without doing SOMETHING to remember that awful day.

Don’t forget!

Twitterrific. Loads of great features, easy to use. No complaints at all. I love this app.

ESPN. I can’t remember if this is a downloadable app or just an iPhone-optimized website, but either way its the app I use the most, no question. If you’re into sports and you don’t have this on your iPhone, get it now!

ESPN Scorecenter. What can I say? I’m a sports information junkie!

Byline. Excellent app for reading RSS feeds subscribed to from your Google Reader account. Simple, but elegant.

Super Dial. One-touch dialing for the numbers you call most.

I use every one of these apps every single day. Without them my iPhone experience would be somewhat unfulfilled.

It goes without saying (I hope) that these “can’t live without ‘em” apps are in addition to the ones that come with the phone, like Maps, Safari, Phone, Camera, Mail, Calendar, etc.

What about you? Any apps I should consider adding to my “must have” list? Do tell.