Designing your Portfolio

testing my trackbacks ;)

Designing your Portfolio

New Blog and Portfolio Site

After about 3 weeks of work, i've finished my new blog. I designed, and built the wordpress theme from scratch (which is kind of impressive for me!). its not perfect, but its done enough to show.

enjoy!

jonbroom.com

Fixed!

fixed my image problem and my theme looks like it should again....

at some point within the next month or so i hope to have a new blog site designed and built on my own url jonbroom.com. if you would like to temporarily subscribe to this blog i'll post up when the new one is ready.

thanks!

Racing

I started a new blog for our 2009 racing effort, so if you're interested it that stuff then be sure to check it out.
Las Escobas

our new bike is hot

Coffee

I dedicate this post to Anthony

Things I'm Grateful For

in no particular order:

Family
my family is great, and the time we spend together is something i look forward to. We have a bond and common interests that most families don't have.


Career
I have a pretty good job. I enjoy what i do, and who i do it with. I think i have a bright future to look forward to and a little more job security than a lot of other american's have at the moment.


Ayden
He's a kick ass little dude and i look forward to us growing up together. I hope that i can provide him with everything he needs to become a successful young man.


Friends
I have some great friends that i know i can count on. sometimes I forget that some people don't have the support system and bond that i have with the people close to my life.


Racing
its a great outlet and an amazing way for me to spend time with my family, be active, meet new friends and have something to strive for and look forward to.


USofA
Its obvious that we all take what we have for granted in the US. just a look through some of the photo sets on the big picture make it quite obvious that we're very lucky to have what we have and live where we live. check out these pictures from the gaza strip, the Congo or Mumbai to see what i mean. I'm also amazed and greatful that someone like Obama has come around and brought new life and a sense of unity to the US and the world as a whole. His face is probably on every newspaper in the world today. that doesn't happen often.


Health
I'm very thankful that as of now, I have my health and so do most of the people closest to me. I know how easy it is to fall ill or have something tragic happen to you or someone you're close to. I can only hope this continues to be the case and that my own body holds up to the abuse i put it through. For my friends that haven't been so lucky, stay tough and let me know how i can help.


theres plenty more to be thankful for in my life, but these are the things that have been sticking out in my mind over the past couple of weeks. my family and i had a pretty good 2008 (especialy compared to the average), and we're looking forward to 2009.

Peru

I've been back from peru for a good month now, and i finally got through the 1,800 pictures that i took and finished uploading them all to flickr. The trip was amazing. We saw lots of beautiful country, met some amazing people and got to push ourselves mentally and physically.

we began our trip in Arequipa. This is a beautiful city situated at the base of several snow capped volcanoes in a high altitude desert type of climate. We really enjoyed our time here. We took a two day trip into the Colca Canyon region as well. i wasn't real impressed with this trip, but it was still nice. we did a bus tour. i think i might have enjoyed it more if we had hiked it, but thats ok.

we then took an overnight bus to Cusco and quickly fell in love with this city. you get harrassed a lot more in the streets to buy and eat stuff due to its higher level of tourism, but if you get away from the plaza de armes then its not so bad. while in cusco we went horseback riding, and generally explored the city. this is where we started our real adventure: the Inca Jungle Trek.

The Inca Jungle Trek was amazing. it was much harder than i expected it to be, but thats partially due to me getting a stomach bug the morning the trek began. hiking through the rainforest with low energy levels due to not eating and worrying about crapping your pants will definety put a damper on your good time, but i still loved it. i can't wait to do more trekking and backpacking in the near future. we rode mountain bikes for one day, hiked the 2nd, then took a train to aguas calientes before making our way up to Machu Picchu to explore.

one of the highlights of the trip for me was climbing Wayna Picchu. i'm not sure what it was about it that i enjoyed so much, but i really felt a sense of adventure and accomplishment. it wasn't particularly hard, but the view was amazing.

Overall it was a great trip and penny and i had a good time. I'm really looking forward to more adventures to other countries. I've got my eye on china, and anywhere south of there, as well as alaska, canada, mexico, and other more local adventures.

Personal vs. Professional Personas

Should our online personal and professional personas be separated?

Online Social Media and Networking isn't really all that new anymore, but it's relationship to your professional life is. If you're like me, you've got accounts on sites like myspace, facebook, flickr, delicious, twitter, brightkite, a personal blog and professional blog that are all recording and broadcasting your life to your friends, family and co-workers. I share lots of personal experiences on these sites, as do a lot of other people, that may or may not represent myself as a reliable and professional person. There wouldn't be much of a problem with this except that my professional life has taken over just as much a share in my online identity as my personal life has. The fact that I'm an interactive art director specializing in social media applications plays a big role in my professional identity growing, but i think this is a phenomenon that is spreading to other fields as well.

So, how do you manage this? I don't want my employer, future employer or client to find those drunken picts from last new years, or discovering my odd collection of "dickbirds", but i do enjoy sharing these things with my friends. On the other hand, I think its valuable to show that you have a strong online presence as well as an active and creative lifestyle. These are all important to keeping a creative mind healthy, and the fact that you have a life, online or off, is a very positive attribute. Showing that you have a sense of humor, that you're sincere about who and what you are, and not afraid to express yourself can do wonders for how you're perceived in the workplace. No one likes a fake, and its almost always obvious when you're persona totally changes at work (especially if your facebook page shows otherwise), but where and how do you draw the line?

The only answer is restraint. I know, its not fun. Its muffling the real you, its censorship, its whatever.... but face it, thats the way life is. you can't show every part of yourself to everyone in the world and not expect to be judged by it. A few years ago you could post up anything you wanted to your social applications and only expect your "friends" to see it, but now most of my online buddies are professional contacts. The good thing about my industry is that most of them are in the same boat as I am. We're all trying to figure out the balance while combining their personal and professional online presence into one. Everyone has to evaluate their own career path and their lifestyle and decide how much they can be publicly intertwine in a productive fashion.

Times are changing and i can't wait to see how this evolves social media and the workplace.

Peru

In two weeks i will be exploring and aclimating myself to the 7,000-12,000 feet elevation of Peru. to be exact, i'll be in Arequipa (pictured). I can't wait. I was totally expecting this month to drag by at an unbelievably slow pace, but so far its been going by pretty quickly. I've been really busy at work and preparing for the trip. being busy helps.

we've got our hiking shoes, packs, travel alarm clock, typhoid and hepatitis A shots, spanish dictionary, and a rough itinerary that involves at least two flights within peru and 4 cities including Lima, Arequipa, Puno and Cusco and the surrounding areas. Recent talks have thrown in the idea of a quick trip over to Bolivia for a stay at La Paz.

Some of the key sights and activities on the list include:

• watching the sun rise over machu picchu and hiking to the top of the accompanying mountain to enjoy the view.


• visiting Colca Canyon which is more than twice as deep as the grand canyon


• a boat ride on lake titicaca (heh heh)


• rafting


• horse back riding


• parasailing


• train rides through the andes


• whatever we feel like

Update

A lot has happened in the past few months, and i haven't been blogging at all, so i'll try to give a little recap:

I started dating a girl that i use to work with, Penny. It's only been about 6 or 7 weeks i guess, but it feels like its been much longer... in a good way. All i can say is that she's amazing. Usually there are reservations, or things that make you nervous when you first start dating someone, but I don't have any of that with penny. I think we're both excited to be where we're at, and I look forward to things to come.

I have a new roommate. well, i guess technically i have 2 new roomates. Nadine (my baby's mamma) was having a hard time with roomates and all, which can make things difficult when it comes to paying the rent. So, we talked about it and decided that we'd give it a shot. She moved in 2 weeks ago along with our son, ayden. So far so good. We're more like brother and sister than anything, so that aspect of things isn't a problem. I think the biggest thing we have to worry about is being good roomates and working out the typical issues of parenting. this also opens up the possibility of getting a dog. i love dogs but am at the track too often to have one on my own, so we'll see what happens with that. at the moment american bulldogs are the topic of conversation.

Work is still going great. I just had site launch - Crysis Warhead - and I really feel like i'm gaining great experience for my career. Lots of big things are happening around here, and its pretty exciting. Not to mention the fun and games like bowling, cotton candy machines, pool tournaments, rock band rock offs and general goofing off.