I have two amazingly talented and inspiring friends by the names of Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols who have always blown me away with their work. In the last few years, they have collaborated under the name Jolby and we are coming up quick on their very first art show together which is opening next Friday, February 21st in San Diego, CA. If you happen to be in the area and are into radical illustrative amazingness you should definitely check it out—here's the info:

Jolby: "Home is Where You Make It"
February 21st – March 22nd, 2009
Subtext Store
2479 Kettner Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92101
Opening Reception with the Artists: Saturday, February 21st, 6–10pm

Their blog is one of the many that I subscribe to and it's been fantastic to get regular sneak peaks into the work going into the show, and see the development of their story line and the aesthetic behind it all. A lot of blood, sweat, tears, late nights, and coffee has gone into these amazing pieces and they should be super proud of all of it. I would love to take some time to hang out with the guys in San Diego and check out the opening, but it falls on the weekend we'll be making our way to Portland.

I just recently helped them launch their new portfolio site at www.jolbyandfriends.com with a CakePHP back-end with a light, custom CMS so they can easily update their site. Go check them and their rad work out and leave some high 5s in the comments of their blog!

I've had a brewing list of my top ten candidates sitting around for about a month and I finally whittled it down today! 2008 Was not nearly as good music-wise as 2007 — in fact I consider 2007 as the best year of music in my life thus far — but there were still lots of great albums released last year. Here's what I got:

1. Unearth - The March
2. Protest the Hero - Fortress
3. Misery Signals - Controller
4. Kings of Leon - Only By the Night
5. Senses Fail - Life Is Not a Waiting Room
6. Thrice - The Alchemy Index Vol. 3 & 4
7. Nada Surf - Lucky
8. Bayside - Shudder
9. Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony
10. Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static (sorry Phil)
    

Hopefully there's enough variety in there to give you a seizure — after all that's the ultimate goal here.

I also want to throw in some of my favorite discoveries of the year, even though they aren't brand new. Minus the Bear, Planet of Ice is an amazing album and, had I heard it in 2007 when it came out, it would have been at the top of my list. The album still hasn't gotten old for me! I also discovered an awesome jazz album. I try to listen to jazz here and there and usually hate it because it makes me sleepy, but I got a hold of the album Giant Steps by John Coltrane last year and I really love it. I usually rely on insane metal to get me into a raging fury of efficiency at work but this album is a surprisingly fantastic alternative.

Lately I've been in somewhat of a music slump, so let me know if you've discovered anything you think I might be into and/or if you've got your own top ten list!

We had some really nice holidays to wrap things up in 2008. It's always nice during Christmas to see all the friends and family that are so spread out during the rest of the year. We caught up with a bunch of them and had some fun times and, among other things, became Rock Band/Guitar Hero pros:

Resolutions

I've never been big on resolutions as I've always thought that if you need a change, there's no need to wait until a new year starts. But this year I think the timing is just right with the move coming up (even though I'm almost a month late!), so I've got a few I want to formally document, so that perhaps you people reading this can yell at me if I don't follow through. They are as follows:

1. Be more open-minded, make more friends
   I'm still a youngster but I can feel the slight pricks of a narrowing perspective as I get older and I don't ever want that to get the best of me. I always want to do my best to be open to change, new things, new experiences, and not become some grumpy dude who's set in my ways. I've got a whole new city to explore and I want to be open to it all! And I've never been very good at making friends, so I want to get myself out of my shell, maybe try some stuff I don't normally (without being a creepy weirdo), and meet some cool folks when I get there.
2. Design more, create more
   I'm a web developer for a living and I love it, but I have a degree in design and I really love that too, and I've definitely lost my touch with it since it's not a big part of my day job anymore. I still love making art & design and I want it to be part of my life. As we've been preparing for the move, we've been going through some of our old stuff and it's great to see some of my old projects and sketches and I want to bring it all back. This year I want to bring some art projects to life, whether it's design, drawing, maybe even stuff I haven't done much before like painting, etc. I think it would help to get my portfolio back up on my site, and use this blog to post stuff that I work on.
3. Keep learning things
   I feel like this is just part of my life and part of being a web developer, but I want to keep expanding my knowledge as always, and I want to set a concrete goal for myself this year: I want to make at least 1 desktop application and 1 iPhone application this year. I started reading up about Cocoa programming last year and really loved it but I haven't yet put it to use, aside from the tutorials in the book. I want to make something happen with that, and then get my hands dirty with the iPhone SDK and make an app — even if they end up being stupid, I at least want to make something as proof of concept.

Being that I'm not a resolution-er, I'll keep them short and sweet. What do you think? You have any resolutions this year? After (almost) a month, how are they holding up? Happy (late) 2009 people!

Hey ya'll! I finally finished my Jeremy Fish tattoo in late October and with waiting for it to heal and the crazy holiday times, I hadn't managed to get that personal photographer of mine to take some good photos of it until this week. I'm super happy with it! It's big, colorful, beautifully done, and very meaningful to me. Now that we're moving to Portland I'm thinking I might dedicate my arm to the places I live from here on out. Obviously I can't do it so massive every time unless I get some major arm enhancement surgery (or take some of those herbal pills I've heard so much about) but I think it'll be fun to find a great artist in each city that I live in and get a piece done with them. Conveniently, I already know an amazing artist in Portland. We've already discussed a few concepts involving pine trees, donuts, and monsters. Sounds cool eh? Here are the pics:

That cute wife of mine digs the new ink

Let me know if you dig it!

In other random news, I got my first crown done at the dentist last weekend and it's not as weird or painful as I thought. Scratch that, it is pretty weird. I have a temporary crown in until December 30th, so I can only chew on the right side of my mouth, perfect timing with the holidays! No fruit cake for me please ...

Speaking of the holidays, we are heading down to Santa Clarita, CA tomorrow to hang out with my parents for Christmas and Hanukkah and all that goodness. We're going to get cozy with the I-5 starting around 5-6 p.m. tomorrow and on Christmas Eve we're going to go see my Uncle Jim, Aunt Holly, my cousins Ryan and Sloane, and my grandmas. I'll also get to see my brother Mike — it's been a while! We're going to do some dinner and a game night with some of our best friends, Leslie & Adam and her family on Friday, and then on Saturday we're going to my stepdad's family's giant Hanukkah celebration (which we haven't been able to attend in like 4 years) and then hang out with our good friends Josh & Shannon and Kurt & Jessica later that night. Then we head back Sunday, work a bit, then on New Year's we're going to hang out with our friends David, his lady Jill, and his dog, Buddi. So it's going to be an action-packed couple of weeks! What are you guys up to for the holidays? Have any new year's resolutions I should hear about? I have a few in mind that I might perhaps blog about to add some sort of accountability to them. Anyway, happy holidays everyone!

Not only am I physically moving to Portland, but I am digitally moving to www.chrisforrette.com! After all these years of using Ascend Visual, I've decided it's become kind of obscure—especially since I'm not doing freelance anymore—and I think using my own name will be simpler and more untuitive. So if you are one of my 3 or 4 subscribers/regular visitors, update your bookmarks! Right now it's just pointing to this same website but eventually I'll update some graphics and maybe even re-design (perhaps using something besides orange and grey?). And I'll have ascendvisual.com for quite a while more but I'm now working toward phasing it out. Good bye my trusty, dusty old URL, you will be missed...