I flew in on Saturday morning and arrived in Buffalo just before 11:00 am. Charlie was there waiting; it seems he had been told 10:00 and had been there for an hour. I don't know how this happened. I was clear that i was getting in about 11ish. Whatever.

Anyways we shoot the shit as he drives me over to Lynn's where I stayed. I guess he had recently purchased a house and was re-habbing it. It was right by Lynn's house. The house was completed gutted on the inside. Ths only thing that was in place was the studs. It was kinda small of the inside, but it should come out real nice. The backyard was real big. That was definately a big plus for the house.

Well Lynn and everybody was home when I arrived. Supposedly, they had just got back from a funeral. We hung around for awhile. I read the Buffalo News. I always do that. There is almost like nothing better - family banter at the Carrow kitchen table.

I had been bumming, so the wedding was at 2:00. I grabbed a quick shower and got dressed for the cermonly. Not a tie or anything; sort of like a dress-down day at work. Myself, Lynn, Tiffany and Judy. We got to the church - Sacred Heart on Abbott - about 2:15. On the way over I read a little bit about Scott Peterson in San Quentin.

The ceremony was nice. There were about 40 people there. It was a nice ceremony; the pastor was especially nice and had seemed to take a special liking in them as a couple. After the cermony we greeted them and left. Back to Lynn's to chill. We left for the reception at about 5:15 pm.

The reception was at Brookfield Country Club in Clarence. It was really nice; it's too bad that it was darker by the time we arrived. Like late-dusk. I had heard it's really beautiful. The hall was decorated with a good amount of candles. White candles. It was a great atomosphere. They had their dj - DJ SLIM - playing the saxaphone. it was cool. Of course you recognized a lot the faces...a good time.

I sat at a table with Danny, Jill, Amy and her date Chuck. Supposedly, Jacob had gotten strep throat and couldn't attend. Amy's date Chuck had come it his place. Danny and Jill are always a treat of course; I always get a kick out a Danny, if anyone understands good humor its him. We talked about the wedding; his 'officiating' of it; shit like that. Banter. Graber family banter.

Before dinner, Nicole and Travis did this fabaulous couple dance. Nicole is a professional dancer, or as close as you can get. She really knew what she was doing. They had a routine and everything. A real treat. Everybody got a big kick out of it.

The dinner was absolutely fantastic. It was I believe filet mignon, with some sort of chicken-something. Both were excellent. The dessert was this cake that was just soooooo good. A strawberry number of some sort. Very good. I couldn't say more for the food.

After dinner, we all sort of mingled. Just a real good time. I relaxed casually and hung out with everyone. I got a chance to hang with Joel Giambra for a few. That was cool. I also made a point to talk to Travis a bit. They were from Wisconsin. Have a deep family there. His grandfather had helped found the Packers, went on to be a Congressman. Sort of like Jack Kemp. He seemed like a nice guy. They also seemed very happy together. You could just tell. They and their friends seemed like arts people. Everyone had a good time. I danced a bit and made a fool of myself a bit. The one drink I had was a vodka-tea.

We got home and crashed. The fall back hour really came in handy.

Sunday we got up, had coffee and then went to the Nite Capp for breakfast. I guess Butchy Minnick had recently remodeled and the place was popular. Anyways, myself, Lynn, Nig and Judy went. Good food. The only problem is that it took forever. Like waaaayyy tooo long. I think we waited about 45 minutes for our food. Either way, no hurry, but come on.

Afern we got to Lynn's, we relaxed a bit and then I jumped in Nig's little tracker and drove downtown to see Bobby. With the election coming up, and him being so busy, he's been working Sunday's. I met him in his new offices at The Leg. Since I used to work there too, it brought back some memories. It was the first time I had been in their offices since they moved them. They are now in Old County Hall on four.

We just hung out for a couple of hours; standard fare when I chill with Bob. I took a bunch of copies of the literature he did this past cycle. I plan on reading them on the plane. It was cool to chill. Just like old times.

After that I drove back home. Hung out a bit. Packed. Printed out my ticket. Tried to make some envelopes for Lynn (failed - what did I expect from MS Publisher?). Lynn and Nig dropped me off at the airport about 5:50 pm. Getting through security took me about 10 minutes.

Overall it was an excellent visit. I didn't get to catch up with Hummnel. It was cool to get to see pretty much everyone in the family.

Here's the bottom line for two popular RGB color spaces:

sRGB - This is designed to simulate the average PC monitor. Good for images that will be shown on a computer or displayed on some particular device. Not good for print. Do not use for print. Adobe InDesign, depending on the version, defaults to sRGB. When this is the case, unexpected results will follow.

Adobe RGB (1998) - This is the preferred RGB space to be used for printing. Be sure that Photoshop AND InDesign are using this space.
It should be noted that all RGB colors should be converted to CMYK prior to printing. Use the wrong RGB space however, can have a big impact on this conversion process. Use of Adobe RGB (1998) helps to ensure the widest RGB gamut possible before conversion.

For a very brief read on the color spaces and printing, Color Space Fundamentals might be what you are looking for.

For the ambitious, there are some excellent Color Mangement discussions. One in particular, Color Management: Photoshop Color Settings, gives step-by-step review.

Every once in awhile I'm made aware of something I've managed to forget. In this case, it was Acrobat's ability to be viewed at full-screen mode.

Information Week's online rate card presentation offers an excellent example of what PDF can do and how it can be used to jazz-up an online presentation. Plus, with Acrobat's straightforward creation tools that most anyone can master, even sophisticated interactivity is reachable for everyone.

What struck me was how the presentation went into 'Full Screen' mode and you immediately got the impression it was high tech. (At least that's what happened to me.) I click a few pages until I wanted another resource, when then the familiar Acrobat tools kicked in. It was a eureka moment for me.

Simply pressing ESC anywhere in the presentation windowizes everything again. You see it's just Acrobat. An added bonus is the obvious ability to maintain great printability for the user. Magically, the presentation is 8.5 x 11. Imagine that!

Now this is great design. Simple, stable tools used in a creative way. Great job InformationWeek!

Capstrat is one of Raleigh's largest ad agencies and has published a series of small discussions on some interesting topics. I ran across Of Vector and Raster (Nov, 2004). It is an excellent read on key core concepts in desktop publishing. Indepth, but not overwhelming.

Even the smallest of companies can save time and money by working to understand the fundamentals. Not too gear-head, but just a little more than the basics.

It works wonders to help you get more stuff done - faster.

When you really think about the following tips, it starts to run deep. Like Zen deep. Some of these are basic; others more involved.
Here's what they boiled down to - my summary:

1) Beware of New Domains - New domains are in Google's sandbox for 9-12 months. This is not BS. It's the perfect time to build content and fine tune content workflows. Realize this fact for new ventures. Yahoo and MSN are much more friendly these days.

2) Feel Your Audience - This helps you write content and copy geared towards them. What they're looking for. Finding you becomes easier.

3) Pay Attention To Info Architecture - How you design and adapt the information and navigational system on your site matters. Try to integrate what people are searching for into your navigational elements/architecture.

4) Pay Attention to Interaction Design - Think of this as a combination of #3 and technical writing. Design your interaction elements (link names, alt tags, link text) with your audience and terms in mind.

5) Make Sure Your Site is Friendly to Spiders - That razzle-dazzle database-driven content probably sucks as far as spidering goes. Human readable URLs, clean directory structures, strong inter-linking are important. Make it easy on the bots...

6) Use Your Title Tags with GREAT Care - These are weighed heavily. Use them with care and creativity. It's not just about jamming them with every keyword and hoping for the best. Description phrases are also important.

7) Publish Good Content That Promotes Links - Everybody has something worthwhile to say. Publish content that offers insight, infor or interest. People will link to you because of it. The more links the better.

8) Don't Be Obsessed with Number 1 - Anywhere on the first page is good. (I actually prefer being 3 or 4). This is where #6 comes in.

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine brings you back - sometimes as far as 1996 to the dawn of when the World Wide Web grew popular. You can find some interesting pages.

Up until recently, the first version of Grabers was up there. No longer available. The earliest was 1998. Somewhere I have an old hard drive or some zip disks possibly with older versions. The following screenshot shows generally what the site's homepage looked like. This version lasted until mid-2001, when we updated again.

One of the first site's we helped work on back in 1996 was a site for the Progressive Media Group. Scott Herman of Common Grounds Internet Cafe helped up produce it. Below is their homepage (circa 1996)

As I locate additional archival stuff, I attempt to post. I have my original hard drive from Grabers along with an assortment of zip disks. Both are projects for a Sunday afternoon....