Now posting at stevenray.net

I’m also drinking more milk.

A dear [high school] friend of mine sent me a message Monday “Guess who I saw in a magazine last night?”… Umm well I dunno. “You! I think. Did you get a tat?” Sure enough I somehow managed to get my photo in an article about Elm Street Tattoo’s 24hr superparty & “Lucky 13″ tattoos. Ha! My first and only tattoo and I get in Skin&Ink tattoo magazine. Sucks for Jon and other “Lucky 13″ veterans.
Jon wrote about the occasion here.

Ndere Troupe, going away celebration. from Steve on Vimeo.

It was a busy weekend I went to the 2nd annual Dance Africa Dallas performance Friday and Saturday it was pretty amazing. The highlight performance was by the Ndere Troupe from Kampala, Uganda, Africa. They preformed a variety of talents from singing, dancing and playing handmade instruments to singing while balancing 7 pots on the head and dancing. Dance Africa was hosted by Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Chuck Davis of the African American Dance Ensemble. If theres ever a Dance Africa Festival in your city check it out.

On a heavier note my poor 5 month old puppy, BayLee got and eye injury and terrible infection. I’m giving here eye drops every hour on the hour.. To make things worse ALL of the local optometrists are out of town for a conference. Anyway we’ll be taking her back to the vet for third day tomorrow and we’ll see what we have to do..
But I’m sure she’s going to be fine.

Oh yeah we donated the remainder of original Styletank shirts to the Ndere Troupe! Sweet!

I went on a mountain bike ride this week end with Andy Lai, his roommate Jack, and Karl Mayer. We road the entirety of Rowlett Creek. Parts of it were crazy and hadn’t been rode in months. It was a good ride we finished and decided to ride the first section again because we skipped part on accident. So Andy was leading and we headed into the section we had missed and we were going good. We hit the wood planks, which require some balance fortunately they’re only about 5″ off the ground [I fell off]. So we ride off of that section and are waiting for Karl and Jack when Karl comes around the cornet pops a wheelie and BAM FUCK!. He eats some serious shit. Well it couldn’t have been a better place to have a have an accident on the trail, we just happened to be against the back of a neighborhood. Right when Karl crashed a guy popped open his back gate and asked if everyone was okay, obviously we didn’t know if it was bad or not at that point. Turns out it was. I spent the rest of the day at the ER with Karl. With the worst case scenario being that he dislocated his shoulder or possible damaged nerves, they concluded that he had a single break near the top of the arm and that only a sling was required to heal.

After the trip to the Orthopedic Dr. it was determined that he had broken it in 3 spots including the ~rotator and would need 5 pins. KM’s going to pull thru we’ve got more riding to do.

I haven’t written much lately although a lot has been going on. So I’m going to summarize the past month and a half. Okay well I now work with a company called Telligent, it’s really an amazing company, I’m wicked busy but I working on some rad projects. (more to come)

One of my dogs had babies yesterday, 5 little poopers, they’re so cute they’re about the size of two fingers.

My mum had hearth surgery a few months ago, she’s feeling better than ever. I’m so glad she’s not only feeling better but feeling motivated to continue getting in shape.

My good buddy Brian Guilliaux’s mother died her funeral is tomorrow.

I met Atlanta based rapper Suspect [needs design help] super cool guy, and I met Last King of Scotland co-start Stephen Rwangyezi last night. He was in town teaching African dance to my wife’s dance company Bloom.

Last and certainly not least i saw the Lion King last night, and Nycole and I got a backstage tour from some our friend Keisha [cast member] and another cast member. It was incredible. I even got to try working the hyena legs. Sweet!

Oh that wasn’t last… [next blog]

I had a great holiday weekend. I had 3 bbq’s, two in one day, ugh… And had a great time socializing with good friends that I don’t see very often. It was a event packed yet relaxing time.

So it’s been about a month since my last entry. I missed the first conference at Telligent, however, all is well and I well be seeing a lot more of the Telligent team in the near future. I’m going to be making some fairly “major” moves in the next couple of weeks. I’m also going to be more consistent with my postings (in terms of frequency not subject matter).

I also think I’ve become addicted to Scrabulous.

Over and out!

I’m stoked about the IM buddy service from IMified. (I’m a little late on this one seeing as it launched in Feb.) It allows you to update web apps such as Basecamp, Wordpress, and Google Calendars from most major IM networks. I tested out the Google Calendar earlier and it worked like a charm. I think this will be a great productivity tool, allowing me to update my calendar on the fly without getting online. I’ll also use the del.icio.us widget and I might use the Basecamp although I doubt I’ll ever use it for blogging.

They also have widgets for Pownce, Twitter, Jaiku and a Twitter/Jaiku combo widget. I’d like to see a Pownce/Twitter combo.

I love the idea of this service and think it’s a great, time saving, productivity tool.

So I’ll be attending a couple of web conferences in the next few months. Starting Aug 29th with a Social Networking and Communities group discussion hosted by Telligent at their Dallas, TX offices.

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Then I’ll be hitting the Webmaster Jam Session
Sept 22 - 23rd at the Adam’s Mark in downtown Dallas. A pretty awesome lineup of speakers including Rob Weychert which I’ve seen in flap ‘n’ snaps long before I knew who he was. For those who don’t know what a flap ‘n’ snap is search flap ‘n’ snap on flickr.

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Last but not least I’m really looking forward to the Future of Web Design Nov 7 - 8th in NY. I’ll be attending this with two of my good buddies; Anthony Armendariz from Behavior and Jon Broom from Telligent. This conference will include some of the biggest influences from early on in my career like Joshua Davis and Jeffery Zeldman and really the entire line up of speakers is pretty exciting.

I’m looking forward to all the insight and will keep you updated. If you’re going to be at any of these conferences and would like to connect holla at me or leave a comment.