Jesse Collins, and then some. » CatchAll

With a banjolele on my knee…

Jesse, himself. — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:21:26 +0000

In honour of my Uncle Bert’s birthday, I had to post this great article I tripped over at BoingBoing.com.

The first musical instrument I ever learned to play was the banjo-uke. My Dad’s a cabinet-maker, and one of his early projects was to make a couple of the miniature banjos for my Uncle Bert, who was an avid George Formby fan and damn good banjo player. Growing up hearing him play impressed upon me that it’s pretty tough to remain in a bad mood when you’re playing a banjo. I got my first one when I was twelve.

A banjo-uke is the near-cousin of the ukelele, which has been enjoying something of a renaissance on the internet of late. One of the weirdest, warmest and wackiest homages to the uke—as well as to music, to politics and to humour—is neatly wrapped in a “Benefit Concert for Warren Buffett”: two guys play every song in the Beatles library (164 songs, for the record—pun intended). Full details are available at this Ukulelia blog post but the best part is the dénouement. Our boys deliver a brown paper bag with bills and coins representing “hundreds of dollars” to Mr. Buffet, himself. The video of that exchange is a treat, and is reproduced below.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Bert.

The Family Virtual Christmas Card

Jesse, himself. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:29:30 +0000

Hot off the hard drive, here it is. The watercolour is my first attempt at painting. An unapologetically blatant rip-off of a Tony Bennett masterpiece, it was just meant to be an exercise. His is three times as large, and a 100 times better (I can’t sing as well as him, either) but I was still pleased that mine manages to convey some of the serenity of a country Christmas. Click on the image for full-size view.

Have a Happy and a Merry, everyone.

Jess

Collins Christmas Card 2008

My First Ride

Jesse, himself. — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:45:37 +0000

Murph dropped me a line about noticing a ’62 Plymouth Valiant on the road today and being struck by how ugly it was. It got me thinking about a post I’d been meaning to put up for quite awhile. A short tribute to the best car I ever owned. Flat-head 6, the last year of the 6-Volt battery and front-seat like a living room sofa: my 1954 Pontiac Pathfinder. The grill was a little dinged, and I was missing a headlight rim. Replaced that rim once from the Barrie Flea Market but hit a deer on Highway 12 and that was that the end of it.

It was a two-door coupe with a mint interior. What a beauty.

And it was also the perfect car to do bad James Dean impersonations in front of…

Wikipedia has a great entry about my first car.

Some of the more interesting optional items available for the first generation Chieftain included a radio with seven vacuum tubes, tissue dispenser, under seat heaters, and a Remington Auto-Home shaver.

Ah, those were the days!

Mind you – mine never looked this buff:

Reporter Hates Anchor. Anchor Hates Reporter.

Jesse, himself. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:17:25 +0000

Inspired.

Jesse, himself. — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:36:10 +0000

Not a lot of people know that I have a tattoo of an anchor on my right bicep with “Carol” & “Liam” emblazoned on a ribbon wrapping around it. It is an intentional reference to very traditional merchant marine tattoos, popularized by sailors to remember their loved ones. Norman Rockwell’s whimsical painting, showing a sailor editing his loved ones names, has always been on of my favourites. High art or not, it makes me smile and I think it may have been in part what led to my interest in traditional tattoos.

A Texas photographer recently shot a series of stills that were inspired by Rockwell’s work. He recreated that famous painting, but with a subtle modern touch. See the rest of his work at his site: randalford.com and read about the project. Brilliant.

Below is a series showing Rockwell’s photo that he used to create his painting; the painting “The Tattooist”; and Randal Ford’s Inspired version…

An online Christmas shopping-must.

Jesse, himself. — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:00:47 +0000

Tripped over this great tool today and thought it was a brilliant example of a great web-based application.

TheFinalCost.com does just what the title says. Have you ever been buying something from an online store and wondered how much you were going to get dinged for the customs and duties by the customs brokerage? Try it out.

The Monty Hall Problem

Jesse, himself. — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:17:22 +0000

There is a very cool online back-up service called Mozy that I was in the process of researching and signing up for, when I was hit with the importance of Value Added on the web. I happened to have a quick look at Mozy’s blog, and discovered a very cool post about the Monty Hall Problem. Now, anyone who knows me knows that math is not my strong suit. I am functionally math-illiterate, and break out in a cold sweat when I try to get my head around math problems.

As I read the post in question, I began to get that old drowning feeling, but then they had a very cool little app to demonstrate the probability of the problem. And I began to get it. Now, this has nothing to do with Online Backup of important computer data, but it did implicitly tell me that the company I was considering for this service could communicate to me in a way that I could understand. That’s great sales.

Check out their post about the Monty Hall Problem. It’s great.

Left Brain, Right Brain Survey

Jesse, himself. — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 19:54:26 +0000

Alright, seeing Murph’s post about his results, I thought it might be fun to run my first Blog Survey.

Here’s the deal: visit the wonderful Right Brain/Left Brain quiz and then leave your results in the comments – and your assessment of the results. Did the quiz nail you, in terms of your perception of your left brain/right brain self?

The first stab at it…

Jesse, himself. — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:57:30 +0000

I’ve been wanting to develop some better graphics chops for awhile now, and this design is part of that curve.

My initial intention was to create a wordmark for the title of the blog that had a more illustrated feel.

I’m interested in hearing how people feel about it – comment away…

I’m less happy with the “Jesse”, but I not sure if it’s because I’ve been gawking at the logo for too long…

Edit: One of the first people I showed it to – over my shoulder, not exactly in a true usability study – didn’t notice the ampersand and asked what “Then Some” meant.

Is that an issue?

Vanity, thy name is blogging…

Jesse, himself. — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:13:20 +0000

For starters, I have to admit to a certain trepidation about self-publishing. Over the years, I’ve set about now and again to record my thoughts and opinions about a wide-range of things I knew little about. They usually end up being returned to me by my mother, who collects such embarrasments. Innocently, or so she claims.

She recently gifted me with a little piece I had written to her in a letter many years ago, and where in overly-flowery and stilted prose I rambled on about my new girlfriend. Fortunately my new girlfriend didn’t have the opportunity to read it, as she would’ve run for the hills if she had. And I would’ve been without a wife for these past nearly-twenty years.

In any case, I decided it was time to start this blog as I think there is a benefit that can derive from it. It can be a good thing, I’m wagering, as a tool for communication with, and even if only with, my friends, clients and family.

A lot of smarter people than me have had a pretty good go at making the blogging case for business. I’m not as much of an evangelist as that, but I can see the benefits.

And this is the spot where I’ll try and emphasize those. My plans for the next post – the first real post, if you will, are to begin to talk about blogs, newsfeeds and the secrets-that-the-power-users know, but in a way that’s accessible to folks who aren’t necessarily early adopters. The guys I hang around with at The Brogue, for example.

I’m just not making any promises as to when I’ll get around to that post!