1. Growing up I never really wanted kids. Now that I have my son I couldn’t imagine or want life without him.
2. I wrote a song about my son called “My Everything” but never really finished recording it.
3. I’ve been playing the drums since I was 10 (that would be 1980).
4. I am a VERY quiet person until you put a keyboard in front of me. Then you can’t shut me up.
5. I’m VERY shy.
6. When I am stressed, I like to sit at my computer and design something… Anything.
7. I met my wife at a Wags (like Denny’s) January 1991 at 1am. Who’d a thought I’d still be with her!?!?
8. I am BRUTALLY honest. I always tell people, “If you don’t want the answer, don’t ask the question”.
9. I can’t stand people that lie.
10. I have no secrets.
11. I am a great read of people. I’ve never been wrong whenever I’ve had a “feeling” about someone.
12. I don’t gamble because I choose not to give my money away.
13. I do play poker with my friends a couple times a month. As long as I’m having fun and spending time with my friends, I don’t consider it gambling (oxymoron????).
14. I like to bike and hike but don’t do either as much as I’d like (yes, I’m a poet too I guess ).
15. I like to fish but refuse to kill anything (if we happened to keep anything it’s up to someone else to deal with it).
16. I love all types of art especially abstract paintings.
17. Whenever I dress nice, I look horrible 20 minutes later.
18. I have Crohn’s Disease.
19. My favorite color is blue (though I have a weakness for black for obvious reasons).
20. I collect poker chips… There is just something about good design on something so small.
21. I can sit and stare at my son for hours… Yes it creeps him out.
22. I love going to Vegas, mostly to people watch.
23. I’ve been going out to lunch an average of once a week for the last 12 years with my friend Dan.
24. I don’t really care what people think of me but care too much about what I think of myself.
25. I’m glad I’m done with this!

Fun huh?

If you are shopping designers, and I DO think that it is a good idea to shop designers before jumping into a contract with the first designer you find, do yourself and them a favor and respond to them. Who knows, maybe your response to them will tell you if that person is the one that you REALLY want to work with. Even if they are beyond your budget, tell them your budget… I would bet that they would be willing to negotiate their rates.

Working with a designer that “gets you” is MUCH better than finding someone to draw you a pretty picture for $50 on their pirated copy of Photoshop. As with all things, you get what you pay for!

Other stuff

Over the next few days/weeks, I am going to be working on my website to include a postcard design page, a business card design page and brochure design page with examples of my work. I know I’ve made it obvious that my specialty is logo design but (as an FYI) I design pretty much everything that can/will be printed.

Also, I have submitted logo designs to two books which are both in the judging process. Since these are the only two books that I’ve ever submitted to, my fingers and toes are crossed!

Until next time (which I’m already working on my next blog post)…

This time was different. I opened the email, saw their logo NICE AND BIG (I like that part because I designed it ) and then noticed the title, “Weekly Tune Up”. I don’t remember ever seeing anything like that so I continued to read. It was just what I needed on a day like today. Inspiration needed? Please read…

Weekly Tune Up

What Are You Asking For?

By Master David Alvas, Director, USK Karate Academy

What you look for in life is what you get.  I have known or met a lot of successful people in my life, and the single quality that seems to thread the successful people together is intention towards positive action.  Yes, even the most successful struggle from time to time, but it is their intention to never back down that keeps them moving forward.  More importantly, successful people embrace the idea that whatever challenge is happening to them is happening because it needs to happen.  Actually, some of the most successful people that I have met have told me that they ask for hardship!  They need the opportunity to grow.  They embrace the challenge and all of the potential growth that it has to offer.

It is in the struggle that we find our way.  We find out who we really are and what we are really made of.  Without a challenge, we have no opportunity to overcome, and overcoming a challenge is where all the joy is.  The more joy in your life, the more you will be ready to handle the next challenge.  It’s a beautiful cycle.

So this week I ask, what are you asking for?  If things are not going so well, find the opportunity.  I promise you, there is something there to make you better, to move you forward.  You just have to want to find it.  Don’t focus on the problem, focus on the solution.  If things are going great, then great!  Ask for some challenge to keep you moving forward so you don’t stagnate.

It’s all about growth and movement forward.  Don’t be afraid of the challenge, you have everything you need to face it and win.

All the best,

David Alvas
USK Karate Academy

I just thought I’d share. Thank you Master Alvas!

The last time I went to Philadelphia was for my grandmother’s funeral. Though it wasn’t a great reason to be there, we all tried to make the best of it and see the city (if we hadn’t, my grandmother would’ve haunted us for the rest of our lives), but I didn’t get to see the town where I was raised.

I was born in North East Philadelphia and lived there until I was 7. From there, we moved to a little town called Richboro in Bucks County, PA. I lived in Richboro until I was 19 and I loved it (I always say; I was born in Philadelphia, raised in Richboro and grew up in Florida). When we moved there, there was only one traffic light! It was great small town living (although being Jewish in a small town like that was tough at times).

I haven’t actually seen Richboro (or my friends) since I moved in 1990.  Since reconnecting with a lot of old friends and making new friends from my home town on Facebook, I’ve been craving to get back there for a visit. I decided that it’s something I have to do and booked a trip to PA. I’ll only be there for a weekend (July 24th to the 26th) but it looks to be a PACKED weekend! A friend of mine was even nice enough to throw a party for me and even set up an event page on Facebook!!! How nice was that?!?!?!?

To say that I can’t wait to get there is the understatement of the year.

I know this is pretty much all over the place and not as coherant as my normal blogs (are they???), but I’ve been sick with Influenza A. Between the flu and the flu meds, I just haven’t been thinking clearly. But… At least I posted a new blog!!!!

Ok, so now that I have decided to redesign my website, I now have to design myself a website. I’m a designer, that’s easy right??? I HATE DESIGNING FOR MYSELF!! My logo took about 4 years. I wouldn’t have a business card but I had a meeting a few years ago and needed one so I threw one together within 5 minutes (that was the deadline for my printer to have it done in time) and left out my email address. I have yet to replace it!

The one idea that I have is to use a photo that my wife took to base my design from. She is an amateur photographer and she has some pretty good work. Then, since her name starts with a “J” also, I can give her a part of my site to display some of her work.

Hmmm.

Before my grandmother died around ten years ago, she made sure she gave all of her recipes to my mother, aunt and wife. The problem was, she didn’t have ALL of her recipes written down and pickled watermelon was one of those recipes.

In my house, my wife and I share cooking duties because, if I may say so myself, we are both pretty darn good cooks. I handle most of the daily cooking and ALL grilling while she takes care of baking, soups and stews (which I am REALLY bad at all of them, LOL). I am GREAT with throwing things together and having them taste good. I also make my own marinades and salad dressings so how hard can pickled watermelon be, right?!?

I’ve been searching the internet for pickled watermelon recipes for years now and recently came across two. With a little help from my mom, we were able to piece together what we THINK my grandmother did to make her pickle brine, especially the brine for the pickled watermelon. Well… I tried it yesterday!

It has to ferment for just about a week but if it turns out tasting right, I’ll post how I made it so that others can try it. If not, it is back to the drawing board and won’t give up until I get it right!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

P.S. – I wanted to thank an old high school friend Tara Frey for giving me a shout out in her blog. If you are into crafts, (interior) design, photography or just a good read, please check out her blog. Also, she has a book coming out soon so I’ll give a plug for that too!

I had a client ask me, about a year ago to add his logo to my portfolio and I told him that I absolutely would. I remember updating the page locally but I just looked at it and, nothing. I guess I never updated it (or saved it before uploading). So now I need to update it again, but this time for real!

I have a bunch of new logos that need to be displayed in my portfolio. It’s been pretty stagnant for a while but I’m going to try and update it more often in the future.

My blog too… Going to try and post at least once a week from now on!

Oh… You don’t need to register to leave a comment in my blog anymore. I still have to approve the comment (to avoid spam) but a lot of people emailed me with blog comments instead of registering so I decided to remove that. So bring on the comments!!

I sent an email to one author a couple years ago just to thank him for his books and he returned my email ASKING me to submit some designs for his upcoming book. For some reason I never sent them to him.

Ok, I had an author banging on my door and still didn’t do anything about it. Hmmm. No excuses now. I’ve submitted 4 entries to the upcoming book “Mini Book of Great Logos”. Now it is out in the open for all to see. I’m REALLY hoping I make it now, LOL.

I’ve been spending A LOT of time on Facebook lately. I’ve reconnected with family and friends that I haven’t seen in close to 20 years. I’m really loving it! I also started spending a little time with Twitter.  For some reason I just can’t get into Twitter. To me, it is lacking something. Like eating a sandwich made from 2 slices of bread an nothing in between.

For those people out there that have never spent time with me, I have been a smoker since I was 16 (though I did quit once for a year in 2006). That is until March 1st, 2009!!! I made up my mind in February that I had enough, set the date for March 1st and had my last cigarette on February 28th before I went to bed. Ok, I cheated on the 1st and had about 6 drags (puffs, whatever, LOL) throughout the day but that was it.

So that’s pretty much everything I’ve been up to lately. Hopefully I can find some time to start updating this a little more often.

Since starting to play at home, I’ve really gotten into collecting poker chips, both singles and sets. I think it’s the design that got to me. It’s also the design that made me design my own custom poker chip set for my home games. They are ceramic chips instead of the traditional clay chips which a lot of casinos are moving toward  instead of clay chips, I guess because of price. If they are good enough for casinos, who am I to argue, LOL? As a bonus, I was able to design on the entire chip, including the edges, instead of only the the inlay (face).

It was really a fun experience to put design on something that is only 1.5″ around.

Since designing them, I haven’t had the chance to use them but I am really looking forward to it.