So January has been nuts and it’s already almost over. Obama’s been in office for a whole year now… so no more excuses dude. I’ve officially decided to take a break from college to pursue whatever it is I’m pursuing. The Motivated Youth project is rolling full steam ahead with some interesting interviews events and ramblings planned, we need more content and a bigger audience… help wanted?
I just returned home from taking an extended vacation for about a month (only a mile away at my friend’s house) and it’s actually been very interesting, I’ve been satisfied living on 4 shirts a jacket and 2 pairs of jeans – its just so nice being close to the bus… I want to be closer to where I work, I’m still not very close. My dad has been giving me quite a few rides in his car lately. It reminds me how useful they are for getting places quickly. However, it makes me feel quite incapable and discipline-less when I have to call my dad because I didn’t get up early enough. Public transit is one of the biggest exercises in self discipline. I’m excited about this year but my inner struggle of staying motivated and organized persists. I’m working on it though…
I’m working on quite a few exciting projects right now (literally I’m juggling chainsaws) so stay tuned for links and photos and stuff.
Goals for 2010: This year I will live near the bus stop, not have a day job, kick ass, hone my self discipline.
Is that too much to ask? Ok so you all will hold me accountable now alright?
So this weekend I had a booth at Thread Show doin’ my Home Ec thing… I set up a little booth with a 10dollar banner i had printed at Kinkos and a clothes line for hanging shirts and posters! Oh and don’t forget candy canes – I think I gave away about 12 from my Baggu filled with 150 candy canes, who doesn’t like candy canes? I guess a lot of people. I sold out of my Rap Died in ’95 shirts – thats cool, I met a lot of new friends too – double cool. We were upstairs in what must have been the “ultra exclusive VIP lounge” which actually, this is funny, turns out half of the people at the event didn’t even realize was there, ha haa – not cool – but it was awesome hanging out with Holiday Matinee and the Sezio crew – wouldn’t have traded it for the world… well maybe.
…for those of you that don’t know, Home Ec is my baby. We’re a boutique design firm specializing in branding, creative direction and party-starting; We are Dylan Ousley(San Diego) and Gareth Geraty(New York City) and we are visual communicators. I need your help spreading the word so I don’t have to get a real job ever… that’s sorta my life goal – it’s been working out so far. Now you know. Check us out at http://home-ec.org
While, admittedly, the whole day wasn’t so fun I did have the opportunity to photograph the boy-wonders behind the blog www.andampersand.com (their sophisticated taste in all things cool in relation to their age sorta blows my mind – I know I wasn’t that rad when I was 17). They just printed their first run of t-shirts to promote the blog (so that the blog can in turn promote the tees right?). It felt good dust off the ol’ camera and lighting stuff and it made for some pretty good looking photos -
They’re stoked, I’m stoked, are you stoked? Blahahaaaaaaa!(I’m sticking my tongue out and holding up a sarcastic ‘hang-loose’ sign if you couldn’t tell)
check out their blog for more info on when and where you can purchase the tees.
Hey, alright! I just got my copy of Holiday Matinee‘s new book and I couldn’t be more excited with the way it turned it out. Gareth and I have been working hard on this project for a couple months now and It’s such a relief to see the result in real-life! I’ve been looking at the Indesign file on my computer for sooo long, it’s such a great feeling to just flip through the pages and be proud. HM’s book is one of the biggest and most exciting projects Home Ec has taken on… not to mention one of the coolest – “72 pages of creative inspiration.” Some of the feed back we’ve received has been amazing. If you can tell – I’m pretty stoked. Good job Dave, good job Gareth, good job me… so when’s the next book coming out? Visit http://holidaymatinee.com/book to learn more, download a free preview and buy a copy! You won’t regret it.
In the last week or two it has been difficult for me to make a ‘tomorrow list’ – something i often try to do. It’s simply a list of actions for the next day, usually written before bed and usually beginning with a simple, enjoyable task like “sync ipod with new music” or “make coffee” – the last few days i haven’t been able to come up with a “#1″ for the list. Not one thing I can think of would, upon waking up, excite me to say “oh yeah! I get to do [this] today!” … I think this is depression; or at least it’s what the TV calls depression. All (4) of my friends have felt the same way (we call it being “in a funk.”) during the same time… It’s a daily anxiety of what to do & why. But it’s now, its not something we’ve always felt and its all of us at once. I think its an awakening. I was excited to stumble on a blog one of my high-school acquaintances who explains her experience with these feelings and I’ve spoken at least 3 other this last week about these anxieties. My point is, it’s more than just me and my direct peers – its all of us. Whether the others can identify their feelings or not we are all having anxieties, growing pains, whatever… the fact is my generation has allot more to worry about in our immediate frontier than any other generation before us and it’s f-ing scary.
Ironically – A few of my close, talented friends and I launched an organization we call “The Motivated Youth” this week. We launched the social media side about two weeks ago and have had an amazing response. In a nutshell TMY is “a network of young people challenging each other to turn good ideas into good actions.” Our function is to identify meaningful projects and give them a running start. It will be our task to find, facilitate & organize funding, labor, PR, branding – anything, everything the project needs to be successful and stand alone. If it’s a good idea it’s our responsibility to put it into existence – Basically, we’re fed up with talking in circles and we’re taking action – our youth is our finest blessing, its what allows us to think big and outside the box – besides, the box we live in is falling apart.
On Dec. 1st we’re excited to do a soft launch of the website – but for now follow us on facebook and on twitter
————
In other news Gareth and I had the opportunity to work for Holiday Matinee once again and it’s always a pleasure. HM created all of the collateral for Thread Show San Diego and San Francisco (thats posters, flyers, mailers, banners, yada yada) – It was awesome being a part of this job, everything looks great and it feels good to be finished 
You guys all have to come to the Wonderhaus on Dec. 5th and 6th, Holiday Matinee will be there in full force promoting creativity. Home Ec is planned to make a cameo appearance as well pushing posters and tee’s – It should be fun so plan on being there!
The other big project we just finished is top secret until further notice… but you’ll know soon enough.