Did I mention there are new t-shirts? Did you see There Will Be Blood? If not, then you should. And then you will understand the t-shirts with the funny drippy writing and you will buy one. Oh yes, you will.

My friend Andrew runs the Gateway Cinephiles website and does a full-blown review of Iron Man. Check it out.

Bump Parties are like baby showers, but no stupid games. No cooing allowed. Our new site, bumpparty.com will have articles on how to throw a serious party in place of the girly fru-fru crap. We’ll also have an innovative baby shower registration setup. It’ll be SWEET.

Visit bumpparty.com to get notified when the site launches!

Why the sudden obsession with opening a t-shirt shop? Well, really it’s not so sudden. I’ve been wanting to open an online store for years. Now that it’s open, I’m very excited about it. It’s a creative outlet for me and I would greatly, GREATLY appreciate any feedback or ideas on ways to make it more successful.

One great thing about it is that it’s a product-based business. Coming up with a design and setting up the products takes a certain amount of time, but after that it continues to make money as the products sell. I don’t even have to purchase the inventory or deal with distribution.

With web development on an hourly or by-project rate, once the work is done, the profit is done. It’s a business you could get tied to more and more until you run out of functional hours. Not that I don’t love my work, but it would be nice to create something that will make residual profits.

I’ve been watching with great interest the information Carson Systems is putting out about the process of selling their application, DropSend. I have a number of ideas for online applications and the data they’ve shared has been highly informative.

Right now though, my plate is so full of projects for other people, it’s very hard to squeeze in time for a project for myself. This store is the first. Look for more in the future.

Wtih a team of two developers and many, many projects to manage, my cohort and I try to keep to a one-head-up, one-head-down approach. One person handles as many of the small requests as possible while the other is focused on a large project. Then we switch.

Mine was great. I was Snow White for the annual bash. And in honor of my favorite Disney princess (sorry Ariel) I’ve created a whole line of girly clothes with my favorite Mae West quote, pertaining to Snow White. What’s the quote? Read it for yourself by viewing the details (front and back) of any of the items.

I will also be retiring the Jack-o-lantern stuff for the year, so if you’re interested in one of those, nab them now. I will be scrapping them over the weekend.

Oh, and a belated, but very big thank you to everyone who attended the first meeting of Refresh St. Louis at The Royale. I will be posting information about the next meeting on the Google Group this week!

Thanks to the fine folks at Spreadshirt, I now have a store where I can create clothes that I would love to wear.

Has anyone else ever used Spreadshirt before? I’d like opinions on how you felt it compared to other services. I personally like the printing choices (quality/type, printable shirt area, etc.), the fact I can integrate it with Wordpress and, best of all, the fact that I don’t have to buy the inventory.

Clarity and conservation of words is key. I try to preserve that in everything I write and in my speaking. Maybe its the introvert in me, but I’m drained by people who talk incessantly, whether they’re extroverts who have to talk to think or insecure people who feel compelled to talk until they feel you’re sufficiently impressed (which is never). I have plenty of talkative friends (and good storytellers, which I consider the only talkers that don’t drain me), but even after a good time with a talkative bunch, I need time to recharge my batteries.

In my readings, I value most that same clarity. A writer can be verbose or sparce and say a lot or nothing. The two aren’t necessarily connected. My high school journalism teacher told me to “Make Every Word Count,” and that’s what I try to do.

More verbosity coming on different subjects in the next few days. I promise. I’ve been overwhelmed with work, moonlighting and a wedding.

It’s not that St. Louis is lacking in professional organizations for web developers and designers… they have at least one really excellent one. It’s just a little bit formal for my taste. You have to go to three meetings to be a member. You have to be a member to use their job board. They always have a guest speaker on a specific technical topic. That’s all good and useful and valuable. But what ever happened to just meeting other geeky people and hanging out talking about the cool stuff you’ve worked on or discovered? Why is my experience at those meetings so different than my experience when I run into my geeky acquaintences at a bar (besides the addition of cocktails)?

I want to capture that later experience and share it with more people. I think that’s where really exciting and innovative connections are made. That’s where people have their critical and emotional minds most open to the ideas around them. And I think it could synthesize into great things for this city.

So, if you’re in the St. Louis area and interested in attending one of our get-togethers, check out the google group. When dates, times and locations are set, they will be posted on refreshsaintlouis.org

You would think it would be easy in this area, but it’s not when you have access to user research. You have to keep in mind what you WANT the user to do, not just what they are doing.