Shane Life

I used to think that my first name afforded me an amount of uniqueness in the world. I never really met a lot of Shanes, let alone a lot of Shane Adamses. But just my luck…there are like half a dozen of them that are active on the internet.

• The Realtor, (who snagged the vanity URL from all of us a long time ago)
• The musician and author,
• The storm chaser,
• …and now the teenage fiction writer from Philadelphia (who is also on Tumblr)

Great.

Now I realize that I’m probably not doing myself any favors, since I’m currently fourth on the Magnificent Google List despite having been online for longer than all of them.

But I just can’t help myself.

(reposted from my Tumblr)

I’m still Brian Fellow!

Five years ago, I started this blog with a simple Blogspot account and an innocuous post titled “I’m Brian Fellow!” At the time, I was working at Perceptive Software and my buddy Kevin and I used to laugh constantly at this skit. It always makes me laugh.

In that post, I stated the following, in an attempt to introduce myself to the blogodome:

Things I like:

• hanging with my wife and dog
• movies
• music (I really really like my iPod + iTunes)
• Chipotle burritos
• the TV show “Alias” – the best show EVER
• Apple computers
• most EA Sports video games for PS2
• poker (only recently really, but I like it a lot)
• reading (but only sometimes)
• cheeseburgers
• Mountain Dew (most forms, though I have yet to try the new black kind)
• The Chiefs

Things I dislike:

• ignorance
• people who drive with their lights on during the day
• temperatures over 85 degrees
• people who don’t vote because “one vote doesn’t make a difference”
• pants other than jeans
• old navy t-shirts (they are too short for my long torso)
• the general refusal of PC users to accept the Firewire interface, favoring USB (for some god-forsaken reason) over it

I’m a generally happy guy. But I’m opinionated and when I think a certain way…I’ll tell you. Just FYI.

Most of this is still true.

Sure, “Alias” isn’t on the air anymore. And it definitely went downhill in its later years. I rarely play my PS2 anymore (although I might play a Wii if I had one with Beatles Rock Band. I still dislike ignorance and temperatures above 85 degrees (which makes the glorious weather in KC all the more…um…glorious). And while I would prefer to wear jeans everyday, I don’t, since I can’t really. At least not currently. Old Navy did something to their T-shirts and they fit better now. And I’m totally over the Firewire/USB thing.

But not really.

So it’s been five years since I started blogging. Not much has changed about me. I’ve always treated this blog as an extension of my real life and I hope that it is reflected in my writing and when people meet me.

I can’t believe it. 863 posts in 38 categories with 1,164 tags and 2,182 comments. Thanks for reading. I will keep writing and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

There’s a meme going around Facebook where you are supposed to list 15 films (from this point forward, I shall call them movies) that are significant to you, that you can watch over and over again, or that you just want to recommend to others…something like that. I guess it’s different than a top 15 list somehow, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, since my blog posts automagically import into my Facebook notes, thought it would be worth posting publicly.

Here are my 15 movies, in no particular order:

• Good Will Hunting
• Fletch
• The Matrix
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Shrek
• Dumb & Dumber
• Shakespeare in Love
• Almost Famous
• Reality Bites
• Moulin Rouge
• Fight Club
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Die Hard
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Rounders

What are yours?

About a month ago, Silicon Prairie News asked me if I’d participate in their Five in Five series, a video that I would shoot, edit and upload that answered five questions about my blog and was less than five minutes.

1. What is the name, subject and URL of your blog?
2. Why do you blog?
3. How long have you been blogging and what blogging software do you use?
4. What’s your favorite blog (besides your own)?
5. What do you think the state of the blogosphere is in our region?

Today, my video was posted. I thought I’d cross-post it here.

I’m pretty happy with how it came out, although I thought of stuff I would have mentioned later, like more specific shout-outs to KC bloggers that I like. But oh well. Another time perhaps. (Or even another post.)

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you probably wouldn’t know about this, so enjoy.

And please… try to be nice.

I got this tattoo when I was nineteen years old. I was home from college for the summer working a horrible job as a roofing contractor in LaCygne for Boone Brothers Roofing. It was 12-15 hour days in the blazing Kansas summer sun working with 550-degree tar and a foreman who was addicted to speed.

But we made decent money, especially with all the overtime, some of which I blew on my tattoo.

I went to Skin Illustrations in Lenexa and worked with a guy named Clayton to design my tattoo that I had in my mind. I’d been focusing on the word persevere a lot. I thought the word was cool and I loved how I could apply it to nearly every part of my life.

Besides hanging out with my friends and school, my life really focused on one other thing.

Volleyball.

At the time when I got my tattoo, the significance of the word and they ball were very connected. I’d had a disappointing first year at Graceland, but had really re-committed myself that summer to working hard (persevering, natch).

When Clayton gave me the first design, it was bigger than I expected. After waiting for him to reduce the size, I endured the four hours of tattooing. It wasn’t too bad, just like someone scraping my leg for four hours in the same place with a safety pin.

Now, over a decade later, I’m still happy with the tattoo, even if my volleyball-playing days have passed. I’m even ready to get another one. But I’ll save that story for another post.

Since the Bucket List Meme, I thought I should do my very own, not one that’s pre-conceived. I have a lot of things I want to do before I die. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a start.

1. Be the best husband I can be
2. Design a typeface
3. Publish a book
4. Visit Hawaii (in 2010 baby!)
5. Bungee jump
6. Visit Australia
7. Visit Africa
8. Stand in Red Square
9. Visit Germany
10. Drive cross-country with Alli
11. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
12. Buy a stranger a meal
13. Have my portrait painted (marrying a painter FTW!)
14. Write a screenplay
15. Be in a movie
16. Learn some card tricks so I can be a “cool” uncle
17. Go back to Italy
18. Have an amazingly landscaped backyard
19. Speak another language (probably Italian) fluently (just gotta buy Rosetta Stone, right?)
20. See the Great Pyramids
21. See Alaska
22. Own season tickets to the Chiefs
23. Visit the Great Wall of China
24. Design and sell a collection of T-shirts
25. Go sky diving
26. Visit a Nazi concentration camp
27. Fly in a helicopter
28. Eat caviar
29. Eat at Plaza III
30. Hike the Grand Canyon
31. Walk in Jerusalem
32. Make a difference
33. Sit on a jury
34. Lead a bible study
35. Live somewhere besides Kansas City
36. Rescue a dog
37. Own a bespoke suit
38. Retire early and travel with Alli
39. Own our home outright
40. Teach a class
41. Spend an entire 24 hours in silent meditation
42. Play a round of golf under 80
43. Read The Complete Calvin and Hobbes from cover to cover
44. Stand on the field for a Chiefs game
45. Return to St. Lucia
46. Attend a taping of a TV show that I like (should have tried to get to Friends back in the day)
47. Learn to draw
48. Write in a journal every day for a year
49. Eat at Top Chef Harold’s restaurant Perilla
50. Weigh less than 225 pounds again

What about you? What do you want to do before you kick the bucket?

So there’s this crazy note that’s been going around the Internet tubes and I’ve been tagged like 5 times on Facebook to do it. I’ll do my best not to propagate the meme (if only for Meesha’s sake), but I’ll do it here on the old blog and it will then go through the tubes automagically into my Facebook account. (Isn’t modern technology great?)

Now, where do I start?

1. I’m willing to try anything once…especially when it comes to food.
2. Each year, I am more excited to watch the Oscars than I am to watch the Super Bowl.
3. My favorite Muppets are Waldorf and Statler.
4. I think Ben Affleck gets a bad rap as an actor and is much more talented than people think.
5. When I was growing up, the first profession I remember wanting to do was to be President of the United States.
6. I am terrible at poker. But do not mess with me in any trivia-based game. Especially Scene It.
7. My wife is my best friend. I don’t say that lightly because I have very good friends that I’ve known longer than her, but she understands me better than anyone else in the world.
8. I hate mustard in all forms. I will choke it down to be polite, but avoid it if possible.
9. I have competed in 7 different sports in my lifetime (soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball, football, swimming, tennis). I play golf, but that’s something I picked up in college. The sports that I listed are all ones that I played against other teams.
10. My favorite book of all-time is Catcher in the Rye.
11. My favorite T-shirt is a volleyball camp shirt that I got at the Marv Dunphy Volleyball Camp at Pepperdine over 15 years ago.
12. I like doing laundry. I enjoy the monotony of it…how I don’t really have to think about it.
13. My friends and I used to play hide and seek at my buddy’s farm…well into our college years.
14. It’s been years since I have not had facial hair of some sort.
15. I absolutely loved working at the Pizza Shack. I became friends with my wife there.
16. I am most comfortable in a T-shirt, jeans and flip flops.
17. If I had to eat one thing for the rest of my life, it would be cheeseburgers. Toasted bun, mayo, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, monterey jack cheese, farm-raised ground beef, mayo, toasted bun.
18. My immediate family is all musically inclined. I am not. Although I really wish I could play guitar. I don’t have the patience to learn.
19. I am flipping awesome at self portrait photography.
20. Winter is my favorite season. BY FAR. I love snow. We haven’t had nearly enough this year.
21. I have sprained each of my ankles a half-dozen times each because of volleyball. Although my first ankle sprain ever (and the worst one by far) was incurred during a pickup basketball game at a birthday party.
22. I hate wearing suits, but if I looked like Don Draper in a suit, I’d wear one every single day.
23. My least favorite place in the world to be is a hospital.
24. I took the LSAT but did not apply to any law schools. I would have gotten in to most of them based on my score.
25. I want to design at least one typeface before I die.

What do you think?

• I bought a cow with the readers of my blog and didn’t eat red meat for 6 months.
• I bought a MacBook (which I love).
• I continually called for the firing of Herm Edwards.
• I supported Barack Obama for President (still do).
• My cholesterol went up then down.
• I returned to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.
• I got to see my boyhood hero return to the screen.
• My brother got married in Jamaica.
• HGTV’s Next Design Star (from Olathe!) commented on my blog.
• Heath Ledger left us with a genius performance in The Dark Knight.
• My 5-year-old iMac died.
• The U.S. brought back the Ryder Cup.
• The Chiefs were horrible and we finally fired Carl. Hopefully the under-qualified Herm Edwards will follow him out of town.
• I got to preview the Fork & Screen with a bunch of bloggers.
• I got into Mad Men.
• My sister-in-law got engaged to a great guy.
• I tweeted.
• I blogged for all of November.
• I attended a Seminar on Blogging for Business that sucked so I put out my own rules.
• I changed my domain name and blog name to Shane Life.
• I got downsized.
• I redesigned my blog again.
• I turned 32.
• Christmas was fun, but sorta weird because I don’t know when my vacation will be over.

Still, 2008 was another great trip around the sun. I got to spend lots of time with Alli, I got to be the best man at my brother’s wedding in Jamaica, and I got the time to reevaluate what I want to do with my career. It was a good year.

And I’m excited for 2009. Happy New Year.

My Birthday Haul, originally uploaded by ishane.

I got some great presents for my 32nd birthday. If you go through to the Flickr photo, you’ll see a larger pic with tags as to what exactly everything is.