Does anyone remember this character from the Fox Kid’s Club here in Denver?
Many of us started off our afternoons to his memorable voice - does anyone else remember?

Keep the memory alive.

Ok, so over at the iO Group, one of my colleagues (Anna) is in design school right now, and it turns out has quite a few tricks up her sleave.

On Monday, she called Jay and I over to her desk and said “check this out.” She proceeded to take low quality, blurry photo, and drastically improve the level of detail.

I am blogging “remotely” right now, so I can’t do screen shots and show you what I’m talking about, but I promise it will make sense. I will also try to get back here later to edit this post to include some “pics” so you can see what I’m talking about.

Ok -
So over in your layers area, duplicate your background layer (whatever layer the image is currently on).

Next, go up to ‘Filter’, then to ‘other’, then to ‘high pass’.

With the high pass filter enabled, move the ’slider’ from left to right until you see only the lines of the image showing through.
Click ‘ok’.

Finally, in your layers area, select the new layer, and in the filter options, set it to ‘overlay’.

If done correctly, you will see all of the edges in the photograph improve in detail.

Of course now that I’m sitting here reading through this, it all seems to be wrong. Everything you’ve just read might be totally incorrect - my apologies. I will check later though, and edit this as necessary.
Really, this is more of an exercise in writing for me, than it is an exercise in Photoshop for you.

Well - it seems my friend nathan was right …
Mere hours after receiving notice from him that Google would not like my blog post (as humorous as it was) I did in fact receive the exact same email he mentioned in his comment, insisting that I cease and desist my breach of their Terms and Conditions.
What breach was this you ask?
Well, supposedly someone whose panties are on way too tight over at Google Adsense thought my post about becoming a millionaire from click-thru’s was serious. I was in breach by encouraging people to click the ads on my page …
I’m still not quite sure I get this.
Aren’t the ads there as encouragements? I mean, isn’t their sole purpose to be clicked upon? Not because of their meaningful content, but simply because if enough people click, x% of them will purchase something making it all worthwhile? Wasn’t I helping that by joking about the several billion clicks it was going to take to make me a millionaire?
Well apparently not - so I have removed all mention of clicking the ads.

Sorry Google Adsense, please accept my apologies, and my support for your candidacy in ‘08.

After all this time - you’re still still sitting there reading what I have to say?!
Amazing…. I love the Inter-webs.

So… After much deliberation and heartache, my life has taken about 42 amazing and thrilling turns since we last saw each other.

I am no longer working at BrightStores - which some of you are probably saying “bright huh?”.

Ok… lemme backup.
About a year ago I left Chris Finger Pianos to try my hand at professional web development. I took a job with a small company called “BrightStores” under the pretense that I would be working from home. This was a great move at first, what with my busy dialysis schedule and all. After several months though the owner of the company began looking for office space, yearning for the cohesion that comes from everyone sitting around checking sports scores and instant messaging their friends in the same building. He decided ultimately to get office space in Evergreen after telling me several times “Don’t worry - I’m never going to require you to be in an office 5 days a week.” Of course after about a week in the new office he decided that he did in fact want me there full time. Furthermore, if I was unable to be there full time, I should consider going either contract, or part time (this of course made sense given the number of hours I would miss due to treatment). I actually moved my schedule all around to try and make it work for a couple of weeks, but in the end decided I should go contract. Keep in mind, I made this decision thinking that my job would stay much the same it was, but that I would now have the freedom to work from home again not being a full time employee.
Nope…
I think I racked up between 5 and 7 billable hours of work after going contract.
Anyway - needless to say, I had to think quick and find some other way to make ends meet.
We’re still in that phase I guess, but a few exciting things have happened. I will try to enumerate upon these things in the coming days.

1) Anna and I began (and completed) training to do home-hemodialysis, allowing us to now schedule dialysis around our lives, rather than the other way around. We absolutely love it, and I am much healthier for it - not to mention I get to spend more time at home with the wife, cat, and puppy.

2) My friends over at the iO Group were kind enough to take me on as a contract employee there, helping me to fill in some empty hours with web development work. This was truly a God send, and I’m hoping it will continue to blossom and grow as a source of work for me.

3) I have started my own business venture. I have been a piano technician for more than 12 years now, and very much enjoy some aspects of my work. I have for a long time been wondering how else I can, with my current skill set, find meaningful work - how can I make a difference? After much deliberation I have decided to begin teaching piano. First off, it puts me at the piano which is where I want to be, and second it allows me to become a better student myself. I’ve begun practicing again, and am starting to crank through some new music which is fun.
I’m also toying with the idea of doing some recording and seeing if anyone might like to listen to my “music”.

Anyway - time for me to go to bed after finishing up yet another daily dialysis treatment - but things are wonderful and I am content.

The time has come to pick up this dusty old cap, give it a good whack against my leg, and begin wearing it again.
After being ravaged by spam, this place is overdue for an overhaul, and it begins now.

Soon going to tollidee.com will simply bring you here, and this will become the meat of the operation.
I’m done trying to inspire dialysis patients with my trials and tribulations - rather, I will begin writing whatever I feel like writing. Some of it (much of it I’m sure) will be dialysis related, but much of it will also be related to whatever flotsam is wedged into the conduits of my brain.
I hope to jettison much onto you willing participants.

… Until then …