The Jump, Jive, and Swing Christmas ball was that weekend and we had been planning to go for a while. As we thought about it though, we decided to maybe make it into a “danciversary” date. The first time we had gone dancing together was at the Jump Jive and Swing Christmas Ball two years ago, we didn’t know it at the time, but that was our first date. I had been looking for an opportunity to propose for a few weeks, but it never felt right. This jumped out at me as the perfect time – the meaning was definitely there.

Even thought school wasn’t over, we decided that we needed the time together, so we did homework all morning and got ourselves dressed up and I made sure to slip the ring into my inside jacket pocket. I picked her up (she looked stunning, but she said something about me looking nice myself) and we went out to a nice dinner, which is where may dad had suggested that I propose (he was the only one who knew it was coming on that specific day). However, we both tend to be more private people and I figured Alyssa would not be terribly pleased with me if I made a scene about it. We enjoyed an amazing Italian meal together, wishing the whole time that we could enjoy some wine with our calamari.

After dinner, we walked and got a slice of chocolate cheese cake and some coffee. The evening was going incredibly well. It was the first real date we’d been on in a while, and we were both able to forget about school, which had been pretty hard to do with the end of the semester looming. Then we went out and danced like we used to, before we got busy with school. But something was wrong, Alyssa started to feel unwell. We ended up sitting by the dance floor, both feeling a little out of breath. I asked if she wanted to take a walk outside and talk for a little, and she said that she would very much like that. Making sure to grab my jacket, we headed outside and had a lovely chat.

The weather was beautiful that night. It was clear and only slightly chilly. We just stood there, talking. Laughing. We ended up alone out there, she was standing against a wall and I was in front of her, face to face. I reached into my pocket and found the ring, keeping it hidden in my hand while I moved it into an easier pocket. My heart was racing. We kept talking about whatever, I really don’t remember – I was slightly preoccupied. I think Alyssa finally paused for a breath and I said, “I have a question… Will you marry me?”

Her response was the best thing I’ve seen in my life. At first she didn’t really think I was proposing (she would’ve walked away if I’d dropped a knee, she told me so on the way home), giving me one of those, “aw, of course I’ll marry you” type answers. But I asked her again, “no, seriously. Will you marry me?” and put the ring under her hand so she could feel it. Her eyes flashed and her face lit up like I’ve never seen before. She couldn’t figure out what to say, “are you serious? Is this really happening right now?” “yeah, this is really happening.”

She was crying, I think I might have been too. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy, honestly. “This is really happening. Is that okay with you?” She kissed me, looked me in the eye and simply said, “yes,” (I don’t know that she could have managed much more than that) “it’s very okay.”

I am now a happily engaged man, helping to plan the cutest wedding I’ve ever seen. Cute but elegant. We aren’t wasting any time, and I’m sure some people will have an issue with that. We’re still deciding on a date, but it will most likely be sometime next year. I’m getting myself for the inevitable cascade of assumptions, judgments, and opinions that are sure to follow any engagement where, either (not to mention both) parties are under twenty-one. Or twenty-five. Or any other age, for that matter. It seems that everyone has an opinion on how old is “old enough,” and no one is shy on sharing it. My attitude has always been, “to hell with the world, you’re all in the hand-basket anyway,” So here I am, 20 years old, engaged, planning our wedding for next summer, doing my own thing and having an awesome time of it.

“Haters gonna hate,” as they say. I’d wager that they’re just jealous, even though we’re both broke. Maybe if they realized that, they’d be less jealous and give us donations instead of criticism. Oh well, we have plenty of months to see what they say.

Thank you to everyone who has been with us up to this point, and thank you to everyone who will stand by us while we see this through. Here’s to good hundred-year run of us, a stress free wedding, an awesome cake topper (anyone want to buy this for us?), and lots of dancing in the future! Yeah, this is really happening.

My girlfriend’s great-grandfather recently passed away. Her family opted to have the memorial service on the Tuesday before thanksgiving, as many family members had already been planing to visit that week. That got me out of Tuesday classes. Two professors said that attendance on Wednesday would be somewhat optional, and I work on Fridays. We traveled down to her parents’ on Tuesday, leaving mid-morning. In the time that I was gone, I got significantly more work done towards any of my class projects than I would have in a typical week of work. Even with time that was “wasted” on going to dinner, cooking, or visiting with family members, I still managed to write a part of my groups media plan, write content for a website project, and work on my final art project.

Essentially, I was more just as productive, but I actually enjoyed myself. I ate more pie, turkey, and Chinese food than I could have possibly needed. Alyssa and I spent all Tuesday afternoon (after the memorial) in Huntsville, we met one of her friends and sat at the mall, talked, and then went to another mall and sat in a coffee shop for an hour. I even painted last night and decided to type this blog post today. I’ve had  fun, and I still got things done – instead of running from work to class to bed to class, grabbing a bite to eat while on from way from one to another and just barely managing to finish all my projects on time.

School is (not so) slowly devouring all my productivity and creative energy, and it really needs to stop. Less than a month to go. I think I might make it. Then again, there’s always next semester…

The author makes a strong case for what they call an “elemental approach” to visually analyzing web sites. Through a discussion of the shortcomings of other approaches to visual analysis, the author gradually builds up to the point that an elemental approach would be superior for a multitude of reasons. One main point I feel the author was trying to make was that traditional rhetorical approaches to visual analysis often attempt to translate visual language into the verbal, written, textual language of every day. I wonder though if this is actually a problem; more likely, it is simply a factor which we should cognize. Our primary language of inter-personal communication is often textual. It seems to me from my experience thus far with visual communications that many people think in textual language, making it easier for the majority of us to understand.

This translation between the visual and the textual language is often the core of a problem involving visual design. While visual language is “natural” and learned from our environment naturally, we are trained to think textually (probably by our writing professors). However, my point is simply that the issue of translating between textual and visual languages and the confusion between the two is a problem that I find inherent to any discussion of visual communications and is thus somewhat of a moot point.

All that said, the essay has one element that feel is very relative to the subject at hand. The elemental approach outlined in the last section of the essay would be invaluable to web designers, as well as to designers in many other fields of interface design. By breaking down visual experiences into their basic elements, we can see (and thus analyze) the process of how users make sense of visuals.

The author explains the elemental process as, “‘seeing series of small, intricate shapes in a line’ instead ‘of seeing a toolbar.’” In this example, the more complex object (perhaps a compound object?) of a toolbar has been deconstructed into its basic elements – small, intricate shapes, arranged into a specific configuration. There is no assumed meaning attached to objects at this stage, but as the analysis builds and meanings begin to be implied by various elements and configurations, we call out that meaning we have inferred. With this method, we can understand how users see and begin to assume meaning in a design and identify any elements that are distracting, confusing, or simply illogical in their reliance on assumed meanings.

Personally, I feel that this would be an excellent approach for many fields that rely on visual communication: product design, architecture, system design, and especially web design. Many users do not necessarily know that a configuration of complex shapes in a line is a toolbar, they may not even know in any definite way that those objects relate to one another. By eliminating assumptions, we can increase clarity, usability, and efficiency.

I found out on Saturday that I for sure had the job. Then I went out to Centennial Park with Alyssa to dance to the sounds of The Moonlighters. Unfortunately, during a freak polka accident, I rolled and sprained my ankle. That meant a week off work at my other job and hobbling around on crutches for a few days, plus the cost of going to the doctor to make sure that it wasn’t broken. Add that to trying to help Alyssa find herself another job, studying for my menu test, finding clothes that fit me for my new work uniform. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

I definitely couldn’t have done it without Alyssa though. She’s been keeping me off my feet as much as possible, driving me around, and helping me study for my test all week. And now she’s preparing herself for a week of me being mostly unavailable. She is such a blessing to me.

I have so much more to write, but I have to go find some pants that fit and study for my menu test before training today. I start at three o’clock today, my menu test is tomorrow. Wish me luck!

My first story takes place during Easter weekend. My amazing and beautiful girlfriend was in an Easter production with her church, and after the show on Easter Sunday, her and I went to eat. Specifically, we went to steak and shake, which was about 40 minutes away from the church. Well, we get there and she realizes that she didn’t know where her phone was. Apparently, she had tried to stick it in her bag before the show started and had somehow missed the pockets and instead slid it between her bags and right onto the floor.

She was freaking out. Not that it would have been a big deal if she couldn’t get her phone until Wednesday night, but she had a Job interview Saturday morning, and it not only looked promising, but it also looked like they were wanting to hire someone rather quickly— “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t get your call saying I got the job and you want me to start tomorrow, I left my phone at church.” Yeah, that would work well.

So she’s using my phone to call everyone she can think of, first her mom, then a girl from church, then the youth pastor. No one who has a key is available. So she keeps calling and texting people, trying to figure this out and not sound stupid or annoying in the process. You know that everyone would be simply thrilled with the idea of leaving their family on Easter Sunday to come unlock the church so someone could get their stupid phone that they can’t live without.

We start driving to the church, because we figure maybe someone might still be there for some reason. And if not at least we’ll be closer, so if someone could help, we’d already be there and they wouldn’t have to wait for us.

On arriving at the church, we saw a lone car in the parking lot. We didn’t know if someone was there or if they’d just left the car there, but it was still hope. So we tried a door. Locked. We tried to sanctuary door. Open! We started to go through the door from the sanctuary to the youth chapel, and that’s when the alarm went off.

There we were sitting on my car, getting sunburned, waiting to see what would happen. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, the police showed up. Thankfully they didn’t think we were trying to break into the church. But I mean, of all the stories to tell the cops, why would you tell that one? I guess it had the ring of truth. They did however have this look on their faces like “seriously?” Anyway, the officers checked the doors and turned off the alarm and ended up calling a key holder so the doors could be locked up again. After a few more minutes, the pastor shows up.

It turns out that the door was in fact locked, but hadn’t been pushed all the way shut, so it didn’t latch. We teased her a little about setting of the alarm when calling would have worked just fine. And then we went and got her phone, and the pastor locked the church up and we left. Kinda an anticlimactic story, I know. But seriously, it was a great adventure. With a girlfriend like mine, life is never boring. It’s pretty great, actually

I think we’re writing this one in the Summer adventure book.

When I first met her, it was my senior year of high school, I had just started going to the homeschool co-op that she went to, and I was in a relationship that I thought was going somewhere, so I wasn’t exactly looking for anything more than friends. Boy did we become friends though. We were in newspaper and dance together. Both were fun classes with lots of time for talking and goofing around, so we got to know each other pretty well. We’d talk sometimes, and hang out after and between classes.

Then I graduated, but we kept in touch. By that point, we were fairly good friends, especially for only having known each other for a school year. And then, well, yeah. The breakup occurred and I found myself single. I still wasn’t looking for anyone though. I ended up in an awful, depressed, ” wishing I had someone but not really seeing anyone for me” phase. It was awful. Thank God for good friends though. I had people around me who I talked to quite a bit, especially some people I danced with. And Alyssa.

She concocted some crazy excuse to come and see me at school. I think she said she needed help figuring out how to use Illustrator. Looking back on it, I should’ve known what she was really up to. Not that it was bad, it was actually pretty funny. It was a Monday night, and that was when the swing dance club met, so we went

Swing dancing had become a big thing for me. Notice my lack of transition? I really don’t remember what happened here. Or in what order this all even happened. Anyway, one weekend, I’m not really sure why even, I took Alyssa with me to a dance. Then another dance. And the one after that. We definitely became dance partners at that point. It was fun, we both loved it, it was great.

Then she went a ruined it. Started doing things like laying her head on my shoulder, holding my hand when we weren’t dancing, hanging on my arm in this sweet and adorable way. I put it together pretty fast though, because I’m a sharp one. The problem was, I didn’t know how I felt about her. I mean, I loved her, and she was a great friend, but I didn’t want to start a relationship just because I was lonely and depressed.

There was another problem. I had told Alyssa a long time before (shortly after the breakup) that I would be taking either her or Lydia to their senior prom. Lydia had a date, so that left me with Alyssa. I really didn’t want to lead her on, so I needed to figure out how I felt, and fast. She kept trying to convince me to go, and after weeks of dragging my feet about going, along with prayer and stressing and talking it over with some people who I trust, I decided to just see what happened. I knew that I had moved on, so it wasn’t a rebound, I just needed to completely close that chapter and no let it affect anything else. So that’s what I did. I wasn’t going to let a relationship that turned out bad affect the potential of this new relationship.

Prom night was fantastic. Our first “official” date, I guess. All that dancing, I would definitely consider that dating, even though I didn’t exactly know it at the time. Alyssa and I had a great time at her senior prom. Then there was the after party lock-in. Alyssa and I spent most of it sitting together and just talked for a few hours. She confessed to having been in love with me for a while, and, in a somewhat anti-climactic way, we watched avatar. But the amazing end to that was that she fell asleep in my arms before the movie was over, and we woke up in the morning, still holding each other. Although we were somewhat sore – church pews are not amazing for sleeping on.

That was one year ago, and it’s been even better that I could have ever imagined.

Usually, procrastination is putting off something that you don’t want to do until there is no avoiding it. But for me, the form it tends to take is the way I, upon thinking of a great project idea, mentally make a list of reasons I shouldn’t go out and do it right away. I need to plan first, I have other priorities or projects that need taken care of first, I need to organize my paperclips first. Whatever. Planning is crucial, and keeping things organized is important, but when those things cause me to stall out on a great new idea and never even get it out of my brain, then we have a problem.

This is from my very own Twitter feed, and I need to start figuring out how to apply it:

I need to stop making lists of awesome things I want to do or cool things I plan to do. Instead, I need to just go do them.—
Justin Threlkeld (@justinthrelkeld) April 05, 2011

It’s time to start doing something important.

After all today, I think I want to start my own digest of swing dance events here in the Nashville/Huntsville area. As the only one working on it at this point, it’ll mostly likely be heavily biased towards my tastes and experience, east coast, lindy, and charleston, but I will try to include any blues or balboa events I come across. I am by no means an expert of swing dancing, but I’m hoping that by compiling a list of upcoming dances and publishing it monthly (or possibly bi-weekly), I might be able to help anyone who might find themselves in the same place that I am. If anyone reads this and has a suggestion, please let me know. I want this to be as helpful as possible for as many people as possible. I might try to get the first issue written tonight and stick to a Monday posting schedule.

Don’t stop the lindy hop.

We’re currently working through the first chapter of Devotions for Dating Couples by Ben Young and Dr. Samuel Adams. So far it’s a fairly good book for what we wanted. The first chapter is on love. It’s really been kinda convicting, because I haven’t loved God in a long time. I keep forgetting what love really is.

Something I like about our devotional is that it has a space at the end of every day to write your thoughts and comments. I think I might start writing some of the those thoughts here as we work through the book. We’ll see. I’m prone to saying things like that and not doing them.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Love is what you do: Midol and flowers during her period, helping him with projects, listing to the person who needs to talk, a midnight run to find some Pedialite ’cause they’re sick. That is love.

(I pray that, someday, I will love like that)