I’m really looking forward to March for Babies day! I’m raising money and getting ready to walk. I’m proud to help the March of Dimes give every baby a healthy start – especially in this difficult year. And I’m asking you to help, too. I know together we can do so much more.

You can visit my personal fundraising page and make a secure donation with your credit card. ANY amount you can give will mean a lot!

Thank you!

Why I’m Walking

http://www.marchforbabies.org/omari1914

Now that I’ve watched a NFL Total Access twice on NFL Network (best channel ever) I can get around to writing something. I’m feeling giddy like I just received a a shiny new job offer from someone. On a side note, all you hiring managers had better get me while I’m hot.

Anyway, as we all know, there are two sports seasons. NFL Season and Not NFL Season. And I’m feeling really good about this upcoming NFL season.

Here’s why 2009 is going to be a good one for the Bears:

1) We’ve got a FRANCHISE QB. He will immediately make the WRs and TEs better. How many games would the Bears have won over the past few years if the Offense could just give the Defense a breather? Forget scoring. Just a 5-10min break.

2) Rod Marinelli coaching the Bears D-Line.

What’s that? The Bears don’t have any receivers? What good are great receivers if you don’t have a QB to throw them the ball? There’s a reason Muhsin Muhammad said Chicago is where WRs go to die. Our QB has always sucked. For example, take the Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson tandem in Detroit. How many games did they win?

Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m not saying the Bears are going to the Super Bowl, but we’re at least 2 games deep in the playoffs if people stay healthy.

1) The City of Chicago takes some of my tax money and finally fixes the bombed out and depleted road that is S. Prairie Ave between 51st and Garfield (55th). As it stands right now, residents would be better off if it were paved with gravel. No exaggeration.

2) Perhaps the City of Chicago would provide us with a bit of drainage that S. Prairie Ave between 53rd and Garfield (55th) doesn’t turn into the 6th Great Lake every time it rains for more than an hour. Again, no exaggeration.

3) Perhaps the City of Chicago would bless us with a sidewalk on S. Prairie that we may walk next to the road rather than in it our way to the L at Garfield (55th). I wish I were exaggerating. I assure you. I am not.

Hopefully these requests are not too unreasonable.

Coincidentally, this offseason we’ve got a disgruntled Pro Bowl QB in Denver wanting a trade and a Pro Bowl Receiver in Arizona wanting his release as well. Jerry Angelo, or whoever is preventing him from doing the obvious, listen up.

1) Get rid of Urlacher while we can get something for him. Please. Anyone can see that he isn’t even the best linebacker on the Chicago Bears roster. Lance Briggs is and has been for at least the past 2 seasons. I say we trade Brian Urlacher, this year’s 2nd round pick, and a half-eaten bag of pork rinds for Jay Cutler. If Denver can’t do it without a QB, throw in Orton and keep the pork-rinds.

2) Just trade for Boldin. Nothing witty to say about that one. Just do it.

3) I’m just throwing this in for good measure. We’ve got 2 tackles on the roster. One hasn’t started one NFL game, the other has maybe 4 starts and he was signed to play guard. We had a third tackle who wanted to stay, but we let him sign with the Browns. Now granted John St Clair wasn’t great. Actually he was far from great, but if I have nothing but $1 to my name, I’ll be damned if I let anyone walk away with 25 cents leaving me with 75.

Chicago, you guys are down to 75 cents.

I began on a UNIX command line at NC A&T. I’m probably really dating myself when I say this, but the browser of the moment was Mosiac.

At the time, I was a second-year mechanical engineering attendee. I say “attendee” because I was more interested in playing around in the computer lab than doing what I went to school for in the first place. The calculus, physics, and chemistry simply couldn’t keep my attention. At least the way they were taught in the classes I attended anyway. Maybe instead of teaching us thermodynamics, they could’ve just allowed us to blow ourselves up?

I would much rather get my hands dirty; to take things apart and see how they worked. Old-fashioned trial and error. Surfing the web, seeing something cool, viewing the page source, and learning how the JS and HTML worked. I could do that all day. Oftentimes I did; blowing off engineering classes (and giving my folks heartattacks) in the process.

Once I switched majors to Graphic Communications, I knew I had found something I liked to do. I learned how to use the different Adobe software and got pretty decent at it. I learned an appreciation for typography, not to be afraid of whitespace, what Gestalt principles are and how to use them, etc.

There’s always something new to learn and that’s why I love design.

An interesting question from the folks at Smashing Magazine.