PixelRN

I love the Internet.

Back in 1999 I visited a remote part of in the hopes of finding where my ancestors hailed from. This place, called Fanad Head, was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I had ever seen. I met a woman there who was interested in preserving the history of the place and she took me round and introduced me to some of the elderly people who lived there. We ended up at a dead end but she promised to help me follow up with my search. Unfortunately I lost touch with her and my search just kind of halted.

Fast forward to 2002. I find an email list for people who are into Fanad. I leave a message asking the members if anyone knows this woman and how I can get in touch with her. No one knows her, which is strange, considering the population of Fanad is probably about 100.

Yesterday that same woman’s daughter happened to have found my message and chose to email me and will put me in touch with her mother!

The search is back on!

In light of all this, I was inspired to dig out my old website. When I first started designing, back in 1996, I came across this website advertising a Liz Claibourne scent called, "Curve." Their concept was to have two friends go on a cross-country road trip, and chronicle their adventures on the Curve website. I'm pretty sure the two friends were invented, as was the entire trip. The whole thing was just a little too much of a GenX, Reality Bites sort of contrivance.

But eureka! What a concept! You could actually travel, and then describe your travelling as you go via emails and websites. WOW. Remember, young ones, this was back when the Internet was new. Back in the early 90's if you wanted to communicate with people while you travelled, you used postcards (actual paper postcards with stamps!) and pay-phones to call your friends and family.

At any rate, I decided that I would someday go on a roadtrip and chonicle my adventures via the web. In 1999 that is what I did.

While I’m at it, I found this and that, which I designed in Flash. My aim was to design an online portfolio that I could use to get a kickass web design job. This was back in the days when I was all PIXEL and no RN.

You may wonder why the RN ruled out over the PIXEL. There's some good reasons. First of all, I had a tiny little dregree in FINE ART. As much as I didn't want that to ruin me for the world of commercial art (i.e. in which you actually get a paycheck), it did. I became an art and design snob, which makes it really hard to "pay your dues" in the world of graphic design. My first paying job as a web designer was actually for a doctor (how ironic!) who was trying to advertise his services to ambulance chasing lawyers! My second job was for someone trying to sell golf clubs.

I can't say I wasn't forewarned. One time I took graphic design class in which the instructor warned us that, "Once you get out into the real world, you won't be working on all these cool projects like we do in class. Most likely you will be designing ads for Purina Cat Chow." Lovely words of advice for a young student, so hopeful and encouraging.

Unfortunetly those words are close to the truth.

So where did the RN come from? Quite simply, one day someone said to me, out of the blue, "Have you ever thought about nursing?"

I hadn't even considered it for one solid reason: I was afraid of blood.

"Are you really afraid of blood?"  that someone asked.

I replied, "Well it may be something I could get over."

It was and I did. Three years later I was working in the ICU. And what a surprise, I actually love caring for patients! Most days I go home thinking, "I love this job. It's rewarding, challenging and never boring."

It's the anti-Purina Cat Chow.

So that's the story of how the PIXEL became the PIXELRN, and not the FINEARTRN, or the FINEARTPIXEL.