Stuff about me

My professional resume can be found here, what follows here is more of a casual and fun history of my career.

Things I Can Do

Print and web design/production, Photography, Web standards, mobile design/development, HTML5/CSS3, user interface design, user centered design, user driven development, roller skate, user experience, organic and paid SEO development, Google Analytics, content management software, email marketing, ExpressionEngine, WordPress, Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, Microsoft Office, some JavaScript/jQuery/PHP (but not much!)

10+ Years Working Remote

I know how to work remotely. An office? We don't need one where we're going. When I enter my workspace, I am fully in the work zone. People often ask how I can get work done at home, and the answer is simple: there's work to be done. It's not that hard. I don't have any secret formula for working remotely; it’s just my job. I wish I could claim to have some amazing secrets to share in an ebook to sell on Amazon—imagine a sweet $13.56 in monthly revenue—but unfortunately, no secrets here.

Jobs I've Had

Freelance Design and Production (2022-present)

The pandemic got me good. Covid put an end to working at Target so I have returned to the freelancer grind. Currently (April 2025) I have one small client that isn't bringing in enough revenue to pay the bills so... hire me please!!!

Extreme Noise Records, volunteer (2023-present)

This is the best job ever unfortunately it doesn't pay very well. It does allow me to get out of my house, meet new and exciteing people, lisetn to records r3eally loudly and get a discount on purchases. Also, the Friday night crew is amazing and we eat sandwiches together.

Self-employed Graphic Design freelancer (2022-present)

After COVID left me with long-term symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and, most annoyingly, tinnitus, I had to return to freelancing. Unfortunately, finding and maintaining contract work has become much more difficult. I recently lost my main source of income and am now desperately searching for new opportunities, whether it’s more contract work or a great full-time job. These days, I spend my time scrolling through Indeed and LinkedIn, hoping a recruiter I’ve connected with will reach out, all while sipping drip coffee and munching on cookies at Bob's Java Hut.

Target (2017-2022)

Working at Target really made me want to do work in the UI/IA realm again, as it drove me absolutely insane how some of the applications I had to use to do my job were designed. My role mostly involved backend logistics (working with incoming freight, pulling stock, back stocking, etc...), but I also performed "ship from store" duties, which included both picking and packing online orders as well as picking in-store pick-up orders. I also became experienced at implementing planograms!

Beyond the Fold (2016-2018)

Another two-person shop, this time with a longtime friend who also needs income while trying to find a new job. Check out nwwoodbox.com, the first client site we've launched. Currently working on a site for some cool hair stylists in Seattle, too bad I don't live in Seattle. We closed up shop in 2018 but still do some small web site projects here and there.

SundogWest (2008-2016) #rip

Email. Email. Email. Two-man shop doing (mostly) email design and development for accounting software juggernaut Intuit. First week in I had to unlearn my HTML/CSS and dig up my mid-90's HTML table building skills. We also did some print creative and a landing page here and there as well as the occaisonal not Intuit client. But yeah, I spent 8 years making tables inside of tables inside of tables and making sure it looked right in Outlook 2007... fun times! The upside of that is that I got extremely good at coding HTML email.

Unwound Design (2006-2008) #rip

My first foray into freelance work making websites for small business owners in the region. Ended when Chuck, whom I knew from Sundog (he was one of the founders), contacted me and asked if I wanted to work with him (see SundogWest above).

Sundog (1996-2006)

I started as a contracted HTML monkey and worked my way to running and managing the creative team (best crew of people I've ever worked with). Along the way I led the charge to update the company branding, kickstarted the SEO/SEM effort for clients, launched the first Sundog blog (which as a sidenote let me be Twitter user #10422 after writing a blog post about this new micro-bloggging thing called Twitter), arranged tons of amazing internal events like Octoberween (combining the admin team's Octoberfest celebration with the creative team's halloween party) that as far as I know they still celebrate, led the FargoWeb.com team (our attempt at a local portal type site — also my biggest failure, sad!), and got to see Sinbad when me and another employee went to an Apple QuickTime conference in LA.

My favorite achievement however was probably a tiny marketing site we did for ourselves called 1,000,000 hits... This was back when people still thought website hits meant something. We launched a site that when loaded would result in 1,000,000 hits so the hit counter was nuts. This was in reply to a competing company running billboards touting their ridiculous "hit" claims. I excel in snarky assholism!

Other jobs

I've also worked as a cook/bouncer/doorman at a bar, made and delivered pizzas for Godfathers, Shakeys, and Tomicelli's (local dive, now closed but amazing pizza), baked bagels for a bagel shop, worked in the Vanity warehouse doing all sorts of things, was a janitor at the Cass County (North Dakota) Courthouse, was the night auditor at a motel, and cooked burgers and dogs for Mikes Burgers and Dogs (great name for a place that sells burgers and dogs).

In addtion to those "real" jobs I have written, edited and published a variety of underground (fan)zines, been in numerous punk rock bands (i was a founding member of godheadSilo), promoted 100+ shows for touring bands passing through Moorhead/Fargo, screen printed a lot of t-shirts, built a web site to track the flood level of the Red River (but have since abandoned it since IT WILL NEVER FLOOD AGAIN), almost finished college with a fine arts photography degree (so close, so so close), and at any one time I will have somewhere between 3-11 personal web sites in various states of construction.