Come on... Grow a Pear!

I know you have the stuff to do it. Go vote for Ben!



Check the "notify me if.." button for extra street credit.

Time to vote on Threadless!

Vote for Ben in 2010!

Happy 2010! So, we're gonna have this kid in a couple weeks, then taxes are due. Basically, we could really use some votes on these t-shirts so we can get some cash in the bank! Thanks.
(FYI, if you don't vote, Obama will have to give us all of your money - how's that for a threat?).

BURN BABY BURN

by benharman

Click HERE to vote for the Mermate. This site in in Portuguese. Press the "5" with the crown, please :).

Click HERE to vote for another Burn Baby Burn. This one's in English.

And finally, click HERE for the awesomely bright Trianglion. Sometimes this site in is French. Click on the heart if you would.

Together we can put Ben under the knife!.. or laser.

Ben is in the running for some free laser surgery.
Please go here to vote for his video, "Who doesn't want Laser Eyes, Right?"
You can vote once a day per IP address until Nov 25th.
It's not that I don't think Ben looks hot in his glasses from '92... it'd just be awesome if he could wake up at night and write down his next genius idea w/o searching for them first, knocking things over, and then waking me up, etc. I'm also getting too fat to be crawling on the floor looking for dropped contacts.
Thanks!

voting time again!

Promotion Motion

Hello,

Have you ever needed $10,000? Have you ever had the chance to win 10K based on your awesome friends' voting power? Well, now is Ben's chance.
I know we always bug you to vote, but this one is serious. This is huge. This is for 10,000 big ones. Not only is this design pure awesomeness, but took time. And did I mention it was for $10,000? It's in a contest for Design By Human's anniversary, hence the large cash reward.

So, please, PLEASE, go here and vote for Ben's shirt. You need to sign up for an account if you don't have one, but it's easy, and they don't send you all sorts of junk mail.
When you get there, all you have to do is press the "vote" button. Easy as pie. Easy as those gross pies you can buy from the grocery store bakery - only way, way more rewarding.

Another thing that's easy? You could start your own promotion motion! That would be swell - real swell.

(FYI - Ben's Urban Assault shirt will be printed soon. Thanks for voting! The Taking Tree shirt is all sold out. We should have bought more when we had the chance!)
Thanks so much for your support!

Shirts!

In doing his part to make better dressers, Ben has shirts up on Design By Humans - the same site where The Taking Tree was sold.

Ben would really appreciate your votes:

CLICK HERE FOR TRIANGLION
CLICK HERE FOR URBAN ASSAULT

One of his shirts is actually causing quite a stir in the comments.
Ben could use your support! Thank you!

Vote for Ben... again!

It's on Ben's Bucket List to have a shirt make it onto Threadless. You can help him achieve his goal by voting once again. Thanks a million! (If you really like it, click the "$" first, then the 5.)

Uneetee Voting!

Yes. Once again it is time to vote for Ben and his t-shirts on the interweb. This time they are on a site called Uneetee.
When you vote, all you have to do is click "Cast My Vote" and you're set - no tricky number hierarchy, no button declaring your plan for purchase. Just one step.

VOTE FOR MERMATE
VOTE FOR GIRLY BUTTERFLY
VOTE FOR TRIANGLION
VOTE FOR SAME OLD STUFF

We greatly appreciate your votes. If Ben wins, we can buy some brand name Cheerios, and we all know they are ten times better than generic. Thanks!

(FYI, girls: I also think it was rude to cut that guy's face off. I mean... come on, Ben!)

Gear Grove

Ben entered a contest with the Downtown Austin Alliance for bike rack designs on Congress Ave. Ben won and he will build his Gear Grove in front of the art museum. If you know where a guy can get hold of a bazillion bike gears let us know.
You can read about it here.

Wood Block Art

A coworker of Ben's was selling wood blocks for a fundraiser for his old design school. The blocks were to be decorated, given back, and sold to the highest bidder. Ben bought a couple blocks. We decorated them using mod podge and various papers from Ben's paper sample drawer (and there is some Argentine money in there too). We had a fun time together and were quite happy with our finished products.
Can you guess whose is whose?

Done guessing? The butterfly belongs to Ben and the tree was mine. Ben's was much more tedious than mine, but we both spent several hours for a few nights. We don't know how much Ben's sold for. Mine sold for $60 after a bidding war between two people. Pretty good for a $10 block of wood, huh?

Girls Night

Ben always has parties when I leave town to celebrate his temporary bachelorhood. They usually involve hours upon hours of video games and a potato chip here and there.
Ben's going to Dallas for a photo shoot tomorrow, so I think I should have a girls night at my house. We can make cookie dough, paint our toenails, watch Moulin Rouge, and end the night with a pillow fight!
Or... I could just watch The Office, put Lukie to bed, and play on the internet. Hopefully there won't be any scary noises when I'm home alone!

First Cold Shower

Today was my first time washing my new hair all by myself (in a cold shower). I think I did a pretty good job. I bought all the products at Sally's yesterday, so today I did my four steps, followed by towel drying, blow drying and flat ironing. I think I did a decent job for my first time. It sure takes more time than the old wrap it in a bun and go technique. Ben and I both liked my hair more today... I think the blond is growing on us.

We went to a Neighborhood Night Out event at the pool tonight. As we were walking up holding hands a few people were staring intensely at us while gossiping about what a two timing jerk Ben was until they saw that it was me and not some skank who stole my son and husband.

(They weren't really saying such mean things about Ben, but they did wonder why he was holding hands with who was most likely my sister... gross!)

Can you spare a vote?

Ben's been working on these four shirts for a long time. He wanted to get them all up so you can vote at the same time. They are at Threadless and if he wins and one gets printed he will get paid and some free shirts. It's a win-win: we can afford real fruits and veggies for Lucas instead of just fruit snacks AND Ben can wear something besides free Whataburger shirts he gets from the closet at his office!
It's easy to sign up for an account to vote, so go ahead and get busy. We really appreciate it!

By the way, the best score is a 5, and if you say that you would buy the shirt (the "$"), it is supposed to help scoring. If you don't like them, you don't have to vote. Thanks!

Your Vote Counts

Ben has this shirt up at a new website he's trying called uneetee.
Go check it out and vote for his shirt if you like it.
Thanks!

big pimpin'

This is how I rolled home from church today:

Ben took the bumper of the car to use as an object lesson for sharing time today. Then after church he volunteered to switch cars so he could take Lucas home while I took care of YW stuff. As I walked to the parking lot I was greeted by this ugly car with an overbite and a tumor. Utterly embarrassed, I climbed into the driver's seat and weaved my way out of the parking lot stopping several times to explain myself. Driving home I got several stares of wonderment, but I just smacked my gum and pretended everything was normal.
It's always more embarrassing driving a car with damage to the front of the car because they people assume your the idiot who was tailgating. But in reality, I had nothing to do with the accident. Ben was stopped at a stop sign for crying out loud. The other girl was the one who didn't turn the corner in her land and knocked the bumper off.

Bye Bye Beardie

When Lucas and I came home from Albuquerque we were greeted at the airport by a hairy form of Ben. I don't know if Lucas recognized him right away or not. Ben hadn't shaved the whole time we were gone, which was fun for him. And I guess his coworkers liked his new facial 'do, but his coworkers are... different - you know, austin artsy type (come to think of it, I think 3 other graphic designers have beards).
We agreed (which apparently means I told him) that he would shave it off before our weekend at the beach. Ben wanted to keep it for our vacation, but I prefer to have a kissably soft husband for vacation. It was ok for a few days while he was working since I only saw him for probably 4 hours this week, but for 4 days together, I wanted my Ben back.
Last night before Ben and Lucas got in the shower Ben reluctantly started the shaving process. I remembered that both my parents had requested a picture of the beard, so here's it is after one stripe shaved down the middle.
While Ben was shaving, I was printing maps for our trip to Port Aransas. Every few minutes he would come in and show me his progress - like the horseshoe mustache, then the porn star mustache, which was revolting, eventually he was back to Ben and I was happy again.

Guys, you have to learn that girls do not like facial hair. Has Santa or Castro ever been sexy? No. Even if facial hair looks good (George Clooney), it's not fun to kiss. You can't get a good seal and it scratches your face. Smooth is good. A nice manicured scruff (just a few days worth) is hot - even though it scratches our faces - but it has to be manicured - no cheek scruff.

Ben can grow a beard whenever he wants, as long as I'm not in town and as long as he doesn't have any important meetings. Sorry for being a meanie.

Conversation that took place between Ben and a guy who worked at HEB tonight:

Guy: "Can I ask you a question? How tall are you?"
Ben: "Six feet, six inches."
Guy: "They don't make us Hispanic people like that... Man, if you were in Vietnam like I was back in the day, you wouldn't have lasted one day!"

Weird, huh? Poor Benny. Good thing he wasn't in Vietnam!

Grrr-oss.

The other day when I was in Albuquerque, Ben called me and told me that there was a huge fly in our bathroom. He said he killed it and more and more kept coming out and he killed them all - about 20 of them. He threw them all away. BUT, the next day he killed even MORE.
Apparently while we were out of town some flies got busy in the bathroom and made a bunch of babies. GROSS! Luckily I was out of town and Ben murdered every last one of them. And luckily the evidence was in a cup on the bathroom counter waiting upon my arrival. I think I would rather not have known about this event, but the cup of flies is too funny not to share.There are also a few blood stains on the bathroom window. Ben can murder bugs really well, but the guy leaves an evidence trail a mile long.

The System

I don't want to sound like I'm picking on Ben because I love him - he's a wonderful, hard-working husband. He is currently at work, working on the same golf catalog that almost ruined his b-day party. The same golf catalog that has ruined several weeks of his life for the past two years. He will be working his butt off all next week during the photo shoot, and hopefully he will be able to come on our trip to ABQ...

Anyhow, this morning he got dressed to go to work and he put on grey shorts and a light blue knit collared shirt. I looked at him for a minute trying to decide whether or not I should tell him that it looked funny - it is Saturday after all and there won't be too many people at the office, but then he would want to wear it if we do something tonight, so I decided I better let him know. I told him he had to wear nicer shorts, or keep his grey shorts on and wear another t-shirt, but it couldn't be grey. He pouted and changed shirts.

Ben: "But this (blue) shirt has been on the couch for like a week."
Me: "So, hang it up."
Ben: "You obviously don't understand. That messes up the system."

Obviously I don't understand. I guess there is a difference between the clothes on the floor, on the hangers (inside-out and right-side-out), and on the couch. I'll have to wait and see what happens to yesterday's green shirt that is currently on the floor. Maybe some day I will learn the system... or he will hang up his clothes.