HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM: Sure, my dad steals the spotlight on the blog. Eats up that bandwidth with that big head of his. But the reason I'm here, and who I am, and the RAGING gentleman I've grown into is because of my mom. And that's that.

Happy birthday to the best mom a kid could ask for.

THIS SHIT'S GRABBING ME: The new Pokey LaFarge record from Third Man Recordings has really got me. Lazy and kinda sweaty. We dig. Old sounds, but new. Listening to it on the headphones, banging around the basement and shit. Charming stuff.

TAKING THE DAY OFF: And not doing much. At least, nothing to really detail on here. I can tell you this much: Whatever we did was in the spirit of "getting out of town" in a couple weeks, heading back to Michigan for some time with mom and dad. Eyes on the prize. Time back home with mom and dad, laying low.

WITH ALL THE MIGHT WE HAVE: Today is Leigh's last day in class, but a couple hours away from wrapping up a hard-fought battle for her Masters of Education! A MASTERS DEGREE, people. Learned. Earned. Amazing.

Leigh wears a lot of hats. Mom, student, sister, cousin, friend and girlfren to little 'ol me.

I just want to note that her accomplishment is something very special. Graduate level stuff is rough. Her commitment to her program, the ups, downs and those little rugrats she watched over that last bunch of months...impressive moves, across the boards.

She kept a surgical focus intact for years! Getting up each morning SO early, raising her Ewok, navigating ugly employment reports, slaying adversity from the saddest of sources, being a long way from home, dealing my little brand of "graphic design-ism", and the whole time, doing it with grace, spirit and determination.

And something else that blows me away: She could of went after all sorts of degrees. Other paths. more lucrative fields. Instead, she picked one of the toughest, trickiest, most under-appreciated fields of all. And that says a lot about her character. She wants to help the little ones.

I just find that kind of selflessness INSPIRING.

She is going to do GREAT things on this path. Remember that cool teacher you had? She'll be one of those kinds of educators.

Congratulations are in order for this girl.

It's summer time, lady...TAKE A LOAD OFF!

FOUND THIS ONE, SOME TIME AGO: Was diggin' deep in Murray's Archive, and found this little gem. The reel is fine, sure. That's not what "got us." That boss "Mitchell" type STOPPED US DEAD IN OUR TRACKS. So good. Wow.

BRING ON THE HEAT: If you can't beat it, join it, right? Well, we're gonna try a new approach this summer, and get our girth out in that sun a little bit more. Come July, we're heading back to Michigan to hang with the parents, and you can bet yer ass I'll be floating around in our big Lake Michigan under the supervision of Lifeguard Leigh.

So we made a logo for that big summer sun. Might plop it on a t-shirt? Would you wear one? And if so, what color? Let's make some threads, you some summer scrubs!

TONIGHT, PORTLAND: 6pm! Here's the link, you curious Portlanders!

We're talking about things tonight! A sorta new talk from our tour, revised, beat-down, hocked up, wrastled and spit out into a speaking fiasco we're calling "Things About Things That Don't Have A Thing To Do With Things."

We've tested this to SUCCESSFUL results in Toronto and Vancouver, and you know how discerning Canadians can be! The shit worked up there, and it WILL work tonight!

How we're selling this one: Tired of that same old overly smart, overly coy, overly dramatic conference talk you keep sitting through? Yeah, you know the one. Where some yahoo is up there "connecting the dots" on a bunch of shit that is more or less obvious, or, is painfully parsed together? We get it. But it doesn't mean it's fun. So give the DDC a shot? Welcome to our little brand of dumb! Let this talk be a breath of fresh air. Get dirty with the DDC and talk about things that don't really have much to do with things. Dumb things. Orange things. Wild things. Things that might save yer life. Things that might make you throw out the old things? And maybe not? That just might be the thing…

Be there, fuckers! One night only! Our ONLY gig this summer in Portland!

WE'VE BEEN ON A SEARCH TOO LONG: And after a couple years of hoisting dirty old beasts, we settled one on the internet, and holy shit, good luck getting it out to Portland! Freight blues!

WHEN RECORD SHOPPING, ALWAYS KEEP THAT LAZY EYE OPEN: Even when I strike and don't find something to snag, I still look for old logos. And some time ago, I stumbled on to this old Capitol Records logo. So good. The way they used to do it.

NEED A BREAK: Getting sick. Already sick? Something like that. Allregies? Bug? Argh. We're closing the DDC factory floor today and heading home to rest and take a load off.

DARKNESS ENVELOPES THE DDC FACTORY FLOOR: With the arrival of our "Black on Black" action caps!

Click here and scroll down a bit to get to the "Black 6-Panel Foam with a Black Patch!" So evil. Feel the darkness.

TODAY, VANCOUVER: High noon, precisely. Us, baring our soul up on a stage to a room packed full with Canadian web/design/craft people! Right downtown, in the big buildings of Vancouver, is the Interlink Conference, and we come in peace! High noon! Be there! A talk about things...

OFFICIAL INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: Tomorrow, Vancouver! We unleash a sort of new speaking fiasco titled, "Things About Things That Don't Have A Thing To Do With Things." At the Interlink Conference! Be there! Hopping a flight up to Vancouver later tonight. Border hoppin'!

ONE MORE GIG TO GO: Our final stop of the DDC 2013 "Sorta Winter Right The Fuck On Into Spring" North American tour is this Thursday in Vancouver, BC at the Interlink Conference! Excited to head up there!

AMERICA, YOU BIG, BEAUTIFUL LAND: And to our fellow Americans, we have to wonder: Have you procured a couple sets of our latest Field Notes Color release, "America The Beautiful?"

Three different cover on coated paper, big, goopy CMYK dots, copper staples, burly uncoated innards and a REAL water decal! You need this!

Get it going here, and don't miss the movie Field Notes Midwest made and slayed! So good.

From the Field Notes site: In today’s world of computerized precision, it was challenging to find anything but the brightest-white paper, and our printer takes great pride in perfection. Printing oversaturated photos on yellowed paper, with a purposefully out-of-register 100-line screen, was nearly outside the capabilities of modern machinery and left pressmen scratching their heads. But we made it happen! The dust has settled, and we present our beefiest FIELD NOTES ever. Colorful stock photography of “Spacious Skies,” “Amber Waves,” and “Mountains Majesty” are reproduced in full-color on heavyweight, off-white, Tango-coated one-side covers, and stuffed with 48 pages of burly Finch “Soft White” paper ruled with “Looseleaf Blue” ink. They’re bound together with shiny copper staples, and as always: they’re manufactured in the very nation they celebrate.

Hell yeah, America!