The Blog of Mike Bridgman

Ok, so my first post of my "New Direction" is already here, see how great things are moving along already?  The Blog of Mike Bridgman...   While the name may or may not leave something to be desired depending on what your taste for a catchy title should be, the blog itself is actualy quite, well, wonderful.  I am not sure what the theme or purpose behind the blog is, and I actually think that it might not have one at all.  Which isn't such a bad thing as it leaves him open to discuss all kinds of fun things.  The man himself is quite interesting as I have exchanged an email or two with him and seen some of his ideas at work.  I know that one project I can't wait to see finished is his bio page, which really is actually a project, not just him writing a bio, as crazy as that might be...  Mike does have a full time job as a web designer, and he also does freelance work in the field as well on an, if I am not too busy to get to it basis.  He does have samples of work that he has done in the past, and I dare say that his blog is quite attractive itself, in an I don't want to attract to much attention kind of way.  Now, although there are elements of web page design in his blog, that isn't really as far as I can tell, what is blog is all about.


The first thing that piqued my interest was his two posts on "Getting Rid of Snail Mail" of which there is two parts.  This is a very interesting article on the idea that for those of us who move around often, whether for work or pleasure or any other excuse in between, don't want to have to take our lazy butts up to the Post Office and fill out a Change of Address form.  Having had to fill quite a few of those out myself, I mean I have only moved 17 times in the past half decade, I was interested in how he was going to go about solving this problem.  He then introduced something that I had never heard of, or even thought to think that I should probably go out and try to hear about.  There are actually services that you can pay for, that will recieve, open and scan your mail for you, and then send to you if you so desire, after looking at the scanned copies and deciding that it was something that you really wanted to hold in your hand.  I thought this quite the brilliant idea and may even invest in it myself.  I was already thinking to myself, hey, I really like this guy, he is pretty smart, and has good ideas, two things that usually never wind up together...

Then I went on to have a little stroll through the rest of his blog, checked out the samples of work he has done, which really is, to me, amazing.  I mean, everything about the sites he has or does design (that I  have seen), just draws you in and makes you think, man, why doesn't my site look this damn good?  I am sure it isn't easy, but I mean really, I think the man does have an abundance of skill, and the really crazy part is that he has the eye and talent for it too, which is what really makes it pop!

Then I found the part that actually kind of almost in a nearish maybe sort of way convinced me that not only was he good at what he did, and had some pretty dang unique ideas, but he is a decently good guy as well.  He has started what he calls "Complimentary Comps".  Now I know you have seen many a themed idea or weekly posting on most other blogs out there, but this I think is quite different, and tons more fun.  He has decided and indeed has already done one of these, to take companies' websites, as in companies that he actually likes, uses, and is not already so rich that they haven't seen their feet in years (not due to the large round shape of their bellies, but all of the money laying on the floor that they don't know what to do with), and he designs them, new websites!  Ok, maybe that came out a little anti-climactic but let's stop and really run this through the hamster wheel.  He takes his own, time and effort, and designs a brand new website for a company, and then, just gives it to them, for FREE!  I know, I know, that word never really existed in the first place right, but no really for free.  He just gives them the design, in hopes that they will take it and enjoy it, just because... well just because.

Now sure, we can add in some alterior motives and such about he is just trying to get his name out there, he is trying to make a contact base, or maybe he is trying to make up for some horrible wrong he did in the past and this is his self appointed community service (all of which are just random thoughts in my head and have no actual basis in the real, or any other world).  That is not the point, the point is that he does it, and that, to me, it is a hell of a good time, especially to wait and see how the company reacts and who he chooses next.

I swear that I did have more to say on this, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks with all of my excitement on the new territory in my blog and my general, I really do like his blog kind of attitude that is just willomying around.

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