[Friday Favorites] One of our Favorite Developers: Michael Carey

For the first post in our series Friday Favorites we want to introduce you to one of our favorite developers—Michael Carey.

Amber and Michael worked together at Galileo and formed a unique friendship based on nerdy books, late nights of designing/coding random tools to make our jobs better and World of Warcraft. Michael used to walk Amber out to her car in the dark or save her from talking to the weird guy that vacuumed the floors at night. In return Amber would bring Michael leftovers. They combined forces to do some awesome projects and in 2009 swept up the two of the most prestigious awards Galileo gives out—Employee of the Year (Michael) and Outstanding Contributor (Amber). They credit these awards to each other and the working relationship that they built.

Since those humble beginnings a great friendship has formed. Michael travelled with the Sawaya’s and other  friends to a wild week in Vegas (ask him about the trajectories sometime) and has spent holidays with the Sawaya’s since his family lives out of town. This year Michael took a job at eBay and married Jessica (unrelated events as far as we know, but both are big deals). We’re happy to have an ongoing friendship and working arrangement with Michael (codename: Homeschool) and welcome him to Friday Favorites!

Here is our interview with HS:

Quick Details

Tell Us About Yourself

How long have you worked with Sawaya Consulting and what projects have you worked on with us?

Officially? About two years now, though our professional relationship began about four years back. Since then, we’ve worked on numerous projects; most recently, the reporting dashboard for Fuze Networks, incorporating the latest jQuery technology.

[AS Note: You can see some of the projects we've worked on together:]

• Fuze Dashboard
• Fuze Products
• Where2Pay App

Why do you do what you do?

For me, coding and UI work aren’t just about meeting a requirement—it’s about making the world a better place. When someone looks to software developers, they’re looking to create something, to change the digital landscape to do more than it could before. As a developer, this is my chance to affect the future, to mold the playing field in a way that’s not only better, but easier, faster, and simpler. Digital creation is limited only by time and imagination, and with enough of each, anything is possible.

What makes you better/different/the right person for the job?

What general advice do you have for the world?

Luck is made. Positive and cheerful attitude, confidence, and a refusal to give up have always served me well. You never know what may change the world—or when one more try may prove a success.

…One More Question

Do you have a favorite recipe you want to share or if you don’t cook what is your favorite restaurant?

Of all the dishes, desserts, and delectables I’ve sampled, the greatest by far is the feather bread. If memory serves,

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup warm (not hot) water
• 3 tbsp margarine / butter
• 1.5 tbsp yeast
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt

Note: I’ve only cooked it via bread machine – I’m entirely clueless to rising or baking times!

Thanks HS!

Photo Credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/riebart/4466482623/ | http://www.flickr.com/photos/liewcf/303284582/

The Story of Ali & Aly

This is the story of two of our friends that have never met but have impacted each other.

Ali is the owner of Mazza Middle Eastern Cuisine, a client we inherited from my best friend and one of our designers, Kira Griffin. Aly (short for Alyce) is a friend of ours. Last year she was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue which means she can’t eat any wheat and everyone close to her got a crash course in gluten-free living. Let me tell you, wheat is in EVERYTHING. Charcoal briquettes. Soy sauce. Corn chips. Going out to dinner with Aly is an adventure, she calls ahead to find out if they have gluten-free options, sometimes the answer is a resounding YES! but usually they have no idea. When I asked Ali how it’s possible that restaurants don’t know what’s in their own food he said it’s because lots of people start with pre-made stock whereas Mazza starts from scratch.

When we took over the Mazza account they had already marked their menu with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options which is awesome.

The more we ate with Aly the most we saw how frustrating it is to have to know that there are three or four GF options on a menu. I don’t know about you, but when I go out I like to read through a menu and then re-read the top few items I’m choosing between. So when we had the opportunity to redesign the Mazza website we wanted to give Aly that option too. It’s pretty easy to do when you are at the restaurant as each dish has a coded icon letting you know what is in it.

And now you can see all the gluten-free options on their website with the click of a button. If you have ever been on a restricted diet or known someone who is you can really appreciate being (finally!) presented with an entire menu you can peruse just like your meat-and-wheat-eating friends! Give it a try on the Mazza website ›

Update: We were contacted through the Mazza Feedback form by Gluten Free Travel sites to add Mazza to their reviews, you can see it here: Mazza Middle Eastern Cuisine Great Gluten-Free Menu in Salt Lake City!

3 Awesome Videos to Make you Happy

These are three videos that we’ve come across in the last few weeks that made us smile, enjoy!

You can ready my Neutra Face (even if it’s bold italic).

This is one of those things that is amusing the first time, hilarious the second time and better and better (until it’s stock takes a dive on the 14th play, be warned). I love all things Lady Gaga and Typographic, so this is actually my Intersection of Awesome™.

Thanks to @skrike for sharing this with us!

We No Speak Americano ft. Cleary & Harding

We have been digging this song for quite a while now, and to add in some weird hand clogging? Even better. I’m thinking that if this whole design + technology thing doesn’t work out then Steve and I can move into this market.

This one we found via If It’s Hip It’s Here blog | @lauralsweet

Update: YouTube removed the video so I’ve reposted it from Vimeo:

Donora- I Think I Like You

This is a super cute hula hooping video. We have a garage full of hoops from when a bunch of friends got into hooping, this video inspires me to bust one out again.

Thanks to @skrike for sharing this one too!

As a side note, I used this handy Aspect Ratio Tool to make the video be the right size for our site grid.

Bakerella in Salt Lake City, Utah!

Well now, will you look at that! An awesome picture of Melissa and I at the Bakerella event!

I found this off of her blog post (click the link to View the Salt Lake City Slideshow)

• You can see the entire slideshow from her visit to SLC, Utah & Chicago on the Bakerella Blog >
• You can check out my friend Tauni’s writeup, Meeting Bakerella on the blog It’s a Tradition >
• And to see what all the fuss is about, check out Bakerella‘s blog >

The 7 Deadly Scovilles

Steve and I are avid gardeners — and this year the pepper haul was something to behold. We made salsa, we made chili verde, we gave away peppers to anyone that knew what to do with them—and lastly we made chemical warfare hot sauce. Everything in there is local and organic (except the salt and vinegar). I put together some labels and took pictures of our little hot sauce army.

Alternate Labels for the 7 Deadly Scovilles

Most of these are already earmarked for various friends—however—if you have a demonstrable love for hot sauce let me know about it and maybe we can arrange a bottle. Be warned though, this stuff is HOT HOT HOT!

To learn more about the Scoville Scale — visit WIkipedia page for the Scoville Scale — or check out this guy’s awesome interactive scale:

We used 7 different peppers in this sauce (technically eight since there was a banna-pepper/brazillian-pepper-of-doom hybrid in there too) and these are listed on the bottle from mild to hot:

* What is vinegar with “The Mother”? It’s some weird organic stuff we brought with packing that confused and delighted us.