Beware of flying poo

Shortly after getting on Dustin's design team, the man himself asked us for image ideas. What would we like to see? I asked for two images in particular and was rewarded, nearly immediately, with one of those images. The Code Monkey. He's a rockin' little critter. Happily hacking away at his laptop (banana inside). I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him, but I wasn't sure just how I was going to use him.

In real life, outside the blogging word, I work as a project coordinator for a team of internet people. It's like herding cats...or in this case, code monkeys. I have met and worked with some really great people. Many of those have since moved on to other things, in other towns far and wide. A few of those I have managed to keep in touch with. We talk regularly through instant messaging and internet chat rooms. We make an effort to stay in touch. Recent events at one of their work places meant that his office was going green. Going green apparently meant doing away with their hot chocolate.

Over the years of working intimately with Code Monkeys, I have learned that there are certain basic essentials to keeping them going. Those being coffee, sodas with excessive caffination and hot chocolate. You should never take hot cocoa away from an internet programmer. It just isn't safe. All of these events came together just a couple of weeks shy of his birthday. A plan was hatched and grew into, well, this:



I printed off five monkeys, four in the standard size and one I scaled up to created a larger version. I had the lunch tin tucked away in my stash, gathering dust. It had been on sale at the time that I needed one, so I bought two. This was my spare. Using a templates I found on one of my blog hops, I adjusted the measurements to make it deeper and embellished it with a monkey, creating a holder for hot chocolate. It neatly held 6 packages of Swiss Miss cocoa with marshmallows. I made simple sleeves for the remaining 4 packages of cocoa.

Using an empty Stash Tea box as my guide, I created a second box and filled it full of a variety of tea. The Code Monkey in question quite likes tea, and has to make due with Lipton (shudder) at his office. I finished the box off by boxing off a package of Wrigley's Extra gum in Strawberry Banana. The card was a collaboration with another programmer. I requested poorly written code that if it had been used would return one of two things. The first was a Happy Birthday sentiment, the second was "Banana, banana, banana. Reboot Universe". The inside of the card reads -

if (!world.EOF && jeff.Sane)
{
Console.WriteLine("Happy Birthday!");
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("Banana, banana, banana. Reboot Universe");
world.Break();
}

The card is quite large, at 5 1/2 x 7. I figured the monkey might need a warning sign for his office cube and the card front will double as that nicely. All of this was packaged in a suspicious pink bag and delivered via two different couriers. The first, I paid in large quantities of coffee. The second got paid by getting to watch the recipient open the bag. I had arranged for a photographer to capture the moment, but sadly the events transpired without a camera. All in all, it was good. The recipient responded -

This will prolly break your heart a little.
LadyPatsFan wasn't available to take 'pics.
The pink sack was a nice touch.
I'm currently taking many pics for the blog.
This is awesome stuff.
And the monkey is PERFECT.

Simple rewards is what it's all about. Happy Birthday Code Monkey!

A change of pace here. The papers are all from Imaginisce, in their Wild Things line. The bamboo and tropical leaves are the perfect accompaniment to the little monkey image, or any of Dustin's other monkeys. The cardstock is a mix of American Crafts and Bazzill. The monkey images were cut with Nesties Labels 2 & 3 and the Circles. The images were colored out with Primascolor pencils and blended with Zest-It. The monkeys in the photo background are part of one of my son's blankets. :) Get the code monkey for FREE from Dustin's Blog.