It’s an ethereal feeling when you’ve worked on a site or some design project for months and finally put the finishing touches and send it off to the printer or server. Liken it to sending your own personal graduation letter to yourself, except there’s no cash (well, usually), no inspirational Dr. Seuss book, and your parents are likely one of the last few people to see it, if they see it at all. Then you realize the client will probably have another change or twelve to make, then you make like a Paula Abdul song and take a few steps back. Don’t worry, they’ll contact you after it’s too late. Break out the sparkling cider while you’re at the top and the ball smacks the concrete.

I had one of these quasi-artistic moments of design bliss last Friday. I blazed through a jungle-thick drove of seemingly quick changes for a full Flash site, after hours at my real job. It was Light Up Night in downtown Pittsburgh, and it was minutes before I would get the call and have to leave the site to fester for the weekend with a missing half-hand. The night before I had stayed after work getting all the changes in before the deadline that was pushed back too many times to count, but there were still some small things. It’s always small things, like one of the pre-Socratics may have posited. But this night I worked like a banshee for a few spinning hours. Then I was done. The finish line came out of nowhere, and I was done. Nary a minute to spare. Off to see the new Macy’s windows and hopefully fireworks at the confluence with a hundred grand’s worth of Steel City residents.

Pop the cork.