Talking Fannies

UVU annually puts on a production of the play "The Vagina Monologues." I've always been curious about it and late last week Tracie informed me that it was playing this Friday, and that we were going.

Being the member of the family that goes to UVU as well as one not unfamiliar with the UVU Box Office, it became my task to approach the ticket seller at the establishment one enters when wishing to buy tickets, and ask "May I have two tickets to see the Vagina Monologues?" Realizing just then what I was asking, and that I rarely say the word 'vagina' in a public setting, to his credit the ticket-seller appeared nonplussed.

(While it's true I don't use the word "vagina" in everyday speech, it should be noted I don't say the word 'monologue' very often either. Though I think most of us can agree that 'monologue,' while suggesting intimacy, is not quite as intimate or to some parties embarrassing a word.)

 They informed me that no, they were not selling them. I'd have to go to the Student Center to ask to buy them. Of course I did. If only so I could say the word "vagina" again.

So I went to the Student Center, not too long of a trip when you have a car and a handicap parking pass. I found the help desk, and asked a rather oblivious-looking attendant where I could purchase two tickets to one viewing of the "Vagina Monologues."
Me: Can I get tickets to the "Vagina Monologues" here?
Oblivious Help-Desk Attendant: (slowly) "Vagina Monologues?" I'm sorry, what's that?
Me: It's a play. About, well, I'm not entirely sure what it's about. That's why I'd like tickets. I think it must have something to do with the vagina. You know, from the title. I'll let you know more once I see it.
Oblivious Help-Desk Attendant: Well, have you tried the UVU Box office?
Me: Yes, as a matter-of fact, I did. They sent me to the Student Center. Where I now am. Is there somewhere else I can go to buy tickets for the "Vagina Monologues?" My wife has her heart set on seeing the monologues, I'm rather looking forward to seeing the--
Oblivious Help-Desk Attendant's Supervisor: You can buy them over at that desk over there. (Pointing stage right.)
Me: Thank you. (walking over to where I thought I was instructed.)
Ticket Salesman: What can I help you with?
Me: Two tickets to see the "Vagina Monologues," please.
Ticket Salesman: I don't think we're selling them here. We just sell tickets to the sporting events at this window.
Me: (becoming incensed) Well, would it be possible you ask one of your buddies in there if they know where you are selling them? Though they are engaged in conversation about how one band that will likely fall into obscurity is far superior to another band that will inevitably fall into obscurity, surely one of you knows where to find "Vagina Monologues" tickets? I've traipsed far enough asking for tickets to see "The Vagina Monologues" that I think I deserve them for free, at least a discounted rate.

(Actually, what I said was "Well Where CAN I Buy Them?!?!?!?!?" But I like the above response better. )


Ticket Salesman: Yeah, over there.
Me: (walking 'over there')
Friendly Student Employee: Hi!
Me: Hello. Can I get two tickets to the "Vagina Monologues," please?
Friendly Student Employee: Just one?
Me: No. Two. I'm not going alone to see the "Vagina Monologues," thank you. Even though I haven't felt so alone in all my life except when I had chemotherapy and my parents had other duties to attend to like care for my siblings or work to pay for the insurmountable medical bills, than I do right now.
Friendly Student Employee: Here's your tickets!
Me: Here's my money!
Friendly Student Employee: Enjoy the show!
Me: I have so far.

Life, the Austinverse and Everything

I figured it was time to post a bit more than just what I'm working on for school, but I'll do that too. Lately I've been working/obsessing with my portfolio. I have to submit a portfolio showing 10-15 examples of my best work to get into the BFA program. I have them all chosen, touched up and ready to be cut and mounted, something I'll likely spend most of tomorrow evening doing. I've shown my portfolio to two separate teachers who gave some good and some great advice on presenting and improving the images which I've taken to heart. A large chunk of me is afraid I won't get accepted in the program and have to settle for a Bachelor of Science degree, another equally large chunk of me is afraid I will get accepted in the program and have to be in school another semester. It's due on Thursday, I'll keep you all posted, those of you who still read this blog. :)

I'm still working at the same company I've worked at for about 2 1/2 years, about the longest job I've had by about 1 1/2 years. They treat me really well and I like or really like just about everyone I work with, though there's some frustration I've experienced lately having not heard back from someone who I heard was hiring a part time graphic designer, which is frustrating. (Hence the frustration.)

For my new year's resolutions, I doubt I'll be getting all A's this semester, I'll be surprised if I get more than 1, but I'm on track for my reading goal, I finished reading the graphic novelization of the Heir to the Empire trilogy, which was pretty bad. If anything all it did was make me want to read the real trilogy again, as it's a sad graphic novel that makes it harder to visualize something than the actual novel. The only way I was able to follow along at all was I was pretty familiar with the original story.

Speaking of Star Wars, I am currently addicted to and LOVING the new Star Wars video game/MMO: The Old Republic. Set about 3000 years before the movies, it's a whole lot of fun despite the fact that it's consuming much of my free time.

My next book is one I've owned for probably 3+ years, Conversations with the Dream King, a book consisting of Neil Gaiman interviews and interviews with writers and artists he's worked with. So far so good, I'll write a review of it in its completeness once I complete it.

While I'm so sick of school, from going to homework to thinking about it, it's still (sadly) a large part of me, so here's what I'm working on now:

Graphic Design I'm turning in a pictorial logo for tomorrow, it's for a pub I found online called the Horse's Replacement, it's a picture of a cow with a saddle.
Digital Painting we're supposed to design a poster using mixed media we scan in along with artwork done in photoshop, as well as showing a human rights issue, I was thinking something like Gandhi, but may do something more extreme like the Stonewall Riots.
History of Design we're finally starting to learn stuff I find interesting (it's all interesting, but this is more so) since we skipped the chapter on Futurism and Dada, we're talking about Swiss Design or International Style, which is cool and stuff you'd recognize if you saw it.
My internship at the family print shop is going well, sometimes they have stuff for me to do, other times I work on homework, but I'm still learning a ton which is the whole point of an internship, and I get to see family semi-regularly.
The lectures class is boring as usual, but at least I can visit with friends before they start, and more importantly, this is my last semester doing it.
And last but not least (not entirely anyway) weight lifting is what you'd expect, though I think I am losing some weight, that has more to do I think with what I'm going to talk about next than weight lifting.

For the last few months Tracie and I have been taking advantage of Bountiful Baskets, a co-op local group that buys produce locally and sells it to consumers. It's about $15 a week for $30-$40 worth of produce. We get to plan our meals based on what we get and are eating a ton more fruits and veggies.

Also, most of last week we were all sick, I think that had something to do with our losing weight too. We're all better now, thanks for caring, though my throat still hurts a little, at least it's good enough to go to work.

I really miss my family and wish they or we lived closer. Extended family and in-laws are great, but not the same and it saddens me that my parents don't get to see my son very often. Makes me sad they don't get to see their son (me) very often either.

Our house seems to be in a constant state of disarray, thanks in no small part to our adorable tornado Morgan Danger. He's very curious and wishes to be completely independent, but that means he makes lots of messes and with our work and school and other schedules, we get exhausted very easily and it gets hard to keep up with him. He still is very behind in talking but is always improving it seems, he's getting really good at mimicking words, but sometimes will just nod affirmatively instead of repeating you as if you say "you got the word right, good job, dad!" But I love him more than I thought possible, same goes double for Tracie. (the love part, she seems to respond negatively to when I try prompting her to speak.) Morgan watches too much tv like his daddy, his favorite shows are still Backyardigans, though he also likes Invader Zim which Tracie isn't crazy about, and Avatar: the Last Airbender which we all love. Seriously, I think it's one of the best shows ever. If you haven't seen it, watch it. He also loves watching "A Goofy Movie" and "The Incredibles," which is my favorite Pixar movie, and possibly one of my top ten favorite movies. Definitely one of Morgan's.
 He also loves drawing and fortunately mostly on paper, but he has drawn on the mirror and floor and table, but our good friend Mr. Magic Eraser has so far been up to the task.

That's all I can think of or all I want to talk about for now, thanks for still coming here those of you who do, most of whom I think have moved away or I'VE moved away, and all of whom I wish I could see more of. 

Designed Shapes

For my second foray into digital painting, we were assigned to make a poster advertising some exotic location, featuring an animal native to that area, and design it with simple shapes. In case you can't tell, I chose Brazil and a Parrot. I'm mostly happy with it, and by happy, I mean DONE!

Digital Painting - First Foray

As I think I've said, our teacher appears to have refused to teach us anything, so this is self-taught. The assignment was to create an expressive self-portrait, I chose myself as Mr. Potato Head, as one, I have a head shaped somewhat like a potato, and two, I often feel like I can change roles from artist to tech support, from loving husband to selfish gamer, etc. I decided to include the process from start to finish so you can see how I worked, and so I can keep a record of it for my own nefarious purposes.

Let me know what you think but be kind, remember it's my first attempt. :)

Graphic Design Vote

The time has come to help me decide. In my "Designing Brand Identity" (aka Graphic Design 1) class, we're redesigning a particularly heinous logo. I chose the restaurant "Salty Iguana," with the idea that if I can make this look good, maybe I can make anything look good.

I'm mostly decided on the appearance but need your help with the color. Let me know your favorite. Below is the original logo for the restaurant.

So, Austin, how do you like school? Well, I'll tell ye...

It's school. Nothing profound here.

If you're still reading, school is good but already hard. I'm closing out just my second week of this semester, let me tell you what I think:

Graphic Design 1 is a lot of fun, I think the teacher of this class is shaping up to be my favorite teacher this semester. He's adjunct faculty and cares more about us learning and experimenting so far than meeting some arbitrary goal of thumbnails. He is either under the impression that it's a branding class, but I guess I gotta learn branding sometime. All we've done so far is design or redesign company logos, which is neat. Not what I want to do, but neat.

History of Design and Visual Art is fun but a surprising amount of work. We've already had a field trip to the Crandall Printing Museum, written a 3 page research paper on a designer/printer/typographer of the teacher's choice (I got William Blake) and had a quiz. In some ways it's good but I prefer art history classes when the teacher lectures and we have 3 tests and maybe one paper like all my other classes, instead of 3 research papers, 4 assignments, 5 texts, and 6 calling birds, but oh well. It better improve my knowledge of type history I guess.

Digital Painting is cool and I have a bunch of friends in the class though I'm not sure I'm going to do well due to the teacher's teaching methods, or lack thereof. He seems to be more concerned with our artistic and conceptual sensibilities, not our mastery or proficiency with painting using photoshop. He has flat out stated he's not planning on teaching us any technique or use of the program which is really frustrating, as I thought that was why I was paying him. Oh well. One semester, and you can't love every teacher.

I'm also in my last semester of art lectures, once a week and an hour and a half every Thursday, shouldn't be too painful though I've never heard of any of the presenters except one, and I've only heard of him because I took a class from him.

To get the extra credit I need to qualify for my grant I'm taking another 1 credit class, Saturday Weight Lifting. Yoga was all full and all the other classes required too much cardio/leg mobility. I've only been once but it's just like you'd expect it. Lift weights for half an hour and chart your progress.

Finally and most awesomely I've started an internship at McNeil Printing, the family (in-law) business. I've been shadowing their Graphic Designer as well as being given little projects to work on. So far I designed a sticker for BYU's Athletic Department and a company's mission statement plaque. It's more fun than all my classes combined but it's unpaid and I'm only going @ 5 hours a week, but I've learned more there in going 3 times than most of my other classes in their entirety. So there's that.

That's my semester in a nutshell, I finally am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, hoping it's not a train, and am gonna do my best to get all A's like last semester.

Thanks for reading

2011 - We Hardly Knew Ye.

As one gets older, and distractions from living overwhelm us, we tend to complain how short the last year was, despite it was the exact same length of time as every other one. That being said, 2011 was really short, yo.

Can't think of the highlights month for month, summing up, it was the hardest/most credit filled year I think I've had, on top of working full or near full time, I got semi-demoted at work, we went on vacation twice to California, once to Arrowhead to be with my mom's side of the family and once to Stevenson Ranch to be with my dad's side of the family, as well as a trip to Zion's National Park to be with some of our friends, my skills in design have grown (imho) tremendously and my fear of getting a job has grown just as tremendously.  

osama bin laden, Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Mars, Elizabeth Taylor, kim jong-il, Peter Falk, Cy Twombly, Amy Winehouse, Patrice O'Neal, Steve Jobs, muammar gaddafi, Paul Beckstrom all died. Some of these people were viewed as monsters such as jong-il, bin laden and taylor, some were beloved such as falk and jobs, some should have seen it coming such as winehouse, and possibly frankenthaler, and one was like a third grandfather to me, such as beckstrom. I went through wikipedia looking up all the famous people who had die, it was depressing and quite extensive. Not gonna do that again, for at least like a year.

Morgan has grown into a hilarious albeit developmentally behind boy. We've had counselors and classes to help him and he's always improving but still behind which frankly pisses me off at certain gods and breaks my heart but I love him to death and he can do no (ok very little) wrong in my eyes.

Tracie and I are both still working in case you didn't know, 2011 I failed most of my resolutions except reading and getting all A's except for one stupid typography 1.

 I got my first graphic design job from a friend and fluctuate between thinking I'm the best and the worst designer ever and think this is enough for now. Happy new year everybody, let's hope 2012 is just the end of my twenties and not the end of existence. silly Mayans. They predicted our demise but not their own.