SkillsUSA

My first real assignment for digital prepress. We had to design a logo for the SkillsUSA event in Kansas City (the acronym is not S.U.K.C., no matter how much I want it to be). It was actually a pretty fun assignment, design a logo and a t-shirt for the event. I'm proud of it, even though it looks like the work of a retarded child compared to most of the other students, but I still like it and now am forcing you to see it.

Spring 2010 semester in a...

So I'm back in school, taking classes in the am, the pm, and the weekendm. Mondays and Wednesdays are morning days, I go to class at 8 am, take Typography and Layout I from a teacher who thinks he's teaching advanced Typography. He seems like a smart, good teacher but he expects us to be experts in Adobe, where I just learned the basic stuff from the prerequisite, what the UNIVERSITY thinks I SHOULD know. I expect to either dismally fail, or learn enough (no thanks to the teacher) to do all right. What ELSE is annoying, however, is that we're given very little class time to work on our projects, as if we all have the Adobe Creative Suite available at any time.

After that I get to get my hands dirty, as I'm taking 3-D design. At first it seems like remedial sculpture, and it seems to stay that way. We're learning very basic basics of sculpture, so far all we've done is make a contour sculpture of a shoe out of wire. Next we have to make a functional object out of found materials. Duct tape wallet, here I come!

Then I go to work from 12-7.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are less crazy. I work my old shift from 7-4, then I have class til 7. Digital Prepress I believe is the name of it, where we learn techniques on how to get a design ready for press. I'm finally learning some of the things Tracie's family does down at McNeil Printing. It's actually pretty cool, probably because the teacher is very cool and gives us time to do our projects. I'm talking to YOU, Typography teacher.

Friday is the one day (ok, and Sunday) that I don't have any school. Saturday morning I go to Personal Finance. It's not a general requirement or anything, but I needed an extra class to keep my Pell Grant, and I (by I, I mean Tracie) thought it would be good for me to learn more about finance so she doesn't have to handle it all. I enjoy this class as well, also because I like the teacher.

There's my semester, with working about 37 hours and having class for about 12 hours and doing homework and housework and trying to spend time with a wife and baby, I am a busy bee.

But, I believe we can do anything, mostly because I'm married to the amazing Tracie who really DOES do anything and everything, and does it very well, despite what she may think. She buoys up my booty when it needs it, which it does, from time to time.

I still am enjoying my job very much, despite the fact that I still feel like I know VERY little about what I'm supposed to do. Actually, I know very well what I am supposed to do, it's HOW to do it that I seem to have trouble with. But, what would life be without excitement, uncertainty, stress and worry?

this. ↑

Sneak Peek

I know we've been horrible at posting, Morgan is 6 (almost 7) months old and his blog's last pictures are from October. Tracie has uploaded all the pictures from our camera and has given me the project of posting them all. (She's also made 2 picture posts on her blog if you wanna check it out.) Here's a picture of Morgan from last week, a great picture showing off the little rascal's developing personality.

Self Portrait of a Mirror

I know what you're thinking. "Enough with the self portraits already!" but it was an assignment. And I know what you're thinking again. "Suuuuuure, Austin. An ASSIGNment. You just wanted to look at yourself some more." While true, I assure you, it really is an assignment for my Typography class (class schedule update and life update and Morgan updates coming soon!) tell me what you think. The only rule was be creative and use typography creatively. First I wanted to make a 3D model of myself with the text bending and bulging to make my form. Then I was going to use different shade text where my face was, but the web tutorials I found didn't translate, either the tutorial was incorrect, photoshop didn't look like the tutorial, or my face broke the design. So I just used a story I wrote as background, split my face into 4 colors, deleted the 2 middle grays and added a few quotes from stories or poems I wrote that I'm more or less fond of. The quotes are (I know you're dying to know)

Let your Imagination think for itself!

The world is so much more beautiful when you can't see it properly.

I really do think Cupid has a gun by now.

)Hello(

Revenge is a dish best served with parsley.

Dammit this planet has nothing so grand as lying there whispering and clasping your hand.

It's all been done, and I want it back

Last night Tracie and I saw Barenaked Ladies (or Barenaked La- as we called them) up in Salt Lake.

I wasn't too excited as some of you may know (those who read Tracie's blog and have a spectacular memory) their lead singer Steven Page left the band early this year.

It was surprising to hear their guitarist and "other" lead singer Ed Robertson helm a lot of the songs that are so signature Steve.

Here's the story of our concert going adventure. I'm not sure anyone cares, but this is as much for me as it is for you, plus I haven't blogged in AGES, so don't complain! Aw, fine. Complain.

The concert date almost didn't happen, as I had a final that I thought I'd be able to leave early (especially since my teacher said I could leave early) but, I didn't. The concert said it started at 7:30 and I wasn't able to leave class til 7:00. With all the snow and bad weather, I really didn't want to go, but I knew Tracie needed to get out of the house and her parents were watching the baby, so go we did. My fears of getting into an auto accident or missing the concert never happened, and we actually got there just in time to find a place to stand while about 3 minutes later BNL came on.

It was a good concert, but it felt forced, like they were trying too hard (by they, I mean lead guitarist and now-lead vocals, Ed, and drummer Tyler Stewart. The bass player Jim Creegan and keyboardist Kevin Hearn seemed going through the motions, the only thingsweaker than their attitudes was their singing). They sang a lot of the classics, such as:

get in line, maybe katie, one week, it's all been done, pinch me, if I had $1000000, god rest ye merry gentlemen, blame it on me

which are great songs but I realized how essential Steve's voice is to those songs, Tracie and I had many comments to make during the concert, such as
Tracie: it feels like your visiting a divorced parent and you can't have as much fun with just one of them.
Me: It's like chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips.

They're all very talented musicians, and I'm glad we went, it was less than half the price the last time we went to one of their concerts (and there were a fraction of people too, but to be fair, it was a smaller venue and they did sell out) but truth be told, their new songs I enjoyed the best, because they weren't written with another voice and/or instrument, they were written for these 4 talented musicians.

3 out of 5 stars, just because they can't compare with the band they once were, but I'm glad they're being the band they are.

Armor

Photoshop Assignment: create 5 images around a specific theme.

Can you guess what my theme was?

*Hint: it rhymes with sbarmer.

New News

No, the news isn't that my blog is now credit card safe, the news is I have a new job! I start tomorrow, and I'm super de duper excited and super de pooper nervous. My time at Heritage (or HIT) was mostly well spent and I wish them well, but I felt that they were promoting people that didn't know as much or weren't as good with people as I was, I wanted somewhere I could be appreciated, somewhere I could make more friends and money, and somewhere closer to home. All of that is at Security Metrics.

I already have a friend there, Brad who told me about the job and pestered my new boss about interviewing me, big great big thanks, Brad!

I'll let you know how it goes after I've been there, but that's my news, now that I've officially quit HIT, I feel it's ok to tell the blogging world!

Look out, Security Metrics Tech Support, here I come!!!