Cultivated Nonsense » school

An Update On Happenings

Jason — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:04:38 +0000

Just an update-y sort of post today.

First off, school. The latest project in my Digital Imaging course was to recolor a black and white photograph and make it look like it was always color. I went over to my grandmother’s to look at some of our old family photos and she showed me the wedding picture of my great great great grandparents (maybe another great on there…not sure exactly). It was definitely old, but it was in really good shape, so I ended up doing that. Finished it this week in class, although I think it could have turned out better if I had more time to tweak it (only got two class periods to work on it and he doesn’t want us working on stuff outside of class). Turned out all right though. I’ll post it up here when I get my flash drive back.

Along those same lines, I decided it’s probably going to be a little bit before I manage to take some of the more theory oriented design courses, so I’ve got myself a textbook on design theory that I’m starting to get into. Not quite as good as taking a course, but the book is good and I’m learning a lot of interesting stuff (well, interesting to me anyway).

Moving away from learning and school stuff, I’ll be meeting up with my sister Saturday afternoon to hang out a bit and watch the Syracuse game. Looking forward to it, after the realization that we only really see each other on holidays anymore.

Photoshopping 101

Jason — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:34:15 +0000

As mentioned previously, I’m taking another class this semester, Digital Imaging which is basically a Photoshop course focusing on the manipulation of photographs.

I was dreading the first few weeks of this course since I’ve gotten fairly familiar with the basics of Photoshop in the past 6 months of me fiddling around with it. So taking a course explaining what all the selection tools and stuff do…ugh. Not exactly an interesting time in the classroom. The actual instruction has been about what I was dreading when I went in, but I have picked up a few little things that I didn’t know about previously. The teacher is good, thankfully. He’s very knowledgeable and actually excited about photography and image manipulation. And he knows how to teach. He’s a bit of a sticker for rules (no music while working during lab time?? What’s up with that??) but I can live with it.

Our first project is to do a composite image. Basically, we take one photo (the host image) and take elements from other photographs and add them into the first one to create an entirely new image. I was really stuck on an idea for something cool to do (I really didn’t want to just do a boring “take a random image and toss stuff into it” sort of project). Wassy, who was originally taking the course with me but has since dropped due to the demands of the rest of her schedule, mentioned an idea involving a chess board with pictures of monuments that I had from Washington DC. But all of the pictures that I had were from below looking up which wouldn’t work on a chess board at all, so I had to scratch that idea.

I was kinda floundering around again until, the day of class I woke up at roughly 5:30am before my alarm went off but with a cool idea: Two pawns playing chess with a board full of little people. I had to scramble around to get the pictures I needed (and I need to retake my host image because I threw it together fast and didn’t have quite what I was looking for), but I got enough to get the project improved by the instructor.

This course is another reason why I’m considering picking up my own DSLR. It seems like it’s going to require a lot of original photography (especially for the final two projects) and even though I can borrow Wassy’s camera, it’d be really nice to have my own. Especially since some of my shots might require me to travel around a bit and I don’t feel comfortable doing that with her camera (I’m deathly afraid I might break it or something). I’m going to need to take basic photography next semester too…

Whoops, there I go, rationalizing again. Anyway, I’ll post up the finished piece (if it’s not crap anyway) once it gets done.

5 Day Update

Jason — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:50:36 +0000

Woah, it seems I haven’t posted here in a couple days. Eeep.

So, time to catch up. First up, I got my bonus money on Thursday and it ended up being a bit more than I was anticipating it would be. So I went out searching for a new desk chair for my office. At Staples, after selecting the chair I wanted, purchasing it and getting it home…it ended up not being the chair I picked. However, after sitting it it…it ended up being more comfy than the chair I was interested in to begin with, so…a happy accident. I ended up with the Tillman Leather Executive Chair. It’s very comfy.

Friday was the official last day of the semester, so my friends and I celebrated by heading out to Tom Cavallo’s for their excellent chicken wings and the fact that they have Newcastle on tap for a bit of a celebratory dinner. Their wings are…out of this world. Their pizza is pretty bad, but they totally make up for it with the wings.

This weekend, aside from getting myself a haircut, I spent the time mostly relaxing due to the stressful work week that I had last week. Urgh. Basically if something could have gone wrong, it did.

I’m getting more interested in playing City of Heroes again after a discussion with Wassy where we figured out really neat story arc idea involving 2 of my characters and one of hers. We need to wait for the expansion pack to come out (sometime next year hopefully) in order to fully explore it, but it’s gotten me back interested in the characters again. I’m currently compiling a sort of story bible on my main characters in an attempt to define them better and work on some backstory stuff that I might be able to turn into in game story arcs.

Done

Jason — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:52:07 +0000

Last night I turned in my final project for Digital Typography. One class early even. So I’m not going to have to go to next weeks class, although I’ll probably show up to get my grade or fix any issues that the teacher might have found with my project.

It’s kinda weird, as usually at this point in the year, I’m relieved to be done with classes but I was actually enjoying this one. So there’s a lot of bittersweet feelings at the moment. I’ll be glad to not have to rush around so much on thursday’s in any case.

All in all I think it was the right decision to try to go back to school. I got to learn a bunch, work on some interesting things and focus my energy on something that I find actually enjoyable. Hopefully I can figure out some way to keep doing it…

Latest Goings On

Jason — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:13:23 +0000

I figured I’d split this post out from the desk post as the desk one was more focused and this is going to be a rather random, general overview of what’s going on.

So lets see here. School…I spent some time over my vacation working on my final project for Digital Typography. I got it most of the way done, but I need to do some more tweaking and proofreading to make sure everything is all set. I also have 2 images I need to add that I somehow forgot to spec out when I was doing all the measuring stuff. I’ll probably get around to doing that tonight.

Speaking of school, I can’t remember if I mentioned registering for next semester’s courses, but I’m going to be taking a photoshop class which has the potential to be really, really boring. At least the first bit is, considering I generally know the basics of Photoshop so it’s not exactly going to be anything ground breaking to start. Could get interesting towards the end though.

After that I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing. There’s a digital photography course that tends to run when I can take it but, as I mentioned earlier all of the core graphic design courses (the one’s I’m really interested in) only run during the day, when I’m at work. And I’m not in a position where I can really reduce my hours or quit my job or whatever to go after that realistically. So I’m not really sure what to do from this point onward…

On the brighter side of things, Wassy mentioned last night about having an idea for a new piece of Frost artwork (a christmas-y themed piece, which would fit the character perfectly) once she gets some time which I’m quite excited about. She’s really improved her abilities over the course of this semester, so I’m looking forward to seeing what she can do with the character now. Added to the fact that I love getting new gift arts and it’s a definite “win” situation.

I’m also simultaneously looking forward to and saddened by the return of the TV show Dollhouse this week. Happy to see it come back because I enjoy it (and Summer Glau is joining the cast) but saddened because it’s being canceled. It’s not a great show, and not up to the standards of , say, Firefly…but it was solid and had so much potential which seemed to be tossed away. I blame the network for imposing a bunch of 1 off stand alone episodes when the series screamed for a story arc and the creators of the show for continuing that line of thinking into season 2. Hopefully it ends well, considering they were given enough notice to wrap things up nicely. And hopefully some of the actors (especially the guy that played Victor) get work elsewhere. Because there was a lot of really great talent there.

The End Is Near

Jason — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:47:06 +0000

End of the semester that is. Class seems to have simply flown by this semester for me which is an unusual experience as I’m normally counting down the days until it ends. Not so this time. I’m about 60% completed with my final project for Digital Typography and I hope to get it mostly done over thanksgiving break. But there’s just 2 more classes left before it’s over. And if I get it all done and printed, I don’t even have to go to that last class.

Couple of updates on the posts from yesterday. My first Gyro was really, really good. I’m kinda glad that I don’t work near this place (the place that made the gyro) as I would have to resist getting lunch there every single day…

Also an update: We just got through with our mandatory health care meeting at work here since we got new plans and, as it turns out, the plans aren’t as sucky as I thought. While the deductibles are higher, less stuff touches the deductible than our current plan so it makes less of a difference. The only issue comes in if I have to go to the ER for something. It also has the Healthy Rewards thingy so I can earn some extra cash doing that stuff.

Post Cold Update

Jason — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:01:06 +0000

Time for an update. I’m still working on getting over the cold I contracted earlier in the week. It’s been pretty mild except for Wednesday where I had to call in to work on account of being very tired and a little dizzy. It was one of those colds that just went straight to your head. Thankfully the cough situation has been mild, but knowing me, I’ll probably have a lingering cough for a few weeks. It’s how I operate.

Speaking of Wednesday, that was the day the apartment complex maintenance guys decided to actually do some maintenance. On the roof. Above my bedroom. And then when that was done, the punk kid who lives across the hall (but our bedrooms share a wall) apparently discovered techno music which he enjoyed playing ridiculously loud with the bass turned way up. People really need to understand the physics of sound and subwoofers when they move into an apartment…

So needless to say, my day of rest wasn’t so restful. But despite it all, I’m feeling better and want to actually be productive this weekend. I haven’t done much non-class graphic design stuff in a little while, so I want to get back to working on my mom’s website and trying to finish that design this weekend. I also really want to do a theme for this blog/my personal website at some point to make it look less…generic. Maybe I can poke at that a bit this weekend too.

Speaking of school, things are going well there. I can’t believe it’s roughly halfway through the semester right now. Time’s been flying by and I’ve been busy working on my projects. We’re recreating one page articles now from magazines and I found a review of Dream Theater’s latest album in my Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine. It looked fairly simple when I chose it, but it ended up being…complicated. Lots of images and text boxes and lines that I had to spec out and measure. I’m about ready to start working with it on the computer though. Making some good progress and my grades are good as well.

Looking forward to a (hopefully) productive weekend.

School Stuffs

Jason — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:27:01 +0000

Just figured I’d throw out an update on my school stuff considering we’re almost halfway through with the semester already. Man, time just flies.

Anyway, my Digital Typography course is going pretty well. I’m sporting a perfect grade at the moment based on the quizzes we’ve taken. Hopefully that continues onward when it comes to the projects we’ve been turning in, but I think I’m in good shape there too. I finished making the business card/letterhead/envelope project (tied in to my mom’s website as previously mentioned) last night and started work on recreating a one page article. The one I settled on was out of the reviews section of Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine containing the review of the most recent Dream Theater album. Always good to find something you’re interested in to work on.

Wassy and I were there later than the rest of the class (apparently, everyone decided to take off at like 9:30 despite the fact the class runs to 10:20ish) and we got to discussing with the instructor. It’s always fun when instructors complain to you about other students in the class. Like this annoying guy who used to be there (wasn’t there this class) that made all this annoying noises. Or the kid in the back of the room that hasn’t turned ANYTHING in since the class began. Why even bother going to school if you’re just going to treat it like a joke?

In other news, the wine country trip might be looking a little iffy right now. Wassy has a pretty bad cold at the moment and I dunno if she’ll be up for going. We’ll have to see what the situation is today and tomorrow. These illnesses this year are turning out to be very inconvenient for planned events. First the stomach bug, and now this.

Random Happenings

Jason — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:05:36 +0000

I’ve got a few things to report about since my last update.

First of all, I think I’ve finally settled on a basic color scheme/design for my mom’s quilting/craft website. I’m still tweaking it at the moment and I’m trying to decide if it looks too…web 2.0-y for the craft content. But I finally found something I liked well enough to take it out of the initial planning stages. Going to see if I can get some more work in on it during my lunch here.

It’s a good thing that’s getting finalized too since one of the first projects in the Digital Typography course that I’m taking is to do a business card/letterhead/envelope for something, so I figure I can work her up some stationary while I’m at it. The course is coming along quite well. We’ve finally started working on the computer and with InDesign which I’m finding pretty cool. I’m learning some stuff and generally enjoying myself which is a pretty good sign. I’m not regretting the decision to go back to school.

On a totally different note, I got a little bored yesterday and continued my blog transfer. I’ve got everything that I’ve posted on Vox from when I signed up through November 2006. Once I get out of 2006 the months will speed up as I settled into more relaxed posting style.

Lastly, on a product review front: The new Muse album has REALLY grown on me since I posted my initial review. The weaker songs clicked and it’s become one of my favorite albums of the year. Which only serves to diminish the Porcupine Tree album more…Oh well. I’ve also been enjoying Scribblenauts. But I’ll save that for a separate post when I get a minute to do a proper review.

Long Week…

Jason — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:25:04 +0000

Man, I’m glad it’s the weekend. This week at work was really hectic. We’re extremely busy right now with stuff…we could use a couple extra employees but that’s not going to happen due to the money crunch we’re under. And that was before they cut our hours. Now it’s even worse. I have a bunch of projects going on at once that are taking up all my time and then they add some other stuff on top of it… Sigh. It’s just frustrating.

Makes me kinda wish that I could just stop and do the school thing full time, but that doesn’t work for me financially either. I’m more interested in doing that than anything at work right now. Ah well. Just need to keep on plugging.

At least my work has gotten recognition by the president of the company. He apparently really likes what I’ve been doing on my web billing project. So that’s a definite plus right there.

I’m going to take this weekend to relax and decompress a bit. I want to work on some design stuff this weekend too since it’s been a little while since I’ve touched some of these things I’m working on. My mom’s website particularly, as I started that a looong time ago and haven’t really gotten anywhere. Hopefully I can get moving on it somehow…