The major I’ve been working on for so long was in Digital Arts, and I found out about 3/4 of the way in that I probably should have been a Journalism major. It was too late to change, so I made the best out of things, took many diverse classes— from photography, to digital music, writing for media (a journalism class), to advanced video effects & compositing, I even took a class on programming circuitboards!

Now that I’m out of school, looking for jobs, I’m having to re-learn some things I’ve taken for granted, and teach myself new things that I wish my education would have covered. Things like personal marketing / branding, professional networking, and more recently this week, logo design. While I have a lot more flexibility doing these things for myself currently (as opposed to a class assignment, or in a professional context for a client), I’ve also come to appreciate the semi-structured nature of the classroom. I also look forward to the opportunities to work in a professional realm working with clients in real-world scenarios.

• competed in a city league ski racing league, and our team won the whole season
• had the worst Christmas ever #christmasfail08
• been [positively] excited about a presidential inauguration
• played a UO officially sanctioned flip cup tournament with the club sports olympics, and we WON
• broke a slalom ski
• went from 5 down to 2 e-mail accounts, and one of those may be going a way soon
• met a girl, her name is Angela, many of you have even met her by now
• graduated from college!!!!!!!!!
• successfully survived a road trip with Angela through 9 states
  • Yellowstone, Ren Faire, Badlands, Wall Drug, SLC, etc…
• partaken in a few dancing lessons (ssssh! don’t tell anyone!)
• somehow convinced Angela to buy a Mac
• dealt with 2 flat tires in 2 different states I don’t live in, and neither one on my personal vehicle
• turned 27
• competed in 9 waterski tournaments in 6 different states, and waterskied in a 7th state
  • including Collegiate National All-Stars for slalom+trick, and AWSA Western Regionals for 3-event (and qualified for but didn’t go to AWSA Nationals)!
• upgraded my wordpress blog, twice, without posting anything
• volunteered with a church group on a construction project
• bought a Playstation 2 from a thrift store for $12.50 and repaired it myself
• sold my old DSLR and bought a spiffy new one, and taken thousands of photos with it
• attended a number of concerts
• given up on my football team, due to some unFavreable circumstances
• finally started getting my online portfolio and résumé up-to-date

…and some other stuff too, I assure you. But now that you’re updated on my life, maybe now I can get this site fully back on track again?

Towards the end of the “shoot,” we wandered over towards the playground equipment and took some interesting shots.

I’ve decided to keep using the school’s EOS Elan 7, and the recommended TMax 400 film for the foreseeable future (for the purposes of this class). I didn’t like how my Rebel K2 winds all the film and exposes it in reverse.

This is the third roll, and the first in a series of 2 rolls taken near the Fern Ridge Reservoir in west Eugene. David and I wandered around, and climbed up an embankment. Took pictures of small animal skeletons on the ground, of the horizon, and birds in the sky, among other things. What do you think?

These were all taken with the EOS Elan 7 using TMax 400 film.

I said: “Most of mine are on strips of light sensitive celluloid… er.. film, which I have to develop myself, so I don’t have anything to look at yet.”

Mike replied: “You might try some Preparation “C” on those sensitive celluloids. Just apply liberally to your F Stop and wait a few hours.”

Here’s my 2nd roll of film. A little misleading, I’ve been using 2 cameras, and I started this roll first, but it was the last (of 4 so far) to get finished, developed and scanned. Same deal as before, side image to view the rest of the album, or squares to see the individual images.

Since I’ve taken to the hobby of photography, I thought I might take another photography class (the last one I took was in 2002). I also thought I might start posting the photos here on my blog. To liven things up a bit, I’ll post some highlights of one roll of film at a time.

Click the larger image to the right to see the album, or the square thumbnails to see a larger version of that photograph.

This first roll was taken at “the pond” where we waterski here in Eugene.

Long story short, they asked me at 11:30pm last night to come in for an interview today at 10:30am. I also know they’ve been looking through my website, so I won’t say anything more.

*fingers crossed*

And I think I’ve come down with a case of senior-itis. 6 years into college will probably do that to a person. Granted I haven’t taken much of a full course load (averaging probably 10-11 credits a term). But I feel more apathetic towards my academics now than I normally do 8 weeks into Spring term. What can I say? Blah.

I applied for the Digital Arts program again earlier this month. If I don’t get in this time, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t recall how long the review process was last year. I just want to know now (and I want a positive response this time).

I blame my sweetie for my lack of blogging this last YEAR. I tried getting her to blog more, and that spurred I think one post on her decrepit LiveJournal(tm). On the brighter side, I love her more than anything, and she has been most helpful inspiring me to stay in this color theory class and actually doing some of the projects with me. I’ve got something like 5 paintings to get done for tomorrow though, so…. oh yea.. BLAH.

I’m not sure what else to say other than “blah.”

Say hello to Oregon’s newest official resident! OK, maybe not, I’m sure a baby popped out of someone between walking over from Oregon Hall and my posting this, but I’m still excited! I feel like someone who’s been an Oregon resident for a while owes me a beer or something…

[edit 2006-01-16 @ 11:31pm]

still waiting for that beer, Orygunians…
[/edit]

I did some more waterski tournaments, and skied ok in some of them, traveled way too far for one of them. My camera got stollen at the UCDavis tournament, that sucked. But on the bright side, I now have a very legitimate reason to hate California(ns)!

The UO Waterski Club is all approved and such, with partial funding even. Got probably 25 sign ups so far, should be a lot of fun once things get rolling, er boating, er… you get the idea.

Spent the afternoon Tuesday getting parts for my ski, my bike (including spokes– which came with spoke-nipples– which explains the title here), and being indecisive about a guitar tuner. I may need to head to GuitarWorld to check out the prices there. FWIW, I bought an electric guitar from my flatmate’s ex-girlfriend, and am taking guitar lessons this term, yay for fun.

Went to the Go Betty Go!/Voodoo Glow Skulls/Flogging Molly show last night. Go Betty Go! was excellent. I hadn’t head anything from them before the show, but I really dug their set. The only way I can think of to describe them is “all female punk band”.. and damn good at it. Who do voodoo I don’t. *shrug* The Voodoo Glow Skulls did put on a good set as well, but I’m just not a ska fan at all. Sorry guys. Then Flogging Molly came on… I’d seen them once before (at Warped Tour ’04 in Minneapolis). They have got to be one of my favorite bands to see live! But come on, Guinness in red plastic cups, wtf?!