Fall quarter is finally over.  I now only have 3 quarters of school left!  Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself to get me through.

I am quite proud of the work I did this quarter and not entirely because I think it’s good - but because when I look at it, I can see how much I have learned.  I most definitely learned more this quarter than I have over the past two years (and yes, it has been two years come January).  The reasons?

The Internship - I started my internship back in June, but this was my first quarter of full time school doing both (since I took the summer off).  I’m just now starting to feel like I’m “getting it” at work, but I still feel like a tard most days.  What can I say, I aspire to be the least knowledgeable person in the room. (I are succeed)

The Mentors - I can’t even begin to tell you how lucky I am to have seriously seasoned professionals at a moments beck and call during my work/school day.  John, David and Anthony have all been a tremendous help and a wealth of knowledge (and entertainment).

The Cool People - At school I surround myself with people that are 100x more talented than I am, and thanks to them I am halfway decent by association.  I wish any of them were savvy on the internets like I am (because then I could give them the linkage), but I am one of the very few that aspire to be digital designers in my class.  The truly talented people I know are more into the graphic designer scheme of things.

So for those of you who want to know why you hardly get to talk to me anymore, you can click the links below to see (some of) what keeps me so busy.  Keep in mind, we don’t just design these projects - we conceptualize, research, design, critique, proof, print, critique, proof, print again, hate it and start all over, cut down with knives and t-squares, mount and turn in.

I wrote this post once already this morning, saved, previewed and all - but my fingers + my keyboard = post gone.

Anyhow - it went a little something like this…

I stole this from David, it’s a must watch (hence the stealing)

I’m excited to see what Barack is going to say tonight - I hope it’s good, he is spending an awful lot of our money to get this message through.  It has been rumored that it is the same speech he delivered in Canton, OH on Monday.  Unfortunately, I’ll be on an airplane and won’t be able to share in the excitement - but that is what youtube is good for!

I just finished a big push to get some major projects done for school - I had to have worked for 30 hours or so this weekend trying to get it all done.  Thanks to Bette and Scott for helping with the kids, and the rest of you that gave me input and advice.  Here is a little sample of my finished products…

Diagonal grid using pictograms and tag line for Design Applications class

Logo I designed for Design Principles class

I read a pretty good story today from the Huffington Post - but mostly I just liked this quote.

$150,000 for clothes and they apparently didn’t buy her a raincoat.

Oh. Snap.

I started back to school yesterday, my schedule is as follows:

Not too bad, the hardest part will be making an awesome flash final from last quarter. I’m also sitting in on my professors class from 4-4:45 on Tues/Thurs until I’m done. I would also like to find something to replace that online English class, as I think it will suck balls. NTTAWWT. The beginning self defense class on Saturdays is actually Judo/Jiujitsu. I am pretty excited about taking it, but considering the news that is coming next in this blog post, I may have to drop that class.

I GOT A JOB!!!

Now, calm down. It isn’t a spectacular job, or a job even remotely close to what I want to do. But, the pay is good, and the hours are MWF, and allow me to still take my kids to school in the morning. So, I took it. I will be your friendly neighborhood dental office receptionist. Right in the middle of the ghetto. At least I’ll have no shortage of hook up offers.

The only catch to the job is that my BFF since the 6th grade not only will be working with me, but she will be my boss! (see pics from previous post, that is whom I speak of) I think it will be a good time. Heather and I respect each other enough to know the boundaries… I THINK.

Thursday night I’m off on an over night field trip with Maya to the Indianapolis Zoo. We are sleeping over night in the dolphin habitat, and I’m not gonna lie, mama is excited. There isn’t much better than re-living your childhood thru your children! (ya I know, stfu)

I’ve been wanting to add on to this photo all month and keep forgetting. I’ve only lost 10-15lbs since my last pic, but I wanted to do one last update until July 1st. Holler.

This picture is titled, “Where, O Where, Have My Boobles Gone”.

I finished my quarter at school. Well, kinda.

I actually got an extension on my Flash final from my fantabulous professor (if there is a god, I hope she blesses that woman). I did finish my Director final, and have it uploaded to my web server if you would like to check it out.

There is an .osx file for the Mac goobers, and an .exe file for the PC goobers. Just FYI, this project was done on a Mac, and I noticed that the .exe file isn’t quite right. A few of the fonts (altho embedded into the .exe file) are completely fuckered. So, don’t be a hater and look at the fuckered fonts, just check out the interactivity. One last thing, both of the files have a little quirk on the FTP ad, and Ima laugh when you all click on it

Also, there is an “easter egg” hidden in the program and when/if you find it, it features Huckles von Chuckles.

My Director final consisted of creating a digital, interactive magazine DVD. I, of course, chose a poker magazine and here are some pics of my packaging.

So, I worked on that for a week straight, then went out Friday night to a comedy club here called The Funnybone. It was a good show with Tim Wilson.

Anyhoodles, this week is loaded with job hunting and catch up work, fun fun fun for everyone. I finally got sick of looking at my hideous “T’s Spot” graphic and took it down (if you hadn’t noticed). Hopefully I’ll get something more design savvy up this week.

That is such a great word, IS. IT. NOT?! I hardly think any of you are prepared to argue that point with me at all.

So, I shall proceed.

I was at my sister’s Friday night and my BFF, Heather, stopped by for dinner. She and I were discussing some of my “dates” as of late, and my brother-in-law seemed a bit shocked, so I thought I’d get it out there as not to shock anymore people.

I’m still “married”, and I’m “seeing” other people. I use the terms in quotage lightly, just sayin’.

There, ya have it.

Next on the agenda, my fat ass.

February was a slow month for me, but I didn’t gain any weight, so I’m glad about that. No steps backward = I’m still going forward. So, this month I am starting my journey to shedding my final poundages. By July 1st (the day I started in 2007) I want to be ~35lbs lighter than I am now, which would put me at a total weight loss of ~100lbs.

HOLY MCFUCKLESONS. Put your hatorade away.

Notice I am giving myself plenty of time to accomplish this, because I realize these last pounds (especially that last 10) are most likely gonna be a big ass bitch. Holler. And don’t worry Sheila, ass soon as my jeans I have now don’t fit, I’ll be placing my custom couture order

Next on the agenda, finding someone to pay for my boob job. Wanna make another bet Sheila???

Oh and PS - School is putting a big butt kickin’ on me this quarter. I’m all bruised up, but if I ever have anything good to tell, you will be the first to know.

Since that is all I use my blog for anymore, now is a good time for it!! The 101 things I should be doing right now can wait.

My “mini van mom” days are over. The van has been sold, and I am now driving a ULEV. I miss my van horribly, but I do feel about 5 years younger when I drive this car, and that’s a PLUS. I just need to get some window tintage (so I LOOK 5 years younger too) and I’ll be kickin’ it. Holler. My chicks seem to dig the new wheels (a Honda Civic, btw) but we will see how they feel when there are no movies to watch on the next road trip.

I am about to move into my mom and dad’s basement, which would make me feel about 10 years younger, except for the fact that my two kids are going with me. So instead, it will pry age me 10 years. It is just temporary till Maya finishes her school year out, but still, gl me!!

I kicked zooks ass in this. I don’t wanna rub it in too much, so that’s all I have to say about that

My chicks and I are starting Jiu Jitsu lessons today. I just wanna grapple with hot dudes, sfobv. Submit hot dude FTW.

Still no job, I even interviewed with a florist. I must seem like I’m not the flowery type, who knew.

Storyboards suck ass.

I did one of nyquil last night, but this morning Ima go all GGW on you and do a dayquil!

wooohoooooo!

Anyhow, the amounts of phlegm contained in my body at the moment are not the point of this post. I shall proceed…

If you’ve been around my spot for awhile you are familiar with my struggles with Math. You would also know that after a year in school I finally broke down and took my Math class this quarter.

Well, in all honesty, it wasn’t pretty at first. My first week of school I came home and did very poorly on all my homework, did bad on the daily quizzes in class, and the outlook was bleak since my first test was the SECOND week of class.

/commercial break/

so I am sitting in bed typing this and my anna is asleep next to me, snoring a bit. She just woke up, did a big stretch and started to whisper to me:

“Mommy, I just had a really good dream.”

“OOOOOH tell me!”

“I was at school, and we had a big pool in the school, so we were all swimming and laughing, and when we got out, there was A BIG PIRATE SHIP… LIKE A REAL ONE… RIGHT INSIDE OUR SCHOOL!”

“Did you get to ride on it?”

“No, but it was so awesome mommy, it even moved like a real pirate ship, and the pool was so big and deep, we pushed it into the pool and the pirates let us keep it!”

/end commercial break/

My math prof offers extra credit work on all tests. She gives us a review sheet to complete, and then we have to go into a math lab and take a practice test. In order for the extra credit points to count, we have to score 85% or higher on the practice test. This was a good deal for me!

I had been working really hard on my Math with a LOT of help from a friend. And when I say a lot, I mean HUGE help HUUUGGGEEE.

For instance, I come home from math class, get ALL of my homework problems wrong, I shoot an email (or a mathmail as it has come to be known), that makes no sense cause I’m retarded, over to this friend, he shoots one back and I completely understand. It’s truly amazing. He has a dizzying intellect.

So, when I went in to take my practice test, I was feeling goooooooooood! I zipped right thru the test, knew how to work out every problem, cilcked submit and went over to the printer to get my score when I see…

YOUR SCORE IS 70%

I actually felt a little tear well up. How do I get a 70% after I’ve worked so hard?!? So, you know what I did? I didn’t sulk, I TOOK THAT BITCH AGAIN!

AND I GOT A 70% AGAIN!! (did you “lol” when u read this? I did)

I couldn’t keep taking the practice exam because it was time to head over for the real test. I wasn’t a happy camper and I could feel the pissiness start to well up inside me. Do you ever get like that? It’s like a pot boiling, and you can feel it start to rise from your gut and move it’s way up to your head and if someone were to speak to you at that very moment, they would for surely die.

So what happened? Are you on the edge of your seat dying to know? Did she fail? Did she cry? Is she going to get naked and post pictures?

I think I will let my most excellent math tutor answer this one in limerick, for your enjoyment.

The first test, she was going to fail it
She decided that she would mathmail it

J worked his magic
To avoid scores so tragic

Which in the end, caused her to nail it

~thehugeguy

And, not the streaking kind…

I didn’t design this or anything, it was just a homework assignment. I couldn’t get the logo quite right (well I guess I could’ve, but I didn’t), the L part is a lil skewed, and the shadow of the orb is a too dense, which causes my highlight to be too white.

Anyhow, a certain someone was asking me about flash (no not lynx) so I thought I’d throw this up there. So far, I’m liking it much better than Dreamweaver. We will see how I feel when I start tweening and linking etc.

I’ve been meaning to post for well over a week, and well, here we go…

School:

I can’t believe the end of the quarter is already rearing its ugly head.

Art is kickin’ my arse again. Drawing more than one thing in the same composition is harder than drawing just one, who knew. I was actually so frustrated yesterday, I left class an hour early to prevent my head from exploding.

Printing class is da bomb. I designed a pokerslut tshirt to make for my screen printing project. I should be able to start my strike offs next week. w00t. It’ll look a little something like this:

The front
The back - Ive actually changed this a bit since the screenshot for obv reasons. positioning/redability etc.I was going for the early 90’s rock tour look, obv. There’s a sleeve shot too, but well, you’ll have to wait for the real thing to see that.

Dreamweaver - oh dreamweaver - feed me to the wolves would ya? My hands on midterm made my blood begin to boil, but I got an A on the written part. I need to get started on my final project, which is designing an entire website (OMG) I should get hrbek to do it for me. I decided to make an online portfolio, since that would be killing two birds with one piece of stonage.

Yoga is fabulous, I forgot how much I enjoy doing yoga and how much it helps my back. Although, last week my instructor started giving instructions on a pose and when he got to “once you feel the pull in your leg, start to work your heel to the back of your head….” he received an evil eye from the T. Just sayin.

And last but not least…

Design Survey is a BS class they make us take. I was dreading it. It is one of those 2.5 hour BS classes that make you want to pull your hair out, lots of busy work etc. But my instructor RAWKS. We haven’t had a class last over an hour yet, AND he has taken HALF the work out of the class, including a paper and tests. And, AND none of our work is actually due till the end of the quarter. GG Jack. Only thing is, he jabbers on and on and on and on quite often. I didn’t know dudes had so much to say. Right now he is having us design a logo for a made up automotive company. My company is called KADUB. sfobv.

The Skinny

Well so far I’ve lost about 34lbs and I’m happy about it. The last time I weighed, the scale actually said i had put 3 lbs back on, but I’m not buying it. It was late in the day and I’ve been training for a 5 mile run on Thanksgiving. The new jeans I bought that are two sizes smaller than before are getting a bit loose already too, so I’ve lost interest in the number. I feel great, which is the best part and I’ve been sticking with it.

Exercise had been getting a bit boring after the whole prop bet thing to make it entertaining, so I decided to really challenge myself to do the Turkey Trot. I don’t know if I will be able to jog 5mi by then, but it’s fun trying!

Hey SCOTT are you still gonna do this with me or what playa?!

So anyhoo, last night I was talking to someone about this pic I saw of myself on my brother’s picasa page that was the catalyst for the decision to lose weight. It made me wanna puke. the convo went a lil something like this:

me: omg u should see the pics i saw of myself that made me realize i had to lose weight. not that i would ever show them to you, but still
person: show me
me: no fraking way
person: come on
me: gfy
person: you could be like the person in the commercial that holds up the big pants
me: still not gonna

Well, here’s the pic, right next to a pic of me in the same shorts that Anna was so kind to take of me this morning.

Might wanna turn your sound down - the first one MOOOOOOO’s

Life

Big changes going down in T-Ville. They aren’t quite bloggable as of yet, but I’ll get to it when I can. Good changes tho.

Zooks was in town this past weekend. It was pretty sweet having her here, cause well, I like zooks.

Pictures were taken, obv, if interested.

Lots of kid stuff, and poker on Saturday night at Ritze’s (smboatdrinks) house, which was a blast. My bro even came with us, and had Zooks cracking up in the car the whole way home, sfobv. To top it off, I’m going to HER house THIS weekend! When it rains it pours… w0000t.

All is well in kidville too. Maya had PT conferences last week and straight As on her report card (standard) and Miss Anna made this kick ass dinosaur out of construction paper at daycare yesterday. Altho, (spell check says altho should be alt ho - lolorz) today she felt the need to make another construction paper creation, and made a Mermaid with a gun. NOICE.

So that’s all the tidbits for now, carry on.

It’s no secret that I can’t draw.

However, I never had an example to show you exactly how bad I actually am. So, consider yourselves cursed lucky. This is my first rendering of a teapot. I drew it either on the first or second day of class. RAW talent!

In my charcoal class, we started with the line drawing you saw above, but soon moved on to value drawings. Instead of identifying the shape with lines, you identify it with darks and lights. Which brings me to teapot #2, or “here is my handle, here is my spout” as I like to call it.
After this, I didn’t think things could get much better. I mean that looks like the Mona Lisa to me.

This week we started doing the value drawings in reverse. We take our charcoal and cover the entire page in a medium value and then go in with an eraser and start to identify the highlights, then back in with charcoal to identify the darks. Which brings me to teapot #3, or “when I get all steamed up I will shout!”.

I know, and if you think that’s good, look at this!!

HOLLA!!