Photoshop for Dummies

Here's what I made at my Photoshop class tonight:



This may not look like much, but it started out as four different pictures, and I combined them into one four-layered picture, wait, five-layered picture (the words make their own layer, don't I sound smart, yeah, right). I also cropped, selected, filtered, rotated, and a whole bunch of other fun verbs that I now cannot recall, these picture items to create the one "lovely" picture item you see above.

Yeah, so why did I think Photoshop was hard? Oh, yeah, because 1) my boss insisted that he did not have time to show me how to edit text in ads he made using Photoshop and 2) my boyfriend insisted he didn't have time to show me how to manipulate and edit pictures using Photoshop.

That's what I get for listening to them instead of to myself. Myself was all, "Naomi, you can totally do Photoshop without a class, girl," and I was all, "I don't know, Mike and Glenn don't think I can..."

So there were these old ladies in my class and most of Monday night was spent explaining to them where the pictures go when you transfer them from your camera to your computer; and how to rename a file and such things like that. But I did learn some useful things that the men in my life (i.e. boss and boyfriend) are just too swamped to show me, so it wasn't all for naught.

So now I will go kick some Photoshop ass. Or, at least, edit some Photoshop files at work and create some Photoshop files for Mike's work...

My Artist made the Front Page

Mike was on the front page of one of the local papers here on Monday, and now the front page is on the side of our fridge:



They got his name wrong though (they printed it as "Warren Lake") so now we call him The Artist Formerly Known as Mike Warren, or TAFKAMW (we also think Warren Lake makes a great hippie name):



This glass layout, called a rollup, was designed and created by hand by Mike:



Edited 2/28 to add the text of the feature (it wasn't really an article, so much as a photographic feature with picture captions - here are the picture captions):

TOP: The Glass Station artist Warren Lake uses a high-temperature torch to melt colored glass into a great white shark's head as another torch keeps the glass reef pedestal (upon which the shark will stand) hot.

LEFT: The Glass Station co-owner and artist Joseph Reinik holds a finished vase created with colorful glass pieces fused onto and melted around it. He and his partner in the Blue Lake business, Scott Harris, each have about 10 years experience working with glass. Reinik recently finished a class from a master glass sculptor.

BELOW: An assortment of colorful items that have been handmade ahead of time are sometimes heated and then fused onto and melted around molten glass to make a vase with multidimensional features instead of just flat layers.

Day 11 of the Flu

So, it's not pinkeye, and it's not the Humboldt Crud. It's the flu. According to the news, there is a flu epidemic (or is pandemic?) going on in 45 states right now, and the hospitals are full. This isn't that 24-hour flu that is nasty as all get-out and then you move on with your life. No, siree. This is the THREE-WEEK flu that is nasty as all get-out, and then in your weakened state you stagger on with your life.

So I have been wanting to lose some weight, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind.

Last week I went to exactly one day of work. So far this week, I've been to work one day as well, which is not exactly a good track record (nor is it my norm). Monday morning I felt OK, but by the afternoon my splitting headache and my ringing ears and my firey sore throat feeling like I was trying to choke down a tennis ball every time I swallowed (which is, like, a lot, we swallow a lot, you might not notice unless your throat hurts for six days straight) should have been a clue that I needed to call it a day. I forced myself to suffer through the day, went to my first Photoshop class that I have already paid for and was so excited about, and then Tuesday I paid for it, all day. Today, I'm significantly better than yesterday, but I think I need to not push myself. Which means, I'm working on getting to work, so I can acoomplish something, but taking a shower and getting dressed caused me to lie down and take an hour nap. It's pathetic.

I actually had one of our board members telling me Monday that I wasn't taking this flu seriously enough. Because I was at work. Um, we are four 1/2 weeks to this festival, and I haven't even gotten the vendor contracts out the the door yet. I'm trying to take it all seriously. This is just the worst timing ever.

So, anyway. I don't have the Humboldt Crud. Which is like, yay for me, I guess. Apparently it's a rite of passage or so the crazy locals say. As I've never had it, I wouldn't know if it's preferred to this flu crap that I have, but I'm seriously thinking that anything would be better than this. Definitely melodramatic, i.e. me.

Also, now that I have read that the easiest way to catch the flu is by touching your mouth and face with dirty hands, I am hyper aware of the fact that I touch my face a lot. I also wash my hands a lot, but all it takes is one time with not-so-clean hands. And my computer at work is not exactly just used by me. It's like the town bicycle of computers. So now I get to be obsessed about yet another thing. Awesome.

P.S. As I cited no sources for this little epi(or pan)demic, just type "flu current" into your search engine and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or you can just take my word for it.

P.P.S. OK, here is one link: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm - the states in brown mean the flu is widespread there. As you can see, Florida is currently the place to be.

On a better note

Mike and I celebrated our togetherness by him making his disgusting pinkeye girlfriend a lovely eggs, facon (that's fake bacon, it's quite good), and toast breakfast; and then sitting down together and writing a new goals list for 2008. It feels good to be a team. It feels a little bit like we're Bonnie and Clyde, but without the criminal part.

We also decided that we would celebrate our anniversary again/better/for real on March 12, when our Humboldt life together officially started. The hope is that by then I won't have [pinkeye, mumps, scarlet fever, insert obscure illness here].

Also, Mike brought me this herbal remedy called "Miracle 3000" or something like that, and he insists that a) it works, and b) I will take it at least 3 times a week so that I can stop being such a sicky.

True love in all its glory.

Awesome

The eye goo situation is now happening in both eyes. According to my medical book and my boyfriend's reaction, it's pinkeye.

Have I mentioned yet how much fun I am having?

Hi, I'm five years old apparently, and therefore I have pinkeye.

The Crud

I think I have the Humboldt Crud. I have been sick for almost a week. It started out as the body ache, fever, flu yuckiness, and then segued seamlessly into the horribly sore throat, hacking cough, snot nose, headachy, earachy cocktail that I am currently enjoying.

Sorry to paint such a lovely picture.

I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired. With Monday being a holiday, I called in sick to work Tuesday and Wednesday, went to work on Thursday, and got sent back home with orders not to come back on Friday.

I've never had that happen before.

I never thought I'd miss the days of the good ol' 24-hour-bug. I mean, it was hardcore, but just when you thought you couldn't take it anymore, you got better.

I am so bored/lonely/tired/over this crap.

Now today my eye decided that it wanted to join the party and started oozing copious amounts of eye goo. Just my right eye though. Yes, eye goo is the technical term. I might be dying.

OK, I'm not dying. It's just the crud. Yay, Humboldt.

Happy Anniversary

Tommorrow, Saturday, February 23, Mike and I will have been together for a year.

Wednesday, March 12, I will have been here in Humboldt County for a year.

And for your viewing pleasure, this is yours truly, as drawn by 10-year-old Kaya:


She made me with green eyes because initially she didn't have a brown marker, but as I did not want green hair, I searched around the house until I found her a brown marker. Whew, that was a close one.

P.S. The kids got Presidents Week off! California is crazy!

Edited to add a picture of the little artist herself, hard at work:

Don't Worry About a Thing

This has been hanging out in my favorites for a year or so; I thought I'd share it here. A very cute little boy serenades us with Bob Marley's Three Little Birds.

Enjoy!

Thanks to the Presidents...

Is this a normal thing, because I don't remember it ever happening in Wisconsin? I get a paid holiday from work today because it's Presidents Day today.

I am sick anyway, got some stupid flu-like bug, so I guess the presidents, or whoever decided to give me this day off, saved me a sick call into the office...

Online Glass Art Gallery

Click HERE to check out Mike's gallery on glassartists.org.

The URL is glassartists.org/MikeWarren, FYI.

I will be working on getting more pictures on here every few days or so, so check back in periodically. This is just the tip of the iceberg, y'all.

Edited to add some pictures, in case you need some inspiration to click my link, you won't regret it, I promise!





And there are plenty more where these came from!

On Love, Random Stranger Style

A man who appeared to have all of his worldly possessions with him in a shopping cart handed me a photocopy of this poem, handwritten on a plain white sheet of paper, as I walked by on my way to the post office:


Love and marriage,
Love and marriage
go together
like a horse and carriage,
This I tell you brother,
You can't have one
without the other.


I couldn't tell if it was the Frank Sinatra version or the theme song from the sitcom Married with Children, though I can't see how that really makes a difference. I guess I appreciate the sentiment? I can't help but wonder what made him choose this poem to photocopy and hand out to passersby. I also can't help but wonder if he handed out his little marriage poem to men too. Maybe I have been proposed to and I don't even know it!

Well, at the very least, I now know this random stranger's opinion on love, AND marriage. And I'm glad too.

'08 is Great

What's New:

Seven weeks to the jazz festival, and still lots and lots to do.

Taking a photoshop class at College of the Redwoods starting February 25.

Volunteering/working in trade for glass classes doing office work at the hot glass studio where Mike works. First glass class will be end of this month, on a Saturday. I will try to make something cool.

Being "stepmom" on the weekends to 10-year-old Kaya and 12-year-old Josh, having all kinds of fun times, including baking cookies, having snow fights*, racing to the end of the street, learning hot glass techniques at their dad's shop, watching movies like Madagascar and Open Season, having sleepovers camp-out style on the living room floor, and other bonding-like moments.

Working on getting Mike's artwork up on various glass artist websites, will post links when I'm done.

Planning a trip home to Wisconsin some time in late April/early May, details to follow once airline tickets are bought and vacation time at work is approved, not in that particular order (vacation time is unofficially approved, but not the specific dates yet).

*For the record, it only snowed here that one day. Yes, I'm bragging a little. You all have each other, albeit having each other in 10 feet of snow. Two thousand miles away from my beloved family, I have to hold on to whatever I can, so I will "brag" about the fact that there is no snow here. Ha ha. And I'm sorry. I hope you all are being safe and staying warm.

Camping out:



Hanging out at the glass studio:



Playing with puppies: