Beyond My Comfort Zone

So... lately, I've had this urge to create an "official" logo for my design and photography portfolio.  I hate what I have now, it no longer seems to fit.  And I want something unique and original.  The problem is, I haven't really ever dabbled too far into designing logos.  The only professional logo that I can say I have designed from scratch is for my father's company.  And even then, he'd given me a pretty specific idea to work with.  This time, I really have no idea, other than that I want it to be original.

So I've started reading about other designers' processes when thinking up a logo and implementing it.  I never knew that Adobe Illustrator was a better program for creating logos either, I've always just used Photoshop (even though I do have Illustrator installed).  I'm going to be spending a majority of my free time studying up on how to effectively use the program... from what I've seen so far, the mechanics and layout of the program don't seem that different from Photoshop's.

Maybe I'm just subconsciously getting tired of Photoshop and this is my way of exploring something different.  Who knows?!  We'll see where this takes me.

The First Seventeen

So August's photo-a-day challenges have been just as fun as July's.  And I actually haven't missed a day yet!  Here's my collage of photos for the first 17 days:

Oh and Day 3's prompt was Coin.  For some reason I didn't notice that that one got covered up during the process of creating this. (And I'm too lazy at the moment to go fix it!)

That's all I have for today. :]

Fair Warning: FUN Ahead

"Take a chance
Take a step out on the ledge
Take a good look down and realize
It's all for you
For the night
I'm putting up a fight
I've opened up my eyes
To see a world I never knew..."
 —12 Stones, For the Night

So Jacques and I were able to catch a day trip up to Sacramento the weekend before last, right in time for the last weekend of the California State Fair.  When I lived in Oklahoma, I loved going to the state fair, I'm not sure exactly why, but it was just something I always did every year, either with friends or with family.  This is my third year in California and I'd never been to the fair yet, even though I'd wanted to go.  What sparked the trip this year was being invited by one of Jacques's friends. (Thank you Bryan & Anh!!)  And I have to say, it wasn't much different, except for all of the palm trees.  It brought back some memories though, good and bad.

Anyway, here are a few random photos that I took while we were there:

Overview of some food booths.

Bumper boats!

Repeating banners in the livestock building... thought it was a neat photo opp!

I noticed this patriotic ribbon wrapped around the post while watching a show on having some fun with baby cows.

Colorful macaw in the Floriculture area.

Closeup of a beautiful peacock in the Floriculture area.

Fountain with banners listing all of the California counties all around it.

Moment of Truth in your Lies

"And I don't want the world to see me
Because I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's meant to be broken
I just want you to know who I am..."
—Goo Goo Dolls, Iris

That song always takes me back about 14 years to when I first heard it.  I can say that for a majority of my music though.  It just never gets old to me.

Anyway, I want to start this post out with the rest of my photo-a-day challenges for the month of July, from the 11th to the 31st.

I ended up only missing 3 days out of the month, simply because I wasn't too fond of the theme for those days.  Or I wasn't able to capture the specific prompt in the right way.  But overall, I had fun with this!  I'm continuing into August as well, and plan on doing the same thing with making a collage of multiple days together, though I will probably break it down into the first 15 days and then the remaining days to make it seem more balanced.

In other news, I've been sick-ish for the past week.  It started with a chest congestion that I caught from Jacques, and eventually moved up into my left ear, resulting in my hearing being incredibly muffled... kind of like when you go swimming and water gets caught in your ear momentarily until you have to give your head a big shake to get it out.  Imagine that feeling constantly and that's what I'm dealing with.  It's highly uncomfortable and I hate having to talk and not being able to clearly hear what I'm saying.  I went to the doctor this past Tuesday morning, only to confirm how much I still really hate doctors.  First off, this was the first time I'd met him, since I haven't had the need to visit a doctor since I moved here.  He seemed to have no idea what I was talking about and I had to keep repeating my symptoms.  It was entirely frustrating, especially since I know my doctor back in Oklahoma (who had been treating me ever since I was little and had these ear problems every six months) would have immediately known what I was going through, simply from me saying "ear."  And he would know exactly what to prescribe to make it better.

But no, this doctor said he couldn't prescribe any antiobiotics, and simply told me to go get Sudafed or Zyrtec.  And I've been taking 1 pill every 4 hours for the past 3 days and it has not gotten any better.  So it's basically turned into a completely wasted trip.  Sometimes I wish I could just teleport myself back to OK temporarily so that I could see my old doctor again.  I hate switching doctors.  But I suppose that's just one of the few downfalls of moving 1,600 miles away.  If I end up having to go back again, I'm definitely changing my doctor beforehand.

I do have some photos to post from our day trip to Sacramento last weekend for the State Fair but I'm going to hold off on those for now.  This post kind of got away from me, what with venting about the frustrations concerning the doctor issue.