Sure, I haven’t been around this corner of cyber space since 2009.  It’s okay.  Stumbling back to my blog and skimming through my old posts just reminds me how lucky I am to be where I am today and how happy I am to have the family and friends that I do and who support me in everything. Skype is really such an incredible tool when you are away from family.   Reading through my old posts also reminds me once more how much I love to write about my travels and dreams.

I tilt my glass of invisible eggnog and cheers to a Happy Christmas Eve! (especially to my little butterball – Simon.)

Say Cheese

Au revoir green!

Hello "squash"

Mixing glaze

We used two types of glazes

Starting the glazing process

Almost finished!

In other news… I am so completely excited yet confused about my graphic workshop!  Last weekend I was 100% set on attending the graphic/rendering workshop with Richard Scott in September… that was until I discovered the Mike Lin workshop happening San Francisco next month.  It is a week long and super intense… but I think that is what I need.  I’ve mentioned my two workshop ideas to many professors at UF, friends, and even a few people at work and I keep getting mixed opinions about the two workshops.  I know I will figure it out eventually, I’m just super excited to see which one I choose and how much my graphic skills are going to improve.

Richard Scott has a workshop in Pasadena in August for three days that concentrates on perspective drawing and I’ve gotten the hint from many people today that his work is a lot more “mainstream” than Lin’s… so we’ll see what happens… a decision must be made soon in order to make new arangements for my leg procedure/recovery process.

Flying to see Caleb in Athens and spending the week in Myrtle Beach Friday!

Gator football in 9 weeks :-)

My internship is going really well!  We’ve been trucking along on a big project and have an important presentation to give on Wednesday.  I’m really looking forward to it and hope all goes well!  Along with interning, I’ve also decided to take a graphics class.  A friend of mine took the same graphics class last fall before Paris and learned a ton!  I feel that it will really improve my graphics and hopefully impress firms this year.  The class I’m interested in taking is in September… the only problem is that it is in Denver…  so I guess I should start looking up plane tickets!  The cost of the class is quite expensive, but again… I feel this will really help me in my future career moves.

Here’s the website:  http://www.graphicsteacher.com

My Chicago trip in the fall is also starting to take shape.  The three girls I’m going with have all given me the thumbs up on booking the hotel and we should be looking at purchasing flights this week!  I’m super excited about Chicago!  I’ve only been there once back in 2005 for drum corps… so I’m looking forward to spending more than a few hours in the city.  The convention should be good too.  I don’t know who the speakers are yet… maybe they haven’t been announced… but if it is anything like LABASH, then I’ll be good to go!  I think I’ll bee able to score a few interviews there as well.  Fingers crossed!

After all of the internship applications I sent out last semester, I did finally hear some relatively good / bad news!  I never received my portfolio back from EDSA after they told me that it would be in the mail over a month ago.  So I finally called their office last Tuesday and was told that I was considered an “alternate” for the internship this summer and they wanted to keep my portfolios (I sent 2 of them) on file for future use/contact!  So it makes it hard that I was so close to getting such a great internship, but also makes me feel a bit more confident about my portfolio and about my options after graduation.

We threw a surprise birthday party for my dad last night!  It was a lot of fun and he had no idea!  We invited about 20 of his good friends from work and neighbors over to our house for barbecue and guitar hero.  The weather felt like an oven outside and the mosquitoes were really bad, so we kept the party inside! I’ll post some photos this week!

Father’s day was nice and relaxing.  I spent the day painting my room… now the second coat is on half of my room and I’m really excited about starting the glazing process soon!  It is so hard to get the motivation to paint during the week when I get home from work and the gym… by maybe I’ll just set the time aside and do it!  I need to get this done and want to have fun with it because the walls are going to look ridiculously amazing when I’m done with them!

And one more thing before the night.  I FINALLY started my new website… after owning the domain name for a year.  I worked on it a bit last night and it seems to be coming together quite nicely.  Of course I have a bunch of kinks to iron out and lots and lots of hours to spend on it updating my portfolio… but it is exciting just seeing it take shape!

Check it out: http://www.nicolebeane.com

NB

//

Phase one out of about a million… the final outcome will be fantastic.  After spending many hours pulling off the wallpaper border and scrubbing the adhesive from the walls… the paint is finally on the walls!  I have a total of three shades of paint in order to get the “glazed” warm effect.  The first and lightest of the paint colors is shown above.  I got about half of my room done today and will probably have to put it on hold until next weekend.   Once 2 coats ( I have to do 2 because the bring green keeps creeping through the first coat) have dried at least 48 hours, I can start the glazing technique with a warmer orange and a dark brown orange.  Should be interesting to say the least… and I’m definitely have a blast :-)  More photos of the process will be posted within the next few weeks.

Daft Punk is keeping me going:

NB

Storm rolling in

Dark skies

Double Rainbow

Luckily today was bright and sunny… for work I was sent out to a high end development to do a site analysis.  It basically consisted of me walking around the site with a 24 x 36 set of plans that I’ve been working on in CAD for the past week…. and marking every single tree, shrub, planting bed, sign, water pipe, electrical box, lamp post, ground lighting, tv cable boxes, etc…  sounds a little crazy, but it was fun and went by rather quickly despite the heat (8 hours!)

I’ve been taking yoga for the past two weeks with my dad over at the rehabilitation center in between Gold’s daily workouts.  I figured it is probably a really good thing to take a break from the gym and have a good stretch session.  Plus it’s fun to see my dad twist into a pretzel and accidentally fall asleep during the deep relaxation session.  Yoga has never been my thing because I enjoy high energy classes… but I have a feeling that it is going to grow on me and will soon become a weekly session.

I was very impressed with Adam article in Rolling Stone.  It is great that he is such an open and eccentric artist and I’m so incredibly excited to see what new ideas he throws into the music industry… and very very excited for a first album this fall.

Three weeks from tomorrow I’m flying to GA to see Caleb & I’m so excited!!

TGIF… almost

NB

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I admit, my mom snatched the magazine out of my hands and read through the entire Lambert article  before I got a chance to read it…  so I won’t spoil it for everyone yet… until tomorrow =)

Buy it, read it, love it  http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/06/09/the-new-issue-of-rolling-stone-the-liberation-of-adam-lambert/#

Traveling is more than just spending money and exploring someone else’s home.  The Earth is big… gigantic actually…   Trying to live life in a new culture is extremely eye opening and it for sure humbles you.  It makes you realize that it is so easy to get caught up in the hustle of popularity, image, and money… where in the long run, none of that even matters.  So… book a flight, take a train, or sail the sea… you’ll be inspired, humbled, and changed forever.

I leave you with a bit of good music and one of my favorite quotes:

“As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not an expert on the places I’ve visited. I’m not an authority. I’m a visitor, traveler, enthusiast. Is it possible to feel enriched and hollowed out at the same time? Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts… it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you. It should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart and on your body. Take something with you. Hopefully you leave something good behind. Where will I end up next? What’s my next journey? Your guess is as good as mine.” Anthony Bourdain

Relaxing & watching American Idol!! :-)

Oh… and I was forwarded a very funny Nike video.  Enjoy!!