SCHOOL UPDATE

I haven't posted in a while because ive been way too busy with school this week and last week. It is the last week of class WHOO HOOO!!! but i had an assignment due in each of my classes this week and one quiz. So needless to say im still very busy, however, on friday night is the Last Class Bash also known as Ender Bender, so that will be a great stress releiver.

My last project for Nmed 2020 is not coming along very well, it is taking me a long time to find the right video clips and sounds for my movie. I actually dont even know when the due date is, hopefully not friday.

Global Warming has been all over the news lately, so i deceided to make a video on just that. I rented the movie An Incovienent Truth with Al Gore who talks about Glbal Warming and its effects so most of my information and video clips will be coming from that.

That is all for now... back to making the video.

P.S. Im a lazy typer today so sorry for the horrible spelling.

WEBSITE IS COMPLETE

Heres the link to my website.

http://people.uleth.ca/~ryan.fukala/website/

It was rather time consuming for such a simple looking site but just like any computer program once you get the hang of how everything works things begin to pick up the pace.

DEVASTATION - MY HEART IS BROKEN!!

It is a sad day in my life today. I learned late last night that Micheal Richards better known as Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld, one of the single greatest characters ever created, is a racist. It wasn't until this morning that i logged in to youtube.com to find out for myself. I used to watch Seinfeld adoring his silly anticts and charming wit. I dont know if another episode of Seinfeld will ever be the same. Below is a video taken in a comedy club where Richards snaps racist slurs at a group of black people supposedly heckling him. The scene was so bad most of the crown had to get up and leave shortly after the verbal onslaught began.



I cannot beleive this... could this tarnish the image of Seinfeld ripping it from the top of my all time favorite sitcom list.

Here is a 7 minute clip of Richards on the Letterman Show giving what seems to be a heartfelt apology.

WEBSITE FINALLY COMING TOGETHER

On Novemeber 15th we have our 3rd assignment due. Up until today i was stressed out becuase i couldnt find a good flow for my site. The colours, the theme, nothing was working but today i spent quite a while with my teacher discussing possible changes to my site and i gotta say im pretty happy with it now. I changed pretty much everything from my masthead, the overall colour theme, my my text. All in all, ive pretty much finished the design phase (Created it in Photoshop) and now i just have to begin transferring into DreamWeaver. I will probably be done by wednesday of next week, so ill post when im finsished.

Heres a sample from my homepage.

It doesnt look like much work goes into a website but when you just start learning the programs it can be a huge PITA.

The top of the picture: edmonton skyline, my name, globe will all stay the same throughout each page on my site. The white part will be a spot for a picture, each page it will have a different picture depending on what the page is about. There are 5 tabs, as you click on one it will take you to that page and the tab will become big, so you know which page you are on. As you can see since this page is the home page the first tab is the large one.

The pages i will have will be Home, Education, Employment, Contact me and i think Hobbies (havent decided on this page yet).

Well thats what it looks like right now... i really like the look personally.

UPDATE - WELL SORT OF...

Although this is supposed to be a blog updating my semester to date, i dont have much new information.

I am being beat-up by my classes, pulling all nighters to finish assignments studying in between going to the gym, playing hockey and trying to have a social life (even though this year it has been anything but glamorous.)

I had one midterm on tuesday, i have another on saturday and then two next week. An assignment was due on monday, wednesday (today) and again tomororw (thursday). I have hockey tonight from 12:45 am (yes you read that correctly, just past midnight we START our game) till about 2:00am.

My next New Media assignment currently has no due date yet, but i feel behind in the class because i cant seem to grasp the program DreamWeaver (making websites). Although today im hoping my questions will go away as we are told that we will be having a more indepth tutorial on DreamWeaver today.

In all this turmoil my diet is actually staying pretty on track. I still eat quite well(healthy) with the exception to a momentary lapse monday night for a DQ hot eat and a cool treat. The other positive of my anti-social life is the abundance of $$$$$ i seem to be saving (well maybe not "saving, more like ... not-spending). I am actually doing better this year because i am not blowing my money... unlike last year - more beer = less money.

All in all i only have 181 more days of school until i am a university graduate. That number doenst even include the time off for xmas, reading week and all those lovely long weekends.

Well i better get back to my assignment, i have to finish before hockey tonight.

MY FAVORITE COLLAGES

Since our collages were due this week i thought i would write a small blog about my favorite collages from the class.

This first one is from Ryan Ozar.

This is a Music group called HIM (i have never heard of them). The overall final product is very powerful visually, it turned out very professional. The designs in the background are logo's for the group and the words are lyrics from some of Ryans favorite songs. Everything about the image is rather amazing. There seems to be many different types of blending options used(they provide the "glow" effect of such things as the HIM words, the fading in the background and the designs. Overall I think this picture could definately be used for an album cover, thats how powerful the image seems.

This next picture is from Robyn Jenkins.


First off, I dont even know how the light "glare" was created but it really adds something to the photo. I think thats the reason i like this image so much is because of the way the light looks. Also, i like the way she wrote "she's an insomniac". It has way more meaning by making some words smaller and others words larger. I'm not sure what exactly it is about this image that i like so much, i think its just the overall final image and the way it turned out.

The next image was done by Jeremy Chilton.


It may be difficult to see the detail in this picture but when printed the quality is unbelieveable. It is made up of many different peices of artwork from some kind of comic characters. According to Jeremy there is a overall theme going on within the artwork but i cant see it mainly because i dont know any of the people in this image. Overall, this work is just amazing and shows an incredible amount of photoshop skill.

It may be difficult to see how great some of these images are by only seeing them on the internet. When they are printed and framed they look mroe professional and have better quality/detail.

MY COLLAGE

The meaning of my artwork is based on a poem by Karla S, titled “A New Me”. The poem is below but can also be found at http://nickscape.net/recoveryzone/karla_s.htm.

A NEW ME

As I look to the sky

the faded moon I see,

It's just a mire image

of what my life used to be.

And to my left* is the sun

shining ever so bright,

It's a reversed image

that symbols my new life.

As I sit here soul searching

looking into the new grass grow,

I realize what I've missed

and my past that i need to let go.

I'm just like a new seedling

just starting to sprout,

Learning about my addiction

and what clean life's about.

I used to run far away

my feeling so empty inside,

I now know and realize

that I have nothing to hide.

Me I am a good person

and soon better I'll be,

With the help of my NA group

and my sobriety.

BY: Karla S.

*NOTE: For the purpose of my image I had changed the word left, to the word right. This allows the poem to be consistent with my image.*

The reason I chose to do my collage on drug abuse is because I have been affected by drug abuse in my life. Someone very close to me struggled with the disease for over 3 years and I saw first hand the steps it took, the hard work and the “new life” of being clean. It took a few hours of constant searching for the perfect poem but when I read “A New Me”, it was exactly how I saw this person in my life, where they once were and where they are now.

The way I interpreted the poem is the exact way I portrayed the image in my artwork. I see a dark figure with his/her back to the viewer. The figure is balckened out because the figure should remain as non-gender biased as possible to ensure this image can reach both males and females.

The moon and the sun are mentioned in the poem. The moon represents his old life and therefore the whole left side of the work is his old life. It has had the brightness adjusted down to ensure the viewer knows that this side is his old life of drug use. Also on the left is a large dead tree. The dead tree signifies his old life full of drug use which has died because his old life has died. It also provides a good contrast between the small seedling on the right with the left. On the right is the sun which represents his new life of hope and freedom. The small seedling has been planted on the hill on the right side of the picture. The seedling, as mentioned in the poem, signifies his new life. This new life is full of potential, just as though he is a new to the world ready to make a clean start at life.

UPDATE - BRIDGE BUCKS

Well it turns out that because i have 11 classes left to complete my degree (dropped calculus the first time around), i am still classified as a 3rd year. So needless to say i now have to purchase Bridge Bucks for the first semester.

The good news is i can buy $50 in the 1st semester (now) and then next semester when i am registered as a 4th year i will be able to exempt out of Bridge Bucks.

Oh well, i guess this is better than having to buy a full years worth. Im still frusterated at the fact that any student living on campus has to purchase them to begin with.

I ask myself though... what will the repercussions be if i didnt buy them at all?

I need to find out if i do buy them can they be used at the bookstore? I will have to dump about $500 on books in January for books anyway... i can just use the worthless Bridge Bucks to do that.

CHANGE OF BLOG - JON WOLFE

I was originally going to blog about my collage project i handed in the other day but decided earlier today(after nmed class) to write about something different. Now as i sit infront of my computer suddenly there is something else on my mind, Jon Wolfe and his family.

I lived in Fernie till the age of 16(grade 10), when my family and i moved to Edmonton. I tried as hard as i could over the next 2 years to get back to fernie as often as i could for visits and well... partys. In those two years i began to get to know people more than i had while i lived there. One of those people was Jon Wolfe. Jon and I were not best friends, we never hung out just the two of us, but I would always seem to come accross him at a party or a local bar when i came back for a visit. Jon was a great guy, everyone seemed to like him and he always had a smile on his face and a was in a good mood. Since highschool we mainly shared the occasional game of catch-up on msn and made sure we sent a few messages every so often.

This last saturday he was involved in a fatal car accident. He was on his way to Baynes Lake when his car hit a deer. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

I just wanted to give the Wolfe family my condolences and make sure that they know how great of a guy Jon was, and how many lives he touched.

RIP Jon Wolfe - You will be missed