I’ve Been Saying It for Years !

It was with mixed emotions that I started a new job at RR Donnelley & Sons on Sept. 2nd as a Composition Specialist.
All my working life I told myself I was not gonna work there, due to it being shift work and doing swing shifts. Alas, I accepted the job and I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying it.

There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to proof reading financial printing documents, as opposed to doing other artwork and layouts in Indesign.

There will be a lot of things I will be doing in this dept. not only proof reading but doing the layout, the editing, working in desktop for the graphics, and pagination. (not all in that order)

At the moment I am training with four others learning to proof read and make marks for content and style errors for our editors to fix if need be. I have to say this job is a very strict time restraint of how fast the work has to be done to turn around for the client. As fast as an overnight turn around on a 100+ page job.

I am excited to see where this job takes me. A bit overwhelmed at all the new “jargon” I have to learn as well all the info my brain has sucked in in the last two and a half weeks.

I am truly sailing into the unknown, and I’m excited.

Isabel’s Hope Endowment

This past Saturday I visited some very good friends of mine while they were hosting a book fundraiser at Barnes & Noble bookstore for Isabel’s Hope Endowment.

It was a wonderful turnout with many people visiting, sitting, and enjoying the live music. I was so happy to sit and enjoy the music, friends, and above all, the cause.

If you would like to know more info please visit, the Isabel’s hope Endowment Facebook page.

Designers, Illustrators, and Comic Book Lovers, Beware !

For those of you interested in designing, Illustrating, and comic books please stop by my friends new website on his online portfolio. http://www.thegreatestdane.net .

I have been getting my friend involved with the social media tools to help with the website he created to get some info out about his digital portfolio to some potential job seekers. You can now find him on twitter: @dcypel

You can find his bio, galleries of his past projects, and you will soon be able to view is resume.

Good luck, Dane !

Developing Time, Final Project Time, and Insanity Time.

       It has been a while but I thought I catch up on what is going on now. School; that is what has gone on lately. Procrastination and other things have gone on like usual so I am not 100% happy with class projects but, it will be fine. I have done podcasts at work in the past. Nothing challenging or exciting, in my opinion.  The big challenge is gonna be the proposal for my english class. First of all, I hate writing; second, never had to write a proposal at work, so this should be a fun, interesting experience.

     So far I have a written proposal, a video podcast, and a website due by the end of the semester. No problem…Oh, except for starting them yet…. Oops.

     I have recently become a Mac OS X developer and have played with Apples newest OS 10.7 Lion. So far, I am still learning whats new, whats the same, what hasn’t changed. I am really not OVERLY excited of what is coming in this next version of OS X. Some cool changes, safari, thank god, is faster. I like how spaces, expose, are all in one interface that you can get access to to see what applications are open, and all the windows that are open. I haven’t started to see which none apple apps are still buggy in 10.7. I will most likely start playing with that once some final projects are over.

In other news, I have still been on the job hunt. As of now, obviously nothing has come up. That is why I am thankful for having school and procrastination to keep me company with everything going on. At the moment I am overwhelmed with stress because, I also have no money to spend, and final projects for 4 classes due. Yes, Procrastination how much it loves me. Most of the time I am online with some friends playing my wonderful nerd games; Star Trek Online. Or as my sister-in-law puts it, “Doing a Mission”. To me this is a great stress reliever however, I do have to watch how much times this takes up on the job search as well as the job hunt.

We will see what this summer brings. Hopefully a job, but at least some sort of paying website project.

An ongoing journey into job searching, design, and keeping up with technology.

Evening all ! It has been quite a while since I have made a post, so as I sit here at 12:16pm doing, well, really nothing; I thought I’d create a post and jot down a few things I have been experiencing in the last few months.

Since the last post I have an iPhone 4, I do indeed love it. I have had no issues with the so called “antenna-gate” issue here, I have plenty of bars and have rare issues with dropping a call, it usually happens when I am traveling in a valley or over a mountain during my normal weekend excursions.

The one and only thing I ever get worried about is the phone itself since its pretty much made of glass, when it falls off a table at home, I am afraid it will shatter (fingers still crossed).

In other subjects; other things that are going on is that I am still continuing college, even after some really retarded financial aid issues, that I am trying to overcome. (more to come !)

Finally, trying to find some sort of employment in Lancaster is becoming maddening. In the last 2 weeks I have been denied four jobs after having interviews for two of them. I am keeping my head up and continuing to push forward out of this bout of depression and boredom. I have yet to win the battle, but thankfully, haven’t lost.

In the meantime of all that depression and boredom I have been keeping up with news and technology and techniques to keep my mind fresh and to keep my skill set where it needs to be at for finding a job in my field. I have been doing some projects on the side with Windows, Mac OS, web and creative design. Just to keep my brain thinking and wanting to think. So far it keeps me going as I sit here and look for work.

Until next time, hopefully I’ll have some less boring news to report.

Who made “4″ the unlucky number?

Well, it has been nearly a week since I sold my iPhone 3G for an iPhone 4. I am not sure why all these articles are going around about the phones less than moderate reception, and “death grip”.  I have not had issues as of yet holding it in the lower left hand corner, nor worse reception than I had before with the 3G phone. I believe this is more of an AT&T network issue than of a hardware issue with the antenna.

I am thoroughly enjoying the phones new features. I believe I was a bit more paranoid after reading all the articles out there about the phones flaws. It could be just the congested areas of New york City and San Francisco that has network and reception issues which is causing the iPhone 4 to drop calls consistently however, that is my opinion.

Time will tell how well my phone will behave itself; crossing my fingers is the only thing that may be working at the moment.

I do believe this is a great device as much as its predecessors were.

Sleepless nights, baggy eyes, and a whole lot of nothing

Its been about over a month now where I have fought what is symptoms of insomnia, not sure exactly that’s what it is, however, I am almost convinced I am losing my mind due to lack of sleep.

There has been a lot of my mind for the past few months now, obviously, but I try to find stuff to do that will relax me at night or tire me out so I can at least go to bed. Lets just say, nothing has worked. I haven’t been drinking, I am taking the medicine I need to and things are going fairly well, other than not sleeping, so probably if I find a job I can relax a bit more and not worry so much about things. School is really the only thing that keeps me going, if not, Id be a zombie walking around doing nothing.

Any other time I would agree that finding a job would be a lot easier if I have my degree finished now, I can tell you not even a degree is helping people now in this day an age.  I think that is the number #1 cause of why I am uneasy at night and not able to sleep. We will see how things go in the near future I have applied at a few places to do some office work, hopefully I get phone calls, if it doesn’t happen, its back to phase 1, again.

My parents have been VERY supportive and I would not be surviving at all if it weren’t for them, mind you, I will owe them for the rest of my life, or their lives. I don’t think I will be able to thank them enough.

That’s it for now, I have to babysit today. This will be interesting on no hours of sleep; no worries, Brenden keeps me going he wont let me sit down, which is a good thing.

Welcome to the day of liquor and noodles

Well today, I finally enjoyed doing something; woke up at 5pm, clipped my toe nails, ate ramen, and its now 12:27pm. Oh watching tv was in there somewhere. Now I may go to bed or, go find the rest of the sandwich I ate earlier in my bed.

See-Saws are bad…

In the past few days, my mind has either been a sift, or a see-saw. Either I was heading into drama  head-on, or I was walking away from it and my mental state was like a wonderful see-saw. Yesterday and today was really,  really bad. I didn’t sleep well last night, so that means today I slept in until about 1pm. I was explaining to a friend yesterday why I am the way I am and really, I got nowhere of why. I am a very caring person but in the past month or so it really has just bit me in the ass, so  I have backed away and now the see-sawing begins. Taking anxiety medicine has yet to have had an effect so I may need to figure out another solution.

I consider myself very close to all my friends and have found out that the feelings are not always mutual, A lot of the drama comes from that I suppose, however, When I am unable to help friends, or have a sense of being there for them, I feel that I am useless. Now, more than ever because I am also unemployed. Ha, funny how things work.

I also thought that running or walking or something outside would help me, no it doesn’t physically I feel ok, but mentally I am still cloudy and am still unsure of many things.

Doorsteps are dangerous for good moods.

It is about the right time when all drama is off me, and I am actually enjoying myself, when again, drama is left right on my doorstep. It is now to the point where I am just gonna ignore it…pretend it doesn’t exist and then go on with my day. It usually goes nuts when I end up having to deal with it or talk to someone about it….. ERGO…….ignoring it and everyone involved because its less crap that I am gonna worry about. A less angry me is a better, and people want to deal with the better me.