Pictures in sketchup

I remember this book as one of my first books I had learned to read as a toddler. And by read, I mean memorized page for page, word for word. It was a cute children's picture book to teach kids about colors. A White Rabbit adventured from splashing into color after color, trying to determine which color was "right".

Now I rarely have time for books. Though I feel that now I have moved into the city and take the subway everyday for 20minutes, I could pick up a book instead of just rocking out to my iPod. The last book I read was a cheesy relationship book my sister had given me. I got about halfway through it in one sitting, got bored and never picked it back up. Prior to that, I started The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larson), but put it down due to busy school and work schedule. I think I should go dig that book out of a box and finally get around to reading it. I've been avoiding watching the movie (dir, Niels Arden Oplev) until I read the book, supposed to be motivation to read it.
My reading now consists of newspaper headlines from people's paper's across from me on the subway, daily tumblr random news and big events updates (y'know, big social media updates, new internet sensations, memes, all that good stuff) and class readings. Rarely do I have time to devote time to reading anything longer than a paragraph. I'm about 6-months behind on reading Wired Magazine that I'm subscribed to, with the exception of few articles I read online. So here's a goal to myself: read a goddamn book!

Too many disctactions!!

We live in an ADD society. We are TOO busy. We are connected 24/7. I even get nervous when I am in a place where there is no Internet. I really want a quite place I can focus on something without distractions. Is our society gonna be worse? I don't know. It seems like we get more stressed out as we have better technology.

Dan Gulino #10 Disabilities

While, growing up I never knew anyone that had Autism. After studying the disorder in my first semester at SUNY Stony Brook, and watching the MTV series “True Life: I have Autism”, I feel more informed of what toll the disorder has on the affected individual, and the people surrounding them. Now that I understand what symptoms come along with Autism, I can better understand the situation Autistic people are in when I come into contact with them.
After seeing this documentary, my views on Autistic people have changed. I did not know Autistic people could function to the extent they can in everyday normal society. After watching Jeremy, I understand the amount of work it takes to prepare an Autistic person for interaction in society, and I now respect Autism care takers on a new higher level. I also respect people with Autism on another level for the amount of work they do every day to learn things I take for granted. I have never thought the ability to speak was such a blessing. Not only speech, but being able to control my emotions the way that I do is a blessing, and should not be taken for granted. All people should take the time to educate themselves, even in the slightest manner to understand Autistic people to a better degree.

Finally The Rock HAS COME BACK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lhUZzJlA88&feature=fvst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZrOSczJ8KI&

Now, I don't know about most of you, but for me my childhood was infested by wrestling. I didn't know a single kid (male of course) in my school that didn't watch wrestling. From Stone Cold Steve Austin, to DX, to The Rock, wrestling was sure in it's hay day when I was little. There was even a time that I wanted to be a professional wrestler (the fake kind, not the ones that compete in the Olympics) I'm not sure if it is because I got older, or just because wrestling just wasn't as entertaining as it used to be I eventually outgrew it, only to come back and watch a few matches every once in a while, before finally officially dying out around 8th grade due to some of my favorites like The Rock and Stone Cold not having as much screen time as they used to, and then eventually just leaving.

And even though I haven't watched wrestling in over 8 years, I have to admit, this little stunt that they pulled has certainly sparked my interest.

Photoshop Tutorial- Increasing Depth of Images

I'm not really good at writing about life stories and all that mumble jumble the weather outside is frightful bullshit so I thought I contribute by writing a tutorial on increasing the focus on a certain portion of an image. It's nothing fancy but it could help anyone new in photoshop and for future references. Most cameras today have this function but if your camera lacks this function you can easily make these changes in photoshop.
I'll start off with the original image:

We're gonna navigate to the layer tab on the top and scroll down to new adjustment layer and next the gradient map. Make sure your colors are set to default black and white. You can just press "d" on your keyboard for default colors. When clicking on gradient map it should prompt you to make a new layer and choose what gradient colors to use. To make it simple just click "ok" two times.

Next on the layers pallete click on the drop down box that says "Normal" and choose "Soft Light" then set the opacity to 50%. Then merge the two layers. By right clicking on the layer and merge down.

It should come out like this:

Next navigate to the filter tab, scroll down to sharpen, and choose unsharp mask. Set the amount to 105%.

It should come out like this now:

Next navigate the blur tool on your left. It's the gray water droplet icon and blur around the portion that you want the viewer to focus on in your image. Here's my finished product:

Marriage= Obsolete!! New Study Explains...

Not all that surprising to hear, but a recent study has found that 44% of Individuals 18-29 saw the institution of marriage obsolete. In comparison, only 32% of people 65 and older also found marriage to be obsolete. After reading this publication, I got to thinking. I feel as though i fall some where in the middle. On one hand, in no way do i think that the "union" on marriage will make a cheater stop cheating or a lier stop lying, thats why we have such high divorce statistics. But on the other hand, i do think the decision to get married, may reflect a commitment to yourself, to commit to another person. Either way, i think one should do that prior to marriage. I have been in a relationship for 7 years, which has had it's fair shares of up's and down's. I can honestly say however, that knowing my boyfriend and myself, and how we are together, there is little chance that a marriage certificate will change our relationship. So maybe marriage really is obsolete now? I looked up a summary of the publication, check it out here!

Don't like being sick

For the record I don't think anyone likes to be sick especially on a day like this where the weather is so shitty outside. The fact that my nose is congested beyond belief, is making my life hell right now. It seems like its a trend for me to get sick every once a month. Maybe its my diet or the fact that I like when its cold outside and I embrace the wind. Or it might be the fact that I hang out with people that are sick and don't think that I will become sick myself. I think sometimes I just think I'm superman, like I'm invincible to everything until that day comes when I wake up and my throat hurts like a bitch.
I hate going to classes when I'm sick because all you can hear during the professors lectures is me coughing and sneezing in the background. I try to hold it so I try not to interrupt so it becomes like that the whole class me just trying not to cough or sneeze and just thinking about how terrible this cold is. Next thing you know the lecture is almost done and I don't really know anything. Another reason why I might be sick is that I don't take medicine as much as I should. I usually forget and it just prolongs the cold. I know a lot of these things are my fault and I have to fix them myself but the fact I have a cold now just overrides everything and I don't feel like doing anything.

Migraine!!!

So yesterday started out like any other day. I woke up and went to the gym like I normally do. I then went about my normal days of activity which involved attending class, teaching a class, and working. I then had to prepare for my basketball game which was at 8. After my game, I came home and ate dinner. Everything was going pretty normally until I sat down and began doing some work.

I was reading over some of my notes from one of my class when I began feeling really weird. Everything all of a sudden began to flash. At first, I thought my contacts were just beginning to act up, so I took them out and put on my glasses. But after doing that, the flashes continued. It started out with dark flashes. But as time progressed, it turned to black and white flashes as well. I thought it was the weirdest thing. It was also weird because I didn't feel as if anything was wrong with me. It was just all these flashes of light and dark. I tried to just ignore it and continue doing my work. But it was getting to a point where I couldnt really focus anymore. I decided it was best if I just went to sleep and I figured everything would be okay. Little did I know that the flashes were just the onset of the problems.

I went to bed and fell asleep pretty quickly because I was tired from the long day I had. Then at around 1am, I woke up and felt the worst pain that I have ever experienced. I felt as if someone was playing drums in my head. It was just pounding like crazy, and I was basically powerless against it. I took some meds during the night, but that did little to suffice the pain. I didn't think that I would ever fall asleep but I eventually did. Still, the pain was excruciating. Luckily for me, it wasnt as bad when I woke up this morning, but the pain still lingered. Even as I write this post now, the pain is still kind of there, just not as much. Hopefully, this never happens again.