29 December, 2011

Finally Fulfilling My Promises...

So, there's two things I haven't done yet that I said I would.

First off, there's the matter of the David Hasselhoff in a rainbow speedo picture. (June 7, 2011)

Explanation is as follows: Our department at work is fairly tight-knit and we all enjoy a good ribbing now and then. Sometimes, when we leave our computers to get a drink or use the restroom or whatever, we forget to lock our desktops. Well, the popular reaction to this is to "Hoff" them. Pull up an awkward picture of the Hoff and just leave it on their computer so that when they come back, everyone gets to make fun of them for "looking at the Hoff". Well, this tradition has continued for quite some time now. As for the rainbow picture I posted, I was commissioned by a member of our team to make the best Hoff picture yet. So I did some photoshop magic and made it truly extraordinary.

After that, it was hard to outdo ourselves... so now we just post pictures of the "unicorn man". Don't ask, I will not tell. If you want, here's a link or two, and you can gouge out your own eyes later. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;)
Link 1
Link 2


The second thing I neglected was to post was pictures of the Windgazer Hike of Legends. They will follow this week... maybe...

21 December, 2011

That Last Four Months of My Life... So Far...

Wow! I have been too busy for my own good. Just ask Katie, she'll vouch for that. She told me last Summer that I should do something extracurricular. Well, careful what you wish for. :)

I, of course, am working at SecurityMetrics. I've been working there for just over 3 years and I'm currently working full time. At the beginnning of the semester, I began to do some extra things as well.

Fortunately,I was enrolled in two fairly easy classes, as far as work load goes. However, the out-of-class time spent in these classes is what occupied my free time. This is how I spent my semester:

Every other Friday night, I go to KPCW in Park City as an unofficial intern. I help out around the station with voice-overs, reading copy, DJ-ing, etc. This has been a blast. This radio station is incredible! They are very advanced in technology because Park City is a wealthy town and KPCW is a non-profit. This means they get big donations. ;) It's been way fun and educational to learn how the software and hardware all works and how a radio station is run and maintained. This has been in conjunction with my Radio Production class. In class, we learned about radio history and what-not. But the coolest thing was the projects. We created commercials, Public Service Announcements, and I even created material for a station promo that will be played on air at KPCW!

Alongside the Radio class, we decided to create a Radio Club at UVU! I was elected as the Vice President for the club, so now I'm in charge of helping with meetings, programming, DJ-ing, etc. This is going to be way cool. We're going to start out streaming our broadcast online at first. But sometime next year, we'll be putting up a Low Power FM Transmitter on top of the Computer Science building. This will enable us to broadcast all over campus! Exciting things to come from the UVU Radio station. :)

Then we come to my Studio Recording class. This has been one of the coolest classes I've ever taken! I won't bore you with Audio geekness and terms only audio geeks would care about... but suffice it to say this class has been way too fun for my own good. It has required a lot of after class time because by the time we get studio equipment up and working, class was over. So in order to actually do some studio time and RECORD the bands that came, we'd end up staying late. It's been difficult to divvy my time between class and my other responsibilities, but the class is worth it. We've been recording a band called Ultraviolet Catastrophe, and helping them get a few tracks laid down for a music video and an album. They're quite good for a young, local band and have a lot of promise.

The gem of our class though, was recording Sam Payne. He is AWESOME! Such a fun guy and he and his brothers are incredibly talented. It was so fun working with them and watching them work. (Here's an okay video of him for those of you who don't know who he is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQchRRmu4H4)

Okay, so moving on... I also was hired on at the UVU Review, the school newspaper, as the "Assistant Digital Media Manager". What does this mean? Well, my current responsibilities included recording, producing, and posting a weekly podcast of to news stories on campus. Not only is this a huge boost to my resume, but it's been a lot of fun and has proven a great networking opportunity as well. In the near future, my boss, Parker, sees a lot of growth in the "digital media" department of the newspaper. I put thise in quotes, because it only just began when he hired me. Haha, but he and I are very excited and we can see this becoming a huge part of the newspaper. For now though, we'll just stick to a weekly podcast. Please! Check them out!!!:
http://soundcloud.com/uvu-review/wolverine-minute-dec-7-2011
https://www.facebook.com/UVUreview
(Scroll down to find the others.)

So, these are just some of the things I've been up to this last semester. And next year? Well, it will only get busier from here. But the idea is that if I can get my resume built and my jobs lined up now, how much easier will it be for me to find a career I love and can support my family on, when I graduate?

Needless to say, I haven't posted in a while, but this is mostly the reason why. So forgive me, okay? :)