Research Project - Your Google Sales Pitch

For my reseach project I wanted to share something that I really enjoy with the rest of the class. But mouch more than what I enjoy I wanted to share some helpful things I know about Google.

I put together a small interactive Flash website, which was almost more appealing in class than the information was.

you can find the presentation at http://shortlinks.nickiwalter.com/googlegoodies

What about Shelly...

in high school I had two close female friends. We were all close... but it was never all three at the same time. One person was always on the out side looking in.

Fast foward to a moment in college where things has fallen down around us as one girl broke up with her boyfriend, we will call her Shelly. And the other girl started dating him, lets call this girl Ashley.

Ashley and the boy dated from 6 months or so and I ended up on that side of the line. But I was still friendly with Shelly. Shelly and I were eating lunch one day when she told be she had been sleeping with Boy all summer.

And then the shit hit the fan. And I was in the middle.

One Thursday night I was closing at work and came home to the following MySpace message from Shelly:

i want you to know that i am completely tired of you pretending to be my friend and when i call you out on not being my friend you make up some bull shit excuse. you start too much drama.

And I never talked to her again. That was September of 2006.

I sometimes think about what I would have done differently. The whole things was a mess.

What if I had landed on the other side of the line with Shelly and her friends instead of Ashley and the Boy.

Ashley and the boy are still together. They have a baby. And Ashley truly is my best friend. So I know that I did what I did because this is where I want to be. But sometimes I miss Shelly. But the bridge is long burnt. And Ashley still has Shelly issues ... and can you blame her?

I wonder if I would still be with Ben if I had stayed with Shelly.

Would Shelly accept my friend request now.

I feel there is this alternitve reality where Shelly and I worked things out. Where I said something in reply to the MySpace message... where I wasn't proud and neither was she. Where I probably lose Ashley and the Boy because no matter this reality or the other I don't think I could have been friends with both.

Now this story doesn't really answer the question the assignment asked.

If I had a completely separate life I would be taller, skinnier, richer, smarter. But then I wouldn't be me and I like me.

An Epic Holiday

I want to start by saying it is my FAVORITE week of the year!!! My Birthday, thanksgiving, and Black Friday. All in one week. It is my LOVE.

My birthday has always been huge for me. When I was in high school I had to have my birthday party after my birthday because of Thanksgiving. So there was usally two weeks between my Birthday and my party. Thus creating the Two Weeks of Nicki.

The two weeks of Nicki has stood the test of time and still gets talked about around my birthday. And during the two weeks of Nicki - I rule all. :)

So I guess I told you that story to tell you that I have already sorta made a holiday out of my birthday. A day to celebrate me sounds very vapid.... and even more so to

tell you it is one of my favorite holidays. But my family and friend put up with me... but everyone should love thier birthday as much as I do!!!

I feel there should be more time off once you hit the work force. So my holiday would most definitely require a day off. It would be a casual holiday. One full of friends and not scheduled family time. Not like Christmas dinner. More like labor day.

My holiday would be Awesome Day. A day to celebrate your Awesomeness and the Awesomeness of others.

Funnyness on the web

So funny it just got picked up for a show cbs

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays

Funny and insanely, overwhelmingly cute...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxdPYCc_1mU&feature=related

For the nerd in us all

http://www.designer-daily.com/songs-in-code-the-latest-meme-on-twitter-3056

What if tacos were fat free?

What if

What if I had a clean house.

What if I liked to hang out more with my friends.

What if the Colts win the Super Bowl again?

What if they didn't call them "World Champions"... or the World Series.

What if I moved from Indy.

What if I worked at a Magazine.

What if I didn't like Coke a Cola.

What if I wasn't allergic to myself sometimes.

What if I quit smoking.

What if I miss smoking sometimes.

What if I didn't wait til the last moment to do something.

What if I am not as good as I think I am.

What if Costco hadn't taken back the Wii.

What if Ben wants the cats in a break up.

What if my sister is making huge mistakes in her life.

What if you give a mouse a muffin.

What if I wasn't worried about driving places and just went.

What if my mom wins a ton of money in Vegas :)

(So)What if I enjoy staying at home with Ben instead of going out.

What if I cannot make it until loan money.

What if I want to be a teacher.

What if I want a better grad school than IUPUI.

What if I boycott school because of parking.... seriously I might.

What if Sanders had switched to Google Apps.

What if I don't get any time to relax before my full time job.

What if Ben is still months away from a full time job.

What if I have to look for a job after school.... that would suck.

What if I could be a bank robber.... and get away with it.

What if money wasn't important.

What if i could return all my post-its at Office Max for like 50 bucks.

What if this were easy for me. Would that mean I am more creative?

What if tacos were fat free.

What if electric cars would be standard in my lifetime.

What will people think about us in the history books?

What if everyone cared about being green?

What if it is only a matter of time before the world dies. All at once ala the dinosaurs.

What if I am a total bitch to my people but no one will tell me.

What if I wasn't so self centered.

What if I didn't whine so much.

What if I didn't waste HOURS watching NCIS

What if everyone could problem solve like me.

What if no one likes my capstone idea.

What if I cannot come up with anything good.

What if I wasn't so hateful.

What if I stay here an never advance.

What if I don't learn this HTML 5 crap.

What if I just absorb information and don't ever learn it.

What if I liked children.

What if I spent my time more productively

What if I were more outgoing.

What does it say about my world that all I can think about is myself....

blank ideas

I was less than interested in the class this week. But then again I am less than interested in school this semester sooooo... just ignore my apathy.

When I paired up with Les I thought it was very interesting when I told Les about myself I talked about the present. I live with my boyfriend. I have two cats. I love my major and my job... most days. And Les told me all about his past. My mom is a single parent. I used to be in a gang. I wanted to be a policeman.

I responded with I could tell you that my parents are divorced... but at this point that no longer affects me... I mean it does.... but it is no longer a central theme in my life. I was telling Les about my future and he was telling me about his past. Both parts of our lives we felt most defined us.

I am defined by my future. I will tell you about my present.

It was much easier to define myself with the sheet of paper. I know me. I guess I went generic with the fortune teller. A lot of other people also made one. I don't know it just seamed to fit for me. Especially the blank part. I feel as though I am blank right now. The whole world to write all over me. I don't know what gets to be in my future yet.

me

Inspired to... take the day off

So today in class we talked about inspiration. How you find it... how you lose it... how you use it....

I don't feel very inspired. From the sound of class a lot of people seam to feel this way. I guess that makes me feel better.

I think I need to purge a lot of the things in my life. All of the junk I have collected in my house. I would like to have my office back which right now is over taken with crap.... like the rest of my house. I want to clean and throw away. I need to get rid of a lot of crappy feelings within my friendships too.

But honestly I think I am just projecting my feeling of "blah" onto those things. I don't think I will suddenly feel better once my house is clean... once my friendships are ... fixed. I say "... fixed" because at this moment I don't know what that means... fixed is not back to where we were I know that much. But I guess I should have that conversation here when I have had it with her yet.

I wounder if I had all the free time in the world what would I create. I wish I had the desire to create... but right now ... I don't have anything I want to do... well that I should already be doing. I want to redesign my portfolio.... but I gotta do that anyways.

I think if I had all the free time in the world I would learn instead of create right now. There are things that I feel I should be leaving college with that I am not. I suppose when I am layed up in bed this break I will have the opportunity to read and learn. What if I just want to learn because I know creatively I don't really have anything to offer myself. Who knows it is not like I have time to figure that out right now anyways....

Hoosiers Helping Hoosiers

As a designer it was hard for me to think of a way that I can help the world. I do projects. It is kinda all I do. Work. School.

I finally decided I do need to be assigned a project to be a part of something. I decided to make some flyers to put around campus promoting a food drive for Hoosiers Helping Hoosiers.

I went to the website and created a page based on the information provided. I don't know what I have to do to approve hanging things on campus. But I think it is a worthy cause with the job market the way it is right now. A nice Thanksgiving meal is something that a lot of people take for granted. I know I do. Some years I have gone 3 different place for Thanksgiving.

My contribution is not a lot and I know that. But hopefully if I can inspired other people to get involved... then every little bit helps.

So use some of you free pages from IUPUI and print a few of these flyers. Hang them up at work. Leave them in your classrooms. Make people aware.

And even if you can't get to one of these locations... They are donating everything to Gleaners. As I am sure many other people are doing too.

Check out the website for a list of items they would like to see. I think the next time I am at the grocery I am going to spend 10 bucks on helping someone else have a great Thanksgiving. I hope that you do too!

http://www.hoosiershelpinghoosiers.org/dpp/community/drive_to_live/ColtsFoodDrive_2945826

http://www.nickiwalter.com/seeingsideways/helpinghoosiersbw.pdf

PSW = Bliss

How do I sum up my week? I am still exhausted from the traveling. I feel scattered and messy. But I suppose I always feel that way.

I used my time from class last week to pack since I was leaving my house at 3am Tuesday morning and I had yet to do so. I doesn't take much to make me happy or get excited. My bliss on a daliy basis can come from a song on my itunes, finishing a project, starting a project, a tv show... I try to do the things I enjoy doing. That being said since I had such a busy week I never really took the 3 hours and did something just to make myself happy. I enjoyed my week a ton. I learned soooo much, I won some money (I came home with more than I was expecting, but less than I took out), I took some pictures, I visited my favorite city, I reveled in my geek. So maybe the whole week was mine. It isn't often that I get to geek out with out feeling as though I should be doing something else.

I do plan on spending the this evening blissing out. It is my first night where I don't have to do something. I am going to work on some homework.... but I will probably paint my nails and go to target. That will be fun.

It is funny the week I go to Photoshop World you ask me to break the rules in Photoshop. I just learned all new rules. Well not really rules... but things that make what you do eaiser.

I think my favorite class was the one on Smart Objects. Super cool stuff happening there. Not only can you scale your pictures and bring in vectors but the work like a template. There is sooo much there to explore. You can also now apply filters that you can edit after the fact. Effects on type that is still editable!! I could go on and on...

I have sat and thought about breaking the rules of Photoshop and I have decided I don't want to. I could make you an image with the filter and drop shadows set to auto... and it would suck.... and I would be breaking the rules. I could upscale an image or transform some type... but that has already been done.

What I want to do: I want to break the rules of this assignment and follow some of the new 'rules' I learned this week at Photoshop World.

More than meets the eye

So I spent all week trying to figure out what to do... I had some ideas.... but nothing that really struck me as creative or helpful. And I have decided that my projects should fall under one of the two categories.

I could have wrote emotions on a rose... it has layer... but that is kinda lame. How many times can that be done.

The idea I kept coming back to was I should edit a photo inn Photoshop. A photo that may look nice to begin with but I could make better. But I felt like this was a cop-out. I can do that any day of the week... What makes that special. Nothing.

I had decided I was just going to sit this one out, because I had nothing and I didn't want to cheapen the project. But then the timely New Media inspiration hit at about 9am today.

And I still am not happy about the choice I feel like I should have done better... but...

I have created a photoshop action. This action plays with the contrast of an image's color channels giving a color effect.

Something that I am especially happy about with my very first action is the ability to see what is going on, make decisions and have most of them be editable after the action is over.

I am going to let everyone download my action. Play with it on your own images!

Click on the image below for full sized action fun!

http://www.nickiwalter.com/seeingsideways/seeingsideways.atn

I am Onion too

I was surprized in class to hear that with many people their fear was death. I fear death... well what happens after death and if not your death then how to coupe with the death of someone you love... just like everyone else. But it is not what I fear most... maybe if I let myself think about it I would... but there is no sense in worrying about all that now.

I do however fear the future. I fear that the actions I am taking now are adversely effecting my future.

While class was about fear it was not I guess what I should be reflecting on as I have an ominous project that I must figure out.

See if you can do something that is more than it first appears to be

Most everything is more than it first appears to be. First impressions are typically shallow. People judge...

I am more than I first appear to be.

I am messy... I guess that makes me less than appear to be.

Some people who know me say I am social.... I think I just talk too much.

I do not like to talk to people who I perceive as not as smart as me... But I am sure you are smart. Just not smart in the areas I have interest in.

I don't think I am very creative.

My best friend is Ben. This in probably not what my "best friend" would want to hear.

I find web tools that make my life easier to combat that chaos that is my house and my life.

So what is anyone. Who are you?

No idea what to do... hopefully I will find inspiration soon.

Fear and the pizza box.

I knew missing class would be hard. I guess I didn't realize how hard. It sucks totally missing out on the fear exercise because it sounds like the class really bonded and saw things in a new way. I feel like I needed that class.

On the bright side reading the blog and talking to some people in the class I found an instant connection to fear and the pizza box. And maybe I took this one too literally but it was truly a fear right in front of me. Now the question is how to visualize this fear. How to make the fear something creative? This is the question that I struggled with all week.

My fear is that I spend too much... and that I am digging a whole I will not be easily able to get out of. So again how do I visualive my fear. How do I make it tanagable? I could take what I have spent in the last month and turn that number into change. In the last month I have spent eight thousand and ninety quarters. Now that incules money I have to and had to spend. Books, rent, bills, I joined the gym, I got a hair cut, was able to afford to go out with friends... I guess that funny thing is I don't even know what I spent all the money on.

But I can show you. And along with fear of myself is fear of sharing and fear of letting my negative aspects out there for all to see.... So the way I choose to visualize my fear is in the pdf below.

http://www.nickiwalter.com/seeingsideways/fearandpizza.pdf

Childhood projects

When we were laying in the grass looking up at the clouds it reminded me of childhood. Of carefree days before school and work and life. But how do you capture carefree?

I had my camera.... I took a couple of pictures... but pictures caputed what I saw that day and not what I felt.

I thought about what would feel young and carefree. My final idea - a shoebox diarama capturing the clouds. I took the image in my head of the perfect day. It was breezy, with big white cloulds making picutes of thir own in the sky.

First Day of Class

I was surprised at how few people I recognized in the seeing sideways class today. Not that I am social person... but I have been having classes with the same people for years now. I have meet briefly just a handful of peers in today's class.

I have a feeling this class is going to be very hard for me. I have a sheep mentality through and though. Write a recap... I write a recap. Make a circle... I make a circle. I will never for many reason be the person that sits in the middle of the room.

I took this class because I often feel as though I am not as creative as I should be. I have to learn how to get past my boring ideas if I want to continue to succeed in my career.

Laying in the grass was interesting.... I am glad we have two weeks on the "Sky's the Limit" Assignment. I feel so very lost on this one.