For my interior Design Major, I am required to have an internship before I graduate; technically I can walk, and then complete my internship, but I have been looking all over Little Rock for one. I am wanting to Intern at an Architecture Firm, but with the job market the way it is, it makes it a little bit harder to find a job like that. So, I had an interview with Polk, Stanely, Rowland, Curzon, Porter architects, and I was very excited about this interview. They said that they didn’t have enough work to have an intern, but they offered to still have an interview… which is good practice, and they would look over my portfolio and give me some pointers.
Now, making my portfolio was not a very easy task mainly because I didn’t have any good ones to look at as reference. The ones my teacher had were ones that students left behind… I don’t know how they got jobs leaving their portfolios at school; oh well, needless to say there were not good ones none in the right format etc. For my portfolio, I had to have an actual porfolio book that is at least 11×17. We were to display our work in it, and most people just take pictures of their boards and art and literally tape or glue them down on paper. They also take “nice” paper and put that on the pages to make it look nice. The only problem is that all of those projects ended up looking like a scrapbook rather than a portfolio. So, I had a lot of work to do to avoid the scrap book look. Grant was very understanding about the whole me wrecking the apartment and stressing over this whole project. It is a scary thought to think that a portfolio could be the difference in your getting hired or not. It is also very hard picking out which pieces to include and which ones to leave out.
The day before my interview my acutal portfolio book came in, and it was the wrong one, so I had to find a last minute different one to work just for this interview. I wasn’t very happy about it, but there was only so much I could do. Then I went and had my interview, it went great. The interior Designer on staff there was so nice and great, but they still didn’t have work for an intern. One of the partners, Mr. Stanely wanted to meet me, but he was in a meeting before and after my meeting, so that was a bummer. The only disappointing thing is that they couldn’t tell me how to improve my portfolio. I was hoping that they would butcher it so that it would evntually after a lot of modification turn out amazing, but they couldn’t tell me anything to change which is good and bad.
So now, I still don’t have an internship, but I have a semi completed portfolio that still needs some tweaking,but I have one interview under my belt which is a plus. Also, making a portfolio is a requirement one of my classes so it is nice to think that I am ahead in that aspect at least.
Right before our trip to Austin was Grant’s Birthday. I eventually decided to get him a 24” Flat Screen monitor since he always used mine, and there was a pretty good deal on a dell one. Well, once we each had our own Monitors, there wasn’t much room to have duel monitors on a desk that two people share. Grant and I had been talking a while about getting a second desk since the desk that we had was one from Ikea which we were both completely satisfied with it, but it definitely got crowded. When we first got married, it was my desk with some of Grant’s things on it, but once he got his desktop it became his. Now I wasn’t against this, it was more of an observation than anything. I didn’t HAVE to have a desk, I just used the kitchen table, but constantly having to clear off the stuff I was working on for each meal was a little frustrating. Needless to say, we decided it was time for a new desk. Luckily by the time we decided this, it was almost time to go to Austin for Fall break. We knew we wanted the same desk that I already had but with a different wood veneer, but this desk brand new was $85 with a $25 glass top. So, we didn’t know if that was money we should really be spending right now. I was randomly looking at the Austin Carigslist since it has so much more stuff than the little rock one, and I found the exact desk that we were looking for used for $40. So once Grant got home from work I asked him about it, and we contacted the guy! He had not yet sold the desk and was an awesome seller.
While in Austin, Grant and Simon went and picked up the desk from the seller, and later that day I went to Ikea with Wilson and got the glass top which had gone up in price, but still cheaper than having a top custom made. So, we were very excited that we saved $40 on this desk! Woot! We ended up bringing a lot of Tanya’s stuff to Austin including her bike, so, we just strapped the desk (taken apart) on the bike rack. Everything worked well, and we eventually set up the desk. Now our apartment in Searcy is very little, and our only goal is for everything to fit since making it look pretty isn’t the highest thing on our priority list, but here are some pictures of the desks.
While in Austin, Grant and Simon went and picked up the desk from the seller, and later that day I went to Ikea with Wilson and got the glass top which had gone up in price, but still cheaper than having a top custom made. So, we were very excited that we saved $40 on this desk! Woot! We ended up bringing a lot of Tanya’s stuff to Austin including her bike, so, we just strapped the desk (taken apart) on the bike rack. Everything worked well, and we eventually set up the desk. Now our apartment in Searcy is very little, and our only goal is for everything to fit since making it look pretty isn’t the highest thing on our priority list, but here are some pictures of the desks.
Here is my desk after Grant removed literally 96% of the stuff on the desk… his stuff. We both hadn’t realized that so much was his, and we were laughing so hard since he had literally taken over my desk and made it his own. Sorry about how messy it is here, but we just wanted to post the pictures, and desks aren’t ALWAYS clean.
Here is a picture of Grant’s new desk. you can see the lighter color wood and the glass top. His desk also looks messy,but like I said we weren’t going for picture perfect here.
Here again you can see his set up of his laptop with sitting next to his desk… maybe this is as close to dual monitors that he can achieve right now lol.
Here is where the problems have also began- chairs! I had a nice office Chair and so did he, but before we didn’t have two desks so there was no point in having two chairs, so Simon and Austin were nice enough to house the other chair since they had the room. Well, right before we bought the new desk, Grant’s chair broke! so, we have been sharing my chair and this papasaun chair stool with an extra cushion and two pillows… not the safest thing. So, everytime one of us is alone we are always claiming the chair.
Here is the beloved and much coveted chair. So Grant and I have been looking a different used desk chairs, but most are too over priced, and we don’t NEED one right now.
As some of you may have heard already, University of Central Arkansas or UCA where I attend had a school shooting yesterday(Sunday). I was not on campus since it was a Sunday, and I am not exactly sure what happened, but students on campus were told to stay in their dorms and apartments. There was a shooting where two students were killed, I don’t know either of them, but I am praying for their families; four suspects are in custody. So far all we know is that classes are canceled this Monday, and please just pray that everything gets worked out. May God bless you all.
So as many of you know, Simon, Grant, Julia, and I went to Austin for our Fall Break. This is a first for Harding, so it made it a lot of fun. We left for Austin on Thursday afternoon, and were there until Sunday afternoon! We thrifted a whole lot, went to Mueller to see a Wallace and grommet movie and the parks of course!!!! OH, and we went and saw Tanya and Wilson’s beautiful new rowhouse. I helped them with some of the design of the inside,but nothing major. So here are some of the few pictures that we acutally took while in Austin!Here is Simon pushing Mia around… I guess she was getting tired of moving the toy herself and sitting backwards is soo much cooler!
The neighborhood kids were very nice, but always wanting attention. Here is Tyrek showing off his mad climbing skills.
Simon supervising the play time making sure everyone shares… and he think
Mia riding all by herself.
Mia drawing some beautiful pictures.
Shoes are so much cooler than chalk!
When Simon and Grant first came out to watch Mia play outside, all the kids came running to come play since they were all wanting attention.
When Mia found out that Simon and Grant would watch and play with her outside she started to gather her chalk. It didn’t matter that they were spilling out of her green bucket or that she had multiples of every color… she had ALL her chalk with her-enough said.
Julia helping Mia answer the phone… Mia would take a phone, and the rest of us would call it to talk to her, but she kept accidentally hanging up on us.
Mia talking with Simon on the phone.
Mia in her PJs playing in the dining room where Simon’s bed was.
Julia helping Mia again with the phone.
Ally Looking scared!
Ally looking nervous because of Grant’s creepy expression.
Ally Happy-ish with Grant.Here’s the rules:
Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your blog along with these instructions.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
Tag five other people to do the same.
from object-oriented software engineering
“In addition, skills in plumbing, wiring, and roofing are needed to build a three-bedroom home, and inspections are essential.”
So this is what grant pays Harding for… such amazing knowledge!!! :p
I tag Jill Robertson
Warning: I am horrible at English grammar and I am A.D.D with my writing, so HA!
Well we now have a new computer. It is frikin awesome! I like it at least. So the dirty specs of the computer. Well I have some pictures of the components of my computer for those of you who are visual and nerds. So here it goes.
Just joking… before I get to that, I have to tell you why we got this computer seeing as how we both have a laptop each. Well my laptop is definitely dated. Still works but not for CAD or games really. Jessica’s laptop does all that, but while she is as school I can’t be doing any work with CAD (I’m taking CAD class for anybody that is lost). Also I’ve been dreaming of getting a desktop up again, because laptops are cool but just something about a desktop makes you feel all soft,warm and fuzzy inside. I’ve been wanting to get a raid 5 server going as well for security of pictures and other files I have. My friend Dan has a raid 5 and I’m jealous. Also I like to computer game when I have the chance. I’m probably leaving some things out but awww well.
OK! so, here are some pictures of my new powersupply. It is a Corsair 750 watt. You may say “oh my gosh he doesn’t need that big of a powersupply.” I’ll agree with you as of right now. I don’t need it but I would rather have it then to little. I had a powersupply from my old desktop, but I ruined it running a 220watt peltier on it and also the rest of my computer. It works but just not right. It didn’t regulate the power and keep a good enough 12volt line. So here is the beauty that stole my heart. It can run much more than I need but also know that I will probably be upgrading in the future and also if i’m lucky getting a how lot of harddrives. yummy.
As you can see, this only has one rail. Most of the newer powersupplies have more than one rail for safety concerns but it’s not 100% right. Also a lot of them advertise that they have say 4 rails but in truth they fibbed. (read hardcore reviews and you will see the truth) If you do have the multirail powersupplies most likely you have only a certain amount of amperage you can pull through certain powerconnectors. With one rail it all comes from one source and no worries. I’m probably no making sense but trust me, it makes sense in my head. haha
This is my beauty of a processor. It is a AMD X2 BE2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz AM2 dual-Core processor that I got for 25$ shipped. Awesome deal!!!
Since my processor was OEM it did not come with a heatsink. So I did some research and ended up with this heatsink. It has a 92mm fan and it keeps my processor nice and cool for probably the best price for that type of heatsink.
The motherboard I got was an ASUS M3A78-T. There are some nice things with this motherboard. First it can handle the processor I got which is a AM2 (dual core) and it can also handle the newer quad core (AM2+). So if I decide to upgrade to a quadcore then I am able to. Also it has the newest chipset out from amd/ati, the 790gx. It also has onboard video (HD3300 video card chip) with sideport ddr3(extra memory for the video card). It has 5 serial ata for later raid setup and also an external serial ata for any external drive that I may own in future. Just a typical good mother board.
My brother-in-law (weird cause he was always known as friend dan not brother-in-law… haha NICE!) well anyways he hooked me up with some ram for the computer. He sent me 2.5gigs woot for free. and a 200 gig harddrive for a longterm*cough* borrow. You’ll get it back. I’m thinking of getting some ram in the future. It’s so cheap these days.
So onto the harddrive huh? Well I was using my 120 gig old western digital that i have banged around too much and it was sLOWWWww!!! but I had a computer up and running a day before dan’s shipment arrived. I had to borrow a stick of ram from a local friend for the night but I got the computer up and running. As I was saying about my harddrive it was messed up. So I figured gosh i want some space to dual boot windows and linux and then some space. So I bought a 1TB western digital. And I didn’t get that crazy of a deal on it at all cause i wanted a good one. the 7200.11 not the older 7200.10 that you usually see crazy rebates with. Well it is also serial ata and not just ide like the 120gig. So let me just say GLORIOUS amount of harddrive space. I also figured I could down size my main Operating systems harddrive and put this 1TB to the raid system if i get a couple others. So right now I have about 150 gigs to windows then 150 gigs to ubuntu and the rest is just a stuff drive. What stinks is the fact that after the format of the drive there is only about 930gigs of space. I guess I can handle that. haha.
A picture for good measure.
Well I was bummed about the video card that was onboard on the motherboard. I mean I don’t expect much from onboard cards, but I heard praise about this one. Well long story short is I found out all the praise was from people with monitors smaller than 24″. Well luckily we own a 24″ wide screen lcd. The only problem with that is whatever video card you have needs to have a lot of memory on it and the onboard didn’t. I believe it would be great for anyone that has a 22″ or less but for the amount of area on a 24″ monitor it needs a lot of memory to render all of it. I was getting page tearing even on my own blog site with it loading the pictures and the dark background. So I guess I wasn’t satisfied with the onboard video and it really bummed me cause I expected the onboard video to surely be enough. Well It wasn’t really esp for a video game I play with a friend from back home when I have some extra free time. So I researched probably two whole days, Jessica can vouche for me and she was probably feeling left out in life cause I just felt I had to find the best thing for what I needed. I ended up wit
h a Sapphire Radeon HD4850 with 1gig of ram on the videocard. If you have a 22″ or less that is way over kill but if your like me, you will need the extra ram. That pushed the price up but man the video is amazing! I’m am reallllllly pleased with it. I played a video game “Crysis” with all the settings to high and a resolution of 1900×1200 with smooth playing. This video card is awesome!!!
I have never had a wireless mouse or keyboard. Well now I do. Jessica and I watch some movies everynow and then and it is so annoying to always have to get up if we want to progress through the movie or even pause it. It is also very clean looking on the desk without the cables. I also got the keyboard and mouse on sale with a rebate. sweeet.
So here are some pictures of my actual computer with everything in it. If your wondering abotu the rust looking area in the back part of the case… welll… that is rust. Let’s jsut say, never put a chevette heater core in your computer case that might leak water in the bottom of your case. poo on that.
This is my video card.
Ram and processor heatsink
Powersupply
Well if you actually understood me through my horrible grammer and spaz thinking.. I’m not reading over this to correct anything and I’m going to sleep right now. I’m tired.. night. Also this is for you wilson for the comment you left.. hope your doing well