Wednesday, April 22, 2009

2-Miles: Earth Day

With Biggest Loser season 7 now winding down to the end, it seems like Tara can't loose a challenge and will take this thing to the end. With that said, I think people have now become very health conscious and the whole world is hype up on losing weight.

This past Wednesday my colleagues decided to start a 2 mile challenge. That is, the folks who decided to join have to walk 2 miles a day, seven days a week. These two miles were imposed to motivate folks to step out of their daily life and comfort zone. With summer coming it seemed like a good idea. I typically run 3 miles four days a week and this seemed like the perfect thing to get me out of the house every day instead. My wife has decided to join me and we use the time to wind out the day and stroll down the neighborhood and beach.

I started thinking that there are so many different things that we observed on our daily life and as such, I decided to document in this blog the things I come out at me as different during my two miles.

Happy Earth Day 2009As a celebration today being Earth Day, I started noticing while walking on the beach, that sometimes we disrespect our planet and our fellow cohabitants by polluting and trashing our share space on this Earth. We started our walk this evening a few minutes past 6 and as the sun started to set and the beach started to become more desolate, I notice the garbage people leave behind. The photo here depicts a bottle cap left behind from a sprite bottle. The bottle was gone, but the cap remained. So the people having this drink decided that they would pick up the bottle and leave a cap behind. Something this small could easily be picked up and swallow by one of the many dogs that are walked thereby leading to indigestion, or worse, death.

The bottom line is that there are so many things that we can do to change ourselves and our environment. It is the little things and details that set us apart. Do your part and start picking up after yourself. That 10 seconds it takes to pick a bottle cap can save our planet and a life.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

National Association of Photoshop Professionals

Three jobs and four years ago, my boss gave me a copy of Photoshop User Magazine. It was full of tutorials, opinions, and tips and tricks for Photoshop. At this point I had just started using Photoshop. Previously I had use the Corel suite of products and had picked up the GIMP, a free Photoshop want to be piece of software.

A year went by and I had forgotten how useful the magazine had been. After all I did not have a subscription and was relying on my boss to toss the magazine my way from time to time.

Recently, my employer suggested that we all pick out a few magazines to see what other publishers did and see if we could pick a thing or to to introduce onto our magazines. Being in the graphic design business, I selected very appropriately Photoshop User Magazine. I didn't realize at the time that this was the magazine I had been reading a few years back, but turns out that NAAP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) has very good SEO and as such off to subscribe I went.

Two weeks went by and I received my NAAP membership. What gives? I subscribed to Photoshop User Magazine and all of the sudden I received a huge membership package to NAAP. I didn't realize that my subscription came with a membership. At first I thought it was a scam, I was very leary. If you know me, you know that my first reaction to everything is that it is some sort of scam. Turns out it is not a scam.

I logged in to the NAAP site, after 30 seconds of trying to figure out how to register as a first time visitor, I realized that my NAAP member number is my username and password. I proceed ahead and started to check out some of the tutorials. Since I been playing with graphic/photo editing software for over 10 years now, everything seemed like a waste of time. Then I clicked on to tips and tricks and all of the sudden the value of this "free" membership became a full blown, jump up and down, exciting. I can tell you that the magazine so far is great, but is nothing compare to the site. They have so many helpful tips and have explore the nook and crannies of Photoshop. I have been on the site for 30 minutes now and have already learned about five features that I never knew existed.

The bottom line is that if you are a graphic designer, web designer, or a mere Photoshop hobbyist you can't afford not to become a NAAP member. The membership is $99 ducats and this will be the best one hundred bucks you would have spend. There is so much to be learn from this site that it is not available in the free space. Trust me, I'm just a NAAP member and not affiliated with them. Hell, they don't even offer a referral program, but I think it is well worth it.

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