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daveymoo
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Name: David
Gender: Male
Interests: Illustration, photography, painting, photoshop, filming, editing and improv-ing; creative energies of all kinds. An authentic life.
Expertise: Diplomacy
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Graphic Design
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Detective Dave
Member Since:
11/25/2004
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|  Summerti.
Oh Xanga. Oh the memories. One day I will save and scrapbook you. Maybe this summer?
I never thought I could have too much of a good smoothie, but I think I did. I brought my newfangled professional smoothie maker (a.k.a. blender) to small group tonight, and we served a lot of sugary fruits, yogurt and frozen stuffs. I hope I don't get sick of smoothies. That would be so sad. Plus I need to blend my money's worth out of this bad boy.
I'm trying to work out several things this summer. I definitely want to finish the Bible. It frustrates me that I haven't worked through it already, especially since I feel so much of my Sunday School lessons would benefit. (I teach the high school class at my home sweet home church.) And I want to become a good Sunday School teacher, that's next on the list. Then I think this is the season that we finally get the Spoons for Forks handbook written, printed and bound. That will be amazing if that project comes together.
My roommate is moving out in t-minus 4 days but there's not another lined up for the lease yet. Instead of scurrying around to fill the spot, I've decided to just keep the apartment to myself for a couple of months this summer. The way this all transpired is a little odd, but I think it will be a real blessing. Por exemplo, my easel and canvas that was once cramped behind the door of my bedroom is going out in the living room...my new studio. The whole place is getting a thorough spring cleaning and I get to move in some more of my things from home including a drafting table and stereo. So there are some more summerti goals.
And then there's time management. I'm getting in the habit of recording what I do when to see just where all the time goes. And Xanga is not the best investment, but I'll try to keep this up too. I'm afraid I have too many goals, which roughly translates for wishful thinking for the summer. That also makes me sad, but maybe by the next post I'll have figured out what captivates me.
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|  Anatomy of a Facebook Profile, or, Ill Effects from a Mild Case of Narcissism
This is me editing my facebook photo for the evening. As a trained graphic artist/perfectionist I can't just let my profile picture be without a little photoshopping. And this was so entertaining for me I decided to post the step-by-step process just in case someone might appreciate the effort.
This is the pic I choose from my latest facebook photo shoot. I thought the expression was great, even if the photo itself was blurry:
I took this photo in the hallway of my parent's timeshare in Florida. This was actually a carpet print—not wallpaper—so the pose is me lying down looking up at the camera. I shot the picture myself, holding it an arm's length away. The result is a bit blurry, but I still like it a lot. (This carpet reminded me of the wallpaper print in Garden State.)
I framed the photo in a white border in photoshop and dropped in the drop shadow. From there I used auto-levels to get the best lights and darks, whitened my teeth and did some minor color balancing:
I posted the profile, but after a couple days I thought I could touch it up a bit. . . Before I left the timeshare I had taken a still photo of just the carpet:
I erased the carpet pattern around my head and placed the carpet underneath.
It was an improvement, but it looked like my photo was suffering from a bad green screen syndrome (i.e. the combination of foreground and background not looking natural). I decided to clean it up a little, starting with creating a anchor point on my shoulder that could be in focus while the rest of my body looked to be in motion.
It's hard to explain, but easier to see. With a clear background and a blurry subject, the photo looked awkward, so I decided to borrow an element from another photo I had taken with better clarity. By cutting and pasting the clearer version of my shoulder over the image and blending it, I eased the tension between foreground and background clarity. If you compare this with previous photo you can see my shoulder shifted slightly.
There was one more thing I needed to do though—to make this look like a single photo and not a computer generated image:
So I added a "flash." I lightened a circular region over my face and the background to create a spotlight effect where the flash would likely be. I fixed shadows to be more accurate for a flash, and voilá!—my facebook pic.
Tune in next time when I dismantle an entire 747 with the clone/stamp tool.
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| Good Charlotte (12 Days of Christmas)
I'd planned a crazy 12-straight xanga entries for the Christmas season before I ran out of things to talk about. But that's ok, because vacations can still be good without rock-climbing, backpacking adventures to report. We've secured an ant-free room in the condo, so that's kinda exciting. . .
I wish it was warm enough to swim. For me, anyway. There's been a fair share of northerners swimming since we arrived on Saturday, but it has yet to break 70. As far as other vacation plans, all I've thought about adding to our holiday agenda was a trip to one of the many pirate-themed miniature golf courses. Really, I was just hoping to get away from it all. Soak up the sun. Sleep-in. Things have been a little tense though. It’s hard to give each other space in a 200 square ft. efficiency, so when one person is watching television, we’re all watching television. And we will be watching the food network, because that’s mom’s must see TV. Actually, it’s a toss-up between Food and Home & Gardens. I learned how to properly pit an olive and redesign my bathroom for under $25,000 all in one night! But sarcasm aside, Good Eats is a really good show. I don’t care for Rachel Ray much.
We’ve done a lot of driving on this trip and I’m tired of being a passenger. Last night was the exception though. We traveled to the theaters to see Charlotte’s Web! It’s a great film, family-friendly and a tear-jerker. It also had some profound messages about miracles, promises and friendship.
Afterward, at Pollo Tropical—my first Pollo Tropical experience—they played Bailimos over the restaurant speakers. And I miss Josh Franklin.
We dance!
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| ?! (12 Days of Christmas)
Our timeshare has ants. Not cool. But we drove over to Rob and Laura's for a good-eatin' Christmas Eve celebration. I think eggnog is on the way.
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| There's a Good Title Here, Somewhere (12 Days of Christmas)
My dad gets an unreal sense of satisfaction by monitoring his gas mileage. He often comments on the mpg average, even if it's only gone up by a tenth of a gallon (this is shown on the digital display for real-time results). The rest of the conversation centers around the number of other Ford Fusions on the road, the standing of the Ford company, the idiot (my words) who's tailgating us or any car going over 80 m.p.h./semi-truck going over 75 m.p.h. Haven't really hit upon the deep conversation on our road trip yet.
You can also count at least one person being asleep at all times and one of five Sufjan Stevens Christmas EPs playing in the six-disc CD changer. My mom really likes Sufjan now, which makes me happy. We'll be listening to Illinoise soon.
I'm continuing my tradition of Christmas cards (2nd year), though I hadn't planned on it until just recently. Things simply came together with a rare all-inclusive family photo at Thanksgiving and dad's determination to send his out Moore family Christmas cards before Christmas, for the first time ever. Yes, it's been a season of miracles.
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