Big Ten Network Out West

I think I'm more excited than Tracy, but having Big Ten Network is a huge plus when we're so far from home. This morning I'm watching the Gophers cling to a 31-30 halftime lead against the Hoosiers after Indiana hit a shot from half court.

We get our cable and Internet through Verizon, and we're pretty happy about the service so far. It seems we get almost every major cable network, including Versus so I can get my hockey fix. What's great about sports here is the hoops game will be over by 11 and I'll still have a full day to get some stuff done around the apartment.

Today the slate includes organizing the garage and finishing up some design work for a second poster I'm working on for KTM. I'll post both once I finish up tomorrow. Deadlines and all, I guess that means not much has changed from the publishing world. The neat thing about this project is I've saved the company $20,000 and two weeks waiting for changes to be made to the poster through our agency. That, my friends, is what we call job security and keeping yourself valuable to a company in the toughest of times. I think I've saved the company well over $150,000 this year using my design skills.

And that is exactly why I'm working on setting up Vebe Visual as a freelance side job. There's a lot of money in design and I actually think I'm pretty good at it. You can be the judge tomorrow, but with no professional training and all self-taught, I'd say I'm pretty good at it based on past experiences with art directors at the magazines. For now, check out my photoshop skills correcting a pretty poor studio shot and making it poster worthy. The toughest part was photoshoping in realistic shadows. Once again, more or less self taught.

Notice the hot spots on the front fender and bodywork were eliminated from the original and it's now on a truly white background like it should be.