Happy April Fools!!!!

Well time for an update.  I got an acceptance letter from the Herron School of Art & Design at IUPUI campus in Indianapolis. I am one of six candidates they have selected for the program.  Good news!!!   Now I don’t feel so uncertain of the future.   Of course the big decision now is this the program I want?

Some of my goals are to work at an IT company say Google leading in visual design AND to become a tenure track university professor.  Also to do creative volunteer work for the greater community.  I believe Herron’s MFA program will provide those desires.  Herron’s program is a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Communication focusing on what they call Design Leadership.   I like Herron because their MFA program prepares you for both academic and a working professional track.   You can read more about it here.   One of their sayings is “Creative Solutions to Complex Problems”.   A Masters level degree in the School of Arts is the highest degree you can get.  I like to called it an uber Masters or a Ph.D light.  Unlike other fields or schools like English or the Sciences.   This means the MFA program is 60 credit hours and often takes three years while other master level degree program are 30ish credit hours and take only two years or less.   Herron’s program is quite intensive and focused to be completed in two years.    Which is a good thing for I rather do a faster pace curriculum and receive the degree quicker so I may join the work force earlier.  I am already 32 and will be 34 years old when I am done.   I feel like I am getting a late start a restart in life and want to move faster to make up time for it. 

Another program I applied at is a Master of Science (MS) in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the school of Informatics which is also at IUPUI.  This Master’s program is 36 credit hours.  While I can not be a tenure track professorial with only the Masters of Science it is a good program with an emphasis programming skills and a field I am really interested in.   They also have 90 credit hour Doctoral program which looks good but I felt it would take too long to complete.  I still have to wait to see if they will accept me.

One question is the cost.  Herron’s MFA program is new this year and for some strange reason their tuition cost is the most of any public university I can find.   Even more costly than several private universities.   For being a brand new program it seems a little presumptuous.  A public university at that.  Of course I do feel a minor ego boost to be accepted to the most expensive public university MFA program.  Yet, I dislike people or institutions who proclaim self importance and act as if they are better than others.  The question is Herron being egotistical and is the extra cost worth it?

To to Herron I will need some form of aid.  I will not know until mid April on what aid or scholarships Herron will provide.  I will wait until I hear from them and other schools before I make my decision.   

After 6 months of not working I have returned to the work force, at least part time.  Instead of doing my usual IT support thing I have taken a different path.  A road less traveled if you will.  I decided to become a substitute teacher of young impressible line.   Scary eh?   Specially, I am planning to sub at all the schools I used to attend as a child.   That includes my 2nd grade school at Walt Disney Elementary, Schmucker Middle School and Penn High School.  Its a unique opportunity to return to ones root and I hope to make the most of it.

Happy new years all! It has been a while since our last posting. After much relaxing and thinking Becky and I have decided not to travel for another 3 months at we originally plan back in august of 2006. Primarily due to money running out plus we not felt that wonder lust desire again. We may still go somewhere for a couple of weeks. For now we plan on getting jobs by February and yours truly is applying to graduate school for august of 2007. Lots of exciting and scary changes ahead.

I am hoping I will get accepted to an Informatics or Visual Communication Master Degree program with an emphasis in HCI (Human-computer interaction). My dream job would be to work with a cutting edge international IT company like Google. Designing the best software and/or Web 2.0 product that is not only easy to use, but highly useful. There is a saying in design that I firmly believe in “Less is more”. The iPod design is great example of that philosophy. Now if only I get my house to be not so messy. =)

Best of all, we plan NOT to see any remarkable architecture, museums, and ancient ruins.

Ciao! Happy Thanksgiving video from Rome.

Here is a link to the better quality but slow download video. 4.5megs

Well, Bratislava is a true Eastern European major city.   It is not like Prague, which is so western.  People here look different and have that Eastern European look.  Girls are hot and slim.  Not to mention, things are cheaper.  I’d say about 10% cheaper than in the states which makes it about 30% cheaper than the rest of Europe.   They use crowns here.  You get 28 Slovak crowns for $1 American dollar.  While in Prague you get 22 Czech crowns for a buck.   So unlike the movie you don’t live like kings but you can save some money.   

The hostel costs about 525 Slovak Crowns or 15  Euros or $19 US  for one bunk in a shared room and meals were about 7 Euro.  Considering most bed in hostels costs about 20 Euros, it wasn’t  to bad.    Of course, if you want really cheap go to Thailand.    In Thailand, private rooms were available for about 15 Euro  for two people or you could get your own private suite at a 5 star hotel for about $60.  Whoo hoo!  A good meal off the street was about $1.  You  can’t beat Thailand for its prices or people.

I met a an old flat mate of my good friend Jeremy’s while he lived in Paris for 6 months doing bike tours at Fat Tire (link).  A California guy named Nick.   He had gone expat and has his own bike tour business in Bratislava named every so nicely Nicks Bike Tours at www.sdjkfdsjdkjfd.com (find that link). 

It was a guys night out.   Becky stayed in to blog and knit.   Spending 2 months with your lover 24/7 can get tiring.  You need some alone time.  So I  met up with  Nick and a cool French friend of his who loves techno music and a hopping we went.  It was a blast.  We drank some local Slovak beers and of course did the almighty green magical drink….ABSINTHE!!! 

Oh my god that shift is poison.   Its worse than Grappa.  The stories are true in that it was defiantly green.   You can’t just drink the shit straight or you will die, or just puke your guts out.    So you have to put some sugar on a spoon, dip it in the Absinthe and set it on fire. After that you then dip the spoon in to the drink and then watch the baby burn for a few seconds.  This is key!   You need to burn off some of the alcohol or else.  Then you slug back the double size shot.  When I swallowed it, oh did it burn.  And it kept burning. Then it burned some more.  After that I drank water and ate peanuts for the rest of the  night.   I was pissed drunk at that point and started to dance to techno along with his cool French friend.  

With Nick’s guidance I managed to stumble my way back to the hostel in the wee hours of the morning and into the lower bunk bed with Becky.  She told me I reaked of alcohol.  She said she could smell it coming from my pores.  The rest of the day I did nothing but lay in  the bunk bed to recover my hangover.   This was Bratislava.  There were no sights.  There were no castles.  There weren’t even any stupid churches or museums.   There was just abisnthe and a weird famous statue sticking its head out of a manhole.    Loved it!

Nick was a great host and friend.   I met several locals and many of his pretty female friends.  Nick if you ever come to South Bend, and I am not sure why you would , you’ve got a place to crash anytime.  

 

 

In all of my art history books from high school to college, the very first picture of art was 25 thousand (yes 25,000) years old, give or take a 1000 years.  Each year I would remember seeing this piece in my school books.  It was a primitive sculpture of a woman called the “Venus of Willendorf”.  Imagine how old that is.   I mean Egypt was not even hitting the good times until 3000 B.C.   That is one old sexy bitch!   The experts are not quite sure what she was for.   Some say that she has no face because of the hair style, while other say she could have been a faceless  fertility symbol.  Having all that fat makes for good babies.   I am sure that it was not easy gaining all that weight while doing the hunting and gathering thing.   No McD’s around.   A healthy child bearing woman may have been a plump woman.   So being voluptuous was dead sexy back then. 

  

 

 The next day we saw one of my favorite artists Gustav Klimt.  His golden works are amazing and I loved his most famous painting “The Kiss”.   It’s golden delicious.  The paint was so beautiful and yummy looking like you could eat it.  Klimt actually painted gold leaf on to the canvas to give it that shiny golden colour.  His use of colorful patters in the flowers, background and especially the robes is exquisite.  Note how the man’s robe is made of more powerful rectangles in comparison to the woman’s softer circular patterns.

That sums up 2 days in Vienna!

That is Becky on the also famous pedestrian bridge called “Charles Bridge”. Great views from it.  It is one kick ass bridge.  Its in all of the movies like XXX. Rachel my sister-in-law said Prague looked beautiful from the movie triple X.

I heard many tales of Prague being cheap and it’s all lies!!!   Maybe they were years ago when they first broke away from communism but now  most things were about the same price as in the USA (at least in Indiana).   Of course, this makes it about 10% – 20% or so cheaper then other big Western Europe cities like Paris or Venice, since the American dollar is so weak when compared to the Euro.  

Since Prague is not part of the EU (European Union),  it still has its own cool currency called Korunas (Crowns). $1 US dollar equals about 22 Kournas. You think great! You can live like a king.  But, your average diet coke costs you about 22 Korunas, or sometimes 50 in the touristy areas.  You do that math.  That means a diet coke costs $1-$2 US dollars.  No big savings there.  The Euro gets about 28 Kournas. Goodie for them.  Don’t expect to save any real money in this not so Eastern European city.  The city was beautiful like that of Paris and and very touristy with tons of tourists and  people, not to mention the gobs of Japanese tourist groups even in late October.  Overall it was just too crowed even late at night.

The St.  Charles bridge is called that because King Charles IV commissioned it.   There are lots of statues on either side of the bridge.  The most famous was some sainted priest dude named John that would NOT tell the naughty confessions of the Queen to the King.  So, the King had him tortured, hung and then tossed off the Charles Bridge. Then, the miracle happened!  Ahhhhhhh!   Five glowing stars emerged from his head and floated up to the heavens.  That is how you become a saint.   Easy huh?

Now birds just pooh on him and his other saintly friends chill’n on the bridge.  Our time was limited, so basically all I did was drink with my friend Lenny and see the bridge. I also walked around, but not into the castle.  I also saw some God awful black light show called Aspects of Alice.  You can read Becky’s blog more for the terror of the play.  

EuroTrip is one of my favorite movies.   It is a must see for everyone.  And it is defiantly a must see for anyone who has gone or will be going to Europe for that classic “Eurotrip”.  It makes fun of the many stereotypes across Europe and shows some possible scenarios one may encounter while in Europe, albeit they are grossly exaggerated.

One of my favorites scenes is on the train with the gay Italian pervert. Two words “Mi Scusi”.  Hahahaha!  Right now I am on an Italian train heading to Naples from Florence with a stop over in Rome. At the time of this writing we are sitting on the train waiting in Rome.  How exciting!  I have my ears perked to hear a real Italian say “Mi Scusi”.  Hmmm  I wonder if they wear thongs like the Italian guy did in the movie?

So what does Prague have to do with EuroTrip?  In the movie they never went there.   Well my good friend Lenny (see other blog) showed us the light!   He too is a fan of Eurotrip.  The scene where they are suppose to be sitting on a bridge after their night in Amsterdam is just Hollywood magic.  It’s actually in Prague!   See below…