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Italiano Thursday’s at El Bull Pen, Chelem, Yucatan MX

6pm- Thursdays.. meet us at the Bull Pen. It’s Italiano Thursdays and community meetup night. We all sit together at BIG long tables and enjoy good food, good company and lots of drinks to go around. Infact Alyssa wanted to play waitress so bad she insisted on ordering drinks for us when needed. So if you’re looking for where to eat just outside of Progreso go to Chelem on a thursday – eat at  El Bull Pen!

Thursday Night's hangout in Chelem Yucatan, MX

Our Move to Mexico! We did it.. we’re just outside of progreso, yucatan, MX!

Oh, my….the trip.
Oh the trip. Wow. Could it have been more funny? We had something like 12 bags/stroller/carseat, kids, us… everything. we had the maximum flyable limit and people raising eyebrows at us every turn we made. Mostly they saw us and thought… hey they must be good tippers! Which is ok. We moved out of our house about 2 weeks before the flight. We finally got the house on the market, expected it to sit for a while, and had multiple offers the first week… it was great.. a bidding war ensued, then after all the drama of picking a viable contract… the inspection came. We did need a new roof, even thought 2 years ago there was no hail damage and it was fine. Thank God for homeowner’s insurance. So we lived at my parents apartment and a couple of hotels for 2 weeks before our flight. Jeremy was working day in and day out to meet some deadline all the while working on getting us packed, moved, and happy. Everything is now packed up in storage, minus a carload, and plane full of our baggage… our cars are in storage, oh man that was hard to give up our newest addition to the fleet – our hard earned  BMW… we got a great deal on it, and one of those maintenance plans to boot… anyway. My parents drove the dodge down on a Tuesday. The radiator had to be replaced before they ever left dallas. I couldn’t believe. I was worried about my mom, and their trip because they had 4 long days on dirt roads, cities and places I can’t imagine. Our trip was supposed to be easy. 2 cars to the airport, unload bags, board plane, uh oh… here’s where it got complicated… oh man… we sat in dallas on the runway almost exactly 4 hours… they told us we were going back to the gate.. then within 5 minutes they said great news we’re going to houston… and we took off.. in the mean time my flight had already landed in mexico… so… when we landed we were the last to deboard… the last in line… and of course stuck behind a guy who consumed an hour trying to get to Merida (Merida only gets flights on certain days.. our next available was like 5 days later). So we were told they couldn’t help us at the counter we should speak with a supervisor. We went to the customer service counter to speak with a supervisor, and there he was again. Let me say – Alyssa and Bella were GREAT. Everyone was telling us how amazing our kids were during the whole thing. So we stand in line, wait another hour it’s midnight, we’ve not ate since 2pm… Bella was on her last bit of formula that was premade… We were given 2 options – fly to cancun, while our bags wont make it – in the morning; or fly to merida 5 days later. We went to cancun instead. The hotel they put us in… we over paid for. It was a suite, but good grief, it had rain leaks, and well it wasn’t the nicest of places. I’ve stayed in worse… so anyway… we get to the hotel at 1 am, then turn around and leave at 5am for the cancun flight. The cancun flight was just fine. We arrived with no problems, went through immigracion, and had to fill out a health form (for the flu protection). We went to baggage claim where Alyssa spotted our bags… all of them… everything… We were saddled with ton of bags to go through customs. We got a green light and went to the bus terminal. The bus to the bus station was truely the best option, from there, they handled our bags for us… everything made it we only traveled the UNO bus (a luxury liner worth the $60 tix)… all the way to Merida. It’s in Merida where things got hairy.. it was dark, it was 6pm, we were tired, hungry, unable to call anyone, and prayed we could find mom and dads house. We told them where we were going, and for the price of two taxis ($60USD+ tips) we got into Chelem, found the Bull Pen restaurant and got to mom and dad’s house with no problems. It was here that we left 2 of my bags in the taxis. My meds, and my purse with our passports where accidently left in the taxis. It was dark, they were small bags and… it was my fault.
I was distraught. No meds for my nueropathy, stress from 2 solid days of travel, in a different country, no passports, no way of knowing when parents where coming exactly. It was chaos in my mind. However, the neighbors were great – they helped us out, one took me back to the bus stop to try to contact the taxi driver, mom and dad showed up within an hour of our arrival.. our property manager showed up too… lots of people, lots of great helpful people came to our rescue. We slept at the house mom and dad built. And the next day… I walked around with a huge cloud on my shoulders… about 2pm i heard a commotion in the street… I looked out the front door and there was a hand holding my purse in the gate… I freaked out! My purse came back… it came back with trash, and my passports.. no iphone, no misc store credit cards, no pens.. but our passports and our visas came back! We lucked out! We had a neighbor translate that i still was missing my pill bag… the taxi driver said no problem he’d ask the other guy. After this – a huge weight off my shoulders kicked in. I was excited!
That afternoon we went to see our new house. It’s quite the nice little setup, beach front, office, shells, ocean, ocean… and more sand. I’ll talk more about it in another blog… but… to conclude the trip from chaos to happyness, my medicines came back as well. Another taxi brought it on the following day. It was missing our Alyssa’s Ipod and Leapter. I was just thankful that the thousand dollars in pills were back. The electronics we can replace. (although that leapster has been replaced practically once already – with all it’s games lost and charging station accidently packed). So while you may think that all of this is whining or complaining.. I’ve got two morals of this story… Number 1: We traveled like champions! and Number 2: no other place in the world would a couple of lost bags (purse included) ever come back to your doorsteps. It’s amazing here. The people are so friendly and outgoing. They are really nice. It makes up for the mosquitos, the dirt roads, weird rules, and the sandspurs!

One of my training video’s won an Emmy!

Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Laboratory won an Emmy! I think it actually won several in a few different categories. Congrats xTrain! You guys did great. I hope to see Adobe TV get some emmy’s too.

Dr. Brown – I know how hard it is for you to do the Photoshop Laboratory, but out of thousands and thousands of people that I’ve been around who’ve seen it – they all love it. Please keep it up. I look forward to seeing more!

Celebrating more than Independance day!

This week has been a celebration of life, living, family, fun, holiday, freedom, work, change, and most importantly – the life given to us by our elders, veterans, wise leaders, adventurers, entreprenuers, investors, creative gurus, and everyone else!!

Happy 4th of July! Party on!

Oh and wish me luck for the audition i’m going too… we’ll find out if i’m smart enough to be on the “are you smarter than a 5th grader” show. HAH!

I look forward to the chance to be on a game show, but… 5th graders aren’t skilled in marketing and design… it’s been few years since I was in school… heck my 10 yr high school reunion is coming up… wild.

SV

Beta Testing our favorite software…..

There comes a time in your life, when you’ve been at this computer biz for long enough to know better than to work with beta software. Well, i fell for it again. don’t get me wrong, some beta’s are awesome. Others i want to ask the software vendor how a kernal crash is relevant when i click the “edit” button. ya know? i just want to say.. i love testing new software. but can I scream now?

On the other hand. it’s free. what can i say. I earned it by being the guinea pig. now if only the developers like dealing with the purple haired chick who expects perfection – therefore reports the retarded bugs – like typo’s – or they forgot a rollover/flyout or heck my favorite – um – what language is that one in? OH! and another favorite… i pressed the button… and nothing happend…. oooh that really makes my day

If you’ve a software, and you want me to test it, break it, stupid user proof it… drop me a line. I love the thrill of rebooting 6 times in a row until i find a work around… is there a job out there like this, that pays good for me to stay home 4 hours, break a few computers and yell at the developers in user speak instead of code… hah

Oh wait. I’ve done that in a former life. Great job, great company… I forgot where home was though… and I began to know the airline attendants by name… or they just realized i liked giving out the little great job from an elite member coupons when i needed a different flight home

Now if I could only get on the lean cuisine testing team…. or the propel flavor test team… or the paid drive through lunch testing team…. free cell phones, or other every day item.. hey – where the hell is my new mac? I’m still on this uh…. yeah… we won’t even discuss how old this one is..

And that my friends, is the – it’s the friday before the holiday week – unemployed – job seeking – freelancing – smart ass – blog of the day! HAPPY HOLIDAY! Now buy me a beer!

Sunset photography

This afternoon we went to the park and took pictures with our new DSLR, it’s not new, but it’s new to us. I was surprised to see after setting the white balance differently how much better my pictures came out. I’m wondering – so how does one get into selling their work as stock photography? I was reading up on Istockphoto.com and saw that they even have a request list of photos they want…. wonder if i can make a few shots pay for my iphone bill?

Any suggestions?

The secret life of a blogger…

Yes. We all know that bloggers have a secret life- or a Secret to tell if you want to look at it that way. They can be anonymous, rip off other peoples work, write their very biased views on life, products, situations, people, or anything they want. They don’t even have to be ethical! But what’s the real secret? Well, some bloggers, like myself – aren’t getting published any other way. Now we have a medium that allows us to have typo’s, poor grammer, bad opinions, but freedom of speech so who cares what we right about? So long as we make money at this right? How do you define making money as a blogger? There’s several ways to look at it but for me… I’m not making money off this blog (unless you choose to buy me a beer, and remember – I don’t even like beer so please make it enough so that I can by a fruity beer – like an apple cider, or something of that nature, I’m more of a vodka girl anyway!) I do this, because, there comes a time in life when what we think, dream, love, should be written down. Now If I write it down in my journal – who’s going to read it? Well maybe my snooping husband, or my children after I pass… maybe one day I’d get around to taking excerpts and proposing my writings to a publisher… but more than likely… I couldn’t read my own handwriting and forget what I was thinking when I wrote it, and my husband would ask questions well what did that mean? (I dunno honey I had three margaritas that night!) For me – you know who I am. I’m Siotha. Google me if you must. Or just hit the about tab on the top of this page. In the mean time, I enjoy blogging. One day I might even try to write about products and things that I like for review. In the mean time – writing about life as a designer is my passion and what I will continue to do through this blog. Just remember, i’m very fickle and particular about when and what I do things… so if I don’t write for a few weeks – don’t sweat it! That’s the dramatic life of a Blogger! I’ll get to it when I damned well please!

A passion within… as a Graphic Design Freelancer

I’d like to make a quick statement. Right now, as you may or may not know I’m taking a break from xTrain.com. My hopes is to find that carefree freelancing passionate girl that I used to be with design, marketing, and life. With that said. I’d like to take a minute and write about what life as a freelance designer is like

Pro’s:

• Choose your hours
• Choose your clients
• Artistic freedom is your choice and not your client, so if the project doesn’t fit your style – don’t hassle.
• My working hours are 9 to noon, and 7-midnight when needed
• Spend time with my family
• Home office upgrades are cheap thanks to craigslist
• anything business related is a tax write off, as the more I earn, the more I spend… and the more taxes I owe.
• Working from the lazy boy isn’t an issue with my boss (oh wait, I am the boss!)
• No Degree required, even though I loved getting mine in Media Marketing and Management!

Con’s:

• Choosing a client when you need to pay bills isn’t always an option
• Clients come out of the woodworks wanting 40 hours of your time for something you would make $2 an hour for if you take them on and bill what they want to pay
• School activities sometimes get in the way of work schedules, therefore extra flexibility is required
• I’m responsible for: billing, invoicing, balance sheets, purchasing, selling, and all business needs – including finding resources that match the job at hand
• New software or hardware seems to come out every month!
• My iphone bill is getting expensive
• Security of a paycheck is only as good as the person who is writing the check – it could be net 30, 60 or even 90 days if you don’t have a solid contract in place
• Smoozing  clients is fun but not my favorite thing to do, every day!
• The only benefits are self created – be sure you’ve got good insurance!

Why the heck do I love it though?

• My hair color is not required to be normal
• I can sleep in
• I can travel when I have money (which – strangely, I’ve earned more frequent flyer miles in the last 8 weeks than I did in the last 8 months)
• No pressure of “the man” watching me
• My time with my daughter has increased 75%
• My stress levels aren’t constant anymore – they fluxuate with each new situation – allowing my health to get better!
• Somehow I’m spending 80% family time even with my work schedule – (My mother is a consultant who works from home, my father is retired and is home for a few weeks, and my daughter is out of school for the summer…. Now I just need to work on my time with my husband, besides in the bedroom!)
• I am 100% responsible, at fault or a winner when a project is done and over with. (I like to think 100% proud!)

What about you? What are some other pro’s and cons you like or don’t like about freelancing?

How do Smart People Defend Bad Ideas?

There’s a saying in my family: she’s so smart, but she doesn’t have a lick of common sense. Now, it’s one thing to sit and say that to another family member, but it’s another thing to be the one who’s living a life of this nature. I think it really boils down to an occasional – must defend smartness – even if it’s a bad idea – Logic. However, after reading Scott Berkun’s blog #40 “Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas” it makes brilliant sense!

Creative people tend to present themselves in many ways. So Surround yourself with a mixture of creative types, thinkers, doers, and not all of the same “square” of thinking and go for the gusto! As you only get one chance to make an idea a great (& hopefully good) today.

Today’s the First Day of Summer Holiday!

Ok. So, most people don’t get a holiday for the summer. But this summer. That’s my goal. To work smarter not harder bla bla bla… no seriously. I’m choosing to work an average work week. Bring on only select clientel, and spend more time with family. This means. As I spend time with my Family this weekend on an already planned venture, I will leave the laptop, cell, and extra business credit card at home. I might even bring some suntan lotion and pray for a good warm afternoon. As I’m so pasty white from over 2 years without holiday, working pre-dawn till late night, minimizing time outside to riding in the car with the top off on select days…. that you’d think i blended in with Holiday Inn’s sheets! (and that’s not because I’ve aquired many many thousands of points lately!)

So today. Take time. Sit back, watch a movie with your children, play cards with your spouse, have a new flavor beer. And I’ll see you next week – maybe!

Can you Draw an Elephant?

Or better yet, have you trained your elephant to draw yet?

This is one of those videos, that in all due respect to animal rights, let’s not go there, but If an Elephant can draw, I think anyone can draw!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE]

Awards for High School Computer Girls…

Girls – Hey! Are you wanting to win an award or know someone who should?

The National Center for Women in Information Technology is giving an award to high schoolers who excel in Computing and Aspirations with Computing. This year the award will focus on six major metro areas: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, and New York City.

Click below for more details…

Award-winners Will Receive:

• $500 in cash.
• A laptop computer, provided by Bank of America.
• An expenses-paid trip, provided by Bank of America, for each awardee and a parent/legal guardian, to attend the Bank of America Celebrating Stars of the Future Technology Showcase and Awards Ceremony, August 1-3, 2008, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• An engraved award for both the student and the student’s school.
• Inclusion in a video that highlights her accomplishments in computing, her future aspirations, and her participation in the Award events in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as a copy of the final Award video.
• For awardees who will be high school seniors in the Fall of 2008, an expenses-paid trip for the awardee and an accompanying parent/legal guardian to attend NCWIT’s national workshop on Women and IT at the University of California at Irvine, November 5-6, 2008.

Mahalo Daily: IDOL contest!

Ok. So we do alot of things at xTrain, and one of them is to help spread the word of events going on with our instructors.

Today, please take a moment to Vote for Shellie Hall’s Mahalo Daily Video Entrance! She’s one of our very on instructors, a very TECHY girl and an all around fun chick to hang out with.

To vote, all you have to do is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS0m0dn7WBg]

or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS0m0dn7WBg&watch_response
(All you really have to do is play & rate the video!)

Then go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWMROWLqU2c
And leave a comment shout out for Shellie Hall!

Also, if you feel the urge, and have a digg account… Please digg her video!
http://digg.com/tech_news/Get_Creative_for_Mahalo_Daily

Then – if you want, drop Shellie a Good Luck Note!

Get Creative for Mahalo Daily

Audition clip to be the next host of Mahalo Daily. Be sure to rate the video and share your comments. Shellie is an AWESOME TECH Host!

My Vote is Shellie for Mahalo!!!! GO Shellie GO!!!

read more | digg story

Training, Learning, Teaching, Doing: If you don’t use it, you will lose it.

shh. Here’s a secret of the day. Ok not really but, today I felt the urge to write about – if you don’t use the knowledge you have – you will loose it.

Case #1:

• 4 yrs studying History yields a degree in History
• Job out of College: Sales, profitable, however after 8 years it took a while to build wealth, if any.
• After 12 years – how much do you think he will remember of his history studies?

Is this a profitable venture? Or would you spend $20 a month to continue your studies in history – even if you were working in sales?

Case #2:

• Art student, photography major, graphic design minor. 5 yrs in school.
• After 6 years of multiple jobs, an increase in pay from $20K to $55K
• Does working in the field constitute as the only place to advance ones skills? No?

What do you bet that this person used additional ways of continuing her education to increase her knowledge, experience and continue working in the field?

What are ways that she probably used?

• Employer paid conferences
• Local enthusiasts groups
• Internet Surfing, including blogs, forums, and other online free materials
• $100 yr in Magazine subscriptions

I think this person would have been better off with a $20 month subscription to xTrain. It covers the same topics, instructor led, 24 hour availability but can be done on the job, at home, or whenever.

Shameless plug aside, let’s think about it.

After you’ve spent 4-8-12 years in college, many careers require continuing education credits. However the design field doesn’t. You are either good at a certain type of art, or aren’t. A Jack of all trades artist, one who can work with, create in, and or market multiple art forms is more adventurous and able to find extra freelancing than just a one art form person. Now, don’t take this wrong, if you’ve got a gift, that particular gift should yield profits and a long standing career. But just like with the financial markets, the life of an artist will have profitable years and down years. It’s what you do with those down years to make the best out of the up years for years to come. So, in this time of heavy job loss, lack of funding, and less business ventures, be sure to spend your time wisely. Take that extra time you have to educate yourself one way or another and continue to grow your artist spirit. After all, most art forms boil down to a central business element and intertwine with one another. This should give you inspiration and more work in the mean time!

the story of A graphic designer’s life, pro-bono work as a designer

I stumbled upon this link using stumbleupon… It stopped, i laughed so HARD I cried… and I couldn’t believe how true this situation is….. I couldn’t figure out the website, so here’s the credit line: http://www.fukung.net/images/2674/designer.gif

I can’t tell you how many times people say – oh you’re an artist do something free for me. And I’m sitting there nieve enough to go sure why not…. And then, i spent my 10 years in the industry wondering where my time went… ok so it was more like the first 3 years i didn’t get it, 4 more years went by of picking and choosing free projects… and the last few… hell no, pay me, pay me up front, or forget it. I’m not going to waste my time trying to please you, trying to collect money from you – after my services are rendered… oh and btw – our company has a 90 day pay period.

Then I watched Bryan Peterson’s course on xTrain on – why free designs do not enhance our life. As a matter of fact he pointed out that it’s against the AIGA’s guidelines to do pro-bono. Then he went into detail on how to negotiate – a concept for pay – and walk away if you don’t like idea. Very excellent. I haven’t used it lately because I’m too busy training, marketing and working with xTrain… but it’s one of those things… that comes back to the graphic above… if a used car sales man can’t barter – DON’T bother to do it free for him!

Shout out to ya have a great weekend!

xTrain Features Over 100 Free Shows on Adobe Systems’ New Ad

xTrain Features Over 100 Free Shows on Adobe Systems’ New Adobe(R) TV & Media Player -
Splash Media & xTrain are honored to be featured on AMP and tv.adobe.com

That’s Right – That’s the DIGG article that SAYS xTrain’s on Adobe TV!!!

read more | digg story

Adobe TV and Adobe Media Player launch with xTrain content

Adobe just announced Adobe TV and Adobe Media player today. Adobe TV is your on-line source for expert insight and inspiration. Feed your passion for Adobe products with insider tips, innovative techniques, and behind-the-scenes tours. Get to know Adobe personalities by tuning in to Russell Brown Photoshop Laboratory. What you didn’t read on Digg – was that xTRAIN’s CONTENT is featured on Adobe TV! Silly! Go to tv.adobe.com to watch many of our shows!

read more | digg story

xTrain + YouTube + Adobe TV Launch

You can only have so much fun while doing multiple press releases… so Jennifer & Tabitha… They made sure they had fun… check em out!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpcaMMnmcs]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgckKlRDwBg]

Adobe TV launches today!

I’m So excited ADOBE has put MANY xTrain videos on their tv.adobe.com!!!!!

Excerpt from our press release: xTrain is proud to announce its new featured partnership on Adobe Systems’ new Adobe TV site. The new site features over 100 training segments from xTrain that include topics such as photography, graphic design, video, web developing and design, business and more. We are honored to be teaming up with such a significant leader in the software and technology industry, as we believe it will enable both our companies to deliver high-end education to a broad spectrum of Adobe software users.

Just go to their website, type in xTrain and you’ll find dozens of AWESOME videos that our instructors have worked so hard to put together for us, and now ADOBE loves them so much they’ve included them on their Training website!!!

Make Money from Forwarding Emails? A special internet marketing peice from Siotha

I’ve only been on the internet 15 years. And it finally occurred to me, Forwards are TRULY advertisements… Ever noticed how Yahoo has an advert at the bottom of every email you receive? Just think about how many more people see that one advert for each forward that you do.  Ok. So let’s do SOME real basic math.

1 Email. 30 friends. 1 ad at the bottom.

30 friends send to 30 more friends. = 900 emails/ads
900 send to 5 friends = 4500 free ads

Why hasn’t anyone pointed this out to me before?

If the Forward is TRULY compelling enough to send on, and mind you I might send 5 a year… Think about the millions of people who have nothing better to do than forward to their friends… I’m thinking about how many a day I receive from friends and family. If they’d only put my little website on that forward! I’d be Rich by now!

Shellie Hall’s in the Studio!

Just wanted to drop everyone a note that while we’ve been concentrating on marketing and getting myself healthy again… we’re still doing really cool shows such as 2 new courses with Shellie Hall – focusing on InDesign.

As always she rocks!

Check out www.xtrain.com/shellie for details of current live courses and when today’s studio shoot gets done, then you’ll be able to see these great Q2ID and ID Portfolio courses!!

Additionally – if you haven’t heard about a new documentary of High Tech Women – then you really need to check out TechGirlz.com

Want more from Shellie? Hey you need to see CreativePro.com where you can find weekly videos of creative industry news.  Hey.. and if you want to find the creative side of Shellie, she runs ducktypedigital.com and getcreative.com 

iphone pic competition…

so – my husband has become a contestent for his iphone photography… appearently all these digital photography shows we produce are paying off for him!

http://www.ippawards.com/gallery/index.html

I love you Jeremy!!!