deviantART

 
About Me Premium Member Deviously Deviant GwhitmoreMale/United States Recent Activity Deviant for 1 Year
1 Day Premium Membership
Statistics 78 Deviations
750 Comments
4,002 Pageviews

Life changes

Fri May 8, 2009, 6:54 AM
  • Mood: Optimism
  • Listening to: Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Neil Diamond
  • Reading: some Archie comics
  • Watching: Nancy Grace
  • Playing: Jewel Quest
  • Eating: breakfast
  • Drinking: milk
Been a while since I've done one of these, and this last week has been full of life changes.

I took my final final last week. It's been 2 years since I was laid off (after 14 years of working for the same company) and I decided to go back to school. I graduate on May 16th with honors (I maintained 3.77 average for the last two years.) The bad thing about all this? There are few jobs in the career field I've been studying (computer network technology) due to the economy.

After i got laid off, I got a job at our local library as a part time shelver. This was great as part time work fit in very well with my college schedule and my family life. After all, 40+ years of filing comics (I have over 20,000 comics not including all the books on my book cases) made learning the Dewey decimal system and the libraries idiosyncrasies fairly easy. (Hi Kenya!) After a year of that, I applied for the library’s cataloguer position, which has been the most fun job I’ve ever had. I get to play on a computer all day, learn the ins and outs of library cataloguing and database manipulation, and I get to essentially index books. I’ve been indexing comics on the Grand Comics Database for years and am currently an editor there (here the link: www.comics.org) so combining indexing, computing and books was great!

But the economic reality set in. My family has been without health benefits for 2 years now, something we’ve never been without. It became apparent to me about 2 months ago that I wasn’t going to land a well paying IT job out of school without any certifications. In our business in addition to schooling, you have to take certification tests and pass them, much like teaching. Certs cost about $125 a pop (some are higher) and there’s about a gazillion tests to take. I realized that as soon as I graduated my schooling money would stop cold. And as fun as the library is, I can’t make my mortgage payment on my salary there, much less the expense of raising a family.

As a result, I applied for and accepted a job at the local VA hospital working in their medical library. It’s a pretty good salary (almost as much as I was making when I got laid off) and comes with full benefits. I’m going to work there for at least 3 years while continuing school part time to finish my BAS degree. That will also allow me to get some IT certs under my belt and keep an ear and an eye out for any librarian cataloguing positions that open here, as that’s what I’d love to do the rest of my life.

In addition to all of that, my autistic son moved into another home. We still dealing with that, but hopefully everything will work out there.

So in one week, I graduated, lost a job, gained a job, and helped my son move. As I said, life changes.

Thanks for spending part of your day with me. Now go forth and be creative! :)

Gregg

deviantID

I've been a comic fan for years! Now just trying my hand at being a artist! Yeah, I thought that was funny, too... :P

Gregg

Devious Info

  • Current Residence: in a galaxy far, far away
  • deviantWEAR sizing preference: loosely comfortable
  • Print preference: easy to read, medium black font on white paper
  • Interests: Comics of all kinds, art, theatre, music
  • Favourite movie: too many to choose just one
  • Favourite band or musician: ditto
  • Favourite genre of music: Celtic, 60s and 70s music, or soundtracks
  • Favourite artist: George Perez
  • Favourite poet or writer: Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Peter David
  • Favourite style of art: dang near everything!
  • Operating System: xp
  • MP3 player of choice: none
  • Shell of choice: sea
  • Wallpaper of choice: my own!
  • Skin of choice: mine
  • Favourite game: Scrabble
  • Favourite gaming platform: my kitchen table
  • Favourite cartoon character: The Looney Tunes characters
  • Personal Quote: GET OF MY LAWN! :) (it's an in joke...)
  • Tools of the Trade: a computer, an imagination and an unending supply of time and Coke! (the drink, not the drug...)

Comments


Ahoy, matey! :ahoy:
Thankee afore the :+fav:r'ting o' me Pirate Queens! I be appreciatin' that! Arr! :pirate:

--
--Kathleen :kitty:
~~ASPIRE to the HIGHER~~
arr yer welcome, fine lass that ye arr! Hope yer feelin' better, matey... OR ELSE! (I like the pirate icon! :))

Gregg

--
"We are all but Strangers in Paradise..."
I lost your directions to how to post Hero Machine deviations.
Could you hit me up again?

--
Justice, Like Lightning, Ever Should Appear to Few Men's Ruin, But All Men's Terror.

-- Motto of the Thunderbolts!
Ok... (this assumes you've already created the character.)

1. Open an art program (paint, paint.net, photoshop, etc.)

2. Go back to the character and hit the "print screen" button on your keyboard (may be labeled "prtScrn" and is usually on the up right portion of the keyboard)

3. go back to art program and hit "control V". That should paste the screen into the art program.

4. Make any changes you want... adding deleting, resizing, cropping, etc.

5.go into "file" and hit "save as". give the file a name you'll remember and change the extension to .jpeg or .png. Make sure you know where you're saving the file! (Desktop, folder, C drive...)

6. Now you can post it to DA, photobucket, where ever ya want...

Piece of cake! Looking forward to your creations!

Gregg

--
"We are all but Strangers in Paradise..."
Thank you!

--
Justice, Like Lightning, Ever Should Appear to Few Men's Ruin, But All Men's Terror.

-- Motto of the Thunderbolts!
Hey bud, For some odd reason my bookmarks didn't keep that superhero creation site, you gave me some time back. Would you happen to remember it. it would help me out. Thanks

Tim
I think you mean this one [link] The programmer has dropped the Bruce Timm template for a new one. Haven't played with it much yet...

Gregg

--
"We are all but Strangers in Paradise..."
Thanks bud, im gonna save it bookmarks again and write it down, i used for some pics, check em out and give me your opinion...
Thanks so much for the fav! Love your gallery.
You're very welcome. Keep up the great work! And thanks for the kudos on my gallery. Not bad for a non-artist... :)

Gregg

--
"We are all but Strangers in Paradise..."

Site Map