How is everybody? Is finals week going well? I hope nobody has the flu, it’s starting to spread around like crazy. :\

So I just wanted to say that I decided to change my theme today. The last theme had way too many bugs and just didn’t feel natural as a blog. Unlike my previous themes, this one was not built from the ground up. I decided to use another theme and give it my own twist. The theme I picked was Pixel by Samk. It’s an incredible yet simplistic looking theme that I was able to easily modify with a little bit of studying and patience. I’m no good at creating code, but modifying it is a different story. I decided to go for a more spacey/futuristic looking theme. The original idea was to use a take a picture of myself with a night sky. Knowing that I look like a mess right now, I knew that was not going to happen anytime soon. Instead, I looked around my photo archive and found a huge panoramic picture I took of Belton Lake at night. I was bored that night and decided to take a trip to the lake to take my mind off things. It’s a really wide picture, so you can’t really see the full scale and view of the lake in the theme. The reason why I chose this picture is because of the the clear night sky. Perfect for adding stars. So after a few (maybe six) hours of hard work and modifying, viola! ruizwashere v8.0. :)

So take a look around, the feel is new but the content is pretty much the same. If you see anything wrong or weird-looking, just let me know. Oh, just in case you didn’t know, I had my wisdom teeth pulled the other day. It’s healing, but it takes forever. I started eating solid food yesterday so I’m starting to feel good again. I guess I better start studying for my English exam tomorrow. It’s not the final exam unfortunately, those aren’t until next week for CTC students.

I’m also going to reactivate my Facebook next week when the semester finally ends. I was tempted to do it now but I don’t want to get sidetracked. ;)

Stay well, stay healthy!

[SinglePic not found] This is one of the shots that I took with my friend Thomas while we were out on a downtown photoshoot. This wasn’t one of our originally planned shots, but the view of the alleyway as we passed by it was simply stunning. After we were done with this spot, we tried going deeper into the alleyway, but then we suddenly started hearing loud phone dialing and bright camera flashes, the work of a menacing security camera. It gave us quite a scare. We had to run and take photos elsewhere. The eyecandy version took about 2-3 hours to edit in Photoshop. I’m not too good at this, but I had a lot of fun enhancing this picture. Added a light streak and a burst of lens flares. I tried to add a sense of depth to the light streak as if it was coming in from a distance but I kinda failed, the angle doesn’t look too natural. I will work on it and improve on future works though.

These works can also be seen on my deviantART: Original | Eyecandy

Incase you haven’t noticed, though they might appear minor, I’ve made some major changes to the site. Here’s a list of changes.

• Comments system has been greatly improved. Users will no longer need to register to comment. I deleted the current user database and upgraded the comment system to the DISQUS engine. If you were previously registered to the website, you will not be able to log in anymore. You can now login in to comment using your Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, Disqus, or OpenID account instead. If for some reason you don’t happen to have any of these account types, you can simply comment as a guest. It’s really neat, convenient, and it just works. Don’t believe me? Try it.
• Re-designed the site footer for easier navigation. Something I should’ve done from the get-go. It looks much better than the simple font that used to be there.
• Enhanced sidebar. The sidebar now features my latest twitter update and easier administration login, which will be used only for me now because of the new comments system upgrade.
• Still currently working on the about pages. All of the pages about myself and the website are outdated. Some information is now incorrect and misleading. I am revising them all so that it is easier for visitors to read and learn about myself, as well as ruizwashere.com.

That’s it from me. I have a lot to study for now. If you want to follow and catch up with me, then please consider following me on Twitter. I’ve just started, and I find it addicting to update. Thank you! :)

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Currently Listening To: Kate Havnevik – You Again

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I think it’s about high time for a simple, down to earth update that’s genuinely all about me. If you came for pictures, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to leave you empty-handed this time around. It’s been raining quite a bit lately so I haven’t had the opportunity to take photos. BUT, I have a sketchpad and I’ve been sketching down visions of drawings of photos that I want to take, what type of person should be in them, and everything that is required to make it possible. Plus, I’ve been in the talks with a few people who want to be in them. So please, stay put. You’ll be able to see a lot of my visions soon. :)

Anyways, about ME. A lot has happened within the past few weeks, but I’m just too unmotivated to remember every last thing that has happened. So I’ll go ahead and summarize all of my happenings into three subjects: school, work, and everything else.

School: School has been fair to me, to say the very least. I’ve realized for the past few weeks that I’m behind in all of my classes. Though there’s plenty of time to do things, I keep waiting until the last minute to do it. I told myself that I would avoid this habit before the semester and I still continue to tell myself that. Nonetheless, I’ve picked up a bit. I’ve been following reading assignments closely and things are starting to look up. I recieved a PERFECT score on my speech (a self-introductory speech) last week and I have two Biology tests this week, one which has already passed. I know I didn’t do so well on it, probably got a B or C. The other one is tomorrow and feel that I’m just not prepared for it. Other than that, I have a few novels I have to read within the next few weeks. So that means less computer time.

Work: Work is awesome, it’s really amazing and I’m lying. Work is gay. People keep coming and going as usual, and I don’t mean customers either. On top of it all, work can be very fatiguing. I hate the feeling of coming home from work to try to study just to fall asleep on the desk within minutes. Oh, and I could’ve sworn that morning meetings were supposed to be in the morning, and not the evening. If the morning meeting was never broken, DON’T try to fix it.Whatever, even though I’m complaining like a child, it’s still nothing I can’t handle. Just get in, complete the job, and get out.

Everything else: To type everything else that has been going on with me in the form of a paragraph would take up too much time. So here’s a list of stuff that’s been goin on with me.

• Went to the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin last week with a good friend I met not too long ago. We had a blast. Tried to take photos but I left the memory card at home. :\
• Patiently waiting for my financial aid check. Expecting a buttload of money. I don’t even care about my work paycheck, I just want that financial aid check. :)
• Remember how I made a post a few weeks back on how I would no longer be playing Street Fighter IV? Well, I lied. I’ve been playing and I renewed my Xbox Live subscription today. But it’s not what you think! I play it on a very casual basis now. I wake up early every morning just to play for about 30 minutes. It’s a good way to wake me up and just get my brain going.
• I ordered new glasses yesterday. My eyes have been killing me because of these contacts. They’ve been giving me nothing but constant redness around the edges of my eyes, making me look like I’ve been stoned or something. I will be wearing my glasses more than I wear my contacts now just for convenience sake. These glasses are very slim and casual-looking, I like the way I look in them. :)
• This is random but driving back from school everyday, I’ve slowly seen a large, dead dog corpse completely decompose into the highway. It’s disgusting. On top of that, there’s now another new one on the way to school as of yesterday. Where the hell is Animal Control?? Now I get to see corpses decompose to and from school. Seriously, they’re effing up.
• I’ve made a bunch of tweaks to the site. It’s now easier for users to login, comment, and upload their photos. Browsing the archives is been a bit more refined and easier on the eyes. The comment system has been improved significantly so check it out. There’s still a few more refinements I need to make and I will be working on them soon. So please keep checking back and if you haven’t already, register. Thank you to all of those who have already registered, there’s about 50+ registered users now. :)
• Been addicted to Epik High’s new album, [e]. Best album from Epik High to date. Have you seen the music video for it? It’s pretty hilarious stuff. There’s just so much irony and random stuff in it, it’s awesome! Play it over a few times, you’ll pick up a lot of random stuff.

That’s really about it. Even though there’s a lot more, that’s all that I can think of from the top of my head for now. If anything else comes up, I’ll let you know.

Thank you for reading! :)

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Currently Listening To: Epik High -- High Technology

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It’s taken quite a few sleepless nights of designing, coding, troubleshooting, and hair-pulling, but the new ruizwashere is… HERE!

Version 7 is finally up and running for the most part. Over the next few days, the site layout will go through a few more visual tweaks and edits, giving it a more professional appearance. These tweaks include redesigning the footer, teaking the archive pages for easy navigation, and updating the login/register page. I’m really proud and fond of this design, please let me know what you think of it. If you encounter any bugs, errors, or design flaws, just let me know.

Yesterday, I finally took the initiative to buy a DSLR camera. I now have a Nikon D60, which is a great beginner camera for me. I’m not exactly a professional photographer, but photography is something I really want to get into. The camera isn’t TOO hard to operate, but I’ve finally realized that in order to get those perfect shots that you want, you have to WORK for it. The 18-55mm lens is pretty good to start with, but later I want to buy a 55-200mm lens so that I can produce shots like THIS or THIS. (holyyy sheeeit!!)(UPDATE: Scratch that! I want a AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G lens! This is EXACTLY what I need. Here’s a Flickr pool filled with pictures taken with this lens.)

Here’s a some shots from my first day of use. Just keep in mind that many of these photos are just straight-up NOOBSHOTS, so please, no deep criticizing!! Remember that all I have is the 18-55mm kit lens that came with the camera. I’m going on another photoshoot session later today so that I’m able to experiment a bit more and post up some more shots. I’ll keep in touch. -Ruiz

 

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Currently Listening To: Fabolous (ft. Drake) – Throw it in the Bag (Remix)

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