Our church just had a picnic at our new building. The “picnic” was in what would be the auditorium (well, for the first phase, they plan on turning it into a play area for kids—i.e. have one of those playground apparatuses that you’d see at McDonald’s, along with a basketball court, skateboard ramps, etc.). We’ve been to the new building before some time last year, but in between then and now, they’ve done a bunch of renovations, so that hallways that used to be there are completely different (they’re shaped differently and lead to different rooms), rooms that were once there are now combined with other rooms, etc.
Oh yeah, and they added an elevator (for the disabled and people who just can’t climb stairs, since there’s a second floor). And a couple more restrooms upstairs. And the room that was supposed to be for Early Childhood (newborn-3 year olds) is now the Student Center (for junior high, high school and college-age people). The room that was supposed to be the Student Center (I think?) is going to be the temporary auditorium (for the adult sermons), which also went under some remodeling itself.
(I actually had a dream some time last year about the new building. It looked nothing like the actual building, but I got a feeling of excitement as I explored it, kind of like when you move into a larger house as a little kid…)
I brought my mom’s camera so I could take more pictures. When I was about halfway through exploring the new layout, I thought about scanning the new map I had and creating a Flash document with said map on it (both first and second floors). And clicking on various rooms and areas of the building would bring up photos I took of that location.
And then I remembered that my trial of Flash I have expired. But no problem, right? I have the money, I could just buy it off of Creationengine with a student discount. Then I remembered that I might be able to, since I’m no longer a student. ToT So looks like I have to get it at regular price like everyone else (which I don’t have the money for).
In related news, I was at church earlier today, creating some cards for the church’s college-age (18-29 years) group, and I was reminded of the reason why I like to touch graphic design (print media, that is) as little as possible. I came up with the design in Photoshop and made sure it fit the required dimensions (2″ x 3.5″). And I added the text on the back that one of the ministry assistants provided. One of the problems I have with adding paragraph-sized chunks of text is that I end up making it too small (so small that people would have to pull out their magnifying glass to read it). And the other is that I have problems with the colors printing out in slightly different hues or several shades darker or lighter than what I had (waaahhhhh, stupid CMYK!…and stupid Mac/PC color display differences).
And today, one other problem we had was whenever we test printed one of the sides, it came out tiny—tinier-than-my-thumbnail tiny. And we didn’t know why (dimensions: 2″ x 3.5″? Check. DPI: 300? Check). And after I played around with the print settings (umm…File > Print, check to make sure everything’s correct which it was, and clicked Done), it printed out in the actual size. 
Ummm, so we were finally able to start printing out the actual cards. The final product ended up being shifted to the left by about a half a centimeter, but the ministry assistant said it was good. (The cards were used for tonight at the new building, to spread the word of the college group. :3 They were using MY cards. ^^)
And I’m in the process of vectorizing the group’s logo. The one I used on the card was a JPEG, which meant I couldn’t make it any larger than it was, without making it all fuzzy and distorted (which was a problem, since the logo on the final product was a bit too small to be noticeable).
On a related note, we stopped by Blimpie to pick up some sandwiches for dinner (they provided the hot dogs, but everything else, we had to bring ourselves). One of the people there was surprised to find out that I was 24 AND that I graduated from college (she thought I was in junior high ^^).
Modified: November 29th, 2008
