Well. thanks to a pleasant surprise by a refereal from the husband of a friend of my wife's to someon who was moving to Oregon and needed to "unload" his darkroom equipment, I have additional equipment to supplement what I had already. A nice Besseler full color head enlarger up to large format. A "real" proofing exposer, wash trays, sinks, and more! Now if I could just get my back healed up and some time to finish the walls in the darkroom/studio I could build a VERY nice darkroom soon... I'll post some pics of the equipment when I get a chance. Ciao.

One of the classes for my Recreational Therapy degree I'm taking is "Art in Recreation". Basically crafts. Fun class. First assignment (in time for Easter), was to take a 12 egg carton, and convert it into something creative and still hold 12 objects/eggs. So I made it into a ski lift!


Next we had to create plaster face masks. I'm posting the pics of others so that I can email those folks that asked for this pics, the link to download.
Here's my face covered in plaster, I decided to be different and do it with my mouth open, others did with eyes open, or cast their hands, etc.:

And here's the end result:


Here's pics of some of the others in the class and what they did:
We're then supposed to decorate/paint our egg cartons and masks. My decoration of my ski lift was pitiful. And I'm still working on my mask. I'll post those when ready. Cheers!

I am modfying my career path to have a saftely net from IT.
I am developing a background in Recreational Therapy.
I hope to focus on age groups from 9 to 17 years old. And hope to have strong training in working with children with learning and behaivoral disorders such as ADD, ADHD, etc.
I will draw upon my years of experience in:
Guitar/music
Photography
Computers/Technology
Outdoors (hiking, fishing, climbing, etc.)
Teaching
Automotive
RPGing
Acting

All these skills I've developed over the years can tie in nicely with many different programs.
First I need to find the best schools/training programs.
I'm trying to create a national TOP 20 list.
Next I need to find some intern work as soon as possible at entry level.
I need o find a location that has:
A> One of the top 20 training programs
B> Has plenty of work available
C> Has a climate, culture, schools, housing, and life style conducive to healthy living for the family

Ouch, federal limits are being imposed restricing the amount of compensation for therapy related services!

Rec Therapy ATRA compliant School listings:

Arizona has 1 in Tempe UofA
No distance learning.
BS only.


California has 7
No distance learning.
Bacheclors and Masters in Science or Art both available.
several in Bay Area
1 in Sacreamento
Several in Southern CA, San Diega, Santa Clara areas.



Idaho has 1 (Moscow, ID) no distance learning, Bachelors only.
85 miles from spokane, wa.
300 miles from Boise, id

N.Carolina has 10.
No distance learning.
AS, BS/BA, MS/MA/MSRA
New York has Some distance learning courses available.
BS/BA, MS/MA/MSE, PhD

Oregon has NONE.

Utah has 2 (BYU and UofU)
No distance learning.
Offer BS/BA, MS, PhD, EdD
Provo and SLC only.

AS only offerd in Kansas, Maine, and New York

Only distance learning programs in:
Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Missippi, and Washington.


Other  (non-ATRA) Rec Therapy colleges:
1 listed in Oregon Eugene, OR, UofOR
8 listed in California.
2 listed in Washington


JObs:
Asst Director Rec Therapy
Chapel Hill, NC require BS & 6 yrs experience = 32k
ATRA listing

It appears the top 3 states offering the most Rec Therapy programs are:
California
New York
North Carolina

Currently one site lists 338 internship positions open.
2 in Idaho, Boise and Nampa
Mostly Wilderness based.
Boise is summer only.
Nampa is year round 15 week units.

Utah currentlylists  11:
wide variety.

oregon lists 3:
1 is girl scouts (women only)
1 is kids 0-18 in Portland
1 is portland parks and recreation

California lists 11

Arizona lists 1 in Phoenix at a Veterans facility.

North Carolina lists 6:
All over the state, wide range.

Therapeutic recreation website (same as above for intern listings) lists:
AZ=0
CA=1
ID=0
NC=0
OR=0
UT=0

hotjobs.com
Recreation therapy=15 total national
AZ=0
CA=5
ID=1 (up to 65k plus 10k signon courdealene)
NC=6
OR=0
UT=0

monster.com
recreation therapy=29
recreational therapist=39

Marriage and our first son on the way put it all on hold.
A: I wanted to provide a lucrative and stable income for my family to bo
B: My wife hated me shooting female models
C: Much of my equipment had been stolen from me over the years, and what I had left was beat up

I now have decent equipment.
I have some time to my life at last, instead of all work.
I need to update my photo site significantly, it's very out of date.
I'll be moving the commercial photography to my old www.hawkestudios.com website, but keep all the hobby and personal photography here.
I'm much more diversified in what I shoot now.
Before it was mostly commercial work for models and talent. Though I started with and have always photographed children though not in the boring "School photos" style, but much more fun "talent portfolio" style.
Now I shoot wilderness, trips, wildlife, landscape, vehicles, martial arts, abstract and contemporary art, and more.
I'm working on setting up all my darkroom equipment in the coming days.
I have some digital equipment but alas I'm far from switched to digital yet. I think the technology is finally "there" as far as quality and ease of use. I do NOT think it's there archivally yet (compared to black and white archival) for black and white, but it is for color and is excellent for any commercial work. I just can't yet buy the camera I need to compare to my Nikon F5. I'll probably go with a Nikon digital, like the D100 or it's upcoming decendents, so I can use my existing Nikon and lighting equipment.
Anyone been switching to digital? What have you used?
What are your praises and criticisms?
I will be uploading a lot of my work soon, while I still have my T1 running. Over the satellite connection will be too slow to upload them to the site.
Ciao.
-Hawke

I originally ordered Campaign Cartographer at the urging of  friend in Germany and the recommendations of several others in the MERP (Middle-earth Role Playing) community. It's supposed to be a great tool for making maps of all kinds.

I went as far as ordered the "Whole Shebang" bundle (everything they have).

The goal was to have it in time for MerpCon III in the last weekend of July 2007.

Well, it wasn't even close. They didn't even ship it untilthe end of August and it didn't arrive at Spokane until the middle of September. Which then was too late for that address.

So I had to request them to reship it (in September). It only arrived (finally!) at my house November 1st!

It was a box of MANY separate CDs. What a mess, and they accidentally left out one item that I'll now have to request they ship.

The outer shipping box seemed to be fine. but the plastic inner cd cases, well, more than half of them were broken in one way or another (cd center retainer broken), clip that holds the box closed broken, etc.

All together there are 16 boxes/CDs to install! Why they can't just bundle it all on one DVD is beyond me. These are nowhere near full Cd installs and it would save a lot in shipping, packaging, and hassle.

I initially tried to get CC3 (and add ons) to install under Codeweavers Cross Office demo but alas it wouldn't even get past the initial installation screen before an error. I'm hoping I can help in making it run on Linux eventually. So i resorted to botting up the previously never used dual boot option of Vista Home Premium on the laptop. Turns out installation under Vista for CC (like almost every other application and driver out there) doesn't work in a straight forward fashion either.

You need to run each install as "Run as Administrator".

Also you have to install the older .NET framework 1.1 (2.0 is native to Vista), as well as the SP1.1 patches and other patches before several of the add ons can install.

Also while installing Symbol Set 1 (Fantasy Overland), after the install it closed with an error "FCW32: FCW32.exe - Entry Point Not Found" - "The procedure entry point _ShowChanges#0 could not be located in the dynamic link library fcw32.exe". So I don't even know (yet) if it is going to be a corrupted install and need to be reinstalled, or if I have to start the whole thing over.

Additionally, after (nearly) finishing the installation of Symbol Set 2 (Floorplans), as you click on the final "OK" dialog button (doesn't matter if the two checkboxes for "view important last minute information" and "run CC" are checked), an error is generated: "Error 00000007F loading XP module - AdvanvedCC2.dll. Upon clicking the only option "OK" for that dialog, another appears "Error 00000007F loading XP module - BMPTOOLS.DLSS", and upon clicking that OK yet another appears: "Error 00000007F loading XP module - CD2.dll", and even ANOTHER appears "Error 00000007F loading XP module - Dungeons.dll", and then again with "Error 00000007F loading XP module - Effects.dll", then House.dll, then House_cc2.dll, then XPDD2.dll, XPDD2_cc2.dll, xphelp.dll, and finally xppict2.dll."

I'll have more on this review as I finish installing and learning to use the product. I sure hope it's worth all this hassle.

Cheers!

-Hawke