Sea Ranch

Well, I don't have a picture of my dog with just his one eye to put up, but I will in the near future.

Right now I'm trying to pack for my trip to Sea Ranch. I've got all my clothes together and my mom and I are working on activities - games, knitting, movies, etc. So far we have a lot of things piled up. We went to the grocery store, too.

There's a really neat jigsaw puzzle at the house and that always provides hours of entertainment for me. That and sleeping. I'm set.

I hope the weather is clear up there. It's been a really mild summer, so I don't think that it will be sunny, but I could be wrong.

I'm bringing my mom's laptop but I don't know if it will work. It depends on the house. If it doesn't work I of course won't be able to post here for a couple weeks. But we'll see.

Ok, I'm getting very impatient here. I just want to leave. I hope I can sleep tonight. Yes, I'm that excited.

Oh yeah, the concert. It was pretty good. The audience seemed to like Blake the most. I really love him, too, and he was great last night. Really awesome beat-boxing. I thought Jordin's voice sounded a little husky when she spoke but she sang very well. Gina had a very large part in the concert. She sounded good, too. And Sanjaya. Luckily he sang very little and at one point his microphone didn't work. I wonder if that wasn't intentional. Everyone else was good, especially LaKisha and Phil. The guys made up a little band with Chris R. as the drummer - Sanjaya just played the tambourine. They sang "Crazy" and "Hey Jude." I enjoyed the concert very much.

Homeward bound

I'm leaving for home in a couple of hours. I've had a great time in Sonoma but I'm a little burned out. I was feeling down the last couple of days.

Tonight is the American Idol concert. I guess I'm looking forward to it but I just feel so tired. I'll take a shower when I get home and maybe that will help.

My mom says my ATM card came in the mail. Yay! I need to get gas for my car, so I can use the card the tomorrow.

Thursday I'm off to Sea Ranch with my mom. Another yay! I wonder if my mom and I will drive each other crazy. We probably will.

Oh, I found out why the "v" key doesn't work so good. My grandmother's cat Mochi pulled it out one time. Silly cat. She's incredibly affectionate, though. One of those cats that likes to sit on your lap no matter what else may be on your lap.

My grandmother took her poodle Jack to the kennel today. My grandfather's out of town and my grandmother's staying with us. Jack must just love playing with all the other dogs. He used to love coming over to my house and playing my dog Max, but he can't anymore. Max is getting old and it's starting to show. He has arthritis in his spine and he can't rough house anymore. He can't even play fetch, which was his favorite thing to do. Last Christmas our vet found a tumor in his right eye and his eye had to be removed. So he's Max the pirate dog now. I'll put a picture of him up tomorrow. He's still a very happy and friendly dog, though. We always joke that if a burglar were to break into our house Max would show him to all the expensive stuff.

I went with my grandparents to Jack's obedience training on Saturday. The trainer Jenny said she loved my hair. Of course she didn't know that I had dyed it. Anyway, we worked on down and stay. Jack obeyed Jenny but he didn't mind anybody else. Eventually he got worn out from running around and down/stay was all he wanted to do. We also practiced some agility and had Jack do a couple jumps. Made me think of freaking horseback riding again. My cousin Blye came with us and he got stung by a bee.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'll report back on the concert tomorrow.

Today was a good day at the store. I didn't make any mistakes on the cash register and I didn't look like a bumbling idiot when talking to customers. I worked with Kaye and Laurie and we made 700 dollars by the time I left at four.

Wednesday night I went out with Amanda to Murphy's again. No offensive language this time, but I did get beer spilled on me. The guy who spilled it didn't seem too remorseful. And I was wearing a new shirt that I bought for 96 dollars. Oh, well. The trivia was pretty hard this time. I wasn't much help.

Right now I'm watching the Giants play the Brewers. Milwaukee is in first place in its division. There's a jerk sitting right behind the batter's box with a white T-shirt bearing the words "BOO 25." Idiot. He's in plain view of the pitcher - must be very distracting. I hope he'll be told to take it off. Probably not, though. My grandmother just said there are a lot of fat people in the stands. Fat, Bonds-hating people. The worst kind. You should have heard the Cubs fans, though. They were booing so loud and taking pictures of Barry at the same time. Even more idiots.

Man, I'm missing all my Yankees/Mets/Indians games. I have no idea how they're doing.

"A Conversation with Barry Bonds" is airing tonight at eight. I'll have to catch that.

Food sucks

Yesterday my grandmother and I took a drive to Point Reyes. It's a really beautiful beach. The drive was nice, too. On the way there the weather was clear but the coast was covered in fog. Signs warned of sharks and sleeper waves. Yikes. The water was pretty rough.

Then we drove to another beach nearby. I can't remember the name of it, but it is believed to have been the landing spot of Sir Francis Drake. The wind and water were much calmer there.

Today a woman named Bess visited the store. She's a jewelry designer and my grandmother sells some of her work. My grandmother was glad we were able to meet because Bess has struggled with anxiety and depression, like me. She's a really cool lady - very fun. A woman came into the store the other day wearing her favorite pair of Bess's earrings. My grandmother and she and I got to talking and we found out Pat (that's the woman's name) is studying Hebrew. She's off to Israel next week. Well, it turns out that Bess teaches Hebrew and she's been to Israel several times. I think it's funny that Pat and her favorite designer Bess share this in common.

My grandmother says Bess deals with overeating (it shows), and I have the opposite problem. In fact, my psychiatrist thinks I may be underweight for my height and age. She weighed me in her office and the scale said 102 pounds. I don't want to go to my doctor because she'll just have me get my blood tested, again. I've had blood drawn three times in the last year. They've got enough of my blood.

Anyway, my grandparents are determined to help me gain weight by stuffing me with food. I don't like this idea. Last night we had pasta for dinner and I ate my fill of it. I walked their dog Jack with my grandfather after that and he bought me a sweet fruit syrupy thing from a new Mexican joint in the neighborhood. Later that night I got sick to my stomach. I felt like I just ate too much. I guess I really don't eat enough during the day, but I don't let myself go to sleep hungry or anything. So I don't know how to solve this problem. It might not be a problem at all - I haven't actually been to my doctor. Oh, well.

I've been having a Coke every day that I'm at the store. I made myself stop drinking soda a while ago, so I guess I'm breaking that rule for now. It doesn't help that the store's right across from an ice cream parlor. I had a chocolate milk shake from there the other day and it didn't combine well with the soda I had. Made me feel like I had a rock in my stomach.

Tonight my grandfather is making stir-fry for dinner and we'll see how that goes. My grandmother had me eat a whole pint of ice cream a few days ago and I have another one waiting in the freezer. Oh, boy.

I worked with Laurie and Kaye today at the store. It was a really great day. I bought a cute pair of earrings for myself.

Ok, I'm no good with the cash register. I screwed up like three times - you'd think I'd get it already. Heh.

Well, my lunch consisted of chips and a Coke. I guess I'll buy a sandwich next time.

Tomorrow I'm going to babysit my cousin Blye. He's seven. Luckily he's able to sit in front of the TV for hours, so he should be entertained. He's sitting next to me right now and he's watching the Spongebob Squarepants Movie. What a horrible movie for such a great show. The word a**hole is in this movie. Yeah. Great for the kids.

Anyway, I will be back to work on Sunday. Hopefully we'll have a few more customers than we've been having these last couple of days.

From sunny Sonoma

Ok, I'm on my grandmother's laptop and it's slow as heck. I'm also practicing my Spongebob typing skills,which isn't helping the speed factor. Oh, well.

On Tuesday my grandmother and a couple friends and I drove to Bodega Bay. It was a really wonderful day. It was in celebration of my friend Carloyn's graduation from junior college - she'll be at Sonoma State in the fall. We brought bread and salami and cheese, and some of the neighboring seabirds came to scope us out. Man, some of them are really mean! To each other, I mean. They wouldn't get too close, though. They were tempted, but they always ran back to their comfort zone. Well, on the way to the beach we took a side trip to my old elementary school. It's a really beautiful school located right next to a farm. We also saw some really cool miniature donkeys.

Anyway, the weather was overcast but it wasn't too cold. I didn't even need a sweater. Ok, the "v" on this keyboard does not work very well.

I've been working at my grandmother's store the last couple of days and it's been really nice. I mostly do little chores like dusting and restocking the shelves. Yesterday I practiced using the cash register. I'm really enjoying it, though. And I'll have four hundred dollars by the end of my two weeks here. Pretty nice.

Last night my aunt Amanda took me out with a couple of her friends to a neat little pub downtown. She and her friends are into tattoos and I told them about the one I want to get for my eighteenth birthday. Well, I have to wait for my birthday to pass before I can get the tattoo - California law. Oh, well. I can just come back in a month after my trip to Sea Ranch and get it then.

Anyway, I liked Amanda's friends a lot until one of them used the word "faggot", which was pretty disappointing. Yeah, I get kinda sore about that word. Pisses me off.

I watched the All-Star game on Tuesday and it was also disappointing. The game was good, but the National League lost. That makes it ten losses in a row now . Grady played (for the American League), but he struck out. But Ichiro was three for three and hit an inside-the-park homerun - he won the MVP award and a pretty nice SUV. Apparently he's closing a deal with the Seattle Mariners for 100 million dollars over five years. Yikes.

So I'm having a great time here in Sonoma so far!

C'mon Cleveland

Well, Andy Pettite did not pitch well tonight. But the Yankees were able to score fourteen runs to beat the Angels.

Cliff Lee gave up six runs in four innings. Boo. The Blue Jays beat the Indians 8-6. Poor Cleveland, they've lost like three or four in a row now.

Houston shut out the Mets 4-0. Boo, too.

Surfing with Spongebob

Well, my hair is very black now. No more red highlights. I love it. If my grandparents didn't like me with brown hair, they're gonna hate me with black hair. Ha ha.

My mom bought my sister and I a Spongebob Squarepants typing game - "Master Spongebob keyboarding from A to Sea!" Should be interesting. I really can't type.

The other day I went to my sister's guitar lesson. My mom drives her to the teacher's house, where the lessons are held. My sister plays with a partner - his name is Conner. Man, he would not shut up. And he kept strumming his guitar while the teacher was trying to explain things. He hurt his thumb, apparently, so he used a pick and that only made his guitar play louder than everyone else's. Pretty annoying. But the lesson really made me long to start some sort of activity for myself. I started playing the violin a while ago, but, like everything else, I stopped. Well, my sister's guitar teacher's husband teaches the violin, and my mom suggested I sign up for lessons with him. I like that idea, but riding seems to be tugging at me a little more strongly. I looked up the Sunset Riding Academy online and it seems to still exist (I had heard it shut down). I guess sometime in the fall I'd like to take it up again. Actually, I'd really like to.

Ok, I'm gonna "surf my keyboard with Spongebob" now. Wish me luck.

Dang Tigers

The Yankees won today! New York and Minnesota were tied 5-5 in the eighth inning when Jeter walked and Hideki Matsui hit a two-run homerun. Mariano Rivera gave up one run in the ninth but he held on to the the win. The final score was 7-6.

The Mets beat the Astros 6-2. Green, Delgado, and Castro all hit doubles and Jose Reyes hit a triple. Beltran hit a homerun in the ninth, but by then they were already ahead.

Well, C.C. Sabathia had a bad night. He gave up ten hits and seven runs in four innings. The Tigers win 12-3. Boo.

Morning person?

I woke up at 8:00 today. Yesterday it was 9:00. It's getting earlier. I used to be a total night owl - I'd stay up till one or later. I've stayed up till three before. And of course I would sleep in till like two or three. But now I go to bed at around 9:30 or 10:00. I don't know why. Well, I do know that a few weeks ago I decided to stop taking an afternoon pill that would knock me out at around six or seven. So that helped me stay up later again. It was when I started taking that pill that I was waking up early, but I'm still waking up early. Oh, well. Even so, I don't think I'll ever consider myself a morning person.

Well, I haven't told my psychiatrist that I've stopped taking my afternoon pill. I don't know what she'll say when I do tell her at my next appointment, and I have hard enough time as it is telling her how I feel, etc. So I don't know if I'll tell her at all. Pretty stupid thing to do, though. She's really nice but sometimes I just can't articulate my thoughts to her. It's not that I don't want her to know how I feel - I do. It's just always been a problem of mine. It kinda ticks off my mom.
Man, my neighbors are annoying. . . In the seventh and eighth grade I had a friend named A'amna. She was really impossible sometimes, always making me feel like crap. She was just too honest, you know what I mean? She always pointed out my flaws to me, as if I wasn't aware of them already. She wasn't trying to be cruel or anything, it's just the she was. Well, she comes from a Muslim family that moved here from Pakistan I think before she was born, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the only time I saw her cry was when she told me how much she resents her parents. But her parents always seemed nice when I saw them. Her mom especially. A'amna has two older brothers and they annoy her to no end, apparently. But she loves cats - she always loved to pet mine forever when she came over.

Anyway, she's my neighbor now. Last summer she and her mom moved next door. Yeah. I thought I was done with A'amna, but she came back. She leaves me alone now. I see her occasionally, though, and her mom always says hello to me. But her brother, who just graduated from UC Davis, is staying with them at the moment. Boy, he loves to talk. Just like A'amna. Whenever I see him, like when I'm getting the mail or something, I walk as quickly as I can as to avoid him. And I don't feel bad at all.

Well, A'amna still loves cats. My mom saw her playing with my cat Posey a while back. When I hear things like that I almost want to knock on her door and chat a while. Almost.

So You Think You Can Dance wasn't on last night! Fox aired the movie Anger Management instead. Stupid. I can't believe I have to wait another week. I really love that show. Except for the host, Cat. I can't stand her and her crooked nose and crooked smile. And those dresses. Yuck. Last week her dress looked like a trash bag. But the dancers are terrific. I also love Mary Murphy and her maniacal screams. It's great.

Sheesh

Today was a horrible day for my teams. I'm ticked.

I missed the Yankee game today, but they lost 6-2 to Minnesota.

The Indians lost a heartbreaker to Detroit, 6-4. Kenny Rogers gets the win.

Ok, the Mets sucked tonight. They scored seven runs but it wasn't enough to beat the Rockies. David Wright started the game off excellently with a three-run homerun, but it was all downhill from there. The Rockies kept scoring and didn't stop until they had 17 runs. Blech. The Mets got swept.

I'm watching the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks show. Pretty amazing fireworks, but the cheesy music kinda ruins it. Oh, well. It would be awesome to be there in person.

Happy Birthday!

Well, it's the fourth of July. We didn't have any hot dogs or hamburgers today, but I will show my American spirit by watching America's past time. Three times.


Man, today was hot - 100 degrees. I went swimming again and this time the water was much more tolerable. Well, my sister got mad at me because I preferred to sit on an inner tube like a lazy bum rather than help her make a whirlpool. She splashed me and then flung my towel into the pool. Yeah. But I got to relax finally after she stormed into the house.


We also went to Target today. My mom says she used to go there every day after dropping my sister off at school. It's a cool place. Then we headed to Safeway and my mom left her credit card in the ATM machine. We realized after we were halfway home, but luckily someone had turned the card in to customer service.


By the way, my parents opened a checking and savings account for me the other day. I'm pretty excited. I'll be getting my card in about a week. Yay!

Ok, so for my trip to Sonoma I've made a little list of things I eat pretty regularly. Here it is:

Goldfish (the crackers, not the actual fish)
Cheerios
Oreos
peanut butter
grape jelly
Stouffer's lasagna
apple sauce

I don't drink soda, but any kind of fruit juice is good. I drink a lot of water. Oh, and I definitely won't be gobbling Big Macs and fries. Sorry. I'll have to find some healthy things I can eat more of.

Lion King

Last summer I made 101 Lion King mini images (called "icons") as part of an online 100 Icon Challenge. Each image fits some sort of theme, like "red," or "sad", or "birth" etc. Icons are used by people who have a Livejournal account, another type of Blog. I don't have Livejournal so I don't use them, but I love making them. Anyway, here are a few - the themes are "alone," "magical," and "embrace."

1. Start out with a base image cropped to 100 by 100 pixels and sharpened/ colored to your liking.

2. Copy the base layer and drag it to a new document. Reduce the size slightly. Copy the layer and set to Exclusion. Then merge the layers and drag back to the original document. Center the image. Copy this new layer and set to Soft Light.

3. Create a Brightness/Contrast layer and set the brightness to +5 and the contrast to +20.

4. Copy the base layer again and drag it to a new document. Re-size the image so that is smaller than the second layer. Leave it on a normal blend mode and drag back to the original document. Center the image. Copy this new layer and set it to Screen.

5. Create a new layer and fill it with a light orange. Set it to Multiply.

6. Create another new layer and fill it with a turquoise blue. Set it to Color Burn.

7. Use a couple of images like these to add the final touch. Set them to Soft Light or Screen.

Go Yankees!

The Yankees actually shut out their opponent today. They won over the Twins 8-0. Chien-Ming Wang lasted eight innings and Eduardo Ramirez struck out the last three batters in the ninth in his major league debut.

Cleveland and Detroit were neck and neck through the ninth inning and on into the tenth. Then Casey Blake hit a home run in the top of the eleventh to give the Indians the lead. The Tigers had a golden opportunity in the bottom of the tenth with the bases loaded and one out, but they just couldn't capitalize. Ha ha. The final score was 5-4.

Well, what's up with the Mets? The lost 11-3 to the Rockies tonight. They better step it up tomorrow.

Barry Bonds hit another homerun today. He's just four away from Aaron now. Go Barry!

Kitties

I thought I'd put up some pictures of my cats, whom we've had for a year now. Bernie is on the bottom and Posey is on the top. I think these photos are pretty indicative of their personalities - Bernie always has that "huh, what's going on?" face and Posey just wants to be left alone. She's becoming friendlier, though. But she's a killer. Last fall they brought in a total of 15 rats plus a couple of birds. Most of them were Posey's responsibility. In the last few days we discovered two dead rats, both in my bathroom. It's better when they come in dead - it saves the rescue effort. But we've had to wipe blood off the floor. Ick. The rats are always so cute, too. One time Posey brought in a live bird and he got stuck in my bedroom. My dad and I tried to get him to fly out the window, but he just hid under the bed. Nearly got my eyes poked out trying to grab him. Eventually he smacked right into a wall and sort of fell out the window. Poor bird.

We took the cats in for their shots recently and the vet said Bernie shouldn't gain any more weight. He has this white, fluffy pouch that hangs off his belly. He weighs twelve pounds and Posey weighs only nine pounds. She's skinny as a rail. Well, we thought we had lost Bernie for good a while back when he disappeared for three nights. We were already thinking about a replacement kitten. But then he showed up one night at three o'clock in the morning. It was pretty amazing, at least I think so.

Ok, I've been seriously thinking about horseback riding. I really miss it. My mom says I shouldn't have stopped and she's right. Maybe I can get my parents to sign me up for lessons again. I'll have to find another ranch to ride at, though. And I don't know how expensive riding is, but I'm sure it's plenty. Oh, well - I'll be getting a job for the school year and that might help. Maybe.

And my trip to the dentist wasn't so bad. I've just got a headache now.

Sorry about the stupid paragraphing. For some reason I can't get the text to separate.

Woohoo!

Grady hit a grand slam!! Well, the Indians were already ahead 6-2 over the Devil Rays when he hit it, but he gave them some major insurance. They scored seven runs total in the eighth inning. The final score was 10-2. Go Cleveland!

Roger Clemens pitched terrifically tonight to help the Yankees defeat the Twins 5-1. He gets his 350th career win. The Rocket allowed only two hits and gave up just one run in eight innings. Looks like he's back on track.

The Rockies beat the Mets pretty convincingly. They won 6-2.

Grady is a reserve player for the American League All-Star team!

The water's great

Today I went swimming in our new pool. It's a cool little round pool 12 feet across and 36 inches deep. It's great. In past years we've had this dinky kids' pool that our dog was able to drop his tennis ball into. The water was not actually great, however - it was freezing cold. But my dad cleaned it out yesterday and the water was beautifully clear. Except for a dead spider that managed to intrude. Man, I hate spiders. Being out in the sun all day at the zoo gave me a farmer's tan and I'm trying to fix that. It could take a while.

I had a dream about horses the other night that made me really depressed. It reminded me of my riding days that I enjoyed a few years ago. Every Saturday my dad and I would attend our riding lessons at the Sunset Riding Academy. It was the most fun I think I've ever had. I was getting good, too. I loved to jump - that was favorite thing to do. But for some reason I felt the need to stop after about a year. I tend to do that. I start things but never finish them, even things that I like to do. Like tennis. Might just be me thinking I'm no good at what I'm doing at the time, I don't know. Sadly, the Sunset Academy is no longer.

Well, I dyed my hair a couple weeks ago. It's a very dark brown, almost black. It's supposed to last six weeks but I can already tell it's starting to fade. I'm naturally a red head, so it's a big change. Black is what I was going for but the only way I could get it was if I dyed my hair permanently. So I figured I'd try this brown out and see if I like it. Well, it turns I really, really like it. That means next time I see my hairdresser I'm going black. I have no idea what the kids at school will think next year. But who cares. I love it. The other day my grandparents, who live in San Francisco, came over and I think they hated my hair. They didn't say so but they didn't need to. I could just tell. Oh, well. My other grandparents like it.

I'm sort of at this point where I'm trying to change myself. I mean my outlook on life and the way I feel about myself, which isn't great. I guess it's starting to come out physically too. I'm getting a tatoo this summer, a little green frog on the left side of my lower back. I'm really excited. Well, with this tatoo and the black hair I thought my parents might be worried about me, but they're all for it. So I'm lucky. I'm trying this new thing out; it's called uniqueness. A year ago, it was the last thing I wanted to try. A school counselor told me I wasn't "normal" and it freaked me out. Made me really angry, too. I fell into a sort of depression that lasted quite a while. I'm still on meds. But now I'm ready to really feel better. And I'll do whatever it takes to actually like myself. I guess my appearance has a lot to with it - I've been depressed about physical things for quite a long time.

Anyway, enough with the sad stuff. Well, maybe not - tomorrow I have to go to the dentist. Blech. My dentist doesn't like me because I don't floss. Well, nobody flosses. Right? Oh, well.

Oh, I just realized the games are on now. Gotta go.

Evangeline Lilly

Here's another tutorial:

1. Open a photo and crop it anyway you'd like. Mine is 200 by 200 pixels.

2. Copy the base layer and set it to Overlay.

3. Make a Curves layer. RGB: In 179, Out 191; In 109, Out 91; Red: In 164, Out 138; In 77, Out 85; Green: In 175, Out 150; In 99, Out 91; Blue: In 144, Out 187; In 109, Out 103.

4. Copy your base layer again and set to Screen.

5. Make a Selective Color layer. Reds: 0, 32, 0, 0; Yellows: 0, 31, 51, 0; Greens: 0, 0, 95, 85; Cyans: 86, 0, 0, 0;

6. Make a Color Balance layer. Midtones: -1, -20, -27; Shadows: -60, +15, +18.

7. Make a Brightness/Contrast layer. Brightness: +10, Contrast: +7.

8. Create a new layer and fill it with color F8D0C3. Set it to Color Burn.

That's all!

I'll be making more Lost images in the future.

Yikes!

My mom and I saw 1408 today. It was pretty scary, but I scare really easily. I hid behind my hands for most of it. It didn't have any kind of cool twist at the end, though. It just sort of ended. But still a good movie.

Well, the Yankees lost again tonight to the A's. Talk about scary. The final score was 11-5. Andy Pettite didn't last three innings before Joe Torre took him out. Poor guy gave up seven runs in the second. Boo.

Cleveland won today over the Devil Rays, 3-2. Grady hit an RBI single. Go Grady! Cleveland's now won four in a row.

I guess the Mets played today too, but I didn't catch it. They lost 3-5 to the Phillies.

Looks like Barry Bonds beat out Soriano for a spot on the National League All-Star team. I'm sort of surprised, but happy. The Yankees and the Mets are well represented by Reyes, Wright, Jeter, and Rodriguez. I can't believe the All-Star Game's gonna be in San Francisco. We're so close! Last time I checked tickets cost $800. Well, I'll be watching it on TV.

I've been messing around with Photoshop for the past year or so and this is my most recent project. I noticed there are a lot of Photoshop tutorials out there and I thought I'd make one for this header. So here it goes (it's for people who are familiar with Photoshop):

1. Open a new document with a width of 700 pixels and a height of 308 pixels. Then fill the base layer with color BC3509.

2. In a new layer I used this texture to give the background that scratchy look.

Set the blend mode to Screen.

3. Find a picture of someone you like and set the height to 700 pixels (in a new layer). Try to move the image to the left side of the document. Then cut out your person using whatever technique works best for you. Stroke the image using white, size 8 pixels, and the outside position. Set the blend mode to Darken.

4. Find another picture of your person and set the height to something smaller than 308 pixels (in a new layer). Try to move the image to right side of the document. No need to cut your person out this time. Stroke the image using the same settings as above.

5. In a new document find another picture of your person. Fill a new layer with a medium blue color and set the blend mode to Darken.

6. Use the circular marquis tool set to 100 pixels and select a piece of the picture you like best. I selected Grady's head here. Then go to Select -Inverse and delete the remaining portion. Stroke it using the same settings as above. Now merge the layers and bring the image onto your original document. Place near the right side of the document.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for another picture of your person.

8. Add some sort of detail to the center of the image. I used this picture from Carton Graphics.

9. Write the name of your person in a new layer using the font Alba Super, size 12, and oriented vertically.

Now you're done!