Posts Tagged "atlanta"

I am a drinker. I’m not out of control or anything, but I can say I like to put them away more so than the average guy. I like to have a good time. I like to party. I have friends that like to party and they have friends that like to party. I indulge in the activity of drinking at least once a week but most likely more than that. I have noticed that most social gatherings, when you are in your twenties, has to do with drinking and most of the time it has to do with drinking a lot. Sometimes more than others, but most of the time it’s enough to make you take a cab home. Society today really embraces drinkers so everyone seems fine with the idea of “going out for some drinks after work”. That’s just the way it is. I didn’t really see the whole extremity of the situation until I decided to stop drinking for a month. It’s almost strange how it is so natural to drink when “going out” or when “hanging out with friends”. It’s just what we do and the way things are. And we all know that people stick with what they know and what seems comfortable.

I can’t take credit for the idea of giving drinking a break. Though it seems like a simple concept, I hadn’t met anyone who had actually considered doing it until I met Priscilla’s good friend Meghann Quirk. She gave up drinking for Lent a couple years in a row before I had decided to partake. This was about two years ago now. I didn’t really quit because I gave myself three “give me’s”. Three days that I could drink within the six weeks that I couldn’t. It made it a lot easier and it more than made up for the days I didn’t drink by getting plastered the days I could. By the end of it, I did feel a small sense of accomplishment, but it was short lived.

This time I didn’t give myself any free days. I set a time to start and a time to finish. It just happened to start on my friend Dennis’ Bachelor Party and ended on his wedding day. It seemed fitting since I knew I would be drinking heavily at the Bachelor Party and then again at the wedding. The four weekends in between were uneventful unplanned weekends without traveling, or guests, or parties, or birthdays or holidays. With nothing to stand in my way, I knew it would be the easiest time to be successful. Is that cheating? Maybe a little, but I still had my hardships and those four weekends filled up pretty quickly with drinking events.

Right off the bat I had a run in with temptation. I joined a kickball league with friends that had games every Tuesday night after work. The games were sometimes followed by dinner and drinks at a local Pizza joint Mellow Mushroom. I drank my water and ate my pizza. It was harmless. Nobody really got wasted so it wasn’t that hard. That weekend Priscilla and I went to a concert to see Rascal Flatts. (A gift from me to her for our Anniversary) We tailgated and everything. I watched Priscilla try to down as many beers as she could in the four hours we were there. It was pretty entertaining to try to get her drunk. That was until the ride home when she complained the entire ride about how she had the hiccups and wanted to throw up. All in all it was still fun though.

The following weekend was uneventful. A weekend of rest and being lame. We stayed in both nights. The weekend after that was looking to be a challenge though. We were visited by Priscilla’s college friend Michele and her husband Jake. I thought I would have some long nights at the bar in front of me being miserable the whole time. I lucked out though because they were ready for bed after dinner each night. Now don’t get me wrong, they had plenty of wine and drinks through dinner as most people do, they just didn’t want to get crazy and stay up all hours of the night. I wasn’t complaining.

Then the last weekend came a visit from the in-laws. This doesn’t seem like it would be hard, but they do drink so it is was present. Plus, a few drinks while the in-laws are around makes everything a little easier to withstand. The weekend was fun and we filled it with shopping and cooking. It wasn’t bad at all.

So now the wedding and the cutoff date is slowly approaching. Only a couple more days left. It really hasn’t been hard. People wouldn’t understand when I would explain I wasn’t drinking. They mostly would give me a strange look like, “what a weirdo”. Everyone would ask me, “why are you not drinking?” I would always answer, “Just for Fun” but the real answer is that I just wanted to take a break from something I do all the time. A break from something that isn’t good for me and something I most likely should cut back on doing. I still like to drink and I think I will most likely will be getting pretty drunk at the wedding this weekend, but I do plan on cutting back when I start back at it. Not completely, but maybe through this experience I can have a better perspective on how much I drink. But especially how much I drink cause everyone else does.

UPDATE: I drank the day before the wedding cause I counted the days and it had already been 32 days. So I had a couple to get my liver ready for the wedding the next night. The wedding came and went and yes, I drank enough to get drunk. It was a good time. By Monday I was sick as a dog and had to miss work cause I had a fever. Hooray for alcohol.

Priscilla and I bought a house in March of this year. It is a suburbanized home in Smyrna right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We took our time to find the right one. We worked with a mortgage broker and determined how much we can afford and how big of a loan we can get.  In turn we would know how much house we could buy. Priscilla and I got a kick ass deal on the two story, three bedroom house in Atlanta. The economy told us it was the best time to buy with the home prices and interest rates being at an all time low. We dove in head first and bought our first home. I had saved up some money from freelancing and had a chunk of money from my late grandparents inheritance so we used that money as a down payment and to do some much needed renovations to the house. When we finally moved in we were in a good place financially. We had a great house with money still in the bank. We were happy.

It has been almost 6 months since we have been home owners and the time seems like it has just flew by. Since March we have made several improvements to our new home, some of which we knew about going into it and some we didn’t. When the weather started to turn hot and humid as Atlanta normally does come summer, we noticed that our upstairs bedrooms and closet never seemed to cool down the way they should. I didn’t want to believe we had an issue with our air conditioning, so I put off calling the repair crew as long as possible. Now, we got extremely lucky these first couple of months of owning our first home. The air conditioning needed a new compressor and that was looking to cost over $1500, but our awesome real estate agent David Willard bought us a home warranty on the day we closed on the house as a wedding gift. The warranty covered the entire thing except for a $200 deductible. It was incredibly lucky and we knew it.

The warranty came in handy one other time when our water heater valve was leaking. Only a $50 deducible covered that small fix. Oh, and before the compressor was replace we spent $50 on a deductible for a guy to come replace a non-working thermostat. As you can see, things are starting to add up. We just had our new kitchen table delivered from Room Togo which is just what we needed. It fills a huge hole we had in our main living area and it was something we were planning to buy the moment we moved in. Another expense. The list of things we need to improve or fix grows by the day. Priscilla and I are both somewhat perfectionists and we need to have things a certain way. Because of this I’m sure the list will ever go away.

I love our new home. It is everything I have ever wanted in a house. It is expensive though. Very expensive. I have never been so aware of my finances as I am now. Credit Cards are the devil but they are saving my ass right now. I know things will settle down and my debt will recess, but until then I am watching every bill and pinching every penny. I guess it is good for me. I figured I would eventually have to lean on my credit one day. Living without debt is unrealistic, but I tried as long as I could. It’s a helpless feeling owing money you don’t have. I don’t like it. Not at all. But again I love my house and it’s worth every penny.

My wife Priscilla doesn’t cook.  She never has and I don’t think she ever would have either.  That is until about a month ago when we both decided to trade off days during the week when we both cook dinner.  Not a Fast Food pick up order or a pizza delivery guy.  A real home cooked meal.   Now, cooking a meal at home may seem simple to some people, but to Priscilla, cooking is a really, really big challenge.

Priscilla can clean and organise and even do yard work with all the confidence in the world.  She can take a messy closet and turn it into a rainbow of organised shirts, undershirts, button downed shirts, dress shirts and suits all in order and all color coordinated.  Don’t get in her way when she is in her “”clean mode”.  She is like a runaway train.  She will clean the house til you can eat off the kitchen floor.  I can’t even take a shower two days after she cleans cause it will dirty the tile.  (just a joke there)  She will spend hours pulling every weed in the yard after she mows and edges the grass.  It’s incredible how meticulous she can get over some of the smallest things.

Well, as domesticated as she sounds, she has never been a chef.  Apparently she has never cooked in her life.  Ever.  I, on the other hand, was a line cook in a restaurant for 5 years as I made my way through college, so I know my way around the kitchen.  Now I have always been proud of my cooking ability and have always cooked for myself and then for Priscilla when we started to date and eventually got married.  I didn’t mind then and I don’t mind now but I do want Priscilla to learn how to cook so she can appreciate the world of the Culinary Arts and try new and exciting foods.

Priscilla has always been a picky eater.  Ever since I have known her she has been very particular about what she orders off a menu and what restaurant she attends.  She is usually not  ”in the mood” for anything other than chicken fingers and quesadillas.  She has her moments of being open minded about what she eats, but most of the time she just isn’t feeling it.  The idea of having us both cook opens up the idea of making new foods and trying new things we normally wouldn’t want.  We are letting the other person choose the meal and make it the way they like.  The main thing I wanted wanted to achieve for us both was to appreciate these meals because it took time and effort to create them.

Priscilla was all for it.  She knows she is a picky eater and wanted to learn how to cook.  I would be there to help and she would be there to help me too.  So far the meals ranged from Polenta to frozen chicken fingers.  All in all, we have leanred a lot.  Eventually I want us to take some cooking classes and learn even more.  I want to try new things and cook new vegtables I now consider weird or gross.  Eggplant?  Not sure if that is good or not but I want to try it out.  Priscilla has eaten everythign I have made and cooked up some excellent things herself.  The Pulled Pork was some of the best I have ever had.

I work at Indigo Studios which is located at 660 11th Street Atlanta Georgia 30318.  11th Street is located in between Howell Mill Road and Northside Drive in Midtown Atlanta.  Northside drive is a very unique place to work and is shared by a number of different kinds of people that makes Northside such a wonderful place.  There is always something different, something new.  There honestly could be a reality show purely based on the trials and tribulations of the characters that reside on the street they call Northside.

Northside actually runs from my condo in Vinings then through the edge of Buckhead and then all the way to my office in Midtown.  Its about a ten mile ride with numerous lights along the way which is why I bypass most of it with a quick jump on the freeway.  It’s kinda funny to think of the type of people that litter the streets only ten miles apart from each other.  You see, up by my house Northside is a forested community with rich mansions and preppy neighborhoods that include some of the riches people in Atlanta.  Celebrities such as Jermain Dupree, Oprah,  and Elton John  also have been known to live up in the north end of Northside.

But that’s not the Northside I work in.  The Northside I work in is the south end.  Almost everyday I have been driving the stretch of Northside that starts at Interstate 75 and ends at Georgia Tech.  Lets just say that it is the ghetto part.  Yeah it’s ghetto, but it’s also an artsy, cool kinda ghetto.  It is beginning to be an art deco neighborhood with a ton of digital art shops like Indigo itself.  We have several competitors right down the street from us.  It also is on the up and up with a couple giant new developments including the wonderful Atlantic Station that is right down the way on 17th Street.

Northside also has a large community of music recording studios that almost completely make up the local Atlanta Rap scene.  Actually Indigo shares a building with Solar Sound Studio that pumps out mad beats that we can hear all day through the wall we share.  The vibrations are accompanied with a heavy stench of marijuana which is something our clients just love.  Also, 5 years ago Indigo was located just a mile down Northside and we were neighbors to the infamous Atlanta rap duo Outkast.  It was pretty cool to see them and there hallowed out cigar remains in our parking lot.

Northside Drive also ends directly at the inner city college Georgia Tech.  It is a beautiful campus with a extremely diverse demograph of people.  Mostly those include nerdy Asian kids and 24 year old women that have never been laid, but overall I’m glad the campus is close.  It is still a college.  It brings a whole other element to Northside and is the main reason it has begun to grow with all the new developments.  College kids need apartments to live in and they are going up everywhere.  Even with such a shitty housing market, there is a massive complex being built right next to Indigo that now dwarfs our building.  I’m just excited cause we are getting a Smoothie King and a Jersey Mikes right next door.  Holler!

But all this is not the true deep down entity of Northside Drive.  Northside itself has its own residence.  It is littered with a large amount of homeless that can be seen daily walking up and down the street.  There has been copper stolen from our neighbours and Indigo itself has been broken into.  There is a metal scrap shop at the end of 11th Street along with three abandoned homes that look as if they were built in the fifties and left to rout in the seventies when cinder block homes went out of style.

We also have grown to get to know our homeless friends.  At Indigo, we constantly get a knock on the door from the same 2 homeless men asking for our collection of coke cans.  We also have one guy that drives around on his tricycle talking to himself and dancing through traffic. We lock our doors when we see him.   There is actually an abandoned bank where homeless people live, but not in the building just under the covering for the once active drive through ATM.  We often see a skinny black woman sitting in the parking lot of the bank  holding her knees rocking back and forth whispering to herself.  We also see our old friend that used to live in the parking lot of building next door in an abandoned house before they tore it down to build the new apartments.  He calls himself the Sheriff because he watches the neighborhood.  We found out later we was a regular at the local bar Northside Tavern.

Northside Tavern actually is on Howell Mill which is one street over but it is worth mentioning because it is so famous for its live Blues music ever night.  Northside Tavern is one of many wonderful bars and restaurant that are found all over the Northside area including Taco Rio Del Sol, Flip Burger and Six Feet Under.  Unfortunately they are also accompanied by a number of trashy strip clubs and novelty shops.

I once saw a movie named “Crackheads gone wild” that has a wonderful quote from an Atlanta crackhead that said, “I buy my shit on Northside drive!”  I thought it summed up the neighborhood pretty well.

3037 Montclair Circle is tucked away in a little town called Smyrna.  Smyrna is a small suburban town sitting directly next to it’s big brother Atlanta.  Located just outside the perimeter, Smyrna is close enough to the city to still be considered part of the city yet just far enough away to loose most the traffic and craziness.  It is close to the freeway, close to a little town square with shops and restaurants, and just close enough to my office.  The neighborhood itself is a cookie cutter community that has about 35 homes that share about ten different styles.  It’s not too bad, but they all definitely look similar.  They are all brick.  Some of them have basements, and some have fenced in yards.  3037 has neither, yet it is in the best spot in the neighborhood.  Montclair Circle is one street that simply goes in a loop.  At the end of that loop, it continues to a small community of blackstone styled townhomes.  We both share the name Montclair.  Overall, it is a great little neighborhood.

3037 Montclair Circle was built in 2003 and has three bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, a kick ass kitchen with an island and a cool back splash, two story tall ceilings in the living room and a two car garage.  The current owner had leased the property and the current tenant was making some renovations.  They were putting in hardwoods in the living room and crown molding in the kitchen.  The only problem was that they ran out of money before they could finish. Plus, the house was selling “As Is” so we would have to fix the floors before we move in.

 It was originally bought in June of 2008 for $352,000 and the owner soon realized they could not afford it.  It soon began to go into foreclosure.  When we made our offer on the house it had two weeks before it was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  We knew we had to act fast.  The house was listed at $299,000 so we made an offer of $280,000 with a month of Due Diligence and two weeks of a Financial Contingency.  This basically means we have a month to make inspections, get financing and commit.  Mr Willard also added some small stipulations that will cover our asses from the seller and the bank.  Overall the process of making an offer was way more complicated than I thought and involved signing a large contract with a lot of things I didn’t really understand.  But we did it.   It was our first official offer.

About a week went by before we heard anything.  We found out that there were two other offers on the table but the seller was interested in ours none the less.  They wanted to slice some of Mr Willard’s small stipulations off, cut our Due Diligence and Financial Contingency down a week and wanted to know if we could up our money offer.  Before we came to settle on this house, we had seen 40 others that didn’t peak our interest.  We were willing to negotiate.   We let them have their cut stipulations and threw on another $10,000 to tell them we mean business.  When we first starting looking, my top price was $300,000 so I was willing to give in alittle.  We submitted our second offer.  After talking with the listing agent Mr Willard told us that they were very interested and they were going to push to make it happen.  The excitement started to build.

After a few days they came back with another offer.  This time they wanted to slice the Due Diligence and  Financial Contingency down to 15 days.  This is where things got sticky.  I really wanted to not have to play hard ball and take a stand because I really wanted this house.  Priscilla thought the 15 days was just too short of a time to decide and I agreed.  We turned down those stipulations and stuck to our guns.  We took a stand and resubmitted our final offer.  

We received the signed offer sheet from the seller three days later.    They accepted.  But this is not the end of the madness.  In a “short sale” the owner and the seller have to agree on the terms.  So now the seller needs to submit our offer to the bank.  Mr Willard says that because it was about to be auctioned off, the bank should act fast and accept within a couple of days.  Priscilla and I are trying not to get our hopes up, but we have our fingers crossed.  If all things go as planned, we could soon be on to the next phase: inspections and financing.

to be continued…

So the wedding came and went.  It seems just like yesterday that we were walking down the isle.  But it’s not July.  It’s not even 2008.  It’s a new year and with a new year comes a new home for me and Priscilla.  After talking to some friends that had recently entered the world of home ownership we came across a guy named David Willard.  My good friend John and Dennis both used David as their real estate agent so I thought I would meet him and start the process once again.

David is a tall and dark guy that, though not necessarily his main neighborhood, has sold homes in the Smyrna area.  We decided he was our best choice to help continue our search.  He hooked us up with his brother who just happens to be in the Mortgage business.  James Willard, though I have never met him in person, seemed to be the ideal choice for our mortgage needs.  He got us quickly preapproved and we  were on our way.

David hooked us up with a similar online house portfolio that updated daily with new homes that are in the area we want and has what we want.  We were sticking with the 3 bedroom two bath range in Smyrna.  I wanted a basement.  Priscilla wanted anything new.  We both had the perfect house in our head.  It was just a matter of  finding it.

 The first day we went out to view some homes, we only went to see three.  The one with the basement was too old.  Go figure.  The more I looked the more I found that new houses are either expensive, or far away.  We needed to start looking for compromises.  Priscilla was dead set on a “non-fixer upper”  She wanted it “move in” ready.  I was willing to change some wallpaper and paint some walls if we had to.  So I started making a new list of houses to go visit.  This time I found about 8 houses to see.  This time they were mostly in the 2000 or newer range and still were safe in our price range.  They all had some plus’ and minus’ but none of them really made a splash.  

That was until I found a house one Montclair Circle in Smyrna.  I immediately showed Priscilla via email and she too thought it was a good one.  She made sure I knew that it didn’t mean a whole lot until we see the house in person.  It was hard for me not to get excited.  ”This could be it.”, I thought.  I tried hard to not get my hopes up.  We made our way to see the houses I found and after a full day of viewing all the houses the home on Montclair was still the only one we favored.

After that long day I knew we needed to act fast.  We told David to get any and all information on the Montclair house while I continue to look for more houses to see.  I tried to convince Priscilla that this was the house we wanted, but she was set on seeing at least 50 houses before we decide as her friend Becki looked that 50 before she decided.  As I thought 50 was a little excessive, I truly thought it would be a good idea to see as many as possible, if only to educate ourselves on what was out there.  I then stretched out search criteria alittle wider in order to have more options.  My main concern was that we may not have any more to see in our price range or the area we wanted.  I raised the amount by $50,000 and made a new search.  It is amazing what $50,000 can do to a home search result.   Anyway, I was not willing to drop the extra 50k on our new home but in such a shitty housing market I thought it was not a bad idea to at least view homes out of our range.  I truly only did it thinking I could find someone desperate enough who would drop the price into our range.  It was that and Priscilla needed to see more homes.  Just enough to convince her that the Montclair house was the one for us.

We told David that we wanted to do Saturday and Sunday and see as many as we could.  I gave David a list of 15 houses.  Saturday we started our journey.  We saw 15 homes in one day.  Not one impressed us.  I mean there were some good ones.  Some new ones.  Some with basements.  But not one convinced us the Montclair house was not the best one out there.  Monday, we made an appointment to see the Montclair house again, just to help us make the decision.  Tuesday we had made up our minds.  We were ready for the next step:  making an offer.

to be continued…

So my wife Priscilla and I have been talking about buying a house for a couple of years now.  After long discussions about where we want to live, what cities we like, and where we feel we can see ourselves settleing down, we decided that we both love Atlanta.  It’s a big city, but not too big.  It’s constantly growing with new hip, cool places to go to all the time.  Traffic blows, but it takes about a half hour to get anywhere in the city (without traffic).  It has nice neighborhoods, new neighborhoods, expensive neighborhoods, and a whole lot of ghetto.  There is a river, but no ocean.  Everything outside of Atlanta is at least four hours away from including the ocean, but Florida is right next door.  Tallahassee, Destin, Jacksonville, Savannah, Reighle, Charlette, Memphis, New Orleans, and Biloxi are all close enough to drive to.  It’s a five hour flight home to California, and a five hour drive to Priscilla’s parents house in Beaufort, South Carolina.  I think the biggest reason Priscilla and I love Atlanta so much is because it is neutral for the both of us, there is nothing we hate about it.  Plus we have a bunch of friends here and there is no reason to move.

Our journey began a few years back.  We had no idea where to start.  We just got engaged but we were not yet married and, as you could imagin, we were busy with a number of other things.  We asked our friends and family what to do first but we realized that none of our friends own their owned house.  We were lucky though becuase our friend Matt was friends with a realitor.  I wanted to do everything I could to learn about Real Estate before I actually bought something, so I wanted to get hooked up with a realitor as soon as possible.  

Brent Garrison taught us the beginings of Real Estate.  He hooked us up with a lender and we found out our price range.  At this point I realized why the economy and real estate business failed like it did.  We were aproved for some rediculous amount that would put our payments at over half our take home as a couple. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to know a house and be broke because of it.  So we decided our price range was nothing more than $300,000 which is pretty normal for a starter home in Atlanta.  Our house hunt began.

Brent hooked us up with a series of emails every week with updates of new houses that come on the market.  We checked them out as they came, but nothing really caught our attention.  Priscilla and I were too caught up in everything else in our lives, so buying a house was soon put on the backburner.  We then decided to wait til after the wedding maddness was over before be began to dig into the house buying process once again.

to be continued…

I’ve been to New York about five times in my life and I loved every trip. I love it so much that I considered moving there at one point in my life.  That was about five years back when I was right out of school and looking to start a new chapter in my life.  Not to mention that my whole group of friends was either moving there or some other big city to find a really cool big city job.  I’m not going to lie, I was too scared to do it at the time.  I was happy where I was in my little city I call the ATL.  Well, it’s not all that little.

Anyway, I considered moving there because I love the vibe of New York.  The crazy smells and the strange people around every turn.   The fact that if you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.  The movie stars.  The award shows and movie premieres.  The fact that New York is the setting for so many big movies and story plot lines. The Broadway shows and millions of tourists.  The business culture and all the young professionals trying to make it big.  The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.   I love New York because it is the biggest city in the world.  It’s unlike anyplace else and it’s a  world all it’s own.

Now, as much as I love New York, I didn’t move there and I won’t ever move there.  I could, but I wont.  First of all Priscilla wouldn’t let me (I mean us) move there.  Plus, I would have to sell pretty much everything I own.  Next, I would have to go from a spacious two bedroom condo to a meager 700 square foot room four floors up.  Not to mention that my shower would be in my kitchen.  (I’ve seen it)  I don’t think Priscilla could handle that one.

On top of all that I like where I’m at.  Atlanta is my home (For now) and I have no reason to leave it.  New York is a great place to visit and I will always think of it as one of my favorite places I’ve been  But, unfortunately, I will never live there.

I didn’t go to college. I couldn’t take it, so I went to the next best thing. Art School. Now, I was nineteen and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I loved art. And I knew I hated school, so I started asking around about what Art School options were out there.

My Dad ended up setting me up with an interview with the people down at a local Design Agency in Downtown Sacramento. Two of the guys there told me that they moved to Atlanta to attend a small design school called Portfolio Center and that one of them had actually taught there for a short time. Now, at this point I was looking at all my options. I had looked into schools in Oakland and San Fransisco, but none of those schools really sparked my interest.  Plus, they were 4 year degrees, and PC was a two year specialized school.  In other words, you get a certificate and they help you get a job. Sounded good to me.

I moved to Atlanta in March of 2001.  I grew up pretty fast there as all my friends were four years older then me.  You see, most kids at Portfolio Center actually go to a normal college first.  They then graduate and decide they want spend more money on school.  But really, most people use PC as a graduate school, or finishing school.  I was the baby, yet most people I came across claimed they wished they had done what I had done and skipped regular college.  I guess I just knew what I wanted.  I just like to draw pictures.

So after being at PC for a while, I realized that I am one of about ten Illustrators.  Portfolio Center is a very small school made up of about 300 kids.  I would say over half are designers, a quarter photographers, and the rest are made up of Art Directors, New Media, and then Illustrators.  It was strange, but I ended up liking the fact that I was in the minority.  Plus, the designers were put through hell, and all we did was paint and draw all day.  I was a 19 year old stoner from California; I loved it.

Most of my friends were designers.  They were all very talented but had a lot more work then me.  I got the nickname “Danger” because I was such a bad influence on my overworked designer friends.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did work.  It was just that I was so talented, that I didn’t need to work that hard.  (sarcasm)  But really, I did learn a lot about drawing and painting.  Plus, I did take my first classes in After Effects, Flash, and Lightwave which I use on an everyday basis now.  PC was a great starting point for my career, and I loved every moment I was there.

Portfolio Center, with the help of my Illustrator instructor Gary Weiss, got me my first opportunity in the real word.  They set me up with an internship at Indigo Studios.  I have worked there ever since.  PC gave me the knowledge and professionalize that I needed to get a job in the real world and succeed at that job. 

And plus, if I hadn’t gone to PC, then I wouldn’t be here in Atlanta, and I would never have meet my beautiful wife Priscilla.  I can’t deny that PC was one of the best decisions I have ever made and It was a major turning point in my life.  I suggest that if anyone out there wants to be a designer, or wants to work in the creative advertising business, then Portfolio Center is the way to go.