I recently acquired a bunch of Mac software from MacHeist 3.  For those of you know don’t know, every year MacHeist lets you earn a bunch of free software by completing “missions” – fun, online quests they set up.  At the end of the Heist, they release of bundle of spectacular software which can be purchased at a ridiculously low price.  The mission part is over, but the bundle is still available if you’re interested.

One of the free apps was called Scribbles.  I’m no great artist or anything, but I do enjoy doodling on my white board from time to time.  So I was pretty excited to get an application like Scribbles.  One of the things you can do while drawing with it is set the window to be transparent.  It allowed me to open up a photo on my computer, open Scribbles over the photo, and trace the outline of the photo.  Then I played with the different brushes to try to make the hair look like hair and the skin look like skin.

Should I quit my day job?  No, absolutely not.  But I think it doesn’t look too bad.  Here’s the original picture and the one I did using Scribbles.

Welcome to the new front end for DeMeo-Web.com.  Kick off your shoes and get comfortable.  Have a cup of coffee, and enjoy your stay.

Those of you who are familiar with me know I love to blog.  This is not my first blog, nor will it be my last.  I had a few reasons for starting this one.  Sometimes I just want to write about something – maybe something funny happened at work, or I’m incensed over some political news, or I just took a photo I’m proud of and want to show it off – random topics that pop in my head at odd times.  Until now I didn’t have a proper venue for such ramblings.

This site is my sandbox.  Here I am giving myself the freedom to write about whatever I want, whenever I want.  Hey, lets face it, at least it’s better than the boring, static page that’s been occupying this site for the last several months.  You’ll still find the same, familiar menu to the right.  If you’re looking for the photo gallery or the family tree, it’s all still here.

So what do you think of the new look?  How about that crazy title?  I wanted something that hinted at the absolute lack of consistency of the topics to be covered.  “Been There, Dawn That” seems to work pretty well.  It was Al’s suggestion.  He’s a clever one, that husband of mine.

And how about the design itself?  Isn’t it pretty?  I can’t take credit for that either.  If you look down at the footer, you’ll see it was designed by someone named Page.  I only modified it slightly, then did everything else with a bunch of Wordpress plug-ins.  (I love Wordpress!)  So, no, I have no idea what all those Chinese characters say.  I like to think they say something nice like, “Welcome to my Blog.  Pleased to meet you!”  For all I know they say, “Haha, you silly American girl!  You have ugly shoes!”

Well, I suppose I’ve rambled on enough for an introductory post.  Thanks for reading.  I hope you come back to visit soon!