Plano Balloon Festival 2012

So today me and Tien went to the Plano Balloon Festival near Quad C. First time ever. I mean, it was pretty neat even though I was rather cranky at the beginning. It was really hot and we couldn't stay long cuz Tien was called in for work. The whole thing was kind of like a mini state fair. There were food booths, rides, a concert stage, toys, face painting, and games. The only thing different was that instead of Big Tex there were hot air balloons. Just like the state fair, the food is pretty expensive. A cup of lemonade at Conway's cost $5 and it wasn't even that good. I feel like we got juiced. Parking was $5 when you parked at the Plano Centre and then you had to walk a mile (literally) to get the festival grounds. I wished they had some sort of bus transportation like they had at the Red Bull Soapbox thing. Oh well. Would I go again next year? Maybe. Maybe not. It'll depend on my mood and probably the weather. It'd be nicer if it was a bit cooler outside.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Plano Balloon festival so if you want to check it out, you still have time to! The hot air balloons launch at 7:00am and 6:00pm.

For more info along with a complete event schedule, click the link below:
http://www.planoballoonfest.org/

Watching the balloons launch was pretty neat. Very colorful. Everything was a lot more impressive in person, but I tried to capture the moment nonetheless.

You can see the rest of the photos by clicking the link below:
https://plus.google.com/photos/112994609708042405063/albums/5791241346667748129

UTD Job Fairs are Pointless for Me

So in the light of my very recent rejection from the Disney College Program, I decided to hit up the UTD Career Fair with my good buddy Hien. Turned out to be a huge waste of time for me. Not that I'm surprised by that fact or anything.

Now, this isn't the first time that I've been to a career fair on campus. The last time I went, it was a lot less crowded. But huge crowds aren't the problem. The problem for me walking into any of these career fairs is the lack of variety in jobs or internships. What do I expect? UTD is a school focused on business and engineering and computer science. Of course there's mostly going to be job listings for program designers and business managers. Being a graphic designer, it's hard to find a niche in any of these job fairs. For artists, we have to rely on building connections elsewhere like on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Meanwhile, business and computer science majors can just walk into these career fairs and boom! Opportunities everywhere!

My time spent at this job fair wasn't completely wasted. I did hand out a couple of copies of my resume (a couple being only 2). I handed one to the lady from Michaels (like the craft store) for a summer internship next year. Not exactly what I was aiming for, but if I have no job by the time summer rolls around again, I'll take it. The second resume went to a company called Reynolds and Reynolds. What they do is that they provide marketing and business solutions for automotive retailers. Luckily for me, they did have a graphic design internship even though it wasn't listed on the job fair's program. The only thing about this internship is that if I get accepted I'd have to relocate to Houston. That's not too bad, but I wouldn't have anywhere to stay.

So in essence, UTD needs to learn how to expand and accommodate these job fairs to not just business and computer science majors. That is all.