Jonathan Smith is a web designer, graphic designer, and photographer in Harrisburg, PA.

A friend invited me to Yuri’s Night 2009 this past weekend at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. What a blast! Such a great event for fellow geeks. Where else can you mingle with others dressed in Star Wars outfits and have quality, intellectual conversations? Great music was provided by DJ Scientific and Middle Distance Runner.

More photos can be seen here.

Human Spaceflight became a reality 45 years ago with the launch of a bell-shaped capsule called “Vostok 1.” The capsule was carrying Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who took his place in history as the first human to leave the bounds of Earth and enter outer space.

Exactly 20 years later, the United States embarked on a new era in spaceflight with the inaugural launch of a new type of spaceship — the Space Shuttle. Designed to carry a larger crew and large volumes of cargo to orbit, the Space Shuttles became synonymous with human spaceflight for an entirely new generation of young people.

When the next 20-year point arrived, that generation (often called “Gen X”) laid a new space milestone by connecting thousands of people around the world to celebrate and honor the past, while building a stairway to the future. That event was Yuri’s Night, and it continues to bring the excitement, passion and promise of space travel closer to people of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds.

Recently I’ve decided to get more serious about accomplishing things. You see, I only have a 2 year degree in graphic design. It is a degree, but I crave a 4 year degree. And sure I have years of job experience where I have learned everything from pre-press and printer trouble-shooting to css, xhtml, usability, and accessibility. But I still feel that I need another degree.

I have decided that I want to get a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Graphic design only gets you so far. From here I either need to dive into programming or marketing to keep going in this career. Heck, I would only consider about 5% of what I do actual design work.

I’ve also considered law school. But I need that 4 year degree first. Maybe I can get into intellectual property law.

But first I need to find how many credits I currently have. Then apply for grants followed by tuition reimbursement from my employer. I hope to accomplish this with night classes and/or online courses. This should be the most exciting thing in my life since buying my house.