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

I remember one year ago very clearly. It was Easter of course and I had no plans at all. Until an unexpected photo shoot with Nikiya Palombi appeared out of nowhere. So I travelled to Lebanon, PA for a few hours.

Upon my arrival home I had an unexpected phone call from Alejandra. Yes, the girl who I had fallen in love with but seemed to have been kept at arms length for an unknown reason. She was at City Island with her sister who was visiting from Venezuela. She asked for me to come walk with them and meet her sister. It was a nice day and I enjoyed meeting her sister and walking around with her.

A year later I look back and ponder the events that have taken place since then. Soon after that day I learned of her relationship with a man from Chile which was the reason we did not speak very often in the few months before then. I guess if you speak Spanish as your primary language, then seeking a partner who also speaks Spanish is a good trait.

By late June we had started working on our relationship which I had hoped was going to lead to great things. We both had talked about living with each other and even marriage. I thought things were finally falling in to place for me. Well, they were falling, but not in to place like I had expected.

I ignored the red flags that had been popping up. Looking at creating a life with her and her son I found myself trying to find solutions to many things. Providing a place to live for all of us, health benefits, and everything involved with sharing one’s life with another. All of my solutions and fell on def ears. I was basically asked to sell my house, pay for all of the rent for a two bedroom apartment in Camp Hill, and let my daughter sleep on a sofa when she comes to visit. All of this because Alejandra wanted to go to school to become a dental assistant and did not want to work full time while in school. And she did not want to live in Harrisburg even if she could live with me for free and put her son in a private school. Well, I tried.

Then Thanksgiving day it ended when she became extremely upset when she learned that my daughter was coming to visit and spending the night at my house. Why? I have no idea. That was the last straw for me. For someone to ask me to give up everything and not respect the relationship I have with my daughter, and to not want to try to build a relationship with “us” was just too much.

It has been about 4 months since we talked. I often ponder how I came so close to settling down, yet it so quickly fell apart. Anyways, I just wanted to reflect on the past year because these things were on my mind and I didn’t want to leave them there. I wanted to get these thoughts out.

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.