It is time again to put the spotlight on another Campus member. And again, we have a non-scrapbooker, so you can see how the Campus is helping a wide range of PSP users! I'll let Marvin introduce himself.
Tell us a bit about you
I am 70 years old. I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, where my father was stationed while in the U.S. Navy. I am the eldest of 5 siblings. Not long after my birth, we moved to the U.S., and we lived in Washington State, Oregon, and California as he was transferred to various duty stations. He retired in 1968, and our family moved to Temple, Texas, which was his hometown. I was in the 8th grade then, and soon after, I met the girl who would become my wife. Two years later, our relationship became serious, and we married 7 months after graduating from high school. Now we have been married for 51 years, and are living in Frisco, Texas, which is on the north side of Dallas.
We have 2 adult children. In college, our daughter learned to be a school band director, However, she later changed her occupation to high school counselor. Our son went to college to major in aeronautical science, and now he is a captain flying for JetBlue. They both have a daughter and son, so we have 4 grandchildren.
When my wife and I were in high school, she dreamed of becoming a physician but eventually trained to become a hospital-based laboratory technologist. Because of her interest in becoming a physician, I also took interest in that profession. I enlisted in the U.S. Navy to become a hospital corpsman so that I could gain some knowledge and experience in the medical field to see if I wanted to pursue that profession. I did go on to become a physician and served in the U.S. Navy for 4 years as a general medical officer (primary care physician). Subsequently I trained to become an Infectious Disease specialist. I later retired from the Navy in 2001, just 10 days before the events of 9/11 (how coincidental is that?) I then practiced Infectious Disease medicine until May 2019, when I developed physical limitations that were a result of prosthetic knee joint infectious complications. I didn’t see patients anymore after that, so I missed having to take care of COVID patients (another coincidence!). Currently, I am semi-retired and doing administrative work from home as a medical director for a medical infusion company.
How did you get to work with PSP?
As I became older and approached retirement, I developed an increasing interest in preserving memories and creating a legacy of me and my wife for our children and grandchildren. I developed an interest in using computers during my Infectious Disease fellowship 30 years ago, but it wasn’t until I saw picture slideshow stories that I developed a strong interest in learning how to create my own. I purchased a slideshow software called ProShow Producer. A few years later, it went out of business, and now I use a successor program called Photopia Director. After I used ProShow Producer a while, it became evident that I needed to do something to improve the quality of the images I was using and to make them more interesting. This led to researching the internet for suitable software for this task. Unsurprisingly, Photoshop references were common, but then I came across some references about PaintShop Pro. It was more affordable, and I made my first purchase in 2017, and I’ve been using it ever since then.
How did you get to join the Campus?
Unfortunately learning how to use the program wasn’t easy for me. One day in 2021 I got a newsletter from Corel that told of a webinar presented by Carole. After watching it, I was amazed! Her breadth of knowledge was great, and her teaching ability was wonderful. I could finally follow an instructor from whom I could learn something without struggling. My internet search for more of her webinars eventually led me to the discovery of Scrapbook Campus. Soon afterwards, I joined as a Diamond Member to have access to the educational content that I could use for manipulating photos, and I’ve remained a Diamond Member since then. Although my primary goal is to create picture slideshows, viewing scrapbooking content in Master Classes and Q&A sessions has intrigued me and given me ideas such as how to use templates and masks for creating projects to incorporate into my slideshows. In addition, learning how to use layers in PSP has been greatly helpful in using the Photopia Director, for which layers are also an important and integral part of creating slides for the program. I will never be as good at scrapbooking as other more advanced Diamond Members, but I do like to follow the Forums to see what they contribute.
My own projects have been simple and basic. I started with Scrap Bootcamp and have participated in a few workshops. Although I don’t participate in every workshop, I do download and save them all for future reference in case I become more involved with digital scrapbooking. You can see a few of my project attempts associated with this site.
For a non-scrapbooker, he is doing pretty good, isn't he?
If you want to join the DIAMOND membership, like Marvin did, to access all kinds of tutorials to create your own layouts, check out what it includes. Check this page. There is so much you can learn and use!
7 thoughts on “Gold Star – Marvin”
Thanks everyone for your comments and stories. Although I signed up for Scrapbook Campus to learn how to use PSP, I did feel out of place when I read all the contributions of scrapbookers on this website. It is nice to know that not all of us are scrapbookers, but we still learn so much from Carole and others about how PSP can be used.
I can relate to much of your story. My dad escaped from East Germany just before the wall went up and my mom was a Czechoslovakian refuge. He always wanted to come to the US to see the tanks and soldiers who saved his life by throwing chocolate bars and food from the tanks. He first immigrated to Canada and then found a sponsor for the US. He served in the Army for 30 years – tank division. I was born in Frankfurt, and since my mom didn’t know English yet, we always spoke German. I learned English in Kindergarten.
We also lived in Washington and Oregon. I moved about 14 times in my first 17 years, 12 of those within Germany.
I became a registered nurse (although I majored in art advertising/photojournalism for two years) and practiced for 20 years before I had an accident, herniating T1T2 . After that, it was one herniation after another. I now have a dorsal column stimulator in my spine, which helps with pain relief. I then had a respiratory arrest with double pneumonia, which led to a cardiac arrest, and then a coma. For the next 20 years, I sewed, embroidered, and quilted for some income, since I couldn’t practice. I taught my husband how to embroider as well. It took me until last year to finally get my cognitive functioning back to where I could return to work. Being out of the field for even a little while is difficult, much less this long! I am glad you can use your skills in the medical field. I hope to find something I can do from home as well, as I live in the boonies and have to drive one hour to work one way. I used to work in Case Management, but haven’t had any luck finding anything online. You would be good with telehealth too now!
We own Christian Custom Creations, so I use the skills Carole has taught to design T-shirts and logos. I also incorporate them into my quilts. My next project, as time permits, is to create a book for my grandkids of our adventures together. I thought your layout were quite good and creative!
Blessings – Sandy
Well done, Marvin,
You are a good story teller. I enjoyed reading your biography very much. I related to your story as I read it because there were many things that are similar to my situation. I am the second oldest of 7 siblings. I have two adult children and 4 grand children, two of whom are now adults as well. So as you can see why I was captivated by your story especially since you don’t do scrap-booking.
A big thank you to Carole for focusing some attention on those of us who use PSP for improving our photography and for storytelling with pictures. Like Marvin I have learned so much from you and the members of our Campus community. Merci.
I’m so glad you shared your life with us, Marvin. I enjoyed reading all about you and your family. And your layouts are lovely. I’m glad you went with PSP instead of PS. 🙂
Marvin, you have led an interesting and full life. I enjoyed learning about your life and your hobbies. I also got that life-changing email from Corel advertising the bootcamp (May 2020). I never thought I was a scrapbooker either, but it turns out, I actually am a scrapbooker and quite enjoying it.
Hi Marvin,
Thanks for sharing your interesting life story. 🙂 I would not say that your layouts are simple and basic—they contain a lot of techniques!
Like you, I also got to know Carole through the Corel Discovery Center (freebies) and had no interest in Scrapbooking. Long story short, time has passed, and I am still here.
People might initially shy away from the site because of its name, Scrapbook Campus, but although it offers a great deal about scrapbooking, the site has much more to offer. I don’t know any other site offering these high-quality PSP tutorials, techniques, etc.
Hi Marvin,
Thank you for your testimony. ScrapbookCampus was also revealing to me that you could create beautiful things and learn techniques with Carole’s lessons and various workshops and also learn how to program scripts with the Python language that PSP uses. See the lessons (Classes – Advanced – PSP Scripting) . I don’t post much but I like to create. Mireille from France.