Three B's

Why no updates? Well, there hasn't been a whole heck of a lot going on. However for my family's sake, I'll try and provide at least a rudimentary update.

• Beards - Some of the guys at work and I have decided to grow beards. I'm pretty sure Randy is gonna have the biggest. The fall is coming and might as well have a bit of fur on the face. I had a goatee for about 5 years and have been clean shaven for about a year now. After I shaved my goatee last fall I happened to be in California visiting my brother and his family for Thanksgiving. My nephew who had always known me with a goatee grabbed my face, rubbed my bare cheek, looked me in the eye and said, "I like you like this. You look like my dad." I think I'm heading back there for Turkey time this year again. I reckon I'll have shaved again by then - wouldn't wanna disappoint the nephew.
• Biking - I've been riding my bike a lot. I really dig the trails around my place. Been doing around 30 mile rides at least one day on the weekends on my trail bike. I don't think I'd wanna go much further off roading. The weather has been starting to cool off, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to ride during the cool mornings that will soon be more cold then cool. However, I'm looking forward to the spring when I think a road bike purchase might be in order for some long distance riding.
• Buffoons - Sorry, wanted to keep the "B" motif:) This one is actually on The Office which is barnone the best comedy on television right now. The humor is a little dark and episodes can be squirmingly uncomfortable, but that's what makes it great. I picked up season two on DVD last week and thoroughly enjoyed the deleted scenes and commentaries in prep of the season opener tonight. Tonight's episode was expectedly unexpected. SPOILER ALERT......SPOILER ALERT....Jim took a stand at the end of last season and now the results are being reaped. Pam called off the wedding. Who'd have thunk she'd have had the courage for that. Roy wants to win her back (I actually felt a bit of compassion for Roy tonight for the first time in the series as he's pretty much just been a tool for for the past two seasons). His DUI photo was pathetic. He seems to actually have some genuine idea of what he's lost and wants a second chance. Michael came through this episode with remarkably inept leadership which, of course, inadvertently led to much hilarity. Buffoonery at it's pinacle.
  

I'm tired, time for bed.

Good day so far...

Started off this mornin' with at 17 mile ride. I had no intention of going that far, that stupid little voice just kept saying, "Just a little bit further before you turn around....just a little more." Ah, well. Beautiful weather out.

Did a few tweaks on Olaf this afternoon and did a quick planning concept from which to do his hat and goggles. I love this character, he's gonna be so much fun to animate.

Gotta head out...

Lots O' Nothin!

• Never ending rendering - So my never ending project is about at an end. I really can't thank the client enough for being patient. Let's just say that rendering at HD res adds just a "wee" bit of render time AND Lightwave doesn't render the hypervoxels so fast at that res. I'm pretty tired of not having my main computer. That and losing a hard drive a few weeks back makes me ready to give my computer a little break. About 30 frames to go!
  
• Running after being sick - I was sick for about 3 weeks. Not too bad of sickness - tired all the time, headaches, etc. So for about that much time I didn't really jog. So last week, I tried to start up again. Wow did I lose a lot of my runnin' mojo. Before I got sick, I was running 6 miles most days and close to 10 every other weekend. This week, I started at completing 2 of my 4 mile circuit and after a week of it, I'm only barely back at 4. The funny thing is I lost nothing on the lifting front....strange.
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean - Saw this last weekend with some friends. To get ready for it, I watched the first one the night before. The movie was a fantastic popcorn flick...just a whole lot of fun. It was a little long, but not too bad. On the special effects front I just have to say, "Wow!" Davy Jones is the most amazing cg character I have yet seen on the screen. The greatness of Golum has been eclipsed and my mind is still reeling at the how's of it. It was a special effects smorgasborg and I can't wait to pick up the DVD to see the behind the scenes.
  

L.A. Day Two

What a great morning. I got up, spent some time reading the book of Matthew a bit and went out to enjoy the absolutely glorious weather. So, I threw on my running shoes and was out the door.

I started off going north towards some small mountains hoping I could find a way up them. I jogged a couple of miles and found a promising road with about a 15 degree incline and started up it (half way up, my jog became a rather labored hike). The road ended, but I spied a nice deer trail so started up the mountain. When I got to the top of one of it’s forks I took a seat and enjoyed the early morning sun washing downtown Hollywood in a glowing haze. To the east a few small sky scrappers climbed through the mist. To the North rolling mountains progressively turning blue on their march towards the horizon.

Glorious. Thanks for the view, God.

At that point I was wishing I brought along my camera - that is until I started back down the mountain. I had hoped to find a road up top to take back town but found jack squat except private property security fences so I headed back down the way I came - almost tumbling down more times than I’d like to admit. But, it was an adventure:)

The best part of running up hills is running back down them. I love running down hills being on that verge of going so fast you’re going to take a rather nasty spill but not quite there - you’re running faster than you could ever run on a flat stretch. Like I said yesterday, I’m a goob.

I ran back past the hotel and decided to run down hollywood strip where all the theaters stand and the star’s stars checker the sidewalk. On the way, I made note of a couple to come back to and headed back to the hotel, worked out a little in the gym and hopped in the pool. I miss swimming. I gotta find a place to go in Chicago.

Running around L.A., I’m struck by a few thoughts- 1) many women here seem to have a peculiar allergy to clothing which seems to be particularly heightened at night which presents itself as wearing as little as possible or as tight as possible. 2) men who are young dress to look older and chic and men who are old dress to look young and hip. It’s a city of facades - of wanting to be thought more than one is. However, these are just the thoughts of a midwestern boy who probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

After I cleaned up, it was time to get out to try out the camera a bit more. So I took lots of photos of stuff - if something looked halfway interesting, I prolly took a picture of it.

Levar Burton was kind enough to offer his star for a sec. This is the closest I think I'm gonna get:)

This little guy was kind enough to pose for me.

My buddy, David Bokser, picked me up around 1:00 to go grab a bite to eat. We were first heading to In and Out burger, but the wait there looked to be anything but “In and Out” so Dave suggested Thai. I think what I had was called “Thai Pad” or “Pan” or something to that effect - noodles, shrimp, chicken, some sort of sprouts and some chopped nuts. It was delicious.

We hung out for the afternoon (making a detour to Target to get some black socks as I thankfully checked that morning and realized I didn't have em) then he brought me back to the hotel to clean up and was gonna meet me at the shindig.

So, I got dudded up and went to find the rest of the student film makers to find the shuttle to the ceremony. The night was a lot of fun, all the film makers and folk from the academy were talkative and plenty of interesting conversations were just a “hello“ away. We had about an hour of cocktails and I met my assigned mentor and his wife and we had nice chat. Dinner, which is sometimes a bit interesting at catered formal events (not that I have a long list of ones I’ve attended), was really good - some sort of all-natural salad with figs and green leafy stuff I’ve never seen in the grocery store, some deliciously tender chicken and creamy sliced potatoes and book-ended with some personalized apple pie things closing out the courses. The awards ceremony itself was very well done and entertaining. It was great to see the clips of the winners; I can’t wait to see them in their entirety tomorrow at the festival. When my turn came, my heart was beating a mile a minute, but I managed not to trip going up the stage.



I said a few thank yous and went to get some pictures taken. After it was all done, we milled about for a bit waiting for group pics. There were lots of celebrities - some I knew, others not. All the ones I had a chance to chat with were very warm and easy to talk to. Dave was excited to meet the director of ”24“ so I snapped pic of them and I met one of the guys from the ”Gilmore Girls” which, I’m a little ashamed to admit, I do watch from time to time.

After that, we headed back to the hotel then a group of us headed back out into the night for a little ”after-party-party“ and sat in a cool little lounge bar till 2:00 in the morning chatting it up. By that time I was more than ready for bed and was happily greeted by my king sized sled to dreamland promptly upon return.

Rhinos running in my head...

I finally finished up animation on the rhino and finished. The guys aren't done adding all of their fx stuff, so I did a basic render with the animation. It was a challenging project. There are some strange mechanics with trying to get an character to catch a moving object. I wasn't able to just animate a cycle and move a global controller because the feet had to "stick" for Jon to add his dust and impact effects. That made it a bit more challenging but a better learning experience. One of the more challenging aspects was attempting to get the weight right.

Speaking of weight, I've started running to get some off. It's amazing how far you can fall off that wagon. In my time in the Corps, I would run 6 miles at a time, no sweat and had better than average 3 mile time. Whew, a few years sitting a computer animating most of my time took me from that to barely being able to run a few blocks. I found me a training regime which has is supposed to get me back up to running 3 miles again. It's one of those run 3 minutes, walk 2, run 5, walk 3 kinda things. I'm about half way through the program, am running half of my about 40 minute cycle and I feel loads better. I just wish Savannah wasn't so blazingly hot every time I wanna run. Perhaps I should run at a better time of day...naw, that'd be too easy.