Site updates...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I sure did though my belly is full of chex mix and chocolate covered pecans... Oh, and I'm a big fan of what may or may not be a trend. I got a couple of Blue Ray DVDs for presents but don't have a Blue Ray player yet. However, they both came with digital copies downloadable via iTunes with an unlock code. I'm wondering if this is the standard or just an anomaly shared by the Dark Knight and a little robot that could named Wall-E. Hoping it's a trend:) Projects pages updated:

• Garden City
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC
• Ballers: Chosen One
• The Wheelman

Progress on Garden City is coming along just dandy.

Another fantastic weekend...

Life is good.

Very.

It's been a bit crazy the past few weeks putting in long hours trying to finish up the project I'm on at work. So it's especially nice having weekends like this one.

This weekend, my special someone was in town. Friday, she got in and we headed to Hot Doug's to get a couple of Chicago dogs and a small order of cheese fries which only Andre the Giant would have considered small. Quite tasty though. Then we headed to my office (Midway Games) so she could meet a few of my friends at work and see what it's like in a game studio. I think she was most amazed by our impressive arsenal of Nerf Guns - a grand tradition began by the talented Mr. Vanoost I believe (who incidentally began Animation Mentor this week, check his progress on his page).

Much of the remainder of the weekend involved our first attempts at canning and producing the first batch of that which would be "canned." I'm not sure why it's called canning when it pretty much always entails using mason jars, but what do I know? Perhaps "jarring" has negative connotations...Anywho, we decided to make Apple Butter. So, in order to make said appley spread, our recipe called for the best batch of apple sauce we could get our hands on.

We decided to make our own.

A trip to whole foods found us with about nine pounds of apples (Pink lady, red delicious, golden delicious, and Fuji), a bottle of the best natural apple cider we could find (though the real stuff is out of season...next time), and a jar of raw honey (which I've rather taken a fancy to in cooking). We also picked up some pint sized mason jars from Jewel Osco as neither Whole Foods nor Linens and Things had them.

Friday night we sliced and cored our nine pounds of apples (sampled a few bites), stewed em and then mashed them into a chunky pot of apple sauce. After being cinnamon'd to taste we had our seven cups of apple sauce. We threw the rest of the ingredients in a pot and called it a night.

Next morning, after some tasty pancakes and a trip to the mall for some Easter shoes, our apple butter was done. We prepped our jars and canned it up according to the directions in copy of Ball's Blue book from my home canning kit. Close to nine pounds of apples condensed to 4 pints of applebutter and some change - that "change" sitting in some tupperware in my fridge and rapidly being depleted atop leftover whole wheat muffins we made Sunday mornin.

Looks nice, don't it? :)

The rest of the weekend was hangin' out, an introductory animation "lesson" (bouncing ball of course), making labels for our jars, going to the Easter service and then brunch at some friend's place. Sunday night, we got a wild hair and ran to the store to get some cup cake mix and made some devil's food cupcakes with vanilla icing which the guys at work enjoyed the bounty of come Monday mornin.

Early Monday mornin I dropped her off at the airport and got into work extra early with enough happy thoughts to fly to Neverland and back.

If they could get me to Houston, I'd be happier:)

IT CAME FROM THE PANTRY!

No, it's not some 60's B horror flick (though that could work as the title of one of those). Maybe like some Frosted Mini Wheats come alive with really bad stop motion to get their revenge and frost the right sides of people! But I digress... I was perusing the news sites today on arriving home from hanging out with my comedic cousin and came across a little tidbit that I had heard in passing on the radio the other day and forgotten about. Apparently there is some contaminated peanut butter going around with salmonellosis. Being one who regularly "licks the bowl clean" when making muffins, cake, even sometimes cornbread mix (man..I'm weird), I've been ignoring warnings for food safety for sometime. I'm not saying that's a good thing necessarily, just stating the facts. However, peanut butter is near and dear to my heart - I sometimes just grab a spoon and scoop a whopping pile of the stuff and snack away. I think I got off a little there (again)... Back to the news story. There's this bad batch of peanut butter and one of the brands is my fav (Peter Pan), so I went to check my pantry for the contaminated batch number on my jar and... Egads! Even more disturbing is the warning that all Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May 2006 should be discarded...I've probably gone through 3 or 4 jars since then. Crazy. Maybe I should really check into my mac battery recall number...

A trip to Oklahoma and a reunion...

Currently Reading - Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Friday, I headed down to the heated plains of Oklahoma City. Dadgum, it's hot down there. Friday, I think it was 106. That's not heat index, my Chicago friends who think 92 is unbearable, but actual temp. I'm not even sure what the heat index was. The day was pretty good, my step dad picked up from the airport and I went and picked up some burgers at Johnnies (you must get a burger there if you are ever in town) and took them over to my uncle and grandmother for a visit. That evening it turned out that my cousin was coming in town to visit his girlfriend at OU and so I went out to get a bite to eat with them for dinner. We wanted to hit Zeo's (which is a pretty good Italian place I hear), but didn't have time for the wait so headed next door for some soup and sandwiches from Panera Bread. So, it's been 10 years since I graduated high school. That just seems nuts to me, but they had this reunion thing this weekend and lots of people from my class showed up so I guess it's true. Friday night, we met at a bar in downtown OKC - Bricktown as it's called now and is pretty sweet. It started a little slow, but more folk mingled in as time went on. It's funny how little some people changed and how much others did. Interesting, eyes don't seem to change much at all and most people I could recognize without too much difficulty and some of them I hadn't seen since graduation. Saturday, we had a little picnic where there was rather low attendance due to the hell-on-earth heat. However, many of those that did come brought their kids which was cool to see. More than a few kids coming out of the class of '96 so far, but I imagine the 20 year will show an even more plentiful bounty. That night, we had the banquet which was pretty cool. I snagged a table with some old friends and had a good time chatting the night away with all kind of folk. Some people I really wanted to see didn't make it - Amanda, Russell and Trevor from art and Rusty (though I'm told he prefers Russ now). Overall, it was a lot of fun - hearing where everyone had been and what they'd done. I'm glad everyone is so well. Good times.

Heather, Caren, me

One of my friends, Scott, finally tipped the scale on my disdain for Myspace. He informed me that one of my good friends I'd not seen in a long long time was on there. So, I signed up Sunday and heard back from him Monday. Very cool indeed. I've even found a few more on there. I seriously doubt I'll succumb to the flashy onslaught insanity of cut-and-paste-happy-design. However, if that floats your boat, why not? If I can keep in touch with some old friends. That's good enough for me.

Heather and her husband Bobby DR. Scott (Congrats, my friend) and his wife Lauren

Not as much progress as I wanted...

But still got a good ways in. More importantly, I learned how to properly use Silo's topology brush...wow. Talk about sweet. Here's Olaf's template hat. I wanna get some feed back from Cory before I really get into details. Hopefully we can touch base later today (it's almost 1am now). Today was a pretty good day, I got up and went for a nice little 4 mile jog in some nasty humidity. After I worked out, I headed to church, then headed to Texas Roadhouse for lunch cause I felt like some steak. I used to eat at one in Savannah, and they just put one in about 3 blocks from my apartment complex, so I thought I'd give this one a shot to see if it was as good as I remembered. It was. After that I headed to the bike store cause my buddy said they were having a sale. We've been riding bikes together some and he'd been harping on me to get some real biker shorts. Now, as I was growing up, biker shorts just meant spandex. However, he told me that they have actual padding in the shorts (kinda like a mini pillow woven into the tight-tastic material). So, I picked up a pair and some shades on sale (half off, baby!) and headed to the grocery store. When I finally got home, I decided my new shorts needed a trial run and listened to that stupid little voice again for another 17 mile trek. The humidity was gone by then and it was actually a really nice ride. This evening has pretty much been hanging out with Olaf and my attempted "sewing" attempts for his hat. Much to do. But for now, it's bed time.

L.A. Day One

First things first, I got my kickin new camera AND my business cards yesterday which was quite the treat. So expect Lots - o - pictures. I started off the day to about 3 hours of sleep on account of scrambling to get some stuff together I had been counting on Kinkos to help me out with the previous evening. (Kinkos, I’m sorry, but we’re done) It would be ingenuous to place all of the blame squarely on their shoulders as I could have taken care of a lot of it earlier in the week, but I didn’t - I’m a goob. So I finished up everything about 3 am and got up at 6:15am or so sans alarm (the internal clock is still beating my digital one by about 40 minutes every day) and went and worked on on the mind numbing treadmill, got up and around and my roommate took me to the airport about 9:45. It’s awesome not traveling on the holidays, it took next to no time to get through security and to the boarding area. I hit the jackpot on my seat in the plane, I was in the first coach row after first class and my seat jutted out in the aisle a little so I had all the leg room I could possibly want (that is for my short little hobbit legs). It’s the mental comfort of knowing IF I was 6’ tall, I’d be just fine. My co-row passengers were a mom and daughter coming to Cali to decide if the daughter wanted to take a job here. They were nice folk and the mom was reading Captivating which was written by an author I really enjoy so we had something to chat about for a bit AND she gave me a stick of beef jerky and some big pretzel sticks so my meal-less fight wasn’t such a famine. When we were done chatting, I through on the IPod and enjoyed one of my favorite pastimes - reading. I finished one book and started another. The second was about a laugh a page for most of the remainder 4 1/2 hour flight. Donald Miller is an author that weaves insight and mirth into a fine tapestry of story that speaks to me in a way few authors do. He’s a bit like C.S. Lewis but more “everyman.” The shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel was entertaining. For one, I saw this:

Heck of way for a dog to get around.

I ended up sitting with an Australian girl named Lea (I think- my memory isn’t the best) who is a nurse and is taking an 8 month holiday. Now, I ask you, why is it the europeans and the aussies take these 6,7, 8 month holidays and we Americans take like a week, two weeks max typically? Is it because we’re too busy? Honestly, I’m not sure I could go that long without “working” but I think taking more time to live life than get ahead isn’t such a bad idea. After I got to the hotel, I dropped off my stuff and headed out to try out the new camera while I waited for my friend and her husband to come pick me up for dinner. Here’s a bit of what I saw.

Lots of expensive cars

But these were more interesting. (They're to the left of that car)

Then, my ride came. Dinner was a lot of fun. I’d not seen Selina since being in D.C. in 2001 and I had never met Dave before. We went to this “in” place called Domick’s with small delicious portions and big numbers on the menu. However, you don’t do stuff like this very often, so it’s one of those, “Eh, I’m prolly never going to do this again, so what the heck.” We got all kinds of stuff. For an appetizer, we got a grilled artichoke and some special spinach. I’ve never had artichoke before and it was amazing though I learned that trying to eat the leaf doesn’t work so well. I’m still not a fan of spinach in any cooked form. For entrées, Selina got the veal and Dave and I got the spaghetti and meat balls (the meat balls being the size of small tennis balls). We shared a little so everyone got to taste and it was amazing. Desert was even better. We got the triple gelato - banana chocolate chip, butterscotch and (I think) vanilla AND some fritters with chocolate dipping sauce. Wow. It was good. After that, they took me to see San Rodeo Drive and we walked around a bit commenting on the stores and Selina telling us all kinds of relevant pop culture tidbits. We moseyed along for a bit and then they took me back to the hotel where I crashed the instant my head hit the pillow.

Ode to a Mocha Coconut Frappuccino...

Saturday has come again and I have no idea where last week went. I think that Time's brakes are loosening up a bit- need to get that checked. Wonder who you see about that... It's been a pretty good week all in all. We have a almost daily game ritual at lunch at work of squeezing in a few minutes of Guitar Hero in. My buddy Mike is the greatest hero of our sorry bunch but I successfully completed my first song on expert on Friday - so yeah, I'm pretty much guitar soloist material here as long as you give me a guitar with 5 buttons that is preprogrammed with the songs we'll be jammin too. Maybe I should stick to my day job. I've discovered my new favorite cereal - Yogurt Burst Cheerios. I got Strawberry and they're mighty tasty. Of course that means that they'll discontinue them once I get to rely on them. Sorry, I stopped by Starbucks today to get a Frappuccino and was reminded again why I don't go there. They used to make the epitome of drinks that was the Mocha Coconut Frappuccino. This delectable beverage was a mocha frappuccino with a shot of Coconut Syrup and delicious toasted coconut shavings mixed in. However, they pulled the drink off their menu a few years ago. For a time they still had the syrup and would make a regular Mocha one with some coconut syrup but when their on hand syrup supply was gone, they ordered no more and my love affair with Starbucks came to a rapid halt. Today I walked in, looked at the menu and saw nothing that sounded appetizing. I looked at the geek chic cashier and asked if they had any coconut syrup and he gave me a glassy eyed look and shook his head and asked his manager if he remembered a time when they stocked it. I remember. Every six months or so, I stick my head in to check. Maybe this summer the time will be ripe for a reprise of that special summer drink I know and love. Eh...at least it gave me something frivolous to ramble about for a bit:)

Girl Scout Cookies...

Yesterday I walked into the lunch room with every intention of eating "right"- I had my Lean Cuisine (which are quite tasty by the way) and a thing of Jello-pudding. As I was setting my stuff on the table, I saw a pile of boxes - Girl Scout cookies and a pay-by-honor coffee can. I quickly scanned the pile and was both happy and sad to not find my personal box of vice in the pile. With a little sigh, I began to sit down when the guy selling these cookies for his daughter walks in and my friends and I make a joke about it and he says he'll go get some more. As he walks out the room, I asked him, "You wouldn't have any Thin Mints would you?" He did. My will power put up a valiant fight for all of, say, 3 seconds and my hand went for my wallet. They are in my opinion the greatest cookie currently being mass produced- coming second only to really great home made chocolate chip cookies. By the end of the day, I had 4 to take home to dip in some milk. The rest had succumbed to, in a minor extent, the appetites of fellow coworkers and mostly to my own crazy eyed cookie desire. I'm grateful that I only get the opportunity to purchase them once a year or so.

The smell of East meets West

Tonight I got home and dutifully climbed my three flights of stairs and as I opened the door to my floor and was greeted to the smell I've come to expect. Now, my building happens to contain a lot folk from India and this is the first time I've lived near a lot of people of that particular ethnicity. It's also interesting that if I come in one door, it's this smell and if I use the other, it's another altogether. All that being said, I'm really struggling to figure out what blend of spices could cause this smell every day. It is even more puzzling because the smell (at least to my nose) is so thoroughly American... Fritos. Completely-overpowering-stick-your-head-in-the-bag frito smell. If I could bottle it, I'd bet there'd be a market for it- Junk food perfume! It's a heck of a lot nicer smell to come home to than Pine Sol. The fact that I've not had a frito since I can't remember may perhaps be causing some of my nostalgic euphoria here, but that's okay with me.

The things you love...

I'm reading this collection of John Eldredge. He's a great writer who happens to write in a style I can connect with. He's been talking about life, heart, desire for more than we find in our day to day lives. It speaks to me. In the reading I did today, he said to write down those things you love - the moments that make life amazing. I thought it would be a fun exercise.

• The eureka moment after having spent hours on a problem
• Sitting under the stars away from the city lights
• Fishing on a quiet lake
• Seeing my team excel in their gifts and accomplishing what we couldn't do alone
• Hearing one of my friends say they've met Jesus
• Sketching and sketching and sketching to finally meet that character you've been searching for
• The fellowship of family and friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon
• A baby's hand curling round my finger
• Really great animation that lives and breathes
• Eddy's Frozen Fruit Coconut Bars
• Hearing God speak when I slow down enough to really listen
• A great movie that takes you from laughter to tears and back again
• Really great finger-licking BBQ from some place you've never heard of
• Waking up to a fresh snow before the plow man has gone to work
• Worshipping God in those rare services where God infuses the air like incense and, no matter how many or few people may be in the room with me, in that moment I am alone in the presence of my God
• A roaring fire and a mug of hot chocolate
• Holding a sleeping baby
• Turning the last page of a great novel
• An old friend with whom no span of years makes our friendship diminish
• My mom's pasta
• My aunt's homemade french fries
• Seeing someone connect with one of my films or stories
• Seeing little kids dance with reckless abandon to no more music than what plays in their little heads
• Finding a new author who grants me a new perspective
• Knowing that I am loved and accepted by the God of the universe
• Rich Mullins wailing on the hammer dulcimer
• Climbing a mountain and seeing the horizon laid out like a painting

By no means an exhaustive list, but it made me smile just to make it. Give it a shot.