Weekends Rock...

It's been a good week and weekend for the most part...

• Moms are awesome - It usually goes without saying that when I go home, I end up forgetting something. This time it was my extra camera battery and charger. So, she sent it in the mail and happened to pack some Reeses Peanut Butter Cups in there with a little note. My mom is awesome.

My awesome mom and I

• Finished my Syllabus - I finally got a good handle on my syllabus for this semester. There wasn't quite enough animation exercises in it initially for my liking so I added a few more exercises. My goal is to get the students doing as much animation as possible. I don't remember what animator it was who said, "You've got 10,000 bad drawings in you, so you might was well get through them as fast as you can." It applies in 3d as well, we learn by making mistakes and the more work we do, the more we'll grow. I'm gonna do my darndest to do all the exercises with my students cause, frankly, I don't get to do a whole lot of full body keyframe animation at work and I miss it. It'll be a good reason to finish Olaf as well (I'm trying Cory!)
  
• "The Brothers Karamazov" - The beast is completed. I started this behemoth of a book about six months ago and have been struggling through it since. It was an absolutely fantastic read though a bit verbose. You could easily split it into a trilogy and still have three complete books. The book follows a very screwed up family of a dysfunctional hedonistic father and his three sons. There's a murder, and fantastic trial and more insanity than one would think could be crammed into a novel...yet crammed it is.
  
• My Cousin's Improv Show - Thursday night, I went to an improv show's opening night that my cousin is spearheading with another improv friend of his. There were four improv troupes for two hours of comedy for the low low price of $5. It was a lot of fun. If you live in Chitown and want good comedy for not a lot of money, check it out. It meets in a little arts center at Western and North, but you can check the site for more info. There going to have different groups each week so it won't be the same show if you wanna try it a couple of times.
  
• "The Office" is Back - There was a new episode of The Office this week and....wow...just wow...no show makes me cringe one moment and then roll over laughing the next like this one.
  
• New Year Resolutions - So, I need to make some resolutions, so here they are:
• Visit the following:
• My best friend Ryan in Oregon to do some fly fishing
• My uncle in Colorado for some horseback riding, hiking and, frankly, cause I don't see him enough
• My brother and ragamuffinephews cause I don't see them nearly enough
• Come up with another Short film and get it AT LEAST through the story board phase
• To finish Olaf
• To do at least 30 seconds of reel worthy full body hand key animation
• To get more involved in volunteering somewhere
• To kick the snot out of my student loans

That is all.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

Wow...lots to catch up on, here we go. It's been a busy couple of weeks...

A week ago Friday, my Chicago transplant comedian cousin, Jon, and I climbed in my car at 7:30pm to drive home for the holidays. Jon seemed to think the drive was gonna take somewhere between 16 and 20 hours. I thought he was nuts. Google said 12 and I put my chip in the Google column. I took the first shift and we headed on south on interstate 55 through the black abyss of a barren Illinois landscape. Our conversation covered a wide variety of topics through the night and the wackiness of said topics seemed to increase with the the steady march of the hours. Some examples of our memorable topics include the craziness of women (some, not all mind you), why both the democrats and republicans suck at present, and concluding with if ghosts are possibly simply temporal displacements run amok. At that point it was 2:30 in the morning and Jon needed some sleep to prep for his last leg of the drive. So, I put an audio book on and let my headache grow from a soft tap to a nice solid pounding sensation by the time my shift was complete. At 4:30 or so I passed the baton and got some much needed rest. 7:30 found us pulling into my mom's driveway grateful to get out of the car. Jon got some hot chocolate and headed on down to Dallas to see his fam and I went to sleep and didn't wake up till 4:30 in the afternoon.

Sunday, I met an old friend for coffee before church and then headed over to the church I spent the first 17 years of my life attending. It's a bit more traditional than I prefer nowadays, but it was a good to be there all the same. After that, I picked up some food at Johnnies Charcoal Grill and took it over to my uncle and grandmother. After visiting a little while I started feeling pretty crappy and laid on the couch for the next 3 hours hoping my head would just explode rather than continue to pound incessantly. When I finally mustered the strength to leave, I got back to my mom's and went to bed (sadly having to skip the Candlelight Service which is one of my favorites, ah well)

The next day, we headed down to Dallas for the big fam shindig and I pounded as much Advil and vitamins as possible. Christmas dinner was great eats as always and my sickness was kept at bay for the most part. After dinner, some cousins and I decided to catch a movie and went to see Casino Royale which was absolutely fantastic. I had had serious reservations about seeing it from the trailers and a James Bond who looked nothing like the ones in the past. However, he was great and the action was non stop. Highly recommended.

On Tuesday, my brother showed up with my nephews and we had a family breakfast (eggs cooked in bacon grease, good bacon and sausage, biscuits, fresh fruit, juice...the works). One of my cousins downed 7 eggs...nutso. I spent the rest of the day nursing my headache and hanging with my bro and the nephews. At the end of the day we headed back to Oklahoma and I was feeling crummy enough to decided to try to find a doctor the next day.

One of my nephews, my brother, and I

And so I did. I went in, he told me to open my mouth and say "Ah" and two seconds later diagnosed me with Strep throat and prescribed some antibiotics. A couple of days later I was feeling much, much better.

Spent the rest of my time in OK hanging with my family and eating way too much chex mix and candy. However, it's the holidays so we let that slide.

Saturday, I climbed back in the car for the solo drive back to Chitown (my cousin had already gotten a plane ticket cause I wasn't sure when I was coming back). For being solo, it really wasn't that bad. I had filled up my iPod with some talks of one of my favorite authors who happens to pastor a church up in Michigan. So, it was a nice 12 hours of introspection and some seriously challenging thinking. The message on Christianity and America was especially stretching. It added some substance to a lot of what I've been personally thinking about as to how Christians might be "missing it." I've got a lot more stewing to do on it, but it was a much needed kickstart in some new avenues of thought.

Oh, and my computer died again. One thing's for certain, I've learned the art of detachment when it comes to technology:)

I also learned another lesson. When you pay 12.95 for a hair cut, you really shouldn't get too upset when you say trim the top and you end up with a semi buzz cut. May be time for a new barber shop. Ah, well...it'll grow back.

I've got some thoughts for the New Year, but no time to write. I'll get around to it.

Lata.

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

Wrapping up...

Song of the day - "Even Rats" - The Slip
I'm a bit tardy in wrapping up my L.A trip, though I don't imagine there's too many people waiting for the close (except maybe my mom, "Hey, Mom!":). For her sake I'll close it off.

Monday, I went for another nice jog in the morning and took a dip to swim a few (very few) laps. Then I headed down to meet up with Dave and some old SCAD friends at their studio. I hung out for a bit and Tracy made me draw her a caricature to put next to Daves over her desk (Dave's was better). It's funny what a small world it is. I got to talking to another of the animators there and he was a good friend of my art director on the project I'm on at Midway. Go figure.


We decided to go out for a bite and I had cuban for the first time. It was a awesome. I got the Vegetariono (awful spelling I'm sure) that had blackbeans over white rice, carmelized plaintains and some interesting (but tasty) potatoes. To close it off, I had a bit of mango cheesecake which was incredible. I LOVE cheescake.

We split up on the way back and I headed back to the hotel and took a little rest - processed some pictures and wrote a couple of emails. My mentor came to get me and we headed to North Hollywood for the film festival part and got there early on my bad intel so decided to get a bite to eat at Pizza place across the road. There was a nice cold drizzle with a rather warm temp (compared to Chicago evenings). It felt nice - I actually like a little cool mist in the air every now and then.

When we finished up the meal and chatting we headed back over and saw the festival. There were some amazing films. I especially enjoyed "Tycho's Nova" and "Love Letter" (whose site doesn't appear to be up quite yet). They only showed the first place winners, I'd have liked to have seen the rest. I'm gonna try and track em down on the web when I get some down time.

Tuesday, I went for a walk on Sunset Blvd and picked up a couple more books. I was also able to snag an "In and Out" Burger which, though tasty, had nothing on a OKC Johnnie's burger. The flight out was great with a breathtaking view of sunset over eastern California mountains and the Mojave desert.

The rest of the week at work was cool. Nothing too crazy. However, Friday the game team went out for some Whirlyball fun. Nothing special this weekend except some freelance and running (both errands and the physical type). Hopefully my brother and I can hook up some iSight video chat so I can see him and the muchkin nephews. Good times.

(Disclaimer: Sentimental babbling follows)

I had a hard conversation with a friend today. It was hard, but it was good one. A lot of things are like that. Life doesn't have a handbook that makes finding your way easy. Heck, God didn't even really provide one in the Bible - most of it is stories of people stumbing through life just like us, meeting God along the way, and finding what life is like after that. Life is meant to be hard, it's meant to make us who we're supposed to be. I imagine that an easy life wouldn't be that much fun - like playing a video game on easy mode or going back to reading See Spot Run after having worked through Shakespeare. Growth is implied in our existence - we see it in the world around us in plants, animals, even celestial bodies. There's times that God is silent to me and there's times He's as real as my own skin. He's been very real lately and that's a blessing, but I know a time will come when I'll cry to the heavens and only hear the answer of my own echoing voice. I've been there before and I'll be there again. Life seems to be less about stoically marching along some certain path than stumbling through it together - sometimes you lean on another and sometimes they lean on you. The time comes when you find yourself on the precipice again and you don't know exactly will happen if you take that step - will you be dashed against the rocks or plunge into the sea?

Only one way to find out. But for now, I've gotta wait.

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.

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.