So happy you moved here.

You know you're wife-to-be rocks when she's happy that you moved to a large city for your and the world's sake rather than her own.

Chicago has indeed instigated a lot of changes in my life that wouldn't have happenned otherwise. I'm glad I got a girl that will remind me of it in times when I feel like I should be in CT a lot more.

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Also, I've put a link to my Flickr page in my sidebar. I keep telling you people, I'm slowly recreating Jason Pettus's e-life, akin to e-stalking, or an e-cover band. In any event, I thought it a good idea since I'll be taking more pics with the Treo, hopefully.

More to come.

Current status, unstable.

OK, so today's the day I should have been flying home, to get married tomorrow.  Let's elaborate, shall we?

I got this big ol' wedding thing happening in a couple weeks.  I'm marrying my lover of four years, the lovely Miss Kerri Van Auken, on July 8th.  Ours is the opinion that a wedding is a chance to share our union and the joy it entails with those who are closest to us.  This includes family and friends who we've been in close contact with as we've been progressing through our new joined life together.

With that viewpoint, I'm sure it is obvious to any intimate to my situation that it has been incredibly sad to carry on knowing that my parents will be paying for a large part of this ceremony and will not be able to attend (big mad props to KVA, who has heard the aforementioned sentence countless times).  However, they have repeatedly made concessions that we move forward unaffected by their situation, so we have.

We originally had planned, to the point of reserving air fare, to travel to Connecticut this weekend to have a small ceremony for their benefit (big mad props go out to Cathy Callahan, Kerri's mom, for ponying up to send our reverend out).

Since those plans were made, however, my mother has been in and out of the hospital, and as such, we've forgone those plans due to the instability in the situation.  We do plan on still having a ceremony in CT, but it will be later in the year, when things have hopefully settled a bit more.

Now, I'm not sure how many of you are aware, but putting together a wedding in one of the biggest cities in the US can be quite a costly affair.  For this reason, coupled with the fact that Kerri and I would rather not start our new life together in debt, we decided to limit the guest list as much as possible to save on the costs. That leads to some hard decisions in making the guest list. As such, there are people who we've consider very dear, and were not invited to the wedding, because we haven't had any contact in the last four years. It's hard, and neither of us feels good doing it, but in this hour of stress and burden, both wedding related and not, I really don't think we can be faulted for it.

OK then, enough of that serious stuff. Look at that hottie below! Even at 8:15 in the morning on the el this girl makes me proud to be hers.

More to come.

Simply irresistible!

She's so fine, there's no tellin' where the money went. Mine forever in 2 weeks.

Regarding my creation of the universe...

When we last spoke, dear reader, I was psych-ing myself up for my first "all-nighter" in years. What a crazy feeling to once again be up and about as the sun sets then rises, and the birds go to sleep with the rest of the world, and wake up far earlier. This was not some hallucinogenic bender or anything, this was to draw my little knuckles off in an attempt to complete my final project for fundamentals of animation.

It all went wonderfully! My all-nighter helped ready me for the most ambitious project of mine to date, and I'm quite excited with how it turned out. When it comes to my animation, I'm not at the level of drawing yet where one can make beautifully rendered figures and characters move just to see how beautifully they move (Bill Plympton, how I adore and envy you), I'm more of the mindset that story counts for 90% of entertainment's value, and would liken my product to more of a Don Hertzfeldt kind of project. I adore and envy Don Hertzfeldt as well (although "Meaning of Life was so-so, in my humble opinion).

In any event, come about 7:15 or so, I headed down to the campus to be there bright and early to get all my drawings shot. The class started at 10 (or is scheduled to), and we weren't planning on starting presentations until about 12:30 or so, so I made sure I had plenty of time to shoot.

When I got there, Antoin and Alberto from class were already there waiting, and the doors weren't even open yet. We started up a list, as the two Lunchboxes we have in the lab would be occupied by them, and I wouldn't be able to shoot on my reel until Antoin was finished with his shooting (my "reel" is just an allotment of digital space on one of the aforementioned "lunchboxes", and it resides on the one Antoin was using). I eventually got to start shooting at around 10:15 or so.

Wow, what an experience. I was using all these layers and cycles to tell a story. The drawings weren't the most detailed and fancy, but the techniques I used were good enough for me to be able to produce 1:20 of animation that told a story that had the whole class rolling. It was a good presentation to say the least. It was up there with the better in the class, so I'm happy with myself.

Funny, this was the quarter where I thought I'd start getting lower than A's, and I got an A and an A-.

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If you see some entries appear and disappear in the upcoming weeks, it's because I'm trying to set up moblogging, where I can post both entries and pictures from my Treo. I know for a fact this happenned yesterday, the entry before this one used to be a picture.

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I'll be married in 15 days!

More to come

A good old "All-Nighter"

Aaah, the old days of college, where I sat up all night studying for statistics to be ready for the next day's exam.

Now in my enlightened late twenties, where I try to take a grab at the golden ring of creative arts employment, the all-nighter takes on a whole new meaning.

If I can just get through this night, I'll be ready for anything.

I plan on staying up all night tonight, as I have a final presentation to make tomorrow, which I have yet to complete. The presentation consists of the body of my work throughout the last 11 weeks as they pertain to the fundamentals of animation as taught by Mr George Eastman, my prof. Quite the guy and quite the motivator, this guy doesn't settle for crap. Very professional, very type-A, a natural born director.

If I can just get through this critique and his criticisms, I'll be ready for anything.

The first half of the 11 week quarter was comprised of a progression of projects that were designed to help us learn the equation of: "Images + Time = Motion". It was quite invigorating to take a class where I finally get to do the most rudimentary parts of animation, namely, making drawings move.

All of my projects have been completed, except for the "final" project. The final project is to be a one-minute animation that shows you put quite a bit of time into it, namely 50 to 60 hours.

If I can just make it through these 50 to 60 hours, I'll be ready for anything.

I've been working at it quite a bit, and I'm hoping it comes out nice. I really think it will be OK, as it tells a nice witty story, despite it's being so primitive drawn. I think I'll make it to a minute, we'll just have to see.

The big bonus is that I've realized that I can test out the frames I'm drawing to see if they "work" and move well on the screen by importing them into flash to make them into their own little cartoon. The process is a little time consuming because it involves scanning many images, but it helps me work at home without buying a $3000 Lunchbox Sync system.

If I can just make it through this pile of drawings, I'll be ready for anything.

The good thing is, now that I've discovered this process that I should've thought of way earlier, I'll be able to put them up on the web! Yahooooo. People can witness my greatness. OK, witness my mediocrity.

I know most will probably read this after I have already put myself through this sleep-deprived hell, but I just thought I'd let ya know anyway.

If I can just make it through this night, I'll be ready for anything.

By the way... I've been away for a while, I know. Please pray/think/meditate/well-wish for my mom to get a new liver.