Staying up until 2am to proofread for your baby.
Working out some client issues, doing some edits, some illustration, and some Christmas stuff as well. Hoping everybody likes the cards. Enjoying the season.
I stink of chlorine. I mean, I reek of the stuff. My skin feels like it’s shrunk about two sizes. However, the pool was great fun last night; we spent a lot of time just swimming, floating and spinning. Clearing my mask is a simple task now. I did note an alarming consumption of air, though- I have to focus on slowing my breathing and conserving oxygen when I’m at depth. I burned through about 2100 psi of air in an hour and a half.
I found a fantastic roundup of interface design criticism here via Matthew Thomas. Hmmm. How might I use this information to kill videogame designers educate video game designers?
Nate let me, um, borrow some Dirty Vegas stuff today, and I really am digging it. I will definitely buy this one.
Some days you wonder whether or not you’re getting anywhere at all, and some days you get a sign that perhaps you are. Yesterday I got one of those signs, and for that I am grateful. Thanks, Julia.
Wow. I’ve been kinda down the last few days, and I’m not really sure if it’s a cold (which Jen and I a re pretty sure I’ve been nicked by) or seasonal mood swing disease (which I’ve been known to get stomped by) or just lack of quality sleep. My concentration is nonexistent, attention span is about 5 seconds, and on top of that is the guilt associated with not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Which makes me get even less focused. Anybody else feeling the same way these days?
Totally down on work yesterday, right at the very end. Thanks, Russell. I stayed at my studio class for an hour and a half, and then left, completely unable to focus. I came home and did a bunch of research into illustration listings online and some new materials.
The news is better today; apparently we have a big-ass contract coming in to sign, which means an end to the monetary woes and hopefully a return to timely paychecks (as well as catching up on those that are owed.) All praise the money gods. Until then, I am still leveraging savings to keep the wolves at bay.
So when all this comes down, I have to make the move to OSX on the Powerbook here. Roughly $300 will get me an expansion-bay CD-burner and a copy of OSX, which I need to back this thing up and then burn to the drive. OR, I could just buy a 40GB drive and an internal expansion bay case; there’s also a bus-powered FireWire enclosure from OWC for cheaper, and it looks sexier too. Overall, it should be about $300 to do what I need.
I have taken delivery of a used FireWire PowerBook, S/N #QT0140BSHKE, with a DVD Player, 12gig drive, 64MB of RAM, and 14.1″ screen. It is glorious. I opened the box and found the yo-yo and power cord, then opened the bubble wrap to find an absolutely pristine unit, with no scratches on the case or screen, no dead pixels, and all the components working (so far.) There is a fresh install of OS9 and 10+ gigs of free space on the drive.
Jen and I drove up into Hunt Valley in Sunday to look at a part-time job at a nursery, and while the job prospect did not work out, the area is beautiful. I was very impressed and excited to be up there- I could very easily see myself buying a house up there-one of the older ones, surrounded by about 3 acres of field, to be sure. Jen and I will be heading back up there to check it out in the near future.
Here’s the rundown on the plan for this evening:
VST USB Drive
Photos –> NT Box
Portfolio work –> NT Box
Web Tools –> NT Box/Laptop
Beta backup –> NT box –> to CD
Laptop/Renie’s G3
All Application Installers –> VST Drive
All Updaters/Utilities –> VST Drive
All Serial Numbers –> into one simpletext file –> VST Drive
All Font files –> back up to VST Drive
This morning I woke up feeling pretty blue. Last night I was pretty well down, and found it easy to fall asleep; it was very hard to get up this morning. I was not looking forward to coming in to work and staring at 3D MAX again and feeling completely behind in the technology. I have a huge learning curve in front of me, and I’m not looking forward to tackling it, but it’s something I have to do.
I went down to One World Cafe for coffee this morning and felt the air as I got out of the car; it was warm and salty, and the breeze was soothing on my face. It’s getting to the end of February and it can’t be spring soon enough.
On a happier note, I have two potential freelance gigs coming in, and I’m going to beat the bushes for some more. Let us pray…
I’m here in Aurora writing this on my Mom’s iMac, after loading up Fetch and BBEdit and getting it organized. I have to admit, I’m impressed by how zippy this 3-year-old machine really is. If I was to find one at home used for less than $400, I’d probably buy it so that I could give Renie her beige G3 back.
Christmas was fantastic up here; everybody had a great time and enjoyed their gifts. Renie, as usual, knocked herself out and gave me a beautiful progressive-scan DVD player which also plays MP3’s on CD-ROM discs- wow! I’m going to have to rethink the whole musical situation at home and really figure out a way to wire the house so that the TV/DVD player is hooked into a receiver that reaches upstairs. Mom and Dad gave me a beautiful used flash unit for my Minolta, which is fantastic- I can’t wait to get the roll I shot up here developed to see how the flash syncs up with the shutter. But I’m thrilled- finally I can use it in low-light situations, like the basement…oh, yeah…that’s done already.
Jen was wonderful and gave me a beautiful silver ring, the first piece of jewelry I’ve ever owned (and worn) and it looks like it belongs on my finger. She was nervous and worried that I wouldn’t like it, bless her heart, but once I put it on my finger it hasn’t come off. I’m still holding it up in front of mirrors and looking at it as if aliens stole in the bedroom at night and put it on my hand- it’s shocking, but very comforting, to see something that beautiful but masculine on my finger. Also, my obsessive-compulsive tendecies have kicked into high gear, and I find myself playing with it when I’m nervous or bored.
…
Just realizing how badly over to the PC side I’ve gone…this page looks like crap on a Mac running IE 5. I just spent about 10 minutes cleaning up bad HTML. Makes me wonder if the other pages look the same (I’m too scared to look and too tired to clean them up.) My skillz are nowhere right now. I need me a Mac bad.
Walking home last night from the Rite Aid parking lot, I heard a bunch of yelling from up te street. A minivan was parked up a block and a half with two women sitting/standing near the front seats, and the driver was screeching at her kid, a boy of about 8 named Jason.
Mother: Jayyyy-son! Get Back Here Right Now!!
Jason: (walking away from the minivan) No! (unheard protest)
Mother: Jayyy-son! YOU GET THE FUCK RIGHT BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!
Jason: (running away from his ignorant, stupid mother) No! (unheard protest)
Mother: JAAAAYYYY-SONN!
I watched for about 2 minutes, until I got so depressed I had to turn and walk to my house. Keep running, Jason.
Well, yesterday I went in for the MRI at Mercy. What an interesting experience. I like that hospital a lot- all the people I’ve dealt with there are really very nice. At about 12 noon yesterday, I was laying on a sled being inserted into a long plastic tube, and then being bombarded with magnetic waves, all to the sounds of “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago. Most of the time I was OK; I wasn’t claustrophobic, but found I had to regulate my breathing. After awhile, I was actually drowsy, and when I got used to the sound of the machine it was easy to deal with. I got to see the readouts, though, when it was done, and that was very wild- seeing a crossection of my own torso was fascinating.
Played a bit of Half-Life last night (Steve gave me the game) and found it wildly addictive. Must……resist….
Basement is coming along as well; I got a lot more of the trim installed/stained; I drilled pilot holes for the electronics board but wasn’t able to mount it last night. I fixed a lot of the little nagging sections of trim that didn’t piece together well, which made me happy. I just want to get paid so I can finish buying the supplies I need (front window, shelf, trim molding) to get the rest of the cosmetic stuff done.
Scout report: I went over to take a look at it. It does have a lot of real nice parts, and a good running 304 with a new master cylinder and radiator; it has two Dana 44’s on stock wheels and a T-19 close 4-speed. It’s red and was repainted at some point in the past 10 years or so. The interior is clean. The body however is the problem. It’s been hit once in the right front, so the whole right side of the clip is toast. Shame too, because the fenders were new aftermarkets and are clean. The pillars are clean; the rockers were replaced at some point, but both front body mounts are hosed and the right rear is going. The left rear mount is spotless- puzzling. Theres rot through the floor where it meets the middle channel, but the rear lip is clean. The top is pretty bad, and the rear quarters are original, and not so good.
For $750, about a year ago I would have jumped on it and worried about where to put it later. He has a fiberglas fender and a new grille for it, so it would be mobile (needs front brake work- I could get him to do it for an extra $100 I’m sure) but the problem of storage still remains.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I woke up tired this morning, but after the thunderstorms had stopped and the sun came out, I smelled the first real spring morning we’ve had this year.
Jen and I did one of my favorite things yesterday: We took a walk down the waterfront in Canton to Fell’s Point and stopped at Lista’s, a sort of second-rate Mexican restaurant with a first-rate Margarita. She and I had spent an evening there our first night getting to know each other, drinking Margaritas and talking, on a hot summer night last year, up on the deck under an almost full moon. There’s something about the wind blowing in off the water, heat of the day rising from the floor beneath you, and watching the ripples and eddies below to make an evening special. I think I’ll always remember that evening as a fantastic one.
She is afraid now, that our relationship is reaching the boring stage, where we take each other for granted. I wish, sometimes, that I had the words to tell her how much I look forward to her company, how much I live to make her laugh, and how much I want to make her happy.
I heard back from the poster guy today! He was out of town. I’m going to order about 4 of these, and I can’t wait to get them in. I’m going to have to drop some scratch on framing now. I love the whole story behind this company, and the idea that they’ve been hanging on to overruns to sell