Always enjoyed the circus performer who could juggle a dozen balls at the same time or spin an impossible number of plates on sticks several feet up in the air. That is until I tried it myself and am tripping on the balls the have fallen to the ground and have bumps on my head from busted plates. Of course, I’m speaking metaphorically as anyone who knows me will laugh if you ask them how many emails they’ve received with the phrase “snowed under”, “over-committed” or “too many irons in the fire”.
The reason for this is pretty simple: it’s hard for me to say “No” to any kind of animation or sound work because I love it so much. The problem is that I have a full time job which is increasingly busy/stressful AND I have a partner who deserves my time and attention (not to mention my friends). Add to that other interests like reading, gardening, cinema history and writing non-fiction and you get an idea I’m a pretty busy person.
Well, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve finally finished up several larger projects and have started saying “No” to animation work that I’m not so interested in. My apologies to those people who have had to wait for my work ( cough..Gabe…cough). I’m sorry it has taken so long to get my work done, but short of having a nervous breakdown (do NOT want that to happen) I’ve just had to chip away at big projects a day at a time and sometimes a week at a time. I can honestly say I’ve been learning my lesson and will be much better in the future with my balls and plates….honest.
So, to celebrate I had my first barbecue of the season out on the patio of the apartment I share with Lisa. Having recently realized I’m getting too fat, I decided to barbecue as healthy as I could so it was
chicken, salmon patties, Idaho potato and skewered peppers for the menu all cooked over mesquite charcoal which adds a nice smoky taste to the food. After cleaning the grill thoroughly and washing up all of my utensils from last years barbecue season, I fired up the coals with my electric starter and 30 minutes later I had a very nice meal that Lisa said was “Goompf” in between bites. I assume “Goompf” means “Good” since she was very quiet after the meal and had a smile on her face. Yay!
My balcony with lights and barbecue grill
My relationship with Lisa is a little different as I do all of the cooking and share most of the housework with her. Lisa can make popcorn (unless she burns it which happens occasionally) and that’s about it. So, I quickly learned that my cooking skills we needed if we were going to eat at home. Yeah, we tend to eat out a couple times a week, but I cook at least one main meal just about every day. And I love it. Especially when I do a good job and Lisa says the food is great.
Saturday nights are usually the big meal night (along with a movie) and most other nights are simple affairs like steamed veggies with rice or steamed potato with veg/topping. I particularly like to cook Japanese and am learning a lot about Japanese food and it’s history. My dream is to create a roasted eel on rice dish for Lisa (and me, too) as this is her favorite food. The trick is the sauce, I think. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
On other fronts, I’m deeply into Expo 2010 planning along with screening films pretty much every day. Trying to read as much as possible and write reviews/essays for my poor book blog Booklad (see link to the right) as I’ve neglected the blog for many months. Just started an interesting Japanese TV series from the early 80′s called “Shadow Warriors” which stars the ineffable Sony Chiba. Cheesy, but lots of fun (fun and cheese are irresistible to me).
Am also learning the ins and outs of 3ds Max 2011 from tutorials at Lynda.com. I love this program and have stupidly avoided it for years thinking it was much too complex to learn (it’s not). I hope to post some renders of small projects in the near future.
Getting ready for Siggraph 2010 here in Los Angeles come July. It will be my 3rd time attending this phenomenal event. Last year it was in New Orleans and I had an absolutely wonderful time. Since I write for renderosity.com, I attend the event as a journalist. I’ll be blogging for them every day, plus conducting interviews and connecting with software companies like E-on, Maxon and Autodesk. I like to seek out the smaller companies as well as attending as many animation screenings as I can. The films they select are phenomenal and I’m looking forward to a week spent in the animation world. Bliss….
To close here’s a nice sleazy clip from “Shadow Warriors”.
