a sketch a day - February

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The past few weeks had gone by so fast that my head's still spinning. It's still spinning a little as I try and steady it with both hands much like an egg-delicate. With the new assignment on a new team, requires a relocation to another cube in cube land. This migration is usually annual. But the term "annual" may not necessarily be on a yearly bases. What I mean is that if there are three projects that end in different parts of the year, you may need to move three times; once for each time you get shipped to "help" with "CRUNCH" mode. If you are lucky enough where you can stay on the same team that just went Final, then you don't have to move. That is, until management decides it's time to consolidate the reminder of the "team" into a more compact area for ease of "communication". Due to this constant migration, an entire staff is on-hand to move peoples' contents from cube to cube on the cubical frontier. But because of the speed of the change from my finished project to my new assignment, it was too late to schedule my move. It takes time. Time they do no want to wait for. So that means I had to move myself! This would be easy if I was a new recruit, coming into the company with nothing in my cube except the equipment I was issued. Of course, I'm not. I've been here a few years and let me tell you, shit accumulates at an alarming rate. Shit you bring from home for decoration, shit around from the office supply cabinet, and shit people give you. I have many boxes....., and a freakin heavy thirty-two inch tube TV. Needless to say, after two days of moving (myself), I was freakin tired. On top of that, I had to learn the a new art pipeline, and get used to doing things quite differently, in terms of art style, and for artwork. It's going to be a long year:-I I don't bother unpacking boxes much anymore, they just get stacked into a corner waiting for me to, one day, siff through and organize with a garbage can.


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For the past week, I have been physically and mentally tired and don't want to do anything except sleep. Somehow, I'm going to have to get over this, otherwise I'll go insane.


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Happy New Year!


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First week back to work and I've already hit the ground running. No slow ramp up here! No sooner then getting set up for working on the Simpsons game and already have things due Monday and Tuesday. It's a sink or swim situation and I need to scramble to get used to the new art pipeline. Not much of a challenge, artistic wise, every thing's been establish for the past decade or so, hahaha:-I I'll need to go into work today and try and finish some things up. It's a rainy day, anyway.


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I was in a meeting yesterday with the new team that I was assigned to, and the manager was trying to put every ones mind at ease about the big lay-off. It's funny, because I didn't quite get what he was saying at first because he was using a new term for the lay-off - "RIF". I kept thinking to myself, "RIF"? What the hell is that? Then it hit me, oh "RIF", as in "reduction in force"? How freakin stupid! So instead of calling it what it is, a little spin was put to it. It's interesting the progression from the word "fired" to "Lay-off" and now "RIF". And now I have to go because I smell my dinner burning on the stove from this little distraction, DOH!


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A dark day has descended from the heavens!
As I walked into work today, something was amiss. I could not quite place that feeling until I reached my floor and into the development area. There, like the bad omens that sometimes are, lay tall stacks of collapsed filing boxes. Then it dawns on me what that feeling was - the security doors were not locked! There was not the usual metallic "click" from the unlocking of the security doors after the passing of my badge. This is the day the axe drops and heads rolled out the doors. It's a sad day, indeed, for among the carnage were several people that I have gotten to know and one I consider a friend. And of course, it's freakin raining! What symbolic timing that is.


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What a busy weekend! Saturday was an all day event of hanging out with long time friends at one of their houses. This was all good, except that I didn't quite expect it to go on for as long as it did. From an Early start of around three thirty in the afternoon, I'd expected that it would end around ten or eleven. This way, I can actually go home and sleep because I had signed up for a 5K run early the next day. I needed the sleep because I had to get up around five AM so as to catch a ride into the city with a friend, who's also running in this event. But it didn't end that early. By the time I got home and into bed, it was one thirty in the morning. A four hour sleep was the only amount I got. When we got to the parking area off the Great Highway around six-thirty, The parking area was practically full. That's just so crazy! The race does not start for another hour-and-a-half and already people were showing up in masses. With the race completed, and brunch eatted, I got home around one-thirty in the afternoon, I was quite tired and dozed off for three hours before waking up and did nothing for the rest of the night. Tomorrow is back to work day. It was a good week, let's hope I make it through the coming storms at work.


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a sketch a day - January

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With the box obstacle out of the way, I can now commence on the massive task of cleaning and organizing the garage. I seem to always leave such a huge mess after every little project, and I can't stand the mess any more. Time to try and get really serious about the actually going through the mass heaps that's been piling up in the house and garage.


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Today has been a manic depressive day. I get these every so often and they keep me up late and I forget to eat. It's quite annoying, actually, for it makes me really tired after how ever many nights. It all started last night and today, all I did was being obsessive about finishing a box before Saturday. It's still days away, but I just can't help it. It has to be finished, and I'm still going to work on it after this blog. What should have been a simple box has been turning out to be quite a monster. I keep adding more and more details that I really am not quite ready to spend time on. It's like designing on the monitor, you keep changing things and nothing is focused and thought out properly.


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Seems like the annual event of uncertainty is again upon us at work. With a major project cancelled near the end of last year, a major franchise moving to another studio, and on top of that, a mandate from the top brass to outsource a large percentage of all production to overseas, it's not a big surprise. Additionally, people are not moved off to projects that they are supposed to, like me, will make people wonder. It was around this same time last year that the big axe hit the chopping block, and a lot of heads rolled out the door. I guess when the day that I go into work and find the security doors wide open like the previous year, yet again, more heads will be a rolling.


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Another night of sketching at a local book store with a friend. Sketching people while they're not looking is actually quite hard, since you can't predict what they are going to do. Because you don't want to let them see you staring at them, you have to take a glance in their direction every so often and try to capture their pose as quickly as possible. After all, you don't want to have them thinking that you're some kind of weirdo or stocker. Most sketches are incomplete, but sometimes, someone stays still long enough for a decent sketch. Sometimes there's an interesting individual that has to get sketched because they have an interesting face or pose. I'd suppose the more I do this the better I'll get.


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Pretty tired this morning, so hauling a heavy box full of paints to the workshop was not going to happen. So instead, I carried a sketch book, a pencil, a pencil sharpener, and an eraser, which is much, much better. This way I take care of the daily sketch early and have time to clean up from the night before from the GOG assembly. It was quite a turn out, too, for only two members of this geeky club did not show.


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When the new roof went up along with the new rain gutters, the noise that the rain water made draining down the newly installed rain gutters were so loud that they have caused many sleepless nights. Eventually, you gets used to it. But every couple of seasons I would notice an absence of that rain gutter noise. That's because they were clogged, and that's not good. Water getting under the eves is never good, for dry rot damage is awfully expensive to repair. And so, it is that time again when the absence of rain gutter noise means a cleaning is required, and it is unfortunate that it is me that have to get up on the roof and clear out all the gutters. And today was that dreaded day. How does so much crap get twelve feet in the air is quite mind boggling. And by crap, I mean really dirty and sometimes smelly crap. This stuff is black and still slimy from the last rains and gets to be three to four inches think in some places. It stays so moist that moss grows on the surface. Sometimes, while digging that crap out with ones hands, for there's no other way to get it out, I would find earth worms living in it. How the hell do earth worms get twelve feet into the air and into a metal rain gutter?!?! After the gutters, comes the cleanup of this "crap" from being tossed to the ground and that's quite a chore in itself. It's pretty much sweeping up mud all along the perimeter of the house and in the end, you have a garbage can that weighs a fickin ton and black stains where the stuff fell!

After half a day of gutter cleaning and sore hands and knees as a result. A few hours was spent working a new series of wooden boxes that I've started making as gifts for friends. I've made a few in the past and wanted to do it again. This time I want experiment with different designs and different wood combinations to see what I can come up with. Although I do some quick sketches of what I'm thinking, it's all pretty much random as to what the finished box will look like. Art direction pretty much changes every time I look at what I'm actually doing. A new blog will be started as a record of the final results for prosperity.

After working on box gift number two, I get cleaned up and go meet a friend at a bookstore. We sometimes get together on Sunday nights for an hour or so of people sketching. It's kinda fun drawing people doing their reading, or coffee drinking. Tonight the bookstore was so crowed that we could not find seats. Instead, we went to the food court and sneakily draw people while they're eating. Drawing unexpecting people is not easy, they move too much!

From the drawing session, I head off to a farewell dinner for a friend who's leaving for his newly appointed Air Force assignment to Korea. This friend has been in Germany for the past four years and regrettably, I have not had the chance to go visit him. Sorry, bro, I'll try and make Korea before you're done. So this has been a full day of activities and it's time for rest.


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Why are people just so stupid. Seems like we are constantly catering to the lowest common denominator. Take for example, results of a focus group test for the latest iteration, yet again, of the Godfather game for PS3. Players were going through a new level where they need to plant a bomb in a house and get out before it went off. Well, I guess a lot of players panicked and try to get out through locked doors. Now, if you are not smart enough to get out the same door that you came in from, then you should get blown up! If that's not intuitive enough, then the fact that locked doors have a different texture on them, as well as a missing "glowing nob" should give one a clue. But, no, instead, I have to sacrifice aesthetics and cover them with curtains so players won't get "confused". It's a video game for Christ sakes! You can afford to die a few times and learn a thing or two for the next level! Maybe it'll even help with life's tribulations by figuring things out the hard way. Must there be constant hand holding through everything? Social Darwinism is a nice ideal, but never really existed. Enough said.


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Things that I want to blog about, sometimes just don't seem to make any sense once they are written down. And so, I delete it and file that thought away for another time when they are a bit clearer. Anyway, today is a friends' birthday, so happy birthday to you!


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