Yesterday morning I did some modeling and killing before we left for a day of birthday celebrations. First I finished off my electric hoist I started the night before, then I got a start on a block and tackle. Both of these are for the book’s appendix, which I plan to have finished by week’s end.
These were the last two tools I had to model, but I still have quite a few drawings to finish before the entire appendix is done. Some of them are impossible to decipher because the fax came through so shitty, but I’m trying to get all the ones I can see out of the way before I go clearing it up over the phone with James (which always has potential to take hours). Most of those drawings are simple (from what I can make out) and shouldn’t take much time. Today I have to edit the spreadsheet data in each section of the book (booooooooring), then I’ll finish what drawings I can.
Around noon yesterday we went to Holly’s brother’s house for his daughter’s birthday party. We had barbecue and cake, then had to leave to go celebrate my mum’s birthday, where we had pizza and cheesecake (was it my birthday, or my mum’s?), then played a couple games of Pinochle (an old tradition in my family). My dad and I owned the first game, but the second game was a very close loss (if it wasn’t for one card, we’d have had it!).
Also there to celebrate was everyone’s favourite little warrior, sporting a fashonably mighty hairdo. I only got to hold him for a few minutes before he started unleashing his mighty battle cry and I turned him over to someone with bewbs. He calmed down once Holly walked around with him for a bit. She tried to convince me to do it, but I’m still terrified I’m going to drop him and would be better off with him on my lap.
Unfortunately Felix had to leave before the cards started, but before he did he posed for some photos.
Today I sent James a revised edition of the entire book (minus the appendix and glossary), and set the record straight on how to properly spell diaphragm (I swore there was a “g”, James told me on two separate occasions I was wrong… currently my spellchecker has my back). I also modeled a couple of bar clamps I need for the appendix. I’m not sure if I need both, or just one (and if one, which one?) so I just made both. Neither took me very long so I won’t feel bad if I only use one, but James pays me for both.
After I did all that, I submitted my hours and went to see my friend Andrew (who I have seen, in person, twice in the last five years or so) and his newest addition to his family (both his boys are named after Stargate characters!!). He had a barbecue in his backyard this afternoon, and I saw a couple friends I hadn’t seen in years. It was really fun hanging out with all these people I used to see daily, and now rarely do. I also got to have some of Andrew’s famous Ceaser salad, which I have been missing for years.
Today is also my mum’s birthday. She went and hung out with the Mighty Felix this afternoon, while my brother and Lisa cleaned their old place. Sunday I will go visit her with Holly and Roan, after we go celebrate Holly’s niece’s birthday. We’ll have lots to celebrate that day as my brother also got news that he landed the job he was hoping for, securing his future apprenticeship. You can read all about that over at his new blog.
Holly recently posted a story on her blog about some crazy things she had to deal with at work last week. I did a google search for an appropriate image to accompany this post, and came up with the above. It’s fancy.
Here’s the second installment in my latest blog feature, the Cobra Inquisition. This is where I post videos of my best friend’s responses to my stupid questions. The first segment focused on asking questions about animals, and it was a lot of fun. This segment is focused on aliens and space.
Ladies and gentlemen prepare yourself for the Cobra Inquisition: Aliens
-Do you believe in aliens?
-Do you prefer the word alien, or xenomorph?
-Why?
-Who was the first person in space?
-Can you name all the planets in our solar system?
-What’s your favourite planet?
-Why?
-If aliens came to earth and asked you to show them a fun time, where would you take them, and what would you do?
-What would you tell an alien to convince him that humans are cool and that we should hang out more?
-Would you eat fruit from an alien planet?
-Would you eat an alien?
-Should we trust aliens?
Thanks again to Dallas and Jenna for their help and participation. Stay tuned for our next segment which I’ve already begun preparring the questions for.
Yesterday I was in the middle of playing some Borderlands while on my lunch break, when Roan turned around from his computer and asked me “Did you know there is a video of me on Youtube?”. I said “Yup, I’ve seen lots of you on there.”. He must have thought I meant I see him on there, using that website a lot. He said “No, I mean there’s actually a real video of me, playing drums, on youtube… it’s called 9 year old drummer.”.
After searching for 15 minutes he got pissed because there was ten million videos of nine year olds playing the drums, and his was nowhere to be found. I told him I would gladly record him playing, and upload it to youtube for him. He said “No, that’s okay.”, like he usually does, but then changed his mind moments later. He asked me to not start filming right away, so of course I had to (I didn’t want to miss anything good!), and then I faked like I wasn’t recording yet when he decided he was ready. Hopefully he’s not mad at me for recording him being embarassed. I think I’ll lie and tell him my camera is weird sometimes and I didn’t realize it was filming already.
As promised, here are the beautiful renderings of my amazingly accurate sight-level. Each image rendered for about 12 hours before I stopped them. I’m still just using Indigo (all the other engines I’ve tried are crap compared to my free version of Indigo). In the book, these will appear as just simple line drawings, but I really wanted to see how cool it looked after I rendered it. It’s not the most amazing thing but I’m proud of not only how it turned out, but also how quickly I modeled it.
A little while ago I had an idea to ask Roan and Dallas a series of questions. I figure they both have a tendency to let their imagination travel to weird places, and could provide some humorous blog material. It also might be interesting to compare their responses given the 20 year age gap.
Here is the first installment of The Cobra Inquisition: Animals
-What’s your favourite animal?
-Why?
-What animal would you most like to ride?
-How many ACR rounds do you think it would take to bring down a T-rex?
-Would you eat a T-rex? (if it wasn’t full of bullets)
-Who do you think would win in a fight; a monkey riding a donkey with a .50 cal mounted on it, or a magic dolphin?
-Would you rather have the ability to fly like a bird, or stay under water like a fish?
-Why?
-Do you miss the dinosaurs?
-What’s your favourite colour of dragon?
-What is a hybrid?
-If you could combine two animals together to make your own hybrid, which two would you combine, and what would you call the new animal?
-Why do you think tigers and zebras have the same type of stripes?
-If you had to fight cow with your bare hands, what would your plan of attack be?
-If you won the fight, would you eat the cow?
-What animal scares you the most?
-If you could have your own army of one kind of animal, what kind of army would you have?
-Why?
-Can you draw your favourite animal? or the hybrid you created?
-If all the animals turned to zombies, what weapon would you want to defend yourself?
-Where would you hide out?
A special thanks to Dallas’ lovely lady Jenna for filming/interviewing Dal. I’m sure she hears enough stupid things come out of Dallas’ mouth without any encouragement, so I apprectiate her taking the time and being a good sport.
A few weeks ago we bought our cats a harness. Two of the four love it, the others are terrified. Shakespeare loves it, and he loves chasing apples if you throw them. I set up my camera hoping to catch the act of me throwing the apple, and him chasing, but my angle wasn’t wide enough and the apples are the same colour as the grass.
I wanted to add the Benny Hill theme to this clip, but I can’t seem to edit any video on my laptop, and I refuse to invest the time in figuring it out on another machine. So, imagine the Benny Hill theme as you watch. Enjoy!
It’s been a while since I posted anything regarding the progress of the book (not to mention a while since I posted much of anything – I’m a slacker), which I’m still working on daily. Just yesterday I received my latest revised edition of the manuscript in the mail, and now it’s a matter of editing pretty much the entire book (images and text). I’ve already finished editing the first half of the book – the Timber Post and Beam section – but didn’t bother with any of the images. I’ll finish the second half of the text – the Timber Bents section – by Monday hopefully, then I’ll start redoing basically every image from scratch.
I’m hoping it won’t take too long because, although I love that I have a job, I want this job to be over. I have been working on my lesson plan and handouts for the course James is interested in having me teach at the ISBA, and it makes me want to be out there teaching, and learning more. I think I might post a tutorial on here when I finish it, in case any of my cobra colleagues have constructive cobra criticism for me.
Along with my revised manuscript, I also received a new version of the appendix and glossary via fax. When I scanned through the appendix I noticed James had included some tools he neglected to mention to me when he originally assigned me the appendix drawings. I immediately started working on them because I love modeling, even though I’m sure he’d rather I focus on correcting the text and images already in the book. Above are a few of the smaller things I needed to model (I left out the really small ones, as well as the really big ones). Later I’ll post some pictures of a neat model I made of a sight-level, but at the moment it’s rendering.
There are still a few models I need to make (an electric hoist, and some clamps) but they are ones I might leave for now. I might also just get some models out of the 3d warehouse and modify them accordingly, but that all depends on how much time I have I guess. I prefer to model everything myself, but occasionally I can’t be bothered to spare the brain-power or the time.
