In a little room in a big city I begin to pack my things. Yes it is true that 4 years have passed. I should know, I was there. I was there for every second of those 4 years. But now I am at the end of the definable era. I say definable not to completely mean it as something that defines me but more of something that is well defined in the minds of our society and/or the breakdown of American life. College is that last bastion of youth. Or so you thought.
It really isn't.
I've come to find that I am still very much the same person, more mature in different settings, but truly the same where it counts. And boy does it count.
Could you imagine not being a good person? I can't. I really can't. I am happy that my life is populated by good people. It leads to good experiences and time spent more enjoyably.
The most important thing I can tell anyone is to never stop learning.
This can be applied in any situation. It should be a nice reminder to never think that you know it all or have it all figured out. I have learned so much and I have acquired the skills to keep learning, possibly in better ways.
This has been a staggering month. From my own personal graduation to sharing time with family and friends to celebrate their big milestones, I have found a refreshed sense of activity.
I feel such a positive momentum forward. Even a brilliant skeptic like me has avoided the cynical clouds and has really come to see life for the simple and beautiful thing that it is.
Well that was about as deep as I'm willing to go.
When are we going to celebrate our post-collegiate era? The out of school party to kick off the Start of Life party??
Hey guys. You're all great in my book.
-Michael
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
The Future Is Now
College is nearing an end. 2 months left. What have we learned? Hopefully a good amount from our respective fields. Besides that. I think we have learned our group has potential to stick together throughout the changing times.
This St. Patrick's Day celebration at Dave&Busters was very fun and entertaining. Reflecting on the conversations I really started noticing the future looming on the horizon. Talk of finding new jobs, careers, buying cars, moving out, the future is here. I always considered 2008 the year of change. Not because of Obama, but because we were entering a new world. College. The group was equally divided among different schools. I was worried everyone would drift apart. How can people stay together when they go from seeing each other 5 days a week to inconsistency? Well I was wrong. Our group's strength never vanquished and we held together. As college progressed there were less and less hangouts, especially with James going abroad and my Finance Association/FDIC duties. But we made it work.
However, we have entered a new year of change, 2012. Hopefully not the end of the world change, but change nonetheless. We are going to be even further removed from our lives and plunged into even greater inconsistency. Where will we all get jobs? Move to? What will our schedules be like then? Marriage!? Who knows when and where, but it will happen soon.
So the question now is, will the group survive? And if so, for how long? Will we still hangout when I am Chairman of the Federal Reserve?
Our frequency of hangouts may dwindle in the coming years. Our lives will most certainly get busier and busier. But in my opinion, I don't think there is anything that could stop the group now. We are too strong, and we can make it through anything. I relish the day when we all turn 65 and climb Half Dome for the 40th time. Our legs may be beyond repair, but our laughter will live on.
In short, if this 2012 year of change divides us even further apart I will be sad. However, I find comfort in the fact that group has made it this long, and shows no sign of stopping.
May God guide us in our quest.
This St. Patrick's Day celebration at Dave&Busters was very fun and entertaining. Reflecting on the conversations I really started noticing the future looming on the horizon. Talk of finding new jobs, careers, buying cars, moving out, the future is here. I always considered 2008 the year of change. Not because of Obama, but because we were entering a new world. College. The group was equally divided among different schools. I was worried everyone would drift apart. How can people stay together when they go from seeing each other 5 days a week to inconsistency? Well I was wrong. Our group's strength never vanquished and we held together. As college progressed there were less and less hangouts, especially with James going abroad and my Finance Association/FDIC duties. But we made it work.
However, we have entered a new year of change, 2012. Hopefully not the end of the world change, but change nonetheless. We are going to be even further removed from our lives and plunged into even greater inconsistency. Where will we all get jobs? Move to? What will our schedules be like then? Marriage!? Who knows when and where, but it will happen soon.
So the question now is, will the group survive? And if so, for how long? Will we still hangout when I am Chairman of the Federal Reserve?
Our frequency of hangouts may dwindle in the coming years. Our lives will most certainly get busier and busier. But in my opinion, I don't think there is anything that could stop the group now. We are too strong, and we can make it through anything. I relish the day when we all turn 65 and climb Half Dome for the 40th time. Our legs may be beyond repair, but our laughter will live on.
In short, if this 2012 year of change divides us even further apart I will be sad. However, I find comfort in the fact that group has made it this long, and shows no sign of stopping.
May God guide us in our quest.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
December's December
Would you think me a liar if I told you that I like blogging?
In the class I mentioned in my previous post (what was that... a month ago? Oh 4) we did a decent amount of blogging. I liked making creative titles, swirling people around in my thoughts and arguments. I could pretend to be a professional, writing like I had an audience of intellectuals who'd roll their eyes along with me and laugh silently under their breath about the quip I made defending Tom Lutz and the printed word. In another one of my classes we talked heavily about writing, composition, and rhetoric. Rhetoric is king. Even just that statement, broken down--short, assigning supremacy, acting as if it is fact and not opinion--is rhetoric at work.
The one concept from that class that I keep turning back to in my mind is the role of academic discourse as well as abnormal discourse. What it really works out it is the way in which people push into ideas and concepts, get lost, get confused, make mistakes, say stupid things, say inspired things without a full meaning, and continue to carry these exclamations/proclamations with them in their minds until they reach a point of understanding. It all becomes a process in which you work through to better understand something, anything, and then reach a point of clarity where you can offer up a well-reasoned discussion.
If you apply this technique to almost anything in life it serves as a nice reminder that you've got to wade through a lot of unknowing (aka shit) before you can reach a point of clarity or dare I say.....TRUTH!
(I realize at the surface this can seem obvious and apparent but a lot of what I took from this class was the importance of breaking down the obvious, understanding it wholly, and then putting it back together in its apparent position)
I just wanted to share that with you guys. My 2+ audience members. Don't even get me started on audience.
This semester I found myself enjoying writing essays more than usual. In my post-modern Brit lit class I went to crazy lengths to develop a complex multi-layered thesis because deep down I wanted to writing something that put up a fight. Hurl any scoffs you might have at this moment because of my overt 'English major-ness.'
Looking down from space....2011 was actually a good year. I think people are giving it extra crap because nothing too spectacular happened. In the movie world we didn't get any groundbreaking releases. I avoid making lists. I don't think I saw enough films this year to make a top 10. But I can tell you, as of now, Drive is my clear favorite of the year.
I had sort of envisioned this as a year end wrap up post. But what do I have to wrap up? Life is still moving forward.
Pictures!
2011, two thousand and eleven, was a year of consistent living. Which is arguably better than a year of consistent dying.
Things start to make sense when you reach the end of one tunnel and prepare to go into another one.
The tunnel is a metaphor.
Penis doctor.
In the class I mentioned in my previous post (what was that... a month ago? Oh 4) we did a decent amount of blogging. I liked making creative titles, swirling people around in my thoughts and arguments. I could pretend to be a professional, writing like I had an audience of intellectuals who'd roll their eyes along with me and laugh silently under their breath about the quip I made defending Tom Lutz and the printed word. In another one of my classes we talked heavily about writing, composition, and rhetoric. Rhetoric is king. Even just that statement, broken down--short, assigning supremacy, acting as if it is fact and not opinion--is rhetoric at work.
The one concept from that class that I keep turning back to in my mind is the role of academic discourse as well as abnormal discourse. What it really works out it is the way in which people push into ideas and concepts, get lost, get confused, make mistakes, say stupid things, say inspired things without a full meaning, and continue to carry these exclamations/proclamations with them in their minds until they reach a point of understanding. It all becomes a process in which you work through to better understand something, anything, and then reach a point of clarity where you can offer up a well-reasoned discussion.
If you apply this technique to almost anything in life it serves as a nice reminder that you've got to wade through a lot of unknowing (aka shit) before you can reach a point of clarity or dare I say.....TRUTH!
(I realize at the surface this can seem obvious and apparent but a lot of what I took from this class was the importance of breaking down the obvious, understanding it wholly, and then putting it back together in its apparent position)
I just wanted to share that with you guys. My 2+ audience members. Don't even get me started on audience.
This semester I found myself enjoying writing essays more than usual. In my post-modern Brit lit class I went to crazy lengths to develop a complex multi-layered thesis because deep down I wanted to writing something that put up a fight. Hurl any scoffs you might have at this moment because of my overt 'English major-ness.'
Looking down from space....2011 was actually a good year. I think people are giving it extra crap because nothing too spectacular happened. In the movie world we didn't get any groundbreaking releases. I avoid making lists. I don't think I saw enough films this year to make a top 10. But I can tell you, as of now, Drive is my clear favorite of the year.
I had sort of envisioned this as a year end wrap up post. But what do I have to wrap up? Life is still moving forward.
Pictures!
2011, two thousand and eleven, was a year of consistent living. Which is arguably better than a year of consistent dying.
Things start to make sense when you reach the end of one tunnel and prepare to go into another one.
The tunnel is a metaphor.
Penis doctor.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Rotation is Complete
I cannot wait to be done with college. It needs to end, preferably sooner than later.
This senior thesis project is seriously destroying my life. I've been putting about 40 hours a week into it since August, and progress is just so unbearably slow. Over Thanksgiving break I was working constantly on it and I barely got anything done. I made some palm trees move. That was honestly about it.
I know I'm bitching, but man I really need to bitch about this.
It's been on my mind more than usual because I'm scheduled to start animation the beginning of December and it's flat out, absolutely, no way in hell, going to happen. I don't even know how many more months I would need before I'd feel okay with going onto animation. I don't think I know numbers that high.
And it's awful because I'm doing it entirely by myself, and honestly, I don't know enough. Everything I try and do something I have to research from somewhere, and you would be amazed at how shitty some people are at explaining stuff.
Here's an excerpt:
once the bottle is filled to the level you want, export the circle emitter particles as a single .bin file and set that state as initial state.
then unlock the timeline lock and hit A or click on simulate, go for a ciggy break or take your dog for a walk.
the liquid will simulate along with the animated bottle movements.
after the simulation is over you need to add a mesh and convert the particles to mesh (one more big set of trial and error parameters, heheh...)
Import the mesh created in RealFlow into Maya using NextLimit Mesh Loader.
I painfully made it through the bulk of this tutorial when I got to the "using NextLimit Mesh Loader" and had a pause as I realized I had no clue what the was. So I looked it up. And, of course, there is no documentation anywhere online that says what it is. Not even a hint.
I found a workaround several hours later and I got every thing all set and I rendered my scene out (just a test scene of about 50 frames) and when I finally saw it being played I noticed it looked weird. The scene was just a moving bottle filled with orange soda. The orange soda part being the nonsense that was so hard to make. But as the bottle was moving, the soda was just sort of floating there. Apparently I had forgot to turn gravity on.
Why the FUCK isn't gravity on by default?
God, dammit this shit makes me so angry. That's an entire day's worth of work and it looks bad because there's no gravity.
Cursing is my armor this semester. I'm sorry my mouth is so foul.
This senior thesis project is seriously destroying my life. I've been putting about 40 hours a week into it since August, and progress is just so unbearably slow. Over Thanksgiving break I was working constantly on it and I barely got anything done. I made some palm trees move. That was honestly about it.
I know I'm bitching, but man I really need to bitch about this.
It's been on my mind more than usual because I'm scheduled to start animation the beginning of December and it's flat out, absolutely, no way in hell, going to happen. I don't even know how many more months I would need before I'd feel okay with going onto animation. I don't think I know numbers that high.
And it's awful because I'm doing it entirely by myself, and honestly, I don't know enough. Everything I try and do something I have to research from somewhere, and you would be amazed at how shitty some people are at explaining stuff.
Here's an excerpt:
once the bottle is filled to the level you want, export the circle emitter particles as a single .bin file and set that state as initial state.
then unlock the timeline lock and hit A or click on simulate, go for a ciggy break or take your dog for a walk.
the liquid will simulate along with the animated bottle movements.
after the simulation is over you need to add a mesh and convert the particles to mesh (one more big set of trial and error parameters, heheh...)
Import the mesh created in RealFlow into Maya using NextLimit Mesh Loader.
I painfully made it through the bulk of this tutorial when I got to the "using NextLimit Mesh Loader" and had a pause as I realized I had no clue what the was. So I looked it up. And, of course, there is no documentation anywhere online that says what it is. Not even a hint.
I found a workaround several hours later and I got every thing all set and I rendered my scene out (just a test scene of about 50 frames) and when I finally saw it being played I noticed it looked weird. The scene was just a moving bottle filled with orange soda. The orange soda part being the nonsense that was so hard to make. But as the bottle was moving, the soda was just sort of floating there. Apparently I had forgot to turn gravity on.
Why the FUCK isn't gravity on by default?
God, dammit this shit makes me so angry. That's an entire day's worth of work and it looks bad because there's no gravity.
Cursing is my armor this semester. I'm sorry my mouth is so foul.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Happy Halloween!
Hey Blog, it's been a while. You've been missing out. Things have been changing, both good and bad I guess. The garage has been awfully lonely these days. Luckily a few 21-age related activities brought it back a little bit, plus Michael's 22nd B-day. I miss the good old garage days. So simple, so fun. We went from garage, to blog, to SC2, and now winding down college with light drinking. What's next? Girlfriends? Hah, no. Not any time soon at this rate. But we hope. Anyways, it's Halloween. 2011. Not the best year for Halloween. Way to much hw/projects. Don't get me started on my Great Recession vs. Great Depression paper. It be way to Hogan. So no Halloween TCR this year. But it's all good. We've done several good October hangouts. Just wait, next Halloween I won't be in school....now that's even scarier than Halloween.
Alright Blog. Have a good one. I'll see you next time I need to procrastinate on some hw.
Alright Blog. Have a good one. I'll see you next time I need to procrastinate on some hw.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Casually Reenters the Conversation
I blame my Journalism and New Media class.
All we talk about is blog blog blog, new media iPad blog blog blog web. So clearly it's awesome.
It also makes me think about this old blog. Good o' blog. Weblog. It still holds our memories guys.
To prove my point about the class here is one of our assignments:
Also I had sort of a milestone moment. (Side note, isn't milestone a great word. The literal origins of a mile marking stone entertain me. Just imagine how bored those traveler's children must have been to get super excited at seeing the mile stone! Progress)
I complete the quad of Parking Permit stickers:
What a perfect little foursquare.
We also got to check out iPads for the Journalism class. Not just check out like, "Hey Jimmy come check out my iPad."
We checked them out like a kid checks out a library book not like a dude checks out a chick.
It's sitting next to my iPhone and my Mac. Keep the Jobs alive.
So I didn't really tell anyone in this class that I blog, I have the capacity to blog. Personal blogs (or group in our case) seem different. Better but different.
So how are you all doing?
Listen to Feist.
-Michael
All we talk about is blog blog blog, new media iPad blog blog blog web. So clearly it's awesome.
It also makes me think about this old blog. Good o' blog. Weblog. It still holds our memories guys.
To prove my point about the class here is one of our assignments:
Also I had sort of a milestone moment. (Side note, isn't milestone a great word. The literal origins of a mile marking stone entertain me. Just imagine how bored those traveler's children must have been to get super excited at seeing the mile stone! Progress)
I complete the quad of Parking Permit stickers:
What a perfect little foursquare.
We also got to check out iPads for the Journalism class. Not just check out like, "Hey Jimmy come check out my iPad."
We checked them out like a kid checks out a library book not like a dude checks out a chick.
It's sitting next to my iPhone and my Mac. Keep the Jobs alive.
So I didn't really tell anyone in this class that I blog, I have the capacity to blog. Personal blogs (or group in our case) seem different. Better but different.
So how are you all doing?
Listen to Feist.
-Michael
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