I do not consider myself an Apple zealot, but I'll have to admit that they make very nice hardware. I'm completely loving my Mac Book Pro. It's doubley more awesome that my Mac mini in almost every respect. Clock speed, RAM, hard drive space, video, you name it this thing is better. And it's portable. And it gets blazing hot when it's doing heavy processing, hotter than the surface of the sun I'd say.

Yesterday I picked up my books and softwares, those being Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 (adds up to a grand total of $3000+). I loaded up CS3 immediately and had fun doing stupid Photoshop jobs all day.

I tried screwing around with FCS2 last night but didn't really get anywhere. Final Cut Pro itself seems fairly straight forward so far but I couldn't figure out Color (color grading app) which is a bummer because one thing that my videos need are to be color graded.

School doesn't start until Tuesday and I'm beginning to get a little bored. E and I have been playing Halo 2 and we watched all the Back to te Future movies, but I'm ready for school. I do have my copy of Eternal Sonata now so maybe that'll ease the pai of waiting even if just by a little bit. I could always draw, I suppose. But I don't know if I'll be able to top this:

Before I delve into the juicy, gory details I will warn anybody who's unfortunate enough to be on dial-up: there's going to be pictures. Lots of them. Be patient.

I guess I'll start with the beginning. I was born around 10ish on June 8th, 1986. Life was pretty good until they cut my umbilical cord. You see I... Okay, too far back.

Last Monday, Sept. 17th, was a crazy, hectic day because I really hadn't packed much up to that point. About the only things I had packed were my books and DVDs. That left this:

(be sure to follow the link. I've got region thingies set up on the flickr page)

As you can see it was quite a hellish nightmare. But, I got everything packed and by that evening it looked more like this:

Evening came and morning followed the first day.

The next day, Tuesday, began the first leg of our near thirteen hundred mile trip. After I said goodbye to my family we started off. Then we promptly returned because I'd forgotten some things (that's not to say I got everything I'd forgotten, though). That day we drove about seven hundred some odd miles, well over half the trip, passing through five states (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama). We stayed in a little town past Birmingham called Oxford. Evening came and morning followed the second day.

There's really not a whole lot to say about the second day of driving. We passed through Atlanta (uneventfully I might add) and drove from there on down to Florida. One thing I will say about Atlanta, though, is that there's an assload of cars on the road. Twelve lanes and all of them packed. Once in Winter Park it took about an hour and a half to find our lodging for the night. Luckily we did find it and it was an easy drive to the apartments. We ate at Boston Market that night. It was pretty good (though the service was... weird). I'll forgo the Genesis reference this time.

So, it was finally the big day (or at least one of them). We made our way over to the apartments and got there without any trouble. However, we did circle the whole complex nearly three times before we found the leasing office which was tucked away discreetly behind some trees. It was there that I met up with my roommate and signed my life away to the dark cabal that controls everything. However, we did get a sweet apartment in return:

As you can see in that last picture we have a sweet TV setup (or I do. It's all my stuff). The gibberish on the screen is our (at the time) messed up cable. Dragging everything up and in wasn't to big of a deal and really didn't take too long. Getting setup, that was another story all together. My room isn't completely unpacked yet though it's functioning at one hundred percent capacity.

That evening we went and bought some furniture.

The next day we didn't do much aside from pull in some of the more minor items we needed. I spent a good chunk of the day working on the mess that was my room. I think I did anyways... By this time it was Saturday and I had to see my Dad off as he prepared to redrive the roads we had just been on. We (my roommate and I) didn't do much over the weekend. Bought some stuff, played some games, watched some TV, drew some pictures. Just kept low. Then came yesterday (Monday).

We were both getting kind of tired of not having much to do so we packed up and went to the beach. Daytona Beach, that is. Up to that point the closest I had ever been to the beach was watching LOST so it was something completely new for me. It was a hell of a lot of fun.

We tossed a Nerf football around, we rode some waves, we walked up the beach (probably a mile or more not including the trip back). Being the off season there weren't too many people there and at that most of them were seniors. With the exception of the little kids we were the youngest people there. While it was fun and all there was a price to be paid. I had purchased some sunscreen before we'd gotten there, but was unable to get my back. My roommate, who I will refer to as E, didn't put any on at all. So by the time we got home he was completely red and my back felt like it was on fire. That evening we laid low and watched all the new offerings on NBC and headlines on Jay.

Tonight we're going to be going to a little meeting thing at the school and tomorrow is registration and the getting of our Mac Book Pros. It'll be sweet to be sure. I'll be back a full update including pics. Until then, stay cool.

Firstly, pictures. More importantly, however, I need to quit with this "firstly", "nextly", "that other thingly".

In case you've been living under a rock today was my big tour of Full Sail. Up till now I've been referring to it as "Full Sail, college of awesomeness" however I think I'll have to start referring to it as "Full Sail, college of kick ass!". It is seriously that freakin' cool. When every classroom has computers in it (with the exception of one) you know it has to be cool. I'll try to describe the experience as best I can, but I won't be able to do justice to it. Please note that the accuracy of the order of events may be questionable.

It all started in a sound stage where the whole opening presentation was treated like a live talk show. The camera came over our heads for a nice sweeping crane shot and came to rest on the guy giving the opening monologue. There was another group in the adjacent sound stage who were watching in on what went on in ours. Once the opening ceremonies were finished they broke the group into the seperate degree sections (Digital Arts and Design for me) and began the "global tour", i.e. seeing all of the facilities.

We were first led into one of the lecture rooms and were given a rundown of the "LaunchBox" initiative. What that is is the Full Sail and Apple have teamed together to give every student a Mac Book Pro loaded with fancy software such as [url=https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/DesignPremium&distributionMethod=FULL&promoid=RWTS&nr=0#loc=en_us&rangeUpper=6%2C0%2C65%2C0&HTMLVerRedirect=true&returnURL=%2Fcfusion%2Fstore%2Fhtml%2Findex%2Ecfm%3Fstore%3DOLS%2DUS%26promoid%3DRWTS%26event%3DdisplayProduct%26categoryPath%3D%2FApplications%2FDesignPremium%26distributionMethod%3DFULL&store=OLS-US&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/DesignPremium&distributionMethod=FULL&promoid=RWTS&nr=0&viewName=Adobe%20Store%20%2D%20North%20America&pageNotFound=0]Adobe Creative Suite[/url], Final Cut Pro, and 3DS Max to name the ones I remember. After they rambled on about that and the masters degree program we actually started looking at the cool stuff.

The first place we visited was the new dubbing studio. If you've ever watched making-of documenteries you've seen the giant sound board and the little couch behind it for the big wigs. Well, it's all there. We were seated and shown a clip from Return of the King. Apparently the guy who did sound design for the collapse of Barad-dur was a Full Sail graduate.

After that we went into one of the recording booths were some dudes were giving off a live performance. We didn't stay there very long, but I will say this: it was very, very loud. Also, we passed the server room on our way out of there. Very, very cool.

Next we were led into the motion capture studio. Sadly, the software wasn't working quite right and the 3d model's right ankle was twisted in all sorts of crazy manners. Still, how many other colleges have a motion capture studio, I mean, c'mon. Killer!

I'm not completely sure, but I believe after that we went onto another sound stage which was dressed up as an inner city street with a theater at the end. Apparently this is used to teach lighting techniques. This I look forward to because all the video projects I've ever done have terrible lighting and it drives me mad. When you're going for a specific look and it you don't have the tools or knowledge to make it happen it gets a little disheartening.

At this point we began the degree specific tour. It started out in the room without computers that I mentioned earlier. It had a bunch of art desks. If I had to guess this is where I'll be taking my art history course.

After that we went into a classroom filled with twenty-four mac pros. Here we were lectured on the art of 2D print and how it relates to the design process such as company logos and product design. Apparently Illustrator is going to be an integreal part of this class.

Once done there we headed off to hear about motion graphics. This is the part that I'm most excited about. They showed a demo reel from an old student there who went on to do commercials for the likes of MTV, Nickelodeon and the like. It was impressive and I'm definitely looking forward to this. Oh, this room was filled with a bunch of Windows computers.

We were then led out by the coolest guy there (very happy and up-beat) and into yet another room with a bunch of Macs. He filled us in on the wonders of the web not only about the designs but the backend (which will be focusing around PHP). Luckily I've got a good deal of experience in both those fields so that should be an easy class. Before heading on to the next stop we passed through one of the labs where final projects are done. Apparently we'll have more or less free license to do what we want there.

Our last stop in campus was the green screen room. They've got equipment that replaces green screen in real-time. The guy who did the lecturing here was practically giving lessons on how to use the software.

We then proceeded across the street to what I am currently calling the auditorium. Essentially it's a concert stage with the lights and the smoke and whatnot. This place is where any bands come to play and put on a show. Here we were luctured on career development and given a speech by the president of the college. If I wanted to I could've gone on a behind the scenes tour of all the light control equipment and stuff, but I was hungry so that was the end of the tour for us.

Like I said earlier, words really can't describe how cool this place is. You have to see it (in person) to get how freakin' awesome it really is. The only caveat I see to this all is that I still have to wait five months until I start. It's going to feel very unsatisfying to go back to cart pushing after this.

One thing I want to say about Orlando (possibly Florida as a whole). The whole place smells like it's been perfumed. It's a scent I noticed stepping off the plane. I first thought it was indigineous to the airport but it's like everywhere. Almost like another place we've heard about....

Well, that was really, really long so I'll wrap it up. At noon tomorrow (Eastern time) we depart for Memphis again. Until then, peace out.

Well, I am now in the sunshine state's most famous city: Orlando. I'm about 10-15 minutes from Universal, and hopefully, not too far from the school. I was going to do a blog update in Memphis but their WiFi was broken. Kind of funny because they were advertising it to the nines.

I've now flown on two planes and I can say I'd rather be in the cockpit. I have a phopia of needing to see where I'm going and it drives me nuts to just be able to see out the side. Also, night flying in storms is... interesting. Coming in over Orlando was quite impressive. In fact it looked a little like this.

Well, I'm dead tired. As always check out my Flickr page.

TUL, if you need the three letter abbreviation for future reference. We've just sat down and I've paid my $5.96 for wireless internet (sucks). Our flight is scheduled to leave at 4:28 PM CDT and it is currently 2:23 PM CDT so we've got a little bit of a wait. This flight will be taking us to Memphis, TN and then we'll have another two hour layover at which point I will probably be playing Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All. I've already played through the first scenerio and it's freakin' awesome. Kind of reminds me of Encyclopedia Brown (and how much I sucked at them). Seriously, though, it's a great game. I'll probably buy the first when I'm done with this one.

Well, I don't have a plug-in here so battery life is at a premium. I may do a quick update when we get to Memphis, but I'll definitely do an update once in Orlando. Be sure to check out my Flickr album for pictorial updates. And, just a note, wireless internet FTW.

I've been holding out on this news for quite some time now, but since everything seems to be falling into place like a well played game of Tetris I will let all the cats and their friends out of the preverbial bag.

First, and most importantly, I have finally gotten my GED. I will brag a little and post my scores:

Reading - 96%

Writing - 82%

Math - 99%

Science - 95%

Social Studies - 99%

Now those little percentages are how many people taking the GED in US are stupider than me, to put it not so nicely. Rather surprising, really, because I found the test to be incredibly simple. IMO, my essay did suck pretty bad. I was supposed to write about how I expected to be remembered which was kind of a lame topic to begin with. I am, usually, a fairly concise writer so coming up with 25 sentences on this topics was really, really hard. In the end I kind of wandered off topic talking about something else completely, but I had about 5 minutes to come up with an extra paragraph so I expanded on something I'd touched on earlier. It sucked, trust me.

Since I have now hurdled hugh school the next logical step is college. Funny thing is that was lined up before my GED was. I have been accepted at Full Sail's school of awesomeness and will be taking the Digital Arts and Design degree. This means I will have to relocate myself to sunny Florida. Do I mind? Hell, no. Do my parents mind? I don't think so. Does everybody else mind even though it really isn't their business? Yes. I've gotten more "why would you move to Florida" comments than I care to count. But, that aside, I'm going to be attending the "behind the scenes" tour this weekend so I'll have plenty to blog about whilst I'm there or when I get back. And don't worry, there'll be pictures and maybe some video.

Speaking of video, I'm going to be making another faux commercial. I've got the script ready, all I need to do is film, write some music, make some visuals, cut it all together in iMovie HD and put it up on YouTube.

Speaking of music, Chris got his electric guitar Monday and has been teaching himself to play (as have the rest of us). I will say this much: playing guitar is a bitch. I thought the piano was bad. At least it's pasture is much more spacous. Chris seems to be concentrating mostly on memorizing chords while I went and taught myself how to read tablatures and am trying to play stuff that's way out of my league (in my defense, however, I can play the first three notes of "Sweet Child O Mine").

And, speaking of iMovie, I kind of moved away from OS X. I'd been using it exclusively for quite some time and then Photoshop died. So I decided I'd redownload it for Windows (I'm a bastard that way) and I haven't really booted out of it since except to copy some files. I've finally gotten more or less used to Vista. The interface, IMO, is more complicated now than it had been (especially the network dialogs). So I am, once again, a Windows man.

Well, I believe that shall tide the masses over at least until the weekend. Keep coming back as I will be blogging down in Florida (assuming our hotel has complimentary G, but it looks grim at this point). We shall see... we shall see...

No offense to the state, just a little thing Dave Berry is always pointing out (you can't spell Florida without the "duh"). If I haven't mentioned the fact that Dave Berry is one of the funniest columnists alive, I will do so now and tell you to go out and get some of his books. The Guide to Guys and Money Secrets are my personal favorites. But, this all really has nothing to do with this blog post so I will move along.

I guess the first thing I want to say is that Guitar Hero II is pretty much the best guitar-based game ever created. I kind of sat on the edge about it for a while because the song list seemed kind of meh compared to it's predecessor, but I decided to give it a chance and GameFly'd it. I was unimpressed for a while and then I hit the boss song. Freebird. All 9 and a half glorious minutes of it. Needless to say I went out and just bought the game the next day and now I rock out on it all the time. Maybe I'll post a video sometime. Oh, and a sidenote, this whole Guitar Hero madness made Chris buy an electric guitar so maybe one of us'll be the next Van Halen or we can form a band and resurrect the glory days of the 80s. Maybe...

I'm back to my old self again and have created a new design for the site. With everybody going "Web 2.0" I figured I'd better jump on the bandwagon and stay current. However, in my defense, the original Tetra design used rounded tables before rounded tables were the thing to do, so I'm a trailblazer there. I'm going to wait to implement the new design until I've gotten a new backend written. Wordpress is nice and all, but all the spam (which you lucky souls never see) is really driving me insane. Besides, I can make a less bloated piece of software to suit my needs. When it comes to web stuff I usually trust my own work over that of others. Maybe I'm an egotistical jerk that way :-P.

Shifting to my public life, things at work ar fairly normal. However, I did drop the CSM charade and joined Robin Hood's Merry Men, or as everybody else knows us, cart pushers. You're probably thinking "Wow! Why did you take that kind of a pay cut just to push carts, a lowly job made for the slime of the Earth?". Firstly, I wasn't actually being paid CSM wages, so I lost a whole .40 an hour. Secondly, that .40 an hour has bought me some sanity and hapiness. The lot is a nice, quiet place to be. The carts don't complain about their credit card being denied, or that something rang up the wrong price, or.... you get the picture. I don't know about people in other towns, but Bartians seem to be a whiny bunch (I'll admit I can be whiny as well).

Well, that about wraps it up for this blog post. Tune in next Friday as maybe I'll make this a weekly thing. It would do me some good to get into some sort of schedule of doing things.