Apple keeps getting me...

September 29, 2007

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:

News from Florida!

September 25, 2007

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.

Saturday News Update

May 6, 2007

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 Adobe Creative Suite, 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 a 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 computer 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 inot 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 veyr 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.

Aloha from Orlando!

May 5, 2007

Well, I am now in the sunshine state's most famous city: Orlando. I'm about 10-15 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.

Howdy from Tulsa International!

May 5, 2007

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.

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