So hi.
To those of you who might be wondering why I fell off the face of the planet for about a month: Thanks for visiting, but I've been on a leave of absence since SIGGRAPH so that I could pull together some wedding plans and marriage prep classes with Naveen. We're doing really well. We flew home for Labor Day weekend and spent most of the time with our families - Naveen with his brothers playing Bioshock, and I with my parents and sister looking at wedding gowns. After a few days, we came back to find his schedule much improved from the past 2 months of hell. Another week later, and our insanely irrational and insensitive neighbor downstairs (Sandra) finally dragged her enormous bass speakers to her car and eventually moved out (without notifying the main office, of course - oh, and there was one cooler, rainy day that her 9-yr-old son Javier was wandering in the parking lot for 5 hours in the evening because he had forgotten to get off at his new bus stop, and no one was bothering to look for him, so I took him to our neighbors who knew where his family had moved). Now I'm just watching my bank account to make sure my charitable $25 check actually goes to her daughter's school (for an entertainment coupon book that I'll honestly probably never receive), and not to some other mysterious account in the amount of $2500 or something.
Anyway. All that aside, I must say I'm really looking forward to starting Animation Mentor up again, especially knowing I'll have lesser distractions. Yes, crazy bass lady is gone, but also, we've settled on our wedding date next year, picked a church, and put a deposit down on the reception hall. Oh, and, I think I found my dress. Oh, and, we found out that marriage prep isn't going to take the 6 months we had been warned about, but instead only 3 or so sessions, and we've already finished one. It was really cool - sparked a lot of conversation, even though we thought we'd talked about everything in our 5+ years together.
Up until this weekend I was somewhere between psyched and nervous about the animation class starting back up. But tonight, I did a bunch of sketches, and worked on a new production schedule, and even captured some new video reference. Here, you can even watch it if you want (although you'll have to stretch your mind a bit to follow the story, if you haven't already seen my animatic).
"Misfit Magician"
So, sometime this week, I'll give a status report on how things are going. Till then, I've gotta bust my butt to get back in gear. Cya!
