We Remember

It's another clear blue autumn Tuesday, just like it was 11 years ago today.

BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center seemed a permanent part of the Manhattan skyline. Credit: The Scientific American

Purdue students are remembering 9/11 by placing 2,977 flags around the engineering fountain in memory of those who were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Credit: Facebook, Purdue.

9/11/2001. I was a freshman at Purdue University. That morning I had been in a Computer Graphics Technology lab for 2 hours, which completed at 9:20am EST. Under a clear blue, cloudless, absolutely quiet sky, I rode my bike home to Windsor Hall. The elderly woman at the cafeteria swiping ID cards asked in an unusually somber way, "How are you doin', hun?" Unaware, I replied, "Great, thanks!" Not usually a breakfast eater, but feeling particularly accomplished after completing my lab, I enjoyed a delicious breakfast of Belgian waffles and fruit at Wood Hall; then I went home to Warren Hall, on the third floor. There I saw my neighbor, who looked white as a ghost, and told me what was happening. The blood fell from my face into my feet as I fumbled with my keys to get inside and turn on my tiny television; I had just visited NYC that spring with my family. What an unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable moment. My brain did not allow me to retain the images I saw on my television. I spoke with my family on the phone for hours. The rest of the day was a blur. I had a math class during which our TA was helping us prepare for our first big exam that night, getting formulas wrong on the board, apologizing because he was in ROTC and he was so distraught over what had happened and could not focus. That evening, a couple hundred of us had to participate in this math exam. Had I known about a candlelight vigil that apparently went on that night, I would have done that instead, because most of us failed anyway or performed very badly, only able to think about what had happened, and what it might mean for the future. In our very vulnerable state, having left our homes for the first time to attend college at Purdue, we had our world views shaken and our sense of immunity to terrorism destroyed. But I do remember the sense of community that we had, the pulling together, the sense that we could emerge a better, stronger people than ever before, and I gained that sense of country and world perspective that year at Purdue. And, we prayed for those who were lost, and still do.

Happy Holidays, and to a Happy 2012!

Dear friends and family,

This year was yet another year of dramatic change for us. We spent the early weeks of 2011 working on the east coast: Laura had another contract with SpeakeasyFX to help animate a second season of "Abby's Flying Fairy School" for Sesame Street, and Naveen was continuing as a game programmer at AMI Entertainment. Every day Naveen would drive 45 minutes to an hour down to his job in Pennsylvania, and Laura would commute by train an hour and a half up to north central New Jersey to her job. But soon our lives would change.

We knew Laura’s contract would end in July, so the race began. Where would we go next? It wasn’t long before Naveen scored a really nice position at Twisted Pixel Games down in Austin, Texas. That’s right, Texas! So our journey began... again. As you know, when we got married on September 6, 2008, we thought we were going to be living in Chicago for a while, but it was only a week later that Laura got her first contract for the Sesame Street project and had to move, separating us for our first year of marriage. We overcame that and Naveen eventually moved out to be with her. However this time was Naveen’s turn to take the leap, which he did in mid-March. If anyone thought it was an April Fools joke when we told you Naveen was working in Texas on April 1st, we were telling the truth!

We visited Texas a couple of times to secure a place to live. We ended up at Iron Rock Ranch on Slaughter Lane, believe it or not! Sounded like Texas to us. Even before starting the job, Naveen was welcomed out to a co-worker’s bachelor party the night before he started work. His new company was a lot of fun, with a great atmosphere, challenging work, and great people. For Laura, it was an end of an era - she finished her work at SpeakeasyFX by early summer and had to quickly pack up the apartment all by herself! In true “Laura” fashion, she whirled through the apartment like a tornado to get most everything done in the final 72 hours. She flew our kitty Sully down to Texas over July 4th weekend, and made the final voyage with a loaded van at the end of July, first stopping for a few days with family in Indiana, then driving with her mom to Memphis and finally Austin. It was a great road trip and Mom seemed to really enjoy it too!

We spent the summer acclimating to our new Texan environment - tubing down the Comal River with friends, enjoying some great ribs at Salt Lick, gazing out over Lake Travis, hopping around on South Congress to the various food trailers, and more - all with the great folks we’ve met at Twisted Pixel. They even have a “wives” club, no joke, where the women together for brunches and bake-offs and such, which Laura loves. She has also stayed very busy since the summer, getting freelance projects here and there, and supervising layout and animation on an independent animated short film, which will likely come out next summer. Naveen has been working hard since the release of his first title, “Gunstringer,” for Xbox Kinect. His company was just acquired by Microsoft, which is a great deal for everyone - TPG gets to continue generating creative projects, Microsoft gets to exclusively publish their great games. It’s a win-win!

In the final months of the year, we are busier than ever. But we wanted to take a moment and wish you a very happy holiday, and a happy, healthy 2012!




Originally posted on LauraSko.com/holiday

Happy Thanksgiving!

Going on hiatus from freelancing and the short film this coming week (22nd-29th). Hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!

Laura

Greetings, GDC Online!

So you met me at GDC Online in Austin, and you wanted to check out my blog.

That’s nice! Thanks! Now let's work together!


What's in it for you?

• Adaptive, enthusiastic, easy-going, loyal employee
• Animation skills as well as an awareness of technical constraints, big picture perspective

About me:

• Character animator – background in Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University, later became more specialized with training from Animation Mentor
• Recently moved to Austin this summer after a few years of working on Sesame Street's "Abby’s Flying Fairy School" segment and online interactive component
• Came to GDC Online to familiarize myself with the local game community and assess how my animation and other production skills may fit

Professsional Skillset

• Strong eye for detail and consistency in linear storytelling as well as ability to anticipate user interactions in nonlinear storytelling scenarios
• Collaborate well with other animators, whether working alongside them or leading them
• Thorough, thoughtful, effective communicator
• Readily accepts criticism and eager to help others with constructive feedback
• Good Experience using XSI, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, among other tools for animation, graphic design, video editing, and motion capture cleanup

It was a pleasure meeting you, and please keep in touch!
http://laurasko.com/

Loving Life in Austin, TX

Wow. It occurred to me that I have gone quite some time without posting on my blog what is going on in my life. Work on season 2 of "Abby's Flying Fairy School" with SpeakeasyFX wrapped in July, and in the days following I packed up our apartment and moved everything to Austin, TX - stopping overnight with my folks in Indiana for a few days, then overnight in Memphis, then finally to be with my hubby again in Texas. It was a long haul getting here but we love it here so far.



The end of July was spent getting used to the new apartment and a brand new city (region, really) with tons to do, places to go, things to see, people to meet. Right off the bat we have made friends with his whole office at Twisted Pixel Games. We have had house parties, lazy river tubing, baby showers, dinner and movie outings at Alamo Drafthouse venues around town (fantastic!!), and quite notably, the Gunstringer (for Xbox Kinect) launch party on a boat up at Lake Travis. We've eaten at the famous trailers, visited the capitol building, hung around downtown, and most importantly have just hung around together, enjoying daily life in one place again.





Recently we enjoyed a full day of Austin City Limits music festival, which was a big deal for us. We had only ever been to Summerfest up in Wisconsin, which was fun (probably more family-oriented with craft activities for kids, etc), but this was a great fun time with some great new music to our ears, as well as our primary reason for attending - Arcade Fire! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but completely burnt out exhausted from 10am-10pm in 100 degree heat. We may do a 3-day pass next year, especially since it will take place a month later in the year (hopefully slightly cooler, although in Texas, a "cool" day seems to be 90 degrees so far).



Fun things coming up include a wine trail tour, since it was rumored to us that Texas wineries are second in the country to Napa in California! We'd like to plan a bed and breakfast getaway out there as well, as a belated 3-year anniversary trip. Of course, we still have to plan our honeymoon too (is that getting old yet?) and had thought about doing that over Thanksgiving, but we are apparently really bad planners when it comes to vacations. We seem to do fine for seeing people, specific events or conferences, etc, but we're really bad at planning getaway times. Something we'd like to improve while we are enjoying our time here.


Professionally speaking, Naveen has been loving his job at TPG, very excited about the release of Gunstringer (his first big title!) and about working with such a great team of people.





I have been working at home toward an independent short film slated for release in March 2012, hopefully in time for the festival circuit. It's a collaborative project with a 45-member team working remotely, even internationally. I'm proud to have contributed layout work this summer, and will be supervising animation on it in the coming weeks. We have some great minds and talents working together on this, so it's pretty exciting to see it grow right now.




Oh, and finally, Sully has been enjoying it here too. He loves having all the stairs and windows at the townhome, and is learning to be a little more independent of us, although we are still thinking about getting him a buddy next year. We're just not sure what kind of buddy yet. ;-) We'll keep everyone posted!

Hope you are all well. Happy autumn!