Life in general: April 2008 Archives

So April is almost over and I'm still modeling the bathroom. Aggravating, but not a surprise considering last week was a total loss due to unnecessarily long work hours and some personal issues that needed taking care of. Things are about to change for the better but making that change has required a great deal of attention lately, in addition to my being made the owner's personal designer on a last minute project on top of my already time-consuming duties. By the time the weekend got here I was exhausted and spent most of it sleeping. Now I'm up late again, but at least it's for the right reasons. I decided to do the subdivision surfaces tutorial tonight to remind myself of the workflow, and now I'm considering redoing the sink again. But not before I model the toilet. Then I'll consider it. Knowing me, I'll probably end up doing it. The faceted polygon approach taught me a lot but left me with... well... facets. And subdivision surfaces would probably serve me better.

I have a new schedule due to some of the changes about to take place in my life (which I can't talk about yet). One thing I know for sure is that I'm going to SIGGRAPH this year. I booked the flight and the hotel, but I'm waiting until closer to July to register so I can spread out the costs. It makes sense now to set my deadline for August, and that means I can relax a little and take my time doing this right. I can really make it good if I can keep from rushing through it. There is no longer a sense of urgency about this, although there is a definite desire to make consistent progress and not continue to lose entire weeks of my life due to others' lack of planning and respect for my time. I will explain everything in another month or so, but for now, just trust me. This is a good thing. I can't predict what will happen at work over the next few weeks, and there's a lot I can't control, but at least I've started again, and I'll keep going until the next stupid thing happens. One stupid thing at a time.

That would be really funny if I had a model of a toilet to show. And to be honest, it was a productive day even without doing a new model. I ran a couple of errands today, had an important meeting (which I may be able to discuss at a later time), found out a new hubcap will cost $84 at the dealership, and spent three hours paying bills and catching up on my financial record keeping. I can't really look back on this day and say I didn't accomplish anything. It all had to be done, and it got done.

I also did a little research on this year's SIGGRAPH. I'm tempted to go. Actually, I'm a lot more than tempted, although a little too broke to pull it off. But it's early enough that it still may be possible. Registration for a full conference pass is crazy expensive ($850), then there's hotel and air fare. And food. At least there's time to plan... it's not until the middle of August and it's only April. I haven't paid off the credit cards yet but by the time I need to make a decision in July they should either be paid off or negligible. I should probably just decide to go and then go. Inspiration like that is worth any price. Maybe even air fare.

Well, it's after 10:30. At least I can still study some mental ray before bed.

I won't go so far as to call this a wasted weekend but I didn't get done what I had hoped. Saturday was worthless. I had no energy at all, couldn't sleep enough. I guess three weeks of sleep deprivation finally caught up with me. So I wrote that day off hoping Sunday would be more productive. And it was, for chores like laundry and cleaning the branches out of the yard, but suddenly it was too dark to go back to the car wash and get new pictures, and a run through the Deep Ellum Arts Festival took too much out of me to start on my bathroom sketches when I finally had time to do it. It occurs to me though that if I don't create some structure soon, the chores will always win. So I'm going to make a schedule for myself. We had to do it in 617 and it was a great exercise. Tomorrow I'm going to try to figure out a realistic deadline for these projects and maybe some realistic hours to work on them. And hopefully I can keep enough flexibility on the weekends to at least do the dishes and get out of the house a little.

One cool thing happened though... I was driving home at 4am Sunday morning (don't ask) through Princeton and I noticed the car wash had two street lights shining on it, one orange and one white. I decided then and there that I definitely want to set up a night scene with street lights. I had the camera and the gazing ball with me (because you just never know) but I couldn't see getting out there at 4am by myself shooting pictures. But this will happen. Something to remember when I set up my schedule tomorrow.

By the way, if you're wondering what the deal with the gazing ball is, it will all become clear when I start doing some lighting. So stay tuned.