Caught In The Whirlwind
Uncategorized
Yup. It’s December.
0895 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
We’re right in the middle of our first winter storm of the season right now. Snow, wind and sleet/freezing rain later on in the day. Fun! Today was also my first drive to work after moving further away in true winter conditions. We had a smaller event last week, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the weather we were getting today.
Altogether though, my drive was better than I was expecting it to be. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that during the hilly bit, a snow plow had just gone through and deposited a fresh coat of sand. Thankfully. I’m not looking forward to the drive home if the freezing rain prediction holds true though.
December also means planning for family gatherings and the dates of them this year have started to firm up. I’ll be busy the 24th through the 26th with Christmas family gatherings which works out fine for me. Going to be at my parents for Christmas Eve and Christmas and then out to one of my Aunts for the gathering for my dad’s side of the family. We might have some people over for Christmas Eve from my mom’s side…possibly. Not quite sure how that’s all going to shake out though.
Lets see, more random stuff. I did some re-measurement yesterday and it actually seems that I’ll be able to fit a new desk into my space in the office after all. Wassy was up there doing work last night so I figured I’d see where my chair would be pushed with her sitting there at her drafting table working and it actually looks like we have more space than I was initially thinking we would have. That always seems to be the case. So perhaps that can be a tax refund expenditure. We’ll see what happens, as I know I’m not getting nearly as much back this year as I have in previous years.
Lots Of Waiting
0897 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
There’s lots of waiting going down this month.
First, I’m waiting for next weekend because of Dexter, the second to last episode of the season having aired last night. And what a season it has been. I’m going to continue my policy of no spoilers, but lets just say that unless they totally screw this up, this is going to be my favorite season of Dexter ever. They’re handling things so well, from the twists and turns to Dexter’s character development. And John Lithgow better win SOMETHING for his performance.
The second thing I’m waiting for is this Friday I get a bonus in my paycheck (that ends up being about 1% of my pay. Long story short, we’re getting back 4% of the 10% of our hours we lost earlier this year, but they budgeted 5% and instead of giving us 5% of our hours, we get 4% and a 1 time payout for the remaining 1%. Gotta be some sort of tax reason) and I desperately need a new office chair, as I believe I have mentioned before. So I’m curious as to how much I’ll have to work with on my chair hunt.
I’ve put the desk plans on hold for a while, by the way. I’m hoping I’ll stumble across something that will work out in the meantime.
In other news, Wassy was working on a model sheet for one of her City of Heroes (well, City of Villains, but it’s really the same game) this weekend applying her new skillz from this semester to her comic book style linework. Seeing how that turned out is going to make waiting (patiently) for the christmas-inspired Frost piece she had mentioned that much harder. Quite looking forward to that.
All that’s in addition to waiting for the end of the month with Christmas and New Years, spending some time with my family and a long (and needed) vacation from work at the end of the year.
So needless to say…there’s a lot of waiting going on. And it’s making time slow to a crawl.
Done
0900 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Last night I turned in my final project for Digital Typography. One class early even. So I’m not going to have to go to next weeks class, although I’ll probably show up to get my grade or fix any issues that the teacher might have found with my project.
It’s kinda weird, as usually at this point in the year, I’m relieved to be done with classes but I was actually enjoying this one. So there’s a lot of bittersweet feelings at the moment. I’ll be glad to not have to rush around so much on thursday’s in any case.
All in all I think it was the right decision to try to go back to school. I got to learn a bunch, work on some interesting things and focus my energy on something that I find actually enjoyable. Hopefully I can figure out some way to keep doing it…
Latest Goings On
0902 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I figured I’d split this post out from the desk post as the desk one was more focused and this is going to be a rather random, general overview of what’s going on.
So lets see here. School…I spent some time over my vacation working on my final project for Digital Typography. I got it most of the way done, but I need to do some more tweaking and proofreading to make sure everything is all set. I also have 2 images I need to add that I somehow forgot to spec out when I was doing all the measuring stuff. I’ll probably get around to doing that tonight.
Speaking of school, I can’t remember if I mentioned registering for next semester’s courses, but I’m going to be taking a photoshop class which has the potential to be really, really boring. At least the first bit is, considering I generally know the basics of Photoshop so it’s not exactly going to be anything ground breaking to start. Could get interesting towards the end though.
After that I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing. There’s a digital photography course that tends to run when I can take it but, as I mentioned earlier all of the core graphic design courses (the one’s I’m really interested in) only run during the day, when I’m at work. And I’m not in a position where I can really reduce my hours or quit my job or whatever to go after that realistically. So I’m not really sure what to do from this point onward…
On the brighter side of things, Wassy mentioned last night about having an idea for a new piece of Frost artwork (a christmas-y themed piece, which would fit the character perfectly) once she gets some time which I’m quite excited about. She’s really improved her abilities over the course of this semester, so I’m looking forward to seeing what she can do with the character now. Added to the fact that I love getting new gift arts and it’s a definite “win” situation.
I’m also simultaneously looking forward to and saddened by the return of the TV show Dollhouse this week. Happy to see it come back because I enjoy it (and Summer Glau is joining the cast) but saddened because it’s being canceled. It’s not a great show, and not up to the standards of , say, Firefly…but it was solid and had so much potential which seemed to be tossed away. I blame the network for imposing a bunch of 1 off stand alone episodes when the series screamed for a story arc and the creators of the show for continuing that line of thinking into season 2. Hopefully it ends well, considering they were given enough notice to wrap things up nicely. And hopefully some of the actors (especially the guy that played Victor) get work elsewhere. Because there was a lot of really great talent there.
The Quest For A Desk
0902 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I’m starting to feel a little cramped with my current computer desk up in our office location in the apartment. I really need a little more space for writing and storage, and I’d definitely like to get my own printer for the times when I really need to print something out. I’d like to get some sort of an L shaped desk so I could have my computer setup on one portion and anything that I need to write/look at on the side.
Unfortunately, I’m a bit space limited as the side part of the desk can’t be too wide or else it will push me too far towards the middle of the room and really make it hard to move around in there. It’s a smallish room to begin with and nearly at capacity.
I’ve been scouring the stores for a desk that will work out and so far I’ve come up pretty much empty. I’ve even taken a road trip out to Syracuse on Monday and checked out the stores over there with no real luck. Heck, I even checked the Ikea website. So I think I might have to come up with an alternative solution. Maybe I can fit a couple desks together or get a table or something. I just don’t want to have unusable space in a corner since that’s where I want to (eventually) store a printer…
Finding the right piece of furniture that fits is annoying. I’m going to be redoing most of my office area eventually though since I also need a new chair. My current one is quite literally falling apart. Several of the bolts are broken and if you sit on it too much to the left hand side it kinda tips over a bit. The chair will be purchased, hopefully, with the bonus money we’re getting next week.
Stuff needs to stop breaking so I can use that money elsewhere…
Thanksgiving Summary
0906 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was definitely an enjoyable one this year.
As per usual, I woke up bright and early to head over to my parents house for our traditional putting up of the christmas tree and such. This year, I helped with thanksgiving dinner again (assembling the lasagna and making the lemon meringue pie were my tasks). Unlike last year though, we didn’t do turkey. But that was perfectly fine with me.
My mom had a migrane headache the day before so she was running a little bit late with preparations so we ended up starting doing the tree after the Macy’s parade started. But it seems like everyone was running late (since they changed the parade route this year) so it worked out. The christmas tree has seen better days. Some branches are a bit droopy this year and some parts of the top are being held on by zip ties. The thought was that it’s going to have to be replaced soon. Dah. Especially since all the trees out there are pre-lit which seem to break more often.
The afternoon lead to some Madden with my Dad. I finally broke my horrific losing streak and we *almost* got our franchise mode game up to the playoffs. One more play and we’ll be there, but it’s harder to organize now that I live further away than I used to.
Dinner time arrived and with it came my roommates (along with the Strawberry Shortcake Cake that Wassy made to bring over. Mmmm) and my sister and her husband. The rest of the evening was thoroughly enjoyable, I thought. Dinner was tasty and fun and after we broke out Apples to Apples and played a game which ended up being a really really fun time.
As per usual, I know I left out a bunch of stuff, but the most important bit was that it was a great start to vacation. Lots of fun hanging out with my friends and family.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
0908 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
4:00. The day before Thanksgiving. Sitting at my desk at work…watching the clock tick slowly by…
Yep, it’s that time again. The long wait before vacation begins. And after what I did today at work I could really use all 5 days that I took off (took off Monday just for good measure) to recover.
I had to delve into one of our old programs that’s technically unmaintained (it was never migrated over to our new development platform) but still in use to add a feature somebody requested. This program is held together by the coding equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. In fact, when it was overheard that I would be working in this program, I was instructed to not go anywhere even remotely close to the printing code. Because, and I quote this exactly: “You’re just better off not going there…” spoken in a tone of voice suggesting some deep rooted trauma, suppressed by the ages suddenly bubbling to the surface.
So after getting the morning trying to get the program to actually run properly on my machine (setting the tone for what was to come), I set about trying to wedge a new feature into the 5 year old, horribly documented and strung together code.
Can I go home now?
I spent last night poking around photoshop and trying some things out. I ended up creating a neat looking (in my opinion anyway) outer space nebula/star field background that I’m not quite sure what to do with. I was thinking of trying to transform it into some sort of desktop wallpaper for the heck of it. Maybe put in a (bright) star and a couple planets or something. See if I can turn it into an artsy type project as a break from bashing my head against the wall with web design things.
It’ll expand my photoshop skillz at any rate, even if it ends up sucking. I’m already using some stuff I never got into before (adjustment and clipping layers, specifically. Extremely useful little features). I’ll probably spend some time over my vacation poking away at it and seeing what I can do.
Turkey Day Plans (Minus The Turkey)
0910 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
It looks like plans are beginning to shape up for Thanksgiving this week, and it couldn’t come soon enough for me. I’ve used a vacation day to turn the 4 day weekend into a 5 day weekend and I could use the time off.
As per tradition, I’ll be heading over to my parents house early on. This year to help prep the lemon meringue pie and the lasagna (we’re having a non traditional thanksgiving dinner this year. No turkey) and put up the christmas tree like we do every year. New this year though my roommates are going to be joining my family for dinner later on (and bringing a tasty strawberry shortcake cake for desert. Mmmmm).
As far as what I’ll be doing in the meantime, I’ve been feeling the itch to start working again on some of my personal web design type projects that have been floating around in limbo for a while. I opened up the work that I was doing on my mom’s website last night and I’m not really sure I like where it’s going anymore. Sigh. This project is becoming epic.
The End Is Near
0914 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
End of the semester that is. Class seems to have simply flown by this semester for me which is an unusual experience as I’m normally counting down the days until it ends. Not so this time. I’m about 60% completed with my final project for Digital Typography and I hope to get it mostly done over thanksgiving break. But there’s just 2 more classes left before it’s over. And if I get it all done and printed, I don’t even have to go to that last class.
Couple of updates on the posts from yesterday. My first Gyro was really, really good. I’m kinda glad that I don’t work near this place (the place that made the gyro) as I would have to resist getting lunch there every single day…
Also an update: We just got through with our mandatory health care meeting at work here since we got new plans and, as it turns out, the plans aren’t as sucky as I thought. While the deductibles are higher, less stuff touches the deductible than our current plan so it makes less of a difference. The only issue comes in if I have to go to the ER for something. It also has the Healthy Rewards thingy so I can earn some extra cash doing that stuff.
[Plinky] Wardrobe Change
0915 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Describe any wardrobe changes you make when you get home from work, school, or your other day activities.
Depending on how I’m feeling I might go straight to pajamas, but I usually change out from my work clothes into either jeans or shorts (depending on the weather) and a t-shirt of some kind.
I don’t like hanging around in my work clothes longer than I have to as it reminds me of…well…work.
Recent Comments