What's Next?

I'm exhausted. I wonder what's next.

The weather has been great. The other day I saw a cypress tree, which is unusual up here. Being a cypress in the northwest probably isn't easy.

I feel like a cypress in California that is trying to escape to Seattle to hide under clouds.

I am here. I'm just not a cypress.

What am I doing? I guess I forgot.

I was always the kid who ran home as soon as school was out.

And always tried to do the alternative assignments.

[I lost a little bit of soul this year. ]--revision: I felt like I lost some soul, but actually hadn't. (8-7-08)

Dooooonnnnooooovvvaaaannnnnn

Some of my coworkers and I got carried away with a panasonic hvx200 camera and it's slow motion feature.... and Donovan.

Animation Show Seattle

Last Friday, Jess and I went to the Animation Show! A lot of great animation, really inspiring, but most inspiring was the community of animators I was able to talk with. I asked Joel Trussell if he'd let me take an ugly picture of us both and he agreed. Joel has animated such music videos as War Photographer and Paris Is On. He's a great guy and I suggest you watch his animations if you haven't.

The other photo is stuffed with Anton Bogaty, Rebecca Moline, Matt from Plexipixel, as well as Robert May--voice talent for Don Hertzfeldt's Rejected, Lily & Jim, etc. I just about crapped by pants when I realized I was in the presence of the voice that spoke "my anus is bleeding!" I mean, Rejected was one of the kickers for me wanting to be an animator. Be sure to check out the Plexipixel blog for Matt's account of the evening, as well as beautiful photographs of the afore mentioned.

In other news, I've had this blog for over a year now and I'm excited that I've been able to keep up with it.

Oh, and I've also been married to Jess for two years. I hope I can keep that up too, sike! We're so happy I have to wear a frown mask at night to rest up for the next day.

ADAA

The above image is a still from a nearly finished short Wexley + Digital Kitchen did for Microsoft. It was my first significant acting experience. I played a computer programmer who gets trapped with his friend in a world they programmed.

Also, the other day I was thinking it might be good to purchase my name .com, so I did. Check it out. As you can see, I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with it yet. Oh well, it's real estate.

Also also, Kid Show is a finalist in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards.

My Woman Fell

As you can see, Jessica took a little tumble off the scooter. She was doing very well, but couldn't slow down fast enough and lost control. I ran toward her, frightened that she was hurt, but all she could do was complain about the grass stain on her jeans and shirt. I've never seen someone so fearfully driven to do laundry.

Good fall, Jess.

High Speed World Champion

Back in December, I achieved an official world record high score for a classic Nintendo game called High Speed. A month later, Nik Meeks topped my score, but now I'm back on top with a score of 23,390,650. Check it out on Twin Galaxies.

I was inspired by the film King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters to attempt holding a video game world record, or any record really.

Fink

I was looking through the pages of the latest RISD Views magazine and read an interview with Mike Fink, a liberal arts teacher who's taught at RISD for fifty years. I never took a class with Mr. Fink, but I appreciated his insight. Here's an excerpt:

And I'm a believer.. ...in the fact that the less you control your thinking the better off you are, because if you don't have a sense of the absurd -- if you lose your sense of humor and start using bigger words and fancier references, you're going to lose your soul.