Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! =)  I'm going to leave my Christmas lights up until June (or as long as I can before Mom removes them forcefully).  I like Christmas lights...

(Garrett: "Merry Christmas" had a glow effect on it until I upped the samples to 200 and let it render for the night.  The rest of the image improved quite a bit, but the glow on the text disappeared.  Any ideas?  I think I can fix it, I just wonder if you know why that happened...)

Final Day...

Today is the last day.  It's the last day of regular school (we won't have regular classes tomorrow, only a Christmas party) and also the supposed last day of the existence of mankind.  =) Have we forgotten so soon the Mayan calendar?  The 21st of December, year 2012.  The world shall end.  x) supposedly.  In actuality, my friends and I are going to have a "Still Here" party on Saturday night.  We'll get a hold of a bunch of the best "end of the world" type movies and watch them, feeling thankful that we're still here.  Any suggestions?  So far we have 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, and Armageddon.  I think there's one more, but I can't remember what it's called.
In other news, I am attempting to pick up blender again... and simultaneously falling behind in other work.  I wonder if there's a connection...

Long Time... Now It's Christmas.

So much happens in life, and yet I don't feel the urge to write it down.  At least, I stopped feeling the urge.  I suppose it's a habit thing.  If I begin writing things down again, it will begin to feel natural to write things down.  I haven't had time to do much in Blender, so that's why there haven't been any art-related posts.  However, I am making something in Blender now.  This time of year, I have to write a lot of thank-you cards: my birthday is on the 7th, Christmas is on the 25th.  I have a hard time writing cards.  I think most of it is that I don't like to write the same thing over and over to everyone, but I can't think of anything unique to say to each one... so I get stuck.  Instead of all that this year, I decided I would make a Christmas-themed "thank-you animation" to email to the people I would like to thank for gifts given.  Unfortunately, it's going a bit slower than it used to because I'm rather out of practice.  Hopefully things will speed up once I figure out how to get the lighting down.  Modeling comes fairly easily to me, but lighting... uff.  Not so much.  Texturing is even worse but I'm going for a simple, cartoon look, so the texturing is fairly easy.  Lighting is the challenge this time.  Oh, and I'm using Cycles.  It's a lovely engine, but I do miss Blender Internal... just because it was familiar.

Ouch...

I went wake-boarding today.  Woke up at the horrid, inhumane hour of 7:00 and was dragged to Lake Tapps to go wake-boarding.  The entire situation was improved by the fact that the boat had these lovely little heaters with tubes to funnel the heat directly into my towel.  My brother went out first, clearing the wake entirely multiple times and essentially setting the bar unreasonably high for a younger brother.  Being the older one, of course, I had to at least match what he could do, however, I apparently do not have the same sense of balance as he and thus did not clear the wake, or do anything impressive.  Instead, I caught an edge on the fourth of fifth jump and fell and hit the back of my head on the water.  Now one might think that it is a little bit much to complain of hitting one's head on water, but I assure you: when moving at around 20 miles an hour, water can behave much like it's distant cousin, concrete.  As such, I contracted a splitting headache and did not attempt any more jumps for the remainder of the day.  I only hope that I have not made myself afraid of jumping altogether because we are going again tomorrow (I think) and I still need to match/outdo my brother.

School Again...

=) I didn't post all summer! x) I'm so ashamed of myself... all that free time. Ah well, school has started again. Today was my first day. The first day of my last year of high school. Wow. Time goes soooooo fast! I'm kind of excited, and I'm kind of scared, and I'm kind of feeling that "yuck, schoolwork" feeling. However! This year I have resolved to do much better than ever before! Never mind the fact that I make this resolution every year and every year everything falls apart, it shall NOT fall apart this time! I have a very good plan. =) In fact, it is such a detailed plan, I even have scheduled (written on paper) when I'm going to floss my teeth. Yes, it is that detailed, and yes, I am that desperate to do well this year... so we'll see how it goes. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Prayers, Schedules, and Dental Floss. x) No... my current title is random enough. =)
A little side note before I end today's post: we are getting our internet connection upgraded. Like, for real! I am incredibly excited because it means I shall be able to post to this blog far more frequently and with greater volume and variety in content. (In fact, you may be unlucky enough to hear me sing! x) Not sure exactly when it's going to happen, but we are actively working on it now. =D

Summer!

Well now, it's been quite awhile, hasn't it? I'm sorry I haven't posted anything yet this summer, but lots of stuff has kept me busy and when I did have the time, something always got in the way (i.e. dead internet connection). Speaking of which, we will be upgrading our internet connection from this spotty, unreliable satellite connection to a T1 connection within the foreseeable future! =D Woooo! Then I'll be able to much more quickly and easily upload my pictures and videos (and eventually music) to this blog. =) Speaking of music, that is what I am doing this week. I'm going to take a short break from the visual arts and work solely on music. However, here is a little taste of what I have been working on in previous weeks in Blender:

Happy Birthday Laurel...

With Love,
Your Boy