So THAT'S What Big Brothers Are For.

I'm old enough to admit it now, I wanna be just like my brother, Derek.  Although I am smarter, funnier and better looking, he leads in age, height and weight. We're about even on facial hair.

All kidding aside, he has done something recently that I am extremely impressed with and am going to attempt to copy - giving up soda pop for good.  Derek is going on 14 months now and talks about the effects it has had on him at his blog These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty. 

I've talked about my teeth before.  I get worried about them from time to time.  The best thing I can do is (Yes, Yes, go to the dentist.  I know!) quit with the soda, which I drink a ton of.  A ton is kind of an exaggeration.  I don't even drink much at home. It's those restaurants!!!  They get me with those "free refills" every time.  I suck'em down one after another like its a natural reflex or something.  Gotta stop.

Anyway, I haven't had a soda since Thursday.  Not quite a week.  Not quite 14 months. Baby steps.

Music I Am Digging At This Very Moment

I so very much like music.  Lately one of my most favorite joys, when being alone in the house, is blasting a cd on our Bose system while doing the dishes.  The cd that has been occupying the player for the past month has been In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.  The album was recorded in '98 and the group disbanded in '99.

Having only found out about this in the past year, a part of me feels cheated for liking the album so much.  Like I wasn't "In on it" back when it was released, so it isn't really fair for me to like it now.  I feel that way with most buzz worthy music that somehow reaches my ears years later.  

Anyway.  This album is probably now one of my all-time favorites.  Here are two of the songs that have solidified my love for it.  The first one is Ghost (track 9) and the second comes directly after it and is untitled.  

Enjoy.

Not Much To Blog About

It's Thursday night and I'm waiting for the Royals highlights to come on before I hit the hay.  

I didn't want my next blog to be another art project, so I thought I'd throw a little something in here just to change things up.  I've been busy with school.  Today I had to have a meeting with one of the graphic design instructors to prepare for early enrollment for the fall semester.  Kinda makes a person feel special, knowing that you get to sign up for classes before the rest of the school.  Yes indeed. Today also painted a nice little picture of what the next two years will look like.  I will have serious school on the brain.  Which will be a nice little change from having improv on the brain.  

Tomorrow looks to be a day of sweatpants.  A full day of sweatpants. That is not to say that I won't leave the house.  I might.  In sweatpants.

Design 2D Project #3

So far this has been my favorite project to work on.  To start things off, we were given a stack of pictures of different types of tools and whatnot:  hammers, wrenches, staplers, just to name a few.  I chose a bicycle pump.  Then we were to trace the picture, then single out an area using a specific shape stencil.  I used a basic square, like so...

The area inside the square is now the focus of a pattern that we are to create. I scanned it into the computer, then traced it again using Adobe Illustrator.  

Now that we have our neat little box, we are play around with it. Rotate it.  Inverse the color.  All that jazz.  In the end we were to create a wall pattern that didn't necessarily look like it came from a grid.  The students that chose a triangular pattern didn't have this problem.  The teacher wanted us to come up with at least five different patterns, then picking one to present as the finished product.  Here are the five I did, in order from my first attempt to the one I presented to the class.

What I liked about this project was that I could actually see my progression with each image.  The first one I attempted ending up looking too blocky.  Too dull.  The more I did, the more I starting seeing the possibilities of different styles.  I feel that it really took me four attempts to get to where the instructor wanted us to be.  

Design 2D Project #2

Okay, so project two was similar to project one.  But this time we had to focus on symmetry.  The goal was to create four separate pieces (symmetry, rhythm, focal point and a combo of all three) that, when placed together, would show unity between the four. This wasn't my favorite project only because I didn't like my outcome.  

To me, the finished product looks like a 1970's album cover.  I ended up getting a B on this because not only was I suppose to include something symmetrical, but something "A"symmetrical as well.  I guess I need to pay a little bit more attention durning class. 

Project #3 turned out better.  I'll post it next.

I haven't been blogging that much lately.  Not because there has been nothing to blog about, quite the contrary.  It's just that I haven't felt in the mood to make the effort.  But sitting here at home on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, messing around on the web, going from page to page and finally ending up on my own, I decided to post something. 

Last night KU won their 5th straight Big 12 title.

This comes as a huge surprise to me.  Still not having gotten over the fact that they won it all last year, my expectation of this years squad were extremely low. I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't even make the tournament.  Then they started playing well and beating some respectable teams.  My hopes were high again.  So high that when they would lose, it would crush my spirit.  Make me forget about how bad they were "suppose" to be this year.  The humiliating lose to Texas Tech actually wasn't that bad.  That's they way this team should have been playing all year.  

This team is unlike any I have seen in the past.  They have won games they should have.  They have turned the ball over 30 times and still found ways to either win or lose by a couple of points.  They are sloppy.  They are poised.  They are young and inexperienced.  They are unpredictable.  I like where they stand at the moment, being a #1 seed in the Big 12 tournament.  Who cares if they win it?  Who cares where they will be seeded in the national tournament?  I don't expect them to win it all.  And I hope nobody else does.  Especially those they're up against.

 

Design 2D

Today I received my first official grade on my first project in Design class.  The funny thing about this class is that Adobe Illustrator was suppose to be a prerequisite.  Just so happens that I was taking said Illustrator class, the same time the first Design project was assigned. Isn't school great?

The project focused on 5 artistic points of view:  Closure, Continuance, Proximity, Similarity, and a grouping of all.  Here are 2 of my 5 that the class actually liked.

Continuance

The basic meaning of continuance is when your eyes naturally follow a path of the displayed image.  So I guess I got that with this one.

Grouping

I was actually trying to go for continuance with this image, but the teacher thought it actually presented all four points of view. Allrighty.

My favorite out of the ones that I did was for Closure.  It also happened to be the first one I worked on.

The basic meaning of closure is when your eyes make out object that isn't really there, but appears because of the objects surrounding it. Or something like that.  See.  Triangles!!!

Anyway, I ended up getting an A- on all five images.  So I was happy with that.