Resolutions: Recap and Renew

At the beginning of the year I wrote a post about Resolutions for 2011. To be accountable as well as to depress myself, I will repost what I resolved to do, sum up how successful or unsuccessful I was, and make new resolutions. I will do so... now:

1.) Exercise three times a week, only treat myself to fast food one day a week.
   -Sigh. I did ok for awhile, probably longer than usual, but I'll renew this one for 2012, try to lose @ 30 pounds and keep it off.


2.) Finish a second draft of "Prince Pert's Perilous Quest for the Perfect Princess." And write a new story for NaNoWriMo.
   -I did half. I haven't touched (and frighteningly can't find my first draft of my fractured fairy tale) Prince Pert in ages (that sounds bad) but I did write @30k words of an autobiographical rant that I'm counting. 

3.) Read a bedtime story to Morgan most nights.
   -He still won't really hold still to be read to, but I sing to him and tell him stories when he lets me. He is getting better holding still to look at picture books, which is nice. 

4.) Get A's in all my classes.
   -I actually did it this summer and fall semester. Spring semester I would have but 1 teacher who shall remain nameless (and friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless) gave me a C. The fool. I'd love to get all A's again, we'll see.

5.) Read one book a month.
   -I started out pretty good, much better than the year before, though I ended poorly. I think I managed to read 10 books this year, I'm going to try to hit that benchmark again, this time focused on design books and technical books like the Ruby on Rails for Dummies book I bought but haven't cracked open.


Bonus Resolutions

a.) become active again. Active in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that is. My 2 biggest reasons for being inactive, church being too early and Morgan being too wiggly, are about to become moot. I still want to be active more for other people than for myself, but it's better than nothing and I assume I'll eventually be active for myself once I get my fat butt to church again.

b.) do a personal graphic design project a week to build up my portfolio and skills. School is all fine and good but if I let them take charge of my education I fear I will be very lacking when it's time to actually and finally find a job.

c.) GRADUATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Color Theory Project

We've been studying the color theories of Josef Albers. Our assignment has been to make 2 colors appear as one, one color appear as two, simulated transparencies and simultaneous contrasts. All the other assignments were painted, but this was done in illustrator. Being who I am, I had to put in a quote. The runner up was a quote from Marc Chagall: "All colors are the friends of their neighbors, and the lovers of their opposites."

After Effects Final- V for Vendetta

redacted

Come On In

After staying up all night on Tuesday/Wednesday and only sleeping three hours last night, I am proud/pleased/relieved to be done with my Art History hypothetical museum project.

I'm tired so I can't remember if I've said it before, so here goes. In Art History we were assigned to make a hypothetical modern art museum exhibit. I chose works of art that focus on integrating the viewer into the creative experience, using methods like visual/optical blending, paintings that let the viewer decide what it was about, and even art works that invited viewers to add to it, or art works that viewers added to without the artist's permission. It was a fun-ish project, but it took way longer than I expected, I had said all I needed to say after 4 1/2 pages and it was a minimum of 6 pages. What you're looking at is the front and back of a pamphlet I made for the exhibit, mostly just showing the more famous works of art in the exhibit and a little bit of info about it. I'd post the paper I wrote, but it's an academic paper and even I think it's boring, so I'll spare you. If you really want to read it or are looking for a sleeping pill let me know and I'll email it to you. Now that I'm done, I'm going to get some deserved sleep. Only one project left for the semester!

Longfellow quote

After staying up all night twice this week, I sure hope so. Hope you like what I've done with Henry Longfellow's quote. If not, it's ok, I'm going to sleep now.

Tread - Getting Closer to the End

I hope.

Thanks for all the Fish

We're back from our trip to California, time to travelogue the sucker.

Tuesday night @ 5 we left bound for Mesquite. It was a pleasant enough trip until around Beaver, UT Morgan threw up. We thought it might be motion/car sickness, but he threw up several times later at the hotel. After he threw up we pulled off to the side of the road to comfort/clean him. A policeman came and parked behind us which instantly made the other cars give us a wide berth. He asked if he could help, there wasn't much he could do, I didn't think it right to make him clean Morgan, but he did give us an evidence bag to put Morgan's puked on clothes in to mask the smell. I got probably too big of a kick out of it, using an evidence bag and all that. On our way again we made it to Mesquite without incident, though Tracie and I remained on edge most of the time for fear he'd throw up again, but he didn't until we got to Mesquite. The rest of the night was uneventful, largely because Tracie and Morgan let me sleep so I could drive.

Wednesday we drove the rest of the way through California, saw my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, played ping-pong and I went shopping for things I forgot to pack.

Thursday happy thanksgiving, we began the day going to My uncle's friend Tony Swatton's workshop. Tony is a blacksmith who creates weapons and armor for such movies as Blade, Pirates of the Caribbean, Zorro, Hook, Hellboy and others. It was a lot of fun, it would have been more fun but Morgan got afraid of the mannequins and weapons and torture devices and he and I spent most of the trip in the car waiting for everyone. Sigh, parenting comes first I suppose. The rest of the day was of course dedicated to eating too much and visiting with loved ones. That night Tracie, my aunt and others went black Friday shopping, we got some fun stuff and some things we wanted and other things we didn't know we wanted until they were 80% off.

Friday Tracie got whatever bug Morgan had but fortunately didn't throw up, but I spent most of the day trying to take care of her, which meant getting her more pillows and blankets and changing the movie/channel for her, though I did go to lunch with my cousin and some of his friends at a Korean BBQ that was just awesome.

Saturday we were determined to do something touristy, so we went to the Norton Simon Art Museum. I'd been there before but remember it being a lot more impressive than it was, but the grounds were lovely, and it's always cool to be in an Art Museum, at least for me. We spent the evening at my aunt's with family singing karaoke and dancing to the Wii Michael Jackson game.

Sunday we drove back and tried recuperating. Not the most exciting trip event wise, sickness definitely threw a wrench in the works, but it was still great to see family, one cousin I got to see who I haven't seen in probably over a decade, so that was cool, others it's been several years. Thanks to those who made it possible: my Aunt Kerri, my grandparents and Uncle David especially.

Hope your thanksgiving was fun too and you're getting as excited as I am for Christmastime!