Well I didn’t! Been a bit crazy. Ronan is sick. Seems between me, Heather, Jack, and Ronan, there hasn’t been a week where we’re all healthy since we moved to Texas. Heather says that maybe Texas just doesn’t agree with us. I’m starting to wonder if she’s right. Naaaahhhhh…it’s all gonna pass, and we’ll all be healthy again soon. Right? RIGHT?
So anyway, I’m staying home tomorrow to watch Ronan. Heather has been home from work almost every day this week. She’s been a real champ – watching both boys as they’ve been sick and such. Tomorrow it’s my turn for once. Which is good – my shots at work are both being sent to the client, so my being out tomorrow shouldn’t throw the schedule off too much.
So after I wrote my post last night, I realized it was exactly one year ago that I had written a post about coming home from New York and my time at Blue Sky. In the whole intervening year, I found time to post just a few links to some stuff I found amusing and/or funny.
So as part of my attempt to keep this thing a little more up-to-date, I went ahead and installed 2 mobile plugins for Wordpress. One formats this blog for any mobile device so that it can be read anywhere, and the other allows me to post from my mobile. So hopefully I’ll post some more interesting stuff from time to time and keep this thing up to date.
As for what has happened in the last year? Well I got home from Blue Sky and started at Sony Computer Entertainment in San Diego. We worked on Uncharted 2 cinematics until sometime around September I think. It was a very fun job – definitely the most fun I’ve had as an animator. The group was small and pretty tight-knit, so we all knew each other really well and had a lot of fun. And when crunch kicked into high gear, we were all able to keep each other sane (well, relatively – what I’d call sane, most people would call loony…but I digress). After Uncharted 2, we moved on to Mod Nation Racers. Once that wrapped in November, my time at SCEA came to a close.
We had a great Christmas, and afterwards, we went to Belize with my parents and my brother and his wife. Good times!
Last, but certainly not least, I was hired on at Reel FX! So we packed up the house and the kids (not in the same moving truck) moved on down to Dallas.
So I was reviewing my web hosting arrangement with Dreamhost and realized I’m only using a bare fraction of what I’m allowed. I’m gonna have to start blogging a HECK of a lot more. Since there have been lots and lots of changes recently, I should have plenty to talk about. I’ll try to keep this thing more current. But really…how often have I already said THAT? We’ll see how I do.
It’s been a long time since I posted. Basically Blue Sky was teh awesome, but it kept me insanely busy. I would wake up, get on the shuttle to the studio, work all day and into the night, then get on the shuttle back to the apartment and fall asleep. And then I’d wake up and do it all over again.
It was crazy, and cool, and I made some great friends. I didn’t want it to end, but at the same time, I did, because it meant I’d come back home to my family. And that was a good thing.
So anyway, I was catching up on my reading of the intertubes and came across this gem:
So things have moved very quickly over the last week and a half, but to sum up – I got a temp job at Blue Sky to work on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I flew out to New York yesterday, and report to work today. The job will last a couple months and will keep me very busy. I am out here on my own – my wife and kids are staying in California.
So it’s a mix of really, really good news (job at Blue Sky), mixed with no-so-good news (leaving family at home). I think this is what they call “bittersweet”.
He may not go down in history as the worst. But I’d be willing to bet he’ll go down as one of the worst. As George W. Bush held his final news conference today, various news organizations have begun looking back over the last 8 years and, well, I think Joe Gandelman over at The Moderate Voice put it best:
let’s just say that when they made their list of pluses and minuses they ended an extra page for the minuses . . .
The good news for George Bush: they are not (yet) calling him the worst President ever. The bad news: its clear he is considered one of the most unsuccessful Presidents in recent times and perhaps in history — and historians’ views over the past year have largely coincided with those emerging assessments.
Weight test coming along. Don’t know why this process takes me so long, but I think I’m too critical of myself during the blocking process. It seems to get results…but it’s just too slow I think. With luck, I should have this ready by the job fair. Not that i think the job fair is going to do much, other than be a means of getting some face time with recruiters, which is good in and of itself.
Anyway, too tired to embed the new blocking. Here’s the link. The timing is about right…maybe a bit fast during the actual lift and a bit fast at the reaction at the end. But I think I’m pretty darn close to taking it out of blocking.
Hey! I'm Jeff Weidner and I'm an animator. I'm currently working at Reel FX studios in Dallas, TX. Thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to leave comments!
