A Visual Update To My Life . . . .

Well, I have a minute, so I thought I would keep you all updated.

My photography class is going wonderfully! I bought a new lens for my camera, the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II. Fantastic portrait lens!

I would take a picture of it but . . . You see the problem? Since this is the only lens I have I can't take pictures of it. Here are some pictures I have taken WITH it though.

One of the first shots I took with the lens right out of the box.

One of the fountains on campus.

A really cool cactus I found in a flowerbed just east of the Preforming Arts building.

A bush that was next to the cactus pictured above.

With compression of JPEG and detail loss with uploading, these do lose some of their fantastic sharpness, but this gives you a rough idea that this lens is VERY good with wonderfully rich bokeh.

My 3D class has also been going pretty well. Our most recent assignment was to make two kitchen appliances. I did a retro fridge and stove. For simplicity's sake I converted the stove to a glass electric top because I honestly didn't have the time to make a gas grate. I might add that later. I might also make the oven door see through and put some oven racks inside to sell the look better, but he only gave us a week to do it so I really didn't see the need to kill myself.

Needless to say I am more proud of my stove than I am of my fridge but I they both work, especially together. Just a FYI, Big Chill is a real brand that still makes retro appliances. So if you are in the market, check them out. Be warned, however, they will cost you dearly.

Well, I must bid you farewell. I need to eat and then help my friend with her homework.

{Peace}

A Very Long String of Pointless Letters . . . .

So, unusually, work is very slow today. At least so far. I had to help one person with their program (all they needed was a plus sign in a particular place) and one other person came in to take a quiz. It's been kinda nice to just sit here and chill listening to my book on tape. I should really be working on my TIME magazine cover, but I really don't want to at the moment.

I finished my next assignment in my 3D class, which I had lots of fun doing. It is the Invicta Watch logo, found here.

I like the way it turned out. I also did another version.

I used a metal texture for the letters instead of the glass one. I'm happy with how both turned out. Also, since this logo was pretty simple, I wanted more practice so I decided to do another one. One of my favorite video game franchises is the American McGee's Alice games. One of the great things about the game is the logo, which I made in Maya. The real one can be found here.

It's not a perfect representation of the original logo but I think it turned out fairly well. Since it wasn't really for the assignment, I tried to keep it more simple, at least as far as the background and textures go. This class is honestly unhealthy for me. My other homework tends to suffer because I want to just do my 3D homework all of the time. When I'm working in Maya, although it has it's quirks that are hard to catch, it feels really natural, like an extension of my arm. Mind you, I can't always make it do what I want, unlike my arm most of the time, but it feels natural in a way.

I have also been having fun in my photography class. I bought a camera from a friend of mine, my first non point and shoot camera. It is a Canon 300d, the first digital Rebel that Canon made. The up side to that was that I was able to get a nice camera for a really good price, the downside was that it is only 6 mp and kinda worn out.

Not my actual camera. Mine is a lot more worn out.

The only bad part about the camera is that it didn't come with any lenses. This is a problem since these kinds of cameras cannot take pictures without a lens. The good news is that my dad had a fixed Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. The bad news is that the lens is an FD mount and my camera only takes EF mount. More good news is that there is an adapter they sell that changes a FD lens to a EF lens and it's only $35. More bad news is that there is no way to tell the kind of quality that you will get from the lens since the adapter has the light go through another piece of glass which, depending on the camera, can severely affect the quality of the image. My parents are coming to see me today and bringing with them my dad's old lens, so I will know how good it will work by the end of the day! If it does not, I will have to fork out another $190 to get the camera working.

Because I didn't have a lens for it, I rented one of the school's lenses, so I could do my first photography assignment, which was a demonstration of our knowledge of shutter speed. I took pictures of my friend playing tennis.

I think this one is my favorite. The requirements of the assignment were that we take 3 pictures (or should I say take a ton of pictures and pick 3 that turned out the best [I ended up taking 74]), one super sharp, one blurred (like this one), and one that is so blurred it's hard to tell what the subject is or doing at all. I think my teacher liked my slightly original subject choice (I doubt anyone else will use a tennis player) and he said that I understood the assignment well. So I feel good about that.

One thing that's been on my mind lately is wondering if I should become a True Rebel this year (yes, I know that it's just a knock off of USU's True Aggie night). The process to become a True Rebel is pretty simple. First it must be homecoming night, second you must stand in the fountain in the middle of campus, and third you must kiss someone at the stroke of midnight.

Standing in the fountain at midnight on homecoming night isn't hard. What's hard about it (at least for me) is convincing someone of the opposite sex to kiss me at said time and place. I have gone to homecoming both years that I have been here but neither time I went afforded the opportunity to become a True Rebel. I won't lie, however. I didn't have the courage to bring up the subject either time. So it is really my fault for not taking action. I chickened out.

Yet again, this presents a problem. If I want to become a True Rebel, I will have to get the courage to ask, but asking is putting myself up for denial, and I will be the first to admit that I'm scared silly to ask. This fear comes from past experiences with relationships, and only one experience was the pain worth it. I wouldn't say that it has ruined me, but it has definitely made me wary of girls in general.

Our society has stupid way of looking at relationships. Either you are in a relationship to get married or you are not. It also seems like the man decides this too often. Why can't things like this be more universal? For instance, why can't interest be expressed mutually before dating? The very idea of a pity date is just plain stupid. Why can't men and women express their feelings more openly? It would remove the idea of hints and mixed messages.

Flirting might be fun but it almost always ends up with people's feelings being hurt because someone reads into what someone else did too much and so makes assumptions. It is just a big MESS! Why can't we all just get along?

That about sums up my life at the moment work, school, and no love life. If you actually read all of this pointless dribble, then congratulations!!! Way to be dedicated!
Fare-thee-well!

{Peace}

Summer Has Come And Gone . . . .

I'm a slacker. I won't try to deny it. But don't they say: "Better late than never?" I don't know if I wholly believe that phrase myself. For instance, what if you were late, someone died? Then it wouldn't matter weather you were late or never because it would have the same outcome. But that's not the point.

School is now in full swing. My classes are challenging, the homework is icky, and the dates with girls are nonexistent. That about sums up my life. My job is alright (I'm a computer labbie at the CIT computer lab), in fact I'm at work right now! They let me do whatever I want (except listen to headphones ;-( which is the hardest part of my job). I have had tons of homework or have been VERY busy all the shifts I have worked so far, but today is more chill. The only homework I have is to watch a youtube video and answer two questions for it for my nutrition class and then do some CIS homework. I can't do either of those things here because I can't have headphones on and these computers here in the computer lab don't have Microsoft Office 2010. So that is why I'm updating my blog.

My favorite class is my 3D class, by far. I'm excited to go to class and the assignments are enjoyable too! Here is a sample of my first project I did. They are of my AKG 240s headphones. On of the requirements of the assignment was to only use the simple objects that Maya gives you to work with.

It's not perfect but I think it turned out alright. Here are the actual headphones.

My biggest problem I had was the lighting. I couldn't get it bright enough to really see the detail so it ended up seeing more detail in the refection, which is kinda messed up.

Well, my shift is over and I am hungry. Fare thee well!
{Peace}