Warming the Heart though Time

Checked my emailed this evening and spotted this from Kodak. I couldn't help but smile.

Love and Laughter

I found this picture of my parents in a box of old photos. It so perfectly captures their relationship then, as newlyweds, and throughout their 50 plus years marriage - love, laughter and joy in being with each other. I can only assume another family member took the shot, perhaps one of my Dad's brothers, shortly after my father's discharge from the army in 1946, at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY.

Anybody that knows me knows that I'm a nut for the 1940s, and those two, so happy together and having spent their lives together is a beautiful, real life fairy tale. That photo certainly deserves the recognition.

Classes are in and Spirits are High

So Beginning Yesterday, I began taking the course to bartend. Now, anyone that knows me certainly is giving me funny looks right now. I by no means like alcohol, but I love people and love to talk, so why not.

Besides, I have equipment to buy and the Holiday season is coming. Plus, I by no means mind working on holidays.

I've learned a TON. Yesterday we covered Cream Drinks and today the crazy world of Shooters.

I'm headed off to the bowling alley to watch my brother. In the meantime, I have flash cards of all these drinks and Liqueurs to make.

The Shooters are a bit tricker since they're so many and I've gotten in the habit of working with the Cream based drinks. I'm not too worried though, it's just remembering that it's 2 oz. instead of 3 oz. It's just a matter of getting the hang of it, and that'll happen with practice.


Though, I have to say, I kind of want to try making myself a B-53. Sounds pretty tastie, and it looks really pretty, too. If I had everything, I'd totally do it, but I think I'm short 1 ingredient.

Well I'll be... The folks at Valve are always at it.

Of course, just when I have to remove the Windows partition from my Mac, there's posts on the Team Fortress 2 Blog about future updates. Something called the 'Guard Dog'.



Now, I've heard some folks thinking it's a new class which I think would be pretty cute. Animals in the service are extremely important. However, After much Engineer-style cursing, ranting, and pondering I've come to a decision that I really don't think they'd make a new class without finishing work on the updates for the existing ones.

Game design wise, there's no reason to do something like that when there are so many gaps in the other classes that haven't gotten updates yet. (CoughcoughEngineercoughcough) These classes are currently very underpowered and are easily steam rolled by a lot of the changes made to the classes that have gotten some weapon updates.

Now, personally, I think it's a weapon, plain and simple. It's got to something like the Razor Back for the Sniper. Now, if I was going to assign it to any class, it would be the Engineer - A proximity alarm that would replace something like the teleporter. Or maybe a Proximity/land mine for the Demoman or Solider to replace the Sticky Bomb or rocket launcher.

After all it's a patent for something. I don't think Saxton Hale would need review to patent a new class. The Announcer, maybe, but not Saxton Hale.

Snow Leopard - Really Just a kitty in the snow?

So, up until now, I've been hearing all this buzz about 10.6 since I have a Mac. With any new tech-thing, I take it with a grain of salt especially if it's from Apple. I know they LOVE to put their spin and polish on things. Thus I figured, if I'm going to upgrade, since I fall into that lovely bunch that qualifies for the $29 upgrade, is it really worth it.

Especially since my first opinion of the new OS X incarnation was this:

"WTF?! Why do I have snow on my head?"

So, at the suggestion of a fellow Mac user over at Studio Revolver sent me over to Gizmodo to read up on the reality of the new kid on the block, and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased.

I thought it was just going to have a bunch of pointless toys which could be compared to a Nokia cell phone from '99 covered in rhinestones from the dollar store. I was happily mistaken. Here's a condensed list of the basket of goodies. And, even without the streamlining on the back end, there's some stuff in there, espeically with Quicktime X, that look like pure awesome. My only major 'quibble' is the fact that I'll probably have to actually switch to AIM for Mac since it's geared more towards the intel-based machines and Final Draft 7 might act up a tad.

Outside of that, it's all systems go for my machine. Though I've lost my XP Pro partition for the moment to free up space so my poor machine won't crash every time it so much as thinks about opening Photoshop or Illustrator, I think that the switch to Snow Leopard for me will be a good thing. Slipping down the OS I feel is always a good thing and something that tends to piss me off with Windows.

Anybody actually curious to see about it, here's the full article. Now, for most, who I know are Windows users out there, I'll simply leave this and this here.

Personally I'm neither a Mac of PC. I use what I use to get the most out of it. Now if you excuse me, I need to continue counting my pennies to save up for RAM and a new HD.

Dragon*Con - not a 'Con' But an Experience

Wow. Just wow...

I thought I'd been to large cons before. Those were NOTHING in comparison. I've always wanted to go to D*C but it certainly went well beyond what I thought Dragon*Con would be by any stretch of my imagination. My friends and I stayed at the Marriot and even though it was the party hotel, I think I want to stay there again.

Being that I'm moving from my apartment in Savannah, GA, I really regret that I didn't have a sketch book with me or a sample of my work to show folks. However, thanks to Digital Portfolio I did at least have my cards and what not to hand out.

Now, a week out from the con, I have to say to anyone and everyone just one thing - If you have the chance to go, DO SO! I was worried that I wouldn't feel like I'd get my money's worth considering what I usually do at cons, but trust me, Dragon*Con was priceless.

I met a lot of great people, even if I did come home with a viral stow away, and got a lot of good information from fellow artists. The folks at Studio Revolver and Gaijin Studios were awesome! Plus, Steve Scott and Nathan Massengill were awesome too.

I'm looking forward to having my own table for next year!

In the meanwhile, I'll be Climbing the Mount with Cpt. Kirk. You should too.

ONWARD!

Doing some switching around and reformatting for my website.

From here on, I'll be using this for my blog space instead of my old as dirt LJ.

Will be posting about Dragon*Con once my mind as stopped reeling from the trip. Talk about a life changing experience!