My life

My unexciting earthquake story

Listening to everyone around here tell their “earthquake story”, I’ll blog my boring one… (we live about an hour away from the quake’s focus)

I guess it was a little more than an hour and a half ago or so. I was sitting at work, doing my workly work things, when a low rumble came out of nowhere. What could it be? Probably the air conditioning unit going out again — we were having problems with it a couple weeks ago. Perhaps construction nearby? But it kept going and kept getting stronger. An earthquake maybe? Nah, since when have we ever gotten an earthquake around here? (Not in my lifetime!) A guy who had obviously experienced this sort of thing before started evacuating people. If it had gotten any worse, thank goodness someone there knew what to do. My plan of action was to just sit there and look around curiously. If it had gotten disastrously strong, I either would’ve managed to get out of there, or would have died from falling debris without fearing death or knowing it was coming. Anyway, it got strong enough that it was undoubtedly an earthquake, but not strong enough to cause any big apparent damage, at least where we were. It concerned me, but I can’t say it got strong enough to scare me. Nothing I saw scared me, at least, and we weren’t being jolted strong enough to cause any imbalance or anything. Some small items here and there fell over, but nothing huge, nothing like the awful videos you see from other parts of the world. But, for safety, the building was evacuated, and all public buildings I know of have been closed for the day (much to the disappointment of some).

I’ve heard stories of windows breaking, plates falling, stuff falling out of fridge doors, but no tragedies yet, and I hope I don’t hear any. At home, the situation looked the same: things fallen over here and there, off shelves, some things shifted around, cracks in the drywall that may or may not be earthquake induced. But nothing to worry about. Pic of the damage here: http://pic.twitter.com/5kQIsjX Oh, and my TV that my sister was borrowing fell off a shelf and broke, so she’ll have to pay for it…

Really, the only thing that interests me about this earthquake is that I’ve never been in one before, never really knew how it felt. But it feels just like you would imagine… the ground shakes. And, though it was not too huge of an earthquake, I have no real desire to experience one again, thank you very much. Even if it’s not life-threatening, it’s annoying.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Animation Mentor class 3 almost over… what next?

My final week of Animation Mentor Semester 3 is wrapping up! I turned in my last assignment on Sunday; here’s what it looked like through the four weeks I worked on it:

There are still some problems with it, but I think I’m getting better. That’s 3 semesters down and 3 to go! I’m halfway done!

As I’ve stated before, I’m taking a leave of absence for 12 weeks instead of jumping right into semester 4. I’m going to be working as hard as I can on my automatic melody generator, so I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress on that. My current goal is to create it as an Android app. Other platforms may follow, depending on its success or lack thereof.

I also started a new project: I’m creating a Grand Theory of Human Intelligence (or GTOHI), not only detailing the basic principles of what intelligence is and how it works, but trying to simulate the results of human intelligence with basic artificiall intelligence programs. This project might fall flat on its face, but I have some ideas that I think are definitely worth exploring. There’s a lot of research to do, so I probably won’t have a product based on my findings until I’m 70 or 80 years old… or dead.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Stuff I’m doing

You might be wondering: “gee whiz, I wonder what exactly Sean is up to these days?” If so, I will tell you in this post that I am writing right now.

I’m in week 10 of class 3 of Animation Mentor. It continues to go very well; I’ve learned a ton of stuff this semester. I’ve gotten better at managing my time, but I still find myself pulling very late-nighters or all-nighters the night before assignments are due. But at least I’m not feeling the pressure like I was during the previous classes. I still wish my (almost full-time) part-time job didn’t take up so much time, but I need the $$$ for Animation Mentor tuition (and paying off college loans).

I requested a Leave of Absence for the Animation Mentor Spring 2011 term because I want to watch the trees blossom. But mostly because I want to dedicate as much time as I can to researching and developing my melody generator. My main goal would be to be create and sell an Android app; that has the potential to make some $$$, and Android is Java-based and I’m developing my algorithms in Java anyway, so it would be mostly a matter of getting an Android GUI to work, and figuring out how Android can handle MIDI files (I know it can play them, but can it create them?). I’m not sure if this is something I could accomplish in just 12 weeks, but it’s worth a shot.

Other than that, I’m reading The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card (the first non-Ender novel from him I’ve read), which is quite fun, along with a number of non-fiction books (I tend to just read whatever chapters interest me, because of my limited time).

I’m also continuing to plan out my fantasy novel and working on a couple of new short stories, one likely to be titled The Boy in the Sword (which I’m almost done writing) and the other currently untitled.

Oh, and I rarely preorder stuff on Amazon, but I had to preorder this: The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Edition) [Blu-ray]. Really looking forward to it.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Goals for 2011

It’s not too early to plan out some goals for the new year, is it? Here are my goals for 2011:

1. Do good work for Animation Mentor – and graduate!
2. Learn to model an environment in Blender
3. Learn to model and animate a character in Blender
4. Continue trying to sell screenplay The Melody Box
5. Write a “listening guide” companion to my album
6. Finish writing a novel – and finish planning another
7. Finish writing 15 short stories
8. Listen to the complete works of Mozart
9. Listen to 100 other pieces of classical music
10. Read 25 fiction books, 25 non-fiction books, and 300 short stories
11. Practice drawing for 100 hours
12. Play video games for 100 hours (I can dream, yes?)
13. Watch lots of movies and TV shows… to study story structure (“Save the Cat” style)
14. Spend as little money as possible… save it for a 2012 vacation!

I also created a special page for it, which you should see on the side menu. I’m hoping to keep that page updated with my progress. It should be updated at least once a month…

As I say on the page, these goals are purposefully beyond my reach (though not completely impossible). The goal is not so much to actually reach these goals, but to get somewhere while aiming for them, if that makes sense.

The only goal I must reach is the first: Do good work for Animation Mentor. The other goals are nice, but I will sacrifice working on them for the sake of Animation Mentor if I must (and I probably will).

I’ve also recently become interested in Blender. My free student version of Maya will expire at some point (actually, it might’ve already, so I’ll have to try to renew it for the next Animation Mentor term), and Blender looks like a nice alternative. After all, it’s free! And it can be used for commercial projects for free. Not that I’m planning any commercial projects any time soon, but it’s nice to have that option.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Christmas, Animation Mentor, and whatever

Christmas

We’re a week away from Christmas! I’ve got almost all my shopping done, I just need to buy one more thing… then I just need to wrap them, put them under the tree, start the fire when my parents aren’t looking because the gas costs money, sit on the floor and look at them and think happy thoughts.

Have you noticed in all those TV specials in which characters talk about the “true meaning of Christmas” they never actually say what it is?

I watched the Christmas classic A Christmas Story earlier this week, one of the great films of our time. No holiday is complete without at least one viewing. Now I just need to watch A Muppets Christmas Carol, not only the last best Muppet film, but also the best film version of the Christmas Carol story there is. Right? Yes? Indeed? They need to put it on blu-ray!

Animation Mentor

I have finished my second semester at Animation Mentor! Though it was quite a bit of work, the term really flew by. I’m getting better with my time management, I didn’t feel as overwhelmed as I did last semester, but I hope I can continue to improve next semester. We get a two week break for Christmas (though I’m still working at my job, so it’s not like I’m on vacation or anything), and then we’ll go through semesters 3 and 4 in a long continuous 24-week no-breaks stretch! It will be intense! I’m exhausted just thinking about it! But I still get excited imagining being able to work as an animator full-time… by this time next year I’ll be done, and we’ll see what happens with my life then…

I’ll post my second semester reel soon…

Anyway, I do think I’ve made some good progress this semester, and I definitely learned a lot. I look forward to more!

Got published!

Beceause my writing be so well, I was got profsionally published! The words flowed so passionately!

I’ve been blathering about it way too much, so I won’t say much now, but my short story appeared in Daily Science Fiction earlier this week! ‘Twas a rousing success. Cake was baked and eaten, wine was (and caused me to be) drunk, and angels sang glorious hymns.

(It was emailed to subscribers earlier this week. If you didn’t subscribe, DSF will have the story on their site on December 22nd, I believe.)

And I got a profile page on the ISFDB… woohoo!

On Thursday morning it started snowing, so I went to work for about 20 minutes before we closed. It’s wonderful to still have snow days in your mid-twenties. So I spent some time writing a new short story. Not sure what it’ll be called yet, but it’s about a sword that shows its holder the image of an evil person, then guarantees the holder invincibility as they slay that person. Isn’t that great? Yes, it is.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Birthday and shopping and such

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a bunch of family over, which was really nice. It did, however, prevent me from spending as much time as usual on my Animation Mentor homework… but oh well!

‘Twas also my birthday on Thanksgiving, so I’m now 25 years old, quarter of century! Let’s look at my list of accomplishments thus far in my life: hmmm, empty. (Is that self-deprecation, humility, or honesty?) Let’s look at my list of future accomplishments: hmmm, empty as well. When you’re a quarter of the way to nowhere, you’re actually already there! And so I regret to announce… this is the end. I’m leaving now… I bid you all a very fond farewell. (I’ve put this off for far too long.) Goodbye.

Oops, nevermind, I lost the ring.

OK, on to other matters that don’t matter. Black Friday! There were… no deals. No deals I was interested in, anyway. I only got the fifth season of House on DVD for $15 and Total Recall on blu-ray for $7 or $8 at Best Buy… those were the only interesting deals I could find. What’s happening to the economy?! Not that I looked very hard… I don’t need or want much at the moment. Amazon had the best deals. Bought some blu-rays from them, including the first season of Dollhouse on blu-ray for only $14… excellent deal. Now if only the second season was that price too… argh, I’m still disappointed they cancelled that show, it was great.

(On a side note, since I referenced Lord of the Rings, I’ll admit it was very tempting to buy the Lord of the Rings trilogy on blu-ray seeing them marked down to only $7. But I resisted. I want the extended editions, not the theatrical editions!)

Hey, it’s Advent! Which means we can start counting down to Christmas without seeming too desperate. 26 days!

By S P Hannifin, ago

Aaaggghhhhbblblb

Blaghablglalsdjaoiaonoirgh

I kept starting to write a new post to make time at work go by quicker, but my previous attempts kept turning into whine-fests about how busy I am this weekend and how much my job gets in the way of studying animation. But I’d rather not be the subject of other people’s schadenfreude. (Though perhaps that can’t be helped… those arrogant jerks!) Still, focusing on your own sufferings just makes you suffer more.

In short: I worked a bunch of extra hours this week and so I am now behind on my animation work, and my weekend stinks as a result.

In other news, I got Stephen Sondheim’s new (and first?) book Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes earlier this week. I only flipped through it and read bits and pieces, but it looks like there’s plenty of great stuff in there. So watch out, I’ll soon start writing lyrics for my music… just need to find a singer. Anyway, I can’t wait until I have some time to really dig into this book and read it cover to cover.

By S P Hannifin, ago

November goals

October flew by so fast, it feels like it was never really here… not that that’s bad, because the sooner we get to the point of me becoming a professional animator, the better!

At the beginning of the year, I posted “Goals for 2010” … I want to do something similar, and have “Goals for the month.”

I’ve been focusing on Animation Mentor work, which is good, and it’s going well, but I think it could be going better. As always.

First, a review…

Review of 2010 Goals

1) Get a full-time job – not going to happen, but I enrolled in Animation Mentor, which sort of counts, as it is a road toward getting a full-time job. At least, that’s the hope.

2) Keep Hannifin World updated daily for the entire year. – I already failed this one, but I think it will keep going as a “seasonal” thing. Maybe every spring and fall or something…

3) Finish writing a novel – Not going to happen, but I do have a novel planned out that I need to continue working on. I don’t have time to do something like NaNoWriMo this year, and won’t next year with Animation Mentor, but I still have that desire to write fiction in me. “Work on novel” might become a goal.

4) Continue practicing sketching – I’m sort of doing this every now and then, but I’m not being very disciplined about it. This should continue to be a goal, though it’s more of a “background” goal.

5) Finish writing a screenplay – Done! Woohoo! But I haven’t been trying to market it or anything; it’s just collecting dust. I need to either write another screenplay and try marketing both of them, or going ahead and trying to market this one. Actually, this needs some good editing first, so that could be a goal, “edit screenplay.”

6) Get started on animating a short film – Again, not going to happen, but enrolling in Animation Mentor sort of counts, methinks.

7) Finish album – Done! Woohoo!

8) Listen to all of Mozart’s work – not going to happen… too busy.

9) Make some sort of progress on a machine creativity program – eh, I made a little progress, but nothing serious. And I’m too busy to pursue this right now, though it’s definitely an interest. Maybe next year.

10) Become a millionaire! – Done! Oops, I gave it all away… maybe next time.

So, in review, it looks like I’ve either given up on some goals (due to being busy, not changing interests) or they’ve become part of my Animation Mentor studies. My main interests, in semi-order of priority, are: Animation Mentor, cartoon, novel, music composition, screenwriting, programming. My monthly goals should not include all those things, that would be spreading myself too thin, methinks.

Goals for November 2010 (in 2nd person!)

1) Do good work for Animation Mentor – this is the priority. It’s work you’re interested in and has the greatest chance of leading to a job. It’s also expensive! Ignore the other goals if you have to. This should be the main focus.

2) Write basic plot outlines for all episodes of your cartoon – you will still have to go through and write the complete scripts before storyboarding, but you should have an idea of the overall arcs and the main scenes for each episode (the current plan is for 13 episodes, and we already have the “theme” for each one).

3) Complete character designs for cartoon – draw them from different angles, color them in, scan them. Make sure you can get comfortable drawing them, as best you can with your stinky drawing skills.

4) Continue novel plotting – there are 45 chapters. You’ve outlined 7 of them. Keep going.

OK, there we go. As I often say, it’s kinda lame to list goals because that itself doesn’t get anything done, nor does it make me any more disciplined with my free time, but I think it’s still good to write them down just to make sure they’re at the forefront of consciousness instead of some vague ideas being saved for “someday.”

By S P Hannifin, ago

What to do with free time? And stuff…

Animation Mentor progress

It’s week 12 (of 72) and therefore the end of Semester 1!  I’m 1/6th of the way through this!  The weeks have flown by.  Last week was by far the hardest week, not just because the assignment was a challenge, but because I was trying to balance my part-time work with some freelance work, plus a few extra part-time hours, plus a long concert on Friday, plus my Animation Mentor work.  Busiest week of my life, I think.  (Which, I think, shows that I’m ready to be film director!)  But everything turned out OK, save for some major sleep deprivation by the end of it.

So… it’s the final week of semester 1… there actually doesn’t seem to be any homework this week, we just have to put together a reel of all of our work this semester, which I’ll also upload to YouTube so’s that y’all can watch it and whatnot.  So I may have a bit more free time this week to work on some personal projects (though I definitely want to spend some time editing/revising some of my animations) and I’ll definitely have some free time next week, between semesters… what should I work on?

(Vote for up to 3.  Poll closes this Saturday.  No purchase necessary.  Restrictions apply.  Void where prohibited.  Many will enter, none will win.)

Which endeavor would you choose?

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Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King concert at WolfTrap

rotk On Friday my mother and I went up to the WolfTrap performing arts place to see the film Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.  They projected the film in HD on a huge screen and had a live orchestra play the score.  It’s really the best kind of concert there is (or was) and probably the best movie to experience such a concert with.  (They could do it with Star Wars; that has an amazing score, but the movie itself isn’t as good, in my humblest of opinions.  They could do it with Jurassic Park.  Hmmm… I can’t think of many… they just don’t make very many epics like Lord of the Rings.)

I had bought the tickets many months ago, before I knew anything about Animation Mentor, so I did not anticipate seeing the concert during such a busy week, but it was a nice break at least!  Now I need to find some orchestral concert to go to in 2011; I think one should go to at least one orchestral concert a year to keep… uh… the orchestra going or something.  For fun, really.

Anyway, WolfTrap’s Filene Center is a great place for a concert.  It’s built “open-spaced” … that is, it doesn’t really have walls, it just has large columns.  So sitting in it is like being not quite outside, but not quite inside.  It’s kinda cool.  It also allows you to buy cheap “lawn seats”, so you can bring some food and sit on the grass.  Though for this concert I wanted to be able to actually see the orchestra, so I went for the more expensive inside seats.  If I lived closer and had a real job, I’d probably buy a subscription/membership, get really good seats, and go to a bunch of their performances.  But that won’t happen anytime soon.

The concert was great.  Don’t really have much to say that I didn’t say in my reviews of the last two concerts of the trilogy here and here.  It wasn’t flawless; there was a moment when the screen went black for 10 seconds and had me in a panic… oh no!  But it came back quickly.  And there were some flubbed notes hear and there, but they weren’t too bad.  For the film, I’m sure they had time for retakes and audio engineers, mixing engineers, recording professionals, etc, had time to make the mix perfect, which you don’t get at a live performance.  Still, it was quite a glorious sound, especially when the ring hovers over the fires of of Mount Doom and choirs are singing at the top of their lungs.  Oh, so awesome.

It’s also fun to hear the audience applaud at the film’s epic moments and laugh when Gimli says something funny.  (Gimli really gets most of the comedic lines.)

Now I really wish they’d redo all the concerts with the extended editions of the trilogy.  I would definitely pay the $165+ to see them all again.  Meanwhile, these concerts are touring the world.  Not the orchestra, just the rights equipment to do it I guess.  So definitely go to one if you can.

And remember, the book about the music comes out October 5th!  Though I might wait until Christmas to get it, as I’d like to sit down and really spend some time with it; if I get it while I have animation work to do, it might distract me with its awesomeness.

By S P Hannifin, ago

No time for anything… and books

BLAGHGHGALKGJLDKJSLDFJ

It’s been a super busy week. I got some more freelance work, which is good for a little extra $$$, but on top of my animation work, leaves no time for anything else really. I’m almost done the freelance work though, just a few hours more worth of work I think. And this Friday, on the 10th, will be great… going to see Lord of the Rings at WolfTrap! Can’t wait! MAN, did the last couple months FLY by… staying very busy does that I guess.

Library visit

Last night I went back to the university library. (I had to, my books were due, and you can only renew so many times online, unlike a public library.) So I turned in my last set of books and got out some more. These aren’t books that I plan to read cover to cover (I’d love to, but I definitely don’t have the time); they’re just books to flip through, read a chapter here and there.

So, those are the books to kind of scan through for the next few weeks…

Life

I’m not up to anything else lately, just my part time job, Animation Mentor, and some freelance work. They’re keeping me busy enough! My projects on the backburner include that novel and that cartoon show. I’ve got two weeks of Animation Mentor Semester 1 left, then I’ll have a week break (just from Animation Mentor, not from my part-time work!) and I’m not sure what I’ll do then. I’d like to get some TV watching and computer game playing in though… heh.

And whenever I graduate from Animation Mentor, I definitely want to take a little vacation to California, go to the graduation ceremony, and just see the California sights…

By S P Hannifin, ago