Blog Archives

Stuff n Things

6/30/2016

So the last few days I have been going between applying for jobs and playing with my new camera and my new wheel. And I am having fun with both.

I finished my first ball of yarn from hte new wheel. She spins so nice. I really need to rig myself a lazy kate though. It is really difficult to ply without one. Here is the results:

Not too bad for my first time after several years. The majority of it is even. Just those parts where I was getting the feel for my drafting again where the huge roils are. Now I am seeing how easily it crochets. A friend of mine wants to spin and weave. This stuff would be fine for weaving.

The camera is a bit trickier. I am still learning how to use it properly. And at this point failing miserably. My hope is that if I keep working at it eventually it will click and I will get good animations from it. I did like the way this test pic turned out though. I was using my 18-55mm lens with the Polaroid telephoto Macro lens attached. I don't like that the whole background is blurred, but the hand is full of detail. That makes me happy.

It also would be nice if I could get a consitant letter sizing in this blog. I love Weebly, but instead of letting me choose a number it has a plus or minus, which I have to click every time I start a new section. I have been trying to click the plus 2x, but that does not produce the same size every time. That is a bit lame.
Today I also intend to see if I can get good video from this camera. It would be fun to be able to do live action as well as animation with it.

0 Comments

That ol Yarn....

6/25/2016

0 Comments

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending the local Black Sheep Gathering. I had so much fun. I hugged the sheep. Never underestimate the power of hugging sheep. :) I met a nice lady who had a goreous spinning wheel for not too much. She let me pay part up front, and I will pay the rest when I get my severance. She is pretty. I have been playing with her. She spins like butter. I am out of practice, but it is coming back. I have a bunch of roving that needs spinning, and it came with 4 bobbins, so I will have stuff to do.

Here she is:

She's a Paragon wheel. I do not know what that means yet. It is supposed to be an old refurbished wheel. Not sure what that means yet either. But she spins well. Spinning is kind of a destressing, zen activity for me. And she is a single treadle. That is good. I prefer the single treadle. It means I can continue spinning even when my joints hurt. I can use one foot then the other. I can rest the one I am not using up on something, and I don't have to put twice as much pressure to use it with one foot. So now I have a wheel again, a good quality camera to animate with, and food enough for the next few months. Now I just gotta get a job. Or win the lottery, one of the two.

0 Comments

Aaand more changes...

6/23/2016

1 Comment

So yesterday at work I was in the middle of a support phone call when my boss told me to get off and follow him. Fuck.

I worked at Symantec, where they decided last month to get rid of %10 of thier work force. Yesterday the heavy axe of restructuring landed painfully on my job. I don't know final numbers yet. I am hoping it wasn't just me from the Springfield site. Not that I want others to be out of a job too, but if I am the only one from that site escorted off campus I will feel totally singled out. I have been unable to find anything online about it. We were told it would happen, but not when. As the Springfield site has been running almost on skeleton crew since the last "big cull", we thought we weren't going to be effected. As well as having a site wide all hands that made it sound like cuts were not happening there. They are also selling thier building, and only renting back what they need, which to me tells me they are planning on closing thier Oregon site soon.

So for me, that means I am unemployed in the most tech-unfriendly cities and one with the highest unemployment rate in Oregon, which is one of the highest unemployment rates in the US. Portland has a better job market, so I am looking there. Lately the local news has been trying to tout Eugene as the Silicon Shire. Bullshit. We have 450 tech startups, that is what they base that on. Well, "start ups" do not equate more tech jobs. Start ups rarely have the money to hire outside help. All that means is 450 people, plus whatever partners they have in the business, are kind of employed. Does not mean huge employment jump for the whole county.

The ironic thing is it happened right after I got a bonus, and blew it all on a new camera. And I can't send it back because it was a no returns bundle sale. Which is fine, I guess, because I think I will need the creative outlet to help me deal with this shit. I can't get Dragonframe to work with my computer. According to the manufacturer and the glewinfo utility, my graphics card is compatible to work with OpenGL 2.1. Every time I try to open Dragonframe it throws an error that it is not and closes. This computer cannot be upgraded any further, and Dragonframe does not state it is compatible with Windows 10, and that doesn't matter anyway cause I don't have the money for a new computer right now. I can run Unity just fine. I should be able to run Dragonframe. I have a feeling I am going to have a fight with DZED over this.

For now, though, I have a new camera and a fuckton of stress to get over, so my plan is to get a trial version of Aardman's Animate-it! that is made for kids and see what I can get through it. I have a feeling I might have to deal with a watermark issue, but we shall see how it goes. And maybe re-research free or low cost programs to use in the interim. I am sure that landscape has changed since the last time I did the research.

So plan of action set. If I get anything watchable I will post it here.

1 Comment

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

6/11/2016

0 Comments

So....Stop mo hasn't happened in a while. My camera is highly inadequate, so nothing has been filmed. I have been planning, scheming, thinking, wishing....but nothing has actually happened.

I miss doing stop mo. I hate feeling trapped without the means to do it. This last week I was informed I get a small bonus in my mid month check. I should save that money. Or pay off my medical bills. Or even pay down my student loan. My practical side is nagging me to do that.

However.....

For the amount of money I am getting, I can get a low end prosumer DSLR, Dragonframe software, and maybe even a trip to Jerry's for the parts to build a lighting rig. My practical side is screaming at me at the top of it's lungs. But my creative side is huddling in the corner crying and dying of malnutrition, and giving myself the tools is the only thing to remedy that. I may regret it later, but I have decided to go for it.

Much internet searching and researching has happened. The camera I have settled on is the Cannon EOS Rebel T5i. Not full frame sensor, but one of the larger ones. And better yet, if I keep watching the deals I may be able to get the body, a couple of lenses, and still have enough money for Dragonframe. The camera I REALLY want is $2000 just for the body. That is not even in my scope right now. But this Canon is, and Dragonframe specifically lists it as a camera it is made for. Most of the complaints I am reading are about how slow the autofocus is. Seeing how I don't plan to USE the autofocus, I really don't see it as an issue. Autofocus is the bane of my stop mo existance. It is really, really hard to get consistant shots if you are refocusing between each one. I struggled hard against autofocus with my point n shoot while filming the Douglas Adams video. There are SO many of those 30 second sequences I had to start over completely because of it. You might say I loathe the "feature". I turn and spit on the ground whenever I have to talk about it. (Which, by the way, is a bad idea if you are in your living room with old stinky carpet). But looking at the inexpensive lenses, they have the option to turn it all off. I am just crossing my fingers that it means OFF off, and not "we'll give you some control, but if we think you are wrong we will override you" off. That was the issue I had with the point n shoot. This is just a few steps above point n shoot.

So once I get myself outfitted, I plan to do some test sequences and play around. Maybe post a few of the videos I do. At work they are forcing us to take at least 5 days off in a row before August 1st, so I will have June 28th through July 5th off. As it is too late to go to Westercon or An Tir West War, I plan to take that week to film the films and record the songs. I am kind of excited about that.

0 Comments

Stuff n Things

That ol Yarn....

Aaand more changes...

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Author

Archives

Categories