When we went to New Zealand...: Nov 16th and 17th

So last night / this morning I was too tired to write, sooo I am lumping the two days together. haha.

Yesterday I walked to work again. Which I really kind of enjoy. Nice fresh air, and its great to get out and walk. Considering I am failing at any other type of exercise lately (no, I never succeeded at running.. ugh.. hard to get a routine around here), its really nice to be walking everywhere. I've been taking my camera around with me FINALLY now that I remembered. Trying to keep up with that whole photo-a-day thing, though it is hard at the moment. I want to edit the photos, some of them end up really washed out, but oh well. At least I have them :-). Take a look, heres some from my walk to work yesterday:

I walk down this hill (and back up it) every day. This is Franklin road. BEAUTIFUL.

Saw these today hanging over a brick wall. Pretty!

-This is right across the street from work. Just noticed it today.

So yes, glad to be taking Photos :-) Will try to make it a routine for sure.

And work was good, another 12 hour day. Long week this week, but thats ok. Thank goodness I love my job. I honestly just like being in the studio. I would rather be in the studio than at home! But thats just how it is. Haha. Anyways, the work has been hard but good. Submitted another shot, and then got to trying my hand at the dreaded Savio the Snake. And let me tell you... he is a MESS of a rig! SO hard to work with. I have seen some great results with him, but I have no idea how whoever did it is achieving them! They're not from our studio, thats for sure.

Struggled with him quite a bit, re-animated him a few times, and left at the end of the evening (around 8:45) having SOMETHING at least. I think I have to re-do the shot though... after trying another one today, I think there may be a different / potentially better way to do it? Not sure. We shall see tomorrow (Thursday). Hopefully I can get something going.

Ugh, now the crappy part. So I got home from work to what was supposed to just be a chill BBQ that was going on at the neighbor's for someones birthday. However, it ended up being this obnoxious party with loud music, people yelling, singing, and getting wasted. On a TUESDAY. Ridiculous. So anyway, that was obnoxious, not to mention the place was kind of a mess when I got home. Kira and Scott are just messy. Seriously.. messy. Everyone else seems to be ok. Nia was annoyed at it too when I got home. And of course, there were NO clean dishes, so I had to wash some to make my dinner, which I had carried home with me after stopping by the store around 9:00pm after work.

Anyway, the party went on until 2:00AM almost..... ugh. I swear. Its like no one works.. or cares about those who do. And after a long day at work both Mon and Tues, I was not happy AT ALL. Luckily, Nia is awesome, and she and I sat down with Alvaro and Ernesto and were goofing off in the living room, trying to avoid the loud noise outside. Which was not easy. But we had fun! We were teaching them english words / phrases, and vice versa. That was a good time. Then Terry got home way early, and Nia and I were talking. Apparently Terry is trying to learn Welsh (even though hes from Wales, the area he's from does not speak it), and Nia had gotten some CDs of audio for him to learn it. She asked if I could put them on my computer, so he could possibly load them to his ipod (they dont have computers). I said sure if it would work, and sure enough it did! The coolest part: I could totally learn Welsh if I wanted to! haha. So neat. I have no idea what it sounds like, but Im kind of excited to try! We shall see. Anyway, it was nice hanging with them. Nia and I seem to feel the same about some of the crazyness that goes on here. So it was good to have someone to talk to. She will be here for a while, and I just don't think that I want to be. Its nice to have some people around, but still..... I would really like some personal alone time after work.

Well, so once the party died down, I went to bed. and PASSED out until waking up around 7am to get to work again. Nia and I rode the bus, and I got into work later than normal, I figured after Monday and Tuesday that it was fine, which it was. Today was Savio day. ALL day. Thats all I worked on. Trying to figure out that rig.... ugh. Anyways, its interesting trying to work through it, a challenge for sure. But.. sometimes you just want something to work the first time :-).

I went from the one (possibly the hardest shot with Savio) to another one after a while. THAT one I think I may have finally gotten down alright. Took a while, but not terrible. So that one I submitted for review tonight before leaving work.

Ok, I love work. We have random nurf fights EVERY day it seems. And its SO much fun. I know I rave and rave about it, but I really do love it. I love the work, even when its hard, love the people, environment, etc. Fantastic. :-) So yes, work was frustrating, but good. Kate and I had a really nice chat today too. SO glad she finally moved into our office. We were weary that they may not move her, but very glad they did. She's a blast, and I am definitely looking forward to hanging out with her and everyone else a lot more. We all actually started making a list of outings that we would like to set up to take. Paintball, a beach trip, a skiing trip, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding..... etc. SO excited about these possibilities. I hope they happen!

OH, and back to the rig for a second.......we have been trying to ask Nickelodeon what to do about Savio the past few days. They came back today with something along the lines of: "he needs a completely new set up / re-rig, but that just isn't feasable at this point in production of the current show, so have the animators try to do the best they can until we can hopefully find a solution later down the line." haha. I knew that would happen. And its true, he does need a total re-rig. I mean, Im no rigger at all, but I just could not seem to make easy sense of that rig. So we were animating, re-animating, asking questions back and forth... its just a time sucker really. I could have powered through a few of those shots (more than just the two) if the rig had been more logical.

Anyway, that aside, I feel I did alright with it for today. Headed out around 6, which was nice, and headed up to the Pub (Albion) up the road for $10 steak night. Nick got all the ladies a round of drinks which was nice, and we hung out and had our steaks :-).

Then, stuffed with steak, I walked home, and luckily, found the place quiet. Everyone home, but quiet. THANK GOODNESS. So Nia and I hung out for a while. She's such a sweetheart. She doesn't want me to move out. Thats really sweet of her. And if it was just her and Terry I was living with, I would be perfectly happy and fine. Its the crowd of everyone, and the parties and the nutso-ness of everyone else that I am not a fan of. Too bad it has to happen like that.

Anyway, had a nice relaxed evening. Took some nice photos of the sunset on the way home too, take a look: