Happy New Year!

Hey all ... a new year has started and I have been telling Meredith what a great year we had in 2008. We had a great vacation when we went to Virginia to see my brother retire from the navy. She and I both ended up with new jobs which took us away from areas we were less than happy working in. And who can forget that I started school and have been doing really well?

So ... I am really excited and eager for classes to start up again because I miss it. My training classes for my new job are all well and good, but truth to tell, I only ope to be doing it for about a year. After that first year I can move about in State Farm and do something different. As my degree as a whole is a Graphic Art degree (it just specializes in video games) I hope to get into State Farm's "Creative Services" department and be able to stay there for the rest of the time that I am doing school. After that ... once I graduate I hope to get into a good game company. Honestly, though, I have read that the economy is affecting some of teh major game companies just like everyone else. They are closing down studios and laying off people, so ... if I get onin Creative Services I could possibly be there a lot longer. Who knows what the next 3 years will bring?

Anyway, my next term starts on January 9th. This will be term 3 of 15. I only have two classes, each one worth 7 credit hours, so they should both be big. I am eager for class to start as I want to find out what my big projects will be, especially for color theory. Also on January 9th we are getting rid of our DSL and going with High Speed Cable. We never use our Land Line phone and all we get on it are junk calls, so as we both have cell phones we are getting rid of the phone and lumping all of our utilities through one company (Comcast).

On an interesting note, on Jan 13th I will be turning 40. In my past few classes I have not been the oldest person in them. I really do not know where I came up with the thought that I would be the oldest person, and it certainly is interesting that there are people who can relate to the same things that I can in the classes. At least when it came to the history of video games there were a few of us who were talking about the old Atari 2600 vs the Intellivision (which is what we had).

So, what am I doing with all my free time? I have received some great drawing books from my mother for Christmas and I have been studying one in particular. It has a really unique style that I am enjoying a lot, and I have been tossing around ideas on how I would do Frankenstein 13 in it. I have not actually drawn anything yet, because I am still tossing around ideas. I think that if I could get the idea down, I could possibly do another animated short. Before I do that, though, I would really like to get my hands on a tablet (http://www.wacom.com/intuos/index.php). In the Game Designer's Club you can always tell the artists who have a tablet versus the one's who don't. My Cat Butt short would have looked a lot nicer if I would have been able to use one. Basically a tablet will let me draw directly to the computer using a specialized pencil on the tablet itself. An interesting tidbit about myself is that I am left handed, but ... I mouse with my right hand. So with the tablet I would have been able to draw much more naturally and the short would have been much more cleaner. I would like to get the Intuos 6x11 model tablet, but with me currently in training and working part time, it will probably be closer to the end of this year before I pick one up.

Something else I have been doing during this break is beading. I have made 5 necklaces for Meredith and 1 for my mother. It has kept my imagination flowing and been very relaxing. I really cannot wait to get onto the phones at work and start making bonus money, but that will not happen until the end of this month.

Well ... that's it for now. I know I haven't posted much these last couple of weeks, and I apologize for that.

I hope you all have had a great holiday season. I wish you all a Happy New Year!