Welcome to West Texas

Started out the day with temperatures below freezing and a light drizzle that coated everything in a sheet of ice.  About 10 am it started to warm up a bit, the ice began to melt and temperatures continued to climb.
Since then, the ice melted off, things dried up and the sun came out, followed by strong winds, a fairly decent rain, temps in the 60's and now the signature of West Texas, the duststorm.

Ok, so who wants to argue with me that we've screwed up the planet?

Really cool Fractals and such for ActionScript

Ok, this will be really cool for a lot of basic Flash tinkerers, probably fairly boring for the more advanced, but certainly something fun to play with.

http://www.levitated.net/gravityIndex.html

A true love of coffee

I admit, I really love a good cup of coffee, but never THIS much.

Another blog

I might be shot by Blogger for this, but I have another blog I use exclusively for class notes and assignments.  While it's much newer than this one it's already gotten more hits, lol, guess it helps that I've announced it to all of my students huh?

It's called designaholic.

Rediscovery

A wonderful Illustrator and artist, Aya Kato appeared on the cover of Beautiful Decay a few years ago and I immediately fell in love with her work.  She has this incredible modern asian feel to everything she does, stepping well past what might be based in anime and sinking her roots deep into her own style.  I've exchanged emails with her a few times and she's always been happy to answer my questions.

It's been about three years since I've seen her work but it's an easy romance to fall back into.  Check out some of what she's done in her Gallery.

It's a... thing

Have no idea what this is, just playing around in Photoshop during lab.  I can tell you that it started out as a dual exhaust on a chopper.

You Suck at Photoshop

Ok, no I'm not actually saying you, nor am I trying to be mean.  That's the name of a set of tutorials I found on YouTube today.  Dark, dry comedy might not be everyone's cup of tea but it certainly spices up what might otherwise be just another video tutorial.  I couldn't quit laughing when I was watching these.

Photoshop project #1

Seems like everyday my kids turn in an assignment I find some little surprise that just thrills me.  I know I'm bragging but I can't help it, I'm really proud of them.

Ok, so they started Photoshop on Monday.  I covered the selection tools, the transform tools and couple others.  I wasn't expecting much from them for this one, just some cleanly cut pieces of the files I gave them to work with.

I told them to clip pieces from this file:

And stick them on this background:

Pretty much anyone with much experience would see this as a fairly routine project and it is geared towards those that haven't worked with Photoshop before.  I wasn't expecting much.

But looking through the students files, one jumped straight off the screen at me.  You can tell he's one of the ones that already knows more about Photoshop than I'm going to be able to teach him in class, but it's still a delight to come across something like this when you're expecting so much less:

My hat is off to his creativity.  It's always so cool to find them doing this sort of work.

Think he might be a bit of a Bioshock fan?

Cordarounds

Ever wonder why you can only find corduroy pants with vertical lines? Well that's the question that powered the dreams of two guys from California who created Cordarounds. There dream became a reality and they now run a successful, not to mention fun, alternative clothing site.  The stuff you find here is nothing if not unique and so cool!

They are a great couple of guys and I guarantee laughs if you sign up for their mailing list.

While you're at their site make sure to check out the discorounds and Mary-go-rounds and you'll have a smile on your face.

Your Brains

Thought this was appropriate for the season.  Happy Halloween to all and I hope your weekend is full of ghosts and goblins!

Final Illustrator projects

For the most part I'm very proud of how my students did on their final Illustrator projects.  There are some with a lot of potential in both classes.  Below are some samples of the student projects, I just wish I could present them to you full-sized.  The small format really doesn't do any of them justice.

Please keep in mind that these are in most cases students that didn't know a thing about Illustrator at the beginning of September.  Their assignment was to draw over a photo using the pen tool in Illustrator.  It might not seem like a big deal to those of you who have been using Illustrator for years, but for students that are fresh to the software, I think it's pretty impressive.

and believe it or not, this last one is not a photo.

Converse

I feel like waxing nostalgic a bit today. When I was a kid, all those eons ago, I loved my Chuck Taylors. I had like 6 or 7 pair in various colors, all hi-tops. 20 years and a matched set of bad knees later and my chucks are sadly a thing of the past.

I was busy doing nothing at work today, wandering through various websites, when i decided to look up my old friend Converse. What I found made certain that in the near future my knees are only going to get worse. I never knew this but you can customize your own right from the factory! I'm sure just about anyone who reads this would say "Um, yeah bud, everyone knows you can do that." Well I didn't know this so I'm spreading it around, bare with me.

Granted, they are 50 bucks more than they were when I was a kid but what do you expect? I'm older and can afford to rock a custom pair now I think. So soon, you'll be seeing a pair of these wonderful shoes on my feet again. Just gotta love 'em!

TheFunTheory.com

I came across this site called The Fun Theory when I was flipping through tv spots at adforum.  It is driven by the theory that we can change peoples' behavior by making mundane activities, such as picking up trash or climbing stairs, fun and entertaining.  In my mind this looks like an incredibly interesting idea.  Check out the site and see what you think.

YAY PHOTOSHOP!!!

Time to get rollin with Photoshop.  Had a crazy weekend trying to get everything prepared for it and I'm anxiously awaiting my student evaluations.

I've switched out some of the Photoshop section so I feel I'm finally mixing things up the way I want them.  It's gonna be a lot of fun!

Once I get them graded, I'll post a few of my students' final Illustrator projects.

The Test

I think pretty much everyone has had test anxiety at one time or another. You walk into class and that cold, clammy dread slips over you. Your stomach churns and your hands shake. The test is placed before you and everything at first looks like it's written in some ancient unspoken language, then with a sigh you dive in...

Well that's how I felt before grading this first test.

I was probably more nervous about grading than they were taking it because I knew this would be the REAL test of what they knew. All of the assignments they had up until this point were a piece of cake. Not too complicated and they had plenty of time, but this was different.

The first section was what I thought to be a fairly simple fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice, two page test. The timed test was next and I gave them what I felt was much more than an adequate amount of time. It was simple in it's construction, but maybe deceptively simple.

What were the results? Well, not to be intentionally anticlimactic, but I don't want to voice them here, just in case any of them stumble upon my tiny blog. I will say that the test is much more telling than all their previous assignments.

Well, it's back to the drawing board, or Illustrator window, as the case may be. Wish me luck!

Social Awareness through Play

I met with Dr. Francisco Ortega on Friday, he's an assistant professor at Tech, and one of the topics we discussed was a project he did for his thesis. He created a set of games, two of which are downloadable at his site ludoztli.com and deal with relations between Mexico and the U.S. I found it very interesting that his approach to bring about social awareness takes a route through one of those scarcely visited social situations that many of us remember from our childhood, playing boardgames.

If you have the chance, please check out his site. It might, at very least, open an eye to the immigration issue.

Still Teaching

Just a quick note to say that I'm really enjoying this! I'm starting to get my feet under me a little. Teaching is something that I never thought I'd be doing, so I'm surprised to find I like it this much. I have a family full of teachers but never saw myself as one. It's great!

Spark of Insanity

Jeff Dunham and Brian Haner had D and I rolling tonight. The show was so much fun! Jeff bounced around several Lubbock jokes, a few about Tech and the area. About 20 minutes of his act seemed ad libbed and was some of the funniest material of his act. Brian Haner was a riot and his guitar playing was a thrill to listen to.

You can always tell a good comedian by how you feel the following day. I'm betting I'll feel like I've been doing crunches tomorrow morning.

First Real Day of Teaching!!!

I'm so excited! I was scared to death at the beginning of my first class but by my second class I was really having fun. I can't imagine anyone wanting to dig through the stuff that's in my head, let alone a whole classroom of them! I don't think I've quit smiling for the last two hours. I think there might actually be a teacher somewhere inside afterall. :D

The Countdown Begins

Seven days and I'm supposed to begin my new job warping young minds. I have no question that I can warp them, my only problem is... I'm still not prepared!!! My book hasn't arrived, My eRaider account still has me listed as a student so I have no way of getting to my roll or anything, and I feel like I'm behind on everything. ARRRGGGHHH!!!

Ok, I'm better now. I wonder if all first time teachers start feeling this much anxiety right before they start? The good thing is that I'll be teaching stuff that I already know pretty well, so there shouldn't be any trepidation about that.

Wish me luck!

Just a note on someone special in my life.

Brandi is probably one of the biggest influences on me. She's my cousin, but she's always been more like a sister to me. She's one of those positive people that are so rare now, a truly loving soul that makes me want to be a better person.

Anyone that knows me would recognize that I'm usually either stern or silly, but rarely good with people. However, the time I get to spend with Brandi opens me up to a world so full of light that it's like a journey outside of myself. Thank you Brandi for showing me that somewhere inside me, there's actually a good person.

Willie, Dylan and John

We went to the Bob Dylan Show this past Saturday with cheesy grins on our faces. For my wife and I, this is a HUGE deal, and just the chance to say we've seen Bob Dylan in concert made it more than worth it. We arrived early, about 4:15 and the main parking lot was already half full. You could tell who was there to see which musician; tie-dyed shirts and ponytails for some, cowboy hats and boots for others.

Willie Nelson played first and I've always enjoyed his music. From "Angels Flying Too Close To The Ground" to "Beer For My Horses", his songs never fail to get a crowd going. I have to admit though, you can tell Willie was tired and he just didn't have the energy that he had. Ok, he's 76 years old so I'd say he did pretty well under the circumstances. For his part of the show it was still sunny and he was facing west into the glaring hot sun, so you have to hand it to him for that.

By far, our favorite was John Mellencamp. He still had all the energy I remember and got the crowd on their feet for most of his set. a few songs into it he started doing an acoustic version of "Cherry Bomb" which was interrupted before the first verse was finished by some dufus getting arrested. I didn't see what the guy was doing but you can bet that there were a few $7 beers involved. John was a little surprised, mentioned that he didn't condone violence and wondered aloud that when he saw the boys in blue headed that way, he didn't know what he'd done. Mellencamp pulled songs out of the attic that I had loved but had been misplaced in my memory years earlier. It was definitely the highlight of the show for me.

Bob Dylan played some incredible songs, most of which were from his recent releases. He did a version of "Watchtower", best remembered as a hit by Jimi Hendrix, as well as a Buddy Holly song or two. His recent stuff is great but unfortunately his voice seems to have gone south to the point I didn't understand more than 10 words his entire set. The stands slowly cleared during his set, I think some were disappointed, but I wasn't about to leave before those final glimpses of a living legend were done.

Aside from the outrageous cost of beer, $7 a 16oz. bottle, I was thrilled with the experience. If you want to know more about the concert, check this out.

Oh, almost forgot. There was this very interesting opening act, kind of a cross between bluegrass and blues, called the Wiyos. They had this great upright bass and even though I couldn't see very well, I swear there was one song where someone played a washboard! Really great stuff.