Surfing Today

It was awesome.

Emily + Waves + RootBeer + Clam Chowder + Video Games + Sun + New Bike + Pirate Booty + Movies = Holy crap Jay had a good weekend.

Swine Flu: I don't want it.

Every once in a great while, living in California sucks. Like right now, I kind of wish I wasn't so close to Mexico and the impending doom of the Swine Flu. If you need me I'll be holding my breath.

Psyren - Manga

This is one of my favorite new Mangas I've been reading. It's a weekly jump comic about some guys who are trying to prevent the destruction of the world in the future by solving the mystery of who destroys it in the present, and they have all these kick ass powers and some other cool stuff.

This one comes with a JayG Guarantee™

Check it out here: http://www.onemanga.com/Psyren/

Preparing For Paris: Part 1

In September, Emily is headed off to live in beautiful Paris, France for 4 months until mid-January. She is living there for a semester in an apartment, and I'll be flying out mid-October to stay there as well for 90 days. We've been planning the trip for a long time, and have finally started preparing for it this week.

One of the many things we need to do is get together some warm(er) clothes for the Winter in France. California's perpetual Summer has been amazing but for the first time in 4 years I'll be living in and around snow, so we'll need to prepare. Emily has never lived around snow before....crazy....so she needs a lot of things. I don't think she's ever worn any footwear besides dancing heels and flip flops.

We hit up the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade and did some shopping today. Got a few shirts, a new sleeve-less rash guard for surfing, some new surf wax for my board, and some new flip flops. I ended up buying the opposite of what I needed. GG.

Emily on the other hand got some awesome stuff. A bunch of nice classy shirts and pants to keep her warm and keep her looking all stylish in Paris. Then we came home and ate some food and started drinking Spanish Coffee. Ever had that stuff? Holy cow is it good...

Spanish Coffee:

1/2 shot Bacardi® 151 rum
1 shot Kahlua® coffee liqueur
1 splash triple sec
coffee
whipped cream
sugar rim
cinnamon
nutmeg

Sugar the rim of a tempered Pinot glass. Pour 1/2 shot Bacardi 151 rum. Use candle lighter or match to flame the rum. Turn glass repeatedly to allow flame to caramelize the sugar on the rim. Don't melt it completely, just caramelize it. While rum is still flaming, sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg lightly into flame. Add Kahlua, a splash of triple-sec, fill with fresh coffee, a bit of real whipped cream (not the spray gunk), then sprinkle a bit more cinnamon on the top. The flame will probably go out when adding either the Kahlua or coffee, but if not, or if you are afraid the glass is becoming too hot, simply place a cocktail napkin over the glass for a second to smother the flame.

So....good.

Tonight...who knows. Something fun. Surfing tomorrow, come onnnn Sun!

Life Can Make You Tired

Today I went surfing around 3pm. Low-tide was around 2pm and there was talk of a swell coming in tomorrow, so I thought I might be able to catch a few lucky early sets and have some fun. I walked down to the beach and the wind was blowing a lot harder than I had expected it too. The surf was around waist high and it wasn't quite blown out chop, so I decided to go for it. Though, who am I kidding I would have gone out no matter what the conditions were. I really needed some salt water.

I paddle out and the waves are very uneven and messy, but I manage to get a couple of really fun rides. In fact, one of the best rides yet on my new board was today. It surprised me, but I turned and paddled back out yearning for more. There were a couple other guys out too, though it was a little more chilly than normal and with the wind blowing, surfers were scarce.

As I'm paddling back out I notice a larger set coming in, so I paddle out quickly to get over the first wave and make it just in time. My large nine foot board makes it very difficult to duck dive under the waves so I try my best to get over them and use the board's speed to my advantage. I get over the first wave but it still pulls me in about ten yards. As it peaks and I look over I see another, not abnormal so I just paddle out again. Normally a set will have 3-5 of these big ones and calm down again, but instead they kept coming. They were getting bigger and I was getting really tired by about the fifth one. I raised up on a peak and sat up and saw that there were at least ten more coming, so I said "Shit." and let one tumble me into shore a bit.

The combination of the wind, low tide, and these random out of nowhere chest high waves were draining my stamina a lot quicker than I was comfortable with so after getting bashed on the head by about three more waves I finally road one in to shore. As I got onto dry sand and turned around to look at the surf, I realized that Thursdays swell had arrived early. The surf had gone from messy knee to waist high sets to chest high plus and dumping like nobodies business. Low tide and big waves do not mix at this spot. It's always a funny site. I walked back to the beach where I found that my $5 sandals had been taken by someone. I presume they thought they were abandoned. I don't mind, hope they are happily aboard somebody's feet. I walked back to work barefoot and dug back in to my computer.

A few hours later we headed down the beach again to the Ocean Park tennis courts for our Wednesday session. Brian, Than, Tom, and myself all played a bunch of games and leveled up our tennis a bit, but ultimately they beat us each time. 5-7 and 4-6. Blargh!

I am damn tired. Minutes before I hobble to bed and drown myself in Zzzz's and Sonata Arctica, I felt a quivering need to write a little. I hope my five paragraphs were an acceptable expenditure of your time.

MichaelReel.com - Created by Aliens

Working with Digital Ives, my partner (Sean Cannon) and I recently finished and released a new site that's worth showing off a bit.



Full back-end CMS system, custom dynamically populated CSS drop down navigation. Using SlideSlowPro we integrated a full dynamic image gallery populated through the Director back-end software. Basically they can create a page, add it to the menu, then create a custom gallery for it all in about 5 minutes. It's really a monster and it came out really nice.

Check it out below:
http://www.michaelreel.com

Houdini: Character Rigging Class

I'm checking out a Houdini Character Rigging class next monday at Side Effects studio in Santa Monica. I went there a couple of weeks ago for a class and they have some really nice facilities and some really nice people running them.

Houdini is a 3d application that's been around for about ten years. It's known to have a heavy focus in effects and dynamics, which it does, but in the last couple of versions they've really stepped up their character tools and it's become really well rounded and very powerful. It's incredibly fun to use as well.

The Class: Houdini Character Rigging Class, Monday April 20, 2009

Houdini/Side Effects: http://www.sidefx.com

Alas, Darkfall

I've stopped playing officially. Haven't been on in a long time but I wasn't quite sure yet if I was going to stop completely. I came to the decision that the career comes first and I really just don't have the capacity anymore to do both and give it my all. I can't play casually, it's not in my wiring. In Shadowbane I didn't have much of a job so it was totally fine to defend the city until 7am 5 nights a week. Can't do that stuff anymore though and keep up with life around it. I might come back later in the year but most likely not.

My account is spoken for already, sorry!

Tech-Artists.org - Scripting and Tool Building Website

I found this website last week through CGTalk, it's a forum and community set up just for tech artists and techie scriptie people in general. There is some great info there, check it out!

http://www.tech-artists.org

It's a great resource for learning about scripting and programming in Python, MEL, Maxscript, Jscript, C#, etc.