The Sales Dance

The Triscari Group recently got a new sales guy who besides selling, has been trying to take over the role of Project Manager. He's beginning to understand what Triscari as a company can do, but by no means does he have any clue as to how it is accomplished. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when the owners gave him numerous chances to try to manage us producers and our projects, which always resulted in much frustration and unnecessary complications on our behalf.

So...that is why I didn't feel bad doing this.

Google Video Beta

Today I discovered that Google has released a video beta ! I've been waiting and wondering but never really kept up on the idea, and now through internet fate, it's a reality!

Aside from providing a means for me to search for demo reels and funny videos, they've also created a blog on blogspot with links to the funniest and strangest videos found through the Google Video search. This is just something that everyone can appreciate and needs to check out.

So far this is definately my favorite.
Their blog gave it this accurate description:
"The Sims teach us not only how to safely maintain electrical appliances, but also what to do when a perfectly creepy stranger enters your house after you are burnt to a crisp and naked."

Enjoy! I know I did.

Snow Day

Today I woke to about 6 inches of snow and though I had been anticipating it, it still managed to come to me as a bit of a shock. This happened because the last time I saw this much snow was back in '94 when what I refer to as "The Ice Storm" hit Delaware and my brother and I got to spend the day playing instead of going to school. So this morning, after getting up early, getting ready and sweeping a half-foot of snow off my roof I attempted to plow through the otherwise unplowed parking lot. After getting stuck on a hill and having smaller cars with front wheel drive pass me I managed to turn myself around and get back home. Parking in the lot, I found, was harder than exiting it. Once I did get situated into a snow bank of a spot it was one quick phone call and a short instant message conversation to see who made it into the office before heading back to bed. :-) Lindsey and I programmed all my contacts into my new phone (Thanks Dad!) and watched the beginning of War Of The Worlds then it was time to try one more time. This time I needed some help getting out since the plows had formed with all the snow once on the street an almost waist high white fortress protecting my car from all who wished to view it from a reasonable distance. After walking around it a few times, blowing my rams horn and realizing that it must not work with all Joshua's I look over my shoulder to see none other than Scatman Crothers walking towards me. Well, it looked a lot like him anyway. The Scatman and I dug the Vitara out and I went on to work. I got there about 11:30 and the client I was supposed to be working with walked in a few minutes later. While editing, he asked me to get rid of a graphic that was in the captured video. Hmm. It's not on a layer that I can just hide or delete. So I watched how the video underneath was before and after the graphic and realized I might be able to work around it and fake it. I did, and it worked seamlessly. This is cool when it happens and even cooler when a client is sitting there watching you. He said "Wow, you can't see a jump or anything!" followed by a long pause of astonishment then "I think I'm the most impressed I've ever been." That, to me, made it worth risking my life on the icy highway with Pennsylvania drivers. It was one of the best compliments I've had concerning media.

Well, I just got done packing up more stuff to take home tomorrow. Which reminds me, I'm not done!

Exhale (Only To Inhale Again)

Lately I feel like I've have had half a million things going on, most of which take up my spare time and have nothing to do with work. Well...I shouldn't say nothing because by far the biggest is the fact that come January, I will be employed by Watermark Productions located in Southern Delaware! (I'm working on the new site so nothing is up there quite yet) Watermark is owned and operated by my father Bill Sammons who has so graciously offered a mentorship program to me with the intention of soon stepping away and letting me take ahold of the reigns! This daunting task is both overwhelmingly exciting and extremely nerve-racking. Lindsey and I recently found a house to rent in Milford where I will be working out of until Watermark grows into an office. There's an extra guest room as well as one for the baby, and the dogs have a moderately sized back yard to run around in. A few weekends ago my father-in-law and I built the biggest dog house I had ever seen for Jax & Sadie to keep warm in during the winter. I'll be putting a heat lamp in there for them soon and I think they're just going to love it. Say good-bye to crates and a small apartment! I suppose we're all excited about that!
So today I gave my two weeks at Triscari and to my surprise, everything went really really well. Seb seemed happy about it, which could be read two ways I guess. The other producers were sad to hear one of them was departing but I know they understand. Over the past two months we've been making long one-day-weekend trips which has enabled us to move enough of our "stuff" to mom's to make our apartment look empty and at the same time keep us worried over the question "Will the rest of it fit in the huge trailer Dad's bringing on the 17th?". I also have to line up a way for my piece of stang to travel back home. Ugh. Well, now I'm rambling on with my thoughts.

Man...two weeks. It's going to fly by.

My Late Thanksgiving Post

Shh. Silence is broken only by the frigid winter breeze as I steady my hand.
Watching. Waiting. Gently I reach for the button, revealing the red. I'm ready. I hear them coming. The first flies by me faster than I antisipated, I shoot. The second follows as I shoot again. Both targets go down.

I would have been a proud storyteller of an actual animal hunt, however my thanksgiving morn involved skeet. Which I think is better. Less waiting, more shooting! My dad, brother, granddad, uncles, and some friends have been skeet shooting every thanksgiving morning since I can remember. We always do horrible but it's a lot of fun nonetheless. Being married over the holidays can be fun, you just have to enjoy travel and be capable eat twice as much (especially over this holiday)!

I also got invited to a party my buddy Danny was having at his place that involved a bunch of people I'd never met. I haven't seen Danny or my brother Nick in a while so i decided to go so I could spend a little time with them. We played poker, ate a delicious meal, way too many deserts, and then capped it off with a lil' Halo 2.
I even got to play (and kill a few times) the #2 Halo-er on Xbox live. wow.

Family, friends, guns, poker, darts, Halo, yeah it was a good one.

Tutorial: How To Mess With Coworkers (Mac)

Ha! Dan and I just got done making custom eject overlays for our unsuspecting coworkers. We are going to install them on their computers the next time they step away. What's an eject overlay? Why is this awesome? Well, lets Tarantino this bad boy.

About an hour ago Dan came in here to test an interactive CD that made his computer crash. We tested it and it seemed to work fine on my computer. Once we were done testing it I hit F12 (eject on the EZ Keyboard) and the CD came out. Now for those of you not familiar to the mac interface, when you eject a CD it overlays the universal "eject" symbol on your screen. Well we made some comments to the effect of how it'd be funny if it came on and said, "No, I like this one" and kept the CD from us. Then we got to thinking. If we were able to find and edit the quicktime player interface buttons images to say " H I J O N", could we in the same manner edit this overlay?

The search began and in about 2 minutes I found it: "eject.png". For those of you also wanting to experiment with this here's the path:

System > Library > CoreServices > BezelUI > Images > eject.png

You have to change the permissions to allow you to access both the file and the folder it's in. To do so, perform a "get info" on the item. Then under "Ownerships & Permissions" drop down the "Details" twirly and click the locked lock to unlock the locked lock. Now that it's unlocked change the "Owner" drop-down to show the name of your computer instead of "System". Once that's taken care of on both items, have at it! Be sure to save a copy before you edit! The image is set to the specific size of 211 x 206 but can be full color. I've made two versions so far, both of which Dan already posted on his blog so I told him I'd post his here on mine. haha! He also put up a copy of the original overlay just in case.




So anyways, go check mine out and try to imagine the look on my coworkers faces next time they eject their drive and see Mickey flippin' em the bird!

THAT's why it's awesome.

Lucky 7 Tour

This past Monday the Triscari producers, my wife and I got to sit in on an Alias users group meeting held in Rockville, MD that was hosting the Lucky 7 tour. Not being much of a 3D artist myself, I still was able to piece together enough to know what they were talking about thanks to Dan's random rants about Maya. Some of the coolest products technology has ever dished out (in my opinion) were demoed before our very eyes. The Sensable Phantom haptic device as well as the newest Wacom Cintiq tablet.

Dan and I actually got to use the Sensable Phantom. Oooh man. This thing looked like a pen attached to a robotic arm that sits on your physical desktop next to your monitors. You open up Maya or their custom 3D modeling software "Clay Tools" and sculpt your model with this pen. You move it around in 3 dimensions (X, Y & Z) at the same time and when you hit the surface of the model your pen stops giving you the illusion that your actually touching the model! I ran the pen over the models teeth and it was bumpy I could even go around the back of the head and feel what I couldn't see! It was amazing.

The Cintiq was in another world of amazing all of it's own. We've all seen these tablets before where you can draw on it's monitor and it shows up in Photoshop or whatever. But this one was huge, pressure sensitive and check this out: a guy in the audience raised his hand and asked if it could sense through paper. The host said "What's that you have there in your hand?" (It was a notepad) "..Let me see that" This guy took the notepad, (probably half an inch thick) placed it on the Cintiq and drew over top of the notebook and it showed up on the projected image we were watching! That impressed me.

All in all it was a great time for everyone even Lindsey! I will definitely try to attend more of these events in the future.

The File Goblet

Today i was copying files from a DVD onto my desktop. What warrents this a post you say? Well, the way they landed. I thought it looked like a goblet with and straw in it or maybe a slurpee. What do you see?

I Look At Them First Too

Every individual reacts a different way under pressure. Mine is the "freak out a lot and work your butt off until the situation gets better" approach, which has also been my theme at work for the past two days.

Wednesday, due to the low budget, I needed to crank out a nice logo for the Community Christian Academy school opening up in Perry County in an eight hour period. Yesterday, I was forced to designed a website in 3 hours. Both days resulted in pretty cool pieces, which you've already looked at because you, blog reader, don't view the page in order! :-)

Anywho, here's what I've to show from the past two work days. Say, these would go nicely with my portfolio. Click to enlarge.

Halloween Recap

I have this theory, that time will either prove or disprove, that all these years that I've turned another year older and not felt it will hit all at once, when the baby is born.
Despite not feeling it, my birthday weekend did in fact turn out to be a good one. The costume party was a lot of fun. Our pimp/hooker costumes were a hit and I still don't have a camera to capture the memories. I should be getting some pics from people that were able to take them and once I do I'll be sure to post them.

On a separate note, my website / email is down because I failed to renew the domain! Since I own joshsammons.com I've been using the email I set up there. Of course, I didn't have that email when I registered the domain so naturally the 'renewal reminder emails that were sent to me went to my old email account...which I haven't check in God knows how long. Needless to say, I checked it once my joshsammons account went down and there the domain was just waiting for me to renew it...poor domain. My apologies to everyone who had tried emailing me within the past two days. Another 48 hours and it should be back up.

Home Sweet Halloween

A few hours from now I will still be sitting, only in my car on the road, Delaware bound for the weekend!
Tomorrow, the 29th of October, I will be 22 years of age. This weekend bears a halloween costume party that I am really looking forward to attending. It's hosted by Lindsey's Aunt & Uncle and there's usually free drinks. :-) Happy B-Day to me! I'm dressing up as a pimp, and Linz is going to be my "modest" hooker. Besides just being a fun idea, it truthfully was the cheapest thing we could whip up from stuff we had from 2003's costume party and what we found lying around the house. I got this brown pimp hat and glasses that resemble that of which the king wore. Marry that with my brown suit and the bright red large collared shirt I have and I am halloween pimpin!

Anyways, should be fun. I'll keep you posted . . . . get it? . . post, ah never mind.

World On Fire

I have to thank my bro Nick for this one.

View this music video before continuing.
http://www.worldonfire.ca/

I was taken by surprise while watching that. It is incredible isn't it? Being a producer and knowing full well that those numbers are true (even higher in some places) it made something inside me break to ask the question "What are you doing with what you have?" Forget everyone else. What are you doing about it? Nick even closes his blog posing that question. Personally, I feel that God has blessed my life incredibly, however, should you ask me how I'm doing financially I would immediately compare myself to that 'other guy' who is making more than I do or has a bigger house than me and answer, "I'm just doing ok" thinking all the while, man I'm poor.
But when I really look at it, I am married to the most incredible woman I have ever met, I'm in a career that I love to be in, AND I'm expecting a child soon! The bills are paid and I love my life. Aside from that all I need is to trust in Him. Which is a decision, not a paygrade. I think we all feel like we don't have enough to make any significant change to anyone else. In this day and age, society is telling us that you should just mind your own business because if you try to reach out to your neighbor to lend a helping hand you just might loose it. And those two things are exactly why we don't take action. As Nick so adequately put, "The problem is that we're so often moved internally, but never really do anything about." Does that mean in order to make a noteworthy contribution you have to sponsor a child through world vision? Nope. It means choosing to live your life in a way that others are touched by you. And as a result of that finding yourself being deeply touched by others in ways you would have never imagined possible. Thats my 'two', just let the video speak to you as it may. I know it has me. Keep it up little bro.

Halo Nerd Alert!

On Friday, during our lunchtime Halo brawl, Dan somehow managed to get himself stuck inside a tank...literally! Just look at the pictures to see what I'm talking about. From his view you could only see fragments of the tanks walls depending on where he was standing at the momment. But from my view it just looked like a Flinstones impression. Just thought I'd share the screenshots.

Vector Unveiling

Well I've done it. My first vector piece is completed at last! Actually it only took me 20 hours to complete, the problem was in finding the time to do so.
Blog, meet my beautiful vectored wife, Lindsey. Lindsey, you know blog. The reference picture was taken a couple years ago on valentines day. A day we loved sharing together and eating out at the Olive Garden. Yum. Anyways, if you're family, or for some reason have a strange obsession with my wife, you can download it in wallpaper form here! Click picture to enlarge.

Life Is A Beautiful Thing

Today I got to 'see' my baby for the first time! It was amazing.
I wondered if I'd be able to see it (Yes, 'it'. As of right now my baby is a fetus so I will refer to it as 'it' until sex is determinable) or if it would just look like oddly shaped grey matter inside darker oddly shaped grey matter.
When the nurse first started the sonogram I thought I saw it, but after she pointed it out to us it was actual much smaller. We watched it for a few seconds at a time while the nurse tried to get a good image up on the screen. Every once in a while it would wiggle around and you could really tell where the head was and where it was moving its arms. It was so cool. I just kept looking at Lindsey's stomach then up to the monitor, then back to her again. I couldn't believe that what we were witnessing was actually taking place inside of her at that momment. Life. Wow.
Linz is 11 weeks along tomorrow. At this point the baby's face has assumed a baby's profile, and muscle movements are becoming more coordinated. (Which is what we were seeing!) It's about 2 inches long and it's heart was measured beating at 167 bpm! (Time and a half faster than you or I!) You could see the heart beating on the monitor as well, it was a tiny little dot, just a few pixels rapidly flashing on and off. Fingerprints are evident in the skin and internally, everthing is present that will be found in a developed adult. The nurse also told us that soon the baby will recognise it's hand when it passes in front of it's face and even start to suck it's thumb in a couple of months. Right now it sees the hand as an imposter and doesn't like it, haha. I thought that was cute.
I scanned the images the nurse gave us so I'm posting them for you all. Click the photo to view full size. (The baby is inside the dark medium sized circle.) It's labeled so you should be able to tell what's what.
It was a great experience for us both and we are just so excited and are very appreciative the prayers going up. Thank you all!

Trunk Monkey

Firstly, I'd like to wish Google a happy 7th.
Secondly, I want a Trunk Monkey! (Watch the videos)
Thirdly, heres a really cool photoshop link: www.worth1000.com

Beautiful Today (9/22/05)

Beautiful Today. The title suggests a day comprised of wonderful happy things making the past 24 hours a beautiful occasion. While this is certainly true for certain aspects of today, it wasn’t the case for the entire length of it. I’ll spare you the gory details and get to the good stuff fairly soon, so stay with me.

This morning I had more trouble with what I call “the little curly dogs” that from time to time are outside (loose) at the same time I take Jax and Sadie out (leashed). This time they both were leashed but they were on one of those long retractable cable leashes which apparently the lady had no knowledge of how to work, so the things might as well have just been loose. After fighting the dogs back and holding mine with what little strength I had in the wee hours of the morn’ I scramble to get ready on time for work.

At work there’s a note in my box that I’ve been waiting for concerning a day I asked off for Lindsey birthday. I’ve used my vacation days up for this year and I have some over time that I’d like to get comp for so I decided to ask off accordingly. I read the note and was not surprised at the response I got back. “Sure you can go, but it will be unpaid since you don’t have any vacation time left. Any Questions see me.” You have to understand that when I started here I was excited about working. Every day since then the management has proven via actions (contrary to words) that they couldn’t care less about their employees. So obviously I am no longer that excited about this place and have realized that I just cannot accept that as being ok. So I went to see “me” right away. We had a heated discussion that I don’t need to get into for both your sake and mine. I will say that I did not hold back anything. And that felt real good. She wanted to talk more about it when the owner got back to which I agreed, so we let it go for the time being.

Back in my office I am trying to make 3 deadlines happen by tomorrow while calling in to Ruby Tuesday for Lindsey who’s sick today still sleeping at home. Oh how I wish. I confronted the manager on the phone of rumors passed to me about call-offs being fired. He assured me they were false and that Lindsey being a great worker was in no trouble. I then called a few doctors in the area trying to find a good one that was taking new patients. She has been under the weather for a few weeks now and it’s starting to worry us both because she doesn’t usually get sick.

Lunch Time. Just took my first bite of ramen when I hear “Josh, come to my office, Josh (click).” Yes, the boss was back and what do ya know, he wanted to see me right away. I knew what was going to go down and I knew that it had to happen or we both were going to either implode or explode, both of which suck relationally speaking. Our meeting lasted for about 45 minutes. He talked most of the time, mostly about things that I still can’t find how they relate to my situation. I told him what I felt and tried to say why and I think that once it all settles, we may be getting somewhere in this whole mess…finally. Still looks like they’ll screw me concerning the overtime issue. Well that’s over, for now. After that I wasn’t afraid of standing up to anything. I felt great letting him finally feel the weight of who I am. Professionally of course. I had to make one last nerving call then it should start calming down…logically. Pffft. Josh, when will you learn that life doesn’t follow the logical path? I dunno.

The day is over. Breathe. Dan and Jon will be over soon to play some Halo 2 and that will be such a great way to end the day. How late is the beer store open? In conversation on the way home Lindsey and I decided to pick up a pregnancy test just in case that is why she has been feeling so bad. All the way there we talked ourselves into why this and that thing makes sense if she is indeed pregnant and at this point we really start to wonder. This would be really nice. Are we ready? Is anyone ever ready?
We’re Home now. Lindsey’s doing the test while I put away groceries. I come back to her and her eyes are watery. “I did it twice” she says. My eyes fall on the 2 pink lines glowing almost as much as she is. “What does two lines mean?! What is TWO lines?!!” I’m about to explode because I don’t know squat about tests. She nods her head with a look of overwhelming emotion upon her face. “We are? WE ARE!!” She keeps nodding, revealing what she is unable to speak. Many hugs, kisses and prayers later we exit the bathroom and suddenly my view of the world has changed. Halo night is no longer that exciting, at least not tonight. “Sorry fella’s but I’ve gotta call it off tonight, how bout next week?” We spent the night together with the TV in the background, just holding each other and talking about how our lives have just drastically changed. I guess the word in the English language that would best describe how I feel today is overjoyed. This whole day was pretty nuts but the way it turned out couldn’t have been better. Wow. We’re having a baby…. Which means I’m a dad…What a beautiful thing.

Pay Per View

Hooray! As of last Saturday I have contacts again!
I'd like to thank my wife Lindsey so much for taking on the daunting task of waitressing in order for us to do things we normally could not. Thanks to her I'm back to my glasses-less self and once again paying to use my eyes as everyone else does completely free of charge. uh. Yeah. I'm just glad to get that metal off my face. Thanks babe! Love ya!

Worth 1,000

So I decided against writing about all Fred's trips. (See post: What The Fred) The reason is two-fold actually. 1: It would take most of my free time to accomplish (which I am most unwilling to surrender) and B: I know it's just not the best idea in the world. However, in light of recent circumstances I am going to post this screenshot as a wrapup to the whole ordeal. The producers have been helping me finish a project that *ahem* has made us miss two deadlines on thus far. Thank God it's an internal project. Anyway, my co-producers have been dropping render files on my desktop upon completing their sections and we're now nearing the final deadline. Today I saw this folder on my desktop. Click to enlarge if you can't read the title of it.

Insufficient Disk Space to Free Up Disk Space

It's been so busy around work that I've had no time to back up any recent projects off my Fantom Drive. Of course, when it was slow I didn't back up too much either. :-) Anyway, there is a ton of stuff from Marcos, the producer who had this computer before me, lingering on there taking up half the space, then there's mine on the other half. So yes, if you've done your math correctly that equals one whole. One whole Fantom Drive with a whole lotta projects that need to be backed up. It also equals an entire 2GB free on my Fantom! Joy. Now that I just finished a huge project, i can start solving the problem. I opened my first rather large project to back up and had to re-render it since I deleted the render files because I needed the space yesterday to render a DVD Project. So I "Option+R" to start the process to be laid to tape and I think, "wouldn't it be funny if I didn't even have enough disk space to render the file I'm trying to backup?" I stepped away from my computer for only a moment and when I came back my mind had changed. It wasn't funny. (Well it was, but it's also very not) I searched for anything I knew I could delete and trashed enough to re-re-render the project. It's laying to tape now and once I can delete this project the backup process should be well underway. Now if you'll excuse me, it looks like it's going to be a boring day.

Haha, What?

Link

I Heart My Identity Thief.

While standing in the Post Office today I caught glimpse of a poster advertising ways to protect yourself from identity theft. It wasn't to far into the list until I started wondering if anyone has ever had their bad credit identity stolen only to realize that their credit was being improved upon. Dan and I conversed about this modern day robin hood whose sole objective would be to find the people with bad credit, steal their identity and go around making credit card payments on time and correcting their financial mishaps. That put a smirk on my face. Just thought it might yours.

After Effects Plug-ins Every User Should Demo

Lets face it. All companies involved with any kind of post-production deal with the same problem. Given there are a few times in a producers life when one can play with effects for hours to get just the right look, feel and style, most of the time we’re forced to crank it out to be ready yesterday while still maintaining a graphical quality similar to the other high budget projects. At times, it’s enough to make a producer go crazy. Well thanks to the wonderful world of plug-ins life is a whole lot easier. This post is for fellow After Effects users looking for the right plug-in to either save time and/or make stuff look really really ridiculously good looking. So without further impedance here’s my personal list of the top After Effects Plug-ins I’ve been fortunate enough to use. (In no particular order)

• TRAPCODE PLUGS:

- PARTICULAR is a 3D particle system which you control via the built in or comp camera. To see examples visit their GALLERY.
- 3D SROKE is exactly what it sounds like. You’ve seen this on the WB as well as many other commercials. 3D Stroke allows you to animate organic lines based off the mask shape in a layer.
- SHINE is the overly used effect that clients will actually ask for by name. It emits rays of light from the layer applied. Word of caution on this one. Do not use the default Shine settings unless you want your project to look like the cookie cutter Shine logo animation that the world has seen over and over. In talking with Peter Norby (creator of Trapcode) he commented that Trapcode prides themselves in the fact that you can apply the raw effect and it looks great without any tweaking which I agree with 100% but the only problem is that it’s so good that everyone uses it’s default. Which I guess isn’t a problem for sales, but as far as being original well, you get my point. Please use tastefully for your own sake.
- STARGLOW creates a unique glow with angled rays. You can customize each rays length and color, nice.
- SOUND KEYS - Someone out there right now is looking for this plug-in. Sound Keys will save you hours animating an object to audio. With this plug-in you can set the level marker of your bass, mid, and treble and tell the object to animate somehow (scale, position, etc.) only whenever the audio hits that frequency. View the samples to get a real idea of what it can do.
- LUX – Ever needed for the light in After Effects to show the cone? Well now all you have to do is apply Lux. Yes, it’s that easy and that rocks.

• DIGITAL ANARCHY:

- SMOOTH TILER – Think of a kaleidoscope. It’s similar to that, in that this plug-in mirrors your image on different sides creating a very unusual outcome.
- DESIGNER BLUR is cool because it has preset shapes you can blur your image into (circle, square, star) and the thing I like best about this plug is that you can choose custom and import your own shape to blur. I think I may die from the overwhelming joy.
- NOISE COMPLEX makes some very nice noise, which will aid nicely when attempting to recreate the old time footage of a history portion of a video.
- PSUNAMI WATER – Holy crap, this is by far the best water I’ve ever seen created with After Effects. If you need water and you need it to be done in AE look no further. Try the demo!

• MAGIC BULLET SUITE:

- LETTERBOXER – Hmm, I wonder what this does? Yes it’s simple, but how often do you spend time creating a black solid and adding a mask to it to crop your video to letterbox? This effective plug allows you to manipulate the aspect ratio of the letter box quickly and easily.
- LOOK SUITE – And yes it certainly does! Polish off your finished video with a film look or apply a color tint to it, adjust the contrast, gamma, saturation and add diffusion all in one place! Gives video that extra something that so many others lack.
- MISFIRE – The MisFire is a complete set of effects that has anything to do with fire. Need the little pieces of ash flying up through the air, no problem. Heat waves above the flames warping the background? Done deal. It’s not just fire however, there are also effects such as “Basic (and Deep) Scratches” making video look like old film and “Vignette” which I used to create from scratch using another black layer and a feathered mask. This is way easier and faster. You’ll be seeing me use this one in the future.

• OBVIOUS FX:

- ERODILATION – Hooray for free-ness! Seems to blur the image in box form creating a nice stylized look when applied in moderation.

• ZAXWERKS:

- 3D INVIGORATOR – After picking my jaw up off the floor, this plug-in allowed me to produce the most professional-looking 3D text in After Effects I have ever seen! Zaxwerks will save you tons of time by adding z-depth to text or any Illustrator 8 file. Very clean and effective. They also have a stand-alone program called Pro Animator if you’re not so AE friendly.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have. Learn to use them tastefully behind a strong creative idea and you’re on your way to creating award-winning motion graphics!

Gala Recap

Have you ever done something then realized that what you just did was (and made you look) really stupid? That happens to me all the time. As long as you can laugh at yourself, it does make life more enjoyable.

Last nights' Gala was fun. I never heard the final head count, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say there were around 300 that came through for a look see. The owners of JPL came in (uninvited) possibly returning Jacqlyn's favor (showing up to their party uninvited) or just peeking in to see what the competition has going. Seb and Jacqlyn took it as a compliment and held their heads high the rest of the night knowing that they must be making some kind of lasting impression upon their company. They tried getting inside information on a rather large project Triscari is positioning for but no one would talk. Haha, one of the guys took a Triscari Crew shirt from the prize table before exiting out the rear of the tent. I can't imagine why, but it sure does make me respect their company. sheesh.
Anyway, yes the beer and food was great. I got to show my wife through the building again after all the renovations we've completed. Other than that we just sat around talking, eating and drinking. Oh, and I was told by a client that I was "workin that tux."

Now. I just downloaded a plethora very appealing After Effects Plug-in demos so if you'll excuse me. I'll be posting my favorite plug's in a few so keep an eye out.

And for those wondering if I will ever tie in the opening paragraph - no.

Tonight's The Night

So tonight's the night. Triscari has invited clients and prospects alike to join us in the celebration of our Grand Re-Opening (a.k.a. sales pitch). Out of the 1,000 invitations they ordered so far approx 150 people have R.S.V.P.'d. The place is looking nicer than ever and the red carpet out front does the place up real nice. The telly's are on display, people are getting changed into their tuxs and suits, and it's just about show time. I'll let you know how the evening goes down mañana. As for me, I'm going for the free food and beer. Oh yeah, and because I don't want to be fired.

What The Fred?!

There is a particular individual among us at work that makes our jobs much tougher and more painful. For his sake I'll just call him Fred. And from what I can gather, he seems to be completely unemployable. I could easily fill a page with posts of examples of his blunders and quirks that annoy the hell out of the producers. For example. Right now he's standing outside my doorway in the hallway with a blank stare, looking at the floor. I know what he's thinking, we all do. Absolutely nothing. And even Fred himself doesn't know why he's there at this moment. The way I live my life I assume everyone is intelligent, capable human beings with a conscience and other basic traits that I myself was raised with, unless they prove otherwise. I don't assume they will fail me in anyway, I give them a clean slate to start out on just as I hope they would do for me. Well Fred is one of those people that will prove otherwise every single day. So I've decided, for both therapeutic and humorous reasons, that I will try my best to describe Fred's actions from this day forth in my blog. As my beautiful wife so adequately put, "This should be interesting".

Labor Day 2005

This labor day was great. Well actually the combination of the events occurring on the surrounding days in conjunction with the actual day itself was great. Er, yeah. The long weekend rocked! I think Linz and I went to about four different parties! Here's a breakdown for my own memories and for anyone else who cares to read on.

We arrived late Friday night after fighting traffic to get back to good ol' Delaware. No parties tonight just tension about where to put our unappreciated dogs. Saturday was much better. We went to an old friends' dads' house to celebrate his 50th birthday. The quote of the party came from my Grandfather: "It's sad that you were only born in 1955, I have neckties older than that." That night we went to Irish Eyes, a Restaurant / Bar on the water in Lewes to hear a band called "The Funsters" play. Contrary to their name (and website), their music is good and they create a nice live atmosphere.

Sunday was another family gathering up-state. Lindsey's Aunt & Uncle have big parties whenever they can find a reason and it really is a lot of fun. I remember going to these events when we first started dating. It was very foreign to me then but now I feel right at home. We got to bring the dogs and they had a blast running around and meeting people. We're trying to let them get out and be more social, or as social as dogs can be anyway. The rest of the day was spent chill-axin' by the pool.

Monday. Yay! It's 9:00 and I'm getting up and refusing to even think about work. I always thought that they should have called it "Labor Not Day" because Labor Day just sounds like...well...a day full of labor, and no one wants celebrate that day in any country anywhere. Today we partook of more chill-axin' and for lunch dad took the two of us out to a coffee shop where I got to try a smoked salmon club sandwich. Very interesting, it was tasty but I think I'll try something different next time. Too much fish for one sitting. Around 5:00 we headed over to our last party of the weekend. They had their ATV's and Dirtbikes out and I was invited to go riding with my brother-in-law and father-in-law. This was my first time really riding a 4-wheeler on any kind of trail through the woods or at a speed that makes my eyes water. For lack of a better word, it was awesome. Whenever Lindsey and I move back down we will have ATV's. We just have to. You only live once right?

In conclusion, this Labor Day was the best ever. Of course, I don't really remember the other Labor Day's that I've lived through, but i did after all live through them, so that in and of itself is good...uh...yeah. **In Rocky the squirrel's voice (from Rocky and Bullwinkle)** "And now for something we hope you'll really like!."
Happy Labor Day!

Life's To Do List

Here's something interesting.

Things I will do before I die:

1. Buy a house
2. Own a Harley-Davidson
3. Own a Larrivee Acoustic guitar with "Emily" headstock inlay
4. Raise Children
5. Get out of debt
6. Vacation in Italy
7. Vacation in Ireland
8. Get a tattoo
9. Be well read with an overall better understanding of the English Language.
10. Write inspirational songs with that knowledge.
11. Pass any knowledge and wisdom I gain on to those who need it

I'd like to see some comments on what things other people want to accomplish or do before they die. Please comment if you have time!

Duct Tape

Duct Tape has always been a secret weapon. Long before the movie Red Green dubbed it the “Handyman’s Secret Weapon,” duct tape was used as a tear-by-hand mending material to keep moisture out of World War II ammunition boxes. Duct tape got its official name in the 1950s when it was commonly used to secure duct work for forced furnaces. Since then, its versatility and the worlds creativity has made it the cure-all for lots of everyday problems. But this? This is just freakin' incredible. Or insane. I haven't really determined which. But probably insane. Crazy Canadians. :-)

Last.fm

This is pretty cool.

Last.fm is the flagship product from the team that designed the Audioscrobbler system, a music engine based on a massive collection of Music Profiles. Each music profile belongs to one person, and describes their taste in music. Last.fm uses these music profiles to make personalized recommendations, match you up with people who like similar music, and generate custom radio stations for each person.

After picking a username and signing up, you would typically install an Audioscrobbler Plugin for your media player (iTunes, Winamp etc..) which sends the name of every song you play on your computer to Last.fm. Over time, this list of songs grows larger and larger - you can see your personal listening charts on your userpage. Last.fm automatically finds people with a similar taste, and generates music recommendations for you.

If you have a broadband internet connection, you should grab the Last.fm Player. This is a small application that plays you Last.fm radio - where each listener gets different songs, all picked automatically depending on your music taste.

There are dozens of other entertaining and useful aspects of Last.fm, but you'll have to sign up and explore them for yourself :)

It's also a good way to find other bands similar to the ones you listen to. Networking rocks! :: view mine ::

A Deserving Link(s)

Since Katrina's attack on New Orleans, we've seen the effects here, hundreds of miles away, in gas prices among other things. While I am mostly grateful for the service and convenience gas stations provide, I often find myself fuming at the rocketing prices I am forced to pay. Well today I came across something that made me laugh it all off. Apparently this guy made a blog dedicated to bashing gas stations' websites. (I wasn't even aware gas stations had websites) I can appreciate this being a designer myself but I think I mostly enjoy it because I feel that at least someone is giving retribution to the matter. Gas stations have even contacted him and asked him to stop making fun of their websites. It reminds me of another favorite link of mine where Maddox rates little kids' artwork. Haha, goofy Maddox. So whether you need retribution like me or just would like a quick good laugh. Be sure to check these links out.

3 Cotton Balls

Tonight I had Dan and Jon over to have a sort of mini Halo 2 tournament, going through every map (including the new ones off xbox live). About half way through them Jon goes to the bathroom. No biggie, we kill him and start the next level. We come close to finishing that level and ask ourselves "What's he doing in there?" So we yell "Hey Jon, ya need any help in there? Hahaha" and he mumbles something that we can't hear over the blasting and blazing of the game. Well come to find out, there was no more TP and he was trying to tell us that he needed some. So Dan hesitantly asks, "well, what did you do?"

Jon: Well I found some cotton balls.
Josh & Dan: HAHAHA, really?!
Dan: The big kind or the small kind?
Jon: The small kind, I only used three!
Josh: How is that even possible?
Everyone: *laughter*
Everyone: *plays halo 2*

After they left I went into the bathroom and the funny thing is that there was toilet paper! It was behind the hanging towel directly in front of the toilet, which I think is a strange place to put it in the first place. Well, thanks for the laugh Jon!

Nice Mac RSS Aggregator

Ever since Dan started writing about cool things in his blog and inspired me to start my own) I've been half-looking for a good stand-alone RSS Aggregator to view his among other blogs and news feeds. Well last week we buckled down and finaly found one. NetNewsWire. To quote the website: It's an easy-to-use RSS and Atom newsreader for Mac OS X. It has a familiar three-paned interface (similar to Apple Mail) which can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs, making it quick and easy to keep up with the latest news. I love it because you don't have to launch a browser and hit all the different blogs or news sites. Many news sources send out RSS feeds in shorter headline only forms which is nice for short-attention-spanned people such as myself. A downside to NetNewsWire is that you cannot view comments on blogs without clicking the article link which opens the actual URL in a built-in browser type window. Nonetheless, It still has my seal of pretty-good-ness.

Useful & Free

Today I cam across something I wish I had about 4 months ago when I really needed it. If I had a dollar for every time that happened...I'd have one dollar. I needed to capture a website for use in a TV commercial but the screenshot I took only got the part of the site that was viewable in the browser. I needed the whole thing. So what I did was just scroll down and take another couple screenshots and then Photoshoped them together. Well that sucks you say? Yes, it DID until I found "Paparazzi!" a free program for Mac OS X that allows you to capture an entire page no matter how long (height) the site is. The only problem with this program, however, is that when you need to capture a flash site, Paparazzi! takes a screenshot too fast and gets the page with a large blank spot in the middle where the .swf should be.
Try it out yourself here.

The Question Of The Day

While installing Adobe's Photoshop CS2 today I encountered a rather unusual prompt. I opened Adobe's updater only to find that the most recent version of Photoshop has an old version of updater. That or the new version was telling me that there was a newer one available for download. It wanted me to update the updater before searching and installing any possible updates. Go Figure. Here's a screenshot of the question I faced upon successfully completing the installation.



Which brings about another, somewhat unrelated, question. What did the developers use to create the GUI for the very first version of Photoshop?
Food for thought.

Reminisced Threats

Since nothing exciting that I'm willing to write about is happening currently in my life, allow me to reminisce upon murderous threats placed on my life a few months ago. Linz and I met some friends at Trindle Bowl planning on a fun-filled night of hurling heavy round objects at further away stationary objects when a few of us realized that they didn't accept anything except cash. About eight of us walked outside planning to drive to the nearest ATM when suddenly some jerk in a red Cherokee with his window down and stopped in front of the building said "I don't remember seeing any f*king stop sign" in a tone begging for a quarrel. Without any thought I turned and gave him a "WTF?" look, knowing that his vehicle had been stationary since the time we walked out of the building. I just ignored him and continued talking to my friends about who was riding with who and so forth when again he made a smart remark concerning us walking in front of his parked car. I knew he was staring at me in particular because I was the first across and I'm the one that "caused" the problem in his mind. Finally after more remarks I said back "Look man, I'm not sure what made your day so crappy that you feel the need to impose it upon us, we're having a great time." Then I walked away with the people I was driving. And out comes the dragons. This guy and his little friend had to have been high on something, the driver was cursing and telling me he was going to kill me and he wanted to fight me. I laughed and shook my head at first but my heart was racing. This kind of thing doesn't happen to me...Ever. So I'm basically ignoring him and walking away. My friends were lagging because they didn't really know what was going on until his friend flicked a cigarette butt onto a girl we were with. We're half way through the parking lot to our car, we're getting pretty mad and these guys are still following us. Josh, one of my friends with us stopped and told them that he was an officer of the law and they better get in line. (Josh is actually a security guard) We got to our car and started getting in and this guy is standing 2 feet away from my open door, threatening me, my wife and my friends. So at this point (in which I was pretty nervous) I stood up and faced him looked him straight in the eye and said "Look, I'm not going to fight you tonight, you need to get back in your car and leave us the hell alone." Woah! Did I just say that?! It felt good to stand up for myself, my wife and my friends. Meanwhile, Lindsey is hanging out of the passengers door yelling, "Josh, lets GO. You don't know what he's got! He could have anything, he's crazy!" I know she's trying to help because she's concerned for me but I'm just thinking "Great babe, your probably fueling his fire". I didn't want to get cut or shot by some asshole that thinks he's the stuff cause he's high and has nothing better to do on a Friday night. So for Lindsey, I got in the car and we left. The driver says "C'mon scooter, lets go!" and they run back to their Cherokee and yell "We're going to follow you!" which they did with their high beams on while our other friend Nick called the cops and told them about what happened and gave them their plate number. Not even a half mile down the road they swerve over to the 581 exit and speed off like the cool guys they are. With my heart still racing, my mind tried to conceive what just took place. Looking back on it, I think everyone has times in their life where they encounter a situation like this and get a chance to stand up for themselves and/or their friends and family. When you take such opportunities and do what needs to be done and take a stand instead of backing down and letting them push you around, you feel good inside. So next time a high person says he's going to kill you, look him straight in the eye and say whatever it is you need to say to stand up to him. (and pray hard you don't die!)

Abandonment...?

Ever since Lindsey and I moved into our new apartment, we've never seen the people that live adjacent to us in the hallway. I assumed no one was renting there and went on about my business. That is until one day I saw an eviction notice taped to the door. A couple more weeks went by and we noticed a second notice taped on top of the first. Now, I'm not a nosy person by any means but this was very peculiar so I stopped to read that the reason for eviction was due to the failure to pay their rent. We've been here what - four months - and never did see them so I can only assume that they left before then. We started to imagine what might have happened to the renters. "Maybe they got kidnapped and/or killed and they don't have any close realatives or friends - should we call someone?" or "Maybe they were really old and just died inside and no one knows about it yet." All these ideas were bogus and basically resulted from our daily dose of CSI. Anyway, since then, someone (or something (haha, just kidding)) took down the notices and tonight while taking the dogs out the apartment people were clearing out televisions and tables and other belongings left behind. So much for our exciting CSI should've been show stories.

Where's Waldo Now?

The question cam up today while talking with Dan, What ever happened to those classic Where's Waldo books? I remember sitting in the chiropractors waiting room reading the only good book I, as a 13 yr old, can find: "Where's Waldo?". Hours passed by seeming as minutes in that waiting room trying to find the sole hero of the book in the midst of his worldly chaos. Which beckons the question, why WAS he always voluntarily in the midst of chaos anyway? Don't you ever go home and lounge Waldo? Don't you ever like to visit your family or sit down to a nice quiet dinner with your significant other? Or are you just another form of control the media has tactfully put into place to subliminally control the minds of the American youth telling us all to just accept the world around us and that there's nothing we can do about it?
Regardless, the outcome of my Waldo book waiting room experiences resulted in a few happy memories and feelings of extreme satisfaction (finding him) or utmost smite (failing at a child's book).
I did a brief search on where's Waldo on the internet and I found something that made me laugh. I'm posting it just for you. [ link ]

Vector Addiction

About a month ago I started getting into a style of digital art known as vector art. I had been showing my beautiful wife Lindsey some examples on deviantART, a site designed specifically for artists like myself to post their work and have other artists around the world comment on it. She began to show an interest in how vector was done so I showed her. We started our first vectors together and I am about half way through mine and she has about 6 completed. I should note, however, that our styles do differ. She takes a more stylized simplistic approach while I go for more realistic look. Hopefully I will find the time to finish my first sometime, but for now definitely check out hers.

Halo's Corner Of Doom

Today a Dan (a fellow co-worker) and I played a fast round of Halo over lunch. During our game I went to a particularly dark and shadowy part of the map to hide until he walked by triggering my leap to assination. However, this plan (as many of my plans in Halo) did not go as expected. Instead I snuck into the corner only to find myself falling through the solid floor to my doom and looking up at the world I had previously just been a part of. After sharing my encounter with what I entitled the "corner of doom", Dan and I went falling through the floor one after another, respawning and repeating. Since we play halo on our Mac's at work we take heavy advantage of the screenshot feature. I've posted a few here. Enjoy.