Gracie's Toy Box

I made Grace a toy box for Christmas. It is painted to match the color scheme in her room at Megan's house. I had some help from Benjamin. Ben made the signature block on the bottom of the box... with his own tools.  The box is simple plywood construction with a piano hinge. The biggest problem making the box was my unheated workspace. When I glued things together I had to bring the box into the house so the glue would set. I painted it in the house as well. 

Oktapodi

This looks to be a fantstic animation.  The Making of video is especially nice as you can see all of the creative thinking and original sketches, paintings and thinking before it goes to 3D.  It is always an inspiration to look at these things.  I hope you enjoy.  Oktapodi

Christmas Eve

Well we are almost into it now.. I guess I should begin my shopping soon. Just joking - I actually have a lot done, but I do have to finish up a toybox for a special little girl. - - - and I still have some wrapping to do. It has begun to rain here, the snow is beginning to melt and Jason has landed in New York. Santa has likely taken off and is dropping goodies into stockings on the far side of the world. Carol is home cooking and we are all expecting a good time this evening. Most of all I want to send my very best wishes to everyone for the Christmas season, whether you celebrate Christmas or something else, or nothing at all these good wishes are for you health and happiness and all the success in the coming year but most of all to wish you peace in life.

Latest Stop Motion Find

Every once in a while you come across something that just grabs your imagination. I love this stop motion piece and can't imagine the work that went into it. This is a great small animation.  I hope you enjoy.  Find it here

Christmas is Close

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas 

Must Watch XMAS thing

This is a great Merry Christmas spot... click here Watch in HD -- very cool

Fish Dog

Now this is a brilliant piece of animation/visual effects.... I absolutely love it. Someone has a really beautifully sick mind. Fish Dog  ---- looks like a good pet for a boater,

Luxor Update

Well Benny just scored big in Luxor... he is now ahead of me by 40,000 points. But the levels are getting harder and maybe I can redeem myself. In any event we are having a good time playing each evening. Tomorrow we may play - "World of Goo" 

New map with street images

I came across this site the other day -- www.mapjack.com -- they have something similar to street view in google maps but a much higher resolution of photography. This may develop into a pretty cool site.  They have already photographed all of San Francisco and other areas of California and a lot of Thailand. I found Jason house and car --- if you go to MapJack and then  San Francisco and type in 640 Ortega Street - turn and look south and you can see Jason's Honda in the drive. That is his house, up all those steps.  It just fun to explore an area this way. I though you might enjoy it.

Getting Ready for Best of 2008

I am getting ready for the World Wide Panoramas winter event which is themed the 'Best of 2008' I am thinking of posting a VR (virtual reality 360º photograph) that I took this past July during the sunset of our first day of cruising to NY City.  We were at Anchor in a safe harbor in Fishers Island, NY.   This is the first New York State land you approach when coming from the East along Long Island Sound. The anchorage was great with perfect weather and a spectacular sunset over the far Connecticut shore. The water was full of large red jellyfish that evening so we didn't do any swimming.  

I would like to hear your comments on this image.  I have until the 23rd of December to post this to the exhibition. Let me know what you think. The page may take a minute to load as the file is almost 2mb.  For those of you who may be new to VR photography you can simply click on the image and drag it around to change the view. QuickTime is required.

A Cool Motion Graphics Site

I came across this site and their interface is pretty cool. You get to play pong while the site is loading. The "Ping Pong" video on their 'motion' link is really the best. It is an all Flash site so I can't link directly to the video or I would -- but enjoy the site. The company - called 21-19 -- is located in Melbourne Australia. Will update blog further this evening and will have Benny help.

The link is here.

New After Effects Tutorial Site

For those of you out there that are After Effects fans, and you know who you are, here is a new site I hope flourishes  - Red Giant TV.  The person giving the tutorial is Aharon Rabinowitz, who has been associated with the Creative Cow forum for the past several years. His tutorials are exceptional.  I have a collection of about 100 or so of his tutorials. I had known that he left the Cow and am delighted to see him resurface and with a new and complete toot. So check out this new source of AE tutorials. It is on the Red Giant site... they sell cool stuff. Go here.

Sunspots

I have been following sunspots recently, or I should say the lack of them.  Solar cycle 24 was supposed to have begun in January of 2008 and just hasn't shown up yet. Sunspots generally keep our climate warm, at least at the temperatures we are accustomed to. This year we have not had many -any- sun spots. I think we may be in for a cold winter. Here is a link to a great site for daily observations.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

This is the site for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. There is lots of great information as well as beautiful images of the sun here. Really a great place to visit.

The picture at the top of this page

The picture is no longer at the top of the page -- this is it.... Thanks Dick.

A special thanks to Richard Benjamin for allowing the use of the picture at the top of this page. Dick took the picture last Sunday December 6th during the morning snow. Dick told me that he took two shots handheld with his Canon 5D and stitched them with PTGui. So thanks Dick for taking the time and taking the shot. Richard Benjamin is the premiere photographer for our fine state of Rhode Island, his work can be seen at www.photosofri.com

Hopefully Tapestry will get her winter covering this week and finalize all the winterizing. She stays in the water all winter and is a great place to hang out on weekends.

Tonight's Luxor Game

Benny and I just finished our Luxor game for tonight... he kicked my butt tonight, by about 3500 points.  It sure is fun hanging out on the phone with him.  I may be changing things around as I learn more about this blogging stuff.  Stay tuned... it has got to get more interesting than this.

Day 2 of this blog

This morning it is raining and very windy... not that this has anything to do with anything but am trying to figure out what the hell you are supposed to write that is interesting in a blog.  OK - so the weather isn't all that interesting.  Last night Benny and I had a Luxor contest.  He was at his house and I was at mine and we both played the same game at the same time while talking on the phone.  After seven levels I was ahead by 3000 points, the day before Benny was 10,000 points ahead of me... I kicked butt. 

So here is an interesting image I just received from an old Navy buddy, and the best man at my wedding, Paul Sankey.  Can you guess what they are loading onto the plane? Yes that is right, it is a 5 mb hard drive from IBM, 1956.  Makes you appreciate the 4 GB thumb drive you have in your pocket.

Re-posting link

OK, I just noticed that the link I posted yesterday did not go through for some reason. Am still learning. If you have an interest in stop motion animation... this is very cool.

http://www.designrelated.com/inspiration/view/Karen/entry/2839

I am amazed with the levels of detail achieved here.

Great Animation Link

So here is a great link to a post I recently discovered.  Very cool - work intensive animation.

Getting Started

Hello everyone, I am finally getting a blog up and running.  Hopefully this will be a repository of creative thinking, family and friends tales and a place where we can all communicate and share things. But like all ideas, expectations are high and reality almost always sends us down a different path.  I will try to post interesting things, useful or fun links and personal stories from time to time.  Let me know what you would like to see here and  I will try to accommodate.