So some of you may know that today is  amonomega's birthday.

( and here was his birthday gift http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2916864/ ) :3

Some of you guys may have seen that we have a great friendship... that well borderlines homosexual awesomeness ( and if you saw us at FWA you thought even more so.... XP ) Joking aside ( because missus  cherushi would have both words and fists to discuss with me )

Maybe I can give you guys some insight on what is a very important friendship to me.

He and I met toward the end of 2004 at the Art institute of Atlanta through our mutual friend  neph I was loud and boisterous at the time and he was quiet but still fun to talk to. A few months later he left for Canada to be with the love of his life.. (AND IT'S NOT ME BAAAWWW XPP) This being a fairly necessary move I understood.

During the time he was there, I had spoken to him online. In secret I admired his work. So if you all saw a radical change in my work long before now, you can thank Amon. While my work is far more influenced by Chris Sanders now than it used to be it was because he put me into a few practices that made me really challenge myself.

During though, through this period of time that he was away a few things happened. I flunked out of school because my grades were so bad. All of it was my fault.. I hadn't grown up enough yet and didn't set my priorities yet.

This cracked a bit of reality on my head...I could either just accept life in mediocrity or... I could actually try in life and refuse to both quit and fail... and I chose to lift myself back up.

I got back into school and attacked my grades with a vengeance.. Though overall it wasn't about the grades, it was challenging myself to do better. If I could do better in it, then I simply would.

The loud and boisterous person i once was disappeared. I wasn't as social and found myself with less friends... almost to the point of loneliness. I had even distanced myself from my older friends in Michigan. The people I grew up with. But no one got it. No one saw that I not only wanted to do well in what I was doing, I wanted to become this uncompromised individual who didn't need an excuse.. for anything. I would soon find, however, less friends, but more meaningful friendships.

Alex came back in 2007. Now either he had changed as well, or I was discovering the person he was all along, but I had found someone with a very very similar aspiration. Artistically I still looked up to him ( which holds true to now ) so we hit it off.

We eventually started taking on projects together. We worked AWESOMELY together. Being able to bounce ideas off each other and making these nuggets of thought shine like diamonds. We found ways that worked well and not so well together. We competed and even taught together as TA's for the same teacher (who is still a dear friend to the both of us) He and I had a lot of fun teaching students, and even were asked by other teachers to come in and either lecture, tutor, assist.. even substitute because we both had so much charisma and love for animation and the process.

Graduation for him came along ( a quarter before mine ) and he found himself heading back out to Canada to be with his hintended. I kinda knew that was to happen. Didn't make it any easier. So for one final hurrah before he left we went to see Star Trek the movie and went to the Marietta diner for some Chocolate Suicide cake and beer ( okay well he drank but I was treating because I'm awesome ) Talked about everything and had an awesome evening.

Lol this friendship is far from over and I simply wanted to talk about the path up to this point. Eventually we'll be working at the same studio together creating AWESOME animated features and projects that will hopefully inspire other artists to love the medium the way we do, or simply inspire people.

So for a man who has been an artistic inspiration, a good friend and a brother to me who has presented me with one of the most important friendships in my life. Happy birthday man.