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Oh, #*@!...and news.
10 years ago
It has been a long and rough few months... Classes have been going rather poorly, meaning that I might be changing career options in a hard way, I found out that my long standing job is no longer existent, I'm feeling completely drained and even though classes are over I'll still likely be putting in several hours a day for the next 2 weeks to salvage what I can.
That isn't what made me write this today though and this is partially a venting post. Being the last day of classes, I decided that I was taking a break no matter what. Of course this means me doing art to relax. I usually have a few pictures going at once to keep me motivated and I chose the one that I'm almost done, hoping to do some good work. It's a larger file, I'm running on an underpowered laptop and after a recent OS reinstall, haven't gotten around to redoing some of the drivers; so it crashed. No big deal, Krita asks if I want to recover the file and I do. Upon save, however, I click the wrong file and it was a while before I realized this.
#*@!...
It wasn't the fact that I overwrote a file. It was the fact that I overwrote THAT file. Part of my resolution on detail involved doing a massive picture. I also opted for a single layer paint and to to a crash coarse in brush technique. I was tinkering with this for the past several months and probably had over 70 hours sunk into it.
#*@!, %$&^$!!
While I was running some data recovery, I went through all five stages of grief over losing this. Luckily, that means that I'm on acceptance and think that I can redo it better than before. The recovery didn't get the file, but I'll be filtering through the files to make sure, but that still hurt.
ANYWAY, onto the news. I'll get the slightly exciting stuff out of the way first and then go into what will relate to you out there. For over a year now I've been collaborating on what will eventually become an art gallery installation. Don't ask on exactly what, I was brought on because of my brief animation experience and skills, and the stuff that I do involves making pretty pictures, not abstract and deep impressionism. The final product isn't done, but my partner needed funding and I did up a short letter explaining some stuff on Open Source, collaboration and stuff like that. The great news is that it was worked into a paper and I'm being listed as a co-author in a graduate level publication. It is probably a little premature, but I did get a text and email with some paperwork that I think I have to do, but it's a pretty big opportunity!
Now for the stuff that you might find useful. I'll be opening up for commissions in a few weeks once exams are done. I have yet to work out pricing because since my last batch, I have improve a lot. They will still be relatively well priced, but if I'm spending 30 hours, $30 doesn't quite cover it. I'll probably offer digital sketches for cheaper and will think of some other stuff that won't be as much and won't take so long. If you have any ideas, whether it's stuff I've done in the past, something I should be looking into (ie, badges) or what you would think is a reasonable price, drop me a comment or note. I'll also take this as an official call for slots, if you want to reserve a spot (without any sort of commitment) before prices are posted, just send me a note; as usual any one of my sites work.
TL;DR:
Life's been sucking a fair bit, I'm an idiot, I'm getting published and I'm open for COMMISSIONS with prices coming soon.
Hope to hear what y'all are thinking,
~CW
That isn't what made me write this today though and this is partially a venting post. Being the last day of classes, I decided that I was taking a break no matter what. Of course this means me doing art to relax. I usually have a few pictures going at once to keep me motivated and I chose the one that I'm almost done, hoping to do some good work. It's a larger file, I'm running on an underpowered laptop and after a recent OS reinstall, haven't gotten around to redoing some of the drivers; so it crashed. No big deal, Krita asks if I want to recover the file and I do. Upon save, however, I click the wrong file and it was a while before I realized this.
#*@!...
It wasn't the fact that I overwrote a file. It was the fact that I overwrote THAT file. Part of my resolution on detail involved doing a massive picture. I also opted for a single layer paint and to to a crash coarse in brush technique. I was tinkering with this for the past several months and probably had over 70 hours sunk into it.
#*@!, %$&^$!!
While I was running some data recovery, I went through all five stages of grief over losing this. Luckily, that means that I'm on acceptance and think that I can redo it better than before. The recovery didn't get the file, but I'll be filtering through the files to make sure, but that still hurt.
ANYWAY, onto the news. I'll get the slightly exciting stuff out of the way first and then go into what will relate to you out there. For over a year now I've been collaborating on what will eventually become an art gallery installation. Don't ask on exactly what, I was brought on because of my brief animation experience and skills, and the stuff that I do involves making pretty pictures, not abstract and deep impressionism. The final product isn't done, but my partner needed funding and I did up a short letter explaining some stuff on Open Source, collaboration and stuff like that. The great news is that it was worked into a paper and I'm being listed as a co-author in a graduate level publication. It is probably a little premature, but I did get a text and email with some paperwork that I think I have to do, but it's a pretty big opportunity!
Now for the stuff that you might find useful. I'll be opening up for commissions in a few weeks once exams are done. I have yet to work out pricing because since my last batch, I have improve a lot. They will still be relatively well priced, but if I'm spending 30 hours, $30 doesn't quite cover it. I'll probably offer digital sketches for cheaper and will think of some other stuff that won't be as much and won't take so long. If you have any ideas, whether it's stuff I've done in the past, something I should be looking into (ie, badges) or what you would think is a reasonable price, drop me a comment or note. I'll also take this as an official call for slots, if you want to reserve a spot (without any sort of commitment) before prices are posted, just send me a note; as usual any one of my sites work.
TL;DR:
Life's been sucking a fair bit, I'm an idiot, I'm getting published and I'm open for COMMISSIONS with prices coming soon.
Hope to hear what y'all are thinking,
~CW
I came close to swapping majors because I started flunking classes at the higher levels, it came down to one do-or-die class... but I passed it. It did not do much good for my morale, I was getting pretty cagey, and even now wonder if I really "deserve" the degree.
That is pretty much what I'm going through. I'm giving serious thought to switching from Electrical to Computer Engineering anyway and can likely pull off a passing grade in my classes, just not the prerequisite mark I need. It's not even that the classes are particularly hard but I lost focus and bombed the midterms. If I do switch, I'll be doing more practical things, rather than just the analysis classes that always kill me.
The morale hit is probably the worst part. I do believe though that it is almost better to go through it because it gives a bit of perspective and makes us step back from the situation for a while.
Bit of deja vu there. I was Mechanical and had a TA trying to seduce me to Computer, because, apparently, me documenting my code in the entry-level computer courses put me a cut above the rest. It was tempting, as for some reason, I handily passed as a blow-off course, banging out solid code at the last hour just before class, while listening to the insane Japanese banter of whatever it was the Anime Club was watching. With 4 windows of text open just like the Hollywood stereotype of what a programmer is. One of my fonder memories of the college experience. But I knew if I pursued it as a career, I wouldn't have it so easy once I got into the real computer classes.
Anyway, yeah, nothing like a college education to make you feel stupid, ironically enough.
I have some friends in Computer and when I see what they're doing, I'm usually jealous. I'm going through something similar where I can whip out some code without issue and usually at the last minute. In the 3 I've taken, my lowest mark is an A- and I haven't really had to try. It might just be the level that I'm at, but we're mostly dealing with signal and circuit analysis without actually applying it to a physical system or even designing anything. Without a proper problem to some or something to design I can't find much motivation.
Agreed. It takes a special kind masochist to pay for it too.
...and I can't tell you how many times I've had a dying computer take everything with it. this wasn't so bad back in the days of macs with 3.5" "floppys" (I'll never get that, honestly, it was colorful hard plastic chips about the same size and shape of the ones in TOS Star Trek). The files always had a life independent of the machine, until these newfangled internal hard drives came along ;p
I keep around 4 USBs in my bag at all times and always keep lab workspaces on them just in case the school server died. It's great until you leave one plugged in over the weekend and run in Monday hoping that it's still there. I haven't had much experience with floppies (I never liked the name either :/) but have some old DOS media disks on my self that I should eventually do something with. The thing that I'm going to be clinging to are CD drives because I refuse to pay for music online and not get a physical copy as backup and shelf decoration.
Never left a USB plugged in, but I did once forget an expensive graphing calculator in a computer lab. One class later and it was gone. I still scratch my head trying to figure the mentality of "I'm going to college but going to steal everything not nailed down while I'm at it..."
Had the reverse situation with the software class (visual basic programming), the computer major (my partner) would walk in each lab session with the program already done. I'd make him explain it to me and then do the write-up.
Ouch, I'd hate to lose any of my calculators, even the cheap ones. I understand the expensive equipment being bolted down, but I imagine it's that same mentality that made them strap the $5 (that might be giving them too much credit) wire strippers to the table.
that gave me this image of someone using the wire cutters to cut them free from the table :p
And I know what you mean about odd music being relaxing. Sometimes angry screaming metal centers me, if I'm really stressed it calms me, if I'm feeling lazy it pumps me up.