Again again!

I have no idea how often I am going to restart this stuff...

Yesterday my muse helped me challenge myself, so we are going to see what fruits that will bear. I have engaged a mini portfolio project. This project will consist of a minimum of:

• 2 still image edits
• 1 presentation
• 1 video reel
• A three image still transition / animation sequence
• A prerecorded video with overlays
• An original CGI segment

Late last night I started looking at my image editor and browsing some help files.
This morning using primarily selection tools, I made a rough first edit.

 This is what i finished with. Selection was created using mask painting, and the standard box, freehand, and ellipse tools in tandem with the boolean operators.

This is the original image. I desaturated the image and after tweaking some color values slapped the glass back into the picture. Might try to remove that annoying date stamp next.



Anyway... day one starting well. We will see how it goes.
Hopefully I can have the whole thing done by thanksgiving, but I know the CGI bit is going to take awhile.

Eureka!

Maybe... as this blog indicates, it is my lack of organization that is killing me. -BG-

I started in on one of the classes I was really getting into a while ago. Wanting very much to create a webpage to showcase what it is I am learning... reviewing... whatever...

Afraid of stepping on Copyrights... booger.

If intellectual rights were real... how the heck did we get this far... Pointy stick wasn't the sole property of urgh, baff and mazugh invented it too... How does learning spread if not by telling other peoples 'secrets'... just a thought. Rather than take out my frustration in an arena that may or may not be 'illegal', though upheld in court either way, I will just create the page on my harddrive (that's right, the cloud is a surefire way to get prosecuted boys and girls) that way i can review and question and look over my work until I am happy with it... Of course, that kinda of destroys the purpose of sharing my work in a blog... and makes this venture a waste of my time that i could be focusing on learning... and yet, without my self induced public ridicule i am not sure if I will stick with the project any longer than I have in the past...

decisions decisions.

Also Also wik... I have a job bid to run webpage for a friend of the family who makes and sells yard art and metal craft furniture... If anyone is interested please let me know. Owns and operates a welding shop, so if you have projects let me know and I'll pass the word. Might get back into Blender long enough to print out some concept designs and see if he is interested in making them... might be... interesting.

Well... I am going to quit blabbing on here for awhile and look into learning and organizing my thoughts a bit better.

sadness...

Good morning,

  Day next. Woke up and tried to save the life of a kitten this morning. We adopted her away from her mother a bit early, to avoid having her eaten by wild animals, or just becoming a Jaggy Wire... She got too cold, undernourished, something, and died today. Such is the nature of life i suppose. Tot barely acknowledged the event. Jay however had waterworks a flowin.

  One trauma down, time to get back to it. I have got to put a few hours in schooling today, and then hopefully tonight I'll be able to work through chapter two in the programming series.

  Putting this out for the world to see, i realized faster that I am quite flighty. Talking with the family about it I discover my weakness is still in finding drive to do things for myself. If someone wants to help me support my family, I am more than willing to learn how to help them, and with my background and skill set learning is a short process in most if not all cases, meaning I can be up and running pretty quick. But to leverage those skills to help myself... Is just not something I have in me in a direct manner. If I can find that... wow. look out. :D

  I guess, my annual blog is tailing to a close after the first week, as spending time with the family with a lack of organization or planning, is more important to me than investing the time to organize and plan, miss out on what is going on now... seems a bit counter to my purpose though... and that contradiction is lending to the weight of depression that was sparked by my leg and the last two years of political b.s. trying to get it fixed through 'proper channels'. lmao.

 

 

Day four: I think

So much for organization eh...

What I have, is one chapter, of nine, in a twelve week program complete...
starting today, and ending, today.

Sure it is one I have done before, though it has been awhile.
Sure, it is one of the most basic chapters in the entire course... being the first and all.
BUT! I did it in under two hours, with distraction, and while intoxicated...

That, is kind of a win I think. however small.

Also, one of my early projects has been defined in the same timeframe. As soon as I get windows capable, should be a few weeks, I am going to write a utility* that runs on a powered system and manages alarms, schedules, and plans and such. Adding items to the schedule should be fairly simple. and setting off an alarm when the time has become now should again be fairly simple...

I will be running this on a separate tower, one not online, in the event of hackers and what have you... however, as a project with function, it sounds pretty plausible. Windows programming should be reached in the next few months, I will set more concrete goals on that a bit later. Still have functions (review) and classes (review), file i/o (review) and function pointers (newish) to go over... at least two projects utilizing everything above and more...

Honestly, having traversed most of this stuff before, making it sound like a lot of work is easy...
unfortunately, this can be said of almost any 'profession' you encounter in the world... but that is another blog.

Have a good one. me-out.
________________________________________________________
Why does 'an utility', a grammatical construct that from all recollection is correct... feel so wrong when typed?

Day three: School begins

Gotta tell ya, the silence is huge... this will take some getting used too.

On the other hand, with luck, less distractions.

Found out I have around two dozen classes online that need sorting and scheduling between now and next year, and about that many books on the subject in question (Programming in C++).

Gonna keep this one short so I can enjoy the first day of silence.

Might get to work a bit later today, an hour or so of sorting priorities, trim my class list back to 12, and start an outline of what is in which book, what order I should go about tackling things...

Or maybe just start coding and see what happens.

Day two: Holding on to focus

Already distraction leaks in. That's as humorous as it was expected. with three kids in the family, finding subjects of interest for them becomes priority. It is so attractive to get into what your showing them, when they take interest, and just run with it. The expansion of water, magnetism, electricity...

Our daughter is a spirit child, not very well attached to the physical world, and visits us from time to time, especially when we cook, another reason to keep that particular interest close to the surface. The boy is discovering the joys of science, asking questions and learning how to formulate those questions for learning. I have mixed emotions about school starting, giving those experiences to a public institution that has already proven it's willing to screw things up... (positive, positive, breath...) And so, I am thinking that research into home schooling may begin in earnest this year... wait... I can give myself a year, to study the what I needs, and then program my own database system for tracking student involvement.... there's a massive project!

Right... massive... slow down... Let's put a pin in that... Then again, with a school season starting, the pressure to find activities will be down, maybe I will have enough time to do just that... DOWN BOY!!!

Well, I think we have just witnessed that my writing style is a little, lacking in the psycho therapy bills, my inner monologues and dialog tend to leak onto the page... That'll keep things interesting. Today's task is to finish putting things away after a recent furniture shuffle, then I ought to look up my online classes and make a google calendar to keep up with allocated study times for those, Maybe I'll use Open office for now and just use a spreadsheet... get an outline prepared for the C++ portions, start writing a solid introduction and maybe HTML that out onto a separate page within a week or so that I can link to this one, you know, compartmentalize my efforts a bit... Maybe that is a bit much, I am just starting in this organization thing, set my goals a little looser to start with, maybe get a success or two before I pile so much on that I fail and loose interest... some of my inner dialog from pre-blog days that helped me identify that weakness...

Coffee Delivery!!!! Now the day can begin. Blessed Be.

Day one: Introducing Jack

Much too much too much too much....

Too many irons, not enough fire. We all suffer from this from time to time, even if it has been long ago in a womb far far away.

With so many interests, where do you begin?

In my case, I begin here and now. by creating a publicly accessible diary (web log), with respondents (I hope), friends, and suggestions. With a hobby range as varied as mine, I am really going to have to focus on one subject and quit doing so many projects at once... Everything from Fiber and Needle Craft, Beading, and Quilting to Automotive Repair with a layover in Computers and Technology with a splash of Robotics. Jack-of-all-trades. That's me. Mastering none.

At this point it is a matter of pure simplicity I reckon. I don't own a car, can't afford the materials to keep me quilting or beading, but have a computer tower and an internet connection... So I will be sticking to that aspect of things. Now to further narrow my field of interest.

Focus on Web Based, or Standalone?

While web technology is fascinating, along with the mobile platforms, it moves so fast that trying to keep up with learning it and keeping up with a blog appears a bit too daunting, default to individual Computers. I have had access for five years to some real in depth C++ information, and have since found quite a bit more... So it isn't like I don't have the means, just lack the motivation. Hopefully this will instill some.

OH! wow, just bit into breakfast this morning and remembered maybe the most important hobby... cooking. Picked up a recipe for a Peachy French Toast Bake from Taste Of Home via Facebook <check it out here>, so yeah, gotta make time for cooking. -BG- The wife and kids, and other friends and family, seem to enjoy it.

Ok, well, Introductions aside, this is to be a simple blog, from now to the one year anniversary I am going to explore How the site works, modifications etc, and keep track of progress in the world of C++ programming. While I have done 3D programming in the past... I think I am going to start from scratch here just to see how it goes. Wish me luck, and Welcome to my Blog!

M.D.