always crashing in the same car

there's the story of a man who was caught in a flood and so he prayed to God that He would save him.
soon, a woman in a raft came by and offered to help him out of the water.
"thank you," said the man, "but i am waiting for God to save me."
so the raft went on and the flood waters continued to rise.

after a while, a woman in a motorboat came by and told the man to get in to safety.
"no," said the man. "i am waiting for God to save me."
the boat moved on and the flooding got worse.

eventually, the floodwaters were dangerously high and there seemed to be little hope left. no boats were in sight, but helicopter found the man.
"come with us!" said the pilot, "and we can rescue you!"
"go on without me," said the man. "God will save me."

and soon, the man drowned.

in heaven, he asked God why He didn't help him.
"but I did," said the Lord. "I sent you a raft, a boat, and even a helicopter."

~

it wouldn't be sheep go to heaven without an angsty post now, would it?

after hours

maxx is my mom's cat. he's long-haired and orange, making him look like hermione's cat, "crookshanks." and while he's not my favorite cat we've ever had (that would be moke,) he is certainly the friendliest and most social. at night, he seems to enjoy exploring the house when it's quiet and everyone else has gone to bed.
so do i.

i love this house.
i like sitting by the hutch in the dining room, where just a enough light spills from it to make the room visible, but everything i still in shadows. i like looking at the kitchen and rewinding back through time in my memory, remembering how it's looked and changed over the years and the adventures that have happened therein. while i was on my mission in japan, my mom remodeled the whole kitchen and dining room to the point that, when i was sent pictures from my sister's high school graduation party, i didn't know it was our house until i recognized the dishwasher.

i love looking out the sliding door window at the soccer fields behind our house, and how the snow-covered ground sparkles like gold under the orange sodium-vapor lights of the parking lot. i feel bad for my future wife, missing these quiet moments with me.

i like that i'm no longer scared of the utility room. growing up, just being in there seemed a little creepy; if monsters were going to live in our house (or, as i became a teenager, "aliens"), this is where they would be. i'm now confident in my physical skills enough that i no longer fear the supernatural in that room and like looking around. so much of my life history is still contained on those shelves, it's almost like being in the ministry of magic's department of mysteries.

just off from that room is "the corner", a spot under the stairs where we were sent to sit if we misbehaved. i hated sitting under there.

it's late now and i need to get to bed, but i do enjoy these quiet times with just me and my house.

to be a rock and not to roll

i'm really enjoying my dance class. we're onto our last dance of the semester, swing. i feel like i've learned "swing" at least three official times and i still don't know which is which. and the jitterbug that we learned in country dance last fall doesn't seem that different, either. the downside is that, if a girl asks me if i know how to "east-coast swing" i likely won't know which one that is. the upside is that a lot of the moves are pretty similar, so once i get the appropriate rhythm down, i'm good to go.

one of the biggest things i've learned about dancing the importance of your dance frame. as a guy, it's my job to lead. i need to choose the steps and moves to do but then also communicate that to the lucky girl as well. that requires a little bit of tension between the two of us. my hand on her back can give some indication, but a lot of it comes from where we hold hands.

if she's so stiff and unwilling to move, obviously that's a problem. it's just as much of a problem if the opposite is true; if there's no resistance in her arm and she passively lets me move our hands wherever, the whole thing is mushy and there's no way to communicate. no tension, no play, no fun.

but when there's a little bit of tension in her arm and also her posture, so that my pushing or pulling to the left or the right shows where we're doing, she doesn't just follow but keeps up with me. if you can find a partner like that, dancing is a dang lot of fun.

and i think i found a couple of girls who will be good partners for the swing test.

blank inside

taking a break from working in the lab and listening to radiohead's "king of limbs."

Comedy Central

actually, i've been taking a lot of breaks. i think it might be time to call it a night.

masquerade

today in my ballroom dance class i danced with a girl who said she'd mostly done waltzes before. her boyfriend always seemed to know whenever masquerade balls were being held and they'd go to them together. she noted that she's accumulated quite a collection of masks.

i want to go to a masquerade ball.
no, i want to go to lots of masquerade balls.
but that'll probably require getting out of college station, texas, first.
there might be some hope in austin or houston.
at any rate, it's on my list.

how come nothing tastes good?

it's that paradox where you're absolutely starving

but nothing in the kitchen sounds good....

a love story

my favorite cinematic romance since wall-e & e.v.e.

wes anderson's best since "the royal tenenbaums."

and a reminder of why i love to go to the movies.

if the year-end oscar season doesn't produce anything to top it, 

i'll be totally ok saying that "moonrise kingdom" is the best movie of 2012.

the best camera is the one you have in your hands

i was reading an article talking about how good photography has nothing to do with the quality of your camera or lens. it gave numerous examples of amazing shots that were taken on cell phones, $15 holgas, or with cameras deemed "broken." it then referenced this story as an example of thinking, if i just had that canon 24-105 l-series lens, then my pictures would be amazing. the truth is that a new lens by itself isn't going to make mediocre photography instantly better.

it's nothing new, but i wanted to share the story here.

Heading towards the station ... - 28/03/2008 10:09

Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We're traveling by passenger train, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There sill be bands playing, and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering ... waiting, waiting, waiting, for the station.

However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

"When we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. Translated it means, "When I'm 18, that will be it! When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz, that will be it! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it! When I win a promotion, that will be it! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it! I shall live happily ever after!"

Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.

"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

(Found as published in Dear Abby, The Station, By Robert J. Hastings, fwd mail)

i think i'm getting better at living the lesson of this story in my life; i've still got plenty to learn, but i'm working at it.

the counterpoint, though is that better resources, in the right hands, do yield greater results, so i still would like to have that lens. but just because i don't have it doesn't mean i'm going to stop taking pictures until i'm holding it in my arms.
...um, i mean, hands.

the crane wife

yesterday i stopped by to ask my institute teacher a question about how to apply what we'd talked about in class the night before. we ended up having a really great discussion and i'll probably keep visiting him every couple of weeks, just for good conversation.

he told me a story about elder holland and his son matt that really helped me understand some things. the more you think about it, the bigger it becomes.

Returning from an exploring trip on backcountry roads, he and his father came to an unexpected fork and could not remember which road to take. It was late in the day, and they knew darkness would be enveloping them in unfamiliar territory. Seizing a teaching moment, Jeffrey Holland asked his son to pray for direction. Afterward, he asked his son what he felt, and Matt replied that he felt strongly they should go to the left. Replying that he had felt the same way, his father turned the truck to the left. Ten minutes later, they came to a dead end and returned to take the other route.

Matt thought for a time and then asked his father why they would get that kind of answer to a prayer. His father replied that with the sun going down, that was undoubtedly the quickest way for the Lord to give them information—in this case, which one was the wrong road. Now, though the other road might not be familiar and could be difficult in places, they could proceed confidently, knowing it was the right one, even in the dark.

i presume this is from the "teachings of the living prophets" class manual but don't have a reference for this other than this is where i got it.

mmrph

i had a post i was going to write here.
title, thought, and picture, all planned out.
but it just wasn't coming out smoothly.
and not in the "keep revising it until it's better" way,
but more in the "no, it's just not going to happen today" way.
and i've suddenly really got an urge for a taco with guacamole, but since i'm actually writing this on sunday evening, i'm probably not going to go get one.

i'm tempted to slap an "ei blot til lyst" label on here just for kicks, but, no.

eh, what the heck.

and i lost my embroidered handkerchief on the plane last week.

mujun

the word for "contradiction/inconsistency" in japanese is mujun. it is made of two characters, the first meaning a spear and the second representing a shield. the meaning of the word is derived from the story of a dealer who proclaims that the spear he is selling can pierce through any shield. when asked about the shield for sale, he then declares that the shield can stop every spear ever made.

sometimes, you just can't win.
mujun.

afraid of the dark

this is pretty dang.

do or do not

may the fourth be with you.
alwayth.



obi-wan: your father... was seduced by the dark side of the force. he ceased to be anakin skywalker and "became" darth vader. when that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. so what i told you was true... from a certain point of view.

 luke: a certain point of view?

expired pineapple

classes are winding down.

i mounted my work tonight and will be hanging it tomorrow morning for friday's show (which i ironically won't be at.)

it's the end of the semester.
it's spring.
things are changing.
and, like a free-form hong kong love story, as one adventure runs its course, another begins.


maybe i'll put chungking express on my tentative "to watch" list for next week.

this wasn't much of a post, but i wanted to get something up for may 1st.

worth the wait

for the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

habakkuk 2:3

shaking through

"rendering" is the step in computer graphics were all of the information for a scene is processed and the actual image is produced.
"shading" refers to the look of objects in the scene. it's what makes jeans look like denim, sidewalks look like concrete, and e.v.e. look like she was designed in cupertino.
"rendering and shading" is the class i have on tuesday and thursday mornings.

while neither of those are departments i want to ultimately end up in, i believe that the more i know about other departments, the better i can do my own work as part of a studio team. and i'd just like to know how to do that stuff, so i signed up for the class.

throughout the semester, we were to create a scene and improve it each week. the assignments would build off each other; one week we'd just compose the scene with basic objects and simple appearances. then we'd add light and shadows, then textures, reflections, refractions, fur/cloth/hair, and sub-surface scattering, hopefully producing something at the end that would impress dr. ergun akleman.

the key was to not fall behind, yet somehow i did. my first week looked, meh, ok, but so did everyone's, since we were all just getting started. my shadows were alright and i probably thought they were better than they really were, since i like to think i'm good at lighting, but i got it done and made it home sometimes around 6 a.m.

textures were a disaster. once again, i found myself getting off work the evening before they were due and knowing i would not be sleeping that night. i tried to break down my night and pace myself, giving myself an hour and a half to look through the tutorials on how to use the software then another hour and a half for each part of the assignment due at 10:20 the next morning. i stumbled out of the lab again when the sun was coming up and made it back to class a few hours later in time for my work to be critiqued. i had addressed each requirement of the assignment but knew it didn't look good and my teacher agreed: "this looks like c.g., but CG c.g. like 1980s c.g."

he was right. i was ashamed of my scene and i cringed whenever we looked at our work in class; i was clearly in the bottom percentile for quality of work. maybe that computer science kid who had no real aesthetics training might be rivaling me, but i more or less sucked.

i wanted to drop the class. it would give me more time for other classes and projects and i wasn't really showing any promise here, anyway. but i didn't. and when "reflections" were due a few weeks ago, i attacked it. i threw out everything in my shot that wasn't contributing, considered what i could add to make it better, and by the time the sun was creeping back into the lab, i was feeling good about what i had.

yes, there were still plenty of things to be said that needed improvement when my turn for critiques came up, but i didn't shirk in shame. i liked my glass elephant and actually started work on the refractions a few days before they were due, so that last night i only had a few hours of work to do and had some pretty sweet rainbow refractions.

in short, i'm glad i didn't quit when i wanted to.
because it got better.

i was meant for the stage

when you're starting out at something, it's easy to be determined and believing. to stand at the gate and know that, if you work hard enough, you can make it. you that there will be challenges but because you know that, you also know that you won't give up and that that's the secret to making it. the challenge is exciting and you're ready to fight and take the punches and win the crown at the end.

when i was 22, i wanted to be a cinematographer. feature films would be awesome, but i'd be ok with shooting commercials, especially car commercials, since they looked amazing. as i neared graduation, things didn't go as i'd planned. the path to being a big director of photography was more vague than i was prepared for, and even people who seemed successful to me warned me of the steep and rocky nature of the path.
i had planned for challenges, but these weren't the challenges i'd planned for.

a few years later, i had found a new path: digital cinematography with pixar as my goal. still getting to compose shots and work with the details of lenses and framing, making some of the best movies ever made, all at a studio where i'd have a job every morning and could even go home in the evenings sometimes; it seemed to have everything i dared hope for in a job. plus, they like people with film degrees. i never thought i'd heard that.

but what if i don't get hired at pixar?
what if it's more demanding and intense than i would like? what if, even though i think i want to work there, i actually wouldn't feel comfortable there?
would i be happier at another job but i wouldn't know it because i'd want to be a part of pixar?
if i didn't get on there, would i be just as happy at disney or dreamworks?
what if i don't make it at any of those big studios and end up at some job that i never would have picked? will i love such that i'd be ok with not being at a big amazing studio?


i don't know.
i seem to always choose interest in industries that are rather narrow. with what i'm doing, there are only so many places to work and i manage to aim so high that i wonder if i'm fighting against people who seem much more talented and qualified that i am.
i briefly flirted with the idea of business school. i studied for the gmat and  even read part of a book about business efficiency. if i had a degree in marketing, there would be a lot more options for me out there.*

but that's not me.
and i'm doing what is me.
i don't know what's ahead down the pathway. somedays i wonder if that bridge wasn't supposed to collapse like it did, or that i missed a turn-off somewhere, but i never saw one.
so i'm going forward, doing the best that i know how.
and trusting that it'll work out. that the smart move wasn't to turn back a few miles ago.

(*editor's note: to the m.b.a.s and their families who may be reading, we acknowledge that having such a degree does not guarantee a job or a smooth path ahead. we raise an apple beer to all of your successes and accomplishments. you cool like a mule.)

in the company of jeff

sometimes, i wish i could just to go to the cinemark and pick a movie and enjoy it.
that i wouldn't sit there and think about the story and the characters and what the movie was saying and what i got from it.
that i could just go there and be happy with the pretty movie stars and the explosions and the robots and the aliens.

that i didn't have to spend 11 months of the year waiting for "oscar season" for a movie that really challenges me and is worth my time. that i didn't have to wait years in between movies like "wall-e" and "the tree of life", movies that really make me stop and think and change how i see life.
that i thought critically acclaimed movies were boring and too artsy, that i wasn't looking for anything more than just an escape for a few hours.


but that's not me.
and while it's frustrating and discouraging, i like this about me.
i love the excitement of sitting down and, after a long drought, finding something fresh and new. of characters and scenes and worlds and ideas that are things i'd never thought before, or that show me my world in a new light.
that prove that all of the good stories have NOT yet been told, that remind me that great movies can still be made.

soy un perdedor

i really liked this article.

i watched lost in translation tonight.
it'd been a while.
it's still very good.

my resolution

one of the unique aspects of the dark knight is that major action sequences were filmed in IMAX, which is 70mm film run sideways through a camera, as opposed to the standard 35mm. it helped create a much more impressive and immersive experience, particularly if you saw the film in an IMAX theater. the technique has since been employed on inception and mission:impossible- ghost protocol. i was lucky to see both of those in IMAX and yeah, it was pretty dang.

describing their reasoning behind this, wall pfister, asc, told american cinematographer magazine,

“It’s ironic,” muses the cinematographer, “because many filmmakers are trying out digital cameras that actually capture less resolution and information, and we’re going in the opposite direction, upping the ante by capturing images with unparalleled resolution and clarity.”

july 2008

so, yeah.
why would you go for less resolution when you can go in the opposite direction?