BBQ in December???

Oh Yeah, we got out the barbeque, and got cookin'. I cooked a bunch of hamburgers out on the back porch the other night. It was -19 C, so I had to wear a hat and coat...LOL. As we proved - it's never too late or cold to have a barbeque! And to show I really did it, here's a pic of my finished cooking...:D

Latest Maya Work

Here I've tried to create a glassy material for the wine bottle I modeled. I threw in a couple oranges on a silver platter, too. All the textures were created from photos I took around the house. Oh, yeah...the painting in the background is a texture map taken from one of the oil paintings I did recently...this is great...:)

Working At Calabogie Peaks Ski Hill

Today was my first day working at the Calabogie Peaks ski hill. I have the official position of lift operator. Although getting there this morning took 45 min (it was really snowing hard and the road was covered in at least 4 inches of snow...where was the snowplow???!!!), it was actually a pretty great day. I watch the chairlifts where people get on or watch where they get off...two alternating shifts, morning and afternoon, top of the hill and bottom. That includes starting and stopping the lift, or slowing it down when needed...and helping people get on it as well. I spent my afternoon at the top of the hill. The view from the top building where I worked was amazing...you see Calabogie Lake surrounded by trees, with rolling hills fading into the distance. It can get cold(it's not too bad), and fresh air is good for you anyway, eh. It was fun working the controls and I get a season pass...pretty cool. *I'll try to get some pics up soon!*

What Have I Been Doing in Maya 7?

OK...so I've been playing around with my Maya program. Following the tutorials is a great way to get used to the tools and interface. They are a little basic (well, I do have the first book), but you can use the knowledge and experience you get from the tutorials to help you do your own things. So, anyway, here are a few shots of my work.

This is a quick buoy I made...floating in an ocean using Maya's ocean effects.

Here's a sort of flying robot that I made based on one of the tutorials.

And here is the first model of a head from a robot I'm making...

EVGA Contest

The folks over at evga.com have another contest on right now. There are 10 Geforce 7800 GTX KOs to be won! I have entered already, of course...hahaha. This videocard would make a great addition to the parts I'm trying to get together for my next computer. Here's hoping I win!...:D

The Snow Is Back!

We've got our snow back again! Rain last week washed it away, but the ground is white once again. It's actually snowing right now, as I type this up. The more snow, the better, since I have gotten a job at Calabogie Peaks ski hill...and my job depends on the snow...:)

Do Old Chinese Vases Sell Well?

I have this Fukagawa vase that came from Hong Kong or Singapore many years ago. I've been thinking of selling it, but I have to have it appraised first. Fukagawa is, as they say, "Purveyors to the Imperial Household". I wonder how easily I could sell this vase. I'll try ebay, maybe. Hmmm...how much do oriental vases ell for in Canada? I guess I'l find out!

Computer cases...I'm on the case!

I've been looking for a computer case for my planned computer. I want to make sure it has sufficient cooling, just in case I overclock some of the pc components. I want it to have a clear case window as well. I'm not really into the wild looking cases with garish lights pasted all over them, but I would like a few well-placed lights inside of the case to highlight the awesome parts that are there..:) I'm actually got my eye on either the Thermaltake Tsunami case or this new Antec case. I was planning on using the Antec Super Lanboy case, but I read a number of reviews that said it was rather flimsy, although lightweight. The Thermaltake case is probably my best bet so far - it has dual 120mm fans (front and back, a kinda x-shaped case window, and is built out of light-weight aluminum. Pretty cool...haha, pardon the pun. It's a black case with some led lights in the front case door. I'll just be waiting until I get the cash together for the rest of the parts...hopefully not much longer.

Winter Gear

It's really starting to get cold now. It was about - 10 C lastnight, with a bit of blowing snow. It's supposed to snow a bit more tonight. And that means getting out the coats, gloves, and hats. The snow is nice except when you have to shovel it off the driveway...I hope it holds off till around Christmas...no driving accidents then either on the snow-covered roads.

Electronics Selling on the XBOX 360

One more thing about the XBOX 360...I've noticed a lot of stores have had electronics on sale this week. Of course it's American Thanksgiving sale time, but I'd guess the expected rush of gamers and electronic hobbyists to buy the XBOX 360 has helped the retailers bring out the electronic cornucopia. Yep...War of the Worlds is on DVD today as well...just in time for the rush. LOL...

XBOX 360 IS OUT TODAY!!!

It's a big day for all gamers today. The next-gen console by Microsoft, the XBOX 360, is available in-stores as I write this blog. It is a lot more powerful than the previous XBOX. For instance, the XBOX 360 has 512MB Ram compared with the original XBOX's 64MB. That's EIGHT times more Ram! The XBOX 360 also has three processing cores running at 3.2 Ghz versus the old XBOX's single proc which ran, I believe, at 700Mhz. It was basically a Pentium III actually, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, it's always exciting when new hardware comes out, bringing new software as well. There are 18 XBOX 360 games available at launch. I'm planning on waiting a year at least to let the prices drop - technology doesn't come cheap - at $499.99, the XBOX 360 is a bit out of my student budget. Well, I'll wait to see what Sony will have to offer in the Playstation 3. ;)...although the XBOX 360 will be the only console with Halo 3...hmmmm

Building Supply Today

Went to the Griffith Building Supply today. I had to pick up a bunch of extra stuff for the renovations in the living room: pressure-treated and spruce lumber, screws, expanding insulating foam, drywall, and electical suplies. I actually worked at the building supply for two summers. Good place, like all small-town businesses.

More Animation Tutorials

I'm trying to get through this tutorial book Getting Started with Maya 7. The last part was an introduction to using inverse kinematics in animating a object's skeleton. Pretty cool! The model I used was already built, but I had to animate the thing myself. It's a crane that picks up a cargo box and drops it off after rotating around. I had a little trouble trying to get the rendered images into an .avi clip, but I finally found a way to do it using a video-editing program, Pinnacle Movie Studio 9 Plus. Not my all-time favourite video-editing program, but it works, which is the main thing. Just wish it would copy all my images in the same order, instead of mixing them up all the time......that means I have to do some manual arranging of images. Each image is a frame played at 30 fps - which means my six-second avi clip had 180 images to re-arrange. . . sheesh. Oh well, I'm lovin' it anyway.

Renovations in the Livingroom

Right now the livingroom is in the middle of an extensive renovation. The floor has to be replaced in areas where it was found to be quite rotten. Such surprises are always found, I suppose, while working on older houses. There was some more old comics stuffed in the window frames. There were parts from "Popeye", "Blondie", "Dick Tracy", "Flash Gordon", and more. They weren't in the best shape, but it is still cool. They date from the '50s, mostly.

Trying To Find Some Good Deals

Yeah, I've been trying to look up some low priced, but high quality computer part deals. Since I've been trying to save up for a computer, I always check out the latest prices online. Ok, maybe I check a little too often, but I enjoy looking at all the hardware, hoping I will have some of it built into my computer sooner than later. The bad side is that it is taking a while for me to save up what I need. The good side is that the longer I wait, the cheaper the parts get. For instance, the processor that I would like to buy, the AMD X2 4800+, has dropped over a hundred dollars in price since it first came out. Maybe the release of the next X2 (I'm guessing the 5000+) will help bring the prices even lower.

My Videocard - Overclocked A Bit More

Today I was able to squeeze a little bit more clock speed out of my videocard. My 9800 Pro is now at 432Mhz/360Mhz, core and memory speed, respectively. That means the card has a fill rate of 3456 Mpixels/s and a memory bandwidth of 23040 MBs/s. Not bad, not bad. I'm able to play the Age of Empires 3 demo pretty smooth at 1024x768 with all the graphics options pushed to the max. I was also trying to find a way to fit more cooling fans inside my computer case, but there is too little room. The idea was to cool my videocard more so that I could push the clock speeds higher. Well, better not push it too much...I'm happy with the way it is so far anyway.

It's snowing

It's been snowing mostly all day now. The ground is too warm for it to stay right now, but if it keeps up, things may get whiter. The hills are starting to turn white, however, along with the trees.

Windy Days

This week we've had some very windy days. The power was out all day yesterday, and also out for a number of hours a couple days before. That's from all the trees too close to the line. As I was driving to a job interview, I saw many places on the road where trees had fallen across. Luckily, road crews had cleared the big stuff, but small bits and wood bark remained to tell the story. I also saw where the power line had snapped in two. Ontario hydro was just arriving. When the power is out I can't play games on my PC or work on Maya...lets hope the wind stays down more often.

I've got Maya!

Yahoo! I've finally got a real professional animation software package. It's a educational version of Alias Maya 7 Unlimited, and it's a lot cheaper than the commercial version. Thank goodness for that! I just can't sell any of my work, which really isn't a drawback right now... It has soft body and hair simulators. Also, water effects...cool! I'm really excited about this. And I'm not taking a dig against the less professional packages - Anim8er and Blender are still both awesome free software....:D *More Updates on MY Animations to follow...as soon as I get through the tutorials*

Hard to find jobs around here...

I've been looking for job now for a couple months. I live in a rural area and the only jobs I've found are in the city where I'd be giving up half of my income for rent. I don't like that idea, so I continue to search the local area. I would really like to work in a computer store. You know, building systems, upgrading, installing software. And getting nice and close to all that new pc hardware...:D

My Computer

My computer consists of a Athlon XP 3000+ socket A cpu, an ATI Radeon 9800 pro videocard OC'd to 416/354 Mhz (that's 10% core and 5% memory clock speeds), and 512MB Ram. I have a generic motherboard that does not allow me to overclock the cpu. I also have a 160 GB HD and a DL DVD burner. My system pulls through on a lot of software.

November's Videocards

Wow...Nvidia has brought out a new flagship! The 7800GTX has been revamped into a 512 MB version. Not only has the memory been doubled, but the core clock speed has been pushed up from 430Mhz to 550Mhz! And the memory clock to 1700Mhz from 1200Mhz! This card really rocks! Look at that massive two-slot cooler. I just wish I could afford to buy it ;).

THE BLOG has been created!

Here we go! A place to talk about and display my love of electronics - especially in the area of computers.