Looks like Sensory Sweep and the Rushton's are finally getting the attention they deserve.

May the Rushton's fall like Icarus for what they did to their employees

Our Impossible Box saga continues

Seems our artist Amanda is leaving Impossible Box, citing personal and professional differences.
That is unfortunate. Despite our repeated attempts to work with her, it seems it was not enough.
It seems there were trust issues, communication issues, my friendship with Lance was threatening to her, we expected to much from, and our approach was deemed unprofessional and taken personally.
Again it is unfortunate that she took our attempts to work with her that way, but we are all entitled to our opinions and our own point of view.

I wish her much luck in her future endeavors and hope that her project Anachronism is able to launch now that we are not in the picture.

At this point the only thing to do is get written permission from her that work created under Impossible Box Studios will not be used her Anachronism project and I believe she still owes Lance some books she borrowed, software needs to be uninstalled from her PC, and money needs to be paid back to Lance.

Still I am very excited to work with Shawn (our new artist), he has some great ideas and is way excited to work with us, we shall take the lessons learned from dealing with Amanda and work at not repeating the same mistakes we made with her.

Who I am

At this point in my life, I'm career oriented with a desire to excel and move forward in my career for any job that fits my required skills sets. I'm also very interested in starting business ventures and have embarked upon my second one with my friend Lance already with hopes that this new one will fulfill a personal and professional dream. Both of these take time and dedication, sometimes to the exclusion of others, this has been a steady progression. I become to responsible never to the point of shirking my responsibilities as a partner to somebody, but the relationship does become hard for some to handle.

I'm to independent, I like my "alone" time, I cherish it. I enjoy the company of friends and I enjoy the bar scene (though it is NOT an overwhelming desire like in my youth). Because of my schedule I tend to plan my social life a week ahead of time. Sometimes, if there is a lull or I am ahead of things, spur of the moment social events become OK. But I'm not one for surprises or for cancellations on the spot, especially if the reason is lame.

I enjoy being single, there is a certain freedom to it that I love. It is something that I and others have discovered and we feel much better for the lack of title and seeming responsibility that comes with the bf/h title. What that does not mean is that I am not a player, a douche or a thug, my feelings on the subject is put up front. There are no lies but there are also no allusions to what will be or not be.

What I am is comfortable in my own skin. I'm not dashing or handsome or fit or young, I am simply me, Manny. I believe myself to be a funny, weird, geeky guy that enjoys a beer or a wine, cheap concerts and musicals. Burger joints and fine restaurants house parties and dinner parties. This is who I am after 43 years, and if I am not comfortable with that then there is something seriously wrong. I have my boundaries and I work at keeping them steadfast in order to protect myself, but that protection allows me the ability to help when I see it is needed and back off when a person's trouble can envelop me. I enjoy my dancing because it exercises my body and my soul and to hell those who mock me about it, your obviously lacking in something yourself. I am not shy about enjoying sex it is an essential part of life, but it is not the driving force of my life. It is slave to me, not me to it. I am a moderate liberal who can be opinionated but who will listen if the argument is sound and will admit my mistakes if I am guilty of them.

What I am is a friend or a good acquaintance, someone you can talk to bullshit with, bounce ideas off of, get advice or have an ear to listen to you. I will help when I can but will only continue if you truly want or need help. I will not be a savior or rescuer to the chronic but will help those who stumble in their path and are fighting to stand up again.

I am an asshole, I am a dick, I am loud, I am a dancer, I am harsh, I am honest, I am kind, I am Grey.

This is who I am and I dare the universe to stop me. It will curtail me, it will make me stumble and it will make me cry, but until I draw my last breath, I will never stop. Even if I should become a quadriplegic I will still have my mind and through that lies a wealth of adventure through imagination.

I assume the mantle given to me by others when they say, "You're Manny."

I'm Manny.

So please walk away if your hoping for something more but please come close if your looking for a friend.

I truly make a lousy bf/h, and that's OK but I felt you should know. :-)

Impossible Box update

Well here is an Impossible Box Studios update.
It is quite possible Impossible Box Studios has lost an artist. Darkwingpsycho our team member, and for whom we took a break from her project because standards were slipping, personal differences, and an overall communications breakdown with the team. It seems, since that last meeting, that she has become unresponsive and seems to have decided to take her concept and do it on her own. If that is what she want's to do then more power to her I guess, it is unfortunate, but these things happen.

Lance has already publicly requested that she delete any software that was loaded on her computer, and return some books and pay for some items that he was kind enough to help her out with.

On my end I have no ties to this artist other than time spent working with her, I believe she is talented and with the proper circumstances could take her idea far, perhaps working with us was not the venue for that to occur and maybe doing this solo will be more conducive to her needs. I wish her the best of luck and hope that in the future we can sit down and discuss how things could have been done differently between us. I guess this is my public way of saying, I am still open to discussion but good luck if we never meet again.

In the mean time, Lance and I have been working on the web comic idea I came up with back in junior high. We have a lot of work finished (3 pages and a cover) and will be posting my stuff on a new web site called Burning Phoenix Comics. We're still designing the artwork for the website so it will be a while before we get everything up and ready to roll (that phoenix I keep talking about).

Lance also found a new artist that has some brilliant ideas of his own for a web comic, plus he has dozens of ideas for some kids books. A, B, C's, and 1, 2, 3's kind of stuff. We're seriously thinking about changing the venue of Impossible Box in such a way as to showcase these books and sell them as books and not display them as web comics. Should be fun to work on these book ideas with someone as passionate about the books as he is about his own children.

Exciting things in the works and this whole project has had it's ups and downs and surprises but it's the nature of the beast and it keeps things interesting.

Until the next dimension!

Dumb people who make fun of others

Overall a good night tonight, except for the dumbass who thought it would be funny to make fun of people downstairs and did leaping pirouettes and crashed into me! I asked him to be careful and kept dancing and they sent their girlfriends to then harass me but pushing and shoving on me. I told them to drop it and they did the we don't want any of you hand signal. Sad thing was the girls had more balls than the guys and tried to do something to me and in the end I didn't do anything but ask them to watch it! Sigh...people. That's what's wrong them, THEY do something wrong and when someone has the balls to just say, hey watch it...directly, evenly and with authority, not yelling just evenly, I AM in the wrong because I ruined their fun of making fun of people by having him run into me, I'm such a bad person! So obviously the girls take it upon themselves to invade my dancing space and shove up on me to teach me...what....a lesson? It boggles the mind that people are not willing to admit the culpability in their own actions and instead feel put upon because somebody says something to them DESPITE the fact they are in the wrong. Lose the false sense of entitlement and realize the world wasn't created for you, you were created for the world like all of us and when you leave mommy's house you have to own up and be an adult.

Comic Book progress

I have to say that I am not certain what Amanda's issue was, yes I am more experienced but it still boggles the mind that I can churn out work faster than she can. In two weeks I've turned in three pages and a cover for the comic book that replaces Amanda's for now and in 4 months we barely got one fully drawn layout for one page.
I just have to vent is all.

New comic book plan moving forward

So in lieu of what happened yesterday with our Impossible Box meeting and since we're putting our other project on hold, Lance and I decided to resurrect my comic book idea. We had brought it up, but there seemed to be no enthusiasm from our other partner and we shelved it. Given that we have NO projects going on, the decision was made to press forward with this project.
To that end I've completed the first three pages of my comic book idea to have Lance look over, he is basically going to be the editor-in-chief so to speak.
I feel good about this, I was worried with what happened yesterday but I think we can resurrect this entire project of Impossible Box.

A not so pleasant Impossible Box meeting

A not so pleasant Impossible Box meeting
Well today Lance and I had to do a most unpleasant thing, unpleasant but necessary.
As you may or may not know, I'm currently working on a project under the moniker of Impossible Box Studios, well today we had to confront our lead artist and tell her we were shelving the project for an in determinant amount of time, citing professional differences.
In no way was it an attack upon her personally, it was strictly business, certain things had occurred that had left a bad taste in our mouths, and we had previously tried to address it, but this person did not want to do that. Individually, Lance and I tried to deal with this person to determine what had caused her to basically accuse us of nefarious deeds, but individually she had told us she had no problem with us, but instead had a problem with the other person.
To us this was dishonest, and with the previous accusations took the thunder out of our momentum and the desire out of finishing this project. It is our belief that you need trust and honesty to run a business, and we felt we could no longer trust her or believe her and felt that her feelings were reciprocated.
Given that, tonight we notified her of our decision, explained our reasons and gave her a chance to vent.
She took it personally as we felt she would and explained as best we could this was not personal at all and that we would pick this back up in mid January and come to the table with all our cards exposed and hash out our differences. We were clear that we would waste no more time on this if that was immediately not the case and take it as a lack of desire and committment on her part to see this project through.
The meeting lasted about a half hour and both of us were clear about our decision, were clear about it not being personal and gave her a chance to speak up.
While she did speak up, it was not to explain herself clearly I thought.
We were accused of blaming her, of attacking her, of finding her mean, and bitchy and not giving her a chance to voice her opinion.
We responded that we had given her four times to express her opinion (of which she dismissed and wanted to just ignore), that her feelings of us finding her mean and bitchy were internal to herself, that our comments were never stated as attacks and in fact clearly stated to not be attacks, that all of us were to blame on this outcome, with us just as much as she.
In the end we have agreed to shelve OOF and Impossible Box as it is right now and revisit it when we have calmed down and have written down our grievances to bring to the table and discuss.

Practical Immortality As I See It

I haven't written on here in a while so I thought I would restart with a subject near and dear to me.
Immortality.
I want it. Really I do, and the arguments about doesn't life suck enough as it is to keep going forever doesn't work with me. Despite my situation, my life does NOT suck and I want to see it all and there isn't enough time to enjoy it.
Now I'm talking about a very practical immortality.
Not Highlander immortality-impotence and the ability to die if you lose your head is lame.
Not Vampire immortality-reliance on an organic substance to keep you going and the those pesky weaknesses that vampires have does not a true immortal make.

No, this kind involves an advancement in human evolution and condition.
No more reliance on food or sleep, you are sustained by the energy of the cosmos, why is that cool? Well if you don't eat (unless for pleasure) then you don't have to perform bodily functions, I really hate bodily functions. Even if you do eat though, your body runs so efficiently that you use and consume everything you eat, you don't need to sweat because your body isn't bothered by heat or cold, you see where I am getting at?
The energy of the cosmos binds your cellular structure and advances your mind to see it's totality, because of it your smart very smart, because of it, your able to control the density of your cellular structure. Things just don't hurt you because you don't let it hurt you. You don't age because your cells constantly regenerate, and consequently you don't get sick either, cool eh?
Because the energy that keeps you alive is around and plentiful you don't need to sleep either (again unless you really want to) and you never tire or fatigue (the poisons that affect your muscles just get eliminated) and your like the energizer bunny.
We're not talking superman here like in the comics, there is not ability to fly, there is no ability to shoot beams of heat or possess super powers other than immortality like I've described above. No aging, no eating, no sleeping, no sickness or disease, regeneration, intelligence oh and strength, nothing superhuman but definitely superior to the limits of human ability.
What would I do with said immortality? The part that get's people.
I would travel the world, live where I chose as long as I wanted, leanr the languages and customs and move on. I would learn multiple professions, a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, whatever but with time why not challenge yourself to learn all you could possibly learn? Money? What about money? Do you need money right away? You could build a cabin in the woods and just live there. You could invest in something that takes a long time to build because you have the time to wait.
The only downfall is watching all those around you die as they grow old, that would be the true test of surviving immortality, but the escape is always there.
You want to die then you die you cease your hold on this world and go, your not cursed to stay here against your will, it's your will that holds your hear and allows you to be connected to the universe at large and absorb it's energy. Just stop it when you tire of it, and will your end.
Anyway that's my little aside and rant for today.

Short Story

On The Shore

One day, while painting along the shores of Avalon, there appeared to a most unusual man of extremely wizened features.

Despite his age, it was evident he was a strong man, and asked to sit and watch me work.  Thought something about the old man nagged at me, a certain familiarity, I beckoned him forward.

He sat quietly, hardly moving for what seemed hours, until finally he let out a grunt and said, “Reality is a funny thing boy.  Half the time I wonder if I’m really ever here.  Am I alive or am I living a dream of my creation or of someone else’s.”

“I’ve lived pondering my own creation, always wondering, questioning.   Then, I meet your kind, the poets, the painters, writers and dreamers.  All of you, create, all of you mold reality and in turn make people believe in something above and outside of themselves.”

Perception is Reality

“With the help of your type, humans have gazed into the glory of gods and recoiled from unseen horrors come to life.  Yours is the power of creation or rather to recreate reality as you see fit, with your creations following the “path” you dictate for them.

My life is simple, as it seems, for I follow a path as well.  When I see the path laid before me, I wonder at its beauty and despair at its futility, surely the work of mad but genius god.

You have made humans know the fear of ghosts, see the goblins in the closet, and fear the curse of a witch hex.  For millennia have your kind brought forth these things never realizing the children you have wrought.  You never realized the consequences of your actions did you?  No.  You created and tossed aside when you were bored of them.

You, cease to believe in them, but they, never cease to believe in you.  They never go away you know, never disappear; they only become free agents, owing no allegiance to you at all.  You cease to be divine to them for they are no longer subject to your will.

So you sit there ignorant, unaware of the reality beyond your care and with your children no longer knowing their own fathers, ignorant of their own creators.  The smart ones, the powerful ones, they know of you of course, and they hate you, with the jealousy of a child who has all the power in the world except one; the power of creation.”

The old man stood up and came in close, I feared he would strike me such was the intensity of his gaze and the resolution in his stance.

“Listen to me boy and listen well.  One day your children will come for you, they will come, and they will take from you what they believe is due to them.  Or they will kill you trying.  Like Zeus killing Kronus, they will assert their place in creation, always be aware of the jealousy of a child.”

In shock, I asked the old man who he was.

“Me?” He chuckled, ‘I’m your son strange as that may be, your child of thought.  I realize now that my purpose was to guild your conscious.  I am your questions come to life in a form that can answer them and hopefully provide clarity.  Nothing that I have said is unknown to you, it’s just buried and I was the doorway to that stream of consciousness.

Hmm, look at the time.  Seems there are limits to my existence, and that draws short.  Please think of your immortal son fondly won’t you?  We may see each other again on these shores if you wish, if you want, for this is my home now; it could have been worse I guess.” Turning to walk away, the old man glances over his shoulder,  “Visit me often? If destiny cannot return you, please remember me when you gaze at your paining.”

Perception is Reality

            At his last words, I quickly glanced at my painting and with sudden understanding knew what had been bothering me about the old man.  On the canvas, still glistening from the fresh oils, was the old man framed against the shoreline.  How was this possible?  Looking back to the old man, with half surprise, I found him gone.  Looking at the sand, there were no footprints there, had I dreamed this?

            “Remember this moment when you create again,” said the old man’s voice from behind me.  Looking back, only the painting stood to mock me.

Job Woes Again

As some of you may be aware, I lost my job on Monday, I knew it was coming for about a month since my contract was set to end Monday.  I've been looking, but no bites as of yet, I've pretty much put myself out on every job board out there, we shall see what happens.  My preference would be to stay here in Salt Lake City, I like it here.  But, I have to face the fact that I will have to take a job that pays me for my level of experience wherever that may be.
This is a source of consternation to my family and friends, but what else can you do right?  I wanted to use my back-up plan of moving in with my sister or parent's but the situation in SoCal is worse than here, well hell, it's worse all over in CA.  I don't want to be a burden to my sister or my parents so I stay and I fight :-D.
I've taken care of some money hemorrhaging right now.  I'm returning my car to the bank, that's a savings, my insurance will go down because the replacement car only needs collision.  I dropped my school payment down by $100, and put my loan on forbearance right now.  I no longer have netflix, or my gym membership, I don't need them right now.  Plus I got rid of my storage unit, overall I've saved about $700 in the last three months, that should allow me to survive on unemployment while I look for a good job.  It will be hard I don't doubt that and more and more people around me are being laid off as I speak, two of my friends in two days actually.
I'm keeping myself busy, designing t-shirts, working on Impossible Box stuff, doing logo bids, helping Jeremiah on his project, and so on and so on.
The future is uncertain, but I've been down this road before, and while it came to soon for me to have any money saved up, it didn't come as a surprise that I didn't plan ahead for it.
Thanks for listening to me rant.

Manuel Rangel - Activities on BrightFuse - A Talent Community

Manuel Rangel - Activities on BrightFuse - A Talent Community

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Job Woes

So I've been a contract worker for Rockwell Collins for 11 months now through Donatech.  Being that I only had a month to go, I felt it was important AND necessary to talk to my lead about my future with the company.  I.E. will I renew my contract, get hired on as a permanent employee or not continue on with the company.
It turned out to be the last thing on the list above.  Due to two projects (with projected hours above 20000 for each) being cancelled or delayed there isn't enough work to keep ALL of us contract workers there.
All four contract workers are being let go by mid October.  It was a shock to a couple of my friends who are employees and too the person I am answering to for this marketing demo we are preparing for the beginning of November.
You see they expected me to be there until the end of October for the crunch period, which this changes.
Can I say that my motivation went out the window, I think I spent a half hour in shock, then talked for awhile to the other contract workers about the situation.  I contacted Shreyash who is my liason with Donatech to start looking for jobs anywhere he can (meaning out of state, because in UT there are no prospects).  I also am preparing to give my Mazda back to the bank and walk away from it and take out the last of my mutual funds to buy a POS car to replace it with.
I have a $467 car payment which with rent and other bills will not be payable on Unemployment if I don't get a job.
My drop dead date is October 19th which is a Monday.
I didn't feel like working on Impossible Box stuff or on anything for Miah or April and barely scraped together the desire to turn in another business card design tonight:

Instead, I went over to Chris H's house to watch Battlestar Galactica: Caprica, have some yummy fish that he cooked up for us and a salad as well.  Then Erin joined us and we watched House.

I needed that, I needed to just center myself and be with friends to bring me to Earth.  If I had been alone I probably would have kicked the crap out of my punching bag (not a bad idea but is that really productive, wait neither was what I just did).

So, tomorrow is a new day where I work to take a negative and make it into a positive.

Business Cards

So designed a new card for a company CPMC which they then have to decide to choose amongst other candidates.

Here are the designs:

And a horizontal version:

They like the first design, but haven't heard back on second one yet.

Impossible Box update

So Impossible Box meeting went well, we discussed some story ideas and a pulse on where we are in relation to the project and each other with the project. That way we're all on the same page. :-)
We cleared up some ideas on logos for the "universe" and made up a game plan as to how to safely and legally show our work without getting ripped off before even getting started.

New T-shirt design for Spreadshirt

Alright folks, here is another design for a T-shirt, this one is based on a song, from a certain band suggested by my friend Diana.

http://www.spreadshirt.com/us/US/Detail/Detail-3376/Marketplace/Products/detail/article/5072467/

Hope you enjoy

Logo Designs for Bay Area Warriors

 Well my friend Mara'D asked me to do a logo for her air group the Bay Area Warriors.  She's an old friend and workmate from SingleTrac Studios and I thought I would help her out.  She had sketched up a design for her logo and I did my best to emulate it.  As with any logo I do, I offer variations to see what is possible and to jog any brain cells into suggesting a more cohesive direction.

Here are the logos below:

Pocket Dimensions

It must have been all the rich food I ate, because lately I don't ever remember my dreams. 
In my dream we're at so me park, the park is part of the environment surrounding the "complex."  I'm there with Jeremiah and we're just hanging out, when Ed appears and wants to join us; naked.  Odd but ok, she throws a blanket on herself and we walk around the park.  At one point, Ed lays down and emotionally crumbles, Jeremiah and I try to get her up but to no avail.  Ed's next move is to throw off her blanket, I being a gentleman and also because of the kids decide to climb on top to cover her.  Why simply not throwing the blanket on her wasn't sufficient I don't know.  As we argue with her and a bunch of leering men and teens begin to gather, Ed bolts to the bathroom and disappears, running past Jen Simoni who comes over to chat with me.  We talk and the park area half becomes a bar while we are chatting and ten there is commotion in the bathroom and everything becomes the bathroom again. Jen is gone. 
Jeremiah comes out of the bathroom carrying Ed who looks like a tight emotional ball of flesh, but somehow she has some clothes on again.  We begin walking towards our car's to get out of this place, when she hops out of Miah's arms and runs to get water.  Miah is a bit frustrated at this point.
I run after her to make sure she doesn't get into mischief and as I approach her I witness something that Ed had mentioned before but I had not had the privilege to see (at least that's the way it was in the dream), the world in front of her hand goes all fuzzy and wavers and she reaches into this fuzziness and pulls out a water bottle!  OMG, I've just witnessed a fully functioning and existing pocket dimensions, what a find!  Jeremiah catches up and sureptiously  I try to convey that message to him, in a sort of over the shoulder mouthing exageratingly sort of way.  He just looks at me like I'm an idiot and there it ended.
Wonder what it all means?  Just a piece of grool stuck in my belly?

Greek Festival

What a great night!  Yea the lines were long, yeah the food was expensive, but hey, it was good times.  Had a beer to pass away the times, Erin (ever the caregiver) bought us these cheese stuff things with a flakey crust like baklava and some dough stuff fried and doused with honey.  That held us until then, unfortunately with the diet I'm on, if I miss a meal no matter how small it might be, the sugar levels begin to drop and I can feel the "monster" in me begin to come out.  So she saved the day.  The line was HUGE, it took us about an hour to finally get our food and it cost me $21, Chris ended up with a $29 bill for his food.
I figured out that I had 6 different items on my plate and each of those items added up to a serving a piece, so I had a serving for 6...I haven't done that in 3 months!  I actually got woozy from the carb influx, but didn't suffer from the carb slush that i get when I dance sometimes, so that was good.
God, like 3 dolmatis, meatballs, lemon rice, beefstew, some flaky spinach thing, and some other item I can't remember...six items!
We ate, some of us admired the beauty of all the Greek women, my lord they keep themselves well even the ones my age or older.  sigh.
After that walked back to Area 51 (we had parked Chris' Rubicon there) and went into Area to look around.
Finally we left a little after the bar shut down but before the club closed and went back to Chris' house.  Chris offered up some Barton's gin and pineapple.
Danced a little bit, got offered a cupcake for a birthday, a shot for being there, it just never ended.
Tomorrow, back on the wagon for this boy.

The Stand-In night.

Is home safe, and going to bed no later than he normally would be going to bed, save that his legs are really sore from dancing first upstairs to some Depeche Mode and then downstairs to finish off, I swear that Kevin was trying to kill me down there.  Dude, back to back marathon songs? Oh well at least at my age I can do it right?
This more than makes up for some frustration earlier, but that is past.  Once again, it was nice dancing out there with Miah and April, less idiots down there.  One tried to parody Miah but he was dissuaded by him and sent on his way.  Interesting, why does Miah get parodied by younger gawky 21 something male and I get parodied by the munchkin 18 year old?
Sigh, that girl, she literally lasted a minute trying to dance around me and make fun of me.  Finally, it was like "man I'm going to accidentally hit that girl," SHE WAS THAT CLOSE!
I turned bent down to talk to her, and said: "Hon if your unable to dance, you might want to get off the dance floor."
Sigh.  Probably should have ignored it, but a minute?  Come on, most times when that happens it's over like in seconds with male or females, because I just ignore them and (especially with guys) dance through their space as if their not there, they usually get the hint quickly.  But this little girl was literally less than 5' tall! 
Oh well, the night ended well overall.  I got a good workout.

New logo stuff!

Still working at trying to get some logo's actually accepted!  So far...no go :-(
But I keep trying!  It's how you learn right? :-)  Rejection is a learning tool.

I mean that's how we learn to date better right?

The latest logo is for a lawyer, she wanted to incorporate a fox into her design:

 

I dunno, the fox is cool, the requirement was to put the fox in without making it look to cheesy.

In the meantime, I've been busy making funny parody logos for our Impossible Box project, look for updates coming soon on the Impossible Box Blog: http://impossiblebox.blogspot.com/

Bye for now!

The monkey see monkey do syndrome

Here is what I think is amusing...I submitted a design for a logo at 99designs.com for a company called Statrad.  The image at the link below represents the artwork previous to my entry.

http://99designs.com/contests/27446/entries/91

Then came my design:

 

Most entries previous to this were eliminated.  After that this is what the designs ended up looking like:

 

See a pattern?  This happened after I got some positive comments on my design.  My design is still in the running but so are all the ones afterwards which look like :-/

So much for originality on their part eh?

This is the final design based on their requests for a difference in color and removing the dots, which some people afterward didn't pay attention to.

 

Not sure if it's any better.

Shaving a penny here and a dollar there.

Trying to survive financially in this economy blows let me tell you.  I'm trying to pull some magic spells here to help.  I've reduced my gym membership to a pinance to just keep it open and locked at the rate it's at now, I'm getting rid of my storage unit and going to stuff it all into my one bedroom, I was able to do graduated payments at SHC and I'm negotiating my auto insurance to shave off $30-40 there as well.  Once I finish paying off this new phone my cell phone payments should drop another $60 as well.
All in the name of pinching money and surviving.  If this works out right, I could save almost $200, which turns into $100 once my loan payments start back up again.
To top it off, I begin my annual pilgrimage to any bank including my own to see about refinancing my car so that I can get lower paymens (that's what's really eating into my finances-$467 a month is a big gouge).
I'm sure you can understand.

Crom!

We had a good meeting, Amanda's stuff looks great!  Her process doesn't leave me with any worries, and Jayson came up with a good plan on how we should proceed with our workflow :-)
On a lighter note:


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8s6pn_conan-the-barbarian-battle-of-the-m_shortfilms


Crom!

Our third meeting for Impossible Box

Today we're going to look at Amanda's artwork and see what here process of developement is, in the hope's or better yet not hope to enable a more efficient way of producing artwork for the comic book.
Besides that, I am showing the directory structure for our files (so we know where stuff goes and where to find it, and we don't stand there going ugh...) and the naming convention for the files (so that we're not just naming thing willy nilly: like "hat" or panel1, but more like panel1_issue1).
In addition, Jayson is going to go over what workflow we should choose, waterfall or .....I forgot, BUT what I do remember is that I like the flow of the second one rather than the first one.
I'm sure that Jayson or I will be updating the Impossible Box Blog sometime later or tomorrow, might be able to show some artwork that Amanda has cooked up. :-)
Ta Ta for now.

Sleep...Perchance to Dream: Part 2

So early this morning I had a very quick dream (a quickie?) about being at my parent's home in Norwalk, Ca. I'm with other people but it's extremely vague as to who they are.  All I know is that someone is trying to break in and they have guns (the last dream with guns involving a break-in, I got shot in the chest), we're unarmed so we are hiding to ambush them.  Then a loud noise from the living room signals their breaking in, and I wake up.  Coincidentally, I did hear a loud noise from the living room which did actually wake me up and had gotten incorporated into my dream.
When I woke up this morning for work, lo and behold that noise is still happening, because they are doing construction again on 39th down the street, and some big digger is probably trying to break up the asphalt they just laid down.  LAST WEEK! 
Who sets up these schedules?  How is it in most jobs we cannot be inefficient, but when it comes to government at any level, inefficiency is the name of game.

Sunday-NOT just a day for rest

Great Day!  I got lots of stuff to do and it all involves sitting in front of my Mac, documents to write, responses to request to write, research, t-shirt artwork, freelance work hustling, and some personal writing to do.
Again I must make note, that it is the desire of humans beings to find a need to NOT have idle time, or perhaps it is a sign of age, a means for the mind to combat the fuzzies that come with age.
Certainly, as I've gotten older, I have found more time and desire to be personally productive than to have leisure time.
That being said, I'm Hispanic, Mexican-American, it's in my blood to be social and have fun, as my cousin's husband in Mexico put it to me once, "You Americans live to work, we Mexicans work to live."
I have to include myself in the former, and I am pretty sure he agreed as well.  It doesn't mean Mexicans are lazy, it means that they recognize that "fun" is important and without it, you have burnout.
So...I must continue to dance if at all possible, even if that means in my kitchen to music on my headset (April you know what I mean) and I must go out occasionally to be social.  It's very easy I see now to become like my father or mother, or even my grandmother.  A recluse, a being with the simple desire to be left alone to his/her own devices.  It's there, I can feel it, and a part of me wants it.
Enough rambling, get back to work!

Almost perfect

Tonight was fun, almost perfect, but still fun.  Danced for almost two hours or perhaps even more, ran into Tiffany and had a chat, talked with Erin and Nate for a bit, met Ricks new wife Olga and enjoyed the view, did I mention I'm a big fan of school girl outfits?
Last time that I mentioned that, my old girlfriend, Gretchen, dressed in a Catholic school girl outfit, AFTER we had broken up, talk about trying to make a man hurt!
Only downside was the tummy ache I had, practically half the night, the latter half of the night.  I blame it on the muffin or brownie thing I ate at Beans & Brew, unlike the one at Liberty Park, this one did not have things like quiche or sandwiches to gulp down.  So the rich, chocolaty, lard laden fat goodness was what I had, oh and a bagel.  But pretty sure it's the richness of the former that is causing my tummy to ache.  It's going away slowly, I don't think the heat of the place (boy was it crowded AND hot) and dancing helped, but (shrugs shoulders) eh.

Good "work" day now on to fun

Good times, the meeting went swimmingly, we've already had a meeting to go over legalities and functions for each of us so with that out of the way, we set out to define the project and brainstorm.
Turned out quite well, we hit one (I don't want to call it a snag) issue but we made it clear that the idea belongs to one of the team, and that me and my other partner would in NO WAY infringe upon that and do something she wasn't comfortable with.  For that matter, something that would be uncomfortable for any of us. 
But we defined the storyline, basics of the universe, who the characters are and so forth.
We're also looking at source control and file conventions and where to store it.
Overall a very productive day so far.  Now it's a little personal work of my own (I know, like what is rest right?) and then off to Miah's to watch Anime, topping off the night with some much needed dancing.  Hoping Miah will be influenced by having gone to Depeche Mode to perhaps do a set...hm, might have to talk to him about that.
More info coming soon about what I'm up to and about.

Busy Saturday

Busy day, business meeting then anime at Miah's and finally Fetish Night at Area 51, hoping to get a lot of dancing done today, pigged out a little at Mike's BBQ last night, got to make up for that.
Not sure how, but once school was over, I became in a sense just as busy but without much to show for it...YET.

Making extra money by selling t-shirts

So I've been trying to make extra money besides what I do at my day job, it pays well, but unfortunately not well enough, but that's OK. It forces me to hustle and keep myself busy trying to get my artwork out there.  To that endeavor, I've started putting artwork on t-shirts, not sure how this will go, or if I will make ANY money at all, but one has to give it a try right?
I worry that I'm going to lose steam lose interest, I hope that's not the case but it can happen correct?
If you are so inclined, please check it out and see what you think.

http://silran666.spreadshirt.com/us/US/Shop/

Trying to do my Graphic Design thing

So I signed up to this webpage-99designs in order to test my graphic design skills and hopefully make extra money.  The first one was to a European communications agency, but so far it's a no go on that design, I just turned this one in to a medical x-ray company, we'll see what feedback I get.

April, Jen and I at the Depeche Mode Concert "E" Center SLC

Had a great time at the Depeche Mode, the band was amazing as always, don't really understand or get the people behind us, who barely knew any of the songs or wanted to just text and talk with each other instead of enjoying the music.  Jen wanted to kick their asses, lol and then April got told by security to put her camera away!  The video during "Strangelove" was way way erotic and quite risque I thought for SLC, but ....who cares!  The final duet of "Waiting for the Night to Fall" with Martin Gore and David Gahan was amazing!  Never have I had the opportunity to see them sing a song like that together!  All in all an amazing concert.

 

April and I

 

Jen and I

First Time Blogger, not first time Blogging

Well this is my first blog here on Blogger, greetings to you all, if you think you know me come find me on Myspace under the Bingo the God Clown.
Currently, I'm placing light points on a satellite map so that the software at work can place trees for the simulation we're working on.
Oh, did I mention I'm an artist? Yeah, I'm an artist, both traditionally and in 3D.
I've worked in the video game industry for almost 9 years at SingleTrac, Beyond Games and Sensory Sweep.
I've also bartended for about 8 years at Club Area 51 in Salt Lake City.
The purpose of this blog is to share my viewpoints, show my artwork, share oddities I find on the internet, have some fun.
That is all.