I was going to call this post “Movin’ Right Along” however, every time I say or think that phrase my ear worms start singing the song by that name from the original ‘Muppet Movie’. It wouldn’t be so bad except they don’t remember all the words. So I’m stuck with Fozzy Bear singing half the words in my head for hours. It wasn’t worth that sort of torment.
As you might have guessed, things are looking up as far as getting cool things done and learning stuff. Once that nasty headache completely cleared I was able to really get going. And even solve a thing or two. Like when to start one of the guitar courses I purchased, and what to do about some blank greeting cards. So onward.
I was working along this week trying to make progress on all the different things I’m learning for work, and getting somewhere. I took a really basic overview course on AWS. Now I’ve started a little more in depth course with plans for an even more in depth course after that. I worked on Ruby this week, mostly setting up my system for running Ruby on Rails locally. I have a personal laptop that I’m using for that and for the Blender lessons. I found the part of the Ruby course where they tell you how to set it up so I did that. They also show you how to set it up on Mac and on AWS Cloud9. I have an old (10 years) Mac Book Pro that I bought used to mess with and I decided to see if I could set it up with Ruby on Rails. It took a bit of effort and wasn’t as smooth as the Windows 10 laptop, but I chalk that up to it being 10 years old and not on the latest OS. Still, it works.
I’m still plugging along on the SQL and as I looked at something one day from the book, it clicked what I’d been encountering with the online study stuff I’ve been using. Which means that is starting to take hold as well. That’s a relief. And kind of cool.
I tend to keep a list of things that I have to remember to do, like appointments, or classes, and chores. I also keep on the list, things that I’m working on or don’t want to forget to work on. And some are things that are big projects that could be coming up. As I was looking at this list this week, it clicked with me when I could work on one of the guitar courses I bought. I no longer do weekly grocery shopping and I don’t have Taekwondo on Saturday so that would be an excellent day to work on that. That’s not to say that is the only day I will pick up a guitar. It’s that it is the day that I will sit down and watch some lessons. Then I can spend the week working on the exercises. So yeah. I did that. I sat down Saturday afternoon, I was planning on morning but had a spurt of creativity for a different, out standing, project that I worked on. I’ll get to that in a moment.
Back to the guitar. I watched about an hour of the course to start. A lot of it was really very basic stuff and review for me. Though, I finally understand some of the notation on the TAB sheets I use. And I have even put them to a test. What a difference that makes. Oh boy. So I went through about an hour and got to the basic beginning lessons and printed out the PDF file so I could have it to remind me. Then a little later, I decided to spend some time playing around with the exercise, and a little of what will be coming next. And I solved a problem for myself.
Remember that I have had some trouble with my arm and that some of it seems to be aggravated by they way I try to play the rhythm for ‘Dust My Broom’? And I’ve tried the open tuning for it, which works, though it requires considerable adjusting and relearning of things to make full use of it. I’ll get there. Or back to working on it. For now, it turns out because of how this instructor shows a basic blues boogie, (I consider it a shuffle but I could be wrong), I learned how I can play that, all on the same fret and thus use a capo and not have to use that poor, little finger. And when I figured it out my brain wanted to explode. I’d been working so hard to figure that out and here it was, and it was simple. I’m totally excited, and mind blown. Almost as mind blown as when Kevin showed us the C-A-G-E-D stuff.
That little project that took up my Saturday morning? So, I’ve been writing cards and letters to a few friends and family, for fun, as a good way to keep up, and to help support the post office. Now I prefer to send the letters in blank note cards with something interesting on them or if it’s really short, just a post card, again with something interesting on the one side. At first I resisted purchasing cards because I had a few and I wasn’t finding anything I really liked. I did finally find some, they were these awesome paintings of Llamas with a rainbow mohawk, or glasses, or very prim and proper, and even one with headphones on. My nephew has been a big fan of them. Before that, I was thinking I really should just make some. Problem was, I wan’t sure what sort of art to put on them. Then, it looked like the card stock was going to be matte, not glossy, and I wasn’t sure about what I had finally decided I could put on them, which was some of the pictures I took in Australia.
So this idea for these blank greeting cards has been sitting on my list for a few months now and I’ve been stuck. This week, I got an advertising email for this site called Design Cuts. I downloaded a free bundle of Photoshop and Illustrator brushes and fonts and back grounds and such from them five years ago. They regularly send advertisements for the weekly freebie, or bundles that are on sale. Something caught my eye in the one they sent this week so I pulled it up to see what was in it. There were a few items that I thought would be really useful and fun to see what I could do with and one of those was a set of masks. Not like face masks. Masks to use to hide parts of an image. That seemed like it could be fun to work with.
Back to looking at that list. So I hadn’t purchased the bundle yet. I was thinking about it and pretty sure it would be a good choice, when Friday night, I happened to look at the item on my list that was for the Australian greeting cards and boom. I new exactly what I wanted to do for the cards and with that mask set. Which lead to Saturday, after breakfast and some awesome coffee, I purchased the bundle, and started experimenting. I ultimately came up with about 25 different pictures that I thought might work and I applied different masks and created these really cool pictures. I chose 5 to use for the greeting cards. I got them uploaded and ordered and they are on their way. I’ll post a little taste with this. I’m so excited.
And on top of all that I have finished the Blender Donuts course completely this time. I finished up the note taking on the final section which covered some key framing, animation, a bit of setup, and compositing. There’s still a good bit to learn that I really don’t have a feel for in Blender. At least I got to learn some new bits now. I wasn’t sure I would get it done this weekend. I thought it might take part of this week. I did get it done and now I can start on the endless donuts project. You’ve been warned. I’m excited to have that part completed and so I can move on to using that a little more creatively and to really add my own twist to the subject matter. I have an idea for the first one, already.
I has been a full week. And a satisfying one. I feel like I’ve really managed some breakthroughs with several things and that makes a big difference for my mood and my attitude. I am exhausted at the end of the day, and that’s ok. At least I feel like my day was well spent. Enjoy the pictures from this week.