Continuing from the previous post, here is the second animation I have to share from my last year or two in college. This one is the more advanced of the two in just about every way. It involved a lot more planning, a lot more work, a lot more people (volunteer voice actors and all), and a lot more computing horsepower to get it done.
The end result is this short animation I dreamed up about what might happen if the iconic browser buttons (back, forward, reload, and stop) took on identities and roamed in our world. Or specifically, in my house -- once again, most objects and details in this animation are representative of my reality at the time, right down to the retro orange-ish color of the decades-old phone I had on my desk.
The software used was Maya (don't remember what version at the time), with some accessory work done in Photoshop and Premiere. The voices, besides my own and my wife's, are of wonderful friends and co-workers of mine at the time (when I was SIBI's webmaster). There are some unfortunate problems in the animation -- involving lighting and camera views -- that only cropped up on rendering, and by that time it was too late to fix them. I don't remember exactly, but I think I was rendering this thing for almost the last 48 hours before it was due. ... Actually, I just found the post I wrote on May 2, 2006 in which I actually detailed a lot more about the project than I am able to remember now. Here is the link if you're interested.
A few years ago I graduated from LCU with a degree in Computer Information Systems. One of the reasons I liked LCU's CIS program (and chose it over Texas Tech's similar MIS program) was that the degree program offered some neat flexibility in allowing students to pursue different interests within the overall degree umbrella. So for a student like me, who was already a web developer by trade, I wasn't forced to sit through their introductory web development classes, but was instead allowed to pursue other topics that I'd never had a chance to explore.
Among others, I ended up choosing a couple of courses on animation. Even though I had no intention then (or now) of ever working in the animation industry, it's something that I find interesting and wanted to try my hand at, and get some experience with the software involved. Although it was extremely challenging and tedious (especially the animation that will later come in the second post in this little series), I enjoyed it and it was one of the highlights of my time as a student there.
Ever since then, I've always planned to make these animations available online but just never seemed to get around to it. Today I'm finally doing it. First, below, is the animation that was my Final Project for the regular 2D animation class I took. We used Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash, which makes it perfect for sharing right here on the web. I found the most inspiration -- and, for myself, found it most interesting -- to make animations that were largely grounded in real life, but with some fun twists. So those of you who hung out with us in Lubbock will notice that the setting is true to our life there, from the house itself to the layout of our bedroom. Even our dog, Kona, has a brief cameo part in the audio if you listen closely. So without further ado...
In the coming days, I'll share the 3D animation I made in a second class.
Our family is continuing to plug along in our respective places -- Denyce and the boys in West Texas, and me here in Ukraine. The funeral for Papa (Denyce's grandfather) was Friday and sounds like it was a very good time for everyone. Denyce and the boys have since made their way up to Lubbock and are there for a couple of days visiting with teammates (the Prices) and friends. Meanwhile, they're trying to stay warm. At the beginning of their trip they went from a cold, snowy Ukraine to a relatively warm West Texas. These days, though, it's been cold and very windy in West Texas, while in Kharkov we've been enjoying warm temperatures and calm, sunny days. The high today is supposed to be around 63 F, which feels very cozy and comfortable to me after the past several months of winter.
Denyce and the boys will fly out tomorrow (Tuesday) for Northern California for a brief 3-day visit with my family out there. Many thanks to my mom who made this possible by offering some free Southwest flight credits she had. Then it will be back to Texas for a couple of days before flying out to Ukraine on Wednesday next week.
I had a very full Sunday yesterday, starting with us guys assembling with a small congregation of Christians here that we've been building a relationship with. They've encouraged us and by God's grace we are able to encourage them as well. Some of you may have already seen this photo on the McDougles' blog, but I'm going to repost it here as well since it's so worth sharing. This is David, Dougle, and me with those of their group who were present yesterday morning:
The rest of the day included our normal assembly time here together with our families, followed by lunch and fellowship time. We recorded a short video to be included at MRN's upcoming 10th anniversary dinner. After that I headed out and spent several hours braving previously-unexplored public transportation routes (which went extremely well) and hopping between home improvement stores shopping for wallpaper for our living room. The walls in there are totally bare right now, and today the workers are resurfacing the wall in preparation to put new wallpaper up. As someone who has lived most of my life in American homes with the usual sheet-rocked, textured, and painted walls, it's very interesting for me to see how things are here. Our walls are brick and plaster, and simply texturing and painting walls here is extremely rare. For one thing, the walls by nature (and age) tend to be less flat, straight, and even -- wallpapering helps to hide this. Also, in this culture I think they consider simply painted walls to be an appropriate style perhaps for an office setting, but find it strange in a home (though I think this is changing with time and Western influence).
This morning is day 7 the workers have been working here (they've already done some work on the entryway/hallway of the apartment before starting on the living room). They're good guys and I'm enjoying getting to know them some, as the language barrier permits. For the first time they brought a radio with them today. So I've been listening with them as I've been in the next room working. Although there have been plenty of modern songs too, some other noteable songs that have come across the airwaves have included Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This." Gotta love Ukrainian radio. I'm a closet Michael Jackson fan -- talking about his music rather than of the life he's lived, of course -- though I guess I'm not so "closet" if I'm mentioning it on my blog. And as for a classic like MC Hammer, well, you just can't touch that.
UPDATE late in the afternoon -- It ended up getting to about 68 degrees this afternoon, wow! And even more incredibly, as I type this very update Michael Jackson is on the radio again. Seriously.
Last night Denyce's grandfather passed on after a two-month ordeal with cancer. He finally let the cancer have his body, knowing that his soul was already the Lord's. Had been for a long time.
I was only able to talk to Denyce very briefly and it is now the middle of the night there, so for now there aren't any other details to share. But there are pictures. I went back and surveyed our photo collection from recent years and found a handful of shots of Papa that I want to share. I'll include a few of them below, but to see them all click this link to go to the album.
July 2004, holding what I assume is one of his MANY great-grandchildren (and counting) ... sorry everyone, for the life of me I can't tell who this is that he's holding though.
A good laugh, July 2004.
A really good laugh, July 2004 (a moment after the shot above).
September 2008, a few weeks before we left for Ukraine, reading Bible stories to Malachi.
This is a follow-up to the previous post last week, for those outside our family and immediate associations who are not hearing news more often, about the latest with Denyce's grandfather and what we're doing right now. Her grandfather (Papa) is still living but is now in hospice there in Abilene. He continues to be surrounded by family and I'm sure if he could talk to you he'd say he's very blessed by that.
After it became clear that no further treatment would be done on the cancer, and most family felt that it was probably a matter of days or possibly weeks, but not months, we made the decision to go ahead and book tickets for Denyce and the boys to return to the US to be with the rest of the family during this time. We are very grateful for our wonderful sponsoring church, Sun Valley, whose elders agreed to fund the airfare for this unplanned return trip.
Fortunately we were able to book tickets at a good price, and for a favorable itinerary, on short notice. Yesterday morning I took Denyce and the boys to the airport, and our taxi driver (and friend) Andrei and I helped them through as far as we could. It wasn't an easy decision for us to plan for Denyce to travel alone with the boys, but she felt she was up for it and that is was worth it. They flew the short hour and twenty minutes to Kiev on a local airline, where they had a very hurried layover and boarded a Delta flight for New York. That flight was supposed to be around 11 hours but somehow they landed well over an hour early. They went through customs and then had a longer layover in New York, followed by a roughly 4-hour flight to Dallas/Ft Worth. Arriving at DFW at 10:35 PM, they were picked up by Denyce's older sister. After the process of getting out of the airport and getting car seats installed in the vehicle and everything, they then drove a few hours to Hawley, where her grandparents live. I believe they arrived there around 4 AM. That was just a few hours ago. Hopefully they are getting some sleep now, but the boys actually slept the whole flight from New York to Dallas, and then most of the way to Hawley. So in reality, they may be up and raring to go.
I'm happy to report that overall the trip went very well, she and the boys held up well, and there were no major problems along the way. I'm sure if she had time she could share many more interesting details about the trip on here. They are scheduled to be in the US for around 3 weeks, departing back for Ukraine on April 15th (arriving here on the 16th). Their schedule will be pretty day-to-day depending on how things play out with Papa, but they do hope to spend around a week in Lubbock at some point, for those of you up that direction.
As for me, after weighing everything involved, we decided it would be best for me to stay on here in Ukraine. I'll be using this unusual time without my family around to work on some special projects (first of which is some remodeling I'm having done on the apartment) and to focus more exclusively on others that I've been working on (principally Russian language).
My first hour or two back from the airport was a low point for me, as it just felt depressingly empty in this quiet apartment by myself, especially knowing that Denyce was in for a possibly nightmarish 24 hours ahead. (Thankfully, as I mentioned above, it didn't turn out that way). But after that the Lord blessed me with a wonderful day full of good time with great people. I had a good time at our weekly Tuesday morning team mens' meeting with David and Dougle. I then went straight from there to lunch with our good friend Valeriy here in Kharkov, who we've mentioned on here before. Valeriy treated me to lunch for my birthday and we had a good time fellowshipping and building our relationship. He then helped me make some initial arrangements for getting new wallpaper put up in a couple of rooms in our apartment, so it was great to get a jump start on one of my big projects on day 1 without my family. I then had a coaching call on Skype with Jay Jarboe, a missions mentor of ours, and that is always very useful and encouraging.
Shortly after the call, the shipping company we have been using to ship our stuff from the States (the stuff we didn't bring with us on the plane when we moved here, but wanted to have here) delivered two more of our boxes. We look forward to each pair of boxes that arrive (we have friends in the US who are shipping them 2 at a time for customs reasons) and it's like Christmas when they arrive and we open them up. We haven't seen any of this stuff since early October so we don't remember a whole lot about what all we actually packed in these boxes. So, it's a surprise from ourselves. It was just sad that Denyce wasn't here to open them with me, especially considering that these two boxes had a lot of her warmer-weather clothes, which she could really be putting to good use right now while she's in the US. Oh well.
The day ended with a birthday dinner that the Nelsons and McDougles prepared for me. What great teammates. We enjoyed some good fajitas (anything Mexican is a huge treat here) and ice cream (a favorite of mine), along with some fellowship and games.
Hopefully Denyce might be able to find a little time here and there in the coming days and weeks to share about her days back in the US with family. Thank you for your continued prayer for Denyce's grandfather and the rest of the family.
