I have never been a fan of blogs. I’ve never had the patience to sit down and read one besides what the requirements in English 15 freshman year dictated. Even now, 6 years later as I am about to turn 25, I still haven’t found a blog that interests me. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write more. I’ve always enjoyed frantically typing out essays hours before they were due so I probably would love to write for myself right? Since I never could find a blog that interested me, I decided to just make one that I found interesting and see if anyone else shares that interest. Most of this will have to do to photography and video ideas and editing strategies, but every so often, I’ll probably drift down Star Trek Avenue and go on rants about soundproof windows near airports and the necessity of them for one’s sanity. Today, I don’t really know where I am going to go with the post.
Today is the 7th of August and we are still in the midst of a pandemic that half of the world believes in and the other doesn’t...or at least that’s how it feels to some people. It is quite ridiculous to think about how much time has passed since March when it was starting to ramp up. In all the time I have spent in quarantine, I have spent a lot of time in Blender. Blender is an open source 3D Modeling software that has powerful rendering capabilities for animation. In the five months since Quarantine started, I now have 900 hours of time within the software. That’s 37.5 days of modeling and rendering. I have filled up five separate 250 GB partitions of 1TB drives. It’s all worth the data hoarding in the end because the work that I am putting out more recently is the stuff I always dreamed about when I was a kid.
I grew up watching Star Trek TNG with my grandma. Every so often, we still catch an episode. One birthday where my grandma gave me her USS Enterprise 1701 - D collectors model, it sparked a love for aviation, engineering, and everything in between. Whenever I would hold the toy up and navigate it through our living room, the images in my brain were pretty much exactly as they are here. It is really pleasing to be able to say that I taught myself how to do this and through my own trial and error, I was able to get myself to a level that is beyond what was taught to me in college. I taught myself how to model and shade high quality 3D scenes and so can you! If you ever want to know where to start, I’m always willing to help out! I’ve even thought about making a video series about the basics of blender so others can start making what they always saw in their heads as kids.
I really enjoyed my education at Penn State, but I also had a lot of other things going on that made me not make the most out of the network one usually makes when in a communications major. I switched late to the College of Comm from Electrical Engineering to Film and Video, the first semester of senior year. I ended up finishing the program in a year and a half and graduated in December of 2018. I was usually the oldest kid in the class and I am naturally quiet so I found myself hanging out by myself while others formed groups and film related friends. I spent my time focusing on other friends and my senior year and that meant that I shut a lot of creative doors by choosing some things over others. I will always have a regret not getting to create more with people looking to do the same, but am grateful for the people in my life I do get to create with. The extra semester at Penn State without my friends was weird as well, I think I even ended up staying part of that summer and all throughout that time, the house that I had lived in for the last three years was finally getting renovated. Brand new kitchen and floors went in the week I moved out. On top of that, they had decided to move the equipment room from it’s current off-campus location to the Willard Building. Instead of having to take a 20 min bus ride to the “satellite campus” classrooms, future students would just have to walk to one of the most used buildings on campus. I was understandably grumpy about the new things I never got to use, but it was time for me to leave State College. Now back home in San Diego, I want to find people to create with, but until then I’ll make due with myself.
Since then, I have been in San Diego and other places bouncing around here and there frantically trying to figure out how to work for myself while also having the discipline to not fall through with my expectations. Seeing as there is no better time than the present, I have decided to just start walking and trying things out. I like the idea of posting blog posts every week or day, but both of those are unrealistic. I have a lot of side interests and projects that will probably keep me from writing these as often as others are able to, but I can say to expect more in the future. Just not a lot. And next time, there will be more substance I promise. Think of this like getting out of the car after spending 4 hours driving across Ohio. Just a nice and quick little stretch.