2018-11-23:

Fri:

Started the day off right with many snow on the ground. Didn't quite have to dig my way out but it was close.
Got to work no problem though the roads, for all the gloom and doom on the radio beforehand seemed just fine.

Then I couldn't get into work. My badge didn't work. My "manager" walked past me and invited me into the building but I was on hold with security and said we should probably wait for them to come back and see what was up. So he stayed there with me to sort it all out.

Of course I'm kidding he just left.

So apparently I was terminated. Huh, news to me. They try to call Don but no love, Chris walks in. He seeks out Don, no love. He comes back and lets me in. While we wait for Don to be found I try to log in. It's not just my badge apparenly my whole account has been deleted. Nice.

So I can't really do anything. I can't even go between labs. So I sit at the lab PC an poke around at RemoteUI.

11:00, still no love. At least I can get into the lab with the keypad. Has there been some new account made for me? Why just me? Adnan went to the same CTG but had no issues. Guess I just failed my LUCk check for today.

So not much action on that front all day. How hard is it to put me back in the database of "people who are not fired?"

Finally decided to do more modeling work. I wanted to try a modified method, using circles and actually getting the lines in the right places. I was also more careful about getting the same number of vertices all the way down. I think it's coming along.

[[image file="2018-11/comingalong.png" alt="no hands or feet" ]]

We'll see if I can get in the building Monday.

My manager and most of the "green" staff is off most or all of next week. So that's a thing. I'm sure much work will be done otherwise.

Then did the usual stuff of paying the vet bill for the thing they didn't charge me for so I had to go and pay them more money. Then dropped the stuff off at my parent's house. Then shopping, and over to cropping guy.

Yeah, the big "mystery" thing he couldn't explain over the phone was he wanted to crop a photo. Yeah, that was it. That was the entire thing he needed done. One photo. Cropped. So he could send it for Christmas. One. Photo. So worth 40 minutes of driving.

Put stuff away, got in another present and the SSD mounting kits.

Viewed my sites, the usual videos, no calls tonight but the pharmacy.
I put (3) because they sold the one inhaler as a 3 pack. Nice! But this is not an item you can just order in bulk. Whoops. I realized that later and wondered what they would do. *blushes* Stupid drugs, it's an asthma inhaler, I can't get high with it. Just sell it to me.

Sat:
Had one job right in the morning so after I got up, I got to it. His issue?
There wasn't one. I just hit his wireless network and it connected just fine.
Now auto connect was turned off, it's true. But he could have just touched his own wireless, which he knew because I asked him, and it would have saved us both a lot of trouble.

Came back, checked my sites, did youtube, did a bit of modeling.

Went back out to the guy down the street. Now this one- a little more "advanced." The fitbit could be registered on the Mac. *If it was one of a long list* which it wasn't, it was one of I think 3 that could only be done via mobile device. Well I searched for fitbit and there was the icon, along with dozens of other apps that really had nothing to do with fitbit. Search for the win, Apple? I installed it.

Would not log in.

Turns out, long, long story short, I had the wrong thing and the "real" app? It's iPhone only not iPad so I had to switch over to iPhone only apps to load it. Did it work just fine after that?

Yup. Thanks, Fitbit.

It then downloaded (very slowly) *something* who knows what? And was finally ready to go. My resting bpm was around 70. Though of course I was a bit agitated at the time, so who knows how accurate that was.

Came back here, had lunch. Took some photos of snow and leaves still on trees (it's melting but not very quickly) and did more 3D work. I think I've got the body acceptable (I like her belly button much more now, I know it's a weird thing to like but I figured out a technique of pulling one vertices inward and that worked great) and it was time to go out again.

This was rather annoying because nobody knew anything. They supposedly were having a website done and paid a lot of money for it? Maybe? This was also unclear. But it was just a google business account and a very simple one page site that wasn't even finished. I had to use my little laptop and make (remake really) their logo for them, I got lucky and found the graphic online that had been used. Very lucky.

Got home at 5:00, ate dinner, did some 3D stuff and then watch more Dr Who with dad.

Looking at what I had made today, I got paid with a $50 bill from 1974. Huh? How do you have a bill that old? It's older than me! I don't even want to spend it, I wonder if it's worth $51 to a collector? It's in good shape, but it does have a crease. Maybe I'll iron it.

A bit more 3D work and time for bed.

Sun:
Mostly more modeling, some reading, and more snowing.

Turns out watching tutorial videos *before* you screw everything up is the way to go, rather than after. Who knew? I was doing the face all wrong, and way harder than I had to. Because that's my nindo!

Anyway, more tweaks to the body. Put in the feet and the hands, those look okay.

[[image file="2018-11/11-18-18.png" alt="Body 11-18" ]]

I got the belly button to look right! There are still parts I am not happy with. You can guess which they are. The face, as mentioned before, is a fright.

[[image file="2018-11/frightmask.png" alt="Sorry if I scared you" ]]

That's when I said to myself, "self, there must be an easier way." And of course there was. Watched videos. "Ah, I'm a moron, as expected."

Not much time to try it now, so maybe tomorrow. It didn't look too hard.

Wonder if I'll be able to get into the building/my PC tomorrow? Should be fun finding out.

Talked to Dentist Guy, he turned his trackpad off. And the guy I went to Friday, windows screwed up and wouldn't load his USB flash drives. Claimed the driver "was already in memory." Sure it is. So I turned off "fast" start and that cleared it. Turning that off solves so many issues, it's absurd. Make it go away, MS. Please!

OH yeah, tomorrow is "Xerox Day" the day I was let go in 2002. Heh, wonder if history will repeat itself? Or HAS IT ALREADY? But no, Don says everything is fine.

Now if I could just remember why I wrote "clay" last night as a reminder to myself to do something today. I can't for the life of me. It was just before my father came over. What could it mean? ?????

Mon:
The only thing it could mean of course. The claymation special! I wanted to yank the songs out of it finally, as there are some I've never heard elsewhere. Stupid to have forgotten it.

Anyway, my badge worked in the lab door, but I really didn't get a chance to try the front door. I went in behind someone. The security in this place, you know?

What I don't have is a user account, so I still can't log into my PC. So guess what I did! Right, work, work, work, and more work. Not 3D modeling. Because if I had, I would show you this.

[[image file="2018-11/littlemorelikeaface.png" alt="Still not a great face" ]]

Okay, still more work to be done I admit, but I guess that looks a little better, right?

In the afternoon I went over to the other side and did some recording for this stupid localization team thing we're doing. While rooting around in Ken's area for a card reader because the desktop PCs don't have SD card readers I found a whole bunch of Mac laptops. And some USB/PS-2 converters so I can try another before I buy one to see if it helps my keyboard issues. All kinds of goodies. Even the old coffee tin that still has change in it. What, is that stupid thing going to just sit there forever in a cabinet now? Weird.

Anyway, got dropbox, google, and one drive done to my satisfaction. USB and email I want to do again, they got messed up, and I couldn't get into sharepoint because, again, no user account.

So I'll finish those up (in English) and then do them again in Spanish. And then again in French. And then again with each of those as the defaults and then again with them as the defaults and switching to the different languages? Talk about overkill, maybe I won't do that. We'll see.

I missed the meeting. Without the reminder there was no chance. I sat down thinking I should watch the time and try to remember to go, but then I didn't. Whoops.

Dropped off the laptop and charger on the way home, and came home.

Did the usual at that point, sites, dinner, ordered the inhaler system for Oliver ($70) and took delivery of a mom gift. I don't understand how, I ordered it on Saturday and the estimated delivery was after the 23rd. It's only the 19th. Did it fall through a rift in space/time?

And I've lost my ghost pencil, *mad*.

Did more modeling, she has clothes now! Well, she has a belt. Does that count as clothes? And some hair. Here's the latest.

[[image file="2018-11/11-19-18.png" alt="boy get my belt" ]]

Tues:
Hands in the air, who likes doing work they don't have to? Everybody? Yes, me too!

Having finished up the two services in English today I went on to French and Spanish, wondering all the while what was the point. There are many, many bugs about it, some I wonder if they are written up at all, honestly. I'd love to check, but I don't have an identity yet, so…

Anyway, got them done, dropped off the USB drive so they could be put online and Gina was there. "Oh, we're just doing English."

Thanks for making that clear to me.

Before lunch did an IE test in another lab, it does work if you jump through a bunch of certificate hoops. So whatever.

After lunch talked about ThinPrint with a guy and how to set it up to replicate what the customer is seeing. Told him to get a new license key too, because I can think ahead. (Sometimes. Not very often, but sometimes)

After that I certainly didn't do any modeling, and and certainly didn't come out exceeding my expectations. The hair in front isn't great, I admit

[[image file="2018-11/11-20-18_hairfront.png" alt="bangs in front" ]]

But I'm quite pleased with how the hair in back came out.

[[image file="2018-11/11-20-18_hairback.png" alt="like a waterfall" ]]

She has a little bow and everything. I sort of made it like a mermaid tail. She grows her hair long to hide her wings, not shown here because I have yet to do them.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Talked to Carlos for half an hour about getting his junk mail working and how to throw stuff in his downloads folder into the trash. The same you do put anything into the trash, dude.

Talked to a few others, no new jobs but one person is dropping something off.

Last day before Thanksgiving. We're going out to lunch tomorrow apparently. Wonder if I'll be back in the system yet?

Was so happy with the model, and I haven't decided on exactly what her dress is going to look like, I played some FF7.

Wed:
I don't think anything got done anywhere today.

Still have no access to anything, are they even trying?
Did more modeling, hey, even some color what do you think?

[[image file="2018-11/colorminette.png" alt="a dash of color" ]]

Not too bad. Though that face… what did I do wrong? She does need to be posed, I'm worried about those sleeves, but I'm sure one way or the other they can be put to rights. My second human, and far (and away) better than if I had tried to draw that same thing, so I count that as a win.

Went out to lunch, had a pretty good sandwich.

Then back to work, and Chris came over and said an email from corporate was sent out (which had never happened before) saying we could leave at 2:00. Neat.

So I did. Turned some stuff off, and drove home though the nasty cold. It's really cold out there by the way.

Came back, did the usual stuff just earlier, watched more of the tutorial video and another video to see if there was an easier way to do the body. I found an even more complex way! Whoops, but it probably would look good. They were basically modeling every single rectangle in the thing. Ouch.

So I tried my idea, which would have worked pretty well, that of starting with a circle, and going both up and down with it just scaling it in the X and Y direction as appropriate. My picture was totally not symmetrical and that really threw it off in the end, but the concept was proven. I think. If I need another female I'll try it.

Ordered a tablet for a lady.
Talked to another lady who can't remember her password so I have to go reset it for her. So I have three for Friday. 9:00 drop off loaner laptop. After that go reset password. At 12:30 go replace fan, which of course means disassembly of entire laptop. Fun.

Then Sean in the afternoon at some point.

Thurs:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope you had a good turkey eating day. And said a kind word in honor of the natives that were slaughtered such that you could do so.

Too soon?

Anyway, got up and put a thought I had last night into action. The model I was trying, I had another set of pictures of her. She was standing with her arms at her side. I came to the conclusion her torso would be the same, because just the position of her arms and legs changed. So couldn't I just swap the pictures and make whatever minor adjustments were needed?

I could!

This is how that turned out.

[[image file="2018-11/circle-method.png" alt="Circles" ]]

Look back up at the first image of Minette and then this one. She seems, I don't know, lumpier? Not as round? Of course some sculpting work would smooth her out, she's not as refined as the headless model above, but with potential perhaps. I first thought this was a failure on the part of the technique. But then I had another thought. "People," I thought to myself, "are not made of circles." And we aren't, are we? We're lumpy. Oddly flat in some places, but certainly round in others. So was this a failure of technique, in me as an artist, or actually a fair representation of the model I was working on? In other words not bad, simply more realistic? It's tough for me to know.

In either case, the underlying form is not all that important usually, as the body that's created will more than likely be clothed, obscuring the form beneath. The original body work simply there to give the clothes their proper shape. See colored Minette, the clothes covered her terrible upper arms quite nicely, leaving the legs I was more happy with to be seen. (I think I got the upper arms on the later model better.)

Really, becoming a good modeler, or a good *anything* for that matter means doing it over and over again, and doing things a little bit better each time.

I watched one woman following a Bob Ross painting tutorial and come away with something somewhat like, but not really close to, his final work. Does that mean her effort was wasted? No, not if she wanted to paint a Bob Ross landscape. Even he started somewhere, learning at the hands of a master before him.

So I'm quite pleased with even that much progress, in seeing how to do things in the most efficient way, and trying out techniques, and critiquing them to do better.

But enough about that. I cleaned up a little around here, got some christmas stuff out, got ready for tomorrow, and went over to my parent's house. No grandfather, it was snowing and bitterly cold (the snow stopped but it got colder by the time I went home) so he didn't come. Someone get to work on the Portal technology already!

Had a yummy turkey day, saw the birdies and the kitties, (no Gabe) and came home again.

Did some reading, made sure everything was set for tomorrow, and went to bed.

24 years ago today my grandfather died. How can so many years have passed?

Hope you had a good day, everyone, don't get hurt out there seeking out deals. But honestly, your shopping should be done by now. Mine almost is. Be like me.

On second thought, don't be like me, it's not worth it. Be like yourself. That's where you'll do your best, I think. Or your worst, for that matter. In the words of a singer "You'll do it your way!"

Sean's tomorrow at 6:00, hopefully we'll bring a dragon back her stolen item and get back to the dungeon delving.

See you next week, as we sprint into the last month of 2018.