Scooter

So a while back my buddy TJ took some pictures out at his folks house and this one caught my eye. I even jokingly commented that he need to bring it back to life for me.

Fast forward to this weekend and TJ was over at my house hanging out and mentioned that he was going to his parent's house the next day. I asked if he could bring the scooter back so we could see if we could get it running. He agreed and two days later he showed up at my house with a trunk full of scooter pieces. It's a 1985 Honda Spree and it's in rough shape. We've got two of everything except for a carburetor and we're waiting on getting an oil tank off ebay. It also needs an air filter and battery, but those will come later. Our main goal at the moment is to get the damn thing running.

Unfortunately, TJ only has Sundays and Mondays off and he doesn't get off until 9 on workdays so we only have two days a week to work on the engine itself. But rest assured, we will use those days to their fullest. Since I don't know a whole lot about engines and such, I've taken it upon myself to repaint the body pieces. This evening I peeled off ancient decals and sanded down the leg guard and side pieces to get them ready for primer. I just found out, after reading the instructions, that it's best to paint an hour after applying the primer. I didn't foresee this and so tomorrow I have to go out and find paint in addition to another can of primer. We're going with pearl white with chrome accents. Why, you ask? Because we've named the scooter Boss Hogg in honor of Jefferson Davis Hogg from Dukes of Hazard. As the cou d'etat I've created a logo to replace the awful 80s Spree logo:
I can't wait until we finish this thing. It's going to be a blast.

Pixar

As mentioned in a previous posting, I applied for a job at Pixar. My dream job of sorts. I've waited patiently for a little over a month and checked their careers page everyday to see if my status has changed from applied to anything other than applied.

Well, it still says applied, but yesterday I finally received an email from them. I've posted it here in its entirety:

Dear Casey Woods

Thank you for forwarding your resume and flatwork regarding the Graphic Artist position with Pixar. We had your work & resume reviewed and while everyone was impressed with your work, we are unable to utilize your skill set at this time.

Thanks,
Pixar Recruiting

The whole occurrence went something like this:

00:00 - Received email from Pixar
00:01 - Heart rate jumps from 72 bpm to 6,000,000,000 bpm
00:02 - Opened email
00:03 - Heart rate falls back to 72bpm
00:04 - Read email
00:05 - Heart falls through floor and hits a Chinamen in the head

I didn't know until I got this email that a human could experience so many emotions in five seconds.

After about an hour of thinking it through and eating some comfort food (A Big Mac and fries. Go figure.) I came to terms with the rejection. I never thought I really had much of a chance after sending my application and portfolio and told myself not to get my hopes up. It was done on a whim and shouldn't have been thought of much more than that. In the end, I got too excited and hoped I'd get the job.

In retrospect, it was a good experience. I learned a lot about portfolio creation and I know what I need to do in order to raise my chances of working for Pixar. To look at it in a positive light, at least I got a response. A response that explicitly states they were "impressed" and that they can't utilize my skill set "at this time". Granted, this is probably a automatically generated response, it still means that I passed some sort of initial screening. I'm sure many people send in there resumes and portfolios and never hear a word.

I'm still bummed, but I gave it a shot. Pixar knows who I am now. And this isn't the last they'll see of me.

Vegas

The time has finally come. Tomorrow I will step on a plane bound for Las Vegas, Nevada. I've never been before but I've heard lots of great things. I probably won't be doing a whole lot of gambling, but I definitely plan on sightseeing. I've already booked a reservation for The Neon Boneyard, a huge lot that contains several defunct casino signs. Oh, and don't worry. There will be picture taking.

This evening I finally broke down and bought a record player. Corley and I were at Target where I bought a new backpack and shoes when we discovered this little beauty. It's pretty nice and it sounds great. I inherited a small collection of records from a friend and have been wanting to buy a record player since receiving them. I hadn't seriously gone through them until tonight when I discovered I had Michael Jackson's Thriller ON VINYL. "Holy damn!" I exclaimed as I held the record in my hands. I proudly presented it to Corley who squealed in delight and insisted we play it next. Listening to it now.

As for the rest of the collection, I have several Bill Cosby, George Carlin, National Lampoon, Steve Martin, and Richard Pryor albums to work my way through. I found a Ramones album and some Bing Crosby christmas albums as well. Clearly a very distinctive collection.

1,000

Well, more like 1,002. Either way, I finally hit 1,000 photos uploaded on Flickr! It's a milestone! Granted, I have taken about 5,300 photos since I got my camera, but only 1,000 of them are good enough for Flickr.

In other news, Corley left for Port Aransas this evening. You may have heard about it. She's down there with her family for the weekend so it's up to me to entertain myself.

Also, I will be applying for my dream job in the next week. Pixar has an opening for a graphic designer at their studio in Emeryville, CA. I am mostly qualified for the position and while my main goal is to actually get the job, my more realistic goal is to get an interview. If I don't hear anything after a month I'm going to apply again and keep applying until they tell me to stop.

Running on fumes

For the past two weeks I've been flying solo at my job. The only other artist there got canned for no good reason and that leaves me in charge of all things art. I am now responsible for absolutely everything which includes embroidery, something I know little about. I've slowly been learning the ins and outs of it, but as I learn, the art inbox just keeps growing and growing. I feel like Sisyphus rolling a gigantic stone up a hill only to have it roll back down again. Hopefully it won't last for eternity.

It's been affecting other parts of my life too. When I come home I don't want to do anything else but lay in bed in a fetal position slowly counting the hours until the weekend, my only reprieve. I know I sound like a forlorn emo kid, but honestly, having this incredible amount of responsibility resting on my shoulders drains the life out of me. When I get in my car after work I feel like I've been running a marathon all day.

To be fair, there are plenty of positive things going on in my life. It seems a lot of people like my photography and have been asking me to take pictures for them. My friend Pam is getting married and wants me to take bridal pictures. Corley's friend Lauren is getting married and wants me to take engagement pictures. To top it all off, this weekend I will be doing a semi-professional portrait shoot of a gal who's debuting her first album soon. The pictures are going to be used for the cover and hopefully some promotional materials. In preparation for that I went ahead and purchased a Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 lens for my camera. I haven't been able to post them yet, but this lens takes AMAZING pictures. I love it just as much as my 50mm.

I suppose if I look on the bright side of things, if I can hold on long enough for Aztec to hire a new artist, I'll more than likely receive a raise. If I can make it of course.

Slow

I've noticed that I've slowed down in my photo taking. I'm sure you have too. In the past, this is usually a sign that I've lost interest in whatever new thing I'm doing and eventually I stop doing it all together, thus another hobby tried and tossed aside. I'm confident that this is not the case.

No, the real reason I've gone from a photo shooting frenzy to a handful every few days is because I haven't gone anywhere new. I'm usually at my house, at work or at school. My weekends are really the only time I have to take photos and lately they've been crammed full of so many things to do that I don't have a whole lot of time to take pictures. I want to. Oh how badly I would love to have a whole day to go places and shoot things. I find myself driving down the road seeing things I could take pictures of, imagining how I'd frame them and wishing I had time to stop and do so.

As time goes on I know I'll be shooting lots of pictures, in addition to obtaining newer and better lenses which will more than likely spur more photo frenzies. I really like taking pictures and I think it's definitely something I'm going to stick with. It still scares me though that I'm not taking as many as I did when I first got my camera.

I suppose it's similar to dating. You find someone that is so incredibly awesome and you fall in love with them. For a good while all you want to do is spend every waking moment with them. But as time goes on, the newness of it wears until finally you wake up next to your best friend. Things might not be as exciting as they were when you first met, but they don't have to be. You know that exciting things will happen, and they do, just not as often. My camera and I have become best friends and I know that as I get better at photography there will be a lot more exciting moments, just not all jumbled together into one big lump of joy.

The Nifty Fifty

I got a new lens for my camera recently. A 50mm f/1.8 II or the "Nifty Fifty" (also "Fantastic Plastic") as it's called. Supposedly it's one of the best and least expensive lenses you can get for a Canon and so far I agree. I've taken about 350 shots with it so far and a lot of them are really rad. The super low f-stop of 1.8 lets me take extremely cool depth of field shots. It focuses ridiculously fast and when I stop down the lens to anything above 1.8 it's very sharp. I'm not sure I'll be taking this lens off anytime soon. You can check out my latest pictures on my Flickr account if you'd like. I update it almost everyday if I can.

In other news, come this summer, I will be completely best-friendless. My buddy Bruh is heading back home for a while at the end of next week. I have no idea when he'll be back. My other friend Nick will be leaving for graduate school sometime this summer. I've known him for at least 11 or 12 years and though I don't see him that often anymore, it's still a little hard for me. I suppose I'll be alright. I make new friends pretty easily, but it'll very hard to find really great friends like Nick and Bruh.

Speaking of Bruh, his band The Vermicious Canids has two shows this weekend: Friday at The Red Eyed Fly at 10:30pm and Saturday at Independence Brewery at 1:00pm. These two shows could potentially be their last so I highly recommend you check them out live while you can.

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, June Bugs are starting to arrive and dive bomb into things. I've already had three pull a kamikaze run on my head while sitting on my porch. I thought the new porch light I bought was supposed to NOT attract bugs.

Finally I'd like to announce that Corley and I should be having a Rock Band party sometime this month. We'll hopefully set a date soon and I'll post the details everywhere I can. Rock Band parties are tons of fun and if you haven't been to one yet you should definitely come to ours. I guarantee you'll have a blast.

Cameras part deaux

I've been steadily adding photos to my flickr. I've taken about 400 photos so far, and of those, I've only posted 42. Obviously I'm not a great photographer otherwise that ratio would be a lot better. I'm learning though.

Also, in addition to Vagiant, you really, really, really, really need to listen to the new Raconteurs album. Despite what a lot of "music critics" are saying, Consolers of the Lonely is a wicked-awesome-bad-ass album. In my opinion, Consoler of the Lonely, The Switch and the Spur, Shades of Black and Carolina Drama are the standouts, but I love every song on there. I demand you go purchase it this instant if you haven't. You would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't

This weekend I will be venturing to the horse farm with Corley and, if the weather permits, taking a grip load of pictures. I'm very excited to have a change of scenery in which to photograph. The results should be interesting.

If you must know, the truth about the tale, go and ask the milkman.

Cameras

This is going to be a quick post.

I got my camera and I love it.

I've set up a flickr account and uploaded some of my best photos so far. You should be able to view them up in the right corner. I'll keep adding more as I take them.

We'll talk more tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Raging Semis

There is one movie in the entire Disney collection, Pixar movies excluded, that is my absolute, all-time, mega-super favorite. That movie is The Sword in the Stone.

It's an older movie so it has all the kick-ass hand drawn animation and the story is wonderful. I have searched for this movie on DVD ever since I've owned a DVD player. The only time I was ever able to find it was at Disney World, for 30 fucking dollars! And when I went to a Disney store in the mall, the lady working said that she was pretty sure Disney didn't even make the Sword in the Stone. What the fuck?

So tonight while waiting in line at the grocery store, I looked at some magazines and my gaze settled upon Sword in the Stone on DVD. I think I almost died. Needless to say I purchased it, or rather Corley purchased it because as fate would have it, I forgot my wallet. Thank god for Corelys. I don't think she's aware that the only thing she could of topped this purchase with is the purchase of Delorean. That's how special this movie is to me.

I can't wait to watch it.

Great Scott!

Most of you who know me are quite aware of my Delorean lust. It is awoken from time to time by various occurrences in my life. I can't rightly say what made me think of them in the past 15 minutes, but it caused me to look up videos of the Delorean on YouTube as well as pay a visit to one of my favorite sites: www.delorean.com

Someday I will own one of these magnificent pieces of modern engineering. Someday.

You say bark, I say bite

Well, I was able to bike my way to and from work today. A grand total of four miles. Sure, it pales in comparison to what other people have done, but considering I haven't ridden a bike more than a mile in god knows how long, it's a pretty good accomplishment. I must say I am certainly not looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning. It's going to be painful.

You may have noticed that I got around to changing my masthead up top. I kind of cheated and used the original as a template. I'm a little low on creative juices these days. It's tough when your job requires you to be creative for eight hours a day. I kind of feel mentally drained sometimes and unable to create anything after I get outside of work. I suspect it might be more from lack of motivation.

Going back to the bike thing, riding today made me consider that now might not be a bad time to quit smoking. It's only slowing me down. It's not something you can give up easily unfortunately, but I think it's something I'm going to have to do if I ever want to be able to ride my bike farther than four miles a day.

Madeline

Today I join a new echelon of Austin society. I am now the proud owner of a red Schwinn Suburban. Her name is Madeline and she's probably the finest piece of steel and rubber I've ever owned.

I've been meaning to get a bike ever since I lived in West Campus. It's a cleaner way of traveling and it's great exercise. Honestly it'll probably be my only form of exercise aside from the walks that Corley and I go on. I look forward to taking her on her first long distance trip tomorrow morning to work. My only wish is that I had gotten one earlier this week so I could have ridden all week during spring break. Now the only times I'll be able to ride it to work are on Wednesdays and Fridays.

In addition to that I also got a hair cut; another thing I've been meaning to do. I've been letting it grow for a long time now. It was past my shoulders and probably about 12 in. long and now it barely touches them. It feels a lot nicer and it's not as hot. I think it looks a lot better too.

As soon as I get around to it I'll post some pictures of my sweet new ride and possibly my haircut which isn't as cool as the bike.

Oh, and since I failed to post it earlier, Corley and I celebrated our two-year anniversary this past February. It's a wonderful thing while at the same time a significant landmark in my life. Until I met Corley I hadn't dated a girl consecutively for more than six months. She's pretty much my best friend of the female persuasion and I think that's the way it should be with a significant other. We can comfortably sit in silence for long periods of time and we never fight. However, we really suck at talking on the phone. Strange.

My birthday also happened to occur last month. I am now 24 years-old which I didn't realize until a week later. I mean, I was fully aware of my birthday and a few friends and I went out to Hole in the Wall to celebrate, but I wasn't aware I had turned a year older until I was sitting in traffic on my way to school a week later. I suppose I was caught up in the celebration of an event rather than fully understanding what the significance of said event was. Again, strange.

And if you still haven't checked out Vagiant, you really should get around to doing that.

As an aside....

I'm glad I have an s in my last name.

Anxiety

I think everyone should check out Vagiant. They're an all-chick punk band from Boston that's been featured on Guitar Hero and Rock Band. They'll give you a shot in the arm that you just might need.

What do you do when you find your motivational level gauge tapping E? You post a blog!

Some of you may have noticed that I recently changed my layout and profile picture. In an effort to be more proactive about blogging I decided to do those things. When I feel up to it, I'll probably edit the colors and graphics, I just haven't decided what I should replace the current ones with. However, I do have a plan.

Step one involves investing in a nice digital camera.

With said camera I plan on taking a metric shit ton of pictures which I will post on this, eventually, redesigned blog. Thus I will have created a portal on the web for which to display my mediocre attempts at art.

Of course this also means that I'll have a need to purchase an account with Flickr.

I've already tackled a few other steps towards my goal. I finally bought a new hard drive for my computer. 500 gigabytes of space now rest within my trusty G5 allowing me to store all the pictures I plan on taking. I feel better now that I know I have a much smaller chance of losing all of my artwork I've created as well as the music library I've accumulated.

Eventually, once I actually start taking more pictures and doing more art (I really need to start drawing on my tablet more) I'd like to invest in one of these. I'd really like to get a Cintiq before I buy a camera but my lovely girlfriend insists I get the camera first.

Now you might be asking yourself, "How is Casey going to afford all these new toys?" The answer, my friend, is simple. I got a raise.

Allow me to start at the beginning. I started an internship at a local screen printing shop in July-ish. I loved it and continued working there and eventually started getting paid part time. At this point I started working only one day a week at Kinko's. In a few months they hired me full-time and quit Kinko's completely. Two weeks ago I got a raise to salary. So in about six months I went from unpaid intern to salary. I don't think I've accomplished anything like that in my life.

So to the handful of people that read this blog, just remember: Nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!