Just spent two weeks with my girlfriend лена in New Jersey and New York. It was wonderful. I met her family and friends, and she met my friends, most of whom still live in New York state. We are still trying to workout the whole future thing, although I'm confident that we can work things out. The shitty economy stateside is decidedly not helpful.

This is what a jerk I am. When I was in the Hudson Valley we went on a hike where the fall colour was in full force and my friend Brad said something like “This beautiful colour is our reward for having to live through the cold hard winter”, to which I responded reflexively “Speak for yourself, I'm going to the beach!”. Yay for Australia being awesome. Only, wait for it, then I started repeating this story over and over for people who were actually going to have to live through the winter in New York this year (which in my defense I had to do six times). The awesome thing about my friends is they still like me anyway.

It's weird now though because just a week ago the trees were all red and yellow and some of them were on the ground and walking to work today they were green again and fastened tightly to the trees. And to be honest, it isn't warm enough yet to go to the beach (karma). How can two places so far apart seem like home.

Today I climbed a tree in order to rescue Tristan's frisbee. It was a lot of fun, and felt like quite an accomplishment. It reminded me of two people I know who like to climb trees: Amber and Brad. It's fun to act young.

(more random thoughts that have collected over the easter weekend)

more pictures here

(and some more)

Next Friday I'm flying to LAX. I have seven days to wrap everything up. Beyond that is the unknown. While Brad and Sherry were out here, they told me that my mum was really nice (response: I'm partial to her). My mum told me that my friends were really nice and that I had chosen well (response: I didn't really choose them; they chose me).

2005 was supposed to be the year that Decepticon's attack Autobot City on earth (as chronicled in The Movie. I took this as a sign that it was time to quit my job at The Company and go back to school and study computer graphics and distributed computing and maybe one day get a job at Pixar. I still think even being a "lowly" system administrator at Pixar would be a fun job. Being a software developer for the rendering farm would be awesome.

Appropriately enough, last Thursday, the last Thursday of the year, I went to the MoMA with e and they had a special exhibit on the art of Pixar. Most of what they showed was models and sketches that were made before anything gets done on the computer. Seeing the artists' names and countries of origin clearly labeled by each piece, one is reminded that computer animation is not just a form of entertainment, but also an art form. It's fascinating to me, because I have always been passionately interested in the interaction of expression and technology.

Highlight had to be seeing the early sketches of the Edna "E" Mode character from The Incredibles, who has been my favorite Pixar character since I saw the movie because of her energy and humor. I had one of her quotations engraved on the back of my iPod to remind me that "I never look back; it distracts from the now." In the gallery e told me she was her favorite character, to which I responded, "really? Me too."

Anyway, 2005 is coming to and end, and Unicron never attacked Cybertron and as a result, the Decepticons were not driven off as was for told in The Movie, and I'm not going back to school, just yet, but I am on my way back to Australia. (many more words and things...)

I had Brad and Sherry over for dinner. I made the Commonsense Goulash. It was fun; I really should have people over for dinner more often.

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

(Read more...)

In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.

Went to the bar tonight to meet up with some friends. The idea was to hang out for a bit before the movie. I asked Joe if he and Cicely were coming to my party, and he said that he might stop by, but that he also wanted to hit someone else's party that night. So it has come to this: The Halloween Party Arms Race.

Mike

Personally, I think I have the advantage, since Mike "The Blowtorch" is going to put on his fire eating, and I got the Enchiladas. The Enchiladas gets me Brad, and Brad gets me Sherry. Apparently Brian was sold on the fire eating. Joe and Cicely are a harder sale. I guess I will be working on them. I just wish I knew what my opponent had in store. Perhaps if I could intercept an invitation...

The movie we went to see was Team America : World Police. If you like Southpark you may feel the need to go see this movie out of devotion to its creators. I thought it was pretty terrible, although it did have me laughing at times. But anyway, I was watching this silly movie and it occurred to me that I have been taking life too seriously again. I have to get in touch with my humorous side.

Autumn

Ok, this is the last entry for tonight, I promise. I was on the top of Breakneck Ridge for magic hour today, and I had my new digital camera with me.

Brad: RedHanded

We've been coming out of our hikes later and later lately. Here is a portrait of brad from a few weeks ago. I call it Red Handed.

(click for more pictures and movies) Yesterday I went to Brad's place to see Wappingers' own back yard cover band Fire It Up! Everyone who is anyone was there. Megan came down from Boston and Sherry took a break from all those law books to play keyboards for three songs. The band also debuted their new single: SnakeFish, based on the hit TV B-movie Snakehead Terror. I had a great time, and am looking forward to next year.

I just uploaded my Exploding Brad series to photo.net

• www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=399807

Everyone should check it out : )