BLEEEEE! Guess where I am!? I’M IN THE UNITED FREAKIN’ STATES. That’s where I am! Where you ask!? IN CHICO. Come and find me if you want your present ( I got presents for EVERYONE I know almost, lol. So, if you are reading this…it’s likely I got you a giftey. ;D )
Wow, so Holland. One crazy crazy trip filled with a lot of learning, a TON of new experiences and just general newness. I had some crazy fun “last-minute” times, going out with the co-workers/friends as well as last minute shopping for you all. Honestly though, I’m super glad to be home. I loved Europe and all its little things but I’m so happy to be home that it hurts. ;w;
It’s also OFFICIAL that I will be FREE LANCING for Robin! Whooo! I know I won’t make my fortune of it, but it’s enough to help me buy a new computer and live a bit more comfortably than with no income what so ever. I’m super excited to work at home and watch movies and TV while I work like I used to. :: glees in joy :: But yeah, here’s the story of trip home. The last story for you guys! Le tear/sob!
So, It starts out with packing up last night, (crazy weird, it was like a dream. Packing? For what? Home? What’s that?) and “shopping” for what I wanted to take home and what I could re-purchase at home like mostly empty shampoos and conditioners and lotions. We go to sleep and then wake up at seven to drive to Schipol Airport. Peter takes us and scares me a little bit. What with accelerating into stopping cars and switching lanes four different times (in only two directions, so basically swerving) in less than two seconds. Scared me, but we made it to the airport in one piece. We get there and get to the desk to check in luggage. We stand in line for a good half our because the lady working the desk decideds every person that comes up to her is worthy of a good long conversation and catch up like they were good friends. That’s nice and all but I just want to get the gate and go HOME dammit. So, I’m already a little irritated and by the time we get to second in line, another woman comes over and is like “YOU GUYS WAITING!? COME OVER HERE LOL! WE HAVE SPACE!” so, we skip on over there, (after seeing some hairy butt crack of some dude bending over to check his luggage. Super unattractive thnxverehmuch.) and start luggage checking.
POOPS.
Looks like my big suitcase (which I’m no longer self conscious about. Anyone who picks on me for going to Europe and bringing *GASP* two suitcases can ::censored:: for all I care.) is too heavy. Damn you suitcase companies for making suitcases that are big enough to fit TOO much stuff into them! :: shakes a fist :: So, I stuff dirty laundry and random shoes into my other bag, which is filled with souvenirs by the way. Was fun. Turns out it’s only THREE KGs away from being normal weight. Damn you clothing for being heavy! So, I pay fifty US dollars (with a credit card, because come on. I’m in EUROPE still. I have Euros, not dollars!) and we are on our way. We get through the air port with little fuss, general passport handing out, forms to fill out and so on. We get on the plane and it turns out Lauren and I are about six rows away from each other. Bathrooms in-between us too. We are both in aisle seats as well. I’m not so sure about her trip from Schipol to Philly, but I do know that the girl who sat in the middle seat between me and her mom on the flight is TERRIFIED of flying. She was literally freak out like I’ve never seen anyone do. She would break out into cold sweats and grab onto me at some points ( a stranger danger grab, lol) and yeah. I felt bad for her, but it was still interesting to see someone so absolutely terrified sitting in the seat right next to me. She, her mom, and myself all talked about our various Europe trips, they were in Sweden visiting an exchange student and we all had a good time. At one point, another older European lady comes over to us, (her pinky finger was broken I noticed) and starts to tell us off for being too loud and she can hear us talking about ice cream and Fridays (…whut?) all the way from the back and she’s TRYING to SLEEP so can we keep it down? She then wobbles away and I’m all “Uhm..the hell?” And Susan (the girl’s mom) says “We’re not talking that loud…cultural difference?” and I say “Uhm. No. She looks a bit inebriated…it’s okay.” But for the rest of the trip I didn’t speak again really. I was really insulted by her because not only was she rude, she physically got into my face (Maybe she was off balance and I’m in the aisle, but still!) and yeah. I was just generally super uncomfortable.
We get off the plane with little happening except for me gleeing because I’m FINALLY back in the US and I immediately turn on my phone. GLEEE it turns on! I have only one message and no texts. I can tell you guys super missed me while I was gone. :: rolls eyes :: But anyways. So, we start going through US customs which is just a lot of lines and lot of waiting in hot airport but it gets over with. We actually have to take our bags from baggage claim, (mine being last to get there. LE SIGH.) and then recheck them in because we are from over seas. We get through security again and then we head to the right, where the big screens are for departures and arrivals. We find out what gate we’re at and we head of. We see a currency exchange booth and decide we have enough time to exchange. We have FIVE HOURS here anyways. So, I turn in my 285 Euros into 357 Dollars and we keep going! On our way, we see an Italian food shop thing. I ask to get something (only having plastic like toast at Peter’s, and bad Airplane food on the plane) and we stop. I order a Stromboli and it turns out my first experience back at the states with the public and the guy doesn’t speak English. Oh the irony! So, after the guy helps me out behind me (He seemed upset and in a hurry) I get my food and Lauren and I nom it down. We continue and turn a corner. We keep walking (The Philly airport is GIGANTIC. It’s a thirty min walk from end to end. They don’t have trams or anything, so that’s why it’s so big. ) and we suddenly reach a deadend. All the gates we can see are “A” and we realize…we’re in the wrong END of the airport. CURSES.
So, we turn around and start heading back. The signs (which we are NOW paying attention to.) tell us that gate C is in the direction we had just come from. We keep going, passing the Italian place, various shops we had looked at on our way down the wrong path, the currency booth, paintings we had “ooed and awed” at, and finally we arrive BACK at security. Seems we STARTED going the wrong way, even if the screens where in the direction we had gone. So, we started a new trek, (we wasted thirty min just walking in ANOTHER infamous Laura and Lauren circle.) and finally got to C. We settled in for the rest of our three hour something wait and I bought (delicious) cookie and some juice/tea for Lauren and I.
Now, here’s where it gets fun. We get on the plane after a super long wait and once we are on the plane there is a bit of a disturbance going on behind us. Turns out, three different people were booked for the same seat. That’s all well and good and ten minutes later it is sorted out. We are now on our way home! TO CHICO. So we start down the runway and all of a sudden, it gets dark and cloudy. The poop? We get in this HUGE long line for the run way and we wait for literally an hour and half on the run way. When we start going again the captain gets on the intercom and tells us “DARN WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE GATE FOR GAS LOLOL.” And I cry inside. Everyone on the plane is obviously frustrated and angry but I keep up my happy spirits. It means we get to go back inside the terminal WHOPPEE. So I try and make up for the retardation by getting a sammich for the flight. BAD IDEA. That sandwich was so filled with fail I almost cried. It was ALL gristle and nasty fat and no one thought to tell me. I paid 8 dollars to throw right into the garbage can. They took the one happy person on that flight and turned her into a raging mess. We finally got into the air after being on the runway for a combined four hours but whatever! GOING TO CHICO. As we fly, I find out that the lady sitting next to me (I’m in the aisle, she’s in the window) is a really nice person. She works with horses and mentally handicapped children so we start talking. Turns out she’s got a super interesting life what with having four children, was in Japan with the navy for a while, and so on. She and I talk the entire trip to Chico and we part ways. We finally get to the airport, get our bags and are met by the Kodais and Jeromy. We hug and shake hands and then get the HELL outta dodge.
I slept most of the ride back but woke up for goldfish and Dr. Pepper. OH SWEET. SWEET DR. PEPPER. I ended up spending the night at the Kodai’s because I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t know where my apartment was and I couldn’t call the guys at 4 in the morning. I couldn’t go to Amanda’s like planned because she didn’t have room so I just kicked it at Lauren’s. It was nice enough but we had to get up at 9. She took me to a lovely quiche place and we nommed it oh so good. Then we walked to her sister’s school, got her car and then she took me to my new home, haha.
I get up the stairs of my apartment (I had to find it myself, haha.) and I giggle incessantly. Rich and Derek aren’t expecting me for another week at least. I knock and Rich opens. The cold darkness of the apartment beckons me but I grin at Rich and I say “TADAH!” and he’s all “…LAURA!” and we hug. Haha, I surprised him so well. Derek tells me later that he heard me laughing from his room and he thought he was going insane because I COULDN’T be back so early!
Later, Amanda invites Rachel over and I surprise her as well and then the three of us go for tea and apartment supplies. That ends my Holland trip and return! Filled with surprise and love for the joyful return!
Alright! So, now you guys know! The grand adventure that was the trip of Jolly in Europe! This experience has taught me that I freakin’ LOVE to blog! So, I’m starting another! It’s got a lolzy name and everything. Sadly, this blogging experience has also taught me to give the URL out at personal risk and so I am NOT going to be linking my new blog here. I apologize all my lovely readers, but if you’d truly like to keep up with my new blog, you’re going to have to personally email me and ask me for the URL. I will give it out but I can’t link it here anymore. I don’t want to risk the stress.
Although, the new blog will basically be my daily life and art keep up. It will be where I post my progress on my projects, personal and school as well as my own thoughts on life and happenings. It’s going to be my personal diary of day to day happenings so that I can keep an eye on my crazy years and years from now.
So! Email me! I hope to hear from all of you and thank you SO MUCH for reading and staying up to date on my blogs! I love you guys and hope to see you all SUPERRRRRR SOOOOOOOOON!!!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Sorry,
My apologies for not updating. Really. I feel bad.
I have a lot to update you guys on. But first, I'd like to say the reason I haven't been updating is because the internet at Peter's place is practically non-existant and I don't update at work because...ya know. I'm doing work. Anyways, left off last time with Admiral Ackbar. Well, he's done and history and now I've just completed the Brain Coral or better known as Diploria Strigosa.
This sucker has 101376 polygons, one 2K texture map, one 2K normal map (made with the incredibly lovely Crazy Bump) and a lot of ZBrush.
As I said earlier though, there was a lot that went wrong with it. Oddly enough, it worked out in the end to be one of the faster models. That, or I'm improving. Dunno. But, what basically happened is that I originally took my base mesh, a plain sphere from Silo, into Zbrush. I then slapped a quickly made texture onto the mesh so that I could basically copy the walls (the larger wiggles on the model) while sculpting it. This worked out fairly well but as I got to the point of having to create the ridges (the small lines you see in the walls) I started getting worried. I started to think about it and realized, this object is going to have a few things very very wrong with it.
Since I had to UV it as a regular sphere, to put a texture on it, when I export the higher poly model, it's going to have the same UV. Not good because there are more polygons and they are shaped way different than the original. I could just re-uv the thing but that would have taken weeks to re-UV and then texture because it would have caused for so many unsightly seams. This just seemed bad it all sorts of ways so I paused my production. I didn't want to start sculpting every single little ridge in the thing if I couldn't just make a map of it. I then realized, that if I had a map, I wouldn't be able to put it onto my exported higher polygon model because the polygon count wasn't the same nor would the walls be in the same place.
Upset, I waited for Robin to come back so I could explain the situation to him. I was guessing I was going to have to either just use the original sphere and put the normal map on, making both the ridges and walls, or use the exported higher polygon model and then just redo the entire texture, but spend weeks trying to match up walls and ridges.
As I was explaining and showing him this process, I take the model into maya, and he asks to see the "slap-on" texture on the model to see what I'm talking about. I do so and show him. I suddenly realize, while looking at, that the sphere's texture and uv are WORKING on the high poly model. Why? No freakin' clue! It just...worked! Even if it should have been all messed up and seam-y, it wasn't! It was a perfect fit! Ecstatic, I told Robin that I was just kidding and I'd start texturing and stuff right away. I then proceded to texture the object (using a tiling method I taught myself, because that's how the original walls where made, with a tiled texture.) and then used a normal map from zbrush to fix seams. Whoo! I was happy. It's now done but I'm being asked to create a few different variations of it so it can be copied and pasted around and not looking cloned.
I just remembered, you guys haven't seen the finished Table Coral! Well, let me enlighten you!
This has 111,362 polygons. The bumps that you can see are actually a procedural that Kees made for me and put on in 3DsMax while the only other map on there is the trunk and the underside (which you can't see anyways) to give it the look of actually being all rooty and coral like.
Enough about Table Coral.
Also! I finished the Anemone as well! I'm just a machine, pumping all these models and textures out. (Lol, sarcasm. Talk to Lauren if you REALLY want a machine to pump out amazing models and textures. I've done a grand total of five or six models this summer while she's done..uuhmm...like 25 or 30 I think.)
The Anemone, I really really did not want to copy paste polyps again. I really really didn't. It would have hurt too much. So, I decided to try it a different way. What I did was made the base mesh of the base of the anemone, and then created one polyp to show size difference. I then took that polyp, and the base and created a flat square. From there, I divided the square so many times until the smaller squares matched sizes with the base of my own polyp. I then copied the polyp numerous times until it covered every single smaller square. I then deleted the square and base mesh, and original one polyp. I took all the hoardes of polyps I made into lightwave where I merged points. now, since the base points were so close to each other to begin with, they were all merged with each other so then I when I exported a .obj, I came out with a ready polyp forest! HOORAH. No hand copying and pasteing and merging for me! It took less then ten minutes to do all that. Squeeee. No Table Coral flashbacks for me. ^ ^
So, now that I had this square polyp forest, I loaded the base mesh of the base into the scene. I deleted all the extra polyps on the corners and started to merge the base and the polyps. It included a lot more polygons to merge points with each other and it included some tweaking to make the square polyp bases look round to go with the original base, but it all worked out. After doing that, I began to UV it so I could texture it. Me, being lazy, UV'd two loops away from where I should have (Hey, that would have taken an extra 2 minutes to go hand select those loops! It was more near the polyps, so the loops wouldn't have been selected by doubleclicking. Thus, Laura = Lazy and pays for it later.) I UV'd it, had some blatant seams, (where else would they have gone? It's an anemone, no clever spots to hide seams.) and then textured it from a photo. It was fine, and I had to work some clever magic with the transform tool, clone brush and heal brush but it looked fine. I take model and texture over to Maya and look at it. I then decide to look at a picture of the actual anemone (ya know, to be realistic and all. OVERRATED.) and see that sadly, the texture starts at the wrong place. LE SIGH. So, I have to go back and re-UV the thing and then I realize since I'd done so much work on the texture already, re-texturing it would have been a super pain. So, I worked some clever magic with the UV and made it bend to my will. (Really, it was just me recreating only part of the UV and UVing it where it had been originally, only now with more polygons! ::Salesman smile:: ) So, new UV into photoshop, move some stuff around, flip some textures, and then clone brush over newly revealed blank space.
So, now I had a texture! Hoorah! I quickly threw it into Crazy Bump, got myself a normal map and then put it all together in Maya. Hooray! Finished in two days when I had been dreading it, and had thought it would take three weeks. Now, since the polyps were all the same length (size and everything, they were cloned from one, 8P ) I had to go soft select and move them a bit. I left them standing straight out though, so that the animator would have an easier time animating it. I mean, they're going to have clown fish swimming in that thing. I also didn't texture the polyps myself (nor UV them, thank god. I had forgotten to UV the one at the beginning, wich would have just copied and pasted like the actual models if I'd remembered.) because the anemone's polyps (the real one) have an incandescence that you can't really imitate with a regular texture map. It's better done with procedurals and since they are using Max to animate and make seems, they have to use max to make the procedurals since the maya ones don't translate over. I don't (can't) use Max, so the job of texturing the polyps has been left to someone else. That's totally fine by me though. I did seperate the base from the polyps so at least some of the work is done for them. ::laughs::
Here's a render.
It's official name is Heteractis Magnifica or Purple Anemone. There is not a lot of information on them, but meh. Whatever. AND YES. They really are that bright purple, but guess what? The polyps are a posionous neon green, so it looks pretty freakin' fantastic. XD
WHOO~. Done with work talks! Onto the personal stuff!
Life's been alright. I've just done a lot of work for DAVIS though, I did two weeks worth of work (Models, UVs, and textures) in about two or three days last week, so that was refreashing. I don't have to worry about DAVIS until I get home. But this last weekend, Lauren and I went to Amsterdam one last time. Our trip starts with us taking tram 12 to try and get to centraal. We didn't know, but apparently 12 doesn't go to Centraal. We got to a random intersection and just stopped dead and didn't move after that. Lauren and I get off the tram because obviously we can't go anywhere. We had a general knowledge of where Centraal was so we began our first (of many) trek to reach our destination. It was a good mile or so to Centraal but it was sunny and we were in good spirits (Or Lauren had been, I was still upset at the guy who had been making fun of my weight on tram 12.) and we were having anther Amsterdam Adventure!
We first decided we wanted to go to "NEMO" after taking the train, which is a science museum. We knew that it was sorta near centraal, so we set out on foot to go find it. We originally thought it was right next to the canal right in front of Centraal but I had remembered it was in the big Bay like Canal over to the left of Centraal when you leave it. So, we head out and start walking. As we walk, we start going farther and farther and farther. During this trek, we notice that there is a little bridge over the canal (which we are now on the wrong side of) and I point it out. We decide to keep going where we'd been going because we weren't sure that the path I pointed out actually connected with Nemo. It looked like it could possibley just lead to this interesting looking Chinese Resturaunt on the water and that was it. So we keep going and as we are walking over another bridge, still on the wrong side of the canal, we see NEMO. It's waaay far away, lol. We trek over there and our walk takes about an hour (I think?) but we finally get there. As we stop and reach there, it's obvious that if we had taken the original route we'd discarded, we would have made it to NEMO in a quarter of the time it took to get there. Fantastic.
We get in there, pay and then start to look around. Lauren tells me it's just like the exploritorium back in California but I've never been there, so I don't really know. All I know, is that this is not what I was expecting. It was not a "Science Museum" but really it was a "Science Playground". It was very cute but not at all what I was expecting. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed what I expected more, but whatever. The entire plae was basically just kids running around, playing with knobs, levers, watching movies, looking at basic robots and parents just looking tired and sitting in way too small chairs.
Lauren and I enjoy ourselves, and push some knobs, pull some levers but all the while dodging super rude children and super obnoxious couples. PS, if Lauren and I ever had a kid, the genetics make it so the kid looks like a clone of me, lol. Haha Lauren, haha. Lauren and I also got to play with pulleys and mirrors and it was awesome. XD
My favorite room was what I lovingly dubbed "The Dead Room" or "Dead Things! Lauren, come look!" It was basically a room filled with skeletons, and things/creatures pickled in jars. Also, fetus' were in the room, showing how big at what stages of pregnancy. HUMAN FETUS. Lol, it was awesome. I got a picture of literally every single thing in that room. It was the smallest room at NEMO and also the most poorly lit, but it was fun for me. I was by myself (yay, no rude children) for at least a good twenty minutes. After enjoying cut in half dogs (to see their brains) and two headed kitties (come on, who doesn't enjoy a good pickled meowmeow?) and the like, I went out and found Lauren. We both had wanted to see the robot show that everyone had been advertising so we went and found it.
It wasn't what we were expecting at all. It basically was my dad's workplace, so it was interesting but not new in the slightest. We got out of there ( one of their exhibits was a couple of out of commission roomba's and a robot with what looked like a vagina) and kept up on our journey. Next, was the sex/teen floor. I thought this museum was for kids (which is IS) but I've never been so uncomfortable in my life. I'm this larger girl in this child's museum watching this Dutch film (which was kind of insulting most of the time) about puberty. The style of animation for the film was interesting, so I watched it. By myself, I might add. Lauren threw gum at me to get my attention to let me know where she was, lol. The first thing the film said was this British guy says, while the girl is starting to go through puberty, "Oh look! There she goes now! The girls always go first, that's how it should be." Now, he said it in a way that made it very obvious he wasn't talking about puberty, but meh. I let it slide. What I was a bit (a lot) weirded out by was the fact that in the animation, they had the girl playing with her breasts at the end of video and near the end they had the guy playing with his penis. It was...so awkward. I mean, I'm all for freedoms and liberties and stuff but I like boundries too!
After this horribley awkward animation, I got out of there and noticed a booth called "SEX". I see people walking into it and just coming out laughing, so I made my way over. OH WOW.
It had mannikins in it, the ones you draw with, showing you different positions of the kama sutra. Wow, I didn't need to see any of that. It also had a continuous looped video of animals, AND PEOPLE, just...doing it! The animals was odd, but also. People. Next to the video, there were blocked off areas where a sign read "Video Booth, wont start without a token, to be bought at the front desk.". The booths were blocked off with velvet curtains and I didn't even want to know. I quickly exited and ignored the children playing "French Kiss" with a pair of fake tongues in a glass box next to the sex exhibit.
I quickly made my way to Lauren and wanted to try out another little exhibit, by talking to someone on this face device that let you speak and see them from across the room. It was cool soudning, but this couple in front of us couldn't figure it out. I waited and waitd and finally I tried pointing out a little of the instructions and they snapped at me rudely before storming off because they didn't see you had to press the start button and SIT on the CHAIR. :: sigh :: Then children would swarm the silly exhibit and I was fed up with it so Lauren and I continued our journey. After finishing with what we had wanted to do, we started to make our way down, but on our way down I pointed out an infrared camera to Lauren and we stared. Wow, I know how hot my body is now. Literally! Lolol, pricelss pun.
That camera made for some quite funny observations. Oh, the public. How I love and hate you. After we left the building of NEMO, we paid to get on the ship that was a life size replica of a Dutch trading ship. We got to see all the cabins, decks, insides and everything. I didn't take pictures though, it was too hot under the decks and too dark. It was quite an interesting experience though. After NEMO, we walked back to the Centraal. We took the short path this time, and so it was much shorter. Yay for another infamous circle! We stopped and bought water for me and fries for Lauren and nom'd for a while. After that, we hopped a tram and headed to the Flower Markt and walked down from there back to centraal, shopping along the way. After we were done with that for the day, we got on the train to go back home. While on the train, we got a little worried, thinking it was taking us the wrong way but we made it to schipol airport, so we breathed easy, thinking we were just being paranoid. We then rode back Lieden and the ticket guy came to check our tickets. We politely informed us we were accidentlly sitting in 1st class and we could stay there for now, we should just remember for next time. He also told us we should have switched trains at Lieden. Confused, Lauren and I just let it slide. We got into Den Haag and the train stopped. We looked out, and low and behold! It's not Den Haag Centraal but some other train stop in Den Haag. We have NO IDEA where this is, so walk around, look around and finally get on ANOTHER train to get to centraal. We make it and then get onto the RIGHT tram, (#9) and make our way home. As we are riding 9, we get to the OTHER Den Haag train stop and realize that this stop is almost next door to where we live and if we'd just taken the 9 from that stop, we could have made it home instead of wasting 45 min on taking ANOTHER huge circle. Le sigh. Then, we trudged in the door and thus ended our crazy day of excess and uneeded walking.
Sunday we just went to the office where I played Red Alert and found out my laptop doesn't want to get internet here either.
Monday passed with little to do.
Tuesday was Lauren's Birthday! So of course we go out! First, we have work. Then, we head home to drop off backpacks and take the tram to Spui, where the Pathe (Theater) is. We buy tickets FIRST this time, so as to not miss the show like we did with Ice Age 3 and have to wait two extra hours. We then walk a few blocks over to the Italian place. On the way, we bump into the Narnia-like coffee shop! This little place (yes, for coffee, not pot) had DISAPPEARED and we had no idea where it could have gone last time we had been looking for it, so it was a complete surprise to find it again. It was closed by the time we were out of work but it was still hella lolzy. It turns out, it's only ONE BLOCK from the Italian Place, which blew both Lauren and my mind's. We had a lovely dinner (observing pervy waiters, strangely familiar strangers and bad hostessing) and then made our way back to the Pathe. We watched "Public Enemies" and it was alright. The sad thing was the entire right half of the screen was out of focus (Not intentional filming, the Dutch subtitles were out of focus too) and the sound mixer must have been high when doing this movie. The first five lines were so quiet I couldn't hear them, and the music was way too loud. I guess they were trying to make it realistic because they muffled the audio a little when the camera was outside the car and they made it clearer with the camera was inside again.
What I really did like about this movie filming and sound wise, was that it felt like you were a part of it, because the filming had a more personal feel, what with the shots being more "myspace-y" and like the camera cared about the people and the actions of what was going on. It would duck to the floor when there was shooting and duck behind walls when the bad guys would shoot. Also the sound of the guns sounded like "pops" and "cracks" rather then huge explosions like in normal movies. I surmised this is how guns "really" sound since I've never actually heard a real one before, and I really liked the quality of it. The movie was incredibly long but yeah. Twas a birthday! I also got strawberry cheescake ice cream before we went it, so life was good lol.
The most interesting ( and frightening) thing of that night, was as we were taking the 9 home, we observed a very drunk, older Turkish man get on the tram right behind us. He apparently was staring at me and decided to sit right in front of Lauren and myself. I had been talking to her, so I hadn't noticed but when I did look at him, he was staring at me again. I stared back, with a slightly angered look (I do this when people stare at me here in Holland, I'm sick of the rude stares because I'm bigger and I don't need to act like a kicked puppy.) and to my surprise, he winks at me. Now, I'm super confused and look at Lauren and explain, and we both look back to see him staring and then wink AGAIN. Lol, we just start laughing and at the next stop, he stands (wobbling, and getting help from the pole at his hands) and then winks a third time before sorta leaning towards me. Lauren could have sworn he was going to try and flirt with me or touch me in some way, but thankfully he just wobbled out and we didn't see him again. Discounting the guy with a pink over shirt and a bedazzled man purse, the Turkish guy just made my evening super lols.
Now, it's Wednesday. Whoo! I've been working and then writing this. I hope people are a bit more caught up in what I'm doing! I have some pictures but I wont post them right now because I probably SHOULD be doing some sort of work doring the day here. XD
I have a lot to update you guys on. But first, I'd like to say the reason I haven't been updating is because the internet at Peter's place is practically non-existant and I don't update at work because...ya know. I'm doing work. Anyways, left off last time with Admiral Ackbar. Well, he's done and history and now I've just completed the Brain Coral or better known as Diploria Strigosa.
This sucker has 101376 polygons, one 2K texture map, one 2K normal map (made with the incredibly lovely Crazy Bump) and a lot of ZBrush.
As I said earlier though, there was a lot that went wrong with it. Oddly enough, it worked out in the end to be one of the faster models. That, or I'm improving. Dunno. But, what basically happened is that I originally took my base mesh, a plain sphere from Silo, into Zbrush. I then slapped a quickly made texture onto the mesh so that I could basically copy the walls (the larger wiggles on the model) while sculpting it. This worked out fairly well but as I got to the point of having to create the ridges (the small lines you see in the walls) I started getting worried. I started to think about it and realized, this object is going to have a few things very very wrong with it.
Since I had to UV it as a regular sphere, to put a texture on it, when I export the higher poly model, it's going to have the same UV. Not good because there are more polygons and they are shaped way different than the original. I could just re-uv the thing but that would have taken weeks to re-UV and then texture because it would have caused for so many unsightly seams. This just seemed bad it all sorts of ways so I paused my production. I didn't want to start sculpting every single little ridge in the thing if I couldn't just make a map of it. I then realized, that if I had a map, I wouldn't be able to put it onto my exported higher polygon model because the polygon count wasn't the same nor would the walls be in the same place.
Upset, I waited for Robin to come back so I could explain the situation to him. I was guessing I was going to have to either just use the original sphere and put the normal map on, making both the ridges and walls, or use the exported higher polygon model and then just redo the entire texture, but spend weeks trying to match up walls and ridges.
As I was explaining and showing him this process, I take the model into maya, and he asks to see the "slap-on" texture on the model to see what I'm talking about. I do so and show him. I suddenly realize, while looking at, that the sphere's texture and uv are WORKING on the high poly model. Why? No freakin' clue! It just...worked! Even if it should have been all messed up and seam-y, it wasn't! It was a perfect fit! Ecstatic, I told Robin that I was just kidding and I'd start texturing and stuff right away. I then proceded to texture the object (using a tiling method I taught myself, because that's how the original walls where made, with a tiled texture.) and then used a normal map from zbrush to fix seams. Whoo! I was happy. It's now done but I'm being asked to create a few different variations of it so it can be copied and pasted around and not looking cloned.
I just remembered, you guys haven't seen the finished Table Coral! Well, let me enlighten you!
This has 111,362 polygons. The bumps that you can see are actually a procedural that Kees made for me and put on in 3DsMax while the only other map on there is the trunk and the underside (which you can't see anyways) to give it the look of actually being all rooty and coral like.
Enough about Table Coral.
Also! I finished the Anemone as well! I'm just a machine, pumping all these models and textures out. (Lol, sarcasm. Talk to Lauren if you REALLY want a machine to pump out amazing models and textures. I've done a grand total of five or six models this summer while she's done..uuhmm...like 25 or 30 I think.)
The Anemone, I really really did not want to copy paste polyps again. I really really didn't. It would have hurt too much. So, I decided to try it a different way. What I did was made the base mesh of the base of the anemone, and then created one polyp to show size difference. I then took that polyp, and the base and created a flat square. From there, I divided the square so many times until the smaller squares matched sizes with the base of my own polyp. I then copied the polyp numerous times until it covered every single smaller square. I then deleted the square and base mesh, and original one polyp. I took all the hoardes of polyps I made into lightwave where I merged points. now, since the base points were so close to each other to begin with, they were all merged with each other so then I when I exported a .obj, I came out with a ready polyp forest! HOORAH. No hand copying and pasteing and merging for me! It took less then ten minutes to do all that. Squeeee. No Table Coral flashbacks for me. ^ ^
So, now that I had this square polyp forest, I loaded the base mesh of the base into the scene. I deleted all the extra polyps on the corners and started to merge the base and the polyps. It included a lot more polygons to merge points with each other and it included some tweaking to make the square polyp bases look round to go with the original base, but it all worked out. After doing that, I began to UV it so I could texture it. Me, being lazy, UV'd two loops away from where I should have (Hey, that would have taken an extra 2 minutes to go hand select those loops! It was more near the polyps, so the loops wouldn't have been selected by doubleclicking. Thus, Laura = Lazy and pays for it later.) I UV'd it, had some blatant seams, (where else would they have gone? It's an anemone, no clever spots to hide seams.) and then textured it from a photo. It was fine, and I had to work some clever magic with the transform tool, clone brush and heal brush but it looked fine. I take model and texture over to Maya and look at it. I then decide to look at a picture of the actual anemone (ya know, to be realistic and all. OVERRATED.) and see that sadly, the texture starts at the wrong place. LE SIGH. So, I have to go back and re-UV the thing and then I realize since I'd done so much work on the texture already, re-texturing it would have been a super pain. So, I worked some clever magic with the UV and made it bend to my will. (Really, it was just me recreating only part of the UV and UVing it where it had been originally, only now with more polygons! ::Salesman smile:: ) So, new UV into photoshop, move some stuff around, flip some textures, and then clone brush over newly revealed blank space.
So, now I had a texture! Hoorah! I quickly threw it into Crazy Bump, got myself a normal map and then put it all together in Maya. Hooray! Finished in two days when I had been dreading it, and had thought it would take three weeks. Now, since the polyps were all the same length (size and everything, they were cloned from one, 8P ) I had to go soft select and move them a bit. I left them standing straight out though, so that the animator would have an easier time animating it. I mean, they're going to have clown fish swimming in that thing. I also didn't texture the polyps myself (nor UV them, thank god. I had forgotten to UV the one at the beginning, wich would have just copied and pasted like the actual models if I'd remembered.) because the anemone's polyps (the real one) have an incandescence that you can't really imitate with a regular texture map. It's better done with procedurals and since they are using Max to animate and make seems, they have to use max to make the procedurals since the maya ones don't translate over. I don't (can't) use Max, so the job of texturing the polyps has been left to someone else. That's totally fine by me though. I did seperate the base from the polyps so at least some of the work is done for them. ::laughs::
Here's a render.
It's official name is Heteractis Magnifica or Purple Anemone. There is not a lot of information on them, but meh. Whatever. AND YES. They really are that bright purple, but guess what? The polyps are a posionous neon green, so it looks pretty freakin' fantastic. XD
WHOO~. Done with work talks! Onto the personal stuff!
Life's been alright. I've just done a lot of work for DAVIS though, I did two weeks worth of work (Models, UVs, and textures) in about two or three days last week, so that was refreashing. I don't have to worry about DAVIS until I get home. But this last weekend, Lauren and I went to Amsterdam one last time. Our trip starts with us taking tram 12 to try and get to centraal. We didn't know, but apparently 12 doesn't go to Centraal. We got to a random intersection and just stopped dead and didn't move after that. Lauren and I get off the tram because obviously we can't go anywhere. We had a general knowledge of where Centraal was so we began our first (of many) trek to reach our destination. It was a good mile or so to Centraal but it was sunny and we were in good spirits (Or Lauren had been, I was still upset at the guy who had been making fun of my weight on tram 12.) and we were having anther Amsterdam Adventure!
We first decided we wanted to go to "NEMO" after taking the train, which is a science museum. We knew that it was sorta near centraal, so we set out on foot to go find it. We originally thought it was right next to the canal right in front of Centraal but I had remembered it was in the big Bay like Canal over to the left of Centraal when you leave it. So, we head out and start walking. As we walk, we start going farther and farther and farther. During this trek, we notice that there is a little bridge over the canal (which we are now on the wrong side of) and I point it out. We decide to keep going where we'd been going because we weren't sure that the path I pointed out actually connected with Nemo. It looked like it could possibley just lead to this interesting looking Chinese Resturaunt on the water and that was it. So we keep going and as we are walking over another bridge, still on the wrong side of the canal, we see NEMO. It's waaay far away, lol. We trek over there and our walk takes about an hour (I think?) but we finally get there. As we stop and reach there, it's obvious that if we had taken the original route we'd discarded, we would have made it to NEMO in a quarter of the time it took to get there. Fantastic.
We get in there, pay and then start to look around. Lauren tells me it's just like the exploritorium back in California but I've never been there, so I don't really know. All I know, is that this is not what I was expecting. It was not a "Science Museum" but really it was a "Science Playground". It was very cute but not at all what I was expecting. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed what I expected more, but whatever. The entire plae was basically just kids running around, playing with knobs, levers, watching movies, looking at basic robots and parents just looking tired and sitting in way too small chairs.
Lauren and I enjoy ourselves, and push some knobs, pull some levers but all the while dodging super rude children and super obnoxious couples. PS, if Lauren and I ever had a kid, the genetics make it so the kid looks like a clone of me, lol. Haha Lauren, haha. Lauren and I also got to play with pulleys and mirrors and it was awesome. XD
My favorite room was what I lovingly dubbed "The Dead Room" or "Dead Things! Lauren, come look!" It was basically a room filled with skeletons, and things/creatures pickled in jars. Also, fetus' were in the room, showing how big at what stages of pregnancy. HUMAN FETUS. Lol, it was awesome. I got a picture of literally every single thing in that room. It was the smallest room at NEMO and also the most poorly lit, but it was fun for me. I was by myself (yay, no rude children) for at least a good twenty minutes. After enjoying cut in half dogs (to see their brains) and two headed kitties (come on, who doesn't enjoy a good pickled meowmeow?) and the like, I went out and found Lauren. We both had wanted to see the robot show that everyone had been advertising so we went and found it.
It wasn't what we were expecting at all. It basically was my dad's workplace, so it was interesting but not new in the slightest. We got out of there ( one of their exhibits was a couple of out of commission roomba's and a robot with what looked like a vagina) and kept up on our journey. Next, was the sex/teen floor. I thought this museum was for kids (which is IS) but I've never been so uncomfortable in my life. I'm this larger girl in this child's museum watching this Dutch film (which was kind of insulting most of the time) about puberty. The style of animation for the film was interesting, so I watched it. By myself, I might add. Lauren threw gum at me to get my attention to let me know where she was, lol. The first thing the film said was this British guy says, while the girl is starting to go through puberty, "Oh look! There she goes now! The girls always go first, that's how it should be." Now, he said it in a way that made it very obvious he wasn't talking about puberty, but meh. I let it slide. What I was a bit (a lot) weirded out by was the fact that in the animation, they had the girl playing with her breasts at the end of video and near the end they had the guy playing with his penis. It was...so awkward. I mean, I'm all for freedoms and liberties and stuff but I like boundries too!
After this horribley awkward animation, I got out of there and noticed a booth called "SEX". I see people walking into it and just coming out laughing, so I made my way over. OH WOW.
It had mannikins in it, the ones you draw with, showing you different positions of the kama sutra. Wow, I didn't need to see any of that. It also had a continuous looped video of animals, AND PEOPLE, just...doing it! The animals was odd, but also. People. Next to the video, there were blocked off areas where a sign read "Video Booth, wont start without a token, to be bought at the front desk.". The booths were blocked off with velvet curtains and I didn't even want to know. I quickly exited and ignored the children playing "French Kiss" with a pair of fake tongues in a glass box next to the sex exhibit.
I quickly made my way to Lauren and wanted to try out another little exhibit, by talking to someone on this face device that let you speak and see them from across the room. It was cool soudning, but this couple in front of us couldn't figure it out. I waited and waitd and finally I tried pointing out a little of the instructions and they snapped at me rudely before storming off because they didn't see you had to press the start button and SIT on the CHAIR. :: sigh :: Then children would swarm the silly exhibit and I was fed up with it so Lauren and I continued our journey. After finishing with what we had wanted to do, we started to make our way down, but on our way down I pointed out an infrared camera to Lauren and we stared. Wow, I know how hot my body is now. Literally! Lolol, pricelss pun.
That camera made for some quite funny observations. Oh, the public. How I love and hate you. After we left the building of NEMO, we paid to get on the ship that was a life size replica of a Dutch trading ship. We got to see all the cabins, decks, insides and everything. I didn't take pictures though, it was too hot under the decks and too dark. It was quite an interesting experience though. After NEMO, we walked back to the Centraal. We took the short path this time, and so it was much shorter. Yay for another infamous circle! We stopped and bought water for me and fries for Lauren and nom'd for a while. After that, we hopped a tram and headed to the Flower Markt and walked down from there back to centraal, shopping along the way. After we were done with that for the day, we got on the train to go back home. While on the train, we got a little worried, thinking it was taking us the wrong way but we made it to schipol airport, so we breathed easy, thinking we were just being paranoid. We then rode back Lieden and the ticket guy came to check our tickets. We politely informed us we were accidentlly sitting in 1st class and we could stay there for now, we should just remember for next time. He also told us we should have switched trains at Lieden. Confused, Lauren and I just let it slide. We got into Den Haag and the train stopped. We looked out, and low and behold! It's not Den Haag Centraal but some other train stop in Den Haag. We have NO IDEA where this is, so walk around, look around and finally get on ANOTHER train to get to centraal. We make it and then get onto the RIGHT tram, (#9) and make our way home. As we are riding 9, we get to the OTHER Den Haag train stop and realize that this stop is almost next door to where we live and if we'd just taken the 9 from that stop, we could have made it home instead of wasting 45 min on taking ANOTHER huge circle. Le sigh. Then, we trudged in the door and thus ended our crazy day of excess and uneeded walking.
Sunday we just went to the office where I played Red Alert and found out my laptop doesn't want to get internet here either.
Monday passed with little to do.
Tuesday was Lauren's Birthday! So of course we go out! First, we have work. Then, we head home to drop off backpacks and take the tram to Spui, where the Pathe (Theater) is. We buy tickets FIRST this time, so as to not miss the show like we did with Ice Age 3 and have to wait two extra hours. We then walk a few blocks over to the Italian place. On the way, we bump into the Narnia-like coffee shop! This little place (yes, for coffee, not pot) had DISAPPEARED and we had no idea where it could have gone last time we had been looking for it, so it was a complete surprise to find it again. It was closed by the time we were out of work but it was still hella lolzy. It turns out, it's only ONE BLOCK from the Italian Place, which blew both Lauren and my mind's. We had a lovely dinner (observing pervy waiters, strangely familiar strangers and bad hostessing) and then made our way back to the Pathe. We watched "Public Enemies" and it was alright. The sad thing was the entire right half of the screen was out of focus (Not intentional filming, the Dutch subtitles were out of focus too) and the sound mixer must have been high when doing this movie. The first five lines were so quiet I couldn't hear them, and the music was way too loud. I guess they were trying to make it realistic because they muffled the audio a little when the camera was outside the car and they made it clearer with the camera was inside again.
What I really did like about this movie filming and sound wise, was that it felt like you were a part of it, because the filming had a more personal feel, what with the shots being more "myspace-y" and like the camera cared about the people and the actions of what was going on. It would duck to the floor when there was shooting and duck behind walls when the bad guys would shoot. Also the sound of the guns sounded like "pops" and "cracks" rather then huge explosions like in normal movies. I surmised this is how guns "really" sound since I've never actually heard a real one before, and I really liked the quality of it. The movie was incredibly long but yeah. Twas a birthday! I also got strawberry cheescake ice cream before we went it, so life was good lol.
The most interesting ( and frightening) thing of that night, was as we were taking the 9 home, we observed a very drunk, older Turkish man get on the tram right behind us. He apparently was staring at me and decided to sit right in front of Lauren and myself. I had been talking to her, so I hadn't noticed but when I did look at him, he was staring at me again. I stared back, with a slightly angered look (I do this when people stare at me here in Holland, I'm sick of the rude stares because I'm bigger and I don't need to act like a kicked puppy.) and to my surprise, he winks at me. Now, I'm super confused and look at Lauren and explain, and we both look back to see him staring and then wink AGAIN. Lol, we just start laughing and at the next stop, he stands (wobbling, and getting help from the pole at his hands) and then winks a third time before sorta leaning towards me. Lauren could have sworn he was going to try and flirt with me or touch me in some way, but thankfully he just wobbled out and we didn't see him again. Discounting the guy with a pink over shirt and a bedazzled man purse, the Turkish guy just made my evening super lols.
Now, it's Wednesday. Whoo! I've been working and then writing this. I hope people are a bit more caught up in what I'm doing! I have some pictures but I wont post them right now because I probably SHOULD be doing some sort of work doring the day here. XD
Friday, July 31, 2009
Problems
Presenting the Pterois Volitans or more commonly known as the Red Lionfish! D'aw, isn't he cute? I've nicknamed him "Admiral Ackbar"
CAUSE IT'S A TRAP.
All textures, maps and so on are 5K by 5K each, he is a total of 17,494 polygons. Click the image to see it full sized.
Top Left is the normal map for the fish's body, top right is it's texture, bottom left is the fin texture and bottom right is the opacity map. Click picture to see full picture. Beware though, it's 5k by 5k. Each of the textures are originally 5k by 5k and so they were sized down so all four could fit into this one 5k by 5k square.
And this is the wireframe of said fish.
Anyways. Glad that got done. D8
On to the problems though. I am not being asked to create a brain coral and an anemone for a clown fish to live in. I started with the brain coral (because that's what I was assigned first. 8P) and I have gotten to the point of the coral where the base mesh is completed and the large "brain" parts of the coral have been successfully sculpted in Zbrush and it is now time for the tiny grooves in those large squiggles of the mesh. Unfortunately, I carved out some grooves for an example render to see if the normal map would look good and it looks like this model is to much for even the powerful computers of Mirage 3D to handle. ;-; What the crap am I going to do!?
I mean, I could make the entire thing a normal map but that would just look so crappy for a 4K sized animation, which it is! Blargh, I don't know what to do so I sent off all my questions to Robin and hope that he'll come up with something.
While I wait for Robin to reply though, I start on my sea anemone and it looks like it's going to be quite similar (almost exactly) like the table coral. I've tried sculpting all it's wiggly polyps because I don't want to copy paste polyps onto a model AGAIN after that freakin' table coral. I don't think I posted a completed picture of the coral. I'll upload it later. Anyway, I really really REALLy don't want to copy paste and move poly's around again because of how much I had to do for the very FIRST project I did here. ;-; So, I'm just staring blankly at Silo, trying to figure out SOME sort of short cut, SOME way to avoid copying and pasting, and I just...can't find anything. TT-TT
On a different note, I finished modeling five models for D.A.V.I.S. and I got them all sized, triangulated, resting on 0 and exported as .ase's on time and got them turned in. Hooray for no later work!
On a super SAD note, our free internet from the local marketplace cut out last night. It literally worked one minute (we were watching videos of the 10 dimensions of infinity or whatever you call it.) and then I took a shower, came back to my computer and found out that it had been locked. BLARGH.
Well, I'll figure it out later. Hopefully renders of fish will tide you all over for now. Enjoy the admiral!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
PIPPIPPIPPIP
First things first. If that damn bird outisde my window doesn't shut up, I'm going to flying leap tackle that thing and ROAST IT.
Onwards with post.
Today was frustrating as all hell. I was late with DAVIS homework and so I got it all finished and turned in today but just knowing that it was due Friday and I only got it in now is just really discouraging. I have a good reason and I got permission but it still sucks. D8 Raina is just nice to me and makes me feel better. I have five models to model, UV, texture and turn in by Friday, so I'll be working on that all night for the next few nights.
Other than DAVIS stuff, I started to work more on the Brain Coral. This, is very hard to do. Why? Because my computer that I work on at Mirage IIID Labs is not very good. Yes, it's fantastic in comparison to most computers but it wont let me divide my model in Zbrush more than a few times. NEED MORE DETAILS. I was trying to work with getting a normal map from CS4 and that didn't work so I was trying alpha brushes for Zbrush and it doesn't work either. Brain Coral is just complex like a jerk. So, I decided I'm going to have to texture every single little ridge on this braincoral, BY HAND. Haaaaaaate my life. ::cry::
I can't work on my Red Lionfish either because to do that quickly and in a manner that uses my time effectively, I would need to work with CS4 and Maya 2009 at the same time, switching back and forth. I can't do that! I dunno if it's because of the size of my texture or object but bleh, it's really getting annoying.
There was supposed to be a new computer coming in last week (Friday or Thursday) but it still hasn't come in TODAY. Blargh, I know I'm just complaining a lot on here. Sorry about that.
Tonight, we'll be making chicken Cesear pita's, so I'm excited. Whoo! I love pitas, hopefully it'll be good.
Onwards with post.
Today was frustrating as all hell. I was late with DAVIS homework and so I got it all finished and turned in today but just knowing that it was due Friday and I only got it in now is just really discouraging. I have a good reason and I got permission but it still sucks. D8 Raina is just nice to me and makes me feel better. I have five models to model, UV, texture and turn in by Friday, so I'll be working on that all night for the next few nights.
Other than DAVIS stuff, I started to work more on the Brain Coral. This, is very hard to do. Why? Because my computer that I work on at Mirage IIID Labs is not very good. Yes, it's fantastic in comparison to most computers but it wont let me divide my model in Zbrush more than a few times. NEED MORE DETAILS. I was trying to work with getting a normal map from CS4 and that didn't work so I was trying alpha brushes for Zbrush and it doesn't work either. Brain Coral is just complex like a jerk. So, I decided I'm going to have to texture every single little ridge on this braincoral, BY HAND. Haaaaaaate my life. ::cry::
I can't work on my Red Lionfish either because to do that quickly and in a manner that uses my time effectively, I would need to work with CS4 and Maya 2009 at the same time, switching back and forth. I can't do that! I dunno if it's because of the size of my texture or object but bleh, it's really getting annoying.
There was supposed to be a new computer coming in last week (Friday or Thursday) but it still hasn't come in TODAY. Blargh, I know I'm just complaining a lot on here. Sorry about that.
Tonight, we'll be making chicken Cesear pita's, so I'm excited. Whoo! I love pitas, hopefully it'll be good.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Laundreeee
Soooo. I did laundry last night. I also took a bath. and a shower.
As interesting as that is, it gets MORE interesting.
I did said laundry by hand. I filled up the tub here at Peter's house and poured in some soup and twirled my arms like an egg beater. There is no washer or dryer here at Peter's place and we can't find a laundromat so we've been trying do laundry by hand and then hang it where ever we can in the house so it can dry. It currently smells like wet clothes in here.
Today was really nice in the morning but right as we are eating lunch outside, it starts to rain on us and it's been wet and cold ever since. I rather like it but I am a little put out by the lack of socks due to no laundry. I guess I should wash those tonight.
I have a lot of work to do on DAVIS so this post wont be very long. Unfortunately, I was trying to make collision meshes all morning and most of the afternoon to only find out that I had made 15 of the wrong ones and I have a different 18 more to do. :: sigh :: I'm getting so sick of this. D8>
Well, I'm off to work some more. I just wanted to tell you all I have successfully done laundry by hand.
As interesting as that is, it gets MORE interesting.
I did said laundry by hand. I filled up the tub here at Peter's house and poured in some soup and twirled my arms like an egg beater. There is no washer or dryer here at Peter's place and we can't find a laundromat so we've been trying do laundry by hand and then hang it where ever we can in the house so it can dry. It currently smells like wet clothes in here.
Today was really nice in the morning but right as we are eating lunch outside, it starts to rain on us and it's been wet and cold ever since. I rather like it but I am a little put out by the lack of socks due to no laundry. I guess I should wash those tonight.
I have a lot of work to do on DAVIS so this post wont be very long. Unfortunately, I was trying to make collision meshes all morning and most of the afternoon to only find out that I had made 15 of the wrong ones and I have a different 18 more to do. :: sigh :: I'm getting so sick of this. D8>
Well, I'm off to work some more. I just wanted to tell you all I have successfully done laundry by hand.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Lauren's Parents
I'm currently listening to Lauren and her parents talking. I just talked with my Dad, but I miss my mom now and I wish I could have gotten a hold of her earlier.
Anyways, we are going to a theme park thing tomorrow! I believe it is spelled "Efteling" and it looks like a lot of fun. 8P The website for it is http://www.efteling.nl/
Anywho. We have settled in rather nicely here at Peter's unfinished house. It's a bit scary on the floor but if you wear shoes it's absolutely heaven in comparison. We are making delicious dinners spaghetti and fried chicken (all "Typical American") for Peter to enjoy with us, a small "thanks for letting us crash your new place." kind of thing.
ANYWAYS. I started writing this blog last night but I'm finishing it now. After the Efteling! It was FANTASTIC. It's very similiar to Disney Land but all in Dutch! We had Peter and Mathijs translate for us the entire time but it was wonderful! I've not laughed so hard and so easily for this entire trip. We actually bought one of the pictures of us on a roller coast because it was so funny. I was giving this weird scared look, Peter looks so happy to just be alive, Mathijs has got his tongue out for some reason and Lauren is looking like a sort of smiling demon in the back. It was fantastic. I think my favorite ride would have to be the Roc ride where it's a large roller coaster in the dark with flashes of the big bird. I particularly enjoyed how we were never in line for longer than thirty min, most of the rides around ten or twenty min long. The guys seemed to be relaxed and had fun too.
Lauren drove us to the park in the morning (she likes to drive, CRAZY.) and then at five, Peter drove us back to Rotterdam because he had to go see his girl. Mathijs drove us back to Peter's where we (meaning Lauren) cooked calzones for him.
I feel kind of bad I'm not down with them right now but I've been fighting the meanest migrane since we left the park and I'm completely exhausted with people talking. I thought I could take it, so I went down for a minute but after a short two minute period I had to get up and leave again because their voices, as quite as they were, were grating so heavily on me I almost thought I was going to have my head explode.
Anywho! I have a good lot of pictures from the Efteling but I'll post them later when I'm not super in pain. I think tomorrow we're going to attempt to do our laundry by hand because we don't have a washer or dryer but ARGH, it'll be so nice to sleep in. We weren't able to today because of the theme park so tomorrow is going to be glorious. I believe tomorrow I am also going to work for DAVIS because stuff was due today and I wasn't able to get it in due to the sad "boot" we had from Angelica's. I am so glad we aren't there anymore though. It really makes me happy.
I think the best memory I will take from the Efteling was the crazy people dressed up as theme park welcomers and they were in giant bouncy stilts and there legs were just fascinating to look at. I also really enjoyed trying to read the Dutch fairy tales about the "kabouters" and absolutely mutilating the language. I learned a lot today about fairytales and pronunciation but we taught the boys the words "Mutilation", "hella" and oddly enough the term "breasticles" since I accidentally said that when I saw that the statues were fully anatomically correct and I pointed out to Lauren that "Those woman have breasticles! D8". Well, toodle pip for now! Love you all and we are surviving! Go go go!
Anyways, we are going to a theme park thing tomorrow! I believe it is spelled "Efteling" and it looks like a lot of fun. 8P The website for it is http://www.efteling.nl/
Anywho. We have settled in rather nicely here at Peter's unfinished house. It's a bit scary on the floor but if you wear shoes it's absolutely heaven in comparison. We are making delicious dinners spaghetti and fried chicken (all "Typical American") for Peter to enjoy with us, a small "thanks for letting us crash your new place." kind of thing.
ANYWAYS. I started writing this blog last night but I'm finishing it now. After the Efteling! It was FANTASTIC. It's very similiar to Disney Land but all in Dutch! We had Peter and Mathijs translate for us the entire time but it was wonderful! I've not laughed so hard and so easily for this entire trip. We actually bought one of the pictures of us on a roller coast because it was so funny. I was giving this weird scared look, Peter looks so happy to just be alive, Mathijs has got his tongue out for some reason and Lauren is looking like a sort of smiling demon in the back. It was fantastic. I think my favorite ride would have to be the Roc ride where it's a large roller coaster in the dark with flashes of the big bird. I particularly enjoyed how we were never in line for longer than thirty min, most of the rides around ten or twenty min long. The guys seemed to be relaxed and had fun too.
Lauren drove us to the park in the morning (she likes to drive, CRAZY.) and then at five, Peter drove us back to Rotterdam because he had to go see his girl. Mathijs drove us back to Peter's where we (meaning Lauren) cooked calzones for him.
I feel kind of bad I'm not down with them right now but I've been fighting the meanest migrane since we left the park and I'm completely exhausted with people talking. I thought I could take it, so I went down for a minute but after a short two minute period I had to get up and leave again because their voices, as quite as they were, were grating so heavily on me I almost thought I was going to have my head explode.
Anywho! I have a good lot of pictures from the Efteling but I'll post them later when I'm not super in pain. I think tomorrow we're going to attempt to do our laundry by hand because we don't have a washer or dryer but ARGH, it'll be so nice to sleep in. We weren't able to today because of the theme park so tomorrow is going to be glorious. I believe tomorrow I am also going to work for DAVIS because stuff was due today and I wasn't able to get it in due to the sad "boot" we had from Angelica's. I am so glad we aren't there anymore though. It really makes me happy.
I think the best memory I will take from the Efteling was the crazy people dressed up as theme park welcomers and they were in giant bouncy stilts and there legs were just fascinating to look at. I also really enjoyed trying to read the Dutch fairy tales about the "kabouters" and absolutely mutilating the language. I learned a lot today about fairytales and pronunciation but we taught the boys the words "Mutilation", "hella" and oddly enough the term "breasticles" since I accidentally said that when I saw that the statues were fully anatomically correct and I pointed out to Lauren that "Those woman have breasticles! D8". Well, toodle pip for now! Love you all and we are surviving! Go go go!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Unfortunately Fortunate
So, we’ve been kicked out.
Yes, kicked out.
The guys here at Mirage 3D are more than wonderful to help us with this super unfortunate situation but basically what has happened is that Angelica’s father has become very ill and she has been backed into a corner metaphorically. The story goes as such.
Angelica had been “mentioning” to both Lauren and I all summer (usually a bit inebriated) that she was so surprised that we were there. That we had come to her house so soon. She always made it a point to tell me that she had wanted to fix the ceiling in my room before I’d gotten there but Robin had neglected to tell her that we were arriving much sooner than she expected. The multiple times she mentioned both of these things made it seem like she did not want us around. I kept feeling more and more guilty, especially when she started crying to me and confiding in me when she would not confide in Lauren. She tells me that her father is very ill and that she needs to go home to Chile as soon as possible. I understand completely, my own family has had difficulties with things like this so I am more than sympathetic with her situation and I believe I did all in my power to show her I understood she was in a very bad spot. She started spending all of her evenings either talking to family back home or playing on the computer or watching TV in her room or in the living room. We stayed out of her way out of respect as well as attempting to not confront her on any matters that cause friction.
This all comes to a halt this last Thursday. Angelica comes into my room (when Lauren has just “conveniently” gone to bed) and she tells me that she needs to go to Chile in the next week or so because her father is very sick and she needs to be with him. I tell her I completely understand and she should go see him. She is glad I understand but they tells me that she is going to talk to Peter or Robin and ask one of them to take Lauren and myself.
What?
Angelica tells me she wants to take “all responsibility” on to her own shoulders. She wants to turn of the power and water and cable so that she doesn’t have anything to worry about (I suspect she doesn’t want to pay the bills while she is away) but in doing so she wants to get us out of there. She tells me that it’s not my fault and that she’s going to take care of it all. I ask her if we can just stay at her house, we’ll clean extra well and take wonderful care of her place and lock everything up when we leave and she becomes adamant that she’ll talk to Robin so that he’ll take care of us. I don’t know what to think of this so I go to bed. On Friday, we tell Robin her plan of kicking us out and he tells us that it is not possible for her to do that. She made a promise and a deal to take us in for the summer. She had shown so much want for us to live with her to Robin that he trusted her and she could not back out of this. Lauren and I were very relieved and so we spent the weekend trying to be scarce around the house and letting things mull over because we were hopefully going to stay there for the rest of our time there. Without Angelica even, for the last two weeks.
On Tuesday (yesterday), Angelica comes in and she and Robin talk. I find out later that apparently she had called Peter and told him she needed to go to the hospital and she needed us out. She basically begged him to take us by using the “I’m sick and need to go home” card and Peter, being the wonderfully nice and understanding person he is, said we could go to his (unfinished) house if it became an emergency. Angelica comes in on Tuesday and tells Robin that it’s all squared away that we are going to Peter’s (unfinished) house and “iss’okay”. Robin tells her flatly she cannot kick us out and that we are going to stay there for the rest of our time here in Europe and they get into a fight. Things were said and words were exchanged but I won’t get into that. Basically, it turns out that she is immobile on this subject and she is going to get rid of us.
Robin tells us later that day that she is not going to change her mind so we decide that if she really is going to kick us out, we’ll go to Peter’s but for the moment we’ll try and stay there. Lauren and I then go to the new Harry Potter movie to try and get our minds off of things. We accidently missed the first showing because it was sold out (We should have bought tickets before trying to go get dinner, lol) but we decided to wait an hour for the next showing. We played a few card games and then saw the movie! Dumbledore is a BADASS in this movie. It was fairly good, a lot more on character’s rather than magic, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. Lauren and I get home and we immediately go to our rooms and begin to undress for the night and Angelica finds us out (almost like she’d been waiting for us…) and tells us that is no longer her problem. She wants us out and she doesn’t care anymore. I can hear Lauren tell her from her room that they’ll talk in the morning and I believe this was a good move. It was already midnight and I didn’t want to fight right now. Angelica then comes to my room and tells me the same thing and I tell her to talk to Robin. She ignores me and then leaves after telling me again she wants us OUT.
Here’s where is gets ugly.
This morning (Wednesday) I get up early and I get ready early so we can leave without a confrontation with Angelica but alas, I am defeated. I am horrible at confrontations so I am thankful it wasn’t me that was ambushed in the kitchen this morning but I am so sorry for Lauren. I was in my room listening to them in the kitchen, the room next to mine. They get into an argument and basically what happens is that Angelica starts yelling, Lauren is crying and asking her why she would do this to us. She told us we were like her kids and would she really kick her own kids out on the street to sleep in the park? Angelica says she would and she doesn’t even like her kids. She says that kicking us out is okay with God so it is okay with her. Apparently, Angelica also tells Lauren that I am arrogant and that she hates me. Angelica tells Lauren she doesn’t care anymore, she is getting rid of us. She’s going to change the locks on the doors this upcoming Tuesday (the day she leaves) and she wants us out. It’s not longer her problem and she wants us out.
Lauren and I eventually leave for work, now about twenty minutes late. We get to the office and like the ninny I am, I start crying because the guys here are really nice and try to cheer us up. I don’t like crying in front of people and crying in front of coworkers and Robin (my boss) is quite mortifying. We discuss how we no longer want anything to do with Angelica and Robin offers to let us go pack up our bags right then and there to leave for Peter’s. We agree and take the car back to her place where we throw all of our stuff into our respective suitcases and take all of our own food that we bought. We throw everything into Peter’s car and we’re off. Apparently Angelica was still trying to lend us bedding for Peter’s house and she looked “sad” to him but I don’t really care. I have no respect for someone who tells us she likes us so much and we are just like her kids and then just kicks us out like trash. Ironically, it’s trash day today and that’s why she was up early.
So, we go to Peter’s place and do a quick tour which I will explain later and take new pictures for you all. We get back to the office and Lauren realizes she has lost her wallet somewhere on the trip from Angelica’s to the office. She rides back to Angelica’s and then to here to look for it but thankfully she found it when she got back. If she’d lost her wallet, all hell would have broken loose. All of her money, her ID’s, everything would have been lost. She would not have been able to go back to the US, they would not let her get back into the country without her ID.
SO. That is the story for today. And guess what!? It’s only noon! What else could this day bring to us?
The only thing I’m a bit worried about now is that there is only one bed with bedding at Peter’s place because he only sleeps there and only for about two nights a week. There is a mattress here at the office but we have nothing to put it on or anything to put on it. Robin said we could buy stuff and just put it on the office’s bill. It’s really sweet of them to do all of this for us. Also, Robin said he’d try and get a refund for us of our money from Angelica. The rent was 600 Euros a month, and we’ve already paid two months worth. So we’d be getting back 1200 Euros, or 600 each. That’s a TON of money.
All in all, what I’ve learned today is that I still really really really want to go home and I miss everyone in the States a bunch but also that the guys here at Mirage 3D are just too nice and that I appreciate them more than I can ever say for helping us with this. I have no respect left for Angelica. I could deal with the rude notes and the absolute lack of consideration for personal space, privacy, and general lack of common people skills but this has taken a new step.
I don’t apologize for seeming unforgivingly angry in this blog. (and if it doesn’t sound that way, it’s supposed to. I’m so freakin’ angry right now, I could punch out a window.) Thank you everyone for being so supportful and helpful. I love you all. More to come later probably. I’ve just lost initiative to write blogs for a bit because of all this.
PS: Here's the link to Lauren's blog if you want a second view on all this madness. I would suggest reading it because it gives a new perspective where I might be lacking. http://aredheadindenhaag.wordpress.com/
Yes, kicked out.
The guys here at Mirage 3D are more than wonderful to help us with this super unfortunate situation but basically what has happened is that Angelica’s father has become very ill and she has been backed into a corner metaphorically. The story goes as such.
Angelica had been “mentioning” to both Lauren and I all summer (usually a bit inebriated) that she was so surprised that we were there. That we had come to her house so soon. She always made it a point to tell me that she had wanted to fix the ceiling in my room before I’d gotten there but Robin had neglected to tell her that we were arriving much sooner than she expected. The multiple times she mentioned both of these things made it seem like she did not want us around. I kept feeling more and more guilty, especially when she started crying to me and confiding in me when she would not confide in Lauren. She tells me that her father is very ill and that she needs to go home to Chile as soon as possible. I understand completely, my own family has had difficulties with things like this so I am more than sympathetic with her situation and I believe I did all in my power to show her I understood she was in a very bad spot. She started spending all of her evenings either talking to family back home or playing on the computer or watching TV in her room or in the living room. We stayed out of her way out of respect as well as attempting to not confront her on any matters that cause friction.
This all comes to a halt this last Thursday. Angelica comes into my room (when Lauren has just “conveniently” gone to bed) and she tells me that she needs to go to Chile in the next week or so because her father is very sick and she needs to be with him. I tell her I completely understand and she should go see him. She is glad I understand but they tells me that she is going to talk to Peter or Robin and ask one of them to take Lauren and myself.
What?
Angelica tells me she wants to take “all responsibility” on to her own shoulders. She wants to turn of the power and water and cable so that she doesn’t have anything to worry about (I suspect she doesn’t want to pay the bills while she is away) but in doing so she wants to get us out of there. She tells me that it’s not my fault and that she’s going to take care of it all. I ask her if we can just stay at her house, we’ll clean extra well and take wonderful care of her place and lock everything up when we leave and she becomes adamant that she’ll talk to Robin so that he’ll take care of us. I don’t know what to think of this so I go to bed. On Friday, we tell Robin her plan of kicking us out and he tells us that it is not possible for her to do that. She made a promise and a deal to take us in for the summer. She had shown so much want for us to live with her to Robin that he trusted her and she could not back out of this. Lauren and I were very relieved and so we spent the weekend trying to be scarce around the house and letting things mull over because we were hopefully going to stay there for the rest of our time there. Without Angelica even, for the last two weeks.
On Tuesday (yesterday), Angelica comes in and she and Robin talk. I find out later that apparently she had called Peter and told him she needed to go to the hospital and she needed us out. She basically begged him to take us by using the “I’m sick and need to go home” card and Peter, being the wonderfully nice and understanding person he is, said we could go to his (unfinished) house if it became an emergency. Angelica comes in on Tuesday and tells Robin that it’s all squared away that we are going to Peter’s (unfinished) house and “iss’okay”. Robin tells her flatly she cannot kick us out and that we are going to stay there for the rest of our time here in Europe and they get into a fight. Things were said and words were exchanged but I won’t get into that. Basically, it turns out that she is immobile on this subject and she is going to get rid of us.
Robin tells us later that day that she is not going to change her mind so we decide that if she really is going to kick us out, we’ll go to Peter’s but for the moment we’ll try and stay there. Lauren and I then go to the new Harry Potter movie to try and get our minds off of things. We accidently missed the first showing because it was sold out (We should have bought tickets before trying to go get dinner, lol) but we decided to wait an hour for the next showing. We played a few card games and then saw the movie! Dumbledore is a BADASS in this movie. It was fairly good, a lot more on character’s rather than magic, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. Lauren and I get home and we immediately go to our rooms and begin to undress for the night and Angelica finds us out (almost like she’d been waiting for us…) and tells us that is no longer her problem. She wants us out and she doesn’t care anymore. I can hear Lauren tell her from her room that they’ll talk in the morning and I believe this was a good move. It was already midnight and I didn’t want to fight right now. Angelica then comes to my room and tells me the same thing and I tell her to talk to Robin. She ignores me and then leaves after telling me again she wants us OUT.
Here’s where is gets ugly.
This morning (Wednesday) I get up early and I get ready early so we can leave without a confrontation with Angelica but alas, I am defeated. I am horrible at confrontations so I am thankful it wasn’t me that was ambushed in the kitchen this morning but I am so sorry for Lauren. I was in my room listening to them in the kitchen, the room next to mine. They get into an argument and basically what happens is that Angelica starts yelling, Lauren is crying and asking her why she would do this to us. She told us we were like her kids and would she really kick her own kids out on the street to sleep in the park? Angelica says she would and she doesn’t even like her kids. She says that kicking us out is okay with God so it is okay with her. Apparently, Angelica also tells Lauren that I am arrogant and that she hates me. Angelica tells Lauren she doesn’t care anymore, she is getting rid of us. She’s going to change the locks on the doors this upcoming Tuesday (the day she leaves) and she wants us out. It’s not longer her problem and she wants us out.
Lauren and I eventually leave for work, now about twenty minutes late. We get to the office and like the ninny I am, I start crying because the guys here are really nice and try to cheer us up. I don’t like crying in front of people and crying in front of coworkers and Robin (my boss) is quite mortifying. We discuss how we no longer want anything to do with Angelica and Robin offers to let us go pack up our bags right then and there to leave for Peter’s. We agree and take the car back to her place where we throw all of our stuff into our respective suitcases and take all of our own food that we bought. We throw everything into Peter’s car and we’re off. Apparently Angelica was still trying to lend us bedding for Peter’s house and she looked “sad” to him but I don’t really care. I have no respect for someone who tells us she likes us so much and we are just like her kids and then just kicks us out like trash. Ironically, it’s trash day today and that’s why she was up early.
So, we go to Peter’s place and do a quick tour which I will explain later and take new pictures for you all. We get back to the office and Lauren realizes she has lost her wallet somewhere on the trip from Angelica’s to the office. She rides back to Angelica’s and then to here to look for it but thankfully she found it when she got back. If she’d lost her wallet, all hell would have broken loose. All of her money, her ID’s, everything would have been lost. She would not have been able to go back to the US, they would not let her get back into the country without her ID.
SO. That is the story for today. And guess what!? It’s only noon! What else could this day bring to us?
The only thing I’m a bit worried about now is that there is only one bed with bedding at Peter’s place because he only sleeps there and only for about two nights a week. There is a mattress here at the office but we have nothing to put it on or anything to put on it. Robin said we could buy stuff and just put it on the office’s bill. It’s really sweet of them to do all of this for us. Also, Robin said he’d try and get a refund for us of our money from Angelica. The rent was 600 Euros a month, and we’ve already paid two months worth. So we’d be getting back 1200 Euros, or 600 each. That’s a TON of money.
All in all, what I’ve learned today is that I still really really really want to go home and I miss everyone in the States a bunch but also that the guys here at Mirage 3D are just too nice and that I appreciate them more than I can ever say for helping us with this. I have no respect left for Angelica. I could deal with the rude notes and the absolute lack of consideration for personal space, privacy, and general lack of common people skills but this has taken a new step.
I don’t apologize for seeming unforgivingly angry in this blog. (and if it doesn’t sound that way, it’s supposed to. I’m so freakin’ angry right now, I could punch out a window.) Thank you everyone for being so supportful and helpful. I love you all. More to come later probably. I’ve just lost initiative to write blogs for a bit because of all this.
PS: Here's the link to Lauren's blog if you want a second view on all this madness. I would suggest reading it because it gives a new perspective where I might be lacking. http://aredheadindenhaag.wordpress.com/
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