Lost interest in this blog? Think I’m dead, lying in a ditch somewhere? Wondering why I can’t find the time to write a few simple entries? Well, too bad. I’m not going to explain myself to you.

I’ve begun working with a company based out of Dallas, TX on some video games. I’m doing the graphics which will all be rendered in LightWave. I’ll be posting more on these projects on the Suncoast Studios site as time goes on.

One of my best friends, Ninel, was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of months ago and I’ve been spending time with her, helping out with the kids and generally trying to be a good friend. If you have the time and can spare some money, please donate to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure foundation.

I recently rebuilt the studio, from the ground up. Here are a few pictures to look at.

Creatively, I’m doing a lot lately. I recently wrote my first song, have been working on video game graphics, and continue to do some side work for friends and colleagues. I’ve also been writing more on a novel, and am prepping to start shooting a teaser trailer (one I’ve been wanting to do for years).

Several people at work are now playing World of Warcraft, so I’ve downloaded it again (am installing it now) and will be playing from time to time. I have to be careful so that it doesn’t completely consume my free time.

I bought an iPhone (16GB) a few weeks ago. I love it.

I ate a lot of Russian food Sunday night. I loved it.

I bought a new Alesis MultiMix 12 FireWire mixing board recently. I love it.

Sick Thought of the Day: Cut the eye with the razor. Milk oozes out.

Lately it seems that I can’t keep my head out of my day job/office work. As usual, there’s an enormous amount of work on my plate every day, and I end up spending huge amounts of time sitting at my desk, on conference calls, or even working from home. My mind has veered off into the tumbleweed-laden, snake-infested cool desert night. Nothing around but survival with very little hope for something more than what I’m currently engaged in. I think this is stemming from multiple things in my life currently, but I’m letting it take control, and that’s just unacceptable.

Most of my creative energy lies in the foundation of free, open thinking, in that, I need to be around creativity, to pull it into my own thoughts, digest it, and remanufacture it into my own flavor. I believe that, just as success breeds success, creativity breeds creativity. In my own experience, it is very difficult to just sit in a dark room with no stimulus and create something amazing. Creativity is the culmination of thoughts and experiences, which are driven by the fabric of your life. Hence, the more you interact and the more you learn, the more creativity is at your disposal.

It’s time to leave that desert and set sail for the lush, green, vibrant rain forest that’s full of life and adventure. To do this though will require some effort. I need to buy back more free time from my day job and wrangle up as much quality time as possible.

I’ve heavily considered moving to L.A. lately for many reasons, but have realized that I have no discipline to do so right now. My main reasons to move there would be to hang out with friends, and absorb some of their energy to produce something for myself which might not be too hard as the "industry" is a stone's-throw from that entire area. While this is a great concept, I can’t mentally afford to do that yet. I feel that the building-blocks of my creativity are not up to snuff yet. I’d like to get out there with an arsenal – my own trademark or dog-eared book full of projects that I am developing. I’m not there yet.

To pave the way to creativity, I must do some clear-cutting. The main thing I need to take an axe to is my day job’s workload. Since I’m a control freak and work-a-holic, I very rarely allow others to manage my projects. This has to change and now that I have enough staff to accomplish this, it will happen.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll begin offloading projects to my staff and getting them up to speed. They’re still a bit green, but they’ll learn quickly enough, just as I did. I will gently steer them in the right directions. My hope is that, in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to relax a bit more and move forward on my own projects, including the newly-started SCS017. SCS017 is my internal project code and I will continue to reference the project via this code from now on until the true title is revealed.

Sick Thought of the Day: Blowing masturbated milk bubbles.

I got to a point this evening where I was ready to work out and realized that my T-Mobile Wing Windows device not only didn’t have a standard headphone jack for my ear buds, but it wasn’t playing my MP3s for some odd reason. So, I jumped in the car and went to Wal-Mart and purchased an iPod Shuffle (1GB). I absolutely need music to work out by, so this was a necessity. I’m not the kind of person that needs to carry video around with me, so 250 songs on the Shuffle was perfect. I got back home, got dressed and went and worked out, walking a total of 20 minutes, running almost 10 minutes, and doing upper-body strength training for about 20 minutes. I’m using a suite of applications from VidaOne to keep track of my workouts and kcals on my Wing. I have to say that I feel great now. Effort has been applied, and I kinda like it.

I also listened to about half of the Waters album I mentioned earlier and I have to say that it's fantastic. Another fine concept album, Roger!

I’m going through a phase of my life right now where there’s a lot of crappy, negative energy all around me. I need to right the boat and get myself back into a cohesive mental state. Energy is being spent all over the place and I have no order to things. The correction is two-fold: make a better mind and make a better body. I’ve gone down this road in the past and know how to do it, and I must start doing it again. To balance my mental state and gain clarity of thought, I have decided to begin studying Tantra again. I was a practitioner for years earlier in my life, and it brought me to a place where I could enjoy life and see things for what they were without losing my place in reality. I don’t practice from a religious perspective, but I use the philosophical and mental disciplines to my advantage, mostly through meditation. I believe inner peace can come from this, and that through such balance my creativity, thought processes, and most importantly, love of life will begin anew.

My second task is much harder for me, but I will conquer it; that of physically correcting myself. I have many things that will help me obtain health. One is that I must begin to eat properly. This I’ve started several days ago with the help of a good friend during the day, and continue to do so during evenings and weekend time. I am beginning to work out again as well, and am about to head into the gym as I type this. Lastly, I need more than running and strength training to satisfy my urge to be physical, so, as of this coming Wednesday, I’ll be playing hockey again at least once per week.

Part of this website is for you, part is for me. So, I plan to journal these things up here as much as I can, even if it’s just private blog posts that you’ll never read. One thing that will keep me going is an old idea I used to abide by: Effort=Results=Satisfaction. The real trick is to put enough Effort into things to make Results occur. However it is equally important to analyze the Results so that it may produce Satisfaction which, ultimately, fuels more Effort. Hence an endless upward trend.

I went out and picked up a helmet, stick, and a few rolls of both black and white friction tape yesterday in preparation for the practice on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll be sufficiently sore on Thursday, but I’m going to try to minimize that with the workouts over the next few days.

While out yesterday I stopped in at the theater. There’s no better way to start the summer then strapping in and letting some blockbuster movies take a hold of your senses and send you into imagination land. Yesterday I saw Iron Man at the theater down the road. And man, I gotta tell you it was really good. Smart, funny, and full of action. Robert Downey Jr. played the best role I’ve ever seen him in. Go see it. Tell your friends to see it. Next on the list is Indiana Jones.

I also picked up a copy of Roger Waters’ The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking album on CD, which I’ve heard is really good. I’m ripping the CD now. Also been watching a lot of old Battlestar Galactica lately, trying to get Shauna caught up to season 4.

Time to go stretch out and hit the gym.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pliers on the spine. Squeeze; the tearing of membrane, the oozing of puss. The body goes limp.

I called and talked to Vicky today and made her say some stuff to me in Russian. I remember back when we worked in the same office together; from time to time I’d hear her talking to her mom or someone on the phone and she’d dive right into the Russian (with some English words thrown in once in a while for good measure). At first I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but when you work with someone closely for years, you begin to either hate these kinds of things, or love them. It quickly grew on me to the point where I really loved listening to it. I don’t know if I ever really told her at the time, but listening to her I realized that Russian is a sexy, rhythmic language with a beautiful cadence to it and I’ve found it soothing to drink in the sound. I didn’t understand what was being said, but it really doesn’t matter. It’s like complex symphony.

We talked for a while and shared some stories about what’s been going on in our lives; how everyone is doing. She sent me some pictures of the kids, who are of course growing up fast. We talked about the past too. We were both happy to be talking on the phone again. We IM each other from time to time, but hearing a good friend’s voice is a totally different thing. You hear the compassion, joy, and sometimes anger in their words which are powerful eloquents lost to the digital age. She needed to go help her daughter with her homework, so we ended our call and I promised to call a lot more often. And I will.

On another note, my friend Will has been doing some cool work for G4TV lately, shooting short comedy sketches. He’s done a faux commercial, was a new user in X-Box Live orientation, and just appeared last night as Dr. Will, analyzing the symptoms of those who purchase Grand Theft Auto. It’s really great to see him on the little screen, as I feel badly I didn’t get a chance to get to a screening of The Air I Breathe, which was showing in Orlando recently.

So, that’s pretty much it. I’m really wiped out tonight. I’ve been brain-dead all day as I’ve been up to the wee hours of the morning the last few nights doing work for the office. I think I’ll be able to get back on track tonight tho. I really need to get my life straightened out again and get feeling well.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pinch, wipe, slip. Brown finger.