Girls at the airport!

My first joy each time I fly to see the kids is seeing my children waiting for me at the airport. And the feeling is shared by them:

I Love to See You Smile x 3

When the kids turn 6 months old I create a music video of them and their various accomplishments/experiences. As a 6 mo old, this usually means lots of smiling and maybe even rolling over. When I created the video for my second child, I realized that I had a lot of similar clips as her older sister, so after I finished the video I synced it up to her sister's and suddenly a great comparison video was made!

Elliot, the 3rd child, just turned 6 months in May...

Descendant of Shinobi (guitar)

Time for another guitar recording!

I saw a video of this arrangement of a Final Fantasy VII theme about 2 years ago and fell in love with it. At the time I hadn't played in the guitar in about 10 years but this video was enough to get me excited about picking it up again. I spent months learning the piece (and re-learning the guitar) until it sounded decent. Once I "finished" it I began to look for more songs to build my repetoire, but those will have to wait to be posted another day...

This theme is also one of my favorites regardless of the instrument. I also enjoy playing the piano version, although it is difficult enough where if I don't practice it each week I will lose it.



And the original from the 1997 game:

Breezy

One of the very first pieces (definitely the first video game piece) I learned when I started playing the guitar was a piece called "Breezy" from Final Fantasy VIII. At the time I learned it from the MIDI (before Tabs were common online) which worked out great because the composer, Nobuo Uematsu, undoubtedly composed this on the guitar and input it into the game through a synthesizer (if he hadn't, strings would not match up as easily as they do).

So my first guitar video upload shall be "Breezy":

This is playing from my 1998 memory, so I'm sure a few of the notes/patterns are slightly different than the original tune (12 years will do that to your muscle memory).

You can listen the original version from the game here:


Finally, this will probably be the only guitar video I do in a single, unedited take. The simple piece is barely a minute long and only uses 4 strings yet it took me nearly 30 minutes to play it well enough to post online (even then it has little mistakes). It also didn't help that during the middle of one of my best performances my neighbor decided take a shower and the mic picked up the water flowing through the pipes. I'm sure the more complex pieces I perform in the future will consist of multiple takes edited together which means the video may need an image slideshow to hide the transitions :)

Raeleigh and Mia (Guaraldi-style)

One of my many pleasures of visiting home and seeing my children is the opportunity to play the piano (an instrument which is rather difficult to obtain when you are constantly moving from house to apartment in Cali). The girls watch classic Peanuts cartoons (this began when the Halloween special appeared last fall) and enjoy the music to it. When I first heard this I decided it was time to bust out my old Guaraldi chops and play some familiar tunes for them:


The cutest part is Mia wanted to play with daddy on the piano, and after this video she and I created some "experimental" musical duets by banging the keys. I miss the days of being able to practice the piano at any time, but I definitely look forward to the days of playing duets with my children with their favorite themes!

Elliot's first video

Elliot's first video:


Bonus:
Mia's first video


Raeleigh's first video


You can find more videos of Raeleigh and Mia here

Raeleigh vs the Blue Man Group

One of the eccentricities of working an animation school is that people tend to be creative. And they also tend to leave random things lying around. Case in point: this Blue Man Group instrument that Taylor built for his Halloween costume last year. Of course, something as odd as this is guaranteed to attract the attention of a visiting 3 year old, and much hilarity ensued.


And for those of you unfamiliar with Blue Man Group:

The Passions

Woohoo, already on post #2 of the year! That is one more blog post than I made in 2008!

The present blog subtitle mentions passions. Here are a few (at least those I am currently willing to share in a somewhat public space) of my current hobbies and where I hope to go with them:

Family: My 2 (soon to be 3) children live 2000 miles away. While I visit them each month, my primary goal is to move closer to them so I can be with them more often while still supporting them as I do now. Which means I need to work on my professional skills so I can move to a studio nearby. I get to talk to them everyday on the phone and, when time permits, webcam with them so that I can read the draw for them (this will be a future post), etc.

ART
Animation: I love animation and work at an amazing company which allows me to continue my studies and learn from some of the best animators in the world. I will continue to do this until it is time for me to move on and take those animation jobs that get me the skills need to be hired near my family. This blog contains updates of my animation here to track my progress!


Photography: I have always loved photography (and videography) and have taken +20,000 photos of family, friends, and places. As I improve my skills and try new techniques (like the bokeh above) this is where they will be posted!

Videos: Since before I had kids I have recorded and edited videos to document my families lives. While photos are great, videos are a great way to reminisce and laugh at all the fun times together. I have created multiple DVDs and music montage videos of my kids and will continue to do so. I don't have one for this post, but they will be uploaded in future posts so check out the "labels" section to find all the "My Videos" posts!


MUSIC
Piano: I only get the opportunity to practice when I visit my parents house, and that is when I am visiting my children. As such I rarely have time to play. I would like to get back into it when time permits, especially since Raeleigh has music she likes to hear which I could easily learn.

Guitar: Since I no longer am able to play piano daily (pianos aren't very portable) I have picked up the acoustic guitar (primarily finger-picking). The songs are pretty rudimentary but I am having fun tabbing my favorite themes and learning new arrangements. As I improve and I will upload videos!


BOOKS: One of the nice things about my commute was it forced me to find ways to be productive while sitting in the car. The best solution I came up with was to listen to audio books. I "read" numerous books in this fashion and loved it. The unintentional side effect of moving closer to work and removing the commute was I no longer had a set time each day to listen books. While I had more free time without the 90 minute round-trip daily drive, I would spend that free time focusing on one of the other items on this list. As much, my books-read-per-month number dropped significantly. That changes now! I will update this blog with my current reading list and my future reading plans! Problem solved!


HEALTH
Weight: A decade ago I was underweight and couldn't gain weight no matter much I ate. 2 years ago I was overweight and lazy. Through hard work and dedication I was able to lose 40 pounds and get back into decent shape. Now I want to really work on being fit and being able to get the most out of life. Beyond running in the mornings I am working out at a local gym and really focusing on toning what muscle I have. When I recently re-started running I could barely run a mile without stopping, and 1 month later I am running a 10k (6.25 miles) in just over an hour. You are only "this" young once (be it 20, 30, 40, 50+) so might as well enjoy it in the best shape you can be! Never again will I be out of shape enough to be gasping after one lap around the block.

Food: Living the bachelor life, I long to cook more advanced meals than "dump can in bowl then microwave". I have discovered a great local grocery store with a delicious variety of international ingredients and in tandem with my weight goal above will be learning new diet techniques for a healthy life style. No longer will "tuna + easymac" be my fanciest dish!


Entertainment/Wasted Time: I love movies. I enjoy TV shows. I play video games. But it got to a point where the combination of these activities interfered with all the above areas of life and in the end am I better for it? Did the games I play, as entertaining and animation-inspirational as they were, make me a better person in the end? While I won't give up any of them completely (all work and no play make Jay a dull boy), I am managing the amount of time I spend on any one of these so that they do not interfere with the above goals. The first step to this goal was selling my game system and TV 6 months ago. And surprisingly, life has gone on. In fact, I suddenly have more time than I thought possible to work on my own projects. I will likely pick up a TV series on DVD in the future and watch an episode a night on my own time, and I won't own a game system until I have met my other goals above. I still spend too much time on the internet,working at an internet school and blogging online make it impossible to cut that off entirely, but it is another goal I am working on. Enjoy life, but don't let life's smallest enjoyments take prevent you from having a life otherwise.


And that's all for now. While I definitely have other hobbies these are the primary areas I wish to track my progress on this blog. So let' do it Jay!

Note to self: work on being more concise in your posts, mmmkay?