Team Fortress 2 Costume: Ryan 1, World 0.

For Halloween this year me and a friend, Greg Peltz, decided to do Team Fortress 2 (Medic and Soldier). Its not a original idea, no, but we both wanted to do it right. Put in the right key words and you can find mountains of attempts at the costume, but most... come up short. We wanted to get the costumes as close as physically possible to the actual designs.

And thanks to a generous friend and awesome photographer, Alex Tkatcheva, we have some kick ass photos to show for it.

The medic costume I have to admit is the biggest bitch to wear. The biggest problem being the backpack. Its heavy and the fact that the belt doesn't loop into anything makes it ride up, constantly. I also had a little medical incident recently which means I periodically have excruciating abdominal pain, which I was enjoying for about half the photos we took (whats above is only a small portion of the photos we took.). So blahh. I also had to make a few design concessions because life of course gets in our way as it does and time became an issue but i still think I did pretty good and greg got his spot on.

For future warning I recommend building the gun and pack 20% smaller.


Ill post more photos in the future

The Well is Dry

Work on Alvin ramped up its hours, consuming most of my time. That, combined with a side project that I became part off, ensures I will not be standing still for quite some time. As of now its 12:48, and I feel ruined. But there are many things other than work on my plate. Like collecting my portfolio together for the coming job hunt after Rhythm has its way with me, and also the reconstruction of my website. For reasons unknown, my website looks broken on my computer, missing images....
Do not misunderstand me, these are things I WANT TO DO. But things are creeping toward a climax, and me and anxiety are drinking buddies, so working myself to death is the first logical choice.

Suck it up Simon!

I'm more proud of this than of my thesis.

A new job, a new land, A new life: part 2

So the board was set. In a short amount of time I needed to collect what constituted my existence on this plane into a travel friendly package while at the same time expanding upon it. I lacked several very important things that signify a certain degree of autonomy. A car that is.




An American symbol of adulthood, masculinity, and self sufficiency. I would be buying mine off my sister. The situation could not have been timed better. My sister had started her life abroad only a few years ago, leaving a relatively new car back home without any purpose other than to rust. I was in need of a car, but with no income, my buying options were few.

Five Stars!
But the damn thing looks like it has Down Syndrome

With my sister being in her situation, and the car market being in its situation. I found myself in the ideal situation. For the same price as a birth defect, I can have a much nicer and newer... birth condition. The car in question? A Blue Mazda 3 Hatchback.

The car is ugly and also cool at the same time. It is not the typical car you see on the highway being a hatchback and sufferes from none of the cheap faults I often cite in other cars (ford,GM,...). In short, I like the car. And despite how much I wanted to punch that kid in the face, I'll quote him, "Zoom Zoom!". And its manual! Problem being I cant drive manual.

So I need to buy car, train myself in ways of said car, all so I can drive car across the nation with my most prized possessions, in a matter of two weeks.

Hey did I mention it has a leather interior?!



Now all the fine details are boring no matter how much sarcasm I spritz over it so I'll sum up everything up till departing day:

-Begin training on stick
-realize I don't like stick. Consider it as an awkward relic of a begotten time that only Jesus could park properly on a gradient.
-realize stick is alright
-Buy car
-Realize ill probably die in this car because i stalled t on train tracks.

Continued in part three

FJORG!

A bunch of friends went to Fjorg to kick ass and chew bubblegum. Of the Zero people who look at my blog, please check this out. Super awesome.

http://wp.siggraph.org/fjorg/


Teams I know?

Sparkle kittens
Briar Roses
The Stepped Children

****SYSTEM DOWN*****

My video card decided it didn't care much for working and fried itself. This prevents me from anything... well... I want to do so shit.

A new Job, A new land, A new Life.

College is over, the part of my life that my parents say are the best years of your life. I spent most of the time working and sweating. It is over, but the aftershocks from it still come and go. I was one of the fortunate few to land a job before the end of school. By "end" I mean I got the job the day of graduation. At that point I brimming with so much doubt and fear over my professional future that they could have offered me a position as their office tack board and I would have vomited with relief over the phone. The company of question, Rhythm & Hues. A Academy Award winning visual effects studio. Amongst their many works is Narnia, The Golden Compass, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Garfield.

Masterpiece.

By joining Rhythm, I have made a pact with destiny, and committed myself to go to a foreign land (Los Angeles) and meet a culture I have only heard rumors about. I immediately bought a gun. My conservative estimates put the journey to 5 days. That after whittling down and packaging all the crap which I could convince myself I would need.

"That goes on the dashboard."

Just get things sorted proved to be a two week affair. No worries though, I have always managed to schedule things with plenty of time necessary to get the job done while satiating my loafing quota. But even so, things would come to a pinnacle, and no one thing can fail without ruining the entire plan.

Continued on next installment

A blog born anew. I am phasing out my old blog which has a bad name (rrportfolio) to (RyanCRasmussen) which is more relevant. things will happen.