Early Step on New Year Resolution

Before going on with my post, I'd like to thank everyone that supported me in the last week. It's been a very hard Holiday season, both emotionaly, and even mentally. I'm going through the occasional up-and-down phases, like my mom, but it's going relatively well.

After two days back at the office, I'm already on vacation again (two days for the new year, yay!). Since I'm off, I've decided to take one of my 2009 Resolutions seriously and take the first step into the right direction.

What are my resolutions anyway?

• Exercice more
• Improve my eating habits
• Re-design the apartment layout (tired of living in a cube and I need to start decorating)
• ...and finally, finish masteringMaya: The Fundamentals once and for all

I want to get MM:TF out of the way. I've been slacking on this for far too long (years!). I know that once I get on masteringMaya: Advanced Modeling that I'll be working on it non-stop, without much motivational problems. I want to model! Heck, I even believe that Project 3 is going to be very motivating for me.

So I removed the dust from my masteringMaya DVDs and continued from where I left off (which reminds me, I need to find a good video editor so I can edit and upload the Constraint exercice. I got the playblasts ready and everything. I saw Vegas for not too expensive the other day... I might go with that...)

I finally started the Project 2 Animation lesson. Before starting, I'm working on the starry-background for shot 2 (the backyard).


One of the other things I'd like to do in 2009, in Maya, is start and finish the classic Chessboard. It's a common exercice in many 3D Courses in universities and colleges. I did one in College (Strata 3D, rant on this scheduled for later), and I'd like to create one using the same principles but in Maya.

Blur

The loud alarm clock wakes me up from a very deep sleep. I feel I've been dreaming prior to waking up. I try hard to remember what I was dreaming about.

I felt like I was dreaming of a whole week. A very quiet Saturday, a music practice on Sunday that bared the sad news of the passing of an aunt, a stormy Monday, a traffic-driven Tuesday, playing music at Church on Wednesday, Christmas meals on Thursday, and being at the funeral home for most of Friday.

That was one heck of a long dream. I then think to myself that I have to start to open an eye so I can, eventually after what would seem like I would need a lot of effort, get up and go to work. If the alarm clock was set it was for work. Simple logic.

I was feeling glad that I dreamt so much and that I only had one more day before my Holiday vacation. I eventually gather up the strength to open one eye. I was facing my alarm clock. I suddently froze, confused. My digital alarm clock at my apartment displays blue numbers. This one is green. It's only then I realized that the whole week I thought I dreamt about wasn't a dream afterall. I was home.

Another day at the funeral home and the funeral mass was set for today. At the funeral home where my aunt was exposed, I was sitting there, motion-less. Staring in front of me. The cacophony of all the people talking was at a level right above white noise in terms of hypnotic-harmony. Time passed fast, but how fast is it really when everything feels like an eternity?

Then it's the final goodbye before they close the casket. Even my own emotions were putting me in an hypnotic state. "Relief" that she no longer has to suffer and "pain" from the sadness that I will no longer be able to see her or hear her laugh; both spinning inside of me, like the swirl of an ice-cream machine.

The day is already at an end. Eternity has passed. The hypnotic spell of the whole day is almost gone. Today, time, thoughts, emotions, dream, and reality have all blurred together.

No updates? What's going on?

I know I said I was going to post something at the beginning of my Holiday vacation. Something sadly came up during Sunday's group practice [church music group] and things have been hectic ever since. My mom's twin sister who was fighting cancer passed away.

This is my mom's third sibbling that loses the fight against cancer. Even though it's never an easy thing to go through, we're taking it quite well. For me, I'm very grateful that the direct family won't have to spend Christmas at the hospital. I'm also very grateful that she won't have to suffer anymore. It's hard, but why beat yourself over this? Nobody had any control over this.

She's going to be exposed and the funeral is all going to be during the upcoming weekend.

In the meantime, I'm still playing flute tonight at the Christmas Eve 7pm mass at the St-Jean Baptiste Church in Tracadie-Sheila. I'm kind of excited and nervous, which I didn't feel ever since I rejoined the group. I wrote some incredible parts on a lot of the songs, but one of them is very different in terms of technique and complexity. Everything is in C, A, G, D, or F [major]. Very simple scales to work with. They all use # (sharps) except the F scale. One of them though is in B^b (flat) Minor. A five flat scale where my brain has problem registering that when I see a G that I don't play a G or G#, but an F# (G^b) instead... same with another note.

But that's fairly at the beginning (before the mass) and it's right before Minuit Chrétien (O Holy Night) and my part there kicks ass!

Secret Project #2 Reveal

Finally, it's time! Here it is...


What's that 200 year old craft that I picked up? Crochet... yes, a 'yarn-craft'. I won't go in the details on how I randomly picked this hobby up. If you're interested to know, comment or send me an email.

This Snowman is a gift for my mom, who just loooooves Christmas decorations. I think she'll like it.

Happy 40th Birthday, Mouse!!!

That's right. 40 years ago, the mother of all tech-demos was shown to the world... the very first computer mouse!

On December 9^th 1968 Douglas Engelbart used the first mouse to demonstrate novel ways of working with computers. Back then, it was made of wood and had one button.

Political Crisis in Canada - Part 3 (of 3)

Humiliating Harper Once More!

I can't pass these type of opportunities. I swear, this is the last political post for a while! I'd hate to make this a political Blog so I'll stop after these two points.

First and foremost, I edited the last two posts. Something that was just made officially clear, asside from the lies from Harper in an attempt to alter the public perception of the coalition, the coalition is not composed of the three opposition parties, just the two most important. The coalition is officially just composed of the Liberals and NDP, but with the support of the Bloc Québécois... that is all. There's no reason for Harper to continue calling to coalition a "seperatist" party except it do what he does best - decieve.

Now, this is what you wanted to see.

“Yesterday, as part of the culmination of the machinations of the leader of the NDP, we had these three parties together, forming this agreement, signing a document and they wouldn’t even have the Canadian flag behind them.

[...] They had to be photographed without it because a member of their coalition does not even believe in the country.”

---Stephen Harper, PM on December 2, 2008

Harper was technically right. There wasn’t a Canadian flag in the background — there were two.

Photo from the Canadian Press

Political Crisis in Canada - Part 2

Quick history lesson

We see in the news throughout the country, representative of the new coalition all saying the same thing: "Harper can no longer lead the country". I pretty much agree with what they're saying... even more when elected conservative members of various regions of the country are saying the same thing about their own leader.

The coalition was bound to happen after Jim Flaherty's presentation of the Economy Statement last week. There's a problem when the government puts in the effort to attempt to destroy/cut ALL opposing parties. Last Saturday, John Baird said that the conservative were backtracking on their decision (cutting political party funding), however Stephen Harper denied the backtracking the following day.

It's even more revolting when the PM, Stephen Harper, deliberately lies about what the coalition is about in order to twist the public perception of the coalition and deceive Canadians about the facts. This is alarming since Stephen Harper is an amazing liar. Look what happened during the election. He exploited Stéphane Dion's weakness and slandered Dion's election platform. Dion had the best platform, but Harper twisted the facts of Dion's plan to gain votes... sadly, it worked.


...

Enough ranting, let's get back on what this post was about...

Stephen Harper is accusing the alliance of the three parties that are meant to overthrow him from power to be "Anti-Democratic"... May we remind him that in 2004, while the Liberals (lead by Paul Martin) were in power, the Conservative (lead by Stephen Harper) created an alliance with the Bloc Québécois in order to overthrow Paul Martin from power. Déjà vu?

Political Crisis in Ottawa...

Or kindergarten kids arguing during recess...

If you watched the chamber sessions yesterday, that's exactly what it looks like. As some of you may or may not know, the two biggest opposition party joined in a coalition in order to take over the power of the country. The current minority government calls this anti-democratic and accuses the coalition to be a "seperatist" coallition (even though the Bloc Québécois is not technically part of the coalition), and on the other side you have three leaders claiming wanting what's best for Canada.

Before going further, I just want to vent-off some steam. I don't agree with the "seperatist" comment from Harper. It honestly really pisses me off. I know Layton isn't worth much in Harper's eyes, but $%±# that's no reason to ignore him! The coallition is composed of two federal parties and supported by the Bloc Québécois which, in the past few years, by fighting for what's good for Québec, collaterally brought the rest of Canada great things. Layton may not be worth anything in Harper's eyes, but he would make a better Prime Minister than Harper for sure!

I don't want to make this a long-winded political Blog post, so I'm just going to ask this fundamental question...

Is the coallition really anti-democratic?

It sure would look that way. If you didn't understand Canadian politics, it would almost seem as if a group wanted to make a "coup d'état". But you have to remember this. Harper is a minority government. If you crunch the numbers of votes and his support, he has 12%-18% of the nation's support. There's over 82% that didn't want him in power and didn't speak their political voice. Harper is in power, but Canada didn't want him! And we feel the repercussions of this.

So, in theory, 82% didn't want Harper in power... even less support if you consider that some electoral-regions had no choice but to vote conservative even if they didn't want Harper to be elected. This happened in New-Brunswick and Alberta, and possibly other provinces as well. with this in mind, ask the question again... Is the coallition really anti-democratic?