Paid bills finally on, ummm... Tuesday?
A few things had slipped through the cracks the last few months, but I think I got it all tidied up.
Thinking about money, I called my bank to check the funds...Ahhhhh! Grief! Woe! Panic! My stock transfer didn't happen! I have to have that cash *tomorrow* to close the house...
(several frantic phone calls later)
Okay, it's being wired to the bank now. I can get it tommorrow...
Where was I?
Oh yeah. I got the recommendation to advance from 2nd brown to 1st brown (also known as pre-black, or "doberman" because it's a split black/brown sash).
So that's cool.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to test for Black in December. I need 60 classes (minimum) to do that, and I only have time for about 30. Bleh.
So I'm looking at my black sash on December 2006, unless they do a test mid-year or something.
Did I mention we close on the house tomorrow?
There was a spot of fun yesterday. The door knob on the house-to-garage door stopped working. Frozen solid.
I took the knob off this morning, but the OTHER side of the knob wouldn't pull through (and I bent the latch a bit trying... heh).
So I sawzall'ed off the knob. I love power tools.
Of course, I'll STILL need to take the door off of its hinges to replace the knob mechanism.
There are actually a number of maintenance jobs I have to do on the house, that have been lagging due to other business....
The doorknob (dammit).
We want to make the front door more secure.
There are some trouble areas the inspection noticed around the garage framing that I would like to fix.
I need to re-work the tiles in the master bath shower -- the caulk is coming out and there is a concern of water damage behind it.
The roof really ought to have gutters and spouts.
There are probably a few more, too...
And on an aesthetic level, we want to get rid of the bulk of the carpet and replace it with wood. Carpet and cat-yack really doesn't mix well. And wood is nicer in other ways, too.
Also I want to replace the lame-oid plastic bed trim with concrete. And the yard and garden needs not end of work...
... sigh.
This weekend SHOULD be the last weekend for principle shooting, but then we thought that last weekend, too.
Next week I restart classes and, hopefully, settle back into a rational, life-sustaining routine again.
Friday morning, bright and ugly, we bundled up our things and drove the long, cheerless drive to Plano Texas (just a bit North of Dallas). It only took about 3 and a half hours, which is less than I expected.
Once there I took a few workshops, which were awesome.
Saturday I performed my bare-hand form and my sabre form marginally... I was spectacularly mediocre! In my experience category the score range is 7.5 to 8.5, and I scored 8.03 in both events, taking the silver and bronze respectively.
So I came in 2nd and 3rd out of about five competitors in each of these.
I deserved the uninspired score for the bare-hand form -- I wasn't all that great. I get nervous when being judged and that's really bad for an art that must be performed while relaxed and calm.
I thought I did well in the sabre, though, and my fellow students thought so too -- so I don't understand the weak score there. Another competitor got the same score and was not nearly as good (I thought) as I thought I was... I think. So that made me mad.
The next day, Sunday, I was spectactularly not good in push hands. No medals there.
All in all, I loved meeting other students and sharing ideas and information. I loved the workshops. And I really didn't like competing.
So of course now I want to work hard and kick ass next year... while trying to do well in any and all Austin competitions between now and then. Apparently, my competitive reflex was triggered.
I'm hoping it dies down soon enough. I don't need the grief.
Coming back home Sunday evening I had a little bit of time to relax and unwind in preparation for the periodontist on Monday.
A handful of Halcyon in the morning and I'm more than ready to dissolve into the torture chair. A nice swish of something that made my mouth dry up (thank the goddes) and a few nearly painless shots later and the dentist got to work.
This guy was good. He was quick, efficient, and did clean work. No swelling, essentially no pain, and he followed up that same evening to make sure everything was good.
Considering what he did, the "no pain, no swelling" is a big deal.
First, he separated the gum from my left eyetooth, where it had been receding for the last couple of decades. Then he made a cut in the roof of my mouth and went in under the skin to extract a sliver of gum. This he shoved up under the gum by the tooth. He then sutured everything closed and in place and went on to step two.
For this, he cut the gums away where I lost a tooth last year and then drilled a nice hole in the bone. Into this, he screwed a titanium socket. A quick temporary cap and a few stitches later and I'm done.
Of course, I'm still tired and feeling a bit unwell from all the abuse and chemicals, but my face is in amazingly good shape.
Dr. Stevan Flores. Tell your friends.
http://www.periohealthaustin.com/
I like music. A lot. But most of my collection is old... I haven't bought music in ages!
I have a bunch of stuff on my MyMusic wishlist, mind you, but again most of it is old.
Since I don't listen to the radio, I don't get much new input, so I rely on recommendations from friends.
One such (new) friend (Hi! If you are reading this!) sent me some tracks, and I have to say I'm blown away.
I didn't even know this music existed. What style is it? How do I find more artists in this style, if they even exist? So now I anxiously await my next budget cycle (and the closing of the house) to put in my order.
Check them out if you get a chance:
Apocalyptica, "Inquisition Symphony" album.
In a different vein, and still good:
Dirty Three, "Ocean Songs" album.
Goldfrapp, "Felt Mountain" album.
PJ Harvey, "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea".
There are more...
I am enriched by the friends that I have found. I am a most fortunate man.
I am in training this week for the TaiJi Legacy .
If you can count three days as training...
I've run the short competition form our school is using a few times and I'm exactly in time. I've run the saber a few times and come in at about 2 minutes, which is fine.
I'm almost happy with my forms, though I will have to work to stay relaxed when the time comes to perform them in public.
Now, the third category I will be in is limited-step push-hands. I was not going to compete in this, but then Sifu mentioned something about "overcoming fear" so I had to sign up. Now that we are practicing fast again in class, in preparation for the tournament, I find that I've improved a lot this year. So I'm not nearly as concerned as I was about making a fool of myself, so that's nice.
I'm re-reading Girl Genius and delighting in the Foglio's work once again.
We are heading into hurricane season, so the fun storms are upon us! Lightning! Rain! Thunder! Wind!
I especially love the wind. I stand out in it and feel my physical boundaries disappear, my senses carried out the the horizon on its power...
... but I digress.
I've started spending some time on the Internet again, poking my nose in here and there, and having fun.
And free. Free! I feel the happiness as the pressures fade from me...
Oh, and we are buying our house. We close on the 29th, if things continue to go well.
Woo!
Maybe we will have a house-warming party in August, even though we've been there for two years already. But I desperately need to clean, and that would be a good excuse.
So, the big weekend is behind me! The last big shoot weekend in the movie, an effects-laden extravaganza of work and fun and food...
... and rain. Torrential downpours, monstrous flooding drops of doom beating down on our heads, flooding the fields, washing cows down the road...
And when not rain, humidity. Nothing like working with water-based makeup in a tropical rain forest.
Today, I'm a bit muddled. I apologize if this entry is awkward and confused.
In between downpours, we did manage to eat the leg.
Thursday I slaved to make the skin. This is a long process, since it takes an hour or more between silicon layers for things to stiffen up.
The first layer of skin was semi-translucent, to give the leg healthy subsurface scattering (not that it matters). The next layer is an opaque flesh-tone. Under that another thick layer (or was it two?) in icky yellow-white.
During one of the passes, I embedded cheesecloth into the skin, so it would be easy to attach to the actor.
In the last pass, I took the nasty halloween spider web material and embedded tufts of it into the fatty silicon layer. This was to make the skin bond to the gelatin interior. Once the skin was all dry (the next day), I trimmed this fluff layer so it wasn't too crazy.
Friday I had a sequence of events that required long delays for the gelatin to cool.
First I mixed up a batch of meat-red gelatin and poured it into the muscle mold to get the three muscles. I clamp a stretch of cheesecloth in both ends of the mold, so the muscles terminate in cheesecloth tendons.
Then I poured the remnants into the heart mold, all of which promptly leaked out onto the floor. Okaaaaay, that wasn't desired.
While the muscles are quietly cooling in the corner, I hope the heart has self-sealed and I melt and pour more. Man, this floor is getting messy... blood-colored gelatin in the grout. That can't be good.
After a bunch of screwing around, I reject the heart mold as it stands. I come back to it later...
.. but first, now that the muscles have begun to set, I tip the mold flat on its side and place a pan of ice on it, to speed the cooling.
Now I can take apart the heart mold to see that the problem is in a patch I made in the edge of the mold where I broke it. After grinding down the patch, making a fresh batch of gell, coloring it, etc... I pour a perfect heart.
Of course, the first thing our medic says on seeing it is, "a heart? That's too small!" Yeah, okay, so medical models are based on 5'5" tall Indian women, what can I do about it? I guess I need to sculpt a larger heart from scratch someday...
Hmm, where was I?
Oh, yeah! I took the leftover heart gel, added some more, nuked it, and then foamed it (equal parts tartaric acid and baking soda). This got spread along the fluffy stuff in the skin, to make an icky gelatin layer to work against.
While everything continues to cool, I wander off and make some more powder squibs for killing dead people with.
Later, I crack open the muscle molds and am happy. I cut appart the muscles and lay them out around the thighbone. The cloth tendons make it easy to manipulate and bind the muscles into place.
I then take this assembly and fit it into place in the skin shell.
Cut, heat, color, stir, foam... and then pour a big batch of bloody foam into and around the muscles.
And then play with it as it all tries to pour out onto the floor... but eventually I tame it and can walk away while it sets.
The one thing that I never did get figured out was how to supply blood to the skin as it is being cut. I made some blood channels under the skin, but I actualy never used them. I need to do this again, or several times, to work out more details... blood supply primary among them.
When we acted out the gag, I stripped the actor and then wrapped his delicate leg flesh with aluminum screening -- with four layers where the knife was going to approach him, for safety.
Then the leg strapped into place beautifully, and the magic gaffed pants that I made Thursday slipped on perfectly. I rock!
Then we stuck his right ass-cheek into a hole in the ground (which I persisted in calling the "ass hole") and made him... really uncomfortable, I'm sure.
And then we spent far too much time trying to work out the blood supply problems.
And then, ten thousand little niggling delays later, we filmed the scene.
I think that, when finally edited together, it will be awesome! And there are is a "moment" with Rafaella and her victim that is amazing...
Sunday was easier, if longer. Mostly I did some light makeup work and shot holes in a door and a dead guy. It all went off pretty smoothly.
All the rain, of course, transformed this final weekend into a semi-final weekend. Two weeks out we have to shoot the stuff that got rained out. Woo.
But then... post production!
Until then, I intend to sleep a bunch.
Except this afternoon, where I have to visit the dentist so he can do stuff in preparation to putting in my implant stud next week.
Woot.
Curry, my lead makeup person and the only one who really can do the leading lady's hair and makeup, got a job!
Which is excellent! She started today. And will probably have to work through the weekend.
This huge, intensive, leading-lady-ful weekend. With many of the dead. And a big effect I need to focus on.
Do you think this addes to my stress level?
Well, I'm still not eating like I should (down to 167lbs and counting), but I think I've passed through the stress to the other side.
I am reminded of the Litany of Fear:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will allow my fear to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone I will turn my inner eye to see its path.
And where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain
This Saturday, first thing, is the BIG EFFECT, the cutting the leg apart in detail and on camera.
Right now, I'm definitely pre-stressed about it.
By friday I should be stressed good and proper. It will go well, though.
This, and the heat, has turned into quite the diet. I've lost about 15lbs doing the movie... weight I can scarcely afford to lose.
In lieu of an update, here are some random pictures. The kid in that one is Nik, my son, as an extra. (Note that I lightened the lip lines a bit after this was taken).
http://www.simreal.com/deadbacks/index.html
I would post a coherent status update here today, er, now, but I'm way too tired.
But the incoherent version is mummble, mmm, ...
Bad starts both Sat and Sun, turned into good days through long hours and hard work.
My squibs have mostly worked, though not always or not always the way I wanted. The hand was good.
Next weekend is the hardest of my effect pieces, so wish me luck.
... not.
Saturday and Sunday we did some shooting on the movie, attendance optional. But I went because, frankly, I was needed.
Did a buttload of dead makeup, did some effects (I think we shot a car and made gas pour out of the tank). And, ummm, maybe we shot Tall Matt. I don't remember -- it all runs together after a while. I suppose I could consult my notes, but they are at home.
Anyway.
I did get home by 6:00pm on Sunday. So that's something.
Monday, no shooting! So I stayed home with Nik and we experimented with brain cannon squibs.
It took hours of experimentation, but we did finally converge on a good brain cannon design. We also rejected many other designs, some of which really showed good promise in theory.
I love theory.
We used the same triangular packets, folded from vinyl gloves, as used in the dry hits. For this application, we duct-taped a short PVC tube over the blowout window, pack it with some cooked oatmeal lightly stirred with blood, and then seal the opening of THIS with the thumb of another glove.
Looks pretty darned good. Shoots a chunk of brain up to ten feet or so (at 5' altitude) and gives a spurt of blood with it.
Marla proclaimed our bloody brain chunks in the lawn to be truly disgusting. Which they were.
Hmmmm. I also laid up, and cast half of, the stomach. And then I ran out of plaster.
Tuesday was a bit more of the same. More brain cannon tests. A run to a bunch of stores to pick up supplies, including plaster. I laid up the heart, which was a huge pain since it's a very complicated model.
I have three blocks to cast still, but that's almost trivial. I may do that tonight.
Ooh! I did some tests, starting last Thursday and continuing into Tuesday, on the Eating Jim leg. Had a few failures. Was NOT happy with the final successful cast, it was flawed in many ways.
But, fiddling with it, I think I came up with a good way to do the gag. These pictures just hint at it, because frankly, I was just screwing around here (and the muscles have already been cut out, and so forth):
(warning, big pictures)
www.simreal.com/deadbacks/index.html
And I got to do housework Tuesday, too! Woo! Laundry and catboxes and I don't know what all! So exciting.
One thing I didn't get to do was relax. Okay, Monday we went to Michelle's and played Ninja Burger for a few hours, so that was actually fun and relaxing.
So, three hours of real downtime across a four day weekend. That's good, right?
(I know I sound like I'm complaining, and in a way I am because I'm tired, but I also love the work... it's fun!)
I started with a simple pneumatic squib, way back when.
But that doesn't work for powder.
So I upgraded to a triangular packet (originally designed for larger loads) which is beautiful for powder and probably my new preference for blood, too. (note to self: test inverted configuration).
Today I graduated to the brain cannon, with design help from my son Nik.
Awesome.
There are chunks of bloody brain all over my front yard.