Lego Your Troubles

Our Christmas present this year was all hella Legos!!! We even bought a few crazy expert level builds because… we’re insane!? But, it was so much fun. I forgot how much Legos are completely meditative. I hadn’t really played with them since my little brother’s amazing collection. I remember playing with him for hours, building dumb things that we could use as props for He-Man or Hot Wheels. I have so many great memories of him as a kid. I guess it’s because we actually just spent a ton of time adventuring and doing things together. That’s how bonds are built.

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We’re working on a new lego build now and this one’s gonna be hilarious. Hold onto your blocks!

We have lots of new excitement headed this way!
Stay tuned…

(—or please don’t if you’re a cyberbully. Seek help.)

Quaranteam

We’re so weird, but kinda made for this quaranteam situation…

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TL;DW

It’s been a really unprecedented year. Zoom is life. Peleton is living.

Mariela started calling our kitchen the quarantina and often just “The Quantina” and then that morphed into “The Can’tina.”

  • we fell into the sourdough bread obsession

    • we have a Tartine related starter that is incredible

    • used it to make St. Louis Bread Co. inspired bread bowls and homemade broccoli cheese soup

    • the best avocado toast in the world

  • we make our own homemade pizzas with even homemade sauce

  • we made sourdough blueberry pancakes from the extra starter

  • cold brew iced coffee is on tap every day

  • breakfast & brunch are better than ever

  • Mariela makes the ABSOLUTE best pie I’ve ever had, still

  • and I took over a bathroom to “cure” my new yoga mat with sea salt for 24 hours. Madness

  • my hair finally has all the multiple identities it needs

  • 2020 is over!!

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She’s the HERO, now!

We celebrated our 19th anniversary in quarantine lockdown and there’s literally no where else in the world I would rather be or who I would rather be with. With all that has happened, I’m grateful to wake up every single day. Even if it is a little groundhog’s day. . .

Like everyone, jobs have fused with life.

The balance is hard. Winter break is usually the only time we can really get into our own huge projects. This project was different than any other though. Mariela contributed most of the graphics, she organized all of the media and really helped to keep the train moving! It was so fantastic!!! (I still want us to work together someday. I mean really work together, instead of both working at home, in the same room, sort of working together! hahahaha)

We had been working in our home studio to create the podcast of our dreams (even adding a dedicated 3rd seat!). I had worked out an awesome workflow of editing so efficiently on my iPad. With three episodes almost finalized…[RECORD SCRATCH] —that studio became our home office. It’s full of work computers, post-its, sketches of work projects and animation pieces scattered around. It’s hard to separate and work on our crazy stories in the same space. So I’ve just pretty much STOPPED working on anything for us and that’s not good or sustainable. I know I have to find a better balance.

That’s my hope for our 2021.

Other random news, I cannot believe it has taken me this long to order a mechanical keyboard. I customized my easy ease animation key with a little good luck black cat key. Now when a layer needs some smoothing I just think to myself—oh this layer needs some Morty. It’s also amazing because I can program the keys to do whatever I want!!! And saving myself an extra key for each animation key frame is so worth it!

This is 2020

I always make New Years resolutions, mainly just to encourage myself and kind of create a positive trajectory. I look at it as a boost just to make it out of the darker days of winter. I know, I know, I shouldn’t complain about winter as a Chicago to California transplant. But hey, we moved here at the beginning of a 6 year drought. So it was deceptively sunny all year—for 6 years! It changed dramatically last year and the downpours lasted for months.

Rains be damned, I have so many plans and goals for 2020! I do have a tendency to overwork myself, so I’m trying to strike a balance in the new year. The bottom line: I want to carve some time for growth and better self care. I cannot just work all the time (as much as I honestly love, love, love to!).


Without further ado, here are my inspirational plans for this brand new decade:

  • meditation — I’ve already started trying to integrate it into my morning routine and hey today is a week.

  • exercise — don’t care what, not holding out for my glorious bicycling jaunts because it just doesn’t work with my schedule during the winter days. I’m going to have to take a page from Michelle Obama’s book and just force myself to make time for it!

  • data visualizations — I want to expand my toolset in graphic design after a great day at the Edward Tufte workshop. Now I’m armed with a ton of books that I am thoroughly enjoying. I love graphic design, but I love learning more than anything and I’ve felt for a few years that I just want my designs to “mean more.” Data visualizations are the ticket. I want to create new ways to use them in mobile and video applications. Here’s some amazing inspirations that I cannot stop with!

    • Annnnnnnd, I cannot recommend the Visual Journalism book enough. Sooooooo so good. Like an awesome picture book when we were kids, but it’s intercut with visual artists thoughtful essays.

  • machine learning techniques — I’m also hoping to expand my toolset by using my extensive mathematics background for data chomping instead of engineering as I was trained! I started the google machine learning crash course. I have to say, it excitingly scratches that old math part of my brain. I don’t see myself jumping back into matrix algebra or fourier transformations anytime soon, but anything is possible I guess.

  • podcast — Complete & release 6 episodes! During this wonderful winter wonderland break, we have revisited our podcast in various aspects of production, other story ideas and where we want to take it. I cannot say that we have a clear map of the first 6 episodes yet, but I think we have a great new model to test and iterate. We also have 2 episodes nearly finished. By the way, Dolly Parton’s America is the best podcast I’ve heard yet. Everyone should listen.

  • drawing class — I want to finish the drawing course that M and I have been working on together. It’s been so fun and nothing makes me happier than just drawing. Here’s a weird photo of my fat foreshortened hand as part of the class. Mariela copied the same gesture causing some hilarious confusion, but that’s the jackass she is.

  • water — drink water besides La Croix. Serious.

It’s been a great TWO WEEK break. We’ve spent some time improving our lives and home and some time just being lazy and enjoying the sunshine and good company of a few friends. California is still a dream, worth chasing.

P.S. Here’s us painstakingly creating ugly items out of air clay and then crushing it! Apparently, this is an ASMR thing. I just like crafting, filming it, destroying it. The paint studio is completely back to normal and all memories are only digital. Weird.

Stirring Around Our Workspace

I do this often. Stir the furniture in our apartment...I think it drives Mariela crazy. But it's how I was raised. My granny still moves her furniture around every few months. I just thought that's what normal people do! So I've taken it to the next level...and modified most of our furniture to add wheels. It's quite handy.  I think the needing to stir comes from our Native American roots. We can't move the tribe, so we shift stuff around. It gives a new feeling to a familiar place. Makes sense.  But she also kept a large knife stuck in the door because we lived around really scary people--within our house and the neighborhood.  So I've modified her model by using a magnetic knife rack by the door--but it holds keys, wallets, little dyke tools, camera remotes...etc. etc.

The latest stirring episode is because I've been frustrated with my photography lately. But I'm chalking it up to a few things: 1) I haven't really found my place here yet. Like a job or community involvements, but I know that will happen. Spring is in full bloom in Northern California and it's magnificent. 2) I'm used to photographing dingy urban stuff--usually weird & dark. Exactly the opposite of here. It's bright and sunny all the time and  much more suburban. I know that riding my bike on daily missions will kick me over into the groove again. And that will happen when I find my place/job, too. I just have to be patient and diligent with my own projects in the meantime.

The biggest projects we have going now:

  • pilot script
  • creating 2D puppet animations for storytelling
  • editing our cross-country move to Cali video

I've been hard at work on a video for my family that is finally complete! Mariela and I learned so many new effects and techniques, but the content is personal, but maybe I'll do a rough cut of some of the footage to share here. The time lapse of the family cottage is pretty terrific--if I do say so myself.  I had stayed up so late the night before--drinking wine at the dining hall, an unexpected nap, and then more ukulele playing and singing with the fam. But it was 4am and the sun was a'comin. I scurried to gather my gear and ran out to argue with my new time lapse settings in Magic Lantern. I got it. It's beautiful. It's quiet and serene. All the colony kids and vacationers fast asleep...I even managed to get the sun rising over the colony pool. Luckily, I had the forethought to get the cottage first and move downhill for the pool. So maybe a short cut to come soon.

We had a terrific weekend and really didn't get anything done on our projects, but sometimes it's nice to just enjoy the sunshine.  So we joined some new friends at Half Moon Bay for a fun day at the beach. I'm just still so stunned that the OCEAN is that close!  Luckily, my midwestern hickness is wearing off and I haven't referred to the Pacific Ocean as a LAKE in quite a while now. ;-)