I wrapped up classes last night, giving my last final and accepting the majority of final projects. Overall it was a good quarter, most of my students kept pace and all tried as hard as they could. Next week, grades need to be posted by Wednesday, and we will probably have in-service meetings the beginning of the week.

Then it is Thanksgiving; I’ll be headed down to Florida to spend time with Abby’s family. It is all but guaranteed to be interesting, and I’m sure I’ll have a fantastic time. One thing that always concerns me about events such as this is the fact that I don’t eat Turkey. I’ve been to Thanksgiving dinners where that is more offensive than being a communist apparently. You know, the kind of people who call it Turkey Day and seriously mean it. So we’ll see how that goes. I probably won’t get back to Atlanta until Saturday or Sunday. And then its back to work on Monday, and classes resume that week…

So it is quite literally the shortest break imagineable. There is never enough time, is there?

Today, I went to an incredible Indian place up in Marietta. Vatica Indian Vegetarian Cuisine‎/. The owner, I speculate he was the owner anyway, was hilarious. The food was delicious. It was exactly the kind of place I’ve always wanted to find. When you walk in, you don’t get seated, you just find a seat and sit down. There is no menu, you just sit, and they bring you whatever they are cooking. And it was delicious. My only regret is that I am currently on a diet, trying to get fit, and I couldn’t stuff myself nearly as much as my taste buds wanted to.

But I will definitely be back for more.

So my little kitten, Hamilton, is now a little over 5 months old. He beginning to get to get his adult teeth in. Which roughly translates to him chewing on everything. And do I mean everything: anything made of plastic, anything made of cardboard, my limbs and phalanges, my other cat. You name it and he has his teeth in it.

The thing is, he doesn’t mean to be a jerk. It is just nature, I’m sure that it doesn’t feel that good for him and he is the sweetest cat on the planet, even if he tries to put his paws on my mouth when he is trying to sleep on my stomach to keep me quiet. Still, it is plain to see why so many kittens get given up for adoption or abandoned at this age. Which saddens me, because I know that Hammy will be a perfect cat as soon as all his teeth come in. But it is so easy to loose patience with him and punish him for something that isn’t his fault.

BTW, for those who are interested the little guy is named after Alexander Hamilton because he was born around the 4th of July. Seemed fitting…

So I go up in Tennessee late last night, and went out with my good buddy john to see Iron Man. We were accompanied by Johns lovely wife and his litter sister. Now, his little sister is always a riot to be around but last night she was exceptionally on point.

Between her critique about african-american culture here in the South, and her apparent lust for rice and imitation crab (a combination of which I can only imagine would be purely orgasmic, I’m sure), I’m not really sure what to say, other than its always a pleasure.

Now, on to Iron Man. I will attempt to write a more detailed review over the next week, but suffice to say, its definately a keeper. Well adapted, solidly acted, exceptionally timed. Some might argue it is a bit on the long side, however, long movies never bothered me, as long as the pacing is spot on, and Jon Favreau and Dan Lebental were on the ball. They worked together before on Elf, which I honestly can say that I enjoyed.

Robert Downey Jr. was an exceptional Tony Stark, far better than I would have imagined. Jeff Bridges was a surprisingly good villain. I thought that the movie over-all was well paced and compact, which is impressive considering it has a solid two hour running time. I’d rather not give too many spoilers for those that haven’t seen it yet, but it’s a solidly fun watch and easily the best movie of the year so far.

And I must admit, the appearance after the credits gives me new hope that the new Hulk movie might not be as terrible as I fear that it will be.

While I’m trying to finish off a website for a friend of mine, John Hill, and that still is taking top priority in my spare time, those of you who know me, know I teach part time over at ITT. Far from the most glamorous teaching position in the world, but I enjoy it. Free time seems to be more and more of a luxury these days.

Either way, I got into a discussion with my class the other night, and they were talking about how it was suggested before they started school that the college either had on site, or had access to, a mocap facility. After a long discussion about how a mocap studio wont make you better animator, which I firmly believe, I remembered an idea I had several months earlier.

The idea was to try to construct a primitive yet functional motion capture system using mostly off the shelf products. The Wii Remote is little more than a simplified IR 1024×768 camera. The best part is that the Wii Remote does most of the heavy lifting and can keep track of 4 distinct IR light sources. Using multiple Wii Remotes, and a custom build IR suit rig, you should be able to toggle just 4 points on the suit each frame and still get a decent sampling rate across the entire suit.

Last night in class, I started working on a prototype. I’ll post some photos as work progresses.