If you’ve been watching any news about the eastern half of the United States, we got a decent sized snow storm over the weekend. I don’t think I remember ever having this much snow at once in my entire life. Quite literally it was up to the car windows, and I could barely walk through it at all. I spent two days trying to get the car out of the driveway, and finally got some help from a bunch of guys roaming the neighborhood with shovels. It was pretty darn tiring. You can’t even go sledding because it’s TOO deep.

Now it’s cold and we’re supposed to get more snow. I’m not sure how bad the flooding is going to be when this all melts, but dang will there be a lot of water.

I got to spend a few hours over the past few days with my father, which was nice to hang out a bit even if it was during work hours and I should have been animating. The real problem with the time spent is that he apparently gave me the flu he has, and I am pretty darn sick now. I just lumbered out of bed and opened my eyes wide enough to write this blog entry, and now I’m heading back to the warm covers and pillows to try and sleep away whatever this is. It started as a sore throat but then moved to the rest of my head and, as I’m sitting here writing this, apparently my stomach.

Not a fun time.

If you’ve never seen a traditional animation table, it looks like this:

I have a drawing table that looks like this:

So of course my plan is to cut a giant hole in my drawing table and affix a lamp underneath so I can do my animation work on it. Great idea, right? Cutting a giant hole in a table and trying to then fix it? Oh yeah, I can’t see this ending any way but exceedingly well.

*cough*

Well now that the crummy events of the past 24 hours are lessened, I can wish everyone a very happy Groundhog Day. For our international blog readers who have no idea what kind of crazy, drunken holiday that is, it is a crazy holiday where people get drunk at 5AM and stand outside in absolutely freezing weather in Pennsylvania to witness a small groundhog being pulled out of a fake log. The groundhog then TALKS to the man in charge of pulling him from his warm, happy house and tells us if there is going to be an early spring or six more weeks of winter. Based on if he sees his shadow or not.

It is also a movie with Bill Murray.

Anyway, it looks like Phil (the groundhog) saw his shadow so we’re going to suffer through snow and ice for another six weeks. Stupid groundhog. I want it to be warm, and clearly it’s his fault it isn’t going to be for another month and a half.

One of my cousins is missing. He’s of that difficult age when life generally sucks and the world is against you: the high school years. I know it was rough for me, and I thought about up and leaving a lot of times. I’m glad I didn’t, because life got insanely better once 12th grade ended. Miserable three or four years, though. (For anyone out there in that same boat right now, hang in there because the world doesn’t suck so badly in a few years.) Anyway, he hasn’t been seen for a while now and the police are out looking. If you are of the praying type, I would appreciate any extras if you would be so kind.

I will attempt to put up the new update tomorrow as scheduled, but I will be honest, it may need to be delayed depending on if we do or do not receive news from the family in the meantime. It’s rather difficult to concentrate at the moment, as you can probably imagine.

EDIT: Update, he’s been located and returned home, thankfully. Much appreciation for the support.

I can’t believe the return of Fred updates happens in just a few more days. The time seemed to fly by like crazy! I need to work over the weekend, because this new cartoon took a lot longer than I expected. I blame school and it taking up time that was usually not taken up before. But school will end up making the Fred cartoons better in the long run, so it’s a sacrifice that needs to be made right now.

Has anyone guessed what the next Fred toon will be about yet? It shouldn’t be difficult, given its release date. Hopefully everyone will download the song after watching the cartoon and drive their friends and family crazy with it. If that happens I’ll know I’ve done my job well.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Tuesday will be here before you know it.

This week I have to create a flip book for school. It has to be about something and an indeterminate number of pages long. It pains me to have such a loose assignment, because I have no clue what to do. Even if there was a broad theme it would be easier. So now I need to brainstorm a bunch of ideas as to what to create. I’d like to stick to something simple, because it’s due in a week and I have all sorts of other projects to work on as well.

The teacher said on day one that if we spent more than two hours a week on homework she would be shocked. Lies! Terrible, horrible lies!

At school there is going to be an upcoming event where one of the professors essentially “fixes” your original characters. I’m considering entering Fred into the foray. This would mean several things:

1) He would likely look very different. Think old Mickey Mouse to modern Mickey Mouse.

2) He would probably have ears afterward. I don’t know why I never added them, but I bet the teacher would.

I’ll probably go ahead and see what could be improved, even if I don’t change the character in the end. It would be nice to have a fresh take on the design, since I created him for comics when I was in middle school and it’s a pretty crappy design (don’t blame me, I was only 12!).

I’ll post the modified version here on the blog whenever it happens. Not sure when, though.

Last night we made about fifteen different colored dyes for the annual Ukrainian Egg making sessions that take place around this time of year. Easter is early April in 2010, so I wanted to get rolling on the decorating as early as possible. My goal is to have over 100 eggs completed for the show that takes place at my church this year. The first year there were around 70, but last year was a lot less because I ran out of time. So far I have six or so completed, and another six in the stages of being done. I’m hoping a few more people work on them this year, because I could use all the help I can get.

I’m considering using the profits from the egg show to have new lights installed at the church building. Right now it’s extremely dark around there at night, and it would benefit the neighborhood a lot if there was more visibility. We have bus stops in front, and people use them at all hours of the night. I don’t know if it’s possible to get that done, but I thought it would be a useful project to help people.

Today I have to go to the dentist to get a cavity filled. I’m not a huge fan of the dentist, so I’ve been putting it off a bit, but it’s not a huge deal so I’ll have to cave and get it done today. I also need my wisdom teeth out, but that I dread even more since it will require them to knock me out, and that’s not something I have any interest in. I ALSO need a new cap on one of my back molars, and the simple removal of the one there has me queasy, because it fell off once and I felt the horrible, dead tooth underneath. It made me sick.

Maybe I’ll write a cartoon about Fred going to the dentist to materialize my horrors in hilarious animation form. Of course, I already have three cartoons in the lineup for Feb. 2nd and onward, so it would probably be a bad time to add in another.