19 June 2015

Latest work and other details

Well, after a long time of waiting, I have finally found out that I won't be teaching in Arkansas after all. It took a while, but they apparently chose someone else for the instructor position. I'm disappointed, but in a way, relieved. However, I have been looking at other similar positions. Most require a Masters degree, so that leaves me out for the moment.

In other big news, I finally upgraded my computer. I'm now on a fairly new Macbook Pro with retina display. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the new display, since it means that things like RAM and the battery are a permanent part of the hardware and not replaceable. Being so new, it's also missing a Superdrive, so I needed an external one. Generic models can be quite economical, but beware the kinds that read but do not write DVDs, as I have found out, much to my dismay. 

To save some money, I bought a refurbished model directly from Apple. It had 8 Gb of RAM. But when it arrived, I saw that they had a version with 16 Gb available that wasn't there before, and I was immediately hit with buyer's remorse. Remembering a Jewish proverb that says something like, "Spend more the first time and cry only once," I returned it and ordered the one with more RAM. I hope it was worth it.

In work news, I have finally finished the 3-painting project that I've been off and on for a few months. It's moved along a bit slowly, but getting approvals on various stages of the work has not been too fast. I've also been doing matte painting projects for ESPN promos, featuring trailers from current movies. The latest one I just finished was done without a finished trailer to work from, so I had to create the entire painting on my own. You can see it below.