It’s the end of another month already. I’ve been trying to take some stock in this month’s activities. Being injured has temporarily put my weightlifting goals on hold (and has really fucked with my head). I’m glad I went to my nephew’s birthday party. I need to do more to support Mary’s efforts. It sucks that the assignment with HL2 got cut short, but beyond that I don’t regret the opportunity in the slightest. I feel my recent computer acquisitions reflect progress towards my multimedia goals. I have a lot of work to do.
My shiny, new Intuos 2 Platinum Wacom tablet was delivered by FedEx late yesterday afternoon. I made space for it on my desk, made the USB connection, installed the driver and software on the CD, and then downloaded a working copy of the driver from the Wacom site and installed it. It didn’t take long to get it up and running, but I evoked a “Low USB Power” warning when trying to have it hooked up with my keyboard, Turbo Mouse, and Zip drive. Beyond this appreciable nuisance, everything looks fine. (I guess it’s time to buy a USB hub,.)
Gotta’ just love installing new hardware,especially when it comes with free software! My tablet comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, Corel Painter classic, nik multimedia penPalette, and Wacom Brushes v.1 for Photoshop. While I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to experiment with the main applications, I can’t resist giving them a whirl when I get them as bundled software. Mmm-more toys!
I played around with the tablet a bit yesterday–finding it extremely awkward to use. Using a stylus is a real change from what I’m used to, so I’ll need time to grow accustomed to it. Plenty of creatives report that once they got the hang of using their tablets they wondered how they ever got by without them (which sounds a lot like my Turbo Mouse dependency). I’m still reviewing online documentation and various web sites to get a better understanding of the tablet’s workflow applications. I’m also going through the PDF manual.
Of course I have plenty of other reading to do as well. I went to the Ballard Library today and picked up two more books that have been on back order: Real World InDesign 2, and Photoshop 7 Studio Techniques. I’ve already started reading Maya 4.5 Fundamentals, and have three other Maya books I need to go through. (I hear late charges in the distance.)
For the time being, I’m doing house chores while listening to Spike TV’s Friday The 13th Marathon on the TV. Mary’s out to a business meeting with Marcus this afternoon, which leaves me free to focus on domestic matters. I’m dusting, doing dishes, laundry (with no complaints from Willy) and reorganizing my desk at the moment, and hope to work on a business card and get some study in by the end of the afternoon.
So, this is Halloween. Pretty exciting, eh? Other than expecting the biweekly visitation of “The Reclusive One,” we don’t have any special plans. (Hmmm.. maybe a pizza and video games would be a nice change?)
