My Quarterly Report

Back at the beginning of the year, I wrote a couple of blog posts about my work and personal goals for 2010. Now that we are one quarter of the way into the year, I figured I should take a look at them and see how I’m doing.

1. Create unique cool events - this one is going very well. I haven’t taught any seminar so far this year, but the events I have coming up are pretty awesome. Additionally, I got involved in something that I had no idea I’d be doing when I started the year — namely, the VFX Town Halls.
2. Interview interesting people - has gone exceptionally well. I have met, talked to, and interviewed so many amazing people this year already that it’s really surpassed my wildest expectations. But it’s also something I see you in getting better as the year progresses. I’ve also been able to reconnect with some old friends, which has been great too.
3. Make products that help people - going very well, although maybe not quite as productive as I would’ve liked. The VFX fairness stuff ended up taking a lot of time that I didn’t anticipate and money has been extremely tight this year so far. I’ve been working without an assistant of any kind for months. But the feedback and stuff that made it a very good… I just need to make more of it. And my friend Johnny B. Truant and I have a pretty kick ass product coming out in the next couple weeks.
4. Tell stories - hasn’t gone so great. I’m the little work on screenplays and a short story, but it’s not an area that I’ve been really productive in. I do try to make myself feel better by saying some of the other work I’ve been doing has actually been “telling stories” but I wouldn’t be fooling myself.
5. Be more present with my family - this is probably a badly written goal, because it’s so vague. I’ve done all right with it, probably not as well as I’d really like. Because money’s been tight. I’ve been in something of a mad scramble at points to make sure bills get paid and that’s never great for the family. On the other hand, Shane has been out here most of the year and that has been very nice. Plus we have a new baby, Van and he’s nothing but present.
6. Multitask less - so so. There’ve been times I made a good effort and been able to really focus. But it’s a very easy to slip back into. But I have been fairly conscious of trying to segment my time.
7. Health. As in, have some - this is been a dismal failure, and I really have no excuse. We the treadmill downstairs, we have a Wii Fit and I cannot say honestly that I haven’t had a half hour to an hour a day to use either of them. I just haven’t.
8. Quality stuff - considering how broke we have then much of the year, this is actually gone surprisingly well. Mainly for groceries, because that’s about all he been buying but still . We live about 30 minutes away from Albuquerque, and we drive in once a week or so and stock up on good meat and other food stuffs at Keller’s Farm Market, Trader Joe’s, Alpine Sausage, and Talin Market than by the commodity stuff at the Wal-Mart across the street. Haven’t really bought too much stuff other than that, although the baby stuff we got is nice, thanks in part to gifts from our family.

There it is — a quick wrapup of the year so far. I suppose more money would’ve been nicer, but that wasn’t really one of my goals, wasn’t it? And our financial situation is actually better than it was when I was working my job back in California. We’ve been pretty broke the past few months, but we were pretty broke when I was drawing a weekly paycheck too. So no regrets — except the health thing, I guess — and I’m pretty optimistic about the way the rest of the year is looking.