Keith Demele's Blog

What a day…I got up, took a shower, put my shoes on, walked out the door, and faced the music….and boy, am I glad I did!

Although it was only the first day of classes, I am very excited to see what the UTD EMAC program has in store for me.

My first class was an intro to rigging class…Its an upper level ATEC class that I got put in at the last moment to fill my schedule…Most of the students in there had taken several 3d classes there and knew Maya like their back of their hand…to be honest, I was a little intimidated, the guy next to me had an amazing portfolio.  Needless to say, I got thrown in there and had not really even used or looked at maya since it was Alias Maya 6.5…The professor had our class do some timed excorsizes to see where we are at and I did horribly! I have completely forgotten how to work in Maya! We got a class assignment to rig a pendulum by the next class, so I am going to spend all of my time this weekend getting re-acquainted with the Maya UI and try and do a bang up job on this assignment.I am really looking forward to this class. This is the first time in my college career that I have gotten to do any 3D, and it beats the heck out of anything core classes have to offer!

The 2nd class I had today was called Writing and Research for New Media…The professor I got is amazingly cool! Finally someone who sees the big picture! Although his first class was really just an introduction, telling us a little about himself and the class, I felt very good about it…I chose EMAC as my major and it seems like if the program is designed like this class is I will definitely be getting my moneys worth out of my education! Our first assignment is to set up a blog and a twitter account…I already have em, however I am thinking about setting up a blog just for school…In fact on my drive to school in the morning I was thinking it would be cool to do a day by day account of my experiance in the program…

It was kind of funny, I though I was out of luck on getting a 4th class for the semester, however my adviser stuck me in a class and forgot to tell me about it…So I got an email from the schools bursar’s office telling me I owed them another grand, got freaked out and was like ohh, I have class like right now! So it turns out I have 12 hours this semester anyway…Which is good…

I still have a lot of unfinished freelance work that I fear my interfere with my studies…I told myself I would get everything done by the first day of classes, but it snuck up on me way too fast, I still have a few hundred hours of work to do, sheesh! I am gonna have to turn down any more work I get so I can focus on school now…It’s weird saying “Nope, sorry, I can’t!” to clients.

Since I am out of time for personal projects this semester I am going to hire some contractors to finish all the coding I had planned for my companies other website (txmotocross.com)…It’s weird to realize that I cannot tackle the world, and need to to hire help! lol

I asked them to come on, so..We shall see, I have maya installing right now so I can get to work on the rigging class assignments, this year is going to be a blast!

Wow did summer pass quickly…My transfer student orientation is Wednesday…and I am still not into enough classes….It’s kind of scary, all of these classes are full! I am down to begging my advisers to stick me into any classes that are open! Some of the classes require professor approval to get you in, but then there is no way to contact the professor…its wacky!

I’ve decided that I want to end up doing the EMAC BA after all, I figure its the best future proof possible, not to mention something I find amazingly fascinating. I hope my professors are cool and in the know, not the monotone teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!!!!

Summer is wrapping up, but things are not slowing down by any means…Got my business running, the gears are turning and I can at least cover rent…So thats good…I am moving out into a new place in McKinney…and I tend to keep myself busy…Have not gotten to fish in a while, but oh well, it is the peak of summer.

I’ve been thinking that I really want to re-design my website, I build it in 2006 and its looking old, I need to bring it up to standards, I don’t even have a twitter of facebook widget on here, GOSH! When we get 12 more hours in the day I suppose…

And why are you yanking them out of my head? Got my wisdom teeth out last Friday…went in expecting something like open heart surgery like everyone made it out to be…Pff, what a let down! No big deal…Although I did randomly pass out while I was standing in the kitchen later that night…Thank god for an otterbox to protect my iphone…woke up laying in a pile of broken glass and water, but the iphone was fine! YES!

Saturday I went out to Village Creek Motocross over in fort worth to watch the races and chill out, had a great time…Motocross is even cooler to whatch while you are on hydrocodone!

Since I am still in summer school I am kind of waiting to see how my grades turn out before I register for my classes at UTD in the fall…There are two programs I really want to do, but can’t decide which one to do, if either of them…I want to get a degree from a school that covers the subject on the job I got laid off from, is that a little odd? I got to go meet with the Doctor who leads both programs…What a great guy, he took an hour out of his day to talk to me about it all, he recommends I go with their new program…its called Emerging Media and Communication…We will see how it goes…I am very excited and anxious to get into some classes I might actually enjoy…I tried to register for classes and they are almost all full, for both programs! Let the rat race begin?

On the flipside, I’ve gotten to liking working from home…One advantage, besides not having to deal with traffic, dailies in the hammock!

Sometimes all your ducks just seem to line up in a row…ya know? The moons align and everything clicks…

Passing statistics with flying colors, my drawing class is going well, infact I tweeted about it yesterday morning…My LLC is really starting to take shape, and I took up fishing again, there is nothing better about fishing after a long few days in the office…even if it is 1000 degrees out!

Life lesson, take everything with a grain of salt…if its not making you happy, don’t do it….Just finished a site for a client earlier…I am logging off to go fish! I suggest you do the same, dangle your feet in the water!

On April 7th, I was up at work till 3AM trying to get the one up on a deadline…April 8th, after my last class, I got on my laptop real quick to check my work email in case I needed to come up and help the team out. I couldn’t log in. I thought, “maybe the exchange server is messed up…”, then the thought crossed my mind, “did my account get killed?”

Regardless, since no one was answering their phones, I had drive up and make sure everything was in order to meet the deadline the following day. It was a long drive, or at least it felt like it. After I found a parking spot, as I am walking towards the building, I see one of my coworkers shaking his head…”Hey, you hear what happened?” he said. My two bosses had been let go. Not soon enough or surprising, but the timing was, odd….

So, I went in, and tried to log in. No luck. I knew I had been let go as well. That took me off my feet. I went and talked to my project manager and she told me that the VP of the company was looking for me. So I went down to his office just wanting to get it over with…He said that my log in was a mistake and that I should keep working on the project, and that we would talk tomorrow, so I felt a little relieved and went back upstairs to get some stuff done. Shortly after I got upstairs and on the universal log in, the call came that I was to go down to the conference room. Shit. So, I walked down there, saw the VP and the woman from HR. I knew what was coming. From the time I sat down till the time I went to my truck was kind of a blur. I just remember shaking during all the paperwork….And that was it. The job I absolutely loved, lived for, was gone.

Oh well, you don’t do well to dwell on things that are no more, right? Time to move on…

So, looking ahead, there are actually some great advantages for me being laid off.

1. More Time.
It was not until I gained it, that I figured out how little I had. Today I spent an hour at the bank waiting to get some stuff cleared up, and I had no where I had to be, no stress, I sat their waiting it was nice. Amazing stuff.

2. No Stress.
The anxiety of knowing my job was on the line was actually a ton. I was cut in the 7th round of layoffs, and after I was let go I was really relieved. I am far less stressed out about stuff nowadays, it feels great! Besides school that is.

3. Physical well being.
When my schedule was crammed and I had 484 thousand things going on every day I developed some nasty habits. I got hooked on energy drinks, I stopped exercising, and I ate a lot of junk food.

Now that I have more time I have been able to lay off the energy drinks (they are expensive too, btw, another benefit) and junk food. And, believe it or not, I actually went for a run today, it only lasted 15 feet, but its a start. Haha!

4. Career re-evaluation
I love doing 3d visualization, however I have to ask if viz will be a viable career path. My job ended up getting outsourced to china, the once very profitable field of arch viz is starting to look like grunt work. Is this something that will be around for 10 years? 25? 40?

5. Focus
Having all of this time really allows me to focus back on school and my 3d projects at the house, I spent the better part of last week doing math work, I would have done so bad on the test if I had not spent all day 4 days of the week studying. I got into a rut where I was so burnt out from doing work that when I got home I had no ambition to do anything. Being laid off has kicked me in the butt and made me get back to work on the stuff I wanted to do.

6. Re-examination of priorities
When I had a check coming it, I really didn’t notice those $10 lunches and the $5 I spent on energy drinks and snacks a day. That adds up quickly! Those days of spending are LONG gone, its PB&J time for me!

Another thing I need to do is reconnect with friends, in the two weeks I have been laid off I have gotten in touch with so many people that I have just kinda let go by the wayside, its great hanging out with people again, again, with the free time!

7. Income sources.
There is one thing that this lay off has taught me, income is awesome. Now that my paycheck is gone, I realize that I should diversify my income sources.

8. Starting my business agian.
I am very excited that I can now re-open my website and my freelance opportunities, its something that has just kind of sat there on the backburner, now I get to do something with it!

I am over being laid off, as far as I am concerned they have no clue what they lost!

To the future!