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Mark

Weekend in SF

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Spent a few days this last week in San Francisco for a workshop conference held by Schoolism.  Although I can’t show anything from the conference, I learned a couple things that I can’t wait to try out later in the future.  Also got to hang with family and friends in the area and visit the Chuck Jones exhibit at the Cartoon Museum, the director behind many of the old WB cartoons who got me inspired to do animation in the first place.  Overall a really inspiring week.  Anyways, here are a few sketches from the weekend.

Puddles’ Weekend Adventure! The Finale

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The day started out like any other.  I woke up at the usual time.  My clothes were pretty casual.  I went to the studio to do some work.  But unlike any day, this one was going to have a special ending.  With some well-wishes from my coworkers and a ring in my pocket, I made my way down to Olwen’s office to pick her up.  On they way, I called Desmond to confirm the plans for tonight.  Last year I was the cameraman when Des’ proposed to his schoolteacher girlfriend at her elementary school (think Meet the Parents).  I wanted Desmond to be a part of this proposal, so I also asked him to videotape my proposal.  He was in Yakima for an interview and was finishing at 4pm, so we needed to make sure that he was going to be beat to the house before us since Thanksgiving traffic can be unpredictable.  We created some “signals” to use for the trip to time ourselves in the form of two phone calls from Des.  The first call would be to chit chat about his interview; that call would let me know that he was leaving Yakima.  The second call would be to talk about hanging out in Portland with his wife during the long weekend; that call would let me know he was a half-hour away from Portland.  It was kind of cool plan to be covert with the fake calls, but like all well-thought-out plans, we never used them.  Turns out Thanksgiving traffic never showed up on his route, so he beat us home by a good hour and a half.

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Puddles’ Weekend Adventure – Part 4

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I had over a month left until the proposal.  The most difficult task now was to keep it all a secret from Olwen.  My main concern was with her parents since they’re the ones that I probably would have the least control over.  It turned out that leaks were coming out elsewhere.

After I picked up Olwen from the airport, we headed over to NewGen, my church fellowship.  I had to give Olwen back her car, so I had her drop me off at the fellowship.  We were hanging out on a couch when Christine spotted Olwen and walked up to us.  She welcomed Olwen back and asked about her trip to Rwanda.  And that’s when she said, “Wow, you guys have been doing a lot traveling.  Nolen just got back from Toronto.”

She did not just say that.

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