#404 - Sealing My Door

Worked from home today and got to my desk around nine fifteen.

I had a ten AM meeting. It was a check-in with all department supervisors. It’s a weekly meeting that usually only last about half and hour. We give our status updates and discuss any up coming or current issues our departments are having.

I’ll be fully taking over the paint team in about two weeks. So, being in all these meetings becomes more and more important as the weeks roll on. I did a bit of approvals until our next meeting, which was at eleven o’clock.

The Head of Animation wanted to record a session explaining the reason and need for the way they wanted our paintings to be executed when it is to be used as a Runkit. A Runkit, is an animated background that loops. Imagine driving down a street and the buildings are going past on each side, the road moves, the sidewalks move, the streetlights all move from the back of the screen to the front getting bigger as they go.

Our head of animation is a quirky and fun fellow named Mark. The truth was, that none of use that were present needed the training, but Mark wanted to record it as a way to train new recruits and to start building up a brain trust of information.

It was interesting to see how things are done inside of Harmony, the animation software we use, and see things from the animator’s perspective.

Afterwards, I did a bit of approvals.

We had another townhall meeting scheduled over the lunch hour. If I had been at the studio, there would have been free pizza and drinks to bribe you into the kitchen.

I watched from, interested to hear if there would be any big changes coming in the near future. Nothing seemed to be changing, but it was interesting to hear what they thought was selling and what genres they would be focusing on.

Sports dramas are all the rage after the gay hockey show did so well. And it seems like the HGTV focus of home renovation shows and cooking shows are no longer in vogue. Which didn’t come as a big surprise. The contest shows are still going strong, like baking contests, pottery and glass blowing shows.

They are also creating a pitch session for employees to pitch their show ideas once a year. This could be a great opportunity to get a show made. They also confirmed that any person who gets a show made would be treated as a creator and not as an employee, meaning that the company won’t assume ownership of the IP just because you already work there.

Getting a show made and being the creator would be a big step up for almost all of us. I can’t really rise any higher in the studio, with the possible exception of becoming an Art Director. A job I know I don’t want.

So, I’ll start using my writing chops to come up with a cool show idea or maybe more than one. Something to think about anyway.

We didn’t get our walk in today, as we were watching the presentation. I have missed to many of the walks this week and I am starting to feel it.

I went back to doing approvals and revisions. We were hoping to get the show out by Friday, but I doubted we’d get all the paintings in by then. But still, we have to try for the impossible every week.

Sometimes, we even achieve it.

By five I was ready to call it quits for the day.

My goal for the next little while was to replace the door seals around the front door. A few years ago, we had an outdoor cat named Rupert. A chubby tuxedo cat that liked to claw the front door when he wanted back inside. He tore the crap out of the old seals one summer and later that fall we had to put him down.

I never replaced the damaged seals, and we went last winter all summer with a bit of a visible gap in the front door. Cold air was definitely flowing in. I had purchased the new seals last weekend and had them ready to install at the front door. Each of the three pieces needed to be cut to size and installed with screws. The old seals were on the inside of the door frame, while these new one, which had a much better thermal rating, mounted from the outside.

The old seals were white, and these new ones were a green so dark it was almost black. Cut and fitted all the pieces and they installed on the frame making a tight fit. Inside, the noise reduction was palpable. Robyn’s desk sits in the front room, and she could tell that it had started to rain outside. The road noise was all but gone. It’s amazing what a little gap in the old seals let through on a sonic level.

The new seals made locking the door a little more difficult, so I grabbed a file and worked on the metal receiver. It just needed a tiny adjustment, and then the lock could move freely again. From the outside, the dark seal looked so much better than the old while one did. I left two of the three old seals in place and removed the one that was torn by cat claws.

If felt good to get another thing around the house taken care of. This fix should reduce our heating a cooling bill significantly as well.

I ordered some more Perrier. The original and lime ginger flavour. The lime ginger was about ten dollars cheaper than the original flavour. I prefer the lime flavoured one without the ginger, if I am being honest, but at ten dollars off I am not going to be that picky.

I took a walk to the mailbox, because without our walks I keep forgetting to check it. There was a package for Robyn and a bunch of the usual junk mail. Thankfully, someone out a recycling box beside our post office box and I can discard them all right there and then.

I watched some television, while Robyn headed to her service work job.

We watched some television when she got back and were in bed by ten thirty. I had to be up at six thirty to catch an early train into work. The CEO of our company had invited a dozen of us at the animation company to casual breakfast.

I wasn’t entirely sure what this was all about, but I was intrigued enough to check it out and make the extra effort to come in. The promised there would be some kind of food as well as coffee and tea.

Since I would be up early, I didn’t listen to my audiobook before bed and went straight to the sleeping part. I didn’t need all that much coercion to be honest. Fatigue had already set in, and I was more than ready to get some sleep.

Until early tomorrow.