After being laid off, I thought I would take advantage of the time and enter some more video contests. Below is a link and screen shots from my entry. ZorbEEZ is the super absorbent cloth that can replace your paper and cotton cloth. I don’t think that I did a great job of selling the product but I had fun. I shot all of it by myself except for the part where I was running through the trees. Jenna was driving the van and Megan was working the camera. Yup, that’s my right, my little girl the cinematographer.

Dam Absorbant

I went to a breakout session put on by Mike Kunkel of The Astonish Factory and Shannon Eric Denton of Komikweks. One of the things that really stuck with me was that Shannon was saying, “Call it what ever you want, being laid off, fired, let go. The long and short of it is that in this industry we are always moving on to our next job. So be prepared by networking.” Heh, I was just “let go”, nice to know that it’s not a big deal. The other thing that he said was that he, “… had heard of Mike Kunkel before and knew that he had talent, but it wasn’t until Mike had done his own book, Hero Bear, that he really started to show up on Shannon’s radar.”

The key is doing it. I’ve got lots of ideas, but if I don’t do anything with them it’s wasted. So, now I’m networking and trying to get more projects under my belt. Thanks for the pep talk guys!

I got the Bandit on Jan 4th and worked to get it all licensed so that I could show it off. The first event that I made it out to was the Phoenix ComicCon on Jan. 25th 26. I didn’t get a whole lot of attention from the convention, but I did get in for free and because I had the Bandit I felt really comfortable talking to people.

In the photos are;

Jeremy Bullock, Boba Fett, Animated Boba Fett, TIE fighter Pilots with their new ride, The New Jedi Order, The Darths, Sand Person on a cell phone, Quinlin & Barris, young trooper, Tim Russ, Walter Koenis, Will Wheaton, Matt Wagner, Mike Kunkel, and Dane Ault.

My mother-in-law asked me to bring back some soil from India and Australia.  She was involved in an event similar to the Renaissances Festival and they were having a “Land Auction” where people could by a little bit of the world.  Well, wen I hit Australia with that dirt they were not happy.  They packaged it up and sent it away.  It came today.  That didn’t take too long, eh?

So my friend Jess asked if I was working on the Indiana Jones Heritage Sketch Card set. I thought that this set was all wrapped up and I wasn’t going to get a chance to work on them. I contacted Topps and got in! I’ll be doing another 106 sketch cards!

I found out earlier in the week that I was being let go.  The work has been a little slow and I was told that the company is changing directions a bit and that my skill set would no longer be required.  Oh well.  Last Friday I was driving around in a brand spanking new Trans AM and this Friday I’m packing up my things and being escorted out the door.

As I was packing up the HR rep asked if I needed any help packing my Star Wars toys.  GASP!!!  I very calmly replied that I could handle it, but on the inside I was thinking, “NO!!!! DON’T TOUCH MY TOYS!!”  LOL!!!  I thought it was pretty funny that I had that reaction.

So I got some money to help pay for the taxes on the Bandit, and I got the Bandit in 2008, so I have a bit of cash on hand to tide me over till I start working again.

Put out the word.  I’m looking for a job with the words “Senior” and “Creative” in the title. 

The driver got in last night and was told to wait until 9AM to deliver the car so that the local media could be on hand. Well, none of the local media showed up, so I am putting together my own press coverage. Video to follow shortly. You can see in the second image that I had a pretty good crew on hand and that was just my family!

So the driver asked if I wanted to drive the car out or if he should do it. I asked if it was driven in or backed into the truck because I wanted to drive it out just like the scene from the movie. Well, it was driven in, so it wasn’t like the movie, but I decided to drive it out anyway!