Christmas Break 2014

I took two weeks off over the Christmas/New Year time and it was close to the perfect combination of relaxing with friends and family along with getting a lot of work done on my side projects.  I finished a fun game (Tomb Raider) and started a new one. (BioShock: Infinite) I feasted like a king.  Gained around 10 lbs and a couple inches on my belly.  I’ve been meticulously tracking the calories because I want to see what an average day of intake when I’m just enjoying myself looks like.  Turns out it’s between 3 and 4 thousand calories.  I’m happy to see that I’m not having any trouble transitioning back to my 1,500 cal/day norm.  My estimate is that it will take me 3-4 weeks to get back to my weight plateau and 6-8 weeks to reach my belly inch plateau.  

I’m really excited that I got a second wind on my over-two-year-old sculpture project: Barba the Colossus.  I had no idea how I was going to tackle a particular problem with sculpting a bunch of fiddly architectural detail onto the belt parts that wrap around it.  I’ve had this Worbla stuff (a kind of papery/plastic that can be molded when heated, then hardens after cooling) sitting around for a year or so, and it finally clicked that I could use that to form a detachable base for those parts.  It worked out great, so I’m back on track.  I really hope I can keep the momentum up so I can finish by April so I can show the sculpture at Norwescon, and more importantly, finally cut this awful awful beard!

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