Jeff and I met in the lobby of the Guadalajara Holiday Inn Select this morning before our trip to the customer’s site. It’s the rainy season here so the streets are flooded from torrential rains in the morning, but the weather seems to clear out as the day progresses. come the evening, the sun shines brightly and the temperature remains steady at a comfortable 80. As expected, this morning greeted us with violent rain.
I went up to the front desk.
“Buenos dias, Necesitamos un taxi” I said hesitantly
The woman behind the desk, immediately responded in a flurry of Spanish of which I caught “lluvia” and “cinco minutos”
“bueno bueno. gracias.” I said as I followed her pointed finger towards the side of the building. I assumed she meant that there would be a taxi here in about 5 minutes.
As I walked outside, it no longer mattered. Jeff had hailed a cab. And the driver was wearing a sombrero.
It wasn’t just the sombrero that was awesome. His seat covers had pictures of bottles of tequila, a small set of rosary beads hung from his mirror, and the radio hummed quiet Spanish trios. It was the quintessential Mexican taxi cab. The man followed our directions well (“uhhhh… la proxima derecha? comprende?”) and we reached our destination.
Most of the day was uneventful. Some critical equipment was stuck in customs… so we spent the day waiting. Lunch time, however, was fantastic. We had authentic comida mexicana: beans, rice, and meat served with fresh tortillas. It was perfect!
We got back to the hotel reasonably early… grabbed a bite to eat and wandered the streets of Guadalajara. This city is pretty great. It’s reasonably clean, very colorful, and friendly. Last time Jeff was here, he and some co-workers went to an Aerosmith concert. I’m going to check the schedules for tomorrow. If we do get out of work early hopefully we’ll be able to have some fun.
Last week Schenk challenged me to an MSPaint vs. Photoshop match. The goal was to draw a ping pong paddle. I went into great detail of my methods here. In response, Ryan decided to make up a little how to that explains his methods for creating a Photoshop masterpiece.
Without further ado…. How do draw a ping pong paddle in 9 easy steps!
Step 1. Drawing in perspective is entirely too hard. So do begin with, draw the shape of a ping pong paddle head-on, it’s much easier this way. Note that this is a shape layer, I will be using shape layers exclusively in this tutorial.
Step 2. Once you’ve created the outline of the paddle, duplicate the layer twice, and adjust these duplicated shapes accordingly to create the rubber surface of the paddle and the handle. You can see that once I got the shape right, I made the rubber red and the handle a lighter shade of brown.
Step 3. I always need a little help with perspective, so I drew a rectangle shape layer, and used the Perspective transform tool (Edit-> Transform -> Perspective) to create a plane that the paddle will eventually be resting on.
Step 4. Select all your paddle layers (this only works in PS CS2 and above), and using the rotate tool (Edit -> Transform -> Rotate), rotate your paddle counter-clockwise.
Step 5. Using the Perspective or Free Transform tool, put your paddle into the perspective of the plane you drew in Step 3.
Step 6. I’ve resized the paddle a little smaller, the size that I want my icon to be, and I chopped off some of the handle that got elongated by the Perspective transform tool.
Step 7. To give the illusion of depth, I duplicated the Blade layer, made it darker brown, and offset it below and to the left the original blade. I also tweaked the Handle layer a little bit to create an overlapping effect over the rubber.
Step 8. This is where all the magic happens, and why I like to use shape layers, because you can mess with the effects endlessly. You can see I’ve added a drop shadow to the layer created in Step 7, a gradient and faint white highlight to the Rubber layer, and a gradient and embossing to the Handle layer.
Step 9. To finish things up and complete the illusion of a 3d object, I drew a light brown ellipse on the end of the handle, a dark brown rectangle through it for the blade of the paddle, and a dark brown arc where the handle tapers down to the rubber. And that’s a wrap.
Wow it’s been awhile since we did one of these. Congratulations go out to Liz and Patrick for successfully guessing the last skyline and satellite image. The skyline was Providence, the satellite image was Hong Kong.
On Sunday, the crowds gathered once again at the Waterbury RollerMagic rink for a taste of Roller Derby. The Iron Angels (0-2) would be taking on the Widowmakers (2-0) in a bout that truly lived up to its hype.
I had been looking forward to this one for awhile. The Angels were coming back from a bout break and the Widowmakers were returning from a brutal slaying of the Elm City Bone Crushers back in June. The last time these two teams met the Widowmakers took the victory. Could they repeat the win?
After a quick and always entertaining demo explaining the sport, the whistles blared and the girls got skating.
Iron Angels Pearl Jammer, Tina Colada, and Pam Terror started the bout switching off as Jammers. Their speed was devastating! Within the first 4 minutes the Iron angels had pulled off numerous 4 and 5 point rounds. But the Widowmaker Jammers Barbie Q and Pepper Grind-Her were answering each point run with one of their own.
It wasn’t long before the action dropped its first skater. The Angel’s assistant captain Dead End Allie took a violent spill on the near side of the ring. After struggling for a moment she tried to get up but her ankle buckled and she fell back to the ground. Even as the EMT’s ran across the ring to assist her, Dead End Allie, showing unmatched dedication, tried unsuccessfully to get up yet again, wincing in pain all the while.
She left the ring on crutches.
The Widowmaker defense wasn’t fooling around. Revengela, Ruby Wreckingball, and Slick Shoes were hitting hard.
And then there’s Black Cherry.
Perhaps she is the most feared by Iron Angel Fans. There were a number of rounds where Black Cherry, as pivot, skated furiously in front matching her speed to that of the oncoming jammer… then she’d unexpectedly drop her shoulder and swing violently into her opponent. On more than one occasion she sent the Angel’s jammer careening out of the ring a good 10 or 15 feet… the crowd (including her mom in this sweet t-shirt) rewarded her with deafening cheers.
The match remained close through the second period and into the third. Soon, there were ten minutes left and the Widowmakers trailed by 9 points. A lead for the Angels to be sure, but hardly a comfortable one. The Widowmakers suffered a short setback when Eleanor Bruisevelt fell after getting a roller skate in her back… though she didn’t stay down for long. After two or three rounds of rest she was right back out there beating back Iron Angels.
As time ticked away the roller girls began to get a bit more vicious. Check out this video of Widowmakers and Angels exchanging blows:
Soon, there were only 45 seconds left on the clock. The Widowmakers were trailing by 15 points… and Pepper Grind-Her was sent out as the Widowmaker Jammer. The bout got started and she got in front… Angel defense was doing everything in their power to keep her back… but she slipped through.. again and again.
The points started racking up… and up… and up… All eyes were on the clock as it ticked the final seconds away.
The final count? Pepper Grind-Her brought in 10 points for the Widowmakers… An extremely impressive run but just shy of what was needed. Final score?
Widowmakers 75, Iron Angels 80.
The Iron Angels Won!
Queen’s WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS exploded from the speakers, the crowd erupted in cheers, and the Iron Angels piled in a heap of skates and skirts celebrating victory.
While I may still be an inexperienced Roller Derby fan, I think it’s safe to say that Sunday’s skating was the best I’ve seen. To witness Violet Riot pull slick maneuvers to escape a crushing blow from the likes of Miz Con SepJen and to see Black Cherry’s intensity first hand… it’s exhilarating and like no other sport out there.
The next match is Sunday Sept 9th, it’s going to be the Elm City Bonecrushers vs. the Iron Angels: A rematch that will surely rival Sunday’s bout in bruises. Check out the Roller Girl website for more info.
