Tree, its a Tree without Pears

Date: 09/29/2013

Time: 10 a.m.

Pear Tree - Full

This pear tree is just past its season of harvesting and is heading into its own winter preparations like the surrounding trees.

Pear Tree - Leaves Close Up

Unlike may of its colorful cousins the tree's leaves simply die and fall off the stems as the season gets colder. Some fruit remains on the high branches and start to fall on their own time to the ground to rot and fertilize. 

Pear Tree - Minimal Fruit Remains

10/03/13

Mid Afternoon               

Around the pear tree its fellow trees start shedding their leaves. However the pear tree seems to be almost resilient in the slowly approaching winters deep in temperatures as the colder weather approaches. While its bothers shed their leaves in bright bold colors the pear tree is more simple keeping a hold of its green leaves. The leaves on the tree only show a slight brown and some decaying spots. On the top of the tree remaining  fruit continues its decay. 

10/18/13
Mid Afternoon

  

Now the weather is still strangely warm for October our little pear tree's leaves are starting to change color to slightly match its friends. But for the most part it has retained most of its foliage and the spots on the leaves has increased. The pear on the top of the tree has sunk partially onto the branch with decay.

















11/01/13
Late Afternoon

The leaves on the tree have abandoned their attempts it seems to get to a bright color like the trees around it but to settle more into the brown and well, dark brown of its spots on its leaves. The leaves look close to purging from the tree as they crinkle and die from the branches of the tree. All the fruit has decayed and fallen upon the ground to be made into fertilizer for the tree for next year along with food for the animals around the area that are mainly squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs along with other small mammals and bugs.


11/08/13
Late Afternoon

The trees leaves have now turned a more bright yellow then its previous leafy classic green. the leaves brown/black spots has not increased but the amount of decaying leaves on the ground has increased. the leave count on the tree is lessened from approximation about 80% of its leaves. Other trees around this fruit tree have almost if not fully lost all their leaves. Fruit trees seem to keep their leaves much longer then its nut or only leaf cousins.

November 19, 2013
7 am

The tree now has shed all its leaves now in this late novermber. most of the leaves have been picked up and removed due to the residents in the home cleaning up the leaves in their yard.

30 Day Drawing Challenge

Now that I'm out of my funk especially since I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Wednesday I am pushing myself to do a 30 Day Drawing Challenge!!!! I will be posting my drawings on Deviant Art and here, updating each day I post something new :D! I hope I get some comments!

Day 1: Self Portrait 

Since I've done quite a few self portraits I figured I'd take this chance to do a five minute fast paint in photoshop. I like the over all result in the end :D 

Day 2: A Monster (Good) 

Day 3: A Monster (Evil) 

Day 4: Animate a small object

Day 5 : Draw a president as an Action Hero 

Day 6 : Hybrid Animal

Spicy BBQ Mayo Sauce Recipe

Spicy BBQ Mayo Sause

      Yes! I am also a bit of a foodie among being an computer artist person. I decided to take this chance to post a recipe of mine that I love to make . This is a simple four to five ingredient sauce of stuff that most people have their fridge and pantry. If you don't have the ingredients their not something that you will just use on this one recipe unlike many others that I've made (that that big jar of black strap molasses in my cabinet still).

I had originally tried to make a recipe to duplicate Red Robins sauce that comes with their onion ring tower (which is also very tasty) . However in my process like a few other recipes in attempts to duplicate another I end up with my own personalized recipe that may not taste just the same but is delicious in its own  way.

On to the making of the yummy sauce!


What you'll need is the following: 

Small Mixing Bowl
Whisk
Funnel (optional) 
Dispensing Container (I love my sauce bottle, I actually got it at the dollar store!)

Ingredients 

1/2 Cup BBQ Sauce  (I personally use Sweet Baby Rays, its a family fav but any sweet BBQ works)
1/2 Cup Mayo (Regular or Light Mayo is fine) 
1/2 TBS Hot Sauce
1 TSP Paprika
1 TBS Honey (Optional) (it helps cut the hotness for some and helps it be a little more kid friendly)

Ingredients 

 - Combine  BBQ Sauce, Mayo, Hot Sauce, and Paprika in bowl and whisk till thoroughly combined.
- (Optional) Once fully combined add honey
- Chill for at least 2 hours before serving!


Since I don't burn though this stuff I tend to make this small batch more often.  If you love this recipe and want o make it for a party or more because you have a big family just double up and fill the bottle :D

Also if you do have a serving bottle like mine I highly recommend you use a funnel. My pour counter has gotten a facial more then once more twice with various sauses when I forget to use my funnel.

@_@ Unity, Clever girl....

             Unity... a clever creature in itself with the experience I have had with it so far. This little program has a lot more complicated punches then I had originally anticipated and sorta made my brain do a flop. Then it jumped right back up as I went giddy with complicated technology and a support to push my love for video games, level layouts, character design, and a load of other things lol. Unity is a good expression for my level and puzzle creativity that I like to express. In animation and art its one way to express it but with game designing o_o well my puzzle charts get a bit dummied down right now with trigger code since I am working with basic 2D scrollers (which are amazing in themselves). I am looking forward to when I can push my environments to be a free world environment for players to explore instead of going *arrow key this way or arrow key the other way*.
             So far I have been twisting my brain in delight after taking a Gaming Production 1 who was taught by the lovely Jane Kernan. I can't say enough kind words about her, she was a great person to learn from though the class. I benefitted alot from her being able to discuss the class as a teacher and as a fellow game designer (basically its nice to share conversations with a person who has gone though the same 'I need to learn this, why isn't the f*cking thing working' situations).
            Through the class I had the chance to work on two separate games, one being a self driven project and one being a group developed project. Which I will discuss in a later posting :D look forward to it!
           While me and others trudged though the program, while Jane was a huge help the online community is overly helpful and apparently other people get just as frustrated when its an error code of not working lol. Unity has this wonderful online community that people can post their issues and many people post, reply and help you though your issues. The online community can be found though this link: http://forum.unity3d.com/forum.php You will have to make an account with them. But as a normal online person I feel most people are use to getting the usual insert email and password here situation.
            If you want to get a sneak peek of the two in development games (Puppet Daddy & Darci's Undertaking) feel free to go to my home page www.jdowdy.com where I have my portfolio and links where I have my art and ways of getting in contact with me.
             http://forum.unity3d.com/forum.php

Liberation Math; Math Resolve, the teaching environment and the teacher

        Ah, math anxieties and the society that supplies the angsts against the topic in general. When I was in grade school I didn't like math but I knew it was essential to pass school. I thought of grade school more of list of things I had to accomplish for a my high school diploma and kept that thought process though high school. The only thing that made me interested was art, something that was an extra something I didn't need to pass to get though highschool. Movies, animation, art was something that surpassed in and so I kept that now in college and will be my future career. Not everyone wants to be a mathematician or a scientist. I've seen many high schoolers pushed away from the arts or literature or history because they have been told the financial obligations of choosing that carreer. I was told by my guidance counselor that and I quote "Art is a horrible career". This just made my standard expression of 'realllllly' come into place. So then my next goal in my high school year was to find all the art colleges in my state and pursue the subject I was passionate in. I knew my academics were not that spot on so I was stunned why a counselor would push me into something I knew I wasn't interested in and something I knew I was going to fail at because I had 100% no interest in it.

Google Images o_o

        In grade school math was fluid for the most part until high school when teachers became easily flustered and didn't seem to be student orientated or they preferred one click over the other (yes teachers prefer some clicks over the others, le gasp). This teacher specifics in group children appreciation and non student friendly environments I remember more clearer then anything else in a classroom environment that was outside of my art themed classes.
        Over the progress of this college class it has pushed my thinking of how to teach my children when I have them or teach others in a classroom environment.
        Though now as an adult I have discovered that my love for technology has pushed me into understanding more complicated things then it would have been taught in a classroom. The people who teach online tutorials tend to put their lessons in interactive lessons and posses humor, unlike many wet blanket people I have met though high school.
        With this class I now know its possible to teach children in different manners that can be fun and not read out of a math book bore you to sleep kind of way. Children learn differently, there cannot be one way for everyone to learn to their max.
         Another thing I know is that all teachers shouldn't teach, yes a teacher can be awesome at their field but it doesn't mean that they get along with or have the patience for them or teaching other people in general.
         As a society we should expand our ways to teach our future generations along with how we teach our selves information and some subjects shouldn't be forced upon ur children to learn. If they are passionate about a subject let them fly and have fun.

Budgeting Can Be Simple as Data Entry

            Budgeting... not the most fun math problem to do, but for us who just wonder where the money went from the beginning of the month to the end this is something you most likely should do. After all seeing one's checkbook go into the red is a heart stopper for most people.  In this I will be roughing out the best way that I am familiar with doing a budget that will work for a single person house and up to four methods of income, may it be a spouse or if you sell things online and gain a small or large profit though that (hey don't judge, people buy some crazy stuff on e-bay). 

     Ok, lets get started! Here is the fun graph, you can get any graph like this on Microsoft Excel under the templates you can easily download. I tend to go with the ones that have basic columns that you can customize for your needs. However do make sure that the tree colors with money include the three depicted, Budget, Actual & Variance all are important (though one should keep the details to the left, most people don't remember what they had for breakfast yesterday never the less what that number on the budgeting chart that you started last month). 

     The reason why budgets are usually done per month is because of the annual bills. Bills usually come around once a month, like a gym membership, Netflix, or your rent/mortgage. 

        

         Now I know this looks like a big chart with lots of numbers, but yeah it is, sorry no fun shapes here. However, its more of a fill in here chart and so is fairly simple in the end. Budgeting is usually made for one month but will be more confirmed with the second month once you really focus on what you spend in a month though there will be some variance of course. 

         Ok, now on to explaining the chart part! Ok, in the first section you will see the four methods in income available to you. Say you are just a one person home, put your annual monthly income in said slot. Just repeat the same number over if you are on a fixed hourly rate and know you are getting the same paycheck monthly. If you get a varied amount of pay each week, the second column is for you. One month you may get $1000 but the next you could get $1500. Try to budget toward the lower end of your possible hours/pay check. There is no good way to get out of budgeting for money that isn't there. If by the end of the month you have more money they you budgeted for, hey thats money toward your savings or take out! (I prefer Chinese, but whose picky)

         You can do this chart on paper as well, but in a personal experience, its easier for the computer do to all the adding then your fingers and a calculator. [ If you do want to do this on a paper pad Its in my suggestion to get something called a columnar pad. Yes funky name as it is, its the best chart I know of to do this written out. They are available at office supply stores like Staples and Office Depot. and they look like following image. They usual come in a pack of four] 

These pads to me are of the same layout the the digital chart above though I feel like its a waste of paper at some points. Especially if you have to rewrite everything over and over instead of adding another column. 

Moving on... 

First section off the income section of your chart. Title your next section, Fixed Costs. Fixed costs are the costs like your rent, car payment or anything you know you are going to be billed every month guaranteed, no variance. Copy these amounts in the next column, just least the variance column free. 

      Section off that part, next section will be your Semi Variable Costs. Semi Variable costs are things like gas, Groceries, Dinning out basically stuff that you are pretty sure that you will do in the month but don't usually spend the same amount every month. This is the part where is gets a little harder, unless you are a good person and keep all billion receipts and keep them in your checking book you may have to do some guess work. Try to budget a little high unless you are sure you spend that say $50 dollars on gas per month. It will pay off in the end if you guess a little high and say $55 or $60 dollars instead. 

       Ok, now we get to use the second column in a more functional way. This second column is the reason why people write down their expenses in a check book and keep receipts, so they can track their expenses. This is also why budgeting can be more confirmed over two months instead of right away. While you adding all these expenses up, you put the totals next to the section of the chart you have started but under the Actual column. This its an easy subtraction problem if you are setting this up by your own chart in Excel [ex. A3 = A1 (Budget) - B1 (Actual) ]. 

      Last section Highly Variable Costs. Now as the tittle of the section may suggest this more goes for us who are splurge shoppers or just one of those nice people who buy people things like birthday presents. These usually you can guess how much your going to spend but sometimes that video game or shirt screams out at you and you have to buy it. This section can go totally topsy turvy so like i've suggested though the chart, highball this unless you know you can keep your spurge shopping in check. 

       Past this point of adding in your actual costs for the month in the Actual column of your chart its basic adding and subtracting of the final column of your chart. There may be some red or negatives but if its mostly green, I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes your over spend and it happens. 

        After you add that last column together you will see if you are in the green or the red. If you are in the red I would go back though your chart and see where you money is being spent unwisely. Maybe you don't need to go to the hair salon twice a month, and instead that money goes toward gas. Or you don't need that new video game and instead use it toward your groceries (but hey who doesn't live off ramen noodles, yeah! Scurvy!). 

       The money at the end of the chart is the excess, I'd put that away in a bank account somewhere just incase some costs come up that you don't expect, like your need a replacement tire or you need a extra trip to the doctors that you weren't expecting. The money you put aside will help you in the long run, trust me. 

        Hope this helped! 

Liberation Math: Week 6: With Interest Homework

Well this week was a time for a good section of relaxing, which was well appreciated. Though all the snow on our winter break I find creatively ironic (especially since spring isn't till the end of the month and all).

But moving on we were asked this assignment involving spread sheets. (Screen shot from assignment description) I've had pervious training in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets so in personal experience it wasn't to hard to do *shrugs* but that may be just my personal experience with this particular assignment content.
     
Though I had to admit that i misread the problem the first time and made my graph per month instead of per year XD whoops but I changed it the next day after checking it off my never ending to do list (though never ending to do lists are a constant for everyone as I am told).

Anyway... for the Cells here are my formulas!

[ A& F ] 1 plus the previous cell
(ex. A3} = A2+1 )

[ G ] it is just $50 plus the previous week. (ex.G3 Cell} = G2+50 )

[ B ] Here is a slightly more complex one with fun $ signs. The $ signs make the equation stay with that individual cell and doesn't adjust as the set equations moves down the graph. (ex. B2} = D2+$B$2 )

[ C ] This is were the interest gets involved. (ex. C3} = B2*0.01 )

[ D ] Was the total so a basic addition equation :D ( ex. D2} =B2+C2 ) Tada!

The only real part of this assignment that was a bit frustrating was that interest usually gets calculated daily not yearly for a standard back account and then deposited monthly. But with the way that the work problem was done I went with the yearly option that I feel that was implied more.