Growing up, I always had the urge to do something "more", something that pushes the limits set forth on us as human beings. I suppose I was looking for an outlet from normal paced of life. Around the age of 12 or so, I got to ride a good friend of mine's dirtbike at his ranch, and that day in November I found what I was looking for, it was such a rush! From that day on, I was hooked on all things dirtbikes, I was obsessed with everything dirtbike related I could get my hands on, and eventually, obsessed with the sport of Motocross. It wasn't until a few years after I rode his bike, that I got one of my own, and it was not until a few years later, that I started racing. Since then, I have been working hard to advance through the ranks of my fellow racers. At the moment, my future plans in MX are to win a championship, and to just have fun doing what I love to do the most. Riding Motocross is the most liberating thing that I have ever experienced. I get that feeling every time I ride, I hope it never goes away.



Computers

Building, modifying, & creating.

     Now, you may have figured out by now, I am kind of a geek when it comes to tech stuff...I don't know why but I enjoy tinkering with hardware and making it work. It's just fun to do. I especially enjoy building high end machines for friends, and for my 3d programs. They are the most demanding programs around, so having the best hardware is critical for meeting deadlines and getting things done in a timely fasion. I have a few people ask what type of hardware I use for 3d stuff, and what my working environment is, so I thought I would post it instead of answering a bunch of emails. So, here they are, I use my work station to do all my work, then I use my renderfarm to render frames from my programs, in the server rack I have I also put a web server, and have plans for a large dataserver (10-15TB) to hold all my data...


Desktop:

i7 920 @ 3.2ghz

12GB of OCZ DDR1333 Cas 7

Mod Antec 900 + Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme

160GB OS drive + 4TB Storage

Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 640 + GeForce 6200

2 Acer AL2016W + 1 Acer X193W

G11 Keyboard + Wacom Intuos3 + 3DConnexion PE

 

  

Render Farm:

15U Enclosed Equipment Rack

Netgear JGS524 24 Port Gigabit Switch

1U 3.2ghz 2gb Ram - Webserver/Render Manager

2U 3.2GHz X3220 8gb ram - Render box

3U 3.0Ghz Q6660 4gb ram - Render box

(open case) 3.0Ghz Q6600 8g ram - Render box

I cheat and use my desktop as an addition box

 
 

     I have been shooting Photos since early 2006, when an injury prevented me from riding my dirtbike. I decided to shoot people riding, doing what I loved to do, while I was unable to do it myself. I got hooked on the game fast, obsessing over a perfect photo, light, shadows, and composure. At the time there were only a few people shooting motocross around these parts, they were a large influence in getting me started. Here's a little shout out to Aaron Remkus at 11kphotos.com, and Tim Wallace, AKA rage. I used to literally spend hours looking at photos they had taken. With some good advice, and a lot of research on my part I would like to think that I have become somewhat of an accomplished Photographer, if that means anything in this digital age...Since I began, I have gone through a lot of equipment, several hard drives, and had some of my photos published in local and regional magazines. I am proud of what I have done, and will continue shooting in the future. Recently, I have moved away from action sports for a while, however someday I will return when I can get the latest and greatest hardware to feed my need for perfection.

CG/VFX/Pixel Manipulation

Animation, Texturing, Compositing, & Particles.

     I got into 3d a few years ago when my soon to be boss knocked on my door out of the blue and asked if I needed a job...Now, call it fate, but she showed up completely out of the blue, when I needed a job (although I suspect my mother had something to do with it). The next week, I soon started working at the studio, and was quickly introduced to 3d applications and 3d in general...And to tell you the truth, I have been totally in love with it ever since. They say everyone has one professional passion in life, and although I have not tried many other things (I probably should before making such profound statements) but, I think this (cg) is it (so far, I can't get enough of it). Ideally I would like to tackle all aspects in the field, from pre-production, to post-production, and everything in between, and some day I hope too. I really enjoy the post production and management side of things, however I want to have a firm knowledge of the rest of the field. I know a little of everything, but I want to know everything about everything, in due time.
      When I was oh, 12 or so, being the total science geek I was, (lost that when I hit my head, lol), and having already had a computer for 4 or so years, I was looking for ways to utilize all that crazy pentium power I had at my finger tips, so, I joined the Seti@home project, a project whose goal is to detect intelligent life outside of the Earths atmosphere by analyzing cosmic radio signals. Not sure why, but I have always stuck with it, having it run in my PC's background when I am not using it. Today, after several years on and off of the project, I have started to contribute to other projects some of which help us analyze any effects of global warming which may or may not be occurring, and also projects which run computer simulations to try and find a cure for cancer. That project is called Folding@home, it folds proteins and watches to see how how proteins form and may "misfire" and cause cancer, pretty cool stuff, a lot of members of my family have or have had cancer, so this project could very well help curing cancer for the next generation, heck even me in the future. If you are interested in joining the project click the link below!