Who says nothing good comes out of Open Source? (Ok, no one that I know - but here's more proof). A group of donators got together and bought the rights to a defunct commercial package. They're publishing it as Open Source, and they're freely distributing it at this time. It's 3-d modeling software, with built-in animation and rendering tools. I've been playing with Blender now for about a week, and I must say that it is FUN to be able to create 3-d stuff on the fly, and make AVI's from easily created keyframe animation. Apparently Blender has been around for years, and if you're motivated enough, you could create a whole game from it (use version 2.25 - 2.26 is broke in this area). While my own efforts PALE in comparison, I have found it a cheap and quick way to get into the hobby.

Just got back my midterm results for Pre-calc. Got a 76 on it - ugh. Looks like I might pull a C in the class...Final is whenever I'm ready to take it. I'm more confident about the second part of the class, though, so I should be fine....we'll see....part of the exam will cover logarithms...something I'm not all that good at. In my other class, I finished up early - midterm and final - have an A for the class, but that's not saying much - the class was definitely below my challenge level.

Looks like I haven't written anything in here for a long time. I've taken up all kinds of hobbies lately, 3-d modeling, chess (again...), but mostly I'm trying to concentrate on schoolwork. Taking mathematics over the Internet is not much different than trying to read a book and I may forgo the classroom experience for Calculus. In Term 2, I'm going to take a light load (from a brain perspective) so I may just study Calc and go for a CLEP. Been busy at work, too - lots of changes going on....new people coming on board, etc.....well, back to work.