The trip.

The first day was a whirl of dark caves, dripping water, and aching legs. Not content with merely showing us part of Mt. St. Helens, the Hash gang elected to send us under it, through the Ape Cave (which, I'm told, is so named after the spelunking club which first found it, not after the future inhabitants of Earth who will eventually try to enslave Charlton Heston). It was about three miles of rock and moisture, with nary a living creature in sight. Incredible stuff, sure, but not exactly how one spends vacations. Well, not how I spend vacations, anyway.

This was the point when my sneakers gave up the ghost. In fact, had it been up to them, I would have left them in the cave (they got stuck in the wet volcanic sand). I thought I wouldn't need my hiking boots, despite what the folks had planned for us. Silly me.

Annoyingly, despite all the physical exertion, I still didn't sleep very well. Damn jet lag.

The next day was slightly less punishing, but just as much fun; a jaunt to the Seaside. Literally: Seaside, Oregon. It was still pretty gray and windy, but was decent walking weather, so most of us did just that. I thought about renting a bike, but never got around to it. I had as cheap a lunch as I could manage and then tried, unsuccessfully, to call K collect from a pay-phone (the time difference meant this was basically my only chance to talk to D and E, too). I'm not sure what she and the kids were doing, but all I got was the answering machine.

After the trip, we went to the Hash HQ to play with motion-capture. Hash owns a mocap suit, and their software can work with the data, so it was a no-brainer. I was the first one strapped into the thing--sensors attached to wires and velcro--it could have been a prop for a very kinky club in another life. Unfortunately, I pretty much wasted my time in it. I did a couple things that might be useful in the Hash Film Project (more about that later, maybe) but didn't really do anything that interested me. I guess I was worried about being self-indulgent. Later, of course, people got silly, doing The Hulk lifting up cars and so on. And have I mentioned...

<rant>the folly of having non-actors do mocap and calling it "animation"? I mean, I was self-conscious up there, and I used to be a professional actor. One guy's interpretation of a fiery Baptist preacher basically just involved waving his forearms about while his elbows were locked at his side. It was all I could do to not run up there and start directing him. I probably would have if I hadn't been so worn out. (Incidentally, this problem isn't limited to non-studio animators like us--check out the motion capture work on Final Fantasy. It's not just the animators' fault that everyone is as stiff as a board.) </rant>

Day 3 to follow...