A fellow Dallasite
Hey Gug, I'm pretty much doing the same thing except I haven't been doing this forever. In fact I just joined recently myself lol.
Anyway uh... welcome to the club? I'm started out on the animation side of 3ds and I'm getting better at it. I just finished rendering a 5 second planet shot thats about to get keyed in with after effects on a project I'm workin on, so I feel your pain.
Good job on that ship btw