Well I seem to be moving away from max a bit, not to say that I'm never going to use it again...it's just stupidly expensive. I've been doing some research as of late and I've found two beautiful replacements that work just as well
1) Houdini
[link] 2)Lightwave
[link] They both have packs for $2000 which is more reasonable than max at $4000 and maya's hefty $6000+. But atm I'm going to be working with Blender some more.
I've been teaching myself how to use it and on top of that I'm going to be buying Silo which is a tool built just for pure modeling. It's easy to use and very powerful. So looking forward to next year when I can finally buy one of them...I have yet to make up my mind completely but Houdini is what I'm leaning more towards.
I finished that scene I was working on even with the all mighty amount of distractions

, will put up some screens when I can. Now I'm working on something that's been bothering me for the last two weeks ^^ so hope to show people some rough concepts in the next few days.
Also was very surprised to see that I have people commenting on my work, as I have been very busy for the last few days, and am kinda going through a rough spot in my life...I'm also engaged to my girlfriend

three years now and yet to buy her a ring

I know what I'm after just in the need of money.