My cat Lucy

I thought I would share a picture of my cat Lucy playing with a ballon. She was interested until it popped and she freaked out.

What am I doing?

What am I doing? That has been a question I have been asking myself lately. It has also been a question that my friends have been asking me. Since it is easier to answer their question I will do that first.

So I am working down here in southern California at a company making an animated movie. But wait, I am a programmer, what would I be doing to work on an animated movie? The simplest answer is custom tools. These tools are used to help make the process of creating scenes in the movie easier.

Eventhough I am still have not learned a lot of new things about doing 3D work, hopefully I will be doing that soon. I am hoping that this job will give me a chance to do more exciting 3D work in the future. I would really like to become a mental ray shader writer. The man who wrote the eye and skin shaders for Shark Tale came by Omation and wrote some notes about things he has done and it was amazing to read about it. I would really like to do that, but I have a long ways to go before I can do what this guy does.

Now, why do I keep asking myself what I am doing? Just like everyone else who is going to graduate soon I need to ask myself what I want to do with my life. I definitely would like to have a career where I can travel around. Maybe I should try consulting. I also want to have an interesting job. Then I should stay in the movie industry. What if I want to use Chinese? Start a production house China? Can I do that? Has anyone else done it? Just tonight I heard that Google is opening a headquarters in China. They also have a campus in Redmond. Well, if I want to work in Seattle and in China then Google would be a sweet deal.

What do I do? Maybe I can just change my careers all the time. Yeah that would be great until I have a family and I need to benefits of a long term job, such as health insurance. How can I travel around if I have a long term job like that? I don't know. My coworker, Helge, has been talking about Europe lately and he keeps mentioning production houses in Europe. What would happen if I can get a good recommendation from Omation and work in Europe for a year or so? That would be great. After the production was done I could come back to the states and find another job. This is what a lot of people do. I have a feeling that the 3D industry is a big incestuous family that moves from one place to another. Can I be a part of that too?

.... I still need to graduate too .... but let's not think about that for a while.

I guess I will keep thinking about it over and over. Maybe I will come to some sort of conclusion eventually.

How about this week. What have I been up to? Well last Friday I drove Anthony to the airport and went back to work to try and get some work done. Since I don't know many people here other than my coworkers I don't have much else to do besides work. When I got back it was time to get down to business. I was making progress for a while, but then Adam decided to break out the beer. Well he did not have to break it out ... it was all over Helge's desk. As a joke we put cans of beer all over Helge's desk. One of the producer's did a double take when he saw it, but he did not say anything, so we do not know what he really thought about it. Anyways, as the night progressed my productivity level dropped, but the hilariousness increased with each and every can of beer. Before we knew it the time was 4:00 am and we still had not left work, so we unanimously decided to leave and that was the end of that night.

On Saturday I went to a cheerleading competition with Mike. Mike is a camper from CyberCamps. He was one of my favorite campers when I was a counselor during a couple summers in college. He was a invited to a cheerleading competition by one of the cheerleaders. Since I did not want to get in the way of any potential relationship opportunities I decided to go. The competition was alright. It was sort of like the movie bring it on. The difference was there were no inner city schools. Also there were elementary school aged kids doing moves that I thought were provocative for kids twice their age, but apparently their parents thought it was ok to have their young kids moving their hips around in front of others. The day wasn't all boring. There were some spills, which looked like they hurt. I saw more than one girl try to do a backfip and land on their face, much like I did on the basketball court (Kagan and Eric know about this one). The worst / most hilarious one was when the girl who put down the cheer sign on the mat was running back to huddle, tripped on the rubber mat, tried to stop the fall and sprained her ankle bad enough that she could not cheer anymore.

Sunday was pretty uneventful because of all the rain. Our plans for surfing or a bonfire had to be cancelled. I am not sure when we will get to do them since this area is having the worst rain storms in the last 20 years. Since it is unhealthy to surf in the dirty water after a rain storm no one wants to go. I guess it is better that I don't get hepatitis ... I can be patient.

On Monday night I went to Helge's apartment to hang out. His girlfriend is leaving for Germany tomorrow, so he had a little get together. It was pretty low key and we ended drinking a few beers and sharing stories. When Helge's girlfriend was talking to us it made me think about China. Her english is not perfect, so she makes mistakes and asks Helge for words sometimes, so it reminded me of me. I thought about the times I went to a party and got to talk to some kids about basketball. I thought that was great. They were so excited to talk about basketball.

On another note, lot's of people at work sit on exercise balls. Supposedly it helps you keep better posture. It also helps strengthen back and stomach muscles. I just got one this weekend too. I will let you guys know how it works out.

Updates from SoCal

I do not have much to write about this week. It has been really quiet down here without Anthony and others wanting to go out to the bars at night. I have been working a lot this week. I usually get into work around 9 o'clock in the morning and leave at about 9 o'clock at night. I usually go and get lunch and I chat with other people, so the time flies.

I got to rent my own car this week. Since Anthony has been in Hawaii it has been all to myself. This is nice because I go where I want when I want, but Thrifty is raping me with under 25 charges. The man at the counter was nice and upgraded me to a cool PT cruiser because he felt bad for me.

One afternoon I took a short drive to the end of the road to see what else was around Omation. When I say short I mean short, it was about 10 seconds before I got to the end of the road. I knew there were some hiking trails and other office buildings, but I did not expect to see a skateboard park at the bottom of the hill!

Here is a photo of my desk. The view is pretty nice.

Here is a photo of the beach.

I am glad this is not my truck.

Google Maps is great! This is San Clemente. I work under the word Country in Pacific Golf Country Club and I live above where it says Pacific Golf Country Club.

My First Week at Omation

Omation has been one crazy ride so far. I have liked each and every part of my new job down here. I can give you an overview of what Omation is like for me.

Where do I work? I work in a building on top of a hill in San Clemente. San Clemente is south of Long Beach. The city is located on the coast and has lots of hill to the east. There is not much going on in the hills and the town is pretty small, so there is a relaxed feeling in the air whenever we got out. It is great.

Do I work in a cubicle? No. Of course I have my own workstation with a desk and computer, but there are no walls to it. I am right next to a big window, so when I want to 'contemplate' or 'design code' I can look into the hills. It is pretty nice. Most of the people I work with are right around me, so it is easy to communicate with other when needed.

What are the people like? They are really cool. This employees here have a wide range of skillsets. Some of traditional artists. Some are XSI gurus, like Anthony. Some are programming wizards, like Helge. Then there are a lot of other normal people. People that I would not expect to do this sort of job if I saw them in a bar.

What do I do at night? I usually work until nine o'clock at night, so I do not do much at night. Although last week we had a lot of fun going out to a bar called Ole's. If anyone is stopping San Clemente and they want to go to a real bar they need to go to Ole's in Downtown San Clemente. They have a few pool tables and a fooseball table if you are into that as well.

Where do I live? Right now I am living with Anthony and a rigger named Aaron who goes to RIT. Right now I am crashing on the futon in the living room. I do not mind so much since all I do when I get home is use my computer and most of the time I am not around anyways. The great thing about the place is that it is right near work. We only have to drive about 5 minutes before getting to work, so it is really convenient.

What do I plan on doing down here? Well, when I am not traveling back to Seattle on the weekend I hope to play some basketball, hike, snowboard and ride my bike. I do not know where any trails are and I do not have any equipment to do anything other than play basketball or skateboard, so my options are limited for now.

Here are some pictures of the living in my new 'home':

Adminstrative Thingies

I still have not written about everything in my travels in the south of China. Now since I have some time and no energy to do other things I will be slowly writing about my trip to Yunan. Rather than post them as if they were new I am just going to post them as if they were written at the right time and link back to them from this post. That means you need to keep coming back to see if I have added anything new.

Off to the Gorge! A description of our first days hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge.

By the way, Souther California weather is great. The people here are smart and I already have too much work. I saw coyote tonight in the parking lot of Albertson's!

I took advantage of some of the time I had afterwork this week and the flight back home. I finished writing some entries about my Hike through Tiger Leaping Gorge. Here they are:

A Night at the Halfway House

Tiger Leaping Gorge Day 2

From Lijiang to Kunming with a stop in Dali

More posts from my Southern China Travels!

Wario Cart!

The last two days our trip were spent hanging out in Kunming before we had to fly out. We spent most of it hanging out at a place called the French Cafe. It is right near the university and I recommend that anyone going to Kunming should check it out. The food is good and the prices are reasonable, but the biggest attraction is the owner. She is a younger Chinese woman on Naxi descent. Her father researchs Naxi culture and is the only person who does by researching authentic Naxi texts rather than Mandarin translations. Now she started to help her father and she plans to hold a symposium on preserving Naxi culture this summer at her parents home in Lijiang. We had some great conversations with her during the afternoon before our flight. We just sat around with her in the sun and chatted about everything she was working on.

With that, my blogs about this trip to China are over. From now on you guys will get to read about all the adventures I am having at Omation. If they get nerdy you will have to excuse me.

I almost forgot. MCK, Fredo and Aaron spent a few minutes one day writing down everything we had done or experience, so that they could use it to reminds of what we did and elaborate more on it later. I think it is really funny, read it here.

Today was the Big Day at Omation

Today was my first official work day at Omation. This morning Anthony came and picked me up at my house and we drove to the airport together. I finally realized I would be going to San Clemente. The flight was nice and the approach into Long Beach Airport was beautiful because we flew out over the ocean before landing. I noticed some nice islands that I would like to take trips to if I have time.

As soon as we got into the airport Anthony grabbed the rental car and I got my bags. As soon as we were both done we headed to work. Once I got to work it was time to meet everyone. After a whirlwind tour of the two Omation buildings and a little history about the company I got a chance to sit down and fill out paperwork.

At about 2 o'clock the other developers in research and development, Anthony and I went to eat lunch. It was then that I got my first insight into the status of this film. Apparently some people feel like they are doing a lot of clean up work. This scared me a little bit. This evening when I went out to get some drinks and I heard some more of the rants of modelers, technical directors, accountants and others. I had to keep telling myself and have Anthony reassure that these people were non technical people who do not realize what we are doing in research and development.

There are great perks to the job, including work stations and co-workers. There are a lot of smart people here who have worked on other projects you might have heard of, like Harry Potter, The Scorpion King, Mars Attacks and Blade.

Tomorrow is when I really get to start working hard. I am planning on going to a meeting, getting more direction and then afterwards I will put on my headphones and get right to work. I probably won't get off work until 8 at night, but I figure the day will be fun, so it probably won't wear on me.

Anthony has also been a big help so far. He has helped calm some fears and lead me in the right direction.

Oh yeah, by the way. I have a Skype account and I will be using it call people in Seattle. If you have it on your PC I can call you for free. Check it out: