Omation Recruiting

If anyone is interested in working on an animated film and knows XSI they should check out the barnyard recruiting webpage to get a job.

If anyone is interested in knowing more about this so called movie that I have been down here working on, a good barnyard film synopsis is available to read as well.

Two Hot Bikers

Check out Eric and Kagan riding bikes along the lake. Man, that's hot! Haha.

For more exclusive bike riding photos, check my gallery. You can also check out a very unique door that Kagan made.

I clocked myself riding down the hill from work as I went home. I hit 46 mph!

Weekend of Maximum Adventure

Ok, it wasn't really maximum adventure, but it was still fun anyways. This past weekend I flew back to Seattle to see everyone back at home. I am really glad that Kagan, Eric and Sandra got enough work done during the week to be able to hang out over the weekend without getting behind on work.

On Friday night I flew in and Sandra picked me up at the airport. After a trip to Starbucks for some coffee it was time to head to Kagan's house. I didn't know, but the party started before I arrived. This was good because I don't think I had much energy to party. By the time I got there two bottles of wine had almost been finished. Hue came over after about half an hour and we all just sat around and chatted. Kagan and Eric also showed me the bike I would be riding on Saturday. It was Kagan's dad's bike. It was a titanium frame Merlin. It was very light even though it had all the accessories attached to it.

On Saturday Allen had a barbecue at Coulon Park in Renton, near the Boeing plant. Since Kagan, Eric and I are getting into riding bikes again we decided that we would take the 50 mile trip rather than drive. The weather cleared up in the north for us to ride down without much rain. It took us about an hour and a half to make the trip down, but we were not going too fast. We started in Ballard and rode past the UW and then made our ways over toward Bush School, just north of Leschi. Once we got to Leschi we rode our bikes all the way down Lake Washington Boulevard to Seward Park. We rode up the hill behind Seward Park and then got back onto Lake Washington Boulevard south of the park. From there it was a straight shot to the Rention Municipal Airport where we were able to head East over to the park.

Once we got to the park it was time to eat some meat. Allen's barbecues are never complete without lots of pork chops and chicken wings. They were all marinated very well the night before, so they were extra tasty after being on the grill for a few minutes. Hue also made some really good shrimp kabobs. After gorging myself on meats and then feeling a little guilty about it I ate some of Sandra's tasty salsa. Then after gorging on the salsa I ate some more meat. I guess you can get an idea of how the day progressed. Besides eating we played a good game of taboo. After some more playing around, eating and chit-chatting we decided to head back home before the sun went down.

Rather than riding up the West side of the lake, we decided to head up the East side of the lake. The ride was pretty nice because the path on the East side of the trail is more sheltered and secluded from the road. Once we hit I-90 we crossed Mercer Island and then rode across the floating bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a great little bike tunnely that ends up on the hill just above Rainer Avenue, so you don't have to ride over the hill. From there we rode through downtown and down to the waterfront. From there we rode up to our house via Myrtle Edwards park. In the evening we went back to Kagans' house to make dinner and watch "I Love Huckabees". The dinner was great and the movie was confusing, so I think I will have to watch it one more time.

On Sunday we did the usual rock climbing trip at Stone Gardens in Ballard. I am noticing that everyone is getting better, which is cool to see. I am still progressing slowly, but I try to push myself when I can. Last weekend I decided not to do anything but V-2s. I think I will do that same next time. I hope that I can improve my technique along the way. It is great to get stronger, but to have the technique with the strength helps you last much longer on the wall. Hopefully after a couple more weeks I can start tackling more V-3s.

A Real Chinese Experience

I had another normal day at work today. After riding my bike to work I started working on installing the Lume Tools SPDLs into XSI. This is for a new project I am working on to make some realistic liquid shaders. After a little bit of work I went to lunch, came back and worked some more. I ate dinner and then did some more work and afterwards I rode my bike home with my roommate Aaron.

Now I am at home trying to find things to do. I am kind of at a loss as what to do. I just finished a great story about my friend Alissa's trip climbing Qing Chen Mountain in Sichuan. It has a lot of great description's of typical traveling experiences in China. Here are the links to the two entries.

1. Qing Chen Shan part 1


2. Qing Chen Shan part 2

I recommend reading the stories. I am going to get some rest, so I can get some good work done tomorrow.

I can't wait to head back to Seattle to go rock climbing, bicycling and, especially, spend some time with Sandra.

刘瑞 is great

I was just surfing around the internet looking at IUP stuff since my friend wants to go over the summer and I saw a picture of one of my teachers. She was the teacher of my discussion class and I think she did a really good job given that one of her students, did not talk very much unless we were talking about AIDs, the other student was very interested in Chinese Literary History and I like to talk about computers and the internet. Here she is in action.

My Ride to Laguna Beach

Yesterday afternoon I decided to ride to Laguna Beach from where I live in San Clemente. The ride is about 16 miles each way. You can see the approximate route at google maps. I never rode on I-5. I simply went straight down to the coast and then went north.

The weather was sunny and there were no clouds in the sky, so the ride was amazing. Between San Clemente and Laguna Beach there are no cities on Pacific Coast Highway, only small towns like Dana Point. There are a lot of very wealthy people who live along the coast here. Kagan and Eric could testify to that. When we were driving to the airport we saw all sorts of expensive cars. You name it and we probably saw it.

The ride through these areas is nice, but at the same time there is so much wealth it is ridiculous. There is also this atmosphere that you need to show that wealth and make it known to others that you have wealth just like they do. It doesn't even matter if you need to go into to debt to show the wealth, you just do it. This is pretty depressing to think about considering all the other ways this money could be better spent. Anyways, I have digressed.

Needless to say the bike ride was pleasant. I passed a couple state parks and stopped in to take a look around, but I did not see anything amazing. Most of the time the state parks were just the last bits of land with beach access that developers could not buy because they were already state parks. There was one park which was not very wide at all and did not consist of more than a grassy hill down to the beach with a small park for kids. On either side of the park were huge multi-million dollar homes and condominiums.

After about an hour and half I made it to Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach actually stretches along PCH for a few miles, but I was headed for Main Beach Park. The park is right on the coast where Laguna Canyon opens up to the warer. There are a lot of little boutiques, cafes, art stores and places for rich people to spend their money. I can imagine with would be a nice place to spend a sunny afternoon with your girlfiend or boyfriend. That seemed to be what a lot of other people were doing at time.

I walked around for a little bit, bought some sandals and then headed home. The ride home was relatively easy compared to the ride there. It could have been that I knew where I was going and I knew what to expect, where as on the way up, I wasn't exactly sure. The ride home was pretty uneventful. The sun was setting and I was planning on seeing a movie in the evening, so I didn't make any stops along the way. I passed Dana Point and was almost to San Clemente in no time and I was ready for the 4 mile ride from the coast up to Talega when I realized my front tire was flat. Also, not being a great planner, I forgot to get some spare tubes for my bike when I was at the bike store. Luckily my friend Lu from work was able to come pick me up.

I am already planning another bike trip up the coast. This time I will bring enough spare tires in case I get another flat. If I leave earlier enough in the day I might be able to make it to Newport Beach and back. My friends are also planning a trip down to San Diego some time soon. That would be a long ride as well. I took a couple photos a long the way. They are not too exciting, but you can check them out in my gallery.

By the way, if anyone is interested in gay and lesbian situaion in China, you can get some insight, from an article here. There are definite similarities between problems faced in either society, but as pointed out in the article, certain social constructs in the society prevent other problems, which we face her in the U.S.

What education should include

I was just reading the latest new on slashdot when I came across an article about Hitachi's newest microdrives. A microdrive is a very small hard drive, very similiar to compact flash drives seen in digital cameras.

Besides the news that 20 GB microdrives are headed our way in 2007 (think about how many 8 megapixel photos you could take with that), I was excited to see a very well put together animation explaining how the technology works. It was entertaining, yet at the same time informative. It was akin to the 'School House Rocks' type educational songs from the 70's. I think they need to bring back these sorts of educational methods, but maybe I am weird for finding these things entertaining.

Check out the Hitachi Video Microdive Video!

San Clemente Sunset

Gizoogle, Let the Shizzlatin' Begin

I found a great site called Gizoogle. It was take a webpage and translate it gangster style. You should check it out. For all the techies out there, check out slashdot ... shizzlated. I also found Eric's real blog, not the one he edits and posts for the interweb.

Try another site:

Jon, where have you been?

Well another month in San Clemente has passed. At times it has been slow and at others I have felt like there is not enough time to get everything I need to get done done. The beginning of this week felt my work was in a lull, but has now picked up again since I am on to new projects. My older projects have not been finished, but there are newer more exciting projects to work on. Also, the likelihood of my older projects getting used is very low. I am excited in one sense to move on, but in another sense I feel like weeks of my work are worthless. Granted I did learn some new and cool stuff along the way, but I still don't have much to show for it.

Speaking of things other than work, I have had quite an exciting past month. I started rock climbing again. I used to climb a little bit in high school, but I never did much throughout college. Eric started climbing more and more since I have been gone, so when I went back to Seattle I bought some shoes and have been going with him and Kagan and Sandra and others each time I go back to Seattle. I forgot how much fun it is to rock climb.

Besides rock climbing I have been doing quite a bit of boogie boarding and surfing down here. I still can't do either very well, but it is just fun to get out in the water. I figure that I might as well take advantage of it while I am here in San Clemente. Apparently this area has some of the best surfing in the world. I would be a fool to not at least try it out.

If rock climbing and surfing were not enough physical activity, I decided to buy a road bike the weekend that Kagan, Hue, Sandra and Eric came down. I had Kagan help me find a bike and he did a nice job helping me out. It is a new KHS bike that I bought from the cyclery in town. This is my first ever road bike so I am still getting used to everything. Clicking in and out of the pedals has been accident free except for once when I had to start riding again while on a hill. I didn't have enough power to get going, so I just tipped over. Getting up was difficult because the foot which was under the bike was still clipped in. It was a little embarassing. Anyways, I am super excited to ride my bike around here more. I am thinking about riding my bike up the Pacific Coast Highway to some of the smaller towns along the coast. Also, since Eric is getting a bike too I am hoping that when I get back to Seattle this summer, he Kagan and I can go on a bike trip somewhere. We were throwing around the idea of riding a part of the Oregon coast.

By far the best thing about this month was the visit from Sandra, Eric, Kagan and Hue. I knew that Eric, Kagan and Hue were coming, but Sandra and them decided to keep it a secret that she was coming down, so I was totally shocked when I pulled up and saw Sandra with the three of them. It was great. I did not expect at all to see Sandra. I was happy, but at the same time I didn't know what I was going to do about seats for everyone. There were plenty of seats in the car, but I was a total dumb ass in the morning and forgot to check whether Anthony took the surfboard out of the backseat. I didn't realize until I was in Long Beach, so it was far too late to turn around. We managed to squeeze everyone in because they didn't mind getting cozy. I felt stupid for a little while, but then I got over it.

The weekend was great. The first day was spent getting settled in and we went to the beach for a little while. In the evening we went to a Thai restaurant in downtown and then headed to Ole's for a little foosball action. Then it was time to head home and get ready for a big day at the beach.

On Saturday we all had our gear and wetsuits, so we headed out for some more wave action after breakfast at the pier. Kagan, Sandra and Eric all picked up boogie boarding really quickly. I was rather impressed with their performance. One time Eric and I caught a big wave and rode it in together. It was a lot of fun. I can still remember catching the wave and looking over at him and screaming "yead dude!". It was such a California moment.

In the evening we had another nice dinner in downtown San Clemente. We met up with my brother's friend Tim and Alex who in live in San Diego. They were both really nice guys. After dinner we all headed up to Irvine to watch The Ring Two. It was an alright movie, but not having seen the first I can't whether or not it was worse. Although, I hear it was.

On Sunday, we went for a pleasant little hike in the hills behind my apartment in Talega. There were some paths, but we decided it would be funner to just hike around, so we left the path. We had to jump a barb wire fence, but that didn't stop us from finding a nice place to picnic. At one point we found an ant hill. I stopped near it and told Sandra and Hue to walk around it. I guess I stood next to it too long because only minutes later I felt a bite on my neck. I quickly brushed off what did it and then looked down. I looked down only to see hundreds of ants crawling all over me. I took off my shirt and brushed them all off, so no harm was done, but it was not nice to realize I was covered in ants. Anyways, after about an hour of hiking we parked ourselves on the side of a hill overlooking a little a small valley. We ate food, chatted and relaxed.

After our lunch it was pretty much time for me to drive everyone to the airport, so we went back to my apartment, gathered everything and then headed out. Rather than driving up I-5, which was packed because of everyone heading home on Easter Sunday, we chose to drive up Pacific Coast Highway. It was a really nice drive and a relaxing way to end the trip. I just hope we can do it all again soon.

As for the next few weeks I am not sure what is going to happen at work. I have a few little projects to do and I have some meetings with people. I just really want to do something that help the producers or will make it's way into the movie. I hope that I can come away from this job experiene having done something relevant. Besides trying to do some cool stuff at work I plan on starting to study Chinese again. I think I have lost a little since I left Beijing, but I think I can pick it up quickly again. I have some Tin Tin cartoons in Chinese and I started downloading some movies to watch on top of studying.

I have also started thinking about what I am going to do after I graduate from school. I definitely want to see if I can find work in the Seattle area. I am thinking about Google and Valve. I might try Microsoft and Avanade. I think those will all be tough jobs to get, but I would definitely like to give it a shot. The first two would be my top choices, but if all else fails I will try and find more LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) jobs.