So what has transpired lately?

Well, the last time I blogged was almost a week ago. I still can't get over the feeling that a week is too long to go without blogging. Could this be an addiction? Do I just need more friends to talk to?

Anyways, last Thursday night was another debaucherous night that ended up in a way I would rather it not have. Thursday was Amanda's last day at Omation, so we had to go watch her play in the company softball game. Adam and I went together and had a couple beers. Afterwards we went to the bar and had some more drinks. After a little while, we ended up at the beach passed out in the surf. Luckily our friends to us to their house where we crashed. The morning was worse. At 7:30 in the morning Adam and I walked back to his car to drive home before work. He was still wet and covered in sand. I was only wearing shorts because I didn't know where my shirt and shoes were. I felt bad for all the kids on the corner waiting for the school bus as they watched these two disheveled guys walk up the street. I think both of us have had it with drinking for a while. We both said the same thing during SIGGRAPH, but I think it will stick this time.

By Friday afternoon I had started to feel better. I was actually holding down the liquids and food I was eating. I was happy about this because I had to get on a flight back to Seattle. I had to camping with everyone at Deception Pass.

I was really excited to get home to Seattle, so when I got to the airport at 5 o'clock to catch my flight I was disappointed to see that the flight was delayed. I said to myself that it was okay, since I would still get into town on time and Sandra and I could still drive up to Deception Pass that evening. Unfortunately due to something, fate, act of God or whatever, I guess I was not destined to fly out of John Wayne because as soon as the plane landed and the passengers got off we were informed that the flight was cancelled and we had to either stay the night or go to LAX for a 9:30 flight. I opted for the LAX flight and eventually made it home at midnight. I was a little upset because we weren't able to get to Deception Pass until Saturday morning, but I did get a bunch of frequent flyer miles for the delay. (I will be glad when I am back in Seattle and I don't have to worry about flying anymore).

Anyways, the camping trip was really exciting. I had a lot of fun seeing everyone again. Unfortunately the weekend was too short for me. I only really got to enjoy Saturday because the last day of camping trips is always about cleaning up. Sunday was pretty much the same old drill of waking up, taking down tents, cooking breakfast / lunch and then tidying up the camp site. On Saturday I got to play a little basketball. After the basketball game we all headed down to the beach for a little relaxation. Kagan, Eric and I also wanted to do a little climbing. We didn't really know whether there was anything to climb on the beach, but we brought our stuff anyways. When we got down to the north beach I was a little disappointed because there was not a lot to climb. We clambered over the rocks to the west beach where we found a little wall that provided some pretty fun little routes. We started with some climbs straight up the face. To have a little more fun we did a small traverse route that brought us out over the water and the climbed up the face that faced the water. We pretty much climbed around until we were tired and then we hiked home. Oh yeah, like always, I hurt myself. I also have the other camping photos in my gallery.

This week has started out well. I realized this morning that I need to move by this Thursday because my lease is up when I get back from labor day weekend. This evening I packed up all my stuff, so it is ready to move. I figure that tomorrow sometime I will get a uhaul truck and some friends to help me move my stuff. Jentzen and Steven have been nice enough to let me crash in their apartment for a couple weeks. Thanks guys!

Well, it is about bed time. I need to be well rested for another action packed day at Omation.

Something More Odd

Before we watch March of the Penguins on Sunday, Steven told about a guy named Derren Brown. He is from the UK and sort of like a David Blaine, but he works more on manipulating and exploiting the human mind in terms of suggestion .... I guess, sure, whatever.

Anyways, Steven told us about how he convinced a guy that he was really playing in a zombie video game. At points I was skeptical and at others I wasn't. In any case, whether this is true or not, it is an interesting concept to think about. Plus he flips out. Just watch and you will see.

Let the stalking begin!

So I though Google Maps was a secutiry threat (check out the local nuclear plant). I won't mention that Camp Pendelton is right nearby.

Then I thought Google Earth was invasive, yet ... super cool. I could even look at the Church at Wangfujing where I went skateboarding.

But now, Amazon has a brilliant new idea to jump on the bandwagon of mapping the entire globe. I never realized that the drop in price of storage would lead to such a need to photo all the corners of the globe. Does anyone feel like this whole thing is a passive version of 1984? In any case, Amazon has a new set up where, when goods are delivered to a business they will snap photos from the delivery truck as they are delivering it.

Someone delivered something to Omation and this is what happened ..... when the truck came.

And if, you were all wondering who Mike Beal, my render farm buddy, is. Click the link above, click 'walk left'. Check out the second picture from the right. The guy parking his car is Mike. How ridiculous is that?

After doing a little research on residential addresses I knew I could not come up with any photos of neighborhoods, so I think it is only related to businesses. However, I was able to find 5 businesses located on my block, so I guess it is only a matter of time before some photos get up.

If you want to read more about this new 'service' then read the following articles.
Amazon search pictures your destination
Amazon Rolls Out Multimedia Yellow Pages
Amazon/A9 joins the crowded maps field

So, here is my question. If the delivery van was delivering to a company in a neighborhood and it just so happened to drive past someone getting robbed or carjacked. Could the company A9 be held responsible? I guess as much as any other bystanders are responsible ... I guess. I wonder whether someone might try to hold them responsible.

Where did this week go?

This week has seemed to go by really fast. I am still trying to figure out where it went. Not too many exciting things happened this week. Steven did get a car though. He bought a Volkswagen GTI, which is pretty sweet. It makes me want to go get a car now too. Aaron finished up his C++ programming classes at RIT today. Jason was the proctor for his exam. I wish I could retake some intro programming classes. Maybe then I could get some better grades. I started Yoga this week. Since Chris' girlfriend started working at Omation there have been daily Yoga sessions on the mocap stage. I never realized how relaxing and energizing Yoga could be at the same time. I can't wait to get back into it next. I even have my own little mat now. Most exciting is that I got to meet Jentzen's family today. Unfortunately Mike and I were busy working (riding the white horse), so I didn't get a chance to hang out with his kids.

Work has been good this week as well. There has been some confusion as to what Mike and I should have been doing, but that was cleared up in the middle of the week. It was great to have four people involved in what we were supposed to be doing, all of which thought they were the ones who were supposed to be telling us what to do. That was kind of confusing. Needless to say, we got our task and we completed it. This weekend we will test out what we did and hopefully by Monday we will be able to utilize artist's machines for renders when they log out.

So this weekend I don't have many other plans besides working. I will probably read more of the Half-Blood Prince. I might also try to work on some mental ray shaders. I don't want to do anything really complicated. I just want to get back into writing them by doing some simple, but useful shaders.

This sure is odd

If you want to see something a little strange and possibly disturbing, Rubber Johnny.

Photos!

Here are the photos you have all been waiting for .... I am sure of it .... yeah right. Anyways, follow this linkymabob and you will see the photos. (Note: there are in reverse chronological order, end of trip first).

Road Trip with Sandra

Here are photos from the Max X Adventure.

Max X Photos

Also, you can check out these little vids too.

Route 1
Route 2

Max X Adventure

I thought it was time to go rock climbing again. I also thought it was time to ride my bike 60 miles again. So this week I decided to combine the two. I had already ridden to Newport Beach once, so I didn't want to boulder at Corona Del Mar. This left me with only one other place to climb, Ortega Falls.

To make a long story short. The ride was tough and I ended up going to the San Juan Falls, which are just down the road from Ortega Falls. I did't realize this until I got home and I read different directions and looked at some more maps. I had a lot of fun anyways.

It took about two and half hours to ride the 30 miles (with 2000 ft of elevation gain) to the San Juan Loop trail. I hiked the short loop trail and then went into the San Juan Falls. There was no water because of the summer heat, so I was able to get right into the little canyon and boulder around. There were no routes, because I wasn't where I was supposed to be. At about 5 o'clock I decided to come home. I needed daylight because I left my bicycle lights in Seattle. It only took two hours to get home, thank god, because my legs were killing me.

I am still debating on whether or not to go back to the real Ortega Falls. I am sure it will be a fun place to climb, but at the San Juan Falls I was at least able to use my imagination to try some new things and make up routes. I also want to wait for my legs to recover before doing that again.

Steven Turns 21!

On Friday August 12th Omation's favorite adorable TD, Steven Caron, turned 21. The evening was really nice. We were finally able to give Steven the typical Omation welcome, a trip to Ole's.

We started the night out at Ichibiri for some good ol teppanyaki cuisine. The crowd was small was smaller than had been expected, but it was nice because we were all about to enjoy the meal together and not just with the one or two people sitting nearest to us.

The first drink Steven had was a glass of Merlot, as recommended by Chris. We all got the lesson on how to taste and drink the wine properly. After that it was time for some sake. After the meal it was time for the louder part of the evening. It was time to play foosball at Ole's. I have been itching to play since I was in Seattle and this was the first time for Steven to play with us at Ole's, so I was excited. We had some pretty good games last night. I had a great time and I hope Steven did too.

Barnyard The Trailer

For anyone who hasn't seen the trailer. I am assuming it is a lot of you, here it is a link:

Barnyard the Movie

Here is an article with some pics from the making of the Softimage Testimonial Video. It basically follows Jason and Anthony around. If you want to check it out here is the link:

Making of Softimage Testimonial

Work Lately?

Actually, I haven't worked a lot lately. The middle of the week was sort of interrupted by SIGGRAPH. Things have been going well at Omation. When I was gone I expected there to be a lot of development on the render farm done, but apparently I was wrong. When I came back, the coding was pretty much the same as it was when I left, but some of the processes had been changed. The past couple days I have been staying late at work to work on the farm. The work has been pretty fun. It is a pretty complex project combing databases and networking. I have been learning a lot and I really hope the people higher up will say, right on guys, we are going to use your solution. That will make Mikey, Alastair and I really happy. Plus, how many people get to say, you know that film. Yeah I helped develop the software to render the movie.

Speaking of work. I know it is Sunday, but I should probable head in soon, so I can get some work done for our demo tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, by the way, when I was in Seattle Diana let me borrow Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. I finished reading it the other day. It is a great little read. It deals with the story of two boys during the cultural revolution, but it focuses more on their interested in western literature than with any of the details of the cultural revolution, so it is a pretty charming short read. I would recommend the book to anyone, whether or not they have an interest in China.

Blogmania!

This afternoon I am washing clothes, so I have had some time to just sit around and blog. I feel like I need to catch up with my life. That seems like a weird thing to say, but I think it is something bloggers would understand best. I certainly didn't feel like this before I left for China and started blogging. Somehow I get some sort of satisfaction with sharing my life with others now, even if those others are a simple few. I never really had a problem with doing this before, but using this sort of medium is different.

Granted I don't share everything in this blog, as Jean pointed out to me. I certainly don't want to share all my emotional feelings through this blog, but I do like to use it to describe my happiness, my sadness and my frustrations. If you guys want to hear more about other things, let me know and I will try to make the read more enjoyable for you guys if you think it is boring.

Anyways, since I have gotten back into San Clemente I have been quite busy with work and SIGGRAPH. SIGGRAPH is the division of ACM that deals with computer graphics. Each year they put on a big convention for people in the industry. This does not only mean people who make 3D animated films, but people who develop software for 3D applications, design engineers from companies like Lockheed Martin and NASA, researchers and many more. People attend the convetion sometimes to just see thing, present research papers, promote software and even recruit new employess. I went to SIGGRAPH because of my affiliation with The Barnyard. I also attended a lot of the special Softimage events. Graham was also really great by introducing me to a lot of people he knew. I was not looking for a job, so it was not for me to pass out resumes, but for the future when I will be looking for another job in the industry. Through Graham I was able to talk to some great people at Softimage, Sony and Side Effects.

Besides going around and shmoozing with people I got a chance to go the Softimage User Group. Anthony, my boss from Mesmer in Seattle, and Jason, my current supervisor, gave a nice presentation about Omation. I also got to see how artists at Studio Ghibli in Japan were able to use 3D techniques to fake some traditional 2D looks. Believe it or not, Howl's Moving Castle is not entirely a traditional 2D cartoon. There are quite a few 3D components. There is also a great new tool for quickly getting facial animation called face robot. This is available in version 5 of the software, so there was a lot of buzz around XSI during the whole week of SIGGRAPH.

On the last night of SIGGRAPH Adam, Graham and I were able to go to the VIP party that Softimage was holding at the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The party was pretty swank. The bar was open, but I was not drinking (I will explain more later) and the views of the city were amazing. There was even a pool on top of the building. Across the street the promotional video for Softimage was being projected onto the side of the building, so we were able to see our friends faces plastered on the side of a building. It was surreal at times. Adam and I could totally understand how people who get into these sorts of LA scenes go crazy and overdose on blow and stuff like that. There are pictures of the party at the XSIBase review of SIGGRAPH. Just scroll down to 'Softimage Party at Standard Hotel ... '. I even got in one of the photos! Haha, I am way in the back chatting with Adam in my yellow Element shirt. I will give $5 to the first person who finds me. Just email me a copy of the image with me circled.

Lastly I am going to talk about the first night at SIGGRAPH. Adam and Graham grabbed me on Monday evening to go to SIGGRAPH. I didn't plan on going, but it would be good for me to show up, so people would know my face when they need to later. We got to LA at around 10:30 or 11:00 in time to meet Matt Lind and his buddies at the Biltmore Hotel in LA. Most people were staying at the Biltmore, so it was a reasonable ending location for the night. We spent most the time just chatting about usual 3D stuff and having drinks. Little did Adam and I know what we were getting into. We kept buying each other drinks and before we knew it we had gone through about five in two hours. Normally this might have been ok, but I swear the Biltmore makes some of the strongest drinks I have ever had (that were still drinkable). Seeing as how I have stopped drinking more than 3 drinks at a time and how Adam had not eaten much that day we were in trouble. Adam was sloshed and so was I. The only difference was that I ended making a couple trips to the bathroom. The bar ended up closing, so we went to Denny's for some food. I ordered some potatoes and then went back to the bathroom. It was in the stall that I started to wonder, what could I have ate that day that was red. I couldn't think of anything .... scary. Luckily there was someone in the other stall who seemed to be in worse off shape than me. He may have been feeling better, but he certainly made it sound worse. He gave me some comic relief by asking god why he was doing that to him between his sobs. He must have been in bad shape. The night ended at 5:00 am when we pulled into the Omation parking lot. I got him just in time for a nap before going to work the next day. All I can say is that I was not very productive before driving back up to SIGGRAPH for the Softimage User Group.

And just like everyone else, every time before, I will say "I am never going to do that again".

Vacation Time in Seattle

So after the whirlwind tour of the west coast with Sandra I got to spend some time in Seattle. This was probaly some of the most relaxing time I had in a while. It was nice to be back at home with my brother.

We spent a great deal of time riding our bikes around Seattle. I got in a couple good runs. The hardest was running from the UW to my house. I hope that I can do that one without stopping at all. I broke and walked for a block near the bridge and once again, right before running up the side of Queen Anne.

Besides running and riding I also got to go rock climbing three times with Eric. That was a lot of fun. I hope to get really into when I get back to Seattle. My elbows started to hurt a lot, so I am going to have to figure out how to deal with that. My friend tells me Glucosimine is helpful for curbing joint pains.

I got to get in touch with one of my good friends from high school. Ben Petersen went to college at Carlton in Minnesota, so we have not seem much of him lately, but he just got married, so he was in town at the same time. He invited us on a great crabbing trip in the north puget sound. We drove up to Anacortes, dropped his boat in the water and drove out to a small island. Once we set up camp we dropped the crab pots in the water and waited. Throughout the day we would pull them up, rebait the traps and drop them back down. While waiting for the next trip to pull them up we would eat whatever we caught. I think I am going to spoiled from now on when it comes to eating fresh crab. It was delicious!

I didn't a lot of fun stuff in Seattle when I was there. It was mostly just nice to feel like I was at home again. I mean I can do more exciting stuff down here. I could go to the beach everyday, but it is still not my home down here.

It is about time to talk about my vacation

So after being too busy to blog for the last couple weeks I have found myself with some spare time to blog. First things first, I need to talk about the trip through California and the week I spent in Seattle. Unfortunately my server has been acting weird, so I can't get any photos of my trip online quite yet.

I had a really great time on my trip with Sandra. It all started out on July 15th. I got a ride to the airport to pick up my rental car. The agent ended up upgrading my sedan to a pretty swank Chrysler Pacifica. Sandra was on a late flight into LAX, so I wasted some time in Irvine, but apparently I didn't waste enough time because by the time I got to LAX I still had two and a hours until her flight arrived. I was on the phone with my mom at the time, so she told me to head to Manhattan Beach. So I drove to the beach and walked around for a while chatting with my mom. When the time came to get Sandra I rolled on over to LAX, which has crazy traffic even in the middle of the night. I would hate to try and catch a flight at LAX during rush hour.

On Saturday we drove down to the San Diego Zoo to see their famed pandas and of course other animals. I was pretty impressed with the zoo. I thought it was really nice compared to the pathetic zoo I visited in Kunming where the guy taking photos of people in an old army jet got mad at us for refusing to take a photo. (Visit this page, http://www.aapn.org/zoopage2.html, and search for 'Kunming'). Anyways, the pandas were pretty relaxed that day and all they did was lie around. The polar bears also seemed to choose being lazy as their choice activity for the afternoon as well.

On Saturday night Steven, Jentzen, Randall, Chris, Adam, Aaron, Sandra and I all went out to get sushi. We all had a great time. Chris was telling crude jokes that Sandra was more than enjoying, which kind of took Chris by surprise. Jentzen told us all stories of his hitchhiking trip that took him to San Francisco when he was trying to find himself. The one thing I learned from those stories was that you should wave at strangers and act as if they are your friends if you need to get out of a bad situation.

On Sunday morning we started our trip San Francisco. We planned on driving up Highway 1 up the coast. Our first stop was breakfast in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a nice little city. The historic district is especially nice to walk around in and window shop. Our next stop on the drive was near San Simeon. This is the small town nearest to the Hearst Castle. This is one of the many homes owned by the famous media mogul of the early 20th Century, William Randolph Hearst. He is also the father of Patty Hearst, the millionaire who was once "abducted and brainwashed" by the Symbionese Liberation Army to rob banks. This castle was built on top of this hill overlooking the ocean. The ranch included many thousands of acres of lands to explore on horseback. The land even included a zoo and a small airport. We took a tour of the estate and were amazed at it's grandeur. After the tour we got back on the road. I expected some amazing views of the sunset as we drove along the coast, but apparently someone forgot to mention there was fog for almost the whole drive. We didn't get to see much of anything besides the road. Apparently the hot weather causes the ocean to warm up and create fog. Since there was a heat wave at the time, it only made sense that there was so much fog.

While we were eating Sushi with Chris he told us not to go to the tenderloin jokingly. While driving into the city and looking for our hotel we drove into a sketchy part of town. I thought to myself that this was a pretty shady part of town and I hoped our hotel was not nearby when I saw a sign reading "Tenderloin Market". Then I knew what Chris meant.

While in San Francisco we did most of typical tourist things. We visited China Town, Little Italy, the Japanese Tea Garden, Haight Ashbury, Lombard Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Embarcadero and Sausalito. We also got to ride the BART and a street car. We tried to pack as much fun into a couple days as possible. One of the funnest parts was visiting Sandra's friend Rich where he works. The 40th floor of his building overlooks all of downtown and the bay. I was surprised they were able to get any work done at all while sitting in front of the huge windows.

If you are in San Francisco and want a good Italian meal, I would recommend Pinnochio's in North Beach. It is on Columbus Street near Washington Square. The atmosphere is really nice and the meals are not over priced. Thanks for this suggestion Rich!

I would also recommend walking around San Francisco as much as possible. It is easy to start in downtown, or wherever and then walk to most of the places I mentioned. I think that some of the views on the hill near Coit Tower are some of the best views in the city and they aren't the same inside of a car. I would also recommend a good pair of walking shoes and water because those hills are pretty brutal.

After our time in San Francisco we drove to the house where I grew up and then headed over to Yosemite National Park. After a few days in the city it was time to get into nature. We spent the first day in the park in the valley. We started by enjoying the spectacular views from Glacier point. In the afternoon we hiked up to Upper Yosemite Falls. The hike was strenuous, but worth all the energy once we got to the falls. Along the way we stopped along the way to eat lunch. We had a little Blue Bird join us for lunch. He seemed to be interested in the seeds from the lychee I was eating. He was so interested that when I would throw them over the edge of the cliff he would dive bomb after them. I don't think he ever caught them though.

The second day in Yosemite we spent the morning back in the valley. After I tried to do a little bouldering we went to see the lower falls. When I was climbing Sandra got bitten by a mosquito. I was also bitten, but the reaction she had was ridiculous. Her arms started to swell up really big around the marks. I am not sure why I the bites I had seemed to go away, but hers were there for a couple days.

We left Yosemite in the afternoon for our long drive. No, the 12 hour drive from San Clemente to San Francisco was not the long one. I thought it would not take so long, but driving from Yosemite to Ocean Shores, WA really does take 14 hours. I thought that was an overestimation. Luckily there are no large cities between Sacremento and Portland. We were going to Ocean Shores to stay at a beach house that Sandra's boss owned. She was gracious enough to let us borrow the beach house for a couple days.

Once we got to the house we crashed and woke up late the next. We took a trip to town to get some groceries and coffee. Once we got back to the beach house it was time for some relaxation. All we really did was sit around and read magazines on the deck, but that was fine by me. I was already exhausted from the trip already. That evening we watched the sunset at the beach after getting some more coffee. We liked to get coffee at one of the local gift shops because the Korean lady who owned the shop was really nice and friendly. After watching the sunset and taking photos we drove back down the beach to get home. Before getting off the beach I had to do some doughnuts in the sand.

Eventually we made it back to Seattle after ten days of fun. I don't think there was anytime during the trip I didn't have fun. The most important part was that I got to spend some nice quality time with Sandra. I am also happy that I got to share her first real vacation with her. I hope it won't be our last either.