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.