A quick post

I explored the beach some more today after church, but I don't have much time to talk about it because it is so late. So, I'll let you know I added some pictures to the web album and will add some others from this weekend soon. Also, I went back through all of the pictures in the album and tagged the locations where they were taken. So, if you click on a picture in the album, there is a little map that shows where the picture was taken. Or, there's another feature that I think is very cool that allows you to see a map with all the pictures in the album on it where they were taken (you can even load the map of picture locations in Google Earth!). Here's the link:
Map View

I've tried to place them with as much accuracy as possible. So, you can kind of see my walk through Golden Gate park from last weekend and the path I took. As well as where my apartment is in relation to Pixar. And you can even find what I think is one of the best places in SF (it's on Vallejo).

Well, I guess that's all for now. I had a great weekend and a very busy, but fun day on Friday. I hope you have a great week and I will try to give more info about this weekend tomorrow or some other time very soon.

Sunday on my own

Yesterday was much more relaxed than the other two Saturdays I've had in California. I had planned to check out the Oakland zoo with one of my roommates, but it was supposed to get into the low 90s so we decided not to stand around outside all afternoon. So, instead we took a nice stroll down to the shopping area here in Emeryville. We stopped a couple of places, but mostly just explored to see what is available. I bought an armband for my MP3 player, an instructional book for playing the drums, and a little bit of See's candy. We then came back to the apartment and just relaxed the rest of the day.

Today however was another crazy exploring day. I really wanted to go back to the church I visited last Sunday so last night I figured out the quickest route to get there via public transit. Then, I got up and headed out. I ended up not taking the bus I normally take to the train station, but just walked the 2.5 miles instead. This sounds a little crazy, but I wanted to stop at Pixar on the way to pick up my earphones that I left at my desk cause I knew I'd want them for the rest of the day. So, it was a little easier to walk to Pixar than to ride, and I ended up just missing the bus from Pixar to the train station, so I walked that too. I then rode the Bart over to San Francisco and walked the three blocks to the church. The service was very good again and the worship was simply outstanding. i hung around for a little while afterward and met the pastor and a few other people before walking over to another burrito restaurant and getting lunch. This time I took a picture of my mostly eaten burrito. The picture doesn't do it's size justice, and it's just $5.

Once I was done eating I was craving some soft serve so I stopped at a McD's (I know, how lame), and got a cheap hot fudge sundae. I very much enjoyed it while I walked up several blocks to the southwestern edge of downtown to catch a bus. The bus took me over to the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park. Now this park is actually several miles from the bridge which I found rather confusing when I first heard about the park.
It is 176 acres larger than Central Park in NY, so in other words...it is HUGE. I ended up walking the full length of the park (about 3.5 miles!) and getting see a lot of the diversity it offers. I was so surprised to see all the different little sections of the park. After I'd been walking for probably 45 minutes, I started hearing some music, which I soon found out was some type of large rock concert. There were probably 5,000+ people there and I just "stumbled" across them in the middle of this park. Most of the park was fairly empty and I enjoyed the peacefulness a lot. I finally exited the western end of the park which is right across the street from the Pacific Ocean! This was actually the main reason I went to the park in the first place.

The beach was wide and sandy, but very windy and cool. There were lots of people out on the sand but no one was in the water for several reasons (deadly undertow, great whites, and freezing water). I called Jessica to share the beach with her (we both love the beach), and then just sat at the edge of the sand and took in the air/sound/smell/feel that comes with the open sea. After that I walked a couple blocks inland and caught a bus, got off that bus and caught another, which didn't go far enough so I caught another, to end up at the Golden Gate Bridge. The winds were even stronger near the bay, but I walked about 1/3 of the way across the bridge and back and took several pictures as you can tell. I waited around for a bus that was heading back towards the city, and ended up having to ride three more buses to get back to the Bart station to get back to the east side of the bay. I finally got back to Emeryville at about 7:30, which was an hour after the last bus left that goes by my apartment. (It only runs till 6:30 on Sunday, stupid bus) So, I decided to just walk it, and walked the 2.5 miles again.

So, just in case you couldn't tell, the theme of my day was walking and buses. I figured out that I walked more than 11 miles today and rode 7 different buses! But, even so I knew God was helping out. First of all, my feet really held out and I can tell I'm getting in better shape cause the walking is much less intrusive than it was just two weeks ago. Also, I ended up only having to spend about $1.00 more for transportation, than it would have cost to just go to church and back home! The SF buses have a transfer ticket that allows you free transfers for 90 minutes after you've purchased your ticket. Well, today, for some reason when I got on my first bus after church and paid my $1.50 fare, the bus driver gave me a transfer ticket that expired at 7:00 pm, 5 hours after I got on the bus! Then throughout the day I took my time and didn't feel like I needed to rush at all and just figured I'd pay for another fare if i was out later than my transfer ticket allowed. Well, it ends up I boarded the last bus I needed to take at about 6:52. So, I rode 7 different buses all over San Francisco for a grand total of $1.50! And that last bus took me to a Bart station that is closer to Emeryville than the one by the church so it was actually cheaper to get home than it would have been.

So, all that to say I had a great day with a lot of virtually free fun. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Oh, and I also added a picture of the 20 foot tall Wall-E that was inflated in the Pixar Amphitheater this last Friday. The whole place is abuzz with excitement for the upcoming release. You better all go watch it or I will be greatly disappointed in you!

Feeling settled and a little romance

This weekend was a lot of fun, and work today actually felt pretty "normal", in a good way. We had a team meeting to overview some details of the pipeline for our work and to just make things more standard for all of us. I felt more like a part of the team and started to get some real work done.

Yesterday was a lot of fun too. I got picked up for church and we headed over to the Mission district of San Francisco. The building was smaller than I expected but they have 4 different services each weekend. I was very impressed with the church in many ways. I will certainly be going back and will probably write more about it in a week or two. After church, on the way back to my apartment, we stopped at a very authentic burrito restaurant that had very good, and inexpensive, food. I was dropped back off at my apartment and relaxed for a while.

After an hour or so I suggested to my roommates that we head over to Pixar to have some fun. They agreed that they didn't just want to sit around all afternoon so we took off and had a lot of fun all afternoon. We ended up throwing a frisbee for a while, then playing a little soccer, and several games of shuffleboard. Other options that we considered were basketball, ping-pong, pool, foosball, and guitar hero. I took a few outdoor pictures while we were walking around the Pixar campus, and updated the photo album with them.

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I kind of breezed through the account of this weekend cause there's something I wanted to talk about that I'm feeling much more strongly about right now. So, I'm going to totally change subjects and talk about something more personal.

And that subject is my amazing wife who I miss and love so much! And there is a reason for me to bring this up other than just the fact that I haven't seen her in more than 2 weeks. Tomorrow (in just 1 hour), is our 3 and a half year anniversary. Now, we don't usually "celebrate" half anniversaries, but today, I want to verbalize some of the thoughts I've been having and really let you know how much she means to me.

Every time I think about Jess (which is a LOT), I am so thankful that God brought us together. Not only is she the most gorgeous woman I know, but she shows me her complete love so frequently. In the little things and the obvious ones, she is so encouraging, helpful, and amazing. Earlier this week I was letting myself feel overwhelmed and was feeling sorry for myself and how difficult my assignment has been here at Pixar. Jessica was able to say a few words to me, which at first hurt me and made me want to get frustrated, but her honestly was from the heart and she knew that it was what I needed to hear. It has made a big difference in my attitude and her words were a blessing from God. I am so thankful I get to hear her voice everyday when we talk on the phone.

Everyday that passes while I am here in California I realize, not just how much I miss her, but how much she is part of me. We share everything all the time and it has been harder than I expected to explore new places and have fun without her here to share it all with me. I miss sharing milkshakes and meals, sunsets and scenery, laughs and smiles, hugs and kisses, and so much more!

It is getting late so I will wrap this up. Jessica, I know you will read this, and I just want to say in front of our friends and family who read this, that I am more in love with you than I've ever been. With every passing day I realize a little more clearly how much you mean to me, how much I long to make you happy, how much I love everything about you, how much I know that I will never love you less and how you are everything that I've ever hoped or longed for. You are part of me and these last 3.5 years have been so much better than I thought they could be. I am so excited that we get the rest of our lives together! So, have a great Tuesday and remember that I am thinking about you and can't wait to see your beautiful face again. In just 31 days now.

Goodnight my love.

Another long day in SF

It is very late, but I am waiting for more photos to upload and I want to update you on my day. Earlier this week some plans were set in motion to meet up with some of my fellow Brown graduate students in San Francisco. Some couldn't make it but I was able to meet up with my friend Mayank at about 5:00. Since I was planning to meet up with him and possibly some other friends from school I headed over to SF late this morning because there were a couple things I wanted to do and see and also, my roommate, Andrew, wanted to go with me to scout out some good spots for photography. Anyway, we got over to the city and I wanted to find the main Old Navy downtown which is the largest Old Navy store in the world. It ended up that they were having some awesome sales and so I got a couple different pairs of shorts, a couple polos and another pair of flip-flops.

After we were done at Old Navy we headed north through the city. I showed him some of the cool places I found last weekend and we had a lot of fun casually hiking around the town seeing the sites. We ended up down by the water and got to eat lunch at an In N' Out burger!! I love that place, and I should have got a picture. After we ate it was about time for me to meet up with Mayank so I started walking south and Andrew decided to do some more scouting. Mayank wasn't quite done with the lunch he had scheduled with a friend so I hung out at Barnes and Noble for a while. Fun and relaxing.

Once we tracked each other down, I found out he hadn't been to the waterfront at all so we went down there and strolled around Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. After we decided we were sick of the crowds I thought it would be fun to climb up Telegraph hill to the old Coit tower since it was the one major hill in SF I hadn't been to the top of. We didn't pay to go up the tower but still got a great view of the bay and the city. We then wandered some more and took some goofy pictures on the steep hills.

One of our other friends from Brown, Korhan, called and wanted to meet up with us too, so we headed back South through downtown to meet up with him. He ended up getting a little lost in the crazy traffic, so Mayank and I wandered through the Virgin Megastore while we waited and I was amazed at their massive CD, DVD, TV on DVD and video game collections. Korhan finally got to the area and parked just in time for us to say hi and for me to head back to the transit station to head back over to the East Bay. So, I got to talk with him for a short bit of time about his new job (He just finished his Master's degree and is now working in the southern bay area).

I had to head back to Emeryville cause the last bus from the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station to my apartment left at 9:30 and I really didn't want to walk through that part of the city after dark.

Feel free to check out the pictures in the album on the right, or on my Facebook page. Lots more pictures of the bay, Alcatraz, and downtown. But, I really tried to get more pictures with people in them.

Now tomorrow, I am headed to church with some people that work at Pixar that are related to one of our friends in RI. I haven't met them yet, but they seem very nice and I'm looking forward to going to their church that looks very good. I will report further on that tomorrow. Here's the church's webpage if you want to check it out. http://www.cornerstone-sf.org

Hope you have a great Father's Day.

The real deal

I can't believe it's been four days since I last posted. Sunday was a very slow day except for the fact that my roommate arrived from Boston. He is a fellow Brown student and we had a class together this spring. He and the 2 other Brown students that are here just finished their Junior year. Other than that, we all had a very mellow day and tried our best to find things (besides the TV) to keep us busy. We ended up driving into Oakland to hunt down a Redbox to rent a movie.

Earlier in the day, I did try to get into the lab at Pixar to work on my final project, but the building was locked and I didn't feel like hunting down the number for security to have them let me in, so I just walked back to the apartment. Besides, our teacher strongly encouraged us to not come in on the weekend. So, I got up a little bit earlier than I normally would and got to Pixar at about 8:30 to continue working on the final. Last week, on Friday, we had to create a story, make storyboards, and submit them for a story review, then we weren't allowed to begin working on the project until our stories were approved. So, once I got that finished I began creating the set for my story using the 3D objects we were given to use. Once I had a decent set I added the lights to create a lit set. I got that much done on Friday, but I still had to layout, animate, shade, light and render the 4 shots for my film.

So, it was a long day, and even though I got "done" by about 5:00 I had some serious problems getting the renders to look how I wanted and ended up not leaving until shortly after 10:00. But, I got it completely done and submitted, so I got to sleep in since we didn't need to be at work until our film review at 10:30am. It was very cool, our teacher and several other veteran employees, as well as the 40 new interns that started this week all were present for our review. We even got to use one of the "real" screening rooms. I was very pleased with my final short and by the laughter and comments I think everyone enjoyed it. I got some very helpful suggestions from the veteran employees but was very happy with how it went.

Immediately after the review, I was scheduled to meet up with my department supervisor for lunch to get an overview about our current project. It was very informative and even fun to sit with him and talk about the history of Pixar and the life-cycle of our current project...Toy Story in 3D.

It's a relatively small group working on this project, but there is a lot of hard work to get done to get the whole movie ready for 3D. I'm sure I'll be busy all summer and if we happen to get done by the end of August, I will get to start work on Toy Story 2 (known as TS2) in 3D also.

Sorry I can't give more details about what I'm doing or the rest of my experience. Obviously this is a competitive industry with lots of secrets.

On a super exciting note...just this evening I bought the tickets for Jess to come to California and visit me in July. We are both very excited that it worked out. It will be fun to do some exploring with her and just to get to see her smiling face in person! Well, It's past my bedtime and I'm gonna exercise early tomorrow before work (something I've been pretty consistent with since I got here thankfully) so I should say goodbye and get to bed. Have a great rest of your week and I'd love to hear how you're doing since I haven't talked with most of you recently.

A fun day

So, being that this was my first Saturday in the Bay Area, I really wanted to get over to San Francisco. Fortunately that happen and I have pictures to share. I've updated the picture album that is linked on the right side with some of the better pictures I took today. The day started with me heading to Pixar and swimming in their Olympic size pool for a while. It was nice exercise and relaxing at the same time. I then showered in the locker rooms and stopped by the just opened updated Pixar store and purchased some Pixar clothing (including an awesome 'track jacket').

Once I walked back to the apartment I relaxed for a while and then headed out to San Francisco on the public transit train with my roommate Jeremy. We got off at the Embarcadero Station and walked all the way up the waterfront through and past Pier 39. Then we took off up the northern hill I'll San Francisco called Russian Hill. It had some great views of the city, the bay, and the bridges. We found ourselves at the top of the famous Lombard St and continue to just walk through the neighborhood. We finally came to a peaceful cul-de-sac atop the hill that had an amazing view to the northeast and to the east. We headed down the hill towards Chinatown just to see what it was like then zig-zagged back towards the station we got off at. All in all we walked about 5 miles over the course of 3 or 4 hours. It was awesome to create our own tour and to get the exercise of hiking up a large hill.


Once we were back in Emeryville we decided to just walk from the train station back to our apartment which was another 2.5 miles. Then I decided to relax in the hot tub, and also went for another short swim. So, I think I met my exercise quota for the day and had a lot of fun doing it. I've included some of the pictures in this post, but feel free to check the rest out too.

I'm still very excited to start in my department on Tuesday. I will write more once that happens (if not sooner).

A real update

Well, it's time for a real update. It is very late on Friday night so I will probably finish this in the morning. I started the week out with a full day of orientation to the company, a tour, and lots of paperwork. There were several people starting their internships, or full-time jobs, this week so we had to split up for the tour and some of the other things. Pixar has a very family type atmosphere. The employees are eager to share their knowledge and it is a very open atmosphere to all employees.

Since Tuesday, I've spent all day every day at a quick start training class for technical employees and interns. We've been given an overview training of all the steps in the animation process and how to use their proprietary software to create and modify the film shots. It's been a lot of information, but we are now working on our final projects that we will turn in on Monday evening.

Already there have been some amazing opportunities at exposure to the film community and animation. And I know that will only continue throughout the summer.

More interns start this coming week (including my roommate who isn't here yet) which will make things a little different. Between our orientation day, lunches, and our training class, several of us have already become friends and gotten to know each other pretty well. It will be interesting to see how that changes this week with all the new interns.

Also, I thought I'd extend an open invitation for any of you (as long as I know you) to be my guests (up to 3) at a pre-release screening of Wall-E in the Pixar theater (on Pixar's campus here in Emeryville) on 6/26 (the day before release)! Seriously, I'm allowed to bring some guests and I could get you free tickets if I knew ahead of time you were coming. So let me know asap if you're at all interested and we can discuss it in more detail.

Well, it is now really late and I hope to have some fun tomorrow so I should probably get some sleep. I'll go ahead and post this and maybe add more tomorrow if I have time. I think I'm going to go swimming in the morning for exercise and head over to San Francisco with some other interns in the afternoon. If so, I will post pictures soon.

More pictures

It is late so this will be short. I updated my pictures from today. We had a long day of orientation and I am officially an employee of Pixar. Serious training the rest of the week, so I will be busy. The atmosphere of collaboration at Pixar is amazing!

Pictures!

Please notice the album link i added to the right. I have it set up so I can update the pictures very easily! I've already added the pictures from today (my travel day). Tomorrow will be super exciting, and now it's time for bed. Goodnight from California!

Mid-flight

I'm currently somewhere over, what I think might be, southern Iowa. I left Providence about 3 hours ago and I've got another 3 hours to go until I arrive in Las Vegas. Then an hour layover for my short flight into Oakland. I have such mixed emotions right now, but I know that this will all be much more real at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning when I walk through the front gates of Pixar animation and begin my summer internship with a full day official introduction to Pixar.

It was very hard to leave my wife behind knowing that I won't see her in person for probably about 6 weeks. It is by far the longest we have been apart from each other, but I am thankful for technology and I know no matter how busy I get I will be able to talk with her frequently.

She was kind enough to let me take our new camera with me and I am looking forward to documenting and sharing my expereince to the best of my ability. As soon as possible I want to look into using a site such as flickr to easily share my pictures with you. I will probably post some pitures along with my posts in this blog, but will probably leave the bulk of them on flickr (unless I find a different service I like better, maybe Picasa?).

Flying over this part of the country strongly reminds me of the last time I was west of the Apalachians...driving a Penske truck across country through the middle of Iowa, among 13 other states. I will never forget that trip, and it is so hard to believe that I've completed my first year of graduate school since then! A lot has happened in my life and in me since then. I feel like I've grown much closer to my wife and to God since then. And as hard as it is already to be away from here for these next couple months, aI already know that God is going to use this time for teaching, refreshing, and cleansing me.


If you are a praying person, I really would appreciate your prayers through this summer. I don't know what to expect and I am nervous about what awaits me this summer. I think the biggest source of anxiety for me right now is actually living with 3 other guys I don't know for three months. I was happy to only have a roommate for 2 weeks of my college life, and I really don't know what to expect.


That last thought makes me realize that many of you probably don't know much about what I know about this summer. Obviously I will get a lot more details after i start work tomorrow, but here's what I know so far. My first day as a Technical Director Intern for Pixar is tomorrow, June 2, 2008. They have provided me and the other interns with housing for the summer that is fairly close to the Pixar campus. My address for the summer (yes you can send me letters or packages if you wish, wink-wink) is 1465 65th St. #359 Emeryville, CA 94608. It is a two bedroom apartment and there are three other male interns living with me for the summer. One is from Utah, another is from the University of Illinois Chicago, and the last one is an undergraduate from Brown who I've had one class with but don't really know.

Last week I found out that I have been assigned to the rendering department for Toy Story 3D (which is scheduled for theatrical release on October 9, 2009). Pixar is updating and re-releasing both of the Toy Story movies for 3D in anticipation of Toy Story 3 which is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2010. I don't really know what they are doing to update the Toy Sotry movies or what the rendering department is responsible for on this film, but I will soon find out and let you know (assuming I'm allowed to tell you).

Several of my friends from the CS graduate program at Brown have summer internships in Silicon Valley (which is South of San Francisco). Emeryville is located across the bay, to the East, of San Francisco, but only about an hour to 90 minutes away from most of Silicon Valley. Therefore, I'm hoping to meet up with some of them at some point this summer to hang out or to do some sight-seeing together.

That's about all I know about this summer at this point. I've looked into the public transit system in the bay area and so far I am very impressed. I think I will be able to travel around the area very easily without having access to a car. If any of you have suggestions for things to see in the area, please feel free to let me know.

That's all for now, hope to upload the first pictures tomorrow evening perhaps.

(The picture was from later in the flight when we had a great view of the grand canyon. I'm posting this from the Las Vegas Airport)