Yikes, I'm falling behind!

Well it's been 10 days since my last post! And I only have a couple minutes cause I have to catch the bus that goes by in 6 minutes to get back to the apartment. I purchased a new power jack for my laptop! It should be here in the next couple days and then I can try my hand at desoldering and soldering a part on my motherboard. Sounds scary and it is. Hope it works.

Jess and I had a wonderful time together this last weekend we got to go to the SF zoo and had a lot of fun! I have pictures, but currently no way to transfer them. I hope you are all doing well. Feel free to leave a comment or even better, send me an e-mail and let me know what's up with you! I am still enjoying work, got over a couple hurdles today that have been plaguing me for upwards of a week. We have some fun team reviews this week and some other things going on too.

Talk with ya later.

Idée Inc.

I just ran across a very cool website that I'd like to share. labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr They also have a collection of other image searching tools that are very cool and very useful. Their main website is ideeinc.com

I'm sure this type of searching technology will (and already has) become very prevalent in the different media forms that are stored digitally. Already I can think of Pandora that does this type of search with music and BookLamp that does it with books. Amazing!

Bad News

So, my crazy laptop has had weird power issues for the last year or so. But, I think it's finally decided to die. It won't take power from the wall anymore, so once I use up my battery it is done for. I can still post from the computers at Pixar (like I am right now), but they don't have SD card readers so I don't have a way to get the pictures off my camera. Hopefully I'll have Jess bring the USB cable for the camera with her from RI on Friday.

Today I went to Home Depot and got a few things to take apart my laptop with and I bought a super cheap soldering iron at Radio Shack and I'm gonna try to figure out how to fix it. Wish me luck.

I'll try and keep up with posts, but we will see how it goes.

My week so far

Well, to be honest, I don't really feel like posting. But, I really have nothing better to do, so here I am. I haven't uploaded the pictures from this week yet, but I guess they aren't very exciting anyway, so it shouldn't really matter.

So, I was going to go to the A's vs. Mariners baseball game on Tuesday night but it ended up being Wednesday night and none of the interns wanted to go with me. So, I went by myself. I have some pictures from the game, but they are pretty typical pictures of a baseball game. I had fun, and the Mariners won 6-4.

Work's been very good this week, I've felt productive, helpful, and for the most part, independent. This weekend is the move for my team so I'm excited to start in my new office on Monday. Maybe I can take a picture before we're not allowed to anymore.

Today, our friend Kendra stopped by Pixar while on vacation and I got to catch up with her and give her the tour. She enjoyed it thoroughly (by what I could tell). Which reminds me to again give an open invitation for you to come and tour Pixar. It is quite an experience, and a special one too, since it is not an open studio and you can only get in if you know someone on the inside (and fortunately you do).

I don't really have any significant plans for tomorrow again. I'm sure I will sleep in some, exercise quite a bit and relax too. There is an open house at the chocolate factory across the street tomorrow afternoon, so I am going to have to check that out. Then, I think our apartment is going to have another movie night (we usually invite the other interns that are living in our apartment building).

Nice and short tonight, and now I'm going to get some sleep.

4th of July weekend

I've realized that I've started to get pretty wordy, so I'm gonna try and be less boring. As usual I've updated the photo gallery before getting to posting. So, check out the pictures the the ever increasing region of land that is being represented by the gallery.

Thursday I got to leave work a little early since our team was so scarce for the long weekend. I jogged for over an hour before heading home. Even after waking up on Friday, I had no idea what I was going to do for the 4th, and figured I might be on my own. But, after randomly running into some of the other interns that were still around here, we headed over to the local grocery store and bought a bunch of picnic food.

Adrienne, Nancy, Will, Greg

After hanging out at Pixar for a while and waiting for the brownies to bake, we headed up to park right next to the Berkeley Marina.

There were quite a few people there already, so we hiked up a hill in the center of the park and staked a claim for our blanket. We then enjoyed sandwiches, chips, fresh strawberries and watermelon, vegetables and dip, and still warm brownies. We had some time before the fireworks so we pulled out a soccer ball and my frisbee to enjoy the nice weather and relaxing atmosphere. As it got dark we could see fireworks in the distance pretty much in a full 360 degree view around us. Then finally got to enjoy the display there at the marina. It wasn't near as grand as the San Francisco show we could see across the bay, but it was at least satisfactory. The traffic was horrible trying to get off the peninsula and so we watched youtube videos on Will's iPhone for an hour and a half while we waited.

Saturday wasn't very eventful, I hung out at the apartment by myself all day, then finally got over to Pixar to work out at about 8:30 pm. It was very quite and part of the time I even ran in the dark by myself. It was peaceful and fun.

Last week I was a little bit late to church and so this week I decided to leave early and ended up getting there while the 10:30 service was still going. It was another great service; and the sermon, given by one of the associate pastors, talked about our worth to God. After the service I didn't have the same type of exploration goals like I've had the past several weeks, so I decided to explore more of the downtown shopping region near Union Square.

I was very happy to find a Jack in the Box for lunch (I hadn't eaten there since last July).

Aquatic Park

And after I ate I watched a very cool acrobatic performance in Union Square. I then wondered through the area and did some shopping, eventually ending up at a BART station and heading home. Since it was still early evening, and all my roommates were still gone, I decided to try and find the local Target since I hadn't been there yet. I rode my roommate's bike the 3.5 miles and got to see the Berkeley Aquatic Park on the way. Some really pretty views and another relaxing, but good exercise, trip.

Today was pretty standard, but we started talking about our department's move at the end of the week. The people on my team are currently spread out around the west half of the main building. But we are all getting moved to another location a couple blocks away that has been recently re-finished inside for us. I am pretty lucky and get my own cubicle! I'm excited and I'll let you know how the new space is next week.

Tomorrow I'm doing something very different...I'm going to a baseball game! I'm actually semi-organizing a trip for any interns that want to go to watch the Oakland Athletics play the Seattle Mariners. I'm very excited since it's only my second professional sporting event and I'm finally getting to see the Mariners play (something I've wanted to do since I was about 5). So, hopefully I will have lots of pictures and a fun story to share.

Hopefully, this wasn't too winded. Have a great week.

WALL·E and Famil·E

Finally, I'm getting around to letting you know about my weekend. It was great and as I mentioned I got to do a little more exploring.

First of all, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, it was a big weekend at work. There was a lot of buzz around Pixar last week and over the weekend since WALL·E opened on Friday. We were all very pleased that it brought in the 3rd largest opening weekend of all the Pixar films, $63,087,526! Monday we had a small party on the front patio at Pixar with the directors and producers to celebrate the great weekend numbers, and Disney even sent cookies for the entire company to congratulate us.

But, the coolest part about WALL·E opening this weekend was that the interns got our very own screening of it in the Pixar theater on Thursday night. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, we were allowed to invite two guests to watch it with us. I had a couple people get back to me and say they were interested, but it was Jessica's parents, Arnie and Elsie, who were able to make it to town to enjoy the screening with me. They were able to stop in Emeryville on their way back to Idaho from LA for about 24 hours. It wasn't a lot of time, but I did get to spend a lot of it with them.

So, on Thursday, before the screening Pixar threw the interns a small welcoming party with Pizza and a few cheesy games to help us get to know each other a little better. After we were done with dinner we had just about 30 minutes before the screening was supposed to start. The plan was that mom & dad would arrive at the San Francisco airport, ride the public transit over to Emeryville and then check into their hotel before meeting me at Pixar for the movie. Unfortunately, their flight was delayed out of LA and they barely made it to Pixar in time for the screening to start and they didn't have time to stop by the hotel. But at least they made it safely and we were all able to see the entire movie.

I really enjoyed WALL·E and I think it may be my favorite Pixar movie so far. I was amazed by the details of the graphics, but I was also very impressed by the quality of the characters and how they developed through the film. It was a lot of fun to sit through the final credits and look for all the people that I've met and gotten to know that worked on it. After it was done, we headed to their hotel and were able to spend a couple hours just talking together.

On Friday we scheduled for them to come to Pixar at 11:00 for lunch and a tour. That morning I had my first "triage check" which is essentially me showing the section of Toy Story that I've been working on to the rest of my team and seeing if it was complete enough, or if there were some changes I still need to make. It went really well and I got done just in time to meet mom & dad in the atrium. I gave them a full tour of the atrium and the other areas that vistors can see, including a large display of original WALL·E artwork. Since they are considered immediate family, I was able to show them my office which was special too.

We ate lunch at Cafe Luxo in the atrium and had a relaxing afternoon. After a while we decided we still had time for them to see my apartment before that had to head to the airport so we caught an Emery-Go-Round bus and stopped by my place. After that we headed back to their hotel where they grabbed their bags and were off to the Oakland airport to fly home.

Although the trip was short, it was a lot of fun to get to spend some alone time with them since I really haven't had a chance to do that very much since Jess and I got married. I get to see them for another short amount of time at the end of the summer when I stop in Idaho on my way back to RI.

After they left, I rushed back to Pixar to meet one of my Brown friends who is working in Silicone Valley (an hour+ drive away). He was super excited about getting to see Pixar and it wa fun to give him and a friend of his he brought along the tour also. It wasn't as meticulous, but they really liked getting to see the inside of the campus and the atrium area of the main building. I worked a little more that night cause I wanted to get some stuff done. But, it was nice to have several visitors and I like getting to share my experience, in person, with family and friends.

Saturday was another very relaxing day, which was a nice change from a fast paced, busy week. After church on Sunday I wasn't sure what I was going to see, but while I was eating lunch I decided to head over to the beach again and just spend some time on the sand. The first time I visited the beach I only had my tennis shoes and I didn't want to get sand in them so I didn't really walk out in the sand at all. This time I remembered to grab some flip flops so when I arrived at the beach (by Muni rail), I was very excited to take of my shoes and enjoy the sand on my bare feet.

After I got down to the water front I saw these funny shaped completely clear things along the line where the sand turns from dry to wet. At first I assumed they were jelly fish, but they weren't shaped like the jellyfish that I had seen and I couldn't see any tentacles. Well, after walking around several hundred of them, I found a few specimens that made it a little easier to verify that they were jellyfish of some sort. I got some pictures of them that you can check out in the photo album. I'm still not sure what kind they were, but I know they weren't the very common "Moon Jellyfish".

After walking a couple miles on the beach, I rode another train back towards downtown and caught a BART back over to the East Bay. It was a nice and relaxing day even though I traveled quite a bit. The only anoying part was that the BART trains I rode in both directions were way overloaded, and completely packed with people. I found out I'm essentially too short to hold on to the hand rails on the ceiling of the train cars.

Well, this is much longer tha I anticipated, but I hope you enjoyed my account of the last several days. I still have no idea what I will be doing for the 4th of July. My team gets half of tomorrow off and the whole company gets Friday off. So, I hope to find something fun to do, but we will see. I hope you have a great holiday weekend with friends, family, or by yourself like me.