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.

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)

Mom, california, and school

Another quick update. First, I picked up my mom from the airport (Providence airport) last night and she will be staying with us until Monday which is fun and exciting since we hadn't seen either of my parents since graduation last May. It's hard though because I have school all week still which I will discuss in more detail in just a minute. My mom went to work with Jess today which should make the day more enjoyable for both of them.

To answer a question...the Pixar internship is paid, and it in itself is a huge answer to prayer. Before I was offered the position I knew it was paid, but I had no idea how much or any of the other details. Well, it turns out it pays better than any other internship that I know of! And since Jessica's 36 hour a week nanny job has been supporting us all year, it will be very good to have some more income that will help us survive the next year until graduation next May. So, that's a huge praise...oh and the position has a "standard" work week of 50 hours. Which could be interesting if I get a job there after school (they expect at least 50 hours from their employees). But, for now it is a blessing as well since anytime over 40 hours is time and a half. Also, since 50 is standard for them, you get paid for 50 even if you don't put in quite 50. So, that is good for me too. And, housing for interns is provided by Pixar in furnished intern apartments. So, I will have a roommate or two, but I don't have to worry about the cost.

Also of note. My school year ends the second week of May. Between then and when I leave for Pixar, Jessica and I will be moving into a new apartment. It is just about .5 a mile from where we currently live, but I think it fits us better than our current one. Mainly, I think the cost of utilities will be a lot more manageable. And there is A/C for the hot/muggy parts of summer. I'll try to remember to post pictures once we move.

Finally, I wanted to update a little about the current status of school. I've had a lot of programming projects this semester and that won't change until the semester is finished. I'm trying to finish the last regular assignment that I have. And then I will be working very hard on two final group projects. One for each of my classes. If you are at all interested in the work that I've done in my graphics class this semester, they are listed on the assignments page for the course. It can be found here. Also, since each of these assignments were based on one or more research papers form the last few year, the papers themselves can be found here. Image Analogies was the hardest, followed closely by Photon Mapping (my output at right). I won't go into details about these unless one of you want to know. But, they make some cool pictures. Both of my final projects are going to be a TON of work, but hopefully I will do the best I can and get it all done in the month that is left of school.

Time

Well, time is amazing, sometimes it is so fast, and other times quite the opposite. We've been in Rhode Island for almost 4 full months! Amazing. Jess and I just this evening were discussing how much has happened in the last 5 years, even just the last 1 year! Well, now that I'm almost 1/4 done with grad school I thought it might be fun to try and keep everyone up to date on life in New England and my life at Brown.

I really am enjoying my classes and teachers. The professors are outstanding. Here are links to my 2 classes if anyone cares:

• Introduction to Computer Graphics
  (short description: This course offers an in-depth exploration of fundamental concepts in 2D and 3D computer graphics. It introduces 2D raster graphics techniques, including scan conversion, simple image processing, interaction techniques and user interface design. The bulk of the course is devoted to 3D modeling, geometric transformations, and 3D viewing and rendering. A sequence of assignments in C++ culminates in a simple geometric modeler and ray tracer.)
• Introduction to Computer Vision
  (short description: How can computers understand the visual world of humans? This course treats vision as a process of inference from noisy and uncertain data and emphasizes probabilistic and statistical approaches. Topics may include perception of 3D scene structure from stereo, motion, and shading; image filtering, smoothing, edge detection; segmentation and grouping; texture analysis; learning, recognition and search; tracking and motion estimation.)

Just less than 3 weeks left in the semester. I have a couple decent sized projects left and then I will be off until late January. Hopefully a few people will read this blog, once they know about it, but since I don't know who that will be, I don't know exactly how I should "aim" my information. I'd love to talk about the cool new technologies that I keep finding out about, or the awesome program I made last week for my graphics class. But, I'll probably try to steer away from anything too technical. Let me know if you want more specifics on anything.

I don't want to make these too long, so, that's it for now.
Have a great day.