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)

Events

Well, it has been a while since I've posted. As usual I am slower than I'd like at updating this blog. But, there is still lots to say. First, I finished my first year of graduate school last week and I am excited to be on my last summer break. It's very fulfilling to look back on all of the things I've accomplished this school year and i look forward to finishing it all up next year.

Second, we've moved into a new apartment and I like it more everyday. We rented a small u-haul on Saturday and, with the help of several friends, got all of our furniture and most of our stuff into our new place. Last night Jess and I brought the cats over, and they have adjusted very well already.

Unfortunately, my body is getting mad for working so hard on Saturday (I'm sure that's not what it is, I'm just making something up) and I've been sick with a fever since last night. I wasn't feeling real great yesterday but I thought it was a mild cold or just allergies. But, I was up several hours through the night trying to keep my body cool. All that to say I am relaxing in our new apartment today and finally have some time to catch up on the internet.

But, that is only possible since I finally got the wireless working with our new internet service. I'm glad it wasn't to hard and that I was able to get it connected even though I'm not feeling real great. Jess or I will hopefully get some pictures of the new place posted sometime soon.

Two weeks from today will be my first day at Pixar! I am still very excited and have started to get pretty nervous about it. But, I know it will all work out and will be lots of fun.

That's all for now, have a great week.

"The World's Hardest Game"

It's an intimidating name I know. But this game is a LOT of fun if you like puzzle games. I got to level 26, and decided I had spent enough time with this game and should instead spend my time on other things. However, since there is no time limit, you can just leave it open in a tab and come back to it later. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

from: http://www.addictinggames.com/theworldshardestgame.html





If you are reading this through a rss reader, you can load the actual blog or goto the following link:

The World's Hardest Game

Three weeks of blah

So, I just realized that it has been a very long time since I've posted. It feels like the last three weeks have been days and days of the same stuff. At least in the school department. My wife's been wearing a foot brace for a week now, and so that involved setting up a doctors appointment and some other out of the ordinary events.

But, school has been time consuming and not very exciting. I have a final demo day for a group project in my graphics class. It's been very time consuming and pretty frustrating, but it is looking kind of cool. It's a program that loads 3D models and renders them like they were drawn with different styles of artistic strokes. I'll try to post the program itself or at least some screen shots at some point... maybe I'll do that now. Ok, I just made a couple screen shots. These just demonstrate a couple of the possibilities with our program. I moved the camera to show that these are real 3D models. The other cool thing is it does this all in real time, so you can move around the 3D world and have everything rendered like pencil art, or whatever. Once we have this presentation on Thursday, all I have left is to finish my other final project which is way too complicated to try and describe here. Have a great week.

Publish via e-mail, Pixar, Links

This is the first time I've tried publishing a blog post via e-mail. Hopefully it will work just fine.

A few things today. First, my wonderful wife has finally started a blog. It is located here if you are interested. Also, to go along with that, I've added a post to it in the sidebar section entitled "Friends". Which brings me to my next point which is to let you know that I also added a feed reader that is being populated by my shared items in Google Reader. So, this will contain the last 5 things I've shared. Which will hopefully remain a selective list and won't change too often. But, today I wanted to point out the link to the story about Pixar. My dad e-mailed me the story this morning and I was very pleased at the detail CNN gave about the future releases of Disney and Pixar. Here is a full list of the upcoming Pixar releases and there respective release dates:

Wall-E
(the following are being released in 3D)
Up
Toy Story 1
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 3
Newt
The Bear and the Bow
Cars 2May 2008

May 2009
October 2009
February 2010
June 2010
Summer 2011
Christmas 2011
Summer 2012

So, this summer I will be working on one of these movies (or possibly one of the shorts that will go with one of these movies). Which still makes me VERY excited.

Also, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I have a list of interesting/fun links on the side bar as well in the section titled "Cool Sites" Feel free to check them out.

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.