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ljplicease2005 was supposed to be the year that Decepticon's attack Autobot City on earth (as chronicled in The Movie. I took this as a sign that it was time to quit my job at The Company and go back to school and study computer graphics and distributed computing and maybe one day get a job at Pixar. I still think even being a "lowly" system administrator at Pixar would be a fun job. Being a software developer for the rendering farm would be awesome.
Appropriately enough, last Thursday, the last Thursday of the year, I went to the MoMA with e and they had a special exhibit on the art of Pixar. Most of what they showed was models and sketches that were made before anything gets done on the computer. Seeing the artists' names and countries of origin clearly labeled by each piece, one is reminded that computer animation is not just a form of entertainment, but also an art form. It's fascinating to me, because I have always been passionately interested in the interaction of expression and technology.
Highlight had to be seeing the early sketches of the Edna "E" Mode character from The Incredibles, who has been my favorite Pixar character since I saw the movie because of her energy and humor. I had one of her quotations engraved on the back of my iPod to remind me that "I never look back; it distracts from the now." In the gallery e told me she was her favorite character, to which I responded, "really? Me too."
Anyway, 2005 is coming to and end, and Unicron never attacked Cybertron and as a result, the Decepticons were not driven off as was for told in The Movie, and I'm not going back to school, just yet, but I am on my way back to Australia.
I spent most of February in Australia. I spent some time with my father who seems happy, if constantly worried about things which are beyond his control anyway. I visited my godmother, who likes to drink wine.
The highlight had to be a few days that I spent in Collaroy with my great aunt and gradma. This is how I spent my days: I would get up super early and watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean at the end of long reef point. After taking some pictures I would take the bus into Sydney itself and talk to a professor about possible graduate work in Australia (more on that in a bit), then I would play tourist for a few hours before taking the Ferry to Manley and then taking the bus back to Collaroy. After a hot and humid day running around the city I would relax at the beach, just a couple of blocks away from my great aunt's house. Then I would finish off the day by returning to the end long reef point and taking some pictures of the moonrise (on both nights I had a nearly full moon, and it was gorgeous).
As I mentioned, by business in the city was to visit with professors about graduate school in Australia. On the first day I went to see someone at the University of Sydney, but I could tell we were on totally different wavelengths. The second day I talked to someone at the University of Technology Sydney. He was working on the sort of user interface problems which fascinate me.
In April I went down to Philly to see my friend Mike. He was having an early summer picnic because he was moving to Colorado. It was sad to see him leave, in a way, but in another I realized we didn't have that much in common anymore.
In May I also "officially" decided that I was staying, "at least for now." I hadn't gotten into my first choice for schools, and the schools that I had gotten into didn't have the sort of offerings in computer graphics that I wanted. I was also very comfortable in Beacon and didn't want to leave... at least, not yet.
Guthrie got married, and he had invited me, but I was annoyed at him because I hadn't heard from him for years, so I didn't go to his wedding.
Appropriately enough, last Thursday, the last Thursday of the year, I went to the MoMA with e and they had a special exhibit on the art of Pixar. Most of what they showed was models and sketches that were made before anything gets done on the computer. Seeing the artists' names and countries of origin clearly labeled by each piece, one is reminded that computer animation is not just a form of entertainment, but also an art form. It's fascinating to me, because I have always been passionately interested in the interaction of expression and technology.
Highlight had to be seeing the early sketches of the Edna "E" Mode character from The Incredibles, who has been my favorite Pixar character since I saw the movie because of her energy and humor. I had one of her quotations engraved on the back of my iPod to remind me that "I never look back; it distracts from the now." In the gallery e told me she was her favorite character, to which I responded, "really? Me too."
Anyway, 2005 is coming to and end, and Unicron never attacked Cybertron and as a result, the Decepticons were not driven off as was for told in The Movie, and I'm not going back to school, just yet, but I am on my way back to Australia.
January
I spent most of January studying for the ungodly GRE and getting parallel abstraction working at work. I did actually get parallel abstraction to work with a large test case called ls_slbd_dtop_pmac. I had already started spending "Action Tuesdays" with Joe, Cicely and Brian in 2004. In January, the new season of 24 started and we had to adjust to Action Tuesday being held on Monday. I thought the show was disgraceful, but I discovered that The Shield was a guilty pleasure which made sitting through the disgrace worthwhile. Fun stuff included celebrating Australia Day for the second time with my friends in New York. I made meat pies and my mum baked ANZAC biscuits, but Don posted them parcel post, so they didn't arrive in New York in time. |
February
I spent most of February in Australia. I spent some time with my father who seems happy, if constantly worried about things which are beyond his control anyway. I visited my godmother, who likes to drink wine.
The highlight had to be a few days that I spent in Collaroy with my great aunt and gradma. This is how I spent my days: I would get up super early and watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean at the end of long reef point. After taking some pictures I would take the bus into Sydney itself and talk to a professor about possible graduate work in Australia (more on that in a bit), then I would play tourist for a few hours before taking the Ferry to Manley and then taking the bus back to Collaroy. After a hot and humid day running around the city I would relax at the beach, just a couple of blocks away from my great aunt's house. Then I would finish off the day by returning to the end long reef point and taking some pictures of the moonrise (on both nights I had a nearly full moon, and it was gorgeous).
As I mentioned, by business in the city was to visit with professors about graduate school in Australia. On the first day I went to see someone at the University of Sydney, but I could tell we were on totally different wavelengths. The second day I talked to someone at the University of Technology Sydney. He was working on the sort of user interface problems which fascinate me.
March
I got back in March, and Jeff, who had simply been a thorn in my side before I left, and became a huge problem for me by introducing changes in the abstractor which broke my parallel code. I spent most of March at work picking up the pieces. Outside of work, somebody yelled at me outside of Hanoford and I realized, Oh. Right. I'm in New York again. I was feeling queezy about leaving New York. Coming back to my apartment felt really good and I wasn't sure I wanted to leave just yet.April
In April I went down to Philly to see my friend Mike. He was having an early summer picnic because he was moving to Colorado. It was sad to see him leave, in a way, but in another I realized we didn't have that much in common anymore.
May
In May I got my new G5. It wasn't my first Mac, but it was the first Mac intended to be my primary workstation.In May I also "officially" decided that I was staying, "at least for now." I hadn't gotten into my first choice for schools, and the schools that I had gotten into didn't have the sort of offerings in computer graphics that I wanted. I was also very comfortable in Beacon and didn't want to leave... at least, not yet.
Guthrie got married, and he had invited me, but I was annoyed at him because I hadn't heard from him for years, so I didn't go to his wedding.
