The Twilight Report

maine

2008-04-26T14:38:00

2005

2005-12-31T20:23:00

2005 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. (many more words and things...)

I Cannot Be Hurt by Anything this Wicked World Has Done

2004-12-31T13:13:00

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

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In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.

Maine

2004-08-30T01:24:00

I arrived in Concord at about 8:30pm. Only half an hour late, and had I not been delayed at departure, I would have probably been on time. I circled around a couple of times while Sherry tried to describe where her apartment was over my cell phone, but eventually I found the place and parked in a slot marked "Visitor." I was on my way up to Maine and had asked Sherry if I could crash at her place on the way up so as to break up the long drive. That was what I had said anyway; my main reason was to see Sherry a friend of mine who had recently quit The Company to go to back to school to study patent law.

She showed me around her new apartment, which is entirely too cute, if a little noisy from the nearby street. She showed me her schedule for each week which was blocked out every weekday from 8:00am to 10:00pm, and then told me, without a hint of irony that she hadn't really gotten serious about school yet. I showed her my portfolio from my Color1 class, and we talked about numerous things, including what would happen to "The Group" now that Joanna had left the Hudson Valley for Berkeley. She told me how much her apartment was costing me, which was low compared with the Hudson Valley, but high for a student, which is pertinent, since she is a student now. I told her how excited I was for her in her new endeavor. I would have liked to have told her how proud all of us were of her, but the thought didn't come into my head until later. I slept on the floor that night and the traffic outside didn't bother me too much.

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Nothing of Interest Here

2004-08-23T01:04:00

On Friday, I was doing the laundry and they were playing the Beetles song "Hello, Goodbye." This made me laugh after the previous entry because this song reminds me of another old friend from my past. I won't go into the details, but in elementary school my best friend (at the time) "gUe" and I performed a skit to this song for the Aspen School talent show. It was by far the most creative performance that day, although I can't really take credit for that... the idea had been gUe's mom, who seemed to like the idea of putting us in the talent show.

I thought this was funny, because earlier in the day the song Ruiner had reminded me of another old friend (see previous entry), and I have been thinking about old friends a lot lately. Old friends in this context meaning anyone I was friends with before I moved to New York. I had been thinking also about how I don't keep in touch with anyone from the Los Alamos period in my life to talk to them about these thoughts, but then I remembered that I was going to Philly to see my friend Mike, who goes all the way back to my junior year at high school.

Just last year, he married a nice girl named Sarah who is also from Los Alamos; although I'd never met her until I went down to see Mike this weekend. So I had a bit of Home Town Overload, although it was surprisingly nice. I was pleased with myself because I recognized their wedding photographs as being taken at the White Rock Overlook, which incidentally was also featured in the film Silverado.

Mike was having a summer BBQ/party and I got to meet many of his friends and coworkers. A few of whom I had met the couple of times I have seen Mike since I moved here. He has very nice friends. They are all of the married/have young children age group... which I don't quite relate to yet. I only know one married couple who plan to have children, and that is still some time away. Anyway I was glad to go down there.

Next weekend I go to Maine!