Mr Man Gets Away

This was an assignment from my storyboard class this semester: Mr Man (whose character design was predetermined) has to wake up, go to one other room in the house, then leave the house - make up the story.

PSI

I'm not a car person. I still drive the first car I've ever bought and owned, a 1997 Honda Civic EX. Yes, it's black. Yes, I'm asian.

But I do get a little obsessive when it comes to car maintenance and the latest zit on my mind was tire pressure.

My wife's Subaru Outback LL Bean edition has a leaky tire that I refill with air every once in a while but never checked the psi before. When I brought it in for a checkup at the dealer I asked them to be sure to check the pressure in the tires. They assured that they had when all was said and done. Shortly after I noticed that the leaky tire was low again, so I read up on the manual on what the correct psi is for front and back tires (30 psi front, 29 psi back) and got out my trusty tire pressure gauge (pictured above) and checked the pressure on ALL the tires.
Front driver side: 20 psi
Front passenger side (leaky): 10 psi
back driver side: 35 psi
back passenger side: 37 psi

Needless to say I corrected the tire pressure for all four wheels and keep an eye on the leaky one. My wife said she immediately noticed a difference in the way the car handled.

Then I checked MY car's tire pressure...
Front driver side: 20 psi
Front passenger side (leaky): 10 psi
back driver side: 20 psi
back passenger side: 15 psi

I corrected these as well and I did notice a difference in handling although it could be my imagination.

Moral of the story. Go get yourself a tire gauge. Check your tires when they're cold - as in not driven for at least 2 hrs. Add or release air as necessary.

From your friendly car maintenance man,
Fred.

in studio work...

More Sketches

Sketchbook

I have been drawing quite a bit lately but just haven't been posting the work. Here are some sketches from my sketchbook. You're going to see a lot of people's backs because people get a little antsy when they think they're being watched. Which they are.

This American Life

"This American Life" is a radio show that I've rediscovered in podcast format. It's a 50 minute broadcast of a particular theme delivered through three 'chapters' or individual stories. Once you subscribe to the podcast you get the currently released podcast for free but the archived episodes are sold separately via Audible.com.

It is an outstanding piece of storytelling week after week. At worst it's reliably entertaining, at its best it is moving, heart-wrenching, marvelous and hilarious. And now they're producing a brand new television show debuting on Showtime on March 22nd. Should be interesting, will DVR that baby.

One of my favorite pieces is the one titled/themed "Babysitting". Does anybody have an episode they would like to recommend? I wouldn't mind buying them off of Audible but would rather not pick blindly.

Impro

Last semester I took my very first acting class, "Acting for Animators". Why is an acting class in the curriculum of an animation program? In an animated feature film, there are voice actors such as Mike Myers providing the voice for Shrek or Tom Hanks providing the voice for Woody. But they only provide half the performance. The physical performance, what you actually see on the screen, is not the work of the Hanks or Myers but of the animator. Therefore in production, the animator is considered the actor and often times will study acting to reference physicalities they can incorporate into the animation.

I really enjoyed the class. It really pushed us to act physically: touch, push, pull, punch, shove, grab. Reactions then come more naturally and spontaneously. One handout reading assignment was a chapter from a book called "Impro - Improvisation and the Theatre" by Keith Johnstone. The book was mainly about improvisation acting but had a lot to say about storytelling and learning. The handout was the chapter on Status and it was fascinating. Many comedy routines that improv actors can utilitize are about shifts in high and low status between the characters. I liked reading this chapter so much I checked the book out of the school library. It's an excellent read. If you're an actor, it's a must read, but it's also essential for storytellers.

duke

I forkin hate Duke. And I really hate Duke basketball. Why? Maybe it was the Kentucky/Duke championship game where Christian Laettner (grade A asshole) stepped on the Kentucky player and went on the hit the game winning shot. I hate Christian Laettner. Maybe it's that Duke's rep is that of a homogeneous, white, privileged, stuck-up, entitled, white, cocky school (reminiscent of my high school. I hated high school.) Maybe it's the Duke fans. Yeah, it's the fans.

I actually like the coach, Mike Krzyzewski. I respect what he does and how he does it. But I find the Duke fan just completely obnoxious and undeserving. Feel the hate. Feel it.

Why mention it? Well, you see, my wife went to Duke. And she has a lot of friends here in the Bay Area who were her classmates. And now they're my friends. And get this, they're all really great people. Well, most of them anyway. But they do shatter my image of Duke. But does it quell my hatred of their basketball team?

No.

So when people find out how much I hate Duke and that my wife went to Duke they ask is that a problem in our relationship. I reply, "Only in March."

It's March.

Home Alone

The wife took a business trip to Baltimore from Saturday to Tuesday and I was home alone with the two boys. While I have been a pretty involved dad and being the primary parent on duty (PPOD) was nothing new, this was a fairly long stretch for me. The big difference boiled down to one thing: there is no backup.

When there is a diaper changing emergency you can't call on your significant other for a little help. When one both boys are having mini-emergencies you have to choose to deal with one at a time. In the middle of the night wake-ups, there's no taking turns to deal, it's just you.

Milo, the older one, really missed his mommy but overall he did ok. Ben, the younger, didn't seem to mind at all, out of sight out of mind. I did well and am pretty proud of maintaining some sense of normalcy in the household. Nobody got hurt and everybody was fed. But, I am really frickin tired.

Y! Sports Redesign - It's the Internet, Stupid

I wanted to sit on my review of the new Yahoo! Sports redesign for a week or two so I could digest what I liked and didn't like and not just react to the change.

In brief, I like the new visual design, but I don't think there's huge improvement in the utility of the site and my big rant is that big images are overrated (read below).

Small tidbit to begin, I miss the nav bar that disappears when you dig down to a main sports level - I always browsed "across" all the major sports pages to get an overview of everything. But I'm probably in the minority and it's not that big of a deal.

Here's where I get pissy: images are overrated, information and functionality is King. The new design seems to be driven by the massive image size of the photo. In magazines and brochures images matter a great deal. But the internet is about performance, efficiency and practicality over glamour and gloss in every instance except for brochure sites where how you appear affects your brand. But on the internet it's how it well does it function - do you get what you want quickly, consistently... and then, easily.

One could argue that a sports media site is like a magazine and therefore the gloss and glamour of a big photo applies. They're wrong. One might say that the users wanted the big photos - well, the useres are wrong too. This is a case of not giving the users what they think they want. The reason they like the internet is not because it's just like a big magazine. It's because the internet is basically a gigantic database laid out before them. It's a database. Information. Very dry, very boring, all statistics and feeds. And that is the beauty of it. Images only tell so much. What's more informative to the sports fan: the scores of all the NCAA basketball games or the acne on Mark MacGuire's face?

The most obvious evidence of this truth is the history Yahoo! Sports itself. Before its first redesign it was a very successful site. After it's first redesign (1998) it was still a very successful site - all the while ESPN and Sports Illustrated had big honkin images on their frontpages, and Yahoo! did not. But the scoreboard was in plain site. The information displayed quickly and reliably. If splashy, glamourous and glossy equals success, then why was Y! Sports (all business, dry as a bone) among the top 3 of its category year after year? I'm not saying good looks don't matter but just that huge images are vastly overrated for an INTERNET product.

I'm glad the scoreboard is still on the frontpage(s). But it's a pity it got pushed down.

At worst, Y! Sporst looks like an ESPN wannabe by copying the high contrast black background theme. That's probably unwarranted, but I'll stick it in there anyway.

Kudos to the Sports team, I know that a redesign is an odyssey of pain and pain and more pain. And I know that the design process is full of compromises, where the designer is hearing it from all sides. I still think Yahoo! Sports is the best sports site on the web hands down.

Silhouette

In Storyboarding and Animation, they talk about silhouette value. If you block your character completely in black, how does it read? Can you tell who it is and what they are doing... feeling? It requires the artist to think about positive and negative space wrapping around their character. Characters that have good silhouette read better on the screen. Ten times better. See my revision of Raul above.

Sick

I have had a low-level cold for several weeks, which then mushroomed into a bad cold with flu-like symptoms, which now has finally subsided but not completely gone away. Breathing through your nose is a privilege. Hacking up green goo was getting tiresome. Children are a germ farm especially when they start school.

Harry the Hairdresser

nuff said

Raul the Butcher

Betty

In my Storyboard class this semester, one assignment was to do a single drawing of one of these characters:

Betty the Beauty Queen
Raul the Butcher
Harry the Hairdresser

Above is Betty.

Pics from my backyard

Dusk a few days ago.

SteamBot

My oldest son, Milo, LOVES trains every since he was a year and a half. I got into trains because he was into trains. The above is a sketch of SteamBot, a robot that 's modelled after a steam train.

My New Obsession...

When I discover something I like, I really dive into it completely. I immediately rented all of "Deadwood" Season 1. I binged on "Battlestar Galactica" Miniseries, Season 1 and half of Season 2 from iTunes. Well, move over Battlestar, you've jumped the shark - and hello to my new obsession...

"Avatar: the Last Airbender"

Yes the title is pretty forking lame. And the characters at first glance make it look like it's "just for kids". But this show is seriously good.

First, the animation is GOOD. Usually you don't find good animation in television cartoons because there isn't enough of a budget and time to make it good. That started to change when Bruce Timm developed Batman the Animated Series in the late 90's - he gave a sense of style and grace to the movement and character design as well as great storylines, in a medium that was still cheap. A lot of Japanese anime shows are more like animatics, where it's just a still frame with camera pans - very cheap and uninspiring. But the animation in Avatar is smooth, graceful, intricate even.

Second, the story is GREAT. It is character driven. It is well researched. It is well designed. Again, I'm talking about Story. Plot points come full circle. Episodes link with one another in an epic sweep. It is well executed.

Third, it is pumping on all cylinders. The voice actors are good to great. The character designs are brilliant, the layouts are gorgeous and they didn't skimp on any production detail. Wiki this thing and watch it!

Blink - written by Sideshow Bob

I just finished reading "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell. He also wrote "The Tipping Point" which was, like, a must-read for any silicon valley resident/employee (like, oh-my-gawd, like).

Anyhoo, Blink is also a very interesting, compelling read. I drew many parallels to my experience as a UI Designer at high tech companies in the valley. But that's not very interesting. What is interesting is that the author, Malcolm Gladwell, looks exactly like Sideshow Bob (see pic above.)

I didn't doctor the pic in photoshop. He intentionally grew his hair out as a sort of social experiment (as explained in the Afterword of Blink) with interesting results. He did not mention however, that he now looks like the Kelsey Grammar-voiced Simpsons character. ("The Bart The") You have to believe somebody told him thought. Hafta.

Iron Man

Going back to my roots here. Iron Man is going to be a movie, directed by the same guy that did Elf and wrote Swingers.... hmmmm.

Myth Restaurant (SF)

After reading this blog review of Michael Mina, complete with very nice photos, I commented on a recent trip to Myth Restaurant which I'm reposting here...

Recently went to Myth Restaurant. The chef was an alum of Gary Danko I think. It's more casual than GD - a hip restaurant but full of older people...? Food was quite good but not outstanding. (Absolutely loved GD btw.)

Interior design is very open so you can see across the whole room. We were seated next to a pair of women. I ended up staring at one of them who I thought was strikingly unattractive. Then I realized she was a man. Yep, a man, baby! (Austin p) She was decked out - very convincing wig, full-on makup, nice dress. His date was a (biological) woman who looked just like him. He/she must have been a regular b/c many of the staff, including the chef i think, kept visiting their table to make conversation.

Made me think of that movie with Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange...what was it...googlesearchnetflixsearch... found it!

(i use y! movies for cast & crew profiles, better than imdb.)

Narbonic

The above are the main characters from an online comic called Narbonic. This was a daily online strip that ran for about 5 years and never missed a day until it recently concluded its run on December 31, 2006. I've met and hung out with Shaenon Garrity, the creator, several times and she's supercool. I got into the strip in the middle of its run but now that it's over they're re-running the strip from the beginning with "director commentary" written at the bottom.

Quickie

A drawing of Merritt at the computer desk in the basement room.

Monterey was fun and relaxing. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium every day, getting the full value, and then some, of our membership. The food at their cafe/cafeteria is quite good and impressed us every time we ate there. Their coffee it oustanding. Oh, and the aquarium is great too.

Monterey

Every Christmas/New Year we've made a pilgrimage to Monterey. We stay at the Carmel Valley Ranch where you can find a decent deal in the offseason. We go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is wicked cool. Monterey is a nice town and Carmel, though pricey, is also nice. Since my mom-in-law was in town this past xmas we postponed our trip till this weekend. This ain't much of a post but I've been on a roll so I want to keep it going.

GNO - Bowling

Every month I try to organize a "Guy's Nite Out" (GNO) for me and my male buds. The first successful congregation was a Thai restaurant in Portrero Hill. The second was the movie "Babel". A few nights ago we went bowling. The above sketch includes the guys who showed up: Ethan, Geoffrey, Mitchell and myself. It's fairly random as to who shows up. But it's good to bond, hang and have a few beers.

I suck at bowling.

First we went to Serra Bowl in Serramonte, but they are closed to the public from 6pm to 9pm Mon thru Fri for League play. The entryway reeked of pot smoke. My friend, Mitchell, ran into a highschool classmate from Little Rock, Arkansas. She introduced Mitchell to her fiance and he, too, reeked of pot smoke. We were on our way to Yerba Buena Bowl instead. The fiance said he used to manage a league there. We asked if they had league night that night, he said no, they're more into the "corporate" thing now. I have no idea what that means.

We liked Yerba Buena Bowl. Small but fairly empty. And they had beer. But instead of pot smoke in the doorway they had cops.

Tracing the Progressive Raunchiness in Modern American Television

I start with The Simpsons in the 1980's. Matt Groening's depiction of the American family gripped the nation by the funnybone and never let go. It was accurate, blunt, unapologetic and hilarious. Only in animation could you get the spontaneous timing and outrageous visual gags. It stereotyped and made fun of stereotypes and became its own stereotype. There was subversive content in television before, but this was raunch on primetime television... for over two decades!

Married with Children took the Simpsons into live action but with two twists. First, there was no didactic punchline, nor redeeming quality, nor lesson learned. It was even more bold than its animated counterpart because it just gave a slice of ugly life, let us laugh at it, and left us with the conclusion that that's just the way it is, fugly. The second was sex - and lots of it. Married with Children flirted with cancellation almost ever season but continued to defy the networks it made money for.

And then came South Park. The Santa vs. Jesus tape of South Park made its way around thanks to the internet in 1997, heralding the current age of viral video youtube-ification. And people were just slack-jawed at the boundaries the cut-out kids were crossing, stomping, demolishing. Raunch reached all new levels thanks to Stone and Parker. But in their comedy there was often a point being made if not a moral, illustrating a "Hey look at how ridiculous this is."

Then Family Guy arrived and said, "You thought that was raunchy? I'll show you raunchy." It was cancelled amid controversy and then revived due to rabid DVD sales and audience uproar. There is no moral or point being made other than, "Let me show you how bad we can be on national tv." It's often just plain gross.

Robot Chicken on Comedy Central is nothing less than pure genius. And just plain wrong. It takes Saturday morning cartoons from our childhood, soap commercials, current celebrities and everything under the sun and puts them all together in a stop-motion extravaganza, juxtaposing elements in a way only animation can. It's rude, crude satire and you can't help but gawk at what new stratospheric levels of raunch American television has reached today.

Pyongyang

Irene got me this book for the holidays and here's my review.

"Pyongyang: Notes from North Korea" by Guy Delisle
A Canadian animator goes to North Korea to supervise the production of the television animation he's working on and he tells his tale in graphic novel format.

It was good. Pretty straightforward but dry and witty and honest. Nothing glamorous but the honest depiction illustrated the extreme situation in an extremist country.

My mother is originally from North Korea. Just as the Korean War was breaking out her family fled, as many did, to South Korea. She remembers them carrying lots of rice and riding the train with many other people. She still has relatives back in North Korea so whenver there are talks of reunification it's too difficult for her to contemplate. I think there are a lot of stories like hers.

So reading this story made me think a lot about her and the relatives I'll probably never meet.

The mexicans are coming...

Last night I saw "Children of Men" directed by Alfonso Cuaron who also directed "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". It was very good.

Last week I blogged a review of "Babel" directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu who also directed "Amores Perros" and "Life's a Bitch".

Both of these directors hail from Mexico. Both films put the audience right in the action, the panic and the confusion. They are visceral. While Babel is set in modern times, Children of Men is set in the scifi but not-so-removed future. I can't say enough about the quality of both these films and the skill of their directors. But if I were an Oscar voter and had to choose one I'd probably choose Babel.

Brothers

The next pencil test animation I'm working on is called "Brothers" and the above is a concept sketch of the three characters. Although I was learning 3D animation with applications like Maya, I was also introduced to "Traditional" animation using the good ol' pencil, paper and a light table.

I've found the traditional pencil test animation to be a very quick and rewarding way of seeing your idea come to life. Animating in 3D can be quick once the models are created, getting to that stage takes a gargantuan amount of time. So I do pencil tests.

Movies I'm looking forward to:
Pan's Labyrinth
300
The Transformers

"Bare" Storyboard

The assignment was to tell a story in 24 frames. I used the '3 tries' method where the main character tries something 3 time and on the third time succeeds or fails, leading up to the punchline. I made an animatic out of the boards above but when I upload it, some frames are lost for some reason. Hopefully the image above is big enough (click for larger image) to read.

I realize that I'm just posting older material and have not been actually making a new drawing a day. But it's better than not posting at all...?

Dad

This is a drawing I did of my Dad several years ago. He had just taken a shower and was reading a book on the bed.

When my Dad stopped drinking for good I asked him if he noticed any difference in his life. He thought about it for a while and said that when he read a book before going to bed, he would wake up the next morning with no memory of what he had read and would end up re-reading the same pages night after night. After he stopped drinking he could remember what he had read and got through books much faster. That was the only difference he could think of.

My mother snorted.

Book Reviewk

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
I had heard of this author years ago but not read anything by her. I recently saw a trailer for a movie called "The Namesake" based on her novel of the same name. So I started reading this book of short stories before said novel. It's excellent, beautifully written. Why are most short stories so freakin sad and depressing?

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Again, beautifully written. I liked the story as well but thought it really glossed over certain obvious areas like sexual identity/insecurity in a predominantly white town. Or maybe that was just me.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Oof. Great book. A page-turner. Sad. Romantic. Satisfying. Didn't end poorly which lots of books with great premises often do. Highly recommend.

Model sheet

For my thesis, I'm developing 5 stories. All five will be storyboarded and one or more will be created into an animatic. I have 3 stories that are close to finished and 2 others yet to be conceived.

One of the stories is called "Heart" and it's about a robot that wants to be a part of something. The original version of this story can be found as an animatic at this link.

Some feedback I got from this version was that they didn't understand why the robot fell in love with the car and why he'd go through such drastic depths to 'save' it. So I went on a long twisting, winding, convoluted plot redesign that ended up with a practically brand new storyline. The above image is a model sheet for the characters in the new Heart story.

Movie Reviewee

I've seen 3 movies in the theatres that are probably going to be nominated for an Oscar or two if not Best Picture.

Little Miss Sunshine
Very funny, very good. I'm a big fan of the ensemble cast. I listened to the Creative Screenwriters Magazine podcast of Michael Arndt who wrote the film and currently works fulltime at Pixar. Excellent interview. My favorite bit, "And where is your grandad now?" "In the trunk of our van."

The Queen
Good film, well made but I wasn't completely blown away by it. Helen Mirren was, as usual, perfection. An interesting film but a little dry and not very dramatic. But I still give it the thumbs up.

Babel
Harrowing. A very very good film. I felt the panic of all the situations (and there were many) and I wasn't taken out of the story at any point. I highly recommend this flick but not if you don't like tense films that leave you feeling more than a little drained.

Farmer Jim

This is Farmer Jim. I drew the sketch of him above then modeled him in Maya then made his tractor and created the animation found at this link

The animation came out slow for some reason but you get the general idea.

A post a day makes the guilt go away

My main New Year's Resolution is to post a drawing each day. What I really want to do is draw every day, practice drawing everything so I have more vocabulary of physical objects in my fingertips to use in my stories. The above is from my sketchbook, made up monster type.

Thanksgiving in Seattle

My oldest brother has been living in Nairobi, Kenya with his wife and son. He is an epidemiologist doing AIDS research, she works for PEPFAR. He is associated with the University of Washington in Seattle and comes back to the States to write a paper and teach for a few months out of the year. So this Thanksgiving my family had a Chung Reunion in Seattle. It was the first time all the Chung cousins would be together, my middle brother lives in Las Vegas and they're expecting their second in April.

I like Seattle a lot. Even though it rains a ton. Apparently it's been a record-shattering November in terms of rainfall, but we actually had a few days where the sun came out. It was a very nice Thanksgiving. My parents really lucked out with 3 great daughters-in-law who all get along really well with each other. Everybody helped out with everything and I think everyone had a relaxing time. It was special to see my sons interacting with my brothers' sons.

Next week, my brother returns to Kenya and we will not see him for at least another year.

Listing

There are animation/storyboard artist blogs that I read out there that are very good. Right now there's a trend going on amongst them where they're listing their favorite 20 movies of the PAST 20 YEARS. So from 1986 to 2006 here's my short list that I can come up with
Adaptation
Big Night
The Iron Giant
Traffic
LOTR
Sexy Beast
6th Sense
Finding Nemo
Memento
Kill Bill

But if I were to get rid of the time limit and say all-time favorite films, here's a quick list (note some movies above may have not made it to this list):
Amadeus
Star Wars (1977)
Jaws
Breaking Away
Tron
The Iron Giant
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Three and Four Musketeers (1973, 1974)
Glengarry Glenross
The Hunt for Red October
Resevoir Dogs
You Can Count on Me
Big Night
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Heat

web app reviews + book review

If there is one book every person must read this summer - or, er, fall - it's Freakonomics. If you've already read it, read it again. I'll be quoting from this book in future blogs, there are some really fascinating excerpts to digest. The premise is basically that conventional wisdom doesn't explain reality - human self-interest does, and the numbers prove it. Go. Read. This. Book. Now.

WEB APP REVIEWS:
GMail
I like Gmail but have not migrated to it as my primary mail client, mainly because Y! Mail is just good enough and I'm too lazy to make the transition. However, some migrations are worthwhile, more on that below.

New Y! Mail Beta
I've tried the new Y! Mail Beta and while I think it's nice that it's following the "Outlook UI" (clean and powerful)... it's just too damn slow. Within a few days I had switched back to the old Y! Mail. Why? Because of performance. The new UI isn't worth the slow performance hit.

Google Calendar
The most impressive user interface I've used in a long, long time. I'm not the most savvy web calendar user, so maybe there are some great internet calendar apps out there that are better or that Google is copping from, but this thing blew me away. Love the color labelling mutliple calendar feature and it's a very straightforward UI. Can't say enough good things. One drawback is my general complaint on Ajax - yes, it's fast but it can be buggy and sometimes I'm not sure if something has been stored or not. Makes for some annoying run arounds. But I was so impressed with this product that I manually transferred all my datebook data from my Palm Desktop app to Google Calendar. And it's already worth it.

Firefox 2.0b2
Two steps foward, no steps back. The new icons are nice, but so were the old ones. At least it wasn't a step down, but not a huge improvement either. (When it comes to icon design my motto is "as long as it doesn't suck." Harder said than done.) Fading out the tabs is brilliant - it differentiates them from the browser chrome. Giving each individual tab a delete "x" button is a no-brainer, allowing for users to delete a tab they're not presently viewing. Also nice is if you click on a link that opens a new tab, then deleting that tab pops you back to the original tab. If you don't know what I mean, too bad, I don't want to try to explain it any better.

Digg.com
I'm a recent convert to Digg. Apparently it's a brand new web design which is also quite nice.

Flying with Four

We have just returned from an 11 day trip across the country.

First we flew to Bald Head Island, North Carolina. Milo was reunited with his Richmond cousins again. We had a bed and breakfast all to ourselves and a couple of babysitters to help out. We got around the island by golf cart. The weather was nice and warm, not too hot.

Milo made more big strides in swimming at the pool and overall he did really well, playing with his cousins and acclimating to the new environment. Ben had trouble getting used to the new location. We had to sleep train him and let him cry it out all over again. Fortunately our room was at the far end of the hall. It was a very nice retreat and turned out to be quite relaxing.

Next we flew to Chicago and spent the night at a hotel. The following day we drove to Michigan City, Indiana where we rented a big house on Lake Michigan with four other families. The occasion was a reunion for Merritt and her Duke friends and their families. Ten adults and 11 children ranging in age from 3 months to 6 years old all under the same roof. The house was nice but it was still quite crowded.

Again, Milo did exceptionally well, playing with new friends, enjoying the pool and the beach and sleeping well in a new bed. Ben continued to struggle with his sleep and both he and Milo had a cold. Milo complained about his ear hurting and we took him to the urgent care clinic where they said he had an ear infection.

Although at times chaotic, we all had a great time at Lake Michigan too and we were grateful to be able to see old friends again. The last night of our stay, there was a major hail/thunderstorm, complete with a tornado siren going off and loss of electricity for twelve hours. When we drove out the next morning we saw many full-size trees that had blown down, trunks cracked like matchsticks.

The trip home from Chicago O'Hare airport was miserable. First we drove at 7:15am through heavy highway traffic to get to O'Hare for our 12pm flight. This flight was delayed until 2pm, so we hung around the airport for several hours. The previously mentioned storm had delayed many flights in and out of Chicago. Finally we got on our plane and waited to take off. And waited. And waited. Eventually they announced that the flight was cancelled. The flight crew were on the ground for too long and legally they couldn't fly the plane. So we all had to get off the plane and scramble to get on another flight to San Francisco.

Milo was unhappy but soldiered on. Ben was a mess. Merritt was quite upset. I did my best to keep it cool.

I managed to get us on a 8:30pm flight to Oakland airport in First Class. The bad news was we had 4 hours to kill. So we went to the adjacent Hilton Hotel and splurged on a day-rate hotel room where we ordered room service, watched TV and calmed our nerves until 7pm. When we got to the airport we saw that our flight was delayed until 9:30pm. Then it was delayed until 10:30pm. It was well past Milo's bed time and he was barely holding it together (thank god for the dvd player.) Ben was trying to sleep in the baby bjorn on Merritt and Merritt was on the verge of packing it all in and heading back to the hotel. But they did finally board us on the plane and the plane did take off at 11:30pm.

We arrived in Oakland at 1:30am Pacific Time which was 3:30am for us on Chicago time. We arrived at our house at 2:00am and promptly fell into bed.

Needless to say, the entire family is glad to be back home again. Ben is back to sleeping almost normally now. Milo is doing great. Merritt and I are breathing a sigh of relief that the return flight is finally over.

TV is good for the gums

As I've blogged before, I'm a big geeky fan of Battlestar Galactica. I bought my brother in Vegas the first season dvd set. Then I sent my brother in Nairobi, Kenya my dvd set so he could get hooked on the show too. It worked.

As adults, my brothers and I rarely communicate with each other because we don't have as much in common. Having our own families changed that some but now that we're all hooked on Battlestar we email each other more often about the show. I even bought us all BSG logo t-shirts. Yes, I did.

I'm pretty amazed at the quality of writing these days on television. In the 70's there was some pretty groundbreaking stuff which are re-imagined into films because Hollywood can't find any original ideas elsewhere. In the 80's it was pretty darn shite. The 90's was mediocre at best. But at the turn of the century all of a sudden we have serious shit on TV. Writers have the freedom to take chances with their characters and stories. Maybe it's because of cable and HBO, maybe it's because studios are more willing to loosen up because they're losing eyeballs to the internet. Whatever.

I don't have time to watch all of the acclaimed dramas on TV. I catch the syndicated "Law and Order" and it's "SVU" counterpart every now and then because it's essentially on 24/7. "House" is on reruns until the fall. One new show called "Rescue Me" is pretty darn funny. My wife likes to watch "The Closer."

The point is, I like TV.

The Comfortable Gig Question

Since I left Yahoo! in 2001 there have been waves of people who have left and then there were single exits. I loved it while I was at Yahoo! It was an exciting time, like the wild west, where we were launching stuff out the door left and right. Much of it was crap (designed by yours truly). Some of it was ok, a few were gold. But I learned a ton and worked with lots of completely different product groups. As Yahoo! grew and grew I felt like it was becoming more of a traditional media company in one respect - it's become a comfortable gig.

There's nothing wrong with being comfortable. If a company is paying you well and you got lots of options and you're vesting, and/or you can work from home once or twice a week, still have the great bennies, vest, etc etc. - it pays to stay (golden handcuffs and all.) Again, nothing wrong with that. It's a good gig, a comfortable one.

Everybody has a risk vs. reward meter especially when it comes to making professional career choices. How highly does an employee value the comfort of consistency?

How does that affect the culture of a company?

the Switch

I am changing my focus in school from Animator to Storyboard Artist/ PreVis. The process of making a film in a very rough nutshell:

1. First there is a Writer who writes a Script.
2. Then there is a Storyboard Artist (or Story Artist) who takes the script and stages it into visual sequences.
3. Then it gets passed on to the Actors or Animators who put the performance into the scene

In between 2 and 3 is a rising discipline called PreVis which is someone who creates 3D animatics. Animatics are animated storyboards. It provides not only camera angle and staging but also timing as well.

Also in animation, the Story Artists work in the Story Dept and are essentially the Writers. Storyboard Artists can go on to direct their own feature or short feature.

I felt pretty torn about this decision since I really enjoy animation. But I think Story is where I really want to be.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" Review:

I loved it.

While Superman was an fairly good movie that was too long, POTC:DMC was a great movie that was also too long. Yes, it was too long at 2 and half hours. But, boy was it fun! Some of the great action special FX sequences were actually too much, too draining. And yes, the plot was convoluted, twisting and turning as much as the stuntmen did. But boy, was it entertaining.

The next movie I'm looking forward to seeing that has been getting a lot of very good buzz is Monster House. This summer may turn out to be a great movie season after all.

"Superman Returns"
I was very excited to see this movie. It was the one of two big movies of the summer I was psyched about. Initially the buzz was excellent. But after last Wednesday I was reading a few bad reviews. Then I started talking to people who'd seen it and they were underwhelmed. Both mentioned the length of the movie at 2 hrs 34 minutes. That's long.

Superman was a very long pretty good movie. not a long bad movie and not a long great movie. Shave off 20 minutes and it would've been a really good movie. The major action scenes were AMAZING. Brandon Routh did a fine job, Kate Bosworth was so-so, Spacey was good, Parker Posey was surprisingly excellent. Some people I know had issues with a big surprise in the middle, but not only was I not surprised by it (kind of expected it actually) it didn't bother me that they didn't resolve it completely.

"Cars"
This was the other big summer movie I was excited about. And it was good. Not great, but good. The second act had too many equally weighted subplots and it was hard to believe the change in character of the protagonist, Lightning McQueen.

But the racing scenes were great and the ending still pulled at my heartstrings. The look of the film was absolutely incredible.

Tonight we've rented "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" since my wife hasn't seen it and we're planning on seeing "Dead Man's Chest" this Thursday.

TABBED BROWSING IS THE ONLY WAY
I want to be able to log into anyone's Firefox browser and bring up my own bookmark buttons for tabbed browsing.

GOOGLE HOMEPAGE THOUGHTS
The Google homepage ONLY has the searchbox on it. Simple. They're notorious for not putting anything else on that page, neither advertisement nor other Google product. Smart.

If they were to link to Google Maps, for example, from their homepage, then they'd immediately invite all of the problems Yahoo! has right now - "We want to be everything to everybody, so let's flood the page with links to everywhere."

Right now, they're about one thing - search. Search leads to all things anyways. They are so right to bury all their products on the Labs page. Let's see how long they maintain that wisdom.

THEMERY
What is annoying to me is all these themes. I know users LOVE it and it's essential to provide it, but I find it, well, annoying.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING
What I've read this summer so far is Bel Canto and Everything Is Illuminated. Both good, recommended. By far the best book I've read in the past year is Kite Runner. About to read Interpreter of Maladies.

I'm back from a week in southern california. It was a good trip in that we had a great time but the boys didn't sleep very well and Milo was particularly testy. We went to 3 theme parks which I'll rate below...

1. Legoland - the best of them all, the best ease of use experience, very much designed with families in mind. I'd go here again and again.

2. San Diego Zoo - also very good, more low key, recommend going on the bus tour first.

3. Sea World - it was ok but also frustrating in that there was very little shade in the entire park. The shows were nice but not sure I'd come back here until Milo's a little older.

I recommend getting your tickets online so you can skip the ticket lines and getting there earlier the better. Again, Legoland was the bomb.

Every morning, my son Milo likes to watch the Sprout channel on TV with a sippy cup of apple juice and a bowl of Puffins. He will wake up anywhere between 5:50am and 7:00am. My wife just got a clock from the Discovery Channel (pic above) that is also a nightlight that glows a different color for every hour. Milo can't tell time yet, but we'll tell him that he can't get up out of his bed until the clock turns (whatever the color for 7am is). Very cool item. We just got it tonight, can't wait to see if it works.

Meanwhile we're off to southern California for a while. Four days in Irvine with my folks, then a week in San Diego for a little family vacation. Going to hit the San Diego Zoo, Legoland and Sea World. We're renting a little house in La Jolla which is a block from the beach as well as close to stuff we can walk to. Looking forward to it.

The day after we get back to SF I start my summer semester which I'm also looking forward to actually.

I love our cleaning lady. Her name is Shirley and her husband's name is Gilmar and they rock. They are from Brazil. A few years ago they went back to Brazil saying they would return in a month. In the interim they had a replacement cleaner sub for them. They were not very good. Nothing could compare to Shirley and Gilmar. Then we received a note saying that Shirley and Gilmar were staying in Brazil indefinitely due to unforseen circumstances. We let the replacement cleaners go and hired a new woman named Maria. Maria was better but still she was no Shirley and Gilmar. Then about 6 months ago we heard that Shirley and Gilmar were back in the States. We fired Maria and immediately re-hired Shirley. That made me happy. If you or anyone you know needs a great cleaning person in SF let me know and I'll ping you their contact information

I'm falling in love... with Yelp.com! Every Thursday, my wife and I go out on a date. It's hard to come up with new and interesting places to eat or see that we've never been to before. I used to use Citysearch.com which was okay but I recently started to use Yelp and I've been hooked ever since. Excellent UI. Looks like Yahoo! Local (also great ui redesign job btw) but it's better cause it's completely user-driven. And users are more motivated to review since Yelp has a clever reward system in place. So it's more reliable reviews and not just spam. I've made some nice discoveries and love to browse not just for restaurants but other services too. Go Yelp!