Just What I Needed

Yesterday was quite productive.  It's amazing what I can get done when there is almost nobody around to bother me.  This morning I got here early and discovered a bunch of stuff that I had forgotten to do yesterday.  I got it all on the farm rendering by around 7:15.  Then I was off for a good run.  I have vowed to do a pull-up circuit routine every time I pass the bars at Santa Monica.  Today I ran to the pier so I did some pull ups.  It's a simple circuit of as many pull ups as I can do (not much) then 40 push ups, then 60 flutter kicks, rinse repeat 3 more times.  The real goal is to get my pull ups to a respectable number.  Right now my sets are 5, 2, and 2.  That is pretty sorry.  Pretty sure I could do that in junior high.  It did feel slightly easier than the last time I did it though, so I know I can get those numbers up.  I have to admit I was pretty down this weekend.  A good run is just what I needed.  I think I need running the same way smokers need to smoke.  Hopefully that's not a bad thing.  Below is the view from the pull up bars in Santa Monica.  Looks nice doesn't it?  Probably would be nicer if I wasn't sucking wind after doing a messily 9  pull ups.  Also a homeless guy came up and tried to talk to me about flowers.  Good times.

Strip At Night

Michelle will not be pleased that I've been looking at this site.

http://stripatnight.com/

Sunday?

What day is it?  Let me look.  Oh hey it's Sunday, guess I must be at work then.  I am losing my motivation pretty fast on this stupid project.  I just want to go home but there is always more to do.  Almost every night when I leave, my entire team is still here.  That is poor supervisor etiquette in my opinion.  On all other projects I've been on the supervisor is almost always the last person to leave.  I'm not sure if this is what I want to keep doing.  I've supervised two projects now and both of them have been epic disasters of overtime hell.  I'm pretty sure the company doesn't like that either.  It's times like this I start thinking about working somewhere else.  I think what I need is a really great run tomorrow.  This place is eating me alive.

Clouds Rolling In

I heard it was going to rain today so I made the prudent move to get up early and come to work ahead of the traffic.  The guy on my team working on the glass simulations got a good test out late last night so I was able to put that on the render farm this morning.  The render watcher people always freak out when I put those glass renders on because it's such a massive amount of frames.  It goes by really fast though.  This probably doesn't make sense to most of you.  If you want I can explain at a later time.  It is just something that I find amusing.  Around 7am I got out for a quick run to the pier.  It started to sprinkle a little on my way there.  I stopped by the pull up bars on my way back.  Did a whopping 7 pull ups (not all at once either).  Plus some push ups and flutter kicks.  I think the flutter kicks put a kink in my neck.  It's really stiff now.  Oh well, no pain no gain.  This director we have working on the project I'm on is a little weird/annoying.  He is new.  By new I mean this is his first commercial project ever.  This is surprising since it is a very large budget project for a major client.  I feel like he is losing confidence in his vision for the project.  I say that based on the comments I hear him give during our screening sessions.  He makes lots of ambiguous comments like "this is working yet".  I think it takes a little more to be a director than to just sit there and be unsatisfied with stuff.  Any idiot can do that.  I've always thought that a good director is good at well, "directing" people.  We are supposed to deliver this project in about a week with another week after that for the 3D delivery.  It is going to be an interesting week.

Santa Monica this morning just as it was starting to rain.

The Worst/Best Coffee in the World

The coffee we have here at work is both the worst and the best coffee in the world.  It is the worst because it tastes absolutely awful.  I mean like it will send your body into convulsions if you aren't properly prepared for it.  The only time it is somewhat tolerable is immediately after it has been brewed with a splash of half and half and some sugar.  Wait 5 minutes and you've got diesel fuel.  The flip side of this daily masochistic ritual is that our coffee makes all other coffee taste like heaven.  I don't think I've ever complained about coffee anywhere else because it just can't hold a candle to how bad this coffee is.  So in that regard, it's great!  How's that for thinking positive.

Good Morning Charlie

I had the pleasure of meeting my new niece Charlie Winsche yesterday.  She is beautiful.  Welcome to the world Charlie.

It is a great day to be alive.

Epic Traffic Map Fail

Last night I thought I was going to get home a relatively reasonable time.  It was about 7:40.  I checked the traffic maps.  There was just a little bit of yellow on the 10 but nothing too crazy.  It looked like my lucky night.  I had to take care of a few last minute things at the office so in 15 minutes or so I got in my car and headed out.  The second I got on the 10 at 4th street I was met with brake lights.  I pulled up my phone and checked the traffic again.  Now it said that there was nothing but read from here to almost downtown.  Apparently there had just been an accident.  I think there must be some kind of delay in the maps because there is no way traffic could back up that far (10 miles at least) in a matter of 15 minutes.  So I inched my way along the ten and got off on the next exit.  I think it was 20th street.  Looking at my phone again I saw a path that took me through deepest darkest Santa Monica and eventually to Venice Blvd were I could turn and soon meet the 405.  According to my map the 405 was totally clear.  Guess what happened.  About 20 minutes later I'm at the 405 and sitting in dead stop traffic.  At that point I was thinking maybe I should just go back to work.  Clearly there was some grand Trumanesque conspiracy to keep me from getting home.  I pressed on and once I got to the 105 I was clear all the way home.  I left the office just before 8 and made it home just after 9:30.



Sooooooo, this morning I decided to sleep in all the way to 6am.  I got in my car just after 8am.  Remembering what happened last night I checked the traffic maps when I was actually in my car with the engine running.  It showed the 60 being wide open.  My lucky day right:

wrong.  It took me about 50 minutes to get to Grand.  Motorcycle accident, fatality, 3 lanes blocked.  It was so bad the other side of the freeway was backed up for about a mile with people looking.  The body was still on the freeway when I passed.  I was so mad in my car leading up to the accident.  Once I drove by it was hard to be mad at somebody who was alive just 30 minutes ago.  At around 10:20 I pulled into the parking lot at Digital Domain.  By that time it felt like 1am to me.  I can't keep doing that.  I think I'm going to start coming in early more often.