5 years later...

Hello all,

Remember this blog? I'd forgotten about it, but just realized it's been 5 years or so since we were split up, so I thought I'd say "hi" for the occasion.

For those of you not on my facebook, here's a brief update...

I'm still at Disney -- now Walt Disney Animation Studios. I initially worked on the 2D pipeline and especially production management tools (using GDI|Explorer) for Princess And The Frog, Winnie The Pooh, Goofy's How To Hook-up Your Home Theater (short), and The Balad of Nessie (short).

For the last couple years I've been working on tools for the 3D shows (especially Tangled), including Sequencer (multi-shot editor-like sequence workflow within Maya) and now Figaro (accurate interactive 3D lighting and shadowing in Maya using the GPU).

I miss working with you DTSers, but I'm happy I ended up with another good group of folks at WDAS.

I'm still living in Studio City, and still happily with Jeannie.

How's everyone else doing? Reunion lunch sometime?

David

P.S. I'll be at Siggraph and High Performance Graphics conferences this year.

John - 14 months later at New Line Cinema...

Hi all,

I finally got around to requesting a new password so that I could get back in and check out the blog.

How is everyone doing? I still hear from Tim and Daniel through our chess games but I'm not sure how/where everyone else is.

I'm still at New Line Cinema, enjoying it very much. It hasn't been a great year for the studio (any of you see "The Golden Compass"? I didn't think so!), but with "The Hobbit" coming, I think we'll survive.

As a matter of fact, I just got an unexpected promotion. As of the first of the year, I'll be "Director of Inventory Services and Asset Management". I'm very happy about that.

So how are the rest of you?

-John

What's up with you guys?

Am I the only one using this thing? What the hell is going ON with everyone?

Me: after my last stint with Disney, I've finally given up the mouse and moved on for better things. Right now, I'm working on getting back into school (attempting to navigate the trecherous waters of financial aid is not fun, I can tell you that) and looking for some under-the-table work to keep my reported income down. Yup... it's all about working the system at this point. I'll let you know when I finally figure out how to do that!

Sooooo? What's going on with you?!

Howdy, Y'all

Blogmaster Rick has chastised me for not updating the FDF blog. After checking it out, I can see I'm not the only one who has been lax.

So anyway, here I sit, some 2600 miles away from LA and wondering why it took me so long to leave. Yes, there is a world past San Bernardino and Vega$. :-)

We ended up living in Raleigh, North Carolina. About 10 miles from Mayberry. We live in Northeastern Raleigh, near Wake Forest in an area called Wakefield. The area we live in is a big subdivision on a big golf course (that I can't afford to join) in the middle of farms and trees. We are less than 2 miles from a Super Wal-Mart AND a Super Target AND a Home Depot AND a Lowes. We are pretty much set.

The kids are in a year round school because so many people are moving here. They started school July 9th and now have a 3 week break. They will then do 9 weeks in and 3 weeks vacation - its actually pretty cool. They've made lots of friends and the people here are truly the best part of the move.

I've been at Duke University for about a month now.

http://oit.duke.edu/news/gen-announce/disney.html

Scary how similar Duke is to Disney. Scary. The job is interesting so we shall see. It is very strange not being at Disney or not knowing EVERYONE like I used to.

I miss the team although I couldn't have asked for a better group of people if I had to leave my friends behind. They are a really talented and passionate bunch so I'm happy about that.

Hope you are all doing well and let me know if you make it down yonder. My email and cell are the same.

Steve

Management Shake-up at DisneyToon Studios

DTS President Sharon Morrill is stepping down, and DTS will instead be led by Ed Catmull and John Lasseter from Pixar, who have been doing good things lately in my neck of the woods (Walt Disney Animation Studios, formerly known as Feature Animation).

Let's hope this finally puts DTS on a good path!

http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=20170

Chewed up and spat out... Sunny leaves LA

I have to say that I didn't expect this to happen. I firmly, and confidently believed that I would have no problem landing back on my feet after the layoff. But as life tends to teach us, sometimes the best laid plans can got to hell in a handbasket quicker than you can say "Dreams Really Do Come True." Such has been the case for me.

Having been one of the top two candidates for several positions and lost them to lack of division specific experience (or so I was told), I finally stopped the hot and heavy quest to return to Disney in time for the Holidays. Ironically, that's exactly where I ended up temping over Christmas time, with a really great group of people in Studio Operations. I fed squirrels and purchased stuff and it was fun.

But it was only a temp job and I had to give it back when all was said and done. After I got over the creeping crud (i.e. nasty, horrible cold / flu thing that knocked me out for a week), I came back to my job search refreshed and ready to take on... well... whatever the hell I could get at this point.

It was during Christmas week that, after having had a conversation with my elderly father, I was prompted to suggest to my brother that it's time for us to formulate a plan as to what we will do if something happens to our parents (68 and 79) and they will need care taking. I guess I just knew something was coming.

Last week my father was admitted to the VA hospital in Palo Alto, CA and has been in the ICU ever since. While the nurse on duty insisted he's fine (apparently the ability to sit in a chair constitutes fine when one is 79 and in the ICU), my brother learned today that my father is not long for this life. As it was put to my brother by a more informative and less glib nurse, "If this is not the end for your father, it will be soon, and until then he's going to need someone to take care of him."

As fate would have it... I seem to be between gigs and since my daddy is the world to me, there just isn't any other choice to be made.

So, February 17th, I will be leaving LA to live with my brother's family in Pleasanton, CA while we figure out what will come next with our father. From there, I don't know where I'll land. I do know that it is high time I find the place where I want to set my roots and stay a while. While I have met some astounding people and had a great time working for the company I set out to work for (which had been a dream since I was a toddler), LA has never suited me. So I'm off spend time with someone I love more than anything, then off to find out where I belong.

I hope to get to see most of you before I leave but if not, I'll still be haunting everyone online. And of course, I will come down to visit. Especially now that I have so many couches to crash on and wonderful friends who will let me into Disneyland! I guess the past six years hasn't been a complete wash after all! hehehe

I may not miss LA... but I'll miss you.

Sunny

Happy New Year! Prepare to be Ping-ed!

Hi all,

Happy New Year!

It's been a while since this blog has been set up and I'm not sure what everyone's been up to. Therefore, I will be pinging you all based on the email addresses I have for you. Please do respond if you're still alive and breathing and let us know what you've been up to! I hope that you all had a great new year and that the new year has been kind to you. By the way, I had a weird dream last Thursday night (after spending the day at Disneyland) that we were all back in FGW again - working like busy bees as if nothing had happened - amazing what the subconscious mind is capable of, yah?

Take care,

Rick