TJ’s Blog

Wow, I only wrote six entries in this blog over the course of 2007, compared with the dozens I probably wrote over 2006. I know, I suck. And 2008’s not proving to be much better, as it’s taken me three months to getting around to a post. I could promise to write more frequently, but that would probably be a lie. Not like anybody reads this to begin with.

This is actually the third (or maybe fourth) personal blog I’ve kept in my life. The first one was in college, and I had a fair amount of people who read it I think, but I tried to keep myself anonymous since I did just sorta run my mouth on it and was a little paranoid about people I know reading it. The second one, which still exists, tjatcmu.blogspot.com, was a blog I kept for a little over a year while in grad school. By the end I was just updating it monthly. I guess I just suck at keeping up with blogging. I also had a personal website in college which I may have posted updates on and stuff, don’t remember if I did actual “blogging” on it though.

I think I see some really funny/insightful/witty bloggers out there and I think “I can do that too!” But I never seem to realize that good bloggers are good writers, something that I’ve never claimed to be my strongest suit. Half the time I start to write a blog, I end up saving it as a draft never to be finished because I don’t feel like trying to make a cohesive entry out of the various thoughts juggling through my head at the time, or realize the topic isn’t as interesting to write about as I originally thought. Plus, I’m just lazy (or the cooler way of saying it, “busy”) sometimes, and blogging isn’t at the top of my list of things to-do. In fact, if I’m blogging, I’m usually avoiding doing something else (like I am right now).

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this blog (see above). I guess what I’m saying is that this blog is starting to feel a little stale to me, and I might start fresh somewhere else. Or maybe I’ll just sit on my ass for another three months before posting anything again. I suck.

OK, yeah, I let this blog rot even longer than my first hiatus. No guaruntees I’ll keep it up, but I just felt like writing about a couple things at the moment. So I guess I should write up about what I’ve been up to the past six months:

- Early in the summer I started making an attempt to join a lot more social/activity club/groups. One of the first things I tried was Meetup.com, which got me involved in some hiking trips and whatnot.
- Later in the summer I joined the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA), and played my first season with them. That in turn introduced me to a TON of new people, and has probably been the most lifechanging thing for me since moving out to LA
- Got back into WoW…yeah…I like to think that I don’t play as much as I used to, but it’s hard to tell. Certainly much less drama with my guild than when I originally left, but my “casual” guild is now a raiding guild, for better or worse.
- Got in a car crash with Pete Rose’s son. Nobody was hurt, but my insurance company called my car a total loss (funny enough, after the fact they realized they probably shouldn’t have, because they ended up writing me a huge check for it). I still say it was his fault, but given the circumstances, the blame fell on me, thankfully my insurance covered it all. I ended up buying a 2007 Honda Civix LX the next week. I wasn’t planning on buying a new car until I paid off all my student loans in 2008, but plans obviously changed and now my payments on student loans in turn have been slowing down.
- Finished Bee Movie, finally. Found myself with a ton more to do on that show than I did when Flushed was coming to an end. Maybe I just had more responsibility personally, maybe the show wasn’t in as good enough shape as Flushed was. Anyways, it ended up making a decent amount of money, so combined with Shrek 3 money, we’re going to see a very hefty bonus at the end of the year, which will probably all go toward my student loan (I’m hoping to have my loan paid completely off by the end of the first half of next year).
- Now I’m working on How To Train Your Dragon as a previz/layout development TD. Very different than my first two movies. I’m working almost entirely in Maya now, much smaller team, still very early on in production. I finally got to see a story reel of it yesterday, it looks really good. Now we all just have to wait two more years for it to be released (!) Yeah, so that means that I’m “stuck” at DreamWorks until Fall 2009. It’s not that bad though, really.
- And finally, the reason I decided I needed to write in the first place, the roommate and I are parting ways and I’m getting my own one-bedroom apartment. Actually, make that “have gotten”. My lease started on it over the weekend and I’ve been moving all my stuff over to it over the past week, as well as working out the various kinks in the new place (more on that later). I guess I should go move another carfull of crap over there…

Vacation days are kind of a wierd thing to deal with when you’re a young professional, especially if you’re in a career where you might not have the freedom to necessarily take them at the time of the year that you want to. I find myself again in a situation where I can go on vacation between my two movies, which would be in mid-late September. The problem lies in that I don’t really know what to do with said time. Theoretically I don’t have to take any at all, or possibly wait till the holidays to use them. But something tells me I may want a little time off. Another possibility is to just take a couple days off and just lounge around SoCal, but that could make me a little stir-crazy if I didn’t have much to do. But here were a couple ideas I had of what I could possibly do for a week, presumably by myself:

- Do a tour of the East Coast, visiting family and friends in MD, PA, and NY. Would probably have to rent a car, but lodging would probably be free for most of the trip, but it makes me wonder if this might be something better suited for around the holidays when peoples schedules are a little more freed up for guests. Plus it requires a lot of planning with people I would want to crash at or meet up with.
- Fly around the country and check out a couple cities I’ve never been to. Could potentially be interesting, I’ve always wanted to sorta to a whirlwind tour of the country, and I’m sure I could probably entertain myself for a day in a city, but could potentially be expensive with all the plane tickets and whatnot.
- Go on a cruise for a week. I wouldn’t want to do this without a friend though, which would require convincing somebody else to take a week off and throw down money on a cruise.

Jerry Seinfeld was given a tour of where all the lighting and FX people work today, and he stopped by our office for a minute or two. We got to introduce ourselves to him, shake his hand, etc, and our visual effects supervisor did an excellent job explaining to him what our job was.

While not the definative moment of my life or anything, definately one of the coolest moments of working on this project and at DreamWorks. It’s crazy thinking back ten years ago I was in middle school and he was the biggest thing on TV, and now we’re both working on the same project and he’s swinging by my office to say hi.

- I find it’s easier for me to write multi-topic blog posts in a list format rather than try to make it one, big cohesive entry chunked into paragraphs.
- Shrek the Third is bringing in a ton of money ($270 million so far), so I’m looking at a pretty nice bonus this year!
- I evaluated my finances last weekend and realized that the interest rate on my student loans was slightly higher than the interest rate on my savings account, so I dumped a very large chunk of money into a loan payment, but of course leaving enough in the savings account to live comfortably for a couple months in case of an emergency or something. I reduced the loan I have left to pay off by like a third, so I still have a while to go, but maybe the bonus will help with that. I want to try to get this thing all paid off sooner rather than later so that I can start saving up for a new car in a couple years, followed by saving up for a down payment on real estate.
- I found out this week that I will be going onto How To Train Your Dragon this Fall once Bee Movie is done! I’m really excited about the source material (just read the book), and I’m also excited about coming onto a show early rather than later (this one isn’t coming out till Fall 2009)
- With that I also found out I’m getting a promotion very soon! This is my first promotion ever, woo!
- I took my car in for repairs today. It came out to be over $1100 in costs (so much for a new PC this year!), but it’s like day-and-night how much better my car is performing, I think it was worth it. Especially since I want this car to last at least until 2009.
- I’m in one of those moods where I’m hungry, but I have no clue what I want to eat. This happens a lot. I do want a Coke though. This happens a lot as well.

Just a random thought that popped into my head: All things considered, I think I miss my three semesters of grad school at CMU more than my eight semesters of undergrad at Maryland combined.

OK, so this blog isn’t dead, but it’s certainly been neglected so far all of 2007. So let me see if I can summarize the past 140 days as best as I can:

- Got pretty heavy into WoW for a couple months after the release of BC, but have since quit the game and don’t plan on coming back to it.
- Dated a girl for a short period of time.
- Continued working on Bee Movie, which continues to get busier, specifically the blur effect of the wings when the bees fly. That’s like my job now. Wingblur.
- Bought a keyboard, but haven’t done much with it aside from sorta learning the beginning to “Don’t Stop Believing”
- Did my own taxes for the first time
- Turned 25, saw Metal Skool on my birthday
- Got into watching Heroes
- Got scary good at Guitar Hero

To be honest, not the most eventful past couple months, and I do attribute part of that to spending probably more of my free time than I should have to playing a video game. But that’s in the past, and it’s summer! Woo!

I’m sorta rushed writing this as I’m about to head out for New Years Eve, but I wanted to write up a quick little 2006 In Review, as it was probably one of the more monumental years of my life:

- Kicked off 2006 by moving to LA on January 2nd, leaving the East Coast where I had been living for the past 23+ years of my life
- Started my first real-real job at DreamWorks Animation, am supporting myself completely now
- Started making new friends out here and exploring LA
- Went to my first (and the last) E3
- Graduated with my Masters from Carnegie Mellon, officially ending my 19+ year life as a student
- Got back into body boarding after probably an almost 10-year hiatus
- Quasi was featured on Good Morning America, the Discovery Channel, as well as briefly on Regis and Kelly
- Got Slashdotted (w/ Quasi)
- Met Slash in an airport (also talked to Winona Ryder in an airport, but that’s not nearly as exciting, and she’s the one who came up and talked to me)
- Had my name in the credits of my first theatrical release, Flushed Away
- Now working on Bee Movie, and Jerry Seinfeld is one of my bosses
- Got an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii, the next-gen is now

Amongst other things. Overall, I’d have to say 2006 was pretty damn good, definately better than 2005. Hopefully 2007 will be even better.

I’m waiting for a taxi to arrive to take me to the airport for my red-eye w/ transfer to Baltimore (oh boy!) This will be the first time I’ve been back in Maryland since I left for LA almost a year ago, and it’s been over six months since I’ve been to the East Coast period. Wierd. Anyways, I’ll be around to hang out the 23rd and 26th-28th in MD if you want to meet up and hit all the good local spots.

There’s a bit of a misconception that it’s always hot in LA. Not in the winter. It’s 38 degrees right now in Burbank. And guess what? My heating hasn’t been working since I tried turning it on Sunday (so theoretically, it’s been broken all Spring/Summer as well). Yeah, it’s cold in my apartment. I can’t even take a hot shower in the fear of how cold I would be if I was also soaked in water.