Communication is Key!

Val and I are getting older, but we still try to stay up to date with the newest technology trends. Ok, maybe not up to date, but just one or two versions behind the times.

A couple of weeks ago, we both got new cell phones. We replaced our old "free when you sign up so there are no bells or whistles" phones (Ours were identical except for color) for fancier "almost free when you sign up so they are a little nicer" phones. Well, Valerie's was still free, but we got to pay for mine (so it's better). Sure they don't have touch screen or multitouch interfaces - but they come with twice as many ringtones as our last ones! And they are very shiny! Anyway, we also let Val have text message access this time around too (I already had it). It's great! We never have to talk directly to each other the way old fashioned people do.

When it works, I just text Val from the living room when she is in the kitchen and I can find out whats for dinner, how her day was, etc. I say 'When it works' because, despite having had a cell phone for 2 years, Valerie still isn't used to just carrying it around with her everywhere. Often times I'll text (or call) her only to hear her phone ringing 4 feet away from me. That's really ok if I'm in the living room and she is in the kitchen, but if she is further away (like the bedroom), how am I supposed to communicate with her?

Truthfully, we find other ways to communicate. Sometimes we comment on eachother's blogs or facebook wall. An even better technology though, is gchat. Like if I'm on the computer in the office, and she is on the computer in the living room, we can both log into our gmail accounts and chat back and forth - in real time!

Technology is so great now days that we've pretty much decided (while g-chatting) to do all our Christmas shopping online! I bet we could even have the gifts all wrapped online!

"Up" Trailer

For the past year and a half or so, I have been working on Pixar's next movie "Up" which comes out next May. It's really fun and exciting, but there are a couple of frustrating things. First, everything is 'top secret', so I can never share too much with anyone. Second, it takes a couple of years (from when I started) before I can show off any of my work.

Well, they just released the trailer for UP, so now people can get a taste of what this movie is.


It's tiny on my blog, but you can go here and see it bigger and make it full screen.
You want to make it full screen so you can really see the expression on Russell's (the boy scout kid) face at the end.

The very first things I worked on at Pixar are in the trailer:
The fat orderly/nurse guy, I shaded his scrubs and name tag. (shaded = did the color and textures).
The window shopping family, I shaded their skin and clothes, and made their grooms (their hair).

Much more to come in May.

The Award and Halloween

First off, Thank you to everyone who voted for Pajama Gladiator online! I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven't heard yet, WE WON THE VIEWERS CHOICE AWARD! This is the second award we won in this festival. I just got the plaque/trophy for the Producer's Choice award. Here it is.


Halloween is the best! My friends and I have been playing a lot of "Call of Duty 4" lately, and decided on the 30th to have a COD4 party at Lou's on the 1st. We decided we would dress up in military costumes and make it our Halloween party. After a couple of hours scrambling around at thrift stores, we had our costumes. Since Halloween was the next day, and it's a huge deal at Pixar, we decided to wear our costumes to work. I really needed a special piece to my costume, so I built an M5 rifle out of a golf club, foam board, a couple of flashlights and a lot of electricians tape. On Halloween,we went out on the Pixar property and posed for a bunch of pictures.





At work they have an awesome Halloween party. People come with the best costumes you can imagine. But even more impressive is the 'show'. There are prizes for the best costumes, but you have to 'sell' you costume as well by performing some kind of skit. Here are a few fun ones. The "Enchanted" group was awesome. Giselle got on stage and was lip syncing to a song that was beautifully sung - by the prince in a beautiful falsetto. He came on stage and they danced together while singing a duet. they would dance in a circle so that his back would be to us when he was singing her part and his front was to us when he sang his part.



The Bunny is Alec. He is the magician's rabbit from the Pixar short "Presto" that showed before Wall-e.


One hilarious part was when everybody who was planning on performing was done, there was a little lull in the show. Suddenly Elliot rode by on the bridge above with ET in his basket. It caught everyone off guard and was sooo funny!

Vote Today & Tomrrow (Oct 29 & 30) for Pajama Gladiator!!

The film I produced at BYU is up for a Viewers' Choice Award from the Nicktoons Network. You can watch it online today Starting at 11 pm eastern and all day tomorrow!!!! Please visit their site today and click "Rock" to vote for our film. Remember it's called "Pajama Gladiator"
Here's the link
Here's a press release from BYU
Thank You and Enjoy!!!!

6. 6 M&Ms. Ah Ah Ah Aaaahh.

This past Saturday evening, we had a Halloween Party at our church. It was pretty chaotic, though less so than last year's where they did a trunk or treat and just let the kids run free to raid the trunks. This year there were no trunks, so they just let the kids run free in the church to raid the treats. The best thing about the party were the contests that the adults could participate in. I'm talking about the "guess how many M&Ms are in the jar" contests, or, my specialty, "how much does the punkin weigh?".
Some of you know of my amazing super talent of being able to determine the weight of things pretty accurately simply by holding them in my hands. It's a power I acquired while working at UPS. For those who may not know, for 3 years I worked as a UPS package handler. I basically unloaded packages from 55 ft semi trailers onto a conveyor belt starting at 3:00 am. each day. 1200 per hour. Averaging 20 lbs a piece. That's 24000 lbs an hour. 96000 lbs per shift. 480000 lbs a week. 24,960,000 lbs a year. 74,880,000 lbs during my time there.

Whoah! I'm tired after all that! The math - not the package handling.

Anyway, Each package had it's weight clearly marked so I just started associating the feel of the weight with the number.

The only reason I'm bragging about this is because at the Halloween party, they had 3 punkins there for you to guess the weight of. I thought I would test to see if I still had the superpower or not. I guessed on all three punkins. I was actually pretty worried, because I wasn't super sure of the weights. I haven't worked at UPS for over a year now. There was a wide range of guesses from other people ranging from 20 lbs, to CJ's guess for each: 520. Not 520 lbs, just 520.

Just before they announced the winners, I confessed to my friend that I think I have completely lost my super power.

BUT IT DIDN'T!

They said I guessed all three right! They changed the rules and tossed out 2 of my guesses to let others win. That's OK by me, I wouldn't have been able to carry all 3 punkins home anyway.



As for the number of M&Ms in a jar? I never get close on those. Mia was probably closer. I asked her how many were in this jar. She immediatly answered "4". I asked if she thought there were really only 4, or if there were more. This time she thought about it for a bit and said nodding her head "I think 6. No, maybe 7. No, 6. 6." I entered that as her official guess.



She didn't win.

Video Game Lingo & Pizza

First thing, let me calm all the panic I caused with my last post. I am currently leaning more in the McCain direction. - SO CALM DOWN EVERYONE!!!

Now on to what I really wanted to talk about. Most of you probably don't play video games enough, so I wanted to give you a brief lesson on a piece of gaming lingo. Today's lesson is the word "respawn". I know it sounds like fish procreation - a second time, - but it has nothing to do with that. Respawning is what you call coming back to life after dying in a video game. So like in Call of Duty 4, if you get splattered by a grenade, you respawn somewhere else and continue fighting.



Good, now that you understand what respawn means, I want to tell you something funny. Today at church, one of the speakers was talking about a story from the Bible. It was a story where someone asked Jesus a question. The speaker said "Jesus responded...", Valerie looked at me and said "Jesus respawned"? I hadn't been paying real close attention so I looked (confusedly) at her and thought to myself "Well, I guess He did respawn after His crucifixion didn't He." I answered, nodding my head "Jesus respawned". We had a hard time not laughing out loud and will probably be struck by lightning, but it just goes to show you that even violent video games can help remind you of the most important things at times.




Now lets talk pizza. We ate pizza for 5 meals in the past 8 days. Valerie can't stand to have it more than once a month, but somehow we tend to eat a lot of pizza. Oh, and since you brought up the pizza topic and all, I thought I would share my pizza recipe with you.

If you have ever looked up pizza recipes on the internet, you'll find they aren't much help. You get things like this: Mushroom Pizza, ingredients: Crust, sauce, mushrooms, cheese. or fancy recipes like: Gourmet New york Peperoni Pizza: Crust, sauce, peperoni, cheese. Basically just a list of toppings to put on a pizza - as if you need a recipe for that. (Incidentally, sandwich recipes are almost as useless too). Here is a real pizza recipe that is de-lish-us! It's step by step so start at the top and continue downward or you'll get confused. PS - make the sauce first.

Makes 2 large pizzas.

Crust
2 tbsp yeast
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups lukewarm water
Stir these together and let them sit for a few minute while you do the next steps (to let the yeast get all foamy and active).

1 cup softened butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
Put these together in a mixing bowl (use a kitchen-aide or bosch or the like)and pour the yeast liquid in with it. Mix it up into a soup and add the following seasonings.
1 1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp basil
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp marjoram (optional)

It should smell reallllllly good right about now. Now add the following a cup or 2 at a time and let it knead for a while.
5 more cups flour

Cover and let it rise for 20 min (until doubled). Build your pizza and cook at 450F for 15 -25 min depending on how thick it is.


Sauce
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomato
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp black pepper
salt to taste
1 tbsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
Stir it all up, and put in in the fridge while you make the crust.

Toppings
Here's what I like on mine:
pepperoni
mozzarella Cheese
mushrooms
bacon
also:
green olives
artichoke hearts

P.S. For those who care, we are planning on visiting Utah right after Christmas.

Politics

So a lot of my family are concerned about my political affiliation. Well, I thought I would take a few minutes to explain my views. Unfortunately I could fill a book with them, so I'll have to abbreviate. I think the majority of the country has chosen a side and blindly votes for their side time and again. Don't you think it would be better for the country if everybody would actually look at both sides each time and pick whats best from EITHER side? Maybe the bad guy is more honest.

First Let's look at what's wrong right now.

Our current Leader is an idiot frat boy whose cronyism and fear mongering has made him an all powerful Emperor. He reminds me of my Senior Class President in high school. He was elected Class President because he was popular and could drink more beers than any of his competitors. The fact that it would be his responsibility to organize our reunions didn't seem to bother anybody. Now years later, his ineptness is all too obvious through our lack of reunions. W and his buddies took care of all their agendas during their time. They got to attack Iraq and 'show Hussein whose boss'. Their friends in the oil business got richer than ever. And I could go on.

The point is simply this. The current Republican Administration doesn't seem to care how they destroy the country as long as they get what they want. Almost everything needs to change!

So lets look at the pros/cons of the candidates. I have a chart at the bottom that summarizes all this.

McCain Pros: He's experienced in Washington. He has military experience so he would probably be more cautious than W and his buddies when it comes to war. He's got a reputation for crossing his party to push legislation he believes is important for the country.

Cons: He's a grumpy old guy who thinks it's OK for the leader of the most advanced country in the world to not know about 'the internets' or use computers. He has really short arms - like a velociraptor. He appears to be towing the party line of fear mongering, and although he has sometimes crossed his party, he seems to be comfortably backing the GOP message. I hope that he's doing that because he needs the party's support to be elected, and as soon as he is, he'll go back to following his conscience. How much do I trust him? 3 out of 5. I worry that he'll be bullied by his party to do things their way.

Palin Pros: She's pretty and young. Tina Fey does the best impersonation of her and 4 years of that would totally be worth it! See for yourself.

Cons: Could she be less qualified to lead this country? Just watch the SNL clip to see what I mean. I know it's a joke, but some of here answers are nearly word for word from the real interview.


Obama Pros: He's young and intelligent. He's NOT a Republican. He wants to change the way things are right now. He preaches Hope instead of Fear.

Cons: He's a Democrat - that's a big one, we could go from a fascist regime to a communist society. He's a slick talker. This isn't necessarily bad, but i get suspicious when i hear the silver tongue. How much do i trust him? 4 out of 5. I'm pretty sure he'll try to do the things he says he will.

Biden Pros: He has lot's of experience.
Cons: He seems to be a non-entity. No one talks about him good or bad, maybe he doesn't do anything beyond being a grumpy old man.


So what it comes down to is this. I would like to vote for McCain because his ideals match my own the closest, but if he were to die because of his old age, the country would be in a very bad situation if it had to rely on Palin to lead. Also, who knows if he will bring a change to Washington, or if he'll just join with the current Empire.

THE REAL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES


Obama's ideals are far from my own in most cases, but I believe he'll bring a needed change to Washington.

THE REAL DEMOCRAT CANDIDATES



The question is Do you vote for the guy who believes the same as you, but may be more of the same problem. Or do you vote for the guy who doesn't share your views, but at least you know where things stand with him?

I don't know. But I still have a few weeks to decide.