As I was wandering into the house this evening, I opened my front door, looked down and saw the fellow on your right on my shoulder. After I stopped screaming like a cheerleader, I fetched my digital camera and tried to snatch some digital photos of him, of which this one was the best. It’s hard to photograph an insect that moves around with something that really wants to autofocus. He was probably about three inches long, but when you see him on your shoulder staring at you, he seems much bigger.
Category Archives: My Diary
The End of an Incredibles Journey
Well, yesterday was a momentous day for me. I had rendered the very last shot in The Incredibles, and it was approved in a final review. The Incredibles is now mostly in the can: only things like credits remain, so I’m free to move on to my next project, which as yet remains undefined. I’d like to thank all the people I’ve worked with on The Incredibles, I won’t embarrass them by putting their names here, but you know who you are. You really are one of the greatest groups I’ve ever worked with. Thanks for all your humor and enthusiasm.
For the rest of you, I hope that you enjoy the movie in the fall.
Pot Pourri and a Cheap Microscope
Well, tonight I’m just too tired to string any coherent thoughts or good links together, so I thought I’d merely list some of the days thoughts and experiences, and perhaps work harder tomorrow to write down something truly interesting.
We have a new cat. Well, sort of. For a week this cat kept showing up on our back patio, and would whine piteously but shy away from us whenever we opened the door. After a week of this behavior, we decided to set out some water and a little food for the poor guy, and now he’s back continuously. Feral cats aren’t unheard of around here: we adopted one a while ago and had him for a year before the winds of change took him and he wandered off. This one seems to me like more of a lost housecat, but perhaps has been lost for quite some time. For now, we are calling him Scraps, which means that we probably own him, or at least, vice versa.
I was reading Jason Yang’s thesis on building a light field camera from a flatbed scanner. I have an old Astra 600P lying around, which would probably work admirably and is unused, except that it doesn’t have any SANE drivers. I’m also considering picking up a new Canon LIDE scanner which I could hack. Tom Duff suggested picking up disposable cameras for lenses, but I could also get bunches of cheap plastic lenses from American Science & Surplus which might be even easier. I should raytrace a design using a plano-convex plastic lens and see how the system looks overall.
The Incredibles is almost in the can. I have a few more shots to tie up, and in ten days or so, I should be in a much more relaxed state of mind. I’m considering a longish vacation at home, working on cleaning, fixing and maybe even a little telescope making and web hacking. Then it will back to work for more training and deployment on another film. The machine keeps on grinding.
Obligatory Link: While considering the possibility of using lenses from disposable cameras to build a light field camera, I remembered that funsci.com had an interesting article on building a $1 microscope by using four lenses from disposable cameras. It also has a nice focusing mechanism based upon the idea of a differential screw, a cute mechanism. There is lots of other good stuff at funsci.com: give it a quick peek!
Fireworks!
If you have Quicktime, you might be able to click below and see some of the fireworks we observed from Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. It works with my setup and Firefox, but doesn’t with IE. I’ll try to fix it tomorrow.
You could download the movie the old fashioned way, by just clicking on the link.
Armadillo Scores Test Liftoff Success In Bid For X Prize
I woke up this morning with a bit of indigestion (when you are used to a rather spartan diet low in fats, the occasional indulgence doesn’t settle very well) and found Armadillo Scores Test Liftoff Success In Bid For X Prize, along with video of a vertical take off and landing for their test vehicle. Awesome.
It’s going to be a big week for the X-Prize. Burt Rutan and Paul Allen’s SpaceShipOne is scheduled to launch this weekend on a suborbital flight that will reach an altitude of 62 miles and carry an astronaut. Best wishes for a safe and successful launch.
I’m toying with the idea of blowing off a weekend of work and driving down to the Mojave Desert to see the launch. You only get a few chances in your life when you are forewarned of history in the making, and this very well might be one of them. I’ll do some research and see what the viewing opportunities are. If I don’t go, I’ll try to harvest some good video from websources after the launch.
Happy Anniversary!
Today is Carmen and my fourth anniversary. I can’t even begin to describe how terrific she makes my life and how happy I am that she agreed to be my wife. No trivial postings about baseball and the like, I’m off to a fancy dinner at the Pear Street Bistro. Tune in tomorrow more more trivia.
Cobb’s Comedy Club
Late on Saturday Night, my charming wife walked into my office and proclaimed “Robin Williams is doing a special set at Cobb’s on Monday Night. We’re going!”. Apparently she’s on the Cobb’s email list and got advanced warning for this special show. WIth the general philosophy of “when you get a chance to do something a little unusual, you do it”, I agreed, and we were off.
The show was scheduled to begin at 8:30, so we carpooled in directly after work. We were in SF by 6:30, which left plenty of time to get some decent eats. We went to Joes Crab Shack, where much seafood drenched in clarified butter was consumed. I guess I’ll have to watch those Weight Watchers points for the rest of the week. By 8:00, we were fed and back in line at Cobb’s.
The old Cobb’s was in the Cannery in downtown SF, the new location is actually much nicer, quite a bit larger and just a short ten minute walk away. We were seated toward the back, (the price of getting fed first), but the view was fine. The only prioblem with being that far back is that occasionally you’d overhear the waitresses ordering drinks behind you.
I must say, Robin is one of the hardest working comics there is. He did over an hour and a half set and consumed about 8 bottles of water, most of which apparently immediately left through his shirt. I doubt he’d work up more of a sweat working on a chain gang. His comedy ranged over all sorts of topics: outsourcing, politics, gay marriage, world history, sex (of course), and he even managed to slip in a joke about Michael Eisner and his recent dealings with Pixar.
Goodbye Pixar, Who needs a billion dollars?
I gave his set about 8 out of 10, but only because we all know just how great Robin has been
in the past. I’ve seen him funnier, but few other comics as funny.
All in all, a pretty nice evening of comedy. We’ll have to go back soon. I like their new digs.