I'm home!!!!

After a long journey from the BART Subway to the Airport carrying a heavy backpack, a shoulder bag, a scooter wrapped up in plastic garbage bags and 2 huge suitcases, checking the bags and finally getting on a flight back to Toronto, then a bus from Toronto to Waterloo... I'm home!!!!!!

I got back last night and stayed at my sister's house. It was fun and now I am at my new house in Waterloo. I've got some of my stuff unpacked and found all the presents for everyone.

Lots of unpacking still to go and also I have to move all of my stuff from my old house to here! Crazyness!! Well I've still got a few days to unpack before Frosh leading starts.

Done and done!

Today I headed out for lunch with my team from Pixar and it was sooooooooo fun!! It was great to see everyone before I head home soon. We had a really good time and I am really going to miss everyone.

Just getting everything sorted out here and packed up soon for my trip back home.

It's beautiful California summer weather here today and my cold is finally gone so what a perfect day to finish off my trip out here. Cheers!

Waterloo Frosh Week

Here's a link to VOC (Village Orientation Committee), the group that I am going to be Frosh leading with at the beginning of September at the University of Waterloo. Fun times!!

http://voc.uwaterloo.ca/

March of the Penguins, XBox, and hangin' out

It's our last weekend here together so a bunch of us played Burnout 3 on XBox again, yes it is our new favourite game. Matt and Alex and I have been watching a lot of episodes of the show "Scrubs" and it is pretty cool. Alex and I have been catching up on lots of Simpsons episodes lately too so that is always a good time.

Matt is heading home tomorrow so that is sad but we will say bye to him tomorrow morning. Tonight was pretty sweet, we went to see the movie "March of the Pengiuns", a National Geographic feature film documentary shot in Antarctica. It was AWESOME!! It was a really cool movie and the kind of shots they got were amazing. There was some insane underwater camera work of the Penguins getting food and also plenty of amazing shots in the cold wind and of the Pengiuns waddling along on their long journey. It was a really cool movie and they did a fantastic job of filming it too.

Other than that we are just cleaning up the place and getting packed soon too. Looking forward to seeing everyone at home. My new house in Waterloo sounds pretty sweet too and I move there just after I get back.


Matt and Alex hangin' out

Sweet Burnout 3 action on XBox

Mmm... lunch garbage

Rob and Justin playing some XBox

And another random Matt and Alex picture

The Jackalope from the Pixar short "Boundin'"

Last day of work!

Today was a great day but also sad because it was my last day of work for the term! I met up with a bunch of people though and got a chance to say bye to most of the awesome people that I met here.

I have been sick over the past few days so finally I am feeling better now which is good because I really wanted to be ok for hanging out with people before they left. My buddy and roommate Jake is heading home tomorrow so it was sad to say bye tonight but I bet I will see all of my good friends again. Some of the people I know are staying here or at least staying in the area so I hope to see them again sometime soon. Maybe I can convince some of my friends to come visit in Canada too, hehe that would be sweet. Kevin is also heading home tomorrow so it was sad to say bye to him too cause he's been an awesome friend to hang out with too.

Just getting things wrapped up and packing and hanging out with my Pixar friends before everyone heads home or back to school. It has been a really awesome summer out here and I have made some really great friends that I most definitely want to keep in touch with. It's going to be sad to say bye to everyone now but I think lots of us will work together someday at some cool place. :) That's a nice thought, isn't it? :)

Article in SFGate newspaper today about Pixar

Cool article about Pixar in the SFGate newspaper today.

Pixar tells story behind 'Toy Story'
- C.W. Nevius
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/23/BAGDKEBPAB1.DTL

Resume updated

Just a heads up in case anyone is interested, I just updated my resume on the new website at http://www.mikejutan.com

Added some details about my work at Alias (since Maya 7.0 is now released, I mentioned more specifically that I worked on Polygonal Modeling and UV Texturing Tools for Maya 7.0) and added my new website address and a few other small updates. Good times.

Ben Folds tomorrow night

Dude... I am SO excited for the Ben Folds concert tomorrow night. Ben Folds (website here: http://www.benfolds.com) is one of the best Piano players I've ever heard. I looovvve his music. He used to be the lead singer/piano player for the band Ben Folds Five but now he is doing solo music. Some amazing tunes. I somehow convinced Matt Parrott to join me and drop a bunch of cash on this concert and I think we are going to have an awesome time.

I especially like a song called "One Down" from his album called "Ben Folds Live" - oh man it rocks.

Just getting everything finished at work before I head home. Home will be fun and I have lots to do when I get back. Moving and tons of other stuff and then I am going to be a Frosh Leader (a first-year Waterloo student floor leader) for VOC, the Village Orientation Committee. That means that my frosh leading partner and I will be the two designated leaders for one of the residence "houses" on campus and it is always a reallly fun time. I helped plan this kind of stuff for our high school's Grade 9 orientation weeks back in the day, so it is fun to be a part of this at University as well. Good times! Should be a busy time to get all my stuff moved to my new place in Waterloo but it'll be cool. Looking forward to my new house and meeting my new roommates.

Breakfast and Cake in San Francisco

Today was cool, we went to San Francisco during the day to get some breakfast, hang out at the Disney Store and downtown and then off to get some cake. It was a good time and it was cool to hang out with my friends here before everyone heads home soon.


Union Square in San Francisco

Sears Fine Food where we went for breakfast at lunch time

Inside Sears

Breakfast time (at 3pm)

Mmm... pancakes and coffee

Afonso met us to go for cake

Cake in San Francisco

One of our last Pixar intern parties

Tonight we had a great party at my apartment. I got a bunch of food at Trader Joe's this afternoon and we had a bunch of good junk food for people (fries, wedge fries, chicken fingers, etc) and it was super awesome.

We had lots of people here and it rocked. Lots of good friends from work and it is nice to hang out all together as many of us are going home soon. I figured that Jake should be in charge of tunes and that was an awesome plan, Jake did a great job of getting some hip hop vibe going the whole night. It rocked and eventually we got some people dancing and that was a great time.

After some people started leaving, half of the group started a game of poker and the other half kept playing video games so that was fun too. We slowed it down a bit and I got to be DJ for a while, with some Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and other such good slower tunes.

Anyway it was a great party and I was hoping for it to be the best of the summer... it sure did not disappoint. Fun times.


Me "messin' with Texas"

Susan and Kev playing XBox

Matt and I ready for the party, me wearing my new shirt

Sophie and Matt

Susan and the XBox controller

Austin doing a crazy face

Probably the craziest picture of the night, not sure what Taylor is doing and Susan looks like she is not doing very well at XBox

Jake the DJ

And now for the dancing photos... Jake and I cuttin' it up

Good times

Haha, triple threat Pixar dancin' crew

Getting tired of dancing

Matt and Rob just hangin'

Sean giving his review of the party

News from Israel

If you haven't heard the news about Israel at the moment, take a look at a few articles. It is really quite amazing and scary at the same time - this feels like one of those "history in the making" moments...

Here's a quote from a CNN news article:

Jewish settlers and the Israeli troops who guard them are being evacuated from Gaza and four small areas of the West Bank in an effort to restart the peace process with the Palestinians. The historic pullout is the largest peacetime operation in Israel's military history.

This is huge news. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had made one of the most dangerous and radical political decisions that I think any political leader has ever had to make. The Israeli Army is re-locating more than 10,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, an area of Israel that is constantly on the news regarding racial violence.

This is incredibly different and radical because something on this scale of good will has never been done before in my opinion. This sends a clear message from the Israeli government that Peace is what they want and they are willing to re-locate 10,000 of their people just to prove that. I definitely feel for the relocated families and it must be very upsetting to be uprooted from the place where you may have lived for 40 years... but if in the long run this drives the Middle East to Peaceful resolutions to the seemingly unrelenting conflict, then I completely support this. As a young Jew myself, I feel that a bunch of stress and annoyance that 10,000 fellow Jews must go through is a minor price to pay if this could potentially drive Peace into this violent area. Moving your life is upsetting, financially and emotionally costly, I agree fully with that... but if this means that one day Israel may be a peaceful land... oh my, I definitely support this.

I heard originally that the Israeli government was going to help these families financially.
Here's a quote from the CNN article that looks like this is still the situation:

Settlers were offered compensation packages ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 per family, but those who remained beyond a Monday deadline and a 48-hour grace period stand to lose up to a third of their amount.

Whew, well there's some political commentary from me! Not a usual thing for this blog, but I feel like this is a particularly important issue.

Here is some info if you would like to read more about this:

Toronto Star
CNN

A few more beach pics

A few more beach pics from last weekend that Sophie sent to me this morning. Pretty sweet!! Very busy at work this week, writing my work report and finishing off a whole bunch of stuff that needs to get done before I finish up next week. Fun times! I'll be home in 2 weeks!


Me in B&W

Matt, Orion and I running and trying not to get hit by the waves

Disney/Pixar and Cars article

Here's an interesting article I found about the state of the Disney/Pixar talks, and some information about Pixar's next feature film "Cars" which will be released in June, 2006.

http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/articles/showarticle.php?ID=1598

It's quite an interesting article about the industry at the moment.

Carmel and 17 Mile Drive

Today was another busy day, we went to Carmel and it was sweet. After staying up late last night working on my new website after the Dave Matthews concert, I got like 4 or 5 hours of sleep so I was a little tired this morning!! :) Anyway it was all good and we headed off early to drive to Carmel. We had some nice lunch (I had Veggie Wraps) and then off to the beach to play some frisbee and we checked out an Art Gallery that Matt wanted to see.

We then drove to one of the state parks and went for a nice hike. After the hike we headed to 17 Mile Drive, which is a nice coastal drive around with some fancy golf courses and stuff like that. We checked out some scenery and I got to drive for a bit too, and then we saw a really sweet red Lamborghini Diablo 30th Anniversary Edition car, it was super sweet and it rocked a lot.

We then drove home via an In N' Out Burger (of course) and that was tasty and awesome as expected. Lots of good pics from today too!


Sophie and I in the car in the way to Carmel

Matt and his view of the world through his glasses

Insane caramel apples

Matt and Orion in our lunch place

Matt and I at lunch

Matt and I pretending to have a conversation about something

Cool toy store with a ferris wheel

Cool tree on 17 Mile Drive

Matt and John on the beach

Me on Carmel beach

Orion, Matt, John, Me and Sophie

Matt and Orion with a large tree

Matt pretending to be a mountain lion

Matt yelling something

Me at a waterfall on our hike

Crashing water on 17 Mile Drive

The lone tree, a famous 17 Mile Drive landmark

Another pic of the lone tree

A golf course along the way in the 17 mile drive area

And... a sweeeeeet Lamborghini that we saw parked. Oh man that was sweet!!

Matt and I freakin' out because of the awesome car!!