Sunday, April 30, 2006

School starts tomorrow, website updates

Things are sweet, I have finally finished unpacking and now the last major thing I need to do is finish putting up all of my decorations and posters.

I have been back in Canada since Tuesday night and then moved on Thursday and now I have got everything ready for school tomorrow. I have just 2 classes tomorrow, Mathematical Logic and History & Film. They should be pretty sweet and I'm definitely looking forward to school again. I think this should be a really great term.

Instead of getting to sleep earlier as you might imagine would be a good idea, I updated my resume and posted a new one to my website (see it at http://www.mikejutan.com) I also added some new images and a little icon on the main page that lets you know that you can reload the front page to get different welcome images. This is a bit of a hidden feature so I thought I'd make it a little more noticeable. :)

My textbooks should be arriving tomorrow. Also gotta get started on my classes right away I am sure of it. Since I am taking a 4th year Independent Study Fine Arts class, I need to get planning and setting due dates for myself to ensure I stay on track for this class. I am planning on doing a lot of Maya modeling of 3D indoor environments, so lots of desks, chairs, lamps, tables, shoes, pens, paper, garbage, junk food, containers, and so on. That should be reallllllly cool and I will of course post my work along the way and would appreciate comments, thanks.

Well it's 2:30 so I guess I'd better get to bed. This new house rocks and my roommates are totally awesome (haha this of course is no surprise, but I thought I'd mention it anyway) :)

Moved into my new apartment

Sweet!!!!!! I am finnnnaaaaaaaaally living with my friend Matt who I have known for a good 15 years, so that ROCKS. I am also living with another Matt, who (don't worry if you get confused) also went to school with the first Matt. And my name is Mike. So three "M" names over here, haha at least my name isn't Matt too eh?!!! Good timmmmeeeeeees!!!!!!!!

We watched like 8 Simpsons episodes already. My sister came over today and made me lunch and that totally rocked. Now I am listening to Green Day and unpacking and sorting out a few more things before the new Simpsons episode tonight. Sweeeet.

Hehe so my room is a very awesome mix of random Alias swag, sweeet sweeet Pixar stuff and Dave Matthews/Simpsons goodness. I have loved all of this stuff for a long time, and as you can see from the pictures I still most certainly do. Glad to see there are some constants in the world, right?!

Well my unpacked boxes call. We moved Thursday, unpacked and bought groceries Friday, unpacked and bought a DVD player Saturday and now I have to unpack and get my room ready to go. School starts tomorrow!!!!!! Oh man the life of a Waterloo Co-op student... always nuts.

Well off to unpack more stuff. Can't wait to see you Waterloo kids soon. To my California posse... word!!! See you guys in August!!


Most of my stuff moved into my room

Haha, yes there is a toilet in the middle of the laundry room

About 1/5th of my stuff, yes I have too much junk!!

My new desk and posters ready to go

Bookshelf and DVDs

Sweet Pixar and Green Day posters

And of course some Dave Matthews and more Pixar posters

Matt and Adrienne

Me in my new room!!

Yeeah Dave Matthews poster!!

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Back home in Canada

I am back home at my old apartment after a long day of traveling and making awesome new friends.

It started at my apartment in Emeryville, then a BART trip to SFO, then I paid for my overweight luggage (hehe that sucked) and then met a friend from Waterloo who was working in Palo Alto for the term and he told me about his time out in the Bay area. Then we got bagels and drinks and hung out for a while as the plane was delayed about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Then we boarded the plane and it was awesome as it was not packed as usual, so me and the girl sitting in my row of 3 seats had a seat between us so we could spread out our carryon luggage and stuff. It was fantastic.

Even crazier is this insanely cool/crazy coincidence, turns out the girl sitting in my row knows some of my friends from high school. Crazy! We chatted for a bunch of time and she was totally awesome, yyeeeahh new friends! :)

So the plane ride was great and no worries for the delay. When I got to Toronto an Airporter picked us up reasonably quickly and I met a dude at the baggage claim who looked a LOT like a Waterloo Co-op student, haha and he totally was. Turns out he was at Sun Labs and it sounds like he had an AWESOME term out there, wow it sounds like a cool place to work I think. He is a Computer Engineer so he pretty much does Computer Hardware only, so it was really cool to hear about the kinds of classes he is taking, since Computer Engineering was my alternative to Computer Science and I could have decided to go for that instead. Sounds interesting and cool and stuff but I am definitely glad I am rockin' the Computer Science vibe, since it rocks kindof a lot. :)

The Airporter was fast to get home, and the bus driver was hilarious. He said something soon after we got into the van about how "It has been real nice this week, up to about 18 or 22 degrees" (ahh, FINALLY back to temperature in Celcius), and how "it is probably going down to 0 tonight." "Well", he said, "I guess there might be one disadvantage to living in Canada" haha. Awesome.

So I am now sitting on my old couch in my old apartment in Waterloo, no one else is here, and I am sitting here. I say nothing helps you reminisce about an amazing wonderful awesome time in California than an entire box of KD (Kraft Dinner or Kraft "Mac and Cheese" for my American brethren in the crowd), and a couple episodes of Chapelle's show. Sweet.

It was an awesome time in California and I sure loved it out there. The trip home today went well and was overall much less stressful than last time... plus I got to chat to lots of nice people along the way and that made it pretty darn enjoyable. It is although, pretty sweet to be home.

As I was walking around with my stuff in the Toronto Airport, I saw a 4-wheel airport cart drive by me, with a flashing light on it. It was a Toronto Airport employee driving around some older people with their baggage after their long flight back to Toronto. They were smiling at me so I waved at them and gave them a thumbs-up and said, "That looks like fun!" They seemed to agree with me. The best part is the "horn" on this little courtesy vehicle... in true Canadian fashion, it was a little, tinkley bell. "Ring ring, ring ring" was the noise from the "horn" of the vehicle as the driver was driving through the terminal. "Ring ring, ring ring", as if to say, "Excuse me, kind sir. May I please drive my vehicle around you in a polite and pleasant manner?"

It's nice to be home.

Visitng Matt in Cupertino

My friend Matt was interviewing at Apple last weekend in Cupertino, California. It was my last weekend in California for the term so it was great to hang out with Matt in California again. I headed down to San Jose and then to Cupertino and it was super cool. The Hotel that Matt was staying at was totally hilarious, the floor was a Leopard-striped carpet and there was some totally weird polka dot wallpaper, it was pretty nuts but still pretty fantastic.

The best part was the Hotel room came with 2 Leopard-striped housecoats, so of course the first thing I did was put one on and take random photos of myself wearing it. Awesome.

We got some good food and also went to the Outback Steakhouse so that was great. I then headed back to Emeryville and Matt had his interviews and we are both back now in Waterloo ready to move all our stuff. I am moving to a new apartment tomorrow and Matt and another Matt and I are all living together this term so that will be totally great.

Here's some pictures from the Hotel.


Hotel room in Cupertino

Haha Leopard-striped housecoats are standard in the hotel room!!

Matt droppin' Hamiltons

Sweet/pretty weird decor

Cool Apple building

The mirror in the room and the polka dot wallpaper

Outback Steakhouse for dinner

Matt at the Apple Campus entrance sign

Me at the Apple Campus entrance sign

Matt chillin' in the Hotel lounge

Sweet fountain outside

Haha man this Hotel sure likes Leopards and Leopard-related things!!

And another classic of me wearing the fantastically tacky Leopard-striped housecoat, and about to drink some coffee

Point Reyes last weekend

Last weekend my Pixar homeys and I went to Point Reyes for some sweet hiking on the beach. Lots of awesome photos here. After our long hike we went to a small Mexican restaurant and got some sweet food. I got 2 desserts and they were both awesome.


Everyone walking on the beach

My homeys

Me on the beach

Manish

J-kiz laughing as Amanda makes the leap across the water

Frizz-ank

Me and Jake

Me chillin'

Nathan and the rocks

Nathan with some china he found

Cool and weird Starfish

Kev and Julie

Manish taking a picture of me

Emma rockin' the hiking vibe

Frank being crazy

Sweet scenery

Cool rock formations

Me standing in the sandy rocks

Frank doing more crazy stuff

Me walking back to the car

Some kids carrying a log

Haha

Me eating a flower, Jake wondering why I an eating a flower

Monday, April 24, 2006

I have been Linked on "The Disney Blog"

Today at work Dave told me that he saw my Blog linked from the Disney Blog.
Check it out, this is pretty funny. I like how it says I am usually a mild-mannered Canadian student, hehe. I feel so movie-star ish. Awesome. Thanks for the link guys!

http://thedisneyblog.typepad.com/tdb/2006/04/pixar_intern_bl.html

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Last day of work and Team Lunch!

I went out with my awesome, awesome team for lunch today in honour of my last day. It was fantastic and awesome and I got a huge Margarita that looked like it was in swimming pool sized glass. It was really fun and I had a great time. Also, great news about next term, I will post that soon.

Tonight we went to PF Changs and it was excellent, I got some good Cashew Almond Chicken and some Tropical Green Tea which was very tasty too. After that we saw Silent Hill and it was a scary movie and pretty insanely crazy, but there were some cool effects in it.

After that we came back to our apartment for some chillin' and lots of pics from all of this fun stuff.


Guido making a face and Brian

Brian and Ben

Guido with me and Mike

Guido and his lemonade

Shawn in his Waterloo shirt!!

My Chicken Tortilla mix

Another highway Cars poster

Ian at PF Changs

Nathan standing over a blue light

Me standing over a blue light

Frank and Angelique

Ian and Jaime

Nathan and Kev

Me and Nath

The "other" Nathan

Crazy Nathan again

Ian giving us a cheers

Kev chillin'