Updates...finally

Well...now that I'm back in full force with access to my very own computer, I guess I can start updating this thing.

Haven't been up to a whole lot since I last posted, but here's a quick rundown.

• The Brewers came to town in early August to play the Dodgers. I went to 2 of 3 games, and they lost them both. Watched the third game on TV, and they won...go figure. Sorry Pete, no pictures to post of the game. Sat in the all you can eat section for one of the two games. My hopes were high when I found out you could spend $30 and see a baseball game, plus eat all the nachos, hot dogs, and popcorn you could shove in your face. Little did I know after one less than stellar hot dog and some cold nacho cheese with chips, I wouldn't want to eat again for a whole day.
• Had my birthday at the end of August. Nothing too special. Hosted a little BBQ and pool party at my co-workers' place, and spent some solid time on the beach with Kara.
• Been averaging around 56 hours a week since then as the deadlines are fastly approaching for Resistance 2. Thankfully things are starting to ramp down a bit, but at least the game is looking awesome.
• Put a good chunk of my sweet overtime ca$h into an awesome bedroom setup comprising of an Ikea frosted glasstop desk holding a 22 inch HD monitor, and a PS3, with a new ultra fast computer stored underneath(pictures to come soon)
• Watched Ohio State get their butts handed to them at USC as we tailgated there, which was an awesome experience(more on that, with pics, later too)

That's really about all. Lots of these past few months has been work. Fun times coming up though, with the family coming out for a visit, possible trip to Vegas, trip back to Rochester to get the remainder of my belongings, and much more!!

I'm baaaaack....

....again

Don't fret folks. My very own computer arrived, via the Friendly FedEx man, today. In addition to that, things at work are slowing down from about 56 hours a week to a fairly normal work week, so I'll be posting some updates real soon! Thanks for hangin in there.

How much is that doggieeeeee in the window...

So now that I'm here in LA for a while, I'm one begging of a landlord for doggie approval away from hitting the shelter and bringing a pup home with me :)

Since my work days have been averaging about 10 hours, I've been also looking into the possibility of doggie daycare, as silly as such a thing sounds. Browsing through places, I came across this picture which I found to be absolutely hilarious. If you watch family guy at all, they do this kind of recurring joke with Brian their dog, where to distract him they just whip out a ball and he completely forgets about what's going on and focuses all attention on the ball. Anyways, this picture cracked me up cuz it's the same scenario but there's like 15 dogs totally focused on this ball and where this lady is gonna throw it.Wish me luck with the landlord, and keep checking back for a random introduction of a new family member :)

BIG NEWS!

It had been discussed from the get go of my internship that Insomniac was looking for a person for my position on a full time status. They had several applicants, who had a decent amount of more experience than I, but I was doing a good enough job that they were going to see how things unfolded with me.

About two weeks ago I met with my boss and they said I was doing an awesome job, but if they had to make the decision, they probably would pass on me, however were open to being persuaded otherwise. Well, after they told me what to work on, I busted my ass to show them that even if I don't know as much as other people, I'm prepared to put in the extra work to learn.

Today, to my surprise, I was offered a full time position at Insomniac!!!! I'm still grinning it was so exciting, and needless to say, if you didn't pick up on my love of LA and Insomniac in all of my posts, I accepted the position.

I'm extremely excited to take this next step and continue to learn and improve with the great minds that are around me.

Misc. Photography

Haven't been up to much recently, besides a few repeats of beaches and the whatnot. Slowly kind of settling into a normal life out here, so I thought I'd just post a few misc. pictures of my last few outings. Nothing too exciting to write about, but a few more skateboarding, graffiti'ing, and other random stuff...and a burning desire for a "professional" camera...

EAAAAARTHQUAUAUAUAUAKE!!!!

So today, whilst in a work meeting, the building started to shake just a bit. We all looked at each other, not sure if what was happening was what we thought it was. Then, the building started to shake a lot. It was indeed an earthquake, measuring a solid 5.3 on the richter scale.

The building was shaking pretty good. Lights were swinging. Objects fell off desks, and the building was swaying pretty good. Felt similar to a plane in heavy turbulance.

It was just enough to put a little worry in everyone, but not strong enough to do any damage or injury. So, it was a good first experience, and makes me probably not want to experience a major one. However, I'm glad to have the opportunity to say that I've been through it.

RESISTANCE 2!!!

This week was E3, which is a huge video game conference where all the developers release big previews, game play tests, etc. of the games they're releasing for this upcoming year.

Our studio had a few things to show, but the biggest was Resistance 2, which is the game I've been primarily working on this summer. The press it's been getting so far is amazing, and it's being hailed as one of the top 3 or so games that are coming out this year. Check out the new trailer that we released. The game's looking amazing, and I can't wait til new footage is released and I can point out the things I've been cranking away on :)

This quality is pretty terrible, so don't be lazy, and search for the trailer somewhere else. If you insist though, watch this one.

The Dark Knight

Just saw it..in fact, work took just about the whole office to see it for free, and bought us all treats too, which was a pretty awesome way to duck out of work early on a Friday.

Movie was awesome!! Heath Ledger played an awesome role, it's a shame what happened to him, because people will now probably overcompensate and give him extra props when he clearly earned them in the role anyways. And of course, it blows that he won't be in the next movie.

Anyways, the movie was awesome, everyone should check it out while it's on the big screen because it definitely adds a lot. It was long, and perhaps dragged on just a tad too much, but if that's the only thing I can come up with to complain about, I'd say they did a great job.

EXCITING NEWS!!

Everyone get your cheese biscuits and shrimp ready, because I've just signed a contract to be the new spokesman for Red Lobster......all joking aside though, the picture doesn't do this full justice, but I got destroyed at the beach yesterday. Apparently my body has adjusted to SPF 15, and I'm payin for it today :(

Happy Birthday America Party!

For those of you who haven't been blessed with hearing my adventure last week, here goes. Out of boredom, and the chance to possibly meet 1/1000 normal people who are on craigslist, I've once and a while been scouring the "activities" section to see what's going on around here. Well about 4 weeks ago, I came across someone looking for a person to be in charge of grilling at their 4th of July celebration. The Wisconsinite in me came out, and stepped up to the plate, figuring the worst thing that would happen is that I'd waste a little bit of gas to get to the party and 2 hours of my life.

After committing to the party, I then found out it was a 40-and-over singles pool party. Many people seemed to have various ideas of how this was going to turn out from weird wrinkly men in leopard speedos, to a cougar party. I was mainly going for pure entertainment purposes, figuring that there would be a crazy mix of socially awkward people. It turned out to be that, and more.

There's not too many funny things to put into words, but the fact that I was given a "Hello my name is: Josh" nametag, and an american flag apron to wear while grilling, probably says enough. On top of that, those who were drinking were required to sign a waiver stating if we were in an accident on the way home, we would not sue the party's hostess for providing us with alcohol. Anyways, it turned out to be a hilarious experience, and was a solid way to spend 3 hours over the 4th weekend.
The one upside was that the house was pretty amazing, and was sitting right on top of a mountain with nothing but a huge cliff leading off the backyard. It would have been awesome to stay at night, because the stars were probably spectacular, but I definitely reached my limit after a certain point.

The Wish List

For a little while now, I've been compiling this list of things I want to buy/do once I actually establish a career and settle down somewhere. There's not much on the list yet, but I thought it would be fun to share, especially since I'm on a roll with the blog postings tonight. In no particular order, although number 1 is definitely number 1:

1. GET A PUPPY! A SHAR PEI to be exact!
2. If I end up somewhere like here, where it's always sunny and never rains, I'd like to get a motorcycle.
3. Purchase at least partial season tickets for one of the sports teams in the city that I setlle down into.
4. Two cars once loans are paid off. 1. Infiniti g35 2. Range Rover

That's all for now :)

Spend about a week on Venice Beach...

To quote the great Notorious B.I.G., that's what Kara and I did on her last day here in SoCal. Well, we only spent a day, but it would have been great to spend a week there. Venice Beach is just south of Santa Monica, so much so, that you could see the S.M. pier from the Venice Beach pier. Venice is somewhat similar, although had some differences. There was another little strip just off the beach which contained all kinds of shops and street vendors. In addition to this, there was a mini skate park, an area of walls where graffiti art was allowed with a permit, and other cool things. It was very fun to walk around and take everything in.
Just off the beach, there was an area of canals, for which Venice apparently got named after Venice, Italy. There were some amazing houses right on these canals, and each had its own canoes, paddle boats, and the such to travel the canals with. It was a very cool scene.

The highlight of the day was Venice pier. There were tons of fisherman on the pier. There was a group of younger people fishing. Apparently one of them was growing quite bored, and decided to try to catch pigeons by baiting them with food. He was standing completely still with tongs of crunched up chips laying around him. We sat down and watched him for at least 20 minutes. Nothing happened, but for some reason it was strangely hilarious. There was something about the anticipation of the possibility of him diving after a pigeon with a bucket that really cracked me up.

Keep em' comin...

This past week, Kara and I were up to many misc. activities after I finished work each day. Among them were the Dodgers game, the Getty Center, and Hollywood.

The Dodgers game was pretty fun. The game we went to wasn't the best. It clocked in at a quick 2 hour clip, mainly because there was a major lack of offense. The Dodgers played the White Sox. The stadium is pretty cool. It's a shame that nowadays the quality of a stadium is determined by how new it is and how much money was put into it. With that being said, all the nostalgic of the qualities that I liked of Dodger Stadium, many would probably throw those traits into the "dumpy" category. But little things like the countless numbers of people who bring headsets to listen to the radio broadcast, or the 10 year old boy behind us who had more baseball knowledge than many adult baseball "fans" who I know, really show what kind of faithful and knowledgeable fans this team has.

Hollywood is a dump. Another WI tidbit, walking Hollywood Blvd. is more of less like walking main street in the Dells. Lots of dumpy shops selling touristy t-shirts for like $2, and other junk like that. It's definitely something you need to do once, but unless I have more people visit, I'll probably never do again. It was fun to see stuff like the guy in a life size Jimmy Neutron costume, but that's about where I draw the line. It was so disappointing, that the most amusing portion of the trip was a Chinese restaurant named Kung Pao Kitty. There was something oddly amusing to me about a place whose slogan was "Eat More Kitty" when stereotypes about such taboo things run rampant about Chinese food.

The Getty Center is really cool. It's an art museum up in the hills of LA. You park down at the base of the hills, and take a tram up to the top. I'm not sure of the story behind the place, but it's also very architecturally significant besides all of the art contained inside and outside of the buildings. Unfortunately we got there late on Friday, and only got a bit more than an hour to explore before it closed down. It's something I'm definitely planning on checking out again to be able to fully take in everything it has to offer.

Cambria, cont'd...

The following day, we went to Hearst Castle, which was about 10 minutes away from Cambria. I didn't associate the Hearst in the castle with William Randolph Hearst, who was a large historical figure, and the man behind the castle. Yes, it was an actual castle, and yes, it was in the United States. There was a really cool film we saw in the before getting the tour which filled in all the details of the history, but I won't bore you all.

The castle was amazing. We had a guide, who I didn't listen to much, mainly because I was firing off photos left and right. The castle is huge, and filled with all kinds of artifacts, art, and what not. It looks like something out of old Greece or something. I really can't even explain it well, because it is beyond those words. Among the things contained here, were a theater room, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pool. And back in the days when Hearst actually lived at the castle, there was even a zoo which contained rare animals like polar bears, lions, and the like.

Weekend Trip

Kara was here visiting for the past week and a half, which provided me even more opportunities to to explore LA as I now had someone else to keep entertained too. We had a great time. Our first weekend consisted of driving up to Cambria, which is about 3.5 hours north of here. We were meeting up with friends who live in SF, for a little couples weekend.

Cambria is a very cute little town. The actual town is just off the ocean, but there's a little strip of very nice hotels that sit right on the ocean. For those of you WI residents, it's a very Door County-ish area with amazing views. We found a nice hotel with a great balcony overlooking the ocean. We spent the night out at dinner, and then indulged in wine and beer on our patio while listening to the waves crash up on the shore.

M-I-C-K-E-Y

Two weeks ago, my roommate won a pack of tickets to Disneyland, and was generous enough to take me as one of her guests. For those of you who I've discussed Disney with before, you know that it's not exactly my cup of tea. I'd much prefer a less sentimental and more thrilling theme park like Six Flags, than to go to Disney where emphasis is placed more on the nostalgia than the rides.

Regardless, it was a very fun, but also long day. The highlight of the day by far was the new Toy Story ride that opened up. We were there one week before it opened, but luckily, included in the tickets my roommate won were wrist bands to get us on the ride before it opened. This is a ride in 3D where you are in a cart with some fake guns. The guns shoot computer generated objects into a movie screen where there are targets. It's a very carnival shooting style themed deal, which keeps your score and everything. It's very hard to explain, but was a blast. I think we went on it like 4 times throughout the day.

It was also apparently the unofficial Ravers day at Disneyland. Little did we know that Ravers didn't really exist anymore, but we were also unaware of the fact that they collect bracelets known as "candy". Then they all trade bracelets and wear them all the way up their arms. It was quite an experience, and a new look into a subculture I was unaware of.
The rest was pretty usual Disney fare. I had always known that Land was smaller than World, which makes sense. However, I wasn't aware of the fact that the parks are more or less exactly the same with many of the same rides. But, it was still fun, and for free couldn't be beat.

I'm Baaaaack

As promised, my schedule is now getting back to normal, and I've now got more time to update the old blog. So now, we'll have to jump in the way back machine and catch up on some of my past activities...

Stay tuned, Sports Fans

Just wanted to touch base and let everyone know that I am alive, and have not yet given up on this whole blogging thing. The last few weeks have been busy, and I haven't had much time to upload all of my new photos and write about them.

I have lots to share, though, and hope to get it up soon. So stay tuned!

Til the sun goes down...

...over Santa Monica Boulevard

Well, I'm not really sure if that song has anything to do with Santa Monica the city, or just that road, but whatever. I spent my first full weekend-day hitting up Santa Monica. It's this really cool beach town-ish kinda city about half an hour from my place. There's a loooong strip of beach, with a pier that contains all kinds of street vendor style people and a bunch of carnival rides. Then, a few blocks off the beach is the promenade, which is a long closed street of stores, bars, places to eat, and street performers.

My trip out there was a nice welcoming to the LA freeway system. Nothing says you're in LA more than a 2pm traffic jam on a Saturday. And it was probably about 1/5 as intense as anything that goes on during the week. Thankfully work is a short 10 minute ride on side streets.

Once arriving, I parked, and pretty much just spent the day strolling around, snapping some photos, and taking in the gorgeous day and scenery.

One is done...

Well...week one at the internship is complete. Things are going really well. The days just fly by. Before I know it it's lunch, and then all of a sudden the day is complete. They're starting me out a little slow, for obvious reasons, and I'm getting into the swing of learning all of their conventions and how things get done at Insomniac.

I can't really divulge any information regarding specifics, but so far I've been working mostly on making weapons in the game, and next week will get to move onto bigger and better things like vehicles and characters. It's very exciting and I'm having a blast so far.

Fully Stocked Kitchennnnn...

So for those unaware, if I haven't mentioned it yet, or if you haven't watched the youTube video, my work has this fully stocked kitchen which is absolutely amazing, and can't even really be explained. Every cabinet is loaded with stuff, and labeled very nicely. There's so much stuff, and every category is covered so much so, that there's a drawer labeled beef jerky. Here's a brief look into what I enjoyed in this kitchen in my first week at Insomniac:

Drumstick ice cream cone
Zone energy granola bar
Peanut butter sammich
Frosted Flakes
Rice Krispies
Raspberry yogurt
Banana
Banana nut muffin
Blueberry muffin
Chewy choc. chip cookies
Famous Amos cookies
Apple juice
Pepsi aaaaand
Sparkling water

It's been rumored that there's a thing known as the Insomniac 15 where new employees pack on the pounds because of all the goodness available. Thankfully, there's warm, long, sunny days to get me out running and working out to shed some of the splurging :)

VEGAS BABY!

Last Friday I arrived in Vegas. Unfortunately, my boy Boobie had a new job that tied him up a bit, but we still had a great time catching up and getting in some Vegas time. I spent a lot of time fooling around with my camera, doing a little gambling, and risking my life on some ridiculous rides on top of the Stratosphere which dangled you 1,000 feet up in the air. It was a great time, as Vegas always is, and again made me fall in love with that city. I just can't get enough. There's something about leaving a bar at 7am, and burning your eyes in the bright sun that you hadn't seen in 12 hours, that really makes you feel good. As with my last trip there, I slept little, drank lots, and had an awesome time.
I'm hoping to get all of these pictures up, probably on Facebook, sometime soon. So keep your eyes out for those if you are interested in seeing more!

Westward Bound

A 12 hour drive a few weeks ago took me from Rochester to Milwaukee, where I only got a disappointing 6 days to spend with my family before continuing my trek out west. I had a great time catching up with friends and family, and thankfully got to see a lot of people.

Last Wednesday took me on another 12 hour car ride through Illinois, Iowa, and into Northwest Nebraska where I spent the night. The drive was incredibly boring. Iowa was nothing but farms, although it was a little hillier than I expected. Nebraska was equally hilly, but for some reason all of its farms smelled like stale port-a-potties. I'm by no means a fan of the common cow smell that graces the countrysides of Wisconsin, but it's much more enjoyable than what I smelt in some parts of that drive.

Last Thursday was far more exciting, taking me through Colorado, New Mexico, and just into Arizona. The drive was incredible. Tons of mountains, hills, and gorgeous desert-like areas. Lots of the stuff I saw reminded me of some western movies, and the more recent movies I've seen with some beautiful photography like 3:10 to Yuma, No Country for Old Men, and There Will be Blood.

Friday was a short push. I had about 4 hours to Vegas where I was going to get to catch up with my boy Boobie. I was hoping to stop at the Grand Canyon, but was expecting it to be just off the freeway I was on, and not an hour out of the way one way. So instead, I settled for The Arizona Bowl, which is a ski hill that has a chair lift going over 11,000 feet in elevation. The hill was obviously closed for summer, although there was still some snow because of the elevation, so you could buy a ticket to take the chair lift to the top and look around and do a little hiking, which is what I did.

Yer face is gonna get rocked...

So for anyone still unaware, I have officially accepted a position as Technical Animation Intern at Insomniac Games for the summer. I start on Monday, June 2, and between now and then will be packing things, moving things, driving home, getting some quality little sister time, driving to New Mexico, golfing, and then off to Vegas before finally arriving in LA-LA-Land on the first of June. I will be living there until the end of August, and will welcome anyone who wants to come visit with open arms. More on all of that later, though. For now, back to Insomniac.

They rock...or at least it appears(and I hope) that they do. They make games exclusively for Playstation, which means you all better run out and get a PS3 to play whatever game it is that I'll be working on. They're known primarily for two series of games. The first is the Ratchet & Clank series.

You may not know this game, but certainly have seen their hilarious commercials where kids are testing out weapons and things go horribly wrong.



The second series they work on is called Resistance, which is a first person shooter game in the same style as something like Halo. Resistance 1 was one of the biggest games to be released on the Playstation 3. Resistance 2 is currently in production and slated for release in November, so I'm anticipating much of my work to be done on this game. I'm not a huge fan of this particular style of game, but this game looks so sweet that I'm definitely pumped to be working on it(probably).


When Insomniac called to make me my offer I was definitely geeking out, and was probably more giddy than if my sister got the opportunity to meet Hannah Montana. It's definitely cool to be working towards a goal in school for so long and to finally at least get a foot in the door towards solidifying a career in something that you've been studying for quite some time. There's always that worry, that no matter how well you are doing in school, your skills might not translate into the real world. So it was definitely an honor to get my demo reel out there and get back a lot of the great comments and interest that I did.

Insomniac seems like a rockin company, with cool perks such as a basketball court, volleyball court, putting green, fully stocked kitchen, and yes, pinball machines. Check out their recruitment video to get an idea of what people stuck in front of computers all day do on their "slow days"

Welcome to my world...

After taking weeks to come upon a cool blog name and web address, which I failed miserably at doing, I've finally joined the blogging world. I hope to keep anyone who cares informed on what's going on with me, and to kill a few minutes a day for anyone bored and looking for some internet goodies to satisfy them. As the title suggests, I'll be doing a bit of talking about my work, but also about random stuff going on with me. I'm doing this for several reasons:

1) Because I'm not great at keeping in touch with anyone who I don't see on a regular basis.
2) Because this summer will hopefully treat me kindly with many internship hours(read: overtime $$), which means less non-work related CPU time
3) Because my computer crashed, which means even less CPU time
4) Because I'm hoping to spend any spare time I have this summer exploring the wild, wild, west and all that it has to offer. This will not only make me less accessible, but will also want me to share the cool experiences and photos that I'll be having.
5) Because overall I'm a pretty quiet dude, and even if you ask me 8 million questions, you probably won't get half of the info I'll probably blab about on here. And...
6) To give all of my animation friends an insiders(as much as is legally allowed) look at some of the stuff I'll be doing this summer.

So please take a read once and a while, and I hope it's worth the time you invest in reading it. Enjoy a peek into my life!