CEC Me!!!

Well, what a week it's been. Sun shipped (well, drove) us all off to San Francisco to help out at the CEC Conference 2005. We were put up in the Palomar hotel - very posh and expensive, right in the centre of the city, complete with leopard-skin carpets and a mesmorizing yoga channel! It was a fantastic week - hard work, 12-hour days, free meals, lots of free drinks (unlimited bar tabs on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday), lots of hangovers and a lot of getting out an experiencing San Francisco night life. This had been long overdue, with our forays into the city previous to this probably countable on two hands. It all finished with AC/DShe performing at the conference on Sunday and a limo ride back to the hotel on Tuesday morning. Here's a day-by-day run down of what I can remember:

Tuesday

Arrived at the Palomar hotel, settled in and headed to a room for the committee meeting. The committee was made up of everyone involved at Sun's end with organizing the conference, including the 12 of us interns led by the fantastic Ed Messenger. It was a really great team (from all over the world) and we all seemed to work well together. We immediately knew we would be in for a good week. After the meeting and a quick drink at Chieftan's Irish pub, we all headed off to Jillians in the Metreon for our first taste of a free bar and food, as well as pool and, oh dear, karaoke. Reluctantly, we participated doing a group rendition of Ricky Martin's "Liv'n La Vida Loca". Horrible. But we carried on, with Andrew, Wee Steve and I doing one more song then Steve getting completely carried away doing song after song. Of course the place had already cleared out after Ricky Martin. We sat outside taking full advantage of the free beer until the place was well and truly closed. We then went to another Irish place, where Alex spent $33 on two whiskeys, Mark got IDed and a fight broke out. We met a couple girls who took us to this really cheap (but kind of empty and unatmospheric) club. Tom and I decided to try and find this place Thomas and Max had gone to on 16th and Valencia. We got a taxi and found Kilowatt, but it seemed kind of quiet so we tried a few other places, but they were all a bit quiet. I guess that's what Tuesday nights are like. We ended up just finding somewhere for a quiet drink. It turned out, much to our annoyance, that Thomas and Max were actually in the back of one of the places we'd looked in, where things were a whole lot more lively in a back room. We would see that later in the week anyway.

Wednesday

Escalators in the Moscone Center

7.30am. Very early start. Because of stupid union laws, we couldn't actually get started until about 11 or something so we had a long breakfast. The union laws mean we're not allowed to unpack the trucks (Moscone Centre employees had to do that) and we can't even touch the A/V equipment (people from the A/V company have to do that). Ridiculous, but there you go. It gave us a chance to recover from the night before anyway. Once we got started it was a lot of manual labour, moving monitors and systems into presenters rooms and stuff like that. The Moscone Centre is a very strangely designed place that seems to make you have to walk up and down stairs unneccessarily. One of the staff had a pedometer on and apparently walked 19 miles over the day!!

New Delhi

In the evening, we all went for a really good Indian at a place on Ellis called New Delhi. It was really authentic, with "the freshest Naan bread in the world". I had some speciality 400-year old dish that some Emporer used to like. It was very good, quite subtley spiced but nice. I'm glad good Indian restaurants do exist out here!

Next installment coming soon!

Presidents Day Weekend

Well, despite it being a long weekend, we never got anywhere far away like we planned. There was talk of Portland, Vancouver and Santa Barbara, but none of it happened, firstly due to bad weather all over CA and secondly due to spending my last pennies on a SCUBA diving course (which I am very excited about).

So on Saturday, I got up late and spent most of the day playing with my Flickr account. Declan and I then went to the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco. It had some good bits, but there were way to many schools not doing much, big corporate-sponsored floats and people with nasty-smelling fire crackers. There was a good bit with swords and the float playing the birdie song (year of the rooster) was entertaining. But it wasn't quite as spectacular or intense as I'd hoped, especially considering it is supposed to be the largest new year parade outside Asia.

After that we went to see Million Dollar Baby at the cinema which was excellent, and very moving. Declan's stomach certainly seemed to be moved by it anyway, making as much noise as it could during the most inappropriate moments in the film!

On Sunday I spent most of the day at the gym with Steve, doing exercises from a magazine he had, then played a bit of basketball. In the evening we all went out to Outback steakhouse and had a very good meal.

We'd almost discounted the possibility of going snowboarding due to bad weather, closed roads etc. but I set my alarm for 5.30 Monday morning just in case and me, Drew, Steve, Wee Steve and Marco ended up going. It was snowing and cloudy all day but we had a huge amount of fun. The snow was so thick and powdery that you could just belt it down and falling didn't matter at all. Except that it took quite a bit of effort to dig yourself out of the snow when you did fall! Marco took us through some crazy off-piste forest routes and I had my first experience of the gulley on lift 5 - excellent for practicing jump-turning skills.

Yo! Soccer

YES! Drew and I were on an AIESEC conference call last night to discuss the program of events in the Bay Area (which has been very much lacking over the last few months). There were a few good ideas being thrown about - elephant seal watching, a hawaiian party, etc. but by far the best was our idea to combine a Trip to Yosemite National Park with the Soccer Tournament. So we're doing it. It's going to happen in April. And it's going to be awesome. Really awesome. We're going to invite AIESECers from all over the States - this will be a national event. Everyone welcome. We'll either get a cabin out there or camp out in the wilds, and it won't just be soccer, no - there will be cooking over an open fire (probably disasterously), hiking, cycling, frisbee, searching for mountain lions, jumping in freezing cold water, whatever people want to do. Of course there will be a soccer-themed hour of power too :-) Most of all it should be great fun and I expect a good turn out from all over California, our new friends from Minnesotta, Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio, and anyone else who wants to come!

First things first though. I think we probably need a better name than "Yo! Soccer". Ideas?

Next year

It's time to start thinking about where I want to live next year, and more importantly who with. I'll probably get a flat in Edinburgh with Lewis and probably Declan. Now, Steve and Stuart from Haddington are also thinking about living in Edinburgh, so it'd be cool to live with them - especially since they will be working and can pay for things, like a big TV to watch Lewis and Stuart's combined DVD collection on (will probably be about 300+ DVDs!)

Also in the mix are the rest of the interns from Edinburgh - Andrew, Tim, Tom and Thomas. I imagine any friends I have left in Ediburgh will stay living where they are now and I don't know what those other interns are going. So it looks like me, Declan, Lewis and Stuart, which would suit me fine. Steve is only going to be about for 6 months because he's going off to galavant around South America or something (I'm so jealous) so it's probably not a good idea for him to live with us since we'd get a 12 month lease. Shame, because there will be a conflict between DVD-watching and getting out in Edinburgh and I think Steve would help tip that balance slightly away from sitting watching films constantly.

The problem is flats will start going on the market in March/April and it will be quite difficult to find one from 5000 miles away. We could get Stuart to look around but I'd rather see places for myself and don't know if I'd want someone else making that decision for me. So that would mean waiting until we're back in July/August, living at home for a few weeks and looking over the last of the scrapings from the student flat market. I suppose if Stuart manages to find somewhere really good and we get to see photos of it then that'd be the best way. I liked the convenience of living right in the centre last year but I'm kind of leaning towards thinking slightly more weight should be given to the niceness of the flat over the location. Somewhere in the Meadows or Dalkeith Road would be fine. Of course if we found somewhere nice around Nicolson St/South Bridge for a reasonable price then that would be ideal.

It'll be good living in a city again, but I'm really going to miss California. I'm going to stop thinking about that now because it's making me sad that I'm now well past half-way through this year.

Sunrise in South Lake Tahoe

Sunrise in South Lake Tahoe
Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan.

Another beautiful weekend up at Lake Tahoe.

It didn't start that way though. I drove up on Friday night after Pixar with Declan, Lewis and Laura in the very worst conditions imaginable. It was late, dark, raining and snowing heavily and the last part of the road was covered in snow. So it took us about 5 hours to get up there. But I feel a lot more confident driving in winter conditions now.

Lewis getting heiroglyphic
Originally uploaded by Spanner Dan.

When we got there everyone else but Drew and Steve were already there, at various stages of drunkeness (with Wee Steve "winning" and already comatose in bed) The cabin was awesome. Seriously. It was huge. It had a spacious open-plan upstairs with kitchen, living area and dining area. There were a lot of stuffed animals around (soft toys, not real) - lions, tigers, leopards, etc. and the whole place had a kind African theme. Weird, but cool.

It was a great crowd up there - most of us interns, Steve's sister Lynn, plus Sarah and Christine from Berkeley, Carol and Grace (also Berkeley) and 3 of their friends (Ann, Scott and Phil) and Laura. A really fun bunch!

Conditions at Kirkwood on Saturday were nothing short of stunning. Fresh powder all over the place, a lovely sunny day and some smooth groomed runs. Spent the day mostly with Declan, Drew, Laura and Carol, doing our regular favourites and also making a foray to the back side, where I hadn't been before and now absolutely love. There are some huge runs with loads of space to go very fast.

Saturday night was party time. But not until we spent about an hour (or was it two? seemed like it) driving around getting lost in South Lake Tahoe looking for the house of the woman who'd found Nico's $800 phone on the slopes. I think that's us even for him picking me up when I locked myself out of my car!

Shortly after we got back, equipped with 9 bottles of very cheap wine, a 24-pack of Corona and bacon and eggs for the morning, the party could truly kick off. Then there was a power cut. This just served to get everyone even more up for it and let Marco make his precious fire. We'd been giving tantalizing clues as to what the hour of power was all weekend so it was time to get it going. Steve's CD went down extremely well and our first power hour was a resounding success. Doing it with wine seems to have both advantages and disadvantages:
+ It doesn't fill you up as much
+ It's more alcoholic
- It's more alcoholic
- It stains more when you pour it down your t-shirt while drinking from the bowl trying to catch up after a reasonably lengthy trip to the toilet!
Anyway, after the hour of power we ended up in a very crowded hot tub with occasional trips to the snowy (icy) garden to get naked and fall in the snow (ice).

All in all a very fun weekend!! Thank you AIESECers of the Midwest for introducing us to the Hour of Power! And thanks everyone for coming and making it a fantastic time.

Thanks for reading. You've been a great audience.

Pixar

Entrance to Pixar Studios

Pixar Animation Studios. Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles. They are the best animation studio in the world. And Lewis, Declan and I visited them on Friday.

It was an incredibly cool building. Upon entering the building, which is styled like a huge warehouse, you are greeted by a giant model of The Incredibles characters fronting a spacious central area for meetings, games, paper aeroplane competitions and free food and beer on Fridays. The building is split in two by this space, with creative work on one side and technical on the other (funny how they segregate them!) and a state of the art cinema at the back. Then there are people wizzing about on scooters all over the place, and artwork and storyboards all over the walls.

With around 700 employees, Pixar currently have 3 films in the pipeline, the only one to be announced being Cars, coming out next summer. They are very secretive about the other films. Any reference we saw to them was simply "JLP Project" (JLP being the director of one of them) and most of the building was cordoned off with signs saying "Closed production area. No visitors except with permission of the director." They really weren't giving anything away.

We saw their "Renderfarm" - a huge supercomputer with around 2000 Intel CPUs running their Renderman software on Linux. They used to use Sun stuff, but Intel+Linux is more cost-effective for them now. Each frame of animation takes around 5 CPU hours to compute (so that's 120 hours per second!!) Interestingly, Pixar's Renderman software is used in just about every film that includes animation or special effects and has won a technical Oscar. It's even sold to ILM for the Star Wars films (who Pixar originally spun off from). You can buy it for about $5000 per CPU.

It looks like an amazing place to work, with lots of hugely creative people and a really great company spirit.

Much thanks to Martin Reddy for showing us around!

P.S. And thanks to Stuart for setting this up.

Hello

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