pantsfarm

2008 feels like it flew by.

Shortly before the start of 2008 I decided that I wanted to pay to live somewhere that was not my parents’ home. It was in the first week of 2008 that I actually moved all two of my bags into my current residence. It wasn’t a huge move, it’s between 5 and ten minutes by bike to get back to their place, and lately I do that ride almost daily since I still use the gym in their building.

It’s not the first time I moved out and the positive results that come with moving into a place not at home were not new or unexpected for me. However, in moving in with a bunch of new roommates I was taking a pretty big gamble. However, a year later I’d say that it’s really worked out quite well. I live with a really cool group of people from varied backgrounds. I don’t want to put out personal information about what they are all up to in this publicly viewable place though, so that’s all on them.

I’m still working with the same animation studio I was a year ago and we’ve been through a few different projects in that time. The biggest thing through the year was Google’s Lively which launched back in late Summer, although Google’s shutting that down around now. I’d say more about this, but, I’m not really sure what will become of the work we did when Lively closes or if I’m allowed to talk about it.

Unfortunately, since Lively launched and we were basically done with that project, the things I’ve been doing at work are pretty much all secret and stuff I am bound by NDAs on. I will say that we are still working with cool people doing really impressive work and so I really do look forward to the next time there’s a public launch of our product. Other big things my company has worked on in 2008 were EA’s Dead Space however I was not very involved in that project.

My responsibilities at work have shifted around a bit as projects have come and go, and I’ve been doing a bit of scripting work on the side to help my team out on some of the repetitive tasks they have faced. In doing so, I’m definitely getting a better understanding of the workings of and working in Maya, but in spite of this I still have a long way to go before I can say I understand how the team does what they do.

Less personally, 2008 saw a lot of turnover in people around me. Friends came to Beijing to visit and then went home. Friends I met here moved on to the next place for them. My youngest sister Cara came to Beijing for a couple months starting in Autumn after tightened restrictions in Europe prevented her from getting renewed papers. Having her around was a lot of fun, but then as suddenly as she arrived, she was off again. As of yesterday though, it sounds like there’s a strong possibility she’ll be headed back this way sometime in 2009.

The 2008 Olympics happened. They were fun but living in Olympics Beijing was like living in a strange alternate version of Beijing which only existed during the Olympics. Remembering them now is a bit like recalling a particularly long, interesting, and vivid dream.

I went to a handful of events, ranging from exciting (USA vs. Serbia semi-final men’s water polo) to confusing to the point of boredom (Modern Pentathlon equestrian event) to freaking awesome (Swimming on the day that Phelps beat Cavic by .01 seconds in the 100m fly [NYT Olympic blog post from then]). That day was especially freaking awesome because I went with a bunch of swimmers who knew one of the USA gold medalist swimmers personally so I actually got to spend the day wandering around Beijing with Ricky Berens, gold medalist and world record holder in the men’s 4×200m freestyle relay.

Equally awesome but considerably less publicized to my knowledge were the 2008 Paralympics. I went with a group to the murderball finals between the US and Australia and it was fantastic.

I went to some shows in Beijing, they were all fun but none were exceptionally awesome. Memorable names include Air and Kanye West.

I did only a little bit of travel to new places this year, visiting Japan for a long weekend and seeing Dandong on the Chinese side of the North Korean border. I traveled to the US a couple times, first for fun and then the second to attend a friend’s wedding. And finally there was a trip for Thanksgiving and a memorial service for my Grandfather.

I think that about covers what’s been going on for me this year. I’ve been mostly in Beijing. I visited New York (USA), Dandong (China), Ishinomaki and Sendai and the surrounding area (Japan), Boston (USA), San Francisco and Berkeley and a bit more in the bay (USA), and Austin, TX (USA). If I went anywhere else, evidently it wasn’t memorable enough. I am not counting the many hours I spent sitting in the YVR (Vancouver, Canada) airport as a real visit.

I watched a lot of movies, read a few books, and listened to a bit of new music. None of that stuff was really a big deal though.

Earlier in December, I looked at some archives of my old blog from many years ago and noted how 8 years ago I was spending a lot of my time in the same ways I am now. Some things really never do change I guess.