Frith O’Steen

Ok, first of all, this is one day belated but I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TULLY! Yes, my baby sister turned 25 yesterday (October 27) and we had a very nice time helping her celebrate in style.  What’d we do? Oh, you know - the usual stuff: cake, presents, a tour of PIXAR Animation Studios…

Wait a minute!, you say? Back up there, cowboy!, you say? We got to do WHAT? (Well, maybe you don’t sound as incredulous as that, but humor me and pretend that you do). Yup, we got to take a tour of Pixar yesterday, over in Emeryville. My mom’s former manager at Peet’s is married to a man who works for Pixar as a colorist (he’s in charge of all the lighting in the final production images), and she invited us to join them for a tour at the studios and for lunch in their cafeteria. It worked out that we could all do it on Tully’s birthday, so Sean, myself, Tully, Katil, mom and dad all met up with David Lortsher (aformentioned Pixar employee) and got to take a fascinating behind the scenes tour with him.

Now, a bit of background here - I don’t think Sean would argue with me when I say that we are unabashed Pixar groupies. We own all the movies on DVD, we’ve watched all the extras (director’s commentaries, hidden easter eggs, and a “tour” of Pixar studios), and know the directors and head honchos of the place by name. (Sean especially knows about all the tech stuff, so it’s really fun to hear him discuss various aspects of the films, how they’re made, etc). So…going to Pixar really felt like getting to tour Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I can’t thank Marie (mom’s old manager) and David enough - it was an absolute incredible experience. Added to that  incredible experience was the fact that (yes, pun totally intended there) their latest movie, “The Incredibles” opens next Friday, so they had all sorts of promotional artwork and conceptual artwork displayed all throughout the studio - really really cool. David showed us where they watch the dailies, we got to peek through a window at the “disk farm” which was chockablock full of servers whirring and blinking away as they did their thing, and perhaps my favorite part of all - we got to walk through where all the animators work! Man, what I would have done to be able to spend an hour there just looking around. For those who haven’t seen the tour of Pixar on the “Monsters Inc” dvd - the animators area is hard to describe; basically they are allowed, it appears, to do WHATEVER the heck they want to decorate their area! There is a full set of animatronic characters from an old Chuck E Cheese in one hallway, and the cubicles/offices are all colorful and look like little houses and such. It almost feels like you’re in a theme park. One office has a facade that makes it look like a little pink bungalow, with shutters and everything. David’s office was there as well, and he has a computer editing set up that looks like something from NASA. (And I thought Sean’s office was impressive!). He couldn’t show us anything too detailed (we had to sign non-disclosure agreements when we fiirst arrived), but he did show us a sample of what he could do. I feel bad at times like this because I know it’s very complicated and so can’t appreciate it as much as someone like Sean or my dad - but their jaws were on the ground so I figure it was pretty awesome what he could do. 

 He also took us upstairs, where they have an art display of paintings, drawings, sculptures from “The Incredibles”. We couldn’t go down some hallways, because they were considered a “closed set”, but it was really neat to think we were so close to, to quote ‘Wayne’s World’, “where the magic happens”. On the other side of the studio, they have displays of old storyboards from ‘Finding Nemo’, and exhibits that explain how a movie comes into being at Pixar. They also let employees display their art there, and there were some very creative photos and sculptures to look at.

In the tour of Pixar on the dvd, they showed employees riding around the place on scooters (the kind you push with your foot, not Vespas) - and people really do! When we first entered the lobby, I practically knocked Sean over jostling him with my elbow to say “Look! Look! Scooters!”. On the dvd they also show that one of the animators’ offices has an unused dead space attached with a little door, which they dressed up with string lights and lava lamps and such, and have dubbed “The Love Lounge”. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I asked David about “the weird crawl space” at lunch, and he said, “Oh! The Love Lounge! Yeah, that’s really there! We even take celebrity guests in to see it!”. So cool!

Those of you who have read this blog before know that I am a little bit starstruck. (heh). Well, I just about fell over when I asked David if he ever saw some of the Pixar bigwigs like John Lasseter or Andrew Stanton (writer/director of “Finding Nemo“), and he said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, there’s Andrew Stanton walking by over there in the red baseball cap”. Wow! It was like seeing Steven Spielberg walk by! Sean recognized some folks by face as well, like Bob Peterson. Take that, Hollywood! We have celebs right here!

Lunch was great, because poor David let us all sit there and absolutely pepper him with questions. He was really informative and what I liked best of all is that he seems to genuinely love his job and the things that they do there. He’s so passionate about Pixar and the quality of their films, and it was fun to talk about it with him and get to ask so many things that might bore him if he was blase about where he works. I can’t thank him enough…this was the best experience. We kept our nametags and I plan to put mine in a scrapbook. It says “Pixar”, with one of the little aliens from “Toy Story” as the letter I, and then “A stranger from the outside!”. Awesome Awesome Awesome.

Gotta go…I feel the need to go watch a Pixar movie….

PS: yes, I succumbed and bought a Pixar t-shirt and a coaster for my desk. Couldn’t resist!

Hello all!

Well, for want of a clever title idea, you get a sophomoric one instead - lucky you! I can’t believe how long it’s been since I blogged…I feel so rusty! What have I been up to the last couple of weeks? So glad you asked! Let’s see, where to start…(cue fadeback music and visual effects, ala ‘Wayne’s World’):

I went to Utah for several days with mom, Katil, Tully and the little guy. He was really good and I think he liked having a brand new place to explore (ie: someone else’s house). Mom flew in the day before we arrived, to get the house set up and ready for us, but unfortunately she arrived to a flooded basement! There was a water surge on their block (the second one this year!), and it blew their valve. Even worse, apparently it had happened a whole week earlier than mom’s arrival, so imagine the lethal combo of standing water, 40 year old shag carpet, and the smell therein produced - gross gross gross. Mom, being the problem solver that she is, immediately purchased a carpet shampooer and commenced like gangbusters to remedy the problem. After we got there the next day, we realized that the damage was far more extensive than we had realized, and that we might have to replace the whole carpet. We started pulling up corners of it to see how far the water had gone, and let me tell you - it was the nastiest thing I have ever smelled in my life. Seriously - we were playing “Would You Rather?” as we pulled it up and removed the soggy padding underneath, and I meant it (and still do) when I announced that I would rather change 1000 of Decker’s nastiest diapers all by myself than ever deal with something like this again. Ugh. Anyway, we basically drenched the basement in Lysol, shampooed the now pulled up and propped carpet about 3 times front and back, and contacted some servicemen to come check it out. The good news? All our hard work paid off - the shampooing, the propping up of the carpet, the use of every fan and old fashioned hair dryer (the kind with the hose that attached to a bag on your head) that we could find to help dry stuff out - it helped get rid of all the moisture and mold (including the walls, thank goodness)! I should mention that mom and Tully were really the major shampooers in this spectacle - my main job was lifting up the carpet tack boards with a dandelion picker, as we had no crowbar. Hey, you do what you gotta do. So the upshoot is that the carpet was saved, we got the state to come out and repad the floor and put in some new linoleum, and we had a very amusing story to come home with.

Utah wasn’t just about emergency home repairs, however. We also got to visit with some family and friends, enjoy the hot tub late at night, watch a ton of  “Jacob Chick Flicks“ repeatedly (ie: “13 going on 30“), eat lots of junk food, and had fun taking Decker to the park. That kid…he sure loves to play in leaves. And play with his aunts’ handbags. And push the stroller. And now he has discovered that other small people about his size also exist, and he desperately wants to go play with them. I thought at this stage he’d still be having stranger anxiety, but as with many other stages for Decker, he seems to have zoomed past that and is now at the “hey! everyone seems really cool and interesting! i’m sure they want to play with me as much as i want to play with them!” phase. I’m glad he’s not overly shy, but I do get a little worried about how comfortable he is with just about everyone he sees! In November we’re starting an activity class for toddlers his age called “Hippity Hoppers” over at the Pleasant Hill Rec Center, and I think it will be exactly his cup of tea.

Other stuff…I ran into a former student of mine, Thongdam, over in WC yesterday. It was really great to see her and to catch up on what she’s up to. I’ll say this about Berkeley students for sure: they always are doing fascinating things, and usually many of those at once! And even though I haven’t worked at Cal for over a year now, I still seem to run into them more often than I would have imagined…it’s weird but cool.

Other than that…it’s same ol’ thing. Been watching the PBS “History of Broadway“ series, which is really cool. “West Wing“ had it’s premiere last night, and I am thinking there may actually be hope that it won’t suck so bad this year. Have a couple of New Yorkers to get through, and of course am looking forward to the elections with a mixture of fear, anticipation, and resignation. We’ll see on Nov. 3…or 4th…or whenever the official counting is decided! Sure makes for a lot of interesting tv!

Later Skaters!

Well, a number of reasons, but at the top would have to be good movies, excellent baked goods that utilize cinammon and pumpkin, the chance to dress a little more cozily and utilize all the orange in your closet (especially in October), and the smell in the air in the morning (no, not the smell of victory…). This is a huge step for me, acknowledging that autumn is a good time of year. Until a couple of years ago, I staunchly stood by the idea that spring was the only truly awesome season of the year. Pretty colors, warmer days, lighter clothes after slogging through winter, etc. Spring is still my fave, but autumn is a close second. I still would prefer to just skip winter altogether. Well, that’s not totally true. Winter is fine up until January 2. THEN I’m ready for spring!

So speaking of great autumn movies, Sean and I went to see “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” last night (shout-outs to Katil and Tully for watching the kid!). It was visually astounding and the story was really cool too. I kept leaning over to Sean throughout the movie, to say things like “Wow” and “Holy Cow”…yes, I’m sure the folks around me loved it. But it was just something like I’d never seen before! I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than to see the giant robots invade NY (not giving anything away by saying that, btw)…having spent some time there earlier this year, it made it extra fun. I love the idea of docking a dirigible at the top of a skyscraper.

And speaking of baked goods, I gotta say that I am a new fan of “Betty’s Baked Goods” at the WC Farmer’s Market! Not only was their pumpkin bread DELICIOUS, but it also had no nuts! That’s like unheard of! Even if I wasn’t allergic to nuts, I hate when people feel the need to include crunchy surprises of the nut variety in their baked goods, so that was a bonus. Best of all, I think the cute assistant guy liked Katil and Tully because the sample he gave us was practically the size of a regular loaf itself, and then he gave us a whole scone for free! Woo Hoo! Free baked goods!

I can’t wait to put up our Halloween decorations…I think that will be the big task tomorrow. I’d say today, but heck no. I’m sleepy and Decker’s napping so I’m gonna be decadent and actually allow myself to do the same. Yay!