Yellowstone scenes

Just wanted to post a couple more pics for you guys.

One thing I thought was really neat was being able to be close to some of the animals without them caring how close we were! They obviously have gotten used to people over the years as in some cases they would just look up at us and keep eating, not taking any kind of defensive posture. Probably one of the coolest things so far.

However, we do know that they are wild and can turn on us at any time! We don't want to be the next headline, "Chipmunks go wild on Vallejo family!"

There were a ton of large and small pools just like the one here. Incredible! And when the wind would blow the steam our way, wow was it ever so hot! But just looking at the pools made me want to just take a swim! Not in this pool! And one of the coolest parts with some of these large pools was that you couldn't see the bottom as clear as they were! Deep, so very deep.

Yellowstone

Yellowstone is huuuuuuuuuuuge! And did we even make a dent in seeing the sights? We barely got in the park and only made it as far as Old Faithful!

We stopped a lot seeing a whole bunch of bubbling pools, geysers, bison and elk along the way that there was just no way and no time for anything else. We did do a lot of hiking, but my mom and dad could only do half of it with Cynthia and I taking a lot of pictures and video for them where they couldn't go.

And when I say a lot of pictures, I mean I personally took 276 shots and Cynthia took over 100 that I know of!

Well, hopefully we'll get to see a lot more tomorrow, but if it's anything like what today was, we'll have to plan a lot more visits unless we take a full week of only Yellowstone.

Bryce 2.0

Reading Krudd's blog made me nostalgic for the virtual Bryce version, circa 1996. This image was created by one of the early pioneers of Bryce, Chris Casady.

Bryce

No, not the 3d application, but the actual irl National Park!

Yes, we went to Bryce Canyon today, and got no further than Provo, missing our target destination of Craters of the Moon. We're now planning on visiting Craters after we leave Yellowstone.

I'm a little tired right now after 2 days of driving and hiking, so sorry for the short commentary and how uninspired it is. We have a long drive tomorrow and not sure how much sight seeing we'll be able to get in when we arrive in the evening.

But going back to Bryce Canyon, it was really another incredible natural park to take in! This is a great trip and I'm getting some really great shots!

Hopefully we'll still get free wifi once we get to Yellowstone!

Wilford Brimley

I took my kids to a local farm in Somis yesterday to see the animals. Little Marcitos was just soaking it up as he never saw sheep, goats or alpaca's before. I tell you there's something strange about the way goats appear, from the cloven hooves to the curved horns they just look evil. No wonder their image is associated with the devil! But I do enjoy eating the typical goat meat served at Mexican weddings, "biria de chivo" so go figure.

Well I digress from the main point of my story. At the farmer's market I ran into character actor Wilford Brimley. Although you may not recognize the name (I couldn't remember it at the time) you most likely know the face. He's been in some of my favorite movies (The Thing, The China Syndrome, The Natural and The Firm), bit parts on TV shows like Seinfeld and was the guy from all those Quaker Oats commercials. At first glance I wasn't sure it was him but as soon as he started talking to the woman friend he was with I instantly recognized him due to his distinctive voice.

I considered saying hello but decided not to since I really don't know these people, just because I see them on TV doesn't mean they know me. It turns out I made a good choice since according to various people who met him, he is a old curmudgeon. He even admits it in an interview. IMDB has various people posting comments about this fact that's worth reading if you need a good laugh.

Pretty rude guy!

I met Wilford Brimley at a Utah Jazz game a few years ago. He was so damn rude!! He acted as though everyone was beneath him. He was even rude to some kids. You know how at the Lakers games, they show the movies starts that are there, well, they used to do that with Wilford Brimley at the Jazz games. He got real pissed off and made them quit. He sat in the general seating area, not the fancy private areas, and would get real mad if people tried to talk to him or ask him for his autograph. Come to think of it, I don't think that he's been to a Jazz game in a while.

I met Brimley in Binions Horseshoe in Vegas about 15 years ago. He was sitting at a five dollar black jack table and I was leaving with a group of friends. We had been there a while and were all fairly drunk, and one of my friends pointed him out and said "hey that's someone famous". Another friend said "yeah, that's that old *beep* who eats all that oatmeal on tv". Someone remembered his name and I walked up to him and said "excuse me, are you Wilford Brimley?"...without missing a beat he replied "yeah, I'm that old *beep* who eats all that oatmeal on tv!". I apologized for my friend and he said "don't worry about it, happens all the time". Seemed like a pretty cool guy. Oddly enough when I went back to work and told some folks I met Wilford Brimley, a bunch of people didn't believe me. As if I'm gonna make up a story about meeting a celebrity...and Wilford *beep* Brimley is gonna be the name I pick for my lie...some people.

No blog about Wilford would be complete without linking to 5 Cats that Look Like Wilford Brimley. Enjoy!

Zion

Well, day one is over on our journey to Yellowstone. We are spending the night in Hurricane, UT near Zion Nat'l. Park. It only took us about 7 hours to get here with only making one real stop in the morning in Lost Wages for breakfast.

We left around 5:30 a.m. and arrived around 12:30 p.m., but I'm not sure if it was Utah or Cal time as there is a time change and we didn't pay attention as to the exact time according to our watches or accroding to our phones with the auto time change.

In any case, we had plenty of time to go visit a little of the Zion park and were just amazed at the sights! If we get free wifi tomorrow from who knows where we'll stay, I'll try to post another day from wherever we end up.

Our goal at the moment seems to be Crater of the Moon in Idaho, but I'm not sure if that's where we'll end up! Stay tuned!

SIGGRAPH 2008

Last week, Mark and I attended SIGGRAPH because it was held in Los Angeles this year and we scored some free Exhibit passes (always easy to get).

Monday night we attended the free Luxology Steampunk event at the beautifully restored Edison in downtown. It was a pretty fun night with plenty of tasty hors-d'oeuvres being served such as tuna skewers and beef sliders along with an open bar. We watched a presentation from the president of Luxology, Brad Peebler, who demonstrated snazzy new features (atmospherics, fur materials) that will be part of the next major release of modo. Even though other packages have had these features for years, I was pretty impressed with the speed and implementation of them into the Luxology workflow.

The next day we attended the main exhibition which had the typical vendors and booths, although this year fewer companies were offering printed brochures- maybe in an effort to be more "green". I also networked with some of the smaller studios more this year rather than watching the software demos as in years past. Mark seemed to be recuperating/resting at the various lounges throughout the day. The only negative I could think of is that there was no Hash booth with a demo to watch.

Overall I enjoyed myself although I don't have much of an interest to attend in the future unless I end up working in the 3D industry.

Pro Graphics vs Consumer

Back in 2005 Rob mentioned he purchased a high end consumer video card as opposed to getting a very expensive but similarly powered "professional" graphics card. There's always been some controversy regarding the cost of a pro card for what essentially was consumer grade hardware.

Fast forward to 2008 and it appears both ATI and NVIDIA are still doing the same thing, although it appears ATI is finally admitting why there's disparity in prices... professional support! It looks like Rob made the right choice, especially since he could softmod his GPU so that his 3D apps would think he's running the pro version.

MacWorld Magazine

Rob used to make fun of the fact I subscribed to MacWorld. It wasn't that the content wasn't any good but with the all latest cutting edge Mac news and announcements available just a mouse click away, who needs a paper copy several months after the fact? So I let my subscription run out last year. Actually the real reason I quit was because they kept trying to get me to renew for $30. I only paid $19.99 the first time so I didn't think it was worth the extra ten dollars.

During the interim some local school kid knocked on my door and sold me a subscription of Home Theater magazine. I thought it would be the perfect replacement since I had no intention of updating any of my Apple hardware and I was looking for some more A/V gear. Turns out I was wrong. The magazine only had few good articles and plenty of lame ads. Not a good combo. Well I only paid about $10 for it so it didn't hurt the pocketbook too much, but I definitely didn't renew when the time came.

So I happened to be surfing the net when I came across an advertisement for a one year subscription to MacWorld for only $19.99. They even added a few months free for paying with a credit card up front! So I'm finally back and have already given my recent issue to Rob (who still jokes about the age of the content).

Terminating a Terminator

Normally I wouldn't link to anything Gizmodo after the Apple iPhone nonsense they pulled 2 years ago, but they have a very funny discussion going on regarding the latest publicity photo for TS. Some of my favorite comments include:

"That poor Terminator robot machine! Doesn't anyone EVER think of the Robots rights?"

Okay, so that's the Terminator from the first movie, right? Since when can you just shoot the thing in the head to kill it? I mean...they tried that in the first movie, right? Am I missing something?

Earlier models are probably not a robust. I'd guess a large component of the film is how the robots (and Skynet) evolve over time. It's going to be Darwinian!

i don't think they tried it at point blank range with an assault rifle.

In the first movie they never landed a helicopter on one before shooting it. I am sure that a shot directly to the eye would hit the cpu.....

Maybe an assault rifle to the eyeballs at close range does some damage.

Maybe this is a setup for another Superman Returns eyeball-bullet effect shot. Or maybe he's just pissed and wants to get a few rounds off to vent some frustration.

Terminator Returns

I watched The Dark Knight today and loved it. Every great film has a great villain and Heath Ledger's performance of The Joker was worthy of all the hype. What caught my attention though was seeing the trailer of the 4th Terminator flick, Terminator Salvation staring Christian Bale as John Connor. I know you can't judge a film by its preview but this actually looks good!