May update

1) Went to Bermuda in early April. Captured some great footage and had an awesome time. Still doesn’t compare to Hawaii though..

2) Attended the Industry Spotlight VII hosted by Siggraph NYC at FIT. Seemed like the usual talks from all the nyc big shots. Nathan Love however were hilarious! They showed a studio project they were working on about some horror animation movie. It was amazing and grossly entertaining. Curious Pictures are also working on a 3D short.

3) Had to say goodbye to a wonderful coworker/friend and what better way to do that than drunk bowling! You will be missed..

4) I used to hate indexhibit sites. They seemed to all look the same and lacked any sort of personality. After installing it and messing around with the CSS file, it’s hard NOT to love this little tool. It’s an easy, efficient way to create a portfolio site. I work in Flash all the time but sometimes, it’s just not the right tool to use for a website. Sure, it’s flashier (no pun intended) and more engaging, but when I have to wait 3 minutes for a site to load, that’s 2 minutes too long of wasted time. I never thought I’d say this but I may cross over to the HTML side…

5) Wrapping up (finally) some big projects at work which I hope to include in my portfolio soon. And of course, more new and ongoing personal projects to come as well…

Random Bits – Feb 09

1) I recently came across a great article by Michael McDonough featured on designobserver.com entitled “The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School”. He hits on a number of very useful and valid points regardless of your profession. Two that really struck a cord with me were: 

• “You must decide what is important, and then attend to it first and foremost. Everything is important, yes. But not everything is equally important.”

• “Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.”

Read the full article here.
 

2) I just came back from a 7 day trip to Whistler, Canada. They are consistently ranked the #1 resort in the world by major publications. Amazing terrain, amazing views but not-so amazing powder (this has been a horrid winter for Whistler). I promised my friends a documentary considering I have 160GB worth of footage from the trip. We’ll see how that goes…
3) Thew new issue of Fortune came in my mail the other day. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook is on the cover. He has a net worth of $1.5 billion. He’s also only 24.

Facebook is surely the face of Web 2.0 along with the youTubes and Twitters of the world. This brought up an interesting topic at work. What is the next big thing? Paul Newnes, one of the owners at Last Exit where I work, shed some light on the topic with his presentation on Semantic Web 3.0 at our Last Exit Lecture Series. Semantic web is an advanced framework of information and services on the web, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines. Read more about it here.

What is the next big thing???

the greatest snow on earth

I’ll never forget the feeling…or the view. Getting off the tram that friday morning at the summit of one of Brighton’s peaks was an exhilarating experience. Being from NY, I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to long lines, short runs and icy terrain. Utah was something else. As I stood 11,000 feet high overlooking Utah’s mountains, I thought to myself, how could it possibly get any better than this. Before us was a good half foot of light, fresh, champagne powder that had fallen over night and a gigantic open bowl that felt the size of the grand canyon. I could literally ride half a mile horizontally each way and not be obstructed by boundaries. Utah claims they have the greatest snow on earth and after spending one weekend there, I am definitely a believer. This was in APRIL mind you. We were lucky to have great conditions and got a chance to visit three great resorts in Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude.

There are certain moments in everyone’s lives where they feel completely in utter peace. This was one of those moments.

 

Costa Rica!

Just got back from Costa Rica and I must say, it was an amazing experience. 10 days of ziplining, surfing, hot springs, ATVing, and exploring can leave one dazed from reality. I’m now back in 40 degree, gloomy nyc where everything seems rushed and hurried. It was a perfect escape from my daily grind and I very much look forward to crossing off another one from my list of travel destinations in the near future.Pura Vida! Costa Rica 2008.