"Back at the Barnyard" wins an Emmy!!!

I know I haven't updated this site in quite some time, but I finally have some exciting news. Last weekend I went to the Daytime Emmys and our show won the Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program! Congratulations to everyone who works on the show!!!

In the pic below: the Directors (Todd Grimes, me, and TJ Sullivan) pose with the series creator Steve Oedekerk (holding the Emmy). I'll put up some more pics shortly...hopefully with Todd not looking so shocked! :)

The SoCal Wildfires!

So you may have heard that there's been a few wildfires down here over the last few days. Fortunately San Clemente hasn't been in the danger zone. However each day has looked more unusual then the last. I took these pictures this morning at 10am. It felt completely surreal standing on the pier looking south. All that smoke was caused by the relatively small fires at Camp Pendleton.

San Clemente...it's not Manhattan Beach, but close enough!

Ok...ok...ok...I know I haven't posted in quite some time now. You might think I got lost on my trip up in Canada or something. Actually the Great RoadTrip2006 officially ended last Thanksgiving when I arrived back in Sunnyvale, CA for the holidays. I only regret that I never made it to Alaska, but winter was setting in and my car had 150,0000 miles on it...sounded like a recipe for disaster!

After the holidays, I moved to San Clemente, CA(about halfway between LA and San Diego) where I took a job supervising animation at O Entertainment for the "Back To The Barnyard" TV series. Everything's going well down here and I can't tell you how great it feels to be back in California. I guess I could sum up how much I like the area by showing you a few pics of my new backyard!

Vancouver and a rare Ted Loo siting!

Day 139: Vancouver, BC. This city turned out to be a pretty impressive place! I guess it reminds me a little bit of San Francisco...lots of natural beauty and plenty to do. I stayed the weekend at Mark Thielen's place, who unfortunately had to leave town before I arrived. This is the spectacular view out his window:

Through an amazing coincidence, Ted Loo just happened to email me about a month before I headed up to Canada. Ted animated with me on the Jimmy Neutron movie, but we lost contact over the years since. Now he's running his own personal training fitness company in Vancouver. You can check out his site at tedloofitness.com. Needless to say, the Jack and Crowns were flowing pretty heavy that weekend! :) Here's a pic with Ted and his girlfriend Rana. These two are super cool and was fun to hang out with them. Now we just gotta get Moses to take a trip up there!

On my final afternoon in town Thielen got back into town. Even though he just had an exhausting flight from Chicago, he still had the energy to show me a little bit of the city. He showed me around Rainmaker, the studio he now works at. I totally dug the studio...especially their break room which has been built as a full-functioning irish pub:

Here's a pretty shoddy panoramic shot a pasted together from pics taken on the roof of Rainmaker. If you click on the image it will give you a bigger image that you can actually see:

That really rainy city!

Day 137: Seattle, WA. Just three hours north of Portland is the city of Seattle. I was surprised to see how large the city was...I really didn't know much about it except for the Space Needle before going. I didn't get to see too much of the city since I was only there two days and it was cold and rainy most of the time. However I did get to see Matthew Russell's daughter sing at her school's celebration for Veteran's Day. You guys sounded awesome Grace!

After having lunch with Matthew and Burke down the street from where they work, I heard later on the news that a huge construction crane fell down a few streets over, killing someone in their apartment. You can check out that destruction at Andrew Burke's website.

So here's an obligatory photo of the Space Needle:

And one of the Science Fiction Museum/Experience Music Project next to the Space Needle...or as Menz described, "the ugliest building in the world":

The Pacific Northwest!

Day 132: Portland, OR. After hanging out in the Bay Area for abouta month, I decided to go on the final leg of my road trip...up to the Pacific Northwest.

On the way to Portland I was able to get a couple of decent shots of Mt. Shasta before the clouds completely obscured the mountain.



Then in the town of Cottage Grove I went on a 25 mile loop that went thru or next to 5 or 6 really cool looking old covered bridges.



Portland is a very beautiful city...lots of hills, trees...and oh yeah...it rained almost the entire time I was there! Besides all of the natural scenery I was most impressed by Powell's Book Store. Billed as the largest book store in America, this place truely is amazing. I couldn't really take a good picture to show the size of the store since it's made up of several connecting rooms. So here's a picture with Brian F Menz to show scale:

The Glorious Bay Area!!!

Day 111: San Francisco, CA. Wow...I've really be slacking lately on updating this site! I guess it's time to catch up where I've been lately.

In late October Wendy flew out from Dallas for her first visit to California. We went to Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Francisco, and Napa in the short time she was here.




On one of the nights a few of us crashed a dinner that Alex Fleisig was having with his mom and grandma. I don't think he noticed though...it looks like he's staring at the glow of a TV or something. And no that's not an android in the back with glowing red eyes...that's just Patrik Puhala's normal look on the weekends!

The California Coast

Day 100: Highway 1, CA. I guess these beautiful shots don't really need an explanation!

The Santa Ynez Valley

Day 100: Solvang, CA. Located in central California's scenic Santa Barbara County, is this Danish town which is surrounded by grape fields and horse ranches. My pictures below really don't do the town justice, it was very picturesque...felt like I was strowling around a European town.


Just 3 miles to the north is the town of Buelton. You might recognize the wine-tasting restaurant below from a certain movie about a guy who loved his Pinot Noir. And I believe the Ostrich Farm had a role in that movie too...although I just can't remember when?

Pink Flyod lives!!!!

Day 99: Hollywood, CA. By shear luck, my friend Dave was able to get me a ticket to the Roger Waters concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The first half of the show was classic Floyd songs and a few solo songs. After a 15 minute intermission, the entire "Dark Side of the Moon" album was played from start to finish with amazing detail to the original. An encore with a few songs from "The Wall" came next and "Comfortably Numb"(my favorite Floyd song) closed the concert.

It's difficult to put into words just how amazing this concert was! In fact I haven't seen a show this intense since Pink Floyd's 1993 Division Bell Tour(and that was with David Gilmour on vocals). I tried to take some pictures, but you can see they are pretty blurry...it was too dark to take decent shots. If you're a fan of Pink Floyd the flying pig needs no explanation(although it this time it was covered with a bunch of political messages).

During "Eclipse", the last song on the album, a giant triangle floated above the Bowl and then emitted lights that recreated the legendary album cover of "Dark Side of the Moon". It was totally unexpected and brilliantly played out. Unfortuanately you can only see the triangle in the photo.

America's greatest town!!!

Day 94: Manhattan Beach, CA. I lived in this town for only 6 years before moving out to Dallas, but I will forever refer to it as "home"! As expected, the weather was perfect and the colors in the town dazzled my eyes! Also as usual...Tom Daniels enjoyed the week!!!

Southern California Desert

Day 90: Anza Borrego Desert. Shortly after crossing the border into California, highway 10 passed through the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreational Park. There was nothing but pure white sand dunes in all directions. It's hard to tell in the photos, but the dunes must have been at least 200 feet high. I could see people walking up to the top and others skiing or "snowmobiling" down them. I totally regret not walking up to the top...the view was most certainly desertacular!

I decided to make the trip through the desert more interesting by getting off the main highway to drive a road named S2. Appartantly no one else decided that road was worth driving. The next three photos were taken at the Carrizo Badlands Overlook. The drive on S2 was long(and winding sometimes). I didn't see any desert animals...only 50 gallon drums of water every few miles!