Memorial Day Weekend, May 24-28

Wrap party!

My long weekend unofficially started on Thursday as I was stuck in 101 North traffic trying to get home and changed for a wrap party.  These are usually excited events with an open bar, good food, and stylish entertainment after a movie screening.  The party was in a tall venue with 4 floors and a balcony surrounding a massive stage and dance floor where acrobats performed.  It was a fun and blurry evening, followed by a late and relaxed day at work where most people were too hung over to come in.  I don't really know how I was so awake at 8am, but I was!

Ty, Kyle and myself did the first music visualization planning get together on Friday night.  We sat and learned Touch Designer, and had interesting conversations about what constitutes a good music visualization, and what types of interactivity make sense.  In the end, Ty and I iterated on a nice and simple visualization with fireworks controlled by a MIDI keyboard.

Saturday morning, Kyle, Sharada, and I drove through Memorial Day traffic to Lake Nacimiento in Paso Robles.  It is a beautiful and secluded property on a bluff overlooking the water, and is owned by the family of a former coworker's wife. A bunch of us hung out, swam around in the lake, sat by the campfire, and had a generally low key and relaxing time.  

Kyle and I went on a short hike on the property.  

We drove back Sunday night, and I spent some more time on the visualizations with Ty.  We came up with a cool interactive thing that uses a Kinect and flashy colors.  I crashed hard, and woke up almost at noon on Monday, and went for my favorite run through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach where along the way I had the pleasant surprise of seeing the Rose Garden while in full bloom.