The Pixar Touch - The Making of a Company by David A. Price

Just finished reading this.... Awesome.

The book chronicles the rise of Pixar from the wild dream of using computers to animate by a handful of brilliant people to the multi-billion Mega corporation that is now the Disney / Pixar franchise that we know and love.

For us geeks it provides tantilising details about the technical animation of the first few movies, you also get many lessons on how to create a culture in a company to nurture truely talented people who love what they do.

Mostly though when I watched back the movies I grew up with as a kid, like Toy Story, while reading the book, I came at them with a fresh pair of eyes. Pixar never did anything less than their best. Each movie pushed the boundaries past what the industry thought was even possible.

An inspirational story.

So where have I dissapeared to?

As normal it would seem for this time of year my blogging has been pretty quiet for the last couple of months. So, as i'm sat here at a hotel bar in Atlanta with a beer waiting for my pizza (diet clearly out the window) I thought I should just mention that yes, I am still alive.

Since I last blogged I have left Canada, gone back to England for Christmas and New Year, moved to Chicago, moved in with Tim, started a new project and been to Kansas City and am currently in Atlanta with it. Phew, no wonder I haven't blogged.

I was thinking of retrospectivly writing about what I've been up to but, you know what, it's putting me off writing anything at all! So, new year (yes I know it's already february) new start, we start today.


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Punk Rock Bingo - The BEST night out in Calgary.

Tuesday nights at the Ship & Anchor, 17th Ave, Calgary from 8pm

Punk Rock Bingo - the best night out in Calgary for sure and something that I feel the rest of the world should start adopting. Perhaps I will bring the sensation to Chicago....

What is Punk Rock Bingo I hear you say?

Well, it used to take place on a Tuesday night at Broken City run by a guy called Steve.... Steve then left and took Punk Rock Bingo with him the the Ship & Anchor on 17th Ave. Punk Rock Bingo (or PRB) still continues at Broken City but it isn't as good without Steve. (sorry new guy but it's true)

It's kind of like normal bingo but instead of Grannies and the retired, it's mostly a young, "alternative" crowd. Instead of silence and ultimate concentration, it's yelling, boisterous and the odd swear word. Instead of winning $10 at the bingo hall, there is a random selection of prizes ranging from ice skates, to board games, to tattoo sessions, to wrestling masks, that Steve runs around town blagging from local stores and the odd flea market. Instead of tea, it's beer and wings. What's not to love?

Started by JJ, there's a crowd of us that would go regularly. A nice early week break in the evening. I and some of my fellow ladies, seem to get possessed and turn from quiet, well behaved young ladies, into screaming, yelling hooligans (in a good way), for a couple of hours. It's brilliant.

You have 3 rounds per Bingo, ending in Blackout Bingo (getting the whole card), there is also the Kite Round, and the X round, all with associated hand signals that will earn you a beer if you are the first to do it. The bingo is also interspersed with random rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors, head banging competitions, and the odd trivia round. This is where I finally won a prize. The question was "Where were the last winter Olympics held?", pretty sure that I knocked a table over and maybe elbowed someone in the face in my haste to get to the stage with my answer. My reward? A guy in the crowd had donated a AssOlympic calendar that he had created for charity, consisting of him doing various Olympic sports, ass naked. WIN.

Brilliant night out and well worth going to. Below are some other blog entries from my fellow PRB goers.

Andree Lau's Blog - http://ugonnaeatthat.com/2009/04/17/calgary-wing-night-punk-rock-bingo/

John Johnston's Blog - http://ateabutnoe.com/?p=227

Suzi Edward's Blog - http://binkysilhouette.blogspot.com/2009/05/punk-rock-bingo.html

World Cup Downhill, Lake Louise, 28th November 2009

Last year I went to one of the World Cup downhill skiing runs and had a brilliant time. So I managed to persuade Tim to come with me for a weekend in the mountains this year. It was the first time we'd attempted to go skiing together, so I was quite nervous and excited!

It was US Thanksgiving weekend so I had the luxury of having Tim in Calgary for 5 whole days. It was a particularly wet snowy evening when we set off, seemed that Calgary was caught unawares so the roads hadn't been treated and were particularly treacherous. It took us a massive 2 hours to get to COP, a trip that normally takes 20 mins, at which point I drove up the on ramp to get onto the Trans Canada highway which goes to Banff, as I drove up the sheet of ice that was supposed to be a road, everyone started sliding backwards including me, most scared ever been, thankfully having a Canadian sitting next to me who knows what to do helped, and as everyone else was stuck too, they all got out and helped push each one of us up the road. Some crazy stupid drivers out there.

Thankfully the snow hadn't fallen past the outskirts of Calgary and the road to Banff was completely dry. We made it to our hotel and I was defiantly thinking that I had deserved a bottle of wine.

We made reservations at The Bison, on Bear St in Banff. We had had brunch there when we met up with Tim's sister in the summer and were really impressed and also had heard rave reviews from some of our friends, so were looking forward to having dinner there.
The atmosphere was nice and there are some interesting things on the menu, we had an unusual bottle of wine called Boom Boom! (admittedly we picked it purely because of the name) accompanied by a meat and cheese platter full of bison meat, duck, venison and wild boar. Yum. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting a nice meal in Banff, slightly elevated tourist prices but worth it I reckon.

The next day we headed to Lake Louise, we got Tim all geared up for his first ski in 15 years or something. I always love the atmosphere at the races. It's free to go and watch so if you don't want to ski and just watch the racing in the finish area that's perfectly acceptable. They have free hot cider and cookies and a marshmallow roasting fire pits. They also give out wee cow bells, meaning that all the racers get a rapturous reception as they cross the finish line. A great positive energy, and it's fun spotting all the "famous" racers ;-)

We then went for a bit of a ski, and credit to Tim he was pretty receptive to his ski instructing girlfriend trying to help him. heehee.

Opening Day at Sunshine Village!

This Wednesday was a public holiday in Canada for Remembrance Day, so we had the day off work. The very clever marketing people at Sunshine Village (a ski hill about an hour and a half from Calgary) decided that they should open for the season on this very day....

I made a call out to my ThoughtWorking friends to see who would take up this mid week escape to the mountains, and the four of us embarked on our first ski trip of the year.

Since the first blast of snow in September we've had pretty much no snow in Calgary, yet in the Rockies, an hour up the road it has been a very different story. Tonnes of the stuff. More than I have ever seen for so early in the season. So we were all VERY excited. I've never been a normal visitor on opening day of a ski hill, wasn't sure what to expect but we figured that we weren't going to be the only ones who thought that heading up there yesterday was a good idea. One good run was all going to make it worthwhile we decided.

With our expectations set (thank goodness), we left Calgary at 7.30am ish. As we got further into the mountains it started to snow lightly, and by the time we were 5kms from the turn off to Sunshine they were big fat flakes. And then we hit our first of many line ups of the day. Sunshine has had a very respectable 40 cms in the last 3 days alone. They had to re-sand the road so we all queued up to get up the access road, then crawled on up the access road. One good run and it'll all be worthwhile....

Good job that I had the company I did in the car. Never a dull (or quiet) moment with that lot. As we were nudging up the road a whole herd of mountain goats decided that they wanted to hang out on the road, causing at least some entertainment for us all. About half way along the road, we noticed that people were starting to come back down in the opposite direction, and grinning a lot. Odd. After another 20 mins we reached some parking attendants who told to go back down and park on the road, all the car parks were already full. Honestly have never seen it as busy.

By the time we had kitted up and walked all the way up to road, driven by our need for that one good run, it was 11am. All was forgotten as we headed up the gondola and got some runs in. Such good conditions for so early, gorgeous powder, and a great atmosphere with everyone just ecstatic about being back on the snow.

Our two last runs mad the whole day. The most fun I have had skiing in a long time. Not a care in the world. Now who do I h ave to talk to to get every Wednesday off to go skiing?!

JJ's Last Week in Canada

My good friend JJ headed back to the UK last week. So lot's of what I got up to in October were leaving events!

We headed out to the mountains with another couple of ThoughtWorkers and went out past Lake Lousie to the Bow Valley Lookout. Another of those 'awesome views for no effort' places. Quick walk up from the car park and you get to a ledge that looks out over this gorgeous view:

Even though it was a rainy miserable day it somehow made the mountains all mystical and awesome.

We then went a bit further on up the road towards Jasper to Mistaya Canyon. A really cool little place, where the river has cut down deep into the rock and left a sliver of a canyon. We hung out there for quite a while, just nice watch the water roaring through the rocks.

Another brilliant thing we did was go skiing at Canada Olympic Park after work one day. The season hasn't quite started yet but COP is open. It's a outdoor little slope on the outskirts of Calgary. They have mostly man made snow but its still snow, and they do night skiing too. It was brilliant to get back on skis for the first time this year. JJ had packed his ski stuff already so was skiing in jeans. HA.

It's pretty surreal skiing on the only peice of snow that you can see and practically in a housing estate.But it's brilliant having somewhere to ski so close. Might keep trying to head up there before the slopes open this weekend.

Last up was the Last Night of the Poms. JJ had a house cooling party for us all, a brilliant night and this is us at the end.

ThoughtWorks Canada Away Day 2009

So bear with me while I post lots of things that I got up to in October...

A lot of October revolved around giving my friend JJ a good send off as he heads back to the UK with ThoughtWorks. Sorely missed.

First up...... ThoughtWorks Canada Away Day 2009

My first Away Day. Was brilliant fun!

The idea of an away day is that, as a company we are all pretty disparate. All on different client sites its often hard to "regroup", catch up with everyone and share ideas. So there is a day when we all go off site, give presentations to each other, get company updates, and generally catch up :-)

We went out to a ranch in Kananaskis Country out towards Banff. As predicted when we started planning the away day back in July, the first snow of the winter arrived just in time for the away day. It was actually really good fun to be surrounded in the snow, for a lot of people traveling this was the first time they had really seen that much snow, and it's always fun to watch their reactions. It wouldn't be the Canada away day if there wasn't ten tonne of snow!

We all had a great day, with all sorts of interesting topics for the presentations from sales skills, to cucumber testing to social responsibility and of course not without a hour long Roy Rant from our fearless leader Roy.

We also got some great TW swagger, in the shape of nice hoodies seen below.