Ryan's Journal

I’m not normally one to get all excited over seeing a movie star, but today, standing outside of the Friends set, I saw someone who got me so excited that I could barely contain myself. That’s right, amazing as it may sound, I saw Gunther. Details on this incredible story to follow.

Over the weekend I was able to scan in several more photos from trips taken in September and December of 2000. No captions yet, but I’ll get to them. This weekend I’ll hopefully be off to Death Valley to try out a new Canon Elan camera body and a 19-35mm lens that should allow for some interesting photo possibilities.

The drive from LA offers five hours of time where the mind can just wander. Last night, after seeing several people demonstrating in support of Bush, it again wandered to the current political situation. Two thoughts in particular struck me:

First, the whole situation with Iraq began as an effort to fight terrorism, but has since morphed into something else. The nation’s present stance of fighting Iraq in defiance of world opinion would, it seems to me, do much more to promote animosity towards the United States than any possible benefit gained from removing Saddam Hussein from power. Am I missing something? Someone must be reading this journal who feels otherwise — post something on the message board, because I really would like to hear a well thought out opinion to the contrary.

Second, in addition to political and moral arguments against going to war, the issue of cost is now one to be considered. There are estimates that the total cost of war with Iraq and its aftermath would be between $60 billion and $100 billion, but people don’t seem to understand what an incredible amount of money that is. Consider that instead of being used to fight Iraq, this amount of money could be used to:

• Convert the US oil economy to hydrogen ($100 billion). Not only could the country begin freeing itself from dependence on foreign oil, but the environmental benefits would be huge, as could potential economic benefits derived from the technology change.
• Build a reusable space vehicle ($50 billion) capable of putting cargo into orbit for a small fraction of the cost of the space shuttle. A large amount of startup funding with an even larger payoff for success should be enough to motivate the Boeings and other companies that are out there.
• Rebuild the Bay Bridge ($3 billion), build a 200 mph mag-lev train that runs from San Diego to San Francisco ($31 billion), and an expansion of BART to entirely circle the Bay ($5 billion).
• Give every man, woman, and child in the country $400 ($100 billion).

Insomnia again last night — I slept about an hour, woke up, and finally gave up trying to sleep at 5:00 AM. I then spent a good part of the day trying to simplify some of the most complex code on our site, so it will be interesting to see what I actually did come tomorrow.

During my lunch break there was a guy standing outside of the main gate of the studio lot waving a sign at cars — while I first figured he was just a random nut, when I got closer I was able to read his sign: “I need you to give me a recurring role in a regular series, but will settle for bit parts.”

I’m suffering from insomnia tonight and decided to read a bit rather than just lying in bed awake. I suppose I knew that this was a Lewis Carroll poem, but ever since I was a kid I’ve associated it with the Muppets — I can still remember watching Scooter fighting the Jabberwock and then galumphing back (“galumph, galumph, galumph…”):

Who responds to an e-mail like this one??? I’d almost like to send out fifty thousand copies just to see what sort of person writes back:

“This sum of US$6,000,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank… According to Nigerian Law, at the expiration of 5 (five) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the Nigerian Government if nobody applies to claim this fund. Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foriegner to stand in as the next of kin to Mrs. Ann Barbara Myers… The money will be paid to you for us to share in the ratio of 60% for me and 40% for you.”

In addition to Nigerian bank scams the recent spam harvest also includes numerous stock tips, opportunities to enlarge a prominent body part “safely and naturally”, e-mails from moral and upstanding women wanting me to visit their web sites, and my personal favorite, the chance to buy “Affordable Califirnia Health Insurance”. Unfortunately e-mail spam can’t be handled in the same way as junk mail.

While in a meeting with my boss the other day I was discussing some integration details when suddenly in the background a building quite literally exploded — flames shot out of it, smoke began billowing into the air, and I cut short what I was saying and uttered “holy crap”. The two other people in the meeting turned to the window, then turned to look at me, and my boss said “That’s Universal Studios. It’s probably the Wild, Wild West show. Happens a few times each day.” It’s been a while since I made an ass out of myself in the office, so I guess I was due.

During my lunch break today, not thirty seconds after leaving a spot where filming for ER was going on, my cell phone went off. Luckily I had turned a corner — I was within a hair’s breadth of having the entire cast and crew of ER really ticked off at me. On a positive note, this was the first time I ever got to see them actually filming — normally I just see setup with tons of extras milling around. The most interesting part of the whole thing was the guy who controls the extras walking on the street — for a minute-long shot there must have been thirty extras, and one guy stood to the side triggering each of them to stroll by and enjoy their moment of fame. In a way it was like watching an immensely complex marrionette show, and this scene was small in comparison with something like the “lady in the red dress” scene from the Matrix.

The last few days have again reminded me that if I must be working, I’m very lucky to have the job that I do. Aside from the obvious bonus of working in the midst of a movie studio, most of the work I’m now doing is challenging — a lot of computer work is like building a jigsaw puzzle, and I find it hugely interesting to try and fit all of the pieces together. The analogy fails a bit since puzzles can only be put together in one way, while the same computer system could be built in an infinite number of ways. Due to the many paths one could take, the challenge then becomes looking for the ways to simplify and improve upon the design. Good programming is a process of evolution as excess is stripped away and simplified until what is left is a streamlined, versatile system that is usually flexible enough that it not only solves the obvious problems well, but also handles unusual cases in obvious ways — S.C. Johnson was speaking to the same engineering goal when he said “A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author.”

While going to lunch today three carts filled with people on a studio tour passed me near the soundstage where they film Friends, and it occurred to me that the people on those carts would have been thrilled to be able to trade places with me — on their days off they chose to come to the place where I get to work. Maybe I’m a pathetic fanboy, but it’s pretty damn cool to be able to work in the midst of a movie studio. Yeah, being out amongst the wilds of Alaska would be better, but getting paid while being able to roam movie sets is an alternative that I can live with for a while.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0212-07.htm

I’m not the only person who finds LA amusing — from Dave Barry:

URGENT WEST COAST UPDATE

I am (briefly) in Los Angeles, where a HUGE story is breaking: Rain. Yes. It is coming from the sky and landing on the ground, and the TV news people cannot get over the extreme amazing urgency of this. They have reporters in rain slickers all over greater Los Angeles, and they’re all reporting that, no matter where they go, incredible as it sounds, it is raining there too. And even more incredibly, the roads are wet. Some areas are expected to get more than an inch.

I will have updates on this incredible breaking story as developments warrant, or I get really bored.