Where I am now

I guess the best way to really start things off, is to start with where I am now.

I am 31 years old. I live in Belmont, CA. I work for PDI/DreamWorks the Redwood City based animation studio of DreamWorks Animation.

My main job is to work as an LSF administrator
for DreamWorks. LSF is a software product designed to run tasks on large clusters of computers. The goal is to have tasks running in some sort of order based on some sort of importance dictated by team, show, and studio. If that sounds vague, it is because it sort of is vague. My technical title is Systems Engineer. So what I do most of the time is make sure LSF is running, make sure the machines in the cluster are running and then make sure we are making best use of LSF and the machines in the cluster.

I love the company, I love the job, I love California. It is almost as wonderful as you would imagine. It involves long hours. It involves stress. I haven't taken more than a few days off in the 4 years I have been here, and I am pretty much always on call (even when I take those days off, they have ways to find me). But, like I said, I love it.

The animation industry is an amazing place to be. I love being surrounded by artists and technical geniuses. I love feeling overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of my co-workers. Its good to be humbled by the greatness of others.

So this is where I am now in my life, I am where I wanted to be in college, doing the kind of stuff I wanted to do. Later I will describe the road I took getting here.