[Moriah] Reflections | Projections 2004

I had fun this weekend at Reflections Projections, for the most part. I enjoyed driving down and back, supporting Daniel during his interviews, listening to a few of the speakers, and swimming at the hotel! There was also a really awesome store we happened to come across after getting lost on our way back to the hotel from campus. It was called Strawberry Fields and it was the most incredible natural health food store/vegetarian deli I have ever been in. The store was almost identical to The Free Market, but it was bigger and had more items than we carry. And the deli was cool! I ordered a BBQ Tofu sandwich with tomatoes and sprouts. Mmmmmmm! I was in heaven in that store. I hope there is something like that wherever we move next spring.



As I said, some of the speakers were good. I really enjoyed the presentation Chris Horvath (from Tweak Films) gave. He was a great speaker and I liked seeing the stuff he did for "The Lord Of The Rings" and "The Day After Tomorrow." Very cool. I also enjoyed Guy Kawasaki's presentation. I actually learned quite a bit from him. He didn't focus solely on people going into a field with computers. He was talking about any entrepreneurs, which is what I will be with my pet sitting business in the future. I took notes on his presentation and will certainly use them when I start my business! The other speakers were ok, but they were directed more toward computer science majors so I didn't get much out of them. I did not like the final speaker we went to who talked about AI and his "creative machine" he's been working on. As Daniel so nicely put it, he is a conceited bastard with no moral or ethical concern for what he is doing. I strongly disagree with what he and the military are doing with AI, but what can I do about it? Not much.



Finally, swimming at the hotel was probably my favorite part of the weekend, aside from finding Strawberry Fields. I love swimming so much, and it was great to finally get back into a pool! I wish I had more time to swim, but we were so busy going to the speakers and stuff. Oh well. At least we got to get in both nights we were there.



As Daniel mentioned, I was furious when I saw someone had sideswiped my bumper! I can't believe it. In an almost empty parking lot, someone was stupid enough to hit the back of my car which was parked at the far end of the lot! And they didn't even leave a note or anything to let me know how to get ahold of them. Unbelievable. All I can say is I pretty much had a loud fit right in the middle of the parking lot when I saw that. Daniel, Tony and Dan R. can attest to that. This all happened after I came out that morning and saw that about 100 birds had crapped all over the front of my car and the windshield from a tree we were parked under! That started off my bad car morning. Grrrrr...



Aside from a few mishaps (namely some food issues, some of the speakers and the car situation), it was a pretty good weekend. I can't say I'm sad that we won't be going back anymore like Daniel is, but I must admit it was kind of fun this year.

[Daniel] Reflection | Projections 2004

We left early Friday morning (5:30am) after both getting only 4 hours of sleep. We picked up Tony & Dan Rutz and headed down. Moriah was very kind and decided she was willing to drive us all down. I spent most of the trip trying to prepare myself for the interviews.



We got down to Urbana-Champaign at 11:45am. We went in and spent the next hour and a half interviewing with various companies. I interviewed with PayPal, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Business Logic, Microsoft and Volition as well as one or two others. It was cool getting to smooze with some big name companies and find out more about them as well as pass my resume.



After that, we found a really neat health food store/cafe which I'm sure Moriah is dying to tell everyone about. After having some delicious food and chilling, we checked into our hotel. It was not the greatest hotel but it was improvement over the dive we stayed in last year. We then headed off to get food and see the first presentation. Chris Horvath of Tweak Films gave a presentation of creating realistic simulations for movies. His company worked on effects for Lord Of The Rings and The Day After Tomorrow. He had a great sense of humor and really gave a great presentation.



After that, we headed back to the hotel and swam with everyone who went for an hour and then chilled back in the room. We got only slightly more sleep that night (5 hours).



Saturday started very well. The first speaker, Guy Kawasaki, is a former Apple fellow and a venture capitalist. Aside from giving the best Powerpoint presentation I have ever seen, he did a great presentation and quickly garnered my respect. The talks after that were much more technical and not quite as interesting but I still learned quite a bit. The final talk was the best as we got to see two gentlemen from the gaming industry. I was excited because I have long admired the Levelord's work (Duke Nukem 3D, Heavy Metal FAKK 2, Star Trek: Elite Force, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero) so it was cool getting to hear that. I also received a CS:CZ card that the Levelord had signed. Not as cool as the signed copy of Sin Dan got but still very cool. Afterward, we all went out for pizza at a local restaurant called Papa Del's. It was good but still not as good as Rosati's in Wausau. Then we went back to the hotel and Tony, Moriah and I had fun swimming for an hour and a half while poor Dan slept in the hotel room because he felt like crap.



Sunday, by contrast, was not so good. We all woke up late, had a not-so-great breakfast and then walked in late on the first speaker of the morning. He spoke about AI and neural networks, which basically involves simulating the brain through code. The conceited bastard is basically trying to make it so people are "immortal" - before death, feed everything in their brain into his "creativity machine" and your knowledge will live on. He works for the military constantly and obviously gives no thought as to the ethical or moral issues his product creates. Then we decided to leave. We had only been in that talk for one hour and came out to a barren parking lot. The fact that there were hundreds of open spaces didn't stop some IDIOT from leaving a ton of white paint on Moriah's bumper!!! They sideswiped her car and didn't leave a note or anything. Moriah was very pissed as was I. So, in a huff, we left and drove back. The ride back was fine, aside from the stunning lack of a Dairy Queen between Rochester and Fond du Lac.



All in all, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad we went. It's kinda sad that we won't ever go again but it was a great last hurrah. For those interested, I'm working on shoving as many pictures up as I can over our slow dialup. You can see them in our Gallery.

[Daniel] Back From RP

RP was fun. No, we did not forget about the website but UIUC had the ports blocked that we needed to update the site. Expect pictures and details tomorrow night. I'm half asleep as it is so good night.

[Moriah] R | P 2004

RP was fun. I'll help put up pictures and details tomorrow night. I'm half asleep too so good night. :)

[Daniel] RP This Weekend!

YAY! It's Reflections | Projections time again! We're heading down early tomorrow morning for the job fair, where I hope to interview with small companies like Microsoft, PayPal and many others. They've got some good speakers coming and I'm excited. More to come over the weekend...

[Daniel] SO FULL OF HATE!

>:(

ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

>:(



I hate school. I hate school. I hate school.

Oh, and my ankle's not broke, just a sprain.