Sarah

The Doubletree is a resort-type hotel right on the beach. After checking in around 4pm we went for a walk along the beach – enjoying the beautiful weather and watching some of the locals net fishing. We followed that with a drink on the pier while watching the sun set.

Puntarenas has a gorgeous beach.

And I have a gorgeous wife.

Net fisherman.

Beach, pier, and a very bright sun.

Sunset and a cocktail.

After dinner we relaxed for a bit, then Eric and I went for a walk back out the pier. Once at the beach we saw that there was an algae bloom happening of phosphorescent algae that I’ve seen in Southern California before. When the algae get churned up they glow blue. We first saw breaking waves lighting up as if they were being hit with a spot light, then we realized what was happening. We continued out to the end of the pier, where the pilings would cause the water to light up every time a wave came by. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we started noticing bursts of blue underwater, presumably made by darting fish. Then we noticed splashes near the surface where fish would rise to eat smaller fish, then a blue streak would shoot back down deep – they looked like meteors under water. This submerged fireworks display was dazzling, and we enjoyed it for about half an hour before heading back in, sad that for the first time on the whole trip neither one of us had a camera with us.

We said goodbye to London today and, being fearful of driving on the left side of the road in London, took a taxi to Heathrow airport to pick up a rental car.

From there it was a short 10 mile drive to our first stop: Windsor Castle. Or it should have been a short 10 mile drive; our GPS was configured to show north-always-up rather than what I’m used to, which is forward-always-up. By the time that confusion was cleared up I had driven another 10 miles out of our way, and in an effort to not insult those in cars near us, spoke ever so eloquently in what I’m told is French.

On to Windsor! The Queen was not in residence this weekend – I suppose she was wagering on the ponies at Ascot – so we took the audio tour instead.

The Windsor Castle Quadrangle

Kevin and Sarah in front of the quadrangle.

Kevin at Eric at Windsor Castle

The next stop was in Runnymede, where the original Magna Carta was signed by King John of England in 1215. The document is considered the founding document of constitutional law, and the American Bar Association has erected a monument on the site to commemorate it.

Kevin and Eric at the ABA's commemorative monument at Runnymede

On top of the hill overlooking Runnymede is the Royal Air Forces Memorial, where 20,000 members of the Commonwealth Air Forces are remembered. These are airmen who lost their lives over the British Isles and Europe in WWII and have no known graves. We stopped there to see the listing of Sarah’s first cousin once removed, Laurence E. Charnaud, who was shot down over the North Sea.

Air Forces Memorial, Runnymede

Flying Officer L.E. Charnaud

An hour and a half later we arrived at our hotel in Salisbury. Tomorrow we’ll tour locally.

The view from atop a hill in Salisbury, though likely not the one Phil Collins sang about.

Our last full day in England, but it’s a very unique one. We scheduled a “Hadrian’s Wall Safari”. Hadrian’s Wall was built starting in 122 AD under Roman Emperor Hadrian. It stretched for 80 miles from the east to the west coasts of Britain, and was the northernmost border of the Roman Empire – to the north: barbarians. Our tour guide, Gary, picked us up in his Range Rover (thus the ‘safari’) around 10am.

Gary's Range Rover, our tour bus for the day

There were many stops along the way, most of which started with a short hike and then a description from Gary about what we were looking at. He did a fantastic job layering the information over the course of the day so that we were building knowledge and understanding about the Roman Empire and early British history, rather than just reading about a particular site.

A relatively intact portion of the wall. Gary's ready to charge up the hill.

At this stop, for example, he explained why the wall was here and not further north or south. But to do so, we had to be at the top of the hill…

Charging up the hill

Gary gives a combination history and geology lesson

It turns out there is a giant fault line here, and the minerals and other assets that an empire might want are primarily to the south. To the north the land is less valuable and not worth the cost of beating down the barbarians.

Fault lines and walls also make for great photo ops.

Photo Op Atop the Crop

Every Roman mile (1,000 paces) along the 80 mile wall was a Mile Castle that acted as a toll gate between the Roman Empire and traders to the north. Between each Mile Castle were two towers, stationing guards every 330 paces for the width of Britain. Below is the foundation of a Mile Castle.

Remains of a Mile Castle

A century before Hadrian built his wall, the Romans had established forts throughout the region. Vindolanda was started around 85AD and was occupied for about 400 years. Over that time it was rebuilt on top of itself many times. There is an extensive excavation going on there now with a fantastic museum. Most significantly, they uncovered wood writing tablets that are still legible, having been protected for almost 2000 years by mud.

Vindolanda excavation - the elevated floor was heated by hot water running through the channels

Crag Lough was another stop along the way. It’s close to Once Brewed, next to Twice Brewed. Twice Brewed was named for the strong ale that the Roman soldiers demanded. Once Brewed was named more recently by the founder of a youth hostel that thought that tea as a better drink to offer.

Crag Lough (that's the lake in the background); Hadrian's Wall runs along the top of the ridge

There is a hiking trail that follows the wall across the country. Most of the wall is not visible now, either because it’s still buried or because the stones were recycled over the years to become smaller walls or farmhouses.

A ladder for hikers to climb over the wall

Lanercost Priory was built by Henry II in the late 1100’s, mostly from stone from Hadrian’s Wall.

Lanercost Priory Door

A long, educational and entertaining day!

Jump

The first thing we learned upon arriving in Wellington is how good the coffee is. We had a bit of time to wait at the airport before Kim and Ray picked us up, so we grabbed some coffee at a shop by baggage claim. I was introduced to a ‘Flat White’, which is a Latte with a double shot of coffee in it, and it was excellent. This has become my new standard in NZ.

Kim is a friend of mine through the Visual Effects Society (VES), and is the reason I was invited to speak at AnimFX. She and Ray (both from Sauce FX) picked us up and gave us a driving tour of Weta on our way to the hotel. After hearing about Weta Digital for the first time when they were ramping up for “Lord of the Rings”, I’ve been following their work and rise to CG superpower. As is the case with so many effects and animation ‘shops,’ their humble exteriors hide the amazing work that is going on inside.

The Weta Cave - their retail shop

We checked into the Museum Hotel, right across from the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum where the conference will be happening.

View of the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum from our room at the Museum Hotel. The AnimFX conference is held at the Te Papa.

After lunch down the street and a walk through the Sunday farmers’ market, we boarded a bus tour of Wellington to help us get our bearings. We learned a bit about NZ politics (though it still remains somewhat cryptic to me), saw some wonderful historic architecture, drove along the Carmel-esque shoreline, and went to the top of things.

Wellington, from the top of the cable car

Old St. Paul's, a beautiful wood church in Wellington

Sarah, in Old St. Paul's

The view of Wellington from Mt. Victoria

We ended the day with a walk along the waterfront, stopping for drinks and a great dinner at Macs brewery.

I had a Macs Wheat Beer, while Sarah dreamt of sleeping

Chicken breast marinated in hard cider, with leeks, carrots and mushrooms. Yum.

Welcome to AnimFX NZ at the Te Papa Museum

(Not too many pictures today, I was mostly sequestered away at the conference, and didn’t give Sarah a camera to take with her.)

AnimFX began its three day run today with a full schedule of sessions. I presented a session at noon, so was able to sit in on three morning sessions (which I wrote about on my main blog). Lance Priebe spoke about his experiences starting Club Penguin, Patrick Hudson talked about transitioning Robot Entertainment from a console game developer to a mobile and web game developer, and Tracey Sellar from Microsoft gave us insights into their user testing labs.

My forty minute Company Pitch Session was set up as a precursor to my Master Class on Entrepreneurship tomorrow – anyone who wanted to do a practice pitch about their company was invited to do so, with the promise of a friendly audience and constructive feedback. I had a Plan B ready under the assumption that people would show up to be in the audience, and no one would be willing to put themselves out there and pitch. It pays to be prepared, as there was an audience of over fifty people, and no one wanted to brave the crowd. So instead I spoke about reasons to pitch, some good rules of thumb to use, and then we deconstructed a very successful pitch from a company who made their TechStars Demo Day presentation available on line.

After lunch were more breakout sessions, but I spent much of the time talking to individuals in the lobby.

The highlight of the afternoon was a presentation by Enrico Casarosa from Pixar speaking on the making of his short, “La Luna.” It’s a beautiful film and he put together an inspiring presentation about the design process.

Meanwhile, Sarah went on a tour with one other woman who was visiting in the area. They went to the northeast of Wellington, through the suburbs and along the high-cliffed island-studded coast. They visited a chocolate factory, where Sarah discovered that kiwi chocolate wasn’t covered fruit, but rather covered jelly. Yeech. But the honey chocolate was fantastic – or so she says since she didn’t bring any back for me. The tour also went to the Southward Car Museum, Sir Southward’s personal collection, including Mickey Cohen’s 1950 Cadillac with bullet proof windows, bomb proof floor and reinforced doors. The windows had been strafed with bullets. The most impressive feature to Sarah was the pivoting windshields for machine gun accessibility. I had no idea she dug that kind of stuff. The Nash Metropolitan (similar to the one I used to have which she didn’t really dig at all) looked huge next to a Fiat 500 and an Isetta.

We had dinner at Ortega’s Fish Shack, enjoying wonderful dishes that we had never heard of before and couldn’t pronounce anyway.

After a great dinner at Ortega's Fish Shack

Puntarenas

Windsor Castle, Runnymede and Salisbury

Hadrian’s Wall

Acclimating in Wellington

AnimFX NZ – First Conference Day