Adieu L.A.

This weekend I take my leave of the City of Angels and strike out for the City of...Franciscos. I'm coming out of retirement and going back into Visual Effects. No longer will every night be a Friday night, and everyday a Saturday; no longer will I be able to drive downtown for my Chano's fix; no longer will I be retireded. I have 2 days to pack everything I'll need for the next two months and then I'm off. It's a rather sudden decision, I know, but some of life's best adventures often result from spur-of-the-moment choices such as this. I wish I had time for a Coming-Out-Of-Retirement Party. Perhaps I'll just wait the two months until I retire once more, returning triumphantly to Hollywood in my grand chariot ('92 Honda Accord) and have an even bigger bacchanal then. It will be a true occasion for rejoicing, and rejoicings call for drunken orgies, do they not?

Why am I coming out of retirement? Because the circle is not yet complete. When I was a senior in the Film program at Berkeley I applied for an internship at Industrial Light + Magic, George Lucas' effects company in San Rafael. I didn't get it, and I ended up interning as a storyboard artist for an independent film studio in SF. At the time I had no idea that a career in the VFX industry awaited me post-graduation. Now, almost ten years later, I'm going back up north to work for the first studio to which I ever applied. This cycle of my life will have reached its denouement. The epilogue will echo the prologue, and I will be finished with visual effects, poetically speaking. Then I can cast off the shackles of digital artistry forever and the real retirement shall begin. Let freedom ring.