Wow, so the year is almost coming to an end! I can’t believe I lasted this long in LA without even getting homesick once. I have loved my time here so far and looking forward to more adventures in the coming year.

Thanksgiving obviously marks an important day in American culture but it also marks the beginning of the holiday season! So the best part is I get 4 days off during Thanksgiving!

So I wanted to do something different this time and decided that I would go on an adventure and discover my roots. If you hadn’t known already, I spent the majority of my childhood in a small town called Columbia in Missouri. So although not your typical holiday destination, it was a place I really wanted to visit again, so I did just that!

Unfortunately Columbia isn’t the easiest place to get to from LA. The nearest major city is St. Louis which is about a 2 hour drive east of Columbia.

Although you can get direct flights to St. Louis from LA, it’s very difficult at this time of year and I had to settle for a transfer flight from Las Vegas to Chicago then to St. Louis. I then would have to hire a car in St. Louis and drive out to Columbia from there. Pretty insane huh? But that’s what I did.

I decided that I would spend a day in Chicago, fly out to St. Louis the next day and drive to Columbia, Stay in St. Louis for the night and then fly back to Chicago the next day and spend the day there.

Here are some Chicago-by-night shots that I took from the top of the world famous John Hancock building.

Click on the images below to see them in full resolution.

When I reached Columbia, I of course got to see all the places where I grew up including where I used to live, where I used to go to school, where we used to shop, where my sister was born etc. It doesn’t seem much has changed in almost 20 years.
The University of Missouri, Columbia (where my Dad got his PhD):

Pictures of St. Louis and the famous Gateway Arch:

In my final day in Chicago I went to both the Chicago Art Institute (which holds some of the world’s famous paintings including Van Gogh’s) and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Museum of Science and Industry had some interesting exhibitions on display including a set of about 25 fetuses (ranging from the point of conception to full developed), and 150 different species of frogs. Click on any of the images below to see the galleries.

It’s finally here! After all the years of hard work at Animal Logic. Happy Feet has finally been released in the US.

It’s opening weekend, it made $42M, battling Casino Royale to win top spot at the box office.

I spent 1.5 years at Animal Logic working on Happy Feet. Being the first movie I worked on, I was particularly excited and anxious for it to appear in the theaters. It was a weird feeling seeing all the big billboards, posters, and buses driving around with Happy Feet promotions on them all around LA.

The movie turned out great and Animal Logic did a fantastic job of putting it together. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of reward sitting in the theater and listening to people laugh and talk about how great a movie it was. It was nice to be part of something that can be so positive to so many people at one time.

I couldn’t help but get excited to see my first screen credit roll on the big screen (under Research & Development).

NOW GO OUT THERE AND WATCH IT!

Happy Feet opens in Australia December 26th.

Here are some fancy photos I took at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park

I hope you like them!

Click here for the gallery!