Scooter

So a while back my buddy TJ took some pictures out at his folks house and this one caught my eye. I even jokingly commented that he need to bring it back to life for me.

Fast forward to this weekend and TJ was over at my house hanging out and mentioned that he was going to his parent's house the next day. I asked if he could bring the scooter back so we could see if we could get it running. He agreed and two days later he showed up at my house with a trunk full of scooter pieces. It's a 1985 Honda Spree and it's in rough shape. We've got two of everything except for a carburetor and we're waiting on getting an oil tank off ebay. It also needs an air filter and battery, but those will come later. Our main goal at the moment is to get the damn thing running.

Unfortunately, TJ only has Sundays and Mondays off and he doesn't get off until 9 on workdays so we only have two days a week to work on the engine itself. But rest assured, we will use those days to their fullest. Since I don't know a whole lot about engines and such, I've taken it upon myself to repaint the body pieces. This evening I peeled off ancient decals and sanded down the leg guard and side pieces to get them ready for primer. I just found out, after reading the instructions, that it's best to paint an hour after applying the primer. I didn't foresee this and so tomorrow I have to go out and find paint in addition to another can of primer. We're going with pearl white with chrome accents. Why, you ask? Because we've named the scooter Boss Hogg in honor of Jefferson Davis Hogg from Dukes of Hazard. As the cou d'etat I've created a logo to replace the awful 80s Spree logo:
I can't wait until we finish this thing. It's going to be a blast.

Pixar

As mentioned in a previous posting, I applied for a job at Pixar. My dream job of sorts. I've waited patiently for a little over a month and checked their careers page everyday to see if my status has changed from applied to anything other than applied.

Well, it still says applied, but yesterday I finally received an email from them. I've posted it here in its entirety:

Dear Casey Woods

Thank you for forwarding your resume and flatwork regarding the Graphic Artist position with Pixar. We had your work & resume reviewed and while everyone was impressed with your work, we are unable to utilize your skill set at this time.

Thanks,
Pixar Recruiting

The whole occurrence went something like this:

00:00 - Received email from Pixar
00:01 - Heart rate jumps from 72 bpm to 6,000,000,000 bpm
00:02 - Opened email
00:03 - Heart rate falls back to 72bpm
00:04 - Read email
00:05 - Heart falls through floor and hits a Chinamen in the head

I didn't know until I got this email that a human could experience so many emotions in five seconds.

After about an hour of thinking it through and eating some comfort food (A Big Mac and fries. Go figure.) I came to terms with the rejection. I never thought I really had much of a chance after sending my application and portfolio and told myself not to get my hopes up. It was done on a whim and shouldn't have been thought of much more than that. In the end, I got too excited and hoped I'd get the job.

In retrospect, it was a good experience. I learned a lot about portfolio creation and I know what I need to do in order to raise my chances of working for Pixar. To look at it in a positive light, at least I got a response. A response that explicitly states they were "impressed" and that they can't utilize my skill set "at this time". Granted, this is probably a automatically generated response, it still means that I passed some sort of initial screening. I'm sure many people send in there resumes and portfolios and never hear a word.

I'm still bummed, but I gave it a shot. Pixar knows who I am now. And this isn't the last they'll see of me.