Saying Goodbye to Things I Love in LA

I'm saying goodbye to a lot of the restaurants and friends that I have come to love in Los Angeles. Among them Marix Tex Mex. I used to live 2 blocks from Marix, and have spent many a great evening enjoying their Margaritas and their fantastic fresh chips and salsa.

I hear there is no good Tex Mex in London. I'll just have to hope the advanced reports are wrong. . .

Relocating My Dogs to London

It's quite a process for getting the dogs to UK. Here's the basic steps, and they have to be done in this order.

1. The Dogs need to have an International Avid Chip installed. It is about the size of a grain of rice, but it allows people to identify the dog as belonging to me and Tony.

2. They need to have a Rabies Booster shot administered to help to be sure they are immunized against Rabies. There is no Rabies in the UK, so they are very cautious about letting in animals that may or may not have Rabies hence this crazy process.

3. Wait one month.

4. After one month, the dogs go back to the vet for a bloodtest called a "titer". The Rabies Titer tests to make sure that they are immune to rabies. The bloodtest needs to be performed by a lab certified by the UK to perform the test.





We just received notification from our vet that the results came back positive, and that 6 months after the date of the bloodtest, June 30, that the dogs will be allowed to enter the UK. So now the dogs are waiting for the next few months until November 30, when at last they will be able to fly halfway around the world.

Quarantine has come a long way from what it once was. They used to put dogs in cages for 6 months, but now our dogs don't have to do anything different from their normal routine. They can still go to the dog park and daycare etc.

The Signs are Everywhere

It seems that the Universe or "Alfred Hitchcock" is pointing the way. Seems the signs are everywhere around me these days telling me that heading to London is the right thing.

The Search for our New Home

June 13th - T Minus 30 days and Counting

Tony is being very diligent about looking for our new home in the UK. The plan is that I am flying over to London on July 13th. Tony's boss is being difficult, so he won't be able to join me on the initial flight, but rather will fly over on the evening of Friday July 17th. His job while I am working the following week is to meet with Letting Agents and to help identify a new place for us to live. Tony is a huge fan of the TV show "Househunters International", and this will be his chance to live out that fantasy. We applied to the show, but because we were only planning to rent at this time, we were ineligible. Perhaps if all goes well with my new job at Double Negative in Soho, we'll be able to look for a home and then we will reapply to be on the show. I think our story would make good TV.

My Last Day and the Day After

June 13th - T-minus 30 days.

I finished my last Day at Sony after 14 years of service. It's been a bit of an emotional experience, and I walked the entire building one last time. I was reminded of how proud I've been to have had the good fortune of being associated with Sony. I have a decent sence of closure, but it is still a bit emotional to leave. I took a breath before I walked out the door for the last time.

I realilzed this morning just how much of my self identity was related to Sony. It will be interesting to begin crafting myself differently. In many ways, this will be a new beginning. As the time approaches for me to head overseas to the UK, I know I'll experience a lot of different emotions. I'll try to document the adventure to the best of my ability. I'm not a writer, but I expect that this will be quite an adventure.

36 Days and Counting

It's 36 Days and counting down to the day I leave the country for the UK and begin this new "excellent" adventure in my life.

For those who don't know me, I'm a monster geek who has somehow managed to make a living making monsters in the Los Angeles Special Effects community for the past 20 years. I started in the traditional effects community, but when things went digital, I evolved my skillset to include the computer. For the past 14 years, I've been a Digital Modeler with Sony Imageworks. I have contributed to taking a small company and growing it from around 30 artists to more that 500. I'm very proud and grateful for having been a part of this company. About 90 days ago, I received notice that the new management in charge of Imageworks was going to be cleaning house of most all of the career people and replacing them with cheaper Students. . . (we'll see how that goes. . .)

Thankfully, I will receive a sizable severence check (2 weeks for every year of service, plus my vacation time). Yes, thats about 28 weeks plus another 8 weeks of salary. I actually never thought they'd lay me off for fear of having to pay out this much money. Guess they weren't.

At any rate, Sony had a "Reverse Recruitment" event, and I interviewed with a competing company called "Double Negative". They are in London. My partner Tony and I talked at length about moving to London, and about 1 month ago, I accepted an offer from them to join their team as a Senior Modeler.

I am now preparing to leave a job that I have loved for 14 years, and a company that I have poured untold hours of hardwork and passion for a new adventure in a faraway city on the other side of the planet. I am excited about the possibility of assisting another up and coming company.

Coincidentally, billboards started appearing around town with the British Union Jack and the name "Hudson" on it. . .

Turns out they weren't really celebrating my new adventure to the UK, but rather just advertising designer jeans. I'm still willing to take it as a sign that I'm making the right decision.





Kevin