Health in VFX and friends

A long time ago, when I was a young pup, I exercised regularly, at least four hours a day, in the lap pool. Of course, this was the training regimen for a competitive athlete, which I was during my adolescent and informative years while swimming for RMSC, the local high school and community teams. All of these evidently have websites now! After these years, participating in water polo at the college level kept me in some sort of shape.

But that was more than a decade ago, and the body grows old, weary, and in need of some respite. Unfortunately, that relaxation is permanent for a majority of the population.  Being an artist in VFX, it's even more dangerous. Working nine to seven, maybe to eight, or even twelve to fourteen hour days drains the body, and we as artists need to keep our health in check. Not just from the lack of exercise as we sit at our desks all day, but the lack of energy we feel at the end of a long day does not entice us to do that exercise!

My mother once said, "Your health is all you have." At this stage in my life, it rings true.  Keeping some sort of physical exertion during my daily routine keeps me healthy, so I urge all you out there in VFX land to retain and keep some of that energy you had from your childhood, and apply it to your adulthood too!  From biking into work, going to the gym, running up a flight of steps, and swimming in the pool, any little will help your health, keep you in check, and in the end, make you live somewhat longer.

On Monday I got together with an old friend that I had never met in person before. We have known each other for close to sixteen years (Was it 94? Maybe 96?)! Lost touch, working with common friends, but we've never met, talked on the phone, or conversed directly to each other face to face. All our conversations for the past sixteen years have only been possible by the magic that is the internet. Even then, our conversation during lunch on Monday was ever so brief. Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to catch up with everything that has happened in our lives from the past sixteen years, which is pretty damn tough to do. Even crazier, we're both in the same industry!  An amazing cycle of events lead us to this point, from Quake multi-player over 14.4 modem back in 94, to a face to face encounter now, life does toss interesting things along the way.