It has been some time.

Since the passing of Ryan Davis I've never really thought about myself and the way I fit into the world. Since his passing however I've found what he was and what he has taught has come to rub off me in ways that surprise me, and are probably illegal!

Ryan Davis was a man who had a deep and profound effect on me that I have documented previously, but it hasn't taken hold of me of how much he's effected me until very very recently. What I've taken away has been, "Don't be a Dick, and be a cool duder" which I think we all have embodied in some way or another. But with that application to my life its become almost paramount to how my career has been. The idea of just turning to a person at the bar and asking, "Hey what's up?" has proven to me to be the most amazing way to live life.

I've met the technical lead animator of Relic who's the first name on the credits roll, to people who worked in Valve, to people who work in pixar. My career centers in Animation, but the ability to just ask them, "How are you doin' duder?" has been the most important thing I've ever said. I would have never said, or done such things before, but seeing how Mister Davis would do that to his own alumni has made me realize, people like to be talked to. So I've done that, and I've made so many more contacts than I would have before.

With some of that I've also introduced the more technical parts of my studio to the more artistic parts. Before the Render Wrangler had no idea what we animators did, but I brought him over for a lunch and a lot of things became clear to him. The same thing happened vice versa as we animators had no idea what he had to go through for us to do our job. It was enlightening and at the end of it we all drank a lot of wine and enjoyed the vancouver sun afterwards. Course that's more superferlous information.

What I mean is, I enjoy bringing people together who would never think of meeting otherwise. To talk and to bring up similuar interests between them that hopefully will stick with them for a long time. Sometimes you see two cool duders and you think, "man I should bring 'em together. They'd like to hang out" Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't, but I'm willing to take that risk because I was taught to travel on a train in Europe would teach me more than sitting in my apartment watching e3.

Thank you Ryan Davis for teaching me that turning to the guy next to you in the bar and saying hello is not a bad thing to do.

Thank you,

-Zed