ROBEAR

North Sydney Pool – Swim

Posted on 15/06/2011 by Robear

The North Sydney 50m pool under the harbour bridge is probably one of three good pools in Sydney in my experience.
Luckily it’s at the halfway point on my jog to work.. It has been great to maintain a fairly level base fitness through jogging to and from work the past year. There have been a couple of days in there obviously when i couldn’t run where I have a change of clothes ready for an after work event etc.

Anyway, Saturday morning was absulutely bucketing down with rain which makes it so fun to swim in.
I am slowly increasing the distance through each swim. I remember a few years ago when I first started swimming at the USYD pool I barely made it to 20 laps. I have steadily been improving my speed and find I’m not leaving the pool until I have done a couple of km’s.

Swimming has always been my toughest leg. I really want to impove. I will continually post up times on my quest to do 1 minute 100’s.

Posted in Fitness, Swimming | Leave a comment

West Head Cycling

Posted on 02/06/2011 by Robear

[google-map-v3 width=”550″ height=”350″ zoom=”12″ maptype=”TERRAIN” mapalign=”center” latitude=”-33.6119″ longitude=”151.27000″ showmarker=”true” animation=”DROP” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” bubbleautopan=”false” markerdirections=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]
Here is another favourite cycle route. West Head – Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park

I have been lucky to have a few friends who are keen to hit up some rides up north. West head road is currently one of the highest quality rides available in Sydney at the moment. Without trying to whinge, it is generally pretty terrible negotiating the poor quality roads in Sydney however this road is ridiculous as it’s like coming off really bad cobble stones onto a velodrome for the 10km or so of West Head rd. There is a good chance to have a drink at the lookout overlooking Palm Beach.

Posted in Cycling | Leave a comment

Yoga DVD

Posted on 25/05/2011 by Robear

Rodney Yee's Yoga for athletes DVD

I have been blown away by this Yoga for Athletes DVD I bought by a Hawaiian instructor, Rodney Yee. I really wanted to get heavily into flexibility to avoid injury and came across this by chance. (I don’t have any commercial interest in this, it’s just great)

Rodney has tailored his sessions to specific sports which I find brilliant. There are running, cycling and swimming sessions among others and he explains everything really well, incorporating relaxation into it too which is great after a busy day at work.

He always begins his session with ‘Opening’, a 13 minute stretching segment using a chair. It is very professionally done with the option of selecting the camera angle to focus in on one of the two background exercisers who offer variations on Rodney’s more advanced positions. Even if you aren’t an athlete – I believe this will do amazing things for your general health and well-being. I only wish I had come across it sooner!

It is my second DVD now that I have been doing regularly. I was given an Intermediate ‘Pilates TV‘ DVD, they do a show on Australian TV. I can also recommend their shows for core strength.

Posted in Fitness | Leave a comment

Cycle Bobbin Head

Posted on 12/02/2011 by Robear

My first post for my fitness log.

I believe it’s important to have an interest in something that keeps you active. The idea here is to put down a bit of a log of what I’ve been doing. I get asked by people when i’m cycling or swimming or just with friends – what sort of fitness activities i’m involved in.

So this site is a great chance to put all of this down in pixels along with my progress towards my first iron man race! I also plan on putting down some progress times and all that. After sitting down on the computer all day there’s nothing like cycling down Bobbin Head road or around Centennial Park in Sydney.

Bobbin Head is one of my favourite rides.. It just goes down through the National Park from North Turramurra through to the Freeway at Asquith and back. There are some decent hills to practice on and great scenery.

[google-map-v3 width=”550″ height=”350″ zoom=”13″ maptype=”TERRAIN” mapalign=”center” latitude=”-33.658031″ longitude=”151.160824″ showmarker=”true” animation=”DROP” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” bubbleautopan=”false” markerdirections=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]

Posted in Cycling, Fitness | Tagged cycling, Fitness | Leave a comment

KL – USA Trip 09-10

Posted on 23/02/2010 by Robear

This is just my Travelog from my recent trip from Malaysia for my good friends wedding, then over to NY, North Dakota and California for Christmas and New Years.

Feel free to turn on High Definition, sit back and relax. It’s just a bit of fun. I hope you enjoy.

[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/9669511[/vimeo]

Posted in Filming, Portfolio | Leave a comment

Music Music Music

Posted on 19/02/2010 by Robear

I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a few different jobs of interest lately. Some of my favourites include filming for Mike Rosenburg, Josh Pyke and Lior. They are some of the nicest guys. Very down to earth and easy to get along with.

They all have very unique voices. I look forward to working with such professional people again.

Posted in Filming | Leave a comment

Lego Crash Clip

Posted on 02/02/2010 by Robear

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwefxfyyCo[/youtube]

This is a short clip i created to practice using Maya dynamics. It will also be used as an introduction to some short tutorials I am creating.
I used some very simple ‘collision’ bricks to model the dynamics of the lego blocks. I then attached the display bricks onto these. I slowed it down a little as it would be too fast in real time for us to see what is happening and any slower the crash would be boring.

Posted in Animation, Portfolio | Comments Off

Bilby Animation

Posted on 22/01/2010 by Robear

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLZyRk_RhQ[/youtube]

This is my short animation showreel. It shows a Bilby in a tank being eyed off by a snake next door. I decided on the Bilby character as it is a native Australian animal.. like me 🙂 and it seemed like a cute character to animate the classic properties like anticipation and follow through with the big ears and tail.
We were asked in class to create something less than 45 seconds.. It was a challenge to come up with a ‘story’ with only a short amount of time to play with.

The aspect ratio is a little off taking it across to Youtube.. I will update the video again shortly.

Posted in Animation, Portfolio | Leave a comment

My PIXAR Experience

Posted on 10/01/2010 by Robear

On my recent trip through the USA to catch up with family and friends, I was lucky enough to be invited along to tour through the Pixar campus there in Emeryville – San Francisco.

What an awesome experience. The vibe you hear about and see in their extra features on their DVDs really is there.

From the start with the name badge saying, ‘A stranger from the outside!’ and the gigantic Luxo Jr and ball outside. Walking around the animation area, people seem to have personalised them completely. A giant LED countdown clock greets you when you walk in with the amount of time left until Toy Story 3 is delivered. It is looking great and I can’t wait to see it!

They have jokes like little shot glasses lined up along the outer window of the render farm,, because they ‘render shots’. hehe. The sash that Russell the wilderness explorer wears in the movie UP, the in-jokes that many of the little badges mean are pretty funny… I can’t remember all of them and I was sadly unable to take photos while walking around.. but things like one bandaid meant first aid, while two meant second aid. The art department seems to be full of incredible painters, I would love to have many of the scenery paintings they were displaying up on my wall at home.

I even managed to checked out John Lassater’s office with all his thousands of toys, it’s great, he never grew up,, love it.

I could go on about it for hours. I just feel lucky to have had the chance to visit the studio of a company I have loved since I saw Toy Story there in the Avoca Beach Theater when I was little.