Shawn Neely
19-09 2020 01:55
wrote:
Happy Birthday, Nick, wherever you are now!
I first met Nick at PDI when we hired him to develop a water simulation system on "Antz" (for which he won an Academy Award technical achievement certificate in 1999). We spent some time together during his trip to Burning Man in 2005, and over a bottle of tequila he gave me my playa name "Shawn Shiva" because all the cool kids at Burning Man had interesting nicknames, and we thought it would make it easier to introduce ourselves to strangers, lol. I still use that name to this day! But I didn't really get to know him well until a decade later when he returned to San Francisco after professional stints in New York and Montreal. We started meeting regularly once a month for an evening of drinking, eating, philosophy, and occasional inebriated walking adventures around SF. It was during those nights out that he introduced me to his version of tossing a coin to settle who would pay the bill. It was a simple twist: "winner pays". He said that context created a win-win situation, since the "winner" of the coin toss got to buy food and drinks for his friend, and the non-winner of the coin toss got a free dinner! It was such a charming way to look at things, and statistically it should all even out in the long run. I would typically toss the coin, Nick would make the call, and for the first 10 months or so he "won" every time. It freaked me out how many times he won that coin toss, but he took obvious pleasure in seeing how perplexed I was that he could win so many times in a row! (I was so relieved when I finally won the toss that I shouted out loud and jumped to my feet in a crowded restaurant.)
After his cancer diagnosis in 2017 we bumped up and changed our visits to weekly hikes along the bluffs and beaches around Pacifica. And when he moved with Yuchieh and "Sexy Cat" to North Carolina, I was fortunate to visit together a few times there. He never lost his dark sense of humor, and often made me laugh until I was crying. The last time I saw him was this past November. Each time we parted with a great hug, unsure if we'd see each other again, so I actually had several opportunities to exchange fond farewells.
We all miss you dearly, Nick.
Your friend,
Shawn
Shawn Neely
19-09 2020 01:55
wrote:
Happy Birthday, Nick, wherever you are now!
I first met Nick at PDI when we hired him to develop a water simulation system on "Antz" (for which he won an Academy Award technical achievement certificate in 1999). We spent some time together during his trip to Burning Man in 2005, and over a bottle of tequila he gave me my playa name "Shawn Shiva" because all the cool kids at Burning Man had interesting nicknames, and we thought it would make it easier to introduce ourselves to strangers, lol. I still use that name to this day! But I didn't really get to know him well until a decade later when he returned to San Francisco after professional stints in New York and Montreal. We started meeting regularly once a month for an evening of drinking, eating, philosophy, and occasional inebriated walking adventures around SF. It was during those nights out that he introduced me to his version of tossing a coin to settle who would pay the bill. It was a simple twist: "winner pays". He said that context created a win-win situation, since the "winner" of the coin toss got to buy food and drinks for his friend, and the non-winner of the coin toss got a free dinner! It was such a charming way to look at things, and statistically it should all even out in the long run. I would typically toss the coin, Nick would make the call, and for the first 10 months or so he "won" every time. It freaked me out how many times he won that coin toss, but he took obvious pleasure in seeing how perplexed I was that he could win so many times in a row! (I was so relieved when I finally won the toss that I shouted out loud and jumped to my feet in a crowded restaurant.)
After his cancer diagnosis in 2017 we bumped up and changed our visits to weekly hikes along the bluffs and beaches around Pacifica. And when he moved with Yuchieh and "Sexy Cat" to North Carolina, I was fortunate to visit together a few times there. He never lost his dark sense of humor, and often made me laugh until I was crying. The last time I saw him was this past November. Each time we parted with a great hug, unsure if we'd see each other again, so I actually had several opportunities to exchange fond farewells.
We all miss you dearly, Nick.
Your friend,
Shawn