Widgets

The other day I got one of the cooler things I've ever received in the mail.

Several years ago, Pixar applied for two patents on some of the work I did as part of the Tools group there. For some reason, as time passed, I thought one or both of these got denied by the patent office.

But apparently I was wrong, and at least one of the patents was accepted. I got word that Pixar wanted to send me a plaque to commemorate it. There are seven names on the patent, so I assume each person on the team (and a fine team it was!) received a plaque.

Now, I've received a few plaques in the past for various reasons, but this one takes the cake (or the pie, if you lean that way). My first hint was that it came with a plug. And an instruction sheet. This thing has Doppler radar. Why should a plaque have Doppler radar, you ask? So that you can wave your hand in front of it to turn on the backlighting for the 6 embedded film frames of Toy Story. Trust Pixar to over-deliver, even on a simple plaque.

So now I'm an official inventor. And I'm totally geeking out over this plaque. Not to mention that the patent title has the word "widget" in it. How cool is that?

A big congrats to the rest of the team (of which I was really a very small part): Max, Karon, Chris, Tom, Rob, and Fireplug.