2024: A Year of Ups & Downs
2024 Ornament by DANIEL HSU
This year’s ornament is by San Diego watercolor artist Daniel Hsu. Yes, Emily’s father! Dan is the eldest of 6 siblings who immigrated from Taiwan to the United States. He is a true Renaissance man with a lifetime of wisdom and experiences from helping the family run a Chinese takeout restaurant, working on holograms for scanner technology, managing an avocado ranch, and finally running his own landscaping company before his retirement.
Ever since Emily was young, watercolor paintings by Dan have been hanging up in her homes. Although the artistic talents didn’t quite pass down the family tree, it is undeniable that this influenced the way she saw the world and her career path appreciating and working directly with artists. At Austin and Emily’s wedding in 2019, Dan’s speech had everyone in tears and culminated in a beautiful gift of a painting that was particularly meaningful for Austin’s mom Beverly.
This year, Daniel turned 70 and the family celebrated in Temecula doing Daniel’s favorite things: teaching everyone around him how to cook Chinese food and… painting!
A Reflection on 2024
2024 saw a lot of major life-changing events for us. We experienced devastating heartbreak saying goodbye to our beloved Ollie after the very sudden onset of an illness in April. The entire Hsu clan experienced the loss of Mike (Emily’s 3rd Uncle) after his long battle with cancer. Emily’s project at Netflix was cancelled and her time at the studio ended in July after nearly 3 years. All things considered, that last one sucked but that’s the business. It was the least painful part of the year in the grand scheme of things. Let’s not even talk about the election. Life has a funny way of reminding you of what really matters.
We kept going.
Austin has been thriving in his work at an aerospace consultancy. Emily took a little time to reset and fully enjoy SIGGRAPH before starting a new role as a Senior Producer at Epic Games in September and loving it so far. Both of us are working fully remote and getting used to being each other’s co-workers at home around the kitchen island/watercooler. And at a time when we were least expecting it and when it felt like something we would never be prepared for again, we adopted Luna into our lives from a local husky rescue event. (Yes, beer was involved). We think about our Ollie everyday. Every dog is unique, special, and deserving of a loving family so we opened up our hearts and home again. Life has been a little bit more fun and interesting ever since. A lot more walks, chew toys, and fur cleanup - we got ourselves a Dyson and it’s been a game-changer!
May the rest of your 2024 be full of cheer, wonder, and love. Hope we all get to enjoy more of what matters in life in 2025!
Stuff we did this year:
We finally used gift certificates for cooking lessons (A Taste of Spain!) AND a winery tour at Oak Mountain Winery Temecula that were gifted to us all the way back in 2021 and 2022.
Got wine drunk at Oak Mountain and signed up for their wine club - join us for a trip out there and free wine tasting as part of our membership!
Attended our first Hollywood Bowl event and laughed our faces off at Netflix is a Joke Presents: Jerry Seinfeld, Sebastian Maniscalco, Nate Bargatze, Jim Gaffigan
Experienced our first ever cozy craft at a Color Me Mine - Emily painted a seashell candle holder. Austin painted a little knight figure. Says a lot about us.
Attended an incredible event in support of the release of Ultraman: Rising where we could cheer on the creators and where Emily ran into old childhood wushu friends. Chinese food adventure in LA ensued.
Won 3rd Place at Radiant Brewing’s Trivia Night - the theme: DreamWorks/Illumination Animation / team name: Lord Fart-Quads
Incredible beach days and random hangouts with friends
SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver, CO - Emily returned to the conference as Real-Time Live! Chair
Emily officially became the President of the Society for Game Cinematics with lofty goals for the next year!
Attended the Ocean Institute Pirate & Mermaid Ball - got dressed up, felt fancy, won an auction item. (More drinks involved)
First Disneyland trip with the godson
Saw family & friends in Oregon for a quick weekend early Thanksgiving visit
