TDIT, yeah, in all seriousness, Up’s really been changing a lot in my life. I pretty much owe it to Pixar to go so much and contribute to their box office success. It started with just liking the movie. Then, I starting falling in love with it, and realized that I wanted to see it as many times as possible. Soon after that, (around the third or fourth time), my mom showed me the shorts DVD that my dad bought the week before.
After I watched it, I pretty much transformed. After going through all the features on it, I realized “holy crap, I really wanna go into this!” That was my defining moment in Pixar fandom. I turned into a complete Pixar junkie. Watching that DVD put a lot of great stuff spread over so many years into perspective for me, I didn’t realize how much greatness came from the little company back then. The whole bit about Lasseter sleeping under his desk waiting for Luxo to render, seems like something I’d do 
Pretty soon after that, I set my goal for 10 trips. After I hit that, 2.5 weeks in, I realized that it was still gonna be here for quite a while. So I kept going.
and going
and going
I joined here somewhere after 12 times, maybe 13, and I couldn’t be happier to find such a great community who’s so passionate about these movies. It really helped me fit in, and I kinda freaked out for a while the first few days (hehe, I tend to do that when I join a community, I can be a bit overbearing) going on ridiculous posting sprees and doing everything wrong. 
I’ve settled in now though, and I’m really comfortable here, and grateful to find so many great people in one place.
Then one fateful Sunday afternoon, I decided to start some fanart for once. I was hoping that I could make something that resembled one of the characters in the movie, so I went for Carl, since he’s pretty different in the first place, as well as my favorite. I drew his hand before work, in about 30 minutes, and it turned out really great, so I went to work feeling really good about coming home to work on it some more. I couldn’t have imagined what I was about to do.
After I got home from work, I started talking to my old old friend’s little sister Gates (interesting name, I know) on facebook. I started professing my guilty little pleasure of seeing Up 13 times to her, as I had to everyone else on facebook before, to which she started telling me about her previous escapades into disney-nerddom. Turns out, she’s also a huge Pixar fan, and is huge into collecting Disney pins. I kept working on my drawing throughout the night, while talking to her on fb, and the drawing just kept growing and growing. At one point, at about 3 a.m., I went and woke my mom up to show her the majority of Carl’s head, but she was too tired to realize what she was looking at. Gates decided to go watch the sunrise from the playground at an elementary school about 2 blocks from both of our houses at around 5:30 a.m. She returned, telling me about a spoon she found, and I showed her my finished product. I was freaking out hardcore. Gates ended up being a pretty awesome friend in addition, I talk to her pretty often now. She actually showed up at work tonight, and I talked to her about Thursday for about 5-6 minutes (hehe, almost got in trouble for talking outside too long). She asked if she could go, and I was like "Heck yes! Bring it! high five "
My mom woke up about the time I finished my drawing, and I showed it to her. After looking at it for a few minutes, she couldn’t stop laughing about it, out of shock. We were both blown away with what I had done. I’d post my other artwork, but it’s a bit scary,… It’s like an entirely different person drew this. I started to get the idea that I was getting kind of pushed in this new direction in my life. It’s almost surreal how much stuff was pointing me towards Pixar. Crazy stuff.
Then came the Pixar Marathon. I had planned on doing it sometime around when I saw the shorts DVD, but I only wanted to do it by myself. Then I sorta researched how long it was gonna take (17 hours) and figured I’d do it eventually. Several weeks later, after 18 (funny, that’s Carl’s address), I finally decided to pull it off. I invited everyone on facebook, but only 3 people showed up. However, to my surprise, they all stuck it out for as long as possible, and made it all the way to the end (sorta, Gates had to leave at midnight, about halfway through Ratatouille, and Christian had to leave for his paper route at the beginning of Wall•E, but my other friend Chris stayed the whole time). It was really awesome of them to stick it out, and I realized how much they wanted to hang with me and just watch all these great movies. It was really cool to find out how much they appreciated me and Pixar.
Since then, not too much excitement has happened, but I will point out one thing. After the 2nd or 3rd time watching Up, I started having a complete change in disposition. I’ve been known to be a bit of a pessimist, glass half empty, always concerned about being criticized by other people, paranoid, you get what I mean, but after Up, that really started to change. I’ve been a heck of a lot more positive about pretty much everything in my life, I’ve been more friendly (which is pretty tough, I try my best to be nice to people), work has been phenomenally easier to cope with (I started back at the job I had 3 months before, and had quit back then because I couldn’t handle all the drama and stress, and needed to finish school. My first day back was about 4 days after my first viewing, and 2 days after my 2nd), and I’ve been thinking a lot less about other people’s criticisms towards me. It’s transformed my very being, and made me a better person. It might sound weird and ridiculous, but I’m being totally and utterly serious about it. I’ve become a much happier person because of this movie.
It’s strange how a simple, beautiful movie can touch a person so deeply that it changes their entire life. Up has done that for me, and I have Pixar to thank for it. I’d be honored to work towards a position with them someday, and maybe pay them back for this wonderful gift they’ve given me. It’s incredible what this movie has done for me, its gonna be really sad to see it leave theaters. I just hope someone else out there takes as much inspiration as I have from it. It’s been a wonderful experience, and I couldn’t wish any harder for someone else to get that same great experience from it.
Thanks Pixar, and sorry for being so long-winded and grandiose about this post guys, just letting it all out.
Oh, and btw, I loved your idea about “paying for Dug”, I’d do that if I had a plushie, but alas, no Up swag for me yet. I’ll figure something out.
That’s quite a feat! Then again, with you, you seem to be pulling of miracles on a regular basis. 
