Sneaky Peek

On the last Wednesday of every month, Theater N in downtown Wilmington holds an event they call the Sneaky Peek. How this works is they arrange a happy hour at a nearby bar/restaurant, where they give out some free wine and appetizers (although not enough so you don't want to buy your own anyway), and then everybody walks over to the independent theater and watches a movie, the title of which has not been announced ahead of time. Last night the surprise movie was Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her. Although it was a decent choice, R and I were a little disappointed because we had already seen it on DVD a few years ago. The idea that this might happen was not entirely unexpected, but if I'm going to rewatch a movie on the big-screen, I would hope it would be a movie that makes use of the big-screen. Talk to Her is about two men and the relationships they have with women who happen to be in comas. The cinematography really wasn't anything remarkable; in fact, I'd say the visuals were rather stark, sometimes even drab. There's no comparison to be made to a vibrant film like, say, 2046, which I would be thrilled to see again in a theater. It also didn't help that they just projected the DVD on the screen instead of rolling the actual film. The difference was quite noticeable. But that's enough negativity--the Sneaky Peek is a fantastic idea, a good way to expose people to movies they might not otherwise see, and not knowing what is playing until the title card comes up definitely adds some excitement to the experience. I'd go back for another one.

Number one fan

R and I had our first experience installing a ceiling fan today. We got the job done and are quite proud of the results. That is why I took 18 photos of the fan this evening. Above are my two favorites. Yes, we are taking domestic dorkiness to a whole new level here.

Last night we saw Little Miss Sunshine. It was a quirky little movie that got funnier and funnier as it rolled along. I didn't realize until a few days ago that it was directed by the same duo that made what has long been known as my favorite television commercial of all-time and also my favorite music video of all-time. In fact, I didn't even realize the commercial and the music video were directed by the same people until then. When I found about this amazing coincidence, you can believe I was really pumped to see Little Miss Sunshine. It also didn't hurt that I'm a big fan of Steve Carell. Well, the movie was a lot of fun to watch, but, no, it has not become my favorite movie of all-time. That would have been something.

"What wall is the door in?"

That's a quote from Brick, a movie with a lot of great quotes, a movie my wife and I watched tonight. The main character, a teenage detective investigating his ex-girlfriend's murder, just woke--sans his glasses--from a blackout caused by the pounding a of drug dealer's thug, and he's looking for a way out of the basement in which he finds himself, the basement of the dealer's mom's house. Film noir meets high school in this highly stylized, low-budget, hidden gem of a film. Check it out at your local video store today.

Okay, I'll break from the critic talk. Seriously, it was an entertaining movie. Part of the reason I liked it so much is probably the reason I should dislike it: it reminded me a lot of the movie I wanted to make. They stole my idea! If you know me then you probably know I had an idea for a movie that was to be called Dreamer. It originally manifested itself in a short script for a 10-15 minute video that I fully intended to shoot. In fact, I even got a cast together for one night of shooting on the Leonidas Overlook (forever documented in this over-played clip) before they all went so far in their separate ways that I could never round them all up again.

I didn't let the project die there. I spent many hours bulking it up into a feature length screenplay and submitted it as my final project in my senior year film class at St. Thomas. The instructor was a professional movie critic, and he did a very thorough job of writing notes in the margins (and gave me an 'A'). I always meant to go back and make another revision using those notes, and I figured if the opportunity presented itself one day that I would get a crew together and find some real actors and bring my labor of love to completion. Well, now it seems too late because somebody else sort of beat me to it, and to be honest with you, I think Brick is better than Dreamer would have been, especially with all of its snazzy dialogue.

When did I become somebody who just talks about doing things but doesn't get around to doing them? I feel like that's what's happening here. I get projects in my head, but then I leave them there so long that my passion for them drains away. The obvious excuse is the lack of time due to full-time employment, but even when I was between jobs the days went by so fast that I could never really dive into a project. I didn't even have the chance to dive into flossing my teeth. Still, how can I sit at a computer all day, every day for my job and then expect to come home and type up a novel? Well, maybe a novel isn't the best idea right now. Maybe I should concentrate on my ideas for some short web videos. Yes, I'm going to set my mind to them, even if it means giving up some TV and some blogging. I promise you this: over Labor Day weekend, if not sooner, my camera will be rolling.

To-do list

1.) Create a to-do list.

Opp knocks and Blue Rocks

After work on Friday I met up with a guy from Out & About to discuss a promotional campaign for the magazine. He wants to produce a series of viral videos to promote going out and giving local establishments (their advertisers) some business. Apparently one of the contacts I made in Wilmington gave this guy my resume, and now he wants to contract me out based on the humor of the Cottage Cheese clips he saw online (!). He probably also realized I would work for cheap--an accurate assessment--which would put me ahead of more professional videographers. The nice thing for me is that this is a project I could work on in my spare time, rather than having to quit my day job. The bad thing is that I am very low on spare time these days. My day job has been requiring some overtime, including almost a full day yesterday and a few hours yet to come tonight. Still, I plan to be a part of the video project. I have a few short videos I was planning to make anyway. Maybe I'll be able to incorporate the ideas with the promotional work, and who knows, if I'm given a deadline maybe I'll actually get them done. There is potential for some wide exposure of my work through Out & About. I'd be crazy to pass up such an opportunity.

R and I went to a Wilmington Blue Rocks minor league baseball game this afternoon with some local engineers. It was fun to sit in the sun and eat some junk food. I hadn't watched a baseball game in a while, but I have to admit the game today was rather entertaining, even though it wasn't a nail-biter and our team lost. Who knows--maybe I'll become a huge sports fanatic yet. Maybe.

The season of the wedding

(photo by Bob Finc)

We were in northern Minnesota over the weekend to attend my cousin's wedding. The picture of us above was taken at the reception, which was a good time despite my suffering from a bad case of the hiccups that eventually built up to a fit of dry heaving. Okay, you probably didn't need to know that, but, man, those hiccups can be deadly. Teach your kids how to prevent them. Anyway, my cousin and his new bride are a nice couple, and I wish them all the best.

The aforementioned wedding was the first of five to which my wife and I were invited over the course of the next three months. I guess we're getting to that age where a lot of people we know are tying the knot. It's a bummer they are all taking place in Minnesota because there's no way we can make it to all of them, let alone the bachelor/bachelorette parties and showers. Missing out on some of them is one of the sacrifices we make when living so far away in an exotic location like Delaware.

We touched down at the Philly airport around 10:30 on Monday morning. Instead of putting in a half day of work, we took a drive to Cape May and spent the afternoon at the beach. R's aunt and uncle are renting a place down there for the week, so we visited with them between thrashing sessions on the waves. The night -- and our enjoyable extended weekend -- ended with a fajita dinner and a drive home.

Buying some time

Hey. Sorry for the lack of posting. My next entry will explain. Until then, you can chew on this--

Now reading (just finished, actually): Good Night, Everybody... and Be Kind by Dennis Anderson (this is an autobiography of a Duluth newscaster; it's interesting to read some stories about northern Minnesota, but the writing is only so-so).

Now listening: Hop High by Crooked Still (I can't believe I'm listening to bluegrass), Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case (I can't believe I'm listening to country... well, this is definitely alt-country), Disintegration by The Cure (this is more typical for me), Funeral by The Arcade Fire (after a year and a half I still can't get enough of this one, the most recent addition to my all-time favorite albums list).

Now watching: Entourage, Season 2 (this show can be a little crass, but it's a guilty pleasure nonetheless.)

The new grind, part 2

Not only do we get free coffee at my new job, but we get to choose between coffee from Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, or Wawa. They also have this machine that apparently can make a wide variety of blends, not to mention hot chocolate or tea. Oh, and if you want soda, they have a wide selection of that too. That's just the beverages. They provide lunch as well. Each Monday they stock a fridge full of all kinds of deli meat and cheeses. They also have yogurt, chips, and cookies. And get this: on Wednesdays and Fridays they bring in lunch from a restaurant for everybody. Last week we had Mexican one day and pizza on the other. This is a great deal. I'm psyched about the food.

Another perk about this new job, as I mentioned before, is the casual environment. I started out the week wearing my nicest khakis with a long-sleeved, buttoned-downed shirt tucked into them (this was already a step down from my previous job, where I had to wear a tie every day). By the end of the week I was wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops. I wouldn't have done it, but I thought I would actually fit in better if I did since even the co-founder of the company was wearing that garb the day before. I definitely didn't look out of place. To be honest though, I didn't feel that comfortable wearing shorts. I think I'll bump my own dress code up to at least jeans for the time being. Sure it's convenient to wear whatever, but I feel more professional and productive with shoes on. Plus, most of the clothes I own are khakis and polo shirts anyway, so I might as well wear them.

Now, about the cubicles... In order to "facilitate open communication," they built the cube walls to be about three feet tall. When the guy who hired me sits at his desk, he is staring right at me. When I sit at my desk, I'm staring at my project leader, from about four feet away. There is no privacy at all. It could take some getting used to.

I think the job will work out okay. I'm a little insecure about my abilities and still not convinced a job like this plays to my strengths. It also doesn't help that everybody else at the place appears to be a workoholic. I think they are expecting a lot out of me; that can be a little daunting.

So begins another week. I'm looking forward to getting back into a regular workout schedule this week. I'm going to try to hit the gym in the mornings, before work. I also plan to set up a wireless router in our house this week. That way I can update my blog from my new laptop while hanging with R in the living room : )

Jellyfish city

We drove over to the New Jersey shore (as opposed to the Delaware beach) yesterday. The traffic was really bad and it took us three hours to get there, but some excellent Boogie boarding conditions made the trip worth it. One thing that was new to R and I was the multitude of jellyfish we encountered in the water. These translucent, hockey puck-sized creatures were teeming around us. We were worried about being stung at first, but then we saw kids throwing them at each other and collecting them in buckets. One little kid enlightened us by saying that only the red ones were poisonous, and we were only seeing white ones. We were still leery to spend too much time under water in fear of getting one in the face, but we did our best to ignore them otherwise. It's funny--they do actually have some weight to them. When you are kicking around in the water, you can feel when your legs hit them. Sometimes they'll be on the sandy bottom and your feet will squish into them when you step down. It freaked us out a bit, but we weren't about to pass up "shredding" the bodacious waves over some harmless invertebrates.

The new grind, part 1

The drive to my new job takes about 35 minutes. So far commuting hasn't been so bad. It's a good chance to listen to music, if nothing else. My biggest problem with spending so much additional time in my car every day is that sooner or later I'm going to get a flat tire or stuck in heavy snow storm traffic or side-swiped on the freeway. Those are things you don't need to worry about when you are reading a book on a bus or walking to work with an iPod, both of which are nice situations I had going for me at one time, in other states, in other lives. I probably needlessly worry too much. I think it runs in my family, the Finc family of Delaware that is.

Working for AdmnServer (the "i" is intentionally left out to avoid being picked up by search engines) relates more directly to my job with Minnesota Life (aka Securian) than anything I did at the Infirmary. Actually, as far as anybody from AdmnServer is concerned, the two years I spent in Mobile didn't exist, and it would be just as well if they didn't, at least professionally, as they seemed only to make me a lazier programmer and put more distance between me and any memory of the insurance business. Everyone who works at AdmnServer came directly from either a college or an insurance company. I fall into the latter category, with a little detour along the way.

The new employee training program and just about anything else at AdmnServer is much less structured than any other job I've ever worked. I received a half-hour orientation and maybe a collective hour of job-specific tutorials during the five days I've been at the place. Otherwise they just showed me where my desk is located, introduced me to my team leader, and told me to get started. The question "Get started doing what doing what exactly?" came up in my head a few times.

Despite all of the unclarity and lack of training, I had a relatively productive week. I'm learning (mostly on my own) some things that will look really good on a resume. Those of you with an Information Technology background will know what I'm talking about when I say I've been maintaining stored procedures in a Microsoft SQL Server database, altering some Crystal Reports, and performing system testing / QA on change control. That's one half of the job. The other half I haven't really started yet, but it will involve configuring the XML business rules in the AdmnServer system to match our clients' needs.

That's it for now. Next time I'll write about the food, the cubes, and the dress code (or lack thereof).

Episode III

This is the final installment in my lightsaber photo trilogy, starring my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Up next, I'm going to add a lightsaber to a live action video. Are you as excited as I am?

Reading material

Yeah, I started my new job this week. Let me put in a couple more days before I give you the full report. Overall, it's going fine. The best part is the daily free lunch. The worst part is the low cube walls.

My real reason for writing tonight is to post some links to articles and sites related to Jack of Clubs. You may want to check back on some of them again as the Spring 2007 release date gets closer.

• Celluloid Siblings -- Here's an article from a local magazine focusing on the producers of the movie. It is the first of a four-part series of articles, with the next part to be about the production process of our movie.
• Evan Krape Photography -- This photographer took a bunch of nice shots during five of the days we filmed.
• O'Ferrell Productions -- This is the site belonging to the production crew. It hasn't been updated in a while, but expect a complete revamp soon. I know they have been taking a lot of photos to post on it.
• Film Brothers -- The producers' website. This one is also out of date but should be updated soon. Consider checking out the 10-second film, "The Lesson," posted there.
• Dani Englander -- Our lead actress's website.