Take me out to the UST alumni event

We attended a Baltimore Orioles game on Sunday when they played against the Twins. Our alma mater had an east coast alumni meet-up in a suite at the stadium. We didn't know anybody in this group, but at least we all had one thing in common with them. Anyway, the Twins won and we got to eat a bunch of ball park food. We also took a walk through Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which I hadn't seen before despite its relative proximity to us.

Speaking of good eats, we had some people over on Saturday night to make mini-pizzas on our grill. The 'za turned out well. I recommend giving it a shot. You just throw some rolled out dough on the grill, flip it, and then load it up with sauce, a pile of veggies, and cheese. Yum.

That's about all I have time for. More to come soon!

Four pillows too many

I'm in Madison, Wisconsin this week for work. The expensed meals and drinks out are nice, but the long hours are a killer. When they pull you away from your family and the usual distractions found around home there is no longer an excuse to not work ALL THE TIME, except of course when we are eating dinner. My coworkers made it their goal to make me gain 20 pounds this week. Having a beer belly is a company policy.

IE anticipation all over again

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, David Lynch's Inland Empire comes out on DVD tomorrow. I need a second viewing before I can form a clear opinion on this one. It's such an irregular monstrosity; all I could do during my first viewing was soak up the overall tone. I haven't completely decided if it's a masterpiece or an incoherent mess (but I'm obviously leaning toward the former). More important, perhaps, is the question of whether or not Lynch is repeating himself, as there are some uncanny similarities between this and some of his other films.

First there was Lost Highway -- an extremely dark film about infidelity, jealousy, and guilt. Then Mulholland Dr. came into being. It starts out brighter but eventually spirals into blackness with themes of unrequited love, jealousy, and guilt. Now IE arrives. Like its siblings, it is dark, it takes place in LA (the city of dreams), and it uses a very similar identity-swapping device to capture its themes from multiple perspectives. There are also recurring motifs among the three films: red curtains; mysterious women who are distinctly blond or brunette; and sinister, metaphysical beings.

It makes me wonder, is Lynch’s latest release the cap to a trilogy? Is it a summation of all of his prior work (FYI: I once thought the same thing of Mulholland Dr.)? Or is he just running out of ideas? Honestly, I doubt that. Even if you remove all of the elements that IE has in common with the other films, there are still enough unique ideas and images to fill a movie. I believe he packed it full of allusions to his own work (and not just LH and MD) for a purpose. He wants to take everything we think we figured out about the worlds he has previously created and spin it wildly about, splattering it on the walls. Just when you think things couldn't get any weirder, Lynch manages to defy expectations again. He also inserted self-references to reward close watching (and rewatching) by fans. Why is there a man sawing through a log during the closing credits other than to wink at Twin Peaks?

That's not to say this is responsible filmmaking. In fact, it's way overindulgent at times. Lynch was probably given too much freedom on this project. I have begun to appreciate tight editing and restraint in filmmaking. Yet I don’t watch Lynch for what he withholds. When I watch his work, I want as much of it as possible. I care more about atmosphere than logic and reality. Lynch leads with feelings and moods. His movies have all these ideas just floating around in the air. They never quite settle into place; if they did, then there'd be nothing left to discover, nothing to think about while you lay awake in bed (not because you can't sleep but because you don't want to), no reason to buy the DVD when it becomes available.

I may not find the opportunity to watch a three hour movie or the 75 minutes of deleted scenes any time too soon., but I'll be stopping at Best Buy on my way home from work tomorrow because I'm anxious to simply hold it in my hands.

Cape Cantaloupe

We took our bikes down to the beach on Saturday. We parked the car at Cape Henlopen (or, as I call it, Cape Cantaloupe) and biked the trail into Rehoboth with a stop at the outlet mall along the way for some shopping and frozen yogurt. To complete our loop and to fulfill the promise of adventure, we found ourselves on a trail on the way back where bikes are prohibited by law, probably for our own good. We ended up pushing them through a bug-ridden marsh and then, further on, trudging up and down over some major sand dunes for much further than we expected. Upon our successful return to the cape we hit the beach where an immense crowd was slowly being condensed due to a rising tide. The waves were the biggest I have ever boogied. It's a rare case when I back down and have to swim under a wave rather than take it head on, but it happened quite a bit on Saturday. I was still pounded and thrashed repeatedly. After that we drove—the car this time—back to Rehoboth and ate some terrific seafood at Café Zeus. It was a fun, active day. Our training for New Zealand has officially begun.

Recent DVDs watched, with ratings:
Gattaca - 4.5/5
Zodiac - 3.5/5
The Last King of Scotland - 3.5/5
Little Children - 3.5/5
The Queen - 3/5
Shaun of the Dead - 3/5
Derailed – 2.5/5
Deja Vu - 2/5

Good old New Zealand

We've been talking about it for a long time, but a few weeks ago we finally put our money where are mouths are. We purchased tickets to New Zealand! For two weeks in February 2008 we will be hiking, biking, and kayaking (okay, and driving) all around the south island. Until then we are going to be in training because that sounds like quite a work out. One thing is for sure: we need to have a working camera before this trip.

Buzzzzzzzz...

...like a bee, a busy one. Last week was nuts. I put in over 70 hours of work at the office. One day I showed up at 8:15am and didn't leave until 1:30am. Then I drove home and worked some more. The next night, it felt early leaving at 10:30pm. Further complicating things, there was a lot going on at home. R was attending a local conference for a few days and they put her up the swanky Hotel DuPont, despite it being only a few miles from our house. I didn't want to pass up the chance to stay in the 5-star, luxury accommodations, so I joined her there for two nights. There were other surprises last week too, like coming home from work to all of the fire alarms in the house going off at the same time for no reason at all. Then there was the unfortunate news about R's grandpa, as well as the (unrelated) bridge collapse in Minneapolis, both of which weighed heavy on our hearts and minds. With a little finangling, we were able to get R home to Minnesota for the funeral on Friday. I'm glad she was able to attend and say good-bye. I remained here, working away. By Saturday evening I was beyond tired of staring at a computer screen and my body was begging for a bike ride. Hitting the trail (or shoulder of the road, as it was) never felt so good. The cold beer afterwards, too, was appreciated more than usual.

Things have settled down this week, although work is volatile enough to change that in an instant.

Bud Light Film Crew #8

The August video is up: http://www.budlightfilmcrew.com/

The Starboard is a fun place to shoot. The people actually like us there. That's the biggest difference between this video and the last one--during the shooting of the previous video, we'd walk into the bar and everyone would shout "Miller Lite rules" or yell at me to shut my camera light off or put their hand over my lens. Maybe it's all in the timing; we need to get to the bar after everyone loosens up but before they get so sloppy drunk they forget all their manners. Unless we decide we want to explore the darkness of human nature in a future video, we need to get that right. We did at the Starboard, both times we shot there. It also helps that our host Jeff Reed is some kind of local celebrity at this place. He was in his element.

The strength of this video is the vibrant color we gained from shooting in daylight for the first time. The weakness is that it could use some tightening up in the editing. No matter how much time I have to work on these things, they always seem to get rushed out the door at the last minute.

One more thing... I was unable to use any of the 20 minutes of beer pong footage I shot. Apparently Bud Light doesn’t want to be associated with the game. I'm not sure why. Maybe they chose rock, paper, scissors as their drinking game and Coors got beer pong. All I know is I was forced to leave out some dynamic shots that would have added some action to the video. Maybe they'll make it into the director's cut.

Leslie, 1916 - 2007

R's grandpa died on Monday night at his home in Sartell, MN. He lived a long time and led a good life, but it's still hard to say good-bye, especially for those close to him, such as the women pictured above. R and I were lucky enough to visit him over our 4th of July vacation, and R was able to talk to him on the phone just last Sunday.

Grandpa O. was a Navy veteran; he was an excellent speller; he liked to sing in a barber shop quartet; he gave the benediction at our wedding reception. He was much more than that too. We are sorry to see him go but happy to have had him in our lives for as long as we did.