2010 recap

2010 was the year little Veronica joined our family. Caring for a baby was a huge change for us and we're still defining the new "normal," but the time since her birth on October 24th has been filled with more joy than I could have possibly imagined. Our first few days with her, in particular, were the best of my life. I will always remember sitting in our sunny living room for hours and hours just watching our Vera-bean sleep. We shut out the rest of the world, listened to a lot of gentle music, and became familiar with this new person. It was absolutely love at first sight, if not earlier.

Most of the rest of the year was spent preparing mentally and physically for Veronica's arrival, but we did manage to travel a bit during the pregnancy with trips to Sonoma county, Washington state, France, and of course Minnesota. But you know what, my favorite place in the world remains here in Santa Barbara.

In addition to the birth, other notable milestones included celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary and R's 30th birthday. There has been so much reason to celebrate this year.

Hobby-wise, writing and video work have been on the decline, but my fun with photography has been on the rise. Veronica has been a huge inspiration and my new favorite subject for photos. I started a new web site in 2010 to showcase some of the pictures I've been taking of her. Free time has been short, but editing photos is so much quicker than editing video for me, so I've been fitting it in. And I just love having a record of our little girl growing up.

It has truly been an awesome year. Very few days go by when I don't think about how blessed I've been. What more could I want? Happy New Year, everybody!

Change of scenery

Here are a few non-baby related photos I've taken around town recently, just to freshen up the look around here. I'm not quite ready to begin writing much yet, but I'll probably post a brief summary of the year-in-Jeff at some point this month. Keep checking over at Three Peas for the photo story in progress.

Right number

Here's some proof that our daughter's name was on my mind well before we gave it to her. This little clip from "A Series of Wrong Numbers" was shot in 2006:


But my love of the name actually dates back much further than that. Let's just say the whole thing is destiny.

40 weeks

Nobody told me we were going to get the absolute sweetest girl in the world when this whole thing started! I am such a happy, blessed, and proud papa to our little Veronica.

There's some action happening over at Three Peas, if you haven't checked it out already.

39 and a half weeks

It is happening. I'll let you know after it happened. Until then, enjoy these final pregnancy shots.

39 weeks

It really felt like something was going to happen last weekend, and then, just today, the feeling backed off. I wasn't sure I'd have the opportunity to post a 39-week photo, but now I'm thinking there may be a 40-week one as well. (Don't count on it, however. Labor will probably start as soon as we stop expecting it.)

This photo is more low-key than the previous few. Perhaps it's fitting that it was taken at home since we are "hunkering down" now... finishing our preparations... beginning to wait. Last week at this time, I didn't feel ready for a baby and I was stressing out over it. I'm sure everything would have worked out fine, but I'm glad we had the weekend to wash some baby clothes, make some exchanges at the store, and sort of say good-bye to our non-parenting lives.

There was also a dramatic change in the weather. An unusual stretch of gray days made life in general seem out of the ordinary, like the setting of a story we'd be telling for years to come, a birth story. This afternoon Santa Barbara is back to its usual sunny self and I feel more at ease. But it could change again... I haven't looked at the forecast. I never do out here.

300

No, not 300 weeks pregnant (I can't even imagine that). Rather, 300 blog entries. Sorry to switch counts on you.

How's this for a nice bit of symmetry? My 300th post comes exactly two years after my 200th post. In that entry, I discussed the future of Midnight Toast (called Jeblog at the time) and listed some goals for the site. Being on the brink of a big life change right now -- and at another multiple of 100 -- makes me think tonight is the perfect opportunity to do something similar.

My big announcement is that I started a new blog called Three Peas in a Blog. There's a permanent link in the menu bar at the top of this page. The design of the new site is still under construction, but I'm happy to report I found a way to post larger photos on it since the primary purpose is for sharing pictures (and video) of our sweet pea with family and friends who may be interested. The writing will probably be minimal on the new site because I don't want it to slow down my photo output, but we'll see how things play out. Maybe I'll even open up the gates and let R post some thoughts on it if she ever gets the urge.

Midnight Toast will continue to exist in its current incarnation. It will be reserved mainly for my creative projects and musings, similar to what you have seen in the last 300 entries. My free time will be limited in the coming months and years, so I can't promise there will be a lot of activity in this department, but there will be some, and I like the idea of keeping it separate from the flood of baby photos that is imminent. There may be some gray areas in my categorization of material, but I'll try to keep the overlap to a minimum.

In summary...

Midnight Toast
Creative doings, random thoughts, and an occasional recap of events. Example of content: a scripted "Cottage Cheese 2" sketch starring the wee one.

Three Peas in a Blog
Family photos and videos, with very brief descriptions. Example of content: footage of the wee one taking her first steps.

And of course there's always Twitter. That will continue to be a more immediate and less calculated look at day-to-day life.

My time has run short. I wanted to tease some info about my "Introspection" film trilogy that I'm planning to cover on Midnight Toast in the future, but it will have to wait. Unless you consider that right there to be a tease.

37 weeks

The count up continues. For those of you not well-versed in pregnancy (I sure wasn't eight months ago), a baby's due date falls at 40 weeks, although only around 5% of them actually arrive on that day. Generally, you can give or take about two weeks... which means it wouldn't be that unusual for labor to begin as early as next week. We're hoping to have a little more time before our girl makes her appearance, but you never know.

I'm trying to take a calmer approach to the whole situation. R has informed me that nervousness is not sexy. She needs me to be calm and collected through this. One thing that has been helping is Zen. I've been meaning to dedicate a blog entry to the topic, and I still may, but the short of it is a friend introduced us to the value of meditation last winter and we've been practicing it semi-regularly since. My interest has waxed and waned a bit, but I recently reinstated my daily sitting in the mornings before work. It's a chance for me to be still for a little while and observe my inner-self. I go into it without any expectations, and I find that it relaxes me. There's nothing else quite like it in my day.

In other news, some local friends threw us a baby shower brunch last weekend. (Yes, men were invited too -- deal with it.) They did such an amazing job with the decorations, food, games, etc. You have got to see the invitations that one of the hosts, Leslie, created. (She also gave us some wall art for the baby's nursery that is so awesome I won't feel that bad replacing my David Lynch movie posters with it :-) It feels great to have such sweet, talented friends. Many thanks to our hosts, as well as our other generous friends who attended the party and brought gifts for the baby.

I had my camera at the shower but didn't take it out of the case. I'm upset with myself for passing up the chance to photograph people other than ourselves for once, but I was distracted and some other folks had cameras too, so I let them handle it. If any shots from the event surface, I'll be sure to share them on here.

R and I did have our own little shoot by the Mission afterward. I even brought the tripod along, allowing for a few shots of the two of us, including the one below. Can you tell how excited we are?

35 weeks

Hey everybody. Just checking in with an updated belly photo and status. It would be an understatement to say my entries have been infrequent and focused on the pregnancy lately. This blog has always been indicative of what's been going on in my life, so it's clear to see where my mind has been and how all-consuming the transition to fatherhood is. To put this further into perspective, here's the stack of books we have been reading...

We are in the final stretch now. Sleep is already starting to get away from us -- away from R because she has somebody kicking her from the inside and away from me because of nerves. The remaining items on our to-do list are elusive and have a way of falling victim to a relentless clock. When I do find myself with time available to work on them, I feel frozen, unsure of how to proceed. Perhaps I'm stalling and not quite willing to accept that the big day is almost here. At the same time, I'm so excited to finally meet our daughter that I can hardly contain it. I'm sure it's relatively normal to be nervous and hesitant while on the cusp of a change like this, so don't worry about me.

I feel guilty for whining because I have it easy compared to R. She definitely has more responsibility in growing this child and more discomfort too. Her body is handling the pregnancy quite well, but it's not without difficulty. Things will get even harder before they are done... before this all culminates into what will probably be the biggest physical challenge of R's life (and also, hopefully, one of the most rewarding). Then there's the little detail about caring for a child after all of that; Giving birth is, obviously, just the beginning of the adventure.

This week's belly shot was taken aboard the Condor Express during a cruise around the harbor at sunset. The photo of the derelict boat below was taken during the same occasion. I've been playing around with it in Photoshop, tweaking the colors and exposure to add some interest. I'm sort of loving the beauty behind the murkiness of it right now.

Our little music enthusiast

Here's a list of concerts our baby has attended while in the womb:

• Beach House, 4/16/2010, SOhO


• Atoms For Peace (Thom Yorke's side project), 4/17/2010, Santa Barbara Bowl


• The Avett Brothers, 4/28/2010, Arlington Theater


• ThreadSpinner (w/ Dawes), 5/12/2010, SOhO


• Jónsi (front man of Sigur Rós), 6/7/2010, La Bataclan (Paris)


• ThreadSpinner, 6/25/2010, Velvet Jones


• ThreadSpinner (w/ Au Revoir Simone), 7/10/2010, Velvet Jones


• Toad the Wet Sprocket (w/ Jeff Bridges), 7/16/2010, Lobero Theatre


• Crooked Still, 8/21/2010, Lobero Theatre

Last weekend I attended a quite awesome Smashing Pumpkins show, but you will be relieved to hear that I did not bring the family along. I was (accurately) anticipating some high volume levels and wasn't sure what is acceptable for a developing baby's ears, so I went with a high school friend who drove up from LA instead. (Quick digression: That was an all-around weird, nostalgic 90s weekend topped off by a sighting of Jennie Garth from 90210 in a coffee shop that probably deserves a blog entry unto itself, but I'm not going to do it).

The Pumpkins do actually have some great lullabies in their catalog (see the last four or five songs on Mellon Collie or the Adore acoustic demos or some b-sides like "Medellia of the Gray Skies"). I look forward to introducing our baby to my favorite bands through their softer works. A family friend also got us this collection as a shower gift. There are definitely worse songs for a baby to fall asleep to. I bet I could even sing along to these!

Eventually our baby will grow up and think our tastes are lame, but I'm going to exert some influence over her while I can :-). I know R would like to bring her to the Winnipeg Folk Festival as many years as possible since that was kind of a tradition in her family and we always appreciate the music up there. R has also stopped listening to the news during her commute to work and replaced it with some good music, usually involving strong female singers. Maybe it's all just underwater noise to her at this point, but I like to think our little girl is enjoying the entertainment while riding to work with her mom.

32 weeks

I have never felt
anticipation building
as strongly as now.

I am witnessing,
through a thin wall of belly,
our baby growing.

Already I feel
I belong to a new pack,
one I will defend.

No expectations
but to expect to love her,
whoever she is.

Three lakes

We usually try to make it home to Minnesota for the Fourth of July, but that date fell between France and a big work deadline this year, so we put our visit off until the last week of July instead. It actually worked out really well. This way we were able to attend a birthday/going-away party for R's sister at Pleasant Lake and a baby shower held for us at Ely Lake. We also spent some time at Lost Lake in between... So out of 10,000 lakes, we managed to spend quality time at three of them over the course of a week, which I'd say is pretty darned good. More important than lakes, however, we saw our families and some friends. It's always a pleasure.

Our niece and nephew are becoming even more adorable than before, if that is even possible. I went a little crazy with the picture taking. I can't help it. There's something in me that wants to preserve images of these kids. Maybe it has to do with living so far away and only seeing them a few times a year. My photos of them are the ones I find myself going back to and viewing more than any others I've taken. I can't truly capture their wacky personalities, their playfulness, or their spirit of discovery with a still photo, but I can sure try.

It's funny how our perception of Minnesota, the northern part of the state especially, changes the longer we are away: the blues and greens become more vibrant; the weather, more dynamic; the mosquitoes, worse. But other things don't change, like difficult good-byes and this feeling I get when I pass through my parents' neighborhood at dusk: I'm reminded of biking around aimlessly as a kid... of playing Nerf tennis with my mom on the driveway... of launching ants into space with bottle rockets... of living in the same house as my brothers... I'm not saying one time in my life was better than another; I'm just saying the nostalgia hits me hard sometimes if I let it.

If you haven't already seen the photos from our trip, check them out here.

30 weeks

Dang, she looks good, doesn't she? You might even say she's glowing...

In this impromptu photo shoot, R is modeling a new maternity top her mom sent. There are a few additional outtakes at the bottom of this gallery if you want to see more.

R is in Wilmington for work from Tuesday through Saturday of this week, leaving me here to grill a bunch red meat, post some blog entries, and stay up way too late listening to loud music and watching DVDs I've been meaning to get to for years. Well, that's the hope anyway. I actually have a lot I need to get done around here in her absence. Our spare room is still a mess. Part of living near downtown means sacrificing space. Having a child, means sacrificing some more. My goal is to further clear out the closet and then de-clutter every horizontal space in this room before R returns. It's a lofty ambition. Good thing this appears to be true.

R's trip comes on the heals of my own business trip, which covered five nights last week plus a surprise one due to a missed connection on the way home. All of this travel is messing with our now-kicking-in nesting instincts. Fortunately, we had a sun-kissed weekend together here in Santa Barbara to split up the two weeks apart. Yeah, I enjoy my time with the place to myself, but my time alone with R is starting to feel precious and scarce. Our baby is three-quarters of the way here. And I love that.

Emily & Brian's wedding video

I finally got around to finishing up the wedding video I've been editing off and on since last September (thanks for your patience, Em). Actually I'm still working on the full-length version, but I'm calling this shorter, web-friendly version complete. The idea is that this preview can be passed around to the newlyweds' family and friends and also function as a demo of some of my work. It has to be quick if it's going to hold a casual viewer's attention.

You may watch it and wonder why it took so long to make... Well, first of all I by no means dedicated 100% of my free time to it. Secondly, getting the tone and the rhythm of the cuts right was quite challenging. Maybe they are still not "right," but at least I've watched it enough times now to brainwash myself into thinking they are. To be honest, I could probably tweak and re-tweak a video like this forever, but I have to cut myself off at some point. There are too many other things coming up on my schedule.

I'm not sure what I think about wedding videography yet. No, it wasn't my top choice of projects to spend so much time on, but I am glad to now have a wedding under my belt. I feel like the quality of my work could only improve from here on out (you get what you pay for when it comes to this kind of thing, and this one was on the house). I can't see myself shooting one of these every weekend and editing 40 hours a week. It would have to get repetitive. I'm all about taking on a variety of projects right now and, thankfully, by not being a professional, I get that choice.

26 weeks

Here's an up-to-date photo of R and her baby bump. Now we are getting somewhere! The reality of the situation is starting to sink in. We have enrolled in a seven-session child birth/care class beginning in August and still have some more baby-related items to acquire before the big day comes near the end of October. The problem is we're so bad at making decisions. We don't know what crib/diapers/rocking chair we want... We don't know how we want to organize the nursery/office/spare bedroom... At least clothes shouldn't be a problem. I get the impression R really likes shopping for little outfits for our baby. You have got to see the pear-print dress! I'll show you when we have somebody around here to model it.

Official "Liar's Chair" video

I helped with another ThreadSpinner video shoot a few weeks (months?) ago. This one was directed by the band's bassist, Warren, while I functioned as the director of photography. It was a little unnerving for me because we shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, which is a magnificent camera, but one I had not touched for the first time until the night before we rolled. Let's just say there was a last-minute cram session with the instruction manual involved...

When it comes down to it, however, this whole thing was Warren's vision. He called the shots and did all the editing. And I think he did a fantastic job.

It wasn't meant to be as overly ambitious as the band's epic "Night Chorus" video. The goal this time was to capture the raw energy of the band performing their hearts out from a few simple angles. We had a really narrow lens and a really wide one, so that's what we used. The "stuttery" look you may notice was achieved by shining some extra light on the set and then cranking up the shutter speed, with the hope being that would further accentuate the band's energy... To be honest they probably had enough on their own.

Don't they look like they're having fun? You can't fake that.

Recent trips, part 2: France

Where do you begin a blog entry about a week-long trip to a beautiful country during which each day was filled with notable sights and experiences? It seems to me a person needs to either write a whole bunch or else not even attempt to describe it. Well, I already filled quite a few pages in my handwritten travel journal and I prefer not to repeat myself, so this entry will probably fall somewhere between the two extremes.

Let me start with some negativity. About two hours into our voyage to France, right about the time we arrived at LAX, I realized I forgot the fourth and fifth most crucial things I needed. Here's a list of the top five:

1) Passport
2) Wallet
3) Camera
4) Camera battery
5) Camera battery charger

At the last minute of packing I had swapped camera bags and forgotten to move my battery and charger to the new one. Of course an SLR isn't powered by something as widely available as, say, AA batteries; I needed a specialized item that they don't sell in an airport. And since we arrived in Paris on a Sunday morning, there wouldn't be any stores open to sell me anything for at least 24 hours. Factoring in charging time, this ordeal amounted to about two days without my SLR and about $150 in replacement costs. Luckily, I had brought a back-up, point-and-shoot camera to cover those two days, but it's an older one and was really hard to revert to after using a more sophisticated piece of equipment for a few years. I'm still kicking myself over missed opportunities at the Louvre, the Seine, and Notre Dame... Grrrrr.

Okay, enough about that. I had to get it off my chest. The truth is we ended up with some great shots anyway and, more importantly, we had a wonderful time on our vacation.

We spent the first half of the week staying a few blocks away from the river in the Saint Germain district of Paris. It was great being within walking distance of some major attractions. Plus, we were also absolutely surrounded on all sides by wonderful cafes. We stopped in many of them for some petit dejeuner (a typical breakfast consisting of coffee, juice, and a ton of delicious bread in various forms) or an occasional espresso/tea in the afternoon. The waiters over there do not rush you out, so it was nice to sit as long as we wanted, do some people watching, and talk about baby stuff :-). Paris in general seems set up for and very conducive to long discussions, deep thinking, and even romantic moments (couples tend to sit side-by-side rather than across the table from each other over there). I like it.

One event I'd like to mention (mainly because we don't have any photo coverage from it) is the Jónsi concert we attended while in town. He is the lead singer of the band Sigur Rós but is currently doing a solo tour. We missed him when he came through California, but it worked out to catch him on our second night in Paris. He put on an amazing show that made use of a backdrop video not totally unlike the project I put together last year, at least in concept. Of course Jónsi's stuff reached a higher level of professionalism and included a more elaborate set with multiple display screens, but I really enjoyed seeing -- objectively this time -- what effect some high quality visuals can have on live music. It was a memorable concert, one that inspired me to consider working on another backdrop video one day, although not any time soon. Those puppies are a lot of work.

The second half of our trip was spent traveling around the Normandy countryside. This included stays in Honfleur, Saint Germain des Vaux, and Mont St. Michel. The first two are sleepy little towns along the coast where we got to relax away from the bustle of the city, soak up some of the local culture, and eat some more excellent food. There were some adventurous seafood outings where we didn't quite know what was being served to us (anybody up for some pentacles?). There was also some hot chocolate that could only be compared to the hand-made stuff we had at a chocolate plantation in Costa Rica. Yum. Oh, and one morning we had what I've been referring to as "the absolute best French toast I've ever had without any doubt." I had no idea French toast could be that gooey and flat-out delicious. It's fitting I'd have to go to France to find it.

If there was an absolute highlight from the trip, it had to be Mont St. Michel. This place just blew me away. I felt like we were staying in a castle from The Lord of the Rings. It's actually an abbey built on a rock island that juts out of what is otherwise very flat land. We could see it in the distance as we approached by car, and then it kept getting bigger and bigger. During the day the place is overrun by tourists, but we were lucky enough to spend the night within the walls of the commune. After the sun set we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We walked around the maze of elevated passages and tunnels, over drawbridges, through cemeteries... this was my kind of visit.

R did such a great job of planning this trip. We saw some city, some country; some old, some new; some rain, some sun. We dove in and experienced another culture and another language. I was able to detach from the rest of the world for a while (and it's not an easy task to get me to forget about work). We celebrated my lovely wife's 30th birthday and also got away one last time, just the two of us, before we hunker down and wait for our baby girl to join the party. I hope she enjoys the story one day of how her mom noticed some of her first kicks while riding on a boat down the Seine with the Eiffel Tower in view.

Be sure to check out the pics in our gallery. They are my only souvenir from the trip and were worth the trouble of tracking down a battery.

Recent trips, part 1: Washington state

We recently took two trips, and I've been wanting to write about each individually, even though at this point they are both starting to feel like old news. In fact, I've got a back log of about five blog entries and counting that I'd still like to write, so bear with me if I end up a month or two behind real time.

If our second trip this season took me out of my comfort zone, then the first trip was squarely in it. We traveled to an area of our country that has appealed to me for a long time: the Pacific Northwest. My interest in this region has sort of manifested itself over the years in the form of Twin Peaks, but it didn't start there. It began during a trip to Washington I took with my parents while I was in junior high. The place was inspiring to me then; it's inspiring now; and when I discovered Twin Peaks sometime in between, the mystery and the mood that inspired me were directly tied to the location.

R was attending a conference in Seattle at the end of May, so we decided to extend her stay and fly me up for Memorial Day weekend. We spent our first full day exploring the city (Space Needle, Pike Place Market, underground tour) and the two days after that in and around Snoqualmie, a small town where "a yellow light still means slow down, not speed up". This is where they filmed much of the pilot episode of Twin Peaks and quite a few exteriors that were used throughout the series. Keep in mind the show was made over 20 years ago, so things have changed a bit. It's also a little deceiving when you recognize the outside of a building and then you walk in and realize an entirely different set was used for the interior scenes.

I am proud to say we spent two nights at the Salish Lodge, pictured at he top of the waterfall above, which is a key spot in the show. And, as cheesy as it sounds, having a cup of coffee and a piece of cherry pie in the Double R Diner (called Twede's Cafe in reality) was an absolute highlight of the trip for me, despite the changed decor (Tweety Birds hanging from the ceiling?). You could say being there was the realization of a dream for me.

It's hard to complain about the weather in Santa Barbara, but maybe I needed a change because I found myself welcoming the rain we experienced in Washington. It was more of a steady drizzle that bounced off you than any sort of downpour. It enlivened the greens and provided the tree tops with some haunting mists. We saw a lot of this during a hike to Rattlesnake Ledge on our last afternoon up there. R once again impressed me by handling the four mile round trip and 1200 feet elevation gain quite well at about 19 weeks into her pregnancy.

As usual, our photos go into much more detail than I could ever describe. Check them out here to see more about our weekend getaway.

We're having a girl!

Here's the first of what will likely be very many photos of our daughter. We have some 3D images as well, but I'm not sure I'm ready to share those with the world yet. I kind of like the classic ultrasound look of this one. I have it on my bulletin board above my desk, and I'm enjoying thinking about who this new person might be and what her life will hold.

We're trying to keep the ultrasounds to a minimum, so this was our first of R's pregnancy at 21 weeks in. It was such a relief to hear from the doctor that our baby appeared perfectly healthy. We saw her in heart in action, measured her brain, witnessed her flexing legs... At one point she even reached up and rubbed her eye with her hand. There's a real, live human being in there!

We watched the whole ultrasound, but there was one thing the doctor noticed that we did not: the baby's sex. He wrote it down for us and sealed it up. This all happened first thing in the morning, so it was a long day of wondering what was in that envelope. Our day finally settled down around 8pm. R wanted me to look first and let her know, so that's how it went down. It was an absolutely magical moment.

R to the thirtieth

The other big milestone this spring is R's 30th birthday. As a matter of fact it's today (Sunday)! The clip below, from 2003, is my attempt at embarrassing her. One of the things I love about R is that she is always willing to help me out with one crazy shenanigan or another. It's difficult to find people willing to act goofy in front of a camera, but I can always count on her :-).


This weekend was probably lower-key than a 30th birthday weekend should be. I wish I would have planned more. Our original idea was to celebrate with a vacation in Paris, but the scheduling didn't work out, so we're going to be there a few weeks too late. We did go out to dinner at a French restaurant, Julienne, on Saturday night as preview of the trip to come. And today we took some good friends (pictured below) out to brunch at a place on the beach. Afterward we made a stop at the luxurious Bacara Resort, where R was treated to a pre-natal massage. It was a good weekend, but, seriously, the celebration has just begun. We are really looking forward to our trip!

"Miami" blip

I feel like posting something that has nothing to do with my personal life tonight. Previously, I mentioned (warned?) that there would be some remnants of my recent backdrop video work continuing to appear on the blog, and this is an example of that. It's a remix of the food coloring experiment I originally wrote about in this entry. Since I didn't have a clip to show at that time, I'm posting one now.

The video is a little sloppy. You can see reflections in the glass and the editing isn't as transparent as it could be. The original, set to an unreleased ThreadSpinner song, was slower and the imperfections weren't as perceptible when it was played on the lesser-contrast theater screen. In the clip above, I swapped the music with a song by U2 ("Miami" from their Pop album), condensed the run-time, and re-organized things a bit.

This isn't going to forever change the face of Internet video or anything. Treat it as a doodle similar to the Silence blip from a few months back.

An exclusive first look at...

... my pregnant wife! There have been some requests to see how things are progressing, so here you go. She's definitely showing, whether she wants to admit it or not. We have another photo where she's purposely sticking her stomach out as far as she can, and let's just say I don't have permission to post that one. It's a preview of what is to come.

Changes are underway. Maternity clothes shopping has begun. Time speeds on.

Five Years

Five years ago I watched the most beautiful woman walk down the aisle of a church in Alabama. We locked teary eyes and stood together in front of our closest family while we exchanged vows. I'll never forget the fiery love I felt on that day and in the time since. Today we celebrate an anniversary, but one day is not enough to express what this relationship means to me. I've been chipping away at it, at least a little bit, each day... and I fully intend to continue.

Yikes! Sorry if my posts have been on the sappy side and not terribly modest lately. Life is good right now, and I'm proud to report it. I realize something like the announcement of R's pregnancy isn't "the biggest news" in everybody else's life, but it is the biggest, most life-changing news in ours and this blog is about our lives after all. Moving to California was big news; Having a child required a grander statement. That's all I meant with the title last time.

We're hitting a bunch of milestones this spring. Come back in about two weeks for another one...

The biggest news

I would like to announce, with so much joy and excitement, that my lovely wife and I are expecting our first child in October! Yes, I really typed that. The last few months have already been an emotional thrill ride, and it looks like there will be much of that to come.

R is doing well. She had what seemed to be a pretty typical case of morning sickness, but is feeling better, if still more tired than usual, these days. We've been trying to eat better and get enough exercise. We're both reading books about pregnancy and how to care for a child. It all sounds rather intimidating at this point, but we're going to take it one step at a time. I'm very anxious to meet this new person, but I desperately need this time to prepare and also want to make the most of life without the weight of fatherhood while I can, so I'm not exactly wishing these nine months away. The stork will arrive soon enough.

We learned the news ourselves on Valentine's Day morning while we were in Sonoma County. No, it wasn't the best timing for a weekend getaway in wine country. R had to skip the tasting part of our weekend, and I... had to cut back a bit :-). It also explains the conspicuous absence of a wine glass in the photo in this entry about the weekend. You may have also noticed my write-up was rather spare on details. I feel like the secret we've been carrying (pun somewhat intended) has put a bit of a wall between me and you, so it feels good to finally make the information public. This opens up so much more to tweet about too :-)

Among other decisions, I have to make one about the future of Midnight Toast (the blog), regarding how much detail to include about the pregnancy and our child's life. Safety and privacy are suddenly a higher priority. Maybe I'll start a limited-access family blog and reserve this one for my creative projects. Maybe not. One way or another I'll be taking a ton of photos and video, and some of them will be available in one place or another. I've already started recording a series of video interviews with R about her pregnancy and will continue with those about once a month until this baby is born. Something like that probably won't make in online, but I have a feeling our little family will enjoy watching them in the future.

Being a dad will be a huge adjustment and full of challenges, but I'm looking forward to it. Life has a way of telling you when it's time for the next phase. And following those signs has worked out pretty well for me so far, so I don't see any reason to stop. R and I are happy... scared, too, but mostly just happy.

Video backdrop series, part 10: Closing thoughts

I put together a total of nine videos for the concert backdrop. For the tenth one, the band used the exceptional "Night Chorus" music video directed by Matt Walla. You may have read some praise from me about it right here. How fun was it to see the band playing in front of images of themselves from the music video? Very fun. The video was perfect. The energy in the room was perfect. The night as a whole was perfect. And I'm not just glorifying the past. I knew this would be a night to remember while it was happening.

Since the tenth video wasn't my own, I was originally going to use this final installment of my blog series to show some clips from my footage that didn't "make the cut" for one reason or another, as there is a substantial amount of it. However, I find myself wanting to wrap up the series sooner rather than later, so pardon me if I take some short cuts here. Instead of clips, I'm going to give you some stills.

One idea that didn't find a home was a series of nature shots I took at various locations over the course of the shoot. Each contained some subtle movement (e.g. a leaf dangling from a cobweb, ripples in a stream, bugs swarming around branches, a fading sun), but it may have been too subtle to work as a backdrop. We needed exaggerated motion and contrast in order for it to be picked up by the projector and remain recognizable behind layers of stage lights. Not only were these images a little dull, they were also too literal. It felt more like stock nature footage you see between segments on PBS than an accompaniment to a rock show. See for yourself:

Then there were some alternate shots -- for backdrops that did get made -- that just weren't needed in the final edits (or were, again, too literal). These probably don't mean a lot to you because you haven't seen every shot that I did use, but here's a little sampling of my B-roll below anyway. (A little trivia: the hand in the first one belongs to R and was meant to be her cameo as she "pulls back the curtain" between the sidewalk and the trail in "Waking World," but, alas, it was too cheesy to include.)

I also have a few unused time-lapses that I'm not going to post yet. These are just some experiments that will likely make an appearance in some future, unrelated entry on this blog. They need a little more distance from this project and the right choice of music before they will be ready for viewing.

That about wraps things up then. It was a lot of work to document all of this, let alone create the backdrop videos themselves, but now that it's done I'm really glad I have a written and visual record of the project. Maybe "work" is the wrong word because I had so much fun stretching myself creatively (and technically, for that matter) to stitch together this quilt of abstract images for the concert. (Hmmmm... Why didn't I call this "The Quilt Project" instead of the "The Sweater Project"? That makes much more sense.)

Finally, I'd like to thank ThreadSpinner one more time for giving me this opportunity and so much freedom to build my own artistic endeavor on top of theirs. They took a huge risk by asking me to help shape their image at one of their most important concerts to date. There were times when I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off, but I've come to the other side with more confidence in my vision and a huge sense of satisfaction. The band makes for an imagination-spinning muse, one I'd like to work with again in the future.

Minneapolis is my flash-sideways

Great photo by R, eh? It was taken on Figueroa Mountain on my 31st birthday. It's sort of a companion piece to the one in this post.

I'm in Minneapolis for work this week and have a few minutes for a quick entry from my hotel room, so let's do this. And let's do it without over thinking it.

I've been feeling a little out-of-touch with you lately, and there's a complicated answer for that. Life in general has been feeling more complicated than usual lately. It's complicated. It's a Meryl Streep movie. Yawn.

It feels like my brain is degrading.

It's more difficult to connect with people than ever before. For some reason I thought it would get easier.

I recently reopened my private, written journal, but after one marathon session it has been largely neglected as well.

I'm still thinking in terms of 140 max characters. I blame Twitter. So much for writing that novel.

I want to be here and there and nowhere.

This is what I get for starting a blog entry without much of a point. I'm all over the place tonight. Let's forget this ever happened.

But first, view this beautiful woman, partially shrouded by wildflowers:

Two-year-old in town

Because the wee one is not smiling in that photo, let me post one more...

...that's better.

The folks pictured above were our guests during the last week. That would be R's mom, sister, and our little nephew.

The boy is a handful! He requires constant attention and brings a ruckus with him wherever he goes, but as far as I understand, that's pretty normal for a two-year-old, so I'll let it pass :-) He's a sweet kid. We don't get to see him terribly often, and each time we do, he appears to have taken a leap forward in development. Now he's forming sentences and running so fast we can hardly keep up with him. Check out the footage below from a walk around the block to see him in action. He's a ball of energy.


Having guests is a good excuse to carry a camera when we go out and about, so I took a bunch of photos. A few of my favorites have been added to the second half of this gallery. Check them out because I'm counting on them showing you some of what we did and where we went. (This is my way of getting out of writing a full recap.)

It was good to see the in-laws. We're not used to being on the hosting side of a visit, so I hope we did okay. I was probably too distracted by work, as usual, and probably didn't make the most out of our time together, but I'm really glad they came and were able to enjoy Santa Barbara. I know R appreciated having some of her closest peeps around too.

I'll leave you with one more shot of little Ezra. What do you think... is the SoCal lifestyle going to his head?