New Zealand: one year later

[Photo by Christine]

[Photo by Don]

[Photo by Karen]

[Photo by Karen]

I've been thinking a lot about our trip to New Zealand lately, probably because this month marks our first anniversary of being there (here's the post from then). Among other things, it was an adventure that inspired us to do more exploring of the outdoors. As a result, we camped more in 2008 than any other year in our lives (if you exclude R's summer as a camp counselor), and we are planning to get out even more in 2009. Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Big Sur are on the list... and that is just this spring. The goal is to try more overnight hikes as well. We're gearing up so that we can carry everything we need for a couple of days on our backs, leaving the car and associated crowded campgrounds behind. California is a good place to attempt it.

Speaking of CA, the trip to NZ was what first seeded the idea of living here in our heads. I remember talking to my dad afterwards and telling him how we were "California dreamin'." This was even before transfering here for R's job was a known possibility. A number of the people in our travel group were from CA and spoke highly of the place. One of them, from Pasadena, was in charge of hiring some engineers for his company. R checked into it at the time. That opportunity didn't work out, but when we she was up for re-assignment in the spring and luck placed Santa Barbara on the list of potential locations, we pushed for it. It meant leaving some great friends, giving up my membership in the Delaware Independent Filmmakers club, and having to spend a lot more money to buy a smaller house... but I, for one, have not regret the decision, as you I'm sure you can tell. In fact you're probably tired of reading how much I love it here.

The photos above were not included in our original gallery from the NZ trip. They were taken by other people in our group and were sent to us after our own photos were organized. So I'm posting a few of them now for an alternate perspective of an amazing country. If you ever have the chance to see the place for yourself, I highly recommend going for it.

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all

Just wanted to drop a note to say I hope you're enjoying the day whether you're with a loved one, with a friend, or on your own. R (pictured here in her "Love an Engineer" shirt) and I hiked up to a waterfall earlier this afternoon and are now getting ready for a dinner out. After that, we're going to drink some special Valentine wine that R's mom bought for us and watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona on DVD. It should be a low-key evening, but a good one nevertheless. I sure do love an engineer!

When it rains it pours

Cold and rain in Santa Barbara? Are you kidding me? Believe it or not we had a bad streak of weather... and it unfortunately coincided with my in-laws' five-day visit. Being from Minnesota, these are folks who really appreciate the sun, so I feel bad that it rained continuously for their first two days here and sporadically thereafter until they left. A sunny vacation was just not in their cards this time.

But there's more to life than weather and we still enjoyed the company! Over the weekend we managed to go for a hike, tour wine country, get out on a sailboat, and share some good meals together. Take a look at my photos from the happenings posted in this gallery.

There was one other thing that added complication to the weekend: my job. Everything I mentioned above seemed to collide with what ended up being my busiest weekend of work in probably a year. Throw in a laptop issue and some angry clients, and you've got yourself a perfect storm -- a regular clash of my personal and professional lives. I just hope my work didn't interfere with our guests' stay too much. It definitely put me on edge, but I'm hoping I didn't transmit too many bad vibes.

Things are falling back into a more serene routine now. We've got three more sets of visitors lined up during the next month, so let's see if the weather can work with us a little better from now on. It's been such a good pal in the past.

The red carpet

Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz, Josh Brolin, Mickey Rourke – these are some of the celebrities we saw on the red carpet (and on stage) during this year's Santa Barbara International Film Festival. R and I have been volunteering at and around the entrance to the biggest theater in town during the last couple of weeks. As a guy who is enthralled by Hollywood filmmaking and the entertainment industry in general, I really enjoyed having this glimpse into the realm of fame and experiencing first-hand the charisma of stars who are followed by a near-constant glow of flashbulbs.

As R put it, it was like watching TV without the editing. Stripped of that editing, you really get the chance to see the stars for who they really are. Eastwood was incredibly sharp during his on-stage interview/retrospective and shared some fascinating tidbits about acting and directing... and both at the same time. Cruz's interview was slightly less insightful, but she came across as very down-to-earth yet, of course, amazingly attractive. For some reason I liked the Rourke tribute best. The guy proves that you can become famous on talent alone. He was the least star-like of anybody: he misspoke a few times, disappeared from the stage whenever clips of his work were played (and didn't always make it back in time), and generally didn't appear comfortable with his fame. But the film clips they showed demonstrated an enormous talent for acting. See him in The Pledge or Sin City for an example, not the mention The Wrestler, for which I guarantee he wins the Oscar.

The volunteer work involved a lot of standing around but was pretty low stress and served to give us an up-close look at the ongoings. One night we tore tickets at the main entrance to the theater. Another night I functioned as a security guard (yeah, intimidating me), stopping patrons and people wanting a look from coming through a side entrance. It was funny to hear some of the reasons why people thought they should be let in, e.g. “I just had knee surgery; you can’t make me walk all the way around to the front.” The occasional VIP would laugh at me when I tried to stop him and say something like “Haha -- I’m in charge of this festival,” as he kept on walking. As an unpaid volunteer without proper training, I tended to give folks like that the benefit of the doubt and let them pass.

The unfortunate part of being a volunteer is that we were not allowed to carry a camera, so my photos from the events are limited. The picture above was taken on a night off as we were passing by the theater on our way to the bar. The guy there was about half way done replacing David Fincher (whose interview I missed) with Mickey Rourke on the marquee. On my last night of volunteering I did some pre-production set up, which meant I had time to go home and change out of my volunteer shirt and grab a camera before the tribute to Mr. Rourke started. There are a few pics from that event in this gallery, but I'll bring the one below to your attention. Do you recognize this childhood hero of mine?

Mammoth weekend

Where do the days go? This week seemed particularly short because last weekend stretched through Monday. We spent three nights about six car-driven hours northeast of here in the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes, CA. This was my first time skiing outside of Minnesota, and I must say the difference is significant. The weather was warmer, the runs were longer, and the views of mountains were astounding. I brought our old point-and-shoot camera on the hills with me and grabbed a few shots. Check them out here.

One advantage to the point-and-shoot over our DSLR is it takes video, and since one of my goals is to post more "informal video" (as opposed to more polished ones like the music video I've been working on), here's a rough little "moving picture" of R tearing it up on the slopes:


It was a nice weekend away. We stayed in an old lodge next to a frozen lake. In addition to the two days of skiing, we went out for one really tasty dinner and one mediocre one, watched a DVD (Charlie Wilson's War), and drank some wine by the fireplace in the lobby. Ah, life is good.

There's lots of stuff going on these days, possibly too much. Stay tuned.

There's no place like home

We made a day trip down to Hollywood last weekend to have some lunch on Sunset Blvd and see the Broadway musical Wicked. I will go so far as saying that this was probably the best play I’ve ever seen, but to be fair, I haven’t seen too many other plays of this caliber. I’m usually not a big fan of plays. I don’t like the over-acting and voice projection. Dramas are too dramatic; comedies, too annoying. But Wicked was enthralling. I liked the music, the visuals, the clever plot... it was an impressive show.

The weather has been amazing around here this week. Our friends in the Midwest are suffering at 40 degrees below zero while we are enjoying temperatures in the mid 70s. To top it off, the oranges on the trees in our courtyard have been ripening over the past few weeks and we have been indulging in them. This is the time of the year when SoCal really shines.

My post-work project this week has been to construct a star field generator, as seen below. Shooting an actual starry sky doesn't work because it's too dim (or my camera isn't sensitive enough), so I poked holes in a cardboard box, stuck the camera in it, and shone a light at the holes. The results looked great. I even had the ability to control the twinkling.

All of this was for a one second shot in my music video. The closer I get to finishing the video, the more excited I get about it. I also get more and more worried that my hard drive will crash or I'll fall and break my wrist before it's finished. I really need to wrap it up soon, but there is so much going on during the next few months that I have a feeling it's still going to be a while.

Next week Lost returns and the first single from U2's upcoming album hits the airwaves. It's an exciting time to be alive! I'm actually re-watching last year's finale of Lost as I write this. It just so happens the episode shares its name with the title of this blog entry.

Welcome to the world, Elise

I'm full of baby pictures these days. This is my niece, Elise (Ellie), who was born on Thursday. Congrats to Ryan and Katie!

We're thinking she's going to be a musician because she shares a birthday with Elvis. And not only that, Ellie could be short for Elvis. Even if she doesn't decide to make music of her own, I'll bet she'll inspire it. There's already Beethoven's "Für Elise" and a great song by The Cure called "A Letter to Elise." I've been listening to that one all afternoon, thinking of the new baby, wishing I could be there to say hello.

An oldie

I'll keep this short, as I still want to get back to some editing tonight. The new year has re-ignited my passion for my latest video project; I should act on that as much as possible. I just wanted to share the above photo of yours truly in his youth. My dad has been going through boxes of old slides, scanning them into his computer (he and I share an interest in preserving the past), and emailing a few of the notable ones to me. I don't think I had ever seen these photos before he sent them, at least not any time recent enough for them to remain in my memory, so they have been fun to see. When R and I have a child of our own (nothing currently scheduled), you can bet he or she is going to get the full coverage treatment: photos with fancy lenses, HD video... the whole works. Did you expect anything less?

A week of winter

Well, that was a nice break from blogging, among other things. We returned from Minnesota on New Year’s Day. Our pace definitely slowed for the week that we were there. The majority of our time was split among three families with some travel in between, but it was relaxing. I'm happy to report all of our flights and drives went off without a hitch. You never know what card the weather will play in Minnesota. It was great to see everybody, eat a bunch of excellent food, and to experience some real winter without the opportunity to get tired of it.

Check out our photo gallery from the holidays. It's sort of dominated by our photogenic nephew. R gave me a new lens as a gift, and I got a lot of practice with it taking shots of that little guy. (We even caught him crawling for the very first time!) The lens has a wide aperture, so it's great for shooting in low light and for playing with a shallow depth of field. I regret not owning a lens like this sooner. The results we've been getting so far have made the price way more than worth it.

We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button during our stay in Eveleth. The movie struck a chord with me. I think it had something to do with the emotions that seem to pervade the time I spend with my family during these bi-annual visits. As much as I enjoy my time with them, there's this underlying sadness in the way it feels like I show up only to say good-bye. The movie was about saying good-bye and how the chance to connect can be fleeting even when a relationship exists our whole lives. All of this makes me glad to have R in my life. It's nice to have somebody I don't have to say good-bye to as I don't think I could do this on my own. We returned to California together last week, and I think we have been appreciating each other's company more than ever since then.

On Friday I got a head start on the upcoming work week. Tomorrow everybody will be back in the office, so the pressure will be on to finish some things I left hanging before the holiday. I'm starting to feel like my responsibility at this job is outweighing the benefits. I love being able to work from home, but there are some things related to the recent acquisition that I'm not happy about... and it can't all be blamed on the poor economy. I probably shouldn't be writing about it here, but then again maybe it's okay if a coworker reads that I've been getting my résumé back into shape.

This weekend wasn't as productive as it could have been. I guess we're still in vacation mode. The next three or four months are going to be busy ones, so I wish I would have taken the opportunity to get more done around the house. We did have some fun though. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, we visited a winery down the street for a tasting session. 8 samplings later we found ourselves heading out the door for some tipsy furniture shopping and then a long afternoon nap. We also joined the winery's club, which means we agreed to buy so many bottles a year but also get free tastings (guests included) for as long as we're members. Now you have even more reason to visit us. Speaking of which, we have four separate groups of visitors arriving in the next few months, so that is definitely exciting!