Easter weekend

We spent the holiday at R's aunt and uncle's house in Maryland. It was similar, in a good way, to our Easter last year: delicious meal, fun hiding eggs for the kids, nice to be around family. The biggest difference is that it ended with a late night after making a traffic-filled trip up to central Jersey to bring R's grandparents home. On the positive side, we enjoyed having the extended visit with them.

The rest of the long weekend was good too. We took a hike in Brandywine Creek State Park on Friday afternoon. This was considered a moderately difficult trail with heavy emphasis on moderately (uh-oh, hiking in New Zealand may have made us trail snobs). Friday night we went out to celebrate a postponed St. Patrick's Day. It was weird being in a bar without a camera to hide behind. The dreaded hiccups of death overtook me three hours in and we made it home in time for me to fall asleep during a movie. No offense to the movie, Enchanted. R was glad to see a happy movie again and, having grown up on Disney princess movies, she enjoyed some of the parody aspects of it. Saturday's selection, Gone Baby Gone, brought us back to the world of gritty violence that seems to be dominating our viewings of late (sorry, R!). Let's see... we also went out for coffee and a walk Saturday afternoon, we ate a Peruvian dinner that night, and I had some time to work on the next Bud Light video here and there. It's coming along okay but still needs more time.

My music video shoot will be happening on a Saturday night in late April or early May, depending on the actors' availability. I'm going to use the time before then to learn more about this camera. I've never taken a photography class, so many of the concepts are relatively new to me. With my old camera I never had to worry about finding the right balance between shutter speed and aperture... or how to effectively read zebra stripes... or how to use gain without noticeable grain. I want to learn this stuff. My new camera has an auto setting, and that works okay when I'm run 'n' gunning a Bud Light video, but I'm going to be more picky with the music video. I'm going to try to stay in manual mode and hopefully not screw up my intended vision too much.

Tres leches

Happy belated Easter. We spent the holiday with some relatives of R's in a suburb of Baltimore. We hid some eggs for the kids' hunt, broke our alcohol fast with some excellent wine, and ate an ultra-tasty dinner. For our contribution to the meal, we brought a cake from a Mexican bakery. We had a heck of a time ordering the thing because nobody there knew English, and my Spanish is broken at best. (Who am I kidding, I knew a few words, and that's it.) Eventually we managed to purchase a tres leches (three milks) cake, which we highly recommend by the way. We had it for the first time at the dinner party we threw a few weeks ago. Some friends brought it with them, and we were blown away. It was definitely worth the communication challenge to track another one of those puppies down.

Another thing we did over the weekend was paint our spare bedroom. It was a close call though. We had just barely enough paint to finish the job. Seriously -- we used the absolute last drop of paint to cover the last white spot on the wall. We had to stretch it a little thin, so if you ever stay with us, don't look too close.

There are three new CityLife News Team videos that are going to be posted in quick succession (as of this writing only one of them is available, but the others should follow soon). I just wanted to point out that I did not shoot or edit these videos. I was offered the chance, but I had to pass it up because the shoots took place during the work day. A talented guy named Chris, who helped produce the other CityLife and Bud Light videos, took the videography reins on these, and I think he did a great job. Chris also built the web sites where these videos are played. He recently upgraded the video player that is being used on the site, which fixed an audio issue we were having (you may have noticed the annoying skipping that was occurring). Anyway, the videos look and sound better now. Check 'em out again when you're in the mood for a BLFC retrospective... or don't.

Lastly, see Thom Yorke go to town.