Time rides a bullet train

After tweeting so much lately, writing a blog entry feels like a lot of typing. I'm forgetting how to form a paragraph. Twitter is definitely easier to keep up-to-date when you are short on time -- a situation that applies to this week -- but I'm not ready to give up long form blogging altogether.

This weekend looks packed to the brim. I’m excited to be helping with the previously mentioned music video tonight and most of Sunday. I met with the director and gaffer on Wednesday to go over the shots and help set up. They have a giant, self-lit, fake moon that we hung from a tree. It is going to look so awesome on camera, floating over the heads of the band. I can't wait to see this come together.

Tomorrow, we have multiple BBQs to attend in the afternoon/evening, plus some people are stopping by our place for a drink before we head down to the Solstice parade and festival earlier in the day. I’d still like to get the house cleaned (or at least organized) before then. That will be my job tomorrow morning while R prepares some food for the BBQs. It’s all about teamwork.

The last few weekends have been a little quieter. We've been attending more Newcomer events, most notably a luau and another trip up to wine country. Otherwise, we’ve just been enjoying the start of summer: potting plants (pictured above), going out for coffee or dinner, biking to the beach, hanging out on our porch, etc. Can you believe that R and I moved here one year ago from today?

R had her wisdom teeth removed a few weeks ago. The recovery period was as unpleasant as a person, especially one with his or her own extraction experience, might expect. But she handled it well and followed the doctor’s orders to a T. Plus, she looked really cute with those puffy cheeks. Unfortunately, the camera was off limits during this time :-(

I do hope to take a few photos this weekend. The parade is sure to provide an interesting subject.

Peace out

We found this rock design on a hike up the Hot Spring Trail the other weekend and I just had to share it. Well done, unseen hikers.

This week has been a bit of a rush again as we prepare for an upcoming weekend getaway. I'm going to keep quiet about the details of the trip until we return in order to avoid repeating myself later. But if things go according to plan, you can expect to see some spectacular scenery in an upcoming entry.

R and I are also celebrating our fourth wedding anniversay this week. Today is the actual day... and we're spending it working and then taking a six-hour car ride. Preparing for our trip has been our top priority this week, but we did go out to dinner at Bouchon, one of the best restaurants in town, on Saturday. Additionally, last night we opened a bottle of sparkling wine to drink with some strawberries, Thin Mints, and an awesome episode of LOST. I love a woman who is willing to indulge me with a little sci-fi, even on an important occasion. It's just another reason R still melts my heart after all these years.

Let's plan on catching up again when life quiets down a bit. Right now I have a bit of an outdoor adventure to attend to.

Working on it

This isn't going to be much of an entry, but I feel the need to post at least something each week so you don't abandon me (I worked too hard to pick up my three regular readers; I'm not going to lose them now). Plus I wanted to move the previous entry down the page because of it's lack of a photo. That was bothering me.

I'm having a busy week at work and attempting to focus on some editing during my free time. Thus I'm holding back on the social networking and blogging that usually seems to take up more time than it should. It was either that or give up my nightly hour of television, and we all know that can't happen.

Last weekend was nice. I shot a new video on Friday (details coming soon). We went shopping and out to dinner on Saturday. On Sunday (Easter) we did the church thing and flew a kite on the beach during the afternoon. We took pictures and video of the kite, but I haven't had the chance to prepare those yet, so expect a special entry sometime after I finish my more urgent video project.

R is out of town on business Wednesday through Friday of this week, making things slightly more lonesome around here. Also of note, starting next week she's going to begin working normal hours again, 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM or so. In some ways I will miss having the evenings to myself as I felt very productive during them and enjoyed following my own, uncompromised schedule, but it will be great to have her around too. We're both excited that she'll be able to attend happy hours, take evening hikes, and help me cook again :-)

Okay, I wrote more than I planned, but this entry still doesn't feel like much more than a tease. Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Gaffe

I probably watched my "Fake Empire" video a hundred times during the process of editing it, and somehow, over the course of all of those viewings, I managed to miss a clearly visible piece of production equipment (as well as R's hand holding it) in one particular shot. Now it's all I can see. I'd post a still from the video to point it out, but I want to make you watch the video again instead. So if you want to see what I'm talking about (and there's a good chance you don't), the gaffe is just past the two-minute mark.

This is all you're going to get for a blog entry this week. We had a good weekend last weekend--with bowling, biking, and hiking--but I'm going to skip the detailed recap. I haven't even had the chance to look at the photos I took during the hike yet. Time is just speeding along. I'm heading down to LAX in a few hours to pick up our next set of guests. Expect a full report on their visit sometime next week.

Dream beneath a desert sky

Whew. December is off to a busy start. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with work and with life in general right now. Don't expect much blogging from me this month because there are so many other things to finish up before the holidays. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't even touch my video project this month, which is a bummer since I'm getting so dang excited to share it with you.

At least the next few weekends are looking relatively uneventful. Last weekend was sort of our final hurrah before we buckle down and face the weeks before our Christmas vacation in Minnesota. We drove out to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents and then up to Zion National Park in Utah for some hiking and camping. If you've been following me on Twitter, Facebook, or email, then this is probably not news to you, but I feel the need to document it here anyway simply because it was such a wonderful extended weekend.

It was pouring rain when we left last Wednesday morning. We cruised across the desert in an unexpected fog, arriving on my grandparents’ place mid afternoon. That evening the four of us hit a buffet, where I showed great restraint and managed to avoid getting the hiccups! It occurred to me while I was there that the first time I ever got what I call the "Killer Hiccups" was after eating at a buffet during my last visit to Vegas (I was thirteen or fourteen at the time). At the wise old age of 29 I finally overcame them by simply not eating so much. I wanted to stay at the top of my game when it came to playing computerized BINGO. That's right -- they have machines that do all of the work for you now. The numbers are still read aloud, but there’s no need to daub cards with ink anymore. Your only responsibility as a player is to yell the word when the machine tells you that you won. So in our case, we had no responsibility at all. Oh well, it was fun to get an inside perspective of my grandparents' night life. They appear to be some sort of BINGO royalty at Boulder Station.

The next day was Thanksgiving. My grandma made a turkey and all of the fixings, and it was very tasty. I was glad to be with family after spending the holiday alone last year. After dinner and some good old-fashioned relaxing, R and I went off to explore the city. This was her first time seeing The Strip and it had been 15 years for me. The place has changed a lot and so has my perspective. We walked a long way, in and out of casinos, stopping in a few shops and for a drink in the Eiffel Tower. Of course we had a good time, but after seeing this town that is all surface we couldn’t help but appreciate the real Eiffel Tower or the real New York City or the real Michelangelo’s paintings more. Maybe that’s the point of Vegas. The façade itself is impressive, but it leaves me with a sleazy, empty feeling. It's a good place for wild night life, but as you all must know, that's not really what I'm looking for.

We got up on Friday and drove northeast to Zion National Park in Utah. Ideally we would have had enough time to see Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon as well, but Zion was plenty for two days. It’s quite a spectacular place, a deep canyon carved out of sandstone. Camping was cold, but we had a couple of fires and bundled ourselves up pretty well inside our sleeping bags. We took three separate hikes, the highlight of which involved following a narrow spine with 1500 foot cliffs on both sides to Angels Landing. It was a little daring and quite outstanding. We really fell in love with the park. The only disappointing aspect was high volume of people present over the long weekend. It’s hard to revel in the glory of a landscape when there are screaming kids on the trail ahead of you or a big group of people rushing you out of the way so they can get a photo in front of the vista on which you are gazing.

Check out our photo gallery from the trip. We took 350 shots, kept 150, and posted 80. Many of the shots were scrapped because the light had either too harsh a contrast or was too dim. An improperly exposed sky or a little unwanted blur is sometimes (but not always) enough for me to hit the delete button. But I guess it works out because if I posted a gallery of more than 80 photos, it would be too overwhelming for anyone to view entirely anyway. If I made you wade through a bunch of garbage, you'd surely miss the few decent shots. That's the value of editing.

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.

Big days

Last week was full of days like season finales, like final exams -- big days where you need to rush out of bed, rush from one place to another all day long, and then rush back into bed so you can get a decent night's sleep so you rush out again the next morning. This is what spring has always been like for me and probably for most people too. If you ask me what's makes spring so busy, I couldn't even tell you. Since I've been done with school the reasons seems to differ every year. Maybe it's all in my head. No, I take that back -- work was hectic last week any way you spin it, and it involved plenty of overtime. We also had big events going on after work, which adds to the stress because it requires leaving work on time. And if there's one thing harder than leaving work on time, it's leaving work on time two days in a row, as was the case last week.

Thursday was the Jack of Clubs premiere. The movie played well. Obviously you could tell you weren't watching a Hollywood-level production, but anybody who has seen the online trailer knew not to expect that. It wasn't a movie to watch for nuanced performances or a sharp script, but people seemed to like seeing Delaware on the big screen and supporting a filmmaker who is working his way up, movie by movie. I personally enjoyed seeing how every shot turned out and remembering the trivia and effort from behind the scenes. I also enjoyed visiting with some friends from the shoot who I ran into at the gatherings before and after Thursday's screening. It was a good evening.

Friday was the Barefoot Ball. This was a big party we attended on the riverfront that was sponsored by the Delaware Theater Company. Included in the ticket price was all you could eat and drink from various local restaurants and micro breweries. They also had a live band, so R and I had to show off some of our moves on the dance floor : ) It was another fun night and a good way to kick off an otherwise lackluster, yet very welcomed, weekend of getting caught up with work and relaxing.

That's all for now. Come on back to Jeblog later this week for an extra special surprise!

Silver Screen

Hey everybody. Sorry for the infrequency of updates. It's the same old excuse: I've been busy at work, and it has been bleeding into my free time. Sunday, especially, was a bloodbath. R and I did manage to get our den/office painted on Saturday, however (R did the more time-consuming edge work, and then I swooped in to do the rolling). Silver Screen (swatch provided above) was our chosen color. It's possible we chose it entirely for its name. It sounded like an inspirational color to be surrounded by while editing movies. Then again, we used the same color for the interior of our garage a few months ago, so maybe there is no correlation.

What else can I tell you? I guess there's a lot in the works around here. We have some trips planned, some visitors coming soon, and some new videos being completed. I'd rather wait until after these events occur before filling you in on the details. It should be a busy spring, so stay tuned.

Biz-Z

Hello faithful readers. This is just a quick note to let you know I'm swamped with work this week and probably won't be writing a formal blog entry for a few more days. I haven't forgotten about you; I just really need to concentrate on making some deadlines right now. We had a fun weekend that I can't wait to tell you about. I've got some photos to post and the whole works. Stay tuned.

Reflective

Guess where we found ourselves again over the weekend--in Minnesota, of course, celebrating at our final wedding of the year. This time it was one of R's friends from college getting married. We spent both nights at a hotel in downtown St. Paul, a few blocks from where I used to work. Fall is a few steps ahead out there; the city seemed notably quiet and gray. We didn't see any family over the weekend. Ironically, R's sister was waiting for us here on the east coast, and her mother is flying out tomorrow to visit for a few days. Anyway, I had a lot of fun at the wedding reception. We ate a lot, drank a lot, and danced up a storm. My stomach didn't even give me problems until the skyway walk back. You can bet it felt good to plop down on the Sleep Number bed that night. Yeah, I said Sleep Number. I couldn't decide how firm I wanted it, so I set my side of the mattress to 50. That's pretty typical of my middle-of-the-road personality.

My employer bought a popcorn machine--one of those big, carnival-style popcorn machines--and they set it up in our break room. I don't think they thought it all the way through, however. There's been a huge mess of popcorn crumbs on the floor every day since.

Speaking of work, I've been about as busy as the poor janitor who needs to sweep up all of those crumbs. I think I'm developing some good habits on this job, like how to focus, for example. There's always a commotion going on around me (remember how the low cube walls are supposed to facilitate communication?), but I'm getting better at tuning it out. With having so many things to do and time always against me, I don't have a choice but to concentrate on the task at hand. The days speed by, which I guess is good and bad.

I was thinking the other day about how the older you get, the tougher life gets and the more you appreciate the little things, like a cup of coffee at your desk or a walk in the woods or relaxing with your spouse on the couch. When you're young, you don't believe those things will ever be enough. And maybe I'm not old enough yet to not fully appreciate them either, but I see this starting to take form. Maybe some of the excitement of living drops out and the little things stand out more in their new relativity. Maybe the excitement of new experiences is eventually passed on to the next generation and the familiar is welcomed by weary parents. No, I'm not done living yet. I'm just appreciating free time and thinking about what it might be like to one day be a father. Don't read to far into that statement. I'm not hinting at anything. Seriously.

To-do list

1.) Create a to-do list.