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.

Vows by the lake

R and I flew back to the Twin Cities last weekend to attend the wedding of some good friends, Emily and Brian. I didn't take a single photo, but I did shoot 2.5 hours of video (you're looking at a still from the footage above). So I guess I have my next editing project cut out for me.

We slept in some cabins at the wedding site in an effort to save money and to stay close to the bridal party. R was the bride's personal attendant, and I wanted to be available to record as much of the weekend's on-goings as possible. We didn't get a lot of sleep, but otherwise everything worked out really well. The weather was beautiful, and so was the wedding.

In addition to all that, we found time to hang out in our old neighborhood in St. Paul and also sit down for lunch with some family members. It was a treat to see them on an occasion other than Christmas or the 4th of July for once, even if it was a little rushed. I'm glad they made the effort to meet up with us.

Despite loving California so much, we do miss Minnesota quite a bit. I'm reminded of the positive points each time we go back. I’ve been thinking a lot about the future this week and there are no clear answers on where I would like us to be in a few years (or if it will even be our choice), so let me get back to you on that.

Marblehead

We flew to the other side of the country last weekend to attend the wedding celebration of S&Q, whom we became good friends with during our time in Delaware. When you move away from friends you sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort to keep in touch. With S&Q, it is. They are a fun couple who appreciate art and adventure in a way similar to us. It was great seeing them, along with some other old friends and some new ones too.

Our red-eye landed in Boston at 8:30 Friday morning and then we drove north to the little coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts for an eventful weekend. The ceremony itself was exclusive to immediate family and the wedding party, but there was no shortage of activities to keep us occupied. We took a ride on a lobster boat, participated in a scavenger hunt (we won!), competed in a newlywed game (we won again!), lounged by a pool, ate some good meals, danced to live Irish music, and even had the chance to explore some neighboring towns (e.g. Salem and Gloucester). It was well-planned and well-executed weekend thanks to Q and my lovely R.

Here are a couple other notable occurrences from the trip:

1) We ran into a girl who lived on R's floor during their freshmen year of college. I knew her too. She just happens to be married to one of the groom's best friends from high school. So let's get this straight... We went to school with this girl in Minnesota. She now lives in San Francisco, CA, but she was attending a Massachusetts wedding for a couple her husband knows from Delaware. Not sure if you followed all that... the bottom line is that we couldn't believe it was her. This was definitely a situation that called for the overused "small world" statement.

2) Maya Rudolph (from SNL and Away We Go) showed up poolside at the bed & breakfast we stayed at. R and I were the only ones out there when she and some guy -- possibly her director husband, Paul Thomas Anderson, who was disguised in shades and a hat -- walked out to take a photo of the courtyard. Maybe he was scouting locations or something. According to the IMDB, Maya is in Marblehead shooting a new Adam Sandler movie. Anyway R said to her something along the lines of "Do you want me to get out of the way [of the photo]?" And Maya, standing right over R's shoulder, replied by saying she was trying to get out of the way too. It's funny how our brushes with celebrity typically happen when we're away from southern California.

I didn't go crazy taking photos during this trip, but you can see what I have here.

Happy wedding day, Chili!

It's not a new video, but it has my old pal Chili in it. The dude is getting married today. He's a long time reader of Jeblog, so maybe he'll see this post once the dust from a busy weekend settles.

Congrats, dude! Wish I could be there to shake your hand in person.

Wilmington weekend

On Friday I received an annual review at work and it turned out to be the most positive of my career so far. I'm glad they seem to appreciate the effort I have been putting in. They gave me a raise too, which felt well deserved under the circumstances. I don't think they could ever pay me enough to make it worth missing out on time with my wife and my hobbies, but a little extra money doesn’t hurt anything either. We celebrated on Friday night with drinks and sushi. Afterwards we watched Ordinary People on DVD, which I liked quite a bit.

On Saturday morning, R went to her weekly Lego League session and I played some Ultimate Frisbee at Rockford Park. I'm hoping to make the game a fixture in my Saturday schedule, at least on weekends when we are in town. There’s nothing quite like running until you drop to make you feel better about being alive.

In the afternoon we attended the wedding of local filmmaker Gordon D. and his bride Cindy. I worked with the two of them during Gordon's movie shoot last summer, and the four of us have subsequently become occasional dinner partners and decent friends. The wedding was a good time. I was able to reunite with some of the film crew and hear of the some recent success stories (e.g. our key grip is now working behind the scenes of HBO's The Wire). We met some interesting new people too. It was an artistic, creative crowd. I tend to get along better with people like that -- people who think about things other than baseball or the ever-so-popular football -- so it worked out pretty well.

Sunday was relaxing, yet productive around the house. There's not much else to say about Sunday other than it capped a nice weekend. It's the normal, well balanced weekends like this one that I like best.

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.

Another weekend, another wedding in Minnesota

R picked me up from work on Friday, and we hopped on a jet plane bound for our home land. We spent that night and the following morning visiting R's mom, who was then kind enough to take us on a tour of our old neighborhood in St. Paul before dropping us off at my cousin's wedding. It was a very nice wedding and equally nice reception at the luxurious St. Paul Hotel, where R and I spent Saturday night. The next morning we grabbed breakfast with my parents and made our way up the 26th mile marker of the Twin Cities Marathon to watch R's good friend E pass by -- way to go E! We also met up with her and her family at the end of the race to hang out for a bit. Next, we had coffee with my friend L (are you getting tired of all these initials yet?), who later brought us to the airport. Yes, the weekend went by in a flash, but, man, it was great to see everybody we saw, and we really enjoyed the fall weather. Minnesota can be an attractive place to be when the weather is right.

Those of you still waiting to see my new online video, hang in there. I'm disappointed to say the magazine decided not to use it for their ad campaign. I might still work with them on another project, but the magazine staff "would like to have more say on the message that is going out there." Their response was pretty positive otherwise. In other words, they seemed to like the video, but it was not what they were looking for. That means I'm free to release it to the world on my own, albeit without the wide distribution it would have had through the magazine. I'll need to remove the magazine references from it before I post it on YouTube, so give me a weekend or so to do that. You'll be seeing it soon. I've also had some rejuvenated enthusiasm over the "Wrong Number" project during the last few days, so I hope to get that wrapped up relatively soon as well, although I know I've said that before. None of these projects require much time, but lately it's been difficult to find any time at all to dedicate to my creative life. Yesterday I didn't get home from work until 9:00pm! It also doesn't help that I'm addicted to a few TV shows (by the way, Lost starts up again tomorrow night).

The season of the wedding

(photo by Bob Finc)

We were in northern Minnesota over the weekend to attend my cousin's wedding. The picture of us above was taken at the reception, which was a good time despite my suffering from a bad case of the hiccups that eventually built up to a fit of dry heaving. Okay, you probably didn't need to know that, but, man, those hiccups can be deadly. Teach your kids how to prevent them. Anyway, my cousin and his new bride are a nice couple, and I wish them all the best.

The aforementioned wedding was the first of five to which my wife and I were invited over the course of the next three months. I guess we're getting to that age where a lot of people we know are tying the knot. It's a bummer they are all taking place in Minnesota because there's no way we can make it to all of them, let alone the bachelor/bachelorette parties and showers. Missing out on some of them is one of the sacrifices we make when living so far away in an exotic location like Delaware.

We touched down at the Philly airport around 10:30 on Monday morning. Instead of putting in a half day of work, we took a drive to Cape May and spent the afternoon at the beach. R's aunt and uncle are renting a place down there for the week, so we visited with them between thrashing sessions on the waves. The night -- and our enjoyable extended weekend -- ended with a fajita dinner and a drive home.