YARD

Some friends of ours recently purchased a house in Santa Barbara and it has a jungle for a yard. They asked me--their local, budding videographer--to help them enter the "America's Most Desperate Landscape" video contest currently being held by the DIY Network. Since I've been itching to start a new project (and to try out my recently acquired microphone), I immediately agreed to do it. We brainstormed for ideas over email and got together one night to choose one and shoot it.

We went with a LOST parody. Because this is one of my favorite shows, spoofing it was a bit of a dream project of mine. The downside was that we didn't have much time for preparation and had to pretty much make it up on the spot. A blank slate, a setting sun, and a one-man production crew can make for an intimidating combination. The trick was to keep it simple. It also helped to treat this like a reality show versus a full-blown art project, allowing for a fair amount of imperfection.

It came together extremely quickly in the editing too. I put in an hour or two each day for less than a week. Compare that to "Fake Empire", which took me months to edit on that schedule. Even my Bud Light Film Crew videos absorbed more time than this one.

The version of the video we submitted to the contest is slightly different than the one you see above. After we had shot it, we went back to the contest website and realized we were only supposed to include the front yard. I had to remove any verbal references specific to the back yard along with any shots that were obviously from there. The above version is my preferred cut with some of those references and cuts put back in.

The judging for the contest is based on creativity, originality, and the personality of the homeowners. I think we have all of those aspects covered... but the winners of the $20,000 worth of landscaping work are yet to be determined. Good luck to Mike and Aimee!

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?

Par-T

My birthday celebration sort of stretched through the weekend and into Monday, giving the week an enjoyable, yet exhausting start. I'm happy with the way the events played out, but--whew--I'm glad they're done.

We spent Saturday frantically preparing for a get-together to be held at our condo on Sunday. The cleaning, shopping, and cooking took up most of the day. During the evening we found some time to relax, going out for a steak dinner out and then coming home to watch Milk. This is a good time of year for DVD viewings because most of the Oscar nominees are showing up on Netflix. Say what you will about award campaigning and mainstream pedigrees, but Oscar nominated movies are usually worth watching. Milk was no exception.

Our housewarming/return-of-spring/my-birthday-celebration BBQ started at 3:00 on Sunday. Despite living here only 9 months, this ended up being one of the largest gatherings R and I have ever thrown. We pretty much invited everybody we know out here (coworkers, Newcomers, a few others) and about 25-30 people showed up. Sorry to report I didn’t take any photos. You know how much I like to document things, but having a camera around sometimes makes people uneasy or self-conscious and plus I was simply too preoccupied with co-managing the event. As you probably know, there’s a lot of work that goes into keeping a house presentable, making sure people are introduced to each other, monitoring food levels, etc. But the party was a success, and I’m happy we threw it. It definitely made my 30th birthday more memorable. R, you were right about that.

The next day, Monday, we had some guests arrive around the time my workday was ending. They included a couple of family friends (known as the H brothers) from Minnesota and a friend of theirs who lives in Vegas. The trio is spending the week visiting SoCal, so they made the drive up from LA to see what Santa Barbara is all about. I took them on the signature hike to Inspiration Point in the afternoon. Later on, R dropped us off downtown and we spent the evening eating dinner and doing some bar-hopping. It’s not very often I engage in a guys’ night out, so I took advantage of the situation and had a good time. Yes, I drank too much and stayed out way too late for a weeknight, but really, is there a better time to act immature than the point in life when you begin to feel old?

I’m getting too old for this

This clip is nothing new if you caught it on Facebook last week or if you are a lucky owner of the limited edition Cottage Cheese DVD from a few years ago. It's not exactly brilliant filmmaking (nor singing for that matter), but I wanted to include it here because of its connection to the title of my blog. I had completely forgotten about the video when I wrote about the origins of "Midnight Toast," but it would have fit into that entry quite well.

What any of this has to do with my 30th birthday, I don't know. The big day was yesterday, and it got me thinking about things. Two years ago, I questioned whether or not hitting 30 would bother me. To be honest, I feel better about it now than I did then. I think a person reaches their full potential in their 30s, and there will be a lot of things to look forward to in my next decade, like having kids and seeing how Lost ends :-)

29 was one of my favorite ages, right up there with 4, 17, and 21. I won't bore you again with a list of everything that happened in the last year, but I've been very fortunate to have things work out the way they have. I really like my life right now. It scares me a bit to have things going so well because it seems like they can only change for the worse. But let's not talk like that. I'm just going to knock on wood and keep thinking positive thoughts.

Positive thoughts... like how wonderful yesterday was. Work wasn't too stressful. Afterwards, I took a bike ride along the beach. R arrived home early, and we went out to a happy hour at The Melting Pot. Then we returned home and uncorked a bottle of good pinot noir to drink while I opened my gifts. I was once again reminded why I love this woman so much: she got me a chess set (I'll explain this in a future entry) and a shotgun microphone for my video camera! Now I have no excuse for not shooting more video. I can't wait to start some new projects.

I also received a few cards in the mail with some kind words in them (as well as some moola :-). My parents also went so far as to record a video and email it to me. Between the acting, the editing, and the U2 soundtrack, they did an awesome job. I'd love to share it with you, but I'm not so sure my parents want it online. Let's just say I can see where I get some of my toast-singing lunacy from.

That's all I'm going to do for tonight. Thanks for reading, everybody.

Desert excursion

The specific Joshua tree that inspired U2’s album by that name is actually located in Death Valley, but that didn’t stop R and me from playing the album a few times while driving to and around Joshua Tree National Park over the weekend. The park is located southeast of LA, making for about a 4 hour drive for us if you include a stop for lunch along the way.

We arrived in the early afternoon on Saturday, set up our camp, and hiked to 49 Palms Oasis. This was pretty cool… a group of towering palm trees growing in the middle of the desert thanks to a fault-created spring. Following that expedition we got back in the car and drove around the park, stopping at a few sights along the road and eventually at a star-gazing party. I wish we could have stayed there longer, but we gave into our hunger and went back to the campsite for some chicken sausage, couscous, and a bottle of red wine that disappeared way too quickly. We’re still trying to decide if the bottle tipped and we didn’t realize it or if we were just really thirsty from the dry air. My money is on the latter.

We didn’t quite have the courage to try an overnight hike yet, especially in an arid climate we knew very little about, so instead we slept next to the car in a campground. The idea of carrying everything we need for a night or two on our backs and finding some solitude appeals to us; being attacked by a coyote/snake/scorpion does not. Thus backcountry camping will have remain a goal for 2009 a while longer. We’ll get there.

On Sunday, we broke down the camp and drove to Key's View, from which we could see as far as the Salton Sea. Then, before beginning the drive home, we got out for one more hike, this one up Ryan Mountain. The scenery really was amazing and very distinct from any land we’ve seen before. There were huge flats littered with the namesake trees and other little bushes. Wildflowers are in bloom this time of year, making for colorful little highlights over the otherwise dry land. There are number of outcroppings of what R so perceptively called “cartoon rocks” because they look like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon. The rounded, cracked boulders were easy to climb, and I had some fun clambering on them, as you’ll notice in our photos found right here.

The weekend went way too fast, but it was great to get away. This was a brief, initial visit that we made without any advance preparation. Heading back to the park for a more in-depth exploration sometime in the future is a must.

Love (for wine) is blind

Last Saturday R and I drove up to Lompoc, CA for a wine tasting event with the younger subset of the Newcomers group. What made this tasting unique was that we didn't know what was being poured into our glass. We sampled seven chardonnays and rated each of them without knowing how much each bottle cost, what the label looked like, or what flavors we were expected to taste. It was an interesting experiment, and for the most part, the better bottles rose to the top of the results.

I'm still learning how to distinguish good wine, but it was easy, even for me, to identify the one that was spoiled due to a defective cork. And Trader Joe's "Three Buck Chuck" didn't rate much higher. After that there was some variation in the group's rankings due to personal opinion, except for the top wine, which won by a long shot. It just so happened to be the one R and I contributed. It was a $22 bottle of 2006 Lafond Chardonnay purchased and given to us by R's mom during her recent visit to Santa Barbara. I guess Linda has some good taste!

We have another bottle of the same wine in our rack at home; it came in the latest shipment from the club we belong to. I'm looking forward to taking a closer examination of it sometime soon. Does anybody else get the impression that living out here is going to turn us into a couple of wine snobs?

Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. No, I'm not Irish. I just listen to a lot of U2... and visit an occasional Irish pub. On Saturday afternoon we hit 5 of them during a crawl with the younger members of the local Newcomers group. I took a few pictures but lost focus (literally -- quite a few turned out blurry) and dedication after the first two beers, so the gallery isn't anything too impressive. The outing was a good time with a group of people who are still relatively new in town, like us. We probably drank too much, but that's one way to get to know each other better.

The 'rents

My parents were here for five nights, and I must say I really enjoyed their visit. We hit the usual Santa Barbara attractions -- wine tasting, whale watching, people watching (on the always entertaining State Street), a sunset hike up to Inspiration Point, a couple of good dinners out -- but I think the best part was simply having them around... to sit on our porch and eat oranges off the tree, to take a morning jog with my dad, to see my mom's face as she tells me about their new granddaughter. My dad kept joking about how they were going to move out here or come and visit every month, as if he expected a negative reaction out of me, but I would actually like that. I do miss them quite a bit, and since family and friends are our only real tie to Minnesota, if they all came out here we wouldn't feel compelled to move back :-)

Photos from the visit have been added to this gallery, if you want to take a look.

Okay, I'll admit it does feel good to have the place to ourselves again. That was quite the series of visitors. Now we can let the place get slightly more messy, I can have my office back full-time (since it doubles as the guest bedroom), and we can plan some new activities for our weekends. We do have some fun events coming up with new friends, so we're excited about that.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the video shoot I helped with earlier this week. Back before Christmas I met this guy with some Hollywood filmmaking experience, and he recently invited me to assist with a small-scale documentary he's working on around here. On Tuesday we met at the Museum of Natural History where we followed some kids on a nature walk. I carried the equipment along the trail for him at first, but after a while he let me take the camera and capture the kids collecting frogs and insects near a little creek. Lucky for me, he uses the same camera I own (the Canon XH-A1), so that helped with my confidence. It was a fun shoot in a gorgeous setting that inspired me to do two things (1) get outdoors more and (2) shoot more video!

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.