vlog-o-rama

We set out on the MRT (public train) on Sunday morning. For NT$25 (77¢) we had a lovely ride in a very modern, clean subway. At street level the air was very warm, one might call it 'tropical'...but i'd just call it freakin' hot. We walked a couple blocks over to Longshan Temple. Morning prayers were in full chorus as people walked to the different shrines. Many of them stopped at multiple sites to pray and worship the different deities. Everywhere I walked was the smell (and smoke) of incense being burned. Being surrounded by all these people and the chattering, sometimes high-piched, singing was surreal. I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible but it's hard to make everyone happy when you're an American with a camera. I did the best I could. Enjoy the video.

Today Josh got his wish and was able to purchase a sword from a street vendor for NT$1500. That's about $46 US, btw. He performed a little song to mark the occasion.

Sometimes staring out the window is the best part of flying... music by Josh Ritter

Yet another reason to have a niece...

Circa 1992. I have moved locations (house to apartment to garage to townhome) about a dozen times in the last 10 years. Maybe more. All the while I've been carrying this ginormous box of 3/4" videotapes in the hope of *someday* converting them to a better known/used/available format. That 175lbs box is the reason why people hate helping others move. It also is the home to one of many videos I haven't seen in years. It's likely to include a few dozen like this Lithium video starring myself and Dan Wegesser. rock on, dan

Circa 1992. Before I ever got the opportunity to set eyes on a hard drive-based edit system, I was cutting on 3/4" Umatic decks. And, even then, they were antiques. My alma mater, Glendale High School (still not in the 21st century, as noted by their website) had been handed a few bits of gear by the local public access station. They were upgrading to S-VHS and had been phasing out all the old 3/4" equipment. Suddenly, there was a new elective at GHS: Video Production. I'm not sure if she wanted it, but Jackie Romey - then the school journalism teacher and newspaper advisor- was given this class of misfit students. We were Parker Lewis, The Outsiders and a little Revenge of the Nerds thrown in for good measure. I don't think many people knew what to do with the video department. District, faculty and even students. Most days Mrs. Romey had the unfortunate job of herding housecats and trying to get us to think of inventive things to do with all this gear. Senior year came around and I wanted to do something cool...so, I came up with this: Right Now. ...apologies to Van Hagar...

Circa 1994. I hung with some very talented, big dreaming guys a few years back. We all had dreams of making our mark doing short films and hoped to go on to feature productions. During my short stint in college we did a couple of short films "I Hate Bowling" and "Wireless". At the conclusion of those two shorts I had something more adventurous in mind -a travel picture on an budget-conscious-epic scale In my grandiose vision it wasn't good enough to tell them about the story, I had to show them in picture form...with music...and movie clips. In addition to that, I wanted to impart some sense of where we had been and where we were, hopefully, going in the future. I had a little help from a few names in the movie industry: Coppola, Speilberg, Lucas and Kohatsu. All the biggies. I might point out that our ad-hoc production company was called Red Herring Pictures...and boy, that name couldn't have been closer to the truth. So, here's Fishing for an Oscar: Bowling and Beyond .

Circa 1997. I got the opportunity a few years back (...can it really be almost 10 years?) to take a Steadicam training class. During the course we used all the Master Series model currently on the market and even kept a tape diary of our practices. Here is my first time running with a 50lbs rig during the class.

another day writing code

I know I'll get some hatemail for this...but riding in Arizona in February...is, well... very nice.

The weatherpeople were partially right...it's snowing. But, not as much as they thought it might be.

Thanks to Sharper Image for the use of their seemingly-industrial massage chairs.

wink