Sorry I haven't updated much this month, but anyone following me on twitter should know what's going on in my life...

Our manager at work has been out of town for the last couple weeks. Emily has taken over all of the scheduling duties and she's doing a great job. Our co-workers are even starting to call her "boss". We also started working on a big event for the Atlantic Monthly. Well mostly Emily has been working on it. She is meeting with all of the big-wigs like David Bradley and helping to organize the whole thing.

I helped out another production company with a green-screen shoot in Baltimore. I always enjoy working with them, because their projects are so much different than ours. We do broadcast TV news, while they do mostly corporate videos. And I don't get to do many shoots in a proper studio. There are much fewer time constraints, so you get to spend hours tweaking the camera and lighting.

My Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes are going well. The school is very small, so there are usually just a few students. This is only my first month of classes. I have yet to learn many submissions and counters. Therefore, I spent most of the class either getting choked or with my joints being forced in the wrong directions. It's fun though.

I had a busy weekend. Saturday I had to film the President's sister, Maya Ng. She was at the opening to an exhibit of her mother's textile collection from Indonesia. She didn't show up for the press conference, so I almost left. But soon after I started shooting b-roll of the fabrics, she showed up. Immediately all of the reporters attacked her. Someone alerted me just as she walked in, so I was able to get in front of the crowd and get a good shot. She answered some questions and posed for photos while everyone stuck various recording devices in her face. She obviously wasn't use to the attention and didn't have any security to keep the rabid journalists at bay. As the crowd pushed forward she kept backing up, until she was finally behind one of the displays and almost against the wall. Everyone left when she stopped talking.

After the shoot I saw the latest Harry Potter movie, which was highly entertaining. Then I went straight from the movie to Buffalo Billiards to see the UFC pay-per-view event. Kat usually comes with me, but she decided to stay home. I met up with my new Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher and watched the event with him and his friends. Did I mention that I started taking BJJ classes? Well I did and they are lots of fun.

Sunday, I helped my friend Aaron shoot a video for the Republican Liberty Caucus, of which he is deeply involved. We shot at my office where it was scorching hot; they leave the a/c off over the weekend. And the video lights made it even worse. Everyone was a bit testy because of the heat, but we got through one of the videos he wanted to do.

Emily picked me up from the office and we went to her mom and Tom's house for a joint birthday dinner. We were celebrating Emily's, her step-brother's, step-sister's and step-dad's birthdays. They made hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill and finished it off with brownies and yellow cake (two of my favorites).

Below are some photos I took of an apartment fire a couple blocks from my house.

Here are some photos from our trip to Mexico: