Photos from Miami Shoot:










Met Bob and Maya at Full Sail to prep the gear. We spent a few hours opening all of the cases and going over the camera equipment. Bob picked up a van. Maya and I waited hours for him to return. When he finally came back, he picked me up and drove me to the truck rental place. I drove back the box truck and we all loaded the HD gear.

Bob and I got a quick bite to eat at Crispers before hitting the road. I drove the box truck to Miami, while he drove the van. It drove surprisingly well, although it was incredibly loud inside the cab (I later found out that neither door was closed all the way). Consequently, I could not listen to the radio or talk on the phone, because I could not hear either one.

We hit a few patches of traffic on the way down, but got in with just enough time to eat at Pollo Tropical before heading to the first shoot. There were authentic Cuban restaurants all around and our first shoot was INSIDE one such establishment, but the producer decided to feed us fast food instead.

The restaurant where we were shooting was one of the most famous Cuban restaurants in Miami. We interviewed Huber Matos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huber_Matos), one of Castro's right hand men and a general in his army during the Cuban Revolution. He didn't speak very much english and conducted the entire interview in Spanish. I couldn't understand much of what he was saying, but it was easy to feel the intensity of his words.

Speaking of the language barrier... We were shooting in "Little Havana", which might as well have been part of Cuba. No one spoke english. If we didn't have the film's producer with us, we would not have been able to get around. Next time I'll bring a guide book.

Afterward, a few of us (the rest of the crew had arrived in time for the shoot) went to a little bakery/cafe for some Cuban pastries and coffee. Fantastic! The coffee was like a small shot of espresso with a bit of foamed milk and a lot of sugar.

Got back from Kung Fu a little while ago. They worked the hell out of me today. Harder than usual. But I love it. I was sweating so bad that my glasses wouldn't stay on my face. During the application part of the lesson I was working with my friend (and Rick's sort of girlfriend) Toni. We were working on the double shoulder grab and defense technique, but she laughed hysterically every time we tried it.

School is back in session, so I'm busy. Thirty five new students. I'm so bad with names, I hardly know what to call any of them. They seem more creative, or at least more prepared than the last class. During the sunset shoot, the HD group set up an elaborate scene involving an organ, saxophone, guitar, TV, fake tree, umbrella, candlestick and various other props. They started with a close shot of an actress sitting on the TV, then pulled out to show all of the other props. Finally, when they pulled all the way out, they revealed a wall with a frame. The frame was cut out so that the entire scene shown like a painting on the wall. Keep in mind that they had to haul all of the props and the fake wall out to Lake Underhill for the shoot.

Not too much is going on besides my class. I have been working on some new videos for Big Picture DVD and trying to keep Emily entertained. She has been bored as hell. Trying to get a job to keep herself occupied, but has very little to do in the interim. She has, however, been working diligently on her arts and crafts projects. She has a few new paintings finished and is working on crocheting a skull and crossbones sweater for me.

Lindsey came into town yesterday. She always comes to town with an incredibly ambitious schedule of what to do every minute of her trip. Last time she was here most of her activities involved Emily; by the time she left, Emily needed to sleep for 24 hours straight. Luckily she has a friend coming later this week, so Em should be off the hook.

Yesterday I hung out with Emily, ate at First Watch and ran errands. At 7:00 pm I went to Abe's house and we drove to Gainesville to celebrate his little brother's 21st birthday. Within minutes of entering the city, we were racing a huge diesel F250 truck which was jacked up on monster truck tires. Ridiculous. Got to Steve's house and met up with him, Nate and Charlie. We waited for Heather and her boyfriend to arrive, before heading downtown. First stop was Harry's, a New Orleans themed seafood restaurant. Ate a crab burger and had the first round of drinks. We then went to a half goth, half karaoke bar to have more drinks and play pool. I was on a team with Nate and we miraculously won both games (it might have had something to do with Nate cheating). Then to another bar for more drinking. I ran into a girl I have known since Kindergarden. Weird. Our final stop was the Salty Dog, Abe's favorite Gainesville bar. It was located in an unmarked door at the back of an unmarked alley and it was no more than 8' wide and 75' long. Like a big hallway. The place was packed and everyone was squeezed together. After drinking a few more pitchers, we headed out. Steve stopped to play a song with a homeless man using his saliva covered harmonica. I tried to hook Abe up with a girl who was watching Steve play. Her name was Rachel, so he used some lame line like "In the Bible we were married". Returned to Steve's house, played poker, ate chicken wings and passed out on the couch. The next morning, Abe didn't remember anything after the Salty Dog. He was wondering why his stomach hurt, his hands were greasy and his wallet was empty.

Went on a jog with Emily and the puppies this morning. Came back and made my new favorite breakfast (after seeing V is for Vendetta) eggs in a basket. Went to the fruit and vegetable market on 434 and stocked up on all kinds of good food. Came back home and met Sharon, one of the other lab teachers from Full Sail. She is going to do the demonstration part of my HD lecture. We went over what we are going to talk about and other preparations for our class, which starts next week.

Woke up, made French Press coffee and watched the news in bed, like I do every morning. Emily and I met Tonya and her daughter at First Watch for breakfast. Went from there to the Winter Park Art Festival. Most of the paintings and sculptures were good, but the photography really caught my interest. I spoke to some of the photographers and found out that most of them already had or were in the process of switching to all digital.

Took a nap with Emily and the pups this afternoon. Ate dinner at a small Mexican restaurant that wasn't very good. Saw "V is for Vendetta", which was cool.

Check out Turtle's Dracula Impression!

Picked up John at 10:30 and drove to an apartment complex near Full Sail. The 35mm department had an incredible amount of gear set up. Things we could only dream of at AU. A huge generator, video assist cart, an entire sound department, craft services, two Arri 435 cameras, etc. Even with all of that equipment they were still making obvious mistakes. They shot the scene once, then backed the camera up and put on a longer lens, which basically gave them the same shot again.

I dropped off John after the shoot and med it to Kung Fu just in time for the lesson. Worked on a new sparring form.

Yesterday I went to the beach with my friend Rick. The weather was perfect - warm sun, cool breeze - but the water was still a bit cold. We played football and hung out, before heading to Shroomers. For those of you who don't know, Shroomers is a Daytona Beach pizzeria with great food and a shady location. As we were pulling up, I told Rick about the area. Sure enough, the minute we parked there was a drug deal going on right in front of us. Oh well, the food is worth it.

In January I got a ticket for one of my tail lights being out. The cop said I had 30 days to fix it and go to a police station to prove it was fixed. Of course, I procrastinated and didn't get it done in time, so today I went to pay the fine. I parked next to the downtown courthouse, waited in line for an hour and a half, paid my ticket, went out to the car and found a parking ticket on my windshield!

I've heard a number of requests for a photo of Emily in her new suit. So, here you go! For the record, she feels like a member of the Young Republicans when she wears it.

Here are some photos I just got around to scanning. Some of them are from the power plant. Some are from when Emily, John and I built our fence and others are just random.

Spent the weekend in DC. Emily and I flew up on Thursday and got picked up by her mom. Tom cooked us a nice dinner of chicken, broccoli and potatoes. After dinner Em and I went to see her friend Rachel, who had just moved into a new condo. Her house was filled with boxes and art work. I asked to see some paintings and got the grand tour. She owns sketches by Degas and Picaso, as well as numerous paintings by her (great?) grandfather Arthur Davies. We slept at Emily's parents house and got a good night sleep for the first time in a while, because we didn't have to share the bed with dogs.

Woke up late on Friday, got some coffee at Emily's favorite coffee shop and went shopping. Emily picked up some new shoes at DSW for the Bat Mitzvah, then we stopped at Ethan Allan (where Rachel works) to look at dining room sets for Emily's mom. After leaving Ethan Allan, we decided to eat at Lebanese Taverna, one of Emily's favorite restaurants. Unfortunately we missed the exit and went into Georgetown instead. Ate at one of our favorite restaurants, Me and You. The food was good, as always, but there was a hair in my sandwich. We walked around Georgetown for a bit and noticed a building right in the middle of the shopping district that neither of us had ever seen. We have probably passed it many times, but right there on M street was the oldest house in DC! Took a quick tour before heading back to Virginia. Ate dinner at Sweetwater Tavern and had some good micro-brewed beer.

Woke up at 8:00 on Saturday (not an easy task) and hung out around Baltimore. Cafe Hon had some great chipped beef, but they didn't start serving lunch until 4 pm! Made it back to DC at 3 pm, in time for Lindsey and Emily to spend way too much time at Anthropology. Ate dinner at the Marriott with the out of town Bat Mitzvah guests, better food than I expected, but I didn't know hardly anyone there. Hung out with Lindsey and her new boy-toy (not boyfriend) Kyle.

Got an incredible kink in my back from sleeping on Lindsey's uncomfortable couch-bed. Spent Sunday morning with Lindsey, Diane, Kyle, and Emily at the American City Diner. Good food, as always. Went back to Lindsey apartment in time to get ready. The Bat Mitzvah was nice; it was held in a Sephardic temple, which looked Moroccan. It started with a short service. Carroll was nervous but made up for it by acting cute. The party was held downstairs in the temple's ballroom. They had a typical band and served Chinese food. We were able to stay a bit longer by changing our return flight. It was nice to see all of the cousins and relatives, and the trip was a success.

I had a great day today! It started at Continental, the film to video transfer house. We transferred all of the film we shot this month, including the sunrise/sunset shoot, the interior and exterior tests, and the two film projects. They had some really nice color correction gear and it was amazing to see the different looks which could be achieved. Between transfers we were lucky enough to get a tour of the facility, which included the enormous developing tanks and chemical mixing rooms.

Back at Full Sail I helped set up the DLP projector (a very nice, VERY high end projection system) with the HD deck. The students showed up around 6:00 and we viewed the footage. For the most part it looked very nice. The best shots came from the HD sunset scene; the HD footage looked amazing! Easily rivaling the film. The reason it looked the best, was that the digital projection system favored digital footage. If we had been projecting a film print as well, it might be a different story.

Has anyone noticed the alarming new trend of customized stickers with children's names and extracurricular activities? If you haven't, just check the back of the largest, most obnoxious SUV or mini-van you can find. I don't understand this crap. It's like when pilots mark their kills on the side of the plane. Except, instead of dead people, it's children. Do they think we should reward them for having kids? Be proud of their children's extracurricular activities? Drive more carefully around them? I don't know about you, but whenever I see one of these mobile fertility billboards I run them right off the road!

This is funny...
http://www.popdrain.com/videos/cheneyhuntgame.swf

Happy Valentines day everyone. I hope y'all had a good time.

Emily and I certainly did... The Healthy Chef (a local chef who specializes in health cuisine, duh) occasionally holds cooking classes, and tonight was one of those nights. It was a special Valentines day version, of course, and we were in attendance. We made wild salmon with cabbage, a tomato based sauce and mushroom duxelle. Dinner was accompanied by wine, stuffed mushrooms, sesame bread, and caesar salad. Dessert was bananas foster. Needless to say, it was great!

We got two new lab assistants at Full Sale, bringing the total number (including myself) to four. Right now two lab assistants are adequate, however in the coming months class sizes are going to double, triple or even quadruple. We have mainly been shooting tests in class to determine the differences between film and HD. For example, yesterday we shot an outdoor scene which included a color chart, sky, trees, and a person. We will be checking the response of the two different systems across the full spectrum of f-stops. Tomorrow we will be shooting a similar test indoors, using different film stocks. The HD cameras stack up surprisingly well against film. Especially when you thing about the flexibility of changing the look of the scene within the camera, rather than using different stocks. Additionally we can play back the HD footage immediately, without having to wait for the film to be processed and transfered.

Technobabble aside, I'm having a great time at work and things are starting to take a turn for the better!

I walked in to the closet last night to find Turtle curled up in Emily's sock drawer. It was so damn cute I had to take a picture.


I know all of my pictures are of my pets, but get over it they're cute.


Did I tell you we got a new friend for Morty?!?! Her name is Prissy and she is very sweet. Morty has been like a whole different sugarglider since we got her. He is so happy, and so are we!

So, I have survived my first week as an instructor. It's actually a really cool job. The hours are crazy - some days I end work at 1:00 am, other days I start at 4:00 am - but most of the time the hours are pretty normal. And I don't even have to work full days. I pretty much just come and go as I please.

My main responsibility is to learn and teach the Sony Cinealta HD camera. That's right, the same High Definition camera used to shoot many new feature films, including the latest episodes of Star Wars. The camera is not as difficult as I thought, a bit quirky though. I was expecting the kids to be a bunch of brats (based on what I had heard about Full Sail students), but they are actually not bad. Yeah, some of them pay 30K per year to sit in the back of the room playing on their laptops, but most of them appear at least somewhat interested in the class. That reminds me, I never actually told you what the class was about. The truth is that I didn't even know what the class was about until Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a cinematography class. We are going to be going through all aspects of cinematography including lighting, using the 35mm and HD cameras, creating a mood, using light to tell the story, etc.

Damn it, for some reason my stupid computer keeps shocking me if my wrists touch the side of the computer or if my hands touch the track pad. This sucks. I have to type with my arms all up in the air and only my fingers touching the computer.

Oh, and I was wrong about the new gear. They HAVE two HD cameras and two 35mm film cameras, but they aren't buying new ones for the class. Furthermore, they spent the money for these cameras, but they forgot to buy all the necessary accessories (power cords, batteries, tripods, filter holders, etc). Now they are scrambling to find a rental house where we can get the stuff we need.

I got a job teaching at Full Sail! For those of you who don't know, Full Sail is a large and well known film school in Orlando. The school is dripping in money. They are buying a few new film cameras and a couple new HD cameras JUST FOR MY CLASS! Each of those cameras cost over $100,000. I am not the head teacher, but I am the lab instructor. Which means that I will be helping with the shoots and assisting the students. The only drawback is that I have heard the students are all stuck up brats. The teacher said I will do fine as long as I can deal with that type of personality. I should have no problem, having grown up with my sister (just kidding Lindsey!). I start on the 30th, so wish me luck.

Today I went to a one day meditation retreat at Peter's house with Marshal and Brittany (among others). The retreat started at 9:00 (I had to wake up early on a Saturday!) and lasted until about 5:00. It consisted of sitting and walking meditation, about 45 minutes of the former then 30 minutes of the latter. We stuck to this pattern all day, with a break for lunch. Everyone brought homemade food (I made pizza) and it was all very tasty. The most interesting part of the day was when I was doing the walking meditation barefoot and stepped in an ant hill. I was so focused on the sensations in my feet that I could feel every single ant bite!

Here's some pictures I took of Piggy with Diane's new camera (the middle one was taken by Diane).

I posted some of my music online... Check it out:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=469411

Here are some new photos from the Thanksgiving cruise, the old Deland Power Plant and some other random stuff.

Emily and I had a solid plan for the wedding. She was going to work lending money to cover our bills and I was going to work flipping houses and investing in real estate to pay for our wedding. Last month my parents said that they would not loan me any more money through Volusia Asset Company (for those of you who don't know - VAC is my parent's company which was set up in my sister and my name to lend money to real estate investors). That's right, it sounds ridiculous, but I was no longer able to use the services of my parents company, which I legally own. Not only did this through a kink in my business plan, but it also took away my ability to pay for our wedding.

Then my parents were generous enough to step up and say that they would help us pay for the wedding. Not pay for all of it (Emily's family also contributed generously to the wedding fund), but pay for everything that I was working to earn. This is where the real problems started. To them, money = control. This is what we were trying to avoid and the exact reason why Emily and I wanted to pay for the bulk of the wedding ourselves. First it was relatively small things like setting up appointments with vendors without consulting Emily, me or our wedding planner. Then it moved on to more important things like trying to control the guest list. Each step of the way they changed their mind about their contribution (their inability to make a decision and stick to it has been something we have battled for a long time).

Originally they wanted to give a set amount of money. Then they divided up that amount and said that we could have X for flowers, X for food, etc. Then they said that any outside contributions (for example, Emily's mom wanted to take her dress shopping) would reduce their budget.

Throughout this process we constantly reminded them that this is our wedding and it will be planned the way we want it (their gift does not come with strings attached). But they kept bring up one issue - having a Rabbi officiate the wedding. I had always said that I wanted a judge or some other non religious officiate for a number of reasons. I do not feel an attachment to the Jewish faith. Having a Rabbi officiate would not mean anything for me. Additionally, the family I am marrying into is Catholic. Everyone should feel included at the wedding. We could not have a Rabbi for the same reason we could not have a Priest - we want to include both sides of the family.

The issue of control was becoming stronger and stronger as the plans progressed. Finally, Emily and I decided to talk to them about it. The conversation went as follows:
"Thank you for contributing to our wedding fund, but please keep in mind that money does not equal control."
"Well, we feel like it does."
"We don't want your gift, if it comes with strings attached."
"Our money only comes with one string, have a Rabbi officiate or you don't get the money."
"I wish you had told us that sooner. The Rabbi would not mean anything to us, and furthermore it would alienate half of the people there. We would rather not have this wedding than have it your way."
"Then we revoke our gift."

Here's how it stands now... Emily and I are planning a new wedding. It will most likely be very small (immediate family only) and it will possibly be a destination wedding. Please keep your calendar open and we will let you know our plans when they solidify.

Happy new years everyone! Here's a recap of our trip to Steamboat and New Years:

We flew into Steamboat, CO on December 24th. All of Emily's family was there, including her four sisters, some of their boyfriends (and the boyfriend's parents), her mom and step-dad, and her dad and step-mom. We all went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. The food was great (and I love Italian food), but the service was a bit slow. Sunday we woke up, ate a leisurely breakfast and all congregated at our place (Emily and I, three of her sisters, her mom and step-dad were all staying in a very large and very beautiful townhouse). Jenny and Todd brought plenty of food, which they cooked in the mid afternoon and kept us fed all day. We opened presents and played games for the rest of the day. Fun!

The next day Emily, Sara, Rob (Sara's boyfriend) and I went skiing. Emily had never been before, so she started out in the beginner lesson. Sara took an intermediate lesson while Rob and I went straight to the top of the mountain and flung ourselves off. No joke, Rob literally flung himself off, when his ski got caught and he careened off the mountain. Another skier had to lower their pole, so he could hold on and hoist himself back up. Meanwhile, Emily did not stand on two skis until her lesson was almost over. By then she was pissed off at the boring lesson. I met up with her and helped her ski down the bunny slope (which she did very well, and on two skis). That night we went to another Italian restaurant. Again the food was great.

The next day Jenny took Emily, Sara, Rob and I snowshoeing. None of us had ever been (I think) but we all had fun. At the top of the hill, Sara, Rob and I had a very dignified snowball fight. On the way down, I stopped to do flips off a large snow drift. We went into town for dinner (after searching everywhere for Kat, but that is a different story) and ate at a wonderful noodle house. I wish they had places like that in Orlando.

We took an early flight back here, but didn't get in until 10:30 pm. Time changes and layovers suck.

New Years was spent with Katie, Tanya and their boyfriends. We first ate chili at Katie's parent's house, then went to Katie's boyfriend's (whose name I can't remember now) house. We killed time playing Cranium and talking. New Years was fairly uneventful, but we had fun.