Weekend of fun

We went up to visit my sister and her family over the Memorial Day weekend and while we were there we shot some footage for a music video I had planned on making. It was interesting to see what happens to different people when a camera is suddenly thrust into their faces - you never really know what you will get.

I had put some thought and pre-work into planning for the shoot but still ended up short of footage. I seem to remember that real directors have to shoot more than 10 times the amount of footage than they will actually use.

Overall I had fun and hope that everyone I roped into being behind or in front of the camera did too. It made me laugh to hear my niece telling her grandmother all about what we had done.

Welcome to the show that never ends

I went to see my neurologist yesterday for a quarterly check and my battery needs to be changed at the end of June. The battery in the pulse generator inside my chest - which isn't too bad (so says the staff in Neurology, none of whom I am pretty sure have never experienced it yet themselves) but still will require a visit to Redwood City for an out-patient 'procedure' (no laughing, Ralph). Also means a scalpel of some size cutting into my chestal area to pull out the device and replacing the battery and then staples to close the wound... er, uh - incision.

So I've got that to look forward to.

Tomorrow will be the end of two weeks out on MLOA for me and so far I have found enough to do to not be completely bored. I have read a few books, watched a few movies I had never seen before, and managed to create a couple of videos. Even made it outside to the library a couple of times. That's outside of the house ...

Caught the new Brian Wilson show on Comcast called 'Life of Brian' about the daily life of the Giants' closer and almost 10 minutes of the half-hour episode was devoted to watching him play Rock Band on his Xbox. Sounds pretty much like my life ...

Date night - well, sorta

Lauri and I had a special 'date night' last night - we spent it at Kaiser Hospital. I mentioned something about not getting out all day and the next thing you know we are down in the emergency room waiting around for test results to be reviewed. I will let Lauri explain in more detail what happened but I will say that all of her results came back negative (that's a good thing, George) and Lauri is fine.

It doesn't seem to matter how many time saving gizmos and procedures and new technology that they get down at the average emergency room - it always takes 4 hours once you are there. The doctor who sent Lauri even gave her a secret "code word" to get into the ER faster (TIA) but all that seemed to do was get her into a bed to begin waiting sooner. I finished reading a book, exhausted the battery on my IPod Touch, and had to break into my emergency medication stash I keep in my car just for these types of occasions to get through the evening! We didn't notice the television in the room until after midnight - missed the Simpsons - because the tv looked like just another medical device!

There are a lot of sick people in a hospital on a Friday night. The best one last night was some guy who was riding a motorcycle off-road somewhere when he rounded a blind corner only to run into a low hanging branch. Ran into it with his nose. His nose lost that battle. The nose was still on his face, it just wasn't in the same place where it was before. There were a lot of hand cleaner bottles around and a lot of posters about swine flu on the walls.

War of the Worlds - the New Millenium

Here I am already into the second day of my MLOA and some of you out there thought I wouldn't last this long without getting bored! Actually it seems an awful lot like retirement without the 'honey-do' list. I find that I still get very tired at certain times of the day but now I don't have to find an open conference room to try and take a nap, instead I just go to my bedroom - that is one big difference. 

I finished reading the "War of the Worlds New Millenium" that I checked out of the library on Saturday and it has been quite a long time since I read anything that fast. It was interesting to me simply because it was an updated version of my favorite story set in this decade so the author had to make it more believable in the age of the Internet and CNN. The past week's swine flu media blitz made it very timely to think about how in the age of 24/7 news channels competing for ratings would make the story of an invasion from outer space an overwhelming event. The new version had problems in the storyline but overall I think I would have rather seen Spielberg film it instead of the version he made a few years ago. 

New video montage

Here it is ... all new FLYBOYS ON FILM 2009! This is the same song with all new clips from the world of aviation as seen in movies. No movies were duplicated from the original Flyboys on Film (click here to view the first version).

If for some reason it doesn't appear embedded below this paragraph click here to go view on YouTube.



FYI - This version includes clips from over 2 dozen movies. That is double the number used in the first version - in the same amount of screen time. The main problem with creating these video montages is that the song gets into your brain after the 25th viewing and WON"T LEAVE!
'...it's my turn to fly...'

All kinds of good things going on

Well, here we are after a month or so of semi-regular blogging and reading others' blogs and I am quite amazed actually at how much is being posted by all of you out there.  I even enjoy reading the comments to Grandpa Ralph's Corner by Katie and Marlie! 

Lauri has just sent me a new version of the short story we are co-writing and she has filled in the blanks I left for her beautifully! Well, beautiful may not be the correct word to use in the case of a story about zombies, but I think most of you will understand what I am trying to say. It has turned into a "real" story - not an outline of random facts that I started with. Not sure exactly what we will do with the final version at this point. Most likely post a link to it on this blog in the future. 

The updated "Flyboys on Film part 2" continues to slog along and I have about 60-70% of the clips inserted - enough to put a test on DVD last night. Fun to watch the first version on a TV to compare it to what I had in mind and only seen on the monitor thus far.  The first viewing for me always points out the over use of clips from a single movie source and this one is no different. "Always" is the main culprit in this case so I have to trim a couple of clips out before continuing. 

Going up to visit the Witticks in a few weeks and plan on making at least two new videos in two days while up there. Have the ideas in my head but need to finish transferring to storyboards by end of May. Should be some fun....

stuff from the weekend

I need to get back to the library for some new books but since my car has been in the body shop for a week now I haven't had the chance.  Went over to the girls' new apartment yesterday and setup their wireless network for them - finally got both of their computers hooked up and accessing the Intertubes from their wireless connection! Then I collapsed from exhaustion ... actually because I forgot to take my meds on time more than anything else ... but it worked out ok since their cable was up and running and I could watch the Giants.

I began working on an updated version of my old Flyboys on Film video this weekend using all new footage from movies that I didn't use in the first one. Once I started trying to edit the new stuff I realized how much work I had put into the first version. There was more of an attempted story line the first time through that I had completely forgotten about until I got into the editor.