Shocking The Senses

Bucket List

// December 7th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Prompted by http://thedaddyyodude.blogspot.com/2011/12/kicking-bucket-list-in-2012.htm

A fella I follow on Twitter posted the above link.  I wanted to reply in kind with an article.

I’ll call this a bucket list, but loosely.  I don’t intend on kicking the bucket for a long time, so this is more of a “Nudge the bucket list”.  Granted, his point is valid, we have little time on this planet.

Here goes.  It’s fairly mundane, but it is a list of what I thought about first, and not filtered into some kind of a pander to people’s likes thing.  It’s simply me and my mind.

1. Fly an airplane.
2. Dive over 100 feet under the ocean, preferably around a reef.
3. Finish one of my numerous books, all of which I have started.
4. Publish an article that saves a life (hard to quantify).
5. Bring about change on a large scale, preferably regarding education and how damaged the system is.
6. Travel in space.
7. Find a gemstone in the planet, and make it into a family heirloom to pass to my son.
8. Write a children‘s book.
9. Visit the previous site of the Berlin Wall.
10. Create a piece of art, a painting, of a dragon, that is beautiful.

I don’t think I’ll be able to do any of these things in the next year, but maybe.

Amongst the Living

// October 5th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’m back, a little stronger, a little wiser.  I also have new opinions.  They’re stout ones.  More to come.

Jeremy

A Few New Projects

// August 10th, 2011 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I have a few projects going on.  Some are new web site design requests, some are personal projects.  One such project is a log of my son’s trip to Maryland and the NIH.  It is primarily being tracked on http://www.2babydad.com, come take a look.

Occam’s Razor

// September 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Stereotyping, everyone does it, few own up to it.  How about a different angle?

A man walks toward you.  He has his pants hanging down around his knees, gold necklaces around his neck, a baggy coat on with the logo of some sports team, and two gold teeth.  When he passes you, he measures you with his eyes (scans up/down, ending with brief contact).

My first thought, gangbanger.  Or at least, concealed weapon potential.  I’ll admit, I might be wrong, but this is going to be my knee jerk reaction based on years of just “living”.  I’ve lived in dangerous neighborhoods, safe neighborhoods, slummy neighborhoods, upper class neighborhoods.  Television plays a part in the image we build in our heads as well.  Where do THEY get their idea for what to dress an actor in to portrait a certain type of person?

In actuality, the process is scientific.  I view elements of the subject and based on what I think I know about that element, I come to a theory that best fits the situation at hand.  My theory may be ultimately wrong, but it’s a loose interpretation of Occam’s Razor and for my survival at the time, I’m not going to override instinct.  That can be deadly.

So, I’m no stereotyping.  I’m using science!

Keira and Bella are gettin’ Big!

// November 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Here are the two little rapscallions.  Keira is on the verge of taking off after Bella (cat) in this pic.  Just a little visual update.  They’re both healthy and happy!

Keira and Bella, Big!

What happened to the short movie?!

// October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The short answer is… My wife is pregnant!  My focus is re-fixing on a few things and the movie project will have to go on hold for now.  I’ll have more posts once we have more detail.  For now, it’s important to know that she’s healthy and so is the baby.  I’m so excited

Short Movie

// September 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I finally got all of the video put together!  Now comes the daunting task of separating audio and replacing.  The video looks decent considering it was put together with practically 0 budget and a hand held camera.  I had some serious fits with the codecs but in the end, DivX won out.  It worked for all of the effects that I needed.

I’ll update you soon, hopefully with a video link!

Extra Long Weekend

// September 8th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Gotta love em…

Haven’t gotten much done though.  Started working on my Microsoft Certifications and a friend’s website.  I need to get back to my video.

I’m distracted :p  Someone suggest some focus techniques lol

Codecs suck

// September 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Filmmaking, Thoughts, Uncategorized

So,

I finish editing the video together and low and behold, it won’t compile.

I should have seen it coming considering that every time I split a video, a new FFDShow icon would appear in the systray.  It gets to about 30% and fails due to “disk space” (nope) or “some other error” (….??…..)

So I uninstalled the ffdshow codec and installed the newest DivX full pack.  Got to 75% this time.  I think the answer is ditching Movie Maker.  The problem is, it’s free and I don’t have the budget for anything really decent.

I may give it a go again though.  Maybe having ffdshow in there dorked up the project.  Will let ya know.  This weekend I’m going to tackle it again.

Filming

// August 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Thoughts, Uncategorized

I grabbed my camera and the first scene of the script and tried my hand at a few minutes of footage.  My wife stood in as the actress and I filmed short segments from several angles.

I’m working outside at night with little lighting, so it’s tough to get the shots I want but I edited what I could get into a decent effort.  I’ll provide more detail about the script and such soon.  Just wanted to let anyone who reads this know that “doing it” beats sitting around and “wanting to do it.”