sheep go to heaven

blackbird

2012-01-31T01:44:00.003-06:00

walking home tonight, in rain that was thankfully not that cold, i was thinking about walking home in the rain.

i thought of how i went through four years at byu, never really having someone to walk home with, or to meet up with after class. and i wondered if i'd make it through my time here at a&m the same way.

i'd like to have someone to meet me at work, after everyone else in the office has gone home.
to have someone come and sit with me in the lab some nights when i'm there late.
someone to do a soda run with, or to go grab a box of layne's chicken together.
or to simply have someone wanting to see me at the end of the day.

i have a girl in colorado that i'm getting to know and she's great.
in utah, she's a four-hour drive. that's doable for a weekend visit.
but in texas, that distance is a bit more.

so, i'm trying to figure things out.

and one of these days, i'll have that oscar post up.

grandma ben and the great red dragon

2012-01-30T09:42:00.000-06:00

ray: i did it all. i listened to the voice, i did what they told me, and not once did i ask, "what's in it for me?"

shoeless joe: what are you saying, ray?

ray: i'm saying... what's in it for me?

no false doctrine

2012-01-29T22:30:00.001-06:00

so we're sitting there in the combined priesthood and relief society meeting today as my bishop is giving a rather good lesson about the "butterfly effect" and how our choices can affect our lives for years to come. and then he says something you usually don't hear a bishop say: "it's like in the episode of the simpsons...."

and he begins by playing like he's not too familiar with it ("what's the guy's name...? bart, no... the dad?") and references the episode where homer travels through time (he's referring to the second part of the halloween episode in season six, for those of you who are curious). and he says how homer goes back in time and accidentally steps on a dragonfly, and then when he returns home, everyone has turned into dragonflies.

that is not how the episode goes.

thankfully, one of the guys in the back raised his hand to correct the bishop. "actually, when he comes back, everything in his life has become perfect."

no. it. hasn't.
so, i blurted out, "that's a different part!"

look, when homer first travels back to pre-history, he reminds himself of the advice his dad gave him on his wedding day: "if you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything. because even the slightest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine." even still, he accidentally steps on a dragonfly but tells himself that such a little thing couldn't make a difference. when he returns to his own time, the world has now become an orwellian dystopia.
on a subsequent trip to the past to make things right, he accidentally sneezes on a dinosaur, which kills that dinosaur and sets off a domino effect that ends up killing several prehistoric animals. "this is gonna cost me," he laments. but when he returns to his home time, that is when his house is beautiful, his family is wealthy, his children are well-behaved, and his despised sisters-in-law are dead. the horror, of course, is that no one knows what a "donut" is. he leaves in immediate panic, right before the world begins to rain donuts.
got it?
good.

anyway, so the bishop said, "well, stand up, jeff, and tell us what happened."

obviously i was not planning on having to explain an old simpsons episode to the ward and i tried to be brief. i knew this was frivolous and didn't mean to make such a big deal of it at all.
when i sat down, my face felt very warm, a fact which several friends confirmed to me throughout the day. still, i felt good in knowing that i had had the courage to do the right thing.

that aside, it was actually a really great day at church. one of the benefits to teaching sunday school is that my lessons can be exactly what i need to hear.

we talked about the liahona and about the liahona's that we have in our own lives; about how they work only according to our faith and diligence to their guidance. we talked nephi building a boat, and how the Lord gave him the things that nephi didn't have--a place to find ore, the knowledge of how to make a boat--but that he had to do all that he could do himself--make tools, the actual labor in building the boat. and about how we all have boats in our own lives that we're trying to build. we may not know how to do them, but the Lord will help us build them as we follow the guidance and direction that He's given us.

john bytheway talks about a girl going to e.f.y. and feeling great there but wanting to keep that feeling with her when she goes back to her crazy home and rough school life. i don't have a crazy home or a rough school life, but i had that same feeling today: i want to keep this peace and confidence that i felt today at church with me throughout the week.

church is awesome.

temperament of an artist

2012-01-26T23:25:00.000-06:00

i've had a photography project in mind for quite a while now. it's not for any class but a three-part work that i've been planning out in the back of my mind over the last few months.
tonight i went out to shoot it.

the first part didn't work at all and left me frustrated enough that i didn't even bother attempting parts two or three.

i'm hoping that a good night's rest and a weekend will inspire me to find a solution to the problems and leave me ready to try it again.

maybe tomorrow

2012-01-25T23:28:00.000-06:00

a few of you have personally told me that you're waiting for my thoughts on the oscars. it's been a busy few days at school and i was hoping that today would be the day, but it's not.
i think tomorrow should be better for commentary.

i've really been enjoying the clash lately.
like, a lot.

losing the light

2012-01-23T23:36:00.000-06:00

we're just rounding out the first week of the school year and i'm already coming home after midnight.

years ago while working on a camera truck, i thought of how the positions on a film set could be broken down into two categories: those who want the day to end and those who don't want the day to end. for most of the crew, you work, then you usually have some down time, then you work some more, and the cycle repeats until they call wrap and you go home. you can leave work at work and just enjoy your evening on the rare event that there actually is anything left of your evening.

but there are a small number of jobs that are not running down the clock but racing against it. the director, the producer, the cinematographer, and the 1st a.d. are spending their day doing all that they can to be as productive as they can, to wrangle the crew and the talent to make the day's list of shots. and when the day is done, they regroup and discuss what to do the next day. the next morning, the race starts all over again.

i've been on both sides. yes, it's fun to be calling the shots and the day flies by, but there's something to be said for, when they call wrap, just being able to ship up the day's film as fast as you can and not having to think about it until the next morning after your breakfast burrito.

as i'm entering my fourth semester here at grad school, i've thought of how i look at my days. there's so much expected of me that, if i was just going through here like a below-the-line crew member, the hours would be easily flying by. and i sometimes find myself in that mode, staring at the clock and telling myself that i'll go home at 11:30 and so i begin dawdling some, browsing wikipedia or rereading a friend's blog for the fourth time as my "breaks" between work become more frequent. soon enough, i've made it through another day and let myself go home. after all, i've got things i need to take care of there, too.

but the people who are racing the clock on set--the director, the producer, the cinematographer--they are the ones with the creative control. that weight rests on them because they are making the artistic decisions and working to make the movie as best as it can be; it's their responsibility. and in this one-man show, that's me. i'm not here in school just to get to the end of each day. i'm here to get the most out of each minute, and whether i get something done today or tomorrow, it's not going to get done unless i do it.

so that's one of the paradigm shifts that i'll be working towards this year.

in other news, the oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow morning. you'll hear my thoughts here soon enough.

the temporal temple

2012-01-22T22:56:00.000-06:00

confession: i signed up to go work at the bishop's storehouse only because i wanted to go with my friend. but then it turned out that she couldn't go anyway and i was stuck having to go and actually do service.
on a saturday.
leaving at 6:45.
a.m.

and on less than four hours of sleep, i had an excellent day yesterday.

i've heard about bishop's storehouses but had never actually been. president hinckley once described them as looking like grocery stores but without cash registers, and that's pretty accurate. their purpose is to help those members of the church who are doing what they can but are still struggling to put food on the table and so, with the help of their ward bishop, are able to come and get what they need.

we had a great group of seven that went up to houston yesterday. people would come in with lists that would have quantities for each item and we would go through the aisles with them, helping them get what they needed. my favorite was a guy with his five-year old daughter who was very eager to help load the cart with whatever i helped her find.

when things slowed down, we'd restock the shelves: cans of stew, bags of rice, and packages of cheese. the store was small enough that there was usually something that needed to be replenished and there was enough variety of goods that it kept things from getting monotonous. we were usually laughing and had plenty of jokes about the power of the box cutters.

while it seemed simple, there was something very special about being there. as soon as we walked in, we could feel a peaceful feeling in there. and so much of my work in the church has usually been related to the spiritual welfare of people (teaching sunday school, going to the temple) that it was an insightful change to be a part of something so immediate, of helping people get food so that they could provide for their families.

as the day went on, i was starting to feel guilty that my biggest worry that day was making a presentation on my mac for my mfa class at school. talking with my friend in colorado that evening, she noted that we all have our challenges, regardless of our situation in life.
i was glad that i took the day to go the storehouse and i still had time that evening to get my homework done for monday.

editor's note: chalk this post up to another one that falls far short of what the reality was.

aphex

2012-01-20T23:46:00.000-06:00

i watched harry potter 7.2 tonight.
that's a dang good movie. love it.

it's interesting how the pieces in my life are shifting, some coming closer and others moving further away. that's how life goes. the only constant is change.

i also made some very good chocolate chip cookies.

flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep

2012-01-19T23:35:00.000-06:00

for once, i'm glad someone invited me to a movie that i wouldn't have seen otherwise but am glad that i did. we went to beauty and the beast in 3-D tonight and thoroughly enjoyed myself. going to the theater, i realized that it's been quite a while since i've seen the movie (sometime in 104, probably, when we excitedly found it on a saturday excursion to the used cd/dvd store), and not only is it a landmark in computer animation (the "beauty and the beast" ballroom dance scene) and the only animated movie (until up in 2009) to be nominated for best picture, it's also a really good movie.

last fall at school i saw a few minutes of the lion king on one of our big-a 3-D and was surprised at how good a 2-D animated movie looked in 3-D. every pencil line was clear and there was something about it that was fascinating. the different layers stood clearly and it was like seeing it again for the first time. it was the same seeing all of the details here. oddly, studying computer animation has made me more impressed with traditional animation, i think because i have no bloody clue how they do it. (bonus coolness: i had a class from the lady who animated maurice, belle's father.)

when the movie came out, i remember that we all loved chip's quip's. in tonight's theater full of college texans, he hardly got a response. but there was plenty that i did appreciate more than i have before, the standout scene being the beast pleading at belle's closed door for her to join him at dinner.

i heard something else that left me thinking more than was likely intended. when the beast is brooding at how difficult belle is being, lumiere (a subtle reference to the film pioneer brothers?) notes, "she's had a rough day. she's lost both her father and her freedom."
i thought of how that could feel like marriage, losing your family and your freedom and being trapped with a beast forever. that, in the creation, fall, and atonement stages of a marriage, the courting tale of la belle et la bête is the journey from fall to atonement. they're different, they clash, he doesn't know how to treat her but he wants to learn. and. slowly, stubbornly, things change. and they fall in love.

whatever it's about, i think you should go see it.
unless the artist is playing. then you should see that instead.

wednesday, jan. 18

2012-01-18T23:25:00.000-06:00

just a few mini posts for today.

sopa

i've never pirated a movie, all of my mp3s are legit, and my professional life thus far as been in the film industry, the main force in support of this bill. but i think it is reaching far beyond stopping illegal downloading and will be very bad if it passes.
i also think it's too big to really enforce if it did pass and that there would be a backlash of biblical proportions if it did.

but if the "stop online piracy act" does pass, i will have to go through nearly every post on here and remove the pictures that are not officially mine. so, that post from two days ago, where i listed all of the people i worked with, that'll be gone entirely.

apple
on my walks around campus today, i was listening to a recent podcast of "this american life" where the first act was a guy's story about his visit to the apple factories in china. he talked about the terrible working conditions there, noting that the cost for human labor is nearly zero, so that nearly all of our electronics (not just apple) are made almost entirely by hand. as his story went on and on, i started to feel guilty about the ipod that i was listening to this on.

the second act of the radio show was a discussion of the first act, with their team verifying pretty much all of the guy's story. but they also had an economist who, when asked if we should feel guilty about owning and enjoying all of these electronics, answered, no.
the reason, he said, is that while these conditions are terrible, this sweatshop lifestyle is still a better life than the destitute poverty that the people were living in before these factories came. i found that interesting and wondered if these are just growing pains of an industrial society. the u.s. and britain suffered through similar conditions a hundred years ago, about the same time that the u.s. became the dominant force in the world. and as china is emerging as the new economic super power, it seems that this may be the cost of that victory, but that, just as the american workers did a century ago, citizens will rise and protest in greater numbers and enact the changes for better working conditions. maybe the chicken has to learn to break out its shell itself.

or maybe i'm totally wrong.

3.
i can't remember what my third thought was. but i found some music for our video at work today (my 60s lounge groove was universally liked), and had success with the blue-screen compositing. i found out i'll need to buy a judo gi for my judo class, am hoping i can find another good art project for my mfa course, and am already staying at school until 10, working on homework.
until the computer froze.
at least i've got some good text friends to keep me company.

phase two

2012-01-17T22:10:00.002-06:00

i was in sitting in "rendering and shading" this morning, again dressed up in a vest for the first day of school while my eccentric turkish teacher was talking about how light refracts off of different objects. as he was noting the scattering properties of feathers, i thought about how cool kevin (the bird) looked in up and of how perfectly they had captured the way feathers shimmer in the light.

what's noteworthy is that i'm usually not that interested in materials and textures but i had no problem remembering the look of that film. and that's because it was such a beautiful story: the characters and their adventures were what i fell i love with and, because of that, i wanted to notice everything about their world. i started paying attention to even the little things that i normally wouldn't care about and found it more fascinating than i ever imagined.

~*~

while i don't regret my decision, when i'm reading american cinematographer i still sometimes think of what it would be like to be a big director of photography.

my life in pictures

2012-01-16T09:50:00.000-06:00

on my way home from the austin airport, i got a call to work on a commercial in moab this week. i still occasionally get calls for work and am always sad when i have to turn them down (got offered to pull focus on a sharon stone movie in november), but i agreed to do this one because the cinematographer is a guy i've actually heard of. in fact, he's won an academy award (for seabiscuit) and has shot huge films like the rock, armageddon, and transformers (say what you want about the directing quality of those but it's pretty dang impressive from a cinematography standpoint.)
sadly, they decided to go with someone from l.a. instead (and i later found out i wasn't the only one they dropped), which (even more sadly) means i have to go to school tomorrow instead of jetting off to go work on some big-a shoot.

so as my film career continues to fade (at least until i graduate, can't find a job, and start calling camera assistants around utah again), i wanted to look back at all of the people i had the chance to cross paths with while getting paid to do so.

found out he was in full metal jacket.
so, i'm two degrees from stanley kubrick. : D

that's daniel, not alec. although, i accidentally
called him alec once. he corrected me and was
(thankfully) very cool about it.

*he wasn't filming that day but did come to set.

this kid drove me nuts....

and i've home taught will ferrell's cousin.
seriously.

just the mac on the right.

but one of my favorite connections is....

i've worked with this guy...

who worked with this guy...

who worked with her. <3

guidance

2012-01-15T17:14:00.001-06:00

in my sunday school lesson today, i managed to talk about the tree of life, the tree of life, and the artist. thank you. : )

this morning, someone on facebook posted about a talk by elder scott, adding the question, "in your life, what are the experiences and truths you have learned that make up principles you live by that govern your life?"

i've talked about this a few times before here, but i think it's a very good question. for me, a sort of paradigm shift happened when i heard elder maxwell's final's conference talk, where he shared stories from his life. his lesson of "never go back to the hotel" is a defining characteristic of who i am, and i began to realize that i could find such principles and lessons from stories in my own life. that summer i learned to "just keep clapping."

it seemed i was recently talking with someone about this subject, about looking in our own lives for examples and lessons. but rather than share another personal experience that i've learned from, i want to share two simple stories that have stuck with me, that i have continually mulled over as i've walked the long and winding road.

the first comes from, i think, a book of stories that my brother had when we were younger. i remember that he often had a lot of books that made you think, such as the eleventh hour. this story may have come from a book that was a collection of riddles, although i don't remember for certain.

two coal miners were returning home from work on day. one's face was black with soot, while the other's face was clean. the looked at each other, then the one with the clean face went and washed his face, while the miner with the dirty face did not.

the answer to the puzzle here is that the miner with the clean face looked at his friend and assumed that, since his friend's face was dirty, his must be, too. likewise, the man with the dirty face presumed that his face was clean, just like his friend's. but the lesson is one that has echoed with me as i've gone through life, trying to see where my faults are and working to improve them. sometimes i've wondered if i'm trying to clean areas of my life that are already clean, yet missing the messier spots. it gets bigger the more you think about it.

the second story is one that my mother told to me one night when she and i were sitting at the table. it was an seemingly mundane moment, but, again, the lesson of the story has taken root in me.

a man and a woman had been married for many years. each night before they went to sleep, they would each have a slice of bread. and each night, the man would pull the crust from his slice and give it to his wife.
one night, after having had enough of this, the wife asked in frustration, "why do you keep giving me the crusts? i can't stand the crusts!"
in hurt surprise, the man softly replied, "i give you the crusts because it's my favorite part."

as i continue learn about how to work with people, particularly those closest to me, i try to remember this story.

desinence

2012-01-14T18:32:00.000-06:00

same same but different

and so my break draws to a close.

it was a good break. a great break, actually. and pretty much what i needed. had i been hanging around in one spot for the four-plus weeks, i likely would have gone batty. but i've been very fortunate to have been able to move around some. i went from texas to utah to minnesota and then back again, even finding time for a day in colorado in there.

what was interesting about this was that texas, utah, and minnesota represent significant eras of my life, and moving between them was like moving through those stages of my life. in moorhead my mom was happy to be making breakfast for her kids again, my brother and i still play the same card games we did fifteen years ago, and i went to a moorhead spuds high school hockey game one night. afterward, i took the long way out and walked through my old high school, seeing a flood of memories on the stairs and down the hallways. i couldn't remember where any of my lockers were, but i still knew where my sophomore year girlfriend's locker was.

i spent new year's down in minneapolis, enjoying all that a big city has to offer, from excellent local restaurants to the independent theaters. we tried to go clubbing one night but apparently everyone was waiting for new year's eve, as there was no one there on dec. 30. that was ok; the 80s room was apparently gone, anyway.
we considered going out again the next night if our new year's eve plans fizzled out, but that wasn't a problem. i celebrated 2012 pretty much the same way i did 1997: with my high school friends, drinking a ton of pop, and laughing til it hurt.

still the same

i stayed in minnesota longer than i planned, which, by simple logic, meant i had less time in utah. still, i managed to see (just about) everyone i wanted to see while i was there, doing pretty much all of my favorite things with all of the right people: movies, mario kart, himalayan food, photography, cafe rio, making mistakes, the ihop gang, righting my wrongs, talking movies with my old film professors. it worked out great.

and now, i'm somehow back in texas again. kindly, school starts on tuesday, offering the chance to ease back into life before the hurricane starts again.

listening to a lot of arcade fire and the laurie jayne mixes today.

: *

2012-01-12T22:19:00.003-06:00

thanks to leithal's due diligence, i've been informed that today is (the third annual) "kiss a ginger day."

and i was thinking about this movie just yesterday...

"be whatever you like, you're my redhead!"

x and y

2012-01-11T11:29:00.003-06:00

while i was in minnesota last week, going through an old box of books, i came across one of my favorites: "from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler." i grabbed it and read it on the plane back to utah. near the end of the book, the eponymous old lady says something that stood out to me.

"'no,' i answered. 'i don't agree with that. i think you should learn, or course, and some days you must learn a great deal. but you should also have days wen you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. and you can feel it happen inside of you. if you never take times out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. you can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. it's hollow.'"

my plane is boarding.

weight loss

2012-01-10T18:40:00.005-06:00

the more i look at it, the less i like it. but i think it can be cleaned up without too much effort.

meeting

2012-01-09T23:07:00.000-06:00

oddly, i couldn't find the english version of this commercial.
still, you get the idea.

today went well.

cazookie

2012-01-07T23:44:00.000-06:00

today was a rough day. "unsettling" is perhaps the word i would use to describe my morning, and that uncomfortable feeling stayed with me throughout the day. even an afternoon of photography and dessert didn't change much. (although the warm dessert was silence-inducing amazing and the photography was looking good)

this evening i went to the broadway theater with emily. people asked us why we were drivng all the way to salt lake to see a movie we could see at any of the megaplex's from here to there. and that is (one reason of many) why i love emily: she gets it. she understands the love of cinema.

standing the broadway theater lobby, buying concessions and surrounded by posters for upcoming movies that were worth seeing, sharing it with a friend who mutually appreciated it: that was my happy place for the moment. tonight was what i needed.

as long as i'm venting, i would just like to say that the environment in which this following picture was taken irritated me deeply.

this picture is poorly framed because
someone else has invaded our room...

grrrr.

that is all.
thank you.

flavors of the weeks

2012-01-03T19:33:00.000-06:00

i'm not one to get into political arguments, but ever since my "citizenship in the nation" merit badge, i've believed that it's important to be involved in one's politics to some degree. and i've begun following politics more and more as i've gotten older. during the intense 2008 elections, i did what i could to read the articles and watch the debates. but i've never paid as much attention to the races for the candidacy as i have this season. part of me wishes i would have, because i'm really curious if every round is like this or if this race has been an amazing/embarrassing catastrophe.

i consider myself somewhere in the political middle and i tend to lean towards the right, although i voted for obama. i'm not particularly displeased with him but if the republicans can put up a better option, i may vote red. strangely, the republican party has been like a girl on the rebound, grabbing candidate after candidate and getting bored with them after a few weeks.

michelle bachman won the iowa straw poll this summer, an award which meant that, if the republican party were cthulhu, she will be the first to be eaten. she pushed far to the right wing, speaking to please the evangelical bases and weirding out the rest. she hasn't been heard from since her victory in ames, iowa.

that was ok, because on the day of the straw poll, texas governor rick perry announced his candidacy and immediately the party loved this good lookin' cowboy. he shot to the top of the polls and was in the debates front and center, placed next to the perennial leader, mitt romney. like the hunky high school jock, perry couldn't hold up under the pressure of being asked questions and burned out in so many miraculous ways that i can't pick my favorite.
1. this one
2. new hampshire (perry starts at 5:02 on there. and for the record, this one is my favorite)
3. and.... um.....

ok, i can understand them all flocking around perry. sure, he was george w. bush 2 (and that's "squared", not "two") and there are a lot of republicans that really get into that. but they had sense enough to think there might be someone better out there. what's fascinating is that they just moved down the line in the debate queue and grabbed the next guy they could find. that guy was herman cain.

i was rather incredulous when i found out that cain was leading the polls. the romney-perry battles made sense: the cool kid against the smart kid. and it was a little awkward watching the remaining six stumpers at the debates, since they all seemed to be there for decoration, hoping to make this look like a competitive race. but when they grabbed herman cain, someone who, a few weeks earlier, had me wondering why he was even trying to run, this began to get kind of embarrassing.

good for him for getting a chance but that's only worthwhile if you're qualified and just need the chance to be heard. he fell apart under foreign policy questions and then had plenty of harassment scandals and decided to drop out of his presidential run by quoting the pokemon movie.

this has me wondering where the republicans would go next. simple: they went to the end of the line and grabbed newt gingrich. dag. at this point, they'll go with anyone to the homecoming dance, including the kid who graduated a few years ago but is still hanging around for some weird reason.

all this time, jon huntsman has been working hard to campaign in new hampshire, passing up the first caucus (today, in iowa) and hoping to win the next state. it kept him out of the media spotlight which, with the way things have been going, is an ok strategy, i suppose.

by now, i'm sure tim pawlenty was a little frustrated. he dropped out after coming in third in the iowa straw poll, feeling that that showed his support wasn't where it needed to be. the republicans have gone far lower than third place already.

ron paul's numbers have been consistent and consistently growing and he's done great in the debates, sticking to his beliefs and speaking openly and honestly. the republican core doesn't like him, in part because he plays by his rules, not theirs. i really like him, but i don't think he has the tact needed to be the head representative of our country. but i'd be proud to vote for him as the representative of my state.

what's odd is that they've been looking for someone to beat mitt romney. that's the guy that everyone else in their party likes, the guy who's numbers have been consistent throughout the running, while everyone else has skyrocketed and exploded. it really makes no sense; he's qualified, sensible, and performs excellently in the debates. but the whole last six months have been a search for anyone other than him. while the far right is frantically looking for any alternative, the truth is that romney could easily grab some of the right plus the moderates and even some of the moderate left who voted for obama last time but aren't decided on him for round two yet.

proving that this race is so crazy it can't be made up, newt faded in less than a month and now, as the first official caucusing is happening in iowa, rick santorum is actually getting his turn. he's been ignored and pushed to the sides for the last four months and luckily got his three weeks of fame right before the music stopped.

my wild hope is that the extreme right wing, who have been acting like the cheerleader of the republican teen girl squad, will break off and nominate a tea party candidate, thereby freeing the rest of the party to do what they really want to do but have gone along with the bossy ones. i think that, as the states go through their individual caucusing, casting their votes rather than what the red zealots are shouting, mitt will solidly come to the front. romney can take the mid-right and the moderates and give obama a real challenge this summer.
otherwise, the president and his campaign staff are going to have a comfortable coast through 2012 and into their second term.

so, iowa, i'll check in with you later tonight. for now, i'm off to a hockey game.

editor's note: we acknowledge that our citations are almost exclusively from the daily show. after following their coverage all summer, we feel that they are more accurate and unbiased than any of the major news channels. besides, after long day at the viz lab, we really appreciate the endorphins.

bizarre love triangle

2012-01-02T23:00:00.000-06:00

you know those weekends when you have a really great date idea and you know who you want to ask out, then you meet another really awesome girl and you wish you could ask her out for this date, too?
yeah.

that's how my cinematic love life is.
in case you haven't noticed, i'm fascinated by the tree of life. when i saw it, it was love at first sight. and not because it had flashy explosions or big gun fights. it was smart. it was insightful. and yet it was captivatingly graceful. everything about it was beautiful. and it left me wanting to be a better man. i was happy to find out that, six months later, my feelings for it were just as strong. best movie of the year.

then i started hearing about some movie called the artist. i'd heard it was silent but didn't know much beyond that. still, that was good enough for me.

yes, the artist is a silent film, but that isn't a gimmick. rather, it's like the edgar wright and simon pegg movies: not only is hot fuzz a great homage to the buddy cop genre, it's also a great buddy cop movie. not only is the artist an impeccable silent film, it's also a great film.

similar to singin' in the rain, the movie follows a silent movie star through the terrible transition into the sound era. which, if you think about it, is an ironic setting for a silent movie. and that's part of what makes the movie fun: while it looks and feels in every way like it was shot on the lot next to a murnau picture, it gently reminds us that it knows what it really is. the movie opens in a movie screening, where the audience is watching the hero being interrogated by evil scientists. "i'll never talk!" he declares in the inter titles. the orchestral music builds through the final climactic moments then ends when the movie does, leaving the screen smirkingly silent as the audience erupts into applause.

as i said, the artist is a perfectly recreated silent film. so much, in fact, that it was a little strange to see modern actors like john goodman in there. like the silent era, language was irrelevant, so the director and leads are french, while several of the supporting characters are recognizable american (and british) actors, all filmed in hollywood. the acting is broad and expressive but never lampooning or silly. the full-frame camera work is as technically and artistically advanced as it was in 1927, while the big orchestral score carries the emotion but never steals it. and the costumes, hair, and makeup are savory.

all of that would make it a remarkable exercise if that was all it was. but the filmmakers know that we still watch silents because they are good and timeless stories. and wrapped underneath the black and white images and beautiful costumes is a great love story: the big hollywood silent star, the aspiring girl. share a brief time together when she's a featured extra in one of his movies. when talkies come around he becomes antiquated. she becomes the next big thing. there's drama! excitement! danger! and romance! sitting in the theater, it's easy to understand how audiences started to fall in love with their larger than life stars 80 years ago.

this is how to fall in
love at the movies

the scene where she's looking through his dressing room and finds his tuxedo coat is the most enchanting falling in love moment i've seen since wall-e first sees e.v.e. flying around his city.

in just about any other year (2010, i'm looking back at you) this would have easily been the best movie of the year. in fact, i'm falling for it as i write this. but no, the tree of life is my true love of 2011.

still, i really want to see the artist again....

my 2011

2012-01-01T23:06:00.000-06:00

What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

rode on a private jet, drove across america, successfully conquered moguls and double blacks, swam 25m underwater, got one of the most seriously awesome hugs in history, played on stage with my favorite band, learned to rock climb, got into tiffs and/or scuffles with at least four of my best friends (and then worked things out within a week each time), hiked the arizona desert in august, and drove to the houston airport (and back) without my gps.

and i learned how to do some digital compositing and made this:

Did you keep your new years' resolutions?
some of them.

What are some of your resolutions for 2012?

to do better at school. specifically, to effectively utilize my time when i am at school, instead of spending all of my time being "busy." the goal is that that will lead to me producing some work that i can really be proud of.
to create and follow a budget.
to learn some about auto mechanics.
and to be strong in character. like lehi counseled his sons, to arise from the dust and be a man.

Did anyone close to you get married?
my brother.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
a couple of friends, but i haven't seen said offspring (i'm looking at you, laurie jayne).

Did anyone close to you die?
pete and meghan's 3-year old son. that was a sad morning.

What countries did you visit?
all four sides of the u.s.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
someone to look forward to at the end of the day.

What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
april 30 was a very happy day for me. i prefer not to go into why right now.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
getting a C in 654.

What was your biggest failure?
my date in san antonio.

though i kind of want to go with that cat in the parking lot that one night and all that happened thereafter. i didn't realize it until later, but that was not my finest hour.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
i think i stayed physically healthy this year.

What was the best thing you bought?
layne's box of chicken fingers and the steve jobs biography on my phone.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
right at the end of the year, one of the saddest and most unexpected things i never would have imagined, but out of respect for those involved, i won't go into detail here.

Where did most of your money go?
to texas a&m.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
the second week of july.

What song will always remind you of 2012?
"friday" by rebecca black. i genuinely love that song.
also, billy joel's "she's always a woman" and a handful of songs from tally hall's "good & evil."

but if i were to choose just one song, it would be "(antichrist television blues)" by arcade fire. that is everything i have felt this past year condensed into five minutes of primal cathartic exegesis. it's my favorite song of this chapter in my life, up there with "best imitation of myself" and "spring and a storm."

Compared to this time last year, are you: much happier, richer, nicer?
still in school, so i'm not yet any richer.
i think i'm nicer, although my sarcasm and prickliness seem to come more often that i'd like.
i am happier, though.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
quality work towards my portfolio and demo reel.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
spending my time and energy fretting about how busy i was, instead of actually getting things done.

How did you spend Christmas?
genuinely enjoying my family in minnesota, even without any snow.

Did you fall in love in 2011?
i came close.

What was your favorite TV program?
ever since bin laden was killed, i've been hooked on the daily show.

What was the best book you read this year?
steve jobs by walter isaacson.

What did you want and get?
long hair.

What were your favorite films of this year?
tree of life. as soon as i saw it this summer, i knew that was the best movie of the year.

then, a few days ago, i saw the artist. that's a solid second place and not too far behind tree of life.

What were your least favorite films of this year?
i didn't have time to waste on lousy movies.

What were your favorite albums of this year?
i just wrote about all the good music that came out this year in the previous post.
r.e.m.'s swan song was excellent.
we finally got a sophomore release from tally hall and were not disappointed.
and coldplay continued to keep up their (more or less) perfect record.
but since you know about all of them, i'm going to list quiet company's "we are all where we belong."

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
in the philosophy of "go big or go home," my big plans fell through, so i kept things low key this year; a hamburger and a japanese movie with a friend. i'm now 32.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
a cinnamon roll.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
"awakening": i'm realizing that i want to put more sensible thought into my fashion sense. and i'm working at it.

What kept you sane?
my other half.

Who did you miss?
honestly?

Who was the best new person (people) you met?
some really great artists at disney.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
that i would rather take the difficult road with deep valleys and great joys along the way than the smooth and mundane path.

What are you most excited for in 2012?
once again, the things that i never would have imagined would happen. each year has brought really cool things. and i don't just mean those "mushy, meaningful little moments" kind of stuff. i mean things like, "i drove across america" or "i flew in a private jet." so, let's see what the next trip around the sun has to offer.
mostly, though, i'm just looking forward to 2013.

What are you least excited for in 2012?
if the mayans are actually right about the end of the world on dec. 21, 2012. i won't even be out of grad school.

grace

2011-12-29T23:47:00.000-06:00

i watched "tree of life" again tonight. i haven't seen it since i first saw it in the theater this summer.
it's still the best movie of the year.
cinematic near-perfection.

the only way to be happy is to love.

unless you love, your life will flash by

Christmas and commerce

2011-12-28T23:29:00.002-06:00

we took a family trip down to minneapolis and spent the evening at the mall of america, colloquially known as the mega mall. even since it opened some 15+ years ago, i've always liked going there, even if i'm never really sure what i want to do once i get inside. the magic store there started my short-lived interest in being a magician (i can still do a few tricks) and my best friend got banned from there for running up the down escalator in high school. the "camp snoopy" amusement park in the middle of the mall has been redone with nickelodeon characters; i could justify having fun on charlie brown's log flume, but dora the explorer is definitely out of my age range. still, there was a pirate "walk the plank" four-story ropes course that looked pretty dang fun.

from a step back, the mall is, in essence, the epitome of middle-class american commercialism, and it's interesting to look at the stores--ranging from megalith's like macy's and nordstroms to niche stores, such as "bead-niks" or the store that sold only butterfly knickknacks and lasted only a year--to the people who populate these stores. and i'm not saying this in some cynical, "glad i'm not them" way; i love it. i dig the energy of the mall. i like seeing all the people, the exciting high school kids flirting, the dad and kids waiting outside the shoe store for the unseen mom shopping inside.

in a hotel room, typing on my lappy, listening to mumford and sons {*} while my dad's reading a book on his phone and my mom's on her ipad, asking me when i'll update my blog. my vacation continues.

2011 rocks

2011-12-27T12:10:00.000-06:00

a few months ago i'm sitting in church when this girl comes up to me and hands me a couple of cds.
"i think you'd really like these guys," she says.

now, there are a couple reasons why i was a little hesitant about this. first, i couldn't recall ever discussing music with her, so how did she know what i liked? sure, we'd talked here and there at church, but music had never come up that i could remember. second, as anyone who's tried to get me to listen to their favorite band knows, i'm not the most open to being given music that people think i'd like. i view it in the same category as being setup on a date: someone else's opinion of what will click with me based on a few general facts. in matters of music and of the heart, i prefer to find what i like naturally and organically, rather than forcing any attraction. still, out of politeness, i took the cds.

the band is called quiet company, they're out of austin, and, to my genuine surprise, they were great. i loved them. couldn't get enough of them, shared them with other friends, and am i'm listening to them as i type. they're somewhere between tally hall (though not as eclectic or whimsical) and arcade fire (though not as full or theatrical), packing impassioned and heartfelt lyrics with skilled musicianship. their facebook statusi suggests that they're cool and down to earth guys and their brief Christmas ep is most excellent.
if you're looking for something new, they get my highest recommendation. start with "everyone you love will be happy soon." it's sublime.

in fact, 2011 has been an excellent musical year for me. in march, i started to notice something: r.e.m. had just released a new cd in and tally hall's long-overdue sophomore effort was finally coming out in june. radiohead had put something out and the beastie boys had a new album on the way, too. this had me curious if some astrological musical alignment would be bringing forth releases from any other my other favorite bands this year. as of spring break, it seemed that coldplay just had a single coming out and i couldn't see anything on the horizon from tmbg.

by the end of the year, however, pretty much everyone had released something. what was remarkable was that, it had been several years for many of these bands and some of their most recent releases weren't that good, but nearly everything this years was solid (sadly, tmbg's "join us" hasn't inspired me to give it a second listen lately.)
check it out:

band	this year	previous release
the decembrists	the king is dead	hazards of love (2009)
radiohead	king of limbs	in rainbows (2007)
r.e.m.	collapse into now	accelerate (2008)
the beastie boys	hot sauce committee pt.2	the mix-up (2007)
tally hall	good & evil	marvin's marvelous mechanical museum (2005)
they might be giants	join us	here comes science (2009)
quiet company	we are all where we belong	everyone you love will be happy soon (2009)
coldplay	mylo xyloto	viva la vida (2006)

marienbad

2011-12-26T16:17:00.000-06:00

visiting friends.
eating sushi.
watching movies.
enjoying family.
playing games.
staying up late.
traveling.
laughing.
writing.
texting.
unwinding.

the magic of Christmas

2011-12-25T10:39:00.000-06:00

santa's carbon footprint

did santa come to your house last night? yeah, he came to mine, too. pretty cool, since some of us live very far apart (hi, seattle.)

back during the mid-90s, when only members of gen-x had email accounts and it was still ok to send forwards, i received a mathematical analysis of santa claus's work. it's pretty incredible. i found a similar breakdown on a page that looks to be about ten years old and wanted to share it. some of the numbers aren't wholly current, but the point still gets across.

let's assume that santa only visits those who are children in the eyes of the law, that is, those under the age of 18. there are roughly 2 billion such individuals in the world. however, santa started his annual activities long before diversity and equal opportunity became issues, and as a result he doesn't handle muslim, hindu, jewish and buddhist children. that reduces his workload significantly to a mere 15% of the total, namely 378 million. however, the crucial figure is not the number of children but the number of homes santa has to visit. according to the most recent census data, the average size of a family in the world is 3.5 children per household. thus, santa has to visit 108,000,000 individual homes. (of course, as everyone knows, santa only visits good children, but we can surely assume that, on an average, at least one child of the 3.5 in each home meets that criterion.)

that's quite a challenge. however, by traveling east to west, santa can take advantage of the different time zones, and that gives him 24 hours. santa can complete the job if he averages 1250 household visits per second. in other words, for each Christian household with at least one good child, santa has 1/1250th of a second to park his sleigh, dismount, slide down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, consume the cookies and milk that have been left out for him, climb back up the chimney, get back onto the sleigh, and move on to the next house. to keep the math simple, let's assume that these 108 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth. that means santa is faced with a mean distance between households of around 0.75 miles, and the total distance santa must travel is just over 75 million miles. hence santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. a typical reindeer can run at most 15 miles per hour. that's quite a feat santa performs each year.

what happens when we take into account the payload on the sleigh? assuming that the average weight of presents santa delivers to each child is 2 pounds, the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons -- and that's not counting santa himself, who, judging by all those familiar pictures, is no lightweight. on land, a reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. of course, Santa's reindeer can fly. (true, no known species of reindeer can fly. however, biologists estimate that there are some 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, we cannot rule out flying reindeer.) now, there is a dearth of reliable data on flying reindeer, but let's assume that a good specimen can pull ten times as much as a normal reindeer. this means that santa needs 214,200 reindeer. thus, the total weight of this airborne transportation system is in excess of 350,000 tons, which is roughly four times the weight of the queen elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch.)

now, 350,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance, and this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. the two reindeer in the lead pair will each absorb some 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. in the absence of a nasa-designed heat shield, this will cause them to burst into flames spontaneously, exposing the pair behind them. the result will be a rapid series of deafening sonic booms, as the entire reindeer team is vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. meanwhile, santa himself will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. that should do wonders for his waistline.

Christmas is indeed a magical time.

i found that here, which also notes that it is not the original source.

i guess all of that work does explain why st. nick travels with six to eight black men as backup.

Christmas tape

2011-12-24T16:13:00.001-06:00

in december 1999, i was rounding out my first year as a missionary in japan, trying to stay warm and focused in my second area (it's amazing how cold weather can make a minnesota boy homesick.) one day, i received a cassette tape (remember those?) in the mail from the soga family. i had made some friends in my first area (thinking about it, all of my japanese facebook friends are from there, actually), but i don't think i would have counted the sogas as people who i knew particularly well.

they were a married couple with a young daughter (if i remember correctly), very friendly to us and they spoke some english, which was a joy for a confused missionary. but i really only remember visiting them once in the six months that i was there. nevertheless, they had sent me a tape of Christmas music and a short letter, saying that they knew it was my first Christmas away from home and hoped that this would make it a little easier for me.

it was an excellent mix, with some of my personal favorites (like nat king cole) along with songs that i loved but didn't know at the time (like the carpenters' "carol of the bells.") i listened to the tape all that season and gladly put it in again a year later, when i was a much stronger missionary during my final weeks in the orient. as i was packing to leave, i left it with my companion, a greenie who was spending his first Christmas in the field. more than a decade later, i still don't know why they thought of me but that tape is something i've never forgotten.

merry Christmas eve,
(you knew this was coming)

red

2011-12-23T22:58:00.000-06:00

first off, happy tabernash.

second, red.

red has been on my mind lately. not anger or rage, nor the camera nor the charity nor the kieslowski movie.

but red.

red.

it was in the book on color and film psychology that i was reading on the plane.
it's come up in conversations.
i've been thinking about it.

and i've decided i want more red in my life.

of muppets and nog

2011-12-18T13:42:00.002-06:00

yesterday i was beginning to wonder if it was even worth having a muppets and nog party this year. jack and natalie had moved to north carolina and becky and brady now lived in seattle. not only did that remove two of the key and founding members of the great tradition, that also took out four people over all. and there were at least four other people who were unable to come because i had scheduled my party on the same night as everyone else's family's Christmas party (and two others were home sick). in short, it was looking like there would be six people at my once-grand muppets and nog party. and most of those people didn't even know each other.

the party this year was held at em's house, because she has been reading about the them on here for years and, knowing that i don't have a permanent place in utah, as well as wanting to be a part of the legendary gala, offered her house back before i even knew if i would be in town or not.

true to form, em was a fantastic host. her house looked beautiful: decorations were tastefully trimmed around the rooms, there was Christmas music in the background, and the table was set out with snacks, chocolates, and gingerbread men (they were delicious....) i set to work making the egg nog in a kitchen that would have made alton brown proud, with em readily measuring out anything i needed. when i asked for nutmeg, she gave me the option of "ground" or "whole" and, wanting this to be the best, asked for "whole", to which she promptly set about grating a whole nutmeg... nut(?) i joked about the bourbon listed in the recipe and she pulled out a basket containing numerous little glass jars, handing me a small bottle imitation rum extract. i don't think it's any coincidence that mark declared this year's nog to be the best we've ever had (and everyone agreed.)

while em and i were trying to talk movies amidst the clamor of an electric mixer, her husband renn was busy getting to know everyone else there. one thing i've always really liked about renn is that he can easily talk to anyone and make you feel comfortable. when i was realizing that most of my guests didn't know each other very well, i was grateful that renn would be there to welcome everyone. and it was fun to look up from time time and see him laughing and talking with my friends.

tim and lyndsie came just as we were finishing the nog. i had made enough for one serving for each guest i knew was coming, since mixing and pouring nearly a gallon (or more) of nog can get rather unwieldy and i didn't want to create any more of a mess than i already would be. so tim made me promise that i'd make some for them in minnesota. people were talking and laughing, lyndsie and mary joy were playing with the kids, and em and i were tidying up the kitchen. things were working out.

as is customary, i introduced everyone briefly, since they are all my friends but not everyone else knows each other (depending on the crowd, mark sometimes does.) from there we moved down to watch the movie. in an odd combination of my friends all wanting to be gracious and not take the couch, plus most of my friends are used to sitting on the floor while watching "the muppet's Christmas carol" at my parties, i was the only one on the couch, despite our hosts' repeated offerings.

now, one of the established rules of the muppet and nog party is that you sing along to the songs as best you can. when em was starting the movie, she asked if there was a sing-along option, something that i presume her family of boys enjoys. i had never given a thought to it and there wasn't such an option, but the closed captioning was something we soon wished we thought of years ago. suddenly, all of the words were on the screen and everyone was able to sing along. it was pretty dang awesome as we joined in the chorus of scrooge's opening song. and, as a further bonus, the captioning helped us catch a lot of off-handed jokes that even tim and i had never noticed before.

i did learn something interesting about the story (you knew this was coming, kristin): as the ghost of Christmas present is fading, it's apparent that scrooge has already had his change of heart. he pleads with the spirit to stay and to teach him more, declaring that he wants to be better. but his humility and willingness to repent do not excuse him from the third and most difficult lesson he still had to learn, perhaps to make this change permanent. i also like that the sad events he sees are what will be if things remain as they are, but that they do not have to be what he saw.
not only is it a fun muppet movie, it's a darn good movie period.

a few times during the movie i stepped out for another gingerbread man (reportedly, there's a hint of black pepper in them) and as i passed either renn or em, i thanked them again for being such excellent hosts and that this party was going great. after the movie, everyone mingled and we gathered for a group picture.
then, at kristin's request, an "american gothic" version.
and then, at someone else's odd request, one where we were all pointing at mark.

as kristin and i got in the car, she turned to me and said, "i think this has been one of my favorite muppet parties."
mine, too.

the boys are back in town

2011-12-17T17:33:00.003-06:00

sure shot

who needs guitars anyway

2011-12-15T18:29:00.000-06:00

editor's note: we hold to a firm policy here to never reuse a post title or picture. somewhere in the air between texas and arizona, it occurred to our staff that we may have used the title "such great heights" before. sometime in 2007, actually. and while there is the temptation to change the old post title, since we like it so well, we are holding to principles of historical accuracy and integrity and adjusting the title of this post, instead. not quite the same but it still works.

the newsstands at the austin airport haven't yet stocked time's "person of the year" issue. that's become a tradition of mine every year for the past four or five years, except for two years ago, when ben bernake was chosen, because that was just boring. i was almost faced with a massive holiday conundrum when the lady at the u.s. airways counter told me that my snowboard would cost $200 to check through. when i asked her to confirm that, she got on the phone and soon informed me that snowboards are not classified as "sports equipment" but are checked as standard luggage. i'm pretty sure the exact same scenario happened last year.

as best as i can tell, the only thing i forgot is my wacom bamboo tablet, and if having to use a mouse for my photoshop projects is the biggest challenge i'll face this trip, i'm marking it as a success. having my vision focused passing (or at least, surviving) this semester, coupled with the 70+ degree weather and total absence of snow around here, it hardly feels like Christmas is in ten days. i listened to david sedaris's "santaland diaries" while i packed this afternoon, hoping that would help. but i'll be in utah tonight, with my friends tomorrow, on the mountains on saturday, and drinking homemade nog that evening. as i'm able to sit and relax and unwind from that force that is school, it's nice to look around and realize that it is Christmas time.

+1

2011-12-14T00:23:00.001-06:00

one of the things i like most about my life in texas is my job. unlike most viz students, i don't work in the department but managed to procure a job with the division of research, doing video work for them. which means that i get to get out of langford for a bit and work with real cameras and lights, instead of all that virtual stuff. there are only five other people in my office and they're all significantly older than me, but they're also all really cool.

tonight was the work Christmas party and i was told that "significant others are welcome." i considered bringing one of my insignificant others but opted instead to go as the cool single guy. at parties, i have a tendency to clam up but with some effect at the start, i can push forward and be a part of the cool crowd and did so nicely tonight. the party was great. my boss hosted at her home, and i'm normally not one to give much thought to others' houses, but susan's place is beautiful. not "lame rich person" nice but genuinely cultured and stylish. proving that this wasn't just for looks, she made amazing "heavy hors d'oeurves", which constituted a dinner of fine meats and cheeses, olives and garlic and homemade pot pies. the chocolate desserts maintained the class.

i don't think i will ever live down the "sweet child o' mine" incident (we're actually still trying to tell the vp that it's a bad idea), as that was a story that we related to everyone's wives and husbands with much laughter. a few days before the party, i was asked to be in charge of the music, and i did my best, plugging in my ipod and going straight for the good stuff. when the white elephant gift exchange came around, susan (60s, grandmother) looked at me and asked for something more lively. and everyone was happy with daft punk's tron: legacy soundtrack, followed by the dropkick murphys.

my office is awesome.

wish you could have been there.

the 700 club

2011-12-13T01:23:00.000-06:00

i bribed jess to come over and help me with some catch up programming assignments by including "the two towers" as part of the deal tonight. in between dealing with archaic compiler errors, i overheard this:

frodo: i can't do this, sam.

sam: i know. it's all wrong. by rights we shouldn't even be here. but we are. it's like in the great stories, mr. frodo. the ones that really mattered. full of darkness and danger, they were. and sometimes you didn't want to know the end. because how could the end be happy? how could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? but in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. even darkness must pass. a new day will come. and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. those were the stories that stayed with you. that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. but i think, mr. frodo, i do understand. i know now. folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. they kept going. because they were holding on to something.

frodo: what are we holding onto, sam?

sam: that there's some good in this world, mr. frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

for me and also for any of you who needed to be reminded of what we already know.

joy in our journey

2011-12-12T09:44:00.000-06:00

a month or so ago, brandon approached me with an idea: he'd made a short film a few years ago and he wanted me to help him remake it. ten times. each time with a different obstruction or rule that had to be followed. i thought the idea was thrillingly brilliant. (it also wasn't his original idea; despite having no interest in lars von trier's work, i think this is fascinating. their starting film is so wonderful it reminds just how good a short film can be....)
one night after watching five obstructions, we stayed up until 3 a.m. pitching our obstacles. the ten that we selected are:

each shot must be exactly seven seconds long
the film must be shot and edited on a cell phone
the actors' face's cannot be shown
brandon can have nothing to do with the movie but he will be credited as the director
the total time of shooting cannot exceed 30 minutes. the film must have at least five setups
it shot in a style brandon hates. in this case, it was mimicking "the hills"
the film must be done in one shot
the film must be animated
the film must consist of production audio only; the visual elements must be stock footage
he can do whatever he wants

and so, in between the pressures of wrapping up the semester, we've been trying to make ten short films, all remakes of the same source film (because this has been the most fun i've had on any project here yet). in the original 2-minute short, he and his girlfriend are making dinner. nothing is said as they finish cooking and sit down to eat. after a few moments of dull silence, he asks, "how was your day?" with a subtitle reading, "i couldn't think of anything else to say." she replies, "it was fine", which is translated as "terrible." when she answers his question about dinner, she says it's good, the subtitle clarifies, "we should have gotten a pizza."

our first one, each shot being exactly seven seconds, was more or less a remake of this (i recorded some footage of brandon at around 2 a.m. stating exactly why seven seconds is the worst possible length for a shot), and the second one (shot on a cell phone) was also pretty straightforward. in an effort to not end up with ten nearly-identical movies, we started playing variations on the theme of dry communication.

the "no faces" was brandon and savannah circularly arguing about how they can never decide where to go to eat, not that it really matters anyway (at some points they got so intense that i wanted to stop them before their relationship deteriorated, but the shots i was getting were just so good.... to my relief, they told me they were amplifying their emotions for the sake of the camera), the "30 minutes total" was of an older couple making dinner who didn't talk much because they contentedly didn't need to. "the hills" was just the opposite, two girls talking non-stop without saying anything of substance or value.

which brought me to mine.

being a graduate of film school, i knew that student films nearly always had two glaring characteristics: they nearly always starred college aged kids and they were nearly always filmed around town, meaning they all felt the same. so i took a camera with me to minnesota over thanksgiving, hoping to enlist my 16-year old friend to star. unfortunately, our schedules didn't work out (and i'm still really fond of my concept for that story), but i'd shot a second idea as a backup.

in high school, my best friend and i would drive around town all night, hoping to find something to do yet always coming up empty. and so i wanted to tell the story of a relationship gone dry, not between two people, but between us and moorhead. jon and i shot for two nights and near the end i was getting so frustrated about not getting what i'd wanted that, during a break a perkins, he turned the camera on me as i vented. i thought maybe i could make a movie about not being able to make a movie, but that felt too self-aware and film student-ish.

after twelve hours of editing (the last three were fights with the export process), i cut a movie that is close to what i envisioned and that i'm actually very happy with.

brandon hasn't yet seen this. he'll first see it when he shows the project to his class tomorrow for their final.

a few of my favorite things

2011-12-11T17:07:00.001-06:00

i was the narrator for the ward Christmas program today. when i came to the end of reading "and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," it was all i could do to not conclude with, "and that's what Christmas is all about, charlie brown."

with the blessing of the sunday school president, i skipped ahead a few lessons today and taught from revelation, since seven-headed dragons are cool. when we were talking about the opening of the seven seals, i really wanted to make some bergman reference but, without an established movie night here, no one would have appreciated the joke.
as i was thinking about how the opening of the seals can mean something to us in our own lives, i thought of how, just as we can find comfort in the craziness of the world around us by knowing that, after the seventh seal has been opened, that everything will work out, perhaps there are seals in our own lives. and that if it seems that horsemen of disappointment or broken dream have been given power to run rampant in our own lives, we can remember that their bounds, too, are set, and that there are still more seals to be opened. only after the seventh seal of our own lives has been opened will all be made right and the promised blessings secured. alma 37:16-17

in elder's quorum we were talking about the importance of learning and gaining an education and at one point read from d&c 88:78-80, where the Lord commands the saints to study many different things, essentially encompassing all of academia.
i've always noticed that the arts are not really mentioned in that list and, as i was thinking about that again today, i thought of alma 30:44, where alma cites the marvel of creation all around us as a sign that there is a God. not only is God the ultimate scientist, but, as artists spend so much of their effort to capture the beauty of a sunset, a mountain, to mimic the way a cat moves, is it apparent that God is also the ultimate artist.
or, as we used to say on set, God is the best gaffer.

art show: information arts

2011-12-09T22:26:00.001-06:00

i went to bed at 7:30 on--what day was that?--thursday morning and slept without interruption until 4:15 that afternoon. it came fast and i was sad i'd missed my full day of work but it was already gone. the night/morning before, i had made sure our group's animation was submitted but the deadline to be in the fall show. now it was time to work on setting up our mfa class's art show portion of friday's event.

by 1 a.m. we had three of the six works hung and those three students went home. the remaining three of us spent the night wrestling with how to display our work, making multiple trips to the store for adhesive velcro, double-sided tape, wire, and chocolate. the two of us mormons had a discussion on religion with the former-hindu guy while he was eating a bag of beef jerky and found a lot of interesting parallels. on my second trip for permanent double-sided tape (my smart idea of using the "reusable" variety was a useless disaster), i stopped by mcdonald's to buy breakfast since i knew i wouldn't be eating for the rest of the day. and it allowed me to get my whole day's recommended fat intake at once.

around 9 a.m. the other members of our class started returning to the studio, seeming a little annoyed that we weren't all finished. to be honest, i'd thought we would be, too, but we'd been working all night to get to even where we were. i expect some people were feeling stressed but tensions never reared. with less than an hour to the show opening, i found myself with no emotional choice but to be slightly amused as my 20"x30" photographs were still falling off the wall, regardless of what i tried to use to mount them. everyone worked together, my ipod continued to bring forth good music, and we performed the miracle of turning that disastrous mess in the studio into a very nice looking art show.

i worked for a few hours, all the while fighting to keep my eyes open. i had a good phone conversation on my way to the institute and had a fun time at the second annual "orney" awards (where multiple people told me they didn't recognize the guy coming in late with a leather jacket and pony tail....) looking at the clock, i think i recently passed the 30-hour mark and i'm calling that good for the day.

goodnight.

fall show

2011-12-08T06:51:00.001-06:00

i just got home from school. i was there for 41 hours. excepting a few hours for work over those couple of days, pretty much the whole time was spent on the top level of langford building c. i think i've been up for 24 hours. that was after i slept for two and a half hours on the floor next to a computer, using my leather jacket as a pillow. i listened to the charlie brown Christmas soundtrack on repeat the whole night through. it makes for good animating music as well as good Christmas music. i have eaten nothing but pizza for the last 36 hours. my roommates kindly brought me my requested toothbrush around midnight a few nights ago; being able to brush your teeth in the morning really makes an all-nighter more bearable.

i wish i could say that this hard work has produced a phenomenal project that i'm proud of and am hoping will win us a student emmy. instead, the best i can say is that i handed in my animation project by the deadline, and sometimes, that's ok.

harry had a strong desire to kick something

2011-12-07T03:29:00.001-06:00

i just found out--at 3:28 a.m. while animating--that a&m is having a yule ball this friday (hosted by the school's quidditch team, no less.)

that sounds absolutely awesome and i've decided that i want more formal events like that in my life.

mosh bit

2011-12-03T23:40:00.000-06:00

that (if you watched it) is my final project from my "digital image" class, where we essentially learn the coding behind photoshop.
in case you're wondering about how that happened:

that's what we call a "datamosh." in a compressed video file, each frame is designated as either an i-frame or a p-frame. an i-frame redraws the entire image, while a p-frame records only the movement changes in the pixel (i've never ever heard of these before). i-frames are placed anytime there is a drastic change in the content of the image. this is usually at a cut to a new shot but it can also be when there is a great amount of motion in the shot, such as a rapid pan across a room or if a rabbit full of confetti exploded.

the magic of datamosh occurs when the i-frames are removed, so that different images are blended together, causing the motion of one frame to be pulled from the pixels of the previous frame. i did this by taking my demo reel, cutting out some shots, adding one or two new shots and some video of tally hall (shot by kristin) for good measure, then using two different programs. the first was ffmpegx, which i have no idea what it did other than put a lot of extensions on the end of my video file, somehow making it ready to be used in the second program, avidemux. in avidemux, i went through and removed the i-frames, thus moshing two shots in a very unnatural way.

the biggest challenge of this process is that these two programs, ffmpegx and avidemux, suck. ffmpegx, with enough coddling, spit out my file in the desired format, but avidemux was a nightmare. its most reliable feature was crashing, and it would do this unfailingly. i have made this movie about a dozen times, and just as i would go to save or export my i-frame-less movie, it would crash. once i finally did get it rendered out, the file was so unstable that only the most robust video players could recognize it, and that was another adventure until i could wrap that mess in a nice and secure quicktime format.

another effect that can be done with datamoshing is to repeatedly copy and paste a single p-frame, which gives a rad color bloom effect that you can see briefly at the start and end of the video. i would have liked to add more of these, or at least sustain them longer, but even copying one frame only twelve times (half a second) was risking a crash, and what ended up in the video was the balance between the program's temperament and my sanity.

overall, though, i'm happy with how this turned out. the music came from freemusicarchive.org. there's a lot of weird junk there, and i spent more time searching through there than i did on the rest of the project.
but, for the first time ever, my project was the first one submitted on the website.
know why? because this didn't involve writing any code.... : D
and i'm going to savor that feeling.

the center of the universe

2011-12-02T17:12:00.001-06:00

jaime said something interesting a few days ago that i've been thinking about. she mentioned how great it was that, to God, everything does revolve around us. that so many things in our life (everything?) happen, fall into place, and line up to bring us the greatest happiness, provided we've got our act together and are doing what we can to follow His plans.

i'd never really thought of it like that and said i'd need some time to think about that, even though it felt right. it's interesting, because, in a way, it seems contrary to the plan of God: we're supposed to learn humility, to recognize our insignificance. but that's so that we can learn to trust Heavenly Father.
it comes back to the paradoxical lesson that moses learned on the mountain: man is nothing, yet man has the potential to be like God. all that He's doing is for our benefit, to bring us the greatest joy if we can learn to do it His way instead of our way. because, like jaime noted, it all revolves around us as far as He's concerned (and that's pretty far.)

then, to add as a second witness, president uchtdorf said essentially that very thing in the talk i was listening to on my way to school this afternoon.

backfired

2011-11-30T12:41:00.000-06:00

so as i may have mentioned, i finished up the official holiday video for the vice president of research a week ago or so. since we'd had some issues getting the kind-of-Christmas-y sounding song we liked, i'd been using guns 'n' roses's "sweet child o' mine" because a) it's awesome, b) it gave a big and dramatic feel to our one-minute video, and c) it's just really awesome. and so when it came time to send our draft to the important people upstairs, i decided not to tell anyone that i had the official song and sent it up with g'n'r.

the video was a hit. the vp wrote back with lots of !s about how much he and his wife loved it and i was the office hero for the afternoon (i like to think that i'm always the office hero, but it was more visible that afternoon, at least in my mind.) what i was a little worried about was his comment about how much he even liked the temp music, as i didn't want to break it to him that we probably didn't have the budget to license the song.

yesterday, we finished the final video (and i'm especially proud of the vp's signature that writes in at the end; that took a little creativity) and i was ready to get back to the work that had been on hold since this "simple" project ended up taking up about a month and a half (kind of.) then i got called into my boss's office today, where she told me that they liked the video so much that, in addition to it being the division's holiday card, the vice president wanted to trim off the holiday greeting part and use it as an intro to for his presentation (next week). and yeah, he really liked the guns 'n' roses.

so i spent the last few hours of work rummaging through online music libraries, trying to find something that sounds like "sweet child o' mine", or at least has the same gravitas.

the thing is, that song is iconic for a reason....

everything louder than everything else

2011-11-29T08:28:00.000-06:00

kristin shared this with me on sunday.
it's seriously dang.
so now i'm sharing it.

216 hours

2011-11-28T09:10:00.000-06:00

there are nine days left before everything needs to be turned in for the fall show. that's a lot of coding, printing, designing, animating, editing, and whateverelsing to be done.

bring it.

moorhead

2011-11-27T18:11:00.000-06:00

things i love about being home:

driving my dad's prius
the fridge is always stocked to capacity
cats sleeping on your bed
my dad inevitably finding some excuse to go to best buy within an hour of me getting home
the smiths, where it's ok to be as smart and unique as you want
four actual seasons
trivial pursuit
memories from my life and who i am on every street corner
perkin's
fermopolis, peeps jousting, and my "uncle"
spud's hockey games
my mom's fudge is the best i will ever have
looking out the kitchen window at night
my parents are always happy i'm there

life's a happy song

2011-11-26T20:12:00.001-06:00

the marketing campaign for the new muppet movie was pretty clever. the first trailer i saw made it look like a lame romantic comedy with amy adams and jason segel then the muppets suddenly showed up. brilliant. then they did a trailer called "the pig with the froggy tattoo" that was awesome just because.
but my interest and hope that it would actually be good slowly faded until i didn't even know it came out last weekend.

it's currently at 98% on rottentomatoes and i want to list a few reasons why i thoroughly loved it.

while the script at times stumbles to one side or the other, the story itself is brilliantly self-aware and is fully aware that the muppet show went off the air thirty years ago.
i really can't pick my favorite celebrity cameo, although i think it might be jim parsons. that was awesome. although zach galifianakis as hobo joe...
my other dilemma of which i liked more: the barbershop quartet singing "smells like teen spirit" or the camilla and the chickens performing "cluck you."
the three greatest gifts in the world: 1. children. 2. ice cream. 3. laughter.
"rainbow connection."
all of the jokes about the generational disconnect: "whoopi goldberg! selina gomez! and, i'm sorry, i don't recognize you."
the power to travel by map.
my realization that i'm a muppety man.
the mahna mahna credits.
lastly, i'm pretty sure i had a huge grin on my face when they perfectly re-staged the opening song of the muppet show.

i'm not sure how well it will hold up over time it was the best time i've had in a theater in quite a while.

my dad, who is a muppet purist, and my mom also enjoyed the show.

big things

2011-11-25T19:38:00.001-06:00

the joy of life is found in celebrating the little things.
but sometimes it's found in the big things.
like getting your favorite movie on blu-ray.

he did it again

2011-11-23T11:16:00.000-06:00

a handful of years ago, itunes updated and changed their music layout options. you could display your music as a song list, an album list, a grid list, or a cover flow. at that time, i mostly just listened to playlists of hundreds of my favorite songs and singles and thought the cover flow was a pretty cool-looking way to do that. but the new grid list option laid out all of your music by album and, you moused over an album, displayed the option, "play album."

i hadn't really listened to "an album" since i migrated to itunes and mp3s. i just listened to a large pile of my favorite songs like it was kjef, all jeff, all the time. but now that i was presented with this novel idea of listening to a whole album, i started doing just that. and that got me looking into the great albums of music history. i bought the who, david bowie, the clash, bob dylan, kraftwerk, the talking heads, oingo boingo, and whatever else sounded cultured.
the way i listened to music changed because steve jobs changed how itunes organizes its music.

a few weeks ago, i was whittling a few minutes before my dance class and meandered through the school bookstore. on display near the entrance was the steve jobs biography. i flipped through it, but it was $35 that i couldn't spare (fanny and alexander just came out on blu-ray, after all...) and while i consider myself a literate person, i'm not a big reader.

leaving the store, i pulled out my phone and opened up my kindle app. a cell phone seems too small to be a practical reading option, but i downloaded the app last year because, well, because i could. browsing the online store, amazon had the biography for $15, which still feels like a lot for something i'm downloading onto my phone. but they had a preview i could get for free.

rather than the scrolling function like browsing the web, the pages flipped to the side, a feature that i hadn't thought about but which made reading much more convenient. the book was wonderfully written, the small screen size broke up the text into convenient bite-size chunks and i loved that i wasn't carrying a three-inch thick tome but could just pull out my phone whenever i had a moment. and i seemed to be looking for so many moments that, when i reached the middle of the second chapter where my preview stopped, i took less than a minute to decide that taking a lunch to school each day would justify that $15. i downloaded the book and continued reading in the dark, the pages themselves being the only source of light.

being that my phone is essentially an iphone clone, steve jobs has now gotten me back into reading again.

note: if you're interested in biographies or in apple (i'm of the latter camp) and the book sounds in any way interesting to you, i highly recommend it. i'm pulling out at every chance i get, in the moments between plays at a football game, when i'm waiting the drive-through at layne's, before tithing settlement... it's such a crazy story, i'd say it was too much if it was fiction.

x & y

2011-11-22T10:27:00.000-06:00

looking at my life right now, i am certain that someone loaded it into the projector the wrong way. actually, it feels like a split screen, where one side has been mis-threaded, so that the two images don't line up, but in fact go in the completely opposite direction.

it's astoundingly baffling, actually.

i guess that when things don't work out and you're tired and frustrated and don't want to go on any more, you can either sit down and take what you've got where you're at, or you can just keep going on.

trajan warriors

2011-11-21T09:38:00.000-06:00

as some of you know, i'm kind fascinated by fonts. it's an extremely subtle art that i know only a little about, but i notice it more and more and love learning about it.

i was at the a&m football game against the kansas jayhawks on saturday and really enjoyed it (it also made me a little nostalgic for the days of going to byu games, but that's ok.) a&m killed kansas. the aggies had scored before we'd even gotten to our seats and the jayhawks only got on the board in the last minute of the game. it wasn't just that we played better; they were a mess. there were so many slip-ups and errors that their highlight reel needed to have circus music playing behind it.

amidst this debacle, i couldn't help but notice the font on their uniforms. football is a tough sport. it's all about hitting people and throwing things so other people can hit them instead of you (although you still end up getting hit, too.) at least, that's what i can figure out. i know tailgating fits in there somewhere, too. big guys wear pads so they can look bigger. everything has to look strong and mean, including the numbers on your inform. see exhibit a.

big and blocky, just like their font

and so, in a world of concrete stadiums, end zones, and grid iron, the kansas jayhawks' uniforms stood out to me. behold exhibit b.

the fightin' serifs!

with those serifs and graceful changes in line thickness (don't know the font terminology for that) it's hard to look tough. they look elegant, like the ad campaign for a new lotion, and if they hit you as hard as they could, it would probably leave you feeling cultured, not clobbered.
as the aggies were scoring yet another touchdown, i did some research on my phone while everyone around me was getting to first base. the font is called "trajan" and i actually kind of like it, just not here. even if they hit ctrl+b and tried to bold it, i doubt that would change much.
so, in a world where psychology has a huge influence performance, it seems of little wonder that the final score was 61-6.

and apparently i'm not the only one:

exhibit c.

past, present, and future

2011-11-20T19:14:00.001-06:00

found myself pondering this early this week as i took the morning to sit by a fountain and read.

rafiki: look down there.

simba: that's not my father. that's just my reflection.

rafiki: no, look harder... you see? he lives in you.

mufasa: simba.

simba: father?

mufasa: simba, you have forgotten me.

simba: no. how could i?

mufasa: you have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. look inside yourself, simba. you are more than what you have become. you must take your place in the circle of life.

simba: how can i go back? i'm not who i used to be.

mufasa: remember who you are. you are my son, and the one true king. remember...

yelling

2011-11-19T01:30:00.001-06:00

i had a post that i was going to write tonight but (the other) kristin was in town and she took me to my first midnight yell.

maybe i'll post that post some other time. or maybe i'll post something else instead.

hurts like heaven

2011-11-18T22:39:00.000-06:00

dear girl,

here are some reasons i wish you were here:

+ i work in a really elegant building. tall stone columns on the outside, an open hall and grand stairway inside, it's the perfect place to to host a masquerade ball. i could meet you at the stairs when i get off work and we could descend them like we were royalty.

+ my friend and i are making a really interesting set of movies right now. like, i'm really excited about this project. when we're working in the studio late at night, when i'm adjusting the lights, i wish you could be there with us. the creative energy is invigorating and i want to share it.

+ i stopped and got layne's chicken tonight. i would have bought one for you, too, if you were in the passenger seat.

+ i'm going to the football game tomorrow. we get to kiss every time a&m scores a touchdown.

+ rock climbing is a blast. i think you should come with me.

+ i think i'd be more effective with my time at school if i knew i got to see you at the end of the day.

+ besides, it's almost Christmas time, so we'd have all of that magic to share together... ; )

paul writes that he has fought the good fight and there is a crown laid up for him. but not just for him but for all who are valiant, because heaven by yourself would be pretty dull. i've said it before and i'll say it again: the times when i most wish you were in my life is when things are good.

at the end of the day, i'd like to look in the mirror and see you flossing next to me.

wherever you are,
i wish you were here,
i love you,

-->jeff *

wednesday, nov. 16, 2011

2011-11-16T23:33:00.000-06:00

i think everything in
life is art

i got four hours of sleep last night.
and the night before.
my artwork generated some lively discussion between the two critiquing professors.
i hadn't done nearly as much animating as i should have finished by now. i'm very disappointed in myself.
work was a sanctuary from school and they're happy with the "holiday" video and it's just about finished.
i hadn't eaten anything but a cinnamon roll today.
i decided to go to institute for the first time this semester rather than go home and eat.
words of mormon 1:7 is one of my new favorite scriptures.
i put in two very effective hours in the back room of the lab. working like feels like eating vegetables; it's refreshing.
i made a warm dinner. did two loads of laundry, got to sit down for a moment, and i've got a few minutes to read before i'm going to bed.

today is a reminder for me not to give up.

and there are some rather perplexing parallels in my life right now.

post script: the new "brave" trailer is introduced as being "from the studio that brought you finding nemo, wall-e, and up." those associations are very encouraging.

above the trees

2011-11-13T23:49:00.001-06:00

o fates! who hold the threads of life,

i can look up and see the great cogs turning, the gears moving into motion. i can see the tumblers of time shifting. and all i can think is to quote mrs. fox:

if what i think is happening, is happening, it better not be.

i know you know me. and my quirks and all that. so, i'm trying to figure out what's going on. i mean, i trust you. at least, i do as long as you know me. i'm really hoping there's some surprise or a twist or something more that i'm not seeing. because, in a way, it almost feels like you're trying to teach me a lesson. but i already know that lesson. trust me.

i guess i'll do what i can and trust you.

mortally yours,

-->jeff *

november rain

2011-11-12T23:25:00.000-06:00

i spent the majority of my day working on some hdr photography, the one assignment for my programming class that doesn't actually require programming.
when i unexpectedly had a few hours free at the end, i decided to head out and try the technique with the carnival that had once again taken up residence across from my old apartment.
i rather love carnivals and got invited to go on tuesday but couldn't afford the time away from school and you can't go with just anyone, anyway.

the shots didn't turn out as cool as i was hoping, but i still like them.

hdr stands for "high dynamic range" and the basic concept is that you take several photograph of varied exposure, so that you've captured detail in everything from the deepest shadows to the brightest highlights. in the two shots above, i took five shots of each. then you process them all together into one image that has a tone of information in it. from there, you can tweak and play with it as you like.

jess and i did a handful in downtown bryan a few nights ago. i think this image consisted of ten different exposures. it was my last set i processed, so i decided to throw caution out the window and really crank the levels (i would have gone to 11 if it had been an option.)
as usually happens when i do anything with reckless abandon, it's my favorite.

1023

2011-11-11T23:11:00.000-06:00

yeah, i posted this on facebook, but it always makes me smile and you don't get many days on the calendar like this.

name that tune

2011-11-10T23:41:00.000-06:00

i picked up an album by the black keys from this month's round of $5 albums off amazon's mp3 store (they've also got she+him's Christmas album....) i'd heard of them and knew they were supposedly cool but that was about it. from my brief listen, they remind me a lot of the white stripes. certainly worth $5, anyway. so, there you go.

anyway, i was listening at work a few days ago and a one of their songs really reminded me of another song, but i couldn't think of what it was. i knew it was a song i had heard recently, but i couldn't place where. i could vaguely recall just enough of the song to know i wasn't imaging it and i knew it was a live recording with audience in the background. it was a sort of jam session, where the band would play a groove and there was a really great guitar that would finish to the applause of the crowd. it sounded like an older song, and since i'd been buying mostly new music recently, i was afraid i'd heard it on the oldies station here, which meant i probably wasn't going to stumble across it anytime soon (at least, i was pretty sure it wasn't coldplay....) it stuck with me through the week, barely expanding to anything more than a few muddled bars, but enough for me to know that i had heard it. the best i could think of was that it kind of sounded like this, but i hadn't heard that song in years. it was like having a piece of food stuck in my teeth that i just couldn't get out. thankfully, no one could see into my ear canal, this stray music wedged in there.

so tonight jess and i were heading to downtown bryan to shoot some hdr photography for our programming class (mutually agreed as the best assignment in the class since it doesn't actually involve programming--more on that later) i was listening to the oldies station, since i figured she didn't want to listen to my general conference cds and, despite what the classic rock stations seem to think, i like things other than pink floyd.
we were somewhere between here or these when "seasons of love" came on by the zombies.

and that's when i realized.

no, the song stuck in my head wasn't "seasons of love", but it was a track off of that same album, which i had been listening to for a few days a week or two earlier. i didn't know the name of the song, but i knew that was where it came from. it was like finally scratching the itch.

for the record, the song is "she loves the way they love her." it's the best song on a solid album that you should be listening to anyway. i've listened to it five or six times this evening.

sense and sensibility

2011-11-07T08:25:00.000-06:00

my sister...

i feel like i'm standing on the edge.

for most of the big decisions of my life, i've chose safety, reason, and wisdom. and that's great, but i want to shift a little.
i'm not trying to change who i am.
not at all.
i think i'm bloody awesome (pardon, leithal).
but i feel like a photograph that just needs some color correction. i want to shift the mid tones, tweak the highlights, touch up the shadows, adjust the color temp, and see what i can do in the curves editor. to bring out the information that's really in the image.

sometimes i really wish i could turn my brain down to medium low and just live without thinking so much.
or else utilize my whole brain, like that guy in that movie "powder."

we are all in this together

2011-11-06T21:04:00.001-06:00

sitting in the chapel tonight and listening to president packer speak at the fireside, i looked around the room. he was talking about how there is nothing we have done of which we can't be fully forgiven, and that we can change who we are and become a better person. i wondered about all of the people sitting around me, wondering what trials, challenges, burdens, and hurt they are dealing with. i haven't a clue what they might be, but i bet that 90% of them are heavier than what i carry.

knowing that you know

2011-11-04T23:17:00.005-05:00

i don't know much about a lot.
but there are a few things.

and i'm just going to say that i know i wasn't wrong.
i knew it then and i know it now.

it's been a good day.
goodnight.

script writer

2011-11-01T21:47:00.001-05:00

thanks, former 786

INT - Night - TEXAS A&M VIZ LAB

FADE IN

The lab is full of partial to fully crazy graduate students, brilliant minds who will soon be at the best animation studios on the world.  Some are working on programming assignments or animation projects, some are sharing the latest internet meme videos, and some are even laughing.  Occasionally, a wacko is riding around a on razor scooter.  In the far corner with his group of friends sits our hero, JEFF (32).  Ruggedly handsome in a pair of stylish jeans and casual brown shirt, a pair of headphones emerge from his tousled locks of flowing hair.  His striking eyes are focused as he animates.  Empty Coke cans populate his work station.

JEFF

(to himself)

I wonder what it'd take to get a
script written to select and key
all of the controls all at once?

He begins to write an email to his group, suggesting the idea.

He stops.

JEFF

That doesn't seem too tricky. 
I wonder if we could just do it?

Acknowledging that he still can't write a line of code to save his life, our hero discusses the idea with a team mate.  He soon realizes that, using the program script from the summer, he could probably adapt it himself.

Jeff returns back to his work area, thinks for a moment, then taps BRANDON (23) on the shoulder.  A well of knowledge on just about everything cool, Brandon explains how to write and save a script and where everything fits in the pipeline of it all.

Determined, Jeff goes back to his animation software and opens the script editor.  After studying how the commands are processed, he begins to write his own script.  He checks the correct names against the rig's controls.

He runs the script.

It works.

JEFF

It works.  This is awesome. 
I did it.  I am awesome.  

He grins to himself and feels a sense of accomplishment not felt since this morning on the climbing wall.  He considers running up and down the rows, handing out high fives and hugs, but opts not to brag, to instead humbly keep this to himself.

JEFF

I still need to blog about
how awesome "quiet company" is. 
That's pretty much all I've
been listening to lately. 
Bah, I'll get to that later. 
Tonight is animation time.

Our dashing hero continues to work for a few more hours.  On his way home he hops in his convertible, grabs a box of chicken from layne's and enjoys his dinner with an endorphin boost from arrested development.

FADE OUT.

my friend the auror

2011-10-31T21:45:00.001-05:00

i hadn't given much thought to what to be for halloween (y'know, grad school and all....) but a friend at church suggested i go as harry potter, which sounded easy enough for me. i've already got the glasses and the scarf, although i decided i'd try to follow the look from the fourth movie, since his hair was longer then.
by the stream behind the institute building i found a branch that i fashioned into an excellent wand and, after raiding my roommate's closet for a maroon and gold tie, i was more or less set.

drawing that scar was trickier than it should have been, and when cassidy pointed out it was on the wrong side i confidently denied such while thinking in my head, "dang it, she's right...."

meanwhile, a half dozen states away, kristin was making herself into a really incredible tonks.

this just amazed me.
seriously dang awesome.
but she wanted the picture to feel a little less... "kitcheny", as she put it. i had to agree, it had a definite muggle feel about it...
so i sent her a few suggestions on how to improve it, along with a few examples.
after some back and forth critiquing, she produced this:

yeah. that's my friend.

another brick in the wall

2011-10-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

we were going in to visit the ginkaku-ji in kyoto one morning when renee and i were in the middle of a conversation. we had been in the mtc together, where i knew only her last name and that she had beautiful eyes, and now we were recently off our missions and together again, this time on a study abroad. i quite fancied her and was doing what i could to get to know her better. i asked her about her testimony, when she came to know that the Gospel is true. i don't remember her answer (i think she had one or two moments that she cited), but she then asked me.

for me, there never was a time growing up where i "came to know." in a way, i've kind of always known, but that's not a wholly accurate way to put it. rather, as i described it to her, there isn't one central event for me, but a whole collection of moments and feelings that, together, build the wall that is my testimony. and it continues to grow. each quiet, affirming moment where something whispers that this is true, moments during my weekend when i slow down and something softly chimes inside of me that God is with me, events that come together and things that work out; they are all bricks in my testimony. also, while it may seem contrary to the personal nature of a testimony and knowing for yourself, the logic, facts, and strengths of my friends become additional bricks.

while i don't have one defining moment like many people have, i have some stones my wall that are larger and heavier than others, ones that i can lean on when others aren't as stable. and that has proven to be an interesting part of this structure: if something get shaken and seems to fall off for whatever reason, i've got plenty more to hold onto. like in rock climbing, if the hold you have isn't one you can easily grab onto (a credit card crimp or a big sloper, for example), there's enough alternatives to find something to grab and hold onto.

in related rock climbing news, i conquered that one route on saturday. : )

twofer tuesday

2011-10-25T18:00:00.001-05:00

climbed two new routes in class today.
danced with the cute girl in class twice.
accidentally bought two copies of coldplay's new album. digital downloads are a little hard to return....
got two tickets for the department's sneak preview of "puss 'n' boots" tomorrow night.
and i'm tempted to get two boxes of layne's chicken, just to keep things up, but that's probably too much...

so you want to be an r.e.m. fan

2011-10-24T09:09:00.001-05:00

seventh row...

a few weeks ago, r.e.m. announced that they were breaking up, news that came as a surprise to me with some sadness but acknowledgement that it was time (i also took it as an omen that my and kristin's friendship was secure--ask me later.) they had quite a career, often being credited with pioneering the "alternative" music genre and one of my fellow r.e.m. fans once suggested that they were the greatest american rock band (which, after i realized that all of my immediate objective suggestions were all not from the u.s., i realized was a possible claim).

they rode mainstream success and were praised by their peers for maintaining their identity and individuality. with minor exceptions, they avoided the tumultuous tabloid lifestyles of being rock and roll stars. they inspired a new generation of artists, including the arguably two most influential bands of the nineties, nirvana and radiohead. today, their legacy can still be heard, most clearly in the decembrist's excellent the king is dead (literally: r.e.m. guitarist peter buck plays on two tracks)

i've been a fan of their since the early nineties, when they were the biggest band in the world and i needed something cooler than they might be giants to listen to (i was in junior high.) since then, i have collected every album of theirs. according to itunes, that amounts to 47 albums and 296 songs, many of which are rarities, b-sides, and infamous Christmas singles.

so, they've finished their career and you're* wondering where to start in discovering the wealth of music they created. a few years ago in a darkroom, i realized that r.e.m.'s career could be rather cleanly divided into pre-popular, popular, and post-popular eras. at one time or another, i think every album of theirs has been my favorite. follow me:

::pre-popular::

murmur -1983
their full-length debut album (the five-song chronic town was their first release), this is often cited as one of the defining albums of the independent rock movement. to me, its most noteworthy feature is simply that it's the start of it all. "radio free europe", which opens the album, is the most well-known song on here and was a staple of college radio way back when.

song to buy off itunes: "shaking through"

reckoning -1984
this continues where murmur left off. jangling guitars and incomprehensible lyrics carried on, and "south central rain" can still be heard on quality alternative radio stations today.

song to buy off itunes: "(don't go back to) rockville," one of their best that was still played in concerts two decades later.

fables of the reconstruction -1985
this is where the golden age of r.e.m. starts, according to some purists. the album carries some classic gems, such as "driver 8" and "life and how to live it." their indefinable sound continued to evolve, with cryptic lyrics and a sound that was more organic than the 80s new wave happening around it.

song to buy off itunes: "wendell gee"

life's rich pageant -1986
this is the album that hipsters wanting to discover classic r.e.m. own. 101.9 would often play "superman", the closing highlight here, but it's solid from the start. "cuyahoga" begins to show their political initiative, while "i believe" contains the typical southern energy of early r.e.m.

song to buy off itunes: "fall on me." it's just the best.

::popular::

document -1987
new label, new sound. things are clearer, you can understand more of michael stipes lyrics, and they're rocking out a little more. "strange" is just loud and fun, while "exhuming mccarthy" continues their activism against a republican government. and good eats host alton brown worked as the cinematographer on "the one i love" possible the most mistaken love song of the era.

song to buy off itunes: "exhuming mccarthy," because, if you're reading this, you already own "it's the end of the world as we know it."

green -1988
after this, they toured the world for nearly a year. they were big and getting bigger. "orange crush" continued to rock against political agenda, the eponymous orange a reference to agent orange, the chemical used in the vietnam war. there was space for more fun, too, with "pop song 89" and nostalgic relaxation in "you are the everything."

song to buy off itunes: "stand." yes, it's the most famous song off of here, but that doesn't mean it can't be the best, too.

out of time -1991
worn out from a year of play around the world, they slowed things down, went acoustic and even brought in a mandolin. this produced "losing my religion", one of their biggest and most enduring hits, an iconic song, artistic music video, and atypical radio hit. "half a world away" ranks among their best bittersweet love songs, one that should be in every romantic's playlist. and, of course, there's "shiny happy people", which is has been described by the band as either irony or (apparently embarrassed) straight-ahead fun bubble-gum pop. but it did give us this. if that doesn't make you smile, you have no soul.

song to buy off itunes: "texarkana"(provided you don't have the above listed songs already)

automatic for the people -1992
if you own just one r.e.m. album, it's this one. if you can only name one r.e.m. song besides "losing my religion", it's likely from this album. they now ruled the music world. critics, fans, the general public, and even the band usually concur that this is their best album. "everybody hurts" won video of the year (offending the beastie boys by beating "sabotage"), "the sidewinder sleeps tonight" makes no lyrical sense whatsoever but is so much fun, and "man on the moon" is the quintessential r.e.m. song. the album carried a big emotional range, moving around between political, upbeat, somber, melancholy, rock, and peaceful. it's all here.

song to buy off itunes: anything. something you don't have already: "nightswimming" or "find the river."

monster -1994
they had done two largely acoustic records. it's great stuff but they needed something to tour with, now that they were selling out stadiums. so they wrote monster. i've seen interviews on vh1 where people talk about the first time they heard a particular song. i still remember the first time i heard "what's the frequency, kenneth?" on the radio; in my room one night as freshman in high school, i just stood there in amazement, loving that guitar and the fuzzed energy of it all. it's r.e.m. trying the grunge sound, but there are still plenty of solid songs on here.

song to buy off itunes: "strange currencies." one of their best love songs.

::post-popular::

new adventures in hi-fi -1996
this is the album where the crowd began to leave. after monster, they signed an $80 million contract with warner brothers, the biggest in the company's history. with all due respect to r.e.m., that was a bad move for warner brothers. from here on out, any album single was played on the radio for only a few weeks after it's release and the only people buying these albums are the ones who own all the r.e.m. albums.
which is a shame, because it's great music. it was best described to me as music to get on I-80 and head west (from utah.) "leave" rocks with the loud emptiness of wanting to escape from everything, while "electrolyte" is their most melodic closing since "find the river."

song to buy off itunes: "electrolyte" or "leave"

up -1998
drummer bill berry suffered a brain aneurism on the monster tour and, after the band assured him they would carry on, left the rock and roll lifestyle to be a farmer back home in georgia. their sound became a little more electronic, apparently taking inspiration from radiohead's work at the time. the album is introspective, carrying beautiful songs like "why not smile" next to the usual indecipherable "hope" (one of my all-time favorite r.e.m. songs.)

song to buy off itunes: "at my most beautiful"

reveal -2001
they're really slowing the tempo down here. the album has been compared to brian wilson's "pet sounds", which is apt. at any rate, it's best listened to on a rainy day. it's probably the album i listen to least, although it's not without its merits. "all the way to reno" is unfortunately forgettable, but "imitation of life" is classic r.e.m. (and one of the most creative videos not produced by michel gondry.) it's interesting how not having a drummer changes things up so much.

song to buy off itunes: "imitation of life"

around the sun -2004
pretty much universally agreed as the weakest r.e.m. album, and that includes the band's vote. they've said it's a political album, and certainly songs like "the final straw" are. but if r.e.m. ever made a breakup album, this is it. and it's a great one. it's not a raging one, but a brooding, contemplative one. "leaving new york" is a solid song, but i knew i'd never again hear on the radio a month after its release.

song to buy off itunes: "aftermath" if you need to get over a breakup. otherwise, buy a second song from another album.

accelerate -2008
they're trying too hard, but at least they're rocking again. trying to show that they aren't old and boring like "around the sun" was, every song is fast and electric. that's pretty much it. it's all good and fine, but all the songs sound like "supernatural superserious", their one strong single on here.

song to buy off itunes: "supernatural superserious"

collapse into now -2011
ok, i'll be honest; this is the first r.e.m. album since the mid-90s that i didn't pick up on day one. i just was expecting much and was hoping to get a digital download on sale off amazon a few weeks later. but after hearing good things from trusted r.e.m. fan, i bought it. and yeah, it was great. the best thing they've done since... the mid-90s. after trying way too hard on accelerate, this is what r.e.m. sounds like. introspective, melodic, soaring backup vocals, some good rockers; it's all here. and it was the best note they were going to end on and they knew it.

song to buy off itunes: "alligator_aviator_autopilot_antimatter"

some other gems of theirs that aren't on their official studio albums include:

"the lion sleeps tonight", a cover on the b-side of, obviously, "the sidewinder sleeps tonight." simply beautiful, if i've ever made you a cd, there's a change this is on there.
"bad day", released only as a single around 2004, it's essentially an alternate version of "it's the end of the world as we know it."
"wall of death", a great extra on the "e-bow the letter" single from 1996.
"yellow river", a b-side of "all the way to reno" and soaring, jangling guitars with lead vocal by mike mills (because if you've read this far, you actually care about that).
"silver bells." every year, they send out a Christmas single to everyone in their fan club. these are impossible to find otherwise. usually they're slightly sarcastic or really goofy (if you heard "silver bells" on the Christmas cd i made a few years ago, you also heard "Christmas griping." yeah...)

hopefully, that'll give you somewhere to start.

stay tuned for the next one whenever they might be giants decide to split.

(*i fully acknowledge that no one save one or two readers here are actually interested in delving through this. rather, this is a post for me. thank you for bearing with me.)

it's not too late

2011-10-22T23:52:00.000-05:00

stuck to the hutch of my desk, i have a few treasured things: two pictures of me with friends, two printing-press-printed cards, a photograph of some ducks from the 1950s, and two 3x5 cards with a simple phrase sharpied on them. one of those cards reads:

it's not too late

i wrote that in the fall of 2008. i had spent some time trying to figure out what direction to take my life and had been bothered by this quandary for quite a while. then i saw wall-e. i feel in love with it and, after a few more showings, was thinking that, if i could do it all over again, i'd've been an animation major so that i could be working at pixar or something.

then i realized: yes, i was 29, not 22, but how many people would love to be 29 again and make different choices? i grabbed a nearby note card and wrote myself a reminder: it's not too late.
a few years later, i'm at one of the best grad schools for computer animation.

today i was thinking about that card and about how i'm learning other things that i wish i would have learned ten years ago. and it can be frustrating. i'd like to go back and do some things differently and not miss out on some opportunities. to try some different choices. and put into practice what i've learned. and that's the hard fact of life, that we can't go back and redo something. but the other side of that coin is that, with few exceptions, it's not too late to make those changes.

i thought about that a bit more as i searched for a picture for this: wall-e is modular. if one part of him gets broken, his optics, wheel gears, or whatever can be replaced. interchangeable parts: marvelous. but that one circuit board within him is what makes him him.
just some thoughts.

dark globe

2011-10-21T01:06:00.000-05:00

photo by donnie ray jones

i spent a good portion of my evening walking around campus. during the day, it's a rather bland complex of blocky, beige sandstone buildings. but at night, and if you know the right places to go, i've decided that there are some rather beautiful and romantic spots around here. there the big stone steps and towering columns of the building that i work in, where you can look out over the courtyard that welcomes people to a&m, with orange street lamps lighting the tree-lined paths. or there's the low-lit alumni building with its benches and the neighboring park. and next to it is a large bubbling fountain, glowing late at night.

as i leaned against the stone steps of the administration building and looked up at the stars, i thought of how, wherever she is, she's under those same stars.

an open letter to the universe

2011-10-20T10:36:00.000-05:00

dear expanse::

so... what happened? i was poised and ready to face the disaster that was supposed to be yesterday. the night before i had about two and a half hours of sleep, having been up all night working on homework, going to bed with much of it still less finished than i wanted, and the one assignment that i did complete was done only by plowing it through it at a reckless pace, keeping my sights focused only on sleep.

i was expecting a nightmare of a day.

instead, i got to class (relatively) on time. the finished homework was favorably received by an otherwise somewhat irritable teacher. the lump of partially finished work turned out to be good enough for what was needed. i managed to remain acceptably coherent throughout my time at school. meetings went well. i was productive at work.

i even managed to be home by 7:00 and spent the evening doing things pertaining to my life outside of the viz lab that have needed my attention for a long time.

it was even cold enough today that i could legitimately wear a hoodie and enjoy it. that was very kind of you.

now, yes, the line for that cinnamon roll i wanted this morning was long enough to look like a new harry potter book was about to be released. that was a disappointment. yes, i found out the showing of world on a wire has somehow been cancelled from austin this weekend. also a disappointment.

but, overall, universe, you showed admirable restraint today.

and, um, thank you.

cordially,

-->jeff *

memento mori

2011-10-19T03:44:00.003-05:00

couldn't think of any picture to use
for this post, so here's some gnarly
chicken i saw at a state fair once

i had a brief visit with my bishop this evening. nothing serious or heavy; he just wanted to see how i was doing. he noted that "little things are little things, but, done faithfully, they become pivotal choices." (or something like that) then i got in my car and ac/dc was on the radio. as i was singing loudly to "she shook me all night long" i wondered if i was trying to play both sides of the fence, trying to serve two masters here. but it was a two-for-tuesday and "thunderstruck" followed. i turned it up even louder.

i can't understand how i can be at school for 15 hours a day and still be behind in all of my classes. and i've only got three classes. well, five, but i'm doing ok in rock climbing and country dance. my polka test didn't go as well as my waltz test, but still.

i've thought about how so many of us work so hard and never let ourselves be good enough when i'm not even sure who we're trying to impress. i think that might be related to what i just said above. the "at school for 15 hours a day" sounds like i'm trying to be the best, but being "behind in all of my classes" seems to suggest that i'm not worried about impressing anyone. a man of contradictions, i.

we had a movie night last friday. we watched "the shining" (hence the post) and while one of the scariest movies ever made scared no one even just a little, it felt great to get up in front of everyone and introduce a movie again. we talked afterwards. some girls stayed late and i taught them how to waltz.

next movie night: "a hard day's night."

i managed to dodge a few bullets on monday in terms of homework and its unfinishedness. but those classes are coming up again tomorrow. i miss sleeping, writing, and seeing people.

my bosses at work today told me, "we weren't expecting you to be such an excellent writer when we hired you."

in research for our animation project, me and a friend watched an amazing movie following residents in an retirement home. we got plenty of notes about how the elderly move and react but it also caused me to think about a lot of much bigger questions.

uncharacteristically, the library didn't have the movie but it was available on hulu plus and .edu email addresses get you a week's free membership. that means i have a wealth of criterion movies and arrested development episodes on demand. if i had any free time, it would be filled up with that.

i'm loving that the highs are out of the 80s for the week.

in provo, i ate in-n-out as often as i could justify. here, it's layne's chicken. $5 for a box of chicken. and it's right across the street from school. best thing ever.

feelin' fine

2011-10-14T14:37:00.002-05:00

all work and no play makes jeff a dull boy.
all work and no play makes jeff a dull boy.
all work and no play makes jeff a dull boy.
all work and no play makes jeff a dull boy.

all work and no play makes jeff a dull boy.

all work and no play makes jeff something something...

gingers have no soul

2011-10-11T23:42:00.000-05:00

my rock climbing class may very well be what's keeping me sane this semester.
my schedule is such that i have viz classes only on monday and wednesday, which sounds like a bit of a dream (and it might be, except that work fills in all of the gaps pretty well.) the catch to that is that that means i have three masters class's worth of work due all on the same day. and so monday deadlines chew up my weekends pretty well and mondays still come too fast.

as a result, i'm usually already fighting the universe by monday afternoon (current score: jeff: 5,382,908,238, universe: 873,256,072. yes, i'm winning by a lot, but it takes effort) and tuesday mornings find me tired and lethargic (at best.)
but endorphins are awesome and at 10 a.m., i'm in the rec, lacing up my climbing shoes and learning more about footwork or how to tie a new knot.

out climbing with jess (different jess) on saturday, i found my new favorite route. named "gingers have no soul", it's a 5.8, which is about my skill level right now. but it's a dang lot of fun. it's on the main wall, which has a special surface to make it feel more like granite, so that's cool. and about a third the way it has a significant overhang, which allows for some underarm gripping and, i'll be honest, is a real bugger to get over. that took me two tries on saturday but it was my last climb, so i was mostly spent.
this morning i attacked it with all i could (after conquering another route i couldn't get on saturday) and made it further than i did before but have yet to get it. still, i love it.
and now i have a goal.
next week....

two number twos

2011-10-10T03:01:00.000-05:00

it's actually been a really good weekend.

with all of the unanswered questions in my life and things i'd like different, one thing i cannot deny nor ever be adequately grateful is that i have some of the best friends anyone could ever have. people who know me inside and out, who have seen me at my best and at my worst, and who, most importantly, trust me enough to tell me their honest opinions and not just what i want to hear.

thing 1 and thing 2, thank you.

you are the bests.

i know you know.

the burden of debt

2011-10-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

"time is money," we often hear. usually it's from some uptight lamer that you want to kick. but working on film sets, i sometimes thought about that. a lot of being on a set is spent waiting around. and every person there is being paid, so the longer you take to light the scene or waiting for the picture cow to show up even though you're filming on a dairy farm, the more money it's all costing you.

great. that's probably something you learn in your first week of undergrad business management classes.

but if we can be in debt with money, it seems we can also be in debt with time.
in fact, i'm pretty sure we can, because i'm pretty sure i am. i came home on friday night in hopes to grab some food before heading back to the battlefields against my green-screen compositing program. the house was full of roommates and friends, gathered around eating pizza and watching the byu football game. i would have loved to join them but had no time. i had this assignment (which was already late) and enough work to do for my two other classes that i knew i would have another busy weekend.

financial debt constricts us so that we can't buy what we want, that the money we earn immediately goes to paying off debt and we are still left with little or nothing at all. it seems that the same can happen with time; that we can have so much to do that days off and weekends are immediately negated by the need to get caught up in everything else. this is a little frustrating, since i don't remember ever having been particularly careless with my time. i don't have any time-credit cards that i maxed out, yet the collection agencies seem to be hounding me just the same.

i'm hoping to improve this. because i would like to spend time with my roommates (they seem like nice people...) and to get to know the girls who are often hanging out with them.

at any rate, this has made me more appreciative for the sabbath day. my friends at school can't understand how i'm even getting by in school when i don't do any work on sunday. without this day off, where i don't even think about homework, i wouldn't be surviving at all.

virtual reality

2011-10-08T13:57:00.001-05:00

while this phenomenon is nothing new, it's something i've been seeing again recently in my life.

something happens when you're talking with someone "online." the effect happens just the same through texting, but i've been noticing this through more old-fashioned modes such as instant messaging and e-mail: it's so much easier to talk with someone online than in real life.

in three very different situations, i've found myself talking closely with people that, in real life, i don't talk with, wouldn't talk with, or can't with.

and it's not me. i'd be just as comfortable talking face to face as through a keyboard.

it's them. these introverted or gruff people have been the ones who have been much more conversant than i would ever expected.

why is it? is it just easier to write than to talk? does it remove a lot of the social cues and nuances of personal communication, allowing us to fill in those gaps as we'd like to imagine the person, even though we may know them rather well, just smoothing over minor imperfections?

i don't really feel like going into the psycho-socio-implications of this, because that feels like homework for my mfa class (or maybe it just feels like one of those long posts that never turns out as profound as i imagine it being). at any rate, i just think it's interesting.

q & a

2011-10-07T11:51:00.004-05:00

i took a class on the first half of the doctrine and covenants at byu many years ago (i took one on the second half, too, but i think i mentioned that earlier this week) and really liked my teacher. one thing i remember him saying was that when you're engaged to someone, that should be interview time; a time to ask the big questions and the hard questions and the scary questions.

that sounded like good advice and i liked it. but one thing that i thought about was that that's kind of scary. you don't want to be looking forward to marrying the person and then uncover things that would destroy it.
now, as i'm writing that i can see that, actually, yes, that's pretty much is what you do want to do. if there is something that would jeopardize you relationship, you'd want to know about it now, rather than getting surprised once you've made the commitments to each other and to the Lord.

but i was thinking about it this summer and saw it in a different light as well. this interview time isn't just to find anything that might not make it work, but to research to know what you're getting yourself into so that you can make it work. people aren't perfect. maybe there are mistakes, maybe there are just differences in ways of approaching or thinking about things. when you love someone, you're hopefully willing to look past their shortcomings and faults, so it most likely isn't to find reasons not to be together, but to learn how to stay together.
if you're planning a trip to istanbul (someday...) you'd look up all that you can about the customs, the culture, the past, so that you know what to prepare for, what to expect, and how best to fit in. that way, you'll enjoy the trip much more than if you just went over there and soon found yourself wishing you'd brought an adapter for your ipod and a jacket instead of shorts.

getting to know a person and asking questions isn't looking for reasons to break it, but rather learning how to adapt, to fit, and to make it work and really awesome.

editor's post-script: this is another one of those posts that didn't come out quite as clearly and succinctly as we'd played it out in our heads. such is life in a fallen world.

apple pie

2011-10-06T10:09:00.003-05:00

the first computer i remember using was an apple IIgs.
i was in fourth grade.

now, i'm typing this on a mac mini.

i'm listening to itunes.

i carry my ipod with me everywhere.

podcasts are my main use for it.

my phone exists only because of the iphone.

i never got to be a part of beatle mania

but i got to experience the harry potter phenomenon.

i feel equally lucky to have been around

as steve jobs changed the world.

24

2011-10-05T04:43:00.001-05:00

when i was a kid, i once asked my dad if he thought the newspaper would do a story on me if i stayed awake for 24 hours straight. he smiled and said probably not, that people do it all the time, especially in college. (i was going to make a comment about the fargo forum having such mild news to cover that they might actually do the story, but it's actually still my favorite newspaper of anywhere i've ever lived, so i'm not going to do that)

i don't have any specific recollection of doing that in college (not even from film shoots, and certainly not from studying), although it happened a handful of times during my career as a camera guy (still kind of strange to have that not be my life anymore) and has certainly happened in graduate school. and tonight it seems that i will be having my inaugural all-nighter of the semester.

i was about to list all that i have done today to show how incredibly hard-working i am, but reason came to me and i remembered that my blog readership includes a couple of very dedicated artists and numerous mothers of young children, all of whom work much harder on much less sleep than i do.

so i'm going to try to crank out some glitching animation and maybe sneak in an hour or two of sleep before class.

the hand that feeds

2011-10-04T10:26:00.007-05:00

last wednesday i was really frustrated for a lot of reasons.
as soon as we were released from class that morning, i asked my friend if the rec center had a punching bag.
"need to release some stress?" he smiled.
i stammered, trying to think of a clever answer.
"yes," i admitted.
"yeah, i think they do."

i left the viz lab in an attempt to just wander around campus, since i felt a little sheepish about using a punching bag (specifically, not knowing how to use one and the fear of coming off looking silly.) yet i somehow ended up at the rec center and asked the girl at the front desk if they had one. she directed me to the second floor and, thankfully, there was no one else using it.

i didn't have the song i wanted on my ipod but streamed it on my phone (welcome to the future) and hit it.
it felt good.
i did it again and again.
it felt better and better.

actually, my thumb hurt and i wasn't sure on the proper way to make a fist (do i tuck my thumb inside my fingers? that seemed to work), but i pounded the bag and loved it.

after four songs my wrists really hurt and my knuckles were a little bloody, but i felt wonderful. i left the rec understanding why people wrap their hands in tape before hitting the bag.

back in the lab, i looked up punching bag techniques online (it's called a "heavy bag," fyi) and learned that i should have been using hand wraps and gloves. that sounded a lot more comfortable and after a little more research that evening, bought me some of each. because not only is it a good workout, it feels great, and this is the first time i've ever found myself wanting to get back into the gym....

yesterday i tried out my new wraps and gloves. granted, listening to general conference on the way to the rec didn't quite get me in the mood, but i'd made myself a "heavy bag" playlist and used the workout that was provided with my gloves. in 20 minutes i was done with the exercises and savoring the endorphins.
when i was back at the rec later that evening for dance practice : ) i saw a guy pummeling the bag without any gloves. to each his own, i guess.
i like this.

for the strength of ysa

2011-10-03T09:19:00.002-05:00

dating is awesome.
no, wait....

dating rots.
no, not exactly....

trying to find someone to share your life with a heck of a lot of work for many of us. but life is better with company.
and in the lds culture, marriage is an important and desired goal. while there are apparently some out there who are shirking marriage and enjoying the single life (it's got plenty of perks), it seems that for me and a lot of my friends, it's too easy too think about getting married almost immediately after you begin dating someone. do i want to be with this person forever? what about this? what about that? what if this happens? i barely know them! waaaaah!!
and lo, one freaks out the other.

there are some exceptions to this: i was out with some friends once and dropped a girl off around 11 p.m. to meet a guy for a blind date; they spent the whole next day together and were engaged the following morning. i think they're about to celebrate their one year anniversary.
i have another friend who, from the day he met his wife, had never spent a day apart from her for the first few years of their marriage.

but for most of us, you meet someone, craziness happens to one degree or another, and if you think she's awesome and she thinks you're awesome, maybe you can be celestial rock stars and rule the world in awesomeness.
....provided you don't freak out by thinking about it all too much and too soon.

during our teenage years, we have a little pamphlet called "for the strength of youth" that gives guidelines on everything from dress and appearance to music to dating (and, if you're a spiritual overachiever, you still carry one with you.... hi.) in recently talking with a friend who was concerned that she might be "pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing," (i like that phrase) i suggested, what if the church leaders told us we couldn't even think about getting married until after we'd been dating someone for four months? take time to get to know the person, let them disappoint you and hurt you, let them surprise you and sweep you off your feet. enjoy just dating them and savor the moment. the roots are growing down below, even if you can't see them.

marriage is awesome. but so is dating. ...when you've got someone to enjoy it with.
life moves pretty fast. you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

spiritual 'jeopardy'

2011-10-02T02:18:00.000-05:00

it's 1:56 a.m. i just got home from school after being there for more than 12 hours today. i'm tired and starving and annoyed that tonight is the first time that i can ever remember not attending the priesthood session of conference. my desk is cluttered with mail that needs attention, i have a week's worth of homework due on monday that i have not yet touched, and i'm eating a bowl of steamed vegetables in penance for many days of malnutrition.

i did get to see more of conference than i originally expected. had i my act together, i could have seen more, but i'm trying to repent and be better in many ways. and the few talks and portions of talks that i did see were incredible. already i have two or three that seem have been the talks that were given just for me. i'm very excited to listen to them on my ipod next week, as well as the talks i have missed, and to read and study them in next month's ensign.

as i said, i have brought two questions to conference this time. and today as i was pondering about what i'd heard and what i'd learned, i was reminded of something i learned a d&c class many years ago. brother bott was talking about section 132, which, like nearly all of the sections in the doctrine and covenants, was given as an answer to a question joseph brought to the Lord. what stood out to me, thought, was that the Lord didn't really answer the question joseph had, but rather gave the answer to the question he should have asked.
and that is an interesting principle that brother bott taught us: that if you ask God the wrong question, He'll give you the answer to the one you ought to have asked. kind of like jeopardy: you get the answer and have to come up with the question.

something to think about there....

and i think that's what's happened to me today. i still need some more time to ponder and think about things, but i think i got a bit of an answer to one question and an answer to the question that should have been my second question.

conference is pretty great like that.
and i'm so very, very grateful for sunday being a day of rest.

the provo tabernacle thing is seriously dang amazing, too.

two questions

2011-10-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

in the first presidency message for september, president uchtdorf talked about getting prepared for general conference this weekend. he said that if we had questions that we need to have answered (and i liked how he said "need"), we can write them down and take them to general conference. the answers might come in the exact words from a speaker, or they might come as a thought or feeling or impression during a talk that is unrelated to what we are pondering.

i don't think i've ever taken advantage of this promise before, but last sunday i wrote down two questions that i needed answered and planned to take this week to prepare for conference weekend.

by both my own choices and by circumstances beyond my control, this week has been anything but peaceful and contemplative. further, i do not have the time to watch (or listen to) the saturday sessions, either. but with modern technology, i'll be able to put them on my ipod next week and listen as i'm walking around campus. and that's something. (i'm also looking forward to hearing pres. uchtdorf's talk from last saturday's general relief society broadcast...)

so, i have my questions.
i hope i can hear what i need to.

life moves pretty fast...

2011-09-30T22:46:00.002-05:00

this may or may not be an actual transcript of an actual conversation that actually took place.

me: hey, life?

life: yes?

me: so… how's it going?

life: fine. i've got lots to do.

me: yeah, about that… do you think you could slow down a bit?

life: no, this is my pace. why?

me: well, it's just that i could really use some time to just put everything on hold. you know, to regain my balance, breathe for a few moments, and then jump back in the game. i think i'd be better that way.

life: sorry.

me: no?

life: no.

me: so how am i supposed to catch back up to where i want to be?

life: you just have to do it.

me: huh?

life: i'm not going to slow down just for you. i can't. so if you want to catch up, you're going to have to do that yourself.

me: but that's hard. it'd be so much easier if…

life: no. it doesn't work like that.

me: ok. i guess i can wait until things slow down and get easier, then i'll catch up.

life: when do you think that's going to happen?

me: it'll be when… um…. after i…. dang.

life: look, i'm not going to slow down. 60 seconds in a minute, 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week; it's the same for everyone. if you want more or less of something, you've got to do it.

me: but can't you just...?

life: no.

me: please?

life: no.

me: so i just have to work harder? or figure out some other way to do what i want and get where i want to be?

life: yep.

me: you're not going to cut me any slack and help me out here?

life: i can't. you're the one who has to learn this.

me: ok. i guess that makes sense. thanks for your time.

life: meh.

pygmalion

2011-09-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

it's hard to throw things out sometimes. there are some things you carry that you don't use right now, but you can imagine times down the road when you'll want to have it.

it's trickier still when doing this as an inventory of your personal character.

i've been looking at myself, knowing that i'm a good person with lots of awesome qualities but also acknowledging that i have areas to improve, to brush up on, to strengthen, and to flat out change.
and it can be tricky, in a couple of ways.

first, it's hard to clearly see some weaknesses as they really are. there are too many people running around trying to "improve" things that they are already excellent in yet see themselves as deficient, while needing to spend more effort on another area of their lives. it's funny how so many perceive as their greatest weakness things that the rest of us see as one of their defining strengths.

it's also hard to know what areas don't need improving but simply haven't had their season of usefulness. is there something to fix or to change or discard, or is it simply that you aren't in the right circumstance, whatever it is. just because something isn't working immediately doesn't mean it's wrong.

and finally, it takes humility to see that there are some things that i need to do that are simply hard. it takes a little strength to look honestly into the mirror and to agree to yourself that you'll be a little better about that.
i'm working on it.

falls to climb

2011-09-27T15:21:00.002-05:00

just something to share.
the video is a little cliche, but the song is sublime.
take a moment to feel good.

belay on

2011-09-25T22:42:00.001-05:00

not texas.
or the western hemisphere.

a belay is a funny device. it's so simple in its construction, yet it's the crux that makes you not get dead when you're rocking climbing.

today in sunday school we talked about paul's epistle to the romans and spent most of the times talking about the interplay between grace and works. it can be a hard pairing to understand, our need for obedience and to keep the commandments of God yet remembering that our works don't save us, that it's through the grace of Christ that we are justified. nephi sums it up best, actually, when he teaches that it is by the grace of Christ that we are saved, after all that we can do. (2ne25:23)
(as a note, it's interesting seeing paul write to some congregations and reminding them that they need to improve their obedience and bring forth good works, then to write to the romans and remind them that they needed to stop keeping the law of moses and trust in the redeeming grace of the Savior. of those two sides to err on, it seems that latter-day saint culture puts too much emphasis on works and not enough trust in grace)

last week at sunday school in san antonio, my friend made a good point. she said that God will sometimes stretch us beyond what we can do precisely for that reason, so that we can't do it without turning to Him.

and i thought about rock climbing. i'm really enjoying it and am learning a lot and like using it as an excuse to get out of the lab. and there are times when i'm high on the wall, gripping onto just a few tiny holds and looking for the next one. despite being 6' 1", the next spot on the route is just barely out of reach and i have to stand on my tip toe to reach it, or even jump slightly.
that's scary.
you don't realize how bloody high you've climbed until you stop and look around once in a while (life moves pretty fast....) and suddenly you're in a position where you have to reach and stretch to move from one tiny foothold just to wrap your fingertips around another spot you can barely hold onto, all on the way to a ledge where you can actually stand for a few moments before moving onto the part of the route.
if you slip, you're going to fall.
but you're not doing to die.
God's your belayer.
He's got your rope.
if you lose your grip in the lunge, you'll slip, the rope will pull tight, and you'll hang there for a moment to catch your breath, then you grab the wall and try it again.

and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. (romans 8:28, 31)

the persistence of memory

2011-09-24T15:44:00.001-05:00

intertwined with everything else yet still distinct from it all, i'm realizing more and more that i'm also missing my best friend.
{<>}

(latter-day saint television blues)

2011-09-22T21:58:00.001-05:00

--arcade fire's "neon bible" is my favorite album of the moment. i'm listening to it at pretty much every chance i get.

--my phone has a security app that scans for spyware, malware, and other nasty things. there's something kind of comforting about looking at my notifications bar and seeing "everything is ok."

--leaving my office this evening, i thought about what my animation professor at byu said: "if we don't accept someone's application for the program and i later see them on campus in some other major, then i know we probably made the right choice. but if i found out that they decided to go to another school to pursue animation, then i wonder if we made a mistake in not admitting them."
something to think about there.

--tuesdays are my favorite day of my week. no viz classes, just rock climbing then country dancing then work. it all feels pretty good.

options

2011-09-17T10:21:00.000-05:00

you must be this tall to ride the ride

2011-09-16T23:16:00.000-05:00

it's 11:13 and i'm going to bed.
lots to do tomorrow.
and a full day on sunday.

and i love this:

"i hate cynicism. for the record, it's my least favorite quality. it doesn't lead anywhere. nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. but if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen." -conan o'brien, jan. 22, 2010

losing lisa

2011-09-15T23:43:00.000-05:00

dear blog,

i've got a backlog of ideas and thoughts i want to share with you. you're such a good listener, and i just feel good when we talk. well, you don't say much, but that's part of why i like you, i guess.

funny, that's how it always goes; when you've got a lot to talk about, there's never any time. and when you've got the time, there isn't really anything to talk about.

life is funny, but not "ha-ha" funny; "peculiar," i guess.... well, it's definitely ha-ha funny, too, like that thing with my new imac last week.

i'm yawning as i write this and i'm hoping to keep up my awesomely productive week tomorrow.

looking forward to some quality time with you,

-->jeff *

switch points

2011-09-11T22:17:00.001-05:00

i had thought about doing a 9/11 commemorative post here today and have enjoyed reading everyone's reflections on facebook today. however, meh, i just wasn't feeling it and instead wanted to share what we talked about in sunday school today.

the lesson started of with a story from president hinckley and an experience he had while working in a train yard. he said that a car had arrived in newark, new jersey without its baggage car. as they traced the route of the missing car, they found that it had traveled from california to st. louis safely, but there it was careless switched an ended up in new orleans, louisiana. 1,300 miles from its destination.

yes, i think we've all heard these stories and analogies before, about how adjusting the switch point three inches can lead to a 1,300 mile difference in the end. but i liked this one for some reason.

and we talked about different switch points in our lives. the bishop informed me today that i've been going over my lessons by ten minutes for... oh, the past ten months (i knew that sunday school was 40 minutes, but when started teaching i was told to go until ten after the hour, which made for a 50 minute lesson, and no said otherwise, so yeah...), so we only talked about the switch point of setting good relationships as husband+wife and in how we approach the sacrament.

in years of teaching sunday school (when we hit hebrews in a few weeks, that will complete my cycle of the standard works as a sunday school teacher, excepting a few brief moments between changing wards), i've learned to plan out your endgame, to know how you're going to close your lesson and bring everything around to a relevant conclusion.
today, i closed with 1 cor. 15:9-10, where paul notes that he had a rough past and felt that he was the least of the apostles. he had missed some switch points earlier in his life, but he had made the effort to make the change and to start taking the better tracks when he came to his switch points. no matter where we are, there are always switch points available to us. some won't get us back to where we want to be, but they will get us back on the right track and that's pretty dang great.

morgul days

2011-09-07T21:26:00.005-05:00

so i mentioned that my mfa course required us to produce artwork of any sort in the process of obtaining a masters of fine arts. preposterous.
and while i'm sure the rest of my students are so effervescently passionate about Art that they're churning out pieces as if they were living on the banks of the seine at the turn of the century (note: they're not, except for maybe that one girl whom i've never seen before...), i had no clue what i was going to do. go to hobby lobby (where they apparently sell more than hideous Christmas ornaments) and get some canvas and paints?
i like photography. maybe i could do something with that.... then, later that day in my "digital image" class, our teacher briefly showed us a program that showed the code for any digital picture.
oh, yeah, it also let you play with the code.

basically, it works like this: the computer processes color in a type of code called "hex code", which, instead of having numbers 0-9 like we're used to, it has sixteen base numbers, adding letters A-F after 9 in a way that today's quiz proved i still don't grasp. but this hex code can be translated from regular letters and junk like this: ´…v– `eù äwáƒ)mÈGÏÁ 7$ .
it can also come from junk like this: sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.
and each letter gets translated into hex code, which then affects the image.

normally, you wouldn't want to mess with that.
but art projects don't do normal things. : )

in full disclosure, this wasn't entirely my original idea. my friend had this as his desktop wallpaper this summer, part of the publicity work from "the social network." (ok, i couldn't find the site with his wallpaper...) i knew that it was created by inserting random lines into the pictures code and i decided i wanted a crack at it.

my initial thought was to go around campus and take some shots, but i remember from my byu days that it gets pretty old of seeing "your campus" in photography assignments of any kind. and i've learned that all the more since i've graduated and have been all around the world. so, i used some of those, instead.

doing the actual work, my screen looked like this:

again, i understand this only enough to know "put junk here to screw it up."

experiment the first:

i tossed in all sorts of things here. i'd delete lines, i copy and paste sections from sheep go to heaven or other blogs, i tossed in some tally hall lyrics, a chapter from the song of solomon, and all sorts of things.

experiment the second:

i did this one twice, first tossing in the same sort of random code. then i started adding lines from daft punk's "technologic", which has slightly varied repeated lyrics, which meant that the code would be mostly the same with only subtle variations. i thought that might be an interesting experiment. and it kind of was. the results are still very hard to predict or even see correlations between the code and the image.
an interesting note: my mutant images looks significantly different here than it does directly on my computer. the colors are much more washed out here. significantly.

experiment the third:

hi, sister

this time, i raided my junk mail. lines about trusting kenyans who know i'm a good soul and want to send me $3.5 million u.s. dollars, viagra from russian pharmacies, and, well, that was mostly what was in there, i would just grab lines and toss them in there.

one thing i started noticing was that, obviously, higher lines of code would mess with the upper portions of the image. but not until i started adding lines, rather than just deleting, would the color change (or was that the other way around?) and it would usually shift to one color, rather than creating different colors throughout. i think we may have learned about why that is in class.

experiment the fourth:

i'd started checking my progress as i was working, rather than just attacking all at once. this was looking really cool until the bottom half suddenly disappeared (actually, it went grey for me. but it's showing up white/empty here). and there's no "undo" function here, so i was stuck with it. i decided to stop there.

it wouldn't be my first casualty of progress, though.

but such is experimental art.

experiment the fifth:

i had gotten nervous about doing too much and ruining good work, plus i didn't like how some of them became so garbled that you hardly recognize the original image, so i held back on this one. besides, i really like the original picture in the first place.
i think it could use a little more work, but art is never finished, just abandoned, and i bailed early on this one. : ) i freaking love that red stripe in the middle, though.

i felt pretty good with the ten images i took to class this morning but felt that i'd kind of exhausted the project: random stuff happens when you mess with code. got it. but the faculty liked my work (one said he would commission me if he had the money) and offered enough thoughts that i wanted to keep with it.
so, the experiment continues....

muzzle

2011-09-05T23:59:00.005-05:00

i've just completed day one of week 2 of my second year in the viz lab. i was expecting to be in the lab late tonight and working through tomorrow to complete my first digital image programming assignment, but i successfully compiled the completed code about an hour and a half ago and came home feeling pretty awesome about myself, especially since i did it with very little assistance from my classmates. so i got that going for me.

a few notes about my new year:

the department is beginning to offer an m.f.a. being that pursuing a "masters of science" always sounded a little funny to me, i think this is a better fit. so far, the first class in the track requires a whole hecka lotta reading (of really wordy art criticism and theory; you know the stuff i'm talking about)
i successfully gave my first keynote presentation today (apple's version of "powerpoint.")
i have three viz classes:

the mfa course, which is new for us and for the teacher. confusion may or may abound.
digital image, which is essentially learning the 1's and 0's of what goes on inside photoshop and other graphics processing. yeah, me and code aren't the best combo, but i'm going to take my early success tonight as a harbinger of promise for the semester.
advanced animation. this is an interesting case: the night before the semester started, a friend texted me and asked if i wanted to be the director of photography for the project he and his friend were doing for this class that i wasn't signed up for. i had been hoping to do an independent study of composition and lighting this semester, provided i could find someone who had some models they wanted lit. so this was literally an answer plopped right in front of me. cool. but the professor didn't want anyone working on class projects who wasn't officially in the class (so that you don't bail when your schedule gets busy.) the catch was that this class meets at exactly the same time as my digital image class, and that one's kind of required. but he let me sign up for it anyway; i'll just never actually go to class....

speaking of my teacher for the course i don't go to: check this video out. the one guy is now the ceo of pixar. the other guy is my teacher (he also taught my facial animation course last spring, which was cool, since he was the first person to make a computer-animated face.)
the new first years all look so young. i try remind myself that they are mostly 8-9 years younger than me, but still...?
to keep myself sane, i'm also taking rock climbing and beginning country dancing. yes, i still decry country music, but my sister astutely noted that, i'm living in texas, i may as well learn to country dance.
the avalanches are my current favorite band of the week. the whole album is even better than i imagined.
i also go to the gym three times a week. i'm afraid that i might not have time to keep swimming, though. that may be on a case by case basis.
between finding out where to park and my trips to the rec center, i spend a lot of time walking. now, one weekly episode of "this american life" is enough. i'm trying to give "wait, wait, don't tell me" a shot but i haven't quite warmed up to it yet, but i love "radiolab." (thanks for the recommendations, former 786!)
"this american life" will always be my favorite, though.
since i am a second-year, maybe i should change my title from "the king of pop" to "the heir of slytherin"?
i'm also working 20 hours a week. more on that later.
i think today was the first day in 30-40 days that it wasn't over 100 degrees outside. high-80s have never felt so cool....
an inside source told me that they will be sustaining a new sunday school teacher next week. i suspect that, when i said how disappointed i was that amidst all of the calling announced on sunday, a new sunday school teacher wasn't one of them, the bishop may have gotten the hint. or maybe it was because i said that during my testimony. who knows.
for wednesday in my mfa class, we have to show our first visual studies, which makes it sound as if we're all wildly passionate artists who are throwing paint in our studios late into the night, not students who are trying to figure out computer code. but i learned just enough about the digi-bits behind digital photography today to do some real damage. i'm thinking of aggressively attacking the code in some of my photographs and seeing what comes out....
lastly, i'm perplexed why my blog formatting has gone out of whack. still trying to figure that out.

ondine

2011-08-29T00:28:00.004-05:00

we often talk about charity, the pure love of Christ, being the greatest in the trio of faith, hope and charity, and i think we erroneously conclude that charity is the greatest of loves. while i'm working to have a feeling of peace and concern towards everyone on the planet, i've never liked the notion that that is the greatest love. i think the greatest and highest form of love is romantic love, and i very much like this article (shared with me by my sister) that kindly acknowledges that.

(she also shared this one, which is also pretty good.)

one for the razorbacks

2011-08-28T23:04:00.003-05:00

i try to never reuse a title (or a picture) on here, and i almost had to do that earlier this spring, but fate dictated otherwise. i kind of like this one and might regret using it as a throwaway tonight, but i like the feel of it, so it's there.

i've nothing much to say. it's insanely hot here, i think i've really lucked out on my roommates ("won again at roommate roulette," as jaime might say), and i like that i can put my whites in our dryer and just go to bed, rather than having to wait for them to finish at the laundromat.

school starts tomorrow. it's strange being "second years" now, and there are a whole slew of new first years (and they all look so young....) i'm curious to see what it will be like balancing school with a job (i've got a post on that coming shortly) and i'm hoping i can continue to improve on being effective at using my time in the lab, so that i'm not always in there.

mostly, though, i guess i just like writing here because this is my space. like a theatre director walking on his empty stage after everyone has gone home, i'm pacing around here with nothing particular to say, but am here simply because, as odd as it sounds, this is my little hill, where i can feel comfortable and free. sheep go to heaven and this is my pasture.

i think i'm playing in a band

2011-08-26T21:39:00.003-05:00

it was starting to look like this post would never make it to the world, but being that today is the birthday of the man in the yellow tie who writes heterophonic tunes of how love bites, i'm taking some time to sit down and tell my tale.

tally hall was coming to provo on july 27th and, despite that being smack dab in the middle of the second to last week of our intensive summer course, i bought myself a concert ticket and a plane ticket. yes, they were playing in dallas, austin, and houston, but seeing them without kristin would be utterly pointless.

a week or two before the concert date, they sent out an email announcing their dates nationwide and included a contest: if you signed up on some website you would in a drawing for that concert to get up on stage and play a song with them. so heck yes, i signed up. there was an option to post it to facebook so that my friends could vote to increase my chances, but i kind of have an aversion to signing up for things that will post to my facebook account (i'm never impressed when i see a "[friend] just used this new app" on someone else's page), so i figured my own entry effort was good enough and went back to lighting my summer project.

a few days before the concert i got an email with the subject line being something about the provo contest winner and figured they were letting us know who the lucky skunk was.
no. it was just to me.
letting me know.
that i was the skunk.
yeah.
i was going to be playing on stage with my favorite band.

i immediately forwarded the email to those few who would best appreciate the glory of this situation:

me: umm.......
WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????????????
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kristin: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I KNEW IT WOULD BE YOU.
I KNEW IT.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

laurie: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BACK
Oh my gosh, I need explanations and pictures STAT. I mean, at your earliest convenience.

and so on.

i wondered if i'd be singing backup on "good day", or maybe i'd get to do the fast part on "ruler of everything" and was soon envisioning what color of tie i'd choose if they asked me to join the band until kristin brought me badk down to reality by noting that the contest said i'd be playing a theramin, pretty much the easiest instrument in the world to play: you don't even have to touch it, just get near it.

i wrote back my confirmation that i would be at the provo show and the lady told me that after one of the openers to go the merch table, where i'd meet bora and he'd tell me what to do. she sent me a video link of an earlier performance (that i didn't watch), noting that the theramin would be working for me....
so if it was possible to be even more excited to go to utah that week, i was.

as is customary, kristin and i went out for chocolate before the concert. our conversation topics were more lighthearted than usual and we got some good pictures, especially of her, then headed down to the velour. in the awesomeness of the anticipation, we rocked out fully and thoroughly to some classic tally hall whilst parked by the curb, then went to meet up with brooke in the queue out front.

as they were finally opening the doors and letting us in, two of the members of the band (rob and andrew) were coming out and passed us in the entrance. since kristin was their personal host and concert photographer at the elementary school concert the last time they were in provo (you know, the one that i initiated but didn't get to go to? that one? yeah), they know her and kindly pretended to remember me. at any rate, we felt pretty cool.

being that we prove that the word "fan" came from "fanatic", we got there before the doors opened and stood at the front of the stage for the hour+ before the first opener started while members of our gang arrived. it can be long and tiresome and particularly irking when a gaggle of high schoolers literally pushed through us so that they could wedge themselves at the very front of the stage. i refused to budge as they brushed against me. this is my show.

looks better on her

the first opener was a dude with a guitar, and while i'm not for the dude-with-a-guitar genre, this guy had a lot of energy and gave it his best, and i respect that. he was also dressed nearly identically to kristin: shirt, jeans, even haircut. but he was still a cool guy.

when the band you're there to see is usually an opening band for other bands that most people haven't heard of, you really can't have any expectations for their opening bands. but the second band was actually pretty darn good. called "speak", they were from austin, tx, and really knew what they were doing. which was more impressive considering they all looked really young. really. one kid looked like a 15-year old harry potter and the lead singer... well, we all had reasons against him, although i'm sure he was a nice guy.
still, those kids could rock. i bought their ep for $3.

at one point i snuck off to the merch table and met up with bora, who told me that the theramin was having problems but that it would hopefully be working soon. he said that my song would be after "the sacred beast" (they were going to play "the sacred beast"? awesome; that was the song i wanted to hear most from the new album), and that that would be right after "welcome to tally hall" (the main song i wanted to hear and rock to at this concert, so at this point, i'm good...) he said to stand somewhere where he could see me, and either one of the band members would call me up or else he'd just nod at me or, well, just watch him and we'll figure out something. if nothing else, just go up doing "the fall."

...so, i'm supposed to just climb up on stage during the middle of a song, unannounced?
ok.... i guess it isn't like there's some security guard who's going to taze me.

the concert was awesome. they came out (not in their customary white shirts and ties at first, and we kind of freaked). they played. we rocked. and smiled. and rocked some more.

after "sacred beast", zubin asked "is jeff here?", to which i giddily raised my hand and was invited up on stage for the next song. everyone around me (and not just the people who knew me) cheered for me as i made my way through the crowd and hopped up on stage behind andrew and his keyboards. he told me something about how he'd let me know when to go out and do my thing, but soon the song started and i wasn't sure what to do.

so i just stood there, grinning from ear to ear.
i was on stage with tally hall.

i remember being at the guster concert (where we first saw tally hall, lo those many years ago) and were talking with the guster members afterwards. allison's friend steven said that they were his favorite band. for me, my favorite bands were r.e.m. and they might be giants, and excepting that one time i high-fived john flansburg, they were all kind of out of reach. so the idea of meeting your favorite band seemed unreal to me.
but at this moment, i was on stage, about to play with them.

joe. rob. me. : D

at some point during "the fall", they gave me a nod, or maybe i just decided to walk out there, but i started playing. they're rocking, it's loud, and the theramin looks not like the pictures i'd seen, but rather like a small black box with a radio antennae sticking straight out the top of it. and with rob on my left and joe on my right, i couldn't hear if i was making any difference or not.
but if i couldn't, likely the audience wouldn't know, either.

so, i did my dang best.

when the song ended, rob complimented my playing, later adding that a lot of people are kind of timid with it, but that i boldly attacked it.
just doing my thing....

kristin's adding the final touches.
rob's in the zone.

after the concert our group hung around, taking pictures while kristin and i waited for the various throngs to die down so that we could get all five band members together for our traditional picture: at the first concert, she and i (and allison and her friend steven) took a picture with rob. at the next concert, we brought a copy of the first picture (why did we do that, anyway?) and got rob plus zubin. since then, we've added a band member each time and included all of the previous pictures. being able to get all five guys together for one picture took some patience, although the waiting time did give us opportunities to talk with some of the less-crowded members like ross and andrew, who were very cool and actually asked us questions, rather just politely listening while we gushed about how great they were. andrew was especially impressed that i flew up from texas just to see them.

we got the picture (although, in the interest of time and not wanting to stretch their kindness to the snapping point, it wasn't as posed as the previous shots have been) and even got a few cds autographed before we had to go.

on my way out, i bought myself a poster.
our fifth tally hall concert came to a close.
and the next day i was on my way back to texas and back to reality.
meanwhile may it join in going hmmm mmm hmmm mmmm...

"casting spells"

451: leaving new york never easy

2011-08-19T19:47:00.002-05:00

off to the grand canyon state for a few days.

hello world

2011-08-17T10:48:00.007-05:00

nearly 32 years ago

quizás quizás quizás

2011-08-16T23:59:00.003-05:00

editor's note: reading over this post shortly after it was published, all i can say is, "drat." this sounded a lot better (and less... whatever it is) in our collective head. in short, this did not come out at all like i wanted it to. i should've written it two weeks ago when it sounded better. sheep fail.

"life is pain, highness. anyone who says differently is selling something."

so says the dread pirate wesley, talking incognito to the woman he true loves.

a few weeks ago i was helping a friend move, carrying boxes in the hot texas sun and thinking about this whole thing. that "life is pain" part.
i thought of the things in my life that weren't as i'd like them and realized that most people probably live that way. most people have missing pieces, things they lack, feeling incomplete. and i could see how it would be easy to fall into the bitter attitude of believing that that's the harsh reality of life, that everyone is miserable.

i have a lot of strengths, a whole long list of things i'm awesome at. and there are also plenty of things i'm not good at, things i don't do well with. so it is. sometimes those weaknesses can be practiced and developed into talents. other weaknesses, i think, may appear as weakness only because of the environment we are in, and that in another stage, they will begin to be viewed as a strength instead.

my sister has described her life as hard, but that she wouldn't want it any other way. that, i think, is the state i strive for. i don't ever expect life to be a picnic, although i know that there are moments, albeit usually brief, where things line up and awesomeness just harmonizes. i expect to be tired, frustrated, and worn out. i expect to be busy, to have the demands unending, to always have something coming up. but i look forward to that feeling of knowing that it's crazy but that i wouldn't want it any other way.