Burning From Ice

Rocket's Great Escape

2012-05-22T17:28:00.000-05:00

We crate our dogs when we leave the house and can't take them with us. Lately, Rocket, our blue Weimaraner has been meeting us at the front door when we come back home.
We couldn't figure out how he kept managing to get out. We thought at first that perhaps we just didn't close the latches all the way on the crate door or perhaps he was pushing out with enough strength to bend the door and pop the two metal bolts out that hold the door shut.
I tried to force the door open but even with a lot of force I couldn't even get it to open. And even if we double-checked to make sure that the door was properly shut and fastened, he still managed to get out.
We were real curious as to how he magically was able to escape. One night we were to go to dinner at a friend's house and couldn't take the dogs. We decided to set up a camera to record Rocket's escape.
This is what we saw:

U-Verse and Me

2012-01-28T17:10:00.005-06:00

Some might remember that almost a year ago I wrote a post about receiving an email from AT&T informing me that they were reserving the right to at anytime drop my current DSL internet service and switch me over to their U-Verse service. I also complained about the vast amounts of U-Verse related junk mail I receive every week.
We'll I finally succumbed.
Thankfully this was on my own terms for my own reasons and not directly the result of mountains of unwanted solicitations. For the past few months I've been tempted to switch over to the U-Verse internet service for far faster download speeds. Currently, I'm at the top of the DSL that AT&T offers in my area. It tops out at 6Mb/s... if I'm lucky. For the most part I probably average around 4Mb/s. Which is fine for the most part.
Problem is that I've begun doing a lot more video and music streaming than I used to using Amazon's Instant Video and Cloud Player as well as a host of other streaming media like YouTube and Pandora. I also have a whole host of internet connected devices from desktops, TV's, Kindles, Chromebook, notebooks, desktops, blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets and more... all tapping into the same bandwidth. Granted I'm not using all these devices simultaneously but I am using a lot of them at the same time. Uploading videos on a desktop to YouTube, streaming Pandora, checking my Google+ stream on my phone, writing this blog post with the Chromebook.
So I started to think about the future and how much more of what I do will be cloud based. Then I got to looking at my current bill. Currently I pay over $100 for my DSL connection and phone line combined. I rarely have need or even use my phone which is at least half of the bill. I keep it for emergencies, billing/banks, and an alternative in the event my cell phone isn't functioning. Nobody but telemarketers, family and some official business bothers to call my land line. But that being said, I don't want to give it up, just wished it didn't cost so much for what use I get out of it. If I'm keeping a phone line then I also needed caller ID as I screen calls to root out the telemarketers.
I decided that it would be wise to combine both internet and phone using AT&T's U-Verse internet and voice. I'm tripling my internet download speed, still getting phone with caller ID and cutting my monthly bill nearly in half to boot.
After all these years I've finally succumbed to U-Verse and I was able to do it on my own terms for my own reasons.
The installation is scheduled for next month, so it remains to be seen if this was a good decision or not.

Kindle Fire unboxing video and overview writeup

2011-11-19T23:06:00.000-06:00

If you've read my other blog posts on Amazon's Kindle line of e-readers it should be no surprise that I'm a big fan.
The Kindle Fire is Amazon's very affordable entry into the tablet market, primarily as Amazon content consumption device. A brilliant bit of marketing if you ask me. Content purchased from Amazon such as Kindle e-books, digital music in Amazon's cloud music player, instant video and apps from their own app store, is all available on the device.
Their WhispherSync technology keeps all your devices and content in sync. So if you are in the middle of watching an episode of Breaking Bad on the Kindle Fire while on a business trip and then arrive home, you can turn on your Amazon enable TV and pick up right from where you left off. Same with e-books, perhaps you are reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Damned" on your regular Kindle while out at the beach and you get home you can pick up where you left off on the Fire.
A review, more pictures and unboxing video after the break.

Unboxing Video

One thing not shown in the video is that after connecting to a wireless network, it will download the latest update for the software. Not sure if this step will be the same for Kindle Fire's shipping today, but apparently as part of the setup process it checks for updates and installs if it finds one.

Physical
The Kindle Fire is practically the same size as my 3rd gen Kindle, but thicker and heavier.

Kindle Fire on the left compared to 3rd gen Kindle

Kindle Fire on top and 3rd gen below it, looking from the side

Kindle Fire on top and 3rd gen Kindle below it, looking at the bottom end

The headphone jack, USB/Power connector and power button are located on the bottom end of the device.
On the top end are two speakers.

Speaker ports on top end

This seems to be rather silly placement for the speakers as when viewing movies, they play in landscape orientation causing all the sound to come from one side of the device. There is enough separation be that the audio is noticeably coming from one side. The speakers themselves leave a bit to be desired, sounding pretty tinny and lackluster. Using a set of headphones is a must and the sound is good quality.

Software Interface
When you turn the device on, you are presented with a typical "lock" screen.

Lock screen

Similar to the Kindle e-readers lock screens, these images cycle through a number of different ones each time you turn the device on. A quick swipe of the finger from right to left unlocks the device.

The main screen is a shelf full of recent items, books, music, apps, web pages. Anything that you have used recently, shows up on the top shelf. Swiping the Recent shelf from side to side flips through the content in a sort of "cover flow" manner.
Just below it on a second shelf are favorites. These can be any book, video, app, web site. By touching and dragging up and down you can expose other favorite shelves. This same drag up and down concept to move through the content continues in each of the content areas
Pressing and holding down an item in the recent shelf will pop up a box wanting to know if you want to add it to the favorites. So an easy way to quickly get to your most used content. You can remove an item from favorites by doing the same action. By holding down and dragging a favorite you can rearrange the order they appear on the shelves.
There is a menu along the top to get to the various content sections: Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps and Web.

Search bar and Content Section buttons

Newsstand
Newsstand is something new to the Kindle line of products.

Newsstand

Any purchased magazines and newspapers will show upon these shelves. One of the things preventing me from getting magazines on the Kindle has been that it is limited to a small number of shades of grey, causing photos to be unappealing. The Fire with its full color display can take advantage of newspapers and magazines in color so photos look closer to their print brothers.

Magazine from the Newsstand

Holding the device in portrait orientation shows one page. Hold it landscape and you get a full spread. You can use the standard "pinch zoom" to zoom in on the text and pictures. It only allows zooming to a certain level. So if the text is still to small to read, you can tap towards the bottom of the screen to bring up a menu and there is an option to toggle between this "page" view and "text" view. Text view is just the text of the article, more like what you would find on a typical kindle.

Books
Quite obvious, but Books holds your library of e-books that you have purchased from the Amazon store.

Books Cloud view

Two buttons at the top, "Cloud" and "Device" allows you to filter the view to show everything you have purchased which is stored in Amazon's "Cloud" or downloaded to the device. The "cloud" would also include books you archived by removing them from the device.
There are sort options here to list the books by Recent, by Author and by Title, which makes locating things easier. By touching the display and dragging up and down you can move through the shelves of books.
One thing missing is the ability to group books into "collections" like the Kindle readers have, which makes it much easier to find content you want to read depending on your mood (ie. history, non-fiction, fiction, etc...)
Clicking on a book will load it full screen into the display.

Book text

Text is crisp and the backlit display is bright. Pressing at the bottom edge of the display makes the e-book locations progress bar appear, showing how far through the book you are. There are also options to adjust the text size, typeface, margins, line spacing and color options. The color options allow you to change from black text on white background to white text on black background or a grey on tan color.

Music
Music you've purchased will show up in this section.

Music albums view

Similar to the Books section this has Cloud and Device buttons and then buttons to show Playlists, Artists, Albums and Songs. Clicking on an album brings up its track listing and you can select a track and begin to play. Music can be streamed straight from the Cloud or downloaded and listened to from the device.

Music with a track playing.

A cool feature here is that when you starting playing a track you can navigate away from the section and pull up a book to read and the music plays in the background.

Settings drop down menu with volume and playback controls

Tap the "settings" gear button on any page and it will show you the volume control and music playback controls as well as the information about the music (artist, album and song title).

Video
Unlike any of the other content sections, this section shows the Video Store view instead of the library of TV and Movies that you have purchased. Perhaps a little ploy to get you to purchase and stream more content, don't know.

Amazon Video store

The top section of the store promotes Amazon's famous free streaming movies and TV for Prime members. In order to download a movie/TV show to the device for offline viewing you have to purchase it.

Clicking the "Library" button in the top right corner will bring you to your collection of purchased TV and Movie content.

Library button

Video library

The Video library also has buttons for Cloud and Device and it can be filtered to show Movies or TV content that you've purchased. You can stream it or download content to watch when there isn't wireless connection. Video quality is good. I didn't experience any noticeable dropped frames or long buffering when streaming video.

Streaming video content

The video section is going to be one, if not the, major features that will sell the Fire. And with WhisperSync keeping your place between your different devices it makes it really easy to watch content on the Fire.
In case you are wondering about the stand, it is a Marware Hybrid cover for the Fire that I purchased when I pre-ordered the device. It folds and hinges so you can prop up the fire in a position comfortable for viewing on a table top.

Marware Hybrid cover

Apps
The Apps section shows all the apps you currently have installed on the device and any apps that you have previously purchased or downloaded from the Amazon App store still in the Cloud. Apps can be sorted by Recent and by Title.

Apps

Clicking the Store button in the top corner, loads the Amazon App store where you can purchase and download more apps. Amazon's big pockets also feature a free paid app every day.

My biggest gripe with the Kindle Fire is that it is completely locked to the Amazon App store. So if you are used to apps you love from the Android Marketplace, it is hit or miss whether they will also be in the Amazon App store. I'm not sure if Amazon screens apps, preventing some from being listed perhaps out of spite or for technical reasons...or if developers have to submit their content to be include in the App store and they just haven't done so yet. Seems as though all Google content is missing...no YouTube app, no Gmail, no Google+ app. No Facebook app (although they pre-install a link to the full Facebook website). You have to rely on the web mobile versions of those sites. I was disappointed I couldn't install the Dish Network remote access app that would allow me to stream content from my DVR and even watch live satellite TV on the device.
Perhaps this will change as the Fire picks up popularity and has a larger install base. At an affordable price tag of $200 more than a few people are going to pick it up.

Docs
The Docs section holds any docs that are on the device. Cool thing is that the device itself has its own email address. You can email PDF and Word documents directly to the device...even allow other people to do the same.

Docs content section

You can also connect the Fire to your computer using a micro USB cable to transfer documents to the device.

Web

The last section is the Web. Switching over to this section will show your open browser tabs. If there are no open tabs you get a screen full of bookmarks showing a thumbnail of each page. They took the time to pre-bookmark a number of popular sites, such as Facebook, Yahoo, Craigslist, Amazon, IMDB and Twitter among others.

Web browser

Amazon's new Silk browser has been talked about a lot for its speed. It seems speedy enough. I didn't run into any problems directly. At the bottom of the screen are the Page back and forward buttons, a menu button that brings up buttons for your downloads, browsing history and bookmarks. The bookmarks page also has an additional search button and will show some of your recent browsing history.

Menus and Settings

The strip along the top edge with settings, wireless strength indicator and battery meter will hide itself when viewing content.

Settings, wireless strength and batter meter

Press the bottom edge of the display to unhide the top strip and bring up a navigation menu along the bottom allowing you to go back to the previous location or the home shelf with your recent and favorite items.

Pressing any of the icons in the top right corner drops down a menu allowing you to lock and unlock the device, control the volume and brightness levels, manage wireless network settings, sync the device and a More button to access all of the device settings.

Settings drop down menu

There is no physical volume buttons and since the current volume level is only shown when this drop down menu is exposed, it can often catch you by surprise as you start up a video leaving you scrambling to hit the settings button, then drag the volume slider. Luckily the default selected item from the drop down menu is the volume control.

The More button exposes a whole host of different settings including de-registering the device, security settings, what applications are currently running, system version info, serial number and MAC address.

Settings

Final Thoughts

That's a basic overview of the device and some of my impressions from using it these last couple of days. I think it is a fantastic way to consume the Amazon content I've collected over the years. I'm really excited about the streaming video capabilities.

It won't replace my 3rd gen Kindle for book reading. The battery life on the Fire is good, I've been able to watch movies and TV shows without draining the battery completely, but the battery life on the 3rd gen Kindle can't be beat. The e-ink display makes reading easy even in bright light. While the Fire is fine for indoors viewing as seen here:

3rd Gen Kindle on the left and Fire on the right showing a book page indoors

But the backlit really shows its weakness once you walk outside:

3rd Gen Kindle on the left and Fire on the right showing a book page outdoors

The other downside of the Fire is that it is wireless only which limits your ability to download content while on the go as the Kindle readers do. Granted adding 3G support to the device would boost its price tag. And even Amazon with its deep pockets isn't going to foot the bill for streaming music and video to the device leaving you stuck with another added expense.

In my case I have an EVO 4G with mobile hotspot capabilities. So I'm able to start up a hotspot and connect the Fire to it. I did this the other day as I arrived at a location for a meeting about 45 minutes early. I started up a hotspot, connected the Fire and streamed a show from Hulu+ while I waited.

So overall, things are promising. The device is easy to use and navigate. It does what it is supposed to, stream and playback content and it does it well. There are some minor nitpicks (such as limiting apps to Amazon's own App store) but Amazon tends to listen well to its customers and continue to re-invent and improve their products. Looking back at the original Kindle reader all the way to the new Touch version and the Fire you can really see the evolution of the product line. I'm confident that they will continue this trend with the Fire.

Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" Blu-ray release

2011-10-10T15:03:00.006-05:00

Terrence Malick's new film "The Tree of Life" is set to be released on Blu-ray tomorrow (October 11, 2011). Terrence Malik is probably best known for the Oscar nominated, The Thin Red Line. His seemingly stream of consciousness film set in World War II. I sat back and watched it some months ago after realizing I'd never seen the whole thing from start to finish.
The majority of the film is dominated by an "in your head" monologue from the characters as they try to come to grips with what they are seeing and experiencing in war. Not so much Saving Private Ryan action war film as it is a philosophical exploration of man and humanity in general. The story seemed very non-linear and I realized at one point that the purpose of the film is a vehicle to deliver the message in the monologue while still maintaining a stunning visual appeal.
I'm expecting that Tree of Life is no different.
Meredith had the pleasure of working a few days on the film during the filming in Austin and around Texas. She could see that he had a real vision for what the film should be and that the physical medium of film and the reality of actors and locations were somewhat holding him back. Things often seemed sporadic and not connected during the filming. Something that is not uncommon when shooting a film as scenes are shot out of order to accommodate locations and actor's schedules. She admired his quest for perfection. She described to me one day of filming in which they had shot most of the day on a neighborhood street before Terrence moved the entire production one street over to shoot it again. It's no wonder that it took so many years for this film to be completed and released.
Terrence is a real visionary and creative genius. I'm expecting that The Tree of Life will be similar in style to The Thin Read Line and have real attention to detail and visuals, but deal more with the emotional struggles of family life and growing up. I'm sure that it will be anything but a literal and linear telling of a family story.
I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the trailer for The Tree of Life:

Coming soon... My Kindle Fire

2011-10-07T20:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire the day they were announced. It won't be released until November.
I'm excited about it. I have owned the 2nd gen and 3rd gen Kindles and have really grown to love them over the years. So much easier than carting around a stack of books whenever I travel.

Meredith just bought an iPad. It's nice. I've messed around with it a little. They've spent some time making things look pretty cool and aesthetically pleasing. Lots of little animations and graphical things. It looks sharp. But it was also crazy expensive.

A lot of people are thinking that the Kindle Fire will be a direct competitor or a "iPad killer." But I don't think so. I don't think they really have much intention of trying to dethrone the King of Tablets. Though with a $200 price tag and Android installed, these things are going to be popular.
I think it is all about having all of your Amazon content in one place and being able to enjoy it on one little device. So I already have a bunch of Kindle ebooks. I already have some Amazon Cloud player music that I stream on my desktop and phone. I already have movies and TV shows that I've bought on Amazon Instant Video that I play on my Sony TV. I'm also an Amazon Prime member, so I have access to a huge library of free streaming movies and TV shows. I already have a few Amazon App Store apps I bought for my phone. So I'm expecting that the Kindle Fire can collect all this content in one place and I can enjoy it from just about anywhere courtesy of "The Cloud". I like the concept a lot.
That way the next time I decide to do a Battlestar Galactica marathon on the big TV in the living room and get the evil eye from Meredith, I can just switch to watching it on the Kindle Fire and move to a different room.

Once I get mine in my little grubby hands and have a chance to play with it a little, I'll do a little write up about my impressions.
In the meantime, here's a video that Engadget did of a Kindle Fire demo done by an Amazon rep.

Google+ My first impressions

2011-07-03T16:42:00.015-05:00

Almost a week ago I was invited by Google to participate in the limited "field trial" of Google+.

Google+ invite I received

I assume my involvement over the last few years as a YouTube Community Forum "Top Contributor" made be a good candidate for the field trial.
I graciously accepted my invitation and within a few clicks I was in.
The first thing I noticed was the toolbar across the top of Google property pages (Google, Gmail, etc..) now has a "+Erik" button the left side and a "share" entry box on the right side.

Typing text into the "share" entry box, I can quickly make a post to my Google+ page. Any notifications I've received from Google+ show up in the box just to the left of it. Click it and you can read the notification and respond. Pretty handy since this shows up on other Google properties like Gmail.
Clicking the +Erik tab on the left brings me to my Google+ page.

Google+ Stream

Which if you've used Facebook, looks a lot like the news feed. New posts and comments pop up automatically in the stream. Which with posts with heavy comment traffic can make it a little challenging to read as the page keeps moving a bit to include new comments coming in. You can "mute" a post by clicking it's little arrow in the corner. This hides the post in the stream and prevents you from getting notifications if you've commented on the post and people keep posting after you. Which is fine, but if you are just trying to read the thing without it continually moving doesn't help. I can see once this really starts going and your circles grow larger that this can be problematic...seems as though there should be a pause button or a way of collapsing or hiding the comments.

That brings me to Google+'s most powerful and strongest feature, "Circles".

So what is a "circle"? Circles are ways of controlling how you share and see information from people you know or are following. This is an awesome way to share information with a limited group of people or see posts from only a select few. You can create many different circles and add people to them. People can be in more than one circle. Clicking the Circle icon at the top of the Google+ page brings you to a list of people you have in your current circles, as well as options to see who has added you to their circles and inviting more people.

By dragging you mouse over the thumbnails you can see a quick pop up with a link to their Google+ page and whether they exist in any of your circles. If they are in one or more of your circles the circles they are in will glow.

Mousing over the circles will highlight the people contained with in it. A very cool and quick way of identifying who is in what circle.

The circle interface is all drag and drop. Dragging a person into a circle adds them to that circle, dragging them out removes them from the circle. An amazing interface for managing your friends and interests.

There are default circles for Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Following.

You can easily create new circles by dragging people into the new circle on the far left hand side.

So you can create circles for your co-workers, for people who have a similar interest to you (music, film, books, tech, etc...), or any number of reasons. I need to spend more time on my circles, further defining sub-sets and interests. But I can already see that "circles" is the most powerful feature of Google+

Now, how do circles come into play. In the simplest terms it is a way of controlling the information you are receiving and the information you are sharing.

When you click in the share, you can choose which circles you want to share the information with. So if you find an article on the web that is only of real interest to a smaller group of people (family, your close friends, co-workers, fellow hobbyists, etc..) you can select only those circles in which to share that information with.

On the flip side, circles can also filter your stream to only showing posts from people within that circle.

On the left hand side of the stream is a list of "circles" ( denoted by the circle beside them) both the default built in "circles" and any "circles" you have created.

A handy quick way to show only posts from your family or co-workers or just the people you are "following".

One thing that sorely seems to be missing is the ability to show posts from multiple circles or exclude particular circles, say if you want to see posts from your friends and family but not the 100 social media celebrities you are following. Hopefully they will add this feature soon.

The Incoming link will show you posts from people who have added you to a circle, but you haven't added them to one of your own. Pretty beneficial to celebrities who have hoards of stranger following them, as your unfiltered stream can get pretty cluttered real quick.

Your profile page can also be filtered using circles. So say if you want only people in your circles to see where you live, where you are employed, whether you are single or not, you can specify just your circles or just specific circles. As an added bonus, you can choose to view your channel as another person. A little reassurance that you are only disclosing the information you want to the people you want to. A nice touch for the paranoid and tin-hat types.

One feature I haven't had an opportunity to play with is "Hangouts".

A hangout is a video chat room. Looks a bit like this.

You can invite circles of friends to "hangout". The interface shows the videos from each person participating and I'm assuming attempts to intelligently feature in the larger window who every may be speaking at that time. There is also a traditional text chat as well. I've also heard that the chat can also use Google translate to translate from one language to another on the fly.
Google+ is also closely tied with Picasa, Google's photo app. Clicking the photo button at the top, will show you photos from others in your circles. There are options here to upload more photos, see images uploaded from your phone and see your Picasa albums. From here you can share photos with your circles.

Google+ also has an interest aggregatorc called Sparks. You can search for an interest, say "Video Editing" and it will create a "Spark" for you listed on your stream. Clicking it will scrape up web site articles and blog posts from around the net pertaining to that subject.

The sad part is that it doesn't seem to be as integrated into the rest of Google+. You'd think that it would also have the ability to search public posts and posts from your circles. Something similar to #hashtagging in Twitter. So kind of a shame there. I hope in the future they will incorporate some sort of functionality like that into Sparks.
Of course there is a portable mobile version of Google+. No need to be out of touch with your Google+ pals while you are away from your desk.
I have an EVO 4G running Android. Downloading the app was one of the first things I did.

The interface is simple. It's not as full featured as the desktop app. Seems more difficult to filter your stream and manage your circles. But the basics are here along with a few features that aren't available in the desktop app.
The main screen allows you access to your stream, your photos, your profile, circles, notifications and a mobile only chat feature called Huddle.

Selecting stream, you get your Google+ screen showing all the posts in your stream.

The unfortunate part here is that this is posts from all of your circles. Unlike the easy circle links on the side of the stream in the desktop app, in order to show only posts from certain circles you have to do a number of additional clicks through pages to choose a circle and then show the posts from that circle. You have to go back to the main page, click circles, click a specific circle and then click the Posts button.

I kept looking for a drop down or menu option in the main page stream to select a specific circle to show. Hopefully another area they will address to make it as easy as the desktop app.
From the circles page you can also also manage the circles to a certain extent.
Adding someone new to a circle is easy enough, click the little +people icon in the top right corner and click on the person you want, then click the "add to circle" button choose a circle.
It's a bit of a cumbersome process to move people around or out of circles as it requires a lot of clicks. Click the circle, click the person, click the circle, click what circle you want them to be in.
Seems to be another opportunity for improvement.
By flicking the stream screen from left to right, it shows a "Nearby" tab. This uses your location as determined by your GPS or wireless to show you checkins from other Google+ members close to you.

A neat feature to see if your pal is at a pub just down the street from where you are. The downside, is that checkins don't seem to terribly accurate with your position...often putting you a street over from where you should be. Probably due to the accuracy of the GPS...quite possibly that Google Places doesn't seem to have as many locations in the database as FourSquare or other apps, so instead of positioning you at a bar, restaurant, grocery store, it just uses the coordinates. Hopefully that will also get better with time and more use by the general populous. I think it has a lot of potential and something beyond what FourSquare offers.
The profile button allows you to see your profile as well as just your past posts and your photos. Not really much to see here.

The photos button has links to show photos from your circles, photos of you (photos you have been tagged in) and access to your Picasa albums.

There seems to be some constraints as apparently you can only share photos from your phone and not from an existing album. Little bit of a bummer if you are on the road and what to share that one photo from your Picasa album shown. Seems like something that should be an option.
Huddle is a mobile only chat or instant message app. I haven't really played with it much since I'm shy and anti-social (probably the reason I haven't done much with Hangout on the desktop app either).

I'm sure once more of my closer friends join in on Google+ this will be a great feature. I could see the potential for collaborative discussions while being bored in a meeting with several of your Google+ friends.
Well, that's Google+ in a nutshell. Overall, I think it has a lot of potential. Incorporating cool features from other social network sites as well as including their own innovative spin. There are still a few rough spots that need to be polished out. Google has already made some changes as to the way things are shared (previously one could re-share something publicly that they had received as a member of a limited circle). Within a couple of days, there were better rules in place for re-sharing content. So they are taking the opportunity of having a bunch of social media's heavy hitters beat on their app to fine tune and add features that matter and benefit everyone.
I hope that they will incorporate more features like themes (the immense bright white expanse is a little fatiguing on your eyes) to change the colors. The ability to pin your popular circles, adding and excluding them from the stream, being able to pin certain posts to the top of the stream...the list goes on.
If they keep it up, keep listening to their users and keep incorporating features that people want and can use easily, Google+ may just become the Facebook killer everyone keeps talking about. Until then there is still a lot of work to be done.
+Erik Pontius

The Tarantula Hawk

2011-05-24T20:15:00.000-05:00

I had the day off last Friday and thought it would be a good day to hang out with my parents for a few hours as I hadn't seen them in a while.
Dad showed me around the yard a bit where they were trying to nurse their yard back to life from an unfortunate gardening mishap. I noticed that there were a lot of these little round dug up areas in the flower beds and other bare spots around the yard. Dad said they thought perhaps some critter like an Armadillo or squirrel had been digging around but they weren't sure.
We had breakfast our on their back deck looking out over a valley and nature preserve and I noticed a puddle of sticky sap on the deck that Dad had covered with a paper towel to prevent us from walking through it. It was dripping out of a branch somewhere far up into this towering oak tree covering their deck. Dad wasn't sure where it might be coming from specifically so they could patch it up to prevent the sap from dripping out.
After breakfast and a trip to the vet (another story) I left and went home. A few hours later Mom calls me all excited that they had discovered what had been digging the holes in the yard. "An armadillo" I suggested... no, Mom says. It was a Tarantula Hawk Wasp. She said Dad had been looking up into the tree trying to pin point where the sap was coming from and saw a huge wasp buzzing around an area of the tree oozing some sap. He watched this wasp as it flew around the side of the house and starts to attack a tarantula.
They Googled it up to try to figure out what this huge wasp was that was bold enough to attack a tarantula and came across the Tarantula Hawk Wasp.
In an almost horror movie fashion. They attack tarantulas and paralyze them with a huge 1/3 in stinger. Once immobilized they drag them to these little burrows they dig, planting their egg on the spiders body. Then they bury them. When the egg hatches it burrows itself into the still living tarantula and begins to eat their juicy innards and leave the vital bits 'til last.

Here's a bit of video I found on YouTube.

Made me think of this critter Dad and I came across on the trail on our last Big Bend hiking trip.

RIP DSL?

2011-03-27T12:25:00.000-05:00

Something like 8 years ago, I made the plunge and upgraded my dial up service to "high speed". This was my first foray into high speed internet access.
I'd heard a number of bad experiences from friends and co-workers with cable modem service and at the time it required you to also pay for basic cable TV service as well... I couldn't afford both.
That left DSL. After a little delay waiting for DSL service to be available in my fairly new neighborhood, I signed up for DSL service through Southwestern Bell ( now AT&T...again). There were a few hiccups in the beginning due to heat frying out components in SBC's "C.O." boxes. But those were all resolved and the service has been reliable pretty much ever since
Then about 5 years ago, AT&T started to experiment with a new high speed service called U-verse that combined TV, phone and Internet all in to one cable. Just so happened to be that they were testing it in my area. I researched a little on it and was considering trying it out. I was already a Dish Network customer for TV and obligated to a contract, I didn't need the TV part of U-verse. Much to my dismay, I discovered that they didn't offer just internet access by itself. So I ultimately decided against it.
Few years later U-verse was released to a wider public. I started getting, 3 or 4 pieces or more of junk mail a week from AT&T encouraging me to switch over to U-verse. Everything from postcards, catalogs, brochures, letters, sneaky letters with "important information" or mysterious no-name return addresses. And that's in addition to phone calls and emails. All of which point me to distrust the service. Now almost out of principles, I've been avoiding U-verse. They must be pushing their service so hard because it is advantages to them and not necessarily me. Otherwise, why all the sneaky techniques and barrage of collateral material?
So that brings me to today. AT&T just sent me an email regarding updates to their Internet Terms of Service. If you've been reading tech blogs lately or seen Sprint's latest TV ads, you may know that AT&T and other internet service providers are adding provisions to throttle internet access for abnormally high usage. They claim this only affects 1% of their subscribers. Curious for the details, I read through this email to find this: Conversion from DSL to U-verse High Speed Internet
I quickly pull up the referenced Terms of Service on AT&T's site:

Conversion from DSL to U-verse High Speed Internet. When AT&T is able to provision Service to you via our U-verse High Speed Internet at your location, we may, in our discretion, discontinue your DSL service and make available to you AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet at the then applicable rates, terms and conditions, which may differ from your previous DSL Service rates, terms and conditions (including bundle discounts). If you are on a term plan and your price will increase as a result of this conversion, you will not have to pay any applicable ETF if you elect to cancel service. Your new AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet will require different customer premises equipment ("CPE"). When you are selected for conversion, we will provide at least thirty days' notice of the discontinuation of your service via e-mail. Thirty days after such notice, we may at our sole discretion, either disconnect your service or temporarily suspend your service for up to fifteen days before we permanently discontinue service.

In other words, they are reserving the right to forcible switch me over to U-verse, whether I like it or not since U-verse is available in my area. I'm assuming that maintaining the older DSL technology is too costly for them so the are phasing out DSL in favor of a cheaper for them U-verse. And this is their way of saying "we asked you nicely to switch...you didn't so now we're forcing you to."
I don't think any consumer likes to be told what choices to make..or in this case, not being given a real choice at all.
The irony is that I've been considering switching since they now offer just an internet service and offer speeds of up to 24Mb/s (my dsl is capped at 6). Another advantage is that they will allow me to keep my current "sbc" email address. Less hassle for me.
At this point I'm not sure what to do. Wait it out and wait to be forced to switch, which could be inconvenient for me. Switch now so that I have some semblance of control over the situation. Or go a different direction and try a completely different ISP. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of other choices.
Anyone else been through a conversion from DSL to U-verse? Do you currently have U-verse high speed? Got any other suggestions?

Machete coming to Blu-ray and DVD, Jan 4 2011

2010-12-23T12:18:00.001-06:00

Robert Rodriguez's "Machete", which Meredith did the special FX make-up for, will be released on Blu-ray and DVD January 4, 2011.
It's a fun action noir "grindhouse" style film starring a ridiculously cool cast of Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson...and for that wow factor Lindsay Lohan.
So pre-order today!

Blu-ray DVD

2010 Emmy Award Nominations

2010-07-09T13:46:00.002-05:00

One of Meredith's many make-up friends called her up yesterday. She said "Congratulations!". Meredith said "for what?". To which her friend replied "for your Emmy Nomination!"
Sure enough, she's been nominated for an Emmy for her work on the HBO bio-pic "Temple Grandin".
"Temple Grandin" was shot around Austin over a few months a few summer's ago.
It was a pretty stressful shoot for her. She'd come home crying almost every night as the department head seemed to really ride her hard. But she stuck it out.
So it's nice that she's being rewarded and recognized for her hard work. Hopefully she'll win, but even if she doesn't, it's a great resume builder just to be able to say she's been nominated. I'm pretty proud of her.
She's come a long way from slinging java in a coffee shop and picking up make up jobs for no budget film projects on the weekends.
Though for a true showcase of her creative talents, we'll have to wait for Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" to be released in September.
Now I have to find a tux somewhere...

Grandpa "Tip" Going Home

2010-04-10T18:50:00.001-05:00

Very early Friday morning the phone rang. I answered it to find my mother sobbing on the other end. I knew that this couldn't be good.
My Grandfather had just passed away.
My Grandpa "Tip" has been in the nursing home for the past year or two. With Alzheimer's, diabetes, a pacemaker with a battery in need of a charge and a perhaps sprinkling of undiagnosed Parkinson's this wasn't totally unexpected. You never want to ever let your loved ones go so it is always tough when they do leave.
I think my Grandfather lead a good life. He may of not been a rich,wealthy man, but what he lacked in riches he made up with in heart. Always the friendly guy who made his rounds around the small town of Baudette, MN, going to the gas station just to have conversation and check in on how people were doing. An avid hunter and fisherman. Always willing to lend a hand. The guy everyone knew and loved.
I doubt that life was always easy for him. He was a World War II Navy veteran. Was a recovering alcoholic for many many years, probably long before I was ever born. He'd grown up poor and had an alcoholic for a father.
The good and the bad shape how we are. And in Grandpa's case, I think every thing worked to make him a great Grandfather.
This coming Saturday is his funeral. I'm leaving Austin early on Friday to fly to Bemidji, MN, the closest big airport to Baudette. It's then a 2 hour drive to Baudette. Funerals aren't my favorite thing to attend. I think mostly because so much of the emphasis is on mourning the loss and not enough about celebrating the life that it was.
Hopefully this will be different, as Grandpa Tip had a great life.

My mother sent me a link to this video. Thought it might have been something her Daddy would have said as he went home:

iPad Hype

2010-04-03T12:56:00.001-05:00

Good thing that Steve Jobs is not in the business of selling Snake Oil and Moon real estate, or we'd all be buying some. He must have an incredible propaganda machine. Looking at the front page of CNN.com you'd think for sure that the entire CNN staff got their payroll from Cupertino.
Don't get me wrong. While I'm not a Mac fan boy by any means, I do admire Apple's design, ergonomics and simplicity (though the dirty secret about Macs is that they actually have their share of problems too). Though I think the thing I admire the most out of Apple is their ability to create hoards of raving fans that will buy anything they produce...no matter what it is...sight unseen.
The iPod and iPhone were certainly revolutionary, even though portable music players and smart phones had essentially existed long before either iDevice was a glimmer in Steve Job's eye. So what made it different when Apple produced them? A heck of a lot of spin for one thing... But they did spend a lot of time looking at what other products weren't and baking that into their products. Couple that with the more less proprietary service of iTunes to get your music and apps transferred. It's pure genius and an act that apparently only Steve can get away with.
So that brings me to the iPad. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the Kindle. While I don't think that the iPad is really a Kindle killer (though the iPad does come with an eReader), since it lacks a lot of the real benefits of the Kindle, such as free 3G connectivity, worldwide with the new models, and really, really long battery life. The CNN article on the 12 Things to Know about the iPad had some misinformation and glossed over a lot of the limitations of the iPad. Somethings I noted:

No mention of battery life.
You can choose not to sign up with AT&T for service...which puts you at the mercy of wireless hot spots...which while becoming more common in public spaces, still aren't everywhere.
The neglected to mention that the Kindle reading app is available for the iPad. Still a win/win for Amazon.
The article made it seem as though the only place you could get content for the kindle was Amazon. The kindle supports unprotected content from Mobipocket books and text files. You can also send documents like Word files and PDFs to your kindle either by copying the files over by standard universal USB port or sending to your Amazon kindle email address where they are then converted and sent to your Kindle wirelessly.
The Kindle DX supports landscape mode. I'm not sure I've ever read two pages of the same book at the same time. Seems like touting this as an amazing feature of the iPad is a bit of a non-item. Printed books have two pages, otherwise they would be twice as thick and twice as expensive to produce...

Oh yeah...that whole USB thing. Apple seems to have taken a step back in time and decided to do away with a standard universally compatible USB port in favor of their proprietary dock thing... need to snag some power while you are on the go? Now where did I leave that dock thing? Any one have a dock thing I can borrow? Anyone?
But could be that Apple is trying to change the world one standard at a time. Perhaps they have something else cooked up.
I'm more interested in seeing what the PC companies have lined up for slates with some real computing power. One of the biggest negatives so far with the iPad is its inability to multi-task. While I'm sure that some propeller head in Cupertino is already working on that for the 2nd gen iPad, which will be released shortly after all the early adopters have camped out for days in front of the Apple Store to buy the first generation. Nothing like a little double-dipping to squeeze more cash from your droves of ravenous fans. Keep your eye on Ebay in about 6-8 months.
We'll see...I don't think it's going to be a crazy success at least not in its first incarnation, but if it spurns development in creating the paper thin portable computers of the future I'm all for it.

Heavy Rain Update

2010-03-20T12:23:00.003-05:00

I finished Heavy Rain about two days after I started playing it. Not a very long game at all. From what I've been seeing around the web, it is intended to be played several times since the outcome of the game can vary slightly depending on what choices you make throughout the game and who lives, who dies. There is a huge list of trophies that you can obtain from doing these elaborate sequences of movements accurately. Such as the "Baby Master" trophy (shown in the video below) in which you gain a trophy for changing a diaper, feeding a bottle and burping a baby.

As I wrote in my previous post, the control system was what really drew me to the game. I wouldn't doubt it if we see similar things in the future in other titles. It really brings you into the game making you feel more connected.
I didn't have any other glitches pop up in about the last half of the game. There were some instances where you would pop out of an animated mini-cut scene only to get stuck where you couldn't move or some things wouldn't render completely. Restarting the game would resolve it. Maybe they'll fix some of these things in an update at some point.
The graphics were a stunning. As you work through the game you unlock some videos a few that deal with the making of the game. They spent a lot of time capturing expression and facial detail.

Overall, Heavy Rain was an enjoyable experience. I'm very tempted to go back through it again to try to get more trophies and see what other paths I can follow.....but I've been a little distracted working on a huge complicated project for work with a very short deadline (which also explains the tardiness of this post).
I picked up God of War III. Actually, I pre-ordered it from Amazon so that I wouldn't have to scramble to try to find a copy locally. Plus I could choose a gift wrap option (my present wrapping skills suck) as this was more a gift for Meredith than it was for me.
God of War III is the 3rd installment of a game that Meredith and I have really enjoyed playing. It's a hack 'n slash dungeon crawler with some amazing animation and a variety of weapons, magic and special moves. Some really cool animated final kills that would put Mortal Kombat to shame.
Figured Meredith would wear the buttons out on the controllers so I bought her a new one in her favorite color.

Heavy Rain

2010-03-07T13:40:00.000-06:00

I picked up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3 the other day. It's kind of mix between Memento, Seven, The Cell, Minority Report, Zodiac and Thirteenth Floor. The graphics are phenomenal. The developers took a lot of time tweaking the faces of the characters making them look extremely realistic.
The gameplay is more like following a "choose your own adventure" graphic novel. You follow several different characters as each is trying to solve a bit of the mystery. You switch between characters as the story moves from chapter to chapter.
In some cases, two characters may be in the same scene and you may pick up control of one character as the first leaves the scene. Choices and actions you make throughout the game alter the outcome in subtle ways.

Even more fascinating to me than the graphics was the control system. I'd read an article in Wired magazine discussing this revolutionary new context sensitive control system. So when presented with different choices and actions, images of the button action appears. So in contrast to traditional control systems where each button is assigned to a specific action, there are endless possibilities as that same button may do a completely different thing faced with a different obstacle.
When conversing with other characters you have different topics or ways in which to say things (persistent, sympathy, etc...) illustrated by a button symbol and keyword that floats around your head. This allows you to have an influence on how the scene plays out.
Timing is critical, if you neglect to hit a button fast enough (or slow enough) there is a consequence. Sometimes you are also required to press and hold down a series of buttons, sometimes making for an interesting game of finger twister as you attempt to hold down a number of buttons on the controller.
It also makes use of the accelerometer in the controller, allowing you to steer vehicles, push and slide objects, all by tilting and moving the controller up, down, left , right.
Things aren't all rosy though. Several times there have been glitches in the game that wouldn't allow the character to move until restarted the game. Realtime rendering glitches, like background characters gliding along the ground instead of walking. Even the very opening intro animation had the character floating 8 inches off the bed frame because the mattress didn't render.
I've just started working through the game and overall, with the exception of the random glitches, has been very immersive and enjoyable. Later I'll post a follow up to this post with some further thoughts as I get farther into the story.
Here's a clip of actual Heavy Rain gameplay.

My Kindle Experience

2010-03-02T00:38:00.000-06:00

Never fails that when I'm about to go on a trip I'm nearing the end of one book and end up having to pack at least one other book in my carry on to make sure I don't get stuck in an airport with nothing to read.
By the end of the trip I'm lugging around some dead weight from the book(s) I've finished.
The Amazon Kindle looked like a great solution to this problem. I've been interested in the Kindle since they first came out a few years ago. The first generation seemed a little pricey and a little clunky to me so I resisted buying one (not to mention they were sold out for quite a while as well).
The 2nd generation came out and it was more refined, thinner and all around just looked nice. I kept looking at them and thinking "should I?" I'm very much in love with the tactile feeling that a real book can give you. The smell of the ink on the page, the texture of the paper and so on. Could I give it up for a thin piece of electronics?
When faced with the potential of going on a business trip for a few days back in August I thought it would be the perfect opportunity. I ordered a 2nd gen Kindle which arrived a few days later. I unpacked it and turned it on to read a personalized welcome letter. How thoughtful. I was struck by how light the little thing was. Next I noticed that my natural resting position for my thumb was just about right over the "next page" button. I thumbed through the user's guide and was amazed at the clarity of the text on the page, even in bright sunlight when I'm sitting on the back patio.
I ordered a couple of Kindle "books" next some I paid for and some that Amazon was more less giving away (can you buy something for $0.00?). I'd have to admit that it took me a day or so to really get used to reading on the Kindle. There is a bit of an automatic impulse to turn a page the old fashion way rather than pressing a button. After a while it became second nature.
Furthermore, I'm not sure they even thought of this, but I even noticed that when lying in bed reading that because of the space taken up by the keyboard at the bottom of the unit that it positions the screen right at a comfortable spot in front of you. One of the things that always bugged me about reading in bed was that you had to hold the book up to read the lower part of the page. Might not seem a big deal...but when you are reading something like Robert Jordan's "The Lord of Chaos" weighing in at over 1000 pages in paperback...it takes it toll on you.
I even noticed that with "next page" buttons on both sides of the device you can read on you side quite comfortably, switching hands whenever on gets tired.
Anyway, I've had my Kindle for several months now. I've read a handful of books on it and I'd have to say I'm quite addicted to it now. I love being able to take one device with me that has enough to keep me occupied if I get stuck in a Denver airport in a snowstorm.

MEAT

2010-03-01T23:02:00.012-06:00

Looks like Mark finally got around to uploading his strangely bizarre but all around quirky comedy "MEAT" to YouTube. Which is a film about an interesting life lesson of how it feels to be on the other side of things. And it's a great opportunity to see the great David Blackwell reprise his role as a store clerk.
Meredith and I worked on this short film a few years ago and it was a real blast. Meredith doing makeup and me doing some camera work. Though her work is far better than mine, I'd have to admit.
Mark is one of those guys with a great eye for composition and detail and I always enjoy working with him on projects. Films are a lot more fun when you work with people you really like and respect.
Anyway, here's "MEAT"

New Tutorial: How to Use the New YouTube Channels

2009-10-19T20:17:00.005-05:00

YouTube just rolled out a re-design of their channel pages. It's radically different from the old channel design, so the recent site wide roll out has generated a lot of usage questions.
I've been using the "beta" for almost a year and thought I'd scratch up a little tutorial on them now they they have rolled out to everyone.
Most everything on the new channel design can be changed without leaving the channel now. No need to go to different places around in your account settings to change various aspects of the channel like you did with the old design.

Childhood

2009-08-22T00:59:00.008-05:00

I just finished watching Poltergeist for the second time in over 25 years. Myself and Poltergeist have a long history. When I was young dad was stationed in Hessich Oldendorf, Germany It was the 80's, dawn of the VHS tape. There was some entrepreneurial folks stationed there that took it upon themselves to start their own video rental shops straight out of there military supplied housing. I can remember that membership cost a couple of donated movies on VHS tapes. Mom donated some rather innocent titles like Swiss Family Robinson and Elephant Man (before I knew who David Lynch was).
Dad was the base commander and along with mom were always being called way for some official function or some boring ball with the local German townsfolk leaving my brother and I with the sitters.
Rob rented Poltergeist one night when mom & dad were away. We had this great VHS player set up in the living room. It had a "remote" control that was a little play/rewind/fast forward/pause control tethered by a cord to the VHS deck. It was cutting edge back them believe me...
So Rob gets this movie and watches it. In it there is a scene where one of the characters has a pretty traumatic experience in which he sees a small cut on his face, starts to peel it and eventually peels most of his face off. Being maybe all of 8 or 9 years old at the time this freaks the crap out of me. Seeing my traumatic reaction to this what is an older brother to do but rewind the thing a dozen times.
I had nightmares for weeks after that. And not just nightmares but well...daymares? I'd see this poor wretch peel his face off in my mind throughout the day sometimes.
This more less started my obsession with special effects make up. One day perusing the base exchange's book store I stumble across Fangoria Magazine. I am amazed to see that it shows make up effects from all sorts of movies and gives some detailed explanations about how it is all done. Some strange therapy, but I come to the realization that it is all fake! And that there is some real art in making the unbelievable believable.
Flash forward 25+ years. I've avoided Poltergeist like the plague for all the years. That face peeling scene still stuck in my mind after all these years. Creeping into my nightmares even though I know it is not real. I see the movie sitting on the shelves in glorious Blu-Ray at my local Best Buy. I finally decided to face my fears and watch the darn thing. I get it home, wait until it is nice and dark outside and pop the disc in.
My oh my, how times have changed. First off I don't remember jack about this movie. The first quarter of the movie I don't even remember. Second...were we really that badly dressed in the 80's? I remember the kitchen chair repositioning themselves... I remember the paranormal crew getting there. Then the guy that decides in the middle of the night to look through the fridge only to find a maggot ridden chicken drumstick and a steak that vomits itself up. Poor chap goes straight to the bathroom to barf a bit. Then it dawns on me that this is the moment I've been waiting for. After 25 years I can finally face my fear of this face peeling.
So the poor chap enters the bathroom and vomits a few times...looks up in the mirror and discovers this small cut on his face and proceeds to peel his face off... Only now I can dissect the scene... Guy enters the bathroom, vomits a bit, cut to the sink, back to the mirror.... holy crap! that appliance looks like sh!t! Suddenly the left half of his face has turn into really poor looking foam latex. You can tell when he presses up on the gag a bit to ooze the blood out the little "wound". Then cut to the sink again. Then back to the mirror to a horribly bad looking "head" with too hands in front of it ripping apart some poorly done foam latex to reveal a stock skeleton skull.
At this point I'm dumb founded by the fact that I was so traumatized by such a crappy gag from so many years ago. My how times have changed. Now I think to myself, Meredith could of done a heck of a lot better job and would have made it much more believable.
I have no idea what I was scared of all those years ago.

Unfortunately, the same experience hasn't been able to cure my fear of creepy clowns...

My Past in Shreds

2009-08-12T21:40:00.005-05:00

I've spent the last couple of days shredding my life. No I haven't fallen into a bout of depression or anything. I finally decided to clean up my front bedroom/computer room. I can only stand mess for so long, before I get sick of it and make the time to clean it up.
This front room has been accumulating junk and stacks of old bills and receipts for the past several years. Got bad enough that I could hardly walk into the room, couldn't close the closet door, couldn't see the six foot long couch because it was stacked a foot high with papers.
I'm a bit of a pack rat by genetics. My parents were never very good about throwing things out and the same mentality seems to be in my blood. Never know when you might need this or that. Better keep it 'cause it might come in handy later... and a thousand other excuses...all adds up to a big pile of junk that I can't find anything in even if I did need it.
I finally decided that I could really part with that electric bill from 1998 and the cell phone bill from 2002. Went to Office Depot, bought a few bankers boxes and a large paper shredder and set about to attacking the mess.
It's funny how the littlest things mark times in your life both good and bad. I had a couple of big boxes of stuff from my days in support, old ISA sound cards, 10 base-2 BNC network cards, boxes of 3.5" floppy disks (Win95 on floppy anyone?) and a bunch of other junk that is obsolete.
Digging deeper I find artifacts from my days in college, even deeper I find high school year books. Even found old cassette tapes with "mixes" I'd made as a young skateboarding kid.
I pitched a lot of the junk but pulled out a lot of the stuff that had more meaning like a couple of audio tapes when a couple of my friends and I tried to make a punk band in the basement, photographs and yearbooks. Stuff that has real sentimental value and is irreplaceable.
Then I tried to unearth the couch. Literally buried under a foot deep of old bills and paper is a old brown hide-a-bed couch. Decided to filter out all the bank statements, mortgage statements, and other financial documents and file them away in the bankers boxes all neatly organized. Just in case I get audited I suppose. I feed the rest to the shredder.
Into the shredder go old credit card statements, electric and phone bills...tons of shopping receipts and other crap that doesn't serve a purpose any more. Looking through all these papers stirs up more memories. I can mark the highs and lows through my life just my following my paper trail. Feed it all to the shredder. My past in shreds.
This year marks the first year of my adult life that I'm finally debt free. I've paid off my mortgage and credit cards. My vehicle has been paid off for years. I'm finally saving some money. There is something liberating and refreshing about shredding a bunch of old credit card statements and "payment overdue" notices. Feel a bit like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. Starting new. Re-born.

9 - Teaser Trailer

2009-07-20T13:25:00.001-05:00

cool...

Popcorn Friday

2009-03-20T07:00:00.007-05:00

Two movies that Meredith worked on years ago doing special FX makeup that we thought for sure would never see the light of day...have finally come to light.

First up is Hallettsville, an almost typical boy haunted by his ancestor's secrets kind of film. Grandmother dies leaving the family lake front property to who doesn't want it because it brings back bad memories. The son decides that the best thing to do with a freaky old house on haunted property is to pack up all his co-eds and run out for a night of drinking and debauchery.
The scariest thing in this was Gary Busey, who wasn't even in a scary role...he's just scary 'cause he's Gary Busey. This was Meredith's first exposure to Gary but would not be her last.
Anyway, rent it if you can find it. It was shot in Austin and Johnson City and crewed by a lot of locals (including Meredith). If you really want to have fun, see if you can get drunker than Gary by the time the credits role.

Next up, the film that almost gave Meredith an ulcer, Exit Speed. Story of an eclectic group travelers on Christmas Eve trying to minimize their carbon footprint and take the bus to BFE, Texas, when their travel is interrupted by a murderous crystaled-out gang of stunt motorcycle riders (they're rampant these days). Deciding that the bus is not running on eco-friendly natural gas and they harass the bus for kicks, fun, women, money and showmanship. Fighting back with cosplay, Mexican ingenuity, and kick ass soccer moms a war ensues.
Meredith did the makeup special effects (and there are a lot of effects). She tackled a lot of last minute director "what if we..." effects.
In any event, she learned a lot on this film:

She learned that shooting a film in the Texas rainy season is a bad idea.
Discovered that they manufacturer bug zappers in tennis racket form.
She experienced first hand how to tell if a lawyer is lying...they opened their mouth.

She did meet a lot of fine people and learn some cool tricks to boot. Not sure if she would do it again, but I doubt she regretted doing it at all.
Overall, not a bad film. If you can find it in the bargain bin at the Super Wal*Mart pick it up. She did a great job on a pretty makeup effects laden film...worth a watch just to go "ewwwww...."

To wet your appetite here's a trailer:

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T17:54:00.008-05:00

I'm not Irish, but I certainly enjoy a pint of Guinness when I can. Probably more English, Finish, and German with a little French thrown in for taste. But I really enjoy Irish culture, music, drink and food. I had the pleasure of visiting Ireland a few years back for work. I decided that it wasn't often I get to Ireland and extended my trip to cover the weekend to tool around Dublin and see some sites. First stop was the Guinness brewery. The Mecca for Guinness lovers.

I got some culture in by visiting Trinity College and the Book of Kells. I was fascinated by the library there, more than the famous book.
Also stopped by the Oscar Wilde statue Merrion Square.

Well, we're off to Fiddler's Hearth to have some pints.
Happy St. Patty's Day!

Oldies but Goodies

2009-03-15T23:41:00.008-05:00

I decided to dig up a couple of old 48hr film project films I'd edited years ago. Brought back memories of when I had more free time and could do this kind of thing for fun. These were a lot of work, but I met a lot of good people, who I remain good friends with today.
If you are not familiar with these kind of 48 hour film contests, they are a challenge in which you are given 48 hours to write, film and edit a movie. To keep everyone in check, you are required to include several key common elements that each team has to include in the finished film: A character, a line of dialog and a prop. Each team is also assigned a genre. Catch is that you aren't given those key elements until the start of the 48 hours. You are allowed to do some pre-production, such as finding cast and crew, securing locations, and rounding up equipment. But all the creative aspects of the film have to take place in those 48 hours.
I got stuck with editing part or all of these films. Since the editing is the final stop in the process, all eyes are on you to finish on time and the stress piles up. Both of these films were very close calls and just finished with seconds to spare.

Here is "What a Man's Gotta Do" which was our team's entry in the 2004 National Film Challenge.

Here is "The Fantastic Escape" which was done with a lot of the same crew and a large cast. This was the team's entry in the 2005 48 Hour Film Project.

Rocky finds a home

2008-09-28T12:25:00.005-05:00

It wasn't long after Rocky's profile went up on the Weim Rescue site that people started asking about him.
The first was an artist from Marfa, TX looking for a companion. He was also looking at three other dogs. He ended up adopting the first dog he looked at. Meredith was actually happy, since Marfa is a long way away and would be less likely that we'd see Rocky at any local Weim events.
The second inquiry was only a few days later. A family from nearby Dripping Springs was interested in meeting him.
The rescue had arranged to have a Meet & Greet event this past Saturday, with the gracious support of Dogadillo, a really cool local pet store. This Meet & Greet allowed interested adopters to see some of the dogs, make donations to support, or to pick up dogs they had arranged to adopt. We had arranged to meet Rocky's adoptive family at the event. The family immediately fell in love with Rocky and he seemed to get along well with their other Weim. After a visit to their home and filling out the paperwork and briefing them on care, Rocky went for a walk with his new family and we left with mixed emotions. Happy he found a new permanent home that will love and care for him and sad because we'll miss having this happy lovable dog around to brighten our lives.
Lucky for us the adopters are close and have promised to bring Rocky to Weim events and meet ups, so we'll get to see him again.
I'd like to give a special thanks to Hip Hounds Doggy Daycare, who understands the importance of fostering rescued dogs and were gracious enough to give us a large discount for Rocky's daycare on the couple of days he was there. They are incredibly cool people and really care for the welfare of our companions. The are located very close to the Round Rock Dell campus and even offer a discount for Dell employees.

On another but similar note. The Weim rescue is in desperate need of donations and foster families. They are close to capacity to the number of dogs they can accept from shelters and other rescue efforts, some of which are "kill" shelters. The recent destruction of hurricane Ike has also increased the need for foster homes in the Houston area. So it is important that they receive donations for the care and shelter of these incredible animals and foster families that can host dogs until they can find their permanent homes. And of course, finding adoptive families for the dogs in the rescue and foster homes.

Rocky!

2008-09-11T23:48:00.007-05:00

Meredith got a call a few weeks ago from Weim Rescue Texas, which is the rescue we adopted troy from. They had a recent crisis with a sudden influx of dogs and two litters of surprise puppies from two of the dogs in the rescue. They had a dog in San Antonio that was in need of a foster home and they asked if we could help out. We've been thinking about getting Troy a playmate and this seemed to be a good opportunity to try it out. So after a little discussion we agreed to help out.
So in comes Rocky. Rocky was a stray that was picked up in San Antonio and the the people who found him contacted the rescue. Poor guy had been beat up in a dog fight with a bloody ear that looked like raw hamburger, had a bunch of spots of ringworm on various parts of his body and pretty underweight. He has callouses on his elbows and back legs evidence perhaps that he was kept in a confined space for long time...maybe his whole life.
He had a trip to the vet for a once over and treatment for all the ailments and a little snip-snip of the testicles.
Meredith went and picked him up and she just about had her heart broken. Poor little guy really loves people. Nuzzled right up to her with this pathetic "save me" look. He was a little tipsy from the anesthesia and a bit damp from the bath to kill the ringworm fungus.
For the first week Rocky wasn't eating. We thought at first that it was because of the recent operation or perhaps he was used to eating garbage or hand-outs from strangers.
After a liberal helping of canned wet dog food mixed with the regular dry food (which we soak in water) he's been eating well and putting on a little weight.
Troy seems to get along with him pretty well. Lot's of wrestling and roughhousing with the occasional growl from Troy over Rocky getting to close to his bone (which we promptly take away from him).
We took a trip to the large public dog park. Rocky absolutely loved it. Might possibly have been his first trip ever to a dog park. The next day was his first visit to doggy day care. He was a big hit there with all the staff. The socialization with other dogs has really been good for him.
Everywhere we take him people are interested and think he's a great little lovable dog. A tech at the vet was very interested. Some of the staff at doggy day care really liked him. Even the little kid down the block has practically fallen in love with the little guy.
People always ask if we're going to keep him. We've learned that one dog is plenty for us. Rocky needs a good home with lots of loving.
We have no doubt that he'll get adopted pretty quick. We'll miss him of course, but know that someone out there will really appreciate this loving and adorable companion.