Halloween Week

So this week is going to be mostly Halloween prep.

Tonight was Pumpkin carving. I carved an Optimus Prime for my son and a Megatron for myself, as my son gets to pick what goes on the pumpkins. So this years theme is Transformers. The carving was interesting, because my son lost interest when we got to the pumpkin gut scooping, a little too messy for him. And his excitement about watching someone else carve a pumpkin was understandably low, and since he's three he's not allowed much unsupervised knife use nor is he ready to carve a transformer face into a pumpkin. So there was some friction over him not wanting to be a part of the family pumpkin carving. In the end a Halloween episode of Go, Diego, Go! that could be watched from the carving table solved most of the problems.
So now we have to get ready for Friday, which is his day to bring snack to pre-school, and then perhaps three rounds of trick-or-treating. There will be piles of candy by the time we're done, but not for snack at pre-school, they sent home a note asking us not to send in candy for the class.

On a side note, my goal is to enter 1 web video contest a week for the next 4 weeks. Updates here as a meet or miss that goal.

So little free time

So I think my next free weekend at home is in December. Not that I don't have some fun activities planned, but I'm also itching to get started on some video ideas I have, and sooner rather than later is better.

On the plus side my weekends include things like:

Pumpkin shopping at Iron Kettle Farm:

and an another trip to Chuck E. Cheese:

On an unrelated note, I've begun plans to overhaul my home theater and I've found a television I really would like to get. But it's a bit out of my price range (I think it was a 45" LCD) and I'm not sure if it only looked as good as it did because of the demo reel the store was playing on it. Oh well. More thinking is required I guess.

Hopefully my next post will have at least one link to a video contest I've entered.

Family Weekend

So last weekend we went to the zoo in Syracuse and the science center in Ithaca. Pictures and Movies to follow, but I think the camera went to Texas with my wife for her conference.

But I do have more comic pages:

New Project

First I'm going to try a new project, a comic book. I really didn't grow up watching a lot of movies, I grew up more with television and comic books. And since making television shows would require a bit more crew than I have access to I'm going to take a shot at a comic book. My goal is to put three pages a week up here. I'm cheating with the first three and counting the cover as page one.

(click on pictures to see larger/readable versions)

On the second subject, fall brings new network television. There's lots of good shows out there and more than a few guilty pleasures (I'm a fan of the sitcom, almost any sitcom).
The best part of television right now is the amount of science fiction show that are being aired. But it's frustrating at the same time too. Because the only way science fiction works is if you don't violate actual known science. The best show right now is Fringe, very good storytelling and a trust that J.J. Abrams knows how to build an intricate conspiracy without stooping to stupid writers tricks. Like what X-Files devolved into. The show that's frustrating me the most is Heroes, a combination of bad science and lack of trust earned by using some of those stupid writers tricks at the beginning of last season. Plus they also pushed one of my hot button science issues, that humans don't use 100% of their brain. We do use our entire brain by the way. But It's nice to see science fiction taking a place in popular media. And though I still miss Journeyman from last year there's plenty in the middle between Fringe and Heroes to enjoy: Eureka, Knight Rider, Lost and Chuck to name a few.

That's all for now, I'm off to watch some television.

Football Sunday

Got to go to the Giants game on Sunday with my dad and brothers. It was a great game, Giants won in overtime. It was funny, because I will ALWAYS stay for the whole game, and my brothers are much more "leave when the game is out of reach for one team" kind of people. So I was told that if there was more than a 20 point disparity with less then 4 minutes to go, we were leaving. Or rather they were leaving, I was free to stay and walk home. But since there was never more than 4 points between the two scores, we were there until the game winning field goal in overtime. Great day.

I'm having trouble focusing this week. I need to get some specific projects started so that I can give myself some deadlines. One of the things I realized at the football game is that it would be fun to run a camera at sporting events. Maybe I'll look at getting a job with one of the local minor league hockey or baseball teams.

So last week we got a package in the mail, and my wife let our son play with the packing peanuts. He had fun, but picking up was murder:

Brisk Autumn

Summer turns to Fall and I'm reworking what I'm trying to get done.
Looks like I may not be fighting in crown this October, but spring still looks good.

Production: Hoping to get a short film out to festivals by the end of October.
maybe even going to try and get a script worked out too.

Going to try to keep posting here, even if their short.

Finally here's a song my son learned at school, I think it's supposed to be set to "I'm a Little Tea Pot."

Crazy August

August was jam packed, actually September doesn't look much better. But I'm going to try and get back to posting here, as I've gotten no personal production work done since my last post here.
On an SCA note I'm trying to focus on getting ready for crown tournament the first weekend in August. But work is crushing my ability to get to as many practices as I would like to right now. I'm getting about half of the fighting training I want right now. Hopefully I can make a push over the next couple weeks and get at least to point where I'm comfortable.

One of the big events of August was my getting knighted at Pennsic. I don't think I can explain what being knighted, especially at Pennsic, means to me.



Production-wise I'm hoping to get some projects started and be able to update my progress here. But for now I think produced movies with my son are on hold for now. However, I will keep posting home movie style clips, like our recent release of about two dozen salamanders my son caught on Saturday.