Movie Making and HOT Weekend!

I've been wanting to attempt this for awhile now, and with the hot weather outside, this seemed like a great time to try it. Plus, my son wanted to help do it too. We're making a Star Wars based movie using the LEGO minifig characters. I used my PC's webcam to capture the stop-motion "action." Over the weekend, we wrote a short script (I wanted to keep it simple this first time), recorded the voice lines and finished up yesterday shooting the action. We also picked out some Star Wars sound effects. Now we just have to edit the footage all together. There is only a short part with lightsabres in it and I searched the 'Net on how to make the lightsabre effects in Photoshop Elements. It's been a learning experience, and we didn't go to any great effort for backgrounds, etc. I just wanted to keep it simple and fun for our first time. My son already has grand delousions of two more sequels so we can have our trilogy. HA! Anyway, it has been some good Father/Son time for us.

As I mentioned, the weather was hot Hot HOT! It has been averaging 104 degrees everyday this past weekend and including today. The forecast calls for a break tomorrow with some rain and then the rest of the week is only suppose to get in to the upper 80's. That's good news as we're heading out on a little family vacation this week (so this will be my only blog entry this week by the way).

I'm taking off work tomorrow so my wife can go on her yearly shopping spree with a friend (I get to watch the kids all day... Yippee!). Then we leave Wednesday for our little vacation and come back sometime Friday. I'll report all about that when we get back.

This coming Friday (29th) is my grandma's (my mother's mom) birthday. She's in her early 90's, but I don't know exactly which birthday this is... She wouldn't tell me last year. ha! I'll have to find out what it is... Anyway, Happy Early Birthday, Grandma!

Blessings!

Happy Birthday and One Weekend of Earth Memories

Gotta send out a Happy Birthday to my cousin Keith (turning 41 today). I don't get to see him very often, but he's a great guy. Hope you have a great day!

When I mentioned about James Doohan's death in my last post, I forgot to mention my "brush with fame" moment with James. My dad and a friend of mine went to the "Star Trek: One Weekend on Earth" 30th Anniversary convention in Huntsville, AL back in 1996. All of the Original Series cast were there along with members from all of the others series as well. My friend and I got in an autograph line for James (after paying $20 of course), but this one was sponsored by SkyBox trading cards. You got your picture taken with Mr. Doohan, and they made it to look like a trading card, put it in a plexiglass holder with a "hockey puck" holder which Scotty autographed. It was pretty cool to be standing next to a wonderful man. I have a lot of fun memories of going to that event. And now, here we are almost 10 years later... Ugh. :-)

YEAH, it's almost the weekend!!!

Blessings!

School Registration and Scotty

My son (and daughter for that matter) had to skip swim lessons today so my wife could take him to get a physical for school registration. So, after the physical, then they went over to the new school for registration. He'll find out who all is in his class and which teacher he'll be slaving under for the next school year. :-)

I had a church board meeting last night that went pretty smoothly. We had our mid-year budget review inwhich not too many things changed. Seems this year each month, the giving is up one month and down the next month... Just as it all evens out by the end of the year, that will be a good thing.

Alas, today one of my heroes has passed. James Doohan, who played the miracle working engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the TV show "Star Trek," passed away this morning at age 85. He was one of my favorites on the show even though he didn't get a lot of screen time. Thanks, Scotty!

Blessings!

It's OVER!

It's over for this year anyway! I almost consider the Honor Star Crowning to be our "superbowl" of church productions. It's kind of stressful for me making sure everything goes okay. Like I mentioned in my last post, I took off early on Friday and went to the local pool to watch my kids doing their swimming lessons. After that, I went over to the church to work on my Honor Star videos. I got home a little after 6pm, but I got everything done. All nine photo montage videos and edited all 9 audio testimony files.

Saturday, I didn't do a whole lot... It was hot outside, so Saturday afternoon while my daughter was taking a nap, my son and I went out side for a water fight. He had the water hose, and I used my big Super Soaker. We must of been out there for an hour and a half. We had a lot of fun. I got a good sunburn too. :-) I got pretty worn out from all the running around and my arm was sore from all the pumping up of the Super Soaker. But it was a good worn out feeling.

Sunday was the big day... I had to be at the church at 2pm for the Honor Star Crowning rehearsal which seemed to me to go pretty smooth. During the actual event, there seemed to be a lot of audio problems between the main sound board and the video room, but after the first girl, the rest of them went a lot better. Everyone liked the photo montage videos and I got lots of thanks and complements. The Honor Star sponsors gave me a nice $30 Applebee's gift certificate too. That's always a nice "Thank You" as well. :-) After we got home, I felt like crashing as all the stress was now lifted off of me... I slept pretty good last night.

Today, is just another Monday here at work... No major problems arose, so it's been a good day I guess. I'm ready to go home... See my beautiful wife and wonderful kids... :-)

Blessings!

FRIDAY!

Yeah, it's Friday!

I'm taking off early today to:

1) Go watch my kids do their swim lessons. I try to go at least once during their two week lessons. This is the first year for my daughter, and from what she tells me about them, she's having a lot of fun. I brought the camera with me, so I'll try to get a few pics.

2) After that, I'm heading over to the church to work on the Honor Star Crowning videos for this Sunday night. I hope I can get most of it done today to limit the time I have to spend on it tomorrow. Then they have a practice run through Sunday afternoon that I have to attend too. So, basically, my weekend is shot. But, I did get a nice Applebee's gift card from them for my troubles. I see a "Date Night" in my future soon....

Have a great weekend!
Blessings!

Doggie Checkup

Yesterday I took our dog in for his yearly checkup. He did real well for the vet and even gave her a few kisses. :-) Thankfully he checked out great, but the exam, shots, and a six-month supply of heartworm meds cost me $102. Ugh.

I also got the last two Missionette Honor Star girls' pics scanned in last night. I can hopefully get some of the actual video projects worked on tonight at church. Hopefully...

They cancelled the Space Shuttle launch today due to a problem with a sensor... Guess it was going to be that or the weather as they were having storms there today. Hopefully they can get it fixed and get it launched soon.

Blessings!

Weekend Campout

Had a great camping weekend with four other couples (there was a fifth couple, but they had to back out at the last minute). We went to a state park and got some adjacent campsites that were close to the bathhouse and playground (for the kids). We were close to a nice big lake too, so we got to go swiming and boating too (as one couple brought their boat) which was nice as it was in the low 90's all weekend. We stayed two nights as at this park, you couldn't reserve just one night if it was over the weekend, but it kind of worked out better as we weren't as rushed. We all had a great time and some great fellowship around the campfire at night. The only problem we had was with a family that was across from us. Early Saturday morning (between 2-3 am), we heard the mother yelling and cussing (and even spanking) at one of her kids. This tirade went on for about an hour. We talked to a park ranger the next day and they went and talked to the family. On Sunday while they were tearing down their site, they were all over the kids again... It was really bad as the kids were just about as bad as the parents. I was really glad when they finally left. Other than that, we had a great time... although due to the heat, if you did much, you started sweating... but then that's where the lake came in handy! :-)

Also, today is my Dad's 67th birthday... Happy Birthday, Dad! My mom and dad just left London about 12 hours before the bombings over there. I'm glad they made it out safely and before all that junk happened.

Blessings!

Under Pressure

Ugh... I think I mentioned before about the Missionettes Honor Star Crowning event where I put toghether photo montages for each of the girls. I was going to work on it during church last night, but the Missionettes leader wanted to audio record each girl's bio that is played during the ceremony. AND I found out an extra girl is going to have her pics shown too. That makes nine girls total.... I also picked up the photos that were sent from one of the girls that recently moved to Texas, but will be coming back to get crowned. So that means I have two more sets of pics to scan in tonight. With us going camping this weekend... I don't know how I'm going to get all of these videos done by the 17th... UGH!

My wife is going out tonight to buy groceries for the big camping trip this weekend. That should be a fun get-away and I'm looking forward to it.

Blessings!

July 4th, 2005 Weekend Wrapup

We had originally planned to head to my mother-in-law's house on Saturday, but we ended up waiting until Sunday morning to leave. Mostly because we didn't want to spend an extra day there since we weren't coming back unti Tuesday, but also because my wife's brother and his family was also staying there. He has a large family, so we didn't want to stress out my wife's mother too much with all the people there. Turns out my brother-in-law and family were out furnature shopping most of the day and wasn't even there on Sunday.

Monday, we had a great day. We went to a near by town where my wife had lived for awhile as they were having their 150th Anniversary. We also visited some friends that used to live next door to us here, that moved to this little town and so we went with them to watch the town parade. Our son and their son got to be real close friends when they lived next to us, so they are always wanting to see each other again. After the parade, we walked around downtown and looked at some of the stuff going on. Then we drove by my wife's old house that her father had built when they lived there.

That afternoon, we went back to my wife's mother's house and my other two sisters-in-law showed up and we all had a nice get together. We had a nice dinner and shot off some fireworks and visited a lot. My brother-in-law's wife took most of the kids to see the city's fireworks, but walked down the road just a bit and could see them perfectly. For a small town, they put on a pretty great display.

Tuesday morning, we got up and ate a great breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc. I was stuffed! We left around 11am, but stopped by a really big mall. My wife found a few things on clearance at some great prices while I took the kids to the play area. We all had a great time. We made it home about 5PM or so and got everything unpacked. Then we had dinner and even shot off some more fireworks after getting our daughter to bed.

Back at work today... Finally caught up with the email and now just waiting for the end of the day....

Blessings!

Happy Birthday America!

Happy 229th Birthday America!
Thanks to Everyone past and present who help keep us free!
God Bless You!