First up…WE MOVED!!!

Two blocks.  Down the street.

Teressa found this adorable rental house that just so happened to open up when we needed it. Fate really. That was back in February, and we moved in late April.  We’ve been spending most all of our free time painting, gardening, settling in and building furniture (more on that in a later post).  Oh, and obsessively catching up on This Old House. Tom Silva is turning into my personal hero.

It’s a great house, and we’ve just about got all of our stuff where it needs to go. Best part of the house?  Teressa and I both have our own workspaces, so now we can both burn the midnight oil on projects and not annoy each other.  Although, I do kind of miss being able to spin around in my chair and annoy her with some thing on the internet…but now I can just yell it out around the corner.

A Trip

In early July we both made a trek up north to Chicago for a joint, but separate, bachelor/bachelorette party for our good friends Zach & Cortney. Since we were already booking flights we decided to stick around for a few days and check out the Chicago scenery and finally drop in on Ben & Martha.  As per usual I forgot to take pictures of the people we went to visit and got hung up taking pictures of the environment.  Here are a few photos from the fabulous architecture boat tour, couldn’t recommend it enough.  I ended up spending most of my time focusing on the gorgeous bridges and towers that line the Chicago river, and pushing them a little further than normal, but Teressa is already planning on framing a few…so mission accomplished.  What can I say, I’m really just trying to impress her.

A Camera

Which brings me to my new favorite gadget.  While Teressa probably wouldn’t admit it my gadget lust has subsided over the years. I’ve been more interested in what I can do with the things I have (ala Merlin and John), and not so much on the latest and greatest.  However, Canon has been introducing stills cameras that have a built in HD video mode…and I finally had to break down and buy one.  The t2i to be exact. It’s fantastic.  I’ve been shooting video personally/professionally since I was about 10 years old but I’ve never owned my own video camera.  One word; revelation. I can get up a 6am and run around town shooting magic hour sunrises and I have zero permissions to obtain to do it.  Well, except for Teressa’s…but I tend to make up for that by bringing back bagels.

If you can’t tell I’m super excited to be able to scratch this itch again, and I can’t wait to show you some of the actual results.  But patients…video/mograph is a dish best served slowly in this regard.  To tide you over dear reader, here is a daily from my matchmove test on some footage I shot from the river.  Now I just need to roto, animate, composite and color correct it.  Who said technology was making things easier again?  Freelancing/Day job tend to get in the way of me making pretty short films for fun..but trust me they are coming.

There’s an update on what’s going on around here.  I’m going to quite promising to post more work/freelance related stuff on here until I’m ready to post it.  Creating impressive demo reels is hard, and I keep getting distracted by actual work (thanks boundaryvfx guys), but I promise it’s coming soon…if for no other reason than my mother might finally be able to understand what it is I do for a living.  It’s something with computers and cameras I think….

I love Ben’s art. There, I said it.

Yesterday we had a lovely coffee date with Ben and his blushing bride to be, Martha (see bennyandmartha). Martha and Teressa were there for wedding planing business, more specifically the pastries and cakes for the reception. I couldn’t be more excited that Teressa is helping out, as I get to be the official cake-taste-tester while she figures out exactly which recipes are working and which ones are not.

While the ladies discussed all things bakery, Ben and I sat on the other end of the table and nerded out about TVs, movies, video games, and most of all his latest artwork. Ben hooked me up with four of his latest Moo cards to promote his awesome etsy store and blog. Check out the store to get full sized prints, and more importantly check a few of my favorites including “Watcher,” “Super Dee” and “The Start of Something Big.”

I shot this photo while out on a walk with Teressa right down the street from KU. I noticed it while walking home from work one day and crossed my fingers that no one had gotten up the gumption to paint over it. It’s one of those rare urban art projects that I think is actually fantastic. I printed a 16×20 via Aperture & Apple’s photo service and it looks so good. The version on flickr looks a little over sharpened, but the print is perfect.

Next week we are heading off to Austin, TX to attend my musical compatriot’s wedding and I’m excited to get together with everyone. I’m also pumped to take a lot of photos while in Austin. My photography tends to happen in peaks and valleys and I’m hoping to find some great Austin locals to itch my shutter finger.

I promise to post more on this here site. I’m working on a new demo reel and layout fix to showcase my work, and then we’ll have the site fully armed and operational.

We joke now that my mother has graduated from KU twice now. Once with me, and now again with Steve! Congratulations Steve!

The Gordon Wedding

Last weekend Ryan, one of my best friends for more than 20 years got married to our new honorary Hutchinsonian, Joah, in downtown Lawrence, KS. It was a great weekend of catching up with old friends and watching two people we love tie the knot. If you’ve been on facebook this week you’ve seen the photos from the weekend start to trickle in, but I thought I’d post a few on here to commemorate the event. I’ve said it a thousand times since last weekend, but congrats again Ryan and Joah, and thanks again for including me in your wedding party.

Christmas

I might have mentioned it before but Teressa has a new job this year, and with that comes new obligations for the Holidays. So, we stuck around Lawrence a little later this year than previous Christmases and left town Christmas Eve in the middle of the afternoon. That left just enough time for us to zoom across the Kanza Prairie, change clothes, make it to Mass on time and then run over to Teressa’s mother’s for her annual Christmas Eve Chili. Let’s just say we made it, and with only about 15 minutes to spare.

After that, of course, led to exchanging of gifts at my parent’s Christmas Eve and then at her mother’s Christmas Day. I have the traditional shots of Christmas in my parents living room this year as always, although I sat in the wrong chair thus making the angles and zoom a little funny. Next year, I have to make sure to grab my chair. Unfortunately, there are no pics from Teressa’s house as on Christmas Day all in attendance are required to come over in their PJs whether they live there or not. Luckily for all involved I take a shower and slip into fresh PJs but this tradition includes a prohibition on taking photos due to the attire of those in attendance.

Christmas Aftermath

So far we haven’t gotten a chance to catch up with any of our friends as we are on such a short Christmas schedule, but we are hoping to remedy this tonight. Tomorrow involves a trip to the gun range to satisfy my Dad’s love of family and firearms (and safety of course), and then we’ll hit the road back to Lawrence and real life. I’m taking the week off in hopes of completing a backlog of personal projects, including the mock up of a weblog for my Dad’s new years resolution but more on that later.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays, and I promise next year I’ll be posting a lot more. I got out of the habit of brain dumping online and Teressa has definitely felt the burden of my bitching and moaning about current day events.

Considering the deal brokered in the House yesterday concerning the FISA courts, I thought this sticker was more than a little timely. This particular pay phone is located just outside the Kwik Shop across from my office, and seriously made my day today. Thank you crazy-left-wing-Lawrence-hippies.

We’ve been getting ready all day long for the biggest KU game in the last 5 years. The girlfriend even made Hot Wings.

Rock Chalk!

I was up on campus last night attempting to take some panaromic images after a recent episode of TWIP. I was a little to close to the buildings in order get a good pano, but hey it’s all about learning new things.

While I was waiting for the sun to get just right, I snapped a quick wide angle shot of my favorite building on the KU campus. There is just something about Fraser Hall that always makes me want to take photos of it from different angles. Oh, and one more thing. We’re doing alright in that little march basketball tourney you may have heard something about…Rock Chalk.

My daily route to work is FINALLY getting on the road repair agenda. There are some potholes on Kentucky St. where you can literally drive half your car into…the camry’s suspension is going to be very happy.

However, the real problem is going to be getting rid of the standing water that collects there every morning and freezes, which creates the potholes in the first place. I’m sure the city will just slap some crack sealer on it and call it good. Sometimes I miss living in a more rural town, for some reason they seem to be better at public works.

Here’s quick camera phone snap from our shopping at Paper Source on saturday. Teressa was enamored with all of the pretty paper in the store, while I was immediately drawn to the robots. This is a reoccurring theme in our relationship. It also kicked in the way-back-machine.

In college Matt, Dan, Grady and I would get together and spend many an afternoon rocking out in our basement. One standard was a song by Matt and Dan entitled “When Robots Fall in Love.” We were so ahead of our time. By the way the song had a great hook…trust me. I wonder if we have a recording of that somewhere? Hmmm.