.

Good Work ( if you can get it. )

2009-08-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

I've been an online editor for a custom car club and motorcycle club and their magazines for about a year and a half now. It's hectic, part of a dying industry, and probably the coolest job I will ever have. I write about industry news, products, tech articles and several emails a week on all of the above. Here's an example.

A couple weeks ago I got to co-lead our annual member ride where a fraction of the 60+ thousand members get together for meet and greets, rides and basically spend face time talking to people you've only met online or not at all.

This year we all met in Deadwood, SD and toured the Black Hills, Wyoming, dipped into Montana and basically hit all the things in the Sturgis Rally two weeks before the event itself. We still got the T Shirts, destinations, dinner, drinks and sunburn - but without the crowds. ( You can always photoshop people into your pictures with the time you've saved not waiting in line 20 minutes for a lemonade. )

Forty Three people signed up but we were never able to get everyone in any one picture and due to the amount of things to see and do and the inability to actually keep a couple of dozen bikes at one gas station, road side diner or photo op everyone ended up breaking up into smaller groups with similar paces and riding styles.

It never ceases to amaze me how convenient, fast and streamlined electronic communication is AND how utterly incomplete. I get emails all the time from people like me, that type in fragmented sentences and say things they've been stewing on for hours and you're never quite sure exactly what they're thinking.

Catching up with many of these people I can see where they're coming from and how similar everyone is. My friend Walter came with on the trip. He and I went out to Sturgis fifteen years ago when I had just met my wife so I was reminded of that time off and on. Reminded when we drove through Needles Highway at excessive speeds, driving past the noisy bar I called her at from a pay phone because I wanted to hear her voice. All that sappy stuff. ;0)

We also had a couple people in the group in their eighties believe it or not. Still out on bikes and reminiscing of coming to Sturgis thirty years back when it was a fraction of what it is. It reminded me that being in the middle of life, a job and relationship is a good thing because there's plenty of activity behind and in front of you.

What are you in the middle of?

14

2009-06-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

tomorrow connie and i will be married 14 years!

home is where the mess is

2009-05-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

I made it home today from my a bike trip and if you're reading this as past tense I'll wrap up what you'll see in the next few posts. You won't see a couple posts I made two days ago around a campfire in Colorado. I've been posting from a cell phone via email and it didn't work every time for some reason.

I've wrapped up a 4300 miles bike trip which was almost two weeks of bliss where rode from Minneapolis, MN to Tucson, AZ and back. The main leg was an attempt to join the Ironbutt Club by driving 1,000 miles in 24 hours. After that I decided to tack on another 500 miles for their 1500 miles in 36 hours "bun burner."

I drove to Tucson to visit my little sister who was graduating then catch Monument Valley and other assorted 4 corners scenery on the way back with a stop by my in-laws in Denver. I arrived back home a couple of hours ago and am doing laundry and unloading pictures. Mr. Windsor N. Coke is visiting as we listen to the Skatalites. He reassures me the overgrown lawn can wait.

Sid the cat is having some serious separation anxiety. I've removed him from the keyboard 1/2 a dozen times so he's laying down right on the edge of it in front of the monitors.

Nothing wrecks a nice bike like repeated road trips. It's picked up dings, scratches and all manner of scarring that has permanently made this poor thing a functional motorcycle and no longer a flashy cruising vessel.

One of the biggest offenders to this bike's pride is the insect. If Starship Troopers has taught us anything, it's that creatures with ecto skeletons are not to be trusted whether they're beetles, ladybugs, big black aliens or a robo-cop. Good grief, even Doogie Howser knows the eminent danger of these beasties that out number humans several times over.

Despite the numerous kamikaze missions launched against us, recreation prevailed and a good time was had by all - except the bugs. You fought well my persistent brethren. You have not died in vain.

brrrrr

2009-05-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

vail pass 10k feet with snow. this where a smarter man would've put on his raingear... or at least long underwear.

western town

2009-05-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

after driving through the navajo reservation that engulfs monument valley, seeing every color of dirt imagineable then wrapping up in moab, seeing stoplights can be a sensory overload. :o)

here's mainstreet where my dinner just atrived at a sidwalk cafe. somebodies getting a big wind generator for their birthday...

degrees of seperation

2009-05-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

what a difference a mile makes... especially if that mile is straight up.
phoenix late this morning: 107 degrees. two hours later in flagsaff, about 30 degrees cooler.
next stop: monument valley!

fine dining

2009-05-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

a chandelier made of corona bottles... how could i fit one of those in my basement?!

taz

2009-05-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

"taz" has no longer been limited to tattoos applied during a drunken stupor on spring break. getting a new tire put on at the tucson dealer who's also got $30 baseball hats and TAZ HARLEY shirts with wings.

My shame is now complete.

dwarfed

2009-05-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

ahhh. 7 am and only 75 degrees f.

morning stroll

2009-05-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

walking through the desert with my dad after breakfast while it's nice and cool.

yes sir

2009-05-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

my little sister is now a liutenant! she made it through eod school ( explosive ordiance disposal - bomb squad ) then served in iraq.

she's finished nursing school and rotc today so can blow you up and put you back together... mostly.

did it!

2009-05-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

with about 30 minutes and less than a gallon of gas i arrived in tucson and punched in at the gas pump 10 minutes ago. over 1500 miles in 36 hours.

dos cervesa porfavor.

dry heat

2009-05-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

the bike and i are down a quart so we're stopping in hatch, nm to top off.

skin is burning so i need to put jacket back on. "dry heat" is like saying "dry ice." it sounds almost appealing until see a nail pounded in by a banana...

stopped

2009-05-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

first slowdown today. stopped on freeway. went to take juicy crash pic. cop told me to get back on bike. must be good. choppers coming.

Scratch That: Reverse It

2009-05-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Like Willy Wonka said, Scratch That - Reverse It. Most blogs go recent to old in a top down manner so I'm finally at a keyboard in Santa Fe with an explanation for what you're about to read below.

I'm on a bike trip from Minneapolis to Tucson to visit my little sister's graduation from nursing school. This is killing half a dozen birds with one stone ( think of it as a tactical stone ) which will get explained over the next few days.

The current birds getting pummeled are my 3rd attempt at joining the Ironbutt club. Minimum ride to enter: 1000 miles in 24 hours. The first time I tried, weather and construction aced me out. The second time I drive from the Santa Monica Pier to Littleton, CO. against the time zones, desert and freezing continental divide, only to lose some of my paperwork two days later when we moved into our new house. These rides need to be documented with witnesses, contact info, receipts with date / time stamps and maps.

I drove from Des Moines Yesterday morning and finally rolled into Santa Fe this morning @ around 1:00 AM. Now just hold onto the paperwork and I'm golden.

I'm also going for the bonus ride of 1500 miles in 36 hours so, pending any breakdowns or natural disasters I'll be in Tucson this evening. More pics to come.

Now straight South to the Mexican border. Ole.

ahhhhh mountains.

2009-05-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

the wind and rain setback got me into denver late - rush hour! i took the tollway bypass but still got stuck looking at brakelights on the edge of town.

it'll be a late night. just rolled in to trinidad, co. going to santa fe tonight to make the 1000 mile day.

darling nikki

2009-05-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

nikkie at the gas station said there's been a wind advisory until 8 tonight. that explains a lot.

i swear a woman screaming what sounded like "auntie em"

dry time

2009-05-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

650 miles and my crotch is finally dry. walking into a gas station in raingear with wet pants is like wearing footie pajamas with soggy diapers.

purple haze

2009-05-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

woke up @ 5 to thunder & lightening ( very very frightening... ) and drove through enough rain to dye my hands purple from the gloves.

windy? i usually hit reserve tank around 155 miles. headwinds meant reserve at 120. not fast travel despite throttle position.

free at last

2009-05-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

first leg of a 2 week trip biking to Tucson, Az from minneapolis, MN.
Just hit Des Moines. Rained 3 of 4 hours. Dark, windy & cold. apparently the sun doesn't shine through storm clouds but can still sunburn hands... go figure.

Almost lost all paperwork when opening hard bag with rainsuit. literally chased it through ditch, over fence and into field in pieces. looked like idiot but cows didn't care.

testing

2009-05-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

i'm going on a bike trip vacation tomorrow and wanted to post via cell phone so this is an experiment.

A Tasty Bass

2008-10-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

"Geez Wes, what have you been doing?" "What's happened in the last five years, ten years, fifteen years?"

I've been getting a lot of that lately. Facebook, in it's vast expanse across the web void, has magically connected me to people I haven't seen in years. It's kind of the High School Reunion syndrome where most of the people you'd actually want to keep in contact with you've... well, kept in contact with. There's been some pleasant surprises but it's also connected me with 3 ex girlfriends, ex workmates looking for jobs, ex brothers in the Lord that remind me of what a legalistic "us and them" doctrine jerk I was, relatives I didn't know I had, people wanting to sell me stuff based on my interests... you get the idea.

I was bad enough at not keeping up with close friends. Facebook for some reason has given me a steady stream of 1-2 people a week that are checking in and expecting a response.

The flip side is that it's validated having hundreds of extremely shallow relationships with people. If I'm faithful enough to actually reply I'll skip the whole "got married, went back to school, left a predictable computer job, worked for non profits, did indie movie work stuff, traveled and met people all over the world, moved 3 times, got a predictable job again, hit a couple long mid life depressive episodes,then found inner peace" part and just say: I'm great! I went fishing last week.

It seems to work so I'm going with it. On with the fishing...

I don't know how many times I've stopped by the grocery store after work or on a Saturday morning and had to dodge hundreds of people white knuckling coupons and playing shopping cart bumper cars. The solution I've discovered is to go to Cub Foods at 4:00AM and beat the crowds.

The 4 AM sweet spot was almost spooky. There was NO ONE there. Convenient, because I was running late. I was up until 1 AM, then had to get up at 4 AM to grab doughnuts and drive up to my wife's brothers house to then carpool another hour or so to the designated fishing spot.

As much as I looked like cat sick warmed up in the microwave, and felt even worse, there is one benefit to morning fishing. Doughnuts. You can always drink beer at lunch like afternoon and evening fishing but morning fishing opens up the doughnut options. If anyone is reading this outside of yankee land I'd be curious to hear the breakfast options in your culture. You Aussies can get away with Beer as a side dish for any meal imaginable. I have to assume it's because you don't have doughnuts.

I'll disband the myth right now. Freezing in the dark so you can be on the lake ahead of the mornign sun and get the jump on the fish is just an excuse by old men who want to escape before their wives give them the Saturday to do list. Fish sleep in.

I ended up fishing with my wife's brother and two cousins who are all seasoned fisherman. I was a fat dumb and happy fisherman who was happy to feel something pulling on the end a couple times so size didn't matter. One juicy bass and someone to clean it was enough to proclaim success and hit the bar for lunch.

Great to hear form you. Yes, it's been forever. Me? What have I been doing? Well - I went fishing last weekend. Yea. That's about it. Hmmm, it was good enough for the Zen masters, kept many of my Viking kin folk alive... even Christ himself did it so yea, I'd say that's a strong example of my life and that's just fine with me.

Time for a tasty bass.

Gone But Not Forgotten

2008-08-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a difference 5 months makes.

I've gotten emails off and on from people asking if I'm still alive,why I don't blog,why there's some guy that looks like me on Mike's hard Lemonade commercials, what's going on... you know.

I'm alive and kicking, working for two hot rod and motorcycle magazines as an online editor which has also turned into DVD producer. That guy that looked like me working in the Mike's factory ( only wider ) was indeed me and what have I been doing? Well I just got back from a bike trip around Lake Superior. This time over the course of a week with a bunch of guys instead of in 36 hours by myself. I've got the videos to prove it.

The ride was for the Motorcycle Riders Club of America, one of the groups and magazines I am an editor for. I slapped together a few videos of the trip as daily travel logs and haven't made time to finish the rest. You can find them here:

Click here to watch some of the Circle Tour Videos

I love my job, it's been insanely busy getting to work @ 7:00 AM, working until 6,7,8 PM and in the last couple months staying later and working on weekends. I was recruited to do a couple 100 minute thematic DVD's on Corvettes and Mustangs. Disk 1 is in the can and I'm wrapping up shooting and editing disk 2 right now. Being Mr. Director / Producer man got me press pass access to the Corvette Museum and assembly plant in Bowling Green, KY and all kinds of groovy places the normal Wes wouldn't be able to go. I've gotten to hang out with car and bike guys, learn some tech stuff and get back into writing.

It's weird to think of myself as a professional writer in some capacity, particularly when the web world I work in is changing so fast. The company I work for was acquired by some key players in the internet world that are hot and bothered over subscription emails which in many ways are like opt-in spam. In between writing scripts for video and web articles I've been writing email articles that are supposed to entice subscribers into opening, reading and ( if a home run is hit ) actually forwarding them.

Almost every day I get 150 words, 2-3 links and a picture to highlight something new in the hot rod car industry. Controversy, suggestive tone and cocky are highly encouraged. I still don't know what to think. Thankfully I'm not paid to think. I hit a button and bam they're sent off to between 20,000 and 50,000+ people ( depending on the cycle ) who've signed up and are too lazy to unsubscribe.

The spooky thing is that the owners of my company had bought, built and sold a company that exclusively does these email nuggets for $125 million dollars. yes, that's with an "M" and yes, that's all they did was just send out emails.

So what have you been up to?

dirty and broken

2008-03-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year that precedes spring cleaning, the long stretch of highway where you gassed up in December with holiday cheer and glowing faces and it's a long way until Easter, melted snow and temps that don't hurt your face when the wind blows. Things are gray and gritty, taxes are due and you're only given fake holidays that don't get you off work like Presidents day and Valentines day.

I enjoyed my gray time this weekend making a little headway in sorting out crap in my garage. My little brother came over with a crunched car and spare parts to replace mangled metal and plastic. During a snow storm he was part of a little pileup on the freeway and has needed to put things back together. The parts came in and he got to work.

I was inspired enough to start working on my bike a little knowing once it gets to 40 degrees I'll be driving to work with a smile inbetween my blue frozen lips. After an hour or so it started raining a little, an hour or two after that and the rain began freezing on it's way down. It's almost painful for someone not emotionally attached to a car or bike to see it sitting there in it's dirty, disheveled state of disarray but if you've got enough of a relationship with an inanimate assemblage of metal and plastic your imagination fills in the gaps and you see the shine of the waxed paint, the completed product of chrome and steel, the sun prickling your bare skin and hints of bright blue and green in the dirty gray.

Reminiscing

2008-02-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

Turns out I've got 1/2 a dozen friends within a year or two that all have birthday's in February. My little joke is that the summer of 1967 really was a summer of love...

Terry Steinmeyer's been a close friend of mine for about fifteen years. We've been in a few bands together, made a few CD's together and played some bars together. Somehow music was a big part of my life and it slipped away so one of the motivations for building a studio with sound booth and mic jacks all over was to get together with lots of old friends and play music.

My studio wasn't ready, I ended up not wanting a party ( despite Connies repeated pestering on who to invite ) and Terry admittedly stole my idea to have a bunch of people over and jam the night away. ;0)

It was a good group of people I haven't seen forever, many still active in bands. I felt old, young, happy and a little melancholy.

There were too many people crammed in Terry's house to get pictures of everythign and everyone. I'll post some from the downstairs area where everyone was taking turns grabbing a guitar and playing.

Some of the bands represented were Here Lies Franklin ( The Kneprath Brothers who help mastermind the Sonshine Music Festival ), Pegtop ( Dave Peightal ), Matt Patrick ( Sarah Groves, Put Down the Muffin ), The Hot Rockin' Rick Moe RLS band! ( Scott you poor sucker ), Dave Harland, Paul Whichterman ( sorry Chacho, can't remember all the bands you've been in ), Joel Hanson ( Pray for Rain and Worship "Man About Town" and lots of other people who will get PO'd because I didn't mention them if they acutally read my blog. Heck, even Dave Johnson from Open Door showed up...

I think a good time was had by all. If not, well... they aren't telling.

Thanks T.

The Screwed Cruise

2008-02-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

I could have been on a nice boat in the ocean next month.

Last spring at CHA in Anaheim I was invited to a fund raiser for scrapbooking industry people where I also happened to donate a big pile of DVD's. Some of the items donated were to be drawn for and given away that evening. The big ticket item was tickets for 2 on a scrapbooking cruise the following year (next month.) I had a moment in the sun and when they announced the winner for the much anticipated big prize would have a gold sticker under their coffee saucer, I tipped... looked and someone next to me had to poke me and raise my hand to claim it because I don't usually win things and couldn't believe it.

Needless to say I was very excited. A few weeks passed after the dust of CHA settled and I called the number on the certificate. No answer so I left a message explainign everything and my number. A week or so later I tried again, left another message with my number. No call. I called a month or two later and didn't bother to leave another message figuring the company went out of business with the scores of other fine scrapbooking establishments that sadly took a dive last year.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out boxes in my office and found the certificate along with the supplemental sheet that came with it promoting another scrapbooking cruise during the same time.

I'll admit I was a little bitter and wanted to get to the bottom of what happened. The number I had called was disconnected so I called the numbers on the other promotional sheet and talked to Kathleen. I explained what happened and had a hard time convincing her I was at CHA, who I was, what I had won and why she should believe me.

She did end up giving me a newer number for Carl Wopperer, the gentleman I was trying to get a hold of months ago. Carl remembered the certificate, said he was very sorry but the cruise was canceled and I was out of luck.

HUH?! Me: "But I tried to call you..." Carl: "Oh, yeah. I was in the hospital during that time and someone else was checking my voicemails." Me: "Nobody returned my calls.. well do you have any other scrap cruises going on?" Carl: " Yes. Oh I'm so sorry... that cruise was canceled. I don't know, maybe we can book you on something for next year. I'll call you if I work something out."

Weeks later and no call. I understand binds like this and the big drag for me is that in the last two years I've bent over backwards with innumerable crazy requests from people I've sold things too, done business with, traveled hundreds of miles to appear for, and gotten shafted in ways that only someone self employed could understand when it comes to the "grin and bear it" principle.

Carl Wopperer of CW Productions and Kathleen at travelcenter4u.com, I'm sure you're great people to go have coffee with but your customer service and business skills suck in a big, big way. You could've thrown me a bone, followed up, been attentive, given me the benefit of the doubt, something. Anything.

This post will undoubtedly make it's way over the next couple weeks to google where someone will do a search for "CW Productions","Carl Wopperer" or "travelcenter4u.com" and with any luck it will make it's way up the rankings as people link to it or post their own stories of someone dropping the ball.

With high ranking expectations I'd like to present a list of things someone could do in lieu of sending my wife and I on a cruise promised in writing:

Let us tag along with another cruise - heck, I'll teach a class if you want.

Send me a muffin basket.

Send me a nice card with a Caribou Coffee gift certificate. ( Sorry Seattle. )

Send me an email with a funny joke or picture of cats and dogs doing human things.

Record "Lost" for me. Maybe explain who the invisible guy in the cabin is.

Send me chocolate in any form with a smilie face note.

Send me a bottle of single malt scotch.

Write me an email saying the break up isn't my fault. "It's not you, it's me."

Don't be such a stranger - at least send a Christmas card.

Say a prayer for me, light a candle and appease both our consciences.

Write or dedicate a song to me.

Maybe a McDonald's gift certificate?

A Panhead Harley with kick start and suicide clutch.

How about an all expenses paid trip from Seattle to Bellingham, WA.?

A big bag of 2,300 Yen? It's only worth twenty bucks but feels like more.

One of those six foot "London Calling" Clash posters snapped mid-smashing a guitar.

Have someone write my name is Chinese to hang on the wall.

Teach me how to make corn dogs and doughnuts at home.

Maybe find an upstanding member of the twin Cites community to come over and give me a good firm handshake, warm smile and a "put 'er there pal... you've got moxie."

See, if you can't foot the bill for another cruise then buck up, admit a screw up and try to make it right. Denial will come back and bite you in the butt in this day and age. Your reputation is all you've got and posts on blogs float around the cyber sphere for a mighty long time.

See?

40

2008-02-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

I turned forty yesterday. I'm officially middle aged, although it's doubtful I'll actually make it to 80. It pretty much felt like any other day except that I couldn't believe I've got so much time left to burn. Dang. I'm going to have to come up with some new life goals. I've already chewed through being in a band, surfing in Huntington Beach, CA. and Hawaii, diving with sharks and get my advanced certification in the Great Barrier Reef, get married, ride a motorcycle across America, make a movie, see the great wall of China, go over to Cathy Zielske's house ( twice), travel Europe, and oh yeah... consistently and obliviously be an ass. Hey, you find something you're good at and stick with it right?

Maybe some new life goals could be losing fifty pounds and eating healthy, getting debt free and learning a second language... Who am I kidding, I'm an American.

I've heard a lot of people mention how short life is, how fast the last 10 years have gone, etc. I was busy thinking how - if this is half my life I've got so much left to finish off. I've got another 25+ years of working before I can retire and so on. It's true the last few years have zipped by so I wonder if they accelerate as you get older.

Maybe you just start loosing your memory, remembering only 2-3 months of each year and gradually less as you start to fall into an elderly state compiling decades into a few amusing stories which make them seem short. Who knows.

So to make a long story short, Connie wanted to have a bunch of people over, maybe play some music in my ( still not quite finished ) studio and connect with friends. Picking and choosing who to invite, who we couldn't fit in, etc. was burdensome and I anted something simple and quite so we grabbed a couple we're friends with went to the House on the Rock in lovely Greenfield, Wisconsin.

The House on the Rock is a truly bizzare collection of things that you never knew existed or there was even more than one of in the world. I've been there several times , see something new consistently and best axplain it by saying it's like Captain Nemo's garage sale.

Above is a whole room of instruments rigged to play songs all by themselves through compressed air powering robotics, servos and who knows what manner of vodoo. I won't even try to describe everything that's there. I'll just recommend it to anyone living within a days trip of the Wisconsin Dells. Having a few beers, bongs or pain pills and spending the day gawking at the freakshow might just be enough to push someone mentally balanced over the coherent edge and hey, I respect that.

Has anyone actually seen it to comment on it? Has anyone turned 40 and want to comment on that? Any advice? Surprisingly I've gotten more snide comments from older folk saying 40 is nothing. I guess I hang with an older crowd...

Speaking of older crowds. It turns out five other friends, all guys and all within 1-2 years of each other all have birthdays in February. I guess May 1968-69 really was a summer of love.

I ended up going to a good friend of mines birthday party who admittedly copied my idea and had a bunch of people over for an official rock star reunion night of musical reminiscing. I'll post pictures.

I also got a bonafied, full time, 401k, wear a button up shirt and like it - job. More on that in a couple days.

Thanks for reading!

wes

Stone Soup

2008-02-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

I spent last Saturday shooting some pictures and video for my friend Jane and her boyfriend Keith. I'm doing a website for her gallery in my spare time and needed some eye candy to fill in the cracks in the info.

It ended up being a great chance to try out a cheap ( well relatively cheap @ $70 compared to an actual sigma or nikon fisheye lens ) screw on adapter for my camera. I love the sqewed, warped look of extreme wide angle and shooting in confined spaces like rooms with so many things in them it's a necessity.

The gallery is called Stone Soup in lovely Hammond, Wisconsin - an oasis of creation in the farmland of the cheese plains. I heard Hammond has a population of 1,600 people which seems like just enough for a gas station, a "mall" of four businesses under the same roof, farm implements and a few bars.

I don't know how they did it but the gallery has turned into a "destination" with people driving hours from all over the place to chit chat, hang out and hey... even buy affordable art.

An unforeseen bonus of a day trip to Stone Soup is the hotel / bar / corner resteraunt up the block. Three huge burgers ( one made of Bison ), fries, and three mixed drinks for $19. I think the biggest thrill for me was a happy hour Bloody Mary for $1.25. No kidding. Served with a big pickle and chaser. Crazy.

So the jury is still out on the fisheye lens adapter. I'm not particularly happy with the quality. I knew it was going to be dark but I wanted to use existing light so I used a remote shutter release with a tripod for long exposures. I don't knwo what I was expecting from something 1 / 10th of the price of the real tool for the job but they're mostly for the web anyway so they'll work fine when they're dwarfed down to screen resolution. I did like the vignetting that was going on and having the option to just crop it out if it doesn't work for the picture.

The fun surprise was this ring that is used with the wide angle glass. It's a marco ring and had some fun effects. If I turned the camera at a sharp angle it would lock in on the specific focal length and throw everything else out of whack shooting blurs of in different directions. Pretty cool.

Hammond Wisconsin: You Rule.

Location, Location, Location

2008-02-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

I love our new neighborhood. I'm five minutes to downtown ( it's a quick couple blocks to get on the freeway ) but can eat breakfast on my dining room table, look out the windows to the woods next to our yard and make eye contact with a deer happily freezing it's hind quarters off.

I turned the lights off which caught it's attention, kind of a "deer out of the head lights" thing. I watched it, it watched me. Then my brain caught up with my sense of childlike wonder and I ran downstairs for a camera. I remembered to turn the flash off but the light that bursts to pull focus and exposure surprised my neighbor who quickly left. I set the camera down and two more flew by the window - obviously late to bed. They must work nights because I see them out at all hours of the evening but never during the day. I'd have a word with them if they were having ruckus parties but they are a quiet bunch, keeping to themselves so I leave them alone.

seeing red

2008-01-21T07:01:00.000-08:00

RED?! What the heck was I thinking painting my studio red?

I pictured some old traditional library / study somewhere nestled in a castle in a foggy Scottish bog. Problem 1: I didn't want it too dark so I went with a light ( = brighter ) shade of red and 2: this is a modern room with a cove ceiling and slightly round edged corners on the walls. Adding a goldish color for the cover edges didn't help the feeling the circus was in town or an 80's flashback at best. :0)

You get to an "I don't care" stage in a project, if you're lucky it's not until the last bits, where everything fades in importance except completion. Just get it done, done is better than perfect. Red is kind of kooky and I'll take it for now, repaint in 4-5 years when I've got nothing better to do.

The painting was OK. Depressing because I was able to see every little mistake I made drywalling and mudding but nice to see glimpses of a real room. The fun part was wiring this weekend. It's a little geeky, a little technical and maybe I'm just downright childlike about it... building a fort, a hideout, mad scientist labratory - or a studio.

This is the terminal for all the coax, RJ45 and cable whatnot in my house. I've got a SCSI rackmount, hot swappable server sitting on the floor waiting to be installed, wireless junk, routers, switches, distribution amps, on and on. Overkill for a house, marginal for a home office but candy for a cyber geek.

Check out all the Scrapped DVD's sitting in boxes to the left. I should put those bad boys on clearance and liquidate inventory. What would be an appropriate price?

My down time this weekend was soldering up mic connections from the sound booth to the office wall. I popped an elbow CD in the boom box, had a nice slice of chocolate cake and whiffed flux and tin for a couple hours. Ahhh, heaven.

The posted checked out with pretty much no resistance so one more thing checked off the list. Time to cut trim and move stuff across the basement and out of boxes to make some Utopian creative environment.

la weekend

2008-01-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

Connie and I went to LA for the weekend. The movie "Cold Play" that I worked on in LA had it's premiere and we went out to catch up with friends, see the final cut and hang out with the guys who wrote and directed it. Here's me with D. David Morin, a good friend of mine who was the co-creative force of the movie and an all around good guy to hang out with. He seems to have all these creative, affluent, interesting characters for friends that own businesses, travel around the world, make movies and are literally living the dream. I don't know exactly how I became part of the club but will take it. :0)

The room we stayed in was called The Embassy, a block from the beach, right across the street from D. David's pad and a couple blocks from the promenade in Santa Monica. A classic old building built in the golden age of Hollywoodland with all this eclectic fusion of architecture and charm. This was the view that greeted up from the bed. A tough adjustment from 2 degrees and snow back home.

The only lens I've got right now for my new camera is the fixed 50mm so I could only get singular object shots at the premiere. I could bore you with photos of me and people you'd never recognize or present this lovely shot of a main theater light fixture.

One highlight of the weekend for me, outside of the actual movie premier, was brunch at Geoffry's. Wedged between the PCH and some of the juiciest views in Malibu lies this swanky place to meet and greet. I'm not nearly enough of a beautiful person to dine there regularly but love it anyway.

Our group waded past the Bently, Beemer and Ferrari as we excited our Honda Minivan... oh yeah.. as D. David woudl say: that's how we roll baby.

I took this picture because you are looking at what could be the most fortunate cat on the west coast. Apparently it just wandered down from the Malibu hills when they were engulfed in flames and just kind of stayed. It sits on the ledge overlooking the kelp beds and surfers, yawns at celebrities and seems to dominate the top of the "aloof with a view" food chain. Right on Mr. pussycat!

Bloody Mary's, steak and eggs and what has got to be my favorite piece of appetizer on the planet. I don't enjoy sushi, could take or leave avocado but somehow this tower of taste slays me every time I eat it. raw Tuna, fresh avocado, and very hot sauce garnish crowned with caviar. Heavens it's tasty.

Well, back to studio building - the carpet comes in Thursday. I've also got some action in the job hunt. After the new year kicked in I've had a few interviews so I've got my fingers crossed at a chance for respectible employment. ;0)

fixed lens fever

2008-01-07T15:03:00.001-08:00

So I broke down and bought a decent digital SLR from a guy on Craig's List for a great price - body only. Since I could pick any lens I want and already had an old Nikon mount 35mm-80mm lens in a closet somewhere ( as a backup because it squeeks and whirrs and complains every time it has to pull focus on something ) I decided to have some fun and get a "prime" or fixed lens. I forgot how much fun and inconvenient they are. Faster f-stop means more light through the lens, lower ISO, faster shutter speed and shorter depth of field. Supposedly you get sharper images as well. Fun fun fun. It also means less glass because you've only got one fixed distance from your subject matter. No zooming or pulling out, at least not with the lens, you have to physically move closer or farther away to frame up the shot.

I didn't think this would be an issue and if I wasn't lazy - it wouldn't be. I just have to get used to it. Either way I'm delighted. I've tried using point and shoots exclusively and then jacking stuff up in photoshop but there's some times when you want a better quality picture. Pictures of driving a bike in the snow, cell phone camera is nice and happens to be with you anyway. Pictures of beach and vacation, wish I had something better than a tiny point and shoot. I was sucked in by the "8 megapixels" on the case of the Olympus I had which compressed images so much they didn't look sharp when viewed pixel for pixel.

Now I'm back in balance with light catching options which I took advantage of over lunch when I met with Jane. Jane's a friend of mine ( and my wife's bosses significant other ) who owns an art gallery in lovely Hammond, Wisconsin. I'm doing a website for her so we met over Thai food in St. Paul and discussed branding, imaging, form and function.

Here's a quirky little video I stole from my friend Marty's myspace page. It has people eating their brains towards the end so if that kind of thing creeps you out then prepare to eject at any moment.

36 degree roast

2008-01-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful day! I've been whining to Connie all week about wanting to get the bike out and go for a ride. Today Minneapolis broke the snow barrier and my neighborhood got up to 36 degrees Fahrenheit( about 2 degrees Celsius ), enough to melt snow and feel like summer.

I took advantage of my new neighborhood and drove around "the lakes" here in the Twin Cities. It took me 4 minutes from driveway to Lake Calhoun and freedom. People walking their dogs, ice fishing, running, hanging out. I don't know how just being on two wheels can be so therapeutic but it was amazing.

Although I still get itchy palms when I see custom chopped bikes on eBay and a little chill checking out sport bikes with friends I've comfortably accepted my Electralide, the grandpa bike of the Harley Davidson world as my daily driver. Having a radio, fairing and bags to stow things make driving in January not only possible, but comfortable.

Sandy Christmas

2008-01-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

I ended up in Florida for Christmas week this year. Leaving sub arctic atmospheres and walking off the plane into humid room temperature outdoors put a smile on my face.

I knew God was my co-pilot but was pleased to see that Jesus ( pronouced hay-soose ) was literally "driving the bus" as we went to the rental car place and drove off in the sunset.

One of the nicest things about thawing your gizzard for the holidays was having slightly longer days with blue sky's and sunsets. I always take pictures of palm trees stretched out in the sky. Don't know why it never gets old.

I spent Christmas day with Connie and some friends of ours at Daytona Beach. I haven't asked if I could put them on the blog so I'll just let them be anonymous, show a picture of their lovely daughters and say Hi Jerry. :0)

I shouldn't have been surprised that everything in Daytona Beach was closed Christmas day except the cracked egg diner thanks to a few wonderful people that worked the holiday to have a regular Christmas feast with dressing, pie and everything you'd expect at home but not in a pizza place / beach diner.

The rest of the week we slept, had a drink or two, fed stingrays, slept, tried to go to JaiAlai ( one of my favorite sports to watch ) but they season in Orlando is now pushed back and starts after the first of the year, had a couple more drinks, slept more and... oh yeah, went to an airplane museum.

So does it blow anyone else's mind that people were flying around the world in a week only twenty years after the first model T came rolling off the assembly line?

Yikes, lunch break is over - back to work. No more captions. See Ya.

light up my life

2007-12-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

I picked up a job being the light guy for a commercial photo shoot right before Christmas. What a blast. It was ads for sponsors that would run promoting the upcoming NCAA basketball tournaments. The idea was to have a shadow cast across the court at one of the venues ( ended up being two of the venues ) in the shape of the company's logo ( a stag ) that's helping sponsor the events.

Challenging, fun and lots of heavy lifting. For the last picture we shot wide and I had to get six 2k lights out in the stands to light them up, add a splash of interest and then throw more lights up to add some texture to the basketball court.

It was a big enough budget shoot to rent a light truck packed with goodies and have a crew to help carry stuff around and set lights while I was on a two way radio on the other end looking at everything.

Can't wait to see the finished ad in magazines. I forgot how nice it was on photo shoots to not have to worry about making noise and dolly tracks or jib arms. :0)

My Space in the World

2007-12-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

When I moved so did my email address ( with a new service provider ) and one of the things I decided to start over instead of try to re-direct was my myspace page. I didn't really use it much before but made a new one and looking forward to repopulating it with friends? Do you have a myspace account? Won't you be my neighbor and add to my puny list of "friends?"

My page is www.myspace.com/wesolio

Click Here to go There.

Thanks!

wes

PS> The studio has walls ( actually two walls built 4 inches apart on the side by the furnace in the other room to cut down on sound ) are up and I'm priming / painting right now.

fresh frozen fish

2007-12-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

Saturday I was helping a friend of mine who does a lot of outdoor commercial work do a potential spot for Berkley fishing lures ( and the million other things they make. ) He was the camera guy, I was the tech and digital acquisition. It was in HD so there's a lot of large clunky files to move off the camera and format in Final Cut Pro, etc.

There were some wonderful firsts for my life that day. I've never set up my computer and video gear in a bait shop before. What a hoot. I had a microwave, coffee maker, minnows and a 120 pound stuffed sturgeon share my desk. I also had never seen anyone fish a river with an ambient air temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit ( -18 degrees Celsius.)

During the few hours we were there four boats launched and fished for Walleyes on the mighty Mississippi. One guy commented that he usually doesn't like fishing when the air temperature is drastically less than the water temp. I can see his point.

People seemed to bring their beater aluminum boats because there were large chunks of ice floating around waiting to crack a glittery bass boat. The idea for the commercial was supposed to be inclement weather with snow, wind, etc. but it quickly got to cold to snow so the guy driving the boat had to go out on the river and whip the boat around to look like it was being tossed in a storm. A bit hair raising after looking at the footage but in the end we got some great images and no one died of hypothermia. That's a good day of fishing.

will work for job

2007-12-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

Job hunting is an exercise in humility and confusion.

I like writing and like to think I'm a decent communicator but I usually have one or two things defined: exactly what my intended reader wants or free reign to write what I want. The rules of job hunting here in America have changed and resumes have to be adapted and articulated specifically for each position to make you appear to be the perfect and only possible candidate. In my case I have about 350 words to summarize sixteen years worth of work, education and achievement.

That's less than 22 words per year. Tough task if you have to sell yourself but don't really know exactly what the person on the other end is looking to buy. You've also got to figure that someone on their end has condensed who their company is, what it does and what the position should be ( not always what it ends up being ) into a couple paragraphs as well. In fact the space is so limited in job descriptions that they never have room to mention the subtle requirements of superhuman skills, things like fixing problems left by your predecessor who was overworked and left a trail of wreckage as they beelined it through the door, the ability to cram 55 hour work weeks into 40 hours, tackling challenges with the mental strength of ten men and so on.

All kidding aside, it's crazy work finding a job these days. Every HR person and recruiter has a different idea on what your resume should say and look like based on their particular openings. They typically project their expectations onto every company in North America assuming resumes and job specifications are standardized. Crazy.

I might have to go back to school to get some of the positions I'm looking for but for now I've still got freelance work and am paying the bills. I know a lot of people in the media biz who can't say the same so I guess I'm lucky.

I can't hear it

2007-12-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

This week is a mix of working on my basement studio, applying for jobs, doing phone interviews and getting wierd emails like "Can you tell me when my Scrapped video will be shipped? I ordered it over a year ago and still have not received it." Unfortunately the US Postal service confirmation records don't go back that far so I couldn't track the order placed last October but I sent this poor woman the receipts showing we sent it out, the tracking info from the post office and said I would send another anyway and sorry for the hassles. Now that's a laid back lifestyle if you email someone a year later... I don't know what magically happens between the doorstep and the inside of the house but I get emails off and on from people that are peeved because they didn't get their dvd so I send them the confirmation info of the time and place it was delivered from the mailperson and never hear back from them again. I'll send extra disks out no problem, I just don't want people to think I'm screwing them.

Highlights of the week are getting to shoot .22 caliber rounds in my house. These were used to drive nails into concrete to secure boards for framing. No actual bullet discharge but still a big bang.

We also were able to get a load of drywall, insulation and big outdoor use doors in the night before it started snowing and eventually dropped about 1/2 a foot. Good timing.

The easiest way we could think of to get these mammoth 12 foot sheets into the basement was through taking the window apart. Good times.

To give you an idea of what a 12 foot sheet of drywall looks like, well it takes up most of the room, but makes a great stepladder.

In an attempt to soundproof as much as possible I'm loading the ceiling and sound booth with R38 insulation generally used for attic spaces. It's not the ideal way to kill sound and is only one step in the process but it's readily available, cheap-ish and lets face it, looks chunky and cool. Hopefully it will help keep the ear abuse of a couple amps and drums down to the lower level of the house.

rebuilding year

2007-11-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

I was in camera limbo for the Thanksgiving weekend. Not so good.

I had a sweet little Fuji camera about the size of a pack of smokes that filled in the gaps between doing SLR work shoots. Moving had me cramming my office into boxes and the boxes are crammed into a bedroom called my temporary office. For the life of me I couldn't find my little point and shoot so I went to 3 stores finding one that had this little Olympus FE-280 in stock for the advertised $129 price. Apparently they only allotted a certain number at that price and then would tell me they're "out of stock" which by the third store I found out meant they're out of stock for that price. When I found one in a display cabinet and it rang up at $189 I suggested it was the same camera as the advertised price and they eventually adjusted the price.

Now four days too late I've got a nice little 8meg bite size camera.

I ended up selling my sweet little Nikon Digital SLR outfit a while back because FujiFilm USA lent me a wonderful S3 for over a year because of the whole Scrapped thing. I haven't spent the cash to pick up something new ( I've got a movie to pay off ) but have rented some D200's for freelance work and the main thing I'm missing for my daily dink around shots is better control of depth of field and my super wide angle lenses that I can't seem to cram onto my point and shoot micro machines.

So this morning I'm trying to get a shot at submitting an audition tape out to host a tattoo travel show, the deadline was the day before Thanksgiving but I didn't get the email until it was too late. I emailed the casting agent and pleading for mercy. I'm also editing a reel of shooting / directing / editing work together for a job I'm dying to get an interview for downtown in a company that's looking specifically for an associate online video producer. It's a marketing / ad company that's got some heavyweight national clients so it would be a great chance to get back into the mainstream and have a steady 9-5 job ( or 8-7 job like the rest of the ad world ) for awhile.

As soon as these things get wrapped this morning I've got a contractor friend of mine coming over because I'm starting to turn an unfinished space in the basement of the new house into a 20'x 20' studio with sound booth and sweet sweet HD editing bay. I want to try and take advantage of not having a full time job at the moment to do the framing, drywalling and soundproofing before I'm busy all day making money and paying it all off. Thank goodness for home equity loans.

Pics to come.

new traditions

2007-11-14T06:40:00.001-08:00

I spent many years cutting down dead trees in the fall. It's an amazing time to be out in the woods. You can get engulfed in a 40 foot wall of orange and red with rustling leaves in hyper-stereo all around you as it always seems to be windy. The last few houses I've owned had fireplaces ( the last one had two ) and the first proper house Connie and I moved into when we got married had an over sized garage with a workshop and wood stove. Dropping and splitting wood was something to look forward to, knowing you were going to be snowed in soon and should appreciate being able to run around outside in a sweatshirt.

Our new house has a gas fireplace and I welcome the change. No more bark loose in the house and babysitting the fire after it's gone down but not out. No more cutting wood this fall.

I ended up spending a little quality outside time hunting with my friend Todd, his dog Norman and Connies brother Ken and it ended being a fine trade off. Still loud and life threatening, still outside and you bring home meat instead of wood. Good times.

I've noticed more visitors from the UK lately to the blog. You guys have a long heritage of bird hunting. Does anyone actually wear tweeds, use double barrel shotguns and have a glass of port and a pipe afterward? Do you or your loved ones hunt grouse, pheasant or something else this time of year? How about in Deutschland? How about you Dutch diplomats?

Tally Scrapped

2007-11-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Today is the big day that I have a layout challenge on for the Tally Scrappers! Visit their home page here or go directly to the challenge here.

I've gotten a lot of love from the Tally Scrapping group so check them out. There's online communities, shopping, techniques, news, challenges and lots and lots of layouts!

I'm part of the Survivor Challenge that happens Thursdays in preparation for the show. Get the scoop here on what's happening on Survivor and submit a layout in the next six days for prizes like Tim H's sweet new Grunge Board. Virtually indestructible. Virtually... I'll see what I can do.

My challenge was based on dementing famous quotes into something less edifying and more realistic. I did a layout that was text heavy and visually light. ( Maybe artistic? ) Instead of a photo I put a little mirror that's big enough to see something but small enough to not know exactly what's in it on the first go around.

Visit www.Tallyscrapper.com to check out my layout and mis-quote!

OK, OK... Tag Time

2007-11-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

I've been resisting the blog tag thing because it reminds me too much of a chain letter but reading other people's tidbits has just been too much fun. Thanks Minda, Emily and the other people who have bagged and tagged me. I'm finally getting off my butt and doing it:

Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged:
1.Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs

Here's my seven random facts:

1) I was born left handed but broke the two bones in my left forearm when I was 9 in a horse riding accident. The cast stayed on long enough that I just became right handed for writing and other major functions.

2) I was the first person at my High School ( that I or anyone knows of in a graduating class of about 600 students ) to have a full on mohawk. It was 1985 - 17 years ago. It didn't look very good because I had kinky hair.

3) I like romantic comedies and ocasionally cry during them.

4) I totaled 3 cars and 2 motorcycles within a four year span.

5) I was a liscenced minister in the State of Minnesota for two years. During that time I performed a marriage ceremony.

6) I played the violin for six years in school and take perverse delight in singing off key for fun.

7) I have successfully evaded pursuit from the authorities in Tijuana.

Here are the seven people I'm sticking this with: Melissa, Scott, Jennifer, Nathalie ( knowing German will help ), The whole scrapworks team from Manila,Drew , and of course Chan! The trick is that most of the celebrity scrappers I know have already done this so I'll take a shot on these people see if they ever return my emails again...

:0)

trailer

2007-11-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

The trailer for the movie I helped my friends out with is finally up!

http://www.coldplaythemovie.com/trailer.html

You can also see production stills here.

I made it into about a half dozen of them. I was officially the data acquisitions guy ( the new version of the person in charge of loading, sorting and protecting with their life the big reels of film on a movie shoot ) for all the HD footage, we used my camera, drives and computer, I was also the 1rst AC, headed up the camera dept. stuff like dolly's, jibs, etc. and was clacker boy quite a bit so I'm in alot of shots next to actors and actresses shoving the slate in their face.

Here's a shot of me picking some kind of fuzz or something off Carlo Rota's jacket. Pretty glamorous huh? Another highlight would be getting smooched on the cheek ( twice! ) by Vanessa Branch who's worked in a bunch of movies but you may know her best as the Orbit gum girl ( fabulous! ) was able to work with Carlo Rota like I mentioned whose been on the TV show 24 quite a bit, Ignacio Serrichio, and D.David Morin my friend who I mention off and on that I stay with in Santa Monica. He co wrote and co directed the movie and it was therapeutic to stay with him while we were shooting Cold Play because it gave us both a chance to unwind from the day, deconstruct what was happening, yell and laugh about the drama on set and things blowing up, etc. I've learned a ton from him.

Scrapped was great because it brought me from armchair critic to bush leagues, pretty much gaining me entry into the next level of play where you start all over again being a small fish in a big pond. It's a never ending process if you're trying to grow and learn. I'm enjoying the journey.

eclectic

2007-10-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

This week I was able to pick up some website work as well as a couple blasts from the past: I did some drywalling for a contractor friend of mine and got a call for a paying gig at a club downtown playing some jazzy bass. How cool is that? I got a little nostalgic for things I used to do before I got "so busy" and let video stuff consume my life. It was great.

I'm digging up the China project this week (the one I spent a few weeks in January cruising around China shooting ) for a potential meeting with a couple networks that may have interest in funding a full on TV series. Always a slim chance but we'll see what happens. May I present my Chinese business cards?

Creative You!

2007-10-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

I got a request from my friend Minda at Tallyscrapper.com to come up with a scrapbooking layout for a series of challenges they're doing. I was thrilled! My tubs and tubs of scrapbook stuff are in storage so I decided to camp out somewhere that I could borrow tools and a clear workspace. I ended up at a scrapbook store by my house I've been wanting to check out called Creative You in Maple Grove.

Michael the co-owner found me all kinds of alternative styled embellishments and paper and I ( like everybody else ) ended up going in to do a single layout and walking out with paper, pens, etc. I fell in love with this Jeneva and Company paper from apparently four or more years ago and lots of options for out of print abstract paint and textured embellishments that aren't the current hot trend you'd find at Target or Michael's craft. I guess that's one of the reasons priavte shops are so cool. Everybody is buying the same thing at a chain store but indie shops have the crazy stuff nobody else has. Be unique.

I won't post my layout until it's been released at Tallyscrapper! Sorry.

Here's Michael in his element: beads. He had some humorus and enlightening comments on the difference between beaders and scrappers, we talked about the different factions in the crafting community and it was an all around fun time to hang out with another guy in a scrapbook store. :0)

sleepless in Seattle

2007-10-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

I was in Tacoma, Washington shooting some footage of a machine that senses the length of railroad cars and uses gigantic hydraulic arms to drag them one at a time into a building where they get dumped. I wore a hardhat, a vest and tried not to touch anything within a 10 foot parameter of a longshoreman.

When you see something as big as a freighter, tanker or super tanker your brain just can't wrap around it. My brain goes from big - like a super sized root beer at Burger King to bigger, like a full sized quad cab truck with an 8 ft box to super big like a semi. Huge might be a jumbo jet. Anything past that and my eyes throw back the findings but my brain just comes back with "really freakin big" and doesn't have anything to compare it to. I don't see things 600-800 feet, essentially a sky scraper driving around horizontally very often.

Another bonus about this hop out to the Seattle / Tacoma area was finally meeting Chan or D-fly-girl as I've grown to know her from her blog and posts. Turns out she works for a radio station and gave me a full tour and swag on a moments notice.
All around a good couple days. Thanks Chan! Check out her blog here.

Being back on a plane for the first time in a few months was a little unnerving. I was able to go to Europe, New Zealand / Australia, China, Indonesia and many, many trips to New York, LA and all points in between this year. Sometimes gone for weeks at a time, often hopping around within a country with a lot of time on planes. Enough that if I get a nervous tick when I hop on a plane now.

All I can think about is cramming a 6ft, 255 pound lard butt into a seat and personal space made for a Philippino jockey with dwarfism. Serving a 2-3 hour sentence in confinement wasn't so bad... even therapeutic. I forgot I had encoded season 4 of News Radio for Connie's iPod and left the episodes on my laptop. Man, that has to be one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. The time flew by.

So all around a fun couple days! It's great to be back in the saddle shooting video, astounding to get into the docks area and hang out with trains all day, fun to see the mountains and people you've only met in the blogosphere. It was a great way to make a living this week!

twenty four

2007-10-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

I've got a great life - full stop.

I've also got my health and a huge amount of great friends which constantly surprises me because I'm a hermit by nature and have to make an effort to contact people but I've got to level with you though, the last twenty four days has been a challenge. Some of the highlights have been humbling myself and bringing my truck in for brake service instead of doing it myself ( I was moving and didn't have time or interest in doing it myself ) then having a front caliper lock up with smoke and all, getting it repaired then 5 miles later having the brakes go out completely during moving house going 60 mph down a highway.

I've sold my house and bought a new one only to find during closing that with a team of people waiting to load trucks I can't move into the new house because the city has issues that can only be resolved by the legal owner who is a bank in a different state. I've paid the money, signed the forms and then walked away with a post it note of someone's number wo will "get back to me when they know something" instead of a set of keys so I can start unloading my stuff.

I've had someone try to rob me, someone who I chased down a dark street and through the woods in the middle of the night. In the end I probably scared them more than they scared me. They didn't get to steal anything from me and I didn't get assualted so it turned out OK in the end.

I found my dream job, got a distribution deal for Scrapped and Brethren that I was very happy with and was able to get four pallets of DVD's, posters, T Shirts and the general indie movie party pack out of my basement. In the last twenty four days I've had to load up my inventory because the distributor was unable to make payments on our agreement, wasn't paid by their vendors and over extended themselves financially. I can understand that but it boiled down to several months of empty promises, missed payments, accumulated debt and the general runaround so I'm back to square one again. My job was the same situation. After six weeks of busting butt the paychecks slowed down to a trickle and then dried up. Everybody's hurting there but with the combination of paying off a movie project but someone else getting the money from sales and only getting a small fraction of a paycheck from a job I needed to give up on that dream and take counter measures. Job and future of video projects from the last three years: dissolved and starting over.

These are just the highlights. For some reason every few days in the last twenty four have been one step closer to the allignment of my stress universe, the perfect storm to leverage me between things bigger than myself. Things that are forcing me to evaluate who I am as a person, how I repsond to challenges, where am I heading in life, what I value... why it feel so good to shut myself in the garage and jump up and down yelling obscenities, why stress eating is only a short term fix and why my wife stays married to me.

For some divine reason and despite my best efforts I've ended up having coffee, lunch or dinner with a dozen friends I haven't seen for quite a while in the last week or so of these twenty four days. Long term good friends I've know for twenty years or more. Friends that I've logged in enough time with that the occurances of a month or less seem like a blip on the radar compared to half our lives.

Being at whits end has worn me down and I've been agreeing to social engagements. Free food and beverage from people who know you're unemployed is a fabulous recovery program and the side benefit is being reminded of the blessings still coming out your ears. Hearing about my friends divorce after twenty years of marriage reminded me how lucky I was to have met Connie and somehow avoid taking all the marriage bait in other less healthy relationships I was in for so long. I started to fall in love with my new house and am seeing what it might look like when the work is done, the city inspectors are finished and every thing's moved in. Heck, I even got a call from a friend who manages a club downtown to come play bass for a paying gig in a jazz trio. I got hooked up with a freelance corporate video gig in Washington state next week and am having lunch tomorrow with another friend who is connecting me to several production companies to jump start my job hunting process.

Twenty four days seems to be just enough time for a turnaround.

Addendum: Finished this post and drug Connie out for breakfast. Our new house is about 10 minutes from Bryant Lake Bowl in Uptown. My friend Todd who encouraged me to start a blog a year and a half ago also took me to breakfast here last week. I didn't even know they were open before noon. Apparently I'm part of the more "mature" crowd who go to BLB for breakfast instead of drinks and debauchery after midnight... thanks Todd. Bison Hash rules.

Illusion of Flight

2007-09-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

I was digging through the photos of the movie I got back from a couple weeks ago and found these from a set in Burbank called Air Hollywood. They weren't just cool because I got a free T-Shirt... they really had an amazing amount of whole planes cut into segments to add and remove parts of the tube you wanted to shoot it. Learjets, Air Busses, Jumobo's, filled with cockpits, tail sections and coach class sections all split into huge platforms on wheels so you basically roll the parts of the decommisioned plane you want to shoot on together. Kind of like a gigantic model plane for grown up boys. Very, VERY cool.

Check out their website!

Here's an example of low tech effects in a pinch. Our location manager became an extra for first class in one of the scenes. He brought a suit but forgot to bring dark socks so a gaffer rolled black ( surprise ) gaff tape around his shins and we were back in shooting mode.

Here's a couple other shots that show some of the scale of the tube we shot in. I grabbed these while the talent was practicing. We had an open set that day so once we started rolling the chairs, floor and pretty much everything behind my table was packed with people.

home ( but not quite ) sweet home

2007-09-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

Q: Where have you been? You haven't updated your blog? Is your life uneventful now? Did you break all your fingers in a high speed google chase? A: Los Angeles, Denver, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park. No I haven't - no online access, nope and nope.

I've been without online access for the last week and am sneaking into a Caribou coffee shop to scam free internet off a $1.27 small light roast of the day. I haven't showered in a couple days, smell sweaty, need a shave and am hiding out under a hat in the corner typing by the blue glow of a laptop - so basically everybody just assumes I'm a computer programmer except for the Harley T shirt instead of a Star Trek or Red Dwarf one.

We closed on our old and new house with a few bits of drama but I guess that always happens when 1rst time home buyers are getting your old one, ( turns out the guy was an auditor and went through EVERY form and asked questions, dug out calculators to confirm figures and was uncomfortable signed several of the forms... who isn't? ) then there's drama from buying our new house from a bank in another state, the city had issues that came up at closing, etc. etc.

As much as I love our new house I spent the night last night unpacking boxes in the rain. It was raining outside and I was inside. We bought a foreclosure house which at one time had some roof damage. I guess it still does. Each drip of water hitting the floor sounded like a five gallon pail staining the floor and bubbling up drywall. Now being the morning after I can see every thing's fine and repairs are already under way. No pictures of that but I did dig up some shots of a night out on the town in Santa Monica with my two room mates while I was working on Cold Play the movie project last week.

We had a couple days off and decided to get out and circulate. D.D.M. is the guy in the white short and his nephew Theo ( I called him Thor and it caught on with the crew so now he's stuck with it. ) DDM lives a block off the ocean by the Santa Monica pier so we ended up walking around the promenade and along the beach.

Ever health conscious and willing to legislate, California is sticking it the tobacco man. This is evident in Santa Monica who actually enforces a no smoke policy seemingly anywhere except your own bathroom. Thor, not bowing to the bootstraps of oppression lit up a heater right in the middle of the promenade which could lead to fines, ticketing, arrest and imminent cancer. I was proud of him so I had DDM snap a picture to document this act of an angry young man.

My free wifi time is almost up and I haven't transferred money from bank accounts, paid bills or even checked email. DOH! Gotta go.

gone but not forgotten

2007-08-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm in LA working on a movie being 1rst AC ( Assistant Camera ) DA ( Digital Acquisition ) and a whole bunch of other stuff like clacker guy and fix electronic computer stuff when it breaks guy. The shoot is bigger than I thought it would be. The movie is co-written and directed by a couple of friends of mine and is considered a "micro-budget" by SAG ( Screen Actors Guild.)Somehow they managed to score a 40 person crew, not including actors / actresses and catering. They also swung camera goodies like a jib, dolly and things I usually associate with bigger shoots.

It's turned out to be more work than everyone planned for. We knew 12 hour days six days a week for a little over three weeks would be tough but forgot about baking in the so-Cal sun, hauling heavy gear, interpersonal meltdowns, technical failures and on and on. Since it's usually an hour to and from set and I end up setting up and tearing down in addition to the daily grind then loading footage onto hard drives and setting up batteries and laptops to charge at the end of the day I usually end up flying out of bed around 6:00 AM, quick shower and off to set, getting home to the 600 square foot studio apartment I'm sharing with a couple other guys, loading footage, maybe go for a quick walk for alone time and asleep by eleven or midnight to get up and start all over again. That explains the lack of posting on the blog...

Here's a couple pictures I snapped for the blog to show an example of a typical scene. Everyone will get hauled with all their gear to a scene location, the DP ( Director of Photography - my boss in my AC role ) will jump around with the directors and frame shots by looking through their boxed in fingers with squinty eyeballs like in the movies about making movies. Then I prep the camera with my assistant Theo who I've taken to calling Thor. When the shot angles are worked out then I set up all my computer stuff while gaffers come in and set up lights, a generator, scrims, flags, beadboard and all kinds of lighting mish mash. I'm usually up and running and sharing my space with the video assist guy in "video village" where a cable is run straight out of the camera and into a monitor so the director can see what's being framed up and shot on a monitor out of the way of the actual action.

Next to me when I'm wearing my DA hat is the guy running the video assist, the director, the script supervisor who makes sure there's continuity between shots and people are in the right scenes with the right lines, there's also wardrobe, hair, makeup and other pertinent people, often crowded into a tent to protect equipment. Inbetween downloading footage and caring for the camera with different lenses, settings, etc. I'm running in front of the talent ( actors and actresses ) themselves and hitting the slate or "claker" when the AD ( assistant director ) says action. So far I've gotten to get up close and personal with Vanessa Branch our leading lady who has been in several movies including most recently Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 but you might know her best as the Orbitz gum girl in te commercials ( dirty mouth? Fabulous! ) also Carlo Roha who was has a steady TV show in Canada and was in Boondock Saints, a movie I enjoyed but not for the faint of heart and other productions. In fact, I've actually gotten to spend some time with lots of great talent who I haven't recognized of gotten pictures with until it was too late.

My biggest role is to collect, analyze, sort and check all our footage. We're shooting with my camera in HD so it's my butt if something breaks, gets lost r deleted from the camera or back up hard drives. Sounds easy but it's harder than you'd think and I've already had to tell the whole cast and crew we lost a scene and had to set up and reshoot it. Not a popular occurance, especially when we were pushing to get all our scenes shot at a mansion in Malibu that costs $5,000 a day to rent for a location. Well, off to bed before a shoot tomorrow in a set made to look like a jumbo jet. I'll take lots of pictures.

High and Dry

2007-08-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

One of the main highlights of this bike trip was going through Monument Valley in Arizona but after a hot day of driving through Utah we hit rain outside of Moab. What a site to see the lightning and thunderheads roll in over the red rocks and dust. We ended up in a thunderstorm that slowed our pace down to a crawl with no cover available. By the time we finally hit Monument Valley it was pitch black, we were in the middle of nowhere, hadn't seen a car or light in site and were in a full on high wind monster doing 30 mph with bleak visibility, pounded by rain, bursts of red dust clouds flying by horizontally with hours to go to the next town. Seeing Monument Valley wasn't quite what I expected. We didn't get any pictures. :0)

Stopping for breakfast was a hoot. Connie had tomato slices, cottage cheese and healthy things, I had the grandmother of all pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and everything on the menu you could put ketchup on. I was also pleasantly surprised to see you could order gravy as a side dish. My kind of place.

On to the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree... Over 117 degrees. 120 in some places, even 106 in the shade. I decided to take a "short cut" right through the middle of the desert on a two lane highway that cut back considerably on miles but not on time. One road ended up turning to a dirt road about 20 miles into the bypass, backtracking and finding another route brought us through storm washouts that were hidden until you came right up on them at about 65 mph. Dips in the road could be a mirage or a potential mud / sand trap that would hit the front tire and send it swerving. The road less traveled did make a difference.

As hot as everything was,it still had rugged beauty and the actual Joshua trees themselves were no exception but rolling in to Palm Springs was like spring had erupted and the colors, concrete and available water made everything feel a little more hospitable.

It was that night that we heard about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. It was surreal watching a hispanic TV station with a latino reporter talking in spanish about something so common from home. Connie and I used that bridge all the time so it was odd to feel homesick for such a tragic reason.

Finally rolled into LA and secured the trip from the top middle of the US to the ocean near the bottom. Over 2,000 miles and a great time. Connie's trip back home would be four hours and $150. Much more convenient but a little different view of our countryside here in America.

We had lunch at the Getty and took in all the artwork before two dinners with two sets of friends and kissing my wife goodbye at the airport then starting work the next day. Lunch reminded me about what LA can be like. Aspiring actors waiting on us, beautiful people everywhere and when you get bread with your meal it looks like artistic fusion on a plate. Menu's label all the locations of the ingredients and hamburgers are $18 because the patty is Kobe beef from Japan. I'll be sticking to In and Out burger for the rest of the trip. :0)

trippin'

2007-08-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

The bike trip out to LA didn't begin in my mind until we got past Denver. Iowa and Nebraska pale in comparison of roadside beauty to me because I've seen them a million times and I know I'm going through the rockies, southwest and eventually the ocean once I get past the prairie and plains.

It was an interesting trip because there was hight heat across a broad swath of our course with intermittent thunderstorms. Sometimes it felt like you wanted to get back on the bike just to get some wind blowing and cool down.

I thought I'd conserve space and fight the heat by bringing a half helmet but about three days into blowing dust, high winds and sun my eyeballs reminded me the benefits of full facial coverage. he tightest sunglasses I could find still let the elements in. I felt fine but they looks like a horror show every night.

One of our stops was the grand canyon. I've flown through it once in a small plane tour when Connie and I first got married but didn't really get the shocking scale of it all until this trip. 277 miles long, ten miles across and 5,000 feet from the rim to the river at the bottom. Awe inspiring and unbelievable. All I could do is stand there and stare for almost an hour.

A.O.K.

2007-08-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to answer a group of emails.

Got in to LA fine, great bike ride. Haven't gotten the box I shipped with my laptop, clean clothes, etc. so I'm using an online kiosk to post we were out of town when the bridge dropped in Minneapolis. We use it often and had several friends who missed it by 5 - 20 minutes. Fortunate for us and our friends, tragic for others.

Thanks for your emails! I'll post pictures and more when I get my computer and online access.

wes

hot summer nights

2007-07-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've been working late editing a regional outdoor hunting / fishing show into a DVD series before I take off Friday for a cross country motorcycle trip to LA. The next six weeks look like this: Try to finish some DVD's, pack and map out a 1,500 mile bike ride through the plains, rockies, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Vegas, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree and then movie base camp in Santa Monica and Malibu.

I need to pack as much of the house up before I go as well because I'll be driving back Labor Day weekend then closing the day after I get back on our old house, closing on the new house and then moving. It's going to be a busy six weeks.

So it was wee hours of the night and I took a break from sitting in front of monitors to go for a motorbike ride. It's been 90 fahrenheit and humid so cool night breezes and empty city streets were a treat.

I ended up at a late night used record / CD store in Uptown called Cheapo that I used to hit all the time when I lived closer and bought music like a fiend. Still pre-midnght it was still open and full of people. Clack, clack, clack went the constant sound of people filing through rows of CD's looking for the big find. I was hunting down the sound track to the "Grizzly Man" doc by Richard Thompson ( I'm a big fan ) and stumbled upon my own audio sweetness: Atomic Bass II.

Ohhh Yeahhh Baby. 95 cents bought me some official trunk bumpin' - booty shakin' goodness that has a caution right on the cover. "Caution: This album may cause permanent speaker damage. Use caution when operating a motor vehicle." I'd rip an MP3 and rock your world here on the blog but our poor 3 inch computer speakers can't bring the heat of thunder bass down to 10hz.

What's the last music you've bought? What was the first one? Was it CD, LP, Cassette, 8 Track ( dig it?! )

Thanks for reading!

fast photo

2007-07-19T13:32:00.001-07:00

I'm a big fat cheater!

I brought my sales guy at work over to Archivers in Maple Grove during lunch and exposed him to scrapbooking. He actually picked up some stuff as did I. My mom's birthday is coming up so I got her a quickie style "Scrapbook in a Box" to help cut down on some of the picture anarchy that's happening in her closet. Now she can get stuff out on a coffee table to bore visitors with her children that frankly are old enough to have grandchildren...

I can see that hate-mail now... nope, this probably hasn't been tested and it's going to eat photographs like bundt cake but do I really want some of those pictures to last forever?

Doing it with her will be a nice little sit down, all inclusive, non creative, brain resting, chit chat diversion from meaningful conversation. ;0)

wes

class act

2007-07-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's Thursday already. I'm behind in posting some pictures from last weekend. Saturday I went to visit my friends Minda and Kristi at a event sponsored by "Those Were the Days." Above is a picture of Kirsten, the instigator of this scrapping soirre and some of the tasty kits they had for sale.

I was introduced to some lovely local groovers and divas, one being Nisa Fiin a CK hall of famer who's a photographer and paper designer. We got a sneak peek at her new series coming out tomorrow at CHA in Chicago. Here she is on the right with a moment of brilliant consciousness so profound that Minda did all she could to keep from ejecting her innards onto her outterds. ;0)

Seriously though, I took Krintina's class, learned I "color too far outside of the lines" for her and was able to get a couple shots of two of the attending crop rock stars on the Scrapped-Mobile.

What are the odds of having three consecutive bright red vehicles in the background of this shot?

scrapping weekend

2007-07-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

I made it to the Midwest Scrapbook Convention and saw a couple things I thought were keen but won't be news to you. One was a board game called http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Photopoly. What grabbed me about it is thinking about the tension going on with family or friends' drama in the value ranked to their photo..."You made me Marvin Gardens and Billy gets to be Park Place. Don't you love me anymore?!" " Why do I have to be the B&O railroad? Are you saying I have a hygiene problem?"

I also met some new people and old friends. This fine woman at the Archivers booth set aside the CM / Archivers fued and wanted a picture with the bag. Yes, I brought the bag. Good call blog readers! and truth be told, nobody at the Archivers booth had any issues with Creative Memories or a CM bag at all. :0)

I cruised over the the Delta Phi Scrapped booth ( remember them in Scrapped? ) where I made a lovely little poka dot bracelet, checked out their new clothing sweetness and snuck behind Julie, the instructor who I hugged in Scrapped after we bonded over distressed techniques and sotries of her husband and kids scrapbooking.

I hope those Delta Phi Scrappa people take their weekends on the road nationally because they really put on something bigger and better than I've seen anywhere for retreats. Food, music, classes, plenty of workspace, freebies, on and on. Well you saw them in Scrapped. That's where I worked with Rebecca on my first album and took Julie's distressed class.

Other things that caught my eye were a Scrapbooking Visa Card? Hey, why not right? You get a percentage off every scrapbook related purchase and get a crafty, cutsie, nifty looking Visa to set you apart from the crowd.

Names exposed in 35mm film... but no Wes. They did have Connie though!

And yes, these stencils have been out for a while but I think they're great and was mesmerized by them again. I don't know why making little tags and envelopes out of the paper of my choosing is such a novelty but hey, why do some people get so excited about kippers or squirrels? ( A friend of mine years ago was shocked that big, bushy tailed grey squirrels really walked around your yard and chirped at each other.This coming from a country where you can have 3 kinds of deadly snakes, tropical birds and tarantulas under your clothes line... )

Scrap It Weekend!

2007-07-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Twin Cities are ground zero for the scrappin' world this weekend.

We've got the http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Midwest Scrapbook Convention happening at River Center in St Paul Friday and Saturday and the "Those were the Days" . Pre-CHA party happening Saturday. Geez, I've got my Delta Phi sisters representing at the Convention and my bud Kristi Contes doing classes at the TWTD party. I'm going to try and swing both but haven't heard back from the most "Friggin Awesome" teacher in the western hemisphere which class she wants me to attend.

My pal Minda is going to the first class so I'll see if I can crash that one. ( 9 AM and cropping? bring on the pain! ) I'm also going to try and hit the convention Friday afternoon for a couple hours.

I love excuses to talk to people at these things so if you see me at the convention or come up and say "Merry Christmas" and I'll give you a not sold anywhere - you have to be cool to get one Premiere Edition of Scrapped that has extra footage and the full size TV versions of the shooter and grinder promos. Maybe I'll have a few posters... heck, I'll even sign them for you.

So the big question is should I bring my spiky crop bag to the convention? Is it pretentious? I'm not acutally going to be cropping there but need something to carry DVD's in. Are people going to think I'm a cropping poser?! :0)

rockin' the suburbs

2007-07-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

I went bicycling with my little brother last weekend in the 95 degree heat. He lives downtown in the buffer land between the artistic mecca of Uptown Minneapolis and downtown which is big enough to have a skyline but small enough to still have most retail close down at 6:00 PM and turn into a bar and music land.

In our hunt for houses we decided we missed the city and were looking mostly at lofts and condos in this area but have finally made an offer on a house about 10 minutes from downtown instead. You might recognize this background from seeing Nate leave his apartment and get in the car in Scrapped.I asked what's new and he mentioned seeing some gun play outside his living room window right on the corner. Between association fees, parking, crime and a grossly flooded market of condo's sitting empty in a soft real estate market... we decided to get a house instead.

Looking back I remember the years I spent in Minneapolis living in the apartment downtown by the dome where a guy lived next to the dumpster that smelled like pee and my car would get broken into ( I don't have a problem with wetting yourself, he seemed like a nice guy ) having visitors driving around the block looking for parking with the place by Lake Calhoun, and gun play - graffiti and screaming neighbors in our two houses in South Minneapolis. Ahh yes, it's all coming back. Why I traded in cool for a lawn and less colorful neighbors.

We've put in an offer on a house in an area called St. Louis Park which borders the cool area of Uptown and "the lakes" but is typically quiet with a disproportionately large number of houses built in the 50's and Jewish population. I look forward to checking out the temple a few blocks away, the deli's and kicking it with my hasidic homies. Connie and I went for a walk around the neighborhood on a particularly hot day and were suprised to not only see a gentleman out watering his yard with a hot and steamy black velvet yamika but also someone walking down the street in full black sports coat sporting the traditional long side curls. Not quite the slick 20 something scene of downtown condos. :0)

After compiling sweat equity for the last 13 years and 3 houses we're able to move on up. Here's the equation: average price of lofts and condos we were looking at: $400k with $20k for an extra parking space since I have a full size truck and motorcycle. Association fees: between $400 - $500/ month. Average size of units: 1300 Sq. Ft.

Price of the house we put a bid on: $389k with x-large two car garage, 2400 sq.ft. with no association fees and almost no yard to take care of. Both are about a 15 minute walk to lakes and the artsy world of Uptown where even a hippie can get killed despite surrendering their wallet. The worst thing bound to happen in the new neighborhood compared to downtown is not being able to shop on Sabbath.

I've officially resigned to the fact that I'm becoming old and sensible, sedated and boring... more concerned about resale value than night life. It's bound to happen to you too...

new home

2007-07-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

Scrapped ( and Brethren ) have found a new home. Connie and I have not... yet.

I've been hired on to a new movie studio here in the Twin Cities. No, I didn't know there was anything like that here in the Midwest either. It might be the only one of any size. It's called Shadow Creek Studios, is only four months old and has a handful of titles, all monster type movies right now. I've been hired on to start up a "docutainment" division and do some other projects for the parent company Braun Media who's got DVD's and audio books all over the place like Barnes and Nobles, Target, Walmart, online stores, etc. That means Scrapped will probably end up in bricks and mortar stores and major retailers sometime soon.

I moved all my inventory into the warehouse at work last week. I had some pride when I rolled up the door to my storage space and loaded up 3 pickup loads full of Public and Premiere edition DVD's, T Shirts, posters, etc. because they were a tangible, measurable item to see what I've accomplished in the last year of making something out of nothing. It was fun to think that out of everything I'm moving there's actually more than twice as much floating around the planet somewhere. Then I unloaded everything into the warehouse at work and it all came into perspective. Here's my few pallets worth of stuff compared to part of the warehouse with part of the movies I'll help promote. A small part.

My job consists of finding good documentaries and movies with strong stories, family type stuff and projects that are quirky for distribution. It will also include making some new ones myself - like a Scrapped sequel, but not for a little while. I've inherited a backlog of stuff to work on because everything is still in startup mode.

Some of the interesting possibilities are plans for online TV and radio broadcasts, pay per view download movies on the internet ( like netflix is doing ) making videos in short formats for cell phone companies that want to liscence our stuff and projects for some national cable TV netoworks. Fun technology, lots of freedom, keep doing what I'm doing except getting a regular paycheck. How cool is that?

After a few years of slaving away as a peon I'm finally breaking in to the indie film biz. I've signed on with a couple friends of mine who are doing a "micro budget" movie of around $200k in LA for the month of August. All of our last projects were designed to save the world, enhance mankind or statements for virtue but this is pretty much a murder mystery movie that's deisgned to get exposure, entertain and make some form of profit.

I'm overjoyed because I'm not in charge of anything, it's all their baby. They wrote the script, are acting, directing, etc. I'm just using my camera, doing grip work ( lighting and camera movement stuff ), managing the digital footage and being the clacker boy ( that slate thing with the black and white stripey bar on the top that you smack together when they say action. ) I say I'm overjoyed because it's a full on Hollywood style production with a lighting truck, crew, 16 hour days, several locations ( like a hollywood airplane set used in regular features ), name actors ( not huge name, but people you'd recognize ) and the whole degree of stress that comes with a regular movie crew.

The two guys heading things up are D.David Morin imdb info here and Geno Andrews imdb info here. D.David is the guy I stayed with during CHA this spring in Anaheim. I'll be staying with him again for August which will be great because I really like Santa Monica and being right by the beach.

So expect lots of interesting pictures from the shoot and behind the scenes stuff in August.

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in yankee land. The day we decided to fight the bloated governing powers because we were getting our pants taxed off and had the government making decisions on who's going to pay for what without representation from the actual citizens. 230 years later we're kind of in the same boat... and don't even get me started with the Twins Stadium. ( inside joke for Minnesotans. ) I recommend lightening up for the holidays and listening to some "Real Men of Genius" adds here.

PS. Hello Sweden! For some reason I've gotten a big peppering of log in's from you in the last few days so thanks! If you care to identify yourself please email me a pic at wesatcomcast.net and I'll put you up on the blog for everyone to see. I'm sure the rest of the world would love to see what the Swede's look like scrapbooking!

net neutrality

2007-06-22T09:14:00.001-07:00

My friend Lauralee sent me a link to a video about net neutrality.

I thought it was fascinating. I also think it's true. What do you think?

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

It's about ten minutes long so you might want to go get a beverage first.

change is good

2007-06-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

The metamorphosis is almost complete.

Old Me: last week, roasting in the heat in a hip little coffee shop in Glen Lake down the street from my house, meeting and talking about web 2.0 contradictions.

The new me sitting in an air conditioned Caribou in Maple Grove at 7:00AM in the morning to beat rush hour traffic turning a 20 minute drive to my new job into a 70 minute monster. My new office doesn't really open until 8:00 AM and most of the people I interact with don't roll in until around 9:00 - 10:00 AM because they're artsy creative types who end up staying in their offices until 7:00pm then out for some late night engagement.

I got a job, and sold Scrapped at the same time. More later.

So I know most everybody that posts responses. I'm dying of curiousity, if you put a date in the calendar as the dividing line between "old me" and "new me" what would you change? What would you give up and hope to replace it with? It's been liberating, even in the little things.

Minda's getting a new job, Paul's always got new hair ( and now a baby that forces you into a old me / new me ) Scrap Bunny has summer and rest of the year occupations, Drew... well Drew's pretty consistent. ( Consistently unpredictable. )Scrapbookers are constantly measuring changes in their kids / spouses in real tangible ways.

If you're logging in from Manila, Canada, the UK... feel free to be anonymous and spill your guts, let it all hang out. old me / new me. Daydream.I'd love to hear about it.

wes

Mr. Clean

2007-06-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Temps here were in the 90's for several days in a row and well... it's a new season in my life. I'm looking for a job, a new job in that I want to find a 9-5 instead of having my own business. Connie and I are selling our house and want to move closer into the city where we lived for many years.We're even trying to figure out if we should get a single family home, townhouse or condo ( no garage... yikes! ) New job, new neighborhood, new house, new lifestyle.

For some reason my inside brain activity wants to manifest itself on the outside and bring emotional and mental concepts into the tangible world. Combine all these together and I decided to shave my head. I liberated myself from my hair to cool off, to mark the end of something and the spark of something new... and so I didn't have to keep combing out gnarled bits and tangles from biking around all day in the sun and wind...

I can send you instruction on how to give yourself a dashing new doo like this one if you're interested.

wes

dicotomy

2007-06-12T07:56:00.001-07:00

So here I am in my corporate battle gear pitching a video series and DVD companion product to a book about China. It's a far cry from the free wheeling scrapbooking project where you're still owing somebody something to get production done but you shoulder the success and failure yourself and don't answer to a board of trustees.

After a few months of shooting in China, editing, working on manuscripts, building an online delivery system with databases, blogs and podcasts it looks like things are winding down and we're not going to get a big chunk of millions of dollars all at once. That means current negotiations with McGraw Hill to publish the book, then build a TV and DVD series on that, which in turn is enough bait for investors in the online empire . I need to make money and pay bills ( are you with me? ) so I'm interviewing for regular 9-5 jobs in video production, editing, web building and interactive media.

One interesting possibility is a local distribution company wants to buy Scrapped, Brethren ( my other soul searching project I did a year or so before Scrapped ) and possibly hire me on to develop a "docu-tainment" department for them. It might not pay much better than flipping burgers but how cool would that be? I smell a Scrapped 2 if that happens. :0)

Until then I'm just keeping the biking / fishing / rowdy music part of my life suppressed and dressing up for the last remaining funding pitches and job interviews.

PS> What is up with a sunfish biting a lure 23 times bigger than it's mouth? The poor little guy has guts...

Fly's, Flights and Fat

2007-06-05T06:44:00.001-07:00

I had one day home to catch up on email, voicemail, send out some DVD orders and adjust to the 12 hour time difference in sleep schedule. Well, that and jet lag from spending about 43 hours of actual in the air time ( not counting layovers ) in one week of flying.

I celebrated my day of recovery by hopping on a plane and flying to Denver to visit my wife's family last weekend. It was also her brother Ken's birthday so some of us chipped in and got him a fly fishing rod and reel. Ken is my fishing buddy and a good friend so it seemed like a logical progression to spring it on him during this trip so we could head up to the mountains with another brother and brother in law to go for some trout.

After several hours of back yard practice casting we took off and I was able to catch a juicy rainbow trout that was big enough to cook up but I forgot to bring a leader on the plane and anything to contain a gutless fish in a car for several hours. It was sent on it's merry way with great ceremony as the first catch of the day. Out of the massive investments of skill and gear made in the fly world I was able to catch a trout right away with an open reel and scented marshmellows. Go Figure. I also ran up to the car for the camera, felt the burn of oxygen deprivation ( we were at least a mile higher than the mile high city itself ) and realized I left it back at the house so I'll have to paste in some silly substitute pic I found on the internet.

We were at the Denver airport by 11:00 AM on Tuesday and very ready to get home. Weather rolled in and our flight was delayed an hour, then another hour, then two more.... then around 8:00pm - canceled. We tried to get another flight but United was already booked well until Wednesday for other stranded passengers so we canceled our tickets and tried to get a flight back from another carrier. Hmm, apparently tons of requests at the last minute for flights insanely drives up the price of remaining tickets so we looked for other options. The airport was PACKED with stranded people with blood in their eyes so I immediately tried to book a rental car. We ended up with a minivan and after waiting in more lines, securing something and trying to retrieve our bags that had been checked all day ( another 2 hours from the time we requested our check in and when it actually showed up in a carousel ) we were on a 14 hour joy ride back to Minneapolis. WOW. What a couple weeks of being in transit mode. It's nice to be home now. :0)

I also realized that I've put on about 6 pounds in the last two weeks. Maybe something about having rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner or eating regular meals but sitting still in a seat for days on end... or maybe I'm a pig that eats more than he can expend, somehow I bumped up from 248 to 254. Not a huge panic other than obviously having to make my way down to the 230 range sometime this summer except for a deadline on a weightloss program I started before Scrapped that will refund 1/2 my money at my final weigh in if I meet my goal... which was due last week. DOH! Before I started Scrapped I came in at about 275 pounds and needed to desperately drop some excess cheek, neck, butt and belly before I was captured in time. The idea wasn't so much vanity ( although I'm obviously over wieght and not excited about it ) but I just didn't want extra belly parts hanging out and distracting what's happening on camera. I made it down to 250 while we were shooting and leveled off. Chubby enough to be aproachable but not thick enough to get in the way of all that hugging that seemed to happen everywhere I happened to be scrapbooking with women. So now I'm trying to shed some poundage in a short amount of time to take the money and run. Looking good is one thing but cold hard cash... that's a motivator!

Now before you start thinking about how big 250 pounds really is just remember that my fit weight out of High School when I was trim, benching around 250 and fitting into size 32 jeans was still around 210. Don't you 5 foot 5 inch ladies be comparing two of you to one of me and gasping in horror at my gravitational pull based on sheer mass. besides, it's fashionable to publicly declare your weight. I saw the other night that it got Tyra Banks on Larry King! I'm just hoping for a continued audience to my blog...

Here's what happened when Connie snuck a picture of me sitting by her mother for dinner and I spontaniously decided to plant a big juicy smooch or her. This is unheard of in her family as we were coerced into even giving goodbye hugs so I milked it for shock value.

view from above

2007-06-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures of Jakarta, an airplane and the view looking out.

The view out my hotel room window. A Mosque, a tennis court and a garbage heap. It pretty much sums up what I'm seeing in the city, fun, exotic, history - culture and brutally gritty. It's the 9th largest city in the world with a metropolitan population of over 23 million people - 44,283 people per square mile. Amazing, beautiful people who smiled bigger than I ever imagined possible.

I had finally met my South East Asian match and it looked perfectly harmless. Out of all the funky stuff I've eaten for some reason I had a hard time getting the tube mussles down. I think it was a combination of beer, the rank smell of amonia cleaning products and fishy aroma's coming from all directions. I made it through the exotic skin on fish, chili crab ( and it's eggs served in the hollowed out shell. Very spicy! Very good! ) tore the head off the prawn to suck out the guts ( why just eat the tail and leave all the goodness in the rest? ) then finally made it to the mussels.

You eat them by prying them out of the shell and slurping down the whole thing. I've got a problem with mussels in general. I've had salt water aquariums for years and remember the taste / smell of sucking on a cleaning tube to get the vaccum going to suck fishy poop products off the bottom. Mussels are natures waste treatment plant and they taste pretty much the same. This sensation was compounded by having to crunch up the hard bits, guts and shell flap that makes up the whole of the beast. I was able to show respect and keep it down despite several attempts by my stomach to send it back up from whence it came. The taste of stomach acid and bile that usually clinches the deal and makes you open and puke was a welcome alternative to the actual mussel in my case and I was able to sutrvive the beer, chili, ammonia, fish smell, open to the street feast of the senses. I'm still to North American to fully enjoy the bounty of South East Asian seas...

Hurrah! Chili Crab! ( with it's eggs. )

My partner Dave in one of our flights.

After getting rheemed by Northwest Airlines so many times ( it just seems to be their customer servic policy initiated by the management itself ) I was very happy to experience free beer, wine and peanuts on Malasian airlines!

Nothing preps you for another leg of long flights like chili fries, a brat smothered in peppers and onions washed down with a nice tall beer. I guess I couldn't think of any more explosive and potentially hazardous in combination for a confined and regulated environment shared among hundreds of people. ( note: We actually only had a couple beers on the whole trip, there just happened to be cameras aruond when we did. )

San Francisco from my window - almost home.

96 degrees of separation

2007-05-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Who would've thought being by the equator would be so stinking hot?!

It's in the nineties with a bazillion percent humidity. I brought undershirts but voted against it later today because I wanted to stay cooler then look dryer after the meeting rush for the day was over. In an attempt to re-hydrate I kept grabbing water and was instantly infatuated with a lovely beverage named "Pocari Sweat." The salesman didn't see my constant humor in a drink actually named sweat, especially in my state of drippy stinkyness. It presented a whole list of questions just like everything else here that's foreign and bizarre and lost in translation. What is a Pocari and why is it's sweat so much better than drinking my own? Why am I paying for this privilege? Apparently it has something to do with it's ability to be an "ion supply drink." Does that mean it takes care of any static cling or potential lightening strikes in my digestive system? I found the true purpose for an ion supply drink is to make sweat bead up on my head-hood and roll off without leaving water spots. Excellent!

I was also happy to see another culture embracing the Monkey King. Our production manager for the pilot shoot in China kept thinking and talking about how much I had in common with the monkey king. She would mention it to friends and make comments based on my actions. I assumed the connection was purely physical but apparently the king is a mischievous super hero who straddles the dimensions between God and humans, thinking amusing others and himself is better than steady work. I can respect that. Of course the monkey king legend is throughout southeast Asia and talked about in many, many cultures. I shouldn't be surprised to bump into him and am proud to be associated with the title.

I had a dorian smoothie today for lunch. I knew what I was getting into but still wasn't prepared for the parade of aroma. If you're not familiar with the Dorian fruit, it holds nature's strongest smelling warning broadcasting of how inedible the meat of the fruit is. It doesn't really need it. The body alone is rock hard and spiky. I found it uncomfortable to hold one because it's so sharp.

Even with ice, sugar and other dessert filler the smoothie smelled like someone made a margarita by wringing out sweat socks into a glass and frosted the rim with sulfur instead of salt. It tasted more like an iced three egg omelet with extra onions and garlic. Not knowing the difference between a course and a condiment I saved a pile of red mish mash on my plate for last and popped it down in one big spoonful.

Apparently this is an inferno of delight ("Sambal Asal" if you're Indonesian) that is supposed to be spread throughout your plate to add burning goodness to your rice and other foodstuffs. The dorian ice drink was the only available extinguisher so I chugged it down and had an afternoon of burps that consistently tasted like something fermented in the bottom of my digestive tract. Not a flavor and smell you want coming from the front porch of your taste buds. It was made to escape out the back door.

The only other thing I found more amusing than the "ride the wild panda" children's ride is the rickshaw driver who apparently did enough winning laps around Jakarta to secure a Pennzoil endorsement. The competition is obviously life threateningly fierce but it looks like it's earned him custom clear taillights, a jacked up suspension and slick racing tires.

Squirrels w/a Million Dollar View

2007-05-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

I'm on my way out to Jakarta, Indonesia for a spur of the moment prsentation. We're looking for funding in this China project I'm working on and one of the partners has contacted someone he's done business with in the past who has the ability to bring in millions of dollars. He agreed to take a meeting and invite some other investors so I'm in L.A. on a long layover.

Got up at 4 AM, arrived in the city of angels around 9 and started the ritual I like to do with long layovers. Picked up a rental car and had breakfast at Dinah's off the 405 and Sepulveda. Then I dragged my friend Dave to the Sunset strip and we checked out all the guitar shops. Sam Ash, Carvin, Mesa Boogie, the collectors room at Guitar Center, on and on.

We had a great lunch with my friend Lauralee Farrer who's the editor of publications at Fuller in Pasadena and talked about movie projects she's working on. Shared sympathy for a 35mm film based feature she'll be paying off for the next year that's come to a dead end, the juicy documentary about free trade here and in Africa that she's editing, the state of the Scrapped and the stuff I've been shooting in China.

Shot down to Santa Monica for a visit with D.David Morin to have the stereotypical LA dinner at Musha off Wilshire and 4rth. Sushi, sake and then drinks and coffee on the promenade. Lots of fun to catch up with him, hear more about a suspenseful who-dun-it feature he's gearing up for and pretty much had a whole day of feeling like some kind of movie guy hanging out in LA. :0)

Two crazy things I saw were a great singer selling CD's in the street. Spectacular voice, no record deal but working on it. I forget what an entertainment industry mecca this place is and the caliber of talent hanging out in the street.

The other thing was the squirrels that I've never noticed living on the bluffs next to Santa Monica pier. They have some of the most expensive real estate of any squirrels on the planet. Sitting there watching the waves roll in I saw a mamma pop her head up, then slowly four more tiny replications creeped up and scratched around in the dirt.

Returned back to LAX late in the evening to catch our 1:40 AM flight to Tai Pei. Nobody at Malaysian Air seemed to be in a huge hurry so we sat in line for several hours checking in while our departure time came and went. Three hours of sleep then up at 4:00 AM, long day layover in LA ( that's what happens with a short notice flight and connecting two airlines ) then back on a plane and taking off about 23 hours later only to cram my big butt in a seat for 14 hours straight over the pacific, then another 6-7 hours worth of flying and brief layovers in Kuala Lampur then eventually Jakarta.

Long day of traveling. Three days of meetings and presentations with some people then back on the plane to do it all over again in reverse. Jakarta to Kuala Lampur to Tai Pei to Los Angeles to Dallas / Ft. Worth to Minneapolis.

That's life in the media biz of the global economy. Living on your charge card and booking the cheapest flights you can find, living the life of a rock star on the budget of a street performer until you get your big break.

PS> I you want to use some western style toilet paper in a Malaysian airport you better make sure you have some Malaysian change in your pocket or you're sh!t out of luck. ;0)

The Silver, Gold and Burgandy Screen.

2007-05-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

In a search for a distributor for Scrapped I ended up meeting and talking with some people from Shadow Creek Studios here in Minneapolis. They're a new, hip, more artistic startup division of an established, professional and diverse Braun Media ( BMS Digital. )

I was invited by Chris and Josh who head up Shadow Creek and are also film makers themselves to the premiere of their new release "It Came from Another World" which is the kind of 50's era monster movie that these two specialize in.

It was funny, it was campy and the people watching was almost as much fun as the movie. I'm pretty much a hermit and like sticking to myself. I watch movies at home but was reminded of the energy that peaks when you're in a theater and see a movie as an event. Hearing people laugh at funny parts made me laugh even longer. Hearing the surprise of a mass of people made me jump a little higher and the best part was I could just show up and enjoy myself. No running around wondering if everything was going to work properly.

The evening festivities were at "The Heights" theater just North of downtown Minneapolis. It's a restored tribute to the 40's era of cinema with all the trimmings. If you live here in the Twin Cities you might want to check out their upcoming one week run of Gone With the Wind shown on a real 35mm print so you're getting the full on retro movie experience for $8 a ticket.

We filed into the theater, watched a preview of upcoming Shadow Creek projects, watched an old school Popeye cartoon and the movie kicked in, then mixing and mingling with cocktails and food. I snagged a picture with Chris Mihm the writer, director and editor of the project but was only able to get a distance shot with Josh Craig the star and co-conspiritor in the onslaught against corporate media. ;0)

Sorry, my face does weird things in front of cameras...

Lunch in Canada

2007-05-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

With a spark of decent weather I was inspired to sneak off for a quick bike ride last weekend. A business partner for this China project was in town from San Jose, CA all weekend so I didn't think I'd have chance but he took some other meetings Friday night and Saturday morning so a brief window of time opened up.

Friday morning I thought it would be nice to get out in the northwoods and have lunch in Canada. I finished up some work, swapped out the seat, tank insert and "tour pack" storage bag on the bike then took off in a hurry. Didn't check the weather, didn't pack much ( just overnight right? ) but remembered to bring extra CD's, socks and rain gear just in case. I got to use it right away...

The weather kept getting colder and clouds turned to sprinkles then gave way to rain. My biking buddy Walter and I used to say when driving in the rain, "well... you can only get so wet" but after a few years of driving to Sturgis or other out in the middle of nowhere trips with just wet jeans, soaked shoes and a jacket it changed expanded to "but you can get really, really cold." I ended up putting on all the clothes I brought with me.

It was a total re-charge for my system to be able to get out in the woods with not too many cars around and open up the throttle for long periods of time. Coming back down to 2 lane speeds of 60 mph feels like crawling but helps you enjoy the scenery. :0)

One fine example of the upstanding urban centers of northern Minnesota is Orr. It has the convienience of having the bank, the grocery, the laundromat, the butcher, the gas station, the A&W and the bait shop all under one roof. The parking lot also shares the public access for the lake. Wonderful! We've got so much lakefront property up here we can build a gas station on it. Minnesota is called the "Land of 10,000 lakes" but according to some surveys and websiteswe've got 15,291 lakes of 10 acres or more, almost 5,000 square miles of water. ( Click here to check some other not so interesting info. )

With my three layers of clothes I made it to Canada for lunch. You know you're in the great white north when you see a Robin's Donuts, eh? Funny thing about the border crossing. Canada was guarded by a charming 20-something young woman who must have weighed about 105 pounds ( 47-48 kilos ), was very pleasant and suggested a fabulous Chinese resteraunt. No line at all. Returning home to the motherland involved 2 armed guards at my checkpoint behind two lines of several cars, interrogation and eventually being detained while my bike was emptied and inspected. I was asked on three seperate occasions if I "Had any knives, firearms or any other weapons in my vehicles or on my person." I've cleaned up my act a little because of business meetings with corporate raiders related to this China thing. Even with no earrings and sideburns and a grandpa style bike I still seemed suspect. Do I look like some kind of pshychotic gun toting nut job?

So this is where my federal tax money and massive budget deficate is going... and there wasn't a border patrol on duty that didn't look like he spent plenty of time ammassing an extra 60 pounds of mass at Robin's Donuts in Fort Frances.

I scrambled to Duluth in the dark and rain to stay at my mom's place and check in. I don't think I've been there since we shot the Scrapped scene last year. We talked about her mothers death and her families oddities that pop out durning the stress of loosing a loved one. Then we found a common interest in the TV show "Lost." Crazy.

Took off the next morning in the rain with a temp reading from a bank sign at 41 degrees. ( 5 degrees centigrade ) It was better than having to drive in snow. Just made it home in time to shave, put on a tie and make it to a lunch meeting. Life is good.

Birth of Scrapbooking?

2007-05-03T08:04:00.001-07:00

I received an email last week that got we wondering were the surge in scrapbooking started. This email was typical of many I get asking why I didn't put someone's particular product, style, region or them personally in Scrapped. This was a double header because it also combined the emails I get about where the birth of the full on, popular, product laden scrapbooking movement started.

"I understand that you've included a lot about Creative Memories, but I wonder some things, too, since I've never seen the movie. Did you also include anything about how the industry started, with Marielen and A.J. Christensen's store Keeping Memories Alive as the pioneer scrapbook supply store (from back in 1981)?"

"If you didn't include anything about the first store in your movie, would you be okay with filling my curiosity in about why not?"

When I was writing the script I kept finding conflicting reports about Latter Day Saints in Utah going acid free in 1976, Rhonda Anderson jump starting the scene for the general public two decades ago and other claims to fame. You can actually find documentation of people scrapbooking in the 1700's. Should they be discounted as early scrapbookers because they didn't have technology or understanding of acid / lignon free products? Especially if nowadays people embellish a 12 x 12 page with anything the cat dragged in. ;0)

What about Thomas Jefferson or Samuel Clemmons who actually had a patent for self adhesive scrapbook pages 135 years ago? Put that into terms of the technology at the time and he was as advanced as anything today in my mind.

What are your thoughts on this? What do you know? I want to hear what you think. It's probably an unanswerable question but I'd like to hear the perspective of some hard core croppers.

On the Case

2007-04-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

A cool thing happened today... Scrapped got a Telly. It's not an Emmy or Oscar or something like that but it's good fun for me regardless. I've never gotten a silver one which means judges rated Scrapped at least 9's out of possible 10's across the board. They get over 12,000 entries a year from all over the world and silver winners have been people like PBS, Discovery Health, Spike TV, Universal Studios Network, Walt Disney Studios, etc.

This is good timing because I've started calling distributors looking for someone to take over the business of marketing and selling in the mainstream. Scrapped has been sucessful in the grass roots network but is hungry to get out into the rest of the world. I'm frankly surprised it's gotten as far as it has because I'm not a business guy and have pretty much been doing everything myself or with the help of my wife, brother or Rebecca from the movie, well them and dozens of companies, industry professionals and thousands of people like you that gave me a break. It's not a major production, not even close... but I gave it everything I had, learned a ton and tackled scrapbooking as a completely ignorant, skeptical and non-social outsider. Thanks for that!

There's a great scrapbooking covnention in a few locations this summer that's invited me to show clips and attend so I'm aiming to find a home for the project soon and hand off the business duties so I can get back to promotion and development of new scrapbooking projects for guys and the non-crafty among us. Creative Memories has passed because lets face it, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free so I'm going to have to yank them out to make it more product neutral for other companies that have been eagerly helping promote the movie.

I've been waiting for years to get this award. When I started hitting the film festival circuit a few years ago with projects I told Connie if I ever stuck with it long enough to get 1/2 a dozen I'd break down and get a case to keep them in. Today's the day.

life in a box

2007-04-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

After twelve years of marriage to a coffee addict I've turned over to the dark side myself. The drug of choice is being administered through Panera's hazelnut bottomless cup. I've passed on drinking coffee every morning while the pot is sitting right there until I've started meetings with my friend Dave on this crazy China project.

He lives about four blocks from the cafe with free wifi and coffee in a real mug ( not paper cup ) with as much go-juice as your little legs will carry you to for a dollar fifty ( and no tip jar... sorry )

Speaking of Dave, I got a call from him a while ago asking where he could go and what he and his wife should buy to start organizing his family's life history. I guess they took Scrapped to heart and are now motivated. Men do scrapbook and often without the frills. He's looking for a slip in book so he can get stuff together but have the option to pull pictures out and copy them for their four kids. At first I suggested photo corners so you can pull them out but faced with this giant mass of images they're looking for something with a slide in, quick and dirty, stories and pictures with names and dates solution.

I thought about Creative Memories Pictfolio - Milestone's album ( which I still get a kick out of wondering if anyone at headquaters was a Miles Davis fan and named it after his 1958 album... "Milestones Album" I'm guessing not ) I like the feel and quality of the beast but when I went to the website I forgot they were $40. Yikes. I suppose you get what you pay for but what if you don't want to get that much? :0) It's also only got 32 pages ( 16 sheets ) so I'm wondering if anyone has any input on alternative products that might be a little more affordable for someone tackling a thousand pictures or more.

wormholes in communication

2007-04-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

I've gotten some calls, emails and posts in the last couple weeks saying wow... what a glamorus life you have! Well yes, and no. Yes, I've gotten to do some globe trotting and have had a blast but it's also a lot of grinding through phone calls, trying to pay bills and juggle schedules, projects and budgets.

One example of the disconnect is the emails I get on a regular basis saying "Hi I'm ( fill in the blank ) and I love your movie! I'm a consultant, retreat owner, store owner, or person with an unatural amount of friends and wanted to let you know that I've been loaning your movie out to everyone I know and am even having twenty people over for my retreat, party or general get together where I sell things to people. Isn't that great! I'm giving you exposure!" The best is when I get people assuming I'm going to send them DVD's for free because they're going to show Scrapped to a bunch of people, thus giving me exposure. As much as I am flattered that people like the movie, I still need to pay it off. :0) By all means feel free to get the word out and I'm very happy you're sharing the love but the kind of exposure where the one $15 movie is ammortized out over the two dozen people who end up seeing it is working out to be about 63 cents a piece for box office reciepts. I'll be passing the Scrapped debt on to my as yet unborn children... It's just the nature of the business but I thought I'd use that as an example of how this Rock n Roll lifestyle looks from the other side of the fence.

On one hand you've got the global connection thing. I added a nifty little map on the right of the page to track hits to the blog a few days ago so it looks like in the last five days people have checked in from South Korea, Australia, The Philippines, New Zealand, Egypt, Norway, The UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Argentina, seven cities in Canada and all over the US. On the other hand I'm trying to pitch projects and get funding all day today and am having a hard time connecting with people that live an hour from my house. It's a small world but that doesn't mean it still doesn't take half a dozen calls to get a hold of someone - as some of you who are trying to get a hold of me know...

writing on the Wall

2007-04-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

As many of you already posted, emailed or called... yes, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about men scrapbooking and yes, I was in it. What a blast. As I drove over to Barnes and Noble to grab a couple copies ( you can't scrapbopok a pdf file ) I realized that 1: any day you wake up with your name in the Wall Street Journal is a good day ( barring indictments, scandals and bankruptcies ) and 2: it's now officially OK for guys to scrapbook.

Seriously, when I started doing research for Scrapped about a year and a half ago I was extremely hard pressed to find guys that did it. there were a couple that wouldn't return my phone calls or just plain said they were to embarrassed to be on camera. I think we've come a long way and I like to think that Scrapped had something to do with it but I think there were probably just outposts and sleeper cells of guys out there who just didn't make a big deal out of it. Kind of like when you get a new car and all of a sudden you see a million of them on the road you hadn't noticed before. Either way, I'm sincerely glad to see guys getting more involved in wrangling up their mementos, opinions and stories in the acid free page.

I am a little concerned that women will wake up one day with men in the scrapbook store or weekend retreat burping and playing pull my finger in the back then rue the day men ever got involved. I'll apologize for that right now. I should also say for the record that Kelly Crow ( super nice person ) said in the article "Men are still largely banned from the country's 20-odd-scrapbooking retreats." I've found the opposite to be true. It could be the movie but I've been invited to tons of crops and had nothing but amazingly supportive responses from complete strangers. I've found scrapbooking women to be exceptionally welcoming.

If you haven't had a chance to read the article it's called "Wanted: A Few Good Men ( With Scissors) in Friday April 6th's Wall Street Journal. I don't want to get in hot water so I'm not going to post it but if you email me I might be able to find a copy for you...

What are your thoughts on the write up?

Article

2007-03-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

The April / May issue of Scrapbook Retialer is out and I was lucky enough to be asked for an article about "Luring Men into scrapbooking." I posted it in pdf form here if you want to read it. It's in print resolution ( about 1 meg ) so it will take a little bit to download if you don't have broadband. Maybe a good time to start it and go get some coffee...

part deux

2007-03-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the pics from the rest of my Scrap Etc. experience. It was lots of fun, everyone treated me like a king. People opened up, were real and I didn't meet anyone with any diva attitudes. Wonderfdul! I accidentally dumped a couple pics so you're going to get a fragmented perspective.

First: Stacy Julian, finally got to talk with her, not just a quick snapshot in passing. I love that she and Paula are getting behind the conceptual value of scrapbooking. I undertand and am in the same boat.

Second: The mall. Saved my life. I had trouble sleeping thinking about work stuff and having a mall attached to the hotel gave me a place with trees and green to hide at 2:00 in the morning when being in another hotel room in a strange city with nowhere to go surrounded by strangers was not as fun as it used to be.

Third: The hummer with the pink flowers. Decadent, bold, beautiful. Enough said.

Fourth: The flight: Being in an airport concourse with a handful of gates and a departues sign that has 4 flights for the day then goes right on to tomorrow was different. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED that there was only one person in front of me in the security line. I loved that I walked out on the tarmak to get on the plane and loved the nice people! It just caught me off gaurd compared to JFK, LAX, Schiphol and BCIA.

Five: Kristina Contes' class: Fun, fun , fun. I finally got to meet her in person after seeing her face on the screen dozens and dozens of times and spending hours editing everything she said. I had the typical syndrome of meeting someone through a TV show, radio or magazine and feeling like you know them because you've logged in all this time but they haven't done the same with you so it's an imbalance. She was very cordial as well as everyone on the table that lent me their tools, time and techniques. Scrapbookers are consistently the nicest people I've met.

link me

2007-03-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

So what am I doing here with a piece of green board ( printed circuit board ) and a tabletop lighter? Well, pictures can lie and I'm actually happy in this one. I'm happy because I've got some 273 emails to return from being gone over the weekend ( not including junk mail ) DVD's to send out and meetings to be had, speach to write for Thursday afternoon, sermon to write for Thursday morning and all forms of work related duties. I need to set this aside because I desperitely need to clean up / out my office area so we can put our house on the market in the next week or two. This isn't really interesting to anyone but me and my patient wife. The trick is that I started my cleaning with some podcasts like Joel O., KRCW's Martini shot, This American Life and PRI's The World: Technology. The ones I like the best are the personal stories of Hollywood screen writer Rob Long where he talks about his work and life. It hit me that what he's saying isn't news either... that's the point. I'm interested in his personal take on stuff. I reminded me that when I've been busy my blog has been ( sigh ) boring. This post isn't insightful into the world of scrapbooking, doesn't break industry news or bring you on location to the crop party bomb that erupted in Alabama last week. It's just me packing up computer parts and using an errand table lighter I grabbed to add some fill light for the picture. They're out because I'm a little sad about giving away many of my belongings to downsize and make life easier. It's a good thing.

That said, I'm still eager to post more pics and info on the Scrap Etc. event tonight / tomorrow, post a link to my friend Tony's google map spot in the bush of Queensland, Australia and show you pictures of some of the lofts Connie and I have been looking at to call our new home. I want advice and opinions. ;0)

I actually was making this post to say that links make the online world go around and I'm trying to boost my technorati ratings so it's a free for all now. Send me the address to your blog and I'll post it, hoping you'll do the same.

Rock On!

wes

Scrap Etc.

2007-03-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend in Birngham, Alabama. What a blast. I was invited to the second annual Scrap Etc. event there put on by Jeremiah and Monique McClean who also own the Scrap Etc. store. Click Here to check it out!

Amazing! They had me come in as a surprise and show Scrapped at a local theater as the opening night kick off. Renting a theater and showing the movie as part of the weekend events... how cool was that?! We got to see Scrapped on the big screen in a multiplex with stadium seating, popcorn and a pumping sound system. I was a very happy guy that night. The picture of the theater we screened in actually only shows 2/3 of the people because I snapped it while everyone was loading up on soda and raisinettes.

We hit the store afterwards and sold DVD's, gave away movie posters and I signed a bunch of movie tickets / took pictures for scrapbooks. I was very glad I had extra movie posters to hand out because it added to the cool factor. You can see the wall of currently playing movie posters in the theater pic above so it made Scrapped look ike... well like we knew what we were doing. ( shhh, don't tell anyone the truth. ) I'm certain it was as much fun for me to hear people's stories that came out from watching my experiences as it was for them to talk to me afterwards and share their thoughts.

Scrap Etc. ended up having a rave the second night. Amazing. They went all out with 4 work stations of make and takes, lights, smoke machines, food, displays, even an oxygen bar.

I'll post more pictures and info after I unpack and start checking emails. I met some cool people and have pics from a couple classes. Monique and Jeremiah really know how to go all out. I do want to say that being in the south again was the best. I had a Chick-Fila right by the hotel, drank sweet tea, loved the accents and the hospitality. What a great weekend.

Scrapbooking is much wilder and fun oriented than I ever could have imagined.

wes

Deutschland ist scrapbooking!

2007-03-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

Und Nathelie ist ihre Königin. :0)

Poor Nathalie Kalbach has been waiting for weeks for an interview and it's been creeping down my list of urgent emergencies of extreme urgency to get to. Bless her heart, she patiently waited for me and now I've got a wonderful interview with good questions in English AND German!

You're gotta love a language that gave us the terms and ideas like zeitgeist, bauhaus, uber and angst. Well, that and all the beer...

I stop by www.scrapbook-trends.com off and on because Nathalie don't just have creative layouts, she has a knack for taking fun pictures that drip with emotion. Very cool!

Thanks a million Nathalie!

Thrilla from Manila

2007-03-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not Scrapped is having a Philippino premiere. Crazy huh?

I've been working with Angela from "My Scrap Works" in the Philippines who's part of a conference in two weeks called Scrap Meet 3. We've been talking for months about putting something together and sadly I'm going to be in Alabama showing Scrapped at the Scrap Etc. event. Click Here for more Info.

Here's a picture of Angela and the My Scrap Works family, a group of devoted scrapbookers who started the first website dedicated to Manila based scrappers. They're completely volunteer writers made up of working moms/wives with 9-5 jobs whose passion happens to be scrapbooking. Thier aim is to spread the word in thier country about the joys and rewards of the craft. Everything they do for the website is GRATIS, all done for the love of the craft.

Check out all the rich scrappy goodness happening in the southern hemisphere by going to the ScrapWorks website. I like logging in to these guys off and on because the site, the styles, the picutres form another culture that scrapbooks... are all unique. You can also click here for a link directly to their connection with the movie.

The three H's

2007-02-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

I was revewing an article I wrote for a scrapbooking magazine about "luring men into scrapbooking" and it got me to thinking about why men I've met scrapbook and what's appealing to me. It all boiled down to what I guess I'm now calling the three H's.

When I ask women why they scrapbook I get creative expression, time with the ladies, their children, their family, processing their thoughts and emotions, all kids of reasons.

With guys I wonder if it boils down to history, heritage and hobbies.

That's what's gotten me hooked anyway. :0)

Other than that much of the midwest went into hibernation mode under a foot of snow that dumped over night. It was a delight to finally have an excuse to spend a Saturday sitting around in front of a fire and watching the first season of "Lost."

wes

outside of the ( 5x7 or 12x12 ) box

2007-02-20T03:09:00.000-08:00

I made a bunch of 8x10's to put in a media kit for this China project I'm working on. Some of them looked kinda cool and I think I'm going to do some layouts with them. It got me thinking that I hardly ever see layouts with 8 x 10's in them. Why is that? Have you guys ever done them? Why isn't it more common? Good grief... what makes embellishments take priority over photos? :0)

I used to blow stuff up at mpix ( www.mpix.com ) where you can get a 12 x 12 photo done for about five and a half bucks, but recently Walmart has matched or beat their 8 x 10 price for just under $2. I'm disappointed in Walmarts new un-easy to use online photo interface. In fact it ( imho ) sucks compared to their faster, easier to navigate and more flexible previous one but it still gets the job done and you don't have to sign up for yahoo like you do at Target's website.

So no excuses now. You can get some old school, juicy, super glossy 8x10's done for $2 and mailed straight to your door, have plenty of room to fire up that cropping tool and shock the world with your powerful imagery.

PS> Here's an example of critical analysis gone wrong. I thought you'd get a laugh out of how we critque ourselves. I caught myself making sure the picture "worked" even though it was for a blog and done in a dark basement @ 4:00 AM on a tiny Macbook camera.

So if you've got an 8x10 experience I want to hear it!

WHy bE NorMal?

2007-02-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

Why be normal? Well, sometimes normal is good - like this weekend.

Thursday I drove down to the Grezzo Gallery where we had the Scrapbook art show opening and collected all the layouts. ( Less newsworthy picking up the materials than opening night was. )

Friday I did voiceovers with my friend Dave who's also my partner in this next project about business in China. It "fills my tank up" to be back shooting, editing and turning all this footage I shot into a streamlined piece of communication.

Yesterday I started cleaning out the office, cleaning equipment and cleaning off hard drives. Then Connies brother came over and we played a little Guild Wars together online. As you'll notice I didn't get to actually cleaning off the counter top much...

Then I got an email from the friend I stayed with in LA a few weeks ago ( CHA week ). He's got a fresh reel up and is getting the word out that he's ready to tackle some new series work. If you get a chance please stop by and check out some of the work he's done and add some hits to his website. D.David would appreciate it and so would I. ( No, I don't know how there's so many David's in my life. )

CLICK HERE TO SEE D.DAVID'S REEL

So back to business as usual and it's nice. Coming up: Scrapped screens in Manila ( as in Philippines ), Alambama and I speak at a University in Iowa. ( What's up with that? )

grounded

2007-02-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

The world we live in is so much smaller than it was a couple decades ago. I've been on four continents in the last three months and seen some crazy stuff but last night it was extremely refreshing to see a rusty old pickup with bits of hay in the back and a mutley old dog. The Great Wall of China was amazing, the Duomo in Milan was astonishing, The mountainous hillsides filled with sheep in New Zealand were breathtaking, the beaches of Northeastern Australia healing, Mid Town Manhattan electrifying, The Vegas Strip a spectical, LA and the people were comrades but last night when I stopped by my dad's farm, parked my truck and got licked by Sam the dog I unconciously let out a big sigh that I seemed to be holding in for a long, long time.

I didn't see my dad that often, before scrapped it was maybe 2-3 times a year. The project really did bring us back together and now we talk regularly, visit and just hang out. You've got to make time for that stuff don't you? It doesn't really happen out of convenience does it? Emails, voicemails and paperwork piling up but I took a drive down a dirt road last night and got to unwind as much as I could when the temps in the single digits.

This is the stir crazy time of year. Holidays are over and you're left with the last leg of cabin fever. I was on the couch last night looking through road map of the US trying to plan out road trips for a couple buddies and us to go on. "Maybe around Lake Superior for a 3 day weekend?" To long... it took me three days because of bad weather ( 40 mph in some stretches ) and I was driving 12 - 15 hours a day. Maybe a quick run to the House on the Rock? "We've done it enough" Connie would say. I just kept daydreaming thinking about open highways, warm weather, and loud music as your skin cooks in the sun.

I settled for watching Easyrider as I exercised this morning. Not quite the same and I forgot what a screwy movie it was. Perspectives on drugs, sex and hippies were a lot different in the sixties. I get where they were coming from as movie makers but I mostly fast forwarded to the riding sequences and the bit with Jack Nicholson.

Great White North

2007-02-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

After many, many, many days of sub zero temperatures here in Minnesota it finally warmed up to 10 degrees fahrenheit which means ice fishing time! I'm not cool enough to have an ice house. I like to do it old school with a five gallon bucket, a boat cushion and a tub of wax worms which is really just a fancy name for oversized maggots. Ahh, a little slice of heaven. This was pretty much my view for several hours Sunday afternoon.

Connies brother Ken gave me a hand crank auger last year for Christmas but with temps so cold for so long we measured over 21 inches of solid ice base on the lake so we were fortunate enough to borrow his cousins power model. We moved around the lake looking for fish so having to drill a dozen holes by hand would've taken all the fun out of the freezing, sitting, fish guts frozen to your hands, maggot piercing, sun burn but only on the tiny exposed part around your snout, eating jerky and drinking beer experience.

Just how cold is -15 below, the daily hi temp for a day or two last week ( not including wind chill )? Well, it's 47 degrees below freezing. If you took that difference of temprature in the other direction it would be the change between living in an ice cube ( 32 degrees ) and 79 degrees, a nice warm day. It's so cold that I had bought some flavored, carbonated water at the grocery store, opened it up walking out the door, it squirted all over my jacket and by the time I reached my truck in the parking lot maybe 20 - 30 seconds later the drops had frozen solid.

So I'm a big pussy and don't go out to sit on a bucket when it's below zero. Ken ( shown above in the lovely brown Carhart ensamble ) dressed for the occasion and brought his own portable oral heaters. I was so excited about the temp rising I just wore long underwear with jeans and had my gloves off half the time. Here's a picture of the 147 pound walleye I had on the line but got away. Mmmmm, walleye.

Oh Yea, and I turn 39 in about ten minutes.

wes

Have You Seen Me?

2007-02-12T21:33:00.000-08:00

Does anyone recognize this woman or the person next to her? She's a designer for a company I wasn't familiar with. I sat across the table from her at the wonderful Scrapbook Adhesives Gala for the World's Largest Scrapbook and they asked if I could take pictures of them looking at the book, particularly of the pages that used their products... I can't find their email address to send them copies. DOH! In all fairness they wrote it on a sheet of scratch paper that was tossed into a suitcase with several other dozen pieces of scratch paper and then was set free to roam around the studio when I returned home. If you recognize this person or their whereabouts please contact me immediately. They could be armed and dangerous.

With the broad range of scrap-aholics that read this blog I figure someone has a lead. Normally I wouldn't give a rip but I ended up taking a dozen nice shots and hate to waste them.

Thanks!

Dr. My Eyes...

2007-02-06T05:58:00.000-08:00

Yea, I've still got Jackson Brown on the brain.

Here's three things from last week that were easier to say through a photo. Man it was fun to have the time to take pictures again.

This is at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. It's what LA looked like on this trip. Big, colorful, flashing lights and larger than life - full of blue sky and big ideas. Hopeful with childlike fun and anticipation.

This is what God might have been saying to me, I just wasn't listening for the last year. It took getting some work under my belt and getting it out in the world to listen: No turning back now, you have a green light. Don't hesitate... you have one second to jump off the curb into traffic: GO!

This is what happens when you spend 3 of the last 4 weeks away from home and your wife. You get soft inside, romantic and remembering how good you've got it. Geez I missed her. I don't know what I'd do without her.

guilty as charged

2007-01-31T07:22:00.000-08:00

Above is a picture of my friend while we were sitting and watching the sun drop into the Pacific. He has an apartment one block off the beach in Santa Monica not far from the pier. Not a bad friend to visit for a week...

I didn't have consistent internet access in California so I'm posting this from last week:

I was only at CHA for one day. I have a week planned of meeting people, networking and pitching some scrapbooking related TV show concepts while I'm here in LA, spend some face time with all the people I've been sending emails and voicemails to. I've been extremely fortunate to have two people watch Scrapped, "get it" and want to help get something bigger going. One is a woman that's gotten other TV shows off the ground and travels in circles of people who have some tasty programming currently airing on networks, the other is an actor friend of mine who has actually been pitching Scrapped to people with more bullish enthusiasm than I have myself. It's given me some tenacity.

I was a little bummed yesterday because I got the news that a meeting with the strongest lead, a production comany that has a dozen shows very similair to what we're shooting for on DIY, HGTV, Discovery, etc. had to bow out because they are no longer accepting unsolicited pitches, meaning they have a creative team of content developers and to avoid potential lawsuits they only make shows from concepts their team has come up with. This was discouraging because we had talked to a producer there that really liked our idea and we were going to present it to the VP of development, ie. we made it through the first couple tiers of hooking something up. That was one of a few things happening this week but still a drag. Now I'm focusing on giving everything else this week 110% and seeing what happens.

I asked my actor friend what it was like living in LA, the movie and TV mecca of the world, working your butt off perpetually working towards the next level, looking for a break, hustling, networking and living in the shadow of extreme success. I thought it might be like being an athlete in training and constantly living outside the olympic villiage. You catch glipses of the final events on TV, all lined up for viewers in a format where years of work comes down to 45 seconds with a final decisive conclusion. It sounds romantic but I just looked at it as foolishness. :0) Why bother with all the striving and emotional roller coaster? It's unpredictable, chaotic and pretty much sinking everything you've got into crap shoots with horrible odds of winning. Could it in some way be like a gambling problem where you're perpetually focued on the jackpot and in denial of the losses? My friend talked about how he'll go and see a movie and watch half a dozen trailers and say "there's another bunch of great movies I didn't read for" but also talked about all the decades of fantastic projects he's worked on, where he's traveled and who he's had time getting to know. He obviously takes joy in the process. He loves auditioning, loves working and obviously doesn't mind the thrill ride. He'll get a call for auditions and his face lights up when he's on the phone. Sure the winning is fun, finishing the race is something to be proud of in itself but he also loves the training.

He scored some VIP passes to see Bruce Hornsby last night at the Malibu Arts Center which is a small venue and very intimate. I'm a fan and looked forward to the music. Being there reminded me of what a diferent world I live in. In a venue so small you can actually see someone on stage without a jumbotron, in a place where I walked by Jackson Brown just standing around in the hallway a foot away, a place where people that I've listened to and had one way relationships with for years are making small talk... I felt the weirdness even more, the gap between "making it" and working it. As I sat down in the catwalk, in this dark quiet place away from everyone else and saw Bruce Hornsby play close enough for me to see the expressions on his face I closed my eyes and had a beautiful moment. He was a little arrogant, obviously had some bigger venues with "more important" people to play for but fundimentally it was him doing the thing he loves and it was speaking directly into my soul. It made me set aside the warm fuzzy celebrity sightings and remember the core reason of why we got started in whatever it is we're doing: we love it. If we find ways to make a living at it then hey, bonus! If not, we find joy in the times we're able to just do our thing.

What's your thing?

form and function

2007-01-31T07:09:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I've been out of internet range for the last few days so I'm playing catch up:

Being a slow, lazy scrapbooker without a dedicated work space makes me appreciate all the products that make preserving memories faster and dummy proof for layouts and embellishment combinations. I like doing something artsy now and then but the bulk of things is trying to finish pages as fast as I'm taking pictures and have events in my life piling up. I've only been cropping for maybe six months and already there's a defecit so big that my best hope is to journal whatever I can and pass on potential pages to great-nieces and great-nephews.

Imagination Project ( through Emily and Ginger ) have come out with some embellishments that I thought were genius. Round stickers, modular date, event and placeholder stickers that make putting date stamps in layouts brainless and asthetically pleasing. I usually just scratc the info down in the corner but I guess the guy in me geeked out on the dual purpose and clever aspect of these things. You can check them out at http://imaginationproject.com/

breakthrough

2007-01-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

Wow. Going to CHA was very different than going to previous events. Yes, it was ungodly big, I saw about 1/8th of it yesterday. part of the reason is that now instead of introducing myself and explaining what I'm doing people approach me and strike up a conversation. Whew. What a welcome change.

The scrapbook world is so big I still met many, many people for the first time who had never heard about the project but I felt ( brace yourself for ultimate corny... ) welcomed into the community. It started when I was walking up to the CK booth and Cathy Z. saw me down the aisle and pointed to show her friend. I just saw her before I left ( that's who I got the Simple Scrapbooks mag from ) but that was in a personal setting. It was crazy to think she was pointing me out in a crowd to someone else. I snapped a photo on telephoto in a crowd so the focus didn't lock in time but you get the idea. :0)

Another treat was to see Emily ( Circus Rose designer for Imagination Project ) and Ginger who I didn't get a picture with ( dammit! Sorry Ginger! You still rock. I'd be flattered if you would stalk me as well. No Nick undies though... sorry. ). Those guys are the best and are coming out with a great line of functional embellishments that I shot lots of pictures of. I'll post some when I get a chance.

In fact I'll just post some pics of people I got to meet or catch up with. Got a meeting in a couple minutes so I'll post some pics and fill in the cracks later. Basically I was overwhelmed with the speed of how fast companies come out with new products. Shocking. There's almost no way to keep up with everything. I'm very happy to see more products for layout-impaired people like

wes

mislocated worker

2007-01-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

Panera is packed but I think it's safe to say I'm the only guy here reading the new "baby issue" of Simple Scrapbooks. It's been six years since I pulled up the nasty carpet in our living room, dining room, two bedrooms and hallway and we're just now getting around to refinishing the wood floors. We're in the polyurathane stage and the whole house is stinky. I've tried working a couple hours at a time there but my throat gets burny so I escape to islands of free online access and pick up where I left of.

Here I am taking a break from emails and spreadsheets reading about Cathy Zielske's latest design tips and a "peek inside Donna Downey's studio." Some immediate differences I see between her studio and mine is that I have three computers and a laptop. It's a geek thing. One for editing, 2 terrabytes worth of backup server, a PC for testing and building web stuff for non Mac environments, blah blah blah. I also don't see drums, a bass and a Telecaster. I have a pretty big set of steer horns on my wall that I have to think would go swimmingly in her workspace and a full bar for emergencies and creative breakthroughs. I also happen to have a fantastic semi automatic Benelli 12 gauge I got for Christmas. I'll post pictures of my studio if you're interested since it won't be in publication any time soon. Other than that, I think we've got a lot in common and would love to meet her some day.

paper cut

2007-01-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

So has anyone ever heard of the chinese art of paper cuts? I'm sure it's got to be a tradition in other places but the Chinese have brought it to a whole new level. I was in a store looking at wall hangings and the clerk showed me some other items. He pulled out these little booklets with intricate designs cut out of tissue paper. At first I was thinking cool, but what in the world would you use these for? Then a second later I was buying them by the handful for embellishments. I don't know how to adhere them to a page yet but they are very thin and will lay flat behind a page protector or slide in if I just tack it in place with a small drop of something. I don't want to spray anyting on and risk discoloring it.

What a score! I love these things. Just when I thought there's nothing new under the embellishment sun I run into Paua shell stickers in New Zealand and paper cuts in China. I guess there's really no end to it all huh? Everybody's got something you can put in a scrapbook.

I bought an extra pack to give away so let's say that the person who can prove their birthday is the closest to February 5th ( the day I get back from CHA and some other stuff in LA ) gets a pack. Just scan in or take a photo of your drivers liscence or something with your birthday and I'll mail you out the goods when I return home on Feb. 5th. Mail your birthday info to wes@scrappedmovie.com.

Here's a multi ethnic experience of my friend, my partner and myself having some Korean food in Bejing. Korea is pretty much surrounded by China and ocean so Bejing seems to be the nearest hot spot for Korean food, culture and visitors. Well, that's all until 2008 when rabid olympic groupies decend. I spent a few days across the way from the spaghetti building which will be used for opening ceremonies and such. Very interesting, as long as you're not the guy building it.

And what stop in Tokyo would be complete without picking up a high-5 good luck kitty?! I don't know what the official name is or the origin. It's just fun to think of a cat giving you the "power to the people" symbol of the black panthers. I dig it.

Thanks!

wes

shoot me

2007-01-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

Fitting China into a tiny lens and slapped onto a two dimensional screen is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do ( next to working with a Chinese crew who obviously don't know American terms for things like rack focus, medium tight and pan / dolly shots. )

The big fun is that we're shooting in 1080i high defenition so some big scale stuff still retains it's wow factor. This trip is making me appreciate scrapbooking because I took for granted being able to take fun pictures and journal whatever I want to fill in the gaps of the story. Now that I'm back in the saddle with production on commercial projects it seems restricting. I've got to get a finite amount of information into a tiny window of time / picture and it all needs to be polished, focused and condensed. Experience your freedom scrapbookers! Don't get overwhelmed with lack of structure and boundaries. Revel in it!

( PS. I know this sounds hokey, like I'm trying to be cute and warm - fuzzy about scrapbooking but ( yikes ) I actually believe it! )

food stuffs

2007-01-22T02:26:00.001-08:00

Things I never thought I'd eat but enjoyed immensely:
eel,
fish stomach,
snails,
cuttle fish,
duck neck,
jelly fish,
duck blood soup,
sea cucumber,
lotus flower root,
and numerous other things I can't think of off the top of my head.

Shooting's going good. Too busy to hunt down reliable internet access so I apologize if you've sent emails and I haven't returned them yet. I'll post more within 24 hours!

wes

On Location

2007-01-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

I've made a couple long flights in the last few months but for some reason this one seemed to take forever. Now I'm here in Bejing with my freinds Dave and Rob to start shooting a project about doing business in China. Quite a shift from Scrapbooking so I'm mentally shifting gears from being in front of the camera and coordinating everything to just working on directing stuff from the other side and letting Dave do all the work.

Scrapbooking has already crept in to my brain on the trip though and I've been taking pictures of things and mentally making notes on things I don't want to forget. I've also been keeping my eye out for things I can stick on pages as embellishments.

Met with our Chinese partner Mr. Wong and his connection Grace who has been wrangling up gear for us and arranging lights, cameras and crew. Grace is a producer with CCTV channel 2 which seems to be business and trade news so she's well versed in what we're doing technically and topically. I met our camera man Tony last night at dinner. Thankfully many Chinese people that work with westerners have "American names" because I kept forgetting his real one. Tony and I decided that my Chinese should be Cow Yah ( don't know how to spell it ) the name of the cooked duck dish we were eating. I figured it would be a fitting title if things tank on the set and I end up wrecking something. You know, just to instill confidence in the crew. ;0)

Here's a picture of Dave the on camera guy and Joe Wong, our Chinese partner who's got all the connections. You can probably figure out who's who.

Of course I'm excited to start shooting tomorrow morning ( well, this morning I guess... it's 3:00 AM and I'm still adjusting to the time difference. ) We'll be doing everything in HD and some of the test shots I've run have looked wonderful. Everything's unique to western eyes, everything's different.

It's certainly a small world being in Northfield, Minnesota on a Friday and in Bejing on a Monday. Heres some pictures I look forward to doing some layouts with. It's hard to take a picture of a city with ten million people so I kept focusing on the little things that caught my eye and stayed away from broad brushstrokes.

Nope, this post isn't very interesting and has almost nothing to do with scrapbooking but a lot of this blog has been personal and relational so I figured I'd throw this stuff in because people have asked. I look forward to posting some pictures of us shooting next time. See Ya!

radio

2007-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Just aheads up, if you're in southern Minnesota you can tune in to KYMN 1080 AM tomorrow morning. Nick Sinclair and I are being interviewed on Paula Granquist's show to talk about the gallery opening, the month long Scrapbooking exhibit and documentary film making. It won't be streamed on the web but I'll get a copy of the broadcast and post it when I'm back in town on the 21rst.

9:05 AM, 01/05/07
KYMN 1080 AM
Paula Granquist's show.

Thanks!

wes

Daybreak

2007-01-03T06:07:00.000-08:00

Got up this morning thinking about all the stuff I have to do: Mail 500 DVD's off for Kerri Kuzel @ Scrapbook Adhesives to be part of the World's Biggest Scrapbook project for the Make a Wish Foundation which is going to be displayed at CHA in Anaheim ( http://www.scrapbookadhesivescharity.com/ ) , I need to follow up on some upcoming scrapbook media related projects ( maybe some TV and distribution stuff ), need to go through the script, gear and legistics for a project I'll be shooting in Bejing next week ( a pilot for a TV / DVD series ) and am starting to sort through all the stuff in my house in anticipation of putting it on the market. At any given time in the last year I've had upwards of ten thousand DVD's floating around, in the garage, in the studio, in the spare bedroom and in the office - often simultaniously. I've recently gotten a storage space but why pay a couple hundred bucks a month when you can make a bigger house payment right? ;0)

I've also outgrown the basement studio and am shooting enough footage now for different projects that I'm looking at homes that have enough space to build a set on site. We'll see what happens...

Going through my list I was thinking what the heck am I doing? Overbooking life? Yes. Going places and doing things outside of my comfort and skill levels? Yes. I turned around and looked out the window because outside felt bigger than a crowded office and saw the sunrise. Well, I saw a bunch of trees in front of a sunrise. I grabbed a camera and ran outside in a T Shirt to snap a couple pictures. It reminded me of the cliche' about not seeing the forest for the trees.

This time of year is filled with reflection. Where you're going, where you've been... I remembered moving out here to the suburbs seven years ago and thinking Minnetonka was the last outpost of civilization. It felt like the boonies and although I missed the homes we had in South Minneapolis where Connie and I lived for a long time, I didn't miss the airplane noise, the grafitti on our garage, the junk in our alley, the crime, the parking, on and on. Now I can't imagine living anywhere else. As I start up another video project about international business with China I remember not knowing scratch about scrapbooking - nothing. Not what an embellishment was, not even knowing 12 x 12 was a standard page size. This week I got to visit and hear from all kinds of friends I've met in the biz and people who sent in layouts for the show on Friday. Not only am I scrapbooking and can't see how it won't be a part of my life for years but am looking forward to developing more media around it and getting newbies to try it. Sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees. What an interesting year 2006 has been. I hope I don't look back on it as a big mass of sunrise obstruction and look at all the individual occurances instead. That adds much more texture to the picture. :0)

One of the fun things I did this week was write an article for Scrapbook Retailer magazine about men and scrapbooking. It won't come out until June / July and I can't really post it but I can put up an un cropped, untouched picture for the article.

What have you done in '06 and what are you looking at in '07?

in the news

2007-01-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

Made it on the Fox 9 morning news. How cool is that?

Click here for ipod download

Click here for Windows Media Player download

Click here for Quicktime download

You can visit the Fox 9 Twin Cities website here.

I've also been slow in posting because I'm getting ready for the Grezzo Gallery show in Northfield Friday night. Thanks for all the fantastic layouts from Utah, Tenessee, Colorado, Missouri, New York, Wisconsin and right here in the great white north! I tried to put them all in the picture for this post and it wasn't working. Too many and too many people to be bummed if their layout didn't make it to the blog. Sorry! :0)

Thanks!

wes