Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Citizen Cone
We're working on a new movie for the Wright company christmas party this year, and I couldn't help but think of the most recent one: Citizen Cone. I thought I'd use blogspot's nifty video feature to post it here for those who haven't seen it...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Another of my past lives
I used to be a professional photographer. I have done hundreds of weddings, but started before that on my own doing fashion, modeling, and headshots. I haven't done it full time for a many years now, though occasionally somebody pays me to shot some things...
Below are some examples of some of my wedding photos. Though all but 3 of these technically are the property of the company that I started with another guy and his wife (I am no longer with them as of about 7 years ago), I alone am responsible for the framing, composition, exposure, and awesomeness of these shots. I took them my very own self. Actually, the only reason I have these at all is because several years ago, the aforementioned company had them in their gallery on their website, years after I left them. Shots taken by me comprised about 40% of their sample wedding gallery at the time. I didn't get anything from them when I left, so these few images represent the only record of the thousands of wedding shots I took during my 3 years working with them.
Below are some examples of some of my wedding photos. Though all but 3 of these technically are the property of the company that I started with another guy and his wife (I am no longer with them as of about 7 years ago), I alone am responsible for the framing, composition, exposure, and awesomeness of these shots. I took them my very own self. Actually, the only reason I have these at all is because several years ago, the aforementioned company had them in their gallery on their website, years after I left them. Shots taken by me comprised about 40% of their sample wedding gallery at the time. I didn't get anything from them when I left, so these few images represent the only record of the thousands of wedding shots I took during my 3 years working with them.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Projects
I've done a couple of fun projects around the house recently. Here are a couple:
Garage Door Insulation
Its always so hot in the summer and cold in the winter in there, and when I'm, well, working on projects in there, I am at the mercy of the elements. So, I went to Home Depot and found a garage insulation kit. Way too expensive. It would cost something like over $200 to do it! So, I turned to 2" thick 4' x 8' sheets of exterior styrofoam insulation, a mere $18 per sheet (it took 4 sheets).
For cutting it to fit in the door sections, I have to thank the genious of my Dad. Long ago, he made a foam cutter that uses a hot wire to melt through the foam (you can see it on the table in the photo). Its basically an old soldering gun (I think its as old as me, actually) with two copper electical wires twisted around each other to make one big one. The twisted pair replaces what would normally be a soldering tip. It's a bit smelly, but it cuts foam with no mess. I decided to try one cut with a cordless circular saw - big mistake! Micro styrofoam particles every where, and from just one cut. I used the heat cutter from then on.
Cell Phone Charging Station
We have a mess of cables on the counter around our phone. It's all due to the cell phone chargers. There's only two of them, but between all the length of each cable, plus the wall wort for the house phone, there's a lot of junk there. I saw a neat under-cabinet cell phone charging station in a catalog that hides all the big ol' AC adapters and gives you a nice, neat shelf where cell phones can not only live, but be charged. "I can make one of those" I said to myself. So I did. It's basically a box you attached to the underside of a cabinet with an "L" shaped tray that slides in, hiding the AC adapters behind it.
Decorative Window Film
Jen wanted to put some 'clouds in the sky' decorative window film on the big window at the first landing of the stairs. Its pretty high up there, probably about 6.5 feet to the bottom of the window. The fun part about this project was that I assembled my own make-shift scaffolding so I could do the window film application much more easily than just hanging off a 12 foot ladder leaning against the wall. The film does look good, though...
New Wireless Headset
I use a wireless headset at work, and I love it. Its a GN Netcom 9120. It has amazing range, is super light and comfortable, but fairly expensive (retail is around $250). I'm a big headset user at home also, but ours is wired to our cordless phone (kind of ironic, eh?) and is kind of bulky. I managed to find one of these on eBay and won an auction for $89! Super rad. The thing about this headset is that it only replaces the handset, in other words, it does dial or even pick up the phone for you. It has to be plugged in to an existing phone with a corded handset. I just happen to have one of those, strangely enough. The wireless headset also has a handset lifter. When you want to use the headset, you normally have to pick up the phone handset and set it aside, leaving it off the hook until you're done talking. With the handset lifter, once you put the headset on and push one of its buttons, it lifts the handset for you!
I needed to set up a place for all of this stuff to live, a place that wouldn't take up any current counter-top space and would also be out of reach of the kids. So I added a mini shelf in my office for it and re-routed the phone line to one of the CAT6 jacks on that wall. Works great!
Garage Door Insulation
Its always so hot in the summer and cold in the winter in there, and when I'm, well, working on projects in there, I am at the mercy of the elements. So, I went to Home Depot and found a garage insulation kit. Way too expensive. It would cost something like over $200 to do it! So, I turned to 2" thick 4' x 8' sheets of exterior styrofoam insulation, a mere $18 per sheet (it took 4 sheets).
For cutting it to fit in the door sections, I have to thank the genious of my Dad. Long ago, he made a foam cutter that uses a hot wire to melt through the foam (you can see it on the table in the photo). Its basically an old soldering gun (I think its as old as me, actually) with two copper electical wires twisted around each other to make one big one. The twisted pair replaces what would normally be a soldering tip. It's a bit smelly, but it cuts foam with no mess. I decided to try one cut with a cordless circular saw - big mistake! Micro styrofoam particles every where, and from just one cut. I used the heat cutter from then on.
Cell Phone Charging Station
We have a mess of cables on the counter around our phone. It's all due to the cell phone chargers. There's only two of them, but between all the length of each cable, plus the wall wort for the house phone, there's a lot of junk there. I saw a neat under-cabinet cell phone charging station in a catalog that hides all the big ol' AC adapters and gives you a nice, neat shelf where cell phones can not only live, but be charged. "I can make one of those" I said to myself. So I did. It's basically a box you attached to the underside of a cabinet with an "L" shaped tray that slides in, hiding the AC adapters behind it.
Decorative Window Film
Jen wanted to put some 'clouds in the sky' decorative window film on the big window at the first landing of the stairs. Its pretty high up there, probably about 6.5 feet to the bottom of the window. The fun part about this project was that I assembled my own make-shift scaffolding so I could do the window film application much more easily than just hanging off a 12 foot ladder leaning against the wall. The film does look good, though...
New Wireless Headset
I use a wireless headset at work, and I love it. Its a GN Netcom 9120. It has amazing range, is super light and comfortable, but fairly expensive (retail is around $250). I'm a big headset user at home also, but ours is wired to our cordless phone (kind of ironic, eh?) and is kind of bulky. I managed to find one of these on eBay and won an auction for $89! Super rad. The thing about this headset is that it only replaces the handset, in other words, it does dial or even pick up the phone for you. It has to be plugged in to an existing phone with a corded handset. I just happen to have one of those, strangely enough. The wireless headset also has a handset lifter. When you want to use the headset, you normally have to pick up the phone handset and set it aside, leaving it off the hook until you're done talking. With the handset lifter, once you put the headset on and push one of its buttons, it lifts the handset for you!
I needed to set up a place for all of this stuff to live, a place that wouldn't take up any current counter-top space and would also be out of reach of the kids. So I added a mini shelf in my office for it and re-routed the phone line to one of the CAT6 jacks on that wall. Works great!
The Mortgage Market Crash
Well, it may be our turn to feel some of the destruction and mayhem. We're in the process of trying to finish up a refi. We started with The Mortgage Store (and boy am I glad we left them!) but they left much to be desired. I learned a lot about mortgages during this process. But, by the time we got around to working with another broker and submitting our paper work, the appraised value they would accept on our house was $30k lower! Needless to say, that will mess up our debt payoff plans, which will change our debt to income ratio, etc, etc. We're now just waiting to see...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
My cup runneth over (with DVDs)
We are wrapping up the Bunker Dance Center video project. We sold almost 300 DVDs of the dance concert! A few years ago, I produced a video of their big show, and I mean big. Cashman Theater rented out, thousands of dollars in lighting, etc. Kathy Bunker's studio has almost 600 students. Its top notch.
After doing that video, I took a break for 3 years. But, she asked me again this year, and I took her up on the offer. Its a big project, but pretty lucrative. I threw together a website in a weekend to handle all the order taking and online credit card transactions (a first for Bunker). We've just finished all the burning, printing, and packaging. After today, we'll have dropped off all the videos to the dance studio, and hopefully within a day or so, we'll have shipped those that wanted shipping.
It'll be nice to trade the turbo late nights (1 and 2am) for regular late nights (midnight)...
After doing that video, I took a break for 3 years. But, she asked me again this year, and I took her up on the offer. Its a big project, but pretty lucrative. I threw together a website in a weekend to handle all the order taking and online credit card transactions (a first for Bunker). We've just finished all the burning, printing, and packaging. After today, we'll have dropped off all the videos to the dance studio, and hopefully within a day or so, we'll have shipped those that wanted shipping.
It'll be nice to trade the turbo late nights (1 and 2am) for regular late nights (midnight)...
Impromptu Photo Shoot
Jen wanted to get some quick pictures to put on the wall in her new 'family' collage (which is layed out on the floor in the image above), so we started snapping some photos. Several made the cut and are now on the wall officially...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Baby Aaron arrives in the world
Though it seemed like it would never happen (Jen was one week and two days past due), Aaron was finally born at 6pm, Apr 24th! He is a good lookin' dude, I must say. There must be some truth to what my grandma always says: "Two uglies make a pretty."
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