celebrities love their publix...

I went home yesterday so I could borrow a couple of video cameras from my parents. Yeah, they have two cameras, I have none. I think that after I got out of school and started making a living with video, they figured, "Well, we raised him and all that so we can probably make some money doing what he's doing." They bought a computer and some cameras hoping to make money doing weddings and junk. I don't know if they have or not, but more power to them. Anyway Im doing a wedding video for a friend and needed the cameras. Other than it taking me almost an hour and a half to get there it was a fun afternoon. Shelby county sucks by the way. (I have to go through there to get to Chilton County where my parents live.)
Anyway on my way home I decided to go ahead and stop and get some groceries. I have $5 off coupons at Publix, so I decided to swing by the one in Vestavia because it was on my way. I have a theory that 99% of the time Im just a single moment either behind or ahead of fate. Example: I walk out of my apartment just in time to see a really attractive neighbor close the door to her car. "Dangit... I had to go back and get that change off my dresser." One split second earlier and I might be married. Stuff like that happens to me EVERY DAY. Im cursed I think. Well not yesterday, thats for sure. I grab my cart and start the time trial. Im a fast Publix shopper. I head straight for the bread and who is standing there getting the same kind of bread that I want? Devon Walsh. That's right Devon Walsh from Fox 6 News.

I knew it was her because I'd actually met her before. Fox 6 used the studio at Ticheli's where I'll work for another week to shoot some Christmas promo junk. Screw you one moment off fate curse, I win this round. I smile and get my bread and go on about my business. But then I make the turn to go get some other necessities, and there she is again. Lucky. It was pretty awesome. I never did talk to her, but that was ok. I figured she didn't want to be pestered anyway. She is taller than I remembered, at least as tall as me, maybe a little taller.
I got a kick out of it. Devon Walsh is the second attractive news lady that I've met. I've also met Kate Mundy (42 and 21 weekends). I met her at a Halloween party, and she is very small... I mean she is a tiny person. Its always neat seeing someone in real life that talks to you from the TV. Each night at 5, 6, 9 or 10 they look right at us and tell us all about the junk that passes for news in our fair city, this time I got to look back and smile and imagine how funny it would be were I to flip out and cause a scene. That would have been something to blog about.

a few disjointed thoughts...

for anyone that I've been to lazy or forgetful to talk to in person recently.

1.) I got a new job. Its the one I talked about a few posts back. I haven't started yet, but should start sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I'm trying to teach myself the programs that I'll be working with. I typically second guess everything I do, to the point of losing sleep most often. But I've slept easy having made this decision.

2.) Speaking of dreams, "The Science of Sleep" (Michel Gondry) looks to be the most amazing movie that I will see this year. It comes out in september so that comment is more of an assumption or a hope than a review. It just looks so beautiful. All the stop motion work, the fact that everything is hand crafted, the aviodance of CGI effects (yes I make a living digitially altering video and to a degree that stuff is cool, but I much prefer hand made stuff) not to mention an interesting story. So September 15th, if it opens in Birmingham, Im there, even if I have to go by myself.







3.) I had an almost two hour long conversation yesterday with a guy I work with as to wether or not an ordinary person could design, build, and own/operate a roller coaster on their own. I say no. He says yes. He obviously cared a lot more about it than me, thus the long talk. I was pretty tired of talking about it, but seeing people who have dreams is always welcome. If anyone is interested I'd like to know what anyone reading thinks. Is is possible to build a real rollercoaster on you own?
There are a few examples, but Im not sure I'd call this an actual roller coaster. Cool definitely but not what I had in mind.






4.) I really love the Andy Griffith Show. I've watched it 2 times a day for more than half of my life I think (allowing for the occasional missed day). I googled it today to see what kindred spirits were lurking the internets. I have to say that I am a casual observer compared to the rest of the TAGS fan club. TAGS is internet speak for The Andy Griffith Show. Did you know there are 250 episodes in all? I didn't, and I am humbled. I feel like I know so much, and yet I've experienced so little.

regular stuff...

After watching the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know last weekend I've found myself turning my attention more to the ordinary, and I've seen some really beautiful things.

While watching the World Cup final between France and Italy in a Peruvian restaurant, I saw several hispanic kids running around. All I could think was, "look at all those new U.S. citizens."

Later that night while at some friends' apartment, sitting alone while one friend cooked some food for the other's boyfriend, I saw on the other side of their courtyard and young man, probably younger than me sitting on his stoop watching his young daughter play in the grass. He looked tired. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out what I thought was a cell phone. Soon enough though I saw that it was no phone he had, but a harmonica with which he put on a beautiful concert for one tiny admirer. I couldn't hear the music because I was on the inside looking out, but judging by the response of his daughter, I think I was in the presence of the greatest harmonica player living today. The concert was short lived, as most truly great things I suppose. He quickly put it away when his wife and their brand-new-not-one-day-old daughter came out of the apartment. (I know the age of the new baby because my friends went out to meet their neighbors. When seeing the little-bitty one they asked, "How old is she?" and the mom responded "not even a day.")

A few days later as I was going to work a car passed me at an intersection; a beige Dodge Intrepid, similar to my Granny's. It had a rather large American flag magnet on the driver-side door positioned just a few inches below the window through which I saw an elderly Hispanic man. He is more patriotic than I've ever been. Usually when I see big flags on cars I get angry, this time I smiled.

Just last night at a local bar / restaurant I saw an elderly couple sitting and eating. I rarely feel cool enough to be at this place, so I wondered if they felt out of place. Maybe they did and were strong enough to get over it. Maybe they didn't because they just don't care anymore. Maybe they never cared. At any rate they were there eating and I thought that was great.

On my walk home I passed the retirement home that is next to my building, and I saw an ambulance and a fire truck. Its not at all uncommon. They never seem to be in a hurry though. All lights and no sirens. Each time I see them I wonder if one of the elderly folks who could have been at Rojo with me is now dead in the back of that ambulance. It's not a great thought, but unfortunately I guess death is ordinary too.

i like movies....

so much that i made a whole new blog devoted soley to me talking about them.
check it out if you'd like. from now on that's where all the movie trailers and stuff will go.

My Movie Review Blog

summer's crept in...

I have a feeling that changes are coming. I've been talking a lot with the guy that offered me the new job this past week. I go back and fourth "knowing" that its the best thing for me. Where I have been has been a great job. The guys there have always given me more respect and responsibilty than I have deserved. Its difficult to walk away from a situation like that. But as I have thought about it and continue to think about it, I think I've lived out my opportunity there. I was emailing a friend in Brasil about a month ago. I was just catching up and found myself telling him, "Im still working the same job that I was at the last time we wrote....actually its been about 2 years now. It's been 2 years and I've barely noticed. Sometimes I think to myself that I must be careful, or that 2 years will become 20 and I won't realize it." That thought terrifies me. A life settled for. It made me think of that Death Cab for Cutie song, the Sound of Settling. "Ba Baaaa....this is the sound of settling. I've got a hunger twisting my stomach into knots." "Ba Baaa," the same as saying, "oh well, this is good enough I guess." It was no more than a week after that email that I was offered the new job. Sometimes I think that the presence of a desire is the assurance of it's fulfillment. I feel that a lot of desires must be God given, and to me it stands to reason that if God gives desires to people, and then also promises to give them the desires of their hearts, as they learn to love Him, then the fact that there are new desires present in people can be taken as the assurance of their eventual fulfillment. I've never seen myself staying where I am for very long. Talking with another friend about the job move, I found myslef talking about running while there was opportunity. Opportunity doesn't often come seeking you, so when it does maybe its best to run toward it.
In talking with the guy at the new place, he kept asking, "where do you want to end up?" Though the people Im working with now have been wonderful to me, I never remember anyone asking me what I wanted to do in this business. I love the thought of that question. I like thinking that I need only to make up my mind and start moving in that direction. There is so much that interests me in the industry, motion design, editing, compositing, 3D animation, color grading... even writing. After hearing that I was interested in all those things the guy at the new place gave me some advise on possible ways to get to one of those ends. He even told me that the director that he works with the most, works closely with a colorist in Atlanta and if Im serious about going that route then he could introduce me to him.
I absolutely love working with the stuff that I get to work with and the thought of continuting to learn new stuff and work with more creative clients really is exciting to me.
I'd written a while back about the seasons. How as seasons change I think God can remind His people to change with them. I don't think that means that four times a year one should change jobs, but every now and again, change is needed.

another one...

I've recently joined Netflix and subsequently have been watching a lot of movies...hence the barrage of movie reviews. Well here's another one.

Kiss Kiss Ban Bang, is probably the funniest movie I've seen since Napoleon Dynamite. It's completely different obviously but laugh for laugh, to me, this one gave Napoleon a run for his sweet moolah. It's a dark comedy with lots of cussin', adult themes, some nudity, and a bunch of killing. About par for the course as far as black comedies go I suppose, but it's just so quick-witted that I fell in love with it from the first few scenes. If you're not easily offended, you'll love this one. I'd probably compare it to a more polished, less violent, more playful than spiritual natured Boondock Saints. And if you haven't seen the Boondock Saints, shame on you all.

the outback...

In the past week Ive seen two films set in the same time period, similar in theme, yet distinctly different in perspective. Both are set in the 1880s - 90's Australian Outback, when it was still being colonized by the British. Due to the American Revolution in the late 1700's Britian, who before this time as an alternative to hanging some of British socities worst, offered to transport the guilty to Maryland, now had to seek other locations to transport its criminals. Eventually they began using Australia for this purpose. After originally using Autralia, home of thousands of Aboriginal people, as a criminal dumping site, the Europeans decided to continue to grace, New South Whales, with the presence of more refined British citizens. This continued occupation of course led to all kinds of problems both with the tons of convicts and the Aboriginal people who's land and way of life were being taken away from them.
The first film I saw "The Rabbit Proof Fence" was a story of three girls who were "half-caste" meaning that their mothers were Aboriginal and their fathers were European. The government haveing already established that the whites of Australia were civilized and indeed human and that the Aboriginies were clearly sub-human, did not know what to do with this new half breed. Rather than rethink their dichotomous worldview, they decide to capture all the half-caste children and civilize them, meaning teach them english and how to do household chores and farm. The line of thinking was that if they could keep them from reproducing among themselves or force reproducing with whites that in three generations there would be no more black in the blood line.
In the film the three half-caste girls are taken to a training school 1500 miles away from their home, but decide to run away and try to make it back to their family.
There was a hopeful thread throughout, a sense that there was some greater power than the Europeans that would lead the girls back to their families. The people under such persicution were the people with the most determined faith.

The second film is called "The Proposition." The story again of family. This time a family of convicts sent from Ireland, left to rot in the outback. The men continue to commit crime in Australia leading to the arrest of two of the three brothers by the captian of the state police. The police makes a deal with the middle brother, that he will not hang the youngest if the middle will murder the eldest.


Throughout this movie you see the mindset of the Europeans, "I will civilize this land." Referring to the criminals as well as the Aboriginies. There were a few interesting things to me about this film. One was how the refined Europeans in many ways were the most barbarrac. They were the ones with the worldview that said, "blacks are sub-human, of a different origin than us." While the more you see the criminal brothers interact, they are the ones that have a deep love and concern for eachother, though it plays out rather oddly. They all are well read and quote poetry, one even has a small library of his own. Also the most barbarrac of the brothers lives with an Aboriginal man, and considers him equal. The second thing that struck me about this film is the one thing that stands the most in contrast to the other film, the overarching godless worldview held by each character. A bounty hunter captures the sentiment in a breif conversation with the middle brother. The middle brother asks something to the effect of, "Are you a believing man?" The bounty hunter responds, "I once was, before I came to this God-forsaken land. Now all the God in me just seems to have evaporated."

Both of these films, I thought, were fantastic, though quite different. Seeing two films about this particular time period in the same week has sparked a lot of thought in me about a group of people believing that their way of thinking is correct and then living accordingly, at the expense of others. The Europeans thought that the Aboriginies needed to be civilized or killed, so they captured them, forced their way of life on them or killed them.

I guess for me the question continues to be how do I live in light of a worldview that says there is one correct belief system by which to live?