Merry Christmas 08

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm writing this on the 24th for a head start since I know I won't have a chance to write anything tomorrow, but as I've neglected this blog for long enough, I want to keep it going. We got done with our Christmas shopping quite some time ago, so we were more than ready for today to come.

I know the princesses are quite excited, and we live vicariously through their excitement. Very little in this life makes me happier than to see them happy, and we always do everything in our power to make them stay that way. The whole economic downturn affected us only a little in so far as I lost the mega overtime I was getting, but our Christmas is going to be great.

Remember, of course, that today is the celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and whether you believe he was born on December 25th, or that this is really a carryover holiday from the Babylonian celebration of the winter solstace that was covered up by the early Catholic church to become a Christian holiday even though Jesus was probably born in September, I hope your Christmas is a joyful holiday all the same. To me, it's the meaning that matters, and I am grateful that we were given an eternal hope through the gift of his life.

Have a great day everyone, and a Merry Christmas.

Another Rough Cut And Print

Well, I've reached another milestone on my movie. I finally worked through all the footage I'd shot on the 13th and cut together some transitions. I put the transitions into my rough cut and I have a full rough cut of the movie. I popped it onto a DVD and sat down to watch it. The sound is very rough and uneven throughout, not to mention it's clear where I cut it together, and of course, there's no music yet.

I even noticed that I'd screwed up one scene that I probably won't be able to fix. In moviemaking there is a sort of invisible line or plane that the camera is not allowed to cross so that the audience's perspective of two conversing characters remains consistent. This way one character looks left and the other looks right. If you cross the line, you end up with a cut where the characters are both looking the same direction. Well, you can kind of tell where the characters are in this scene, but when I cut back and forth between them, they are both looking to the right. I considered flipping the picture for one of them horizontally to make one of them look the right direction, but it would make the background look strange and facing the wrong direction, so I think I'm stuck with the mistake.

Of course, the Engineer was wanting the avi file of the movie, but at the moment, I can't get a 15Gb file on my portable hard drive, so he'll have to be content with the wav of the soundtrack and a DVD of the movie to match up. The only other thing missing at the moment is a series of voiceovers at the end that tell a little about the main character's resolution, but I figured that for the Engineer to do anyway since it deals with sounds that would need cleaning.

The movie with the mock credits only runs for 73 minutes, which is really short for a feature. My answer to this will be including the four minute short I shot in April 07, so the disc has enough content to justify itself. It'll just make this DVD release my "first movies" disc. That'll have to do, since I can't make it any longer.

I've also found that I'm way too familiar with it at this point. I watch it, and mostly, I hate it. But it's not a sort of despising hate, but the kind of hate where you've just seen something so many times and dissected it so much that you know it too well. While the sounds are being worked, though, I need to leave it alone, so I will. Otherwise, it won't line back up right.

I'm handing off the DVD with the movie on one side and the soundtrack on the other for the Engineer to work, and I'll just mail the other DVD off to Beggs for Farmer to work on the music. We're getting there, though. Once The Engineer is through the soundtrack, we'll get the cast together to do some ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) and once the ADR is done, I would hope that Farmer is done with the music (it really needs music). From there, I've got an outlet to get the DVD onto Amazon in fairly short order, and I suppose at that point, you'll know who I am if you look it up.

But that is another day. It's just nice to get through something.

The Girl of Taco Gringo

Optimus Prime is really one for stories, and he ran down another one for me recently that I thought was both amusing and fascinating in how our interactions in other peoples' lives serves to change them. This one boils down to an essential if-then statement when it comes to Prime's life choices, since in the case of this particular girl, his failure to keep track of time and desire for some Mexican fast food changed someone's life, and perhaps not for the better.

His story began with Everquest, a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), which has since been supplanted, I believe, by Everquest 2. These are affectionately referred to by players as EQ1 and EQ2. Well, people who play these types of games tend to revolve their lives around them, and as such, he tended to miss dinner time at the college cafeteria. Some colleges have some very specific times that the cafeteria is "open" for meals, and in the case of his college, this open time was 5 to 6 pm. After that, you're on your own. 

Well, his choice of fare when he missed the college meal time was a place called Taco Gringo, and he said after the first twenty or thirty times he went in there, they got to know him, and he tended to get more to eat after that. One person who got to know him was this girl who was a waitress in there, and him being a geek and all, he talked to her about computers. She wasn't even a user at the time they met, but knew "about" them, probably like your average 80 year old knows "about" them.  She had been thinking about getting one, and so she talked to him about how to use it, etc.

He, in turn, not only gave her the whole skinny on computers, but told her all about EQ1 and his affinity for it. I have little doubt that he went into lots and lots of detail about who he was and what he did and the little clubs or whatever he was in within the game world. This lead her to go out and buy a computer, and subsequently, get into Everquest as well. While I've never played an MMORPG (never wanted to make the time to do so), I understand that losing yourself in that virtual world is very easy to do if you're not careful, and this is what she ended up doing. She went from waitress to EQ junkie in short order.

So one day, when Prime had missed the meal times at the cafeteria again, he's gone into Taco Gringo only to find that the girl had failed to show up for work again, and had been fired as a result. This, however, was not the end of the story because he'd apparently learned more of what happened to her after she'd left Taco Gringo and how her life in the EQ world went from there. This is all given "as the story goes," and may or may not be 100% of what happened, but it's an interesting story all the same.

She had met a wizard in EQ, and he didn't live too far from her -- just over the state line. She began to take time to go see him, and like the game junkie she had become, she took her computer with her when she went. It started out with weekends, but after one weekend when she'd taken her computer over the state line to see her wizard, she didn't come back. Turns out they had gotten married, but then reality set in.

Apparently (and this may come as a surprise), being a level 80 wizard in the Everquest virtual world is just that: a level 80 wizard online. This equates to being absolutely nothing in the real world. Like his new wife, his EQ obsession took its toll on him, and he was expelled from college for his overkill obsession. This guy was beyond your typical gamer. As the story goes, he had an actual Legend of Zelda Master Sword in his dorm room at one time. By actual, I mean it was an actual, functional sword made to look just like the one in the video game.

I asked him what ever became of them, and his first response was pregnant with 12 kids, but then he laughed it off. Turns out the relationship was not meant to be. He left her when she discovered World of Warcraft.

Weight Loss

So for several months, I've been working on becoming healthier, primarily by running on a treadmill we'd gotten back in April with that "economic stimulus package" that the government passed around. After several false starts, I finally settled into a groove and was running upwards of 3 to 4 miles per day at 5 or 6 mph (lately anyway) five days a week. I'd also done some reading on how to control your diet, and I'd found that what you eat is only a piece of the overall puzzle, and the whole concept of dieting was rather flawed. It's more about eating what you want to eat in moderation or more to the point only eating what you need. There was a show some time ago called Dinotopia that summed it up rather well: "Eat to live; don't live to eat." 

What it boiled down to was to keep your metabolism working, you should ensure that you not only eat breakfast but an afternoon snack no less than two and a half hours after lunch will also keep the metabolism going. Apparently, the body is an amazing little machine that will not allow itself to starve, and so if you don't eat, it won't metabolize anything since there's no new energy to replace it. Hence, as long as you continue to feed the body, the body will continue to process and the metabolism will continue working. So I've made sure for the first time ever that I actually eat something when I get up in the morning, eat lunch every day (that's EVERY day), and I have something mid-afternoon as well (usually that's when I indulge my soda habit and have a Mountain Dew).

A third thing that I'd done in these past months (yeah, there's more; it's a lot of work, isn't it?) is ensuring that I drink a lot of water. The water thing is similar to the food thing in that the body will do whatever it can to ensure your body has enough water to function. If you don't regularly ingest water, the body will selfishly hold on to the water that it has (or "retain water") in little reserves that will vary based on how much it thinks it needs. This can amount to some significant poundage in some people. Once you start taking in enough water (which some experts say is half your weight in oz -- i.e. a 200 pound person should have 100oz of water), the body releases its stores and functions that much better. Now, I admit that I don't always have half my weight in ounces of water, but I do drink quite a bit of it.

The thought that prevailed in my mind when I began had to do with my father who has had cancer a couple of times, has type B diabetes, and is overall, not very healthy. One thing that could have benefited him (and what we're trying to get him to do more of) is exercise. By maintaining a relatively healthy lifestyle, you get yourself into a healthier body, and you live a happier and more illness-free life. I figure that I want to see the princesses grow up and have their own children all all that, and to see all that for as long as possible, I need to ensure that I am healthy as opposed to falling apart. This way, I am not just around for their lives, but I can keep up with them as well, and you know, look good while doing it. I don't want to be one of those dads who huffs and puffs because he just can't keep with the kids anymore. I want to be the one who is out ahead of them telling them to keep up with me.

Anyway, all this has amounted to my losing some fifteen pounds over the course of three or four months. 

Then I got a Wii Fit. This is an amazing little workout "machine" in that it contains aerobic activities as well as yoga exercises for stretching and balance/posture, strength exercises for toning those muscles you never use, and some balance games that are relatively fun. But with that new toy, I started falling out of the routine of running five days a week, and started playing on the Wii Fit for half of that time. I still run, but I needed to find a balance because I was getting frustrated.

You see, this Wii Fit has a "body test" function that measures your weight and calculates it against your height to determine your BMI (body mass index) as well as providing a couple of balance tests to figure out just how agile you are and give you a "Wii Fit Age," much like the Wii Sports Age does, if you're familiar with the game that has come with most Wiis. The downside of testing your weight every day is that you watch it go up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down until you wonder if it will ever go in the direction you finally want it to go. Now, given that we're in the big eating season of the year, in all fairness, the fact that my weight has stayed down is a big plus, but after three weeks on the Wii Fit, I'm not seeing it decrease further with any consistency.

Now, there is something that is likely causing this weight stagnation, and it's actually a good thing. I mentioned the strength exercises. A short term goal that I want for myself (and this is something for a geek who really doesn't like the workout overkill I'm subjecting myself to -- really, I would rather be doing something other than running and exercising -- I have game to play, but I am digressing), anyway... the goal I want is to look good next summer at the pool, when we inevitably head back to Roaring River. I saw myself recently on a video of two years ago, and I think I was working towards looking like Santa Claus. 

Anyway (again), to work toward the pool goal, I've been doing the strength exercises very consistently to the point where I wear myself out doing them. I feel good afterwards, but I take myself to where I struggle to finish, so I figure I'm doing myself some good. Well, muscle weighs more than fat does, and the Queen noted last night that I am getting some definition here and there. Can you see where this is going? By virtue of overkilling myself at the muscle toning exercises and foregoing the straight calorie-burning I'd been doing, I've probably managed to build some muscle while working out the fat issue, hence my weight has temporarily stagnated since I continue to feel better physically, which is unlikely if I'm just randomly gaining weight again. It's also unlikely that I would just be backsliding when I continue to kill myself working out almost every day, even though I'm working different parts of my body.

So last night, I decided to not to do anything. There was a water line break down the street, and the city had shut off the water to the block, so I used it as an excuse to not work out (even though I don't usually drink water while working out -- I do it afterwards since I only go for an hour at the most). Well, to torture myself, I went ahead and did the Wii Fit weight thing at the end of the night. I'd been helping the Queen here and there, and I'd played drums on Rock Band for a while too, so I hadn't been completely idle.

Well, it was a surprise to me that I my weight decided to go down that night. It went down by nearly 3 pounds from the previous day, which was an especial surprise. What I had been trying to pull to trick out the scale was working out first, doing my weight, and then drinking water. It can give a false reading, really, since sweating sheds some water weight, and makes you lighter. Hey, it made me feel good. 

So, thinking about everything, I need to work the Wii Fit in conjunction with the treadmill so I get the relentless calorie burning in along with the body toning. But the bottom line is for me to keep doing what I'm doing because somehow it is actually working...

Not Enough Memory

You know, another problem with keeping a blog is remembering that cool story worth writing down long enough to actually write it down in here. As I stared at this blank page, I pondered the tale I thought I was going to tell on Saturday, but figured I would just remember it for Monday, and take it down then. Yeah, that's the part I remember. I remember the idea to remember the story, but I don't remember the story itself. How warped is that?

But that's about my lot when it comes to remembering stuff. People remember stuff different ways, but my method of memory seems to be a little more unique than the majority. Sometimes, I remember specific details of a situation if that specific situation is recalled, but most of the time, I remember that something happened, or I remember the general overview of it, or what I felt like I was supposed to get out of it. It's this memory "condition" that makes the Queen and everyone else crazy since you'll note "details" is not something listed up there.

Now when it comes to something I am working to specifically recall, I can often recall details to make someone's head swim. Look at some of the older stories I've told on here. Some of them go into a lot of detail about what exactly went on, so I have the ability to remember things, but most of the time, the stuff that happens day to day isn't worth remembering. I'm to the point at my job that once I finish talking to a particular person, I disremember them almost immediately. And I didn't use the word "forget" on purpose, but I don't actually forget the conversation. If someone asks me about it, and I pull up the ticket or account, I'll remember it almost verbatim, but what I'm doing by "disremembering" is choosing to immediately put the affair out of my mind since it will rarely concern me again. I usually can't remember who I spoke with five minutes ago.

This has, unfortunately, carried itself over into my home life. Now, when a member of the Queen's family calls, I often forget to tell her. When I converse with my family, the Queen will ask about the conversation, and I have a lot of trouble remembering what was said beyond the gist of the conversation. My mother will talk to me for twenty minutes, and I'm, at best, only able to summarize the conversation in under a minute. Ok, so my mother does tend to repeat herself during the conversation, and occasionally go off onto other tangents, but who doesn't?

And speaking of memory, I got a ticket reopened today from someone that I spoke with back on December 9th about an issue related to their program that accesses Medicare's system timing out. It processes along just fine until it just stops. Now, this is a product where they provide the connectivity, and we have a little program that pages through the screens and pulls back the info automatically to post to their claims. The reason it timed out is because the Medicare system is a little overloaded on Mondays and it loses its connection causing our program to lose its connection as well. They, naturally, blame us. Well, on the 9th, I convinced the person I spoke with that it was a connection issue with the Medicare system, and they just have to resume the program and it will eventually finish its work barring how the connection with Medicare holds out. She understood, and was ok with this.

Well, today a completely different person saw the problem and reopened the ticket wanting us to "look into it." Well, it's still something that we can't control, so there's still nothing we can do about it. And yet, this is somehow our fault. I guess they have memory problems too.