No new picture= lame blog post...oh well.

Once again I'm sitting in this edit bay fighting the urge to take a nap. This is breaking news...at least by the standards we've been setting lately.

At any rate, this week has been interesting...and kind of promising, at least for the business Nate and I have. If someone would have told me that I would own some of the companies I used to freelance for a few years ago I wouldn't have believed a word of it. That's right...I said Businesses...plural. After a meeting last Wednesday with RaMarie of Mind's Eye Media, we discussed and obtained her business as well. Holy crap. As a direct result, the new business phone we have was ringing all day on Thursday! Alot the the work from Mind's Eye will be smaller jobs, but not bad jobs. Bascially instead of shooting and editing a wedding for one or two grand which could take 8-12 hours to shoot and anywhere from 12-30 hours to edit, we'll get smaller jobs that may take only a hour or 2 to shoot, (give or take), and another few hours to edit for a couple to few hundred dollars. Not a bad thing as long as there are alot of these little gigs...which are easier with a quicker turnaround.

Of course, one thing we've noticed is how Mind's Eye got alot of business because the owner under-charged quite a bit in alot of situations...mainly from lack of knowledge/experience on certain matters. The toss up now is do we maintain the high-volume/lesser-pay situations or the inverse. Decisions decisions.

We also need to invest in a decent HD camera for when those projects come up...and I believe they will be in increasing amounts. However, the only way to do this at the moment is to risk more of my personal credit by purchasing business stuff through my credit. The business will be able to pay for it I'm certain in time, but hasn't established itself enough yet to get it's own credit yet. Plus, I need to pay off my own debt first...and quicker. Anyone looking to dish out a small loan?

Anyway, the next item on the immediate list are our business cards...which I'm glad we didn't already purchase. One side will be fore Digital Weddings and the other for Mind's Eye media. Now I just need to design a newer nicer logo for Mind's Eye.

here are the current websites for all the business related stuff:

www.digitalweddings.com
www.adigitalproduction.com
www.mindseyecols.com

All Digital Productions came with the wedding company...but the site isn't very well optimized. It has a nicer, cleaner, and more professional look than Mind's Eye, but Mind's Eye has been heavily marketed, etc. over the past few years. So Mind's Eye is bringing in business where All Digital is not.

Now, we just have to start marketing these puppies.


Currently accepting ideas and input.

Awe. Puppies.

brain test

Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others. Left Brain Dominance: (16) Right Brain Dominance: (16) Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz

I knew it.

giving it another go-

It's 4:00am. I'm sitting in a dim edit bay...eating microwave popcorn. I am patiently waiting for my producer to finish writing scripts. It's dark...and I'm wearing sunglasses. Hit It.

It's been since September since my last posting. Alot has happened, but in my opinion not enough. I started thinking on my way to work for my 2am shift that these weekend days afford me the time to at least write in this blog once or twice a week. So here I am!

This weekend marks the first wedding my newly purchased company is shooting. Due to this awesome shift I'm not able to really attend it, so Nate and a long-time shooter for the company, Aaron Syler, are shooting it. I'm fairly confident Nate will do a good job, however this IS his first REAL time using a pseudo-professional camera and is shooting video for a business...so hopefully things go okay! I may make a cameo when I get out of work at 10am...

At the moment, we have 3 other weddings booked so far this year, with possibly 3 more soon to come. An old business contact has recently called me to take on a chunk of their overflow, which is good. I'm hoping to expand the biz into some other areas and get some work and experience in motion graphics, commercials, and eventually perhaps TV shows, etc. in the near future. One thing that may come up sooner than I'd like is the need to invest in some HD cameras and other equipment. I was hoping this could wait longer, but already it sounds like a job is waiting in the wings and needs an HD camera... so here's to breaking out the contact list and finding an HD camera! (btw all investers, grantors, donations to the biz are currently being accepted...)

Here's a title I did for a gaming Blogger named Savitar. I'm hoping to expand and get into the motion graphics stuff more. I heard from a friend of mine that Savitar needed a new intro, so I decided to make him one for free. It took about 6 hours of barely knowing what I was doing, but I'm a quick study, and he really liked it. So the experience was pretty sucessful.


Anyway, I watched the season finale of Fringe yesterday. It had been sitting on the DVR for a bit and I just remembered it was there. The show started out pretty decently, then sort-of lost itself...but was still pretty good. This most recent season the writers seem to have found a good story/concept to run with now, and the show really seems to be taking off. If you're not watching this show, and like the Sci-Fi/Drama/Suspense genres at all, watch this show!

In other news, my furnace has started leaking again. Awesome. This furnace has been the bane of my existence for awhile now...thanks Robert. The scenario has been this: It works okay...oh damn, it leaks. Why does a furnace leak you ask? Well, it's a high-efficiency CONDENSING furnace. Basically it condensates while it runs in certain spots...for whatever reason. The manufacturers designed a system to drain the water correctly, however my old contractor did not understand this, and treated it like any other furnace install, not paying the extra money to have it installed correctly. That, and the guy he used was "new" to the industry and didn't exactly know to put up a fight to get this done right...or how to do things very well...

Long story short, we stopped the leaking in the first summer we had the furnace. Then came our first winter, and it started condensing/leaking somewhere else once we started using heat. Another long story later, it gets fixed and stops leaking again. This past winter, the furnace exhaust pipe, (constructed from PVC pipe and joints), started to fall apart, (see where I said the guy was "new"), and so my Bro-in-law and I fixed the exhaust pipe.

Fast forward to a week+ ago when I fired up the AC for the first time in months...whatayaknow...leaks again! I traced the leak to the drain coming out of the furnace. Over the winter when Dave and I fixed it, we tried to force the drain into a downward direction as it wasn't angled quite the way it should have been. Well, our pushing and "forcing" ended up creating a defect in the place where the water exits the furnace, which = leak. I thought I fixed everything...but it turns out I only fixed ONE of the leaks. I'm trying to avoid calling a furnace repair man...money it a bit of an "Object" at the moment...but we'll see.

I figure once I get back into the swing of things this blog may take more of a "direction", but that remains to be seen. Again I am writing this in the wee hours of the morning on a Sunday...so we'll see. Maybe I'll include actual pictures in the next one!

Later...to whoever still checks this thing!

A Dying Breath photo shoot

Had a new photo shoot with Dave's band last week. Here's a before and after comparison of a couple pictures I've had time to work on.



The above probably took me close to 2 hours. With more practice, (which I'm sure to get), I should get alittle faster. One of the big time-consuming things is adjusting skin tones, etc., although that's not as bad as keying out a green screen. Fortunately I think I've found an easy way to work that out for next time.


Another experimentation. This picture turned out pretty good I think, and there was more to it than simply making it black and white, (with alittle yellowish tinge). Let me know what you all think! I'd love some feedback, ideas, tips and trick if you've got them. I'm building my photoshop photo retouching skills, and I'm just going about it and learning too. Also, out of curiosity what do you think you would pay for work like this...I'm curious.

Oh my holy crap, it's been updated...

Soooooooo here's the update you've all been waiting for! Or at least the update the one or two of you who happen to still check my blog have been waiting for.

It's been a looong time, and I think the reason being is the "second job" killing alot of my free time. I didn't realize this until recently, (I thought I was just being lazy), but my last post was only a couple days before I started teaching at the Ohio Center for Broadcasting in Whitehall. It's been a fun and interesting experience to say the least. Anyway....
Here's the current state of the house! We got alot of the landscaping done thanks for Megan and Joel! There's still work to be done, but at least the house looks decently respectable at the moment. For those who forgot, here's where we started-
The before and after, (or after and before in this case), is pretty interesting. The most recent fix is the foundation around the porch. The above picture shows alot of the holes, crumbling, discoloration, etc.
It took a bit of work, trial and error, etc. But, I repaired all the issues here myself and got some landscaping in! Dave was awesome and was able to hook my up with some decorative stone to cover this area up...fancy it up a bit. I just haven't had the time, energy, or really the know-how to put it up. At this point I'm thinking of paying his guy...or someone to put it up for me.

Now the bricks below I'm hoping to make a pathway from the driveway to the walkway to the house. Not sure if I have enough... We'll see.

Here's the side view of the house, and all its' crazy growth. My neighbors told me about how the previous owners ended up with pumpkins and corn growing in this area of the yard...and how funny it was. Some said how they used to show their kids how big the pumpkins were getting each day. Well, I happened to have an abundance of tomato and pumpkin plants this year and no place out back to plant them. So why not stick with tradition...right? I'm probably getting alot of point for uniqueness...maybe.
I also can't say I've quite figured out pumpkin growing yet. There's apparently a trick to it. I'm getting better, but I still feel like I could be doing something better. My mom gave me a couple different kinds of pumpkin seeds. This is a white pumpkin. weird.
And these are pumpkin pie pumpkins. Unfortunately I don't have any normal carving pumpkins planted...(I didn't realize that until later), but these still work. Right now I have 3 PP pumpkins and one white pumpkin growing. I might have had more under some different circumstances, but considering how much space one pumpkin plant takes up to grow just one pumpkin...well... yea.
and what would a post be without the dogs. This time, they're sporting some summer cuts!
Levi's cut turned out the best, (we did them ourselves). Titus' coat, however, is thick beyond reason...and his cut turned out more...interesting. It doesn't look bad, but oh well.


Finally, we have a sample of all the flippin' tomatos we've picked. I actually picked most of these yesterday...and I have no idea how we're going to eat all of these. the above tomato slashing happened after I dropped him in some pumpkin territory...and the little needles that grown out of the stems/stalks/whatevers sliced him up pretty decent. Pumpkins are tough characters.

Dog Outtakes

So how long has it been since my last post...? Yea, about a month. What can I say...no really. Well, amidst everything that has been going on, I opted instead to feed you a small pointless post that I dubbed, "Dog Outtakes." Prettymuch, less than perfect pictures that were taken over the past couple weeks which make up for their technical issues, (focus, framing, etc.), with their comedic or "Awwe" factor. So here they are, enjoy.

Meg took this of Levi in his "Awwe" curled up pose. It's pretty dang cute, especially the tail over the nose part.

Another picture Megan took. Not sure what was going on, but once I saw this picture I laughed.

Peanut...butter...yessssssssssssss...

She's throwing the ball now!!!

So all the pictures are of Levi I know. Izzy and Titus have their moments, but I guess the camera isn't always accessible at those moments. Oh well, Levi works for now.

Dog nose time

Had to update again with some backlogged pictures. Check out the dogs' new toy! I couldn't resist...and since Levi is so cooperative, here you go.

he's trained well...sometimes.