Out of 20 or so videos that I strung together to make the entire video, it will give you a taste of what I put together. These guys were going though the Tan, Gray or Green belt course and it was no joke. Sgt Luna was our instructor and I've never seen his like, great job brother. Video and pictures taken with the Canon S3 I purchased at the beginning of the deployment.
PS. Hellboy II rocks!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I'm home
and there is no place I'd rather be in the world right now and I think the picture speaks for itself. Thanks for the support.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Kuwaiting Take 8
Once again I’m hanging out in this hot and sandy place, we flew in early one morning and I said to Swear, “it’s not too bad today” and he replied with “it’s only 8:30 in the morning” and I said “Oh”. One of my Marines had injured their back during the unloading process so I made a trip over to medical where they kindly provided some medical care and on my dime, I took her over to Taco Bell for the first time in 6 months. Who knew Taco Bell would taste so good?
Got back to the barracks and crashed out due to the lack of sleep I’ve had over the last couple of weeks only to wake in a blast furnace. The power had gone off and it felt like it was 140 degrees inside and I crawled out into the 117 degree day and it was cooler out there. To think, there are people live like that all of the time. I had it good.
I’m watched black market DVD of Hancock and the dog on the movie looked like my dog Gatsby. The movie didn’t get great reviews but I liked it, far from perfect people with some incredible powers. I’m into a complex storyline that makes you fill in the blanks and has a potential for a lot more.
I think there’s a conspiracy against the Marines who come though Kuwait, for some reason on every one of my trips out here, they stick us as far from the chow hall as you can be and still be on base or at least putting the chow hall at the opposite side of the base from us. I think I would have lost a lot more weight if I was stationed here. It’s sort of like purgatory, considering all of the people in the bible were from places like this, they must have known what they were talking about.
Today I woke up around 10 (yay!) and went to chow at noon, then was going over to the internet café and there was a line and next door I saw a sign for wireless internet and it was 4 bucks a day and I was on that like white on rice and started walking back to the barracks but it was so hot that I had to make a pit stop at the Rec center and watched The Fifth Element and downed 4 bottles of water.
Then back to the barracks where I wrote this. Sounds like I’ll be back home before too long.
Got back to the barracks and crashed out due to the lack of sleep I’ve had over the last couple of weeks only to wake in a blast furnace. The power had gone off and it felt like it was 140 degrees inside and I crawled out into the 117 degree day and it was cooler out there. To think, there are people live like that all of the time. I had it good.
I’m watched black market DVD of Hancock and the dog on the movie looked like my dog Gatsby. The movie didn’t get great reviews but I liked it, far from perfect people with some incredible powers. I’m into a complex storyline that makes you fill in the blanks and has a potential for a lot more.
I think there’s a conspiracy against the Marines who come though Kuwait, for some reason on every one of my trips out here, they stick us as far from the chow hall as you can be and still be on base or at least putting the chow hall at the opposite side of the base from us. I think I would have lost a lot more weight if I was stationed here. It’s sort of like purgatory, considering all of the people in the bible were from places like this, they must have known what they were talking about.
Today I woke up around 10 (yay!) and went to chow at noon, then was going over to the internet café and there was a line and next door I saw a sign for wireless internet and it was 4 bucks a day and I was on that like white on rice and started walking back to the barracks but it was so hot that I had to make a pit stop at the Rec center and watched The Fifth Element and downed 4 bottles of water.
Then back to the barracks where I wrote this. Sounds like I’ll be back home before too long.
Friday, July 18, 2008
My first feature length film
As my time draws to a close out here, I had one more project to complete. The book form cruise book fell though because we couldn’t get enough people to buy them to make it economically feasible. So, the cruise book staff voted to make another DVD and me, being the DVD guru with a brand spanking new laptop to handle it was put in charge. We had less then a month.
First I needed to gather a game plan, we started brainstorming. All of the brainstorming somehow ended up coming out of my head for some reason, I had them gather up all of their personal pictures and video onto a cruise folder on the share drive, decide on a musical theme for their shop and teach them how to make movies so I could be more of a directing force behind them and focus on the extracurricular activities that I had filmed and taken pictures of, i.e., softball league, martial arts, field meets, etc. I would also go around the different shops and letting everyone from each shop give a greeting and intro.
So I went to work on my works of art. I started off with 30 hours of video and a couple thousand martial arts pictures and cut it down to less then 20 minutes. I knew what I had just had trouble finding the shots, I was overloaded with information, songs I had liked before became earworms with slideshows and video haunting my dreams.
After what seemed like an eternity, the Kung Foolery video was done (to be uploaded to YouTube when I get to the rear) and I turned away to check on the progress of my co-conspirators and found that only one shop had made any progress at all. The Military Intel guys had everything put together for their shop including the interview and it was nicely packaged (not quite as nice as mine) and ready to be added to the final product. One Cpl wanted to do the Kung Fu and her shop, I had to talk her out of it at the beginning because she didn’t know what she was getting into. I think I was a little harsh because she didn’t have anything ready but was willing to work on it.
Just about everybody else said, “we have no clue, please help us doc”. The hardest part of making a video for me is picking the music theme. After that, everything else flows into place, it takes a while but at least you have a rhythm to put a timeline. That gives you objectives on what kind of pictures or videos you want to match to the words or the tempo.
One shop kept turning in inappropriate songs for the family viewing audience and couldn’t agree on anything so I slapped their pictures together with YMCA by the Village People and stuck that on the share drive. They then came up with some music that worked and I redid it even though, YMCA did seem to work pretty well considering how little work I had put into it.
Anyhow, I’m tired and rambling, today, I finished the final product which ended up being 116 minutes. In two weeks, I had produced and published, almost totally by my self, a feature length film (other then the 20 minutes that 3 of the shops did). My last video which up to that point was the longest was 33 minutes.
Ack, it was a true bear but I’m glad it’s done, I’ll just have to see how what the responses are like since I was under a deadline, I didn’t have time for anyone (including myself) to edit any of my work (just like this post).
See ya on the flip side.
First I needed to gather a game plan, we started brainstorming. All of the brainstorming somehow ended up coming out of my head for some reason, I had them gather up all of their personal pictures and video onto a cruise folder on the share drive, decide on a musical theme for their shop and teach them how to make movies so I could be more of a directing force behind them and focus on the extracurricular activities that I had filmed and taken pictures of, i.e., softball league, martial arts, field meets, etc. I would also go around the different shops and letting everyone from each shop give a greeting and intro.
So I went to work on my works of art. I started off with 30 hours of video and a couple thousand martial arts pictures and cut it down to less then 20 minutes. I knew what I had just had trouble finding the shots, I was overloaded with information, songs I had liked before became earworms with slideshows and video haunting my dreams.
After what seemed like an eternity, the Kung Foolery video was done (to be uploaded to YouTube when I get to the rear) and I turned away to check on the progress of my co-conspirators and found that only one shop had made any progress at all. The Military Intel guys had everything put together for their shop including the interview and it was nicely packaged (not quite as nice as mine) and ready to be added to the final product. One Cpl wanted to do the Kung Fu and her shop, I had to talk her out of it at the beginning because she didn’t know what she was getting into. I think I was a little harsh because she didn’t have anything ready but was willing to work on it.
Just about everybody else said, “we have no clue, please help us doc”. The hardest part of making a video for me is picking the music theme. After that, everything else flows into place, it takes a while but at least you have a rhythm to put a timeline. That gives you objectives on what kind of pictures or videos you want to match to the words or the tempo.
One shop kept turning in inappropriate songs for the family viewing audience and couldn’t agree on anything so I slapped their pictures together with YMCA by the Village People and stuck that on the share drive. They then came up with some music that worked and I redid it even though, YMCA did seem to work pretty well considering how little work I had put into it.
Anyhow, I’m tired and rambling, today, I finished the final product which ended up being 116 minutes. In two weeks, I had produced and published, almost totally by my self, a feature length film (other then the 20 minutes that 3 of the shops did). My last video which up to that point was the longest was 33 minutes.
Ack, it was a true bear but I’m glad it’s done, I’ll just have to see how what the responses are like since I was under a deadline, I didn’t have time for anyone (including myself) to edit any of my work (just like this post).
See ya on the flip side.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Running on Fumes
One thing that is good about being out at war is that I don't have to fork over a large pile of money to fill up my gas tank. That's all going to change before too long and I'll be back in the land of pumping gold into that tank. In fact, I'll be paying more then most because I drive a diesel.
I remember back in the early 90's, if I wanted to make a weekend road trip to Arizona, 20 bucks worth of gas would get me there and I would have enough gas to drive around for most of the weekend. Even being an E-3, it wasn't a strain on my budget, my biggest bill was the cost of insurance.
Fast forward to now, with the current gas prices, the same trip one way at 25 miles per gallon costs 68 dollars. While my wage has doubled since then, the price of gas has gone up 500 percent so road trips take up a larger piece of my financial pie and make me rethink taking those long road trips. My son from a prior marriage lives in Northern California and the cost of travel to see him has made a huge impact on my choices for my next duty station. I turned down some great orders to North Island to try getting orders to a place out in the middle of nowhere called Lemoore just so I didn't have to drive as far to see him.
Even so, I don't have it that bad, I make it a point to live as close to work as possible to avoid the commute but what about those people who live in the suburbs where they purchased a home because it was cheaper?
The popular place to buy a house if you live in San Diego is up the 15 freeway. Directly north lie the communities of Murrieta and Temecula which were at one time the secret place to get a good deal on a house. Traffic can be a bit heavy with the 55 mile drive but the bang for the home buying buck did make the drive worth it. Eventually, it wasn't a secret anymore and developers turned the entire area into new homes which many military people I know bought into the American dream of home ownership.
But now with the gas prices breaking records on a daily basis, when will that point come when they can't afford to make the drive home? Or how many Marines and Sailors have already hit that point? That's not even counting the 22 percent lost in home values for the San Diego area (taken from www.marketwatch.com article titled "Four years of gains in home prices wiped out"). The economy in general is hitting the military right in the pocket book.
I remember back in the early 90's, if I wanted to make a weekend road trip to Arizona, 20 bucks worth of gas would get me there and I would have enough gas to drive around for most of the weekend. Even being an E-3, it wasn't a strain on my budget, my biggest bill was the cost of insurance.
Fast forward to now, with the current gas prices, the same trip one way at 25 miles per gallon costs 68 dollars. While my wage has doubled since then, the price of gas has gone up 500 percent so road trips take up a larger piece of my financial pie and make me rethink taking those long road trips. My son from a prior marriage lives in Northern California and the cost of travel to see him has made a huge impact on my choices for my next duty station. I turned down some great orders to North Island to try getting orders to a place out in the middle of nowhere called Lemoore just so I didn't have to drive as far to see him.
Even so, I don't have it that bad, I make it a point to live as close to work as possible to avoid the commute but what about those people who live in the suburbs where they purchased a home because it was cheaper?
The popular place to buy a house if you live in San Diego is up the 15 freeway. Directly north lie the communities of Murrieta and Temecula which were at one time the secret place to get a good deal on a house. Traffic can be a bit heavy with the 55 mile drive but the bang for the home buying buck did make the drive worth it. Eventually, it wasn't a secret anymore and developers turned the entire area into new homes which many military people I know bought into the American dream of home ownership.
But now with the gas prices breaking records on a daily basis, when will that point come when they can't afford to make the drive home? Or how many Marines and Sailors have already hit that point? That's not even counting the 22 percent lost in home values for the San Diego area (taken from www.marketwatch.com article titled "Four years of gains in home prices wiped out"). The economy in general is hitting the military right in the pocket book.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Making a Video
The hardest part of making a unit video for me is the first step, coming up with the music and theme then bending my mind around that idea. Once that’s done, everything else does start falling into place, the gaps get filled in and there’s a sense of accomplishment as sections get done till finally, a finished product. With a good enough idea and the proper eye and ear candy, the video can take on a life of its own. I’ve discovered that these video projects tend to take over the creative parts of my brain and other things that I normally do like write, talk and read for pleasure, all of that get chopped off at the knees and I mumble, spill drinks and my blogging goes to crap.
I was the unit videographer my first trip out here in 2004 and had a bunch of spare time to make movies and post pictures on my fotopage and it was still a huge job. This time it’s a different story, I’m actually working pretty hard. Yes Anonymous Guy, I am at Camp Cupcake with a nice pool walking distance away but that doesn’t make my job any easier or change the distanc that I'm separated from my family. I'm just cleaner and a bit safer and no, I haven’t gone out to Salsa night (don’t need strangers to see my lack of dancing skills). Even though I was getting mortared and shot at on a somewhat regular basis in 2004, my job back then was worlds easier. Now I’m living in a paperwork jungle and miss the easy, drama free times when I was just a squadron corpsman and could work on these huge products while sitting around at work instead of on my spare time after a 12 hour workday.
But I admit, there was one perk about being at Camp Cupcake, Puddle of Mudd came out a couple of weeks ago and put on a show for the troops. I got to watch from 15 or so feet away and it was an awesome! I even got to use some of the bandages I had packed into my cargo pocket at the end of the night, a guy who was leaving 4 days from then got gashed in the eyebrow by a flying CD. I estimate 12 sutures.
Well back to screening music, still haven’t figured out the soundtrack for the second quarter, wish the bride was around, she sees everything through the lens of song.
I was the unit videographer my first trip out here in 2004 and had a bunch of spare time to make movies and post pictures on my fotopage and it was still a huge job. This time it’s a different story, I’m actually working pretty hard. Yes Anonymous Guy, I am at Camp Cupcake with a nice pool walking distance away but that doesn’t make my job any easier or change the distanc that I'm separated from my family. I'm just cleaner and a bit safer and no, I haven’t gone out to Salsa night (don’t need strangers to see my lack of dancing skills). Even though I was getting mortared and shot at on a somewhat regular basis in 2004, my job back then was worlds easier. Now I’m living in a paperwork jungle and miss the easy, drama free times when I was just a squadron corpsman and could work on these huge products while sitting around at work instead of on my spare time after a 12 hour workday.
But I admit, there was one perk about being at Camp Cupcake, Puddle of Mudd came out a couple of weeks ago and put on a show for the troops. I got to watch from 15 or so feet away and it was an awesome! I even got to use some of the bandages I had packed into my cargo pocket at the end of the night, a guy who was leaving 4 days from then got gashed in the eyebrow by a flying CD. I estimate 12 sutures.
Well back to screening music, still haven’t figured out the soundtrack for the second quarter, wish the bride was around, she sees everything through the lens of song.
Monday, June 02, 2008
My brain has stopped adding words together
I’ve hit the slump of the deployment along with many of the Marines and Sailors that I work the only difference is this is the first time that the slump has shut down my writing cold. I would put an idea on paper and try to expand on it and would end up having monosyllable conversations with myself. As painful as it is to have a conversation with one of those people, it’s worse to read it.
I did a two blog post a while back ago called Twilight of the Deployment (take one and take two) and I can’t really improve on either of them with this block filling up my head just to note that my unit is in that period of time.
The Dear John’s or Jane’s have started trickling in one party, here or there is shocked and can’t believe it’s happening to them. It’s that season of the deployment, between the middle till right before we get home. I’ve been here before and most of the Staff NCO’s I work with are on their second or third marriage, it’s the junior guys that worry me. Right now is where relationships crumble, one party realizes that they really don’t like being alone or that their significant other isn’t the “One” or meets someone special who isn’t far away and don’t know how to break it off with someone on the other side of the world then waits till right before they get home. There is no easy way to break off a serious relationship.
Where one party is lonely and falls for someone they are interacting with daily and breaks the relationship off. The spouse that cleans out the bank account and max’s out credit cards out of spite and disappears. Tired of the lack of email, phone calls, letters, etc. Tired of how the other party is spending their finances.
I see these stories every single day, the names and faces change and as a leader or a healer, you have to help these people make something constructive out of the crap that life took on them. For an air unit like mine, it’s not the suicide bombers or the mortars that cause most of us to toss and turn at night or think it’s not worth it anymore. It’s the worry about the person we expected to spend the rest of our lives with on the other side of the world. The military is tough on family life any way you look at it and there isn’t a cookie cutter solution that can fix all of the problems.
For me, this trip I’m just soul weary tired, 4 trips out here is beginning to add up and it’s tough to keep that cheery grin on my face or to find the words to put words down on paper. The last year was a bit rough on my psyche and I haven’t a chance to patch all of the holes that have been made. It all adds up in the end.
If I haven’t proved it in the past, I do write when I’m depressed but that’s not exactly what I’m feeling right now. I just a sense of numbness in my brain, I’m trying to talk some of them out, the heartache I’m feeling isn’t for me, it’s for the people whom I work with and care about. It sucks not having an answer to such big questions when they are so desperately. My head feels like I’ve stretched something too far and it broke away.
Speaking of away, while I wasn’t typing on the keyboard I did get a chance to read everything by an author named Jim Butcher and Bane, I agree, thanks for the tip. One of the ingredients that probably added to my writers block was the lack of sleep I was getting because I couldn’t stop reading. Seriously, he’s good.
I’m sorry for not popping my head up for an entire month, every writer I know hits a low point in their writing and this has been mine. Some days they flow from my fingers but I just haven’t found it lately and I’m not one of those people that like tossing up words.
I did a two blog post a while back ago called Twilight of the Deployment (take one and take two) and I can’t really improve on either of them with this block filling up my head just to note that my unit is in that period of time.
The Dear John’s or Jane’s have started trickling in one party, here or there is shocked and can’t believe it’s happening to them. It’s that season of the deployment, between the middle till right before we get home. I’ve been here before and most of the Staff NCO’s I work with are on their second or third marriage, it’s the junior guys that worry me. Right now is where relationships crumble, one party realizes that they really don’t like being alone or that their significant other isn’t the “One” or meets someone special who isn’t far away and don’t know how to break it off with someone on the other side of the world then waits till right before they get home. There is no easy way to break off a serious relationship.
Where one party is lonely and falls for someone they are interacting with daily and breaks the relationship off. The spouse that cleans out the bank account and max’s out credit cards out of spite and disappears. Tired of the lack of email, phone calls, letters, etc. Tired of how the other party is spending their finances.
I see these stories every single day, the names and faces change and as a leader or a healer, you have to help these people make something constructive out of the crap that life took on them. For an air unit like mine, it’s not the suicide bombers or the mortars that cause most of us to toss and turn at night or think it’s not worth it anymore. It’s the worry about the person we expected to spend the rest of our lives with on the other side of the world. The military is tough on family life any way you look at it and there isn’t a cookie cutter solution that can fix all of the problems.
For me, this trip I’m just soul weary tired, 4 trips out here is beginning to add up and it’s tough to keep that cheery grin on my face or to find the words to put words down on paper. The last year was a bit rough on my psyche and I haven’t a chance to patch all of the holes that have been made. It all adds up in the end.
If I haven’t proved it in the past, I do write when I’m depressed but that’s not exactly what I’m feeling right now. I just a sense of numbness in my brain, I’m trying to talk some of them out, the heartache I’m feeling isn’t for me, it’s for the people whom I work with and care about. It sucks not having an answer to such big questions when they are so desperately. My head feels like I’ve stretched something too far and it broke away.
Speaking of away, while I wasn’t typing on the keyboard I did get a chance to read everything by an author named Jim Butcher and Bane, I agree, thanks for the tip. One of the ingredients that probably added to my writers block was the lack of sleep I was getting because I couldn’t stop reading. Seriously, he’s good.
I’m sorry for not popping my head up for an entire month, every writer I know hits a low point in their writing and this has been mine. Some days they flow from my fingers but I just haven’t found it lately and I’m not one of those people that like tossing up words.
Friday, May 02, 2008
A ticket to 1408
Just got done watching 1408 and I’m thinking it might be truly the spookest movie I’ve seen in years, John Cusack is the man. It’s going to give me dreams when I go to sleep. I’m not going to get into it more but to say, watch it, I would highly recommend it, yes, highly.
No good deed goes unpunished, I got dimed out from several different sources to put together the video that’s going to run during the 110th Corpsman Birthday ball so I’d better get rolling on getting the pictures and videos and pasting them together into something that seems magical. Lets see what I can come up with. Any of my readers received the video I sent out yet? Thoughts?
Hope everyone had a great week, next post should be about the great sand storm once I get the words together. Take care.
No good deed goes unpunished, I got dimed out from several different sources to put together the video that’s going to run during the 110th Corpsman Birthday ball so I’d better get rolling on getting the pictures and videos and pasting them together into something that seems magical. Lets see what I can come up with. Any of my readers received the video I sent out yet? Thoughts?
Hope everyone had a great week, next post should be about the great sand storm once I get the words together. Take care.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Playing with new toys
Sorry about the blogging hiatus, I’m in the process of shutting down my old laptop and getting my new one spun up and backing up everything twice. This is the first laptop that I’ve actually maxed out the RAM and it books. I’ve taken it though it’s paces and haven’t been able to find anything that really slows it down. Even when it had 2 gigs of RAM, editing a half hour movie only caused a few second pause and processing the movie? 15 minutes.
There still is a dent in my wallet but like everything, it’s a speed bump in the past since I did have the spare change sitting around. There were no loans or credit card payments to worry about.
I’ve also started of all things, water aerobics. Yes, there is a pull on this base with clean cool refreshing water. It’s a definite change of scenery being out in the desert and only a short walk away from the barracks. I didn’t know what I was missing.
Currently the weather is dusty and windy with occasional brownouts where you can’t see more then 10 feet away. Daily clean up is a necessity and I fear taking the new laptop out of the plastic bag I have it secreted in till the dust goes down.
My greatest money saving photographical purchase has been a lens filter for the Canon S3, I received the filter in the mail and originally thought, this thing is huge. It covered up the entire telescopic portion of the camera with a tube and the filter screwed on the end and gave it a larger footprint. In my head I was thinking “Oh man, when am I ever going to use this?”.
Then the first dust storm happened and the lens hood totally blocked out the dust and when I had the camera in my cargo pocket and accidentally bumped the power button, the lens wasn’t jamming against the sides of my pocket which is one of the top killers of digital cameras (broken gears and motors). Instead it would turn on, open up in it’s space then close when it timed out without me ever knowing. Don’t have to worry about scratched lenses and can take pictures in the midst of the gnarliest dust storm without the fear of my camera dying.
Other news, the real reason I haven’t blogged is because I’m suffering some serious writers block, I’d write a few lines and my thoughts would fragment. Maybe the 4 trips out to this place are getting to me? I’m up for orders in January and am still unsure of where I’m going, hopefully get a change to call my detailer tonight and be able to get an answer. Take care everyone and hope you are all safe.
There still is a dent in my wallet but like everything, it’s a speed bump in the past since I did have the spare change sitting around. There were no loans or credit card payments to worry about.
I’ve also started of all things, water aerobics. Yes, there is a pull on this base with clean cool refreshing water. It’s a definite change of scenery being out in the desert and only a short walk away from the barracks. I didn’t know what I was missing.
Currently the weather is dusty and windy with occasional brownouts where you can’t see more then 10 feet away. Daily clean up is a necessity and I fear taking the new laptop out of the plastic bag I have it secreted in till the dust goes down.
My greatest money saving photographical purchase has been a lens filter for the Canon S3, I received the filter in the mail and originally thought, this thing is huge. It covered up the entire telescopic portion of the camera with a tube and the filter screwed on the end and gave it a larger footprint. In my head I was thinking “Oh man, when am I ever going to use this?”.
Then the first dust storm happened and the lens hood totally blocked out the dust and when I had the camera in my cargo pocket and accidentally bumped the power button, the lens wasn’t jamming against the sides of my pocket which is one of the top killers of digital cameras (broken gears and motors). Instead it would turn on, open up in it’s space then close when it timed out without me ever knowing. Don’t have to worry about scratched lenses and can take pictures in the midst of the gnarliest dust storm without the fear of my camera dying.
Other news, the real reason I haven’t blogged is because I’m suffering some serious writers block, I’d write a few lines and my thoughts would fragment. Maybe the 4 trips out to this place are getting to me? I’m up for orders in January and am still unsure of where I’m going, hopefully get a change to call my detailer tonight and be able to get an answer. Take care everyone and hope you are all safe.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Little Black Bunny of Doom
Going to war has always been a somewhat mythical experience, legends often rise up and just as many are dashed to the ground (well really, mostly just rumors and stories). One such tale I've heard over the last couple years (since 2006) as been of a black bunny who comes out at dusk and goes up to strangers and allows them to pet him. Yeah, right, in the middle of war zone with some sort of howling beasts that live in the waddee a couple hundred feet away and face it, I know that there are some very unfriendly military folk out here. This has to be one of those urban myths that they use on the new guys fresh off the plane, I'm not about to fall for it.
Well I was walking home the other night, the light was at my back and a black blur came up on my left and I froze and looked and along came a little black bunny. He hopped right up to me as friendly as can be and puts his head on my foot. And my hand without asking my brain for permission, reached down and started scratching him behind his ears like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I sat there dumb stuck as the light drained from the day and continued petting him. What do I do now? Who's going to believe me, oh, yeah, me being me, had my trusty camera in my pocket and was able to prove to the non-believers that indeed, there is a friendly black bunny that comes out to be petted in the twilight. I gave him a granola bar from my pocket and went out to share a little bit of the mystery of the bunny with the rest of my Marines. It's not often you get to prove a legend on film.
Well I was walking home the other night, the light was at my back and a black blur came up on my left and I froze and looked and along came a little black bunny. He hopped right up to me as friendly as can be and puts his head on my foot. And my hand without asking my brain for permission, reached down and started scratching him behind his ears like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I sat there dumb stuck as the light drained from the day and continued petting him. What do I do now? Who's going to believe me, oh, yeah, me being me, had my trusty camera in my pocket and was able to prove to the non-believers that indeed, there is a friendly black bunny that comes out to be petted in the twilight. I gave him a granola bar from my pocket and went out to share a little bit of the mystery of the bunny with the rest of my Marines. It's not often you get to prove a legend on film.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Break down.
I’ve complained about my laptop for the past year or so, battery had gone out on it, the fan was making strange sounds and it was having problems processing anything. So I cleaned out the fan, added another gig of ram and got the biggest battery they make for my model and why?
A while back, being the unit photo dude, I was asked by one of my higher ups to make up a mid deployment unit video and started putting my pictures and video footage together and ran into a snag, even with the 2 gigs of RAM from Newegg I had purchased, my computer still wasn’t cutting it. My new camera’s video footage was more then the poor thing could handle and each time I added something new, it would lock up for hours at a time which caused my brain to start melting down.
So the other day, I got fed up, walked over to the exchange and purchased a Toshiba Satellite X205-S9800 with a 512 Video Card, basically a gaming laptop 4 or 5 times faster then anything I have ever owned and paying 200 dollars more then they were selling it on Newegg because I needed it right then and there, $1449, ack! That’s more then I’ve paid for at least 6 of my vehicles and more then I’ve paid for 3 of them put together.
But man, this thing flies and I got home and found out it only cost 72 bucks to max out the RAM to 4 gigs, yup, clicked on that button too. Video editing suddenly was a somewhat pleasurable thing again, now I just need to get a bag to protect the thing when I start lugging it’s 9 and a half pound behemoth weight around. My old one is going over to my wife’s care so I can’t offer it to anybody, at least for what she does, it will work with the 2 gigs of RAM and the new double sized battery.
For now, I’m as happy as a clam, if a somewhat poorer clam and the squadron video has been completed and for those who sent me care packages, expect a copy sometime in the mail. 32 minutes of audio and visual goodness. Have a good night everyone, I have to go catch up on some zzz’s.
A while back, being the unit photo dude, I was asked by one of my higher ups to make up a mid deployment unit video and started putting my pictures and video footage together and ran into a snag, even with the 2 gigs of RAM from Newegg I had purchased, my computer still wasn’t cutting it. My new camera’s video footage was more then the poor thing could handle and each time I added something new, it would lock up for hours at a time which caused my brain to start melting down.
So the other day, I got fed up, walked over to the exchange and purchased a Toshiba Satellite X205-S9800 with a 512 Video Card, basically a gaming laptop 4 or 5 times faster then anything I have ever owned and paying 200 dollars more then they were selling it on Newegg because I needed it right then and there, $1449, ack! That’s more then I’ve paid for at least 6 of my vehicles and more then I’ve paid for 3 of them put together.
But man, this thing flies and I got home and found out it only cost 72 bucks to max out the RAM to 4 gigs, yup, clicked on that button too. Video editing suddenly was a somewhat pleasurable thing again, now I just need to get a bag to protect the thing when I start lugging it’s 9 and a half pound behemoth weight around. My old one is going over to my wife’s care so I can’t offer it to anybody, at least for what she does, it will work with the 2 gigs of RAM and the new double sized battery.
For now, I’m as happy as a clam, if a somewhat poorer clam and the squadron video has been completed and for those who sent me care packages, expect a copy sometime in the mail. 32 minutes of audio and visual goodness. Have a good night everyone, I have to go catch up on some zzz’s.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Head in the Sand, Eye on the Lens
Sorry about not raising it up, I’m in the middle of working on the unit midterm cruise book video and the project has taken up a rather large footprint on my brain. By virtue of being the guy behind the camera, I tend to get caught in the side jobs of putting all of the pictures I took together into a cohesive whole. It’s a little bit of pressure on me because it’s not one of those jobs someone gets trained at doing, just something I’ve picked up over time.
Each time I do a new project, I add to my skill set and gather up newer more expensive equipment but nothing can really cut the time back on looking at thousands of pictures and videos and putting them all together. I’m imagining (dreaming about a day) sometime in the future that I’ll be able gather a geeky representative from each shop and give them a class on how to make movies and let them choose and gather what footage they want to use off of the share drive and how to put it into a movie and we can go over each others work. Alas, this time it is not to be.
While personally I do take more pictures then everybody else in my unit, but there are swaths of people who I hardly ever see unless I send out an email saying that I need to give them a shot. Some of the officers rarely emerge out of their Batcaves and stalking them like paparazzi doesn’t really work. Waiting in the bushes for that ring of the Batphone to call them out, blinking in the unfamiliar bright light is just a waste of time.
Besides, the stalking thing only works in Hollywood. Out here? I’ll probably have security folks jump me and beat me with sticks till I cry for momma and drag me away in zip ties (no they don’t beat people with sticks, that’s just my overactive imagination after watching the new Rambo movie). That doesn’t raise any of my fun alarms.
Well back to my music video grind, hopefully I can get my codex’s working so my computer can stop crashing. My S-6 (IT guys), tell me that I’m wasting my talents in the medical field because I understand their world better then some of them. Who knows, maybe I’ll go down that route when I grow up.
Happy hump day everyone!
Each time I do a new project, I add to my skill set and gather up newer more expensive equipment but nothing can really cut the time back on looking at thousands of pictures and videos and putting them all together. I’m imagining (dreaming about a day) sometime in the future that I’ll be able gather a geeky representative from each shop and give them a class on how to make movies and let them choose and gather what footage they want to use off of the share drive and how to put it into a movie and we can go over each others work. Alas, this time it is not to be.
While personally I do take more pictures then everybody else in my unit, but there are swaths of people who I hardly ever see unless I send out an email saying that I need to give them a shot. Some of the officers rarely emerge out of their Batcaves and stalking them like paparazzi doesn’t really work. Waiting in the bushes for that ring of the Batphone to call them out, blinking in the unfamiliar bright light is just a waste of time.
Besides, the stalking thing only works in Hollywood. Out here? I’ll probably have security folks jump me and beat me with sticks till I cry for momma and drag me away in zip ties (no they don’t beat people with sticks, that’s just my overactive imagination after watching the new Rambo movie). That doesn’t raise any of my fun alarms.
Well back to my music video grind, hopefully I can get my codex’s working so my computer can stop crashing. My S-6 (IT guys), tell me that I’m wasting my talents in the medical field because I understand their world better then some of them. Who knows, maybe I’ll go down that route when I grow up.
Happy hump day everyone!
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Sean Dustman, Columnist?
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from an editor at the Navy Times asking me to do a column on their back page called Backtalk. I thought for a couple of days, wrote up a post and a couple of days later, submitted a very edited version of that post with some pictures. They liked it and it sounds like it will be in the next edition of both the Navy and the Marine Corps Time with a possibility of future articles. So welcome new readers to my stomping grounds and I hope you enjoy your stay.
Also if any of you want to see the official side of what is going on in my area. The 3rd Marine Air Wing (Fwd) just started a blog with all of the articles they’ve submitted from this area and some videos. They’re just stepping into the blogosphere and I told them I would pass some traffic on their way plus I’m their technical consultant. Some good stories that don’t reach the Main Stream Media.
Also if any of you want to see the official side of what is going on in my area. The 3rd Marine Air Wing (Fwd) just started a blog with all of the articles they’ve submitted from this area and some videos. They’re just stepping into the blogosphere and I told them I would pass some traffic on their way plus I’m their technical consultant. Some good stories that don’t reach the Main Stream Media.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
I missed an afternoon
Last Sunday, I took most of the afternoon off and went to my room and watched SciFi channels Children of Dune in its entirety and ate sweet rice with fish sauce and crushed red chili. Basically disconnected from everything behind the comfort of my blue walls and kicked my feet up. Little did I know that outside a storm was raging, the dust had got so bad inside of my work that fire alarms were going off and there had been a classic “Mummy” style wall of dust that overtook the base prior to a rain storm but I didn’t feel or sense a thing.
When my room mate and I moved in, we turned the pink room into a fortress, insulated windows, automotive grade blue paint and almost airtight doors. When the door shuts we’re cut off from the rest of the world.
What finally did get my attention was the concrete building I lived in, started to shake from a roll of thunder and I went outside to look. Lightning, rain and darkness had covered the landscape. When I had come home at 2, there was a clear blue sky without a cloud in sight.
The next morning, I came in to people asking me if I had got some pictures and video of the dust storm moving in and was sad to say that I had totally missed it.
Also wanted to send out some words of thanks, Martin, thank you very very much for the big ticket item you purchased from my Amazon Wish List, all I can say is wow. I’ve always wanted one but never got around to buying it, don’t worry, we’ll definitely get some good use out of it. Cathy and Josh, thank you for the care packages and coffee, Troop 859, thank you for the huge box of Girl Scout cookies, I passed out all but one box which I kept for myself. Thank you for the support everyone!
I decided to hold off buying the new laptop for a little while even though the paint is coming off of the speaker covers and they’ve started to rust. I purchased a 12 cell battery and 2 gigs of RAM, which should extend the life another few months, the grinding sound from the fan finally stopped, either that bearing wore smooth of the piece of sand jammed in there fell out. Everything is backed up at least.
When my room mate and I moved in, we turned the pink room into a fortress, insulated windows, automotive grade blue paint and almost airtight doors. When the door shuts we’re cut off from the rest of the world.
What finally did get my attention was the concrete building I lived in, started to shake from a roll of thunder and I went outside to look. Lightning, rain and darkness had covered the landscape. When I had come home at 2, there was a clear blue sky without a cloud in sight.
The next morning, I came in to people asking me if I had got some pictures and video of the dust storm moving in and was sad to say that I had totally missed it.
Also wanted to send out some words of thanks, Martin, thank you very very much for the big ticket item you purchased from my Amazon Wish List, all I can say is wow. I’ve always wanted one but never got around to buying it, don’t worry, we’ll definitely get some good use out of it. Cathy and Josh, thank you for the care packages and coffee, Troop 859, thank you for the huge box of Girl Scout cookies, I passed out all but one box which I kept for myself. Thank you for the support everyone!
I decided to hold off buying the new laptop for a little while even though the paint is coming off of the speaker covers and they’ve started to rust. I purchased a 12 cell battery and 2 gigs of RAM, which should extend the life another few months, the grinding sound from the fan finally stopped, either that bearing wore smooth of the piece of sand jammed in there fell out. Everything is backed up at least.
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