274

So, a month has passed since my last post and I have gotten a fair amount done.

1. I’ve been working on “The Free Box” as Producer (I do a lot more than produce the show. I act as camera assistant, sound/boom op, lighting, as well as a little editing help here and there and I’ve played a bit part in an episode) for a couple months now and I’m trying to get it to start snowballing. The first step to this was to get a website built. So I built one, and it’s functional on most browsers. Not including IE, but lets face it… IE sucks!!! Anyway, the site is up and working and I’ve just about finished the DVD of the first 10 episodes. Also, I’m working on posters and I will be making buttons soon-ish too.

2. I worked a lot these last couple months and it’s all about to pay off. I’m going to be able to pay the bulk of my smaller debts so i can put more focus and money towards the line of credit I took out to purchase my video equipment and car. It’s a small step, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’ll soon be able to chunk out portions of it rather than allocating those funds to other credit bills. Unfortunately I, like many other people around the world, got myself into some financial troubles. I’m not going to be there for any longer than I need to be now from here on out.

3. I’m feeling pretty sure about my chance to play bass in my buddies project. My good friend Jared and I went yesterday to have a group tryout. Ryan and I play really well together. Jared and I used to play in a band together and after that project fell apart Jared jumped over to play bass in Ryan’s previous project, Aisle 3. So, we all know each other and how we play. It’s really kind of a perfect setup. In the next few weeks I’ll be invited over to play in front of Ryan’s producer and lay down a few tracks to see how i grove with the project. If all is good I will simply have to patiently wait for Ryan to finish recording. Once done we will begin practicing like crazy getting ready to hit the road and I will begin a new chapter of my life.

4. I’ve been interested in photography for a long time now. I prefer video and went that route with most of my schooling but I’ve always loved certain forms of photography. That being said, I’ve decided to take it on as yet another hobby. I started with my brother, Geof Happens, as a subject and came out with some very interesting results. I now have three others lined up to shoot. I’m going to be experimenting heavily with different lighting when I do so. My goal is to have very dark and beautiful shots with a lot of shadow play along with blown out imagery. I think both of those extreme differences are quite rad!

5. Finally, I’ve been working with my buddy, Mike Lazear, to get Die Laughing Media up and running. We’re setting it up to be an all inclusive web/video/photography/print business; specializing in modern, abstract, fresh and interesting designs. My goal is to get work making interactive media for bands and movie based projects.

I will be attempting to keep up more regularly from here on out.
Possibly a weekly post

Until then

304

This is the first post that I’ve done in a little over a month. I’ve been busy!

Here’s a break down.

First and foremost I’ve been working more. I picked up five jobs from Turnhere, whom I get freelance video work through. For what I have to do the money is alright. I would prefer to make a little more but I’m not going to complain about it in this economy. I’ve been putting my time into video tutorials as I like to do. The ones I’ve been focusing on as of late have been custom Flash video player and Action Script 3 as well as honing my CSS skills. I’m really starting to understand it now. I can actually read and visualize the code. It’s pretty neat! Also, I’ve been looking into becoming the videographer for the Rose City Rollers Portland Roller Derby. It would be a pretty sweet gig. I’m not going to hold my breath, but my brother is an MC for them so i sort of have an in.

So… I’ve now built 3 websites. One for myself (which will be changing soon as I change my company name), one for Lukas Ketner (which needs a few little tweaks and then it will go live) and one for Ryan Dain (which will go live once everything is ready to go. A couple months most likely). I’m now also building a site for The Free Box a portland web series that I’m now acting as producer for. The site is in the design stages and will probably be ready to go live in the next week or two. I will also be helping to design and create the first volume DVD of the show. This means I will hep to create the DVD menu and the package art. I’m also going to through down an attempt at writing an episode or ideas for them to implement in the show: Gags, Scenes, Dialogue, etc…

And to top off what I’ve been doing.
I’ve been working on getting my bass chops back in an attempt to be the bass player for my buddies project. I’ve jammed with him a couple times now, the last time being a couple days ago, and we play really well together. Our musical tastes and styles mix really well and our general personalities are a good fit too. Basically at this point I have to play for his producer and see what he thinks. If I can convince him that I’m a rock star, then I will be a rock star! That would be a great accomplishment for the year.

Until next time

335

These last couple days have been pretty productive. I’ve managed to get my website up as stage one. I’ve got some stuff to do to it still and some more stuff to add to it to make a nice functional website, but it’s up and working. I’ve been watching a lot of Flash tutorials, learning how to write Action-Script. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass! But I’m getting it. My plan is to make a really nice all encompassing media player that I can put on my site and possibly sell for a few bucks here and there to whomever might be interested.
I’m very possibly going to be working with a new acquaintance on a workout program/website. There are some interesting details going into it, but he’s a programmer and I’m becoming a Flash designer. So, it could work out.

I’ve gotten back onto the writing train. Bringing some scripts back that I need to get done. I have two of them in the works and I’m going to start putting some serious attention towards them to hopefully get first drafts done here in the next month or so. I did some brainstorming today with Drew from ‘The Free Box’ and got some serious headway.

To top things off for the week, Kim (my lady) and I took a big step and got some of our collaborative designs onto Zazzle in an attempt to make some extra income. We’re not banking on this coming through, but if it does… cool beans. We plan on making new designs every couple weeks and keeping it fresh and fun.

Until next week

344

(late)

I’ve been spending some time editing photos I took of my brother. I’m trying to key out the green screen we used. It shouldn’t be too hard, but sometimes chroma key can be touch and difficult.

until later

346

(late)

I’m constantly trying to keep myself busy so that i have things to write about. I’m finding that it’s rather hard. Some days I don’t really do anything but watch video tutorials and go to work. I sometimes don’t feel like doing the tutorials, so I just watch other things and screw off on the internet until I have to go to work. it was kinda nice having a day job simply because it gave me something to do. Now that I’ve been laid off from my job I need to find things to keep me busy. Luckily web design is vast and I have tons of information available to me through Lynda.com. Unfortunately, there’s nothing quite as boring as watching video tutorials. It’s really not too much fun. But, I have learned a lot in the last couple weeks. I now understand CSS and can build functional web pages. So that’s good.

until later

347

I got up a little late because Kim didn’t have to be in to work until 11ish, so we stayed warm. Once up I got dressed grabbed my equipment and shot out the door to go down town for a photoshoot with my brother Geof Happens. Geof is preparing to be an announcer for the Rose City Rollers and is trying to build a personality. So, I took my camera and lights and got some pretty awesome shots. After the shoot I spent a little time setting up his soon-to-be website. It shall be interesting to see it all come together.

Kim met me at five and we went home to grab some food before going to see Stella. It was a great show! I’ve been a big fan for a while now. Following them sense they were in ‘The State’.

until tomorrow

348

Today was mostly spent with Mike working on web stuff. We got to a stage were we have to wait until he is able to finish some of the back end coding for us to move forward. But everything is looking good.

I’ve been practicing bass and I’m getting my muscle memory back. It’s always an interesting process to get your body to do something that it did regularly for a while after not doing it regularly for years. It can be frustrating at times because you feel like you should be able to do right away but you can’t.

This week I will mainly be practicing bass, working on web designs and watching video tutorials. I told myself that I would get good at this stuff and I’m going to no matter how boring it may be some times. Perseverance!

349

(I’ve gotten behind)

Sunday, I got up late because it’s my usual day off. Kim and I went and did our shopping run which we usually do on Sundays because we have the day off together. So, we got a lot of food which will hopefully keeps us good for a couple weeks.

After shopping we got home and chilled out for a little while before going up to my mom’s place for dinner. After dinner we played a board game and looked a pictures from my mom’s box of pictures that go back a long way. It was interesting and fun.

350

(1 day late)

I had a pretty interesting day. I got up and did some work at home, web design stuff mainly, and watched a few video tutorials. Then I got all my stuff together and headed over to Ryan’s place. I was going to jam with him to get a feel for how each other play; a sort of try out for his band. First we went over some design features he wanted to incorporate to the layout we already had. This involved placing the new name font design and character logo into place. With these elements in place we did some overhauling in general to make the site pop! Ryan is now very pleased with it, so I’m accomplishing my job very well. After working on design we picked up our guitars and jammed. I was a bit nervous but also really out of it because I hadn’t eaten anything yet and my blood sugar was crazy low making me spacey and lightheaded.

I took of from Ryan’s to meet up with Mike to work on the site some more. We changed over all the design elements Ryan and I had made and got the site looking dope and functional. A little more attention to the back end coding and we’re going to have a kick ass site. I ate, which made me feel levels better and I also got tickets to go see Stella. I’m pretty excited!

Here are some photo’s I took from my brothers concert.

Until Later

351

(one day late)

Somehow my counting system seems to be off. So this post isn’t actually 351, but may instead be 350. I’m not too sure yet. But it doesn’t really matter.

So, today was fairly productive. I met up with Lukas Ketner to discuss his website. I had an alpha version for him to check out. He liked it quite a bit but, of course, had some changes he wanted to make. So, this next week I should be getting the fixes done and getting his site posted online at which point I will be a professional web designer. Granted I have a long way to go to be really good at this craft, but thanks to help from Mike Lazear I’m well on my way.

Following that meeting I went to meet up with my boss Mohammed Soriano Bilal for whom I’ve been doing video work for the past 8 or so months. Where he reluctantly had to give me notice that I was being let go do to cut backs. I didn’t take the news poorly. I was expecting it. Mo and I parted after a really good conversation and I went to go get CS4 studio. I found a great deal, and was hoping that it was going to be legit. It turns out that it was and I got a great deal! Sometimes it’s all about being savy and looking for deals. In this day and age if you can save money, do it!

Later in the evening I ended up going to see my brothers band play where I was asked to take pictures. I’ll post some of them soon.

Until tomorrow