Update 7/05
Well, I couldn’t help but notice that I hadn’t updated my blog in nearly a month, so I decided to finally get off my ass and report what’s up.
For the week of June 19th, I went to Tijuana Mexico. I was encouraged by a few somewhat less pious friends of mine to “go get some ass” in Tijuana, but considering that I was going with my church youth group and don’t do that shit in the first place, I decided not to, mm-kay? Besides, I had much more important things to do within the course of the week. Stuff that I didn’t know I was getting into when I first signed on for the trip.
But before I go into that, first I should explain what the trip was actually about. See, my church goes to this orphanage in Tijuana called the Casa De La Esperanza “The House of Hope”) every several months to do repairs on the orphanage’s facilities. For example, this time around we built a rock wall, made curtains, built a new den for the and began production on a ten room shower (which should be finished next time we go down there.) We also get to spend lots of time with the kids down at the orphanage, but I signed up to go down there thinking that I would be engaging in this type of labor myself. I was wrong.
Weeks before the trip, I was contacted/called up/e-mailed by the two people who were leading the trip: the Pastor’s wife, Leta, and Chad, the guy with the biggest beard in our church. I should know because I have the second biggest beard. Anyhoo, they both contacted me about doing a video presentation of the trip. Leta wanted one 3 minute presentation of the trip to show in church during services and one 15 minute presentation to show people who might be interested in investing in the church’s activities and anyone else who wanted a copy. I thought about it and it didn’t seem to check out with me. I figured with the amount of work I have to do this summer (working on my own movie and working as Sebastian’s aide) it would be highly inefficient for me to engage in this project. Especially since I remember promising Erik months ago that I would not engage in anymore film projects until “Amber” was finished. I like to keep to my word, so I told them that the most I could offer them was maybe some pictures that I took on the trip.
So this other guy, David, comes along. He goes to my church and takes film classes at College of Marin. More than I did. He should be able to do the video perfectly fine, right? Wrong. Sure, he started doing it and got some interviews with people ahead of time, but a week before the trip goes on, he gets kicked out of his apartment and can’t go on the trip because he needs to find a new place to live. So now, I’m the only one on the trip who has any video editing experience whatsoever and the whole church is relying on me to do it. Total stress fest! Fortunately for me, Chad decided to lighten my load by having the church fund my expedition on the trip and lending me his laptop to use on the trip to edit video with. Total relief. Chad was awesome. He even bought a fire wire card for his laptop with the church’s money just to use on the trip. There’s a real pal.
So on Sunday, June 19th, I began my video production by the filming the people going on the trip packing up the large buses we would be going in. By the way, if you haven’t grabbed a sandwich for lunch now, but you intend on finishing this post, I highly suggest you go make one because you’re gonna be here for a while. I dumped the footage to Chad’s computer the next day and began editing while we were in Mexico. It was a two day ride just getting down there and we had to spend the night at a Motel 6. Can you imagine being stuck in a van for nearly ten hours? Yowza! The good thing though was that I got to watch “Batman Forever” at the motel after having seen “Batman Begins” in the theatres the past Saturday. Got to compare the two. The new one is darker and better.
The bad news is, I probably should have gone to sleep instead because we woke up at 7:00 the next morning and I was tired as hell. But it was something to get used to. For the rest of the week, we would all be getting up at 7:00 and the little kids at the orphanage would come in and jump on our beds if we didn’t. I would spend almost every day of the week running around with my video camera taping everything I thought might be good in the video, then retreating to the dormitories where I would become king of the bedroom, deciding who would come in and who would not. See, the little Mexican kids, as sweet as they were, would usually spend a lot of the time by my mattress on the floor because I had all the cool electronic stuff they wanted to play with. The computer, the cameras, the CD player, everything. It was a good chance for me to practice my Spanish though, especially words like “no” which happens to be a word not exclusive to the English language, thank God.
So yeah, the trip was good, the kids were great, we got a lot of work done and then some. And since the kids were so awesome, they’re getting their own video montages in my 15 minute presentation. What was also fun though was going to Rosarita, a little tourist town that’s several miles away from Tijuana. We had dinner there one night and then split up for a night on the town going to little shops and the like while down there. I got a few fancy cigarette lighters and some gifts for my folks, while some of the high school kids from our group got knives and other dangerously cool stuff. It didn’t dawn on us until later that if we crossed the border back the U.S. and got stopped by the federalis, we would be in deep shit if they found out we bought knives. After all, I did hear that the last time we were down there, Leta got in trouble for taking home Cuban cigars. Imagine what they would charge us for knives. But we got home safely anyway, even having brought back live birds with us that would have died down there.
I think though that the most fun we ever had on the trip was the last night we were down there. Another guy in our group, Roger, decided to show us a neat trick with the lighters we bought and some ordinary aroma spray. Did you know that if you cover the palm of your hand in aroma spray and light it on fire you can set your hand on fire for a split second and not get burnt at all? It’s good fun if you know how to do it right. I brought a webcam down there with me and we recorded ourselves lighting ourselves on fire. Awesome stuff. If you wanna see, e-mail me and we can arrange something. Hell, I didn’t stop until I singed my leg hairs off. Good times.
But back to reality, I continued to edit the video. By the end of the week, I hadn’t nearly come close to finishing the 15 minute video and it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be able to show anything to my church the following Sunday. Fortunately for me, they allowed me another week to finish it. Good stuff, although I think that since I didn’t exactly finish it for this past Sunday like I thought I would, some people might be getting antsy. But they can wait a little bit longer. It’s almost done anyway. Only thing is I haven’t told Erik that I’m working on this video. I’m worried that when he finds out, he’ll probably call me a liar and a hypocrite no matter how many times I try to explain the situation to him and then talk about deducting my pay for the movie work. The truth is though, the church video hasn’t cut into the movie work too much.
But enough of that. How was your fourth of July? Mine was eventful. I didn’t go to the fair, but that’s only because I’d already been this year on the first day it opened. I had a discount coupon from the newspaper for a specific day, so I went with Sebastian. Now Seb, mind you has not been on any rides since middle school. Considering that he was too heavy for his mom to load him out of his wheelchair and onto the rides and he had too baggy pants to be picked up in. So this time, we solved that by buying him a belt at the fair and having one of the fair hands help me lift him into the spinner. It was a dizzying experience for both of us and he had whiplash for the next 24 hours combined with a stomachache, headache and a killer sunburn that we both got. But it was worth it just going on that one ride alone. We also spent a lot of time in the carnival games where we got several smashing prizes. I had no idea I could shoot a gun so well.
On the way back we passed through several sales booths and my mood was ruined when I saw the Democratic Party stand. Yeah, it’s about time I got political. The Democratic Party having their say is perfectly alright by me, but these guys in particular were selling bumper stickers that had all kinds of rude messages on them, “Buck Fush” being one of them. Rearrange the letters and you get the real message of the bumper sticker. Now, it’s alright with me if someone sports a bumper sticker on their car telling everyone what their political orientation is and they can joke about the other guy if they want, but when someone starts putting swear words and dirty language on their bumper stickers, that’s just rude, mm-kay?
Guy with hand up: Umm, but technically they didn’t put any swear words on their bumper sticker. “Fush” isn’t even a word.
Me: Actually, they put it on their cars because they really want to say “Fuck Bush.” It doesn’t matter how it’s misspelled because that’s what they really want to say. Besides, how would you like it if I rode around on my bicycle with a sign saying “Kerry, Edwards, and anyone else who stands up against Bush is a PUCKING FUSSY.” Wouldn’t you feel insulted?
Guy with hand up: Dude, you’re a NASSHOLE! (Storms off.)
Me: Right. Anyone else wanna have a go? Didn’t think so. Moving on.
Anyhoo, on to the real Fourth of July. I went with my folks to the town parade, which apparently started in Novato and went all the way down to my town. My friend Richard’s dad was running the square-dancing event as usual. Also, the parade announcer was the best one I can remember. The guy knew a lot about American history and there was something he said in starting off that rung true to a surprising number of people in the audience. He said something to the extent of this: “I’ve heard a lot of terrific war stories even going on right now. Stories that you’ll never hear in the San Francisco Chronicle. Good stories about the war. So let’s a give our boys in green a big hand.” And indeed, a lot of people did applaud. Even my friend Richard who I know is a Democrat, though he did so with some remorse. To no one’s surprise, the announcer must have been a Republican.
Now, I’ll say this up front. It’s not a wise practice to get publicly political at big holiday events. We’re have the Fourth of July to celebrate a war that happened 240 years ago, but not one that’s happening now because this war hasn’t been remembered as a success yet. Indeed, most soldiers are happily returning to Iraq to fight more of the war. Seb’s friend Dan is in the U.S. Army stationed in Iraq and hasn’t hesitated to return at the end of any trip he takes there (Gee, I wonder why.) But still, you don’t talk about current events into a microphone on Independence Day because it’s not the point of the day.
So as the parade went on, the shows the paraders put on were totally awesome this time around. The announcer was happy to announce each one. And just when almost all the floats had gone by and you could swear you were in the green with political jib jab on this glorious day, BAM! A law firm comes parading by with giant paper maché heads of the GOP looking very evil and a car that’s covered with Republican slamming stuff. What the announcer did was one thing, but these guys were just being rude. I mean sure, they’d done that stuff for several years now and it used to be more than one float like that. It still sorta ruins the day though. Made me wish I’d brought some eggs.
Conscience: Careful there, son. You never liked it when you read about Democrats attacking Republicans in that manner or even worse. You’d be no worse than them if you did the same as they did.
Me: I know, but I’m getting to the end of my tether with that. With the stories that I’ve heard, it would indeed give me a few moments of pleasure to eggs a few rude Democrats just for payback, but I know I shouldn’t thanks for talking me down from that.
If I recall correctly, even the announcer got kinda mad and told the to go along and get out of there. He didn’t even bother to announce them, but why should he? Hell, I booed them out when they were on their way out. So in conclusion, keep your politics out of our holidays when you’re out in public. You’ll never know whose day you’re going to ruin.
And that’s the end of my update right there. If you stuck with me up until this point, I hereby applaud you and hope you enjoyed it.
For the week of June 19th, I went to Tijuana Mexico. I was encouraged by a few somewhat less pious friends of mine to “go get some ass” in Tijuana, but considering that I was going with my church youth group and don’t do that shit in the first place, I decided not to, mm-kay? Besides, I had much more important things to do within the course of the week. Stuff that I didn’t know I was getting into when I first signed on for the trip.
But before I go into that, first I should explain what the trip was actually about. See, my church goes to this orphanage in Tijuana called the Casa De La Esperanza “The House of Hope”) every several months to do repairs on the orphanage’s facilities. For example, this time around we built a rock wall, made curtains, built a new den for the and began production on a ten room shower (which should be finished next time we go down there.) We also get to spend lots of time with the kids down at the orphanage, but I signed up to go down there thinking that I would be engaging in this type of labor myself. I was wrong.
Weeks before the trip, I was contacted/called up/e-mailed by the two people who were leading the trip: the Pastor’s wife, Leta, and Chad, the guy with the biggest beard in our church. I should know because I have the second biggest beard. Anyhoo, they both contacted me about doing a video presentation of the trip. Leta wanted one 3 minute presentation of the trip to show in church during services and one 15 minute presentation to show people who might be interested in investing in the church’s activities and anyone else who wanted a copy. I thought about it and it didn’t seem to check out with me. I figured with the amount of work I have to do this summer (working on my own movie and working as Sebastian’s aide) it would be highly inefficient for me to engage in this project. Especially since I remember promising Erik months ago that I would not engage in anymore film projects until “Amber” was finished. I like to keep to my word, so I told them that the most I could offer them was maybe some pictures that I took on the trip.
So this other guy, David, comes along. He goes to my church and takes film classes at College of Marin. More than I did. He should be able to do the video perfectly fine, right? Wrong. Sure, he started doing it and got some interviews with people ahead of time, but a week before the trip goes on, he gets kicked out of his apartment and can’t go on the trip because he needs to find a new place to live. So now, I’m the only one on the trip who has any video editing experience whatsoever and the whole church is relying on me to do it. Total stress fest! Fortunately for me, Chad decided to lighten my load by having the church fund my expedition on the trip and lending me his laptop to use on the trip to edit video with. Total relief. Chad was awesome. He even bought a fire wire card for his laptop with the church’s money just to use on the trip. There’s a real pal.
So on Sunday, June 19th, I began my video production by the filming the people going on the trip packing up the large buses we would be going in. By the way, if you haven’t grabbed a sandwich for lunch now, but you intend on finishing this post, I highly suggest you go make one because you’re gonna be here for a while. I dumped the footage to Chad’s computer the next day and began editing while we were in Mexico. It was a two day ride just getting down there and we had to spend the night at a Motel 6. Can you imagine being stuck in a van for nearly ten hours? Yowza! The good thing though was that I got to watch “Batman Forever” at the motel after having seen “Batman Begins” in the theatres the past Saturday. Got to compare the two. The new one is darker and better.
The bad news is, I probably should have gone to sleep instead because we woke up at 7:00 the next morning and I was tired as hell. But it was something to get used to. For the rest of the week, we would all be getting up at 7:00 and the little kids at the orphanage would come in and jump on our beds if we didn’t. I would spend almost every day of the week running around with my video camera taping everything I thought might be good in the video, then retreating to the dormitories where I would become king of the bedroom, deciding who would come in and who would not. See, the little Mexican kids, as sweet as they were, would usually spend a lot of the time by my mattress on the floor because I had all the cool electronic stuff they wanted to play with. The computer, the cameras, the CD player, everything. It was a good chance for me to practice my Spanish though, especially words like “no” which happens to be a word not exclusive to the English language, thank God.
So yeah, the trip was good, the kids were great, we got a lot of work done and then some. And since the kids were so awesome, they’re getting their own video montages in my 15 minute presentation. What was also fun though was going to Rosarita, a little tourist town that’s several miles away from Tijuana. We had dinner there one night and then split up for a night on the town going to little shops and the like while down there. I got a few fancy cigarette lighters and some gifts for my folks, while some of the high school kids from our group got knives and other dangerously cool stuff. It didn’t dawn on us until later that if we crossed the border back the U.S. and got stopped by the federalis, we would be in deep shit if they found out we bought knives. After all, I did hear that the last time we were down there, Leta got in trouble for taking home Cuban cigars. Imagine what they would charge us for knives. But we got home safely anyway, even having brought back live birds with us that would have died down there.
I think though that the most fun we ever had on the trip was the last night we were down there. Another guy in our group, Roger, decided to show us a neat trick with the lighters we bought and some ordinary aroma spray. Did you know that if you cover the palm of your hand in aroma spray and light it on fire you can set your hand on fire for a split second and not get burnt at all? It’s good fun if you know how to do it right. I brought a webcam down there with me and we recorded ourselves lighting ourselves on fire. Awesome stuff. If you wanna see, e-mail me and we can arrange something. Hell, I didn’t stop until I singed my leg hairs off. Good times.
But back to reality, I continued to edit the video. By the end of the week, I hadn’t nearly come close to finishing the 15 minute video and it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be able to show anything to my church the following Sunday. Fortunately for me, they allowed me another week to finish it. Good stuff, although I think that since I didn’t exactly finish it for this past Sunday like I thought I would, some people might be getting antsy. But they can wait a little bit longer. It’s almost done anyway. Only thing is I haven’t told Erik that I’m working on this video. I’m worried that when he finds out, he’ll probably call me a liar and a hypocrite no matter how many times I try to explain the situation to him and then talk about deducting my pay for the movie work. The truth is though, the church video hasn’t cut into the movie work too much.
But enough of that. How was your fourth of July? Mine was eventful. I didn’t go to the fair, but that’s only because I’d already been this year on the first day it opened. I had a discount coupon from the newspaper for a specific day, so I went with Sebastian. Now Seb, mind you has not been on any rides since middle school. Considering that he was too heavy for his mom to load him out of his wheelchair and onto the rides and he had too baggy pants to be picked up in. So this time, we solved that by buying him a belt at the fair and having one of the fair hands help me lift him into the spinner. It was a dizzying experience for both of us and he had whiplash for the next 24 hours combined with a stomachache, headache and a killer sunburn that we both got. But it was worth it just going on that one ride alone. We also spent a lot of time in the carnival games where we got several smashing prizes. I had no idea I could shoot a gun so well.
On the way back we passed through several sales booths and my mood was ruined when I saw the Democratic Party stand. Yeah, it’s about time I got political. The Democratic Party having their say is perfectly alright by me, but these guys in particular were selling bumper stickers that had all kinds of rude messages on them, “Buck Fush” being one of them. Rearrange the letters and you get the real message of the bumper sticker. Now, it’s alright with me if someone sports a bumper sticker on their car telling everyone what their political orientation is and they can joke about the other guy if they want, but when someone starts putting swear words and dirty language on their bumper stickers, that’s just rude, mm-kay?
Guy with hand up: Umm, but technically they didn’t put any swear words on their bumper sticker. “Fush” isn’t even a word.
Me: Actually, they put it on their cars because they really want to say “Fuck Bush.” It doesn’t matter how it’s misspelled because that’s what they really want to say. Besides, how would you like it if I rode around on my bicycle with a sign saying “Kerry, Edwards, and anyone else who stands up against Bush is a PUCKING FUSSY.” Wouldn’t you feel insulted?
Guy with hand up: Dude, you’re a NASSHOLE! (Storms off.)
Me: Right. Anyone else wanna have a go? Didn’t think so. Moving on.
Anyhoo, on to the real Fourth of July. I went with my folks to the town parade, which apparently started in Novato and went all the way down to my town. My friend Richard’s dad was running the square-dancing event as usual. Also, the parade announcer was the best one I can remember. The guy knew a lot about American history and there was something he said in starting off that rung true to a surprising number of people in the audience. He said something to the extent of this: “I’ve heard a lot of terrific war stories even going on right now. Stories that you’ll never hear in the San Francisco Chronicle. Good stories about the war. So let’s a give our boys in green a big hand.” And indeed, a lot of people did applaud. Even my friend Richard who I know is a Democrat, though he did so with some remorse. To no one’s surprise, the announcer must have been a Republican.
Now, I’ll say this up front. It’s not a wise practice to get publicly political at big holiday events. We’re have the Fourth of July to celebrate a war that happened 240 years ago, but not one that’s happening now because this war hasn’t been remembered as a success yet. Indeed, most soldiers are happily returning to Iraq to fight more of the war. Seb’s friend Dan is in the U.S. Army stationed in Iraq and hasn’t hesitated to return at the end of any trip he takes there (Gee, I wonder why.) But still, you don’t talk about current events into a microphone on Independence Day because it’s not the point of the day.
So as the parade went on, the shows the paraders put on were totally awesome this time around. The announcer was happy to announce each one. And just when almost all the floats had gone by and you could swear you were in the green with political jib jab on this glorious day, BAM! A law firm comes parading by with giant paper maché heads of the GOP looking very evil and a car that’s covered with Republican slamming stuff. What the announcer did was one thing, but these guys were just being rude. I mean sure, they’d done that stuff for several years now and it used to be more than one float like that. It still sorta ruins the day though. Made me wish I’d brought some eggs.
Conscience: Careful there, son. You never liked it when you read about Democrats attacking Republicans in that manner or even worse. You’d be no worse than them if you did the same as they did.
Me: I know, but I’m getting to the end of my tether with that. With the stories that I’ve heard, it would indeed give me a few moments of pleasure to eggs a few rude Democrats just for payback, but I know I shouldn’t thanks for talking me down from that.
If I recall correctly, even the announcer got kinda mad and told the to go along and get out of there. He didn’t even bother to announce them, but why should he? Hell, I booed them out when they were on their way out. So in conclusion, keep your politics out of our holidays when you’re out in public. You’ll never know whose day you’re going to ruin.
And that’s the end of my update right there. If you stuck with me up until this point, I hereby applaud you and hope you enjoyed it.
posted by Jaimetud at 2:33 PM
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