The Furthest Place From Here

A Season of Upset

2008-09-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well.....if you scroll down the screen a bit you'll find a blog or two toting what was to be (hopefully) an amazing baseball season for the Atlanta Braves. With John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, the return of Tom Glavine and the back to back power combo of Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira, the Braves seemed to have all the necessary components to glide their way through the season and into the post. Well...we all make mistakes. Not only did all 3 ace starters go down (for the season/possibly career), but Mark Teixeira found himself putting on an Angels jersey right before the trade deadline. So where does that leave a team which had every opportunity to take back the East??? how about 20 games below .500 and 19.5 games out of 1st place...disappointing? you bet. thankfully though we have the Washington Nationals in our division so that we can be better than someone.

While this hasn't been an enjoyable season by any stretch, there is hope on the horizon. Several rookies and normal back-up players have all stepped up and proven that they can in fact handle themselves when the big guys go down. HUGE kudos to Martin Prado, Omar Infante, Jair Jurrjens, and Gregor Blanco. Not to mention Brian McCann filling up to the power position left open by Tex. And SOMEHOW, while all of this has been going on, Chipper Jones managed to have a truly landmark season. While his power numbers weren't necessarily note-worthy, he has still hit 20 homeruns which puts him as one of only 2 players in the game to hit at least 20 homeruns in his first 14 seasons. Not only that, but he passed the 400 hr mark earlier this year and has a rather nice 9 point lead for highest batting average in the majors. There was a point where he was hitting over .400 for well over a month. Yet, despite all of that, the season will go down in record books as one of the Braves worst. Many people were expecting manager Bobby Cox to call it quits after such a dismal display, but not being a quitter, he signed an extension putting him on at least til the end of 09.

Looking ahead to the future, this season will hopefully be long forgotten. Next season promises to be a somewhat fresh start in many ways. Hopefully we can avoid the injury bug that has decided to camp around Atlanta this year. The offseason will be a good time to regroup, refocus, and reevaluate what needs to be done. Hopefully Smoltz and Hudson can return healthy and with all the brimming confidence coming from our younger guys, I think we will see a completely different team come March 09. At least, I hope so.

Summer Series Part 2: Lessons Learned

2008-08-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

this summer has been quite different than any previous summer. for one, i knew going in that i wasn't going to go out for a summer job becuase i had expected to get an internship. well, that ended up never happening, and by the time summer arrived, i was too late on the job market (believe me, i've tried getting summer jobs in this town...it sucks). this was also my first summer taking summer school. although, i wonder how much "online astronomy" can count as an actual class. basically, i would sit at the computer and take quizzes. occasionally i would have to look in the book for the answer. it was kind of a joke, but what more could i expect from such a class? needless to say, i got it done and with it earned myself 3 more units towards graduation, which is only one year away. that fact alone made this summer different in the fact that this is basically my last summer vacation. at this time next year i wont have school to look forward to. i'll be out in the real world. does that scare me? sort of. but it also excites me. im sure we've all dreamt of this day as a kid...the day of no more school. well, that is going to become reality for me in now under 300 days. so with all this free time this summer, i decided i'd go and learn some valuable life lessons. i learned quite a bit over these 2 1/2 months, but these two perhaps are the most important.

LIFE LESSON #1 - "Time waits for no man"
i decided that i didn't really want anything to tax my time this summer as i know once school starts, time is going to be a much treasured thing that i will wish i had more of. doesnt that always seem to be the case? we want more time. we never seem to be satisfied with the amount of time we're given each day, and yet, it never changes. every person living on the planet has the exact same 24 hours in a day to do as they choose. i love hearing people say "i'd love to do ________, if only I had the time". i'd love to learn guitar. i'd love to be a better photographer. i'd love to shoot more movies. if only i had the time. the truth of the matter is, i HAVE the time to do all of those things, but instead, stupid, less important things get in the way. i am rather ashamed to say that the other day i absolutely vegged out. all day spent either on the computer or infront of the television. what did i accomplish? nothing. so why did i even bother waking up? wouldnt the world have remained just the same if i had slept in all day? basically yes. and that bothered me. we're only here for a limited time and no one knows just how limited until it's too late. why do we constantly waste the time we're given, and then complain when we don't have enough? this summer, my parents have been trying to get me to get up earlier and start my day BEFORE noon. i have to admit, that the times which i have actually accomplished that, I felt better. I actually got up and did stuff while a good amount of the world was still asleep. theres a good feeling associated with getting a job done before 11am. becuase then you have the rest of the day to fill with the activities that you please. im actually excited to be starting my bookstore job again at 8am.

LIFE LESSON #2 - "Actions speak louder than words"
this age-old adage is one that my parents have been trying to pound in my head for quite some time, and thankfully this summer was full of examples illustrating that point to me. aside from the obvious one of the movie (which is explained in detail in the previous blog), i have also come to see people close to me fail to live up to their words. it hasn't been easy to deal with, but thankfully things have had their ways of working out. theres another old saying that says "if you want something done right, do it yourself". sadly, that statement is coming more and more true. people can promise things all they want, but unless they deliver along those same lines, then they're only wasting your time. its a funny thing about summer. everyone comes home and instantly wants to see everybody. yet so often people get caught up in their own lives and seldom does "hanging out" actually happen. countless times this summer my friends and i have TRIED to get together, but through one circumstance or another, it doesnt happen. the few times it DID happen though, were simply amazing! i also love the people who know you're home for the summer, then when they find out that you're leaving next week, you just HAVE to hang out! what happened to the other 8 weeks of summer that we could have been seeing each other? well, apparently they were too busy then. but now that YOU'RE about to leave, they suddenly have a clear schedule! it always amazes me how that happens. however, i cant say that im completely exempt from this problem too, and have to accept my share of the blame. but i definitely have learned the importance of being a reliable person, both professionally, and personally as a friend.

Summer Series Part 1: "The Warrior Effect"

2008-07-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Now presenting part 1 in a saga-type series about...what else...my summer.

The Warrior Effect.

I was first approached about helping out on this film back in April. When the lead actress told me about it, there really wasnt much detail other than it would be a small, low-budget film made with people she knew. So i said sure, and didnt hear anything for some time. Summer finally came and with it, the first "production meeting" there were 5 of us who met in this guys apartment in West LA and all sat around in a semi-awkward AA style meeting. At this point, i still had NO idea about the story or to what capacity my involvement would be. So we left the meeting having really only accomplishing the act of meeting each other and saying that more details were coming. I have to say, I was pretty optimistic at that point and was really looking foward to reading the script. I got the script in a couple days and was taken aback at the complexity of what was required with the locations/actions. So i decided it would be good to meet with the producer and director to iron out some details. I drove back to this guys place and we had went over my concerns. It was a little daunting for me to find myself in an apartment with two guys i had just met for the first time ever, only about 6 days earlier. this was my first time on a film shoot with people i had never worked with before. normally its been school related, but this was completely new. And yet, i felt like we were on the same page. I was the youngest of the 3, with the oldest being exaclty twice my age, and yet, it didnt seem to be a factor. So i left having had most of my questions answered and looked forward to the first meeting of the cast in a couple days.

They had set up the read-through at the actresses house. it was my first time going there, but it would soon become apparent to me that her house would turn into my second home over the next 3 weeks. The cast arrived and the read-through began. at this point, i still didnt have an official job description, and so i was merely introduced as "someone helping us out with the film". as expected, the cast was a little nervous and hesitant, but we managed to get through it just fine. i later found out that certain individuals had travelled all the way from places like Bakersfield and San Diego to meet up. All in all, i would say it was a productive day, and gave us all an idea of where we were headed.

The read through had taken place on Sunday and our first day of production was scheduled for Tuesday at a nearby house. The scenes were supposed to be simple interior house scenes between the main character and her grandmother, and then later between the main character and her sensei (yes, shes a martial artist). so i arrived several hours before shooting was supposed to start to help set up camera and lighting. eventually, the members of the cast showed up as well as the second director. and i dont mean assistant director, i mean we had 2 directors. instant. disaster. everything the first director had spent several hours setting up was quickly disassembled and moved by the second director. what should have been a simple scene ended up taking about twice as long as it needed too. feelings were hurt and you could tell that tensions were elevating. this was day 1. this kind of stuff doesnt normally happen until the end of shooting. at that point, i started having my first feelings of uncertainty. finally, after 7 loooong and sometimes frustrating hours, we finally wrapped. we had to give the residents their house back. fortunately, they were extended family of the main actress so they were ok with us being there so long. but regardless, i felt bad. as i drove home that night, i vowed to put that less than stellar day behind me and prayed that things would pick up in the coming days.

The next day of shooting was 3 days later at a school. this was our first day with multiple actors and several extras, but thankfully we were only going to be in a single classroom all day. however, that meant that things were going to get hot. quickly. which they did. as soon as "cut" was yelled, fans would go on from every direction trying to keep the actors cool. it took us awhile to set up the lighting in the room and we were finally underway. Compared to the shooting of the first day, this was ten times easier and in all ways less painful. primarily because we were dealing with only 1 camera, and 1 director. the scenes were shot and we were able to get everyone out of there quickly. im not sure what it was about this day, but i walked away having my confidence restored and felt better about the whole undertaking.

i forget how long of a turn around we had to our next day of shooting, but i was glad that we were moving forward and apparently making progress. our next shoot took place at an honest to goodness dojo. part of the story involved a girl waking up to find herself in a martial arts training facility, so locations people thought this would be a good place to shoot it. however, other people also insisted that we use green screen, which none of us had really any experience with. that would come back to haunt us... the scene was relatively straight-foward. just a fight between two people. all in all it took about 4-5 hours for the whole process. again we were only 1 director and that caused things to go along smoother, except for the fact that the director's ideas were not what the parents of the lead actress thought they should be. this caused much frustration on the parents part as they felt as though we were wasting time getting "artsy" shots that ultimately wouldnt be necessary. coupled with the fact that the second fighter was in his 70's and would get tired out quickly, we couldnt really afford to do as many takes as the director wanted. a semi loud argument took place causing production to stand still for a few minutes while people voiced their opinions. luckily, this was towards the end of the shoot and we had taken enough footage already to call it quits. awkward moment. very very awkward. for pretty much the entire production, whenever an arguement or fight would take place, i always found myself in the middle not trying to pick sides, but rather being able to see things from both perspectives. i was sort of the "complain to" guy. what made things hard was when they would ask me what I thought, and I'd have to try and give a neutral answer. that night, on the drive home, i hoped things would get better. unfortunately, it kinda went downhill from there.

our next big scene, and basically the last one we shot, was an extreior of the school. this day was nothing but problems. for starters, our extras that we were told would be there, never showed up. one of our key actresses had never been informed about the shoot, and was replaced, even thought she showed up much later in the day. everything was pretty much shot on the fly, with no real masterplan to go off of. lacking in the extra deparment, two boys were asked to participate, not knowing that the boys were actually deliquints and were only at the location becuase of community service. we were back with 2 directors and at times 2 cameras. the sun was especially hot that day and constant shade for the actors was required between takes. i scored myself a niiiiice sunburn on my arms. we were in a place where the position of the sun greatly effected the look and color of the film, and so the longer we took to shoot, the more adjustments we had to make to color and light. a scene from earlier in the day was re-shot when the actress arrived and that caused all kinds of continuity issues, but at that present moment, all anyone cared about was getting it done.

that was it for a couple more days...the sheer fact of it was, things were so disorganized that we didnt know when we would shoot again. we were basically at the mercy of people's schedules, not the other way around. actors werent clearing their schedules for us...we were clearing it for them. things were coming together at the last possible second, and on a film shoot, thats the LAST thing you want to happen. stuff is supposed to be planned out weeks, if not months, in advance and theres no reason to still be putting together a characters costumes the night before the shoot. so....i still came over to the house everyday, but found that nothing was moving forward. finally, i decided that i'd give editing a shot and so i set to work editing the footage we had into something managable. unfortunately, there really wasnt anything actually good enough to make a solid scene. everything we shot in the dojo was messed because of the green screen. everything from the exterior school scene didnt match up lighting-wise, and it only got worse...i sat there realizing that nothing we had was worth showing anyone. it dawned on me then that this might actually be a project that i wasnt going to be proud to say that i worked on. at that moment, we were looking at two options: A) continue with what we had and turn out a crappy project (which no one wanted) or B) re-shoot the things we'd shot and set out with a more organized approach (ie. shot lists, storyboards, PLANNING) and make it RIGHT the first time. fortunately for me, i wasnt the only one having these same feelings and concerns. after several long meetings with the directors and producers, including the final one that went on til 2am....the decision was made to stop production and just have everyone go home for awhile. i embraced the decision with mixed emotion. i was happy that we were finally going to stop moving ahead with the poor filming that was going on, but i was also a bit sad to have to go back home to my "normal" life. in a way, i felt like this movie gave me an escape from reality and even though it turned out so poorly, i felt happy that i was still making a movie.

this whole experience taught me a lot about hollywood and the strength of a person's word. the expression "talk is cheap" could not have rung more true to me during this whole ordeal. nothing against the people involved...i loved everyone dearly. but there was too much talk going in, and not enough product to back it up. evidenced enough in the fact that the project still remains untouched and for that matter, un-discussed since we hung it up in June. everyone has gone on with their lives and presumably, we may never see or hear of the Warrior Effect ever again.

i dont update this very often

2008-04-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

so. i thought i'd fill in some of my musings as of late...

the braves are off to a not-so great start. granted, we're only 2 game below .500 now, so it could be much worse.
Glavine went down today which is distressing in its own way. hopefully the rest of the pen can step up and fill in the gaps. It's been a pretty shaky start of the season, but i stand by my earlier statements that this is going to be our year to re-prove what made us the team to beat in the east for all those years.

moving to softball now, our intramural team won their second game on saturday morning in beautiful fashion with a walk-off double in the bottom of the 6th with 2 outs. we finally had a full line-up and managed a win against a team with a 3-1 record (only having lost to the undefeated team in our division). so our record improved to 2-3. (we have only played 3 of those games, having had to forfeit the other 2, giving us a record of 2-1 in games we've actually played). since thats the case, it's true to say that we have won every game we've played since our first game loss. we have a week off before our next game, and i can't wait to get out there again. i generally do a pretty decent job of hitting and yesterday went 4-5 with an RBI, and a very lucky hit in the last inning to advance the runner to scoring position. my goal this season is to at least hit one home run over the fence in right field. ive managed it before, but it was foul. still, its a feat of accomplishment that i feel i'm capable of.

school is down to about 5 weeks now. this has been one heck of a rough semester academically. i dont know what it is, but things just have been a struggle where they used to not be a problem. i dont know. i can safely say that i'll get by this semester, but it might not be that pretty.

im going to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this next weekend to visit some of my old friends that I rarely get to see but maybe one month out of the year. i'm super excited! thats all for now. i SHOULD be doing my homework!

peace

2008-03-08T01:25:00.001-08:00

havent written in a while....some updates...

softball season is underway. we lost our first game 7-20. yes, it was a sad and depressing morning, but i did wind up with 2 RBI triples, so that made up for it. we were supposed to play tomorrow morning, but certain team members have prior committments and can't make it, so we'll have to forfeit. oh well, i have much homework to do this weekend anyways.

school is getting to that ugly point where its starting to become a hassle and each day finds me more and more behind in my work. i almost have to exclusively devote my weekends to catching up on all that i didnt do during the week. like this weekend, i have several papers to write, two tests to study for, a project to research AND i somehow have to try and fit in some fun! fun, which includes a concert tomorrow night!!!! its going to be incredible! im going to see an amazing band, with two of my best friends in the whole world! it will be sheer bliss!

i would just like to say that i love my friends. i dont know where i would be without them. if you're a true friend of mine (and not just an acquaintance) then you should know that i love you. hopefully i dont need to remind you of that, but here goes anyways! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!! thanks for being the best friends i could ever ask for!

ok, enough sappy sentiment...i should probably go to bed or something... Frank Sinatra can sing me to sleep. and i think he will!

things on the horizon.

2008-02-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

it's hard to believe that we're already half-way through February. school is back in full swing, and with that comes the onslaught of homework. i love when teachers act like their class is the only one you're taking and therefore you have all the time in the world to complete their assignments. i miss the days of elementary school where the homework was coloring a map of america. sadly, those days are long gone and taking their places are stupid things like spanish. it makes no sense to my why i must take a year's worth (2 semesters) of spanish in order to graduate with a degree in film. if someone can explain to me why that makes sense, then i'll change my tune, but as it is, spanish class is only a daily annoyance. however, there is hope. starting next saturday, we have intramural softball!!! i played last year and somehow our team made it to the playoffs. this year promises to be better and perhaps we can actually win some games this time. win or lose, it's just nice being able to get up on a saturday morning and hang out with some of my closest friends.

speaking of softball...baseball season is just around the corner too. my boys from Atlanta are gearing up to start spring training at Disney in Florida. This year has the potential to be one of their best ever. Their line-up has never looked more solid, and the starting rotation has re-gained one of the greats. Tom Glavine should (and i say that with some skepticism) bring the Braves back into dominance in the NL East. An accomplishment that has unfortunately managed to elude them in the past 2 seasons. i strongly believe this could be their year.

as if those two things weren't enough to get me excited, Enchanted is now playing at the dollar theatre, AND we're going roller skating this friday. all hope is not lost.

GIANT upset (pun definitely intended)

2008-02-05T00:08:00.000-08:00

unbelievable.

the new york giants beat the new england patriots to win superbowl 42. who saw that one coming? months ago when the colts lost to the patriots by a stupid 3-point margin, i decided that the patriots could make it all the way to the superbowl, but i swore that they would not win. lo and behold, i was right. up until the last quarter, i really had no interest in the game. both teams seemed to have nothing going for them, as evidenced by each team only having scored once. finally the game started getting interesting and it seemed the patriots were on their way to yet another victory. but then, from absolutely nowhere, eli steps up, avoids being sacked about 50 times and somehow manages to loft a throw that is caught by the receiver behind his head. from there, the giants were able to take the lead and eventually the win.

now, i am by no means a giants fan. in fact, i only ever rooted for them the other time they almost beat the patriots during the regular season. i didnt celebrate sunday that the giants won, rather i was just happy to see the patriots finally lose. poor tom brady looked like he was on the verge of tears throughout the entire 2nd half. too bad tom. at least you still date a supermodel!

finally, a word to bill belicheck: next time your team loses a game, have the common decency to stay on the field an extra two seconds to watch your team lose respectfully. how many other coaches have had to stand there and watch the patriots beat them in a game? it makes sense when fans of the losing side leave early, but youre the freakin coach!!!!!! how hard is it to stand there two more seconds, let them take the knee and then you can run away in shame to the locker room??? its that display of attitude that just makes me even more glad that they lost.

i write.

2008-02-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

i like to write. i have an emphasis in screenwriting as my major. i write my families annual christmas letter. it dawned on me the other day that i dont write enough. thus, this blog was born. i dont care if anyone reads it or not, i just need to write. i have a tendency to keep ideas bottled up inside my head and that annoys me. i'm gonna give this a try and see what happens.