300 Is A Long Time

Last weekend the church we attend celebrated it's 300th anniversary. 300 years. That's a long time. That's older than our country. Heck, it's 22 years older then George Washington, and that dude has been dead forever.

To celebrate, the church held a big shindig and invited the whole community. There was free food all day, free games for the kids, and free entertainment like jugglers, ventriloquists, and rock bands. We even invited other youth leaders from area churches to take part in a bullriding competition.

I was there with my video camera to capture the activities and put together this little re-cap. Happy 300, Willow Street Mennonite!

Kids Music and Me

I've been editing and putting together goofy little videos since I was around 15 years old. Unlike today, personal computers weren't something every household had and high schools weren't even close to offering video editing courses. iMovie and Windows Movie Maker weren't even on my radar and I was editing movies by hooking up my video camera to my VCR and pressing "Pause" and "Record" at the right place. It took forever and the video distortion lines that would pop up every time I paused the VCR were annoying to say the least. I wasn't able to stop and check how it was coming along for fear I lose my exact place and end up with a couple of frames of black and white "snow" in between shots, so when I put my early videos together, it was done with a "Wow I hope this is turning out OK" prayer repeatedly running through my head.

In 2003 I bought my first video editing software for my computer and decided to teach myself how to edit digitally. I was living in Nashville and had plenty of time on my hands. The very first thing I edited on the computer was a music video. I wasn't looking to do anything epic, just something really basic and somewhat short to jump in with. The shortest song I could find was on an old Sesame Street CD and the final thing came out looking like this:

For my first stab at it, I still think it turned out OK. It's goofy and dorky and ridiculous so I guess it fits me pretty well.

Since then, between videos I've done for work and stuff I've fiddled around with on my own, I've put together just about 700 videos. Zoinks. I didn't realize that number was so high until just now.Granted, some of them don't really involve a lot of editing but hey, 700 is 700.

The latest video I worked on was one for ukulele singer/songwriter Phredd. The whole text-only video thing is pretty big right now, and we've never shied away from a trend. His song "Text the Cell" was perfect for this style.

It was fun putting it together. A lot more went into it than one might think, but I love the simplicity of it and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I started my video-editing adventures with a kids song...and 700 videos later it's still something I enjoy going back to.

But that doesn't mean if I saw The Wiggles on the side of the highway I wouldn't swerve to avoid them. I mean, come on.

Swimming to Fly

The other day we were at Universal Studios' City Walk and we came across the iFLY Hollywood Indoor Skydiving/Vertical Wind Tunnel thing. It's basically skydiving without the billion-foot fall.

I'm not usually the kind of person to post Oh-Look-At-This-Kid-Aren't-They-Cute kinda posts, but I filmed this one little girl trying to master the wind and all I can say is, Oh look at this kid. Isn't she cute?

Bad Cop

Today while we were driving on the 405, we were laughing at a cop in the Carpool Lane who didn't have any passengers in his vehicle. Sarah said it best:

"If you hate obeying the law, the best thing for you to do is to just be a cop."

I'm MAD Sick, Yo

Very funny, Sarah. I just found this picture on our camera, which I had no idea was taken. The timestamp tells me it was taken last Friday night, one day into my battle against being sick. This photo is proof that no amount of MAD Magazine cartoon history can stand up to the power of NyQuil.

No Parking

They have a bunch of parking spaces at the Lancaster YMCA reserved for "Senior Members and Expecting Mothers" but I think that's a pile of crap.

A MAD Surprise

I said it yesterday:

"I think I'm getting a sore throat."

And it turns out, I was. And did.

After a night tossing and turning, my throat exploding into a fireburst every time I tried to swallow, I wasn't looking forward to crawling out of bed and trying to function like a human being today.

When I got to the station, Fred was waiting for me in the studio, a suspicious smile on his face. "Hey Eddie, I think someone left a present for you in your offiiiiice!"

I walked back and found this sitting on my desk:



That's right. It's the massive two-volume set MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely Mad Don Martin!!

My stupid throat decided it was going to make me have a bad day, but Fred stepped up and said, "Oh no you're not!"

Thanks, Fred! I may not be feeling 100%, but at least now I can distract myself with an almost-endless series of THWOPs, GLONGs, SKROINCHes, and STOOPFTs!

The Bird of Happiness

As much as I enjoy living in the city, I've noticed that Friday is a horrible day for driving downtown. It's like everyone says, "Screw it, it's the end of the week, I'm tired of driving sensibly." And it's the same thing every Friday: I get cut off by more people, almost rammed from behind or sideswiped by someone who decides to merge from the lane beside me while I'm right next to them.  Some Fridays people will just stop in the middle of the road for no reason or perform elaborate U-turns on one-way streets.

Today proved to be no different from every other Friday. I was waiting at a stoplight and the light turned green. We all began to move and a car on the cross street, who had stopped at the red light, decided pull out in front of me when I was 3/4 of the way through the intersection.

I honked my horn to give him a heads up. It wasn't a HOOOOOONK or even a HONK, just a quick tap on the horn to let him know I was there.

The speed that his hand was out the window, straight up in the air, and middle finger extended was impressive. It was almost like we was waiting for me to honk, that's how fast it was. He either assumed pulling in front of me would elicit a honk and was ready to go, or he had been driving so badly all afternoon that he was getting honked at over and over again and just decided to have his hand waiting by the window.

It was so fast, I could do nothing but start laughing hysterically at the man. It was just incredibly crazy how fast this guy flipped me off for honking at him when he almost clipped my car. And I laughed and laughed and laughed.

This made him angry, but I didn't care. He was too funny to not laugh at. And when I saw how mad he got when I laughed at him, he threw a fit in his car. If that's not a great way to start off the weekend, I don't know what is.

Clues Without A Mystery

I was the first one at the office this morning which always makes me a little nervous. The first one in has to deactivate the alarm system and it's notorious for not being very generous and letting you "CLEAR" and "RESET" if you accidentally hit the wrong number.

Upon opening the door, though, I found the alarm wasn't on.

As I entered the building, I kept an eye out to make sure no one was inside to startle me. I went into the kitchen to put my soda and yogurt in the fridge and was a little taken back by the coffee pot.

OK, I can understand someone forgetting to turn on the alarm when they leave, but what was going on with this? Did someone make coffee and then forget to put the pot back on the burner? Is that even possible? Or...well...to be honest, I can't think of another reason to explain this weird phenomenon.

I did a quick walkthrough of the studio and my office and couldn't find anything else out of place. Freaky Friday, indeed.

A Request For Fat People

Today I was walking downtown and was approached by two fat girls coming in the opposite direction. They were walking side-by-side and as someone who has a pretty well-developed sense of size, I knew there was no way all three of us were going to fit on the sidewalk at the same time.

And this brings me to my request: If you're not going to go single-file for three or four steps while I try to squeeze past, can you at least not give me a dirty look like I'm the one in the way?

Thanks, fat people. Thanks.

[caption id="attachment_2096" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is pretty much what I saw coming at me today on the sidewalk"][/caption]

An Extra Distraction

How do you know you're a real fan of Judge Judy? How do you know when perhaps you've seen one too many episodes?

When you start to recognize the fact they're using the same people in the audience over and over again, that's when. Don't be too impressed. I'm not actually that good with picking up small details like noticing the extras in a daily courtroom TV show.

But when one of the extras stands out like this one, you can't help.

There she is in the upper left-hand corner. She just has a look that stands out. The harsh make-up. The angry eyebrows. That distinct Is-That-A-Dude-In-Drag uncertainty. That's not an easy look to forget.

Especially when he/she pops up again....



...and again...



...and again...



...and again.



Hey, Judge Judy producers: I think it might be time to do another casting call for extras. When it becomes more fun playing Where's The Angry Guy In A Wig than watching Judge Judy yell at people, that's sort of a sign.

No Ghosts of Gettysburg

A few weeks ago Sarah and I took a trip to Gettysburg and did a little amateur ghost hunting. When we left town, we were very excited with what we thought was proof of...something. You can see the evidence we collected here.

This past Saturday Sarah and I trekked back to Gettysburg and the first thing we did was return to the general store where we thought we may have spotted the ghost of Mrs Pickering (the original owner of the general store). Sarah took a photo from the same place she stood the last time around and, lo and behold, the anomaly was back. And as soon as it showed up, we knew we didn't hadn't captured a ghost. That would have been too easy.

The street lights must have been brighter because, although the video looks just as dark as last time around, we could see inside the store easier and I was able to quickly identify the items that were making it look as if there was a form..or something...standing browsing the aisles.

We were a little disappointed that we were able to de-bunk Mrs. Pickering so quickly, but at the same time, I think we were a little proud of our de-bunking skills.

That night we returned to the Ghosts of Gettysburg, the place where we went on a ghost tour the last time we were in town. Only this time it wasn't a standard tour with ghost stories, it was an actual ghost investigation. We were excited to learn that only two other people showed up, as we hoped that meant more time to interact with author and ghost hunter Mark Nesbitt and co- investigator Larry Phelps.

When we arrived, we found out we would be investigating the Ghosts of Gettysburg building, which is purported to be haunted with a few ghosts of its own. We were told we would carry on EVP sessions in a few different rooms, get to learn about the equipment they use, like EMF (electromagnetic field) detectors, and so on.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The other couple who showed up were from Pittsburgh and the guy decided that we had paid money to learn not from the Ghosts of Gettysburg people, but from him.

From the onset he bragged about how good he was, he must have mentioned the fact he was a DJ at least six or seven times, and when our tour guides would mention their methods or talk about their equipment, this guy (his name was Gary but also made it a point to mention the fact that his DJ name is DJ EVP) would interrupt and explain what the actual proper method was, what he does, why this is wrong, why we was right, and on and on and on and on.

He would then go into stories that pertained to nothing, brag about other things he did, he bragged about the fact that he has $1000-headphones, and pretty much railroaded the conversation that only he was engaging in to revolve around him.

And it was because of this dill weed that our night was ruined. We didn't get to try out any of the cool gadgets, we only got to investigate one of the six areas in the house we were told we would get to investigate, we didn't see any dark shapes or hear any voices, and we walked away with nothing.

Like a drunk heckler at a comedy club who thinks he's being part of the show but is actually just ruining the night for everyone, this douche named Gary made me want to elbow him in his show-off face.

But I didn't. And Sarah and I just walked back to our hotel and made fun of him behind his stupid back.

An Idiot Abroad Trailer

I. Cannot. Explain. How. Excited. I. Am. To. See. This.

Ghosts of Gettysburg

Today Sarah and I took a quick jaunt out to Gettysburg. It's just over an hour away and seeing as how we're huge fans of Ghost Hunters, we couldn't resist checking out a couple of ghost tours. I did a Google search for "ghost tours gettysburg" and Ghosts of Gettysburg was the first place to pop up. Their website stated they were voted the #1 Ghost Tour last year, so I thought what the heck. We weren't disappointed. The staff was very friendly and their tour guides were top-notch. They have five different tours to choose from; This blog is based on the Carlisle Street Tour. Afterward, our tour guide told us she'd never seen a ghost while working that specific tour, but said she'd seen one four times while giving the Baltimore Street Tour. So guess what Sarah and I are trying to squeeze into our calendar.

As we walked the historic streets of Gettysburg, Sarah was particularly attracted to the alleys, and every time we would walk by one, this is basically what would happen:

As the day turned into evening and it got darker outside and the ghost tours continued, Sarah kept on snapping shots. A lot of the pictures she took contained what a lot of ghost fans call "orbs," small circles of light they believe are actual ghosts (or their energy) trying to manifest itself. Sarah and I tend to think it's just the reflection of the camera flash hitting dust, bugs, or something similar. Here are a couple of the most orb-filled photos, taken on the Gettysburg University campus:

Again, "orbs" don't really do anything for me, but there you are.

Our ghost tour ended around 10:30pm in the Gettysburg square in front of what we were told was the oldest building in the square. Our tour guide thanked us for coming and our small group dispersed. Sarah immediately went to the front door of the building where we stood (a store that, naturally, was closed at the time) and took a photo through the window in the front door.

As we walked away, she showed me the photo and I froze. I've seen a bunch of photos that include "ghost faces" and I hardly ever see what I'm supposed to be looking at. But this jumped out at me. Upon first glance, it looked like there was the figure of a woman dressed all in black with the collar of a white shirt poking up out above her long black coat, her black hair pulled back in a tight bun browsing the shelves in the store. It was really weird.

Can you see it? Maybe? Here. Maybe this will help.

I'll be honest. The picture looks a lot different on the computer screen than it did on the tiny camera display, but still....

Sarah ran back to the storefront and took another picture. Like the first one, she took this one with the flash turned off.

It looked like she was still there browsing, this time in a slightly different pose.

The inside of the store was dark and it was hard to see what might be in there, so I asked Sarah to take a picture with the flash on so we could see what might possibly be in there that would appear to make the shape of a person.

As you can see, there's nothing there.

On a whim, I pulled out my Flip camera, placed it against the window, and filmed for a few seconds. In one of her trademark goofy whispers, Sarah asked the mystery lady to show up again ("Lady....come baaack"), and then tried to remember what the tour guide had told us the original owner's name was.

Elated that we thought we might have photographed a ghost, we made our way back to the car and headed home. A few minutes out of town, I told Sarah she should watch the Flip video to see if we caught anything and, as she played it, we freaked out. I say "we" freaked out, because although I wasn't watching the video (see what a safe driver I am?), I could hear it.

I assure you, Sarah and I did not hear that sound when we filmed it. Our lack of response bears witness to the fact that we didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Yet it appears Sarah got a response to her plea for the lady to return. We listened to it over and over again, and it sounds as if something inside the store is moving. I ran the video twice in the above clip, the first time as I filmed it and in the second pass I lightened the picture a bit in an attempt to see if I could find what is moving or making the sound.

I didn't see anything.

So, did Sarah and I catch something? We don't know. But for a few minutes our hearts raced at the thought that we may have. Either way, it was a lot of fun.

August 22, 2010 - Sarah and I returned to de-bunk Mrs. Pickering...and we were successful! Read about it HERE.

Bears With Sticks: Just As Impressive as Avatar

This video is a lot like Avatar. At first I was like "Wow this is amazing!" And then I was like "Is this all that happens?" And then I gave up and quit watching before it was over.

Chelsea Clinton's "Wedding of the Century"

Apparently Chelsea Clinton is getting married and it's a big deal. To be honest, that's about all I know because I only read the headline. Chelsea Clinton is so low on my radar - just a bit lower than Erin Moran and Mr. Belding - I couldn't be bothered to read the article.

Yahoo News is calling her nuptials the "wedding of the century."

Seriously. Please media, I beg of you, do not try to make Chelsea Clinton into our version of Princess Diana. Just don't. Please.

And how cocky are we to call this event the wedding of the century? We're only 10 years into it. How belittling is that to everyone else who comes along in the next 90 years? Our apologies, future people of note who get married. Sorry, Celebrities-of-2088. I'm sorry, Dude Who Invents Monkey-To-English Tranlsator Voice Boxes. I understand you're all pretty important and prominent, but you seem to have forgotten that back around 2010, 2011, Chelsea Clinton got married.

Who?

She's the daughter of one of our presidents.

Huh? You mean other presidents' kids have gotten married, too?

Yea, but...well...this is happening now.

You're Fine At That Size

While perusing the web today, I came across an article about Kate Gosselin. I couldn't help but notice, directly under the photograph, was an option to enlarge the photo.

___

___

Seriously? You honestly think that, given the choice, I would willingly want to see an even bigger photo of that thing?

Will you also be providing sticks to shove into my eyes afterward?

These Are the People in My Neighborhood

Today on the way to a dentist appointment, I stopped at the apartment to drop a few things off. I parked behind a red Tracker and didn't pull up as close behind it as I usually would since I knew I'd be zipping away again in a few moments. As I got out of my car, a large, older lady came waddling up to the Tracker and proceeded to make mean faces and complain about how I had boxed her in because I parked so close.

So I went inside, grabbed my camera, and took a photo of how much I (and the car in front of her) had her blocked.



Seriously, lady, if you can't get out of that parking space without working up a sweat, then you deserve to drive a Tracker.

Bad Ad

How do you know when All Access, a radio-industry website, should be more careful about the placement of their ads? When an ad showing a man dead in the road pops up next to a news article reporting on someone's memorial service.

That's when All Access should be more careful about the placement of their ads.



Seriously. This has not been altered, Photoshopped, tweaked, or otherwise manipulated in any way. This is an actual screen shot. I mean come on, I'm not that sick.

Bad form, All Access. Bad, bad, bad, bad form.

Those Colorful Musicians

I'm writing this blog from my hotel room after Day 3 of Creation 2010. The Creation Festival is a yearly music festival nestled in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. The easiest way to describe it is to call it the "Christian Woodstock." The radio station I work for goes up each year, we set up inside a trailer, and we try to get as many of the performing artists to pop in for an interview as possible. I'm always in charge of filming the interviews and then I spend the next few weeks at work editing them down and posting them on the station's YouTube page.

This year we did something a little different. For those of you who don't know, I enjoy drawing doodles. This year I doodled all of the artists appearing at the 4-day festival (43 of them in all). We compiled the black-and-white drawings into a collection we called the Creation Coloring book. Then, we brought the book with us and when the artists came through for their interview, we had them color and autograph their page in the coloring book. We'll be posting the book on eBay and donating all the money received from the auction to Compassion International. You can see all of the doodles in the coloring book (before the artists colored them) by clicking here.

I gotta tell you, it's been a blast so far. Not only has it been fun seeing the artists react to their doodle, but it's also been fun hanging out with them for a few minutes. I've captured some really cool moments on video so far, and we still have one more day to go.

Here's a brief rundown of some highlights the first few days:

• We got to meet Carlos Whittaker, who's just as much fun to be around in person as he is to read his blog.


• We got a chance to hang out with our pal Bob Lenz, an amazing speaker who has one of the biggest hearts around (maybe because he's also one of the biggest guys around)


• As far as pure hilarious moments go, I never thought we'd be able to top David Crowder yelling out the trailer at a kid with "Jimmy" printed on his shirt. Chris and Conrad proved me wrong.


• Mark Gungor, one of the most excited and excitable guys I've been around, gave some great insights into marriage that were so simple I was a little embarrassed I hadn't thought of them already


• We have a Wii with MarioKart in our trailer. It's a nice break for the artists from the usual standard radio interviews they probably go through and it's fun to see their faces light up when they see the Wii waiting to be played. Of all the bands at Creation, you probably wouldn't have expected that the band who had the hardest time tearing themselves away from the Wii was Casting Crowns. True story.


• DecembeRadio really seemed to enjoy their doodle and they were a lot of fun to joke and hang with


• B Reith sat down and really took time to color his doodle while Kristi Leigh interviewed him. He said he would soon be switching his Facebook profile picture to his doodle. Nice!


• Chris Tomlin was very kind and friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy his time in the trailer.


• Thi'sl and J'Son were simultaneously hilarious and moving. Watching them film each other with their iPhones as they colored their doodles was entertaining to say the least.


• It was my first time meeting the guys from House of Heroes and it was worth the wait.


• It was good to see Matt MacDonald from The Classic Crime once again and when he realized we were the guys from last year who had the Wii, his face lit up and he was ready to race once again.


• Both We As Human and Abandon went all out coloring in their doodles and we were quite impressed with their style.


• Best of all, though, had to be the opportunity to once again see and hang out with a couple of friends from my time in Nashville, John and Gabe. Man, it was good to see those guys again.

There was more, but...well...I'll let you see for yourselves. Starting next week I'll begin posting the videos of our time at Creation so you can see some of it for yourself. Unfortunately we weren't able to catch up with the Newsboys or TobyMac or our old pal Trevor from Thousand Foot Krutch, but we're having a good time.

When you see some of the videos, you'll get what I'm talking about. Until then...well...here's the David Crowder video from 2007 I mentioned earlier. The one where he yells at the kid with JIMMY on his shirt. Still cracks me up.