I have today off. I’m trying to decide what to do with myself. It’s so nice out; I really wish I had a dog. I’d love to take him out for a long walk right now. I know what you’re thinking… “You don’t have to have a dog to go for a walk”, but walking by myself just seems weird. Like, I think I would just walk really fast and look strange, like I’ve got somewhere to go… except I really don’t. When I’m by myself, leisurely walking just doesn’t happen. Besides, it’s just so much more fun with a cute silly doggy.

I think once Mike and I get back from our bike trip, at the end of the summer, I’m going to have to insist that he gets me a new dog. Hopefully we’ll find a 2 bedroom house, for the three of us to move into by then, so I’ll have a small yard for the pup. I’d really like a puggle (a pug-beagle mix) but honestly just about anything would do. A puggle would be nice for California living situations because they’re small… and just so damn cute.

Well, I guess I should take this opportunity, while Mike and Billy are at work, and get started on cleaning up this apartment. When I woke up this morning it looked like we’d had some weeklong party or something. Unfortunately we’re not quite that popular. We’ve just been too pre-occupied with work, Resident Evil 4, and watching all of Friends Season 8 this week. Or as some might say, too lazy to pick up after ourselves.

Originally posted at Project Pedal...

Earlier today, I posted a ‘help wanted’ on Craig’s list, stating that I’m looking to fill the last of the four crew-positions, the sound technician, as usual, I’ve received a handful of “I’m interested” emails… but I just had to share this one;

"i can do this for you"

That’s it, I swear, even the “i” wasn’t capitalized, there was no “hello” or “goodbye”, this person didn’t even leave their name. I have to admit - I’m strangely curious. To be honest, it’s the only email I’ve replied to today, I wrote back saying;

"okay".

I'm going to assume that not too many people will find this article interesting - let alone read it - but I thought I would post it all the same: "The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004". Now, I'm not sure if the list goes from 10 to 1 - or if there is no order to it - but surprise, surprise, Walmart managed to make the list this year, and if it is descending, then it made number 1, not too shabby.

Anyways; it's late and I'm not sure why I'm up reading - I guess I figure I have the day off so what the hell.


Oh, before I go, I'm sure the whole world knows by now that there was a three train pile-up in Glendale yesterday, this is about seven miles away from where we live, so Amanda and I thought we would go take a look for ourselves. Now, the whole drive there, including the time we spend driving in the wrong direction down San Fernando Blvd, I was wondering if our gawking at such a terrible crash was a little on the 'disturbed-side', but when we got there the place was packed! People were driving in circles trying to sneak a peak... but due to the criminal nature of the wreak, the whole four or five blocks were very, very securely blocked off by the police. So, needless to say, we didn't see much of anything. At the time, we didn't really realize just how bad the wreck was, Amanda watched the news while I was at work and relayed the whole story to me - it's pretty terrible...

Okay. It's past my bed time.

Amanda wanted to take a photo of this for her last post - but the digital camera was out in Billy's car... Anyways; in case you can't read it, the part that Lorrie wrote at the bottom reads; "You guys are the awesomest of the awesome. Thank you".

Okay. That's it for now. Adios.

Originally posted at Project Pedal...

Now that the domain is up, I've been eyeballing the web-stats to see how I've been doing at 'getting-the-word-out', the results, not exactly positive. It could be worse - but not by much - I am feeling very "underdog'ish" to say the least. So here the project is, with five months left until production, and the pressure is building [daily].
I'm finding it hard to focus on training or the actual film's preproduction in contrast to it's lacking budget - not to mention its lack of awareness.

There's the obvious solution: stickers - which I am in the process of ordering at the moment [anyone who would like a handful, feel free to email me]. But I need something more, and at the same time, something cheap, which pretty much leaves me with stickers.

So I'm sitting here listening to 'Sigur Rós' + 'Garden State' iMix, staring out my second-story window at the palm trees, fantasizing about the trip ahead. Trying to focus not on the 'things-left-to-do', but the open road - that feeling of going to bed at night knowing that there was no better way to spend the day. I can't wait - and I think that's what scares me the most - I can only stay lost in my day-dreams so long, until the point where I am reminded of how important this is to me, that's when reality sinks in and the fact that I have over $7,000 left to raise. And this isn't simply an attempt to pity my readers into emptying their pockets - this is, plain and simple, how I feel at the moment - how I feel most of the time lately.

Moving on; I have a folder tucked away inside my "project pedal" files that is stuffed with pictures that I find inspiring or, in most cases, reminiscent, many of the places in these photos are places I've actually been to during my first trip - and that we'll be traveling through again during this one. I think I'll share a few;











I found these five photos at 'Panoramic Images', I believe all from the same photographer, Thomas Winzs.

hey guys. yes, it's been a while. needless to say i have been meaning to post for quite sometime, but you know how it is... once it's been so long it seems even harder and harder as days go by. you feel like there's so much to catch up on you need hours to fill everyone in. at least that's how my brain sees it. but tonight i want to post and i just don't have time for all of that.

it's Lorrie's 21st birthday. well, actually it was last night but we all went to celebrate tonight. everyone from work went to Acapulco for happy hour, 50 cent tacos and 1$ margaritas. we all arrived, chatted, handed out the birthday gifts, then ate and drank. then the karaoke started.... then we all drank a lot more (well everyone except mike) and a few dozen shots later... poor lorrie was in the little girls room for 15 min. she told me she had to go so i walked her there, i went in first then when i left she went in. i knew i should've stayed with her, i kept an eye on my watch and sure enough after 10 min. and no sign of lorrie we were all banging on the door... calling her name and passing notes under the door. Joleen and i even got down on our hands and knees to look under the door. finally she opened it.. it didn't smell pretty. it seemed i was the only one brave enough to go in. so an hour or so later.... many napkins, glasses of water and plastic bags of puke, here we are.

it's about 11 p.m. mike is doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen and i just put lorrie to sleep on the couch with a nice cold washcloth, a few towels, some ice cold water and a big bowl (just in case). anyway... i hope she had fun.

Last night, Amanda, Billy and I watched 'The Daily Show' - the big inaugural "coverage" - it was, of course, very funny, as usual. Their guest was Sen. Joe Lieberman - who I am embarrassed to admit - I didn't & still don't know much about.

But I have to say, after watching him on the show last night, that this man is great! He was funny - he was sincere - witty... I had kind of gotten over the fact that our president for the next four years was "the worst president ever", until last night - I can't imagine how great life would be with a man like this in charge.

Amanda brought back around six rolls of film I think - but since I'm too lazy to scan them at the moment - I just picked through a few she had emailed the other day. These are from our x-mas visit to Michigan:









I wanted to post little captions underneath each photo - but I have a splitting headache at the moment, so... I'm going to pass.

A friend at work the other day suggested I read the book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". So today I decided to read the first several pages on Amazon and I am hooked - I want this book so badly - even more so now that I've read the 'review';

John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.

Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. --Alex Roslin

Originally posted at Project Pedal...

As most of you are aware, Olivier, the Director of Photography, was the first crew member to come aboard 'project pedal' in early December, almost immediately afterwards he had sent me an email, referring two of his close film-partners, Olan Bowland, a talented photographer, also the builder of the new mini35 kit [or in this case the new HDV35 kit], and Quentin Aksajef, who is, from what I hear, an amazing editor and a very experienced camera operator. Both had studied filmmaking techniques in Belgium, and both were personally familiar with Another State of Mind's unique style and approach.

I knew I wasn’t going to come across a better situation. With this team of three I had a –very talented - bulk of the project’s crew fulfilled, most importantly; these three wouldn't require any “adjustment period” during the first few weeks of shooting - they could jump right in and feel comfortable enough with each other to express their own ideas and concerns.

So, I am, of course, very excited to announce the addition of Olan and Quentin to the film’s crew. I really can’t say enough about how ecstatic I am with the film’s progress… to quote Moulin Rouge’s Harold Zidler, “every things going so well”!

Okay, two quick things I had to post here - neither is anything personal, sorry I do have a funny story to post, but it will have to wait - the first thing is in response to an article I read after hearing a short conversation about it on NPR, the headline read: "White House paid commentator $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind", here's a short clip:

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

This is just amazing to me. Here in America, we have a crumbling education system, compared with other countries, such as the EU, our kids are quickly falling further and further behind. Much of this is in direct result from an ever bloated "defense" budget - every year - with every passing president - the US spends more and more on bombs and less and less on books. Now, this isn't the first time that our government has, rather than throwing money at the problem, thrown money at the symptoms, and it won't be last time - they had an opportunity to take $240,000, which granted isn't a lot in the scheme of education reform, and put it towards something that would have a direct effect on under-educated children - and instead; they bought themselves a mass-media spokesman to drill into his audiences' head that "there is no problem... everything is great".

This is the system we live with. And don't kid yourself, this isn't an isolated event - it's simply an isolated story - these kind of mass-media "spokesmen" are a dime a dozen - and will continue to be until people stand up and demand a form of "news" that isn't dangerously susceptible to government / big-business buyouts. A form of news that's by the people and for the people - a form of news that has the freedom to report the massive short comings of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act... okay, I'm done preaching.

Secondly, is this funny cartoon I found on the internet - enjoy:

The other day while running around the hills in Studio City, I stopped and stretched at an intersection - looking up between stretches I noticed the street I had been running on was called 'Laurie St.', which happens to be Amanda's mother's name [minus the "St." part of course], for some reason I thought to myself, "that would be crazy if the intersecting street was called 'Amanda', but when I walked over to look it was just named 'Berry St.'. So, five minutes later I was all finished loosening up and started running up 'Berry'.

Several minutes up Berry I figured I had probably gone a mile and a half uphill and I should turn around now if I wanted to just go three. So, when I hit the end of the street, I turned around and met Amanda back at the Gym. Before we went home though I wanted to drive the streets I just ran to see if I was right about the distance, my time seemed a little quick for being in such poor shape.

But when we got to the top - I was happy to find I was right on - and then Amanda looked over and saw the street I was doing a u-turn on was named 'Amanda St.' - I then told her about Berry & Laurie [which was only around the corner a ways]... coincidence? Creepy. I don't think I've ever in my life been on a street named Amanda or Laurie - before that day - and for me to wonder that is just bizarre. To me at least... okay I'm done making myself seem crazy.