[Originally posted at projectpedal.com]

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, but in my defense I do have a semi-excusable reason: six days ago I began writing a “short” story covering the last five years of my life. It’s over six pages long and I’m still not done, but rather than neglect the site for another day, I just figured I would break the story up into several “chapters”. So, here it is:


There isn’t a whole lot of breaking-news to report on the progress of the film at the moment – maybe a few little things here and there, but nothing too exciting. So, instead, I thought I’d take advantage of this downtime to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time on the site…

So much of this site focuses on the technical aspects of this project, on the “what, where and the when” and not enough of the “who and the why”, when that’s probably what people are most interested in – the personal side of a film, the side we most rarely get to see. I guess a good way to start is to explain how I got to this moment:

To tell the story of ‘project pedal’, I first have to tell you the story of “love at last sight”, but before I do that… I have to tell you about my senior year of graphic design school in Adrian, Michigan – that’s where everything started.

I took graphic design for two reasons, the first being; it got me out of school for three hours a day, and the second being; I loved art but hated my art teacher, Mrs. L’ – hate is a strong word to use, I simply didn’t get along with Mrs. L’, it was her teaching methods I hated. Even though this was my second year in the graphics-program, I didn’t know anyone in the class. I had procrastinated re-applying for the course my junior year and therefore; barely made the list for the evening class. It was hard to make new friends - the class only took in 20-25 students - 90% of them from the evening class the year before – everyone was all ready settled in their little clicks. The only downside to the class was the teacher, Mrs. C’, now unlike Mrs. L’, Mrs. C’ never taught or attempted to teach her students anything – and as strange and unbelievable as that might sound – it’s the truth, but this wasn’t the downside – if anything her lack of interest in her students was the class’s biggest asset, the downside was Mrs. C’s business. She ran a graphic’s sweatshop out of her classroom, forcing her students to collate thousands and thousands of pages of booklets for hours at a time; she even had a handful of brownnosers designing restaurant menus, instructional pamphlets, etc., for a grade while she brought home the money. But this is all slightly beside the point – just an interesting background detail of graphic design, which is where I met Chuck, and Chuck is the person who started it all…

One day, months into the class, I noticed Chuck sitting quietly by himself at a table in the back, hunched over a large piece of poster-board – this was strange and out of place mostly because Chuck was never quiet or by himself, he was constantly the center of attention in the class; loudly cracking jokes or spouting off quotes from the Simpson’s - when I sat down next to him I saw he was using a meter-ruler to carefully draw very thin, perfectly parallel vertical-lines on the paper, it looked as though he had been drawing straight-lines for a few days – and he was only half-way done, it reminded me of Mrs. L’s mind-numbingly boring “art” projects, I asked, “what’cha doing?”, and those were the first words I ever said to Chuck.

Out of the 30 or so computers in the class, I had managed to stumble onto one that had the animation program, Maya, installed on it. Mrs. C’ couldn’t tell me why it was there or how to use it, but for whatever reason, everyday I came in the class and went straight to that computer – slowly teaching myself the program. After three weeks of baby-steps, I knew enough to begin a short project, I choose to animate a pod-race - despite my dislike for George Lucas, but that’s a different story for a different time - I choose the pod-race mostly because I couldn’t animate movable-objects [people] and I couldn’t figure out a way to rotate tires automatically on objects. So, I limited myself to solid-floating objects, and everyone just assumed they were Star-Wars pod-racers. After weeks of animating the project, I started exporting short QuickTime clips of basic wire-frames in action, it was then that people started to take notice in what I was doing – peaking over my shoulder as I scrubbed through the timeline, and it was then that Chuck walked over and asked, “what’cha doing”. This was the second time that Chuck and I talked during the class.

After that, we started going to SubWay after graphic’s-class, or skipping school all together to water-ski at Heidi’s, a girl I was interested in from class, the three of us became inseparable almost instantly. But still there was no open-interest in film between Chuck and I, most of our time was spent fearing graduation and discussing the “rest of our lives”. Chuck was always “committed” to something new, whether it was: Catholicism, zines, squatting, homelessness, train-hoping across the country, politics, Buddhism, running, stamp-making, growing his hair out for Locks-of-Love, vegetarianism, taking a vow-of-silence, aggressive-inline-skating, starting a sticker company, etc… and it was this eccentric characteristic that I was most drawn to in the beginning – but in the end it would be this characteristic that would drive a wedge in our friendship.


This was the beginning of our friendship – the end of graphic design school – and “the rest of our lives” - which brings us to “Love at Last Sight”:

I know this is already all over the internet, but I got home from work tonight and read that Hunter S Thompson had shot himself - I couldn't believe it, I still can't - why? I'm sure it sounds strange, but this really has me shaken up in a weird way... I can't think of what to say, so I think I'll just end this with a quote:

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die".

I'm fairly new at this, so bare with me - I've "embedded" a movie file in a post before for project pedal, but never with the below plugin thinga'majig... so if this looks a little funny on your computer, let me know, it's a work in progress.



I already know that the picture and the movie are different sizes, so it jumps around a bit when you click on it... but I haven't gotten around to making myself a personal "click here" picture just yet.

Off and on the past few days it just starts pouring out of nowhere. Within minutes the streets flood over - the sky goes grey, and then afterwards, it clears right back up again in no time. It even thundered yesterday, which it doesn't usually do no matter how hard it rains here.

Right now the sky is blue and the sun is out - but if it starts coming down hard again, I'm throwing on my shoes and going for a run - maybe jump in a few oversized puddles here and there. In the meantime I'm going to go watch some more special features on the Donnie Darko (director's cut) DVD.

Finally, an end [at least for rational people] to the whole global warming argument - I always thought it was funny that were actually a large majority of people out there that thought we could shit all over the planet and not have to deal with any consequences.

I stole this from Mark Maynard, but in my defense, I mentioned this guy's book about a month ago, so it's not a complete steal...

This interview is really interesting, and not something that should be considered partisan. I read the paragraph below and tried to image the thoughts and feelings that must have been running through this man's head as he was standing there, looking at what was left of the world trade center, knowing that he was partly responsible.

"...But when 9/11 struck, I was in the Amazon at the time. I went up to New York a few weeks later and sat there and I could still smell the burning flesh and see the smoke coming out of that hole, and I sat there and I knew that I had to take responsibility for what had happened there. I knew that I had to expose the truth because what happened at Ground Zero is a direct result of the empire building, of what we economic hit men did, and I knew as I sat there that if we don't do something to change the course we're on in the world, my daughter basically has no future and certainly her children don't".

Anyways, take a minute to read this short conversation [that includes you, Mom - I know you think I'm crazy... this might help my case].

A woman who couldn't speak, came into the store and drew this for me the other day:



The strange thing was that she sketched the general picture really fast, but then slowed down and started spending a lot of time shading in the shape of the bed - and then labeled everything, I just stood there and let her draw away. I don't know why I kept it - I guess because it doesn't happen everyday.

Did you know that the world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1? I read that on Snapple's "Snappleton" site ('real fact' #16), and started thinking about just how many damn termites that is - how is there anything left?

Now I can't get the mental image of billions and billions of pounds of termites crawling over eachother out of my head - I think I'm going to be sick.

Billy bought the special edition of 'Raging Bull' yesterday, when I got back from work and found out - I nearly crapped my pants with excitement. I've been dying to see that movie for a long, long time - and the other day we ran all over town trying to find a copy, but everyone was sold out - well, except for Circuit City, they had one copy left, but it wasn't on sale and Billy is a bargain shopper, so he waited. Anyways, long story short, after teasing me with the movie, waiving the DVD around in front of my face, he went to bed early, and hide the movie... now he's at work until 7 and I have to wait to watch it even longer. I'm going crazy.

I just finished reading an article on Bush's plea to congress for $950 million in Tsunami aid, more than doubling the previous pledge of $350 million. I can't help but wonder what motivated this increase... was it out of the kindness and goodness of our "beloved commander in chief's" heart? Or was it that Australia alone had set aside $810 million, that Germany had promised $660 million, that the EU was giving $624 million and finally Japan was contributing $540 million? Is this an act of generosity or a government-pissing-contest?

Then, for whatever reason, I was curious as to how much $950 million really is - in terms of government spending - after all, that's a lot of money to me, and kind of hard number to put it in context. So I thought I would compare it to say, what the US spends on Iraq per day, now keep in mind, this is just the war - excuse me - operation enduring freedom - not the overall military budget. And the answer is *drumroll*... 5.3 days, that's how long $950 million would get you in Iraq.

Does anyone know how much we spend on defense per day? I tried to find a solid number, but I'm running out of time to get ready for work.

Friday was payday. I had to work from 12 to 5. My check was direct deposited into my bank account at 12:01 that morning. When I got to work I punched in and went into the locker room. I opened my locker, took off my sandals, through them in, grabbed my work shoes and sat them on the bench behind me. I opened my purse and took out my debit card so I would have it when I went on my lunch break later, since I was all out of cash. With both my debit card and my name badge in my hand I sat down on the bench and set them down next to me so that I could put on my shoes. When I got up I grabbed my name badge, put it on and walked to the mirror to tuck in my shirt. I looked at my self... real close up in the mirror for a minute. Stepped back... then decided I looked decent enough to walk downstairs and start my work day.

We were pretty slow, as we normally are at that time of day during the week. Garen and I were the only two working in furniture pick-up so we mostly stood around chit-chatting between handing out carts full of furniture and taking shopping baskets from customers to hold so that they could move their cars around from the parking structure to the IKEA loading zone. Around 1:30 I got really thirsty. I thought it was a little too early to take my break upstairs in the staff cafe, so I would just go to the bistro, near our middle entrance, and grab a pop in a to-go cup to bring back to furniture pick-up.

I reached in my pocket to grab my debit card but it wasn't there. I thought for a minute. I distinctly remembered taking it out of my wallet before putting my purse in my locker and shutting the door. I looked at Garen puzzled... "I think I left my debit card on the bench in the locker-room... I'm gonna run upstairs". "Go! Go! Go!" he said as he shoowed me away with his hand. I ran up the steps, into the locker room, glanced at the bench and the floor underneath. Nope. I opened my locker and searched through my purse. Nope. Ran back down stairs to the operators desk wich also doubles as our lost and found. I asked the operator if anyone had turned in a credit card. Nope. She said she'd keep her eye out and let me know if it turned up.

I checked back and hour later. Nope. By now I was really hungry and wanted some lunch since I hadn't even had time for breakfast before work. And still very thirsty. Angie came in at 2 and I was telling her all about my missing debit card. She went down to the bistro and bought me a bottled water when I wasn't looking. She's so sweet.

Around 3 I told my manager, Ula, that a co-worker had stolen my credit card. She looked at me like I was crazy then handed me her phone and said, very firmly, "call your bank right now." I had really been hoping it would turn up. I was planning to wait until the end of the day before reporting it. But then I thought, she's right, it's been 3 hours, if it hasn't gotten turned in by now, it won't. I did what she said and called my bank to report that I'd lost my card. They said it would be 7-14 days before I get my new one.

Ula forced me to barrow $20 from her when she found out I had no cash. Luckily my bank stays open until 6 on Fridays. I left IKEA as soon as I got off and drove all the way across the valley to Beverly Hills (where the closest branch of my bank is) in rush hour traffic. I made it just in time. It was 5:58 on a Friday and I was withdrawing all of my money.

You think you know the girls you work with.

Time to go pay rent.

I just spent three hours re-designing the blog, from the ground up, only to find that something in the 'html' didn't cooperate with a java-code that makes the menus hide/show (like our movies and archives)... so it's back to the drawing board.

Which is probably a blessing in disguise, I wasn't really in love with where it was going anyways.



Amanda sketched this idea earlier, I don't know what to say about it, except, she's cute... I actually think we should use the picture just as it is for the new 'header', but she won't let me.


[Afterthought] In the middle of working on the template, as I was half in a daze, I heard Billy make a strange sound, like he was holding back a laugh, and when I turned around to look - he was inches from my face doing this:



I'll never be able to watch 'The Grudge' now without laughing... oh well, I heard it sucked anyways.

Maybe it's the excellent grilled cheese (with turkey) I just made for myself. Maybe it's the trill of drinking red juice out of Amanda's off limits strawberry shortcake cup while she's off at work. Or all the Morrissey I've been listening to. I know this photo album made me smile.

But whatever it was, I'm in a good mood, despite the fact that I have five minutes now until I leave for work, there's been some talk around here about a massive overhaul of the site - maybe moving on to season three... since 'two' has sucked so bad. But I'm probably jumping the gun in saying anything, it's still in the works. I think we all just kind got blogger'ed out for a while, which was an unfortunate time to fall out of the habit of writing because, things have been pretty good around here. The three of us are, I don't know, just so much happier now, than say, three months ago.

Okay, I have to run, I would be able to ramble on for a little longer but I have to brush my teeth, get changed and scrounge up some money for lunch.

Originally posted at Project Pedal...

The first batch of proj:pedal stickers should be here by the middle of next week... the design, as you can see below, is really simple - I just wanted something I could get out there - I only bought 125 of them, which won't spread far considering all the local bike-shops in and around North Hollywood alone, but it will get the ball rolling. I'll also be mailing a handful out to a reader in Detroit, if anyone else is interested in getting stickers, please feel free to email me.



For the next batch of stickers I get printed up, I'd like a new design, something that looks like it took longer than five minutes to design. But rather than do all the work myself, I was hoping to hold a contest, having the readers get involved and send in their designs or ideas. The rules:

* It must have the website address somewhere on the sticker,
* It must be black & white,
* Your design must fit one of these dimension options [except for the 12" x 3"].

There's no limit to the number of designs one person can submit. Feel free to include a "designed by..." on your sticker idea. The deadline for submissions is the 17th of this month, giving you 15 days to come up with the greatest sticker idea the world has ever seen. I haven't decided what the prize will be yet, but I'll do my best to make it worth your while [actually, if anyone has any ideas on what the 'prize' should be, send those in too].

One more quick thing before I go: check out the "get involved" drop-menu to the left, you'll notice two things have been added under a "how to help your friendly neighborhood indie-filmmaker" caption, these are great and inexpensive ways to show your support for proj:pedal.

Besides that, goodluck, everyone!