Touchdown!

The wedding has been filmed, and I'm packing up for Dream Night, Go Diamond Weekend, and then the shoot with Leonard Knight in California.

It's gonna be a blast!

I got the Dell laptop up and running, capable of handling both the external hard drive and the M-Audio microtrack recorder. Problem is, it doesn't have USB 2.0 . USB 1.1 is too slow for large transfers, so I'll probably pick up a PCMCIA expansion card with two powered USB 2.0 ports. They only run about 15 - 20 dollars, and for the amount of time it will save, it's well worth the cost.

Back to real world lingo. I'm in a huge hurry, and I will be for quite a while. You won't be hearing much (anything?) from me while I'm running around out there, but I'll try to post a picture once in a while, if I can.

A post I really liked by the Harris twins on The Rebelution, is located here. Thought provoking, and true. I loved it. Keep it up guys!

Recently, I've found myself humming 'Jesus, Take the Wheel!' over and over again. I think it's fantastic that Carrie Underwood (quite the name, eh?) took the time to write it, and it goes to show that not everybody coming out of American Idol is as purposeless as the show itself. God Bless ya Carrie, and keep on singing for God!

Well, while I'm in Denver, I'll get to spend some time with my Grandparents, and hopefully Angela Coates (a girl I intend to cast in a future production), though this time I'll be sure not to drop my phone into the lake. ;-)

I want to apologize for the atrocious spelling on my itinerary post. It was terrible! But at any rate, I'll fix it eventually, and it reminded me that we can all make mistakes, even in obvious things.

That's my update! Hope you enjoyed it, gotsta run now, bye bye!

~ In Christ, John.

Here comes the bride.

Tomorrow I go to film a wedding. Yes, THE wedding. The wedding of Cory Halterman and Leah Parnell. (I think I spelled her last name properly).

At any rate, the truth is that I don't actually film the wedding tomorrow, but I do GO to film the wedding! Tomorrow at 6:00 is the rehearsal, and I wanted to test my setup, as well as capture a bit of fun video. Then, at the 'party' over at Gringo's, I'll probably capture some video as well. Keeping the food off my clothes won't matter, because I'll be behind the camera. ;-)

It's a real blessing whenever somebody gets married. In the hit Christmas film 'It's a wonderful life', we hear the phrase 'every time a bell rings, an angel get's his wings'. I would say that every time a couple gets married, bells ring in heaven. It's a joyous thing, and there's a definite blessing that comes with it.

No wonder the homosexuals fight so hard for this right. Oooh, I almost went depressing on ya'! Don't worry, I'll save that for another post. ;-)

I had a wonderful chat with David and Valerie DeLap over the phone the other day! It was great to speak with friends that I haven't spoken with in a long time, and catch up on the latest news. Of course, their children, Dallas, Freeman, and Timothy, are all doing great! In fact, Freeman was opening a 'Moody Institute of Science' video with a razor blade while I was talking to David. Of course, two and three year old boys are very well know for their skill with razorblades, but David didn't see it that way. :-D

At any rate, it was a great conversation, and very inspiring.

Coming up, I'm looking forward to filming the Wedding, and then visiting my Grandparents and other family in Colorado, possibly meeting some folks who saw Bubble Trouble, then moving on to California, where the tough work begins.

//beginningoftechtalk

For the technical folks out there, fresh on my list of usable tools for the production are the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96, a 24-bit audio recorder that records at up to 96,000 hertz through dual 1/4 inch TRS jacks, which is a huge jump over the fuzzy, 16-bit 48,000 hertz via 3.5mm mic jack that my camcorder provides.

I'll then transfer the uncompressed WAV files through an old Dell Inspiron 7000 notebook (very slow, very old, great battery life, bad keyboard, bad cd-rom, etc) to an external 5200 rpm, 40 gig USB hard drive, once every 140 minutes.

The batter life on the Microtrack isn't great, so I'll also be using a CyberPower USB battery extension, which I can charge via the Dell Inspiron 7000's USB port.

Also on the crew, will be two 42 inch flexfills, with 5 surfaces each for light control. It's gonna be a grand, grand adventure, having all ten sides to work with. I'll be recording via David's awesome AT-897 shotgun mic, and a wireless Sony set with the freebee T microphone that came with the Microtrack recorder. It's only about 32,000 hertz, but in a pinch, it'll work. I'm thinking about building my own fleece for David's mic, since they're a bit spendy to buy, and ya never know if they'll fit properly. However, I've heard it's not windy out there much.

//endoftechtalk.

Today a RAM chip fried in Mom's laptop. I couldn't figure out what the problem was, and after driving to David's house to get the OS CD, then driving back here, only to find out that the CD wasn't the problem, I was frustrated. Then I remembered a bit out of C.J. Mahaney's book 'Humility', that mentioned how miracles are merely God's way of saying 'Ha, I can do it without you!'.

So I prayed for the computer, and it worked. I thought that was slightly spooky, so I tried it again. Ah ha!! It didn't work this time, did it! This is how it had been all day long. Praying for it didn't work after all. But wait.... Why did it work that one time? It must be a bad RAM chip! So I pulled the chip out, and voila, it worked! I went to tell Mom. I told Mom that I (note, me) had fixed it.

To prove it, I restarted the computer. Same old error message again. Mom looked at me, then left. Now I was very, very upset. I was about to take this very expensive computer, and throw it out the window, and shoot it several times. But instead, I said "eh, God doesn't want it to work for me. Just for him." So I powered it down, pulled the battery, and tried again, this time WITH the CD from the Heustis's. Sure enough, it worked beautifully.

It's been running great since then, and Mom remarked that it had been sluggish recently, and that she wanted to upgrade the RAM. Well, now was the perfect opportunity. Strangely enough, the computer store is having a great sale on this particular type of RAM right now. Now, Mom's RAM will be more than doubled, for a very low cost.

God works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?

I normally scoff at stories like this. Today I lived one. What can I say? The LORD is powerful beyond understanding or comparison. Blessed be the name of the LORD.

God Bless!

~ In Christ, John.

Touching. Really it is.

Recently, Jeff Heustis pointed me to a music 'video' online.

It's about a five year old boy riding with his Dad in his JCB. I found the song particularly amazing, if only for the fact that I used to ride around with Dad in his JCB.

Click here to watch the video.

The song is hard to understand, due in part to low quality, but mostly to the British accent of the singer. Afterall, JCB is made in England.

Lyrics are available here.

I enjoyed the song a lot, and I hope you will too.

God Bless!

~ In Christ, John.

Mental Illness? Yeah right.

This is an interesting and somewhat frightening article.

http://rebelution.blogspot.com/2006/01/71-of-teens-are-mentally-ill-and-need.html

Homeschooling? Yes, thank you.

A Calling of the Spirit.

Some folks are happy, others are joyous. Happiness lasts for a season, joy for an eternity.

If we follow the calling of the flesh, we'll experience the flesh expressing it's delight through our emotions. Happiness comes to us.

But when a rainy day strikes, our flesh expresses its bitterness through another twist of emotions. As followers of Christ, we are called to be dead to the flesh, but alive unto the spirit.

If we follow the calling of the spirit, the spirit will express it's delight through a spirit of joy. The spirit of joy cannot be crushed by torture, by a rainy day, by the death of a loved one, or by any of Satan's workings against our flesh. If our spirit is joyous, the soul and flesh will follow along.

However, if we sin, that spirit of joy is removed far from us, and we ride merely on the emotion from pleasure known as 'happiness'. It is possible for a season to be happy without joy, but joy brings gladness to the soul in times of affliction to the flesh.

If you know somebody that you regard as 'emotionally unstable', they don't have the spirit of joy, but rather, the emotion of happiness at times. This would imply that they're not following the spiritual calling God places on their lives, whether they're Christians or not.

God doesn't work in emotions or sensations, but in spirits. Humility brings a submission to God, which in turn leads us to follow the calling of the spirit, which produces joy. Pride claims its own way, and thus the only pleasure we can know in this life, is emotional pleasure. Spiritual workings will be altogether removed from me until I bring myself into total subjection to God's divine will. Then, my joy will be uncrushable by man, and even against all the hordes of hell.

I know people who are emotionally stable, because their spirit is right, and the emotions follow. I also know people who bounce from place to place, because they have no sense of proper direction, due to a lack of subjection to parents, spiritual authorities, and most commonly, the influence of the Holy Spirit.

It's like Christmas time, when presents are exchanged. While we may be for a season happy with the presents that we receive, we will be filled with joy when another person receives a gift from us. Though both are emotional in a sense, the former requires subjection of others to our will, the second, our will subjected to another. The second is the spirit we'll feel when we give God the very greatest of our treasures; Our life.

Life not in the physical sense, but in the sense of the soul. I give my birth to God, I give my daily living to God, I give my eating to God, my drinking to God, and my thinking to God. I also give my death to God. He will not misuse it.

Just a few thoughts from late into the night.

God Bless!

~ In Christ, John.