Posts Tagged fun
Waiting…and Waiting…
Which way Big Guy? I'm Game!
The past two days were pretty uneventful again, JUST KIDDING! Nah it was great. Monday morning I woke up to an email from Affirm Films asking for a few things. No “hey we would like to distribute your film” but no “take this trash and go away” either 
So that’s good news, just gotta be patient and give them what they ask for until they assess things properly and make a decision. It’s a business just like any other, no reason to get involved with someone bad for business, so they can mull over it all they want!
I’m waiting on a call from The Chapel still in regards to that ministry position. I’ve given it a lot of thought, talked with a friend or two, and I’m just being patient there as well. It’s Wednesday when I’m writing this and it’s only one week after initial meetings so that isn’t a lot of time passed. Just like Affirm, I want everyone to give things serious thought and consideration before making a move. Just like I don’t want my film to go to someone God doesn’t want, I don’t want to go into ministry if it’s not His Will either.
God is teaching me a lot of things in the past few months. There have been many lessons to be learned, and changes to be made. Although I have done my fair share of horrible things this Summer in mind, spirit, etc. just as everyone else has…He has been merciful and shown me the errors I’ve made. Man I know obediance is a CHOICE and not something you “try,” but it’s hard to do it sometimes. I’ll be honest here and tell you all something that is no secret amongst a few close friends, and if your a guy you can relate. This world is mighty tempting, in more ways than one. The fight is in the mind, and it’s a daily struggle. Magazines in gas stations, ads on Facebook which are VERY revealing and unncessary, the internet overall, just clicking through TV channels can cause some serious issues. It isn’t just a guy thing either, but you know exactly what I’m talking about. I told my buddy that driving through Vegas on the way to Los Angeles was a really difficult time. I got stuck in traffic and there are pornographic billboards every 50ft on the left and right. This world is so difficult, and any man who claims to be 100% free of it’s snairs is a liar. Purity of mind is where I struggle the most, and I would appreciate some prayer in that area of my life. It’s a problem that trickles down into your life, your friends, and if it escallates into truly dangerous territory, it can destroy marriages, relationships with future children, and all things inbetween. I think temptating for me hits hard when it’s time to start making decisions. The enemy doesn’t want me to have clarity in my decision making, so it’s times like now that I really need prayer from anyone who reads this, that I would stay strong.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
That being said, the past two days have been pretty fun. I’ve met a load of new people, had a lot of fun, crashed at a friends place (which I haven’t done in years actually), and just enjoyed some great fellowship. That is one benefit of this ministry position is the social health it’ll bring me. I really need some daily fellowship, and with this I’ll get it at work and out of work because I’m closer to folks I want to get to know a lot better. I’m not interested in weekend buddies, I want to grow some seriously deep and meaningful friendships with people I care about. I’m looking forward to seeing if this ministry job is God’s Will or if He wants me to wait, stay in Ransomville, and stay at Niagara Frontier Bible Church.
Another cool development is I sold a few pieces of film equipment for some good prices and just last night spent a chunk of it on some computer pieces I need. I have 8GB of RAM coming in the mail as well as a new GPU (ATI 4870) for my Mac. That combined with the Intensity Card I just bought, will have me all set to do what I need on the film smoothly. The graphics card I have now is doing OK with these dual screens but a new GPU will give me a serious boost, as well as FCP performance, and the RAM will help me a lot with multitasking which has been an interesting task combined with the RAM I have now, and the fact the graphics card is trying to handle what’s open, and the displays at the same time. Until you break down what your throwing at your machine, having 13GB RAM in your computer doesn’t make much sense…
So yea, other than that the Standing Firm edit is coming along well. Just plugging along… I’m excited to see what the rest of this year brings, and the year to come!
The Weekend
Saturday: This past weekend was a great time. I met a lot of new people, started developing some new relationships, heard some awesome preaching, had God rock my world with His truth, the list goes on. Yesterday (Sat.) was great because I didn’t really do anything all day. It was just working on stuff at home until later in the evening. I heard Eric Barton had something going on at his house so I drove an hour out to West Seneca to check it out. It was just a get together. Fun times overall. We played volleyball, ate food (yes…), played some games, even gathered in the basement later on in the night to take communion and sing a few songs. It was great, I really feel comfortable and at home with everyone. We ended the night on playing Loaded Questions which turned into a laugh factory. My cheeks hurt by the end of the night. I got home pretty late again which I knew was going to make sunday morning a challenge but o well.
Sunday: When I woke up I almost thought of just skipping today, lol. I never do that but I was just so amazingly tired from a weekend of craziness. Two extremely late nights in a row with little sleep will mess you up. I got up as late as possible and headed to church with a Slimfast in my belly (love those things). Pastor brought it home today, talking about compromise. Afterwards I didn’t get to talk to many people and everyone cleared out quickly so I was kinda bummed. Some folks I only see once a week and I missed them :/ After church I headed over to The Brickyard to take my mom to lunch. We just talked a little bit and had some great food. Not heavy conversation just relaxing. We don’t do that too much so it was a nice change. Afterwards I just went home to relax for the rest of the day. One thing I did do today was make my first hardware purchase in a while.
There are a few things I do need to buy to finish this movie properly, even though money is extremely tight. I picked up a Black Magic Intensity Pro which is an input/output card for the computer. This will allow me to playback my edits from Final Cut Pro to my 50in Plasma AND my 15in CRT that I used to use for color-correction. That’ll make viewing anything I work on from this point on much easier to preview. The greatest need was outputting to a monitor I could trust for color. You can’t color correct on LCD’s and trust them, not even close. Color isn’t even my biggest concern as most of the film is well balanced and we dialed in the white balance manually to our tastes. The greatest issue is our black and white levels. I need to make sure the film is a good mix of contrast and brightness. That’s hard to do on an LCD especially and every TV looks a bit different so finding a good balance of these values is important. I look forward to adding this piece to my machine and seeing how everything works out! 
The next step is more RAM and a new Graphics card for this computer. My GPU (Graphics card) seems to be pushing it pretty hard to keep these two 24in screens up and running. It’s a lot of work for a card, and doesn’t leave a whole lot for processing power in applications.
A good weekend by far, time for a good week I hope to get a call from The Chapel today about a possible position of some kind. I’ll be honest I’m hesitant to work in ministry again. I don’t mean ministry as a whole, but paid ministry. Somehow getting a pay check for your duties changes things. It’s a struggle for me, and I just know what working in that kind of environment can be like sometimes. Being a tech guy, you tend to get pretty closed off in your little cave too which is where I’ve tried to work my way out of for a while now…including my own bedroom. But I do recognize the fact that I need a certain amount just to pay my bills, I don’t expect to see a dime from Standing Firm for at least a year (and that’s if I sold it TODAY), and unless I get at least two web jobs a month (each paying $1000+), then I’m going to be going backwards…and that’s not a direction I like to be going. I need something steady that can give me a paycheck, and I don’t have a lot of options. Something like The Chapel is my only one besides working for myself when it comes to staying in the Media/Art realm. I would rather stay there than put in an application at a Starbucks, ya know?
We’ll see what God tells me to do. By no means will I pounce on the first thing that comes my way. This year above all has taught me to be patient and wait for His answer.
Fun Times :)
Today was great. I spent time working on the Parable website after I got up and spent the majority of the day on and off editing that as I was given notes. The site is nearly done, and ready for launch. I’m looking forward to putting this one on my resume. Around lunchtime I headed to Lewiston because I wanted a subway sub. The day before I had a Slimfast for two of my meals during the day, and I wanted some real food. So I get my car washed first and in front of me is the field in Lewiston where the Peach Festival is already setup and ready for use this weekend. When I pulled out of the car wash I saw some of the guys that travel with it standing outside. One was a mexican guy on the phone who pulled his shirt up and was rubbing his belly in front of everyone, yuck lol. I grabbed my sub at subway and headed home.
When I got in the door the house smelled good. Mom was cooking bacon (which I haven’t had in ages!) and I took a deep breath. Bacon smells awesome when it’s cooking, I think any man could agree. She made a huge BLT and there I sat eating my subway sub, lol. It was good though and for the first time in a while I finished the whole thing. Afterwards I continued to work on that Parable site until around 6:30 when I headed over to CORE at the church. What a great time that was. Lots of people I never would’ve expected to show were there. It’s funny because last year, it was almost always the same group, and now we’re getting people all the way from Vintage which is a shock to me but a welcomed one. Derek spoke tonight and did a fantastic job. He was a little nervous on Tuesday not knowing what he should preach on and waiting for God to give him something, and he did give him something good eventually. Derek is a good speaker, and I think that’s because he has a lot of passion for what he says. Not that some others don’t but he communicates that passion well and presents his message in a way that gets your attention.
Afterwards I hung around for a bit and talked to people, all the while resisting the ice cream they had sitting there for a snack with M&M’s and chocolate on it…ugh. I headed over to Jenny’s party with Jason and got hungry on the way but resisted. I had this idea in my head I would be getting fast food at 1am…and was fine with that. The party was great It was Jenny’s “coming home” party I guess, to welcome her back to NY. She’s from Germany and went home for a visit so we’re glad to have her back. Everyone was singing karaoke, and we played this game where you were given a thing, place, statement, etc. and would have to describe it but couldn’t say the actual words and people had to guess what it was before the buzzer went off. We played that for hours, like 2 and a half I think. I got some of the worst words possible. At one point I got “Frick & Frack,” “Xandu,” and “Dagwood Bumstead.” What the heck is that! LOL. Either way good times and me and Jason split at like 12:30 or so.
On the way home I stopped at Burger King for a whopper (mmmm) and Jason went to Taco Bell for some chicken taco he was raving about. Fast food at 1am…what’s sweeter? I hadn’t eaten a ton during the day so it was OK 
I’m still 200lbs, no big deal ha ha. Overall the day was great, and tomorrow will be another day of fun and work. I’ve had a lot of days like that lately and I think it’s starting to grow on me.
