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I don’t see myself finishing out VloMo. I’m not making quality posts with any kind of thought to them this time around. I’m not enjoying what I make, and it shows. I can either finish, or enjoy watching and commenting on other people’s work. I need to take some time off and evolve a little. So I’m going to go enjoy my holiday with my family without guilt, and I’ll catch you on the flip side. If I can do some halfway decent storytelling, or share a sweet or funny moment, I’ll post it, and there will be some sort of revamp in 2009, hopefully early 2009.

I’ll leave you with a nice thought from @brookhinton:

sticking with something that isn’t enriching you is rarely a good plan

Indrani Kopal of Malaysiakini.tv documented the spirit of Transmission Asia-Pacific.

Last May I attended Transmission Asia-Pacific to teach video activists how to use WordPress with Show in a Box themes and plugins to distribute their video content online. Sungmi, one of the filmmakers participating, shot this video of about half of us on the bus from Jakarta to our campsite. I didn’t shoot much video there – too busy talking to people – so I’m embedding this one from the Engage Media site. If you’d like to see work by the filmmakers who attended, a few are listed here.

Here in Phoenix, back in 1954, a man who loved making people laugh created a TV show for kids. The show ran in one form or another for 35 years. It’s most commonly known as the Wallace & Ladmo Show.

The man’s name is Bill Thompson, and he created all kinds of entertaining characters for his show, but he mostly played the straight man. For most of his show’s life he worked with two core partners as well as other cast members. He appears here as Mr. Grudgemeyer.

The man in the top hat is Ladmo. That’s the name of his character, and he eventually legally changed his own name to Ladmo. Ladmo is the everykid, who just wants to have a good time.

Ladmo and Mr. Grudgemeyer are constantly at war over their favorite park bench. Slapstick always ensues. This is one of many “Mr. Grudgemeyer” episodes I’ve saved. Yes I accidentally left ten seconds or so of black at the front. Oops.

When I was a kid I watched this show every weekday. Even into high school. Almost everyone who grew up in Arizona did. If you meet people from Arizona, and find they have a similar, rather bent sense of humor, blame Bill Thompson.

Do you remember when commercials were a minute long? And when they gave kids prompts for how to sell the item to their parents? (It won’t make a sticky mess in the kitchen.) Do you remember Funny Face Drinks? My favorite: Rootin’ Tootin’ Raspberry. What was yours?

When D-Squared performs, they give you a story to go with every song. Their songs are wonderful stories in their own right, but getting to hear the story of why Don or Deb wrote a particular song makes each one a “two-fer.” Incidentally, if you’re in Arizona on December 6, you’re more than welcome to join me in Mayer to see Don and Deb usher in Winter – I’ve seen them make it snow before!

So here’s the intro, giving the inspiration for the song, and then the song itself. My audio is crappy because I just used the camera mic that night, but I still think you’ll get a sense of the magic of this tune. For whatever reason, the song just chokes me up.

I hope the owls are there for me when it’s my turn to answer the call.

I’m not sure what he is. I think he’s a hybrid toad, maybe part red-spotted toad and Woodhouse’s toad or maybe Arizona toad since he did have a tendency to hop rather than “walk.” Not really sure. While trying to identify him, I found a really nice description of the lives of toads in Arizona’s riparian areas.

When they exhibit their pieces later this semester, I’ll be sure and let you know, with video of course, so you can see what came out after the molds cooled.

Update: I found an article about last year’s pour in which Ted Uran describes the process. Check it out: Iron Pour turns scrap metal into art at SCC.

So this year, Ted gave me plenty of notice and I showed up an hour before they expected to have pourable iron. I brought the hubby and we both bought scratch blocks for $10, and t-shirts for $15, because they help the sculpture students raise money for cool stuff they want to do. Several local schools pool resources and talent to pull this off – it looked like we had people from Arizona State and Northern Arizona Universities in addition to Scottsdale Community College folks. A whole bunch of people show up to see the students pour their iron, and in the darkening evening it’s really quite a show, all flame and sparks and glowing molten metal.

Anticipation ran high, and the supportive crowd burst into applause when the first ladle was charged. But of course, the audience doesn’t always understand what’s really going on, as you’ll see.

Just been exhausted. Shooting video but not enough oomph in me to get it posted. I edited this one mostly in camera, from bed. I love you VloMo!

Since that time I’ve notice more and more vehicles come with fog lamps. I have to believe the auto dealerships are ordering them that way because the cars are a few hundred dollars more expensive with them installed. I mean, this is Phoenix we’re talking about. I’ve lived here my whole life, nearly forty years, and I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog in Phoenix on one hand. In fact, I can count the number of times I’ve seen fog here on one finger. That’s right. In forty years, there has been fog in Phoenix ONCE. For about two hours.

Yet just about every idiot on the road whose car is equipped with fog lamps turns them on every day. Apparently because they can. Either that or they’re all suffering from some kind of fantasy delusional fog inside their cotton-brained heads. It bothers me on a lot of levels, but mostly because they hurt my eyes. It’s not as bad as having your brights on, but it’s close.

Who’s more mental, them? Or me? Either way, it’s really satisfying to finally get that off my chest.

Thanks, Verdi!

At 7 minutes it’s overlong. It’s long because it’s a conversation, and I wanted to say all this to Matthew, whose own post is over six minutes. It’s one of those topics that sometimes requires a bit of background. If you think it would depress you to hear about the years I spent as a caretaker to my grandma, then don’t feel bad about skipping this one.

But if you want to hear about the reality of caring for our elders, then dive in. We’ll all be old or sick or helpless one day. We may be called upon to care for someone who simply has no one else. Don’t imagine this doesn’t apply to you.

You’ll notice edits – that’s just me taking out some pauses and irrelevant details.