Archive for 2009

Lots of walking

I woke up Monday morning after a great weekend and as I stood up I immediately felt all the walking I did in my legs and feet. Public transportation is not something that guy who’s existed in suburbs all his life is accustom to, but it’s something I could definitely get use to. It felt great to be out doors all weekend and even better to not be tied down to a car on crowded streets.
I got off my flight at SFO Friday just after noon and proceeded to take BART into the Haight. We had a couple beers at a cool pub called Toronado and ate some Vietnamese sandwiches. I love walking into a bar that has beers on tap that I’ve never heard of. Toronado had beer from Belgium and California that I had never seen, from breweries I never knew existed, it was glorious. Evidently Greg got my departure and arrival times mixed up, so he had been waiting around for me since I walked onto the plane back in Phoenix. The beers helped.
We went back to his place, which was bigger than I anticipated. The building he lives in once housed one family (and probably some staff) but now has five apartments. They have one half of one of the three floors and it makes a very comfortable one bedroom apartment. I can’t imagine having the whole building, much less paying for it.
Naomi got home from work and we set out for the Giant’s game. The best thing about Baseball is being outside and leisurely cheering for your team, the worst is paying $9.75 for a Stella Artois. Even in a neighborhood market in San Francisco you can get a six pack for that. The game was fun, the Giants played terrible but I’m not a Giants fan so I was over it pretty quickly. Again, the beer helped.
Chris, a guy Greg and I went to High School with, had just days before moved to SF and was supposed to meet us at the game. He decided to just come late and meet up with us with his car. In the chaos of the game ending that obviously didn’t pan out. We walked down to the restaurant that Greg works at and he soon found us. The Thirsty Bear Brewery was pretty cool, an odd mix of traditional craft beer and tapas. I’m sure the menu looks pretty odd to most people expecting to get pub food, but trust me it was delicious.
Saturday morning I was a bit slow to get started but we headed up to Twin Peaks and had a nice view of the city. We then walked through the Castro and down into the Mission neighborhood. After standing in line for some sandwiches we settled down in Dolores park and had a nice lunch. The sandwiches were well worth the wait even if I wasn’t able to finish mine. Walking and consuming a fair amount of liquid makes me pretty protective of my stomach. I certainly don’t eat like I use to, and that’s fine, but having to be constantly aware of my digestive system just gets annoying.
That night we hopped a bus to Hayes Valley to this great German restaurant called Suppenküche. The Oktoberfest beer was amazing and so was my Schnitzel. We walked through the Haight on our way back and had a couple more pints. Chris got back to the house before too long and like the night before my eyes were shut for good a little after midnight.
This trip was fun but it pretty much cemented my suspicions about being an old man. Even with traveling and beers and food you’d think I could manage to stay up past midnight to hang out with people I hadn’t seen in a couple years.

It was a great trip, you can see some photos I took on Facebook.

Work has been interesting this week, but all in all it’s really just par for the course.
There are also a lot of things in the planning stages with Praxis creative. Concepting the Advent video series has proven to be much harder than I anticipated.

Working for the weekend

It’s been a good week so far but my mind can’t help but wonder to this weekend. Especially after the less than restful weekends that I’ve been having lately, a weekend out of town is exactly what I need. This week is turning out to be nothing other than a mad dash to get projects finished.

I’ve got another Church project to share. Initially I was only going to have a week to throw something together to announce a more permanent home of Praxis’ Tempe Mission. Thankfully the announcement was pushed back a week because the video wouldn’t have made it. You’ll hear the VO change when the date comes up. I did all I could to make the two recording sessions match but it’s really quite an impossible task. I was more personally responsible for this project and was definitely more embarrassed when it played in service. No matter now many times I watch my own work in front of friends or superiors or clients I still get nervous. Especially when that break in the VO was coming… lol, I doubt the people sitting next to me knew why I was staring so intensely at the ground.

Praxis Tempe Misson Promo from Praxis Church on Vimeo.

I found out early on that our creative director and pastor are big fans of kinetic typography. To be more honest that I should… I’ve really grown to hate that style. It’s played out, don’t get me wrong, there is always room for more creativity. I just don’t feel like I’ve got the chops to do anything new with it. If the style was more natural for me I guess I’d like it better, but my kinetic typography just comes out more simplistic than clean and modern.

I also finished some composites for Everything’s Eventual yesterday. I had promised the work a week earlier but I can’t exactly tell my boss that when he changes my schedule. I’m looking forward to getting the shots to the director and off my hard drives. I know he’s looking forward to getting them into the movie so they can finish it.

Take it easy, I should have pictures of my little trip next week.

What did I know

I left the office last Friday before the Labor Day weekend knowing that on Tuesday I was going to have to hit the ground running. I had checked in a rough cut of a project to my boss late in the week and he wasn’t impressed. That was fine… I didn’t like it either to be honest. He made some vauge comments and I spent my weekend with a few changes rattling around the back of my mind. Tuesday morning my boss calls and informs me that the album’s producer would be sending me a new cut of audio. Not a new revision of the same song, but a new cut of a new song. So basically it was my job to redo two weeks worth of work in two days. This is how it turned out, it’s not terrible but I can’t honestly say I like it. My boss was happy and from what I’ve heard others liked it, so it’s served its purpose.

HALFORD III: Winter Songs Promo from David Hildreth on Vimeo.

After a small disaster with Amazon.com I got my hands on The Beatles: RockBand on Wednesday. I’m not sure I can really even explain how fun the game is, you really need to play it. The attention to detail is astounding, the songs are well chosen and it’s just a great experience. I invited a few friends over last night to rock out with me and had a great time. I have yet to try out the harmonies but I’ve heard that it takes the game to a whole other level.

It’s another busy weekend. Having four concurrent projects is proving to be no fun. Even though half of it is free I can’t complain, there are too many people around without any work.
I’m really looking forward to the end of the month, a carefree weekend visiting friends in San Francisco is just what I need. :)

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