Category Archives: General RanDomnESs

Off the top of my head…

††† ends tour at Slim’s…

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From the ††† Tumblr page

I had the good fortune to check out two shows at Slim’s last week.  The first being the hip hop group Doomtree, from Minnesota, and the second being † † † (Crosses), from Sacramento.  The latter is an alternative rock group formed by Chino Morreno (Deftones, Team Sleep), Shaun Lopez (Far), and Scott Chuck.  I quite enjoyed myself at the show and was rather surprised at their clean and rehearsed performance.  For being such a new band, with about seven members (including two drummers), they were tight and knew exactly where they were in the show.  I suppose some of this can be attributed to the longtime careers of its members and the fact that this was the last stop on their four-stop California tour.  All in all, a great show to be at and Chino seemed more alive and fresh than I’d seen him in years.  Do check them out if they come to your town.

Here are a couple of teasers that I shot on my phone…enjoy…



Kyle

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10 years strong…

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We just wrapped the 10th annual Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival.  And what a festival it was.  SYRCL presents this festival each year and it truly is one of the great highlights of my calendar.  For the past eight years of its existence, I’ve worked as a technician and then more recently in the role of assistant technical director.

The ambience of this festival is great and you just couldn’t pick a better town city than Nevada City to host it.  The old gold rush era buildings and the rustic venues really add to the overall feeling here.

  This year we introduced two high definition projection venues to the seven venue festival.  They looked tremendous!  You could absolutely see the difference in image quality.  In addition, we went totally digital with our playback system, utilizing AJA’s Ki Pro digitization unit.  These were kindly lent to the festival by local company, AJA.

All in all, I’m always a bit sad when it ends.  Many of the people I work with have been attending the fest for ten years and this is the only time during the year that we see each other.  The added reunion factor is a plus!

I say all of this so that you’ll consider going next year.  It’s just an amazing experience and every person that I’ve convinced to go has continued going on their own accord.  My parents have even made festival weekend passes their anniversary gift to each other for the past several years.  To find details, visit the website here or simply talk to me and I’ll give you an earful of details and great reasons to go.  You won’t regret it!

Kyle

Quitting…

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I’ve smoked cigarettes for far too long.  It started as a thing to do when I was playing music in bands and I’m sure we thought we were pretty cool.  It continued when I began film school and had hours of time to kill while processing movies or standing on a film set.  It didn’t help that everybody else in film school was dealing with these “down periods” in the same way.  By that I mean standing around, smoking, and shooting the shit.

Let me be clear on one thing: I love the sensations that come with smoking.  I love the smoke, I love the burning sound it makes, I love the occupation of my hands that it provides, I love how it keeps me company as I ponder life late at night, and I certainly love the calming properties it provides.

Well that chapter just ended four days ago and I couldn’t be happier

It hasn’t been easy, but it also hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  Granted, I have a 21mg Nicotine patch stuck to my arm as I write this.  The pangs still come calling and I deal with these.  Usually I manage these by taking some deep breaths and rubbing the patch on my arm.  I’ve quit in the past and luckily I retained the tools to deal with this.  The thing that has changed is that I just want to stop.  I don’t want this damn habit anymore.  Recent events have shown me that it’s time.  I want this.  I want other things that don’t come easily with smoking.  So it’s time.

I write this down, probably, as a coping method, but I also want others to know that you won’t see me smoking anymore.  Something about writing this down makes it more permanent for me.  I hope others will see this and will also consider doing the same.  Most of us know we should stop but think it will be too hard to deal with.  I’m here to tell you it’s manageable.  Not easy, but manageable.

I’ll leave you with this positive experience from this morning.  Walking to work today I noticed something very positive.  I walked up the slope to UCSF and got to the top of the hill without once coughing or hacking.  This hasn’t happened in literally years and it’s always been a point of bother to me as I knew where the irritation was coming from.  Today, I can breathe a bit easier and that makes me very, very happy.

Kyle

Found words…

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The holiday season brings a lot of things out of the woodwork: our family, our friends, and often some of the old items, stuffed deep into the recesses of the family home.  This is one such example of the latter.

After my mother pulled out an old school bag from the college years, I found this little quote that I had written down for myself.  I was quite happy with my younger self for saving this little snippet for future digestion.  I find the quote as interesting now as I must have years ago and I hope you enjoy.

Piece of paper found in an old school bag.

Kyle

It begins…

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What do you do when life starts feeling a little too bland?  For this generation, one might start a Twitter feed or Facebook account.  I already have a FB account and I’d like to think that I’ll never have a Twitter.

For me, I’d like to start this webpage/blog to share and expand upon the new information that comes into my world.  You may find some of this “old news” but I hope it will always be interesting and make you think.

Please feel free to comment wildly and just remember to stay engaged with your world.

Kyle