So if you haven't heard dport7 has lost one of it's most prestigious staff members. Ian Swanson shipped off this morning for singapore. Where the hell is that? you ask. Well it's on the other side of the damn world pal. A 22 hour plane ride from JFK to Hong Kong then 4 short hours to everyones favorite spot on the Malay Peninsula. Ian pretty much sold, gave, and threw way everything he owned to move for a year to southeast asia. Why did he go? Well the Company we work for is opening an office there and ian was chosen to go over there and help build that arm of the business. i know what you asking. Paul what does this mean for my bottom line? Well, I'm losing my best friend here in NYC and with that goes my most reliable drinking buddy this means i'll be reaching out to more of you in dport7 land to fill the gap. Maybe instead kate and i will build that life size paper mashay dinosaur we've been talking about. maybe I'll start reading books, or finally finish my master degree, or re-stain the deck, or learn to sing dance and play a instrument all at the same time. no matter what i do kate and i are ganna miss that guy.
Anyway to send ian off right we had a going away party for him at Kettle of Fish down in the west village. I have been stricken with a cold so i couldn't go full out party (which was heart breaking). A lot of people showed up (some pictures in frames) so it was a nice send off. Prof and alison came in from NC which was lovely. I took the opportunity to bust out the camera to make a well wishes video. If you were there and I didn't get you on the video I'm really sorry. sometimes i get shy about putting people on the spot..... at least for the sake of video............. Oh speaking of video, with ian leaving the final nail in the coffin has been thrust into dport7 flicks. Unless anyone else want to sacrifice a Saturday to shoot, this is the official end. kinda sad really.

(double click to play)

Labels: friends, travel

happy Easter everyone! Just a quick update. my parents are in town for the Easter holiday and staying till tuesday. yesterday on a shockingly nice and sunny easter sunday kate my folks and i all went to the cloisters in upper manhattan. it's part of the met and as you might have guessed is full of mid evil art. it's easy to make a day out of the event and to say the least it was exhausting. Other than that it's just been family time.
in other news tony ritz is back so start checking the site again!!!!!
::::::::update::::::: i posted some pictures i took at the cloisters in frames.

Labels: general, holidays

Ok so i don't know why but i thought this sketch was really funny. i saw it on SNL the other weekend and then found it on Hulu. Hulu is what NBC decided to do after they dropped off Itunes and i think it's pretty good. Anyway give this clip a chance it takes a minute to get going but i think it's pretty good.

Labels: observations

Hey everybody happy daylight savings time. I know it's been happy for me so far. I got out of work yesterday and the sun was still up. It was beautiful. In fact I even got home before dark. A special treat. Anyway, on Friday Kate and I went to see be kind rewind. Its a Michel Gondry movie with jack black and mos def. mos def works at a VHS video rental store. His best friend Jack Black lives by the power plant and becomes magnetized. This causes him to erase all the tapes on his next visit to the store. To save the store they remake all the movies on their own. I was really excited to see this movie the director is probably the single most creative person on the face of the earth. He uses simple camera tricks for most of his special effects which always seems more impressive than the CG over done mess that most of current movies rely on for entertainment. So did I love the movie you ask? Well yeah......... I thought it was great, but it just seemed to be missing something. I can't put my finger on it, maybe it was the people sitting behind us that insisted on making comments through the entire show. Why in the name of everything holy would you sit in a theater and say out loud " oh look at that" when something cool happens. "oh, look at that" really? You really want to make that comment. We are all sitting in a crowded dark theater watching a movie we payed to see. What are the chances we aren't paying attention to what's going on in front of us. So please if you talk during movies, don't. Its making me mad. Not just me by the way, everyone around you wants to slap you, and some day someone might.

Good news everyone I bought guitar hero for the wii on saturday. Yes its really fun. What I thought was cool was that the wiimote nests right in the guitar so no extra batteries needed. Kate and ian came over and got sucked back into the guitar hero black hole. Later Saturday night we all went to see my friend jon hildenstein play a small show in park slope. I'll say right off that the guy can really play guitar. The show was great and it was really nice to hang out with jon. It's been at least a year I bet.
Other than that I've just been busy with work, and trying to build more organic models in my free time. I build a mummy last weekend and I'm working on a model of a reindeer right now. I'll post some renderings soon.

Labels: friends, movies

This was shocking! On Saturday we went to a winter time BBQ and after the food they broke out the Xbox and started up guitar hero. For those of you that don't know guitar hero is a game that let's you fake your favorite rock songs on a little plastic guitar with 6 buttons where the frets are and a toggle paddle where you would strum the strings. As most of you know I'm not a huge fan of video games, and by know means do I love playing guitar hero but I will give it an over all rating of pretty fun. Now this is where it gets shocking. Kate loves guitar hero. While ian and I played a few songs with some success, kate got into it and refused to put the guitar down until she beat each song she tried. She became kind of the ladies rep for guitar hero at the BBQ. The other girls gave the game a quick try and gave up, while kate played on. This situation was extra gratifying for me, because with guitar hero player now in kate's past it takes one more step in evening the nerd gap. Is haveing your own web site nerdier than being a guitar hero lover? I think I know the answer and I wish it was guitar hero lover (but I know its not, damn.). Just in case you don't believe me I got a picture. Sorry for the iPhone crap pic quality.

So last night (Tuesday) ian and I went out to see the last corn mo show before be goes on tour. It was at parkside lounge and for a Tuesday it was a really really good turn out. Corn Mo and .367 lover (his band) put on another killer show. I hadn't been to a show since my birthday so it was great to hear some of the songs again. For as much as I blog about corn mo I'm disapponted I haven't been able to convince many of you to be fans but, check his web site and if you live in Texas make an effort to see a show you won't be sorry.

Labels: concerts, technology