Author: James

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The Land of Fire and Ice

I was very sad when our last day in Oslo came around. We had a great time in Norway and I was not looking forward to going back to NYC, or more specifically, going back to work. The only upside to leaving Norway was that the wife had planned a little side trip for the family a few months back. She had always wanted to visit Iceland and thus set up a stop off for us in Reykjavik before heading home. I had never been spent anytime in Iceland beyond having a short layover in the Reykjavik airport so I was anxious to finally experience another Nordic country.

We we first arrived I have to admit that I wasn’t really impressed with Iceland. The trip in from the airport had us traveling past a rocky and barren landscape that went on for miles. It reminded me of the pictures that we got back from the Mars rover. As we got closer to the city the terrain began to soften somewhat. What shocked me was that it was still August and the locals were already wearing down coats. We stayed at what I was told was the tallest building in Iceland, the Grand Hotel. The fact that the hotel was only about 15 stories tall gave me a genuine chuckle. We then checked into our hotel and went for an early dinner.

The restaurant that we ate at, Veitingahusio Italia, had some of the best Italian food I had eaten in years believe it or not. Luckily had the early meal because by 11pm everything was pretty much closed down. And this was on a Friday night. I cannot imagine how it must be in the winter.

Day two in Iceland was much better, but it was still pretty cold. The wife took us to the Blue Lagoon outdoor hot springs to combat the chill in the air. I am not kidding when I say that is was the hot springs were the most relaxing experience that I can remember. I went in thinking I would stay for about 30 mins to get my money’s worth and I ended up staying in the warm mineral water for close to six hours. I looked like one of the California raisin

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Weekend in Sweden

Last weekend I went with the family to Sweden for a retreat with some of our scandinavian peeps. This was the first of a soon to be annual event held at the Björneröds Ridcenter. The wife and kids have been going to horseback riding camp at Björneröds for a few years now and this was a good time for us to socialize with good friends.

And to top it off, my crazy wife was covered in a local Swedish newspaper for participating in an annual swimming race across the Fjords. The water she swam in was freezing too. We were having a mini triathlon with some friends that weekend and with the exception of one other person, my wife was the only one of us to opt in for the swimming part of the competition. I on the other hand stuck to the biking portion of the competition because black people don’t like participating in freezing ass water sports.

 

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A dark night indeed

As long as I can remember I have had a special place in my heart for the comic book character known as Batman. More than any other fictional character, and if I am really honest, more than any real life person as well, Batman has helped to define my own personal and moral code. My mother, who is a fairly religious person, has lamented over the fact that I have never in my life asked myself “what would Jesus do”, but have on more than one occasion chosen a course of action based upon “what would Batman do”. With that said, as I sit here on my vacation Norway I  have been thinking about the recent shooting in Colorado during the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” and the Norwegian shooter from last summer quite a bit.

Anyone familiar with the Batman mythos will know that Bruce Wayne’s (aka Batman) parents were senselessly murdered in front of him while on their way home from watching “The Mark of Zorro”. Their murder marks a critical turning point in the life of the young Bruce Wayne. I keep thinking Continue reading “A dark night indeed”

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If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!

The martial artist in me is conflicted by the recent turn of events in Colorado, and the anniversary the mass murder in Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian gunman had more than an hour to hunt down and attack his victims. More than an hour, which means that he had to stop and reload at multiple points. As a person that trains in self defense based arts, I can’t help but think about what I would do if faced by such a threat. Would my training make a difference? Would I freeze or rise to the challenge? Are the arts that I am studying really effective in real combat situation? In truth, I don’t have any answers. I would hope that be able to protect myself and my loved ones. Or at the very least make the son of a bitch regret picking me or mine as a target.

My father was gunned down when I was fourteen as he was closing down his candy shop for the evening. The murderer was never found. Even as a young man I often Continue reading “If I can’t be famous, I’ll be infamous!”

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……does whatever a spider can!

It was a pretty good day for me. I had a couple of really productive meetings followed by an opportunity to reconnect with an old passion of mine that I have neglected for far too long, podcasting. Thanks to a good friend of mine I was asked to participate in a podcast about the new Spider-man movie with the guys over at NewYorkCine. I was brought in for my expertise on all things related to Spider-man and comic nerdism/geekdom. Plus I was one of the few people on the panel that actually loved the new Spider-man reboot more than the Sam Raimi versions.

Big up to my boy Thomas Edward Seymour for the invite. I had a blast. Here is to hoping they ask me back to help review the new Chris Nolan Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises, later this month.

The Spider-man podcast with my commentary can be found here:

If your browser does not support the audio element. Please access the podcast at:
http://newyorkcine.podbean.com/2012/07/10/new-york-cine-not-so-amazing-spider-man-27/

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More light please!!


With the summer fully in swing I am making full use of my break from teaching to spend some time to study new things. A few months back I took a workshop on shooting video with HDSLR cameras at Studentfilmmakers. I enjoyed the workshop a great deal and have wanted to sample some of their other seminars. Since then I have taken two other workshops at StudentFilmmakers on “Lighting for Mood” and “Directing for Video”. I am hoping that have been wanting to jump into the DLSR video waters for awhile. My lovely wife bought Continue reading “More light please!!”

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The new baby

I just got the new Acer Aspire V3-771G-9875 17.3-Inch laptop I ordered as an early birthday present to myself. I bought it online from Amazon for a great price. My 2009 17 inch Macbook Pro was starting to show it’s age with the old Intel Core 2 Duo processor powering it. I was starting to worry that my Macbook  was going to have problems dealing with the new Adobe CS6 software suite, especially the video based applications like After Effects and Premiere Pro. So I put on my big boy pants and finally pulled the trigger on a new Acer system.

 

Now for the record I am not happy that I have switched from Macs back to the darkside, but this laptop was too good to pass up. I love my macs but the new systems are priced too high when compared to some Windows systems. The desktop system that I built a few months back had made me more comfortable about switching to Continue reading “The new baby”

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Graduation day for the kids!

Congratulations to my beautiful daughter and son on their graduation day! Their graduation ceremonies were held on the same day, and at the same time. As a result, the wife and I couldn’t go to both. So we threw our names in a hat and the the kids picked which one of us would go with them. My daughter picked my wife’s name and my son picked mine outta the hat. The only solace was that I had enough video cameras for us to tape both events. I can’t believe they are graduating. As cliched as it may sound, it really seems that it was just yesterday they were starting school. And for the record, I have video of my daughter’s graduation as well. She just won’t let me post it. I believe her words were “Dad, stop being such a nerd”.