OBNOTS 2007

Team Obnots combined their powers once again and finished their new 48 Hour Film Project movie *on time*. Our movie this year is called Love Bites. Of course it is about tranpires (you know... tranny vampires). We had some new Obnots cast and crew this year. Irina co-starred with Jeff as the two star-crossed lovers, Irina a member of the Ancient Order of the Straightlace, and Jeff the tranpire. Irina also did tranny make-up for Jeff and Andrew, the main tranpires in the movie. And we got Pat back this year! After doing an awesome job in Tarts & Hose, Pat hid from team Obnots, perhaps afraid of what we might make him do next on the big screen. With praise and begging we convinced him to return, this year playing Todd, the leader of the Ancient Order of the Straightlace. Amanda also returned after a year off. She used her fancy camera to be our excellent cinematographer. Tim helped me out in a huge way by importing the first couple tapes and editing rough cut scenes together. It's because of him we had any chance of getting the movie in on time. Heidi also joined forces with Obnots this year, and did a great job in the costume department, and acting on both sides in the movie. And then there was newbie Zev, who ended up not only acting as Tom and Thea Quimby, but also took nearly 200 behind the scenes photos of Love Bites. Nearly all of them are awesome basically. And I need not mention the all around excellence from Jeff, Andrew, Ben, Leslie, and all the extras that showed up at odd times for an odd job.

Obnots 4 eva!

Springtime AK trip

Hello. I just returned from a little trip back from Alaska and Seattle. It was nice to return to Fairbanks after being away only two and a half months. It was strangely the same wintery self, only LOTS MORE SUNLIGHT. I guess I forgot what March is like in AK, since I hadn't been there during March since 2001. It was nice, we went to the Ice sculpture park as soon as I got off the plane, I took some good photos of Trapper, and we had Zeb's April 2nd birthday a little early, and I made him a sweet tower of presents that resembled a robot death tower. So I was in Fairbanks to videotape a GIS meeting and help ARCUS with the PolarTREC program. Then Zeb and I traveled to Seattle for another meeting and videotaped/streamed that as well. Overall it was a nice work + vacation trip.

New hut

We have moved into a new hut. Leslie had house fever and there was nothing to do to stop her. We said goodbye to the excellent old apartment and moved into a bigger version of itself, in a new part of Somerville, over in Winter Hill. So now all cupcakes and poems will need to be mailed to:

25 Wheatland St. #1 Somerville MA, 02145

And now I have my own office room for working, which also serves as a guest room. For guests. And we still have the sleeper couch out in the living room. So dual guest options.

That's it for now!

Alaska / New Year's / stuff

Yeah so Alaska was good as usual. The highlight of the trip was when Abe's friend Chad invited us all to go with him and his pals to Tolovana Hot Springs. We drove about a 100 miles Northwest of Fairbanks and parked the trucks at the trailhead. We only had two snowmobiles for the nine of us. So me and Leslie hopped on Abe's machine (I rode on the back of the sled he pulled). Other peeps cross country skiied in and hiked good portions of the 11 mile trail to the cabin. The hot spring tubs were a good reward for all the effort. The next day me and Leslie hiked most of the way, after the snowmobiles shuttled everyone up the first steep hill.

New Year's Eve was good fun too. Me, Zeb, Leslie, Abe, and Carey all went to the Blue Loon again. It was the first time tricking Carey and Abe into coming to the New Year's Eve thing there. There were fewer people at the Loon, but equal amounts of fun. I saw some pals there that I hadn't seen in a good while. There were good northern lights when we popped out of the bar.

So yeah. Happy 2007 or whatever!

Also, Leslie turned 30 on the 9th, so we had a big party about it. She chose 'red' as the theme, so there was lots of redness. Red mortals, red food, red drinks, etc. And then a fun brunch materialized the next day with pals that felt like stopping by again.

those are my stories

Fall items

Again, I was lazy about the blogging. So here is a Fall recap if you are interested in stuff.

• Sometime in August, Eli showed up with a cute beagle/lab hybrid named Kelsey. She is quite cute and friendly and we kidnap her sometimes. Also she came to my birthday potluck which was basically as awesome as Oliver's flying pig he gave me.

• On the last weekend in September we went with a gang of mortals to backpack the Cannonballs on Cannon Mountain. We took the ski tram to the top of Cannon Mtn and then after a great view from an observation tower (in which we could see three US states and Canada at once) we hiked 4 miles to Kinsman Pond campsite. The next day it was a bit misty/rainy as we hiked mostly downhill for another 4 miles. On steep rock faces there were these great steps mounted for easier hiking. Mainly I just loved how they looked. Anyway, it was a fun hike and the woods there are all old-growth and very mystical. I saw seven elves and one gnome kingdom.

• In October I took the Fung Wah bus (no it didn't crash) down to Manhattan to meet my good pal Jenny and her dad. They hadn't been to NYC before. We wandered around various parts of Manhattan in a bit of a whirlwind tour before heading back to Stamford, CT for the evening. The next day Jenny and I made it to the top of the Empire State Building before I had to hop on a bus back to Boston.

• Both NYC and Boston had fun Burning Man Decompression parties. NYC's was in a huge building with two full floors for various things, a small outdoor area, and also the roof. There were four different music areas, each playing different stuff. The Boston party was also in a larger space than previous years, taking up dual loft spaces. Both parties were great fun, but personally I liked the Boston one the most. In case it was a contest. And I was the sole judge.

the end!

Summer recap

Yeah so I got so lazy about updating my "News" that I got into a vortex spiral of avoiding updating it. Or something like that. So here is a brief summer recap!

• The trip to Manhattan with Leslie was quite fun. We stayed at the Le Parker Meridien and had a pretty awesome view of Central Park and stuff. I also made super sexy faces into a MacBook at the new glass cube Apple Store at 3am (it is open 24 hours).

• Firefly 2006 was absurdly rainy, and thus muddy. Since Vermont is made out of pudding. It added a certain fun element to the event though. One of those survival things. Where you sort of don't care at some point and just laugh at how wacky it all is. I had the fire at SMGU camp going for 72+ hours straight. I had to shovel mud and water out of the fire-pit one evening. Then someone smarter than me moved the fire slightly up the rock face and out of the newly formed stream that was flowing through the coals. SMGU was party central for what I could tell. We kept the camp going pretty well and we had tarps to keep it sort of dry. I made my Firefly sculpture again this year. It was probably twice as large, but with all the wetness, it burned 16 times slower than last year. Which was sort of dumb.

• Alaska was good fun. I build Zeb a shed in his back yard. And we went on three camping adventures. The first to the White Mountains of Alaska, off the Steese Hwy with Zeb, Carey and Abe. The second to Rainbow Mountain, with Raif, Scott, Danny, Zeb and passed out girl. And finally, me and Zeb went to the Anderson Bluegrass Festival which was fairly fun. And dog adventures occurred of course.

• The day I got back to Boston from Fbx, we went to a beach party on the Cape. It was pretty fun. There was a tent set up with DJs playing. It was a going away party for some humans that have thrown little parties on that beach for decades. And this was basically going to be the last one ever since they were moving to SF. Apparently the town nearby passed an anti-beach-party law last winter though. Which they were unaware of. So it had to end around 2am. Which was lame. But the party was really nice while it lasted.

• Burning Man 2006 was pretty perfect. It had the warmest weather I've ever seen there at night. And our camp at the container trucks was nice and laid back and fun. And everything went pretty smoothly. Unfortunately it felt a little too much like "Yup. I've been here before", which is goofy for a place as stimulating and awesome as Black Rock City. So I think we take next year off and go see some other places on the Earth-planet. The Belgians "won Burning Man" as Sean put it, with their Belgium Waffle, as all of Burning Man began calling it. Oh yeah, and the drive out of BRC was ridiculous. It took *8 hours* to drive from our camp to Hwy 447. And that is only a few miles. It took 4 or 5 hours just to go a few blocks in BRC. We walked back and got some more water at one point.

ok that was basically summer for me

the end!

oh hi

I put up some more pictures. I put a few pictures taken by Kate Wool from New Year's in the 2005-2006 Winter photo album. Also I put up Spring 2006 photos. There are some good ones in there from the 48 Hour Film Project and the Cinco De Mayo party

yay

the end