fall festival Summer Recap

It’s fall! I know that a lot of people say we don’t get a fall here in Northern California but they’ve never spent time on campus I guess. I love to see the trees change and a little chill in the air is always fun here. I can wear a light jacket and not fear the pummeling of snow approaching, so I always try to welcome the change. It’s also just so novel at first that it feels okay. And hey, we’re celebrating 10 YEARS in California this fall! #californians

It’s been one of the best fall seasons though. We actually tried to kinda prepare for our pumpkin carving party—at least better than in previous years! I think we had 7 people over plus us to carve 9 pumpkins in total. They all turned out so good and it was hilarious to do something random with friends and make a giant yard-sized mess. Mariela skillfully cleaned and roasted all the pumpkin seeds from 9 pumpkins and did her specialty Santa Fe seasonings. She also made, not one, but two apple crisps! (One was gluten-free!) It reminded me of the time she made vegan Jell-O shots for me to take to work and someone said “omg that is sooooo #bayarea!”

So all of our pumpkins rotted by actual Halloween (so much for planning ahead eh!?), but we went over and gathered around a little bonfire in our friends’ front yard because they get trick-or-treaters. We made s’mores and checked out all the popular marvel costumes. It was such a great Halloween even though I didn’t even dress up this year!

Other obsessions for us have been our Vespas of course! I joke that if Mariela wouldn’t have gotten a classic white Vespa she would’ve already cleaned the color right off of hers!!! She keeps her Primavera spotless. We’ve had many hilarious project days doing random modifications to them—like adding racks for coffee (also serves as a speaker holder if you have the right Sonos portable speaker!), a rear rack for my camera bag, and swapping out the Primavera’s pod lights for Euro-style white break lights (we’ll post a video about that soon.) For now, here are some snaps of them out in the wild:


What else…

This photo is by Mariela because she’s an incredible photographer that should shoot MORE!!!

Oh, we finally returned to Sonoma with friends for our second-fourth annual wine country extravaganza!!! It was amazing as ever, especially after being stuck in the house for 2 years. We definitely raised the bar this time. Ridiculously fun time! It’s gonna be hard to beat the 6-person stretch, but safety-first sweetie!

I know what you’re thinking—what is happening with adoption!? Well, I’m happy to report that we did adopt! A teeny tiny black cat by the name of Olive Oyl!!! Hahaha she was such a little terror at first, but she’s grown into such a sweet kitteh and we love her so much.


But seriously we are still hoping to adopt internationally. We’re just on the conveyor belt of expiring documents that we tried sooooo hard to avoid. Still, we carry on and keep positive attitudes. Everything in life just has a process.

 

We keep very busy with our world of projects and silly things that seem to mean so much to only us! Speaking of, we’re working on a giant Lego installation in our workshop…there will be lots more about this in the future, but I can share a glimpse of our progress. I’m so happy to report that the LEGO Coaster is complete and open for ticket holders!

We’re not alone in this huge project though, we’ve pulled our dear dear old old old friend into it and he loves building whatever weird thing we suggest. It’s been so amusing to work on it. I can’t believe the amount of Lego we’ve accumulated. (Picture a filled garage of LEGO.)

Oh! We had family visit for almost a week and we took them everywhere—San Francisco's usual suspects of the Golden Gate, best tacos ever at La Taqueria, and Ritual Coffee. We took a beautiful and loooong drive down to Big Sur in the convertible for a primo viewing experience! We hadn’t been down there since buying the convertible!!?! What!? So we had lunch at Nepenthe and then stayed almost directly on the beach in Santa Cruz for a few days! Mariela won a jumbo prize at the boardwalk—and I’m talking “JUMBO!” It wouldn’t even fit in our car without the top down! So naturally, we had to give it away to young people on the beach that night (hilarious story that you have to hear from my brother-in-law and wife). We couldn’t imagine the weird airBnB charge for leaving an enormous Mrs. PacMan (PacLady?).

We also had a short stay in Half Moon Bay to visit a friend from out of state! Our first venture into staying at a Bed & Breakfast. It was nice, but also kind of as weird as I always thought it would feel. Mariela made us do the whole experience of the breakfast and that part was actually kinda fun because it’s California and it’s always nice enough to sit outside.

We were lucky enough to spent a lot of quality pooltimes with friends.

Finally saw Stevie Nicks again IN CONCERT and that felt like a dream come true. I never thought we’d see her again when the pandemic hit. It was such a phenomenal show. (Pro Tip: Ride a Vespa/motorcycle/scooter to Mountain View Shoreline Ampitheater because you get free VIP parking at the front door! #vespagang)

Amazingly, we also got to see ELTON JOHN live in CONCERT, too! Don’t even get me started about the parking situation in Santa Clara because I could rant about the fact that we thought we were doing the smart thing, the sensible thing, to rideshare instead of taking our car. HUGE MISTAKE. Never ever take a rideshare to Levi Stadium! We were literally stranded for 2 hours with unauthorized limos blocking all of the rideshare cars from entering the lot. They wanted hundreds of dollars to take people a mile…It felt like a bad dream after such a fun concert. Luckily, we have a ridiculously great friend that came to collect us at 1am! Whew. I am so thankful for him (for oh so many reasons).

And here’s just a random assortment of campus love photos because it truly is one of my favorite places on earth.

But I know the fall can be a tough time. The leaves changing and the early evenings can wear people down. So just remember to hang in there, just like our little Olive Oyl kitty!

We’re Adopting!

Yay! The word is finally out!!! It’s been so hard to NOT talk about the adoption process. I feel like we’re coming out all over again or something, but it’s a pretty major undertaking and we had to just focus on it internally until now. It’s been such a long time coming and such a huge dream of ours for soooooo long, but I’m excited to finally share the news with all of you. And don’t worry, we still have a lot of hurdles and a lot of waiting, so you still have a chance to come along for the ride!

We plan to update our GoFundMe page most often with our adoption progress, but I’m sure we’ll also share some of the news here.

And I have to say, I’m sorry that our production blog has taken such a hit with all of the astonishing amount of adoption paperwork, but I promise that we also have some really exciting production news coming, too because we’re so hellbent on telling our stories in the weirdest ways possible. (Hint: It’s tiny, yet it’s currently taking over our entire workshop.)

More soon. Happy New Year, Creator Friends!

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Lego Your Troubles

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Our Christmas present this year was all hella Legos!!! We even bought a few crazy expert level builds because… we’re insane!? But, it was so much fun. I forgot how much Legos are completely meditative. I hadn’t really played with them since my little brother’s amazing collection. I remember playing with him for hours, building dumb things that we could use as props for He-Man or Hot Wheels. I have so many great memories of him as a kid. I guess it’s because we actually just spent a ton of time adventuring and doing things together. That’s how bonds are built.

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We’re working on a new lego build now and this one’s gonna be hilarious. Hold onto your blocks!

We have lots of new excitement headed this way!
Stay tuned…

(—or please don’t if you’re a cyberbully. Seek help.)

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Film Roll After Effects Preset [free download]

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As I get older, making my life just a little easier is even more and more important. Not sorry about it. Like shooting with Sony Alphas. Sure, I can get technically “better” footage with giant cameras, but why the hell would I when it’s just so much fun to shoot with a nimble setup!? I love the S&Q. The Zeiss glass. I digress, I spent the weekend shooting on my alpha and I forgot how much FUN it is!

Along those lines, I’ve looked up this editing technique probably a 100 times and I always have to watch long, unedited youtube tutorials. Who has the time or patience!? I decided to make an After Effects preset for the beloved film roll (film slap, film transition, etc.), to save myself, and maybe it will help you, too.

  1. Download preset file (link below)

  2. Put the file in Applications/After Effects/Presets

  3. Add an ADJUSTMENT LAYER

  4. Apply the preset to the ADJ LAYER & move the keyframes to center them over your two layer cuts.

It’s simple enough to make just looking at the keyframes if you don’t want to bother with downloading. Just remember to finesse the speed settings of the bezier curves. I have lots of other AE presets and tricks with more customization that I’ll share if this is helpful.

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Quaranteam

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We’re so weird, but kinda made for this quaranteam situation…

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TL;DW

It’s been a really unprecedented year. Zoom is life. Peleton is living.

Mariela started calling our kitchen the quarantina and often just “The Quantina” and then that morphed into “The Can’tina.”

  • we fell into the sourdough bread obsession

    • we have a Tartine related starter that is incredible

    • used it to make St. Louis Bread Co. inspired bread bowls and homemade broccoli cheese soup

    • the best avocado toast in the world

  • we make our own homemade pizzas with even homemade sauce

  • we made sourdough blueberry pancakes from the extra starter

  • cold brew iced coffee is on tap every day

  • breakfast & brunch are better than ever

  • Mariela makes the ABSOLUTE best pie I’ve ever had, still

  • and I took over a bathroom to “cure” my new yoga mat with sea salt for 24 hours. Madness

  • my hair finally has all the multiple identities it needs

  • 2020 is over!!

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She’s the HERO, now!

We celebrated our 19th anniversary in quarantine lockdown and there’s literally no where else in the world I would rather be or who I would rather be with. With all that has happened, I’m grateful to wake up every single day. Even if it is a little groundhog’s day. . .

Like everyone, jobs have fused with life.

The balance is hard. Winter break is usually the only time we can really get into our own huge projects. This project was different than any other though. Mariela contributed most of the graphics, she organized all of the media and really helped to keep the train moving! It was so fantastic!!! (I still want us to work together someday. I mean really work together, instead of both working at home, in the same room, sort of working together! hahahaha)

We had been working in our home studio to create the podcast of our dreams (even adding a dedicated 3rd seat!). I had worked out an awesome workflow of editing so efficiently on my iPad. With three episodes almost finalized…[RECORD SCRATCH] —that studio became our home office. It’s full of work computers, post-its, sketches of work projects and animation pieces scattered around. It’s hard to separate and work on our crazy stories in the same space. So I’ve just pretty much STOPPED working on anything for us and that’s not good or sustainable. I know I have to find a better balance.

That’s my hope for our 2021.

Other random news, I cannot believe it has taken me this long to order a mechanical keyboard. I customized my easy ease animation key with a little good luck black cat key. Now when a layer needs some smoothing I just think to myself—oh this layer needs some Morty. It’s also amazing because I can program the keys to do whatever I want!!! And saving myself an extra key for each animation key frame is so worth it!

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Storyboarding Animations with Illustrator on Desktop & iPad [free download]

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Over the last few years I’ve worked hard to speed up and minimize my animation production time. At the same time, I obviously don’t want to sacrifice style or quality. I mean, sure I can spend forever on a project when it is basically for me. But employers and clients often think animation happens overnight…yes duh, time is money.

So this is the workflow that I’ve developed over the years. I shared a version of my storyboard workflow here (from 2016). But since then, I’ve expanded my needs and refined my process with each illustration-driven animation project that I’ve done. I’ve updated the template to reflect these changes. Additionally, as many of you know — Illustrator for iPad Pro has finally arrived!!! It feels like I bought the iPad Pro before it was even really useable FOR ME because I do almost all of my designing in Illustrator. (Why? —Photoshop files are enormous and really bog down whatever computer I am using to render animations. I also prefer to use the camera to move around the scenes and lighting with After Effects. I think that’s just because I’m also a filmmaker, so it’s just kind of how my mind works.)

Anyway, I realize there are infinite ways to do these kinds of projects and honestly I have continually tried out different methods. I would love to hear from others as to how they approach this!? I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I like sharing free tools just in case it’s helpful to anyone else.

I’ve needed a better way to display the script for each storyboard. It’s helpful for my stakeholder’s review process to be able to read along. At the same time, I cannot share enormous AI files with people that don’t use AI, so I needed a way to print to PDF and display the storyboards without modifying the size of each artboard. Obviously, I want to keep each Artboard at 1920p.

  • So I’ve created artboards within artboards and labeled them accordingly in the template as “SCRIPT”.

  • Each animatable object must be on it’s own root layer (for After Effects), so keep that in mind and stay organized with descriptive names. I tend to make a huge mess in the design phase and then spend an evening partially watching TV and renaming layers. It doesn’t interrupt my flow as much, but whatever works for you.

  • The final process is to split the main AI file into individual .eps files for each artboard, skipping the SCRIPT artboards.

  • Then you must open each .eps file in AI and save as AI.

  • Then you can just start pulling in each organized scene into After Effects.

It sounds like a lot, but an animation is exactly that
—a lot!

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Organized Script Artboards

When I have a version ready to share, I export to PDF by selecting “by artboards” and using only the artboards labeled SCRIPT. These are just the larger artboards that will print the script beneath the design in PDF.

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Big Picture of Little Pictures

Having storyboards means I can zoom out and see the big picture. I design my whole animation project in this way, so that I can maintain a cohesive style for each project (or at least try).

And now —all of this translates to the ipad with the brand new Illustrator for iPad app! Yay! You DO need to setup your project on a computer (because it’s an Illustrator Template .ait filetype). Save it to your Creative Cloud documents. Then, like magic, you can work on these giant projects with a tactile Apple Pencil instead of being chained to a desk.

Happy animating and designing, graphic friends!

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P.S. If you find these tutorials and tips helpful, please consider donating a few dollars to our adoption fund!

Peloton Cult Newbs

The past year I have been occasionally obsessing with thoughts of buying a peloton or soul cycle bike, pre-COVID.

I grew up on a bicycle. It was the only safe place for many years of my life. It represents freedom, dreaming, flying, believing, facing fears and usually pushing myself.

In Chicago, we rode 13 miles to work and back several times a week—even in some snowy weather. When we moved to California, I rode to work so much that I lost 45 pounds. I was also tracking my food, but it was the activity of riding that kept up my momentum. Sadly, I have since gained a good part of that back. Ugh.

But honestly the past few years have not been kind to my bicycling lifestyle. It seems that just when I get a good thing going for daily riding, something huge happens to change it—I get a different job, we move to another place, a global pandemic happens and we can’t ever go outside again without fear and anxiety. . .

Now my bike has become just a hand sanitizer holder near the front door.

So this summer I had planned to buy another bike to have on campus in my office. Since that isn’t even a thing anymore, I started obsessing over home spin bikes again. This time I was able to convince M that we needed it! Until now we both had free access to some of the best gyms in the area—completely free. But I think adapting to this quickly changing world is how any of us will thrive. The wait times (6 weeks for delivery) were a big concern, but wow was it worth it!!! I started taking the strength and yoga classes using the peloton app with the tv and that helped the weeks go by until it finally arrived!

I have to say I’m kind of shocked at how much the lady loves it! I knew I would. (I’ve never met a bike that I didn’t love.) But she is crushing it. She consistently gets more power output than I do! It pisses me off a little, but I’m glad she loves it so much, too.

Peloton is kind of a cult, but only in that it is a collective of supportive people all just out to ride a bicycle to nowhere. I joke that’s what I’m doing, but #togetherwegofar hahaha

All joking aside, I’ve completed my 30th ride today. It arrived just over a month ago! That’s ridiculous. I’ve almost taken rides every single day, often more than one, to make up for the required rest days. Since I signed up with the peloton app, I’ve completed a total of 67 workouts!!! I really love yoga now because #TeamChelsea. I also do stretching and core strength classes.

It really does feel like you have a whole team of personal trainers to choose from. Even more surprising is that I like so many of them that I feel like I’m missing out if I can’t do their rides because I’m doing another one. Pride month was the best. I’m so glad we had the bike for half of it at least. #TeamCodyRigsby is my jam. He’s my gay boy outlet for quarantine…new gay tracks, fresh haircuts, gay stories, talkin’ bout wigs…he really gives me life. I may never be able to go to a drag show again so Cody might be IT!

Robin’s Dolly Parton artist ride was THE BEST. As was Ally Love’s Whitney!!! OMG. I will tell you though, Ally’s Whitney arms 10 minute class will bust your ass (after a ride especially). She’s tough, man. And speaking of tough, I highly recommend Chelsea’s Juneteenth Yoga Flow. She will also kick your ass! The Peloton Juneteenth classes were such a nice way to celebrate and honor — with Black instructor’s personal stories, history, anecdotes, and family stories. It was really meaningful content. Major props.

There’s a lot of bitching online right now at Peloton because they won’t stop with facebook ads. I completely agree. Just stop with the facebook shit. Of all companies, you do not NEED to be advertising on facebook right now. Gyms across the country are shuttering. Be on the right side of history, Peloton.

AS A NOTE, if you are on the fence and wondering if you should go with Soul Cycle instead. . . please let me remind you that they are owned by Equinox, who held a giant fundraiser for the Idiot in Charge. When you look at it like that, there’s just no comparison. No thank you.

If you’d like to follow me (at the very bottom of the leaderboards) my name is GirlBoom.

See you on the virtual rides! 🚴🏼

Podcasting 2.0: the Rodecaster Pro & Ferrite!

Well.

I have to talk about another major renovation in our studio with the switch to the Rodecaster Pro! Until now we have been recording with the Mackie Profx8, jumbled together with a 4 channel headphone splitter. It worked and the mixer is quite nice, BUT…

I cannot say enough about the amazing features, ease of use and sound quality of the Rodecaster Pro! Honestly, children can have their own podcasts now. It’s travel friendly (I need to order that battery kit for our MAINE family extravaganza!) and can just pull out of a backpack and hook up some Shure SM58s on the run, no computer even needed! Just record right onto the Rodecaster’s microSD card! It has built-in noise gate, aphex and big-bottom effects. It’s incredible. Editing is actually fun!

NEW BACKPACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When we set out to change gears a little into podcast territory...
(I am a filmmaker/animator without the time I want to produce my own stories that are extremely near and dear to my heart and the entire motivation for my career, but life is hectic and the work I do now is even more important—but I still want to produce my own stories)
...I decided on the features I needed and they were all absolutely the features that are NOW available in this Rodecaster mixer. However, they were not available then, so I had to just patch together my own system and make due.

I’m glad I did. I recorded some amazing stories with my lady. I also have my favoritest ever story recorded with my beloved Uncle Ditch. I was able to dampen the sound in our studio with huge blackout curtains, design the setup of the table perfectly and the list goes on for learned lessons with the Mackie mixer. However, we’ve expanded our vision a bit to include a dear friend of 100 years and that meant actually separating the tracks.

In comes the Rodecaster PRO!!!!

The Rodecaster records clean tracks already separated for like a billion channels!!! Seriously, it will record 4 XLRs, a computer-in, an iphone or ipad and then also bluetooth…oh and how can I forget the sound pads! You can create quick-play sound effects and load up the sound pads to play in real time to save you even more time in post. And the tracks are so ridiculously quiet with noise gate. It makes me want to vomit—it’s so sick! There’s just nothing on the market anywhere like it. My brother called in on the bluetooth line the other night and it was such a total blast!

But that’s not the entire point of my post. I know it seems that way. No, I also want to say how much I am thoroughly enjoying editing tracks in FERRITE, the ipad multi-track audio editing app. It’s $30 well-spent. Trust me, I burned through so many edits in the first weekend that it paid for itself.

Again, because my job is filmmaking, it is soooooo nice to completely switch gears, not be tied to a computer, and just edit the majority of my stuff using my ipad pro pencil and my hands! Gag! Below is 30 minutes of a finely edited podcast—entirely on my iPad! GAME CHANGER.

All of this to say...
our podcast is NOT out yet and I cannot say when it will start releasing. I will promise you 6 episodes and it is getting hella close thanks to these amazing tools. I’ll be releasing some fun little do-it-yourself pieces as we near that line, so stay tuned!

*I am not paid or endorsed by anyone so everything I say is my own damn opinion.

Find someone who

…will share their water with you in the middle of the night,

get you both more water,

laugh to tears about rewriting Stevie Nicks songs about fried chicken…

and then walk with you through an entirely made up episode of Repair Shop (ya know the adorable little British show on Netflix), coming up with fabricated possible items in desperate need of repair…

all because you can’t get back to sleep.

She is that person for me. Love doesn’t even come close to describing…

I fell back asleep even before the lady came back to collect her porcelain carousel horse music box. And actually even before the dining room throne chair was reapolstered. 🤣

🎤 “It will leave you thirsty in the night! It will leave you thirsty in the night.

That chickens salty and bro———wn!”

—And someone that will make you an adorable little birthday cake because you were adamant that you didn’t want a cake:

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This is 2020

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I always make New Years resolutions, mainly just to encourage myself and kind of create a positive trajectory. I look at it as a boost just to make it out of the darker days of winter. I know, I know, I shouldn’t complain about winter as a Chicago to California transplant. But hey, we moved here at the beginning of a 6 year drought. So it was deceptively sunny all year—for 6 years! It changed dramatically last year and the downpours lasted for months.

Rains be damned, I have so many plans and goals for 2020! I do have a tendency to overwork myself, so I’m trying to strike a balance in the new year. The bottom line: I want to carve some time for growth and better self care. I cannot just work all the time (as much as I honestly love, love, love to!).

Without further ado, here are my inspirational plans for this brand new decade:

  • meditation — I’ve already started trying to integrate it into my morning routine and hey today is a week.

  • exercise — don’t care what, not holding out for my glorious bicycling jaunts because it just doesn’t work with my schedule during the winter days. I’m going to have to take a page from Michelle Obama’s book and just force myself to make time for it!

  • data visualizations — I want to expand my toolset in graphic design after a great day at the Edward Tufte workshop. Now I’m armed with a ton of books that I am thoroughly enjoying. I love graphic design, but I love learning more than anything and I’ve felt for a few years that I just want my designs to “mean more.” Data visualizations are the ticket. I want to create new ways to use them in mobile and video applications. Here’s some amazing inspirations that I cannot stop with!

    • Annnnnnnd, I cannot recommend the Visual Journalism book enough. Sooooooo so good. Like an awesome picture book when we were kids, but it’s intercut with visual artists thoughtful essays.

  • machine learning techniques — I’m also hoping to expand my toolset by using my extensive mathematics background for data chomping instead of engineering as I was trained! I started the google machine learning crash course. I have to say, it excitingly scratches that old math part of my brain. I don’t see myself jumping back into matrix algebra or fourier transformations anytime soon, but anything is possible I guess.

  • podcast — Complete & release 6 episodes! During this wonderful winter wonderland break, we have revisited our podcast in various aspects of production, other story ideas and where we want to take it. I cannot say that we have a clear map of the first 6 episodes yet, but I think we have a great new model to test and iterate. We also have 2 episodes nearly finished. By the way, Dolly Parton’s America is the best podcast I’ve heard yet. Everyone should listen.

  • drawing class — I want to finish the drawing course that M and I have been working on together. It’s been so fun and nothing makes me happier than just drawing. Here’s a weird photo of my fat foreshortened hand as part of the class. Mariela copied the same gesture causing some hilarious confusion, but that’s the jackass she is.

  • water — drink water besides La Croix. Serious.

It’s been a great TWO WEEK break. We’ve spent some time improving our lives and home and some time just being lazy and enjoying the sunshine and good company of a few friends. California is still a dream, worth chasing.

P.S. Here’s us painstakingly creating ugly items out of air clay and then crushing it! Apparently, this is an ASMR thing. I just like crafting, filming it, destroying it. The paint studio is completely back to normal and all memories are only digital. Weird.

free career advice

It’s easy to lose sight from time-to-time in this crazy world. Our lives are so hectic and busy. We’re so devoted to our real jobs. Film production is so involved. Animation is so thrilling, but constantly evolving and changing and I feel like I have to break-neck-run to barely keep up.
(—also what makes me love it)

BUT really the things that make me stop and realize why I love doing what I do is little moments like this:

...telling our own stories has always been my motivation for any of it. Mariela is hilarious, makes me laugh tears and is always game to step in to help me. This was just a camera test (*using my own equipment and TIME obviously—but I want to be CRYSTAL CLEAR for anyone wondering. And if you still have questions, you should ask me directly and I will gladly clear up any misconceptions you have.)

This video was kind of the crux for a whole new world opening up to me, in its own weird little way. Endless thanks, Lady.

In other news, production on our podcast is pretty stalled out right now, but Northern California rainy season is upon us and winter break abounds, so hopefully it will pick up soon. I have so much going on that I refuse to beat myself up about not making progress. Climb one mountain at a time.

Mantis Shrimp

I finally crossed something off my internet bucket list. Something out in the real world that you only hear about because the internet.

This creature is something I’ve wanted to see ever since I read that awesome Oatmeal post. I hope you’re already down the rabbit hole and know what I’m talking about. Colorful cartoon super-punching shrimp. That about nails it.

Or maybe you listened to the Colors Radiolab podcast and learned all about the MegaSuperRainbow spectrum of colors that they can see with their superior eye cones.

Or maybe you saw the PBS Deep Look vid.

or the Nat Geo one.

I was once where you hopefully are now and I filed it in the back of my mind that the Monterey Bay Aquarium houses one of these ferocious beauties.  

If you’ve got bad knees, this is as close as your going to get to one. Isn’t it cute?!

Wine Country

Every single time I cross that Golden Gate Bridge I am enamored with the northern bay area way of life. Every time I come home saying — THAT is what I want to do with my life! Why am I not living like they are??

I get it though. I know that my interpretation is way off because when I go up there, I’m on vacation and so is mostly everyone else up there! It’s easy to think, geez I’m living wrong.

I should be sipping wine at 11am and taking 4 hour power naps until a 4 course dinner—EVERY DAY!

It happened again. We took a long weekend up to Sonoma with one of our favorite couples on the planet. It was marvelous.

Ya know, there are just those people that you meet and you’re connected. This friend is one of them. Her husband 100%, too. It’s like we all just mesh and it feels so good. (She tells that story entirely differently, but this is my blog.)

I laugh until I’m sick. I nap. (I never nap.) I laugh tears. I face fears. I do things I normally wouldn’t ever do and I already miss them. They even make me miss Chicago. We all pulled through some horribly cold nights together there. And whether they knew it or not, they helped pull us through some horribly cold and dark years there. This visit meant so stupid much to me. I hope it doesn’t take us 5 years for the next one!

It’s been a crazy time here lately for friends—whether they’re leaving or getting sick or struggling through tough times. It’s really made me appreciate all of them so much. As RuPaul says: we choose our family.

So I just want to raise my glass to all of those amazing friends that have stuck it out with me for so long. And hell, I even want to raise a glass to those that took an exit! Comedy is all about timing. The impressions you all have made on my life were noticed.

P.S. I finally joined a wine club!!! It’s like my purpose in life now. Just like the time I went kayaking. Somehow I see this one sticking.

P.S.S. Someone else rear ended my poor little baby girl, MINI. What is the fucking deal, people??? Who rear ends a mini full of people wearing giant hats with the top down? Ugh, enough already. That car is going on it’s 3rd bumper and it is only 6 months old!!

Podcasting is so hard.

I’m trying to find my will to continue podcast editing. Life’s always so busy and I’ve been trying to fill any spare time with bicycling and photography. But we went out with a new friend this weekend and laughed ourselves horse over stories and it really made me want to get back in the groove of our podcast. We have sooooooo many ridiculous stories and I want to tell them so badly.

It’s different though when you’re hanging out with a new friend and you just have so many crazy stories to launch into—than when it’s just the two of us sitting at microphones in our studio.

I am struggling to capture that magic of genuine storytelling. Since our days of stage improv in Nashville, we are just improv artists at heart. We have all sorts of ways that we’ve experimented, but I keep coming back to the fact that…what if we had someone that could join the recordings. What if we had someone to tell the stories to? It would be miles above any sort of production spin magic that even *I* could put on it! ;-)

It’s a big commitment though. And you have all probably gathered by now the fact that I only like to depend on myself because if you want anything done—DO IT YOURSELF.

So I’m making a few promises to myself and to our podcast dream. Naturally, I wanted to put them here to keep me honest and motivated:

  1. I will not overproduce them. I will let them live free—without my enormous efforts in editing.

  2. I will export mp3 roughs for each edit so that I can easily listen on my walks and in the car. To fulfill this promise, I have already exported the 3 drafts we are currently editing. (But let’s face it, I’m only listening to Nicki Minaj, Cardi B and Lizzo when I’m driving. Or Salt-n-pepa when I’ve got the top down, just to show my age.)

  3. When there are 5 episodes of 35 minutes each recorded and in-the-can…I WILL BEGIN TO RELEASE.

My goal has been to produce a 6-part series of our favorite stories. I will not let inconvenience or distractions get in my way now. Promise.

But speaking of distractions. Here’s the latest from my lanai collection.

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And here’s a long exposure from our podcast studio…sometimes it’s hard to focus in this place!

Sony and Zeiss play so nice together.

Sony and Zeiss play so nice together.

Going Home

When you reach a certain point in your life, you can’t ever really go home. Home becomes your daily life, even without kids of my own. California is home. Wherever Mariela is, is home now.

But we went to St. Louis and on a short tour of my family in the midwest this week. We rented the equally ridiculous car that we almost bought instead of our Mini convertible, a Jeep Sahara 4x4. It was so fun and enormous compared to our little Mini. But the top covers weren’t on quite right so it sounded so loud—like your head was outside the car window on the highway. After a few short highway trips we discovered the problem and after fighting to get the covers sealed, it was a much more enjoyable experience. But I have to say, It’s an awful lot of work for a glorified sunroof! My Mini drops the top on her own and at a stoplight. I just have to push a button, not crawl to the roof and fight with large ceiling panels. Whew, I know we made the right choice. I mean aside from the fact that the Mini is a rocket, it also just feels so much nicer. STILL, I want a Jeep now. Of course.

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The point of all of that is that it was a perfect car for driving over the flooded Mississippi River and through extreme deer country. All of the flood waters have caused the deer populations to seek high ground—the roads were full of deer at 2am. Absolutely frightening.

This trip was to celebrate my Granny turning 80 years old! And it was also a feeble attempt to find some way to accept or ease my mind over the passing of one of the most important people in my raising…my Aunt Donna. I’ll be honest, I’ve been extremely depressed since we lost her in November. I cannot think about her without tears streaming immediately. I know she wouldn’t want that. She was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. She only brought laughter and happiness (AND PHOTOS—lots and lots of photos) when she was around. I know she would want me to keep carrying on.

I always thought she was silly to have all of these cemetery plots for the family, but in my guilt of missing her funeral—it was the one place I could go to find peace, or so I thought. There was some relief to see her dirt square next to my Uncle’s grave, to know that their headstones would be fused into one soon. I placed flowers to hang over the two of them. I sat and cried into the mosquitoes and cleaned up their area before saying goodbye. I stopped in on Beulah, my Great-grandmother’s grave, watching over them nearby. Beulah was the head of this family of amazing sisters and one traveling uncle. My Grandma came from a large family of 6 girls and 1 boy. When I was a kid, my (great) Aunts were the core of our family. They kept us together because they needed to be together. They would bring their kids and dogs and pile into Aunt Donna’s house for holidays, summer cookouts or just to hang out and craft together. My Aunt Donna had a salon in a huge room off the house and they would all bleach, color, perm, braid and cut everyone’s hair, for sport. It was the best times of my childhood. They all have an Oklahoma twang and beautiful native-american influenced skin. They are strong and willful women that never accepted smack talk. They looked out for each other in ways that families just don’t anymore.

It shouldn’t be surprising, but it was kind of surprising to me that I found the most connection with Aunt Donna through her baby sister, my Aunt Nita. We stayed with her for most of our trip. When I was a kid, Aunt Nita was the coolest Aunt. She was military and my cousins got to live in amazing places like Hawaii and Germany. It was always so exciting to hear that Aunt Nita was coming home. It was a real reason to rollout the best and for everyone to try to get together. The aunts would make giant vats of potato salad and bust out the crafts!!! It was always a reason to celebrate. Aunt Nita and Aunt Donna were so close in age and in absolutely every way in life—even though their lives were opposite. The oceans and life experiences never kept them apart. They talked on the phone all the time and shared kids stories and craft obsessions. And they made time for each other whenever they could.

I think a lot of my sadness comes from her loss. I know how important my Aunt Donna was to her. But seeing her and hearing my Aunt Donna in her voice really started to heal my bruised heart. The last time I saw my Aunt Donna was sitting at Aunt Nita’s dining room table. I hugged her and told her I loved her… and never saw her again. This time, we sat in those same chairs and cried and laughed about Aunt Donna.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have walked in on Aunt Nita making one of her talk-of-the-town CAKES!!! I’ve only ever seen them in their magnificent final states, but this time we got to watch and learn from a cake master. Mariela frantically took notes and I tried to snap pictures and just enjoy the crafting magic once again of my aunt(-s). Mariela struggled to help turn the cake and Aunt Nita just laughed it off when she failed and her icing line broke. It was the best thing that’s happened all year. It’s my family line—broken and tattered, but patched together and continuing to delight with it’s own little bits of magic.

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My Aunt Donna taught me that kids come first. She severed her relationship with my mom because of the way she treated us kids. We’re the opposite of my Grandma’s family—we were separated and never really raised in the same house. I have that staunchness from Aunt Donna and I carry it forward. As a result, I will never have the chance to be apart of one of my nephew & niece’s lives. That makes me sad because I know how important family is to my great-Aunts and Grandma. But kids come first and I will not apologize for standing up for the little guy. I would do it again. Today.

My brother and sister were too young or not there to see my Aunt Donna fighting for their futures. I saw in her the person that I wanted to be. Strong, unwavering and believing in something bigger than herself.

The other part of this trip that helped so much to heal my heart was the fact that my baby brother took his kids out of school for the day and drove them 2 hours to Granny’s birthday get together. I haven’t seen them in years. They barely know how/if we’re related, but that didn’t stop them from climbing all over us and wanting to find out! It truly meant the world to me to see them and I love him forever for it.

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When I was a kid, I was so smitten with my Aunt Donna because of her camera. She had fun with it and made us have fun because of it. I always wanted to be THAT Aunt, ya know. Imagine my surprise that my wife was actually THAT aunt… The kids loved my camera right away. My niece pointed to it and wanted to see it. I showed her and let her take a photo, but when Mariela busted out the Instax Mini 90 Classic and handed it over to the kids…she became THAT aunt. She would reload it over and over with her special hand-checked film cartridges. She taught them double exposures and gave them their own photos to take home in their little pockets…

“It looks so OLD!” Lucas said kind of disgusted but amazed.

It was like the universe smiling at me in the best possible way.

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My niece was standing in a group of tall adults. She looked a little unsure, so I reached out my hands to her just to reassure her and she jumped into my arms like we were connected souls. She reminds me so much of my brother at that age. I’m so incredibly grateful that he gave me that chance to see them. I hope we can make the future in each other’s lives somehow, even if it’s random visits from an aunt that lives far, far away. After all, that Aunt for me is the only one that could ease this burden right now.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my amazing aunts out there…and up there. I love you and all that you stand for.

Double Exposure

Fort Mason Greeeeeeeeeen

We went to the city last weekend to stop by the Cartoon Art Museum along the bay. We arrived early to do a little photo walk in our favorite park, Fort Mason Green. We used to go there in our first year of moving to the bay area. It not only has an incredible view of “The Bridge,” but it kinda sits atop everything with such an expansive view. It just feels incredible to be there—looking back either on the beautiful hills of SF lights or out at the water, Alcatraz, the Palace of Fine Arts, huge trees, palm trees, whatever your pleasure! This year, they’ve really put the GREEN in Fort Mason Green! I must admit, the rains (and several other huge factors) have been so depressing this year, but wow, everything looks so lush and gorgeous. I’m so glad (and terrified at how I’m going to pay for it) that I bought a new Sony a7iii and crazy Zeiss lens because #bealphafemale. But I’ve been shooting with the same old gutted camera for over 8 years now. I mean, personally obviously. I’m so fortunate that I get to shoot with nice gear for a living.

Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco

It’s not the same though as when it’s MY camera. I always have such a strong connection with my camera. It’s more than a piece of equipment. So we may be eating ramen for a year to pay for it, but I’m so extremely grateful to have a new camera that is mine...and isn’t dented or has a short in the display anymore.

Aaaaaand this is the spring for photography in the bay area. Green, green, lush, green, lush!

We went to the book signing to see Brian Fies give a presentation about his new book. I won an Emmy because of him and his incredible storytelling. So as he says, “We’re forever tied together!” It was a great opportunity to see him again, get a signed copy of his book, and see my work as part of a museum exhibit. That certainly doesn’t happen everyday. I don’t push products, but you should buy his book.

As a pretty selfish artist myself, it’s so meaningful if your work can directly have an affect on someone’s life. I started learning all of this for my own stories and never thought I’d have the chance to share someone else’s because of it! Maybe it’s silly, but that means the world to me. This was such a heartbreaking story to edit and animate. It was exceptionally difficult to manipulate another artist’s work, but he was so wonderful about the changes and modifications I made. And he certainly changed my life in the process. Now I get introduced at parties as “She has an Emmy!” —but seriously, this story saved me. I felt like my world was crumbling and I was presented with another story way worse and far more important than my own troubles. It forced me out of a darkness and into creation. I worked around the clock to animate his story in the rapid news cycle of today. I thought it would be important for the people devastated by the fires. It was at least important enough to him and his family to share it with the world.

This story, and his previous stories, strike such a chord with me because of his ability to take horrible trauma and turn it into something that is relatable and yet completely brutally honest. His art comes from darkness, something I can certainly relate to…

Brian Fies art, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA.

I’m so happy to see this book rise out of the ashes, in his medium, comics. To see his refined and beautiful drawings that are completely true to the rushed, ragged version that we started with, now in full color. Full circle. Thank you for dragging me along on a little of your journey, Brian. Onwards and upwards, dear sir!

After the talk and book signing, Mariela and I walked the dark path back and spent some time taking long exposures, crawling around in wet grass and using only our phone flashlights and it was perfect. I love shooting with her more than anything. She makes me want to take chances and do things different. Still my muse. I know someday we will do it more…and until then, we can do lots more mini photowalks of our own.

View from the Fort

Double Exposure

*Instax collection by Mariela!

Speaking of mini — I bought Mariela a little instax mini 90 polaroid-like camera for her birthday recently. She’s not really one for sharing her photos, but her eye is better than any photographer I know. It may sound crazy because she won’t even touch my new camera and barely touched the one that I just sold and had used for almost a decade. She’s not technical about her photography, it’s just really GOOD. She has incredible hidden talent in photography, she just won’t believe me. She loves instant photos so I had to find her a fun camera that SHE would love. I knew she would like it for awhile, but I didn’t think she would love it quite as much as she does. She really has taken to it and makes these amazing double exposures that blow my mind. I know I’m biased, but she took more than an entire roll on our walk yesterday and each photo is so damn cool. The textures make you want to stare at them forever…a tiny business card sized photo! Fuck instagram, I just want to crawl through a tiny museum of Mariela’s Polaroids!

📷: Mariela Abbott

📷: Mariela Abbott

She gifted this photo to me and gave me full permissions to share as I wish. ❤️

Tech jam sesh

I really love it when family comes to town and Farrin patiently teaches older people how to improve their tech with the machines they already have and how to make their shit work better by downloading a new App or 3.

Now of course she also teaches me this stuff but I usually forget or get confused, and don’t want to bring her down to my level by asking her the same inane questions all the time, because I thoroughly believe in not wasting out a good resource. I save my no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question stupid questions for things like mic set up and editing in Audition (over and over and over again).

Then inevitably due to my own ignorance, I don’t really use things like this blog as much as I intend to and the cool tech in my life falls aside. 

Not today! Recently F helped Uncle Ditch set up his blog where he now shares the tales of his travels, along with some really beautiful off-the-beaten-path pics; gives unsolicted tips, documents remote Ferry rides and provides general Ditch observations. 

Photo syncing for intermediate learners. 

Photo syncing for intermediate learners. 

I’m really digging it. It took F a lot longer than she thought to really get it up and running and formatting correctly, and making sure it pulled in pics from Ditch’s Lightroom and all that jazz.  I don’t know where she finds the strength but I’m very grateful. I forgot all about this Blog App that I’m using right now to write this post. And she had already ensured that all my photos automagically show up on my ipad. Cool. 

I’m really inspired by Ditch and his travels. I really hope he keeps blogging the shit out of all of it. I for one am definitely going to blog more now that I know how to use this thing again. 

 

January Photo Explosion

It has been a whirlwind of a January for us. It’s usually a time that is pretty quiet. Returning from the long luxurious university break and then slowly ramping up into lots of projects at work. But this January has been totally different! We had two exciting visitors — my cousin Jefferson and my Uncle Ditch! They were separated by a week, but we got to do a lot of the sight seeing and fun you do when visitors come to the Bay Area.

Half Moon Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, the Mission, Monterey Bay Aquarium… a gas station in Pescadero for tacos. You know, the usual.

But with my family, it is never, the usual.

It started with Jefferson joining us for a nice dinner outside on my birthday! It rained most of his visit, but we managed to hike around the tide pools in Half Moon Bay and drive across the Golden Gate with the convertible top down—a few small victories in a very rainy Bay Area winter. (Luckily, we had a lot of time to fight and bicker about Overcooked on Nintendo Switch!)

Uncle Ditch is a blast and always brings out crazy in us. We went on an epic taco triathlon around the Bay Area and finished it off with an entire blueberry chess pie. We did. a. lot. But really in the end, I feel such a recharge from their visits. They each inspired me in various ways and that’s so SO nice to have this time of year.

Before Ditch gleefully boarded his train to Oregon, he sat down for a mini recording session with us in the new podcast studio. I’m so thrilled about it because he retold one of my very favorite Uncle Ditch stories. I don’t know precisely how I will use it yet, other than a hidden diamond in my digital archive.

Speaking of digital archive. I’ve been on a quest this entire week to save and recover nearly lost and broken photo archives, both at work and then at home this whole weekend.

I’ve discovered that somewhere along the way, my lightroom photography database was lost and only starts from here in California (6 years). It’s a bummer and at first upsetting, but then I realized how grateful I am for Flickr. All of my original edits in full resolution are still available. The raw and discards are lost, but the finished photos remain.

Nothing is forever.

Best to keep moving forward.

P.S. Squarespace is really pissing me off about flickr integration — or lack thereof! So the actual photos are over here on Flickr. If you’re interested.

Nev - gangster series
Nev - gangster series
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Family Visit 2022
Family Visit 2022
Fam at Big Sur
Fam at Big Sur
Olive's always on the phone...
Olive's always on the phone...
teenagers...
Lil Donna watching the camera
Lil Donna watching the camera
Four Flowers
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Lil Donna watching the camera
Lil Donna watching the camera
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Nev - gangster series IMG_0734.jpg IMG_2194.jpg Family Visit 2022 Fam at Big Sur Olive's always on the phone... Lil Donna watching the camera IMG_1597.jpg Lil Donna watching the camera IMG_1592.jpg IMG_1590.jpg IMG_1583.jpg IMG_1582.jpg

Puppet Studio Prototype!

#hersandhers Mixers! 🤣 🎄 . . . #audio #podcast #baking

24 Likes, 3 Comments - CopyCatFilms (@copycatfilms) on Instagram: "#hersandhers Mixers! 🤣 🎄 . . . #audio #podcast #baking"

Wow, it’s been a terrific WINTER BREAK!!! It’s been so so so nice to just spend time together at home. Our Christmas presents were “hers and hers MIXERS!!!” M has been wanting to dive into baking crazy things and I’ve been hard at work—really for the past 20 years—building a studio and a real mixer was an awesome addition!!!

We spent the break working away on all sorts of prototyping experiments with podcasting, graphics, animation, puppets, audio and any kind of media we could pin down. M is learning audio editing and we just chilled around here and worked on making this crazy prototype. I’m so proud of us for pulling it through by the end:

a bit of an overall update and testing out some techniques...

**We used a whole slew of Adobe products to wrangle this crazy thing together: Audition, Rush, Premiere Pro, Character Animator, Illustrator and of course, my favorite, After Effects.

Drop the top.

It’s weird. Our car started crapping out just all of a sudden. Month after month it was huge expenses to fix something stupid—like an air conditioner vent that made a horrible sound every time I started the car. Yeah that was $600. Despite continuous Volkswagen services, it just kept shocking me. Finally, the fuel pump and injector blew and I was out of love. I’ve been a VW driver since college — 3 Jettas, 1 GTI…but I could NOT buy another one. The last two were never as good as the first 2. It was time to move on. But the GTI was my dream car. It was the first car that I drove at 16 and said — I’m going to have one of them. So I did.

New scene.

We’ve moved out to the edge of civilization to “be close to the water” but that also means that M is often stranded because public transportation is no longer an option and she just would not drive the manual GTI.

So we started car shopping, picked out the most ridiculous car we could find and set the wheels into motion. It all happened at the worst possible time, but it’s always been our dream to own a convertible. Since we first visited California together in 2006 when we rented a Sebring convertible that we would just drop the top randomly at almost every stoplight in LA...we have wanted a convertible. I think my friend put it best the other day when I opened the roof after one of our infamous mall shopping trips like Cher in Clueless and he said “I don’t deserve to feel this free.” Maybe we don’t either, but that’s never stopped us before. And sure, we can only carry 2 bags of groceries and 3 bottles of wine at a time and the backseat has absolutely NO floor room so it’s basically just a place to put your feet when you’re waving in a parade—propped up on the back like a princess. But whatever. If there’s anything these last few weeks has taught me is that life is short. I’m hellbent on living it.

It’s a 2019 Mini Cooper John Cooper Works Convertible with the JCW tuning and bluetooth exhaust. I haggled for that last bit like my Granddad would have and I was pretty proud. I had spent the day fighting at the dealer and it was closing time. MY bottom line was met and I went in for more...he would be proud. Perhaps not of the car—but if there’s one thing I was good at, it was convincing him about cars. He always enjoyed my car rantings even though the “ivy-educated” man could car less about cars...I carry him on, too.

It’s a pocket rocket with nowhere to even put the garage door clicker. It’s absurd and the most British car I’ve ever seen. If Patsy & Eddie went out car shopping without Saffy, this is the car they would buy, today. (—If we hadn’t already.)

I’m not gonna lie. It’s amazing to drive around in a convertible. One of my favorite things to do is blast Christmas music rumbling under our seats in the full California sunshine, with the top down. THAT is living. Not that we’ve been able to much because it’s rainy season, thankfully. But hearing the rain pitter-patter on the soft canvas top is southing for my weary “winterness”. I’ll try to capture some recordings of that, but for now you can listen to the special bluetooth popcorn maker exhaust:

 

with the added JCW exhaust and tuning kit
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