Boston's Left Knee

When Boston got hurt the other day, we were looking everywhere for a Bandaid, but we couldn't find one. Eventually we found this teeny tiny one that I've always thought were stupid and pointless. I mean, who needs a Bandaid this small? Ever?

While we were looking for a Bandaid, Boston asked me if I could just make him one. I made the mistake of telling my kids a few months ago that when I was younger, if I ever got hurt and we didn't have any Bandaids... I'd just make my own with a square of folded up toilet paper and some Scotch tape. They love it. I failed to tell them how disgusting it was and now I don't dare. I mean, I was taking a square of toilet paper off of the roll of TP that was hanging over the toilet! Every time someone flushed the toilet, microscopic pieces of poop were landing all over that roll of TP. Then I was ripping off a germ infested square of TP, folding it up, and placing it atop an open wound. Hello?

Anyway, luckily we found this tiny Bandaid and Boston was pleased. He was even more excited when he took it off 10 minutes later and it had this awesome design on it. I found this bloody bandaid on our kitchen table. When I said, "Boston? Could you get that bloody bandaid off the table and put it in the garbage?", my wife intervened and explained that Boston was excited about the bloody design. So I made a deal with Boston. I'd take a photo of it to keep for all time, if he'd put it in the garbage.

Here's the video of Boston explaining his knee injury.

Tyton's Thumb Scratch

First of all I just want to say how disturbing it is that my 7-year-old's thumb looks like mine. While I was holding my phone up to his hand to take the photo, I had to keep repositioning my phone cause I thought I was accidentally taking photos of my own hand. Creepy.

Anyway, do you see the scratch on Tyton's thumb... just under his fingernail? Yeah... me neither, but he was pretty sure it was there. Now I'll be transcribing our exact conversation that I recorded.

Me: Tell me what happened to your thumb.

Ty: Um, I was feeding a puppy. It's my mom's friends puppy and I was feeding it with piece of meat. It was jumping up and then one time it just grabbed me and scratched my thuuuuuuuuumb.

Me: I don't see a scratch on there.

Ty: Well, there is a scratch.

Me: How bad did it hurt?

Ty: I don't know.

Me: If a "10" is getting punched in the face and a "1" is... um... pulling out one of the hairs on your head...

Ty: Actually, how 'bout number one is just getting hit really softly by a can just like... (taps my arm with a phantom can)

Me: By a can?

Ty: Yeah... just like (another tap by phantom can)...

Me: Is it a full can or an empty can?

Ty: Empty.

Betsy (from the other room): Cameron?

Me: Empty can. Ok. So, how would you rate that scratch? (to Betsy) Once sec, Bets!

Ty: Um... say it's about, like... 4?

Me: 4?

Ty: Nods head.

So, there you have it. A non existent scratch is significantly more painful than getting hit very, very softly by the side of an empty can.

Thumb Knuckle and Right Knee

We went out to my parents house for President's Day. My parents house is pretty small and way too crowded when all of the kids and grandkids visit so we went to my parents church to play in the gym. Pizza, beverages and lots of running around.

There was a closet in the gym used for storage of lots of miscellaneous items. I went in there to explore and found a wheelchair. I came tearing out of the storage closet like a bat outta hell. It was sweet. That is... until my left thumb got scraped on the wheelchair brake that had lost it's padding.

Then we decided to play Tunnel Tag. You know, where the taggee must remain frozen if tagged. In order to thaw a frozen person, someone must crawl under the taggee's legs. If a child was frozen, then the adult had to clap their hands under their legs.

I was "it" for about three minutes and it was the longest three minutes of my life. Seriously I wanted to die. I was using alveoli that had been dormant for 10 years.

Finally it was someone else's turn to be "it". That gave me a chance to rest a lot more often. My dad was frozen at one point and I made a mad dash to thaw him. I decided to slide under his legs like I was sliding into home plate. It hurt.



So. These are my most recent injuries. More injuries to come in the future.

48 Hour Film Project

First let me say that if you're reading this, then I totally don't deserve you as a friend. My blog posts have been few and far between and I won't blame anybody who has chosen to abandon me and my life experiences as they're told on this blog.

That said, I should point out that I've been fairly busy lately. If you're a member of Facebook, then you should be pretty up-to-date on what's been going on with me (unless you've chosen to "hide" me in your news feed).

I've decided to post this blog entry so that all of my readers (both of you) who aren't also members of Facebook can be made aware of my most recent adventure.

John and I signed up for the 48 hour Film Project. This is a national competition that is done every year all across the country and around the world. This is not a "movie marathon". This is a competition where they give each team a list of criteria that must be incorporated within their respective films. Then each team has a total of 48 hours to script, find actors, find locations, round up a crew, film, and edit an 8 minute movie.

There were 45 (ish) entries this year in the Salt Lake competition alone. If we win the Salt Lake competition, then our movie is judged against the winners of dozens of other cities. If our movie wins the national competition, then our movie will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival next year. You might be asking, "Yeah, Cameron, but do you really think your movie is good enough to win it all?" My answer: "If the entries this year are of the same caliber of entries in years past, then I think we will win it all."

Some of you might be curious as to how it all works. Let me give you a brief overview of the Kickoff Event last Friday Night. All of the teams arrived between 6 and 6:30. We all sat in chairs that were set up outside of Jordan Commons. Pay Attention Now: They split the 45 teams into groups of 11 or 12.
Group A, B, C, and D. They called the groups up to the stage one at a time and had them reach into a bag that contained different genres written on pieces of paper. This way, no one Group had duplicate genres. Genres ranged from Fantasy to Comedy to Holiday Film. John and I were petrified that we'd draw Western or Musical. When John reached his hand into the bag, he drew out Sci-Fi. Good enough.

After everyone had drawn their genre's, they pulled out a sealed envelope. Inside the envelope were the 3 other criteria that EVERYONE had to incorporate (convincingly) into their movies.

The first item was a prop: A certificate.

The second item was a character: Dan (or Danielle) Bridges, Roommate.

The third and final item was a line of dialog: "Whoa. I didn't see that coming."

These 3 things EVERYONE has to use in their movie, regardless of genre or group.

Immediately after this announcement was made, the teams scattered. John and I began writing our Sci-Fi script on Friday night. We had told everyone we knew to be "on-call" just in case we needed them to act, or come up with locations, or drive us somewhere... anything. Throughout the writing of the script, John was making calls and sending texts trying to arrange and finalize locations as well as securing our actors and actresses. By 4am on Saturday, our script was done and emailed out to the crew and actors. We had our first location lined up for Saturday morning at 10am (thanks, mom), as well.

We shot at three different locations throughout Saturday and didn't shoot our final scene until 2am Sunday morning. Luckily we had an amazing editor who was in a trailer (provided by someone equally cool) and was editing each scene as we shot it from his laptop inside the trailer. It was like pieces of a puzzle were falling into place all day long.

We slept Sunday morning from 4 to about 8, then we met our Director of Photography slash second editor at his studio for more editing and finalizing. Somehow, we were able to arrange an awesome sound guy to be working on a score and sound effects to match our visual effects. He was working from his own house and emailing stuff to us to plug into our movie.

At about 4pm, I started getting really nervous. We were still editing in Ogden and we had to drop off two DVD/Mini DV copies to the 48 Hour people by 7:30pm in Sandy. We hadn't plugged in the soundtrack or audio effects and we still had to burn the finished movie onto 2 DVD's.

Somehow, our audio guru was able to choose exactly what we wanted and when we received it, it was as easy as plugging it right in over the top of the video (at least it looked easy enough while our editor was doing it). The only problem was, it was 6pm.

John and I hopped into the car and started driving to Sandy. I had a laptop and external hard drive on my lap and 3 blank DVD's. We burned 3 copies while we were driving to Sandy... just in case.

Even though the entire process was rushed and extremely chaotic, I'm having a hard time remembering the last time I had so much fun. I loved every second of it. Even though I only spent 16 hours with our cast and most of our crew, I feel like I know them all so much better than I did before. There are a couple of them that I still wouldn't let babysit my kids, but I still enjoyed their company immensely.

I know this post has been long. I hope I've kept your interest. I'm really hoping by now that you really want to see this movie we've made. I think I've adequately built it up in your mind that you won't be able to have a good nights rest until you see it.

Lucky for you, it's playing Thursday night on the BIG SCREEN at Jordan Commons in Sandy. Our group (Group D) is on from 8 to 10pm. Tickets to our group are $8 each. Here's the catch: They're only selling the advance tickets tomorrow (Wed) at 4pm in front of Theatre 12. Otherwise, you have to take your chances buying them at the door. Lucky for you, John and I will be there at 4pm tomorrow with a list of people who want tickets. We can buy them for you so long as you pay us back. All you have to do is send me a text at (801) 690-820 three. Tell me who you are and how many tickets you want. Don't text me again if you've already told me or John.

Thanks and we hope to see you there.

The Cinematic Experience, Yo!

Chia Head

So a neighbor hooked me up with this sweet Chia Head. I've joked about them for years but never owned one. I admit I was pretty excited. I was going to get to plant seeds on the top of a clay scalp, water it, and watch it grow into a bushy hairdo. I actually entertained the possibility of trimming up his hair once it was all grown. Maybe hone my hair braiding skills since I'll probably need to know what I'm doing when my daughter grows up.

I read the instructions for the first time in my life. I studied them. I soaked the seeds overnight. I soaked the head in water overnight. I carefully spread the seeds onto the top, sides and back of the head. I placed the head in a sunny room and patiently waited.
See the photo on the box at the beginning of this post? Well, look how my Chia turned out. What the crud!?!? Apparently the clay is porous and this Chia Head needs to be refilled every 15 minutes, otherwise this happens. The water level drops too low and the seeds on the top of the head dry out and don't grow. Plus, his hair is pretty thin. I guess my Chia is a 60-year-old balding sex offender.

I guess I'll be able to practice a comb over.

Got a Plunger?

Last night I was perusing KSL and stumbled across a story about how this guy had been charged with 10 counts of Rape of a Child. My wife saw the headline over my shoulder and gasped. Tyton and Boston overheard her profane, muffled exclamations and asked what we were reading. We explained how this guy was a really really bad guy. So bad, in fact, that other bad guys in jail would probably beat him up.

Tyton started asking follow up questions about what he'd done that was so bad. I sat down on the kitchen floor and told my boys that he'd done very mean things to children. I also explained how if he'd done anything to MY kids I'd cut off his ears and shove them in his mouth. My boys started laughing hysterically and then started trying to come up with more creative punishments... which wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

We ended up deciding that the worst punishment of all would be if we all went poo and pee in our upstairs toilet and then we could put him into the toilet head first and all take turns flushing the toilet and jumping on him until he was completely flushed. Boston laughed and said, "But he's too big." Then Tyton said, in all seriousness, "He'd clog it up for sure. Then we'd have to use the downstairs toilet." Good point, buddy. Good point.