The year ahead...

I try not to look ahead too much for fear of jinxing life but I always do, as I like to plan and be prepared for things, and anticipate the coming events of the year so I don't miss anything important. Looking ahead to 2009 it's going to be another packed year, more or less revolving around baby plans.

But at this point, a month-by-month forecast of 2009 in terms of things that will happen, might happen, or might not happen looks something like this, a teaser trailer for a new year of Boundaries blurbs...

January
Starting January 1st, I'm starting a goal for myself to actually get through the Bible in 3 years, through the structured 'Word-Wise' program our church has put together. Several people got through it over the past 3 years, but I got lazy and couldn't keep up with it as a daily habit. I have a dream book project on the back burner and have decided I won't feel adequate to write it until I can actually say I have read through the entire Good Book itself.

From the 21st-26th, the Spark FX festival will be held in Vancouver, including visits from Dennis Muren and many other FX legends. As a member of the Siggraph chapter hosting it, I'll be involved in some planning and volunteer capacities, including an introduction for the 7th Voyage of Sinbad screening that kicks it off. Should be great geeky fun.

I will also begin writing a Stop Motion Level II course for the Academy of Art, and hopefully teaching my Level 1 course as well. At some point in the Spring, writing Level II will involve another trip to San Francisco for some more video shoots.

February
My birthday is on the 5th, Coraline comes out on the 6th, there is a Friday the 13th which means a weird film night at VanArts is in order, students graduating and the Oscar party.

March & April
This will likely be peak time for course building, and possibly a trip to Mexico as a guest speaker at a university there, but the jury is still out on that. All depends on several factors which are still being worked out, so I don't know, we'll see.

May
Jay turns 30, so I have some plans up my sleeve that I hope shall materialize.

June
The 2nd annual Breath of Life Animation Festival at our church is tentatively slated for the first Saturday, so will need to start planning this in the Spring. At the end of the month is me & Jay's 8-year anniversary, and we're thinking of leaving Ariel with family and getting away to Seattle for a few days. There are some restaurants & attractions we want to check out, plus a Jim Henson exhibit.

July-August
At this point we will be in major countdown mode for Baby, with launch sometime in late August perhaps. Ariel will turn 3 right before, so we'll need to have a party.

September
Pretty much all about settling into life with a new baby, plus the second annual Spark Animation Festival from the 16th to 20th.

October-November-December
Our friend Meeka is getting married in Ottawa, so hopefully we can work out a way to attend. Other than that, it's hard to see that far into the future but I'm sure lots of other stuff will come up.

Life is always full of surprises! Amidst all of this, I'd like to make more good progress on my film as well, and perhaps get it in the can in 2010, perhaps?

So to bid farewell to 2008 and look to the future with anticipation and hope, here's a random picture of a duck.



Merrie Neue Yeer!

Merry Christmas!

It's a Holly Jolly Christmas and to all a good night!

Here is our Christmas family portrait...



...now, had we a little more advance notice, we would have gone with a different picture to possibly suggest not just 3 of us, but maybe a subtle hint towards another...possible...addition?

Oh well, maybe this will work...



Ah look! Mr. Stork on his way!

That's right, Baby #2 due to arrive by Sept 1, 2009. A very good Christmas gift for us all! Whee!

A Claymation Christmas from Church in Motion

Here's the short film made by a group of kids & adults from our 'Church in Motion' series of Sunday School sessions. This was fun...I liked the special touches they added. Lots of sheep!

Random December Boundaries...

Time for an overdue random Boundaries blog about what I've been doing and thinking about. Christmas is coming...yay! Looking forward to some quality family time this year and a few days off to catch up on movies, work on projects and basically just play around.

Ariel is excited...can't you tell?





It's been fun pulling out the Christmas videos and watching them with Ariel, starting to expose her to the classics. So far she won't sit still through all of them, except for Arthur's Christmas and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. The Grinch was on TV the other night but ABC cut off the ending to make room for more commercials. Just as the Grinch was about to lift the sleigh off the mountain, CUT! Sorry folks, time for a crappy sit-com. Bah humbug! I used to feel that having these specials on video kind of ruined the nostalgic novelty of seeing them only when they aired, with commercials and all...but if the networks are gonna piss on them then I'd rather have my video to watch.



I did a funny little puppet show for the Single Mom's dinner at church recently, and have also been leading a Sunday School class for media arts, i.e. stop-motion animation! With a mixed group of kids, youth and adults we're making a little clay animation film of the Christmas story. I'll post it when it's finished in a few weeks. We just got all the clay figures built and will be animating this weekend.

I've enjoyed re-connecting with many long lost friends on Facebook lately. It's quite an amazing invention, once people catch on to it. I've been able to find and communicate with childhood friends of mine who I haven't seen or heard anything from in over 20 years! It's amazing.

I'm very excited to see this film, whenever it's available to see locally. I've been spreading the word about it to my friends...Ron Reed has also posted it on his blog in reference to my comments on the film.



I anticipate stop-motion animation being back on the map and very much on my brain in 2009...for various reasons the Boundaries will share when the time is right....