Grand Rapids Lip Dub...

What to say... What to say...

Well, first of all, when I found out about this a few weeks ago I was all over it! On the very top of my bucket list is to someday be a part of a lip dub, mosh mash, flash mob, whatever! I mean, nothing ties me better to my computer than an afternoon of watching these things!

So it was first scheduled for the 15th of May (which I couldn't even comprehend because that would mean them having to block off downtown for two days in a row given the River Bank Run the day before.) But luckily the production was rained out that day, which, by luckily, meant that I could just sleep in and not have to think about driving downtown on a Sunday morning.

And then, I found out on Google that it would be re-scheduled for the next Sunday. So thank goodness, right?

So then next Sunday rolls around and I open the door to let the cats out and realize that even at 7:00 am the weather is feeling a little bit (more than) steamy. And anyone who knows about the relationship my hair has with humidity will completely understand why I decided to just go back inside and shut the door, content to stay on the computer in my cool basement for the rest of the day.

It wasn't till again a few days later, after mentioning it to my friend Cheryl, and after learning that the premiere of the production was going be shown on the big screen at Celebration Cinema North on Wednesday night, that I truly regretted not having just dealt with the humility of having been born with frizzy hair.

Us: So why didn't we do it? Me: Why didn't you ask me to do it with you? Cheryl: Why didn't you ask ME?!! And Etc. Etc. Sigh. Sigh. Whine. Whine...

So ok... here's what we missed out on...



And Now, My Humble Review...

I think the fact that it was all shot in ONE shot is amazing but which,of course, are the rules for a lip dub anyway. But I mean, how difficult must it be to pull something like this together? Unimaginable. The direction, camera work and the timing (in parts) were incredible, I thought. But the fact that this had to be shot on a Sunday afternoon was the unfortunate thing, sort of making it look like a dying city afterall... (This whole project stemmed from NewsWeek's article about Grand Rapids being one of the top 10 dying cities in America...) sigh

Plus... I'm really kicking myself as well for not having had the wherewithall and forsite to have volunteered to be a choreographer for all those extras. I thought the principals were really pretty good though! (Except for those people in the cars on the bridge who had absolutely no clue to the words.) And where was the Grand Rapids Ballet during all this?! But I'll stop now.

I just wish that all 200,000 of us would have turned out! That would have really been something! But then again, that probably would have been a little bit too much for a 22 year old (Forest Hills Central HIgh School) graduate to manage...

Anyway, he sure is cute!


Grand Rapids Lip Dub Premier, Rob Bliss, Celebration Cinema, May 25, 2011...

Check out Rob Bliss's ArtPrize 2009 Paper Airplanes entry if you want to see wall to wall people...

Anyway... I still really, REALLY love my super cool town!

P.S. Cheryl, was I right? It really DOES work better on a smaller screen doesn't it? But it's still only a sadly half filled bridge...

And this just in!!!! Roger Eberts calls this the best music video ever made! So WeeeeeCoooo!!!

For My Girls...

I haven't made one of these in a really long time, and to be honest it was much harder than I'd remembered. But not as hard as childbirth... and not even NEARLY as hard as raising little munchkins, by any means...



I had SO many pictures to choose from, so I had to be choosy...

Love you guys!

Hats...

'Twas the night after "Mom's Day" and all through the flat(s)...
Not a creature was stirring, except for the cat(s)...
And if I were feeling creative right now...
I'd be able to make this rhyme, somehow...



Because it's like this... Ya know how it is when something becomes such a permanent fixture around the house that you don't even notice it anymore? Until it's gone?... And then you become COMPLETELY aware of the empty space? Well, that's sort of what happened to me yesterday while I was spring cleaning and attempting to take this thing down.

I know, this is probably not the MOST perfect analogy when it comes to missing your kids and all, but still...

Anyway, the hat rack stays...

Haha.. Screencaps!

I knew there was a reason for studying Multimedia Technologies..


Please don't muss my hair!...


Thanks...

And a few more...











I'm not quite sure I'm completely comfortable with this being out there on YouTube...

But anyway... The first 10 minutes are pretty much just introductions. Sort of cool for me to watch it again, but probably not so much for anyone else...

And then after the introductions, they made the 40, or so, of us talk a little bit... I'm on at about 30:00.

So yeah, it was a really, really long half hour of not wanting to do much of anything else... besides throw up...

Delta Pi Alpha Recognition Dinner

Ack...

Delta Pi Alpha...

Well this was pretty cool, I have to admit...

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the Dean of GRCC inviting me to attend a banquet to honor the top 5% of the graduating class of 2011. I was asked, in turn, to invite either a professor or a member of staff that had somehow been influential to me during my time at school. I was also able to invite up to 4 other guests, being either family or friends.

Unfortunately none of my family is here!... but it didn't take me too long to decide on my friends, or a professor either. And it sounded like a fun night, and I felt truly, truly honored to have been invited to be a part of it.

I have to interject here that I seriously could have had no idea that this would ever happen when I walked into that first French class on that evening of September 13th 2001, after nearly 25 years of being out of school. To be honest, I really had no idea what I was even doing there that first night back to school!... and I didn't learn a heck of a lot of French that first night anyway. (<-- that might take a moment...) I don't think there could be anything more overwhelming than staring down at that frightening list of classes you know you're going to have to take just in order to get to the place where you should have been at when you were 20.. Particularly when you're 46 and working full time... Which also brings to mind the fact that, at 46, you typically don't go back to school just to "get a degree"... like it's going to have any real major impact on any future prospects or anything. I think maybe you do it then because you finally realize that you just really want to finally do it!. And if you're going to do it, you might as well do it WELL. Because otherwise, well, what's the point? Really. So yeah... that was pretty much me.

So anyway, back to the banquet... I was just really looking forward to a nice dinner (catered by the Culinary Arts department which is rated +++++) and spending a great evening with my friends. But about 5 minutes after sitting down, my guest Professor Pat Higgins, who I'd invited, mentioned to me that she thought it had been a tradition in the past for all of the "honorees" to be given an opportunity to speak during the program as to each of their unique experiences at GRCC.

*panics!*

You're um, joking right?...

And then suddenly I remembered how that little silver-haired lady who had once taught me everything I could ever need (or not AT ALL need) to know about Telecommunications... didn't have one possible ounce of "joking" in her...

And so I think that was right about the time that I asked..

"Excuse me, but where's the ladies room?"...

And so yes it was all true. They came and got us, each one at a time, and brought us back to stand in a line to wait our turn to receive our medallion and then to (God forbid)... speak! And there was really no way to get out of it. Trapped, in other words. And I wondered later why they couldn't have at least (in the invitation or something) to have asked us to prepare a few words or something about what our time at GRCC had meant to us. And then I realized, that if they had, most of us probably wouldn't have wanted to come! So I suppose it takes a college to be smart, I guess.

And to be honest it really wasn't all that bad. I somehow managed to pull something somewhat intelligible out of my hat even though when I was handed the microphone I was still not sure what I was going to say. I babbled on for a minute about how I had stepped into my first class at GRCC two days after 9/11 and how though these 10 years had felt like a really long road I'd be graduating this summer with a degree in Multi-Media Communication Technologies. And then I explained how I had actually switched majors around six years ago because the first one I'd chosen (Communications) would have required me to take Intro to Public Speaking...

So it was pretty easy after that. But here's the really sad part.

I'd brought my camera, but was mostly just planning on using it to take a picture of me and my friends enjoying our nice dinner but then, of course, completely forgot about it. So when Julie grabbed it off the table to try and get some shots, it wasn't at all set appropriately. But I thank her SO much for trying!

I was able to salvage them a little by tossing PhotoShop filter on them, which actually made them appear a lot less blurry than the originals. And though they look sort of "surreal" this way, in truth, that's kind of how the whole evening felt to me to begin with...

From left to right: Olivia Margo Anderson (Chairman Board of Trustees), Steven C. Ender (Dean of GRCC), Me, Fiona Hert (Dean of Workforce Development)...




Here's a picture of the Dean without the PhotoShop filter added...


Me with my Professor, Pat Higgins...


And it was just SO great to have my friends Mel, Renee, Julie and Cheryl with me there as well! Hopefully that picture of all of us taken with Julie's phone will turn out much better than the ones up there. If so, I'll add it here soon!

... Oh well. lol


P.S. Fortunately my camera seems to be working much better this morning...


Front Cover


Back Cover


Honorees

(You may have noticed the asterisks after a few of the honoree's names. That's because they earned a 4.0. I only earned a 3.993, so I wasn't quite deserving of an asterisk : ( Thank-you World Geography class back from 2002...)

*sigh*


My medallion, with my book bag as a backdrop.

Wow, it just occurred to me that I had a pin kind of like that back in 1972. Except that it was from Alpha Delta Pi, and was pretty much achieved by just being a good partier...

Anyway, off to study for my final Final...

This just in...

See... I lost my camera while out in Idaho. I could have pretty much left it anywhere...

At Jade's gymnastics class...the in-laws house... the grocery store... the restaurant where we went to eat... Walmart... the Dollar Store... the possibilities were pretty endless. The snow out there is pretty deep.

Turns out, after all this time, it was on the floor of Whitney's car. Or more likely underneath the seat of her car, and then one day just decided to roll out. But anyway...

Thank you so much for sending it back to me Whit! I would have absolutely hated to have lost these pics!


Me and Rachel



Rachel and her Mom



Tetonia 8:00 a.m.



Tetonia 8:01 a.m.



Tetonia- Pretty much the rest of the day...



Good sis!



Snug as bugs in a rug!

And two other pictures that I didn't take, but wish I had...


Everest Smiling...


Calder Smiling...

Ok I think I'm caught up now...

Shades of Gray...

So, this "Light and Optics" class this semester has been a real stretch for me. I'm not very science minded at all and, though I'm fairly good at memorizing facts for tests, to be honest?... there hasn't really been a whole lot I've learned this semester that I feel I will probably take into "real life" and be able to use it in any way effectively.

But tonight I learned something that moved me somehow to immediately come home and first create a PowerPoint of it... and THEN figure out how to turn it into a movie! So obviously the deeper, yet subtle, concept of it impressed me a bit...

But anyway I'll stop yacking now and just let you watch...



Anyway, if you "got" the point I was pointing at, then cool! But if not, well I still hope it was a really fun illusion for you...

And if you still don't believe your eyes then here's a clickable image for you to print out. After placing a sheet of white paper over it, cut out the applicable squares and you'll be able to prove to yourself that what you see at first glance is not always, necessarily, what's really there...