All The Halls

Video Fun – And The World Will Go

randyeha — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:02:18 +0000

WWII

I had a few spare moments here/there over the past few days, and had a little fun with some video. Most of what’s posted on this site are Hall Family Videos. This really isn’t a “Hall Family” vid….more of a music video for a great tune by Eric Matthews. The tune is called “And the World Will Go,” and it can be found on the excellent _Foundation Sounds_ CD.

As I said, this isn’t really a family video, but it does contain a few interesting family photos. Randall, Billy (grandparents) and Aunt Helen can be seen in the video if you look closely, but one of the more interesting photos was taken by Randall when he was stationed in Europe in WWII.

While back in Kansas earlier this summer, we came across a photo of what’s either some sort of rally or a religious ceremony. If you look closely, you can see a swastika at the event. I ended up photoshopping out the swastika from the video because it didn’t really fit the context (and might be misinterpreted), but I’ve included the original photo here.

WWII

Judging from the apparent size of the mountains in the background, I would say that those are either the Alps or the Pyrenees. I know Grandpa was in France so I’m guessing that’s where this is. Interesting photo.

In any case, this was a fun video to put together so I’ll probably do a few more of these. Here’s a link to the video, which is also posted on YouTube:

Summer 2010

randyeha — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:41:45 +0000

At the time of this writing, I’ve been on sabbatical for about 6 weeks. That doesn’t mean we’ve been lounging around. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Discovery Cove

Becky and the kids have put up with an inordinate amount of business travel, and I owe them a lot of time for simplifying things for me while work was so busy. They put up with a lot of international travel, late-night meetings, countless hours of technical work so I owed them big-time.

With sabbatical, I have enjoyed over 2 months off, basically the entire summer. We seized the opportunity, and Becky put together the be-all and end-all of vacations while busy managing kids. It was an amazing, month-long trip.

Tower of Terror

We traveled with close friends, the Davis Family for most of the trip. It was risky traveling with John, because our livers always seem to suffer when we’re together. Despite, tropical settings, we managed to behave ourselves for the most part. John has been on sabbatical too, so the timing couldn’t have been better for an extended vacation. So on a cool, clear morning in Oregon, we loaded the bags up and hopped a plane for a big adventure.

Families

We told the kids we were going to Kansas, and they were excited. It wasn’t until we reached Denver that we told them they’d be spending 3 weeks in Florida. Stunned silence is the only way to explain their reaction. They didn’t believe us until Becky actually boarded the plane to Orlando in Denver. There is a sick pleasure in torturing your kids like this (as much as I hate to admit it).

The trip took us across the country, with 3 weeks in FL hanging out at the beach, visiting [too many] theme parks, and enjoying local cuisine, and then a week in Kansas.

The trip was loads-o-fun, but besides catching up with family, the highlight was definitely swimming with the dolphins at Discovery Cove. One of the benefits of having a large family is that we effectively had our own private swims with dolphins and private tour of the park. They treated us like rock stars. Highly recommended if you ever get the chance. The theme parks were fun, but very very crowded, and it was hot outside.

I have more to add on the trip, and will update this when I get a chance, but my favorite M-I-L is patiently awaiting a video . Pictures and video follow….

Rack Focus Effect In Final Cut Studio

randyeha — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 01:49:32 +0000

I’ve developed a fascination for interesting visual effects (and the mechanics to create them), and lately the rack focus effect has really grabbed my attention.

I used this effect in the Christmas video to provide depth-of-field changes to still images in order to give them a more 3-dimensional feel to 2D photos. If I were really good, I would swap out lenses as I took the photos to get that effect, but it would take too long and the moment would be gone. It would also destroy the raw data, and I like having options . So I’ve been looking for the equivalent of “we’ll fix it in the mix” in order to capture the moment, while leaving options open.

For the Christmas video, I used a pretty tedious process to get the rack focus effect. This video means a lot to me so It was worth it. Basically, I separated several images into layers using Photoshop, imported the layers into Motion4, and used camera keyframing to change the depth of focus. It took quite a while to generate just a few seconds of video so I’ve been hunting for a way to do this faster ever since.

Recently, Borisfx released a Lens Blur filter as part of the Boris Continuum product. I’m not yet a huge fan of the Borisfx products, but still trying to keep an open mind. My experience has been mixed with this company’s products: documentation is marginal, performance is slow, even on really fast/beefy machines, plug-ins crash Motion, etc. These are not effects for the casual user IMO. But when they work, they work well. I’m guessing this is because they seem to favor Adobe over Apple tools. So when they announced availability of the Lens Blur filter for Final Cut Studio, I was skeptical.

The only tutorial I’ve seen thus far for this plug-in is for Adobe After Effects (different tools than I use). A quick search of the internet for a quick-start or how-to guide produced nothing but more requests from other Final Cut users for the Final Cut version.

After playing with the plug-in for awhile, I came up with a recipe that works for me. And here is a video of the effect based on a shot I took up at Mt. Hood earlier this week. Note: I purposely exaggerated some of the blur effect in order to demonstrate plug-in use. I didn’t play with bokeh or any of the fine-grain settings (that’s my “To Do”), and I suspect there is additional coolness to glean here.

Still not totally sold on Borisfx, but for now, this plug-in satisfies for now.

Here is my version of the missing “how-to: for creating a rack focus effect in Final Cut Studio. There are no doubt other ways to do this, but after wrestling the dragon for a bit, this worked for me. Hopefully this helps others make use of a potentially valuable plug-in. Comments/improvements are welcome.

Fourth of July 2010

randyeha — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:44:11 +0000

Fourth of July 2010

We had a cooler than normal Fourth this year in Oregon. We celebrated with the Davis family and their neighbors over in Hillsboro. The day included a water balloon fight, more food than anyone could eat, and of course, fireworks. Kids were passed out exhausted when we got home.

I put together a quick video, that also includes some video from Fathers’ Day, a little backyard fun, and Reed’s Honors Baseball post-season play. And yes, I really was as tired as I look in the Fathers’ Day pix. We had to delay the celebration due to business travel. I’d just gotten off a plane from Europe, but the kids weren’t going to hold off any longer. It was a fantastic welcome home.

So here’s the video from the recent festivities. And, as usual the cameras start rolling again immediately.

Honors Baseball

randyeha — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:03:14 +0000

Reed made the city Honors baseball team this year! He’s playing really really well, and I’m very proud of him. Where he got his baseball skills, I don’t know. It wasn’t from me.

Reed Honors 2010

Reed In Action

2010 Cards End of Season

randyeha — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:04:17 +0000

Cardinals 2010

We closed out the Little League Cardinals’ season today, followed by a team party at the pizza place. It was the end of a really fun season with a great group of kids and coaches.

I was recruited at the last minute to pull together a very quick video with photo highlights of a very wet season.

To the parents: sorry I couldn’t get this done in time for end of season party, but DVD-ROM discs with all the fantastic pix from Moms/Dads will be coming. Thanks very much to parents for snapping some great pix! And thanks to my lovely wife for helping sort them at midnight last night .

In the meantime, here’s an online version of the video:

15 Years Ago

randyeha — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:16:51 +0000

06-02-1995

On this day, 15 years ago, I married a very remarkable lady. The church where we got married is long gone, replaced by a superhighway, but I love her more today than even that day.

It’s a school night here, and the best we could do was a family dinner out. The kids asked us if we were nervous the day we got married. Almost in unison, we both responded – “No, cuz I knew he/she was the one.”

Happy 15th, Becky. I love you.

Cubs 2010 – Thanks For A Fun Season

randyeha — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:23:56 +0000

TLL AAA Cubs 2010

I put together a quick video recap of the TLL AAA Cubs 2010 season.

This season was dominated by rain. We had more rainouts and rescheduled games than I can ever recall. Very wet spring.

Here is the video:

For the technically-minded (geeks), here’s a little more info on “the making of” the video. Stills were from a couple of different cameras. One of them was a Pentax K200 (not sure about the other one).

The music, one of my favorite parts, was from Todd Rundgren’s No World Order CD. I thought it was appropriate since Reed is a TR fan:

Reed and Todd Rundgren

Video composition was constructed using:

Adobe Photoshop for image editing, logo deconstruction/reconstruction into PSD format
A custom app from Todd Rundgren used to remove vocals from the soundtrack
Apple Soundtrack Pro for editing/cleanup and normalization of audio files
Apple Motion 4 for image segments and logo animation
Final Cut Pro for final composition
Apple Compressor for rendering

SoundTrack Pro

Then there were all those video segments….each put together with Motion 4. I hadn’t ever done a spinning logo animation, but it was pretty simple in motion once I had the logo deconstructed into layered pieces to work with. While a daunting program initially, this program makes a lot of sense.

Motion 4

Then final composition using Final Cut Studio, with rendering in Compressor:

Final Cut

I had a bit of fun putting together. Enjoy.

Goodbye, Old Friend

randyeha — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:35:09 +0000

Today we said goodbye to our first child, Hallie. Hallie had been fighting cancer for several months, and was beginning to suffer so we made that tough decision, and elected to let her go.

Hallie was born in April 1995 to a Cocker spaniel mother and a Beagle father. She was a pound puppy. I picked her up on June 10, 1995, 6 days after Becky and I got married. My Mom told me shortly before she died in January that she always thought that this was either a bold move or a very stupid one. I prefer the former.

I remember our very first day together vividly. Becky was studying for her CPA, and I was putting moving boxes into the attic of our new home in Chandler AZ. I remember standing on top of the ladder, looking down at that tiny creature and those big brown eyes and thinking that I was going to have a very difficult day, roughly 15 years in the future. Today was that day.

For those that didn’t have the privilege of encountering Hallie, here’s a brief recap of one of her life, and what she meant to us.

She was a naughty little puppy

Hallie was very naughty little puppy with ears too big for her head. For the first few weeks after she came to live with us, my daily activities included reburying the drip lines . For our Oregon friends, plant irrigation in AZ involves drip lines that are buried just under the surface. They are very tempting for puppies.

To this day, one of the most amazing things I’ve seen was Hallie’s attention to detail. Hallie managed to carefully unzip the cushion zipper from our [then] new couch and remove all the stuffing. Christmas was equally as fun. She chewed the plug ends off of the Christmas tree lights. It’s a miracle she survived puppyhood.

After she got a little bigger, I started running with Hallie. Hallie got up out of a warm bed (she slept with us) at 4am most mornings and ran hard. At one point she was doing 30 miles a week with me, and was 35 pounds of solid muscle.

And then kids came along.

Hallie and Reed on Guard Duty

Hallie and Reed became best buds quickly. They could often be found on guard duty n the front window of another new house in Gilbert, AZ. And until very recently, she could be found in his room “putting him to bed.” It was one of the coolest things to see.

In September 2001, we found out we were having quadruplets (still hoping someone can explain to me how that happened). Right after Christmas 2001, Becky went on doctor-ordered bedrest for 3.5 months . Hallie was her constant companion and very rarely left her side. I think she kept Becky sane, while the babies were growing inside her.

After the babies arrived, Hallie could be found participating in nighttime feedings. She didn’t get much work done, but she was a good companion.

Feeding Time Companion

In May of 2004, we moved from AZ to Portland. There was discussion of Hallie staying behind with Nana and Papa in AZ, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of her not coming with us. So we changed climates.

In 2006 or 2007 (can’t remember), I started to notice Hallie moving slower when climbing stairs, maybe a little arthritis so she retired from running and took to minding all the kids.

But she wasn’t done with me yet. We used to play a game where I would sneak up behind her and grab her hindquarters. She would ALWAYS respond by turning around and trying to bite me. Even coming after me as I ran for cover.

She sent me to the hospital once. She was slightly faster than me on one round, and bit me on the palm, leaving a huge gash. I had to go to the hospital for medical attention. Imagine me trying to explain that to the doc.

In 2009, we started to notice Hallie having more difficulty breathing. Her breathing got very noisy so we took her to the doctor, who, after an MRI, determined that she had an adenocarcinoma growing in her right sinus and nasal cavity. We consulted with a veterinary oncologist, and they said they could give her a few more months, but it was going to be extremely stressful. She’d been too good a friend to put her through that, so we elected to make her remaining time the best ever.

She got anything she wanted: steak, hot dogs, rotisserie chicken, scrambled eggs and bacon, and one of her favorites: cheerios and milk.

She Earned Her Rest

Last week we noticed a cherry-tomato size lump on one of her rear legs, and she started favoring that leg. Her breathing started to become more labored, and she was having problems sleeping at night. The tumors in her sinus were making it really tough for her to put her head down and sleep comfortably, and she was completely exhausted.

This morning, she couldn’t put any weight on the leg with tumor, and she fell down the stairs. We also noticed her nodding off and falling over as she struggled to breathe. She was still responsive to us, and came when we called her, but she’s been such a good friend that we couldn’t put her through that. It was clear that she was starting to suffer, and Becky and I agreed that we weren’t going to let that happen.

We canceled all activities for the day, pulled the family together, and told the kids it was time. Just after 2pm, we all got in the car and drove over to the Southgate Veterinary Clinic (family friend is one of the vets), and let Hallie go. Those people were incredibly good to a group of total strangers.

Shortly after 3pm, we started the process, by 3:15pm, she was gone. She died in my arms, and as she was going, I thought back to our very first day together, when I knew this day would come. I thanked her for being such a good friend, and let her go.

Here is a link to one of my favorite outings with Hallie. I’m going to miss my friend terribly.

Updated – 06-02-2010:

Becky found a card that Robyn made for Hallie today:

Robyn's Card To Hallie

Paging Sue….

randyeha — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:05:18 +0000

Found this on the nightstand and got a giggle out of this:

Paging Sue....Sue Chef