2007

The year 2007 AD has about 30 more minutes left in it. I suppose that I should do some soul searching and reflecting before moving to 2008.

So here I go...

This year I have discovered, yet again, that the closer I get to Jesus, the uglier my sin looks, and the more beautiful His grace shines.

I had a great time on Thursday or Friday mornings with Lance, Eric, and Johnny studying the bible slowly.

Work has been complete joy, both in California and in London.

My children have grown so much this year, physically, spiritually and mentally.

And my wife is everything and more than I could have ever hoped for in a partner. She has been hugely supportive and encouraging through many challenges this year. I love her so much.

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When I was a teenager, I made a list in my head of some things that I'd like to accomplish in my life. 

• I wanted to write a book. 
• I wanted to design and build a house. 
• I wanted to make a movie out of the Chronicles of Narnia. 
• I wanted to have grandchildren (mostly, I think, because my grandfather seemed to have so much fun with my sister and I).
  
• I wanted to start a school.
• I wanted to start a Christian hospital.
• I wanted to travel.
• I wanted to spread the Gospel.

Many of these things, God has graciously allowed me to do, though not at all the way I thought I would as a teenager. Which makes me wonder how the others might work themselves out, if they will at all.

Stonehenge

For Kelly's birthday, we went out to Salisbury and saw Stonehenge. It is a very enigmatic place. In and open field, there are enormous stones arranged in a curious way. Archeologists have dated these as being between 3,000 and 5,000 years old.

When we were there the wind was blowing pretty strong, and was very cold. With the wind chill factor, it was 34ºF out there. 

I like the lighting on these pictures, though I'm not sure at all why these stones were put here. 

Dave

Windsor Castle

One of my favorite days recently was one where we all sat in our bedroom for about two and a half hours while we read a book about medieval castles. We had to take a number of breaks of course, but in all, we had a great family time of learning about a fascinating part of history.

And then, of course, since we're in England, we had to go see a real castle. There are many castles in England to visit, but one of the most impressive ones is Windsor Castle. Not only is it one of the best examples of medieval architecture to survive into the 21st century, but it is still a working, living, lived in castle. And not only that, but it's the Queen's home. And on top of that, it has been the home of the reigning monarch of England for 900 years. That's as old as Yoda!

The day we went it was overcast and windy. On one hand, we were a bit disappointed that we didn't get beautiful sunny pictures. But to me the weather gave it a much older feel somehow. It was much more gothic and serious with the imposing cloud cover. I couldn't help but feel as if we were at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, waiting for Isengard's orcs to come marching up the valley.

St. George's Chapel is an awesome building. The architecture is spectacular and beautiful. One of the most interesting aspects of it to me was thinking about how they built it so long ago, without modern scaffolding and equipment. Not only is the craftsmanship superb, but they had to get the big, carved pieces of stone up to the top of  the ceiling to install them. 

One of the comments in the audio tour was that though the building and the architecture is impressive, we should remember that this is a place to worship God, and that is the primary purpose of the building. And while I agree that that should be the primary purpose of the building, I found it hard to see this. Mostly it seemed like a place to worship the past monarchs of England, since their names, emblems, statues, and in many cases, their bodies are enshrined here. There is a beautiful carving behind the altar, showing the risen and glorified Christ, and He is shown in the center windows of the stained glass above that, but all the other ones depict the public and private life of Prince Albert. It's a beautiful building and the achievement it represents is amazing, but I found it hard to see God glorified in it. One impressive spiritual aspect of St. George's Chapel was that since it was built, over 800 years ago, they have worshipped God there every day. That is a beautiful thing indeed.

I truly enjoyed seeing all the splendor and majesty of the State Apartments. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was amazing to see. Though it seems very self aggrandizing to see the paintings the monarchs had made of themselves, and the wealth and lavish displays of riches and treasures gathered from around the world, I think that they portray a very clear picture of royalty and majesty that we Americans don't conceptualize well. And after seeing this place, and seeing how past Kings and Queens ruled the empire, somehow the current system pales in comparison. I believe that democracy is a good way to govern, especially in this age, but a good and just King or Queen could do a great deal to rule a people. Of course, a selfish or tyrannical one would be the worst way to ruin a country, but selfish or shortsighted people in a democracy would do the same thing.

We six were the last people to walk through the State Apartments, and as we left each room, the caretakers would turn out the lights and close the doors behind us. It was kind of interesting–a bit like being on a ride a Disneyland when they have to stop the ride and turn on the lights to fix something. Except here, when they turned out the lights, it was still a grand and imposing room left behind you in the dark. At one point, I asked the woman who was in charge of the Grand Reception Room if we were keeping her, or going too slowly, and she politely said,"No, don't worry about it. Take your time." Somehow, I got the feeling that though she said "take your time", we shouldn't dilly dally, but get on with it.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the castle.

This is the keep, atop the motte. It's official name is the "Round Tower".


This one shows King Edward III Tower above the moat that surrounds the motte. The moat at Windsor has always been dry, though it wasn't always a lovely garden as it is now.


On the left is St. George's Chapel. In the center, in the background, is the Round Tower. On the right is Mary Tudor Tower and the Military Knights' Lodgings. In the very bottom of the image is my lovely wife and eldest daughter.

This is a view along the north side of the castle.


Dave

Merry Christmas

I found that I had 8 holidays coming to me from Framestore that I didn't know about and that I had to use them by the end of January or lose them.

So, by taking the 24th, 27th, 28th, and 31st off, I have 11 days in a row off. And since Northrop shuts down from Christmas to New Year's also, I have plenty of time off here in London with my family. I'm very excited about this.

Today, we stayed home and had hot chocolate and ginger snaps for breakfast. Kelly made an egg dish for our real breakfast. Then we opened our stockings and presents, and cooked a turkey. We also had traditional English Christmas Crackers.

The turkey I bought with Malakai at a real butcher shop. I've only ever bought them at the supermarket all packaged and tidy, so this was a big deal for me. We don't have a lot of kitchen tools, since we're trying to stay minimalistic with our "things". That means that we don't have a meat thermometer or a baster or big forks for moving the turkey around. Also, most English families have duck, goose, or lamb on Christmas, though some do have turkey. But going to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, I couldn't find any cranberry sauce, marshmallows, or roasting bags large enough for a turkey. So we decided to use a different recipe using aluminum foil. My friend Antonio down at the corner market said,"you don't need a thermometer, just cook it for 3 and half to four hours and then stick a skewer or knife in the breast. If the juice comes out clear, it's done; if not, cook it longer." I think that part of this advice was a result of the fact that he didn't have any thermometers to sell, but it turned out to be good advice. We stuffed the cavity with cut apples, celery, and onions and it was delicious.

After our turkey dinner (with mashed potatoes, stuffing, broccoli salad, rolls, and gravy) we were stuffed. Kelly used the bones and juices to make some soup stock and then we Skyped our family members. It was great to see everyone we were able to get a hold of, and it was also amazing to actually see everyone in all the various time zones.

Tomorrow is Boxing Day, which is similar to Black Friday in America, where all the stores have their big sales of the year. I've heard that many stores are slashing their prices 70%. They shut down Oxford Street to motor vehicles and it's just a mad crush of people all the way across the street. I'm not going there. I'm sure there are people lining up tonight in front of their favorite store to get in and get the deals first. Crazy!

View Larger Map

Besides the fact that we wanted to be home with our family today, all the public transportation is closed on Christmas Day, which is nice so all the people who work there can be with their families, and everyone else has a good excuse to stay home and be with theirs.

Later this week we're going to try to go to Windsor Castle and see that. Then we'll go and see an old castle somewhere that just has the ruins.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Dave

Triple Boot Update

Well, the triple boot experiment has had some great strides forward and a few backwards.

I got the airport working fine (though I'm not sure exactly how, just trial and error) and I got the ATI drivers installed, but I can't get the big monitor to do anything but mirror the little one.

I did get Houdini installed and running under the Apprentice version, but there were significant display issues, so as of yet, it's not workable.

All in all it's getting there, though it's much more time consuming than I had hoped.

Dave

Triple Boot Mania

(I have this nearly uncontrollable urge to begin every blog with "So, ..." I don't know why, it's just what's in my head.)

We have a MacBook Pro that I installed Boot Camp in nearly a year ago so that I could run Houdini (and therefore Windows) on it. I don't really like Windows, though it's not as bad as I had feared. I really prefer Linux over Windows, but it was just easy to put Windows on with Boot Camp, so that's what I did.

That being the case, I've wanted to find another way to run Houdini, and tonight, I finally got my Mac to triple boot. Yes, this machine can do it all, Mac OS X, Windows and Linux (though not at the same time).

I tried the virtual machine route with Parallels and VMWare, but the performance just wasn't there.

I bought a small USB hard drive (80Gb) and successfully installed openSUSE 10.2 on it.

It's not all glory and roses yet, since I don't have the airport extreme card working yet, but I have read some web pages that show other people have done that part.

Soon I will have Houdini running on Linux on my MacBook Pro. Woo Hoo!

Dave

Framestore's Annual Christmas Party

Tonight was the annual Christmas Party at Framestore. At first I wasn't planning on going, because I had heard it was a "dress-up" party. I did bring a nice pair of pants, but I didn't really feel like going to a fancy party.

But then I heard that the "dress-up" part actually involves costumes and a contest and that many people just "come as they are". So I decided to just go as me.

The theme was "Metallic". Many people wore tinfoil hats to ward off any spying from the government. There were many shiny dresses. James wore a sequined vest. There were also a lot of shiny ties. But the person who made the full on robot costume out of cardboard and tinfoil got my vote for the best costume. I just showed my wedding ring if anyone asked where my metal was.

The party was held at a club in Leicester Square called "Sound". And there was a lot of it. I could hardly hear anyone I was talking to and my voice was getting hoarse trying to be heard. I guess these kinds of parties aren't really my thing. I got to see some of the guys that have moved to other shows, but I would have enjoyed having lunch with them much more.

I'm not sure there's any point in calling it a "Christmas" party, other than it's about a week before Christmas. But that's the only connection to Christmas I could see.

Ah well. I went, made my appearance, and came home.

Dave

What Daddy Does At Work

Don't you often wonder what your kids think you do at work all day? I do.

Last Saturday, Framestore hosted their annual Family Day Christmas Party. They have food and drinks, a children's entertainer doing games and magic and balloon animals, Santa Claus in his grotto, and they show children/family films in the cinema. This year, we saw "Enchanted" and "A Bee Movie". Both were fun, but the little ones thought that "Enchanted" was pretty scary at times.

The next day, my little ones were telling me which were their favorite scenes from "A Bee Movie". They thought it was so funny when the Bee flew down the staircase instead of walking, and his mom scolded him for not walking. "Your father paid good money for that staircase, you could show some respect and use it sometimes."

Then this evening, after I came home from work, my littlest one came to me and told me that he wanted to go to my work.

"Why?" I asked. "What do you want to do there?"

"I want to see a movie and eat food!" he said. It turns out that's what he thinks I do at work all day, since that's what we did when he was there! I had to explain that we're making a movie, and the only food they give us is breakfast (and dinner if we work past 8pm...and lunch if we work on the weekends. Hmmm, maybe he's right!)

So that's what Daddy does at work.

Dave

The Trailer is Out!

Here's a still of the shot that I did in the trailer.


The river surface, the round shockwaves and the little wispies off the tops of the waves are all mine.

The whole trailer can be downloaded here. It's 49Mb, so if you have a slow internet connection, you can see a lower quality one on Yahoo

I hope you all enjoy the trailer.

Dave

Prince Caspian Widget

I just found a cool widget (for Macs only) that counts down the seconds until the release of Prince Caspian. If you've got a Mac, you've got to have this one!!

(note: this isn't a working widget, it's only a picture of what the widget looks like. If anyone knows how to put an http countdown clock on a web page, let me know!)

Dave