Well, we made it to Sydney.

The 14-hour flight from San Francisco wasn’t so bad. While the Qantas jet didn’t have any more legroom than the Alaska Airlines flights before it, they made up for it with many small amenities. We each had LCD monitors with movies, TV shows, and video games available. Thicker pillows and larger blankets were distributed alongside little pouches with a toothbrush, socks, and a card outlining our meal options.

Oksana struck up a conversation with the passenger next to her, Mary Lou, an Australian working in the travel industry. She gave us all sorts of tips on where to go, what to see, and how to get around. Very helpful.

Just before dinner, I took two Advil PM and then fought off sleep as long as I could. At around 12:30am, I flipped out the head rest’s “wings” and closed my eyes. Sleep with fitful, what with the occasional crying baby or bumped chair, but I essentially slept for the next 9.5 hours. A new Arlo record for in-flight rest!

We arrived at the airport on Sunday morning. Traveling overnight and crossing the International Date Line screwed me up so bad I had no idea what time it was back home.

We figured out the metro/train system, paid our $14 each, and caught the next ride into Sydney. Our stop was only two blocks away from the hotel.

Unfortunately, we were about five hours early for check-in. They offered to hold our bags for us, though, so after Oksana freshened up a bit, we hit the pavement.

Sydney is empty on Sundays – there’s hardly more people and cars than in Juneau, Alaska. It was a pleasant introduction to a big city. Our first stop was near our hotel, Hyde Park. The biggest structure there was a war memorial; we decided to walk through it. It was November 11th, Australia’s Veterans day, and “on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month” they have a nationwide moment of silence. It was a little after 10am.

From the park, we headed west, to Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is tourist central with its Imax theater, aquarium, naval museum, boat rides, art exhibitions, and parks. Everything was outrageously expensive, but the walk along the docks was quite pleasant. Oksana and I took a bunch of pictures, sat in the sun and the shade, and let the time pass us by. More than anything, we wanted to get back to our hotel at take a shower.

At around 2pm, we finally made it back. Our room turned out to be small, but full of niceties. A microwave and mini-fridge helped make up for the lack of internet access.

It was 3:30pm by the time we were done with our showers; we decided to take a nap. Oksana asked, “Should we set an alarm?” Nah. We’re on vacation!

Well… The first time I woke up was at 11:30pm. So much for dinner! We slept on, though by 3:30am, I was more than rested. We finally got up at 6:30am the next day – 15 hours later!

While flipping through a newspaper, I noticed the 5-day weather forecast. Two days of “Sunny” followed by three more days of “Mostly Fine.” That sums up our first day in Sydney quite well: Mostly fine.

Sometimes I really love my job.

At the end of September, on what would otherwise have been just another Friday, I got to tag along on a free helicopter ride up into the Juneau icefield.

It was the end of the tourist season and most of the local heli-tour companies were shutting down.  The sun was out, the weather cooperating, and there was just time enough for one more data collection run.

Matt Heavner, one of our Environmental Science professors here at UAS, was working on a remote networking project called SEAMONSTER.  One of his students, Logan, was taking pictures for use in Microsoft’s Photosynth project (Logan also gets credit for the photos posted here.)  Another student and faculty member filled out their team, but even so, there was still one seat left.  Would Media Services like to send someone along to document the afternoon?

Duh.

Normally, I’m low man on the totem pole for video assignments.  We have at least two other staff that shoot and edit on a day-to-day basis and are more qualified to capture video.  (Most of my video work is in the authoring of DVDs or converting their video to online formats.)  But on that Friday they were busy getting ready for a live evening broadcast.  Me?  Free as a bird and just looking for an excuse to test out the new HDV equipment.

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A few days ago, I was threatened with legal action over a blog entry I wrote almost four years ago.  Cliff Mayhew, owner of aircharterbahamas.com, claimed that I libeled his business.  I feel like I’ve just passed some blogger right of passage!

When I first read it, I was worried.  What did I write?  Was I going to have to edit my entry… perhaps remove it altogether?  After rereading what I wrote back in 2004, I realized I didn’t have anything to worry about.

If I hadn’t been so busy with Halloween, I would have posted a response sooner.  I’ve been seething about that comment for a days now.  Let’s have some fun tearing it apart, shall we?

Here’s what he wrote:

New comment on your post #15 “Cuba:  Getting to Cuba”
Author : Cliff Mayhew (IP: XX.XX.XX.XX , XXX.fl.comcast.net)
E-mail : XXXX
URL    : http://www.aircharterbahamas.com/
Whois  : XXXX

THIS BLOG SHOULD BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY!!

I am the owner of Air Charter Bahamas.com

This blog has liabled my business and I am in contact with an attorney.

I have never been in contact with anyone that has written the story above.  

You should take the time to determine the legitimacy of the article –

This article was most likely written by one of my competitors – this industry is filled with scumbags that should be housed in the federal penitentary.  Watch your wallet..

A competitor called the BBB to file a complaint with us too!!  They acted as a customer when dealing with the BBB – The BBB threatened to place us on a “bad” list if we did not competulate to their “rules”.  Bullshit.

If you need to deal with an honorable, trustworthy, respectable, honest, reliable, etc. company, call us – you will soon learn who we are, and what we stand for.

Thanks for the post:

Cliff Mayhew, CPA
Masters – Finanace
Masters – Taxation
Bachelors – Finance
Commercial Pilot
Certified US and Bahamian Air Carrier

T-1.866.FLY.ISLANDS
T-305.885.6665

Please call me personally if you would like information about fllying to the bahamas.

Too bad the blogger didn’t leave contact information – scammer in the shadows.

Have a great day!

Nice how he turned a threat into an advertisement for his company, isn’t it?  I thought about editing that information out, but then I realized that I went ahead and linked to his business in what I wrote, anyway.  If you want to give him your business after reading this, go right ahead.  Here, you can have these, too:  My condolences.

Before we really get into it, I’d like to respond to his comment, point-by-point:

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The UAS Campus is gearing up for another Halloween — there are already departments in the process of being decorated. I’m sure it’ll be another fun holiday work day, where very little work is actually done. I’m looking forward to this year, because I plan to shoot the traditional ITS Halloween video in HD. Sure, I probably won’t get around to editing it for another year or so, but I still think it’ll be pretty cool.

I already wrote about last year’s theme, Cirigliano’s Italian Restaurant, but there wasn’t yet a video to post along with it. I’ve made music videos out of these Halloween events dating back to 2000. They’re usually hard work. Finding the right music, establishing a style, telling a story through the images… Some turn out better than others.

Earlier this month I finally found time to start editing the Cirigliano’s video. For the first time, the whole project just sort of eased itself together. The stylistic vision came to me back when I was recording one of the very first scenes to tape (the “cook” and the “gangster” practicing their singing). I wanted to see the scene in an old, desaturated, scratchy film look. That same vision stayed with me all year, and when I sat down to begin editing, each clip just fell into place. Usually editing these music videos together is a long process of trial-and-error, of trying minuscule edits to get the timing just right; this year I barely spent any time tweaking.

Click “more” to watch the video…
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So, yeah. I got to create a couple videos for PAX 2007. Definitely the highlight of the show for me, but also the cause of great stress.

It all started with a phone call. I’d been on familiar terms with Travis for more than a year, but it was the first time I’d ever talked to him without a game interface between us. He wanted to talk about creating specific Halo 3 visuals for the Omegathon, but the secrecy was so tight on the final round, he couldn’t risk accidentally mistyping anything over World of Warcraft. It may seem trivial – knowing the final game of the Omegathon – but it’s a secret some people would pay money to have.

The idea, passed around the Penny Arcade office, was to have the Minibosses play a rocking cover of the Halo Mjolnir theme. Everyone was expecting a decades-old, retro video game, so they wanted to create a huge spectacle when they revealed one of the most anticipated video game titles of the year. What would complement the Minibosses? Someone suggested extracting the Cortana images from the Halo 3 2006 E3 trailer.

Calls were made to Bungie, to see if they wanted to whip something specific together, but they were busy putting the finishing touches on Halo 3 for the looming September release date. In the meantime, could I do something with the E3 trailer as a plan B? Hell, I didn’t know, but I sure wanted to try!

The next day I downloaded the highest quality version of the trailer I could find, a nice fat 1280×544 HD Quicktime video. My first impressions didn’t give me great hope. The isolated segments of Cortana were very short. When I went frame-by-frame, I discovered that most of the blue static that gave it such style was actually composited over the top of the too-recognizable Halo elements. I wasted some time in Photoshop, seeing if I could isolate just the blue and white, but I always ended up with highlights from the background, too. All I could really get were tiny, one-or-two second pieces of Cortana. Not nearly enough to fill out the presentation.

Not only that, but there was audio underneath Cortana’s monologue. I eliminated some of it with Audition, but to reduce it any farther began to alter her voice.

I spent much of that afternoon slicing up Bungie’s intellectual property (and feeling bad about it), looping and rotating and reversing and duplicating elements of their static, just to get maybe 20 seconds worth of video. I wasn’t sure it would be enough.

I compressed the rough edit down to something reasonable for e-mail and fired off a copy to Travis. I wanted to be clear that it was a rough edit, that I didn’t consider it finished by a long shot, but I needed to know if I was heading in the right direction. Here’s my e-mail, with a link to the video file I attached:

Okay, so a progress check.

I know that Bungie might come through with something that’ll make this project obsolete, but that’s fine. Great, in fact. I feel a little weird mangling their IP.

First and foremost, this is a rough draft (in iPhone format!) just to see if I’m going in the right direction. Watch it first, maybe, then check the notes below.

Things I’ve noticed:

Placing the bits of monologue right next to each other emphasizes their differences. The bits of notes and chords that are still there, the differences in the voice because some audio editing was done. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to completely repair the audio, but it could be good enough.

Especially if, you know, loud music is playing over top of the whole thing.

(Knowing the exact length of this mini-event would be great. Probably won’t happen. How are we going to sync this with the live music?)

Much of the blue flashy light effects are duplicated from other areas in the video. When you watch the original trailer, you’ll realize a lot of that static goes on over top of the recognizable Halo figure and background. I had to trim all that off. To fill in black areas, we can alter (reverse, play backwards, flip, etc.) any section we’re already using.

The sections of a recognizable talking head are so short that I don’t think we’ll be able to keep the head on screen the whole time. Too repetitive.

The ending, I think, could be awesome. Especially if we can somehow sync to the music like the original trailer did. I left the end-music in this rough draft to get a feel for how it could be done.

I think the “3” logo should definitely stay. I think the Bungie logo can go, but that means cloning in more blue static. I replaced “Finish the Fight 2007” with “Omegathon 2007,” though “finish the fight” is rather appropriate for the final round.

Comments? Be brutal with your criticism.

-A.

I expected to get a lot of feedback, some good directions for the next step. I didn’t expect Travis to forward it to the Penny Arcade guys, nor the responses I’d get from them.
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While I was still debating about whether or not to go to PAX, Gabe and Tycho began to announce their lineup. Wil Wheaton was giving the keynote, Jonathan Coulton and Freezepop would be playing in the concerts. If Gabe and Tycho weren’t big enough draws, any one of the others might have been enough for me to commit. Put all of them together and you might not have been able to prevent me from flying to Seattle.

Just before leaving Juneau, I discovered that the first round of the Omegathon round was scheduled right up against Wil Wheaton’s keynote address. I couldn’t believe it! When I mentioned it to him, Travis promised me that the round would be over quickly and, at the very least, I could leave at any time to watch the keynote instead. Without a time limit, the last Jenga match dragged on forever. I could have left, but the suspense and anticipation was so high at that point, I didn’t want to miss the moment the last tower fell.

Gabe and Tycho attended most of the Omegathon, but they were always focused on the competition. I couldn’t bring myself to get all fanboy and introduce myself to them.

(Later in the day, I did ask Travis to introduce me to Kara, Gabe’s wife. I’d played a time or two with her in World of Warcraft and wanted to say hello. He introduced me as “Arlo,” and I think she saw me as just another one of the hundreds of black-shirted enforcers. I mumbled something it being nice to meet her after raiding with her a time or two. I will label her smile and reply as “dismissive.”)

I’d missed Wil’s speech, but I was sure the keynote would be all over the internet by the time I got home. It wouldn’t be the same as listening to him from the audience, but it would suffice. Besides, I’d spotted the booth set aside for his autographing session. Perhaps I would be able to spot him there later in the day…

Alas, no. I stopped by many times, but as far as I could tell, Wil never set any time aside for book signings.

Freezepop, who wrote one of my favorite song in Guitar Hero II, played on Friday night. However, my lack of sleep combined with a general lack of interest from the rest of our group of meant that I was easily talked into a casual dinner and early bedtime, instead. 0-for-2.

It was a good thing I was having so much fun hanging out with my new friends, because other than escorting the Neskimos to the stage for their sound check, I didn’t meet a single famous person on Friday.

Saturday and Sunday more than made up for it.
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When I pre-registered for PAX earlier this year, I did so without even knowing if I would attend.  I did it in the hopes of being selected for the Omegathon.

The Omegathon is a video game competition among 20 gamers who are randomly selected from all those that pre-register.  There are five elimination rounds conducted with predetermined games and a final round between the two remaining players.  The culmination of the entire PAX conference is the last round of the Omegathon and the final game is always kept secret.  Prizes are amazing – expensive custom PCs, a complete Nintendo Entertainment System with every game ever published, a Toyota Scion with an XBOX 360 thrown in for good measure, and this year, a trip to Tokyo and $5000.  The final games for the first three Omegathons were Pong, Atari Combat, and Tetris, respectively.  After seeing the 2005 crowd’s reaction to the Combat match, I knew I had to a least throw my name into the hat.

With 20,000 attendees last year, my odds of being selected as one of the 20 were slim.  But if I were to be selected… Well then, that would have forced my hand.  1 in a 1000?  I’d have to buy a plane ticket to Seattle.

The Omeganaut announcement came and went, and predictably, I wasn’t chosen.  However, by that time I’d already committed to going.  Turns out I was to become more involved in the Omegathon than if I’d been merely playing as a contestant.

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