The Arcane Council

June 11, 2020

So…is this right? Am I about to embark on a journey I’ve already taken? If you’ve been following this blog at all you may remember that I was a competitive WoW player for the first 10 years World of Warcraft was available. Our Guild was The Arcane Council on the Bloodhoof Server and we were quite accomplished for a competitive, yet family friendly guild. I played with the same players for many years and came to hold them in high regard. We forged our way through every obstacle placed in our way. I was so proud of how Taranis let …

Lowell At Night

August 14, 2014

These were taken the in Lowell at night, the day after the Lowell Folk Festival. I hadn’t seen Lowell in this light since being an EMT in the city almost 20 years ago. It’s a great, but ghostly place. I purposefully made these images noisy to contribute to the overall vibe. I hope you like them.

Lowell Folk Festival 2014

July 27, 2014

Sun, Sweat, and Music at the Lowell Folk Festival There are only a few times in life when standing in the sun, sweat dripping from my could be considered fun. Today was one of those days! Today is the second day of the Lowell Folk Festival and I got there right when things kicked off. It’s nice because there is a large section of downtown completely roped off for pedestrians only so it’s easy to get to all the stages. I wanted to take my time and just look for compositions I liked, meandering around looking for things that caught my eye. There were …

Family Vacation to the Berkshires!

July 3, 2014

Lowell’s Poetic Landmark – The Old Worthen House

June 28, 2014

The Old Worthen, in Lowell, Massachusetts is an odd triangular building built in 1830’s and finally became a tavern/hotel in 1889. Jack Kerouac was a patron of The Worthen House in downtown Lowell. Allan Ginsburg, Jimmy Breslin, and Edgar Allan Poe, who reportedly wrote The Raven on the building’s second floor, shared this distinction. My personal experience with The Worthen were as an EMT in the city. In the middle 90’s we would occupy the upstairs, playing pool and burning off the unwanted energy our jobs posed. Much has changed, but much has stayed the same…but that’s Lowell for you. …

My First Foray Into AstroPhotography

June 22, 2014

For a while I’ve been wanting to try my hand at astrophotography. I had a decent wide angle lens for my Canon 60D, the Rokinon 14mm aspherical lens, and my wife gave me the “ok” to relinquish Dad duties for the evening and I jumped. Light pollution is a problem for most people trying to capture the Milky Way so I decided to tackle that problem first. Knowing we’d found a spot, Jim and I headed for a state park outside of Montpelier VT., which is about 3 hours from where I am 95% of the time. We found a perfect …

Jack's swimming lessons at the Groton School.

AquaJack 2014

May 21, 2014

Jack has been taking swimming lessons and I wanted to put something together that utilized my After Effects and Premiere Pro skills. The intro was fun, but I should have keyframed the motion blur to only be active during the quicker motion times. I could have also easy-eased the motion keyframes. The audio mastering also needs a lot of work as the ambient noise could be eliminated in all but the most important parts. If you’re new to keyframing check this guy’s explanation. Hope you enjoy the video!

An Actual “Sweded” Sportscast. No, really.

March 31, 2014

If you’ve never seen “Be Kind Rewind,” the oddly charming yet starkly barren comedy from 2008, go see it (or check the meme) and you’ll know what this post refers to. It’s really an entertaining film and you will probably not be sorry you spent a paltry 100 minutes you dedicated to it. Now that we’ve got THAT out of the way check out the awesome Sweded version of NCAA highlights. The station didn’t have the rights to the actual highlights, so they gave us the next best thing. Believe it or not, the commentary was helpful! Check it: Cheers!

Mémoires

February 11, 2014

Frank Calliendo Nails Football Broadcasters

February 2, 2014

I’ve never been a huge fan of impersonators but this clip really shows the talent of Frank Calliendo. The Shefter, Jaworski, and Gruden impersonations are killer! Enjoy! Oh, and the Super Bowl? I don’t really care because my Patriots aren’t in the contest. But to be honest, I’d hate to see Peyton Manning win another. Cheers!

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