Fade expression

Sometimes, I post up artsy/techie things here just I can look them up and remember them later. This is one of those cases. AeFreemart has a nice AutoFade expression that automatically looking for a layer’s outpoint and creates a fade. Very useful if you’re wanting to experiment with durations without fiddling with keyframes.

transition = 30; // transition time in frames
tSecs = transition / ( 1 / thisComp.frameDuration);

linear(time, inPoint, inPoint tSecs, 0, 100) -
linear(time, outPoint - tSecs, outPoint, 0, 100)

After looking at this one, I modified it slightly to give a set point for a maximum opacity. By default, theirs just maxes out at 100%. But if you wanted to target a lower max point, you can try this:

transition = 30; // transition time in frames
tSecs = transition / ( 1 / thisComp.frameDuration);
max=100; // max point, set for maximum opacity value

linear(time, inPoint, inPoint + tSecs, 0, max) -
linear(time, outPoint - tSecs, outPoint, 0, max)


Meg’s 29+1 J-pop bubblegumextravaganza

Today by beautiful, graceful, sweet spirited Meg turned 30. I’m so blessed to have her in my life… I’ve really won out on the deal. She’s amazing.

It’s been a few years since I tried to throw her a big party for her birthday. Last time I made an honest effort to surprise her. But she’s well versed in the ways of Encyclopedia Brown and found me out. This time I decided to include her in the planning and decision making. It’s just easier, and I think she rather likes it.

As my dear lady is fond of Japanese pop culture, we threw a J-pop party. I had a friend doing Japanese-styled (anime inspired) makeup for the ladies, very, very strange Japanese (or other Asian) candy, something that held Jello and was the size of a coffee creamer, Dance Dance Revolution in one room, Wii in the other. There was a slick J-pop mix to greet the early arrivals, seaweed snacks (taste like fish meets potato chips). The cake was Hello Kitty. Oh, and I made sushi.

All told, we had a great time. It was great, and all to celebrate the birthday of the most amazing lady I know.

View the entire set.

Read along

Check this out. Ret-to-the-TRO.

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Grammar lessons

I don’t claim to be a grammatical genius, but I do make an honest effort to present myself grammatically correct on my blog, in email, and even in Twitter (believe it or not). And as I’m sensitive to that sort of thing, these two articles I find useful and important.

I’m home

I’m home, back from C3 in Dallas. It was a great trip and I learned several key things. It’s refreshing to get away from time to time, to allow God to pull you out of your element. But it’s really great to be back home, to have my beautiful wife and two gorgeous kids waiting for me at the gate. More later, it’s hang out time with the fam.

Yes and No.

Yes (be sure to watch the video) and though I’m sure it’s a great idea, No.

Yes and No.

Yes and No.

C3 day 2 (Bishop TD Jakes)

Bishop TD Jakes
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- “oops, there it is”
- when I turned 40, my Bible shrunk
- Luke 24:13
- if I don’t read it well, it’s not that I can read, it’s that I can’t see
- “when I talk to leaders, it’s like I’m talking to the whole world”
Speaking on “The Order of the Breaking of Bread”
- If you want to take some classes on politics, talk to some church-folk (we wrote the book on “who sits on the right and who sits on the left:”)
- you haven’t BEGAN to preach until you’ve become “contraversal”
- conflict, the price of being a leader
- he just quoted Star Trek…. to be a leader is to go where none have gone before
- people generally admire their leaders best when they’re dead (embraced as visionary, theologian, once dead)
- when God shows up in another form other than what people will recognize, they do not recognize (when he’s not in the religious trappings they expect), think about Jesus walking on the water… disciples didn’t recognize them
- when you do something against the status quo, expect to be alienated or ignored or controversial… especially in your church
- our greatest wisdom is foolishness to God
- when God moves in a new way, people don’t see it…
- How could they no recognize Jesus by his voice… no one speaks like Jesus but Jesus (Lazures recognized it, and he was dead)
- Jesus didn’t have to memorize the word, because he didn’t have to memorize WHAT HE WAS (He was the word incarnate)
- the beginning of leadership is to realize that you don’t know as much as you think you do
- there are some moment where we should plead with God to stay (“Abide with us…”), because we are some empty, not because we are so full
- God is not a dove, but he’s like / as a dove. He can become whatever he needs to be… (he’s water, mannah, a tree, a dove, a serpent)… he has the ability to be whatever he wants to be. When you ask him who he is, he says “I AM”
- HE’S BIGGER THAN YOU THINK HE IS
- “don’t look at me like you fastin’” (when Jesus offers you bread)
- there’s something about God appearing in ordinary ways that unlocks deep intrinsic interest (appear in simple things)
- Creativity Liberty = when you have the mic, you choose the menu
- it wasn’t important what Jesus ate, but how he ate it (he took it, he blessed it, he broke it, he gave it to them)
- God did this with Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Jesus – (took them, blessed them, blessed them, and then gave to them)
- This is what God does with every man or woman he will ever use
- takes us years to realize the BREAKING STAGE is the BLESSING STAGE
- Had he not broken me, I would have never been able to preach that God is able (now I know it’s not me)
- Our problem is that we give the leadership (to the mic, the titles) to people who have never been broken
[notes complete, we stood up at this point]

C3 day 2 (Tommy Barnett)

Tommy Barnett.
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MAIN SESSION
- He’s describing the books he’s written
- He just said “mp2… no mp3… what is it?” and “technology is the devil” (he’s kidding)
- Have you ever wanted to shoot the sound guy?
- If you’ve ever wanted to quit, you’re in good company, you’re in good company
- When you’re in it, you want out of it. When you’re out of it, you want back in it… that’s how ministry is
- Many great men and preachers wanted to quit (Spurgeon, Churchill)
- There is honor in wanting to quit
- (1) Wanting to Quit is a Sign of Success [because you have something you actually want to quit]
- (2) the more you have to quit, the more you want to quit [the colder it becomes, the riskier it come, the lonelier it comes]
- (3) You can enjoy the luxury of wanting to quit if you know you’re not going to quit.
- if you have quality, then you’ll get quantity
- a burden comes and goes, but it’s the call of God that drives you when you feel you can go no further
- “every Monday morning I feel like I’m going to quit the church, but then I get a cup of Starbuck’s… sometimes it takes two cups”
- “I’m a killer, not a quitter” / “I have cut the word quit out of my dictionary”

HOW DO I KEEP FROM QUITTING?
- (a) burn the bridges behind you
- there’s no adventure like building churches for God
- (b) don’t tell anybody you want to quit when you want to quit
- (c) do not expose yourself to what you don’t want to be (you will be what you hang around… “I like this but…” is not a good philosophy)
- (d) if you don’t want to quit, lock yourself in so you cannot quit
- if the Taliban was playing the Lakers, then I’d pull for the Taliban
- difference between “mind made up” and “heart was fixed”

- He’s been preaching the Gospel for 54 years (sweet)
- “you can get by saying stuff at 70 you can’t get by with at 40″ (as he jokes about the Playboy mansion)
- At the Dream Center, we’ve got gang members, pimps, prostitutes… and that’s just the pastoral staff
- Great men are just ordinary men that just would not quit.
- in the last 5 years, I’ve seen more saved than I saw in the previous 48 years before that. (and more money come in, and seen more miracles)
- as you get older, the best is yet to come

How much is your name worth?

I was having lunch the other day with Jason Wilson (my bro) and Tony Morgan Live. Amongst other things, we discussed web URLs. On the way to lunch, we saw a car with a Ken Wilson Ford tag. Now I’m familiar with this place as it’s only about 2 hours from Anderson.

“Hey!” I said. “That’s who owns my name URL.” Or so I thought. But a brief search on the google showed me that in fact they do not own this URL. They own kenwilsonford.net. Hmm… so who owns my name? Turns out, it’s held by one of those web URL holding companies hoping to land it big.

Curious, I decided to email these groups and find out what I could score my name for. OK, hold your breath. It turns out they’d be happy to help me acquire it for a cool $2500.

Tony suggested kenwilsonlive.com, which I don’t think links to anything (at least my opendns.com at the house blocks it).

No, for now I think I’ll be sticking with avclub.us. Which brings me to another item, have you ever wondered the origins of the name avclub? I’d be happy to enlighten you. Originally, this was called the “newspring av club,” and was a blogger / blogspot blog. I then shortened it to http://avclub.blogspot.com to keep it free and simple. Finally, I realized the limitations of blogger and moved my my own slice of the internets, the current home of the avclub.us.

I didn’t say it was an exciting story.

C3 update

C3

Originally uploaded by avclub

Day one of C3 is a blast. I’d write more, but I’m about to catch up with the crew for supper. However, if you were unaware, I’m attempting to live capture my perspective of the event via Twitter. Visit my feed to experience it as it happens. Consequentially, there’s an RSS feed for Twitter in my sidebar if you’re into that.

I’ve also corrected my “Flickr to blog” format issues, too, so my photos won’t anger the CSS hamsters that keep the AV Club upright.

And if you want more comprehensive (yet slightly less real time, but probably with better spelling) updates, visit Tony’s site.

Yes and No.

Yes and No

Yes and no.

Yes (especially this one) and no.

My favorite recent tech apps

I’ve come across two tech apps / services in the past week that I think I’ll become fanatical over. First off, these are not new applications, but I’m just getting around to working them into my standard workflow.

The first is Handbrake. Handbrake is that one-stop solution to move from DVD directly to iPhone / iPod video. Available on PC and Mac, it makes it easy to dial in a preset and nearly automatically convert your DVD into a format that will play on your iPhone / iPod video. Clean, easy, and now I can watch all those Friends episodes while I’m waiting in line at the grocery store.
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The second app is Folder Share. Will’s been using this for months (if not years), but I’m just getting around to trying it. It affords you peer-to-peer level access over your machines. This is a must if you’re a multiple computer user. You’re at the house, on your laptop, and you really want to grab a song that you know is on your office machine. Launch folder share, pull up your work machine hard drive, and you can pull down any file. Also, you can use the web to sync two different folders. So, point folder share at your documents folders of your desktop and laptop, or work machine and office machine, and they will always stay in sync. Add a file at one site, it appears at another.

Look interesting? I thought so.
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DJ Shadow – The Hard Sell

Just got my copy of DJ Shadow – The Hard Sell CD in the mail today. Not in stores (that I’ve found), not on iTunes… but it’s in my hand. It’s like I’m back there but without the ear piercing volume.

Yes and No.

It’s been a few days…

Yes and No.

123 Meme | Echo Faith

I got tagged by Echo Faith for a 123 Meme. The rules:
- pick up the closest book (no cheating to find a cool one)
- turn to page 123
- read the first 5 sentences
- post the next 3 sentences
- tag 5 people

That item may be more attractive to your psyche because you know right away what to do with it – and you dont’ feel like thinking about what’s in your hand. This is dangerous territory. What’s in your hand is likely to land on a “hmmppphh” stack on the side of your desk because you become distracted by something easier, more important, or more interesting below it.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Why not join the fun. I tag Meg, Tony, Shua, Brad, and Stevan.

iPhone / iPod Touch Starbuck’s app

Check out this sweet iPhone / iPod Touch Starbuck’s app. I’m sure this will be the nail in the coffin for those on the fence about purchasing an iPhone, especially once we get a Starbuck’s in Anderson. Oh, wait, it’s not 2025, then no, we won’t have one until then (my speculation).

Of course, I’ll be guy who orders a drink and has it sent to Flagstaff or some random Detroit Starbuck’s. Hey, if you’re in Detroit, can you send my tall iced Americano back to SC? Thanks.

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Radiohead in Charlotte

I secured my Radiohead tickets this morning for the Charlotte, NC show. Even as I logged in minutes after the tickets went on sale, the only available slots were for the lawn on the outside. Do I need to bring binoculars? I’m sure there will be enough IMAG to keep me pulled in.

I did spring for the priority close parking, which should be a treat.

This is a dream come true, Radiohead has been on my top 10 list of shows to see for quite some time. What are some of the others? These are just a few off the top of my head

- The Flaming Lips
- DJ Shadow (DONE!)
- The Smashing Pumpkins (JUST MISSED THEM)
- Daft Punk
- Thievery Corporation
- The Foo Fighters
- Led Zeppelin
- Fatboy Slim

Again, this is the short list, complied from the top of my head. If they all the iPhone into the concert venue (does anybody know if they do that?) you can be sure I’ll Twitter-cover (and Flickr cover, too) the show. Look out!

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains

The Sci-Fi geek in me meets leadership lessons… GTD In Space: Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains.

I just finished watching the Firefly series (only 14 episodes, you can find it on Hulu) so this makes more sense.

*** in a totally unrelated note, Radiohead tickets for Charlotte go on sale in 5 minutes (9:45 EST Feb. 16) and 20 minutes for Atlanta. Anyone going? ***