We headed back home to Chicagoland for Christmas this year and had a great time seeing friends and family.
I made the video below with the new “movie trailer” feature in iMovie ’11. It’s a quick and simple way to put together a brief “highlight” video. I spent more time importing the video into the computer than I did editing it.
I hope you all had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I love Christmas. And I love watching the excitement in our boys eyes as we decorate and create memories for them.
Yesterday we decorated our Christmas tree and I decided to make a time lapse of the process. I made one last year when I put up the decorations outside, so I thought I’d make it a tradition.
The decorating process wasn’t as smooth as I wanted it to be. I’ve always started our Christmas lights at the bottom of the tree and worked my way up. That way I can keep the lights plugged in and see how it looks along the way. For some reason I decided to start at the top this year. Never again. We made it work, but there were a few hiccups along the way.
The music is Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
In case you’re wondering, the video was created using Gawker. It’s a free program for the Mac that’s simple to use and well worth trying out.
Yesterday I convinced Parker that we needed to make a movie. He was not thrilled about it. Probably because he really didn’t know what he was getting into. After some arm twisting, I got him to agree.
In my garage, I have a coin-op arcade version of Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition. I spent hours on this machine, working on combos and special moves. I love this game.
Fortunately, Parker and Kent have picked up an appreciation for it (though they haven’t quite figured out how to do the special moves yet). Anyway, I thought it would be fun to make a SF2 movie. Since Kent expressed ZERO interested in dad’s crazy idea, I decided to just use Parker.
The following video is the result of a few quick takes and a couple of hours of editing. It’s VERY rough (bad green screen, line down the middle, etc.), but I want my boys to catch a glimpse of the potential of what we can do. I want them to explore their creative sides and expose them to the creative process in general (from concept to completion). The idea is that I’ll add more elements in the future (character select screen, life bars, timer, etc.) if they want to continue with it.
Anyway, here’s our first take: Parker Fighter 2 (Round 1)
(By the way, the image attached to this post is a super-rad abstract display of the characters in the game.)
This past week, we joined some of our extended family for a few days of vacation in Utica, IL at Starved Rock. We stayed at Grizzly Jack’s Grand Bear Resort with an indoor water and amusement parks and did a little hiking at the state parks.
We had a great time of reconnecting with family and having some fun. We got lost in the woods, saw my niece takes some of her first steps and drove each other a bit crazy at times. Check out the highlights in the video below (or watch it on our youtube page).
Vacation to Starved Rock from Erik Scottberg on Vimeo.
By the way, the song in the video is “Lisztomania” by Phoenix. You can pick up their album at amazon.com
With the weather getting nicer, we took the boys to a park to burn off some energy the other day. It was a typical park/playground. But then I saw it. A tire swing. I haven’t seen one at a park in years (of course, I haven’t really been to that many parks recently…). I spent hours playing on the one at my school growing up. Then I realized that Parker and Kent had never been on one and had no idea how it worked.
So I decided to introduced the boys to the nauseating fun that only a tire swing can provide.
