The Hilton Chronicle

Well. it's been an absolutely fabulous weekend and we have been trying to take advantage of it all the way. I finished my wedding video project on Friday, other than a few tweaks and adjustments and I decided to take the weekend off to enjoy the weather before starting in on the next project. Yesterday, Dianne and I drove down to Ponoka to take in the rodeo at the Ponoka Stampede, for something to do. It was a fun afternoon as we took in a bit of the rodeo and then had a wonderful barbecue supper at the parents of some friends of ours who live in Ponoka. Today we just took it easy and after church came home, made a quick lunch, which we ate outside and then spent the rest of the afternoon just lounging in the back yard. We are waiting till it gets a little cooler this evening to go for a long awaited bike ride. I have to go to work tomorrow and then get Tuesday off for Canada Day. We haven't decided what we are going to do on Tuesday yet, but hopefully if the weather is nice we may do a bike ride into the river valley.

Posted 5:36 PM by Jeff

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Rainy Day Sunday

Another busy week has passed and here we are facing another Monday morning in just a few hours.
Anyway, I had a chance to do a little work on the suite this week. The last two pieces for the desk came in on Monday from Staples so I went and picked them up and put them in place. I also installed the pieces that I shortened last week and even with cutting two inches off it was still a tight fit. That desk is not going anywhere soon. I had to put that project on the back burner for a while as I have to get a video project done by July 12 and so I spent the rest of the week getting a start on that. It is a reception video for the son of some friends of ours. We also shot our first wedding of the summer yesterday and all went pretty well. So once I get the reception video done I have to get cracking on cutting and packaging this most recent one. Then we will be shooting the wedding on the 12th. So it's a busy time once again.
As usual we had a disappointing weekend with the weather. It was sunny and hot, almost 30 degrees yesterday and we thought we were going to have a glorious weekend, but we woke up this morning to dull skies and it has been raining for most of the day. So much for cutting the lawn. Good thing the wedding wasn't today.
Well, I guess we have a long weekend to look forward to next week. We have no plans to do anything yet, but I'm sure it will be a busy weekend nonetheless.

Posted 10:16 PM by Jeff

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day

We have yet to get a decent weekend, weatherwise. We may get a nice Saturday and then rain and cold on Sunday or vice versa. But so far this year it has been very disappointing. Because of this and also the fact that we are always so busy, we haven't been out on the bikes as often as we would like. There was a lull in the weather tonight so we took advantage of it and logged 10k as we investigated a new housing development to the south of us. There's still a lot of new houses being built even with the glut of for sale homes on the market.
Did a little work on the edit suite this weekend. I had to shorten one side of the desk by 2 inches so that it would fit in along one wall with the storage cabinet. I didn't hack it up too badly and I think we will get away with it once it is finished. I am just going to run a phone line and a couple of network cables into the room before I cut some access holes in the back of the desk and move it into position. Once that is done I will move into the room with my existing equipment and start enjoying the space. I am slowly putting together the shopping list of equipment I need to buy for the editor and it's getting quite exciting to be building another system again. This one will have to last for quite a while so I am planning ahead for future development, especially as we venture into the realm of HD television, not too far down the road. This means a special video card, beefier CPU and a lot more hard drive space. I will also be going with a three monitor display setup which will look pretty fancy.
But we are still keeping busy with the video stuff, even during renovations. We shot some footage last weekend for a wedding in July and this coming weekend we have a wedding shoot to do. So I will be trying to juggle three projects at the same time. We will see if the new suite will help make things go faster.
We celebrated Father's Day by BBQing some steaks for Chris, Angela and Lee who came over after church. It was pretty tasty and required us to have a nap later in the afternoon despite the fact that I wanted to do a bit of work. Anyway, Happy Father's Day, Dad.
Chris, Angie and Lee came over a few nights ago to show us their Japan pictures. They had a great time, didn't want to come home and would love to go back. They did pretty well getting around by themselves in the airport, train stations and hotels, thanks to Sandi's diligent planning. They got to Sandi's on schedule and spent a few days hanging around her place and seeing the sights before coming home.

Posted 10:06 PM by Jeff

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Weekend Renos

A new month is upon us, where has the time flown? As we go into June the weather has improved..somewhat...although it is still not what I expect it to be for this time of year. Still, it is nice to be able to go to work on a daily basis and not have to wear a jacket.
Chris, Angie and Lee are presently on their way home from their trip to visit Sandi in Japan. All reports indicate that the trio have had a wonderful time and have traveled to many places while in Japan, thanks to Sandi's excellent 35 page itinerary. She had them booked into hostels and provided train schedules, flight times and all kinds of information on what to see in the various cities they visited. While they were there they stayed two nights in Tokyo, visited Hiroshima, Kyoto and several other places closer to Sandi's. We will be picking up the travel weary trio tomorrow night so will have a chance to hear first hand about the trip.
Renovations on my edit suite are well under way now. I have taken over the basement room that is directly below the master bedroom which we used as our workout room and have moved everything out of there. Last weekend I stripped off the wallpaper and painted the entire room with a nice sandy color. Last week the office furniture we ordered arrived and I spent a few nights putting that together. Today we did some shopping for a few odds and ends and over the next few evenings I will be replacing the ceiling tiles and painting the grid, installing some new track lighting on a dimmer and installing a venetian blind over the small window. Once that is all done I will start shopping around for equipment and plan what needs to be done in terms of running cables and building the infrastructure. Then once the equipment is purchased and installed I can then set up the editing software and start using the suite. I am not sure it will be ready by the time the summer wedding projects roll along, though, so I may have to do a few projects in the the old location in Nikki's bedroom. But I am quite excited about finally getting a decent space to work in with some nice furniture and equipment.

Posted 8:14 PM by Jeff

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