2010: Time to Catch Up

It's been over two months already?

Oops.

I've never claimed to be a punctual (or good) blogger, but I'll always keep coming back and updating. The main problem for me with blogging is that when nothing's happening, there's nothing to write, but when things are happening, there's no time to sit and collect my thoughts into a semi-decent entry.

I'm pretty busy these days, but I want to get an update out before it gets too out of control.

Let's do this.

Christmas was a great time. Lots of long-running traditions failed to come together, which was a bummer, but Christmas Day made up for that. Kris, Jessi, Hanna, and Matthew came over on Christmas morning and we did presents here. I loved watching Matthew have the whole experience, that was the highlight for me.

Keeping with tradition, the afternoon and evening were spent over Grandma's, just hanging out with the family.

Matthew spent the night on New Year's Eve, so I hung out with him and Mom all night. Ate some cheese and crackers, had a little drinky drink, it was nice.

The highlight of that night was the pudding episode. Matthew was sitting next to me as I putzed around on my laptop. He was eating pudding, so I asked "Is that good?"

He looked at me, gave it some thought, and said "Have some."

He then grabbed his spoon and stretched, trying to get it to my mouth. Half of it smeared across my cheek, the rest across my teeth. He said "uh oh", grabbed his napkin, climbed up, and started wiping my face. I was laughing too hard to make a sound. When he started wiping my teeth, I closed my mouth to avoid getting a mouthful of paper napkin. He then proceeded to grab my beard and pull down, trying to open my mouth.

The kid's a trip.

2009 got off to a rough start and never really seemed to recover. There were highlights and bright spots, but the overall tone of the year wasn't all that great, so I was happy to see '09 go so 2010 could get a shot at not sucking.

So far? I suppose it's been okay. The winter weather's been pretty rough, so I haven't been able to get out much. Honestly, I've pretty much gone stir-crazy at this point.

I've been using my indoor-time to catch up on some of the movies I missed last year. I've recently watched The Hangover, 9, District 9, and Zombieland. All were good, but my favorite movie I've seen recently was easily Moon. Blew me away. See it.

I also saw Avatar in 3D. I can't say I fell in love with it, but I definitely liked it.

I've mostly been spending my time working to finish animating The Girl and the Ghost. It's been a big test, trying to push myself without burning out on the process more than I already am. But I'm moving forward. I wouldn't say I'm in the home stretch just yet, but it is in sight. This movie's almost done.

Want something to watch now? Dolly Oxem's Traveling Video Circus premiered a few weeks ago! Check it out!

DOLLY OXEM'S TRAVELING VIDEO CIRCUS!
Uploaded by Bullcrank. - See more comedy videos.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbvvtu_dolly-oxem-s-traveling-video-circus_fun

Production for Four Tanks and a Healer begins next month. Craziness, I tell ye.

I better get back to work.

The Long, Long Road Home

Dec 10th & 11th- Days 4 & 5

I woke up at 10 AM, perfect timing to get ready for the ride home. I sat in bed for a while and wrote out a postcard to my friend, Leah, as I tried to shake the post-sleep cobwebs from my brain.

We watched the weather reports and things didn't look great. After some debating, we decided to just get out as soon as possible and try to beat the worst of it.

Like a well oiled machine, we were packed, bundled, ready, and on the road at 11:45 AM.

As we rode the freeway out of Toronto, we hit a little bit of snow, but nothing of any real consequence. The wind gusts were the worst part of it.

Back on Day 1 of this trip, I wrote "As we approached Buffalo, the weather got bad. Real bad."
In hindsight, that was but a flurry.

When we hit Niagara, we were hit with whiteouts. I've driven through some heavy snowfall, but I've never seen anything like this. In a matter of seconds, everything beyond the windows would vanish, swallowed by pure white. It was disorienting and actually pretty scary.

WALL-E tries to see through the snow

We pushed on, crossed the border, and made it to Buffalo...where things got even worse.

The whiteouts were more frequent and the road conditions became far worse. The three lane highway became a two lane parking lot as the already slow moving traffic came to a complete stop.

At times, we would go for well over an hour without moving so much as a single inch.

When we would finally start moving, speeds would rarely reach 15 mph, but never higher than that.

My overpriced iPod adapter didn't even get used, as we wanted to keep listening to local radio to hear what was going on.

Eventually, all daylight was gone and we were still stuck on 90 West in the same awful conditions. In the dark.

Our plan became to make it to the Angola rest stop for a break and then decide if we should keep driving or hang there until sunrise.

Upon arrival it didn't even look like the rest stop was open. The entire parking lot was buried under several inches of snow.
Eventually, we saw people go in, so we at least knew it was open, but there was no possible way for my wheelchair to get through all that snow and get inside. Luckily, the guy who was plowing the parking lot was extremely helpful and cleared a path right up to the door for me. He even cleared a parking space near the door for us and made sure we got inside.
I can't thank him enough.

The drive from Toronto to Angola should have taken us about 2 hours. It took us 8.

Once inside, we made our way to Denny's, got some food, and tried to figure out what to do.

We made a couple calls and checked online, it seemed that if we could make it past Erie, PA, we'd be in the clear. Our decision was made for us by a phone call to the restaurant, informing them that the freeway had just been closed.
We were spending the night.

Our awesome waitress, Elke, was really helpful and nice throughout the night. I set up shop with my laptop to pass the time and keep tabs on the weather situation.

There were about a half dozen other travelers spending the night there. Some had pulled into the parking lot and gotten their car stuck in a snow drift, so they just left it and came inside. Later, a few semis pulled in, also got stuck in drifts, and ended up completely boxing the car in.

It was such an odd scenario and, honestly, kind of creepy.
Sometime during the night, Mom and I went to see how the road looked from the windows in McDonald's. It seemed so bizarre to see people sleeping in every booth inside the place.
I felt like I was in a zombie movie. We were a band of survivors holed up in a secure facility, waiting to hear something from the outside, trying to decide if we should stay put or try to make a break for it.


Mom managed to doze off for a few minutes throughout the night, but I was way too wired to sleep.

Eventually, the sky started to lighten as the sun unsuccessfully tried to peek through the clouds. We ordered small breakfasts before Elke went home and resumed our stay-or-go debate.
Neither of us wanted to spend another night in a rest stop Denny's, but every time the freeway reopened, it closed again within minutes.
We decided to get off of 90 and push for home via Route 20.

We set out again at 9:30 AM.
It was still bad, but at least we had daylight on our side.

For hours, all we saw were vast snow-covered grape fields and tiny towns, each one looking exactly like the last. Winds would come sweeping across the fields, picking up snow from the ground and repeatedly slamming us with whiteouts as we crawled down the long, boring road.

We were moving slowly, but I was just happy to be moving at all. We would occasionally come to a halt, but none like the day before.

WALL-E just wants to go home

I had been up for a full 24 hours. That, combined with the bland scenery, the hum of the engine, and the whoosh of the defrosters, would get the best of me as I found myself randomly falling asleep for seconds at a time.

Mom caught me dozing

We finally crossed into Pennsylvania just shy of 11 AM.

There was a whole convoy of us headed west on 20. It must have been quite a site for the locals, seeing this endless line of big rigs and other assorted freeway refugees slowly filing through their rural towns.

Our convoy

Bort! Bort!

Somewhere near Wesleyville, we hit another dead stop. A long one. About a mile or so ahead of us, a semi tried to get up a hill (a very small hill) and failed. This blocked traffic for over an hour.
We were losing daylight fast and started to discuss whether or not we should just find a hotel and try again the next day. We were tired, stressed, and all we wanted was to be home. So we pushed on.

It was completely dark by the time we reached Girard. That's when my uncles started calling, worried and urging us to get a room somewhere. But we were determined.

We were finally in familiar territory once we reached a snow covered Conneaut. Just an hour from home if 90 was clear. We decided to try it.
And it was clear.

Mom and I spent the final hour of the long drive talking to keep each other awake.

We got home at 7 PM on Friday night. 10 hours since we last had anything to eat or drink (or had access to a bathroom). Roughly 30 hours since we left the hotel on what should have been a 5 to 6 hour drive.

We were home.

We came inside and quickly ordered pizza and started guzzling whatever liquids we could find.

We were home.

It was a long and sometimes scary vacation. Most things that could have gone wrong did. It was chaotic...but I had fun. It was worth it.
I will give it some more thought next time I consider traveling during the winter months, though.

PS- Here's the weather we came home to.

"You Make Me Feel Like I've Gone Halfway Around the World..."

Dec 8th, 2009- Day 2

I woke up to that Toronto Tuesday morning at 10 AM with sore eyes from the dry hotel air.

Getting in gear for the day was slow going. We didn’t actually leave the hotel room until after 2. Mom and I were looking forward to avoiding the chilly weather, so we made our way down to the PATH. Right off the bat, I was met with a handicap accessible elevator...that my wheelchair could not access. My chair was too long to fit inside.

I turned around and up to the cold, windy surface we went.

We hurried over to the Eaton Centre in search of a cheap replacement prepaid cell phone. Mine had finally turned back on, but I didn’t really trust it (plus the roaming rates are outrageous). After checking 3 different cell phone stores, the cheapest phone I could find was $50, as opposed to $15 back at home. No sale.

The Eaton Centre's giant Christmas tree

My store!

Next stop? Massey Hall.

The main point of this whole trip was to see Chantal Kreviazuk at Massey Hall. As a bonus, it was the only show of Chantal’s tour that Raine Maida would be joining her.

We got out of the cold and into the historic building only to be met by another tiny wheelchair elevator, just like the one in the PATH. This time, though, we had the presence of mind to remove my leg rests, which let me fit inside.

Shortly after 3, we were inside for sound check. A few minutes later, Chantal & Raine arrived. Chantal came over and chatted with us for a little while. We mostly exchanged tales of how hectic things have been for both of us.

First up during sound check was Canadian duo Dala. I was aware of them, but had never really listened to them before. I was pleasantly surprised and really loved what I heard. I made a mental note to look into getting any CDs they have available.

Next up, Raine started his sound check.

A few songs in, the cavalry arrived. Chantal’s parents arrived with Raine & Chantal’s kids in tow, as well as Chantal’s cousin and her kids. It was a big ol’ family reunion and Mom and I were smack in the middle of it, watching and laughing as the kids took over the stage while Mommy and Daddy played their songs.

After sound check, we had about three hours until show time, so we headed back to make a quick stop at the hotel and then to find somewhere to eat.

We tried Baton Rouge, a restaurant in the Eaton Centre. Unfortunately, the doors were too narrow for my wheelchair to fit through, plus it was extremely crowded inside. So, we settled for McDonald’s in the food court.

We left the food court around 7:20 to start the walk back to Massey Hall. Just before exiting the Eaton Centre, Kathy & Sandy spotted us, so we caught up a little and walked to the venue with them.

Not long after getting to our seats, Dala took the stage to start the show. They only played a few songs, including a ukelele-centric rendition of Moon River. My personal favorite song of their set was Horses.

Raine took the stage for his set, which consisted mostly of songs from The Hunters Lullaby. He did include one new song, which I don’t know the name of, but it sounded amazing. He also slipped Innocent in, which is always great.

During the intermission between acts, I got to meet Michelle, a friend from the internet and fellow Chantal/Our Lady Peace fan. It was brief, but it was great to meet her.

I look like I'm smashed

After intermission, it was time for Chantal.
She filled the night with an excellent mix of her classic stuff and newer songs from Plain Jane. She even snuck in a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown.

At one point, Dala came back out and joined Chantal for God Made Me, which was the first song of Chantal’s I ever heard all those years ago.

There was also the inclusion of a new song, Not One Drop, a song inspired by the tragic passing of a friend’s young daughter, Sylvie.

I think the highlight for me was Chantal’s performance of 5000 Days, which featured some great home videos of their kids projected on a giant screen at the back of the stage.

Randy Cooke rocks the Santa hat. And the drums.

Later in the set, Karen and Kevin each got their turn to take center stage. Kevin sang a rendition of Joni Mitchell’s River. Karen sang Isobel, a song she wrote for her band, The Done Me Wrongs. Both performances were big change-ups from the rest of the night, yet they somehow fit perfectly.

Kevin has crazy cello skills. And wicked posture.

After “wrapping up” with All I Can Do, Chantal left the stage before coming back for a two song encore.

Just after Plain Jane was over, 5 year old Rowan (who earlier appeared on stage to ask his mom when she’d be done) returned to introduce his brother, four year old Lucca. Lucca marched up to the mic and proceeded to adorably sing a verse of Invincible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldP8uraTpFw
(Video courtesy of Angela)

Chantal followed that tough act by playing the song herself, bringing the nearly two and a half hour show to an excellent close.

That show made this crazy trip totally worth it.

We headed back to the elevator and through a couple corridors to the after party. I chatted a bit more with Raine and Chantal as Rowan and Lucca ran around. Before taking off, I got a quick photo with both of them.

We said our see-you-laters and left the party.

Mom and I bundled up and hurried back to hotel as a light snow began to fall. There was a big snow storm predicted to hit Toronto the next day. Luckily, we wouldn’t be hitting the road until Thursday.

W got back to the room at 1 AM and hit the leftovers as we sat and processed everything.

I was in bed and conked out by 3:30.

Toronto Bound

Dec 7th, 2009- Day 1

Meaning to leave by 10 AM, my alarm clock went off at 7:30. Mom had been packing and getting things ready all night. As a result, she had only been sleeping an hour and a half at that point, so we slept a little later and got up at 9. We were both groggy still, but we were ready.

Despite being later than planned, things were going pretty smoothly, until a staple of our roadtrips went missing: the car adapter for my iPod.
After about fifteen to twenty minutes of searching both the house and the van for it, I decided we should just leave it behind and go.

Granny stopped by to see us off and we headed out to the van. As I went through the front door, I saw my first few snowflakes of the winter. It was a nice little surprise, but also a subtle harbinger of approaching chaos.

At 12:20 PM, we finally hit the road.

A light snow came down for the first leg of our ride. It was nice traveling on a Monday, the freeway was pretty much all ours.

WALL-E on the road

Everything was gray. The sky, the trees, the ground, even the snow looked gray. Ahh, December.

Just before we reached the rest stop in Angola, Mom and I heard a small, high-pitched chime. Halfway to Toronto, my fully charged phone died.
Item number two on the day’s glitch list.

We stopped in Angola to eat and gas up the van. I fiddled with phone, but had no luck.

As we approached Buffalo, the weather got bad. Real bad.
It was rush hour and there was a big burst of lake effect snow coming down. This resulted in us traveling at 10 mph through Downtown Buffalo with about 100 feet of visibility.
Mom’s a nervous driver and an extremely nervous winter driver, so it was an interesting few minutes.

But we made it through.

It was dark out by the time we made it to the Peace Bridge. The next hour and a half on the QEW was nice and uneventful.

Though it was only evening, it felt like we had been driving for days. If only I knew...

We pulled up to the Cambridge Suites at 7 PM and were up in our room minutes later.
As has happened in the past, the room wasn’t as wheelchair-friendly as I needed, so we had to change rooms. The people at the hotel were extremely helpful and we were moved into the new room by 8.

The room

We switched the TV on and caught part of ET Canada’s week-long feature on Chantal & Raine’s wedding vow renewal. Pretty cool and bizarre seeing friends featured on TV like that.

The view

The show was over and bellies were a-rumblin’. The search for food began at 10.
We wandered up and down Yonge St. a bit to see if any restaurants caught our eye and ended up stopping at Mamma’s Pizza. We grabbed our grub and took it back to the hotel just as a light snow began to fall.

Mamma's Pizza

Mom had manicotti and I had gnocchi, it was great. I need to find some gnocchi like that around here.

Completely exhausted, I was in bed at 1 AM. The next day was set to be the big day of the trip, I wanted to be wide awake for it.

New Month, New Entry, Pneu Monia

That's just how it goes. I make a promise to update more, then get knocked out of the game when I least expect it.

As far as I can tell, I caught a cold when I was out at the midnight showing of Watchmen. It lingered for a few days, but got worse on that following Tuesday. By Thursday, I was stuck in bed and coughing so much, I could barely eat or drink.
I tried everything from Vicks VapoRub to a generic version of Mucinex. Neither worked, but the latter was a really bad idea. Apparently, one of the ingredients in the medicine can cause nightmares and hallucinations. And it did.

I'm not one who normally has nightmares and these were intense (murders, losing limbs, being ripped apart), so I was pretty freaked out. Then, it would continue into my waking hours. A pile of socks in my room looked like a demon form to me, so much so that I had to ask Mom to move them. It was...interesting.

So, on that Saturday, Mom put her foot down and took me to my doctor, who declared I had pneumonia and promptly sent me to the hospital. During the ride to the hospital, I had the back of my wheelchair reclined so I was laying down and just trying to breathe steadily. I'll be honest, it was a scary ride.
I was more at ease once we arrived and I got a bed and got an IV and oxygen. Everyone there was great, but my two-night stay felt like a week. Between struggling with the uncomfortable beds, nurse check-ins, and continuing to see weird things (thanks to being dehydrated), I didn't get much sleep at all during my stay.

Since I was finally able to eat and drink, they let me go home on Monday to continue my recovery. I've been working on bouncing back ever since. Physically, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal, but I'm still all out of whack. My normally nocturnal schedule has shifted to me waking up between 9 and 11 AM and exhausted by midnight. I miss my nighttime ways.
I'm also lacking my usual attention span, lately an hour long TV show is pushing it. I miss movies.

I'm getting there though. Slowly, but surely.

In a complete change of pace, Mom and I are taking off on a little road trip tomorrow. Chantal's playing at Brock University in St Catharines again, so we're gonna spend a couple nights in Niagara Falls and catch the concert. I can't wait. It'd be nicer if we weren't in the middle of an April snowstorm though.

I'll try to post a trip recap and pictures when I get back on Thursday. Maybe Friday.

Oh, and Watchmen was just okay in my opinion. Ah well.

Running to Catch Up

Happy New Year!!!

...Yeah, a little late, I know. So, where have I been? Right here, pretty much. To be honest, I've just felt completely burnt out since finishing The Greatest Fan Film of All Time. I really haven't wanted anything to do with anything and I've been keeping a low profile, both online and off, in hopes of recharging myself a bit. Hasn't quite worked yet, but I'm slowly getting there.

Over the course of my journey to recharge, the holidays came and went and were nice. Santa brought me a digital video camera I'm hoping to put to good use.
In January (and beyond), Mother Nature unleashed her fury and gave us near-record-setting amounts of snow and left me stranded inside the house for a long, long time. On the bright side, it gave me a chance to make a dent in my monstrosity of a Netflix queue. Unfortunately, most of the movies I watched were disappointing. But I discovered how much I love the Bourne movies.

I broke my long streak of not going to the movies by going to see Coraline in 3D a couple weeks ago. The movie itself was great and the RealD 3D was amazing. Stylin' glasses too.


Tomorrow night I'm heading to the midnight showing of Watchmen. Can't wait.

Matthew has been a constant source of entertainment and exhaustion. He's 15 months old, huge, and smart.


On the movie-making front, Larry and the guys are working on both a new film and a new animated project. After a lot of hard thought, I made the difficult decision not to head up this animated project. I need to take a little time for myself and wrap up some of my own projects that have been sitting on the back burner. The Girl and the Ghost is still unfinished and I want to finally get it done and out there, even if only for myself.
I'm sure they'll do just great without me on this one.
It's been insane and great working with the guys these last few years and I'm sure we'll be teaming up again on something spectacular before too long.

You might notice the site's looking a bit different. I'm in the process of giving it an impromptu update, so hang in there and we'll be snazzified soon.

Before I wrap this entry up, I just wanted to take a minute to mention my niece. A few months ago, we found out Kris & Jessi were expecting another baby, a little girl. We found out a couple weeks ago that Jessi lost the baby. It's been hard on all of us. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to write this in memory of the niece I never got to meet.

I know I keep saying it, but I really will try to post more often. I swear.

"...I Can't Believe How Much I Love the Rain"

Easter weekend was a fun, but exhausting one. Thursday through Saturday were dominated by Rock Band, especially Friday, when we went from 9 PM until 3 AM and played 58 songs in a row to reach legendary status. My voice, surprisingly felt completely fine afterwards. We had our biggest band lineup yet, rotating between Corey, Eric, Brendan, Mikey, Jeff, Jake, and myself throughout the course of the night. While we played, the skies opened up and the guys had to dig their cars out from under several inches of snow by the time we finished.

After our Saturday night session, I was up until about 9 AM, putting another family video together for everyone for Easter. The video turned out nicely, but having gotten only 4 hours of sleep, I was pretty much shot for the rest of the day. It was nice visiting at Granny's though.

When we got home, I had an email from Larry with a link to a recent article about Bullcrank and our movies. Check it out here:

http://www.fallsnewspress.com/news/article/3503402

So, the crazy weekend is over and I return to cartoonland once again. People seem to be responding positively to the trailer, which is a nice bit of fuel during the long nights of animating.

For now, I'll leave you with another family video I cut together earlier this week. This one features baby Matthew and I'm calling it The First Four.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qo3g8tKnFk

A Note From Beneath the Snow

The outside world has been swallowed and now looks like this.

Would someone kindly send the rescue dogs?

Back to Earth

As of Wednesday, my work in space is done. I finished that scene just a couple hours before Larry and Derby stopped by for a visit, so I got to show them the footage while it was still fresh out of the oven.
I'm extremely proud and happy with how these shots came out and I guess I'm not the only one. Larry's loving it and says the rest of the Bullcrank guys and gals are impressed.
We ended up talking about the rest of the movie and the big shots still ahead of me throughout most of the visit. It helped pump me up a bit and got the creative juices flowing, we even came up with a few amazing ideas I'll be including.

Aside from a few extra pick up shots, filming of The Wimp Whose Woman Was a Werewolf wrapped this weekend. It's looking to be excellent and a real step up for Bullcrank. You don't have to just take my word for it though, being the crazily driven madman that he is, Larry has already put together a trailer. Check it out here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zYGzUJBmoUU

And you can take a look at the creation of the werewolf here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PLo8btWkj40

I've been ridiculously amused at how dark, depressing, and continuously hilarious Garfield comic strips are when you remove Garfield from them and it's all thanks to Garfield Minus Garfield. I'll never look at John Arbuckle the same way again.

Our tickets to see Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova arrived a couple of days ago and the seats look great. This is going to be a fantastic show.

On to the next scene I go. We're expected to have between one and two feet of snow on the ground by tonight, so the weather's right for animating.

Stay warm.

The Hundred-Year Winter

I woke up today feeling like I had somehow been transported to Narnia. A big snow storm hit last night and boy did it hit hard. Take a look for yourself.

See? Told you.

I'm still pumped up about Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova's Oscar win on Sunday night. I've been following Glen since I saw him and his band, The Frames, back in 2004. I had gotten used to most people being unaware of who I was talking about, so it's been really cool to see Glen, Marketa, and Once getting all of this much deserved attention and recognition.

I recently heard they'll be playing in Cleveland in May. It's been a while, so I'm really looking forward to that.

And now I retreat to under a blanket and get back to work. Still in space.