Now Established: The Holiday Rules

It's been a few months since we have had a "big" holiday. And what I mean by big holiday is one of the slew of holidays that seems to take over your entire existence. Sure, we had the Labor Day just a few weeks ago, but like that counts. That's just a day off work before school starts back up. And the Fourth of July? Sure it's fun lighting off fireworks, being patriotic and having mid summer picnics. But you don't see people putting out their fourth of July decorations in May. What I am talking about here are the biggies: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. The ones just upon us.

But as we approach this festive time of year, we need a few rules. I don't want to sound like a Scrooge, but people in this day and age will grossly take advantage of their festiveness, if not given a few ground rules. You see this a lot, especially as the stores start putting out their next holiday wares the day after the previous holiday. There's nothing as eye rolling to me as going into Target the day after Christmas, only to find shelves full of Valentines candy. Or to walk into Jamba Juice on November first for a nice fruit smoothie only to hear their Christmas music mix blaring out the sound system. If I wasn't craving my Caribbean Passion, I would have turned around and left the store in protest. Even now.. it's September and if I walk into Costco, I have to look at the giant inflatable Santa in the middle of the store.

But I understand that business in business. But individuals can control themselves. And so.. I am officially declaring the "holiday rules". And yes, I expect that by my declaring these right here on my blog, that all Americans will comply and obey, out of respect for... well.. The Holiday Rules. And so America.. here they are:

Calvin's OFFICIAL Holiday Rules:
1. Halloween season officially begins October 1st. Therefor, no halloween decorations may adorn your house prior to this date. Halloween season ends promptly at midnight on November 1st. I do not want to see pumpkins, graveyards, ghosts, etc on your lawn until the official season begins.

2. Thanksgiving season begins November 1st. No, there is no overlap between Halloween and Thanksgiving. They are two different things. Halloween is all about scaring your neighbors and making all the neighborhood kids too scared to come near your house on Halloween night, thus allowing you to keep the large bowl of snickers bars all for yourself. Thanksgiving is all about the dying days of fall, eating yourself silly with turkey and not getting in trouble for having one slice of every pie on the counter. Thanksgiving ends at midnight that day.

3. Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving. That means I don't want to see your house lit up with lights in early November. I don't want to see Santa at the mall, or Christmas tree lots opening up early.You must WAIT until the day after Thanksgiving and THEN.. knock yourself out... do a Chevy Chase to your house (I do). Just not BEFORE.

4. Once a holiday is officially over, get your butt out of the house and take your stuff down and put it away. I don't want to see your lights still hanging up in July. It just tells me your are lazy. I don't need to celebrate Valentines day with your giant inflatable pumpkin still laying there on the lawn, having not been inflated for months. Please, people, take responsibility for your holiday decorating!

As I said, I am not trying to be a Scrooge here. I just want our Holiday time, as fun as it is, to stay pure. I don't want to be sick of Christmas three weeks before the actual holiday. I want to enjoy the whole season start to finish. I want the enjoyment of seeing all the decorations in the right time and right setting. It's like coming to a party too early or staying to late. It's just wrong.

So, take notice America. Calvin has spoken!

Spies, Swords and Spartans

Obviously, it's been awhile since I updated the ol' blog. I know I say that for time to time, but what can I say... things tend to get a bit busy and chaotic at certain times of year. And the end of August forward is certainly our "busy season". Here's a quick rundown of the latest from Calvin's Cosmos.

First and foremost: The family. The end of August brought Little Calvin's eighth birthday, meaning it was time for his church baptism. This once-in-a-lifetime event brought family from both Idaho and Colorado together in our house, for one very full weekend. We had a great trip out to the coast and alot of fun with so many people around that we just don't see very often. Little Calvin's baptism was a special experience for both of us. One of those cool father/son types of things. I think he'll have good memories of the festivities and remember the support of his extended family. (You can read reports here and here, on the family member blogs and see their photos.)

With family all delivered to the airport and safely home, it was time to return to normal hectic life. In additional to all my regular job duties at work (now greatly expanding as the company closes its Indiana offices and plants, making Oregon THE office space for the company) I have had 3 film projects going on simultaneously:

Video 1: RV Spy Guys: Mission 3. Most regular blog readers will remember the nightmare that developed as we created the second episode (here). But this time around, our production seemed to go right on schedule and without any real issues to report. Sure, I think my producer thought I had lost my mind when I turned in my script for this go around. My brain does tend to come up with some weird stuff on occasion. But I assured him that this would be funny (and not overly gross) and that I was still perfectly sane. Hold on..

Back now.. sorry, Abe Lincoln was at the door. A few things to discuss..

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah.. the I'm not crazy part. So... even with the strange looks as I handed over my story ideas, the episode filmed without a hitch, no actors showed up drunk, all the "that's impossible, this will never work" parts did work as I envisioned and things all came together well.

Here's a quick look at our filming day. To think that I get paid for this stuff....

The episode is now out and can be seen at www.rvspyguys.com. I'd just post the video here, but we need the site traffic to justify doing more of these so I have to make you go to the site to watch. Oh and order a t-shirt while you are there! Come on.. all the cool kids have them!

Video 2: The summer Indiana Jones project. Things are coming along nicely on this, although I am now using the typical Hollywood saying: "overtime and over budget". The kids have stayed very gungo-ho and are loving filming this. Just the other day, Little Calvin put in a request that I add some scenes or action sequences to the movie as he's not ready to be done filming yet. He gets such a kick out of donning the Indiana Jones gear and fighting, exploring.. whatever.

The trickiest part was this: When I wrote the script in early July, it included two large sequences that take place in caves. (Of course.. Indy HAS to explore caves in an Indiana Jones movie!!!) I figured it would be easy to find a cave or two around here to film in... Wrong-O! These stupid cave shots have been a thorn in my side all summer. We found some GREAT cave exteriors to set up the shots of the kids going into caves, but with the amount of stuff that happens inside the caves, I thought I was toast. Luckily, a solution presented itself this last Saturday and we were able to get most of the "cave sequences" filmed.

With only 2 scenes left to be shot (meaning 2 more nights of filming) we're heading on the downhill slope. My goal is to have the film done by mid-October when the 4th Indy movie hits DVD, as there is inevitably a large surge of interest in the Indiana Jones character connected to that release, and it would be nice to use that to our benefit.

Video 3: The big Kahoona. The gigantic project: The fall documentary volleyball film. I couldn't believe it was time to start filming already in mid-August, but it came! That means that I am now filming games almost every other night as the season progresses at such a rapid rate. Already, over 10 hours of footage has been shot and I am in the process of keeping up with that footage so that this doesn't turn into another "week-long no sleep fest" of 3 years ago as I struggled to meet editing deadlines. And this year I am starting slow thanks to everything else going on, meaning that even with all the footage shot already, there will be a large sized surge in work come the beginning of October as the team's fate starts to take shape on the court, and the resulting film starts to take shape in my head.

Now.. add all of that to an already busy work schedule, helping with Little Calvin's Cub Scout group each week (or attempting to when not filming), church responsibilities, Amanda starting high school, Tyler starting middle school and helping to support my wife so that she can coach her team without worrying about things off the court.. and it's a miracle I can even get a single blog entry posted. But it's all a matter of scheduling and balance.. and trying to stay out of trouble. Unlike what my brain-children spy guys seem to be doing.

Ok.. back to editing... I still have two idiots stuck in an RV factory, two adventurers seeking an ancient sword, and two volleyball teams winning their way through the league. Oh boy.. Where is that Red Bull 24 pack?