Categories
Miscellaneous

This Blog is Moving

I’m not exactly sure of the date but soon this blog will be moving. My parents were having trouble with their Internet connection a couple of weeks ago. My mom took her computer to Memory Lane (the place where this blog is hosted) and they said the Internet was working fine. They did reinstall her copy of Windows 2000 and charged her $80 for it, but it turns out the reason the Internet stopped working was because they shut her down on their end. I’m not exactly sure of the reason, but they said she was connecting through some test lines not meant for the public and they were suspicious that because I had once worked at Memory Lane that maybe I knew how to hook up to those private lines giving them a faster connection. Well I have to say they’ve hit a new low accusing me like that (they did state that, “We’re not accusing anyone of anything”). Yeah right.

Anyway they did refund her for the 3 weeks of Internet that she was disconnected from but she is too shy to ask for her $80 back that she would have saved if her Internet had not been shut down. I told her to email keng@memlane.com and tell him why she has decided to leave them for Telus but I guess she’ll just take her business (and the rest of our friends and families’ business) elsewhere. It’s so weird because I used to work there and can’t understand what has happened to them over the years that they would turn into a dishonest operation.

Anyway as a result of her switching service providers I’m going to be hosting my blog over at Telus now. The new address is http://www3.telus.net/jefmil/. Who knows if I’ll bother to transfer the photos too.

I should really use this as an excuse to get my own domain name, but alas I guess I’m too lazy or too poor or both.

Update: I’ve now moved my site to https://jeffmilner.com.

Categories
family friends

Waterton

I went to Waterton this weekend with my parents, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Roger, and Anna-Maria. Here she is doing a little jump near the Prince of Whales hotel with her dog Sophie in animated .gif format:

Anna-Maria Lemaistre jumping

Categories
Art

Photoshop Technique

I just completed a Photoshop tutorial I found online. What do you think? I think I like it — a lot!

Fire

Categories
humor Politics

Alberta’s Debt is Paid Off

Ralph Klein was pleased to announce yesterday that the provincial debt in Alberta has finally been paid off. When questioned about where he got the money Klein apparently responded, “I finally got around to returning my empties.”

Categories
Art friends

New Media Special Effect

Today after work I created this little clip (3.5 mb Quicktime) of Anna-Maria chasing me through the backyard.

Categories
work

New Media Movie Making Camp

I started my new job on Monday. It involves teaching 11 to 17 year-olds how to create a movie from script-writing and storyboarding to burning the final DVD and creating a fancy package for that DVD to reside in.

In some ways teaching a movie making camp is a lot easier than you might expect. Basically you just tell the kids the basic structure of a movie and tell them to get at it. The hardest part is keeping them on track, writing their scripts or what have you and not playing flash based Internet games all day. It gets progressively easier the farther away from the classroom they are. Once they are out filming you can practically leave them on their own.

You can’t actually leave them on their own though. Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

For one thing, there are these people that work at the University. I use the term work loosely. Basically they show up in the morning, drink some coffee, visit with their friends in the office, and then look for ways of disrupting any movie making from happening on campus.

We were just outside the residence area of the University (the residence is built right into the building), when we became aware of our first complaint. All of a sudden a lone security guard showed up and asked us what was going on. I looked up at the kids filming their mob movie each armed to the teeth with a massive armada of toy guns. Flashbacks of the Medicine Hat Police cocking their shotgun and yelling at me to hit the ground flew through my head. (I’ll share that story some other time).

Nevertheless a little confidence can take you a long way. “Just filming a movie for our New Media Movie Making Camp,” I explained with a smile. I turned away from the guard and instructed the kids to get ready for their next scene.

He just stood there. I asked him if he needed anything else. He repeated back to me who we were trying to get the story straight so he could report back to his supervisor. I could tell he didn’t have the killer instinct that security guards usually exhibit upon receiving their walkie-talkie’s on the first day. Furthermore I was happily surprised that despite his obvious desire to tell us we were doing something wrong, he wasn’t able to compose a reason why the kids’ toy guns posed a security risk.

Later that day, an acquaintance of ours, that works at the University, came to tell us what a ruckus we were causing around campus. Apparently there had been several complaints about our kids and one specifically about their use of guns. But seeing as security didn’t do anything about it, I’m guessing that it was one of the rare occasions when common-sense trumped power mongering and know-it-all attitudes.

We wondered what we could do to prevent any further problems. That same friend suggested (perhaps sarcastically) that we create a couple of signs explaining that the 11 to 17 years olds holding a video camera and pointing caps guns at each other were just taking part in a University sponsored camp and that their weapons are only “props”. She also added to keep up the good work because the disruptions were likely an indication that the kids were having a good time, and besides — they made her day more interesting.

Categories
Sport

Kayaking Down The Belly River – My Jeep is Dirty

The Milner cousins and I went kayaking down the Belly River again this weekend. The water has settled at a bearable temperature and the weather couldn’t have cooperated with us better today.

As we were floating down the river we saw a gaggle of 5 teenage girls gathered around the river bank, but all looking at something and all of them oblivious to our presence. Corry said, “Hi.” And they all jumped individually as they spun around and saw us drifting by. We chatted with them for a minute. The girls were visiting their grandparents for the holiday weekend. It turns out they were inspecting a cow’s skull they had found in the mud.

When I got back to my jeep I discovered bird droppings inside my car. How improbable is that? I’m guessing that when I left the door open to get my gear together that a bird let one fall at such an angle to precisely miss my seat and hit the arm rest. If they could only bomb that accurately in Iraq…

The video Aaron took of me last time is online. The water was higher today, but the video gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like today.

Jeff Kayaking Belly River June 2004 (3mb QT Mov)

Categories
family

Happy Canada Day!

It’s July 1st and I’m about to head out and enjoy the Canada Day festivities.

Things are going great for me lately. I started the prep-work for the New Media Movie Making Class that I will be teaching. In the process I remembered that I still haven’t captured the video from my sisters wedding. Well when I tried to do it last night — I came to the conclusion the tape is wrecked and all her wedding video data is gone. Sorry Jackie. As a side note, today is her 1 year anniversary (Who gets married on July 1st, you might ask? My sister!) At least there will always be fireworks on the day they were married. Happy anniversary Jackie & Glen.