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Jace is a dog this year. Samantha and her Mom made the costume (except the mask part).

Today was a comedy of errors. Let's recap:

• I was supposed to announce two feature length films for a film festival but they never had time to let me see the movies ahead of time. So, I just spent time on IMDB and Google trying to find some shreds of information to talk about.
• When I showed up at the theater I was told that they switched the movies and I would be announcing something else. I quickly found some pamphlets and wrote down all the information I could find about the new movies.
• When it was time for the first movie to start I found out that they were still waiting for someone to drive the film to the theater. I had to go out and tell the audience that they would have to wait awhile. It wasn't that embarrassing because there were only about 20 people in a theater that could hold hundreds but I didn't have a microphone so I had to yell so they could hear me.
• I went back to the front of the theater to talk to the volunteers and I found out that a "friend of the director" of the first film would be answering questions at the end of the movie. They told me he was driving from Berkeley to Livermore right then and that he was also the person who was bringing the film!
• Someone told me that a volunteer would hand out DVDs to the audience to stall for time but when he showed up he said he didn't have anything to give away.
• Finally, thirty minutes after the movie was supposed to start the friend of the director showed up with the videotape. I announced the movie and the technician started it up. He didn't have time to configure his equipment so for the first five minutes of the movie you could see the menu of the digital projector as he tried to adjust for the wide screen format. There was also a bit of audio feedback that made the audience scream.
• The movie ended after the next movie was supposed to start so I just announced the next film and skipped the Q&A for the "friend of the director". I also had to announce to the audience that someone brought the wrong copy of the second film and throughout the whole film there would be text on the bottom of the screen that said "Demo only - Do not distribute."
• I had been told that the director of the second film would be there at the end for Q&A which meant I had to stick around till the end. When the second movie ended I stood up and was about to address the audience that the director would answer questions but then a volunteer whispered to me that he never showed up so I just went home and let everyone else figure it out.
  

My sister got married on Saturday and here are a few pics:










I forced my Dad to sing karaoke:

Last Saturday Samantha and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in San Francisco. Fleet Week was happening so we checked out the Blue Angels air show at Fisherman's Wharf. The noise from those jets seemed like the world was going to end. They were moving so fast and so close together that everyone in the city just stared in awe. It was hard to get a shot of them but here is one:



San Francisco was packed. It took us an extra 45 minutes to get to the city (we should have taken BART) but then we walked from our hotel past miles of idling cars so I felt a little less dumb. It was probably the most people I've seen walking around the city (except for when I saw the immigrant rights marches in May). Here is one picture that shows the crowd:



I have never seen so many boats in the bay. I honestly think there were 1,000 boats out there. It's hard to see them in this picture but they go on for a while and this is only one narrow view of the bay:



At night we went on a Hornblower dinner cruise. We dressed up (for us) but there were some people there in shorts and sweatshirts so it didn't really matter. It was all about waiting in lines! 45 minutes to get on the boat, 20 minutes to get food, 15 minutes for drink coupons, 20 minutes for drinks! The food was so-so but there was plenty of it (buffet) if you wanted to wait in line again for seconds. The desserts were actually pretty good. Each floor of the three story boat had a DJ who played a cruise-worthy mix of music. I actually never appreciated the true genius of the disco hit "Rock the Boat" till I was actually on a boat that was rocking... Everyone was having a pretty good time. I asked a nice old lady to take our picture and told her a few times what button to press. It didn't come out that well but I didn't want to bother her again:



The highlight of the evening was when the boat stopped right next to the barge that launched the evening's Fleet Week fireworks. It's not really possible to take good pictures of fireworks without a tripod and a really good camera but here is one mediocre pic:



The show definitely wasn't that big but it was awesome to be in the bay and see fireworks with the city in the background. Here is a video of the finale:

I will be vollunteering at the California Independent Film Festival for the fourth straight year in a couple weeks. In the past I usually just operated the DVD players in poorly-lit winery warehouses. However, this year I am stepping it up a bit and will be the announcer at one of the main showings at the Vine Theater. I grew up in Livermore and have dabbled in independent film making so I was naturally attracted to this festival based in my home town.

I will be presenting the following two films:

• "Trouble with Dee Dee"
• 2-4 PM
  
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415739/
• "Shut Up and Shoot!"
• 4-6 PM
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433451/

See the rest of the schedule here.

Hope you can make it!