Year End Wrap-Up (yes, I know)

Christmas was great! Okay, so it has taken me a while, I'm slow, let's move on. Got to see all the family and a few of the friends, exchanged some gifts and ate waaaaayyy too much food. Seriously.

One of the most unique gifts I received was from a coworker and friend, Hal. He managed to get a copy of Vince Dooley's autobiography signed to me from Vince himself! Way cool, it read something along the lines of "Christian, Merry Christmas and GO DAWGS!" with his name signed under it on the inside front page. The guy's not really a big fan of UGA or Vince Dooley (big Bear Bryant guy) so it was doubly nice for him to have gotten that for me.

Got a new Wacom Intuos3 pen tablet also, this one from Sandy Claws. It's basically a tablet with a 6x8 sensor area where you can use a pen/stylus to draw, paint sketch or just use the pen instead of a mouse. Comes with a mouse, too, in case you want to use it. It's a crazy device, no batteries at all, and the pen and mouse are wireless (so I have no idea how that really works). Flip the pen over to write and it acts like an eraser. It's pressure and tilt sensitive, so the things works like a real pen, but on your computer. I've already used it to sketch out some graphics in Illustrator, paint stuff into After Effects and draw out some motion paths as well for short title animations. Screw the mouse, this thing is a lot more comfortable and accurate.

But it's not about the gifts, it's the thought that counts, and over Christmas time I thought a lot about all the great people in my life, my parents and grandparents, all the brothers and sisters I grew up with and stay close with, my wonderful wife, my dog, my job, my house - all the things that I may think about once in a while, but I find myself failing to fully appreciate. I won't lie, I know I take a lot of these things for granted, as if they'll always be there. I'd like to think I can go forward after that sort of contemplation and be more thankful in the future, but life stays so busy that it can be hard to stop and realize who and what has come together to make you who you are.

It was a great year for TradeWind Productions last year. I did an enormous amount of work and added a few new clients along the way. Weddings, beauty pageants, twirling recitals, photo slide shows, VHS and 8mm conversions, consulting....just a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, even though I was able to accomplish a lot and refine some of my skills, I didn't learn nearly enough new stuff. I try to do a little new training for software and practice some shooting concepts every couple of weeks, but last year that became very difficult around May. On top of that, my day job became more complex as I temporarily took on the producer/director position in addition to editing. We brought in dozens of people before we finally found a full-time replacement in November. I could have kept the job and dropped the editing, but honestly...I didn't want the job. I like editing, and I'm much better at post-production anyway. It was just a better idea to hold the job for the best person.

So now I'm working on some other projects and getting ready for the biggest wedding I've booked so far. It will be in February here in Atlanta. They have booked me for just about every service I offer for wedding videography, so I'm very thankful for that. I think they will be very satisfied with the results. I'm going to finish the couple's photo-video slide show a couple of weeks before the wedding and then just do some other work and training (and relaxing) leading up to the big day.

Too many words, not enough substance...I'll work on that for the next post.