This evening, I accidentally poured half a bottle of hot red pepper flakes into my delicious spaghetti and meatballs.

I also feel peaceful.

Agents of Hope.

Hey everyone,

I pretty much just had the funnest day of my life. Jolisa wanted to do some sledding, soooo, Luke, Jordan and I all jumped on board, and headed off to Dundas Hill. The first thing we did when we got up there is walked side by side up the middle of the hill, right where people were sledding. This, of course, made all the Dads and Moms at the top tell their kids not to go, and of the kids that did go, we managed to make fun of all of them as they went down. Yeah, typical teenagers. So, we did a couple runs down, we had an inner tube, a KRRAZZZYY Karpet, and two GT's. It was about that time I ditched my coat and hat and gloves, because it was super hot out, so I was in a T-shirt, a scarf, magical snow-resistant shoes, and snow pants.

At about this time, we were having tons of fun, and decided to do something a little more adventurous. As we looked across the scenery, we noticed a hill that looked pretty fun that was behind Dundas Hill. By fun, I mean steep. We immediately labeled it "Suicide Hill". So, off we set for Suicide Hill(leaving behind coat, hat, and gloves), and as we set off from the top of Dundas Hill, there was a hill going down the back side of it, conveniently pointed in the direction we wanted to go. So, I on my inner tube, Luke on his GT, Jordan on his GT, and Jolisa on her Krazy Karpet(well, actually she didn't go down....she walked down), decided to go down this hill, which was moderately steep. As we attempted to do so, there were some other kids walking up the path, watching us, as we fell all over and screamed and generally made fools of ourselves. We made it to the bottom, and waited for Jolisa as she walked down. When she arrived, she commented, "That kid said you were lame."

Well, that was when the REAL fun began. We were, of course, horribly offended, and yelled to the kids that we would show them "lame". We set off Suicide Hill, which was happily in full view from the other hill. Now, what we didn't know was that there was a creek in between the hill and us. Well, we found out soon enough as we contemplated this new barrier. Eventually however, we found a way, Jordan and Luke using a tree branch that had fallen over, while Jolisa and I jumped across at a narrower location farther along.

At last, we reached Suicide Hill. Now, if it looked steep from Dundas Hill, it looked even steeper now. We began the climb, which was easy at first, but grew harder and harder as the hill steepened ever more the higher it got. We struggled furiously with the ice and snow that made us slip and fall back. Luke tried to throw his GT so he wouldn't have to carry it....it didn't go nearly far enough, and careened to the bottom again as Luke dived after. He started back up again. Near the top, Jordan made use of some fragile branches to finally pull himself, and then myself over the ridge, and finally, we were there. We helped Jolisa and Luke up, until finally, we were all at the top looking down. Now, if it looked steep from the bottom of the hill, it looked STEEP now.

Jordan was the first to brave the heights, and he flew down, narrowly avoiding trees and fearsome bushes, screaming as he went. He skidded to a stop just in front of a menacing tree, and rose his fists in victory. His victorious cheer filled the air.

Luke was the next to go. His GT flew forward, pushing snow aside and into the air, pluming outwards like the wake of a mighty ship. He hit the midway mark...and separated from his ride, tumbling forwards and sideways, arms and legs grasping to find a steady place. He rolled to a stop, not far from his GT. With determination, he leaped back on and finished his run, letting out his victory shout.

I trembled at the top, on my inner tube that wasn't large enough for all of me, wind screaming past my ears. I decided to wait for a GT. Once I had acquired that from Jordan, who had clambered back up, I still felt fearful adrenaline pumping through my blood. Jordan reached over. I said, "Do it." He gave me a push, and I was off. The snow soared up all around me. A tree whizzed past on my left. I just missed a deadly bush on the right. The creek was in front of me. I turned my GT, skidding to a graceful stop....on my butt. My heart raced and my mouth turned my screams into shouts of, "Who's lame now?!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an inner tube in flight. The GTs had seemed fast - the inner tube was going at least twice the speed. One tree was avoided, the other; well, that was was so close, Jordan had to duck under the very low hanging branches, and missed the trunk by only a couple of inches. That would be the last of the inflated inner tube, as it's last blaze of glory had left it empty, with punctures and holes draining it's air. We decided to go for a last run on Suicide Hill.

Did I say I had just missed a deadly bush? Well, apparently I didn't miss, because when I reached the top, Luke noted, "your arm is bleeding." And so it was, as it seem the bush had reached out its thorny branches and lacerated my right arm, and the flaming red marks and dark blood told the tale.

Back to the last run, Luke went first, only reaching hallway way again before wiping out. He dashed back up the slope, and tried again, only to fail yet again. He frowned in despair and gave up ever making it all the way down the hill without falling. I was next; deprived of my GT and having only a deflated inner tube to ride upon. Summoning up my courage(after five minutes), I pushed myself forward, and started speeding up....only to start rolling down the hill. I started off again...and tumbled forward....I jumped back on the inner tube...and the deep snow deprived me of any forward motion. I picked up the inner tube, ran down, jumped in the air, landed back on the inner tube....and tumbled down the rest of the hill. Now I was cold, covered in snow. But that's not the end of the tale.

We had the cross the river again. This time, jumping back in the same place wouldn't really have worked, because it was too steep on our side. So, Jordan and I trekked on to another location. Now, two things happened at once here. We'll start with Luke and Jolisa's side of things. They had found a nice spot, so Luke threw his GT and the Krazy Karpet over to the other side...except he missed, and his GT sank into the water. He jumped over, and tried to rescue it....and fell in himself. He soaked his legs quite thoroughly. Back to Jordan and I. Jordan found a nice frozen spot and crossed over easily by walking on the ice. He told me to do the same. I followed his recommendations, and as I stepped onto the ice, I heard it crack. I leapt speedily towards the other side, but I fell short, hit the edge of the ice, which cracked and let me sink right to the bottom. That was my legs soaked.

We finally made it to our cars, bleeding, freezing, soaked, but energized. Definitely not lame.

And thus ends my tale. Of course, many things happened afterwards. We went to Tim Hortons the celebrate with some hot drinks....Luke spilled his all over his coat and pants. We rented a movie(and spent an hour looking). We played Wii at Jolisa's house. We played a lot of ping pong. I dropped my paddle, continued playing with my hands, and won the rally. We played air hockey, with a final showdown consisting of four pucks at once. We listened to sweet dance music. We waved to people as we went past. We did Chinese fire drills. We wore flip flops with socks. We mixed flip flops and boots. We had incredible pork chops and salad. We got left behind at a stop sign. We had a sweet, awesome, amazing, fun time.

Hello friends,

Another story, another experience, and again, it's all over. The last few days have been extremely busy, tiring, stressful, but also fun :). A brief recap for those who weren't there:

It all started at around 7pm, when Jolisa showed up at my place. The weather was poor, I had one person who almost cancelled but then didn't because of weather, and I also had a couple other people cancel for various reasons, so we ended up with a team of eight. Those people were Rachel, Luke, KathleenL, JonV, Victor, Jolisa, Rosalie, and myself. Jolisa, Luke(who had showed up a bit earlier) and I partied for a couple of hours eating candy and drinking root beer, as well as going to pick up equipment. At ~12am, Rosalie and Vic showed up. We all started doing some unproductive brainstorming until Kathleen and Rachel showed up at 1am. When they showed up, we separated into Creative(Rosalie, Kathleen, Jolisa, Vic, and Jon when he arrived the next morning) and Technical(Rachel and Luke) teams. The Creative team went upstairs to start serious brainstorming, while I did a crash course for the Technical team in lighting, audio, and camera operation. Rachel became the camera operator, and Luke took on the role of lighting technician. The Creative team came up with a couple ideas, which we talked about, and then we took a bit of a break at around 3am.

At about this time, I checked the countdown for security elements(certain objects or dialogue we had to incorporate into our movie), and noticed that instead of starting at 5am, we were actually starting at 7am. So, at this point, the processes ground to a halt, and we all kind of chilled out and took naps. I and a few others came up with a couple new ideas before we died as well. So, I ended up sleeping for about an hour between 5:30 and 6:30, and then we finally received our security elements at 7am. This is when the serious planning began, and we finally settled on the imaginary brother idea.

After writing the script, which we finished at around 11am, we started setting up the first shooting at my house, for the breakfast, dinner, and kitchen scenes. That took more or less until 12am, when we finally started shooting. We finished shooting all those scenes at 4pm. Car scenes and in the church vacuuming took another hour after that, and at around 5pm, we packed all the rest of our stuff from my house, and left for a restaurant in Hamilton at 5:30pm. We arrived there at 6pm, and scraped in a finish at 7pm.

I headed back home, while everyone else went their separate ways, edited the movie until 2:30am, had a bunch of technical issues which forced me to stay up until 4am. By that time I was starting to black out periodically, so I was relieved to finally get to bed, for my 8am wake-up time.

So, this was a lot of fun to do, and even though the finished product to me is only "Meh", it was a great experience. Hopefully my next project(which I'm starting work on ASAP) I'm going to spend some serious time on the story and general pre-production, which is where I feel everything I've done so far has been lacking in. But back on topic, I'd like to do some shout-outs:

Vic, for being my main character again. Thanks for being around, and being an awesome actor, and for being helpful in getting us a restaurant location.

Jolisa, for playing a difficult role and doing it well. Also for putting up with my shenanigans(this goes for everyone, actually).

Rosalie, for being adaptable and taking on the role of costumes and make-up supervisor, and performing tasks above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks for being flexible and not freaking out :). Also thanks for sweet romantic comedy ideas :P.

Kathleen, for playing a realistic mother, being cool with wearing bathrobes and classic sweaters, helping out with make-up, and for putting up with my shenanigans.

Jon, for putting a tie and being a dad, helping with anything I'd ask, entertaining the cast and crew, and being cool with being fired a few times.

Rachel, for being a brilliant camera operator, learning new tasks quickly, guarding the equipment with a ferocity unmatched, and for being smart and safe in how you did your job.

Luke, for unexpectedly being an amazing lighting technician. I plan on having you as my lighting guy from now on. Thanks for being excited about your job.

Well, that's all I have to say about that. If you want to contribute to my next project, I'm looking for story ideas(and money) at the moment. Send them in!

Just a note, Youtube is a terrible way to watch these kind of things. The HD footage looks absolutely beautiful.