I haven't been climbing in a few years. I do miss it. I have a group of friend who go but it's always inconsistent and last minute.

Meanwhile, I've been busy! Moved in to a townhome with my best friend of 8 years.



We've been entertaining it for almost a year now. But we weren't serious about it things came to a head in her current living arrangements so she noped out and we found a place together. We moved in on the 15th. The week before was frantic as we looked for places, made lists, and packed. The week afterwards was just as frantic as we unpacked and moved in. Made more lists and shopped. I'm finally at a point where I can get back to my regular routine. There's still things to do but all of the big stuff is out of the way.

Also had an end of Summer BBQ with a group of friends!


Also managed to meet up with Elemental when he was in town for the weekend,

I did the movie/TV extra thing!



I got the call to be a movie extra for a Jordan Peele movie. It wasn't everything I was imagining it to be. There was a lot of "Let's hurry up and wait" and a lot of conflicting direction. The "AD's" told us where to be and what to do. I had one AD to walk out in front of someone and another AD tell me to walk out behind them, then told to walk out in front of them by the first AD.

After a few takes they said "Everyone move 10 seconds ahead of starting position." So I did. But the people who I was suppose to walk out in front of, started from the starting position. It was really confusing. I would have used cues from other extras but everyone else was either in the car stationary for the whole shot, or being onlookers from the sidewalk. I was one of the only people walking in the shot.

I'm not confident I'll even be in the scene. Wardrobe gave me a lime green shirt which I imagine is either going to be digitally edited to a more subdued color or the action/scene was framed that I wasn't in the shot, I was also walking away from the action so even if I am in it it'll just be my back. Props gave me some funky sunglasses, an empty beer cooler and a sand mat. My friend was also an extra but on a different day, and she got to be a sunbather on the beach. She got paid to get a tan and spend 5-6 hours on the beach. I'm low-key jealous.

I got a call that same day to be an extra in the TV show I originally went in for, Devs, but declined. I wouldn't have been able to move work meetings out a second time on such short notice and my experience that day was less than stellar. I'm still glad I got to partake in this experience.

I was able to see what it's like to work on a movie and the improvisation that happens from both crew and cast. In the scene I was in, they had the camera in a car. Then they did a dolly shot outside the car but since the ground was uneven they set up a track in about 5 minutes flat. It was nuts. The camera & sound is connected wirelessly to the appropriate teams and Jordan was always with the camera while the AD's were managing the actors and extras.

The most shocking part were the wireless stuff. I had no idea the camera feed was wireless, or maybe that was strictly sound but those antennas were serious.

That sounds like so much fun, Alex! Thanks for catching us up on what's been going on. Is the summary that you wouldn't recommend someone else trying it, or that it might be a fun experience to try once, but for you it wasn't great?

I recommend trying it for sure. It's an experience that I am glad I first pursued all those weeks ago.

I'm sure I would have had a far better experience at the TV show, the attire was more relaxed. For the movie it was beach attire and we were filming in the morning. So, we had to pretend to be warm while wearing tank tops and shorts -- some people were just in swing suits -- when it was really like 55 degrees.

Had someone given us a crash course of what to do when "X" happens, such as "Start from your position at 10 seconds" it would have been nice to know the camera starts recording 10 sections after "Action!" not "go to your position at 10 seconds." On set I even brought it up with other extras and, if they were "career extras" it would have been awesome for them to tell me. One of them even had an agent.

It is what it is. Looking back if opportunity comes up again, and I have time in my schedule, I'll likely do it again. With a days notice I just couldn't do it and I was really turned off from the events from that day.

Its that time of year again

That's quite the hat.

This Napolean Dynamic photochoppery has been bothering me for about a decade, and I finally spent a second fixing it.

Nice color correction and edge blending! I'm honestly impressed you kept the original project file for that long. Most of my original project files from 8+ years ago are lost; I've been much better in the last 3 or so years though.

I'm actually a cat.

IMG_3306 by Nikky, on Flickr

Wait... I thought Alex was?

Pardon the quality, I used a Microsoft Paint camera.

I don't like to talk about it but Alex really likes ear scratchies

Base of tail scritches, under the chin scratches, on top the head rubs and most importantly, ear scratchies. But heaven forbid you wanna pet my tummy more than twice.

Here's the trailer for the movie!

Gotta rub my California privilege in, totally not sorry.

Went for a hike with some buds. Took this photo of one of the dogs on my phone, and edited the depth data with an app.


It's almost like a still from a DnD campaign. Marching onward to find the Dream King.


I answered all the riddles correctly so far!

Nice photos! Part of me really wants to live in California too...

Here's me driving the USS Lexington Navy ship. Well, not really But I got a chance to visit Corpus Christi and hence the Gulf of Mexico for the first time over break.

They've got a cool museum/self-guided tour on the ship that was very cool to walk through.

I got new glasses!!!

Ran my third race of the year, I think I have 4 or 5 left! I should probably find out...

That’s really awesome!! I’m proud of you!

Maybe I’ll like running some day, but for now I absolutely hate it haha

Thanks! It started last January when work reimbursed me for the Hot Chocolate Run; a group of employees were doing it and they got the company to pay for it. So I figured why not, I get hot chocolate and a participation trophy. And thus, I just continued doing it.

A few employees did the Spartan Race this past weekend as well but I wasn't ready for that. I am doing a less serious version of the Spartan in June, however.

Yo, necropost. So, some updates. I bailed on the less-serious Spartan Race because I didn't have a spare set of shoes to trash with mud and I wasn't about to buy a new pair of shoes to replace my current set. I wanted to go to the Goodwill or something but I never got around to it.

Last night, my group of friends had our Summer Olympics.


It was a bunch of college games and a bunch of fun. I was on the team "Light Seekers." There's a backstory to that but the abridged version is that we went as Priests. I've never had a communion wafer before. When I saw them, I knew what they were but I thought the box said "cinnamon wafers" and I thought it was so cool that they were flavored. LOL NOPE. The box said "Communion Wafers."


Everyone was rooting against us, and in the first game we came in last. We kept our faith and rose to the occasion; by the third round we were just a few points away from first. By the fifth game we were in the lead. We dropped to second by Game 7 but clinched first in Game 9.

Game 10 was elimination style bracket, in order to keep our lead we had to either get third or hope 2nd place got knocked out. By a stroke of luck, both happened. We finished the olympics 20 points ahead of everyone else.


We were one of the two teams to dress up in costume, the other teams either didn't or had some loose connection (e.g. a headband)

The scoreboard was coded in React and was synced to a phone so no one had to stay by the computer. We also had a paper scorer in case the untested scoreboard failed (which it did).

We're 10 months in to 2019 and it's be an amazing year. In 2017 I decided to sign up for my first ever "run" with some coworkers, a 15k. We did the run in January 2018. I completely regretted it, but not because I hated it and was one of the slowest runners but because I found out I was super out of shape. I committed to getting my rear in gear and signed up for 3 more runs in 2018.

Then, for 2019 I signed up for 5. Just finished the last one today. #ChallengeComplete



Recognize those shorts 👀