Ski Trip

I did my independent video challenge on a ski trip to Whitetail Ski Resort.  I used a point and shoot edited it with iMovie.  I really like the first shot where the camera comes down from the dark sky into the light, which gives it a purple pink effect.  From the lift I filmed skiers and snowboarders, and I got some good landscape shots of the rest of the mountain.  I used guitar music from free music archives.  

18th Street Gang; A Documentary

     The 18th Street gang has over 7,000 members throughout the United States and Central America.  It's a strong Latino criminal gang that's blamed for one of the highest murder rates in the world.  Thousands of gang members are behind bars, but teenagers are always being recruited.  This documentary focuses on a district in San Salvador.
      Charlie, 16, is the leader of the district in San Salvador.  Charlie and both of his roommates, like many of the members joined the gang in their early teens, and their mothers are working in the United States as cleaners.  Charlie decides if people aren't following gang rules, and they are punished with a beating.  Despite these somewhat frequent punishments, they consider their gang to be like family. All members have 18 tattooed on themselves in some way, and most have or want more tattoos.
   
 The Salvadorian government is trying to eliminate gangs, and they can be arrested for having an 18 tattoo.  Although they're alert for the police, they know the area better than the police and don't really take them seriously.  Because of thee tattoos they can't have a real job, and make most of their money selling marijuana.  Charlie is the main seller for the gang, making around $60 a week.  Diego, one of Charlie's roommates has set up an extortion system with the local buses.  They give him a percent of their profits, because they don't want to be targeted by Eighteenth Street.
       There are several deaths a week in their district.  Usually these deaths are a result of their rival gang, MS.  Most people don't expect to make it past thirty.  Travieso is sent on a mission to kill members of MS to avenge the deaths from Eighteen.  He is then on the run from the police, but when someone else is arrested for their murder, he goes home.  
       This was one of those movies where it didn't need any dramatic voice overs or special effects, the topic spoke for itself.  The music in this film did created a mood, and there was one interview with Travieso after he came back from his mission that really stuck out.  He's in from of a red-orange wall, the camera isn't facing strait on him, it's a little off to the side, plus the hard light and the fact that he's taking about how he just killed someone creates an eery effect.
     I think this documentary gave a face to these gang members, making them more than just criminals.  The film ends with them celebrating the new year and talking about how they don't want this life forever.  Some want to start a family, others want to join their family in the United States and make something of themselves.  I even started to feel a little sad for them, because there really isn't a road that leads to them starting over in the United States, leading a productive life, or having their family be healthy and safe.  It's powerful for a filmmaker to be able to make the viewer empathize with people who've murdered before.

 18th Street Gang, 55:31 4 out of 5 stars. 

Mobile Med.

     If I where asked what my dad does for a living I really wouldn't be able to give a good description.  He used to be a doctor and still works for the VA someway or another.  But what I do know is that every Thursday he volunteers for Mobile Medicare, a free clinic.  It serves low income patients without medical insurance.  It's based off of volunteers and very few paid workers.  Many of them are immigrants and don't speak English very well (if they speak English at all).

     Right now there are 26 organizations competing for votes on Facebook, Mobile Med being one of them.  Hyatt is giving $10,000 to the charity that gets the most votes.  Right now Mobile Med is 9 Charities down on the list and the voting ends December 31.


18.Mobile Medical Care Inc. 240 
19.Caritas of Austin 362
20 Haven for Hope 376
21. SPEED Trust 524
22. Equal Community Foundation 532
23. Mama's Kitchen 600
24.Adult Literacy Tutors Association 617
25. Kidz Care Tanzania 1071
26. St. John's School 1106


Here is the link to vote once a day.   (You have to like the page first) Scroll down to Mobile Medical Care Inc. 
https://www.facebook.com/Hyatt/app_184833218324179


It's a long shot, and there are some other good charities on the list, but after hearing stories about people who have to take care of multiple sick family members, how overworked the staff and volunteers are, and how people are struggling to get by, I really think Mobile Med deserves to win the $10,000.

A blog for Carvel

     My family has been fostering dogs from the Washington Animal Rescue League (WARL) for a while now.  Anyways we just found a home for our most resent foster dog, Carvel.
     On WARLs website there weren't many pictures of that much information about her, so my mom asked me to help expand it.  I used Bloger to make a website about her.  Granted it doesn't look very professional, but that's partially because Bloger isn't a very high tech and is mainly for blogs not websites.  Anyways here it is. http://fosteringcarvel.blogspot.com It was posted on WARLs website a few weeks ago and she got adopted this Saturday.

The dog on the left is Carvel and the one on the right is our dog Magee. 

Odd Thanksgivings

     We usually spend thanksgiving with my moms side of the family just because they're closer, and they're less of them so it's easier.  Anyways we don't really have traditional Thanksgiving dinners.  I can't really remember them all in the right order so I'll just talk about some of the ones I remember.
     Once we had a vegan Thanksgiving, although no one in my family in vegan or vegetarian.  And another time we had BLTs, that was definitely one of the weirder ones.  I did have a traditional Thanksgiving a few years ago with my dad's side of the family.














I've realized there isn't much of a point to this blog post, well I guess since I'm spending Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family I'm wonder ing what we'll be having.  Also I guess I like the untraditional thanksgivings better, well as long as they have the basics,

Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes 

Cranberry Sauce

Ok, so maybe I'm just a little hungry.

Last Regatta of the Season

Last Sunday was out last regatta of the year.

I really don't feel like explaining crew, because I feel like I've done it a thousand times.

     It was in Occoquan, Virginia.  We hade to walk a good ten minutes though the woods to get from the parking lot to the docks.  It was really pretty and that's where I took some shots for my meaning of fall project.  

     Since it's a fall regatta it was a 5K (spring regattas are usually only 1,500 M.)   We got 9th out of 19 boats.  This isn't a great placement, but seeing as we were Varsity B, we weren't  exactly taking practices seriously.  To quote one of my teammates  "We're not on Varsity B because we're like this, we're like this because we're on Varsity B."

We got to race in the Trail Blazer, our best boat.  It sounds crazy, but the feel of the boat is so much different from our other boats, like the Blazing Paddles or the Blitzkrieg.

Capture the Fall

I uploaded two video for my meaning of fall project which are exactly the same, expect for the music.  one with the song "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone", and another with a song I found on musopens.org.  I'm not going to go into what I think about having to use creative commons music (although I may later) because that's a whole different story.    

This week I learned how to do the cup thing that goes with "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," among other songs.  I really have no idea how to explain it so I posted a video.

Once I learned how to do it I couldn't stop, its unbelievably addicting. There are also other tricks I've learned, like doing rounds, or passing the cup around.  And I've been singing this song all week.

Capture the Fall with "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone"

Anyways I think this one is much better.  Admittedly I may have been editing this one around the song, rather than just editing it and then putting in the song, but that's how it should be done.  If you watch this one first, I think the second one will be very disappointing.  The thing is I don't really mind using websites like free soundarchives.org or musopen.org, but once I watched it with this song, it just fit, I just wouldn't see using anything else.      



{Real Capture the Fall with all Creative Commons}