We've been in Jackson the past couple of days visiting Rebecca's family. We opened presents the other day and did the stop motion again. The vantage point is a little higher on this one which I think worked out better. It was another fantastic time with everyone and a great reminder of how fortunate we are. I am so thankful for both of our families.
One funny thing to look for in the video is in the bottom right of the screen, Rebecca's granddad falls asleep and appears motionless for a good many frames. We also did some rearranging of seating positions that looked pretty neat.
Christmas 2011 - Stop Motion 3 from Brett Long on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label Lands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lands. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
July 4th Weekend
The long weekend started out kind of rough for Rebecca and I. She got a cold somewhere between here and Utah and in turn passed it on to me. The worst of my symptoms hit on Friday. Dad had planned a big work weekend at a Tornado house, owned by Cornelius. I attempted to go work, but had to tap out early. I came home, took a long nap, and felt much better. I returned to the house on Saturday and helped with repairs. A massive oak tree fell on the middle of his house so the goal for the weekend was to build a new roof.
Rebecca's parents came in town for the weekend. So after church on Sunday we all went to Cornelius' house. About mid afternoon Dad gets a call from Matt. He and Loren were on their way to Memphis on I-22 when his back left tire popped. The civic spun off the road and slid into an embankment. Fortunately they went off the road at the perfect spot and only received damage to one additional tire. Much like Rebecca and my wreck several years ago, they were very fortunate. Playing the "what-if" game can get quite scary. Mr. Chip and I went as the rescue team and pulled them out of the ditch. The donut tire got them to Wal-Mart as we caught the tire guys right before closing time.
On Monday we took Rebecca's parents on a drive around town showing them some of our different photo venues. About the time they headed out, the rain settled in and stayed through the evening. It stopped just in time for Thunder on the Mountain. The wet weather kept the early crowds away so we were able to get a fairly good spot without getting there real early. The rain cooled the air off just enough to make it quite pleasant outside.
Rebecca's parents came in town for the weekend. So after church on Sunday we all went to Cornelius' house. About mid afternoon Dad gets a call from Matt. He and Loren were on their way to Memphis on I-22 when his back left tire popped. The civic spun off the road and slid into an embankment. Fortunately they went off the road at the perfect spot and only received damage to one additional tire. Much like Rebecca and my wreck several years ago, they were very fortunate. Playing the "what-if" game can get quite scary. Mr. Chip and I went as the rescue team and pulled them out of the ditch. The donut tire got them to Wal-Mart as we caught the tire guys right before closing time.
On Monday we took Rebecca's parents on a drive around town showing them some of our different photo venues. About the time they headed out, the rain settled in and stayed through the evening. It stopped just in time for Thunder on the Mountain. The wet weather kept the early crowds away so we were able to get a fairly good spot without getting there real early. The rain cooled the air off just enough to make it quite pleasant outside.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Weekend in Brandon
This past weekend took us to Rebecca's parent's home in Brandon. The initial reason for the trip was Mrs. Melanie's birthday. It grew into also celebrating Philip and Chouna's engagement along with taking engagement pictures for them and another couple whose wedding is coming up in May. So another weekend was spent mixing business with pleasure.
Another theme through the weekend was animals. Mr. Chip's passion is horses. Unless something else needs his attention he is at the barn or on a horse. So along with the horses he also has some cows and chickens. One of the mares was very pregnant. We were on watch all weekend for a baby horse, but she didn't go into labor. There is also a pond on the property and for the first time I took a fishing pole. I love to fish, so I don't know why I haven't in the past, but I will probably make it a regular occurrence from now on. I spent a couple hours on Friday before the engagement party fishing and caught 6 bass. I was the only one out there so my cell phone was the only camera available. They were all 'keepers' if I had been keeping them.
The chickens were also a new addition. Rebecca has always had a soft spot for chickens. I think it was because she never really had one. She came close as a child when she got some chicks, but their cat got hungry one night. So we went out to see them. He has two roosters and two hens. One of the roosters has an hourly alarm along with the traditional sunrise notice. Their bobbing movement was very interesting to me. One of the hens got very protective of he food we brought them and lunged at Rebecca. I think she got her fill of chickens for a while.
As we were walking back to the house that evening we came across Mr. No Shoulders. Rebecca and her mom were on either side of the driveway and walked right beside him. Rebecca noticed as she was right next to it. I was a few feet behind them, so now the water moccasin was in between me and the ladies. It was about 3 feet long and very still. Mrs. Melanie ran back to the house to get a shovel. She handed it to me and as I was coming down with my first whack to the head, it took off towards the water. I chased it and continued to swing as it dodged my every blow. Just before it reached the water I made contact. It tried to lunge at the shovel once it was wounded, but I continued the barrage. It eventually stopped moving and I carried it to the garage for closer inspection.
Another theme through the weekend was animals. Mr. Chip's passion is horses. Unless something else needs his attention he is at the barn or on a horse. So along with the horses he also has some cows and chickens. One of the mares was very pregnant. We were on watch all weekend for a baby horse, but she didn't go into labor. There is also a pond on the property and for the first time I took a fishing pole. I love to fish, so I don't know why I haven't in the past, but I will probably make it a regular occurrence from now on. I spent a couple hours on Friday before the engagement party fishing and caught 6 bass. I was the only one out there so my cell phone was the only camera available. They were all 'keepers' if I had been keeping them.
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| Massaging the pregnant horse. |
The chickens were also a new addition. Rebecca has always had a soft spot for chickens. I think it was because she never really had one. She came close as a child when she got some chicks, but their cat got hungry one night. So we went out to see them. He has two roosters and two hens. One of the roosters has an hourly alarm along with the traditional sunrise notice. Their bobbing movement was very interesting to me. One of the hens got very protective of he food we brought them and lunged at Rebecca. I think she got her fill of chickens for a while.
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| These chickens were not bashful at the crowd |
As we were walking back to the house that evening we came across Mr. No Shoulders. Rebecca and her mom were on either side of the driveway and walked right beside him. Rebecca noticed as she was right next to it. I was a few feet behind them, so now the water moccasin was in between me and the ladies. It was about 3 feet long and very still. Mrs. Melanie ran back to the house to get a shovel. She handed it to me and as I was coming down with my first whack to the head, it took off towards the water. I chased it and continued to swing as it dodged my every blow. Just before it reached the water I made contact. It tried to lunge at the shovel once it was wounded, but I continued the barrage. It eventually stopped moving and I carried it to the garage for closer inspection.
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| The water moccasin. A good portion of him had been chopped off by this point. |
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Condo Makeover
When we bought our condo back in October, we knew some updates would be in store in the near future. Before Christmas we decided to set aside MLK weekend as Condo Work Weekend. Rebecca's parents came for the weekend, my parents helped, and Matt and Loren came for Saturday. We came up with quite the list of projects to tackle this past weekend. Our work crew did a great job and the only thing we didn't get much of was sleep.
Friday Rebecca and I went to Lowes and Home Depot to purchase all the supplies and products. The plan was to let the Ladies do all the painting and the guys to do everything else on the list. Our place was a rental the prior 25 years, so everything was done for cost and efficiency. All the walls were the same color so Rebecca picked new colors for each room and bathroom.
Her parents arrived on Saturday and we got going. We worked til about 2 in the morning. Sunday we went to church and then got back at it. The most memorable thing happened late Sunday night and well into Monday morning. One of the projects on our list was to replace the shower valve and shower head in our bathroom. It was leaking and the original handles, so we wanted to update it. Dad and I opened it up to look at it and decided "we didn't have the tools to pull this off" during the work weekend amidst all the other projects. So we decided to just change the shower head, which is simple. Changing the handle involved changing the valve, which meant we would have to cut the copper pipes and solder the new valve on. Another big issue with plumbing projects involved cutting off the water. To our knowledge and our neighbors there is no water cut-off for individual units or even buildings (which have 4 units a piece). The only known water valve is at the street which cuts off the water to about 32 units. So making that many people inconvenienced is not a good way to make friends with our new neighbors.
Late Sunday night we decided to attempt to fix the leaks in both our showers. You still have to turn the water off, but you don't have to cut the pipes to replace the valves. So we decided to wait until late that night to turn the water off hoping everyone was asleep. At about 12:30 I took my vice grips to the street and turned the water off. We worked on the guest shower first. It took us about 30 minutes, but we replaced the leaky gaskets and put it back together. I turned the water back on and no leaks. We then debated about doing our shower. We decided it was now or never so I went back outside and turned the water off again. Rebecca's dad began to turn the cap to access the valve. It was not breaking loose so he turned harder. I don't think he realizes his own strength sometimes. When it finally did begin to turn, he wasn't sure if it was just the cap or all the pipes behind it. If it was the pipes it was too late and you had to keep going to find out. The cap finally broke loose and our worst fears were realized. The pipes behind the valve looked like a twizzler. So it was now about 1:45 AM, we had leaky shower valves, and 32 apartments did not have water. If we turned the water back on, the pipes would leak into our walls causing lots of damage. My heart sank about the situation. The day had gone so well and now we were in quite a bind because now so many people did not have water. I went ahead and cut the sheet rock out behind the shower valve to see it from the other side since that would have to be done eventually to fix it. We attempted to rig some way of catching the water and diverting it to the shower drain, but there was no way I could sleep with that going on. We decided to call the 24 hour plumbing hot line. My biggest fear was that there would be a huge fee for after hours call on a holiday weekend. The number diverts you to a national call center which in turn gets a local guy to call you back about your problem. TJ from Evans Services called me back 2:30AM. I told him our situation and asked how much this would cost. He said an after hours service call is $90 if they don't do any work. If we get them to fix something they wave the fee and just charge for the fix. That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, so I told him to come on. He said it would be an hour before he got there and it would take an hour and half to fix. So that put us at being done at 5 AM, just in time for people to be waking up and needing water. At this point Rebecca and Mr. Chip went to sleep, leaving me to wait on TJ to arrive. I sat by the window watching for the van to pull up. TJ showed up and got to work. Because I was so tired the whole event seemed surreal. I took a picture of him working to document that it really happened. I took him up to our bathroom and showed him the damage. I then asked him about the damage to my wallet. He said normally a valve change cost $500. I thought great, this is definitely not a normal situation. But then he said, how about $300. I was shocked. This was much cheaper than what I was expecting, so I told him to get started. I'm not sure why he knocked off $200. Maybe because we already had the parts and I had already cut the hole in the wall. Or maybe he was just being nice. He definitely had the upper hand so I'm so thankful it was less than expected. I always enjoy watching somebody work who is good at what he does. TJ was definitely skilled and did the whole operation without making any mistakes. It took him an hour and half like he said. By 5 AM we had a leak free shower with the new valve, handle and shower head that we originally wanted and the neighborhood had their water back on. To celebrate I took a shower. I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep before it was time to work again. Surprisingly I was not that tired. The Lord took care of us and in the end the whole situation worked out very well.
We didn't get everything done, but I'm very happy with the things we did get done. Here are some pictures of the updates.
Friday Rebecca and I went to Lowes and Home Depot to purchase all the supplies and products. The plan was to let the Ladies do all the painting and the guys to do everything else on the list. Our place was a rental the prior 25 years, so everything was done for cost and efficiency. All the walls were the same color so Rebecca picked new colors for each room and bathroom.
Her parents arrived on Saturday and we got going. We worked til about 2 in the morning. Sunday we went to church and then got back at it. The most memorable thing happened late Sunday night and well into Monday morning. One of the projects on our list was to replace the shower valve and shower head in our bathroom. It was leaking and the original handles, so we wanted to update it. Dad and I opened it up to look at it and decided "we didn't have the tools to pull this off" during the work weekend amidst all the other projects. So we decided to just change the shower head, which is simple. Changing the handle involved changing the valve, which meant we would have to cut the copper pipes and solder the new valve on. Another big issue with plumbing projects involved cutting off the water. To our knowledge and our neighbors there is no water cut-off for individual units or even buildings (which have 4 units a piece). The only known water valve is at the street which cuts off the water to about 32 units. So making that many people inconvenienced is not a good way to make friends with our new neighbors.
Late Sunday night we decided to attempt to fix the leaks in both our showers. You still have to turn the water off, but you don't have to cut the pipes to replace the valves. So we decided to wait until late that night to turn the water off hoping everyone was asleep. At about 12:30 I took my vice grips to the street and turned the water off. We worked on the guest shower first. It took us about 30 minutes, but we replaced the leaky gaskets and put it back together. I turned the water back on and no leaks. We then debated about doing our shower. We decided it was now or never so I went back outside and turned the water off again. Rebecca's dad began to turn the cap to access the valve. It was not breaking loose so he turned harder. I don't think he realizes his own strength sometimes. When it finally did begin to turn, he wasn't sure if it was just the cap or all the pipes behind it. If it was the pipes it was too late and you had to keep going to find out. The cap finally broke loose and our worst fears were realized. The pipes behind the valve looked like a twizzler. So it was now about 1:45 AM, we had leaky shower valves, and 32 apartments did not have water. If we turned the water back on, the pipes would leak into our walls causing lots of damage. My heart sank about the situation. The day had gone so well and now we were in quite a bind because now so many people did not have water. I went ahead and cut the sheet rock out behind the shower valve to see it from the other side since that would have to be done eventually to fix it. We attempted to rig some way of catching the water and diverting it to the shower drain, but there was no way I could sleep with that going on. We decided to call the 24 hour plumbing hot line. My biggest fear was that there would be a huge fee for after hours call on a holiday weekend. The number diverts you to a national call center which in turn gets a local guy to call you back about your problem. TJ from Evans Services called me back 2:30AM. I told him our situation and asked how much this would cost. He said an after hours service call is $90 if they don't do any work. If we get them to fix something they wave the fee and just charge for the fix. That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, so I told him to come on. He said it would be an hour before he got there and it would take an hour and half to fix. So that put us at being done at 5 AM, just in time for people to be waking up and needing water. At this point Rebecca and Mr. Chip went to sleep, leaving me to wait on TJ to arrive. I sat by the window watching for the van to pull up. TJ showed up and got to work. Because I was so tired the whole event seemed surreal. I took a picture of him working to document that it really happened. I took him up to our bathroom and showed him the damage. I then asked him about the damage to my wallet. He said normally a valve change cost $500. I thought great, this is definitely not a normal situation. But then he said, how about $300. I was shocked. This was much cheaper than what I was expecting, so I told him to get started. I'm not sure why he knocked off $200. Maybe because we already had the parts and I had already cut the hole in the wall. Or maybe he was just being nice. He definitely had the upper hand so I'm so thankful it was less than expected. I always enjoy watching somebody work who is good at what he does. TJ was definitely skilled and did the whole operation without making any mistakes. It took him an hour and half like he said. By 5 AM we had a leak free shower with the new valve, handle and shower head that we originally wanted and the neighborhood had their water back on. To celebrate I took a shower. I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep before it was time to work again. Surprisingly I was not that tired. The Lord took care of us and in the end the whole situation worked out very well.
We didn't get everything done, but I'm very happy with the things we did get done. Here are some pictures of the updates.
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| Before we started working. |
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| Entire Downstairs. |
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| Covering up the new furniture. |
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| Old Chandelier |
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| New Chandelier |
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| 1/2 Bath Before |
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| Notice wallpaper and floors |
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| The beginning of the new wood floors |
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| Mr. Chip working in his corner |
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| New wood floors |
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| Our toilet on the front porch |
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| Updated 1/2 bath with new floors, new paint, and new vanity |
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| Old fan in our room |
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| Old fan moved to the guest room |
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| New fan in our room that has a remote |
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| Dad reinforcing our counter |
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| Mrs. Melanie painting |
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| Dad's new scaffolding in our stairwell |
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| Mrs. Melanie on the 12 foot ladder on top of the scaffolding |
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| Me holding the ladder |
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| Rebecca asking for our scared faces, since in her mind we were all about to die on this rig to paint the stairwell |
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| Dad's scared face |
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| Old and new colors in living room. |
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| Rebecca painting on the 6 foot ladder in the stairwell |
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| The cause of my sleepless night |
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| The leaky valve now the broken valve |
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| Notice the twisting of the copper. Those are suppose to be straight. |
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| Cutting the hole in the wall |
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| The attempted basin to catch the leaky valve during the night |
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| Examining the problem |
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| Not going to cut it |
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| Our nice hole |
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| Rebecca posing at 2:30 AM |
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| TJ hard at work with his torch |
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| The note I had left at the street telling anyone who tried to turn the water back on to call me first. Its now going to be patched in the wall. |
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| New shower! |
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