One of my bestest blog and IRL buddies, Jennefer, pointed this little site my way. Have you heard of Animoto? It’s called “the end of slideshows” because you upload photos (or point it to a collection like Picasa or Flikr), pick some music, and then it renders a VERY cool video for you.  It’s like making your very own music video.  For Realz, yall.

You can create 30 second videos for free, pay $3 per full-length video, or get a yearly pass for $30.  You can get $5 off that pass if you sign up through my referral code.  Be careful though – once you create a 30 second video, you will likely want to purchase a full-length one.  I just did.  And judge for yourself how good the quality is.

So here’s “my” first creation, featuring the dogs that we’ve owned for the last 20 years. The music is provided unwittingly by the great and masterful Jonathan Coulton with a song I can’t get enough of called “So Far, So Good”.

Episode #9 contains these tidbits:

• Rock, Paper, Scissors REDUX
• I am a Meatarian: Last Supper
• Changing headlamp fluid in the Mustang
• Luna photo op during Jaden’s review of flipping
• SSSSHHHH!  The blade is sleeping…
• Wednesday night pool league
• Confession
• Definition of Optimism
• Salad Correction

This week’s bonus footage: $3 contest!!!!  Guess the song that Wayne is humming.  Also, there are at least 2 great LOLwhall opportunities for Janna in the bonus footage.

All in 3 minutes or less! (excluding introductions, credits and bonus footage).

Note: background music supplied unknowingly by the fantastic duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, key stalwarts that make up Steely Dan, off their latest album Everything Must Go. The track I used portions of is Lunch With Gina. Pick this music up if you can – it is amazingly good.

note: the way I typed that above does not imply I’ve been gone very long.  It’s just how I type sometimes.

Episode #4 contains these tidbits:

• Extra long ethernet cable
• Where are you?
• Matt from Catapult systems
• White HORSE!
• Taking Caitlin to Band Camp – LOL BAND
• Typical day at Band Camp
• Caitlin’s dorm at Band Camp
• Rank Leadership
• Chin shot
• Jaden is cryptic about Lego Indiana Jones for Wii
• Listning to Utterz
• Taking Luna for walk, and the crow crows
• Love of my life

All in 3 minutes or less! (excluding introductions and credits)

Note: background music supplied unknowingly by the fantastic duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, key stalwarts that make up Steely Dan, off their latest album Everything Must Go. The track I used portions of is Lunch With Gina. Pick this music up if you can – it is amazingly good.

Episode #2 contains these tidbits:

• Going to Main Event 
• Sunglasses, opus 2
• Bowling
• Pool
• ST:TNG gotta pee
• Sharing birds
• Luna
• Sunglasses, opus 3
• Poppy for the win!
• Using a $60 Furminator on Jupiter
• Janna becomes new favorite person
• Cereal Waynesday
• Zina
• Flying a dog-kite
• Passion Flower

All in 3 minutes or less! (excluding introductions and credits)

Note: background music supplied unknowingly by the fantastic duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, key stalwarts that make up Steely Dan, off their latest album Everything Must Go.  The track I used portions of is Lunch With Gina.  Pick this music up if you can – it is amazingly good.

• Jaden’s Kindergarten Graduation
• Luna joins the Hall Family (new puppy!)
• Best of LOLcats

Jaden’s Kindergarten Graduation

Well, they don’t actually call it a “graduation” but more like a “Celebration of Success”.  I’m sooo glad they clarified that they were celebrating success and not something else, like, oh, I don’t know… failure?

We’re so very happy for him.  His teacher, Ms. Dominguez, is simply awesome.  We couldn’t imagine a better Kindergarten teacher. 

It’s people like her that make me want our society to pay good teachers more.  Note that I’m not saying “all teachers should get raises” or “we should pay teachers more.”  Specifically, I’m saying that we should reward good teachers.  there should be such high standards for those in charge of teaching our young, that the market should demand extremely high talent, excellent motivators, caring and loving guidance givers, and we should pay them accordingly.  I want people to have to “try out” to be counted among the amazing.

Then again, maybe the allure of money would attract the wrong types of people.  Perhaps the quality of not requiring high recompense is one that accompanies all the other great qualities of the perfect teacher.  Hmm.  Maybe our current system is already the best it could be.  It sure doesn’t seem so, though.

What do YOU think we should do for our best teachers?

Luna joins the Hall Family

We’re big supporters of rescued dogs, and we encourage anyone who wants a great pet to consider adoption vs breeding.  In fact, you can go to petfinder.com and type in your zipcode and find the perfect pet near you that needs a home.

Today we added Luna to our family – we found her through FOGAS – Friends of Gonzales Animal Shelter, where Caitlin volunteers countless hours each month in front of PetSmart to help clean, educate, set up, tear down, answer questions, and keep the dogs company while they look for new owners.

Posting this picture reminds me that some people might have different meanings for the word “puppy” – to us, it’s just about any dog under a year old.  Luna is five months old (as far as anyone knows).  She’s probably a mixture of Australian Shepherd and Border Collie (as far as anyone knows) and she’s incredibly cute (as far as anyone knows).  She’s already started to attempt asserting her place in the pack, but you never know how the order ends up with dogs.

Everything is SO much easier now that we’ve shaved the dog’s names into their fur.

Best of LOLcats

To make a long post even longer, and only annoy a few people, add some LOLcats!

Yeah, that’s kinda good…
but “Chuck Norris Cat,” as name
fits bill much better.