Building My Dream Home

I have long wanted to build my own dream home. After many discussions with my wife, she is totally on board with this idea. We would like to move into our home and stay there... forever. Well, that's our hope anyway. Often you spend months looking for the perfect home, but there are always things you like about one better than the other. It just makes sense to design it ourselves.

This would allow us to get the floorplan we want, have it be energy efficient, and focus on the things that matter most to us. When we were married family and God were what it was all about. To us our lives should be no different from what we envisioned for our wedding. Our home then should be no different as it is a part of our lives - a big part!

Home conventions are not for unconventional people like my wife and I. We want something that is unique. If someone came to my home and saw that I have a 2, 3, or 4 stair cases then they would not be surprised. They would say, "this house is so you." And it wouldn't just be stair cases, it would be the respect for the earth, the energy efficiency, the garden, the face that everything would have a place built for it so you aren't cramming things in. It would have meaning and purpose. And someday when I am on my deathbed I would want to be comfortable in my own bed in my home that served me well.

I know I want this home to embody all these things, but they are feelings. I can only evoke the feelings I want to feel from my future home by experimenting with designs. Certain things will just hit me. Down below is a picture of what I have at this moment; it definitely will change. There are things about this design that fit, that make sense to me. But there are things I know that are off, and it's because of feelings I have regarding it.

By the time we get ready to build this home we will have kids. Their opinions will be so important! I can't wait to see the final product, but it's a process that will require time, patience, family, God, and TRUST!

Ancestry

One ongoing project I have been working on is figuring out my ancestry. I knew a little about my dad's side, but virtually nothing about my mom's. I am not the best at this ancestry stuff, but luckily I have a local expert - my wife!

She has been fantastic in helping me look up information regarding my family. Within the first week of doing research she tracked down my great-grandfather's and a bunch of relatives I didn't even know existed.

In June we were in Ireland and my wife had discovered quite a bit about her Irish heritage. I knew I had a little in me, but didn't know much about them. Well, I found out this week that I have more Irish in me than originally expected. Maybe that's why Guinness and Murphy's are the only two beers I am crazy about!

Ancestry.com has been a great help. There is a great community of people on there passionate about the past. If you can find the right people, not just the moochers, it can be satisfying. I feel like Indiana Jones when I do this kind of research. I hope it brings past the computer and to real life places. History will come alive!

I promise I will post pics!

HS Videos/Book/Art

1. High School Digital Scrapbook of Sorts - I did manage to find a good program to convert all my videos to open in imovie. This rocks. I have been thinking about how I want this thing to look. My wife is currently working on a video project where she has interviewed her family members about certain stories and growing up and is putting that all together. I was thinking I could do the same. I could interview each of my friends, ask about certain stories, etc and then do a mash up. So everyone would be telling the story. It would be like a VH1 special. I love the High School Years.

2. I started writing a book. I wrote about one page. That is all I ever manage to write, one stinking page. I know I am capable of writing more. I think the key is to just write and don't stop. Don't think about what you are writing, just let it flow. You can always think and revise. I need to stop writing with logic and start writing with pure unbridled emotion.

3. LIACWOA - My wife and I managed to add some white lines to our Scrabble board to spiff that up. We basically just need to get these wooden letters made!

Converting Videos

There is a special project that I am working on that I forgot to include on my chalkboard list. There are quite a few I have forgotten; I will add them eventually. Anyways, this special project involves me converting old file formats (.avi and .mpg) to .mov so I can open them in imovie. After many attempts I had success!

I discovered that the Apple has a bunch of freeware/shareware on their website. I ended up using the EM Total Video Converter.

Here is a link to the downloads dealing with video:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/

Here is a link to all the cool downloads:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/

What are all these projects anyway?

For my first week of blogging I managed to figure a lot of things out. Most of them were technical things that take a lot of time, patience and reading. Ultimately having finished those things will make doing this blog much easier.

I realized that after my first post I explained why I am doing these projects, but I didn't exactly explain the projects themselves. There is a list (that could grow at any time) of the projects that I wish to be working on. I figure as I finish those projects, they will come off the list and go into the Hall of Projects - or something groovy like that.

Sorry this post is a little long, but it states what all the projects are. I will update this post as I update my list.

1. LIACWOA Art - WTF does this mean? This is a joint project suggested by my wife back when we first got married and I just loved it. It's based on this quote "Love is a Collaborative Work of Art." It features some things that my wife and I love doing together. More on that in the future, with full video coverage.

2. Write a Book - This is pretty obvious I would think. I am always telling my wife that I would love to write a book. I remember learning about Herman Melville. He was apparently reading a book and said he could do better. His wife said to just do it. My wife always says the same thing.

3. Write a SS - Similar to the write a book, this is supposed to be my first step into writing: writing a short story.

4. Create a BG - I love board games and would love to create one. I own so many board games and there are so many good ones out there I don't know if anything I made would be any good. However, I would still make one - even if for just my family's amusement.

5. State Art - State Art is all about having a visual representation of all the states I have visited.

6. Nightstand - I have started refinishing a desk that I picked up on the side of the road. I pick up stuff like this off the road all the time. People throw away good stuff. I don't see any reason for me to buy new furniture when there is a perfectly good stuff just waiting for me.

7. Postcards - I have quite a few facebook friends. Some I visit on a regular basis and speak to, some I knew but don't really talk to anymore, some I am friends by proxy, and some I don't remember how I became I friends in the first place. I read an article about an author(?), I want to say it was an author, who plans on meeting on all of her facebook friends in person. I don't want to do that exactly, but I do plan on getting all the addresses of my facebook friends and sending them a postcard facebook update.

8. PIF Mail - It stands for Pay it Forward mail. I don't know what this means yet. It's a bunch of unconnected thoughts floating around in my head.

9. Design Home - It's pretty much my dream to design and build (with my own two hands) my own home.

10. MSOFTD - This is another youtube channel that I started where I play a small clip from a song so that people can guess the song. I got this idea from the Dick Bartley radio program. I call this Mystery Song of the Day. So we'll see how that goes.

11. Web Series - I always wanted to direct my own Hollywood movie. I know this is probably not a reality, although I will always have that dream of me winning an Oscar. But I have started watching a couple web series, and they are awesome. So I figure that I have a camera and I have the internets - so why not?

12. Bike - There is a bike path located behind my apartment complex. I want to ride as far as I can discovering what is on the path. This will happen when it's warmer for sure.

13. Create VG - My buddy and I are going to create a video game. It might not be the most spectacular thing on the planet, but it will be ours.

State Art Part 1

I started my first project this past week. I call it State Art. Basically the idea is to show a visual representation of all the states I have been to by including a photograph of myself in each state. (I am missing some states as I had no digital photos; also I don't have a photo from WI even though I have been there!)