Mike Travels

2006 Travel Adventures

2006-06-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

My memory is going, so I'll pick things up in the present.

2006 started off with a lot of planning for studio shoots, one in St. Louis and one in Dallas.

Arrived in St. Louis on a Friday in March. Picked up my 7 pieces of checked luggage, rented a mini-van, and drove towards downtown. Every time I go to St. Louis I always seem to miss my exit and wind up under the Arch. From there I think you take MLK to Euclid, or maybe that's Cleveland!?

Found my way to BJC Media Services, which has a pretty nice building adjacent to Washington University School of Medicine / Barnes Jewish Hospital. Incidentally Rachael's high school friend Sanjeev is a radiologist at this hospital.

I hauled my gear into the tv studio, and began the laborious task of tweaking for the next day's video shoot. What the hell is "tweaking" you might ask?

Well here goes. We have a roughly 40'x40' studio with some lights hanging from the ceiling and other lights on stands. 3 video cameras are on tripods. There are 3 lavaliere microphones, 3 chairs around a table, a widescreen TV which will display powerpoint slides coming from my laptop which is plugged into a scan converter, which outputs a s-video or component signal which can be plugged into the widescreen tv monitor.

All of the video signals go into a video switcher, the audio into an audio mixer. Now in this studio instead of a traditional video switcher (you know, the thing that controls the main gun of the Death Star?), we used a new device called the Tricaster. This is basically a PC into which you can plug 3 video signals, one unbalanced audio signal, and you have a switcher, character generator, chroma key generator and virtual vcr all inside the computer. In theory this is cool. In reality it is kind of clunky.

For one thing, one of the three video camera signals had interference which was synchronous with the audio, inside the Tricaster anyway. Outside of the Tricaster the signal was fine. This meant I could switch the show live to tape, with the interference, then in post-production go to the separately recorded tape from that problem camera (ISO) and re-edit the cuts. During one of the takes, of course, the deck recording this ISO feed from the problem camera did not record, so for one segment of the final DVD the audio/video interference is present. Your average tv viewer doesn't notice such things, but on a big tv or computer monitor it will be hard to miss.

Then came the audio. The 3 microphones were patched into a portable audio mixer. Listening to the audio straight out of the mixer was ok, but listening to any of the record decks or the Tricaster, there was an audio hum, most likely 60hz interference from some electrical crossover. Given the hundreds of feet of crisscrossing cables we had laid out, it was no wonder we had audio problems. In the morning one of the local camera operators planned to pick up a spare mixer and pray. The prayer worked because the audio turned out ok, albeit a little low.

Next came the previously mentioned Powerpoint in the monitor. If you watch nearly any network news show nowadays a widescreen monitor is used on set to display graphics. For the individual presentations, we have the doctor stand next to the screen and refer to the graphics as well as to the camera (audience) and we cut between the camera and the slide view. The quality of the signal from the scan converter to the video switcher is mediocre. There are black lines on the sides of the screen and the picture is a little soft. Also the powerpoint slides are not usually formatted for television, so we have to re-do the slides after the fact, tweak them in Photoshop, and then re-edit them into the final program. So using the video switcher essentially creates a rough first edit in the studio, which we then edit to eliminate ums, ahhs, burps, coughs, re-takes and pauses. If you have to cut during an on-camera shot, you just cover it with a slide, since you are laying in the slides after all.

Well during the shoot, obviously the speaker is not holding the mouse or a laptop, so we have one of those infrared doo-hickies which advance the slides in Powerpoint. Some of the time. It works for me most of the time, but for anyone else, it works poorly or not at all. So during the shoot, until we got a new battery, the presenters used a combination of hand signals, eye winks, head nods and telepathy to tell us when to change the slides.

So as you can see, if you are still awake, unless you are renting the Today Show's studio, you generally do not walk into a rented studio and start shooting immediately. You need setup time, or you pay big bucks for a broadcast studio which is always setup to do all of these things. But you pay a premium, such a premium in fact, that it is cost prohibitive if you are not doing broadcast work wiht a broadcast budget (for example $500/hour + crew as opposed to $100/hour including crew).

In Dallas a month later, we had better luck, as the studio was setup with better gear. I won't rehash that setup experience, as it was similar but different. Most of the problems were with the monitor and getting good color reproduciton on camera. I have learned since then that if you get color correction filters for the tv screen it is much less problematic (this conversation can continue invoking degrees Kelvin color temperatures and scan rate theory).

Speaking of Dallas, in addition to the studio shoot, I was there for 7 days for 2 conferences. The conferences consist of setting up our trade show display and hopefully selling lots of videos and books, our two major product lines.

The conferences were held at the Hilton Anatole Hotel, a mammoth 1980's campus. There have to be 1000 rooms, in two atrium towers, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, running track, conference center, a chunk of the Berlin Wall, the world's largest piece of Wedgewood China and a stellar collection of Asian art and artifacts dating back over 1000 years.

The main problem with Dallas is that you can't walk anywhere. All of the hotels are along the Stemmons Freeway, thus you need to take a 15 dollar cab ride where ever you are going. Well one advantage of a week long conference is you get to try a different restaurant each night.

Breakfasts were at the hotel lobby, lunch is usually skipped, but Dinner is an opportunity to sample the local cuisine, or so to speak.

Sunday night we went to Pappadeaux, a Cajun restaurant somewhere West of downtown. I had been there in 2002, had crawfish etouffe, and had such bloating I could feel my viscera swelling up inside my abdomen. This time however the three of us polished off a platter of crawfish in about 10 minutes and I felt like a million bucks.

In 2004 on Christmas Day, we were served shrimp cocktail with a particularly horseradishy cocktail sauce. Ever since that day, my palate changed, and now the spicier the better. I have been known to have shrimp cocktail minus the shrimp for an afternoon snack. When Passover rolls around I stock up on Gefilte Fish primarily so I can have something to put my red horseradish on besides a spoon!!

Another night we went out for Mexican at a great place called Uncle Julio. It is what I would call gourmet Mexican.

The next night we went to a place called Il Sole, an eclectic Italian restaurant and Wine Bar. Little did we know, every Wed night in the Summer you get a prix fixe 4 course dinner including 4 glasses of different wines for $36. It - was - the - best - meal - at - a - restaurant - I - have - ever - eaten.

Soup - onion/tenderloin soup / Appetizer, australian lamb chops / Entree, sea bass / Dessert, tiramisu - each dish paired with a glass of wine. I was a little tipsy, but another advantage of going to a conference is you do not need to worry about driving anywhere! There were some stairs involved leaving hte restaurant, but I managed to keep one hand on the railing and one eye opened!

Other meals included a steakhouse where I believe I had Elk or Bison, a great rib place downtown where for $14 you get shredded pork, bbq ribs and a sausage - or any combination of 3 meats.

The last night we asked the concierge for a good Italian place. We were sent to what looked like a dive from the outside, it was after all next door to a gay biker bar - but inside it was like walking into the living room of your Italian next door neighbors. The food, wine and garlic bread were awesome.

A tradition is to have a Chili's lunch at the airport after a conference, so that is what we did (we have done this 2x in 3 years, sounds like a tradition to me!).

The next conference will be in Chicago in October - always good meals to be had there as well.

My other major trip was actually between St. Louis and Dallas - to Washington DC.
Every year we try to make 3 new operating room nursing videos. In 2005 we shot 6 videos, and as of June 2006 we have 5 of those finished. In March of 2006 we shot 4 more videos over 2 days. The day before the shoot Jim and I realized we had about 20 hours of shooting to do, so we decided to split up the work. Instead of shooting everything with 2 cameras as we normally do, each of us took 2 videos to shoot on our own. We seem to have done it.

Jim's 2 videos were "Cleaning the Operating Room" and "Using Minimally Invasive Surgical Instruments." We need to write scripts for these two videos still.

My 2 videos were "Care of the Elderly Surgical Patient" and "The Perioperative Environment" - both videos about caring for patients before during and after surgery. I had scripts as these were re-makes of old videos, and actors also. I hired one pro actor, a guy who lived near DC and had bit parts in the West Wing, Commander in Chief and Syriana - and a retired 83 year old nurse who played our "elderly" patient.

We are starting to edit these videos now, so it will be interesting to see how they come out.

In May I took a quick 20 hour jaunt to Orlando for a 2 hour project kick-off meeting for a new CD-ROM for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology (try to contain your excitement!). Really it is important as there are not that many cases in the average surgical resident's course of studies (luckily) so they need to learn somehow - might as well hire us to help!

Finally I have gone to NY about 6 times since March, primarily for surgery video shoots at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Nasser Altorki is a renown thoracic surgeon. The two cases I shot with him were first a tumor in the main stem bronchus. Normally you would lose part or all of a lung, but he has figured out how to take out the tumor and sew the bronchus back together.

The other case was that of a young man with a previous surgery to correct a esophageal fistula. At the time of this surgery he was eating via a stoma in his neck, not a nice way to live, and no doubt very difficult to eat an Oreo. So he was opend up from stem to stern, his remaining esophagus removed, a chunk of large intestine removed and used as a new esophagus. Sounds pretty easy but it is quite an ordeal. And the guy neglected to do the bowel prep - you do the math.

The other cases have been with Michel Gagner - he is the Spielberg of Surgeons.
The first case was a combined Sleeve Gastrectomy with Duodenal Switch. Most people are familiar with the Gastric Bypass, a way to lose weight if you are obese and diet and exercise and stopping with the Oreos doesn't work. In a traditional Gastric Bypass, the stomach is cut into a pouch (1/3) and the other 2/3 are left attached to the small intestines. Then the intestine is cut about 100 cm down the line - the far end is attached to the new tiny stomach pouch, the near end is attached 100cm down the line from where it was cut. Thus you have bypassed most of the stomach and about 1/3 of the small intestines - reducing the ability of the body to absorb calories and nutrition from the small quantity of food you are able to eat. However the unused piece of stomach is still attached upstream from the food chute, and also includes attachments to the bile ducts, liver, pancreas etc so you don't die.

Well in the extremely obese, the extraordinarily obese people, those with a BMI over 50 ( http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ ) a standard Gastric Bypass ain't enough. In a sleeve gastrectomy, the stomach is cut down the middle, and the unused piece of stomach is completely removed from the body. You do not get a receipt, it's gone. Your remaining stomach becomes a tube, or sleeve, so as opposed to limiting the amount of food you can eat, instead you just can't store any food in your stomach, it goes in your mouth, does not pass go, does not collect $200, and goes directly to jail, or so to speak. It is not conducive to intimate candlelit dinners or long car rides, put it that way.

Once the person loses a hundred pounds or so, they return and have a gastric bypass performed, as described above, only without the extra piece of stomach.

In a duodenal switch(DS), the duodenum, or piece of intestine attached to the stomach, is cut off the stomach, and left in place still attached to the bile ducts and pancreas. Then about 100-150cm down the line, the intestine is cut again. The far end is connected to the stomach tube, and the near end is connected another 100cm down the line approaching the large intestines. Thus you have still bypassed much of the absorptive capability of the intestines, and switched the place of the duodenum so you still have access to bile and important pancreas function, but you don't get to digest any food in the old duodenum.

Another popular technique is the Biliopancreatic Diversion (BPD). This is similar to duodenal switch but a different configuration of stomach pouch is made. The BPD guys don't speak to the DS guys - they have leather jackets, hot rods and the occasional knife fight/dance number in the alley behind the diner once a month - a real rumble!

Well that concludes the anatomy lesson for today. I hope you have not lost your appetite.

Lay off the Oreos.

TTYL

1995 - European Vacation Part 1

2006-02-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

European Trip 1995

In the previous post I described the upcoming 2-week tour of Europe with my then new girlfriend Rachael. Well, here goes:

Day 1: Take CT Limo from New Haven to JFK airport. We checked our bags at the Virgin Atlantic counter, and proceeded down the moving walkway to the terminal. It was at this point that I began my lifetime hobby of videotaping our vacations, often at inappropriate moments, such as walking backwards on a moving walkway at JFK airport. Get the picture?

We boarded our plane, and having never been on Virgin Atlantic before, we were very impressed with the goody bag they give you. I don’t recall many details of the flight itself, but no doubt we arrived safely at Heathrow. We claimed our bags and used the FREE luggage trollies to move to customs. Did I mention the luggage trollies are FREE? I recall Rachael and I commenting how tired we were, and then we began singing “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones as we walked.

Somehow we arrived at our hotel, either by bus or taxi. The room was nice, two single beds, and a toilet in one closet, a sink and tub in the other. Wild!

Seeing as it was mid-morning, it was out on the town we went. I believe we went down to the embankment via the Underground, saw the Houses of Parliament, then went into a pub for lunch and a pint (this was slightly before my pint drinking days by the way). Then we went off to Oxford Street to do some shopping. At the Virgin Megastore I bought some CDs not available in the US, one from Van Halen in a round tin, and another from the Yardbirds featuring Jimmy Page. Current stuff obviously.

At around 6pm we went over to the Royal National hotel to meet up with our Contiki tour group. It was hot and dark down in the bowels of the hotel, but I do recall we were introduced to our tour driver George, and given really cheesy Contiki backpacks, and given the opportunity to purchase money packs for our tour.

I don’t remember dinner, it may have been Indian, but that may have been on the way home.
Hey this is 11 years ago, you should be impressed I remember anything!

Now what was I talking about.....?

The next morning we checked out of the hotel, and went to meet our bus outside the Royal National. We loaded our suitcases underneath, met our driver Blackie (no, really) and climbed aboard. I think we grabbed the front seats.

As we drove around London, George began his two weeks of rattling off factoids. The only one I remember was a description of a grassy knoll near Parliament which had previously served as both a pasture as well as a dumping ground for people keeling over from the Plague.

We were then invited up to the front of the coach to introduce ourselves using the PA system. Being somewhat of a nutcase, I went first, and instead of saying my name and where I was from, I began making up my own factoids about the passing scenery(something about sleeping cows), much to the chagrin of Rachael. I then went on to say who I was, and that I had met my girlfriend Rachael on the internet (in reality, AOL was not and is still not the internet, but most people don’t really know the difference.)

After an hour or so, we arrived in Dover for the ferry ride over to Calais, France. We spent the journey up on deck, I believe I videotaped the entire journey in real-time. It was windy. Actually we did have breakfast in the on-board cafeteria, I think I had rice crispies with milk.

We arrived in France, and left the ferry the same way we boarded - by luxury motor coach.
I don’t think the bus stopped anywhere in France, and soon we were in Belgium. There we stopped at a highway rest stop for the restroom (they don’t use the word bathroom in most of the rest of the world actually) and some souvenir shopping. Then back on the bus until we arrived in Amsterdam.

Our hotel was actually in a suburb called Hamsterdam.

Ok that’s not true, but it was something-dam. Our hotel was on an inlet of some body of water. If I were actually researching the facts in these blogs I could tell you the exact longitude and latitude, but I’m testing my long-term memory here, so let’s move on.

Our room was pretty cool. We had a large feather bed on a tile floor, with a sliding door leading to a balcony overlooking the previously mentioned inlet of the Amsterdamian Sea. We had a private bath, and above that a loft, with additional sleeping for more people.

Dinner was not for an hour or so, and Rachael wanted to rest, so I and some of my new friends went for a walk around Whateveryoucallitdam. It was a quaint little village, complete with its own canals and pretty bridges. Somehow people managed to parallel park tiny automobiles along these canals. Then back at the hotel we had a group dinner featuring Lord knows what. I think there were some vegetables and meat-by-products, but I’ll never know. Those crazy Dutch.

After dinner, we boarded the bus for our night tour of Amsterdam. As we approached each new country or city, the tour director George played a cleverly selected song for the umpteenth time, but the first time for us, to set the mood. Tonight he played Roxanne by the Police. Up until this point, I did not exactly grasp the meaning of “Red Light District” nor did I understand that line from the song. That was about to change.

We arrived in Amsterdam proper, and as a group made our way to the Red Light District, which in case you also don’t know, is where young, mostly Asian women have little houses in which they entertain. Suddenly it all became very clear. Crystal clear. I don’t think I blinked for the next hour.

Speaking of not blinking, the next stop was a theater, where we as a group were pre-booked to see a show featuring local entertainers. Great, I thought, some authentic Amsterdam culture, music, dancing, etc. We took our seats, the lights dimmed, and the flashy lights and music started. It was the Batdance by Prince. Ok, maybe this is the pre-show entertainment. Out walked a man wearing the Batman cowl and cape - and little else. I suppose that was hit Bat-a-rang hanging from his utility belt. Open mind, Mike.

Next a woman who I guess was Catwoman appeared, she was in a cat-like pose anyway. Then....then.....ummm....time passes and it was morning. Whew!

During that passage of time, let’s just say that there were many new experiences for both of us. Use your imagination, that just might come close.

Somehow we managed to navigate the public tram system after midnight and made it back to the hotel.

Our next stop was Germany. Rachael has an expression when she sees a worried expression on my face, the “Germany Look.” Here is where that came from. Around lunchtime, we stopped at a highway rest stop somewhere in the Rhineland. We went to a food counter, and since everything on the menu was in German, we ordered by pointing to breaded specialties in a glass case. Was it chicken, pork, meat or otherwise? No idea whatsoever. I was as close to a mental collapse as ever before, and Rachael helped by ordering something for me. It was beyond disgusting.

We then arrived in our first German destination, St. Goar, a beautiful village on the banks of the Rhine. Once again, our hotel room had a breathtaking view of the scenery, mountains, castles, river and street below. This hotel room was the model of European hotel rooms. Feather bed, duvet, private bath with a modern pushbutton toilet and carpeting!

It was off to a wine tasting at a wine cellar-like place. It may have been a wine cellar. The host showed us a slide presentation, and we ate bread and presumably drank wine. I recall making animal shapes with the bread and dancing them in front of the slide projector’s light beam. This got a good laugh or two. Grow up man!

We must have purchased some wine, then it was off to a bar for a night of drinking (apparently this is what twenty-somethings do on these tours). There must have been another inedible dinner in there somewhere. I soon became bored with the drinking, and took a walk up the hill to the gates of an old castle/hotel with some of the other tour people. By the time I got back, Rachael and the rest of the gang were ready to leave, and it was off to sleep.

The next morning we did some cuckoo-clock shopping (apparently the cuckoo-clock was invented around here) as well as beer steins. Breakfast was forgettable, crusty rolls appear to be all they have here. So it was back on the bus for another few hours of fun on the highway. Now would be a good time to mention that each tour group was known by its official song. Each morning on the bus, we were treated to “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. I don’t know if it was the same song every tour group with each George-like tour director, or if they all chose a new song for each group. Whatever.

We next arrived in Munich, the New York City of Germany. We of course checked into our hotel, a cookie-cutter SOFITEL model with no elevator, or perhaps a very small one. First stop, Glockenspiel, the all too famous clock featuring marionettes and splendid bells. As we were walking back, Rachael’s ankles swelled up so drastically she thought she might have DVT’s from the plane. A chiropractor in the tour group suspected this diagnosis as well, so he suggested we get her checked out. Upon hearing this, I became light headed and may have actually seen dancing unicorns and yellow duckies floating around my head. Once I got ahold of myself, we took a BMW taxi to the local Nazi-era hospital. Did I mention the taxi was a BMW?

The hospital was a menacing stone number straight out of Nuremberg. I was seated in a stark marble echo chamber of a hallway alone on a wooden bench as Rachael was taken away by Nurse Mengele to who knows what sort of torture. Meanwhile someone came out and took down Rachael’s vital information, apparently so they could send her parents her remains. I don’t know if they did an ultrasound or what but they released her many hours later, and it was back to Democracy! Incidentally later that year Rachael received a series of letters in German, eventually learning that she owed the hospital for her treatment.

We found our way to the massive Biergarten where we had agreed to meet the others. This was in fact a massive beer drinking hall. I ordered a mammoth bowl of soup - at this point I would have eaten that meat-like breaded object from a few days ago. I also ordered and consumed a 1 liter mug of beer. There was singing and dancing, accordion playing, picture taking and so on. Not an unpleasant way to end this bizarre day.

The next day it was back on the bus, Good Vibrations, and off to Austria. The scenery was breathtaking. So lush and green. Our stop this day was white water rafting. Rachael and I had wisely decided not to do this. So we and a handful of others from the group had a leisurely afternoon at the park-like area where the rafting tour was to conclude. It was actually nice to chill out, play some volleyball, each some greasy hamburgers, lie in the sun and generally relax. You need some of that on a vacation, and the tour was not yet half over.

Then we were back on the bus and into Hopfgarten, our little ski-resort village for the night. Our hotel was another beautiful one, with a great room and view out to the hills. We took the ski lift to the top of the non-snow covered hill for a great vista of the town and surrounding hills. Rachael was surprised to learn that the ski lift does not stop to let you off at the top. We survived. Back at sea level we walked around the town, bought some trinkets including the famous blue schnapps (I still have a bottle unopened I think) and some exotic dessert called flan. Actually I had seen flan before back 1987 when our family took a vacation in England, but this was as good as new to me.

Then it was back to the hotel for another forgettable German-like dinner. Next the group went out to a bar for a night of darts, schnapps tasting and general mayhem. Well by now you should know my affinity for bars, so at one point in the night I decided to go back to the hotel. I thought Rachael understood that when I said “I’m going” I meant back to the hotel. So while I was snuggled up in bed, she and the others were frantically looking in the bathrooms and the surrounding alleys for me. Eventually Rachael found her way back to the hotel, knocked on our door, and proceeded to rip me a new one.

Guilty as charged.

I don’t think we kissed and made up at this point, but we did stay together. It was dicey however.

The next day it was back on the bus, Good Vibrations, and bad traffic. We sat on that bus for most of the day in bumper-to-bumper traffic as we entered Italy. I will say that the highway rest stops got progressively better as we left Germany’s influence behind. Rachael introduced me to Prosciuto Crudo sandwiches. I did not like them at first, but it was worlds better than Schnitzel and meat-like objects enjoyed by our neighbors to the north.

Finally we arrived in Venice. Before getting on the water taxi to St. Mark’s Square, we were instructed to change into pants if we wanted to visit any churches. On the dock there were pay restrooms, essentially outhouses with a hole in the floor. Very sanitary. Then onto the boat. As Indiana Jones said “Ahh Venice.” It is an amazing city.

First stop was the glass blowing demonstration. I should mention that the tour director, indeed the tour company, has a deal with shops in each city we visit. I presume the tour director gets a piece of the action, as he leads us to the preferred shops as the first stop after leaving the bus. Of course we bought something at each shop, as we presumably got a slightly better deal than elsewhere.

After that we were on our own for a few hours. First we sat down at an outdoor café in St. Mark’s Square, where there was a symphony playing. We had ice cream and watched the famous pigeons in the square. It was about this time that we started talking to each other again. As I said, it was dicey.

Then we took a gondola ride, with another couple from our group. This was amazing. We purchased some bread and Pinot Grigio wine ahead of time, and it made for a magical sunset ride through the canals of this amazing city. We were in love again!

Next it was off to dinner. Somehow we followed the map we had and found our way to the restaurant for the group dinner. Now this is eating. Antipasto followed by unbelievable pasta followed by veal or chicken or who knows what it was, but it was gooooood.

More gooooood please!

Off to the water taxi to our bus to our hotel and to sleep. Next morning it was bus, Good Vibrations, highway, Siena. Siena is a well preserved Medieval city, in which there is a yearly horse race around the town square, which is a huge piazza - with anchovies. Actually we did have really good pizza here. The symbol of the town is a large clock tower reminiscent of the one in Waterbury, CT. I should mention that early in our relationship Rachael and I started collecting rocks from wherever we visited. Carrying a Sharpie marker, I would write our names and the country or city name on the rock. In the case of Siena, I drew a picture of the clock tower. We have all of these rocks on a shelf in our bookcase! No doubt the European Geological Societé du Anthropoligiqué is onto us now.

Next it was off to Rome, marking the half-way point of the trip. And this will also mark the end of this post. Stay tuned for the rest of our European Journey. Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.

1995 - The Year we make Contact

2006-02-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

1995 - The Year we make Contact

Anyone get the reference?

Well, 1995 arrived, and it was off to Seattle in mid-January. My production assistant was Timmy Baker, our video tape duplicator who got my job after I got the bump up to first class. Strangely enough, his mom worked for Signal, a company which owned imaging centers, including the Waterbury Imaging Center. More on this later.

We flew out of Westchester County Airport, a very convenient location just off 684.
The shoot was with Patchen Dellinger, for a vertical banded gastroplasty for morbid obesity. This was the precursor to the wildly popular gastric bypass operations you hear about these days. In this operation, the stomach is stapled into a pouch to limit food intake. The patient was so morbidly obese, that it took over an hour for intubation. This was the first operation in which I learned the purpose of surgical masks, as there was a spurt of blood emanating from the patient, which zapped both the surgeon and myself, since I was leaning over his shoulder at the time with my camera suspended from a boom. You know come to think of it, on an earlier shoot in Cleveland, a doctor flicked a piece of kidney tissue off his glove, and it landed squarely on me - luckily on my hospital scrubs, so I did not need to worry about getting that stain out with ALL detergent.

After the shoot we drove around Seattle, saw the famous Space Needle from the ground, unwilling to shell out the 10 bucks each for the ride to the top, and then had dinner at a restaurant up on Broadway. It was toward the end of the meal that we observed a lack of any women in the place, and a lot of couples of the same sex dining together. I’m sure they were all business travelers!

Then it was back to the airport for the red-eye home. I should mention here that a week or so before this trip, I happened to be in a chatroom on AOL, and another person sent me a private message. She liked something I had written in my profile. I immediately checked out her profile and read with interest a verse by some poet named Trent Reznor (I really thought she was into poetry). We chatted for a bit and found out that we both lived in Connecticut. I wish I had saved the text of those chat sessions. My screen name was VideoCT - hers was U2Kelly. We agreed to meet online again at a prearranged time to chat, and also exchanged e-mails. I told her I was heading out to Seattle. She advised me to wear flannel and drink lots of coffee. I offered to send her a postcard, and she sent me her name and address. That’s right, up until this time I don’t think I knew her name, but I could be mistaken. Anyway, it was Rachael Kelly, who it turns out worked at Greater Waterbury Imaging Center. I think I sent that postcard, but I don’t recall.

Over time we continued to meet up for chat sessions and exchanged e-mails, discussing many topics especially movies we both liked, but neither of us suggested exchanging phone numbers...yet.

In early March, with the approach of Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th anniversary, Jeff and I decided to make a video - the first in a 10 year odyssey of memorable family videos. We drove up to Pittsfield on March 11 and did some filming at their house, and all over town, getting shots of all the key locations. We had dinner with Maury and Zelda then drove home. The next day after Jeff left, I decided to give Rachael a call (apparently I did have her number by this point - I think we had decided to meet for a movie at a future date). I called, and thank god she answered. I introduced myself by phone, asked if she thought I would really call, and asked if she wanted to see the movie Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo. She agreed, and gave me directions to her house. I made a joke about being in a Delorean, a Back to the Future reference, but she didn’t get it. This was the first in a 10 year odyssey of memorable yet often incomprehensible jokes by yours truly!

I picked her up at her house, we shook hands, and were off to Showcase Cinema in Southington. I don’t recall if we got food or drinks, but probably. Since we both worked in medical related fields, we did a lot of commentary with each other during the movie about the virus becoming airborne and so forth. For the record, there was no hand holding or other monkey business (at this point - more on that later (Not!) ).

After the movie we decided to go to Friendly’s for ice cream. We talked about the movie, and I told her about some of the videos I had made in college. We also discovered that we both prefer bendy straws over straight ones, however I prefer no straw at all. Friendly’s always had nice bendy straws, and to this day whenever I use one, I think of our first date (I know, I am really weird). I took her home, shook her hand again (no, really), and we said good night.

I believe I called her the next night, and that was the beginning of a 10 year odyssey of...ok, that expression is getting a bit tired. That was the start of almost nightly phone calls discussing every manner of subject over the coming weeks and months. I won’t go into every date and activity here, as that is another blog for another day.

The rest of 1995 included other interesting trips. I visited St. Louis for the first of many videos with Dr. Jim Fleshman, a leading colorectal surgeon. This particular video was on repair of rectovaginal fistulas. Here is that warning about skipping to the next paragraph. Apparently for whatever reason, a fistula, or opening, can develop between the rectum and vagina, which you may recall from high school anatomy are adjacent to one another. Well needless to say this can cause all sorts of unpleasantness, so surgeons figured out how to repair it. It is mechanical, as much of surgery is, but still takes skill and superior knowledge of the pelvic anatomy, which is some of the most complex in the body (the next is a close second).

For fun, we (Sean McGovern, the boss’ brother) visited the famous St. Louis Arch. It is quite amazing that there is an elevator which goes up one side to the observation deck, and down the other. I guess it is quite plausible that you could have a Great Glass elevator which can move in any direction.

Incidentally, the surgery did not show up very well, so I went out again to shoot another case in June. That in fact was my first solo trip. Very exciting. I stayed at the Best Western near the hospital (Barnes Jewish Hospital) and having forgotten an XLR audio cable, had to find a Radio Shack to buy one before going to the hospital for the shoot. In 2004 I found myself in a similar situation, in St. Louis needing some audio peripherals before a shoot, and somehow managed to remember exactly where said Radio Shack was. Good brain, good brain, that’s a good brain. Sit, lay down...roll over....now where was I.

Growing up, I remember my mom kept in her wallet one of those metal discs you used to be able to make with a machine, where you can stamp a short message into the metal disc, around the perimeter, and on the other side is an engraving of whatever tourist attraction you bought it from. It is similar to those machines that let you roll a penny into a magical keepsake. Anyway, they had such a machine at the St. Louis airport, and being nostalgic, I made one for Rachael - a metal disc, not the squished penny.

Another interesting shoot was to Atlanta later in the Spring, maybe around April? I stayed at the Emory University hotel, and worked at that hospital with Ira Horowitz. This was not your usual video. I arrived somewhat late to the operating room due to poor directions, filmed a couple of cases (cervical cancer excisions) and then met with Dr. Horowitz to see what else he had planned. He showed me an outline of what he wanted to accomplish. Mind you, this was pre-PowerPoint, actually pre-computers for the most part. So I took the 35MM slides he had made back home with me, but first recorded him narrating each slide. Also had to record an on-camera of him addressing the audience. I think there was a Radio Shack run on this trip also.

We finished up in his office around 11pm, and I enjoyed a delightful vending machine dinner at the hotel - Soda and Andy Capp’s snack mix. Had I known, there are numerous fast food joints just around the corner. Remember, this was pre-internet, so short of calling AAA, it was difficult to get any info before such a trip.

Later in the year, as Rachael and I became inseparable, we decided to take a vacation to Europe in August. Rachael had a bunch of brochures from Contiki, and travel tour company. They had both a one week and two week trip all around Western Europe. We decided the 2-week trip looked fantastic, but as a relatively new employee, I wasn’t sure I could get the time off. Well I asked and was given the time off. As the Summer passed, and we did mini golf, lots of movies, camping trips to Hamonassett, and various other activities, and I also got to know her parents Mike and Elizabeth, we prepared for our trip. That, however, will be the next blog, because for me it is time for beddy-bye.

1994 Excitement

2006-02-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Past Travels

At the moment, I am between a busy travel schedule and the next busy travel schedule. So I thought I would bring you the reader up to date on the past 11 years of exciting business travel. I apologize if some of the dates are out of sequence. I will admit I am no fact checker. My mind is fairly accurate, although in some cases I have either changed names or simply made up names of places.

1994 - The year I graduate college.

I guess I can actually start with my Spring Break trip. My parents were nice enough to send me out to Vegas for the NAB - National Association of Broadcasters annual convention. This trade show includes displays of every broadcast related company out there. Granted this was 1994, so things like computer-based nonlinear video editing were just getting warmed up, and companies like Grass Valley, Tektronix and Sony were still pushing edit controllers, component switchers and so-called black boxes - $50,000+ dishwasher sized machines with one function, such as character generator or digital video effects unit.

Anyway, it was fascinating to see all this gear, especially since I was at that time anticipating a career in the field. I was lucky enough to be traveling with my mentor, Mike Martin, the then TV studio technician at UHA, who taught me all the technical mumbo jumbo such as setting up a remote video studio, how to read a waveform and vector scope, and how to operate a composite video switcher and DVE. My roommate was the guy who ran the cable studio in Pittsfield, MA. I do not remember his name, but I do remember that he snored something fierce, and brought with him a white noise generator, which was just as annoying. Staying in the other room were Mike Martin and Mike Graziano, who I believe did video work for the Massachusetts Archdiocese. At a different hotel but on some of the same social events were my boss at the time, Ric Serrenho and his wife Annalisa.

Well the night I got there, flying in from Florida where I had visited Grandma and Grandpa for the week, I arrived in town around 7pm local time. I explored my hotel Harrah’s, and immediately lost about 10 dollars in the slots. At about 8pm I met up with the gang, who informed me that they had acquired tickets to Splash!, and musical show featuring scantily clad showgirls. Sweeet! In addition to the topless conga line, they actually had a large water tank on stage in which the half-naked ladies could swim in formation. This initiation to Vegas was followed by an all you can eat buffet, which while not very good, was only $7.99.

The next day was a full day of walking the NAB floor, picking up some cool literature on new products, and actually getting some hands-on with the latest video cameras from Panasonic. That night we attended a cocktail party put on by one of the vendors my travel companions patronized. The reception I should mention, was in Liberace’s house, which apparently is rented out for these types of affairs. Having the run of the house, including the gold-fixture-appointed bathrooms was very exciting.

The rest of the trip included other meals including frogs legs at the Cajun themed lounge in Harrah’s, and the last night we visited Treasure Island (pirate show with explosions and cannon fire), Excalibur (monorail ride from Treasure Island), the new MGM Grand mammoth hotel and the coolest one of all, the pyramid shaped, xenon emitting Luxor.

The next day I flew home, borrowed my mom’s red Mazda MX-6, drove to CT for my interview at Cine-Med, got a speeding ticket on the Mass Pike, then home and eventually back to school to finish up Senior Year.

A few weeks later I got a call from Cine-Med offering me an entry level job duping tapes and going on video shoots as a production assistant. The rest is history...and here it is:

Providence Hospital. Met up with my predecessor Jim Jackson at his apartment in Middletown. We drove to Providence, where we needed to record an on-camera with Kirby Bland, and record the narration to his video “Evaluation of Conditions of the breast” or something to that effect. Jim was impressed that I was able to setup and break down the Betacam deck, camera, Teleprompter and lights, with no instruction on his part. It was about 2 months later that Jim recommended me for a promotion when he decided to leave the company. Thank Jim, by the way.

Boston - New England Deaconess Hospital. We did a video shoot documenting several pacemaker implants with Dr. Thomas Nessa. He was at the time the team doctor for the Celtics, and a specialist in all things cardiovascular. The video we were making was on the use of conscious sedation, such as Versed or Midazolam, in interventional cardiac procedures. The next week we went down to the Miami Vascular Institute to shoot some similar procedures with Barry Katzen, one of the innovators of using stents in these procedures, and a pretty famous guy in some circles. Miami was incredibly hot and humid. We actually stayed at a Marriott in Dadeland. We walked in the stifling tropical armpit to a barbecue joint, which was equally sticky. This was in the days where we shared hotel rooms (not a bad cost saving idea actually) and I remember Jim and I laughed at the fast pace of the Miami local newscast. Incidentally Dr. Nessa passed away o f aheart attack a little while later.

Another interesting shoot, my first real blood and guts experience, was to Cleveland, Ohio to the world famous Cleveland CLinic. You will notice I capitalized the L in Clinic. Over the years as my touch typing has increased to 50-60 words per minute, my use of the accidental double-capital has also increased, usually if the first word of a sentence or someone’s name has O, K or L as the second letter. Oh bother.

We were working with two surgeons. One, Dr. Jeff Milsom, who is now a well-known colorectal surgeon, was doing some sort of proctocolectomy. This was in 1994, so laparoscopic colorectal surgery had not yet been perfected, so this was your typical stem to stern incision, plus the other end too. It was here that I began to learn some medical terminology, beginning with Anastomosis, or the joining of two parts, such as the rectum and colon after removal of a malignant portion. Basically (skip to next sentence if you are eating or have ever eaten) if someone has a tumor in the colon or rectum, the offending portion is removed (these days laparoscopically), then the two remaining ends need to be put back together. While it is possible and effective to hand suture these ends together in several layers of running sutures, the more common approach is to secure an anvil into one end, then pass the stapler throught he anus either into the rectum or directly into the colon or small bowel and make a new connection, similar to joining two garden hoses.

The other procedure with Dr. Novick was a partial nephrectomy, or partial kidney removal, also for a cyst or cancer, not sure which. It was in this procedure that I saw Argon Enhanced Coagulation. Most people are somewhat familiar with electro cautery, or electro surgery, which uses electric current to dessicate or vaporize tissue during surgery. Well Argon goes one step further, Argon gas is used to propagate the electrical energy, which looks like a lightsaber, but is only about 1-2cm in length. Very cool if you ever see it. Very effective to coagulate bleeding in very vascular organs such as the liver or kidney. Less effective in fighting Sith Lords.

Cleveland gets kind of a bad rap. Each time I have visited, I always seemed to have the same routing. Fly into Hopkins airport, drive directly to the Cleveland CLinic guesthouse, eat at the New York style deli in the hotel, go to the Flats for dinner, have a crappy TGI Fridays or Houlihans meal, and wonder what else there is to do in Cleveland. The Flats are a revitalized warehouse area, like most cities added to their decrepit industrial areas in the late 1970's (see Omaha, Oklahoma City, Dallas). In the opening number of the Drew Carey show Drew and company are dancing to “Cleveland Rocks” on the boardwalk down on the Flats.

The other times I did this routing was in 1998 for a nursing video shoot, and also in 1998 to film a Shouldice Hernia Repair. In World War II, Canadian men were lining up by the thousands to enlist in the army, but many of these men had inguinal hernias. This was in the days before implantable polypropylene mesh, so most hernias were tissue to tissue repairs. Dr. Shouldice devised this simple, multi-layer repair, which created a strong repair, and allowed many men to join the military, and no doubt go off and die for the freedom of humanity. Thanks guys. In this day of laparoscopic extraperitoneal hernia repairs, no too many people are doing these tissue repairs, but it is still a popular procedure with some surgeons. Incidentally, when we visited the Canadian War Memorial on the coast of France, no doubt there were some brave men with repaired herniae buried nearby.

The final visit to Cleveland was in 2001 for yet another high-tech procedure. This was a Laparoscopic RF Ablation of Liver Metastases with Dr. Siperstein. In other words, let’s say someone has cancer of the colon, prostate or lung, and they get metastases or spread of the disease to the liver, the usual approach would be to remove the affected chunk of liver. Now granted liver tissue can regenerate itself, but it is still something you want to avoid, removing chunks of organs. So some genius came up with RF ablation. Basically, a metal probe, under ultrasound guidance, is passed into the center of the mass. Then tines are expanded from this wire, out in a radial pattern, to extend beyond the borders of the mass. Then RF energy is transmitted into the probes, and the energy cuts off the blood supply to the mass and a margin around it. A laptop computer attached to the RF dookicky monitors the temperature of each tine to make sure adequate ablation occurs. So the malignancy is killed from the inside out, without major resections or a big abdominal incision. Pretty cool.

Ok, back to 1994. Another interesting project was something called Ocean of Symmetry. This was a 3-part video series on treatment of immune disorders. The first volume described the functioning of the immune system. The second volume dealt with how antibody drugs work in the immune system, and the third volume actually discussed specific diseases such as the dreaded Takayasu's Disease and their treatments using drugs called IVIG - Intravenous Immunoglobulins. Very high level stuff. The theme for the video was that the immune system works much like the oceans, with many systems interacting and feeding off one another. We intended for the doctor who authored the content to be the on-camera host, walking on the beach, narrating the video. Easier said than done. This doctor worked at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Jersey. So we trekked out to Sandy Hook, an old missile range turned public beach, to do the setups. Problem was, there were heavy winds, and no way in hell to get the shots. So we got some beauty shots, and then high-tailed it back to CT to start editing.
Later that month we hired a proper actor to be the host/narrator, and filmed him on a beach in Fairfield. He used an earpiece to listen to and read his lines, as he walked casually along the beach, quite a distance from the camera. It was still pretty windy, but it worked well with a wireless mic. We then recorded the rest of his audio in the car, and sent him on his way. The video included tons of animation, and came out pretty well after many weeks of tweaking.

I should mention that for one scene we needed to show the injection of drugs IM or intramuscularly, which is often done in the buttocks. My colleague Clem took one for the team, and allowed his buttocks to be injected with saline from a mighty big needle. Good job.

Well that is just about it for 1994. Oh one last thing. We also were making a fund-raising video for New Milford Hospital. The on-camera hosts were Skitch and Ruth Henderson. For those of you born after 1950, Skitch Henderson was the original band leader for the Tonight Show, and was conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and long-time New Milford resident. That was my first and only brush with celebrity, unless you count meeting the fat guy from Miami Vice, and that time I waited for the rental car bus with Tom Brokaw at Palm Beach International Airport. Oh, and I met Marc Summers, host of Unwrapped and Double Dare. Oh, I met that guy with the question-mark suit who advertises “free money from the government” on late night tv. Let’s not forget our brief run-in with Carol “hello Dolly” Channing at Spago in LA. If this counts, I recorded an on-camera message with Gov. John “Hot Tub Johnny” Rowland. But I digress...

Next time, the all too exciting 1995!

Annapolis, MD

2005-12-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

Could have been in fact any American City.
Flew into BWI on Southwest. Those wacky flight attendants with their jokes. They really make flying fun.
Drove with colleague to Annapolis Sheraton Hotel. Ate dinner at Macaroni Grill. Walked through shopping mall.
Next day went to Anne Arundel Hospital for the shoot. Back to BWI, back to BDL, stopped at Trader Joes in West Hartford - the greatest food store at the moment - came home.
You really could spin a wheel, go to any major city, and never know where you were.
Well, brief blog this time.

Harry Potter

2005-11-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

One thing is for sure, Daniel Radcliffe won't have to work a day in his life after the 7th movie is wrapped. Unfortunately, like Mark Hamill he may be type-cast for life, but Harry Potter ain't such a bad legacy to live with.
I went to see the 4th film yesterday, The Goblet of Fire. Overall, a very good adaptation of a very long book. It is always interesting to see how filmmakers can compress pages and chapters into a short scene, or one line in some cases.
The effects have become almost routine. There were few sequences which had a wow-factor. I thought the Buckbeak creature effects in Prisoner of Azkaban were amazing (the sound had a lot to do with it). The dragon in this movie seemed to be a cast-off from Revenge of the Sith (looked a lot like the mount which Obi-Wan rode on Utapau). I was a bit disappointed that the Skrewts were not included in the maze, rather the shrubbery came alive instead, which was NOT in the book. Damn you, Mike Newell.
Anyway, the acting is getting a little better, only they still only give Ron Weasley the one-liners. Hermione is certainly showing signs of graduating into a woman - which will be more difficult to hide in future movies. She was much more emotional, and her feelings for Ron and Harry are coming on strong. The teachers were typical, but again, not given many good lines. Alan Rickman and poor Hagrid were barely in this one. And while Michael Gambon does a good Dumbledore, he doesn't seem to have much enthusiasm for the role. At least pay homage to Richard Harris. Surely the pay can't be that bad.
Ralph Fiennes - ho hum - could have been anyone under that makeup.
Gary Oldman - in the book he shows up at the end - I guess he couldn't be pursuaded either. As long as he is contracted for the next film, as he has a big part in that story (Sirius Black in case you weren't paying attention).
I was also disappointed that we did not see the Durseleys in the start of the film. It has become a tradition to start off showing Harry living with his hateful family, especially since the book established that as long as Harry is living with his relations, he is safe from Voldemort. Perhaps the actors refused to work for such low pay as they were no doubt offered.
Finally, the music. John Williams' main theme was heard in the beginning, and hints of Williams were heard throughout the film, but it turns out most of the score was written by someone else. I realize John Williams only has so many magical themes in him, but the imposter's score had hints of Yoda's theme, Luke and Leia's theme and ET and Elliott's theme in bits and pieces. But then again, so do most of Williams' newer scores. Perhaps Lucasfilm has written software which can automatically create a John Williams-like score whenever it is called for.
I did stay for the credits, nearly 20 minutes of them. Amazing how many different collaborators work on these effects-driven movies.
So overall, I still like Prisoner of Azkaban the best, then this one as number 2, and the Chamber of Secrets is definitely my least favorite book and movie.
Was it too dark? Maybe for a 2 year old. Sure, someone dies. Whoop de do. Take your kids to see this movie, there is not much else for kids.
I do have to mention, that in the 15 minutes of previews, tv commercials and video game ads shown before the movie, it seems Hollywood is banking on computer animated movies to bring in the money. Granted some CG movies do well, but others do not.
Once again, as Mr. Lucas has proven, great effects make not a great movie.

Toys

2005-11-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for talking about toys. Millions of people are packing the Walmarts, Targets and Costcos of America to spend their dollars on Chinese-made plastic toys. Good for China.
Over the weekend I visited the Barker Cartoon Museum in Cheshire, CT. If you are going to be passing through CT any time soon, check it out. If you grew up in the 50's, 60's or 70's especially, before toys became not so good.
You enter the barn, and are confronted with what lloks like a store - glass display cases, narrow aisles, and lots and lots of toys. But most of the toys in this room are old - some going back to the 19th century - yes kids, they had toys before television.
That being said, it is called the Cartoon museum, because most of the toys are based upon cartoons - but also on live action tv and movies.
The display cases are organized by category, such as Disney, Superfriends, Harry Potter and so on.
The really great thing about this place, in a similar way to e-bay, is that you can briefly re-capture some lost childhood memories. No sooner did I inquire about the Six Million Dollar Man 12" doll, when I found myself staring at ol' Steve Austin in his rocketship. I wish I never gave that away. In fact, if my old neighbor in Mansfield is reading this, I want my toys back you brat (he was a brat when he was a kid and I was babysitting him, I'm sure he turned out ok like most kids do).
I won't bore you with the dozen or so moments I had in the museum. I will mention that there were few if any LEGO in the place. Also no Micronauts and I don't recall seeing any Muppets either. Well, the Barker family obviously does not have an interest in collecting some toy line-ups, but no worries. There are plenty of treasures for the eye and the mind.
Oh, did I mention my Star Wars lunchbox...oh, and the Batman and Robin dolls...oh, did I tell you about the Weebles...

War of the Worlds

2005-11-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

The War of the Worlds DVD is coming out soon. In honor of this latest piece of crap from Spielberg, here is the review I wrote after seeing the film at the theater over the Summer:

Today I saw War of the Worlds, the latest attempt by Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise to line their pockets with the green stuff. And good for them. But Tom, my friend, making gobs of cash at the box office doesn't give you the right to act like an ass in public. But this is about your movie, Tom, not your public life.

Overall Score 7 out of 11

Writing

Spielberg hired some guy named Josh Friedman to write this screenplay. I guess it could have been anyone, since I suspect they told him where they needed some dialogue to break up the Holocaust-like scenes of people getting fried. Maybe he actually came up with the whole movie, I really don't know. David Koepp is also listed. He has penned many hits so I suspect he did most of the typing. Maybe we won't have to pay Mr. Koepp for the sequel. Obviously H.G. Wells came up with the original story, and some of the imagery was borrowed from the great movie from the 1950's.
Overall the dialogue was somewhat realistic, considering the outrageous circumstances, I can't say I would be speaking in iambic pentameter. In the early part of the movie, Tom Cruise and his son Robbie play catch in the backyeard, and they share some jabs with appropriate cursing. Some directors in this post-Janet Jackson world would not have had swearing in front of a child, but in the real world that's what you've got. Despite playing a crane operator divorcee muscle car enthusiast, Tom Cruise's Ray manages to keep his signature white toothy hot shit Maverick grin up until the bad things happen. I think Tom could use some reverse whitening next time he tries to play an average shlump.
So overall the writing is ok. The whole subtext of Robbie wanting to join the military rather than look after his sister, just to get away from his dad is a little weak, but I guess ol' Spielie thought he needed some conflict besides the mundane spaceships-vaporizing-people trick. Ho-hum.
Directing

Spielberg can generally take a movie about a red balloon and make it an engaging emotional rollercoaster. What's that? You say someone has already done that exact movie? No shit? Well you know what I mean. Even his duds like AI and the Terminal have their Spielbergian qualities, which keeps this moviegoer shelling out the $8.50 year after year.
Thus, the shot selection, camera movement, signature point of view shots, conflict, broken family themes, technology versus man and everything else ole Steve-o has made a career out of are all present. Take one part Close encounters, one part Jurassic Park, a tablespoon or two of ET, a pinch of Private Ryan and one third to one half cup of Schindler's List, shake well or beat for two minutes, and you have another hit on your hands. Bake for nearly three hours, and check the post every month for your royalty checks, this pot roast is done to perfection - nearly. Acting

As previously mentioned, Tom Cruise plays a somewhat convincing absent father to his two kids. Although he works on the docks and is somewhat of a tough guy, he is also quite a sissy most of the time. He drives a souped up muscle car to compensate for his tiny wee-wee; he works high above the world in his safe enclosed box in the shipyard, and even when push comes to shove and he has to save his terrified daughter from the wrath of destruction, he loses it. This is a departure for grinny-boy, he plays it as most of us would. If I walked out my front door and saw those tripods turning my neighbors into shake and bake, I'm pretty sure I would crap my pants and go limp as a noodle. I think Tom's Ray character did pretty well considering. Everyman? Not quite, but close. Lose the pearly whites and he'd have it nailed.

Dakota Fanning did a tremendous job screaming her head off as any kid would have. In the past five years she seems to have been in nearly every movie and played against most of the best actors out there. She's sort of a grade school Tommy Lee Jones. She had a few nice lines, one in particular stands out as a signature Dakota line. I don't recall the line itself, but it was one of those moments when you question whether this girl is really 35 years old playing a kid, or vice versa. We will see plenty of Ms. Fanning 20 years from now, unless she burns out like that Sixth Sense kid.

The rest of the actors are really incidental. As mentioned earlier, the Robbie character, played well by relative newcomer Canadian Justin Chatwin, was mainly a sounding board for his dad's frustrations with being a terrible dad, and an opportunity for redemption. No real memorable lines or moments, except for my disappointment that he survives to the end. You old softy Spielberg.

Tim Robbins as the token nut job, who could possibly have helped save the day, but continued over the deep end, could have been played by a throwaway character actor. Maybe that's where Ms. Sarandon's sidekick is headed. Soon we'll see him playing an eccentric homeless guy on ER, or a crusty old sea captain in a made for cable movie about the merchant marine. Sorry Mr. Robbins, but Bob Roberts has left the building.

Cinematography

Janusz Kaminski has lensed many of Spielberg's hits, including the amazing Schindler's List. There were obvious influences here, from the human dust in the air, the clothes falling from the sky, the bodies floating down the river, truly some haunting imagery. The opening shot of the film was impressive and unexpected, as those long motion tracking shots have become a cliche in sci-fi and superhero movies - but it was effective here. The many scenes taking place in basements and dark places were well done.

Editing

Great work as always by Michael Kahn, another vet of Speilberg and other hits. My pulse was a racin' and would not slow down until well after the family minivan had escaped to the country. The pace of the movie goes from zero to 100 almost instantly once the lightning storm starts, but the editing never feels too fast. It seems to be a trend in current action flicks to show everything and cut fast to every possible angle. I don't know if this is to let the studio bosses know how many cameras they have paid for or just shoddy editing, but this film shows only what needs to be shown. There is an interesting anecdote from film editor Ralph Rosenbaum. When he was just starting out, editing tv commercials in New York, he would often get between 20 and 60 takes of a kid saying one line, with many different inflections, but after the 5th take, they were all the same. The main reason they shot so many takes was because the studio spent so much money to set and light the scene, and the ad agency execs needed an excuse to stay out of the office, they just kept at it all day.
Anyway. although we were treated to a nice closeup of a woman being pulverized, we were spared any visuals of Tom Cruise putting Tim Robbins out of his misery (supposedly this really happened once Mr. Robbins realized what a crummy performance he gave. Just kidding Mr. Sarandon.) Another good use of showing only what needs to be shown was at the end, when the Marines were firing missiles at the dying tripod. They showed the first two missile hits, with resulting flames and what not. But the subsequent hits were off camera, whereas in a Vin Diesel flick we would have seen every missile from firing to explosion, probably in one long CG shot. Once again Spielberg team, nice job.

Sound Design

It seems Skywalker Sound had some leftover sound effects from Attack of the Clones they were itching to use. I am speaking of the low hum of the tripods as they communicate with each other during the rampage. Remember the seismic charges fired by Slave I during the asteroid belt chase? See what I mean? Anyway, the sounds used during the destruction scenes, especially the sizzling, firecraker popping effects were something new. Usually exploding buildings sound like typical explosions, but there seemed to be a major electrical element to the destruction. The poof of bodies being vaporized was another surprising aspect of this movie. Surprises are good.

Special Effects / Production Design

I group effects and produciton design together in this case, as the effects in this movie are a natural part of the environment. From the distant clouds to the sequential lightning strikes, to the reflected view of detruction in the car window, you feel like this is the real world. When the tripod broke through the street surface, you really feel like it was under there. You don't have any beauty shots of the tripods, they are always in their natural surroundings, generally seen from the point of view of the victims. Nice. The scene of the plane wreckage outside the house was very nicely done, especially the absence of bodies. The orderly basement in Ray's ex-wife's house contrasting with the dirty basement where old-man Robbins met his demise is so real I was immediately reminded of a house where I used to babysit, and the musty old basement at my grandparents' house in the Catskills. Overall there really was not a thing about the design I did not like. Well, the obvious CG tentacle sweeping through old-man Robbins' basement was a bit reminiscent of the spiders in Minority Report, but again, George Lucas needs the business. I would be trhilled if it turned out that was a practical effect.

Music

Was there music? John Williams, you say? The man who whote, "Daaa-dum, dum-dum-da-daa-dum, dum-dum-da-daa-dum, da-da-da-daa" and the memorable, "daa-daa-daa-da-da-daa-daa-da-daa, daa-daa-daa-da-da-daa-daa-da-daa" and who can forget the exciting, "dum-duh-dum-dumm, dum-duh-dumm, dum-duh-dum-dumm, dum-duh-dumm-dumm-dumm." I think there was music, but sorry Johnny-boy, no Oscars this time. At least ol' Stevie understands that you can have a scene without constant music. We need more of that. More less-music please!

Strengths

Very good effects, sound, editing, pacing. I think the music was good, really I did hear it. Nice to see Mr. Spielberg kept his "kill-the-family-pet" trick out of this film. I am especially glad they did not show the destruction of London, Paris, Cairo, Rome and Cleveland. Well, Cleveland may have been ok.

Weaknesses

Ending a bit too happy for me. Previously mentioned toothy grin of Maverick could have been artificially yellowed for this flick. Would have been nice if Johnny Williams created one memorable theme for us to hum on the way to the parking lot. Just a variation of Luke and Leia, Lois and Clark or Anakin and Padme would have been fine. Finally, the Morgan Freeman commentary at the beginning and the end, along with the Men in Black shot of the water droplet, bacteria and DNA strands was not really needed. Do they think the movie audience is that stupid that we need the ending of the film explained for us. To quote Drew Barrymore from ET, "Gimme a break.

Would I See it Again? Yes. Unfortunately Speilberg doesn't believe in DVD commentaries, one of the primary reasons I rent DVDs, so I guess I'll have to warn the neighbors, crank up the subwoofer, and let this baby rip once the DVD comes out. Do they even make tapes anymore?

Dayton Ohio

2005-11-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

It stands to reason that less than 48 hours since I left Iowa, I would head out to Ohio. When I was a kid, some of my stupid classmates thought Iowa was Ohio spelled backwards. Some people will believe anything.
I did not spend any time in Ohio as a kid, except for a night every summer at the Toledo Turnpike Motel, or later the Red Roof Inn in Toledo. As you know, I lived in Iowa from 1st through 5th grades. Each year after school got out, my parents would drive me and my brother to Toledo, the halfway point to Massachusetts. There we would meet up with my grandparents, transfer our bikes and toys to their car, stay overnight, eat supper at Bobby Rubino's, say goodbye to Sandy our cocker spaniel and then drive on to Pittsfield, MA the next day. My parents would drive back to Des Moines, and then drive all the way to Pittsfield the day before my birthday. They would stay for a week, then we would all drive back home together.
So aside from a few trips to Cleveland for surgery video shoots, I have not really seen much of Ohio. That is still the case, as I arrived at 9:20 last night, went directly to the Marriott in Dayton, ordered room service, watched some of the terribly produced overly liberal Bush-bash known as from Earth to America, went to bed, woke up at 6am, went to the hospital, shot two very interesting Laparoscopic Ventral Hernia repairs, went back to the airport, and flew home via Reagan National.
Whew, that was quite a run-on sentence. Sorry Mrs. Clark.
So no great excitement, but I wanted to keep up with the travel diary and the assorted relevant childhood memories.

The Bald Frog and the Wig

2005-11-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

This was a silly quesiton google's wizards have dreamed up to help me populate my profile with quirky information:

The children are waiting. Tell the story about the Bald Frog and the Wig.
well, here goes:
There lived a man named Sniffly. Well, his real name was Lawrence, but all of his friends called him Sniffly, because he was always trying to get rid of a cold. Some people thought it was because he did not have heat in his home. Others thought maybe he had scurvy from eating only Cadbury Cream Eggs. But in reality, he always had a cold because when he was a little boy, a magical frog made him that way.
It was the Summer after 3rd grade. Lawrence was spending the summer at his grandparents' farm in the Catskills. One day he was out blueberry picking, when he heard a strange sound. It sounded a little like a frog, but it also sounded like crying. After some crawling around in the grass, Lawrence found a small, bald frog. Now how could he know the frog was bald, frogs don't have any hair. Well this frog was wearing a wig, so Lawrence naturally assumed he was bald.
Lawrence scooped up the frog and ran back to show has grandparents. "Get that slimy creature out of my house this instant!" yelled his grandmother. "When I was in war we used to eat those," explained his grandfather.
So Lawrence took the bald frog outside, but he did not want to leave him alone, so Lawrence stayed outside all night. In the morning, Lawrence had caught a cold, and started to sniffle. The frog looked deep into Lawrence's eyes, and suddenly Lawrence felt warm all over. Then the frog hopped away.
The next winter, when it began to get cold out, Lawrence realized he did not feel cold, regardless of the temperature. However he still had the sniffles all the time, and this was when people started calling him Sniffles. But only Lawrence knows the reason, and it is all because of the Bald Frog with the Wig.

Mike Travels Back to Iowa

2005-11-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

I wasn't born in Iowa. But I did spent about 5 years there, from 1978 to 1983. My memories of my time living there are many and varied, and mostly of no interest to you the reader. But I've read some other blogs, and "of no interest to others" seems to be the MO of most blogs.
So here it is in brief terms:
1st grade - Fairmeadows School in West Des Moines. Favorite memory is the first day of school. I finished my lunch, but did not finish my school-sized carton of milk. I went to the trash can area, chucked my uneaten food, but did not see anywhere to pour my milk. You see, at my old school, Williams School in Pittsfield, MA, we poured our milk into a bucket, supposedly for the janitor's cat. In hindsight, we probably did this to spare the janitor from a big mess if the trash bag ruptured.
Anyway, not seeing a bucket for the undrunk milk, I cried until a teacher helped me understand that in the real world, you throw away your milk.
2nd Grade - Moved across town to Western Hills School. This was a more modern school than most of the cookie cutter 1950's elementary schools in America. Favorite memory - As the new kid, I did not make friends right away. As you saw from my 1st grade experience, I was kind of a cry baby up until about 10th grade :) Well the teacher, Mrs. McCuscky, brought in a cupcake, candle and token gift for each student on their birthday. Since my birthday is in the Summer, somehow she knew I felt left out. So one day to my surprise I had a birthday party, a received a very cool sailing ships sticker book. I still have it. One thing I don't have is the math test which a classmate stole so he could get a better grade. If I ever see that bastard...
3rd Grade - Same school, Mrs. Lisle was my teacher. This year we had the 3rd grade play. We were growing up at this point. The play was Hansel and Gretl, featuring Lee Kunz as Hansel and the very dreamy Gretchen Holiday as Gretl. I began my career of minor, non-speaking roles in school plays as one of the Willow-of-the-Wisps. Our job was to dance around in the enchanted forest in the dark using little tissue paper covered flashlights to simulate fireflies or something. We did get to hlod hands with girls, which despite the clamminess, was not all bad. The also dreamy Susan Stanbrough, who lived in a geodesic dome home, was my dance partner.
4th Grade - Mrs. Clark - the dreaded mean teacher my brother had 2 years earlier. This year we had a science unit in which we collected crawfish from local ponds, kept them in a kiddie pool right in our classroom, and had to do experiemnts having to do with feeding them marshmallows and other foods. One light at the end of the Mrs. Clark tunnel was the times tables. 4th Grade is when we learned multiplication tables up to 12. Once we passed all 12 tests, we got a Nestle Crunch Bar, which we were allowed to consume DURING CLASS. Don't think that would happen these days.
5th Grade - Mr. Nichol. Once you go into 5th grade at Western Hills, you go to class in the very modern open classroom wing. Here, the whole 5th Grade is one giant room, with rolling cabinets creating 3 classrooms, and a 4th open space used to show us sex education filmstrips and other films. This was the year, unfortunately, that I made some great friends, and learned I was leaving town at the end of the school year. Bummer!

So flash forward to 2005.... shwoooosh....I finally got the chance to go back to Iowa. Not exactly to West Des Moines, but still sithin the state. Davenport to be exact.

As you will learn through these blogs, I get the unique opportunity to travel around the country documenting surgeries and making other educational videos for the medical community. Yesterday I was a Genesis Hospital in Davenport, taping a ventral hernia repair. This is when you have had prior abdominal surgery, and a weakness develops in the area of your incision, and parts of your omentum or even small bowel can get trapped inside the layers of your abdominal wall. Basically, you got parts that are where they don't belong. So the surgeon makes a decent sized incision, either reduces the herniated contents back where they go, or removes the materials if you can live without them, then puts in a piece of mesh, kind of like screen door material, but made out of polypropylene, polytetroflouroethylene or other such materials you may be familiar with. This mesh prevents the hernia from opening up again. Then you get sutured closed, and go home. The whole thing took about an hour.

Once that was over with, we raced to the airport, but the earlier flight out of Moline, IL back to Chicago was full. So we went to the John Deere Pavillion. Let me tell you, having never been to a modern farm, I had no idea that modern farm equipment was so ginormous. They had a combine somehow inside the building, which was bigger than many houses, and cost a mere $268,000. No wonder farmers are struggling. They also had some historic tractors, and the inevitable gift shop where you could buy t-shirts, toys and other knick knacks.

Lunch next door a Johnny's Steak House was ok. I had a chicken pot pie and a side salad. Aside from all the fruit flies hovering over our table, the meal was not bad. Then back to the airport again, for the 5:00 flight to O'Hare.

Flying into O'Hare at night is a lot like flying into Coruscant. The whole planet really does look like one giant city, and the density of air traffic is unbelievable. Then once you enter the terminal, the first thing that hits you is the smell of Cinnabons, those ultra sweet cinnamon buns only available at airports. It was Friday night so the place was a zoo. I walked to terminal K, the last gate of course. But the flight at the gate had not left yet, so I had to walk to H16, another 15 minute walk. And carrying things on my back makes that 15 minutes seem like 17 minutes!

So finally on my plane bound for Hartford, a mere 2 hours later (once we actually took off) I arrived back at Bradley at about 12AM. Much to my delight, American managed to lose one out for 4 pieces of video gear, so I will have to collect that tomorrow when I fly out again. Where am I going? You'll just have to check back in at Mike Travels.