New DoubleTree

The Double Tree Hotel has opened in Jefferson City. They renovated the old round hotel in downtown Jefferson City. I think it has been many different things over the years, I believe the last before being renovated was the Hotel La Bella.

Free Movie for the Family

Interesting. Front Yard Features, the brainchild of Martin Casas will be hosting 3 movies in Jefferson City this summer.

June 14th The Sandlot
July 18th Grease
August 8th ET

In fact they are hosting movies in several Missouri towns this summer. Check out the calendar.


From the site's about page:

Frontyard Features started in the fall of 2006 after a nice walk around the park.

My wife and I had just moved to the area and wanted to do something to meet our new neighbors. After some thought we decided that inviting our neighbors over to the house for dinner and a movie was too boring. Since I always think bigger then I should, I said “How about we do a movie in the park and invite the entire neighborhood?”, “No let’s just have them over for dinner” , my levelheaded wife said.

We never did the dinner, but by the end of the week I was underway to organizing a movie in Tower Grove Park.

Grand Central Down

It appears that the Grand Central site is down at the moment.

Eagle

Someone at work showed me photos that their spouse had taken of an Eagle and its babies. The location is not to far off of the beaten path from my father-in-laws, so I ventured by, but did not see anything other than the nest.

Well, I stopped by again yesterday and it was a different story. I saw a white dot in a tree not far from the tree with the nest. I zoomed as far as I could and took a photo and then zoomed in on the photo and could tell that it was an Eagle.

This photo gives some perspective as to the distance away I was from the nest.



Here is a cropped in version of the Eagle in the nearby tree.



To see an eagle in the wild is an amazing thing.



Seeing the babies was pretty cool too.



A couple of times they showed off testing their wings.



I ventured up to the farmhouse adjacent to the field to ask permission to go onto the property to get closer for better shots, but no one was home. Oh well, maybe next time.

FireProof Part 2

I guess I have an answer regarding my automated post question, as I received another post from Monique. This one definitley not automated.

Hi there,

I'm sorry if my past message came across as an "automated response." I suppose it was a bit random for someone to be commenting from an older post!

We're actually going back to past bloggers to update them on the latest film & would love your blogging support!

If you could send me an email at monique@lovell-fairchild.com I would love to add you to our screening city list. We're going to be touring the country this summer previewing the movie to private audiences & would love to engage area bloggers in those screenings.

Thanks so much!
Monique Sondag
Lovell-Fairchild Communications

You never know, maybe there will be a screening in Jefferson City.

FireProof Movie

From the trailer it looks like a well shot movie. Being stuck on the tracks in a wrecked car with a train coming could make one a bit tense. I was thinking of jumping in a truck and trying to push the car off of the tracks if they couldn't get her out rather than having a bunch of guys trying to pick the car up and carry it off the tracks.

The movie FireProof is from the creators of Facing the Giants. I guess we'll see if it turns out to be controversial in some way as well.

I did receive a comment from Monique on my old post where I mentioned Facing the Giants.

She stated,

Hi there,

My name is Monique & I'm part of the PR team for Sherwood Pictures--creators of FACING THE GIANTS.

Thank you so much for supporting the movie on your blog! We wanted to keep you informed of their latest project--FIREPROOF.

It's due to hit theaters this September in theaters nationwide. You can go to www.fireproofthemovie.com to view the trailer, read the synopsis, and sign up for updates to stay up to date with all of the FIREPROOF happenings! If you're interested in learning more or need any resource, pictures, and downloads for your blog please email me at monique@lovell-fairchild.com and I will be happy to get you what you need.

Again, thanks for blogging!
Monique
Lovell-Fairchild Communications

I don't know that I need to e-mail for this type of stuff as it is already available via the website, which you see some of below.



The interesting part is that the comment tracks back to a profile, which in turn has a link to the blog Fireproof the Movie (which actually goes to http://fireproofmovie.blogspot.com/, yet if you go to the main movie website, the blog link from their goes to http://fireproofthemovie.com/. Oh well.

Of course, it is cool when someone tracks down your site and you get a reputable post, but this one looks like more of an automatic post as the same exact comment also shows on the site attached to the profile. Odd. Anyway if it is a post that has been automated, how does it get past the word verification. Maybe just some "Growing Pains" for the process that it ended up posting on their own site (I couldn't resist, Kirk Cameron stars in the movie). The same comment also shows on Life, Liberty and Family, Greg Simmons, and others.



It might be interesting to see if I end up with the same comment on this post.

Service Pack 3

Yes it is Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms out there.

Drive Thru Conveyor

My gas saving idea. The drive thru conveyor belt or something similar. Basically you pull up to the drive thru at your favorite fast food restaurant, dry cleaner, etc., and simply put you car in park (or possibly neutral if setup similar to a car wash). You can turn your car off and some other mechanism (conveyor, etc.) would move you on around to the window for your order. Thus not having to sit in line inching forward and burning gas.

Freeze

I saw a photo on Aminus3 today that was a pretty cool shot and the individual linked to a video about the 207 people that took part in the freeze. You can watch it below, as well as a similar type premise of spontaneity in the smaller Food Court Musical.







And these all appear to tie back to Improv Everywhere.

Tilt Shift

Now I can say I have tried out tilt shift.



Click the pic to view the larger version and the train cars look a bit miniturized. I could find a lot of post/articles for doing this via Photo Shop, but not via Paint Shop. I finally found instructions via GIMP, and since I have GIMP Portable on my USB, I fired it up and tried it out. Here you see the results.