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We hit the trail this morning. The first leg of our trip was to Oklahoma City. Easy drive! In all it took about eight hours. To my surprise we only stopped twice. Once for a late lunch, and another for more fuel. (I managed to find gasoline priced at $3.67 gal at a Pilot truck stop somewhere in Arkansas. Note: The national average at this time is almost $4.00 gal.)

I’ll be seeing this particular message quite a bit over the next two days.

Our route, again, was simple. We drove up Highway 78 to Memphis to jump onto I-40 West. And that’s it! I-40 is going to be our friend for the next two days. It leads all the way out to Los Angeles.

Conditions were perfect and traffic wasn’t bad. I’m told I-40 is notorious for being heavily travelled by the big-rigs heading out west to pick up/deliver goods. There were only two times when traffic slowed to a halt and both were traffic accidents that occurred in the oncoming set of lanes. I found it interesting that voyeurism was to blame for our lane’s congestion on both occasions — folks slowing down to see what had happened.  I think that says something profound about human nature, but I’ll spare you all the lengthy philosophic debate.

We’re off to Flagstaff, Arizona tomorrow morning! A much longer drive than today– about twelve hours! Thanks for the comments and e-mails everyone. I’ll be twittering our status throughout the day over at Twitter.com/GrahamHancock

Heading out west

I usually don’t make impulse decisions.
I usually have a plan for everything I do.

Not this time.

My twin sister hinted a few weeks ago that she wanted out of here, and that she wanted a job for the summer in Los Angeles, California. I’ve been out to L.A. multiple times so she asked me if I knew where to start.

I knew a hasty decision to move out west wouldn’t fly with my parents at all, but to my surprise they weren’t against it. They weren’t against it if and only if I went with her.

So comes down to this: We’re probably leaving on Friday to drive to Los Angeles. A three day long drive. We’ll probably get there Sunday night, and on Monday morning we’re going apartment hunting. This amounts to spending the two remaining months of my summer in a city that I can see myself living in once I’m out of college. I see it as a head start, and quite possibly a sobering real world experience to boot.

I’ve worked out that I’ll have to fly home on two occasions: A wedding that I’m an ushering in June and a week-long camp in late July that I’ve been hired out for as Technical Director.

I’m anxiously and cautiously looking forward to this. Though it is one of the crazier and more uncertain things I’ve ever done.

I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Onyx

Onyx, originally uploaded by Graham Hancock.

Just bought a Canon Rebel XTi.

I’ve been eyeing several Digital SLR camera’s for a very long time as I’ve always had a knack for photography. I decided to make the purchase today because it’s going to be an eventful summer for me with Comic Con in July, various trips to the beach, etc. Not to mention I’ve got a Photographic Communication class coming up in the Fall that requires me to have an SLR camera.

I will post more shots here from time to time.

As a freelance videographer and filmmaker I’m always learning new things, new techniques, old techniques, etc. In the world of video and/or filmmaking everyone has their own tastes, their own processes, and their own ideas about how things should be done. I’ve had the basics of video and film lighting drilled into my head. Now I’m beginning to experiment with specific techniques to see what I like best. Recently I’ve learned that fluorescent light is not the archenemy of video that it’s made out to be in TV production classes.

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