Last night was the last session of Apples of Gold. It was pretty fun being a kitchen helper the last four weeks although I think I was more entertainment than a kitchen helper. Two of those weeks the cooks told us they were really going to make us work this time but we hardly had to do very much really. I got to cut some things and stir some things. Waiting on the tables probably was the most difficult for me. I'm a pretty sucky waiter. It sure is humbling work. The ladies of our church are very gracious. They thanked me not once but many times for helping this month. They actually thanked me for something I know they could all do alot better than me. And on top of that, I got a nice little gift from them too which I also feel I don't deserve. Anyways, it was a pleasure to serve my Lord in this way.

This coming month will be Iron Sharpens Iron for the men. When I went to Grace, Iron Sharpens Iron meant all the men meet at 6AM on a weekday and study the Bible together. At Lighthouse, Iron Sharpens Iron means meet at 6PM and have a great BBQ and study the Bible together. I would have to say I'm quite won over with the Lighthouse method although in defense of Grace, you really can't have a weekly BBQ for 100 or so people. The ladies often ask if the men need help with Iron Sharpens Iron like the women needed help with Apples of Gold. Sorry ladies, but when it comes to men and a BBQ, there are too many helpers already.

The Skit DVD website is up. Check it out here.

The Skit DVD Available Now!!!

Ok, phew! The Skit DVD is available now. The cost is $10 plus shipping. The package turned out really well. It will blend into your DVD library like you actually bought it from some store. Later today I will have a website up that consolidates all the info about the DVD that I pretty much mentioned here in one place or another. It's definitely worth the $10 in my opinion. If you have any questions, leave a comment or email me. If you want one, email me.

Oh, one more thing...the DVDs are burned not pressed which means they will only work on DVD players that can read the DVD-R format. This is the most common format and I think most DVD players that are at most a couple years old can read them. If not, they will definitely work on any computer capable of reading DVDs.

Skit DVD Update

The Skit DVD has been on my mind quite alot lately. This is mainly because I've been working on it all the time it seems and when I'm not working on it, I'm telling Harrison what to do. Ah, but last night at 2AM we burned our first copy of the Skit DVD...and...we couldn't really try it out on a TV cuz our only DVD player is a PS2 and it doesn't seem to like burned DVDs, ha ha. So we need to test it out on a real DVD player before we start distributing. I'm hoping the text of the titles is large enough. Things look very different from a computer monitor to a TV. TV resolution is really bad and can make text look quite illegible when it's not large enough. I think it will be ok though.

So the final count is 2 DVDs, 29 skits, 4 short films, and 16 easter eggs. The total run time...I have no idea but it's probably like 5 or 6 hours.

I'm still trying to work out the cost. I'm trying to sell the DVDs at cost cuz I'd rather people have the DVD than for me to make small change in profits. Those costs include the software and media we bought to make the DVD as well as the costs to distribute. Printing the DVD cover on a regular printer doesn't look too good so I'm going to Kinkos to see what it would cost to print it on some nice glossy paper. Then there is the cost of the actual blank DVDs. The more you buy the more you save except I don't know how many of these I'll make so I don't think I would buy that many right off. Then there are the labels for these things so you can tell Disc 1 from Disc 2. And finally there is the DVD box that holds all the previously mentioned items. The good part is that if you want, you can just get crappy burned copies of the DVD and put together all the cool stuff yourself since anything you need to print is included on the DVD or you can pay more and I can do it for you. It'll cost about the same either way. The DVD is definitely bootleg friendly though. If you want to buy one and make 20 for your friends, be my guest. It'll save me alot of time. Also if you live in Southern California, I'm not going to ship one to you. I just don't think I can meet the time demands to ship these to everyone so if you can pick it up from me, I would prefer it or we can work out some way of passing it off. I know there are quite a few people that live outside these boundaries that want one too and I can ship it to you, but you'll have to pay the shipping. Anyways, I would like anyone who wants one to have one so you can always email me and we'll work out a way.

Give me another week to figure out how much these will cost!

The Skit DVD

Harrison and I have been working on the Skit DVD quite a bit the last couple weeks. I didn't post about it earlier cuz I figured you all would be thinking I was crying wolf. So I waited until I had something to show you from our labor. Behold!!! The Skit DVD box cover!!!

So that's it more or less. It's not trimmed on the top and bottom to the appropriate dimensions and the yellow lines that mark the edges will be removed. The text might change a little bit. I'm not exactly sure how many skits we have on there, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 25. So if you're familiar with the skits, you'll probably notice that alot of the pictures aren't from skits. That's cuz I don't have alot of good pictures of skits, but trust me that the pictures definitely represent the spirit of the skits. Also every person on the cover has been in a skit at one time or another. Many people are in there more than once although their appearance varies quite a bit from picture to picture for the most part. Also some people should be on there but aren't. Sorry, I didn't have a picture of you and the time on this project was just waning too long. I wish I could be more diverse but I had to work with what pictures I had and I was running out of pictures near the end. I'm just glad I was able to do the whole box.

Anyways, I know it probably looks really crude and unprofessional, but that represents the skits best. We did some hilarious stuff with what little we had to work with and that adds alot to our humor. You may find it hard to believe and even laughable, but this cover art took me like over 30 hours to make. One reason because I did the first version backwards and had to start over, but that made the second version look alot better as I got more ideas as I went along. This totally blows away the time I took 3 hours to make a simple title shot for Signs of the Apocalypse. I saw that movie the Aviator over the weekend. Howard Hughes spent 4 years to make the movie Hell's Angels just right and spent 4 million dollars, the most expensive movie ever made at the time. I would have to say I am borderline OCD when it comes to making this stuff. I just keep getting ideas as I go and everything has to be perfect just like I see it. This is why Signs of the Apocalypse took 6 months to make when it was supposed to take 3 weeks (weekends only). Even after all that, there is alot of stuff I would change in Signs of the Apocalypse now, but I've put it to rest. And so it shall be for the Skit DVD as well. This is the Platinum/Ultimate/Special Edition aka Only Edition.

Anyways, Harrison finished the menus and all the content is on the DVD so we're just testing it now. We should be done in a couple weeks. That includes time to figure out packaging and labeling and most important of all distributing. Anyways, click on the picture to see it bigger. Hopefully you'll be able to read the text.

On Saturday, I went to Lynda's funeral. Although Lynda was not a close a friend of mine, she and I laughed together often. She was one of the most joyful and energetic people I have ever met. Her smile was infectious because you couldn't help but smile being around her.

I remember one time at a college retreat, I was a judge for class skits. Lynda was in the freshman skit and played one of the craziest and silliest monkeys I had ever seen. I still laugh thinking about that time. Another time at winter camp, there were a bunch of people going innertubing. A couple snowboarders made their own jump on the slope. After they were done, I thought it would be really cool to take a sled off it. "Who's joining me?" I challenged the group. Out of the group came little Lynda who was far more corageous than me. We took off on that jump and went our separate ways in the air and tumbled pretty hard, but no injuries, so I said "Again?", and she replied "Yeah!". So again we tried and pretty much the same result except this time Lynda bit her lip pretty bad. She was stunned for only a moment, then spit out the blood, and yelled "Yeah!". She got stitches for that as I recall. That was Lynda. She was hardcore.

Lynda was hardcore in her passion for missions as well. She had been to crazier places than I had been. I remember one trip she went to Mongolia and lived in a tent with villagers on some mountain somewhere. Whenever I hear of missions I will always think of Lynda. Lynda's heart was bigger than she was. The words of her father during the memorial service: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. How can a man utter this after so great a loss, yet that's what Job said after losing all of his children."

Our lives are on loan from God and one day He will take it back at the time of His choosing. Are you ready to meet the Lord? One day you will. Will He be your judge or your savior? Remember that tomorrow is not promised to you.





Lynda Joy Varner
January 31, 1979 - July 4, 2005

Apples of Gold

Ok finally I have something to write about. So this month our church is doing this thing called Apples of Gold which is like a cooking demonstration/Bible study for the ladies. So you're probably wondering what I had to do with it. They needed helpers for the cook and so they asked me if I wanted to be one. I told them contrary to what they might believe about me being a bachelor and all, I can't cook at all and should never cook for anyone else. They were cool with it still so I was excited to be a part of something that I should be no part of, ha ha.

It was pretty fun. I didn't do much beyond cut stuff and stir stuff, but you know, cooking isn't really more than that anyway. Just kidding. Anyways, did I learn how to cook? No. I only confirmed my theory that cooking is just way impossible a task for me to ever handle. I'll stick to my lasagna, ha ha.

It was kinda weird being at a women's Bible study. Going to Grace for 10 years, the ladies always met behind an iron curtain so we never knew what went on at one of those. So now it was like I was undercover, but I seriously didn't try to hear anything, ha ha.

Oh but the best part, I ate some awesome food. I get to do this 3 more times this month, woohoo!