By now you all have seen this news post about the Dress Your Leadership Contest. Well, here's a little behind the scenes peek. If you don't like to read, just enjoy the pictures. lol
So I get a call from one of our illustrious EGO Council members. "Congratulations!" Says the voice at the other end of the line. So I'm thinking "PROMOTION!" you know, I'm getting "geeked". I was elated, like a rocket shooting off! Then "BOOM!" in my face, like 2 feet away, the party rocket blew up. "You won! You won the "Dress Your Leadership Contest". Almost instantly I went from being excited, to feeling kind of sick.
So my first thought was Google all trains leaving for mexico, get down there and open an alpaca farm, start my life over. Just as I was jamming the last of my spidey undies collectioin into one of my kids backpacks, and raking the last $12.53 of my allowance into my poket, my eyes fell on the eGO t-shirt I have framed over the mantle in my "Den for Men". The whole "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" EdgeGamers.org pride feeling washed over me like the sweat pouring down my face.
Suddenly, I snapped into action with a determination to not only throw my dignity onto the ground before the almost 20,000 members of my community, but to do it in a way that would ensure my brothers/sisters that I did it with some passion.
So then the vision started forming in my mind. I started seeing flashes of P-Diddy videos, pyrotechnics, and back-up dancers. Let me just help you to understand one thing about my "mind". It's small, but it's dense to.
Now I had three days. The plan. Day one, erect a "studio" and call the wife to see if she'll pick me up a forgiving dress. One that isn't to...what's the word? Form fitting.
Well, Day one came along and POW!!
Done!
AND DONE!
Although, that looks a little two tight, let's try it on. Seems to fit ok, but what's that smell? Closest words that I can use to describe that smell, is "AVON" lady, but like she was sitting on your lap. It was strong enough to knock over a horse. Ah, well. It fits. We shoot tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and I'm working with the lighting on the green screen, which is near to impossible to get right. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can do this, and make it work. Wife gets home from work and we get to making me a star? She's working on the hair with the curling iron and a whole can of hairspray, whew I thought that the dress stank. I thought she was using the hairspray on me like she was trying to kill a bug with some raid. My seven year old is in front of me and she's wanting me to PICK OUT A COLOR of NAIL POLISH. I think that was about the time when I started to realize that this isn't going to be as easy as my "mind" was telling me earlier.
All of the sudden they're coming at me with MAKE-UP! I'm blurted out a "Nope!" and turned my back on them like I'd just voted them out of the tribe. I marched out to the studio(heh!) sporting my new hair with a Bump(#$D$!) with that gross feeling of the nail polish drying on my fingers. Determined. So focused that time seemed to slow while I was darting around the universe with purpose.
So with my wife working the camera, my son holding a small fan, and my little girl (that you can hear giggling at me in the beginning) giggling at me, we shot the first half. I couldn't wait to see what I'd created. I new it was just going to be spot on! Now I have been around for a day or two, I've seen some pretty gruesome things. When I was watching the playback of the first half, I felt like I was watching a cute animal die, unable to help it. Despite that feeling and the really bad taste in my mouth from hairspray and old lady smell. I knew two things, I wasn't going to shoot that footage again and the next half of this video was going to be like getting a shot from the doctor. It was going to be as painful as the last shot, but I still had to do it.
The last half I shot from a six inch tall tripod, it's tiny. I jetted through the shoot and didn't even watch it. I ripped off that dress, and ran to the shower. That hairspray made me feel like I was six years old and just tackled a syrup soaked stack of pancakes from the waffle house.
When I sat back down at the computer, I threw the clips together and sent it out. What, at first I'd thought was going to my famous video debut had really turned into the single most embarrassing thing I'd ever done in my life.
In the end, it was a privilege to be selected. It gave me an opportunity to show our supra internet community my level of dedication, and to maybe set a little bit of an example of what our members are capable of, and how far we're willing to go for each other.
Thank you for the NOVINT FALCON, JohnT! I can certainly use that!!! Although unexpected, it's very certainly appreciated. Thank ALL of you for being a part of the most EPIC online community with me, and for the kind comments on the news post. Thanks to Cosmo for helping with the music, and to DirtyDeets for helping edit the video. Thanks to the people that helped to get this little contest off of the ground. I certainly hope to see another round of this. BEAT THAT!
Play Fair! Fight Hard!
Game on the Edge.
So I get a call from one of our illustrious EGO Council members. "Congratulations!" Says the voice at the other end of the line. So I'm thinking "PROMOTION!" you know, I'm getting "geeked". I was elated, like a rocket shooting off! Then "BOOM!" in my face, like 2 feet away, the party rocket blew up. "You won! You won the "Dress Your Leadership Contest". Almost instantly I went from being excited, to feeling kind of sick.
So my first thought was Google all trains leaving for mexico, get down there and open an alpaca farm, start my life over. Just as I was jamming the last of my spidey undies collectioin into one of my kids backpacks, and raking the last $12.53 of my allowance into my poket, my eyes fell on the eGO t-shirt I have framed over the mantle in my "Den for Men". The whole "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" EdgeGamers.org pride feeling washed over me like the sweat pouring down my face.
Suddenly, I snapped into action with a determination to not only throw my dignity onto the ground before the almost 20,000 members of my community, but to do it in a way that would ensure my brothers/sisters that I did it with some passion.
So then the vision started forming in my mind. I started seeing flashes of P-Diddy videos, pyrotechnics, and back-up dancers. Let me just help you to understand one thing about my "mind". It's small, but it's dense to.
Now I had three days. The plan. Day one, erect a "studio" and call the wife to see if she'll pick me up a forgiving dress. One that isn't to...what's the word? Form fitting.
Well, Day one came along and POW!!
Done!
AND DONE!
Although, that looks a little two tight, let's try it on. Seems to fit ok, but what's that smell? Closest words that I can use to describe that smell, is "AVON" lady, but like she was sitting on your lap. It was strong enough to knock over a horse. Ah, well. It fits. We shoot tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and I'm working with the lighting on the green screen, which is near to impossible to get right. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can do this, and make it work. Wife gets home from work and we get to making me a star? She's working on the hair with the curling iron and a whole can of hairspray, whew I thought that the dress stank. I thought she was using the hairspray on me like she was trying to kill a bug with some raid. My seven year old is in front of me and she's wanting me to PICK OUT A COLOR of NAIL POLISH. I think that was about the time when I started to realize that this isn't going to be as easy as my "mind" was telling me earlier.
All of the sudden they're coming at me with MAKE-UP! I'm blurted out a "Nope!" and turned my back on them like I'd just voted them out of the tribe. I marched out to the studio(heh!) sporting my new hair with a Bump(#$D$!) with that gross feeling of the nail polish drying on my fingers. Determined. So focused that time seemed to slow while I was darting around the universe with purpose.
So with my wife working the camera, my son holding a small fan, and my little girl (that you can hear giggling at me in the beginning) giggling at me, we shot the first half. I couldn't wait to see what I'd created. I new it was just going to be spot on! Now I have been around for a day or two, I've seen some pretty gruesome things. When I was watching the playback of the first half, I felt like I was watching a cute animal die, unable to help it. Despite that feeling and the really bad taste in my mouth from hairspray and old lady smell. I knew two things, I wasn't going to shoot that footage again and the next half of this video was going to be like getting a shot from the doctor. It was going to be as painful as the last shot, but I still had to do it.
The last half I shot from a six inch tall tripod, it's tiny. I jetted through the shoot and didn't even watch it. I ripped off that dress, and ran to the shower. That hairspray made me feel like I was six years old and just tackled a syrup soaked stack of pancakes from the waffle house.
When I sat back down at the computer, I threw the clips together and sent it out. What, at first I'd thought was going to my famous video debut had really turned into the single most embarrassing thing I'd ever done in my life.
In the end, it was a privilege to be selected. It gave me an opportunity to show our supra internet community my level of dedication, and to maybe set a little bit of an example of what our members are capable of, and how far we're willing to go for each other.
Thank you for the NOVINT FALCON, JohnT! I can certainly use that!!! Although unexpected, it's very certainly appreciated. Thank ALL of you for being a part of the most EPIC online community with me, and for the kind comments on the news post. Thanks to Cosmo for helping with the music, and to DirtyDeets for helping edit the video. Thanks to the people that helped to get this little contest off of the ground. I certainly hope to see another round of this. BEAT THAT!
Play Fair! Fight Hard!
Game on the Edge.
