Inside the House of Baldwin

Funny. I’ve seen pictures of my Dad wearing the same looking hat in 1963-64 on his mission to the New England States. I’ve even run across a few more skinny ties recently.

Reminds me of another David Bowie song, Fashion.

There’s a brand new dance but I don’t know its name
That people from bad homes do again and again
It’s big and it’s bland full of tension and fear
They do it over there but we don’t do it here

Fashion! Turn to the left
Fashion! Turn to the right
Oooh, fashion!
We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town
Beep-beep
Beep-beep

Listen to me - don’t listen to me
Talk to me - don’t talk to me
Dance with me - don’t dance with me, no
Beep-beep

Jed participated in his first track meet yesterday at Lone Peak High School against Willowcreek Junior High. He participated in the 100 Meter race, and the Long Jump. He did a great job, especially since it was soooo cold. Brrr.

Jed has been in the beginning orchestra class at Mountain Ridge all year. He is part of the 1st Violins group.

This is their spring concert. The group is progressing and showing improvement from the beginning of the year. You can’t see Jed, he is in the very back. But you can catch a glimpse of him walking off the stage at the end of their performance.

I told Jed that if he continues with violin and orchestra through junior high, then I will buy him a brand new violin to play in high school. He seemed pleased with the deal.

Jed has been dabbling in a lot of movie-making lately, using our worn-out, worn-down, finicky old digital video camera. He has his own web page, called J&T Productions. It was previously RobotStorm, but there was a fall-out with Jed’s original partner. Presently, the main authors are Jed and his friend, Thane Pearson. Bridget and Dallen have also contributed to some of the work.

I showed Jed how to export and upload his movies to Blip.tv only once, and Brad showed him how to update his page just once. Since then he has done everything on his own. You can either access Jed’s page here, or from our Blogroll on the right column under RobotStorm. Enjoy.

On February 1 Jed participated in another Belt Advancement at Bushi Ban. He advanced from a red belt to a red-brown belt. His goal is to get his brown belt within six months, and eventually his black belt within the next year or so (brown-black, white-black, black). He’s a pretty serious karate student, so I wouldn’t put it past him.

Click To Play

Jed had a project to do in Utah History. The project was to do a story on your favorite place in Utah. Jed chose Snowbird Ski Resort. So yesterday when the boys went snowboarding with Dad at Snowbird, Dad and Jed worked on getting material that they could use for Jed’s project. The project calls for no more than five minutes, so Jed had to pare it down considerably. However, Jed did all of the editing by himself with “some” help from Dad and Dallen. But, as you’ll see from the movie, Jed is the newest filmmaker in the Baldwin household.

This is Jed and I’m just warning you that this is only my second totally edited project (I’ll be posting my first on a special page soon) and it probably isn’t all that good. Still I really hope you enjoy it. That doesn’t mean post a comment that says, “Great job it was awesome!” if you didn’t really like it. Part of editing things is getting the good and bad feedback, no matter how hurtful it may be. Thanks! 

Jed had a Weapons Seminar several months ago at his dojo. The students learned three different katas in the morning, and then had to perform them and compete against each other in the afternoon. Jed chose to do all three: nunchuku, katana, and bo staff. He did a great job.

Click on a photo below to view Jed’s 2007 Photo Year in Review…

Jed completed another belt test on Friday, August 3 at Bushi Ban Karate. He advanced from a blue belt to a red belt. Jed is a very talented and focused karate student. He was invited to join the Black Belt Club (BBC). It is for the elite students at the dojo. We’re very proud of Jed’s accomplishments.

Last night we attended a Rush Concert, their Snakes and Arrows Tour. It was held at the Usana Ampitheatre in West Valley. We took Dallen and Jed, and Dallen invited his golfing buddy, Nathan Bray. All of Jed’s friends were at Scout Camp, where we had picked him up earlier, so we invited the ultimate Rush fan along, Shawn Graff. Shawn had already attended the concert in Concord, CA just last weekend. He gave us the lowdown on what to expect.

The crowd was actually quite tame. There definitely wasn’t any slam dancing (although Dallen spied a young man in a kilt doing interpretive dance during the songs). There were youngsters there, mostly children of fans, but the average age was probably above 25. I even saw some grandpas and grandmas shuffling along after the concert. The weather was great, the music was great, and the show was great. I haven’t been to a Rush concert since 1992 when I was pregnant with Dallen. That must be why he is such a huge fan himself.

The funniest thing I noticed was that, along with raising lighters in the air during the encore, people raised their lighted cell phones. My has our society changed. What a bunch of geeks! Also, even though there were signs banning cameras and video cameras, it couldn’t stop everyone from taking pics and videos with their cell phones. I took pics with my iPhone, and Brad took video with our little Panasonic Lumex camera.

I also noticed that I am, once again, definitely getting older. The bass beat was opposite my body rhythm. At times the insides of my body actually hurt from the bass, or the amps, or whatever it was that was coming at me like a freight train. Plus, my earplugs didn’t work so well. The music was still quite loud. I am now in the mom category. I’m actually a mom of a teenage boy. Am I really that old?

Click Here to view some photos from the night.

Jed had a birthday on June 23. He invited some buddies to join him on an Odyssey space mission at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove. After 2 1/2 hours of adventure, they returned to our home for pizza, cake and ice cream, and presents. Fun was had by all.  

Click here to view some pictures on Flickr. 

Jed declined to share with everyone his experiences in San Francisco during Spring Break in April…so a photo tour will have to suffice. Click on an image below for a larger view.

We had a great time at Brighton on 12/26/2006 and again on 12/30/2006.

• Bridget is a bomber. She likes to go down the hill at full speed. She bi-passed lessons, and went straight up to the big lifts — the bunny hill just didn’t give her the speed she needed.
• Jed is Mr. Snowboarder now. He’s getting the hang of it much better and doesn’t have as many major wipeouts — although, he’s still good for a couple per trip.
• Dallen, well lets just say that this makes 8 trips to the slopes this season.
• Brad met up with Paul Pearson. Paul took me down a double-black run off Great Western Lift (Clark’s Roost). Wow. Burning thigh city.

Click To Play

Jed was concerned when he saw that a present came packaged in a pretty pink box. Should he open it? Should he move to a private room?

Watch and find out what happened.

Well, here I am, practically wasting my time typing this. (☺ yeah right.)

While I’m sick, really, on December 18, 2006 at 8:36, while I should really be sleeping. (now everyone who is ACTUALLY reading this laughs at this inside joke.)

Now as you see at the beginning of the slide show you are about to see, or have seen, I was performing for my purple belt in karate, that I have now finished up, and am now at this minute, a blue belt! (woot! And evil, for as many of you know, I absolutely hate BYU for personal reasons, and the main color at BYU is blue, I am almost completely anti BYU.) in the end I was a purple belt for way too long, the normal, a.k.a average amount of time that a purple belt is a purple belt is about 6 months tops. I was in for about 8, which is about the average amount of time that a red belt is in (a red belt is two advancements above purple.) at least. Any who, I already knew almost everything that I am being re-taught. (☺) in fact, I knew almost everything that was being tested to the advanced belts.

Continue reading »

If you want a visual of my life this past year, then I would suggest that you click on one of the pictures below. My 2006 Photo Album is for everyone’s viewing pleasure on flickr.  

Enjoy Jed’s year-end review movie…

 

 Children of the Nutheads [7:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (51)

Not wanting to be left behind, Jed dabbled in some movie-making as well, using the Sallenback boys and his sisters, along with Danielle Hancock, for the cast. It’s a little nutty.

This is the comment area for all the RobotStorm movies and what not. So if you want give us some feedback and tips, this is the place to put them, thank you, and we hope you enjoyed the whatever!