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I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you've been reading the news, you know what has been happening. If not, allow me to fill you in.

Iowa has been hit by tornadoes lately, and not just tornadoes, but floods as well. You should look up the photos of the floods, then you'll see how severe the situation is.

I was born and raised in Iowa for the first 8 years of my life. My Grandma still lives in Iowa. So does my Uncle, Aunt, and two cousins. I was so depressed when I heard about the tornadoes and floods. My childhood home may be gone.

I hope that no more lives are lost in the days to come for Iowa. If you could please make donations to fundraising efforts to help Iowa heal it would mean and help a lot.

I think it's an epiphany anyway, but I don't really care. I realized today while resting my eyes, I want a family. Now before I get into it, I need to say something. I haven't had too many epiphanies. I haven't thought about my future in a positive way. I rarely made goals for myself. This epiphany just sort of struck me in the back of the head. I wasn't even thinking very much, just in 1 second like the length of this upcoming movie, I realized that I want to make a positive choice in my life. I want a wife and I want to have a child, I want to have at least 1 daughter. Big realization for so

things are getting hectic!

last night i was brainstorming new names for our non-profit foundation, and came up with a moniker i'm pretty excited about. "The 1 Second Foundation" is a bit innocuous and doesn't stand alone in terms of expresing what the collaborative core of this effort is all about. but the new name will be much better in terms of marketing and getting the idea out there, which is the majority of the work these days. I can't share the new name until we get it locked in officially, but the process is underway, thanks to Ben at McDermitt, Will, & Emery.

Only 3 weeks til we hit the road! and we are waaaay behind the mountain of things we are trying to get done. i expected this to be a lot of work, and it's living up to the expectations. Each day we are confirming bookings across and presentations while following up with schools and volunteers across the country.

Getting the bus registered, insurance, and researching electrical. Converting a school bus to a bio-diesel RV is no small task! We need to convert the power, build the bunks/living quarters, the rooftop stage, and credit stand caboose... all in 3 weeks! Plus I need to work on the vinyl wrapping designs and all that as well. And where is that newsletter I was working on? oh- right where I left it. Waiting for its turn. Intro video, emails, press release, budgets, phone calls, errands.

I forgot about this, but for folks in Portland, there is a free screening of one of my animated short films tonight, as part of a program called "Cartoons From HELL!"curated by an amazing indie animator, Pat Smith. There are some really great animators; Bill Plympton, Don Hertzfeld, Pat, etc. I'm pretty stoked to have my short in there. A lot of the animators will be at the screening- wish I could be there, but I'm burried. Check it out or pass along to folks in Portland. it's Free :)

We had a great time over the weekend meeting lots of people at the Lummis Day Festival and signing up almost 100 new producers!

Several friends volunteered to help set up our credit stand, and it was a great day outside with good music and good food- the Evangenitals especially rocked.

We had parents, grandparents, children, and even little tots signing up. Someone found $100 in the grass and gave it to us! But then we found the person who lost it and gave it back... but we still raised about $300, which is a start toward money to get our bus for our road-trip.

Got word from Hal yesterday that a couple of big companies are interested in potentially donating some equipment (computers, harddrives, cameras, etc.) to help complete our film. That's pretty exciting news. I'll keep you all posted of developments. We are trying to get whatever equipment we can donated to cut costs whenever possible; companies who make donations will receive producer credits in exchange for the value of the donated services. Speaking of which, pair.com moved up another $997 thanks to their continued hosting services.

got back in LA today; started working on T1SF before I got home, catching up on calls while riding the Fly Away to Union Station. I love the Fly Away: $3 from LAX direct to downtown. good deal.

We are getting ready to start with a new round of web development to make several small fixes to our site. Gianelle has been interviewing a few potential summer interns and organizing our various projects. Also got a 1 Second Magic Trick video from Matthew LaCurts , aka bagheadinc.com, who is one of our Executive Producers:

i would like to start by saying that i've been involved with this project since i was 17, so it's been about 2 years. the reason i was interested at first is because i knew that this would be the start to my film career, all i've ever wanted to do in life is work behind the camera... but now, this project has taken on a new light for me. as i've grown-up a bit in the last 2 years, graduated high school, left home, moved into my own apartment, have a full time job and go to school year round, it forced me to appriciate other things in life. Love, art, real beauty, friendship, money, sleep and time.

The last few days have been a flurry; Janeen, Gianelle and I got together collectively for the first time, which was really good. Janeen brought a lot of structure to my 6 page list of web site goals. I had typed it all out on a word document, but Janeen brought it into Excel and broke it into different catagories (enhancements, fixes, new features), and helped prioritize and track each task. It is obvious she has tackled these sort of challenges before, and it's really helpful to have her experience to help organize.