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| Rockin' with CITGO | |
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10.03.2009
3:53 PM | Link2 comments |
 One of the more unusual bands I've played in as a drummer was called the CITGO All-Star Rock & Roll Revue, made up of employees in Tulsa. Around 1992, CITGO decided to put on a huge talent show to raise money for MDA (their biggest charity recipient each year) called the CITGO Follies, and one of my bosses and some other guys got the idea to form a band. They knew I was a drummer (and maybe they also thought it was good to have a "young guy" in the group), so we started rehearsing during lunch in our warehouse. One of the guys was a hardcore 50s and 60s rock & roll maniac, who knew every bit of music trivia you can imagine, so we decided to do a kind of timeline medley, starting with Rock Around the Clock and ending with Heart of Rock and Roll (I guess someone was a Huey Lewis fan!). The show was a pretty good success, and afterwards we were asked to play for some other parties and charity events, so suddenly we were kind of a real band! We started learning tons of songs, and the older guys would always be amazed that I had never heard most of these old tunes before! Actually, it was really good for me, since I expanded my knowledge a bit and totally nailed how to play a shuffle beat. We even had a band logo, and CITGO paid to get us custom embroidered shirts and shiny jackets, too!A couple years later, there was another CITGO Follies, so we worked up a new show and added tons of people to the band, including backup singers and even a horn section (which is how I met my good friend Nick, since his dad was a CITGO employee). Another year there was a mock casino night, and we played a long set for the party (my parents were visiting Tulsa during that event, and got to see me go nuts during Ray Charles' What'd I Say). I really enjoyed some other great events, too, such as playing outdoors at Bell's Amusement Park right next to the roller coaster! I don't really remember how or why we stopped playing, but after our four or five year run, we eventually packed it up. During our heyday, we were featured on a local Tulsa news broadcast, and now you can watch that ancient (probably 1995) video! I thought it was hilarious that they used me to begin the segment, with the crazy line "mild-mannered computer whiz by day, rock & roll drummer by night!" I was looking kind of silly in my Mod Mikey phase, but I secretly thought I was super-cool. Playing in the CITGO band sure made work more interesting, and definitely had a positive effect on my drumming ability today. I hope the other guys still find the time to break out their instruments, too!  Watch video: CITGO Band News Broadcast
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| Macintosh developer nostalgia | |
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9.06.2009
8:30 AM | Link2 comments |
 Several months ago as I watched Welcome to Macintosh, I started thinking that I should write an essay on my early computer career, which involved using Macs at CITGO Petroleum Corporation. I was really lucky to get hired at just the right time (I actually got the job a semester before I graduated, mainly because the interviewer was fascinated that I had classical music and Shakespeare courses on my transcript!), because CITGO was starting to look at alternatives to their giant mainframe in the new world of Client/Server Computing (yes, there was a time when that was a cutting edge concept!). They told me I was going to use Macs and a scriptable spreadsheet called WingZ, so I spent some time reading a few books about it before moving to Tulsa.CITGO is a big corporation accustomed to spending big bucks, so I had a top-of-the-line Mac with two huge monitors (I couldn’t believe it!), and I was given time to play around with WingZ, building graphical user interfaces to crunch numbers with charts like no one in the company had ever seen on their green screen terminals. Later I learned HyperCard (how nostalgic!) and used it as a front-end to a mainframe application. I thought this was really cool since it did some terminal screen-scraping in the background with a cool UI on the front-end. We had Apple reps in all the time who loved to make sales to big businesses like CITGO, and they always brought me cool goodies like coffee mugs and mousepads! Once they invited me and my boss to the Infomart in Dallas (where Apple had a huge business center at the time) to present the things we were working on to Apple staff, and they treated us like royalty! Soon the CITGO big wigs saw that we should do more stuff with Macs, and they hired more people into my group – all of us became great friends and had fun together for the next several years. It was a total blast to go on business trips to the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (I got to go three years in a row and gasp at the first public demonstration of QuickTime!) and even MacWorld, not spending a dime of my own money (and of course, sometimes we would go a day early to hit Disneyland or rent a convertible!). During one of these trips I got to see part of the Apple campus in Cupertino, and even went out for sushi (my first time ever) with some Apple employees. It was all pretty amazing! Our Mac group eventually started working with 4th Dimension (a development environment that’s still around today) with an Oracle database back-end (the SQL knowledge I gained learning Oracle is something I still use every day in my current job). We hired a 4D expert from Tulsa, who became a great friend and later hired me away from CITGO to do consulting with him in Austin! We built a giant application called FAMOS (a silly acronym) to track oil tanker schedules, which ended up gaining some notoriety (and saving CITGO lots of money). First, Apple and Oracle were working together to promote their products in big business, so they brought in a film crew to make a video about our successful application. It was a crazy day at work (cameras and lights everywhere), and I got to click around in the app and say a few things on camera! (I recently imported this video from VHS, which was a blast to see, even though I was extra overweight at the time!) Next, my boss and I were asked to be guest speakers at 4D Summit (the 4th Dimension developer conference) in San Francisco, and I got to demonstrate the application and show some of my techniques to about 1,000 people (with a Steve Jobs-style giant screen for the demo!). I can hardly believe those events happened even today. The next step in my Apple development was to "go deeper" and learn how to build applications using C++ and MacApp (Apple's old object-oriented code framework which was used to build the original versions of classics like Photoshop). Of course, this meant more fun out-of-town training at Apple's Developer University, where I went to some pretty intense MacApp classes that not only solidified the object-oriented concepts I had learned in college, but also familiarized me with lots of Mac internals that are still similar in iPhone development today. Not only did I get to take these courses, but CITGO even flew out an Apple employee to tutor me in Tulsa! I remember he was a nice guy who helped me quite a bit with memory management and other areas, and we often had lunch so he could talk about his cool California lifestyle and his red Miata. The only thing I actually wrote with MacApp was a desktop faxing application, but it was still pretty cutting edge to be able to drag and drop any document without getting up and walking to the fax machine! There were a few other fun aspects to my Apple enthusiasm, such as running a CITGO Mac user group at the office (with presentations and even a newsletter), and getting to be involved in various beta testing programs (I was part of a committee helping to refine an attempt to bring PowerBuilder to the Mac), but eventually CITGO's efforts were all directed towards SAP, which was the perfect catalyst to convince me to move to Austin. I'll always be nostalgic about my early career, and I'm thankful that I got to experience so many things during such an explosive change in the industry! Watch video: Apple Success Story VideoBe prepared - I was pretty overweight in 1992! |
| The Day Jobs on Austin Music Network | |
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7.26.2009
8:53 AM | Link0 comments |
 During my last visit to Oklahoma City, I used Dad's old VCR to dub some VHS tapes onto MiniDV, which included some old footage of my swing band, The Day Jobs. During our days of being "famous", we appeared on Austin Music Network in 1998 on a show called What's the Cover?, where we had a short interview and played four songs live on the air! The studio gave us a tape of the show after the filming, which has been packed away in my garage all these years. Over the past few weeks I've been editing our songs into individual videos on YouTube, and here they are for your nostalgic enjoyment! The first two are originals, starting with our "hit" song Mopac Bounce (I had a low quality version of this one on YouTube already, but I've replaced it with this new source), followed by Get Go Getter. We also did two standards - Puttin' on the Ritz (please notice my whistle skills!) and Dream a Little Dream of Me, one of our best fast numbers. I have lots more Day Jobs footage coming when I get around to editing it - I like "preserving" our band on the internet! Watch video: Mopac Bounce Watch video: Get Go Getter Watch video: Puttin' on the Ritz Watch video: Dream a Little Dream of Me
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| Momusu at Anime Expo Part 2 | |
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7.07.2009
7:00 PM | Link0 comments |
 On with more Anime Expo details! The next day was the official start of the convention, so Dae and I arrived early for opening ceremonies, since we knew Morning Musume would be there. At first we thought there was no line at all, but we soon realized that almost all lines at Anime Expo were outside in the sun (because of fire code/traffic reasons inside), so we worked on our T-shirt tans a little. We got pretty good seats (around Row 15), and took a couple naps since it got started 45 minutes late. It was worth the wait, though, since this was my first glimpse of Morning Musume (un-masked) on stage, wearing their frilly outfits from Shouganai Yume Oibito! Non-flash photos were allowed (the only exception for the "no Momusu photos" policy at the convention), so I took a few grainy shots at max zoom. All of the honored guests were extremely impressive and interesting, but truthfully I spent the whole hour looking at Morning Musume and waving if they looked my way!Immediately after opening ceremonies, the next job was to try to get one of only 300 guaranteed autograph tickets from buying Momusu merchandise. We got there as fast as we could, but soon realized the line was already over 500 deep (we later found out it had started at 4:00 AM!). I was a little bummed about missing out, but decided to use the time to start waiting for the Momusu Q&A panel, even though it was three hours away. Of course, there were already lots of people in line! After lots of confusion, the staff eventually decided to move us into the panel room for the previous guest (who was the immensely entertaining Toshiyuki Morikawa - I'll write about him later!), and when he finished, Dae and I were able to jump up to third row for Morning Musume! When they first walked in I couldn't believe how close we were, since I could smile at them all and there was no doubt they were actually smiling back at me! The crowd went crazy, and listening to the girls (in both Japanese and adorable English) was fantastic. My selfish fanboy strategy was to try to get the attention of the members who weren't currently talking, so they could smile and wave back at me (I got the best reactions from Reina, Jun Jun and Lin Lin)! I was totally on the edge of my seat for the whole hour - it was such a great time. After the Q&A, they handed out 500 non-guaranteed "priority" autograph tickets, and since we were up so close, Dae and I got them! Then they announced the location for autographs, so we ran (along with everyone else) to the exhibit hall, only to find the information was incorrect. Fans were wandering around everywhere, asking staff questions, and finally we got the correct answer and made it to the actual location. By that time, other people that solved the mystery first were lined up, but we were still feeling hopeful. Unfortunately, after the hour and a half was up, they closed the door while we were about 100 back in line. That door closing was a depressing sound, but we were told our priority tickets would still be good on Saturday. (Even though I was bummed, I felt better when I met the guy who was only 7th in line when they closed the door!) After using up all of our adrenaline that day, all we could do was get some food (and ice cream!) and crash at Dae's condo. At least we had plenty of rest before the concert the next day!  View photos: Anime Expo 2009 Watch video: Morning Musume at AX Opening CeremoniesLabels: jpop, morning musume, photos, trips, videos |
| Momusu at Anime Expo Part 1 | |
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7.06.2009
8:03 PM | Link0 comments |
 It's time to begin my Morning Musume at Anime Expo story! I'd rather write impressions instead of a journal, but I guess chronologically is the only way to tell everything. Right away I discovered that the key to this whole trip was staying up-to-date with my iPhone - without constantly checking Twitter and forums I would have missed so much! The first bombshell happened while I was still in the Austin airport, since someone found out Morning Musume's flight number from Japan, and fans started preparing to meet them at the airport. Although I was worried about being late to the convention center, I decided I had to take the chance, since the airport would be kind of a guaranteed way to see them from 10 feet away. Dae and I hung out in the terminal with about 100 or so other fans (who had a big welcome sign), and after waiting forever for them to get through customs, we finally saw them walking our way! Everyone was screaming, and the girls looked so cute (even though some wore face masks) and waved to us as they walked by. Dae shot a great video, and for some reason Reina appeared to point right at Dae's camera! (Soon my pal Ryan discovered someone else's airport video online and could hear my voice in it.)My first impression of seeing them was that they are much smaller and delicate than I imagined. Of course I was looking for Sayumi, and she seemed so much shorter than she looks on TV! It was fun to see their different reactions - some seemed pumped about being in Los Angeles, some seemed a little timid or scared, and I think some were surprised to see American fans waiting for them. But they were generally bubbly and all smiles, and it was cool to know they had seen us. There's something awesome about knowing that at some level my fandom was now known by the artists themselves - like a small personal connection! After calming down from the awesome airport sighting, we went to the convention center for the first of many huge lines (mostly outside in the sun). After extra waiting because of computer problems, we finally got our badges and immediately went to the concert ticket line, which was huge - I thought for sure we would have bad seats for the show. But when we finally got to the front, they gave us Section C, Row 7 - I couldn't believe it! So the first day was a huge success, and Dae and I celebrated by meeting Ernesto for mohitos, then Mexican food with flaming margaritas. It was a great start to my Jpop adventure! (I only have video posted today, but I'll work on getting photos up tomorrow.) Watch video: Morning Musume at LAXLabels: jpop, morning musume, trips, videos |
| Old band clips with iMovie 9 | |
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6.13.2009
4:15 PM | Link0 comments |
 Transitioning to my new iMac has been really cool for lots of reasons. First, it helped me get some files organized that I had forgot I even had, such as tons of short video clips (mostly shot with still cameras using movie mode) that needed a little editing! Next, it gave me a great excuse to try out iMovie 9. I'm kind of an "expert" when it comes to the old iMovie HD, but after I saw how radically they had changed the application in the last version if iLife, I didn't even bother upgrading. But since the latest iLife came with my iMac, I wanted to see what it can do. It definitely takes some getting used to, since almost none of my "skill" applies to this version! But for short clips, the transition and title capabilities really make it worth it (I would never use it for a long project, but I hope to be learning Final Cut Express in the future!). Finally, the speed of my new iMac really made it a joy to mess with this stuff!So, I have three "never before seen" clips of a couple of my bands. The first is my old jazz combo Stella, back in the days when we played some crowded, well-paying gigs! The next two are Halloween shows of the Greatest American Heroes playing in costume at the Carousel Lounge. It's fun to watch people dancing, and it's also quite historically important to have preserved footage of Ernesto dressed as Jeannie! Watch video: Stella Watch video: Greatest American Heroes 2006 Watch video: Greatest American Heroes 2008
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| Dae & Mikey's Disneyland Day | |
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3.15.2009
3:58 PM | Link0 comments |
 I took my Kodak Zi6 that I got for Christmas with me on my recent trip to Los Angeles, so I could experiment a little with shooting in HD at Disneyland! It was super convenient to have it in my pocket ready to go, and it was really fun to think about how to compose shots in a 16:9 frame. But mostly, my pal Dae and I used it to pass the time in line for rides (even though we had such short wait times) by interviewing each other. I used my Zi6, and Dae used the movie mode on his Canon camera, and by the end of the day we had about 20 minutes of the most lame and silly video ever shot. But it was still a blast to edit them together, add a little music, insert some effects and titles, and create my first HD work in iMovie (although the clips from Dae's camera are still SD). For some reason, YouTube messed up the first five seconds (it's gray when it should be black), but it takes forever to upload so I'm just living with it. I also decided to try Vimeo since they kind of specialize in HD. There's nothing particularly funny or interesting about this video (unless you know Dae or me, which will make it kind of hilarious), but it reminded me that editing is fun and I need to do more of it! Watch video: Disneyland Day on YouTube Watch video: Disneyland Day on Vimeo
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| Disneyland live music | |
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1.28.2009
8:07 PM | Link0 comments |
 I've still been editing old vacation video every now and then, and I've been enjoying spitting things up into "short subject" clips. It turns out I have lots of footage of the various live music at Disneyland, so I thought I'd mention my latest YouTube videos here (even though I uploaded them some time ago). I remember really enjoying the All-American College Band, which is made up each year of fantastic student musicians from across the country. Their big band arrangements of classic Disney tunes are creative and full of energy, even if their director is really silly to watch! I've only caught the Bayou Brass a couple times, but I really like their sound (and I wish I could try out that ultra-portable drum kit - the whole thing is on wheels!). The Dapper Dans are always fun to watch, and even though the audio quality of my video isn't that great, it was fun to capture someone's birthday with a great Mickey Mouse impression thrown in! I've already linked to my Royal Street Bachelors video here on WEBmikey, but I'm including it again since we're talking about Disneyland bands. I never miss the Bachelors when I visit - their guitarist has been playing there as long as I can remember, and I've even overheard him mention that he knew Walt! Watch video: All-American College Band Watch video: Bayou Brass Watch video: Dapper Dans Watch video: Royal Street Bachelors
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| A few Disneyland videos | |
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12.11.2008
7:26 AM | Link0 comments |
 Lately I've been spending some time editing old Disney vacation video footage and making short clips for YouTube. During my years of Disneyland trips I've shot quite a lot of stuff, and it's really fun to go over again to chop it up into parades and performances and things. This is one of those projects that I've always wanted to do, but I never made the time for it before. But since I already had the ball rolling with editing old Christmas video, it was easy to keep going! Most of these movies won't be too interesting unless you're a Disneyland fan, and I'm sure there are much better videos that capture these same things, but I like getting them off the tapes I never watch and putting them on YouTube where I might take a peek every now and then. And there's lots more to come (eventually)! If you check these out, be sure to click the Watch in high quality link below the video if it's available, since I've finally started uploading stuff with better resolution. Watch video: Disney's Parade of the Stars Watch video: Royal Street Bachelors Watch video: Winnie the Pooh Attraction Watch video: Disney's Electrical Parade
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| Vacation video | |
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11.21.2008
6:53 AM | Link0 comments |
 Recently I've been doing a little video editing of footage that I shot over the past few years. I always meet my parents in Waco for "pre-Thanksgiving" each year, and I like to have a few videos ready to show my Mom's family there, so that got me going. I started with the past several years of Christmas gift opening videos, and then moved on to some family vacations. It's really fun to just cut things down to only the best shots, and setting things to music is usually much better than the original audio (which usually has too much of me talking and laughing!). So here are a couple more videos from my YouTube collection: our 2003 trip to New York City and our 2004 trip to Las Vegas! I really like the New York video, since it has lots of tourist-style shots, but the Vegas video is a little boring (oh well!). Editing these helps me to see when I've been a lousy cameraman, both in technique and coverage, so I'm planning to do a better job on vacations in the future! Watch video: New York City Vacation Watch video: Las Vegas Vacation
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| Star PEZ | |
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12.06.2007
6:41 PM | Link0 comments |
 One of the segments in my Christmas video project this year was a little spoof of classic Star Wars scenes acted out by PEZ dispensers! I love Star Wars (of course), and I have so many PEZ actors waiting to perform, so it was really easy to make. Since not all of the characters I needed are available as PEZ, I had to use a few stand-ins. Where else can you see Fred Flintstone as Han Solo or Santa Claus as Obi-Wan Kenobi? My favorite sequence to shoot was the cantina scene, since I could have gone all day picking out weird looking PEZ creatures from my collection! I also had fun printing out various backgrounds to shoot against. Watch for the thrilling lightsaber duel (and please ignore when my hand creeps into the frame)! Enjoy! Watch video: Star PEZ
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| Vacation highlights | |
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11.25.2007
12:32 PM | Link0 comments |
Whenever I visit Mom's family in Waco for pre-Thanksgiving, I like to bring some photos on my iPod so I can show them to everyone on TV. Since everyone enjoys seeing them so much, I decided to do a few short videos this year, using footage I've taken on trips with Mom & Dad, both from recent vacations (like Niagara Falls), as well as older ones. I managed to get three of them done, so I thought I would share these on YouTube. It's fun going back through old video and putting together the highlights of fun times! (I've also moved a few older QuickTime movies over to YouTube, which you can find on my Videos page.) Watch video: Niagara Falls Vacation Watch video: Washington DC Vacation Watch video: Fishing at Walt Disney World Labels: videos |
| Mikey's Mansion Mania | |
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8.25.2007
7:21 AM | Link0 comments |
 Remember my Disneyland Home Movies video that suddenly became semi-popular on YouTube? Well, the views just keep on coming, and now it's been watched over 18,000 times! My dad is a pretty famous camera man now, so maybe he should get an agent or something! I also mentioned a while back that I was contacted by DoomBuggies.com (the most amazing Haunted Mansion website ever) to use part of my video that shows some vintage exterior of the Mansion (and coincidentally, shows me throwing a fit since was too scared to go in). I just discovered that my video is now on the site, and I'm so proud and happy to give something to the Disney fan community! The video appears at the end of the History section of the site, way down near the bottom of the page - Mom and I look so nice! (This image is how the video appears, so visit the site to watch it!) I can't help feeling a little web-famous now, and thinking about Disneyland is really making me excited about going again later this year!
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| The Day Jobs: more memories | |
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7.24.2007
8:39 PM | Link0 comments |
 I'm continuing to move old photos to Flickr, and now it's become kind of an obsession, since I know I will have a nice feeling of accomplishment when it's finished! Since I'm starting with photos taken in 2000, there are plenty of shots from the last few gigs of my old swing band, The Day Jobs. It's been a blast seeing these old photos again! One of these gigs was way out in the boonies (complete with flatbed trailer), and the other was on the Flagship Texas, a cool boat on Lake Travis that people rent for parties. I've also been converting my old video clips to YouTube, so I figured now would be a good time to upload some Day Jobs video! This is a performance of Mopac Bounce (an original by our guitarist Dae) from Austin Music Network, which we appeared on live. It was pretty exciting at the time! The quality of this clip is definitely lousy - I can remember that Barron helped me rip it from VHS so many years ago, and we had to make it a little postage stamp sized video in order to get decent sound (now replaced with higher quality version!). Still, it's better than nothing, so enjoy the memories! View photos: Gig in the Boonies View photos: Flagship Texas Gig Watch video: Day Jobs / Mopac Bounce
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| Honor Among Thieves revisited | |
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7.21.2007
10:12 AM | Link0 comments |
 Having my pal Matt back in town got me thinking about my early days in Austin, which prompted me to start moving all of my old Kodak Gallery (which used to be Ofoto back when I used it) photos over to Flickr. I decided to start with my oldest albums, and I'm trying to preserve the way they were on Ofoto, so I'm including all the pictures (even though some are so bad I would never upload them today!) with my original captions. Since I'm starting with my oldest photos first (back from 2000), the first batches have to do with my pal Tom's movie masterpiece, Honor Among Thieves! The making of this 90 minute feature (way back before I ever dreamed of video editing myself) and the huge premiere party event is legendary in the history of my Austin pals! The first short set of photos is the final night of editing, where I watched Tom finish the movie on his slow PC until about 4:00 in the morning, and the second huge set is the premiere party itself, which was held in a rented art gallery downtown. I also recently converted the funny trailer for the movie into an official WEBmikey Clip for YouTube, so you can enjoy an extremely low quality (sorry, VCRs and QuickTime were pretty crappy seven years ago!) taste of the film. I remember I was so excited about the movie being finished, that I even showed it to my fellow Works.com employees at lunch one day! Memory Lane sure is a fun place to visit - I'll be uploading hundreds more ancient photos in the days to come! View photos: Editing with Tom View photos: Honor Among Thieves Premiere Watch video: Honor Among Thieves Trailer
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| Wonderful waterfall | |
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5.15.2007
12:25 PM | Link0 comments |
 My parents and I always take a vacation or two together each year, and this year Mom decided it would be nice to visit Niagara Falls! It was really a fantastic trip for so many reasons. There's nothing like actually seeing the falls in person - I had seen a million photos, of course, but I was still absolutely amazed at what it was like to actually be there! The Horseshoe Falls and the American Falls are both beautiful, and it's incredible to think of the sheer power of all of that water. Our hotel was really nice and had a great falls view, but the best feature was the enclosed walkway to the casino next door, where we spent most of our time! It was fun getting Canadian money and blowing it on the slots, and we found some really fun games (I even managed to play non-stop for several hours on a single $20 once!). We took a wonderful tour to get in all the major attractions, such as the Skylon Tower (terrific view), Journey Behind the Falls (which is mind-blowing just because you can actually look out through the rushing water), and of course, the Maid of the Mist! The boat goes right up to the Horseshoe Falls, and I loved getting soaked in the mist and screaming the whole time! Everything about the trip worked out nicely - we had beautiful weather, a super-friendly driver from the airport and a great tour guide, and I even got to be together with Mom on Mother's Day, which hasn't happened in years. As always, it was a wonderful family vacation! View photos: Niagara Falls Watch video: Niagara Falls VacationLabels: niagara falls, photos, trips, videos |
