What the... CIVIL WAR is over and WHO won?!

Jeri Rowe's article a few days ago at the News & Record was the first time I'd heard from Marvel Comic's Civil War storyline in some time. I did a little follow-up reading and knowing what I know now - yes even considering the DUMBEST thing that Marvel Comics has EVER done - I must say that it sounds like I've missed quite a show, just going by how this ended...

In case you haven't heard, in Civil War #7 the whole thing about superhero registration - which Tony Stark aka Iron Man has led the charge for and which Captain America has led a resistance movement against - comes to a violent crescendo. And... Captain America surrenders! The Superhero Registration Act is now fully enforced. Cap is taken away in shackles and Stark is now the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (if you know Marvel comics you know how big a deal this is). What's more, each of the fifty states is set to get its own team of superheroes as part of "the Initiative".

Whoa...

If Marvel doesn't "pansy out" and opts to play for keeps with this, it might be the most invigorating thing they have done to their comics line since... well, in a gosh-awful long time that's for sure! What I mean by that is, Iron Man better not decide that superhero registration was a bad thing after all and have Doctor Strange mystically mind-wipe the whole Earth from remembering it ever happened.

If Marvel decides to abide by what they've inflicted on their universe and not to play it safe, then I might forgive them for resurrecting Mar-Vell. I might even forgive them for the legendarily horrible "Clone Saga", too.

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LOST tonight was awesome!

Tonight's episode is titled "Tricia Tanaka is Dead". We finally got to see the strike from the meteorite (or was it an asteroid?) that destroyed the Mr. Clucks that Hurley used to work at. A somewhat lighter episode tonight (but then the Hurley-centric ones usually are) than the past few. Cheech Marin was pretty good as Hurley's father. Loved the whole plot about finding the van and then trying to get it going. Those frantic seconds with Hurley and Charlie behind the wheel were nuts. And we even got to see Vincent the dog again! All in all, just plain fun tonight... until the last few seconds where it looks like things are about to ramp-up bigtime.

Next week: word is that we get introduced to another DHARMA installation (possibly The Flame) and will finally get to see Eyepatch Man up close. The promo for it at the tail end of tonight's looked pretty good. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy watching this episode a few more times.

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SCHRODINGER'S BEDROOM hits 1000 views

Schrodinger's Bedroom, my entry in the upcoming Fox reality show On The Lot, presented it's one-thousandth viewing earlier today. Not bad considering it's been online a little over a week now.

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Something worth blogging about at 2 in the morning

Well, that's one prayer, at least, that I know got answered wonderfully.

It's enough to give me hope for a few others now...

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So James Cameron is saying that he's in possession of Jesus Christ's coffin...

...and that on Monday he'll unveil the DNA evidence to prove it.

They can't even figure out who's the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, so how exactly did Cameron pull this off, exactly?

Read the weird story of the Israeli coffins here. My prediction: we will barely remember this a year from now. I mean, almost a year ago it was the "Gospel of Judas" thing and how many people really took that seriously?

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In the past 48 hours...

I have learned many things, but this one now comes most readily to mind:

It's not just a song: some of God's greatest gifts really are unanswered prayers.

Be thankful that it really is Him, and not us, who is in charge of our circumstances. I don't even want to wonder what it would be like if we were the ones running things.

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Secretive "Christian leaders" pimping Jesus for votes again

Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and a few other "Christian leaders" are trying to decide who to support for President in 2008. And their meetings are hush-hush.

First of all, who the hell decided that these guys are supposed to be "Christian leaders"? Secondly, their "leadership" sure hasn't helped America much in the past several years, has it?

And third, why are they shying away from public knowledge of their activities? If what they are doing is really honorable before the sight of God, then they should have nothing to hide from other people.

Falwell, Dobson, Robertson, and the rest of these charlatans... they want you to give your vote to the Republicans a lot more than they want you to give your heart to Jesus. And some people wonder why as a Christian I'm so fed-up with how so many of my faith have turned into such cheap whores.

I still can't believe that I almost went to work for Mr. "Hey fathers you should show your penises to your little boys" Dobson.

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Duct-tape and tranquilizers: NASA's procedures for the crazy in space

Have you ever wondered what would happen if some guy up there on the International Space Station... just came totally unglued? I imagine the isolation and lack of alcohol has turned the ISS into something of an Overlook Hotel in near-Earth orbit.

Well, just in case an astronaut or cosmonaut up there goes bonkers, it turns out that NASA is prepared for the contingency. Here's the story...

Duct-Tape, Tranquilizers Part Of NASA's Plan For Mentally Unstable Astronauts In SpacePOSTED: 2:06 pm EST February 23, 2007

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- What would happen if an astronaut came unglued in space and, say, destroyed the ship's oxygen system or tried to open the hatch and kill everyone aboard?

That was the question on some minds after the apparent breakdown of Lisa Nowak, arrested in Orlando this month on charges she tried to kidnap and kill a woman she regarded as her rival for another astronaut's affections.

It turns out NASA has a detailed set of written procedures for dealing with a suicidal or psychotic astronaut in space. The documents, obtained this week by The Associated Press, say the astronaut's crewmates should bind his wrists and ankles with duct tape, tie him down with a bungee cord and inject him with tranquilizers if necessary.

"Talk with the patient while you are restraining him," the instructions say. "Explain what you are doing, and that you are using a restraint to ensure that he is safe."

The instructions do not spell out what happens after that. But NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said the space agency, a flight surgeon on the ground and the commander in space would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to abort the flight, in the case of the shuttle, or send the unhinged astronaut home, if the episode took place on the international space station.

The crew members might have to rely in large part on brute strength to subdue an out-of-control astronaut, since there are no weapons on the space station or the shuttle. A gun would be out of the question; a bullet could pierce a spaceship and could kill everyone. There are no stun guns on hand either.

"NASA has determined that there is no need for weapons at the space station," Hartsfield said.

NASA and its Russian counterpart drew up the checklist for the space station in 2001. Hartsfield said NASA has a nearly identical set of procedures for the shuttle, but he would not provide a copy Friday, saying its release had not yet been cleared by the space agency's lawyers.

The space-station checklist is part of a 1,051-page document that contains instructions for dealing with every possible medical situation in space, including removing a tooth. Handling behavioral emergencies takes up five pages.

The military has a similar protocol for restraining or confining violent, mentally unstable crew members who pose a threat to themselves or others in nuclear submarines or other dangerous settings.

Although Nowak performed her duties with aplomb during a short visit to the space station via the shuttle last July, and was not scheduled to fly again, her arrest has led NASA to review its psychological screening process.

A mentally unstable astronaut could cause all kinds of havoc that could endanger the three crew members aboard the space station or the six or seven who typically fly aboard the shuttle.

Space station medical kits contain tranquilizers and anti-depression, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medications. Shuttle medical kits have anti-psychotic medication but not antidepressants, since they take several weeks to be effective and shuttle flights last less than two weeks.

The checklist says say astronauts who crack up can be restrained and then offered oral Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug used to treat agitation and mania, and Valium. If the astronaut won't cooperate, the drugs can be forcibly given with a shot to the arm. Crew members are instructed to stay with the tied-up astronaut to monitor vital signs.

Space station astronauts talk weekly via long-distance hook-up to a flight surgeon and every two weeks to a psychologist, so any psychiatric disorder would probably be detected before it became so serious that the astronaut had to be brought home, Hartsfield said.

No NASA astronaut at the space station has been treated in orbit with anti-psychotic or antidepressant medications, and no NASA shuttle crew member has required anti-psychotic medications, Hartsfield said...

There's much more at the above link. Definitely something that might keep you awake at night from pondering the possibilities...

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President Bush "doesn't give a damn" says Republican congressman

An absolutely scalding indictment against President Bush by U.S. House member Dana Rohrabacher is up on WorldNetDaily today...

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., denounced President Bush for his refusal to intervene in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to deny the bond requests of imprisoned former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, pending their appeal.

Rohrabacher, in a statement, spared no words in laying the blame on the White House for not freeing Ramos and Compean on bond:

"Acquiescing to the insistence of the White House, the court has decided to treat Ramos and Compean worse than they would common criminals, which is consistent with the way the Bush administration has handled these two border agents from the beginning," Rohrabacher said. "To suggest that this underscores President Bush's mean-spirited and vindictive nature is an understatement."

Rohrabacher said the "lives of Ramos and Compean are obviously at risk, and the president not only doesn't care about securing our southern border, he doesn't give a damn about those who protect it."

Y'know, sometimes I wonder how in the years following World War II, what kind of guilt was felt by those who willingly elected Hitler.

And then I wonder what kind of guilt, if any, is going to be felt by those who willingly elected George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 in the years to come, when we finally see what this vile and evil man has done to this country.

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Happy Birthday to Jenna's blog!

Our dear friend Jenna Olwin posts that her blog is one year old today! So happy birthday to "A Light Inside" :-)

Speaking of Jenna Olwin: yes, that is her in the photo that Gary is holding at the end of Schrodinger's Bedroom. Jenna wrote a little about her cinematic debut a few days ago, too. It's something of a pattern with me: this is my second movie with dialogue, and both of them have multiple references to people that I know from real life. From the moment I started writing the script, I knew that I had to work Jenna in somehow... and that pic of her holding the dog from her Myspace page was begging to be used somehow.

Anyhoo, congrats on making it a whole year with blogging, Jenna :-)

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Ten years ago tonight...

..."Weird" Ed, Johnny Yow (see Johnny, I mentioned you again on my blog!) and myself had dinner at Blue Ribbon Diner in Burlington (I had a hamburger and a whole pile of those delicious Blue Ribbon french fries). Then we went to the West End Cinema and saw The Empire Strikes Back: Special Edition, which had just come out that day.

This may have been my favorite of the Special Editions. But then again, The Empire Strikes Back is probably my favorite chapter of the entire Star Wars saga. It's been playing on HBO a lot in the past several days (along with A New Hope). Everything about it makes this the perfect Star Wars movie in my mind.

You know what was one of the more fun things about seeing the Special Edition of Empire? A week or so earlier I went with some friends at Elon to see A New Hope Special Edition (again). There was this girl that I'd never met before and she went with us and she had never seen a Star Wars movie before, ever. As we were leaving the theater that night somebody said something about "the relationship" between Luke and Leia and this girl is like "what do you mean?" She didn't know. And "that thing" about Luke and Vader? This girl had absolutely never heard about that before! Well this same girl was going in to see The Empire Strikes Back that night and I made a mental note of where she was sitting. And when "that moment" - you know what I'm talking about - came, she literally gasped out loud "WHAT?!?"

That's the moment where the whole thing gets completely overturned and the cards go flying and the game you think you've been watching... ain't that game at all. Oh sure, The Empire Strikes Back is dark from the beginning, but there's always still this sense of wide-eyed innocent wonder that you first get when you saw the first Star Wars movie. And then Han and crew get captured and you're like "okay, they're gonna get out of this I just know it". And then Han gets frozen in carbonite. And then Darth Vader and Luke have their fight and Luke loses his hand. Right up to that moment there's still a little ember of hope burning that this is still going to wind up okay...

...and then with five little words, Vader totally destroys everything you have come to know and love and expect out of Star Wars. This little fantasy world so much like Oz crumbles and turns to ash and you're left sitting there wondering: "Okay, what just happened here?"

From that point on, the Star Wars saga was definitely something darker and more malevolent. Which I think it had to be, to make the point of ultimate redemption that we see in Return of the Jedi that much more powerful. But still... it packed a wallop when I saw The Empire Strikes Back as a six-year old in 1980 and it was just as overwhelming to see it as a 22-year old in 1997.

The final 30 minutes or so of The Empire Strikes Back may be the most wonderfully orchestrated bit of cinematic storytelling in movie history. That whole last bit is like opera or even silent movies: John Williams' score practically tells that entire length of story. The last little bit of Empire also includes my most very favorite Star Wars moment of them all: those harrowing seconds as Artoo is trying to open the door to let Leia and Lando and Chewie escape to the Falcon, then how Artoo stays behind to turn on the smoke so that the Stormtroopers will be disoriented... and then how you see Artoo going as fast as those little wheels of his can take him to the Falcon. That scene along with the music to it... just awesome.

Well, there's more that I could probably say, but I'd be here all night if I attempted it. Happy 10th Birthday to The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition: it helped re-ignite a light that hasn't gone down yet.

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An early draft of the SCHRODINGER'S BEDROOM script

Last night on my blog at TheLot.com (how many blogs can one man have, I wonder), I posted an earlier draft of the script for Schrodinger's Bedroom. It seemed like a neat thing to do, to publish the original plan for the movie and then compare that to the eventual final product. Quite a few things had to be cut between this and the sixth draft, which was the one we filmed from. A lot of the underlying science background, and a few double entendres that I was especially proud of, had to be removed so that the running time could be made to fit within 5 minutes (the maximum allowed by the rules of On The Lot).

Here's an example of the original script:

CUT TO:
QUANTUM MECHANICS LABORATORY – DAY

DELIA
Of course not. Humane society would be all over our butts if we endangered any animals. So we use people.

TYLER
All set for this afternoon’s run Delia.

DELIA
Thanks Tyler. Gary, where you are standing is the first ever attempt to prove Schroedinger’s Cat. But instead of atomic particle decay we use something much more unpredictable: human psychology. When we first started eighteen months ago we got negligible results from a subject locked in a walk-in closet. Then we got grant money and were able to afford a bathroom. That yielded some surprising finds: we are almost finally ready to say that ANYTHING could be going on inside the bathroom when someone is using it. And then, we decided to get REALLY bold… Gary, meet Ned and Maria.

NED and MARIA enter scene

MARIA
Hi!

NED
Glad to meet you.

DELIA
Ned and Maria are newlyweds: only been married three months. They’ve graciously volunteered to be the subjects in this afternoon’s experiment.

CUT TO:
QUANTUM PHYSICS BEDROOM

Gary unconsciously takes off his jacket

GARY
It’s warm in here.

DELIA
Yeah, it needs to be. We do everything we can to excite everything, quantum or otherwise. This bedroom is completely enclosed. Ned and Maria will go inside and they close the door. Our instruments will then begin to detect any quantum fluctuations that emanate from the room.

GARY
So the moment these two lovebirds go to the bedroom… anything and everything happens behind the door at the same time?

DELIA
You got it.

GARY
No, not yet… my brain is still trying to wrap itself around it.

DELIA
Well, we’d better go. Want to watch… or rather, NOT watch?

GARY
Sure, why not.

Gary doesn’t realize that he’s left his jacket lying on the bed

Click here for the complete text of the second draft for Schrodinger's Bedroom.

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Remember the telescreens in 1984?

If this is true, I wonder how long it will be before leaving the battery out of your cellphone for an inordinate amount of time becomes noted as suspicious behavior...

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THE FORCE UNLEASHED: New Star Wars multimedia thingy headed this way

Same thing happened while I was working on Schrodinger's Bedroom that happened during my school board campaign: I got so focused on the task at hand that I missed other stuff. Fun stuff, even. This has been big news for the last week or so but I'm just now hearing about it. Sounds like this is gonna be something kewl...

Way back in the pre-prequels halcyon days of 1996, Lucasfilm did something called Shadows of the Empire. It was a year-long, ummmm... geez I don't know how to describe it. It was basically a Star Wars movie that was marketed like a Star Wars movie, with action figures and other toys and books and posters and video games and all that... without an actual movie. The entire storyline was told through the merchandising. It was pretty innovative and quite a neat addition to the Star Wars canon. There was even a soundtrack CD for the thing: I still get goosebumps every time I think about the "Xizor's Theme" track from it.

Well, 2007 is the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Star Wars saga and Lucasfilm is doing something like this again. It's called Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It takes place during the period between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope. The core element of this is going to be a videogame called... wait for it... The Force Unleashed (that's the official website for it by the way). But there will also be books - like an official novelization - and toys and the Force knows what else. The storyline centers on Darth Vader having an apprentice of his own. George Lucas himself is said to be the mastermind behind this latest fully-canon addition to the saga.

How gnarly is this thing gonna be? Check out this action figure of Darth Vader from the upcoming The Force Unleashed toy line that was shown at the recent Toy Fair 2007 expo (this pic and others courtesy of Rebelscum.com):

Geez louise... and you thought Vader was pretty torn up before. Vader looks like he survived an encounter with the wood chipper from Fargo. Neither Obi-Wan or Luke ever did anything that bad to him (talking post-Anakin 'course)... so what did happen to him? That settles it: I'm in with this The Force Unleashed thing whatever it is. Between this and Halo 3, that's plenty enough good reason to get an Xbox 360 sometime this year.

For more about The Force Unleashed, check out this handy compilation article at Wookieepedia.

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THE SIMPSONS MOVIE third trailer hits the 'net

This is something that I've thought about saying for quite awhile now: it's now past time for The Simpsons to be retired. I can't remember the last time I went to the trouble of tuning in on a Sunday night for a new episode, when it used to be that it was one of the highlights of my week. The last recent episode that I can remember that I genuinely laughed at was the one where Bart and Homer converted to Catholicism.

So there: The Simpsons isn't as funny as it used to be.

But I'll be darned if I didn't say that this trailer didn't make me laugh quite a few times.

Who knows: maybe its creators have just been saving the good stuff for this and The Simpsons Movie will represent a turnaround for the show...
Mr. Burns has two buttons behind his desk. I have but one: press down on it here for the third trailer for The Simpsons Movie.

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Complete list of school board campaign posts

This is something I'd meant to do awhile back, then some real-life things kept me from devoting the time really needed to compile this together. I said way back when that I was going to be blogging about my school board campaign so that if others ever found this blog and if they were considering running for office, that I would do my best to describe what it's like to go through this process. Instead of forcing someone to wade through all those posts looking for the campaign ones, I've made them all available here, going in chronological order from top to bottom. And I might have missed some in the flurry of posts that happened between the campaign's inception and now: if I find any, those will get added to the following list...

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August 4th, 2006: ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm now a candidate for public office
My first notice to the public that I was a candidate. I posted this the day after I filed to run. The idea had been going through my head for about a month and a half up to this point. By the way, the whole thing started when Richard Moore - I'm pretty sure he meant this in jest - suggested on live TV that I should run for school board on his weekly Political Soup show. I was working in the control room at the station right behind the set when he said that. A lot of people have told me since then that they were pretty impressed at how serious and how far I took the campaign after that.

August 7th, 2006: First press release about my run for school board
In all my years of writing and getting published, I had never written a press release. This was my very first. It was suggested to me that in my campaign I should "play up" my youth because that would be a considerable asset to have, given that I'm in the same age bracket as a lot of the parents of children in the county schools. I think I made the mistake of playing that up too much in this press release... but hey, first time out the gate you can't be expected to do everything right, eh?

August 9th, 2006: My campaign now has a website!
I worked for about two days straight to get this up and running early in the campaign. Then my friend Ed Woody "tweaked" it a little bit more. Here you can see the first "knight chesspiece" logo that I used, before adopting the one that Ed found that was used on all my campaign literature.

August 11th, 2006: Report on my campaign: I am NOT a committee!
The first thing I legally had to do after filing the paperwork to run was establish a campaign committee and name a treasurer... even though the "committee" was myself and I was my own treasurer. It was also required that I give my campaign a unique name. And so the Knight for School Board 2006 Committee was born.

August 21st, 2006: Campaign issues: The theory of "Intelligent Design"
This was an issue that I'd posted on the campaign website when it first went up, but then I withdrew it a few weeks later. The reason was that I'd realized that people would probably be more interested in where I stood on more local issues than the "big" ones. Looking back I should have done that more... and I'll definitely do that if I run next time. This was initially going to be the first in a series of posts about my stance on a wide range of subjects, but this turned out to be the only one I managed to post.

August 24th, 2006: Making a contribution to the Knight for School Board 2006 campaign
That's basically what this post is: soliciting contributions. A little more of the legal requirements for running a campaign is illustrated here.

August 27th, 2006: Campaign website gets new look
The debut of the new knight chesspiece logo, the one that would be used throughout the rest of the campaign, in addition to improving the website a good bit.

September 16th, 2006: "Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs..."
This was the first post dealing with the campaign that I had made in a few weeks. During that time I had gone to a few public meetings, met with people and handed out cards at football games, and was working on some creative stuff behind the scenes. It took me about five days to really settle on the final design of my sign... and I'm really quite
proud at how it turned out.

September 17th, 2006: Celebrating Constitution Day
Fellow school board member Eric Smith had a rally on this Sunday afternoon for his campaign and those of a few other political candidates and I got to attend. It was here that I gave my very first political "stump speech"... standing on a real stump I might add!

September 29th, 2006: My yard signs have arrived!
I was so happy to get my yard signs that I had to post a picture of what the final product looked like. I also posted a photo of the bumper sticker that I made up for my car (one wound up on Mom's car too, but the back bumper on Lisa's car absolutely can't accommodate a sticker 'cuz of all these molded indentations in it).

October 1st, 2006: TV ads from other school board candidates
Eric Smith and Richard Moore both had commercials running on the TV station at this point, and I made links to where they were at on the Internet. And for the first time I make public mention here of working on my own commercial. Who would have thought that before this election was over, all three of us would wind up in the pages of The New York Times and several other newspapers because of our ads?

October 3rd, 2006: 23 hours = 1 minute
This should have been the first indication to everyone that there was going to be something very, very unusual about my first campaign commercial.

October 6th, 2006: School Board Campaign Commercial #1
A grand total of 45 hours went into producing this one minute of footage. It was posted on the web a few hours after the commercial first started running on WGSR. Station general manager Charles Roark made this ad the topic of discussion during the 5:30 call-in segment and it made the telephone lines "light up like a Christmas tree". News host Mark Childrey continued the conversation about it well toward the 7 o'clock hour after making it the first item in that evening's news. A few days before I promised advertising rep Debbie Moore that this commercial was going to be "mind-blowing". Going by the reaction it evoked that evening and the next few days, it looks like it definitely was that :-)

October 11th, 2006: News & Record article on those wacky school board commercials
And with Lex Alexander's write-up about the ads that Eric, Richard and myself had produced, the press was starting to have a lot of interest in this school board race. There would be a lot more media exposure before this was all said and done...

October 12th, 2006: "What if you don't win?" And some thoughts about the commercial...
Partly a response to some people who thought I wasn't "being serious enough" by running the commercial. And partly it's me articulating here some thoughts I'd had as a candidate about winning or not winning an election. A somewhat long essay.

October 18th, 2006: Just finished the second commercial
Letting people know that a second commercial was on its way.

October 18th, 2006: The second campaign commercial
The first post from this date was really pretty late at night. This is from the following afternoon. Once again I put it on the web a short while after the station started airing it. This is the one that I was accused of "folding like a cheap accordion" regarding the first commercial. The truth of it is, I'd always intended for the second commercial to be a lot more serious. But the reaction to the first commercial sort of demanded that I made note of that.

October 24th, 2006: TONIGHT: Candidates Forum: Round 1
The first time that the school board candidates (most of them anyway) came together for a public forum. Of the two forums that were held, this one was easily my favorite. It's a lot easier to connect to the people you're speaking to when you can actually see them as opposed to it being televised. Over a month and a half later and I'm still feling proud at how this one went.

October 24th, 2006: Snapshots from the field: putting out signs
Posted a short while after the first forum report. A photo of me putting up one of the many yard signs from my campaign.

October 25th, 2006: News articles about last night's canidates forum
A collection of links to the stories that the newspapers around here had about the forum the previous night.

October 25th, 2006: TONIGHT: Candidates Forum: Round 2
The live televised forum. The first part of the post was written before the forum, and I addressed some concerns here The second part is the report of what happened that night, filed after I got back home.

October 26th, 2006: Because I'm feeling so good after coming out of two candidates forums...
What does a candidate for school board do to celebrate two good public appearances? Here's how I commemmorated the occasion :-)

October 27th, 2006: Watch the school board candidates forum online
Links to where you can watch almost the entire forum, in Windows Media format (special thanks to Richard Moore).

October 30th, 2006: Straight-ticket voting: A truly wasted vote
This is something I've believed since long before I ever entered a political race. But the matter gained a lot more weight when I thought about it as a candidate. Not a post about "the campaign" per se, but it's the personal observation of a candidate, so I'm including it here.

October 30th, 2006: Campaign Commercial the Third
The third and final TV commercial, again appearing on YouTube shortly after it started airing on WGSR Star 39 that night. This is the one that a lot of people described as "beautiful" and "one of the most unique political ads ever made".

November 1st, 2006: The Campaign: Public Disclosure of Finances
It would soon be a matter of public record, so I published how much in contributions my campaign took in and how much was expended. Again, I did this mostly because it would probably be of interest to anyone who might want to know what it's like to run for office and manage your own political campaign.

November 2nd, 2006: I made THE NEW YORK TIMES!
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would someday be looking at my picture in The New York Times. That first commercial attracted a lot of media attention: the News & Record, then WXII Channel 12 in Winston-Salem ran my commercial on the 6 o'clock news (and I heard that Fox 8, the Fox affiliate may have done the same thing). Then this happens. The mention in The New York Times kicked off a four-day long spree where a lot of newspapers picked up the story about my campaign... and the infamous "Death Star blew up the schoolhouse" commercial.

November 3rd, 2006: "Okay, we'll go."
The final thing I do so far as active campaigning went in my first-ever run for public office.

November 3rd, 2006: Sneak peek at this Sunday's newspaper ad
What my half-page ad - that ran a few days later in the Reidsville and Eden newspapers - looked like.

November 4th, 2006: Video: Three candidates talk about making THE NEW YORK TIMES
YouTube-hosted video of a segment from the previous night's newscast on the Reidsville TV station where Eric Smith, Richard Moore and myself talked on live TV about our getting mentioned in The New York Times. This is a nice video that underscores how upbeat and positive this entire race had really turned out to be (well, of course this was before the events that took place a few nights on the day before the election, but that shouldn't detract from how people in this race had been really nice with each other).

November 4th, 2006: NEWS & OBSERVER article mentions the "lightsaber" commercial
Now the Raleigh newspaper gets into the act. I didn't get to see the actual hardcopy until about a week later but they put a pretty good-sized color pic of me wielding the lightsaber right on the front page... just like the News & Record and The Reidsville Review did.

November 5th, 2006: THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER is calling me a Jedi
That's the two biggest newspapers in North Carolina that have done stories about my campaign and the "Star Wars" commercial. By this point I've resigned myself to the fact that the image of me with the lightsaber will be THE defining visual of my political career for as long as I live... but I supposed there's a lot worse things to get caught doing, right? :-)

November 5th, 2006: What should I do on Election Night?
Whimsical contemplation of how exactly I should spend the evening as the results roll in...

November 6th, 2006: How the GOP pimps gay marriage for votes
Definitely NOT a post about the campaign per se, but at the end of this post I do reiterate something here that I promised a long time ago I would do if I ever ran for office. And I think I wound up holding myself to that in this campaign.

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ELECTION DAY
NOVEMBER 7th, 2006
LIVE REPORTS

For November 7th and 8th, the postings on this blog were done in a "live action" format. I started in the early morning hours of Election Day when we were finishing-up putting out signs at the precincts and did it like this until just before I went to bed on Wednesday night. The following several posts, as well as I was able to do it, are very much a running commentary about what happens in the life of a candidate for public office when Election Day finally comes...

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 1:51 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 4:42 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 6:47 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 7:18 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 8:12 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 9:01 AM EST

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 10:27 AM EST
With photos!

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 12:35 PM EST
Another photo!

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 5:32 PM EST
Returning from the final round of poll appearances. This is also the first mention on this blog about something amiss - and illegal - involving another candidate. I would wind up involved with this matter for at least a month following the election.

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 7:02 PM EST
An example of some of the behind-the-scenes humor that came out of this campaign, and another pic of my lovely wife :-)

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 8:15 PM EST
By this time the polls had been closed for 45 minutes. This is the first report from the absentee and early voting.

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 8:22 PM EST
Still waiting for some word from the polls.

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 8:46 PM EST
The first results from the polls start trickling in.

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 9:11 PM EST
The moment when I literally staggered: it was reported that well over two thousand votes had been cast in my favor.

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 9:30 PM - FINAL RESULTS
The final tally from the polls. I didn't win a seat... but with 4,584 votes I couldn't help but feel awfully proud. And I still do :-)

November 7th, 2006: ELECTION DAY: 11:06 PM EST - What I'm feeling right now
Here I attempted to recap what had been one of the biggest days of my life. It was a completely ineffable experience... but I did my best to share what I was feeling about it all.

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 11:42 AM EST
What happens to a guy who didn't win an election on the day after Election Day? Find out here! :-)

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 2:34 PM EST
Election Day 2006 was considered "historic" by some. I hadn't thought at all about what was going on in the House and Senate races... and after running my own campaign and the experiences that it brought, I'm hard-pressed to believe that I'm going to see the big national races as having the same kind of importance that I used to give them. For what it's worth though, here's where I offered up my own two cents about what else was going on during this election.

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 8:33 PM EST
There was something that three months earlier I said I would do do if I won a seat. Even though that didn't happen, I was still on an unbelievable high after getting so many votes! So I went ahead with my plan anyway... :-)

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 9:07 PM EST
Yeah still feeling good about coming in 8th place out of 16 candidates (which was pretty good all things considered). So even though I didn't win the election, I didn't mind getting Lost tonight...

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 10:04 PM EST
Made just minutes after Jack sliced into Ben/Henry's kidney sac. Kate now has roughly an hour to make her escape. What would happen next on Lost? We wouldn't find out until February! Yes, life is finally starting to return to normal in the Knight household!

November 8th, 2006: ELECTION - THE DAY AFTER: 11:11 PM EST
Election Day/post-election "live coverage" wraps up.

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January 10th, 2007: Closing out the books
I close out the Knight for School Board 2006 campaign committee.

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It had been a long three months, and I'll always be thankful for God giving me the opportunity to experience this. It definitely changed my life for the better. And if you are reading this and you think you're being led to run for office in some capacity too, I hope that the preceding list of posts will be of help in your consideration.

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Surprise performer Clay Aiken wows the crowd at Winter Jam in Greensboro

Last night Lisa and I went to the Greensboro event for the Winter Jam 2007 Tour Spectacular. It's a Christian concert thingy, and we went to the one last year too and had a good time. Tony Nolan and Britt Nicole warmed up the crowd before the main gig started. Then Sanctus Real opened up the show. They were followed by NewSong and then Hawk Nelson (who every time I hear the name of this band I think of Bruce Willis' 1991 bomb Hudson Hawk for some reason). Then followed about a 15 minute break before Steven Curtis Chapman took the stage.

Well, Chapman rocked the crowd, as he's apt to do. And about 2/3rds of the way through his set he did something that had been joked about once or twice already by the performers, but I don't think anybody took them seriously. But, it happened: Clay Aiken walked onstage and started singing! Yes, the Clay Aiken! How they kept that one under wraps - and in Greensboro of all places - I've no idea. Anyway the crowd was already having a great time but bringing Aiken out just intensified the electricity of the place. Rounding out the night was Jeremy Camp, which was the first time I'd ever heard him perform (I've probably heard all the others at least twice before) but I liked him a lot.

So that's what we did last night. It was a great way to unwind and relax a good bit after the past few weeks of being consumed with making a film, and all the stuff that Lisa goes through during a routine week as a schoolteacher. Check the link I posted above: Winter Jam 2007 may be coming to your neck of the woods too sometime soon. Well worth checking out if it is :-)

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