chad austin

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It’s been awhile since I really followed college basketball.  It’s still the sport dearest to my heart, mostly because I remember cheering on the ’83 “Cardiac Pack” team at North Carolina State as they won the national championship under coach Jim Valvano.  And on the twenty-fifth anniversary of that game, I paid a visit to Valvano’s grave to leave flowers.  In high school I thrilled to watching Duke win back to back national titles after so many tries by Mike Krzyzewski (hey, I finally spelled his name right!!).  One of these days maybe I’ll get to see my alma mater Elon University go to “the Big Dance”.  And then everyone will be asking “Elon?  Where’s THAT?” just like we did with Gonzaga.

One person who knows basketball… and I mean REALLY knows it… is my lifelong best friend Chad Austin.  He’s been finding some good stuff lately and sharing ...

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I don’t know how else to put it, but there are some things that happened at Dad’s funeral that despite the occasion were an amazing delight.  And I truly believe that Dad would have had no small measure of pride if he could somehow know that this celebration of his life brought so many wonderful people together to celebrate not only his own life, but also of the most precious things in all our lives.

During the service I spoke a few words about Dad and since the other ministers were sharing stories from his life, I did likewise and related some tales of how forgiving and relenting – even if he didn’t understand what the heck I was doing – of the many stunts that I pulled during the life that we shared.  One of them was during the filming of Forcery: my first (and Lord willing still ...

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I’m writing this on Friday afternoon.  It was on Wednesday night that Kristen, Chad, Marissa and I saw “Weird Al” Yankovic and his band in concert as part of his Alpocalypse 2013 tour!  I’m still coming down from the high and I think everyone else is too (especially Marissa who was bouncing off the walls so hard during class at school yesterday that she reportedly had to be sedated with Valium).  And after seeing Al live for the seventh time I have to say: this was easily the best show I’ve seen him perform yet!  Weird Al and his band were positivalutely ablaze with energy and sheer fun.  They were electrified and enthused as I’ve never seen any performers in a live concert!  This is a man who obviously loves his work and that comes across very well.  I’ve also never seen an audience so “into it” as they ...

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But I got to see it last month at a/perture cinema in Winston-Salem, along with Forcery co-producer Ed Woody and star Chad Austin, who appears a LOT throughout The People vs. George Lucas as, well… George Lucas!

The screening was on September 12th. Why didn’t I write about it sooner? Because it still hasn’t sunk in yet: that was my film Forcery, the idea for which hit just over ten years ago (I began writing the script on the night before 9/11), and my most life-long best friend playing George Lucas on the big screen as part of this multi-award winning documentary that has played at film festivals all around the world!

But as surreal as the experience was, that was mild compared to watching Melody Hallman Daniel‘s performance as Frannie Filks from Forcery, which The People vs. George Lucas is exceptionally peppered with! In fact, ...

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…well, parts of it anyway 🙂

The People vs. George Lucas, Alexandre Philippe’s documentary that has won beaucoups of awards at film festivals all over the world, has just announced a whole bunch of new showings. And one of them is right next door in Winston-Salem! Beginning May 9th it’ll be playing at Cine Club on 311 West Fourth Street.

So why am I especially stoked about getting to see this rave-reviewed film? Here’s the second trailer for it…

And here’s the first teaser for The People vs. George Lucas…

That’s none other than Melody Hallman Daniel and Chad Austin from Forcery, the first film that I ever made. I’ve heard that quite a lot of clips from it wound up in The People vs. George Lucas. So I’m not only looking forward to seeing Philippe’s work, but also my own blown-up extra-huge on a ...

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I ain’t seen the new Hawaii Five-O series on CBS yet, but I bet it’s got nothing on what my lifelong best friend Chad Austin did when he visited the Aloha State a few months ago! Turns out that he’s been holding back on me and has been doing some filmmaking of his own: witness this AWESOME spoof of the opening credits from the original Hawaii Five-O series!

Speaking of Chad, I’ve heard that people who’ve seen The People vs. George Lucas have really enjoyed his portrayal of George Lucas from our film Forcery (clips of which appear in the award-winning documentary). And Chad swears that he’s going to start blogging again soon. Maybe we are witnessing a new cinematographer in the making? 🙂...

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A little over three years after my photo appeared in The New York Times, now it’s life-long friend Chad Austin‘s turn! New York Times is running a story about the SAS Institute in Cary, where Chad works. The story is mostly about how the company is the biggest independent software company in the world and how its fast gaining attention in the corporate world, but there’s also a lot about how SAS gives some awesome benefits to its employees. And among the photos in the slideshow accompanying the story there’s this pic…

See those legs in the foreground wearing the blue-trimmed shoes? Those are Chad Austin’s legs!

Sorry girls but as nice as Chad’s calves are, he is a married man as of this past summer 😛...

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Man, what a day…

I want to say first of all that Chad is the man for running a 5 kilometer race at 7 a.m. on the morning of his wedding day. He finished at a pretty good time too (the race not the wedding day… nevermind :-P)

Anyhoo, just got in and I’m frazzled, but there will prolly be pics and some YouTube video (if I can get the consent forms signed 🙂 up on the blog soon. In the meantime, know that it was a wonderful ceremony and celebration afterward, and all involved definitely feel like not only some new friendships were made, but new family across the board. And let it also be known that New Hampshire is certainly a place that knows how to produce some interesting characters 🙂

More later. ‘Til then: Congrats Chad and Koren!...

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…my lifelong best friend Chad Austin officially goes off the market, when he takes the vows and weds his lovely lady Koren Borchers.

I got conned into being videographer (something about payback for what we put Chad through in his portrayal of George Lucas a few years ago) so there’ll be plenty of pictures later, and maybe some YouTube video.

The rehearsal last night went great! Lots of new friendships being made along with family. We are all excited about Chad and Koren getting to have their special day.

More later! In the meantime, y’all please keep the happy couple in yer thoughts and prayers 🙂...

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