I was reading BeingAmberRhea today and she mentioned Animoto. Wow. Forget ever making plain slideshows anymore. Below is my test product and now I have a much better way of working on showing all of the photos from our trip to China. - apparently there’s a fee to make the full-length “videos” and it’s totally worth it to me - but if anyone knows of any other, possibly better versions than Animoto then please let me know so I can check it out. Thanks!

I was trying to write this and trying to find the appropriate ‘right’ photos of the graduation - you know the ones, showing the whole scene and layout and capturing all those memories - but it wasn’t working. I took the obligatory amount of video (lots) with my camcorder, and now I need to go get a firewire card and install it on Leah’s desktop (don’t worry Leah! it’s not a power supply so the chance of me causing your motherboard to catch on fire is…. well, it’s considerably less.

And then I can transfer everything from China AND my brother’s graduation. Plus, with new found amateur editing skills, it won’t just be background noise and I can do cuts and music and ummmm… practice for the China slideshow.

So. Graduation. Or, um, Commencement as they call it. It was an excellent fast ceremony, under two hours and even the speeches didn’t drone on and on. We were soon on our way to lunch, and then the Lumberjack Hunt.

What’s that? Well, Northern Arizona University’s mascot is a Lumberjack. So there are several lumberjacks around town. We decided to start looking for them and hanging out. But first!

And now… onto the Lumberjacks! There was one inside the SkyDome at the graduation ceremony overseeing the event.

Then there was one just outside - and just as gigantic.

But wait! There’s more! Outside of the restaurant where we had lunch, there was another one! And then finally, we found one more - except this one was like… the Harper romance novel version of a lumberjack - right in front of the university bookstore.

So we’re finishing school in reverse order. My youngest sister already has her bachelor’s degree, and is a year away from her Master’s. My brother, obviously has his now, and I’ll finally get mine around the time of the wedding next year.

Hanging out and talking with my brother and sister is always an interesting conversion. Not only because we’re siblings, but because we’re quite intelligent - and we know it. Or rather, whether it’s right or not, all three of us have healthy superiority complexes - at least as far as smart things go. Plus with our very diverse range of knowledge (Physics and all things science, Literature and all things Library, and then me with Business/Finance.) it’s just fun to ask them questions. And argue. Or debate. I learn nearly as much from my brother and sister as I do from my classes that I’m taking right now… possibly more.

And if it seems as though I’m blatantly bragging about my brother and sister - you’re right. But I write this stuff not only to show how proud I am of them, but because they push me - whether they really know it or not, and whether they actually tell me or not - they do. Because damn, with siblings like these, coupled with my own competitive nature - what choice do I have other than continuing my education (life and academic) to show them that in fact - I’m the smartest one!