Wild.er

Friday night came quickly this week with the full schedule at work and at school so it was a rewarding break to visit the independent movie theater in Bethesda, Maryland tonight. Lena arranged a night of Persian food followed by Persepolis, a movie about a young girl’s experience during the Islamic Revolution.

It’s late and I need to get sleep so let me get straight to the point. The movie is well done with inventive and engaging animation. The adaptation from graphic novel to movie is a success and the texture added with music, sound and motion bring the story alive. I have never learned so much about the Islamic Revolution in Iran and now I want to know more.

So yes, the movie is worth your time. If you have the inclination, do it. But go early because otherwise you’ll be stuck in the only available seat… the far edge of the front row.

Having just read The 33 Things That Make Us Crazy in the latest Wired magazine I must add my own item to the list: Movie theater seating. So let me get this straight: I get to pay more than ten dollars to sit in the front row, far right side of a subtitled movie and the only way I can see is by slouching down far enough so that I can see the screen. After 20 minutes my legs are going numb and my neck is getting sore. I look over at Amanda and I can tell this isn’t her idea of a great movie experience either.

How about if the seating at the theater were priced like it is at the theater… movie goers could buy a specific seat and the theater could vary the charge depending on the desirability of the seat. Why would theaters have different pricing? Because my living room is the competition and I always get a comfortable seat at home.

Did you know that when you surf the web that the sites you visit can tell where you are located?

I sent out an engagement announcement email in December that directed readers to a web page.  Evanwilder.com is able to tell where site visitors are physically located and this map shows that in detail.  The map above shows the location of the last 100 visitors to evanwilder.com. Typically the people who view the site are from the USA but after the engagement email went out Amanda and I could tell which friends living overseas and who among our friends and family had checked out the web page.

We’ve been looking at various places to hold a wedding ceremony and reception and I wanted to post some photos of some of the places we have investigated. Tonight let me show you the Lodge at Seneca Creek.

Surrounded by 26 acres of scenic, wooded parkland, The Lodge at Little Seneca Creek is Mother Nature’s ultimate meeting place. This rustic log cabin with its natural wood cathedral ceilings and massive, wood-burning flagstone fireplace is an ideal setting for a business retreat or social gathering.

This is a stitched together photo showing the entire lodge. I want to also post a 360 degree interactive version but for now just click to view the large size:

Update: The interactive version is now available here.

We sent an email out not long ago but now everybody will know…

Please go to the link below so we can share our announcement with you:

http://evanwilder.com/announcement.htm

Warm regards,

Amanda & Evan

Tonight I saw LEVYdance perform at Dance Place and it was a great experience. The above photo is from “if this small space” where Scott Marlowe danced inside of a ~8 foot rectangle of light (there are more excerpts of it on the front page of the LEVYdance web site). The most impressive performance of the evening was the DC premier of “Bone lines” which is apparently about choreographer Benjamin Levy family life. The Washington Post says:

“Bone lines,” a 24-minute work for his youthful troupe, LEVYdance, doesn’t delve deeply into the drama of his family’s flight, but it does investigate cultural transmission: what gets passed on and what gets lost amid everyday life. There’s something about the work’s tender and knotty partnering, the spare walking, the shadowy relationships that suggests a shared sense of loss.

I went with the fellow dance-challenged Colin along with dancers Amanda and Kim. Thanks to the newlywed couple for their delicious dinner and night on the town!

If you missed the performance, read the preview at the Washington Post called A Dance of Culture and Compromise.

How often do you find out about an event that needs to be on the calendar but you are far from your organizer? Since you know I love tools that keep me productive I want to show you this new way to get things on your calendar by talking it into your phone. It works with a free service called Jott and the free Google Calendar. Here’s what Jott has to say about it:

Why is this cool? Because you can now create a Google Calendar event in a single step, from anywhere, simply using your voice. Just call Jott, say “Google Calendar”, and then the time of the event and what it’s about….and you’re done. We’ll take your voice, convert it to text, and insert it into your calendar for you.

I tested this myself and this video shows how it went:

[Jott and Google Calendar]