Holiday Meal 2012

Erin started a tradition in December of 2010 of having an annual Holiday Meal for our close friends.  We recently had our third annual holiday meal.  Although we have more than 8 friends, that is the uppermost limit of friends we can invite because of table space, and the difficulty of cooking for ten people.

During the day of the Holiday Meal, leading up to the 5:30pm start time, Erin and I usually listen to hip-hop and dance music while I'm cleaning and straightening up and she's doing all of the prep work for the meal.  During this time the song "Imma Be" by the Black Eyed Peas hit our Pandora station.  Every time we hear it, we are reminded of the scene on this link to the "Other Guys."

Of course that is when I piped up and told Erin, "Wouldn't it be funny if we did a scene like that for the Holiday Meal?"  Knowing us, we usually follow up on anything I say that starts with "Wouldn't it be funny if..."

The result can be viewed below.  The dinner table scene is the only one we were going to do.  After it was shot, I put it together with the music and we all watched it together.  Then, it was unanimous that we take more shots.  Now, we have a funny and memorable video of our Holiday Meal 2012.  Enjoy!

Bringin' Back the Stat

In the summer of 2012, before the Fall 2012 semester at Truman, I first had the idea for Bringin’ Back the Stat.  I remember thinking how funny and cool it would be to produce something like this.  Then I began thinking of the process of writing the lyrics, getting the students involved, taking the shots, and producing the video, which is when I put it by the wayside.

Throughout the semester the idea kept coming back and the week before Thanksgiving Break I committed myself to making it.  I began writing the lyrics and thinking of the screenplay.  Originally, I had wanted shots of students yelling “Go ‘head go on with it” as I gave each “lesson” or “review” but found out that this would have made the video extremely choppy and difficult to make.  The idea to include the president didn’t actually hit me until the day Erin (my wife) and I began shooting.

After our shoot on the first Sunday of Thanksgiving Break, I began putting the video together and saw that I definitely needed student participation for it to work and would have to ask them during a class.  To my delight, my first section of Stat 190 were almost all completely on board (these are the students in the “Take us to the lesson” scene).  There was a lot less participation in my second section of Stat 190, but they were than able to relax a little more and give me some really good “Yeahs” and a very good “Take us to Review”.

When I explained the project to President Troy Paino there was no hesitation.  He jumped right on board and we scheduled a shoot.  Just in case, I had already produced a “Thursday edition” of my video that I would have to show my Linear Regression (Stat 378) class that did not include the shots of the president.   I definitely think Dr. Paino stole the show and truly made the video successful.

I hope you enjoy the video. 


 Bringin' Back the Stat Lyrics