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I met a guy who runs some of KISS (the band)’s marketing at a conference and he sent me the coolest Christmas card ever.

My company, Clearspring, is powering a promotion for the movie Cloverfield. The movie looks really cool actually - something I’d actually want to go see.

Anyway, if you grab the widget below I get some points in a contest that could win me some junk. The top 20 people with the most widget grabs win something. You can enter too by grabbing it and sharing it.

Well… We put up our tree…

Système-D (my little fun barely-have-time-for-it project) released a new podcast last week, titled “All Good Things”.

The reception has been good so far. Oddly enough, I enjoy listening to it - even though usually when I’m done with a podcast I’m so sick of it I don’t listen for months.

The pic above is of my trusty Behringer control surface. It has been put away for a while, because once I’m knee deep in a set there’s a lot of fine editing that has to be done, so I usually just dig in with a mouse and keyboard. But I’m excited when I get to brainstorm a new set (like now), or on rare occasions perform live, because I get to whip this puppy out and jam with it.

I started producing on hardware, and although most of my kit has moved to software now, it’s still so much more fun to connect some control hardware to the computer and tweak things that way.

Head on over and check it out, or check your podcast subscriptions in iTunes for a new track if you subscribed previously. If you’re not a member of the secret club that has a username and password, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I managed to smuggle some secret footage of the square dancing that went on at Kate & Gary’s wedding this summer.

Click on share - it’s Clearspring-enabled (blatant self-promotion), so you can send it to your friends.

OPA Racing came to Patchogue last weekend for the Battle on the Bay. I took some pics and movies (below) of some of the races.

On our final night in Catalina, we decided to hike up the eastern side of Avalon and get some night photos. It’s a maze of hilly roads and walkways on the east side, but we eventually found our way to the top of Upper Terrace Road

One thing we discovered was just how many dead pixels the old Nikon camera has. I count about 7 that only show up in dark shots. Terrible.

Lucky thing we had the Canon. I used a mini-tripod to set it up for long-exposure shots, which worked out well.

Another lucky animal encounter happened on this trip as well. We were walking back home when suddenly we spotted a deer about 10 feet in front of us. We moved slowly, and to our surprise, it actually came closer, probably to about 3 feet of Robyn. It was so dark that we didn’t get many good shots, but we did manage to get some proof.

You can see the full set here.

On Wednesday, Robyn and I rented a 15HP boat and took a self-guided tour north along the coast from Avalon.

At this point, cruise ships had been anchored off Avalon for a couple days, so it was interesting seeing them dominate the landscape. We got a few shots up close on our way back to port. For some reason, it’s a little unnerving putting around in a dinky little boat next to something so massive on the water. I first got this feeling while navigating around container ships down in Singer Island, and there it was again.

We made our way north, dipping into coves and interesting places, trying to find the edges of kelp gardens where the most sea creatures hang out. As we explored north, we saw random yachts anchored out in the middle of nowhere, and some gorgeous sailboats with people climbing high up the masts and diving into the water.

Again, we bought a disposable waterproof camera and developed the shots to CD. Photoshop made them decent looking, and we got a few really amazing ones. We were extremely lucky to spot a bat ray trying to hide itself in the sand, and we followed it around for a bit. Though it swam away when we got close, it never got scared enough to completely take off. Boy, could it camouflage itself well in the sand though. All you could see were its eyes!

As we started for home after a great morning of snorkeling, probably the most memorable event of our vacation happened. We were just cruising along, when a sea lion popped its head out of the water and swam in the opposite direction. We couldn’t believe it, but I quickly whipped the boat around and started following. It was tough to anticipate where it would pop its head up next, but sometimes we could see its shiny body sliding beneath the surface. We tailed it for probably 10 minutes trying to get movies and pictures, and we came out with a few decent ones.

On Tuesday we went on a guided kayak tour down to a location called Frog Rock. It was just a nice casual kayak along the coast, but what made it stand out was that we saw a bald eagle perched on a branch right by the beach we stopped at. It sat there for maybe fifteen minutes before it swooped down, grabbed a fish in one go and flew away to enjoy its meal.

I think we’re too far south for this eagle to be Stephen Jr.

Robyn captured a video of the eagle nabbing its fish. Unfortunately, it’s a little far away (you’ve got to look REALLY hard with YouTube’s crap resolution), but it’s cool nonetheless.

On Monday after our snorkeling trip, Robyn and I hiked up Chimes Tower Road on the west side of Avalon and took some shots of the city, the chime tower, and surrounding harbors. We then walked down to the Casino - a structure built in the 1920’s that houses the theatre, formal ballroom, museum, and gym - and took some external shots there.

See the full photoset here.

That night, we went to see the Bourne Ultimatum at the Casino Theatre. I have never been in such an amazing space to watch a movie, and unfortunately all I had with me to take pics was my iPhone. The entire theatre was bathed in red, and there were art deco accents and murals adorning the walls. It was quite a sight. Hopefully you can get an idea from the low-quality pictures I took.