I should probably keep a lid on this until it’s ready, but I can’t. I’m too excited.

On Saturday, we filmed the pilot episode for our new webshow: Joe Stryker.

Joe Stryker is an action hero of the old school. Imagine taking Chuck Norris, Knight Rider, the A-Team, and McGyver, putting them all in a blender, adding in an extra heaping spoonful of manliness, top it off with one awesome 80’s mullet, and serving that atop an awesome motorcycle. You would have a generous serving of Joe Stryker.

This was a concept I came up with my friend Geoff Yano (of oogaFilms). Although, it was really mostly his idea. Of course, yours truly is playing the man himself. Geoff and I enlisted the help of other friends to fill in our production team of writers, composers, directors, and crew. Each webisode will be about 5 minutes long, and we’ll probably release a new one about once a month.

Our pilot episode seemed to turn out really well. In addition to myself, it features the acting stylings of Bryant Moscon, William Moyes, Mark Sanderson (who is also one of our main production crew members), and Kurstin Raposa.

Once the episode is done being edited, and our theme song is composed (being done by a great composer and friend: Ryan Gee), we’ll release it into the wild (on YouTube).

Joe Stryker does not yet have a home on the web, but I will be heading up the website effort, and hope to have it up in a couple months.

I’m really excited about this project, and hope you all enjoy it. Stay tuned for our pilot episode in the coming weeks.

On Friday, I was giving a ride home to my friend, Tina. I never let anyone ride my bike (including myself), without a helmet, so she was wearing my extra one, which, after I dropped her off, I strapped to the back of my bike. I pulled out of her apartment complex on Riverside Dr, and as I was crossing the next intersection (Wickersham Ln), a car heading the opposite direction turned left right in front of me, causing me to have to slam on my brakes. I don’t know if it’s because my brakes are not great, or because my front wheel is not properly aligned with my handlebars (I think both), but braking suddenly caused the bike to slide off to one side. So me and Jenny (that’s my bike’s name) slid side by side down the road right into the intersection. As I was sliding down the road, the thought came into my head, “I sure am glad this happened after I dropped off Tina, and not while she was still on the bike.” When we both came to a rest, and I regained my composure, I got up and walked over to Jenny, a couple feet away from me, and another guy ran into the intersection to help me. I hit her engine cut-off switch, and we pulled her off to the side of the road.

The guy asked me if I was okay. I felt alright and told him so. He then told me he couldn’t believe that guy cut out in front of me, and what an idiot he was, and so on. I asked if the guy was still here. “No, he just kept going.” I choose to assume that he for some reason, his mind was very occupied at the time, and he never even knew I was there. I have to assume that, because the other option is that he’s a horrible careless person, and I prefer to think the best of people until I have evidence to the contrary.

So the guy that was helping me then asks if my bike is okay, so I try to turn her on. She doesn’t start right away, but after a couple tries, she turns right on. “Thank goodness she still works!,” I thought. I begin to inspect the damage and see some scratches along the right side of the bike, but nothing serious. As I’m looking at the damage, a fire truck pulls up, followed by the police. I’m guessing someone looked out their window and saw someone sliding across the road and decided to call 911. If that person is reading this, thank you very much.

The guy in the firetruck gets out and starts asking about how I’m feeling. Does my neck hurt. “No, I’ve got a couple scrapes, but nothing serious.” Did I lose consciousness? “Not at all.” Do I want to be taken to the hospital? “No, I don’t think that’s necessary.” And so on. The cop that gets out asks me about what happened. When the other cop gets out he tells him I “fell avoiding a collision.” In a little while the ambulance shows up. The EMT wants to take my blood pressure and pulse. We step into the ambulance so she can. She asks me all the same questions as the fireman, and writes my answers down. She asks me two more times if I want to be taken to the hospital, and I have to sign a form confirming that I refused transport. When I get out of the ambulance, the cop gives me a card with my case number on it for the insurance company. He asks if I’m okay to get home. “Yeah, it’s no problem.”

So the emergency vehicles all start to head off. I put my helmet and jacket back on, and see some more damage. My jacket has quite a few rips in it. My helmet is scratched along the right side so badly that it completely impairs my right peripheral vision. I imagine how it would be if that had been my face instead of my helmet. As I pull away, at the next intersection I realize another problem with my bike. The front brake lever has become bent backwards. I could only grab it with two fingers instead of all four. But it still works, so I’m fine.

All in all, the experience was more reassuring than anything, in many ways. Emergency services were incredibly responsive, so if it had been worse than it was, at least I know I would have been in good hands. Also, it’s reassuring how well my gear protected me from injury. Other people on the road have a nice steel cage to protect them, but I have to rely on my helmet, jacket, and jeans. And when they were put to the test on Friday, they passed with flying colors. In a few days, I intend to post to flickr pictures of some of the damage, so keep an eye on it.

I had another interesting experience on my motorcycle the next day (one that didn’t involve endangering my safety). I was heading west on Highway 71 (aka Ben White Blvd), and I was pulling up to the light at Riverside Dr. There were about five cars stopped at the light directly in front of me, and as I’m pulling up behind the line, I noticed something float to the ground a couple feet in front of me. It caught my eye, so I stopped to look at it. I’m about one car-length behind the car in front of me, but the light’s red, so I don’t think it’s a big deal to stop where I was. As I look down, I see that it was a butterfly that had floated down to the ground. I thought, This butterfly doesn’t realize what a bad situation into which it’s put itself. There are cars all around, and it decides to sit in the middle of the road. I was really starting to worry. “This butterfly will get squashed by this SUV behind me if I don’t do something to help it.” As I was trying to think of what I could do to ameliorate its situation, the light turned green, and I had no choice but to go. As I pulled away, a wave of guilt passed over me as I realized what I should have done. I could have put Jenny in neutral, bent over and picked up the butterfly. Maybe coaxed it to rest on my shirt inside my jacket, and then as soon as I could, pull over to the side and let it off in the grass. I felt really sad that this poor butterfly was probably now squashed under someone’s tires, making this not a very Goodyear for the butterfly. (I apologize for that last pun when discussing morbidity. Bad taste, I know.)

I don’t know what it says about me when I worry about a single, little butterfly, but thinking about still makes me a little sad.

Photo by Jessie Barber

So, around the beginning of the summer, I began to work on a Facebook application called Photos With Friends. The idea was that it would be really cool to see which of your friends are in the most photos with you. Well, it took me a few days to get it up and working and have a decent feature set. Not only could you look at your “photos with friends,” but you could also check other people’s, and you could add a top-6 list to your profile.

Then I left it.

There were a couple cosmetic changes that I needed to make, including finding that great photo for it that you see above. So, I forgot about it for a while. It was left in developer mode, which meant I was the only person who could install it on my facebook profile, and no one else would see the top-6 box on my profile. So for a couple months, it became just an extra thing on my profile that I shifted around once in a while when I added more stuff. Then one day, Facebook get a new thing to parse the code on profile pages. It broke my app. Not entirely broke, but it caused some problems. The problems were entirely Facebook’s fault, and it didn’t take them long to fix it (a few hours), but during those hours, I was trying to fix it myself. And once I started working on it, I couldn’t stop.

So I finally finished the last one or two things that I needed to do on it, and brought it out of developer mode. I then msged all my friends (I’m sure some were annoyed), telling them about my new app, hoping some would install it. Several did, and then I submitted the app for approval into the Facebook Application Directory. The only way more people would use it is if it was in there. That was last Saturday.

It would seem Facebook employees don’t work on weekends or Labor Day (makes sense), so my application didn’t get handled until today. But today, when I got back from class, I checked, and saw these glorious words: “Application Approved!” I quickly pulled open the directory to find my app. It had only been on there a few hours, I suppose, as it was still on the first page of the “Newest” apps. You can see a screenshot of it here. By the time I found it on the directory, over half a dozen new people had already added the app!

This may seem like a small accomplishment, but I am really excited. I worked on something I enjoy, and people recognized it. It’s great!

Some of you may think, “But wait! You’re an actor. People recognize your work all the time.” Well, yes, that’s true. But this is really the first time I’ve worked on something computer-related and someone other than my family and friends have acknowledged it. It’s a good feeling.