Welcome


Welcome to my little corner of the internet, courtesy of the wonderful people at Google. This site will act as an online resume and blog of sorts. With time I hope to add all of the content about me that one could stand. Thanks for visiting, and please don't forget to sign my Guestbook.

 

 1/05/2009 - New Year, New Post

Well, it's 2009.  Feels ... exactly the same.

Guess who the ninja in the middle is.  Needless to say, the stunt job I did last month was a blast.  I got to be a ninja for an upcoming web series called Hamilton Carver - Zombie P.I.  You can read more about it on the Primal Fitness website here.   It is the next installation of the Award Winning series "The Choices of Ghosts " featuring Primal Fitness member Ben Cunis .

Christmas was ... Christmas.  It was nice to share time off  with Danielle, and I got to train a bit in the downtime.  The weather has been strange to say the least.  It has jumped from 28 degrees, to 55 degrees, and back down to below freezing off and on since early December, which can give you some great training conditions as well as some miserable ones.  I did however manage to hop down to Xtreme Acro and Cheer and do some training with Tribe members Brian Belida and Billy 'Skipper' Hughes.  I even taught myself a neat little variation on the sideflip I have been working on.

All in all, not much else to say about this month.  Everything seems to have slowed down due to the holidays.  Here's hoping that it picks back up.  I have dome some updates around the site; added pictures, updated information, little things like that.  Snoop around and see if you can find the changes.



12/4/08 - "It must be my birthday" Herbert

Oops, I'm a little late for my monthly update.

So yeah, I'm 24 now.  Getting too old to be doing what I do ... or so I've been told.

 Not much happened in November.  Thanksgiving was nice.  House hunting is going ok (cross your fingers for us).  We had a photo day at the Dojang and the photographer offered to take pictures of me for free if he could use them as examples for prospective clients; how could I turn that down.  He actually caught my vertical side and roundhouse kicks at their apex, which I am so excited about. Check them out below.

I'm looking forward to working in a small stunt project this month where I get to be a ninja ... how appropriate.  I am also working on two screenplays at the moment.  The first is a fan fiction based in director Christopher Nolan's Batman universe, and the second is just going to be a short with a horrible story so that I can film a pure action sequence.  Should be fun.

The SMA Demo Team will be performing during the halftime games of the Arundle High boys and girls varsity basketball games on December 12th.  Pop in if you can.  And Danielle will be singing at the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in Ocean City that morning as well, so if I have anyone reading this on the Eastern Shore, you should stop by.


10/23/08 - Oh October ...

October is always a fun month. When I was younger I loved it because it ended with Halloween, which meant I spent the last two weeks of October creating a superhero costume from my old clothes and electrical tape and spray paint and whatever cardboard we had laying around. Now, October means birthdays and anniversaries. My Mom, Stepdad, Grandmother In-law, and Danielle (my Wife) all celebrate their birthdays in October. The anniversary of when Danielle and I started going out is in October. So we decided to make October extra hectic this year by getting married on our anniversary and then going on a week long honeymoon.

Our wedding went great. We were married at Fitzie's Restaurant and Marina in Leonardtown, MD. I have to thank Becky and her family once again for leading us there because we could not have asked for a better venue, especially for the price they gave us and what was included. The restaurant is right on the water and not only as several piers, but a private beach and boardwalk. We went down the night before, and with the help of our families and the bridal party (thank you all so much for your help) decorated and set up for the wedding.

The weather was beautiful, and luckily everyone planned to show up early and we we able to start as close to on time as possible (10 minutes late) considering that a police funeral blocked 301 and had traffic backed up for at least 30 minutes. Danielle was nothing short of Gorgeous. Everyone commented on how beautiful she was in the dress (which she is very proud of because she did some alterations to it herself). Everyone loved our ceremony, which was designed, choreographed, and written by Danielle (so of course it was going to be spectacular). Danielle's theater teacher from Salisbury University drove up and acted as our officiant. He got ordained just for our wedding and we greatly appreciate him accepting our invitation to marry us.

The 6 hour event just seemed to fly right by. Dinner was great. We had a seafood buffet which included 4 kinds of shrimp, crab balls, and a carving station. The party portion of the evening was awesome as well. Everyone seemed a little hesitant to really get on the floor until we broke out the glow sticks and started playing some techno. Then even my Grandmother got on the floor and cut loose! It was amazing that that little $15 investment was what helped people have a good time after everything else. Something about glow sticks I guess.

The pictures I have showing here are all from people who were guests at the event. If you want to purchase pictures from our wedding you can go to our photographer's website www.webphotography.net and click on client proofs and go to Lynch-Slater Wedding. Be forewarned, there are hundreds of pictures in there, but everyone that was there was caught in at least one memorable photo, so it's worth the 20 minutes to check them all out, especially if you want to see the techno rave portion of the evening.

So afterwards we wait a week and then fly over to Barcelona, Spain to catch an Norwegian Cruise Lines trip around the Western Mediterranean. We visited Valletta, Malta - Nales, Italy - Rome, Italy - Pisa, Italy - and Villefranch Sur Mer, France. Once could easily spend a week in each of these locations and be happy. The weather was beautiful, and the ship was excellent. This was only our second cruise and we loved it. NCL's "freestyle cruising" concept was great. They had 13 restaurants on the ship, a theater with music, singing, and comedy acts all week, several lounges and bar areas where smaller musical groups performed every night, and my favorite attraction was the rock wall at the back of the ship. I was there everyday I could be working on that thing. It was great to spend a relaxing week with my wife (I have to keep saying it so that I get used to referring to her as that).

On a small note, I also got a small stunt part in a local independent film done by BeMoreFilms. I found out they are located in Glen Burnie, so I contacted them and they offered me a part in their latest production due to my martial arts and parkour background. What did I do? I had one line and then I die. Oh well, it was fun, I got to put my falling skills to work (I had to fall face first onto pavement like 35 times) and hopefully more projects come my way as a result.


09/16/08 - Playing Catch Up

Well, where do I begin?

July

July was a long month. With summer camps at the Dojang in full swing, me trying to revamp and update the Shelton Martial Arts website, house hunting, and planning for the wedding, I have been busy. July was not as hectic as June or August, which was refreshing, but I also feel as though I don't have much to show for that month. I did happen to get a few sketches uploaded to the art section of this site. I couldn't get any of my good art to scan due to the size of the scanner.

August

August was another rough one. Danielle was gearing up for the school year, so stress about the wedding was getting more evident. Everything is coming along, and now it seems like it's just a lot of little things that need to be done.

The two toughest weeks of summer camp (Action Camp) hit hard so I was trying to teach and direct and edit these trailers for the kids, but after a few years of doing it, I am getting a lot better (switching to only doing trailers and not full 20 minute films is a big improvement - less lines for the kids, and less choreography and shooting continuity required). I think 2 of the 4 trailers turned out rather good this year. Check them out: The Dojang of Doom, The Challenge.

The Demo at the Baysox game went OK. People really seemed to enjoy it, which is what matters most (although it would have been nice to get a few students out of the event).




We also held a Jedi Training camp to celebrate the release of 'The Clone Wars'. This event had a ridiculously large turn out, and getting an article in the paper afterwards led to several phone calls asking when we would be holding our next Jedi Training Camp. Unfortunately that was yet another event where I was unable to get the studio more students, despite how much people apparently loved the event.

We ended the month with a camping trip and seminar at the Hilton Area of Patapsco Valley State Park. Despite being forced to pitch our tents on gravel and being reprimanded for being too loud, the trip was very fun. I got to do some training at the 2 acre tire playground that was there, and did some acrobatics with KyoSa Mike King and KyoSa Jared Porter. My sideflips and aerials from height are coming along rather well if I may say so myself. The three of us also got to hiking and jump around on the rocks of a nearby stream.

September

Thus far, September has been ... the same. We did more renovations to the Dojang; adding tables for visitors to sit at and moving the reception desk to the front of the Dojang. It is starting to look and flow a lot better. It is interesting because when we first started renovating by putting up the fence, there were many negative reactions, but now I have heard almost nothing but praise about the changes.

The Dojang also celebrated it's 12th anniversary this month. The demo team put on 3 demos in 3 hours for the event, all of which were well received. The event was a little less of a success in that the turnout of both current students and student prospects was rather low, however fun was had and we managed to raise a little more money to go towards our tournament funds. You can check out video of the Demo on the Shelton Martial Arts youtube channel.

I've started doing a little training with a group of local traceurs which has been fun. I am used to teaching in a formal martial arts setting, and here I can't be quite as strict due to the comfortable and "fun" nature of the activity. I have been slowly introducing conditioning and progression to them, and they are taking it well.

Danielle and I had a fun time recently doing our engagement shots with our photographer. Some of the shots made Danielle look like a professional model (she's so gorgeous). We walked around Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis for an hour and got to see a few secluded spots that our photographer knew about that had some great views. She also put me in charge of choreographing our first dance, which has been ... interesting to say the least.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I'll be back on updating this every month.




Want more? Visit the Archives.