This is an experiment.  I’m very interested in getting feedback.

Also, visit Transient Books.

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Oksana wanted to know if I would accompany her to Portland for the weekend. She was bound for her first business conference – a thrilling adventure shared by all Toyota comptrollers of the Pacific Northwest – all I could look forward to was a couple days alone in the hotel room. You know what they say: A boring day sitting in a hotel room is better than a great day at work. I told her I’d be happy to make a long weekend out of it as long as she handled the details.

Our Wednesday departure date came along in late October; we put in half a day at the office and then hit the airport. Oksana scored some first class upgrades, so our Seattle to Juneau leg was a little more comfortable than usual.

We arrived late in the evening, grabbed our rental car (which was upgraded to a Dodge Avenger because all the compacts were taken) and started driving along the Columbia River towards Stevenson, Washington. Oksana, unused to big city night driving, was forced into the driver seat on account of my outstanding warrant in Oregon. [1] Fortunately, traffic was light (although the wind was strong) and we pulled into Stevenson about forty-five minutes after leaving the airport.
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Last year for Halloween, the UAS IT department decided to dress up as hobbits and decorate the office as the Shire. Big floppy feet were slipped on over their shoes, typically hairy faces were shaved, and a giant inner tube was iced with gallons of Crisco.

As always, I followed my coworkers around with a camera that day. They didn’t put on much of a show, just sort of stumbled around campus with their thumbs tucked into their lapels, and yet they still managed to win “Most Unique Department or Costumes.”

I usually try to start editing the previous year’s Halloween music video in September, but I was dreading this one. I couldn’t remember anything memorable caught on tape, and I worried that no theme would ever crystallize. With this year’s Halloween rapidly approaching, I finally sat down to capture the HDV footage in mid-October .

Watching it again for the first time in almost twelve months confirmed what I already knew: I had nothing. From almost an hour of tape, I pulled aside just nine or ten clips that seemed usable. What was I going to do with so little? I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do. I procrastinated more.

I had a fallback plan, but I didn’t really want to go with it. They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard was an Internet meme that was passed around sometime after the Lord of the Rings movies were released on DVD. Footage from the movies is edited to a devilish earworm of a song, repetitive in the extreme, which proves that excessive repetition is indeed funny in its own right. The Rule of Seven by way of Tolkien. On Monday, with a self-imposed deadline rapidly approaching, I decided that They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard was the best I could do.

I was surprised – blown away, really – by how quickly it all came together.

You can watch it below, but I warn you: If you haven’t seen the original, it’s not going to make a lick of sense…