This is the 2007 Christmas letter set to video.
Close calls and big changes - for better or worse - were the themes for this year. The author was on his last trip to St. Petersburg, and the last one as an employee of the US government, when it was learned how we nearly lost Jim. Days before, we had just watched the "Transformers" movie and been to a Nationals ballgame at the old RFK stadium. Shortly before that, during another Russia trip, a text came in saying "Doug is ok", a chilling reassurance for what was later learned to be a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus. Hopefully the memories of those scary times are captured well and respectfully here.
The old Bob Seger song was revived as the backdrop for the Chevy pickup truck TV commercials, and has its own meaning here. The dramatic tracks are bracketed by a couple of upbeat ones from Harry Potter - if you followed those movies, you might see a resemblance to the Weasley siblings!
The irony behind the really cool looking shots from our first ILS launch party (JCSat-11) was that they were taken just moments before the first failure and crash of the Proton rocket - not known at the time as a sign of things to come.
This is the last of the series of the "fill-in" videos, the years between the last converted VHS tape (2000), and the current-year Christmas letters brought to life in videos, starting in 2008. It was good that Claire urged on this series to make this project more complete.
Video software is Cyberlink Power Director 8.
Credits:
Fireworks - Nicholas Hooper
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Bumblebee - Steve Jablonsky
Transformers (2007)
Like a Rock - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Like a Rock (1986)
Dumbledore's Army - Nicholas Hooper
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)