The Keg Thiefs Sometime in the Spring of 1998 I was visiting my friends in Waco who were attending Baylor University Specifically I was hanging out with a good high school friend of mine Tom Kelley and a girlfriend of his Tom and bunch of other friends of mine were in the process of pledging for a fraternity and he was really intent upon standing out to them in one way or another as Tom typically did I guess he figured that I would be the most likely person to help him on this adventure and of course he was right We went to a house party of what I believe was a competing fraternity In the back of a someone s pickup truck in the area were about 10 keg shells that had not yet been returned Tom and I scoped the area out for some time before I eventually making our move I parked my truck just a few feet away from the other pickup truck and killed the lights Tom meanwhile got out and quietly started moving all of the keg shells from the other truck into mine and we took off I didn t actually go into the fraternity house with Tom or at least I don t remember doing so but it s my understanding that he was quite celebrated for having just lifted so many keg shells from a competing group I probably should have just pledged their fraternity right then and there and been done with it

The Nine Inch Nails On November 4th 1995 me and a number of my friends were going on a group date to an Aeros hockey game In fact this was actually my first date with Deanna Ladimir a friend of mine in high school that I dated for a couple of months when I was just 16 Daniel Putt and I had been regular concert goers and had heard all day on the radio that Nine Inch Nails was in town for a surprise show at Numbers in Montrose Unfortunately it was either impossible to get tickets to the show because they were just giving them away or they sold out that morning in just a few minutes Whatever the case was we didn t have any The Aeros played near downtown Houston at what was then the Summit After seeing the game Putt and I suggested to our particular group of six that we stop by Numbers just to see what it sounded like from the outside Nine Inch Nails had only just climbed to the very top of stardom the year before and we were pretty anxious to catch any glimpse we could We parked in the neighborhood where we commonly had before and headed over to the club Although we were far from dressed like club goers it was pretty enjoyable to hear the music Evidently the bouncer on duty took notice of our excitement just to be standing outside listening and told us that for 20 00 per person he d let us in It s a little harder than you might think to scrounge together 120 00 as a 16 year old especially in 1995 but we did somehow manage So despite being dressed like young high school yuppies that had just come from a hockey game with a bunch of other high school football players cheerleaders and drill team members we got to see Trent Reznor perform to a packed house of maybe 800 just people I very distinctly remember walking in just as Something I Can Never Have started playing The only downside of the entire night was that two of the girls with us had to be home by a certain time and refused to accept that this was one of those times it was better just to break curfew naturally my date did not have this problem Much to my chagrin we did wind up leaving before the show ended The only thing that puzzles me to this day is how easily we were able to find our way from the Summit to Numbers without the use of a GPS or even a phone nbsp

The Gas Caps photo 16384 364 0 right A photo of N733CP the plane I was flying in this story Note that this picture was not taken at the same time photo The following story takes place at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport the Lockhart Municipal Airport and 3 000 feet above the ground between those two locales On the second flight I ever made during my flight training I was responsible for the pre flight inspection Though neither Dustin nor myself had a great deal of experience with these sorts of procedures just yet I decided that I d be able to figure it out one way or another Of course the or another part of that was preparing to reveal itself to me We had been taught in the previous lesson that there is a very specific methodology to doing a pre flight inspection The formula is mainly just geared at making sure you don t overlook any obvious steps and so it s important to always go in order For a person like myself who likes to do many things at once this linearity took a little getting used to Nevertheless I did the flight inspection as requested and was ready to get going Upon completion of my pre flight inspection our new instructor Garrett came out to greet Dustin and I just prior to the flight We were planning a short comfortable afternoon voyage out to Lockhart 50R as we had done the week before For those who don t know Lockhart is a small town located about 30 miles south of Austin From ABIA it s a straight shot and thus makes for a great training facility I taxied out of ABIA and took to the skies heading south towards Lockhart When we got into the area Garrett had me doing all sorts of aerial drills I was mostly working on turning around a point controlling my altitude and some basic navigation After about 20 or so minutes of this we entered the pattern at Lockhart and touched down Garrett instructed me to taxi the plane over to the gas pump there gas is sold much cheaper in Lockhart than at ABIA and was planning on having us gas up the plane As I parked and killed the engine he got out and climbed onto the sidestep to see the top of the plane When he came down he very calmly asked me to step out of the plane I did He asked me to walk around the plane and take a look at the top of the plane and see if I noticed anything of interest I climbed atop the plane as requested and much to my great surprise the plane was missing both of its gas caps I could tell that Garrett was pretty angry at the situation but he did his best to remain in good spirits and was not too outwardly angry with me We called in the problem to someone back in Austin and as it turns out I had simply left them on top of the plane and they must have fallen onto the ground as soon as I engaged the throttle We had to wait about 30 minutes but someone brought them to us and all was well Months later I was speaking with a flight instructor who was adamant about the fact that planes cannot fly without gas caps since the lack of pressure would simply suck the gas right out of the wings While I m sure it s ideal to have them in place I had to respectfully disagree with this person s analysis

The Waco Window This is nothing more than another relatively short college antic that took place in Waco and involved Tom Kelley Nathan Christianson and of course me I had come up to visit the guys in Waco as I had done a few times before and as we had done a few times before we got pretty drunk The story with Tom and I usually went something like this Ludlow always finds a way to get into trouble Tom always finds a way to get into trouble put them together and something terrible is bound to happen to someone else The strange thing in this case was that I think Nathan had more involvement in the destruction than did Tom Either way Tom always played an integral role Some time in the latter part of the evening we headed over towards one of their friend s apartments Across the street from this apartment was a new condominium being developed The three of us happened to walk over that way to pee And yes I m sure we could have just used the bathroom inside but this seemed like a better plan at the time Who doesn t love peeing outside Once we d zipped up the next logical step was to break some of the windows at the new development Yes nothing more than drunken college vandalism at it s finest This is actually where I don t think Tom played a huge role as a very rare change In fact I seem to recall him being inside of the house doing something entirely different than Nathan and I albeit probably still destructive but I digress Nathan and I began picking up 2x4s on the ground and hurling them at the windows from no more than 20 feet away Naturally you d expect that the windows would have shattered into pieces but they did not In fact the windows seemed to absorb the shock of the wood with pleasure With each new impact the window would let off a springy sounds and sent our pieces of wood to the ground Over and over again we tried to destroy these windows each throw more frustrating than the last How was it possible that two drunk college 18 year old guys couldn t destroy these windows Well needless to say our luck was about to change quite heavily After repeated failed attempts at breaking the windows a local Waco squad car and then another pulled up at the scene Evidently someone had called them in for vandalizing a local property At this point in my life I d experienced run ins with the police so many times for mischievous behavior that I m not sure I was even phased They asked us what we were doing and of course we explained that we were just casually checking out the property After being told that they were called there for people breaking the windows we rather pompously pointed out that the claim had been false as none of the windows were in fact broken After some back and forth debate and running of our licenses something I would never let happen today we were told we could go on the condition that we didn t drive our car evidently the cops were also keen to the fact that we d been drinking a bit They went so far to tell us that they were going to periodically check on Tom s car throughout the night and if it was gone they were going to come and get us The moral of the story is that high cost windows are your friends even when you are trying to kill them

Hurricane Rita photo 18934 487 0 right The shelves at HEB almost entirely bare despite the fact that we re several hundred miles inland with no major bodies of water around photo To anyone not familiar with hurricane Rita as of this writing she is a category 4 hurricane anticipated to make landfall sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning September 23rd September 24th 2005 around the southeastern region of Texas After noticing how the general scenary of my town has changed in the past few days I just wanted to make a few notes as to what I have seen regarding the much feared hurricane I guess it s not a surprise that after the damage caused by hurricane Katrina people would be more than willing to evacuate from Galveston Houston and the surrounding cities For Austinites however the influx is showing strong My H E B Experience strong When I walked into H E B the local grocery store just the other day I can t say that I was entirely shocked but rather just annoyed at what I was seeing It looked as if people were preparing for the apocalypse or something equally as exciting Of course unlike the rest of the crowd my only intention was to purchase my usual groceries Imagine how much more annoyed I became when I found I couldn t get my Gatorade bread water and milk just to name a few As exciting as it was to see H E B in this state of complete chaos I was disappointed not being able to get the foods that I am accustomed to getting Yes one could call it selfishness given the recent state of things in the south central states but that wouldn t change the fact that I was still thirsty I think I was more so just annoyed that people felt the need to stock up as if they re going to be stranded for weeks to come Perhaps I am not the best person to make this call but it seems unlikely that Austin a city 200 miles inland would be devastated by a hurricane photo 18540 487 0 right Cars lined up to the street for gas in anticipation of the hurricane photo strong The Gas Rush strong Much like I have seen before when chaos strikes we first make sure that our cars are filled to the top I am still not entirely certain if this is because we fear the worst and think that we ll need to evacuate at moments notice or if it s just that we are all futures brokers at heart and predict the price will make a significant increase Whatever the case may be the local gas stations have been swamped and many have even managed to run out of gas

My College Movies When starting my university career back in 1997 at the University of Texas at Austin my first major of any real dedication was film More specifically RTF or Radio Television and Film I kept on this path for about 2 years and inevitably wound up making a number of short films In some cases the films were made for myself in others they were made for class projects If you would like to see some media saved from these films please click on the links below Please note that all work is copyrighted by Kevin Ludlow and can not be used or duplicated without the explicit consent of Kevin Ludlow photo 36277 740 200 right Klaus Wagner in Alive April Chase photo photo 36272 740 200 right Part of the opening sequence photo strong Alive April Chase strong strong Running Time strong 3 minutes 20 seconds strong Shoot Date strong March 8 12 1999 strong Release Date strong March 23 1999 strong Cast strong Klaus Wagner em additional names to be released em strong Specifications strong Super 8mm strong Genre strong Comedy Animation strong Notes strong Ludlow s first movie shot on film The piece was just over 3 minutes long and contained stop action animation as well as hand drawn animation It follows a newspaper comic hero br style clear both photo 36278 740 200 right The opening action sequence from Bill s Day photo photo 36282 740 200 right Jeff Smith at Quix photo strong Bill s Day strong strong Running Time strong 2 minutes strong Shoot Date strong May 1 May 5 1999 strong Release Date strong May 6 1999 strong Cast strong Carey Quackenbush The Driver Vance Kotrla The Passenger Jeff Smith Money Ower Laura Kennemer Edwards Girl Sunni Graham Graves Letter Girl Quix Clerk as himself strong Specifications strong Digital 8mm strong Genre strong Action Mystery strong Notes strong Shot for a film class this 2 minute video follows a random storyline with action br style clear both photo 36280 740 200 right photo photo 36275 740 200 right photo strong Return of the Forest Monster strong strong Running Time strong 75 minutes strong Shoot Date strong Summer 2003 strong Release Date strong November 8 2003 strong Cast strong a href http www imdb com title tt0383593 fullcredits http www imdb com title tt0383593 fullcredits a strong Specifications strong DV 1 78 1 strong Genre strong Comedy Horror strong Notes strong A long time friend of mine Vance Kotrla has made a number of independent films this is one of them He shot the film over the summer of 2003 and needed a few of his friends to act in it I didn t have a very large role but I was in the film no less Sadly I get eaten by the forest monster You can view the movie trailer 4 75mb WMV or visit the movies home page at a href http www brokenimage net rotfmwmv html http www brokenimage net rotfmwmv html a br style clear both photo 36271 740 200 right photo photo 36279 740 200 right photo strong Suicide strong strong Running Time strong 18 minutes strong Shoot Date strong December 1998 January 1999 strong Release Date strong January 19 1999 trailer only strong Cast strong Victor Perez Joe Mr Sabatini Kevin Ludlow The Blue Guy strong Specifications strong VHS C 8mm strong Genre strong Action Mystery strong Notes strong Shot over Christmas with friend Victor Perez Perez also wrote and directed the film with Ludlow br style clear both photo 36281 740 200 right Kim Ludlow starring as Mary photo photo 36273 740 200 right photo strong style clear both The Cross of Mary strong strong Running Time strong 5 minutes strong Shoot Date strong December 1998 strong Release Date strong not released strong Cast strong Kim Ludlow Mary strong Specifications strong 8mm Video strong Genre strong Drama strong Notes strong After casting his sister to do this project Ludlow created a dramatic silent piece to the score of an inspirational song br style clear both photo 36274 740 200 right photo photo 36283 740 200 right photo strong When the Son Rises strong strong Running Time strong 4 minutes 30 seconds strong Shoot Date strong April 24 30 1999 strong Release Date strong May 4 1999 Cast strong Daniel Putt Father Klaus Wagner Younger Son Kevin Ludlow Older Son Kim Ludlow Bendaw the Servant Heather Kominczak Passing Lady strong Specifications strong Digital 8mm strong Genre strong Biblical strong Notes strong Experimental film piece shot with family and friends A biblical piece with changed dialogue to fit the times Depicted in pre Judeo Christian times The only song used in the piece is my so called A Song See A Song br style clear both

A Technical FAQ About Me strong 1 Are you a computer programmer strong I guess so strong 2 What languages are you familiar with strong I am an avid PHP programmer but am more than capable with C C Python Perl and a few others strong 3 How about graphics do you do that too strong I m pretty fluent with PhotoShop and the like but my drawing ability is less than crap strong 4 Video sound etc Any of that strong I ve done plenty of work with Adobe Premiere for the a href http www kevinludlow com movies html movies a I ve made and use a variety of sound programs to help get my a href http www kevinludlow com music html musical compositions a onto the computer strong 5 How many websites do you own strong About 10 I think This one is currently my biggest project though a href http www austinsmoke com www austinsmoke com a WAS my largest It doesn t look so hot right now but it used to be a bustling marketplace of GNU GPL software strong 6 How many websites do you manage strong All of the ones that I own plus 2 or 3 more strong 7 Do you have any software floating around the web with your name on it strong Yes in fact I wrote a nice little Currency Converter for PHP Nuke around January of 2004 It s floating all over the place and can be downloaded from a href http www austinsmoke com www austinsmoke com a At least you used to be able to get it there Freshmeat certainly still has a copy of it strong 8 What kind of computer s do you have strong Right now I m running a homemade AMD 64 bit machine 1gb RAM 80gb SATA 10k disk on Fedora 3 Linux My other boxes include a Dell Laptop running WinME a homemade AMD 32 bit machine running WinXP and an AMD 64 bit machine running WinXP strong 9 Can you help me with my ______ software project strong Maybe Send me an email via my a href http www kevinludlow com contact html contact page a strong 10 Did you design this website strong Yes though I technically stole the look of it from a href http www mamboserver com Mambo a I m pretty sure they ve changed their look since but that s who deserves the original credit strong 11 So this site is run by Mambo CMS strong No The LOOK of the site was borrowed from the main Mambo site but none of the coding is from Mambo or any other CMS for that matter strong 12 Did you hand code all of this website strong from blank VIM screens strong 13 Can I have the source code to your website scripts strong As of right now no I am working on putting it together as a CMS package of some variety Once that is all said and done it will be posted on my website somewhere strong 14 Does your site use databases strong Actually though there is SOME database connectivity it is in no way required to run the little CMS that I have created The idea of the CMS is actually based entirely upon static HTML files The software ultimately allows me to create things on the fly from the backend Hence if you alter the URL text in an effort to change an ID number the most likely result will be an Apache error rather than a PHP or SQL error The idea behind doing this is an effort to promote better security habbits of the site and also allow for faster loading times as scripts don t need to compile and queries do not need to be processed strong 15 Is your gallery program finished strong No Kallery is somewhat of a work in progress I have made quite a bit of progress on it in the past while but do not feel it is dynamic enough to release Should I ever get to release my CMS program to the world the Kallery program would be a standard module that came along with it

A New Pinball Record photo 18376 487 0 right KLO with a promising 3rd place victory and 2 375 665 920 points photo I have been hoping that I would be fortunate enough to get my name into a href http www guezuraga org Dave s a Frank Thomas pinball game It has taken me about 4 months to get good at the damn thing but I have finally managed to secure my place with two different records strong Legitimacy strong Dave and I were experimenting with the machine a bit and thus decided to take the glass table top off of it It s actually amazing how much louder the pinball gets when the glass top is off not to mention how much fright it adds to the game as there are heavy ball bearings shooting all over the place I told Dave that I would play the game after putting the glass back on but he wanted me to leave it off Should have guessed it would be my best game of all time breaking into the top 5 high scores placing 3rd and also beating the home runs score Dave questions the integrity of the score even though he did come into the room when I was at about 500 million The final high score was 2 375 665 920 and my high home runs were something like 78 To anyone that can afford it I would highly suggest purchasing an arcade pinball machine They run anywhere from 1000 5000 strong 06 11 05 07 19 39 PM strong em The glass was off providing an unfair advantage enabling him to see the field better While he certainly played a good game I ve cleared his score off the board Sorry em strong 06 11 05 07 21 34 PM strong em Dave left the glass off It was his own fault I naturally played the game of my life during this The record stands em strong 06 11 05 09 23 45 PM strong em I d also like to add that dave is not happy with this simply because he WAS 3rd place but now sits beneath my pinball wizardry at 4th Surely had I only shot to 4th this record would have no problem being in the books em strong 07 24 05 06 59 14 PM strong em I m with Dave on this one em

What a Grand Sound strong strong I did forget to mention one thing regarding Nelson When we stopped in the National Cathedral I was given the opportunity to play a giant church pipe organ consisting of over 2 500 pipes It was incredible and I would highly advise anyone presented with the moment to take it strong HAPPY 227th BIRTHDAY USA strong

Not the Powder We Were Hoping For strong strong Unfortunately the a href http 64 17 5 210 www kevinludlow com index php module Photos amp op album amp albumID 124 amp page 1 Mt Hutt ski fields a are definitely not all they re powdered up to be Since we have finally had the opportunity to go skiing in New Zealand the one thing I would say to anyone who has ever thought to invest thousands to do so is do not While we have not yet been to Queenstown which I m told is the BEST skiing in NZ we have been to the highly regarded Mt Hutt I have only skied about 7 mountains in the US should I say only so perhaps I am not entirely qualified to make this statement In my experience Lake Tahoe and Park City have been the two nicest mountains that I have skied Riudosa New Mexico has been the worst But in typical American fashion you get what you pay for My impression of N Z skiing was that you pay for Riudosa but get Park City obviously an exciting notion This is NOT the case The Mt Hutt ski area was horribly overcrowded I waited almost 30 minutes to get on a lift once the slow trails were not groomed throughout the day thus beginners have a horrible time skiing in the afternoon due to mogul cuts and worst off were the pull cord lifts that were used though they have regular lifts as well just not where they are needed most A note on these lifts They have a device which we use in US ski areas no doubt that two people can grab at a time and a rip cord pulls out about 25 foot and tows you up the mountain This is perfectly fine at the bottom as a more lateral lift but this was the method to get to the summit It was exhausting to be pulled up diamond and double diamond runs especially on a snowboard where you are turned sideways Anyway that s my take on Mt Hutt I do not think I am going to spend the money to ski in Queenstown but perhaps we will at least visit the mountain basin