Today my brother, John Bradford King, turns forty. To celebrate this monumental birthday, his wife, Pamela Jean pulled off the most amazing surprise last week.

Last Wednesday, over fifty close family and friends gathered at the hip hotel in West Hollywood called The Mondrian for a celebration of Brad's life -- beginning with drinks at the SkyBar and retreating to Gallery A on the 1st floor for a sit-down dinner, roasts and amazing toasts.

My gift?

A "boast" -- celebrating John Bradford's first forty years in the form of an iMovie of photos and song.

First, let me say that I'm grateful our RuggedElegantLiving.com audience has remained strong since we left for LA last Saturday.

Since the 19th of February, we have not been sitting by the pool at the Mondrian drinking margaritas. We've only been doing that for the past three days in Mexico. (However, that's another story!)

The night before driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I made sure all my old photo scanning was done. I was not about to take my scanner as I didn't need one more electronic device along for the ride. Any last minute pictures added would have to be already in digital form.

On the eight hour drive down to LA, I spent the entire time organizing over 400 photos of my brother's life.

Then, during the week, while my kids were busy taking in the sights and sounds of the pre-Academy award preparations in Hollywood and Mondrian celebrities like Mike Tyson and American Idol's Randy Jackson, I was busy working in our suite or at the Mondrian's Asia de Cuba restaurant.

Using Apple's suite of iLife products including iPhoto, iTunes and iMovie together with my PowerBook I was able to combine forty year-old photographs with the perfect music, and a few special effects created by Apple to pull together my six minute "boast."

My sister-in-law, Pamela, the hostess of the surprise party, gave me one parameter: Make it around 5 or 6 minutes long, no more.

Now, an iMovie is not for everyone.

First of all, it takes time. It takes a lot of time to create.

While my hundreds of hours of efforts were clearly appreciated by our first au pair when I presented her with an iMovie at her wedding in Sweden a few years ago, I did not get the same reception from one of my best friends, after devoting the same amount of time for her fortieth birthday celebration.

Before embarking on such a project, first make sure either the recipient gives you the blessing to do it, or someone connected them requests it.

My friend was neither interested in having me show the iMovie at her party, nor was she happy when I sent her parents a copy on VHS tape.

Since my brother's wife requested this gift I happily obliged.

Fortunately, the iMovie for my brother's celebration last Wednesday night was well received by him, our extended family and many of his closest friends.

Everyone especially got a kick out of seeing the strong resemblance between my brother and his twenty-month-old son.

If you're looking for one more reason to invest in an Apple Computer, this is one of the best.

If you're looking for a way to share great memories with family and friends, Apple not only provides the tools for you to crop the photos, reduce the red eyes and add music to create the mood, their iLife Suite offers smooth and clever transitions between each photo and/or video along with special effects, like the Flash, the Old Home Movies effect, the Earthquake and the Lightening Bolt -- all effects I used.

Apple also offers members of their web service the ability to put their personal composites onto a snazzy web page after you compress it. My brother's iMovie can be found at:

If you're interested in learning about the necessary tools to create your own iMovie read on.

If you just want to look at 300 photos of a gorgeous guy set to one of the best rock songs of all time, click here.

(Note: The file is 7MB in size, so it may take some time to download depending on your Internet connection.)

This is what you need to create your own personalized Home iMovie.

Tools For Success

The Right Computer

A Macintosh computer -- all of which comes with the latest version of iLife (iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD).

Good Material

Fabulous photos - all those 3" x 3" shots from the sixties will come to life.

Not only did I scan forty year-old photos, I also scanned a wooden name tag that my brother was given the summer he was a camp counselor at Mt. Hermon's Redwood Camp. When you see the hand-painted piece of wood that says "Taz" on it, you'll know where it came from.

The biggest challenge: narrowing down the choice of forty years worth of photos when you're limited to one song.

A Digital Camera

Two cameras we recommend:

Sony DSC-F828 8MP Digital Camera with 7x Optical Zoom

A great Canon to be released on March 20th, is the:

Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Lens

Another consideration is Canon's full redesigned digital Powershot A series:

Canon PowerShot A510 3.2MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom

While it would have been fun to include shots of my brother with the people who were coming to the party, I decided to give his guests a retrospective of what Brad's life was like before they met him.

In order to capture those years -- pre digital cameras -- I needed a good, reliable scanner.

Mine is a Canon CanoScan 8400F Flatbed Scanner

For a 6 minute movie I used closed to 300 photographs, most of which needed to be scanned.

All of the photos scanned go into an iPhoto album which syncs directly with iMovie.

A Great Song

In this case, I used George Thorogood.

I always work hard to tie in the songs lyrics with the photos I use, e.g., "How to make a rich woman beg, how to make a good woman steal, how to make an old woman blush, how to make a young woman squeal..."

Lots of Time and Patience

Those who have discovered these tools know what it takes to pull it all together. Those who receive it know that it is truly a "labor of love."

Good Guidance

Help from the Apple Genius Bar - If you're looking to get started and do better with a class or a one-on-one consultation that a book or manual, I highly recommend you take a class at one of the many Apple Store's around the country.

A girlfriend of mine, who is putting together a 40 minute iMovie as part of a fund-raiser for her daughter's class, spent an hour at the Genius Bar last week. She said it made all the difference, especially being able to work out the sound tweaks.

Once you're finished and have showed your creation to the guest of honor, you can create a web page at Mac.com as a way of sharing it with friends and family who were not able to make it to the party.

Here is the iMovie I created in celebration of my brother. It is called:

It is set to George Thorogood & The Destroyers' song "Bad to the Bone".

Pam & Brad at The Mondrian

Here also is the slide show of photos that my sister took the night of the party and then put to one of The Wallflowers best songs from their album Red Letter Days.

The slideshow is called:

For the non-movie makers in the family, we are amazed at "how good it can get" - with the help of the makers of iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie and the entire suite of iLife products.

The day after the surprise party, one of the guests told my sister-in-law, "It is so evident how much Brad's sisters love their brother."

That's for sure.

Happy Birthday to my brother who is always living on the edge!

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful and "iLife-rich" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King