21

21 years ago yesterday morning I watched a little head pop out of her mamma's tummy. A C-section isn't very pretty, but that little head sure was. Minutes later I was holding her in the crook of my neck, my cheek brushing her little head. Somewhere I have a picture. As she got bigger, I would come home from work, pick her up, throw her over my left shoulder, swing her around the back of my neck and back over my right shoulder where I'd grab her upside down and flip her over and set her down onto her feet. It sounds complicated but it was just this natural, smooth maneuver accompanied by a lot of giggling. I can't even imagine how many times this happened over the years. She also spent quite a bit of time during her first few years riding around on my shoulders, which she always liked. When she was around four and five years old, I had a big tall street legal dirt bike for a couple of years. We'd go on dates on the bike, riding up into the foothills above San Bernardino, California followed by a stop at the frozen yogurt place. Then, without fail, she'd fall asleep sprawled out over the gas tank on the way home. And that just reminded me that after about one block of travel in a car, she would usually be asleep. Just like that very first time we got acquainted, she often liked to “go cheeky cheeky,” always a delight. That got less popular when she got older, but once in a while it still happens. The swinging over the shoulder thing hasn't happened for many years and I don't expect it ever will again. We'd end up in a pile on the floor. But it's not at all unusual to still hear that giggle. And how I love that sound. The government says that today she is an adult with all the rights and privileges that entails. It's quite a milestone and I'm so proud of the wonderful, talented, delightful, and beautiful young woman she has become. But as every daddy knows, of course, she'll always be my little girl. And in my heart I'll always be swinging her around while she giggles.

Stretched

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
can know the mighty rapture.
Sorrows come
to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

-unknown

Just You and Me

The kids are grown and gone away
looks like I'll be alone today
I've got some extra time to pray
and work so I can debt repay

Some may step back and look and see
and think how great now to be free
but I'm there and can't agree
with none to share there is no glee

Help me Lord to simply be
and live in peace if not happy
rolling on a lonely sea
here we are just you and me

Lord, please

Let my eyes see
Let my heart love
Let my mind know

Music Video

Long ago I had a vain dream. I thought about making a movie with some angst-ridden rock song as the audio track and visuals that would be a montage of shots of me walking or driving or flying a plane or something, looking very serious as I presumably contemplated things the song was talking about. Years later but before I was ever able to bring my vision to reality, M-TV hit cable television and was full of this genre I had only seen in my mind's eye theretofore. It would have been cool to have invented the music video. But I'm one of the many who has come up with a great idea that has already been invented. Or at least brought to market previously. Anyway, the other night I went to the movies. I saw “The Good Shepherd” in which Matt Damon plays a young guy who gets recruited by the then fledgling CIA. It's about loyalties and how they can conflict and pull a person apart. It's three hours long. I walked out of the theater and got into my car at 1:00AM. I dropped the top, cranked up the MP3 player and headed for home. Suddenly I was in my music video. Think the first season of “Miami Vice” only minus the guns, drug dealers, and pastel jacket. And the music was newer than Phil Collins. There was no camera to capture the various interesting angles as I drove along. But they were all there to be had and the montage played in my head, the only place it would have received any airplay anyway. Deep feelings awash in emotionally charged music. “I give this song a 10. It's got a beat and you can drive a convertible at night with palm trees going by to it.”

Jan. 10 and 11

I usually prefer to put things here that are more or less original to me, but now and then I run into things that strike a chord and just want to throw them out there into the ether. I have been using a couple of books that have readings dated for every day of the year. In one of them, yesterday and today's selections contained poems that jumped out at me. It seems the authorship of each has been lost to time.

Jan. 11:

They tell me I must bruise
the rose's leaf,
ere I can keep and use
its fragrance brief.

They tell me I must break
the skylark's heart,
ere her cage song will make
the silence start.

They tell me love must bleed,
and friendship weep,
ere in my deepest need
I touch that deep.

Must it be always so
with precious things?
Must they be bruised and go
with beaten wings?

Ah, yes! By crushing days,
by caging nights, by scar
of thorn and stony ways,
these blessings are!

Jan. 10:

Is there some problem in your life to solve,
some passage seeming full of mystery?
God knows, who brings the hidden things to light.
He keeps the key.

Is there some door closed by the Father's hand
which widely opened you had hoped to see?
Trust God and wait - for when He shuts the door
He keeps the key.

Is there some earnest prayer unanswered yet,
or answered not as you had thought 'twould be?
God will make clear His purpose by and by.
He keeps the key.

Have patience with your God, your patient God,
all wise, all knowing, no long lingerer He,
and of the door of all your future life
He keeps the key.

Unfailing comfort, sweet and blessed rest,
to know of every door He keeps the key.
That He at last when just He sees is best,
will give it thee.

Like Father Like Daughter

Seven or eight or nine years ago I was minding my own business driving through a parking lot at a mall in my beloved '87 Wolfsburg Edition VW Cabriolet convertible when a dumb kid clobbered me doing about 50 and totaled it right out from under me. After spinning me ninety degrees and stopping me cold he continued to spin around, go up over a curb island and crash backward into two or three parked cars.

While I was in Columbia over Christmas, my daughter had her '90 VW Cabriolet totaled in a mall parking lot. It's becoming a family tradition. In her case, a young woman came out of a parking spot not seeing her (not looking is more likely) going the wrong way and Stacey clobbered her. The officer who came sized up the situation without any trouble and declared the other girl to be at fault. The damage to Stacey's little fun-mobile was entirely fixable. There was no discernible mechanical damage save the punctured radiator. But all the body panels on the front of the car were damaged to the point of needing replacement and the estimate was over $4,000 to fix it. So, sadly, the car worth a bit over $2,000 was, of course, totaled. It will no doubt be on the road again one day. I would have bought it back at salvage price, bought a junker with good body panels (which I could have done for $500 and a trip to North Carolina), and fixed it myself, but at the moment I have no place to store one wrecked car, let alone two, have no place to work on such a project, and my tools are not accessible to me anyway. So we had to let it go.

We did a bit of shopping at car lots looking at the normal overpriced old junk. The daughter learned quickly why you don't buy a car at such a place. We both pored over the Auto Trader listings and discussed numerous alternatives. We prayed we would find something suitable for a price that would work. And that the answer would be obvious. She suggested we cruise the Walmart parking lot as there is an area where people are constantly putting used cars for sale. And there it was. A sporty looking 1995 Saturn SC1 coupe. Red with a moonroof. Cute little car. And the price was very right. A cellphone call brought Joseph the owner to us in a few minutes and we got the story about the car and took it for a drive. It's a very clean little car for it's age and miles. His mom had just given him a newer car after she bought a brand new one so he didn't need this one anymore (he has several other vehicles as well). When we went to close the deal and pick up the car I saw that this bachelor was fastidious about his house, his boats, motorcycle, and other vehicles. That gave me a good feeling that the maintenance the little car had received was probably as good as he said it had been.

In the end the insurance settlement is paying more than she paid for the VW several years ago and she actually has about $600 left after buying the replacement car, which is five years newer. So financially it worked out pretty well. The only bummer is that it's not a convertible. But maybe after college is over and the girl has a real job, she'll be able to get another rag top. I hope so. After a wait of the better part of a decade, I finally have another one. And as much as I loved the VW, I like this one even more. But, nonetheless, it's a very sad day when you have to say goodbye to your first convertible.

Old News

Being an old fart my head is so full of old stuff that it's often easy to completely miss new stuff. This definitely happens when it comes to music. My kids listen to all kinds of new stuff and my daughter in particular is quite eclectic, so when I'm around them I get introduced to new sounds. Some of it I'm not attracted to at all. Well, maybe a lot of it. But now and again I hear something that just grabs me. And so it was this Christmas break while hanging out with the college coed I used to swing around my neck and throw up in the air. She had her ever present music going and I got hooked by "All of You" from the 1999 Vertical Horizon CD "Everything You Want." Okay, so it's not so new stuff. Anyone under thirty is probably yawning. But it's new to me. It sucked me in and I'm liking it a lot. I do remember hearing a few of the hits on the radio. But much of it I hadn't heard before. One critic said of the band "They can't quite seem to decide if they want to rock out or cry." But I think that's a good thing. Another reviewer said "It's an album for more mellow rock, alternative fans, who love melody, soul, eccentric vocals, and lyrics that lean towards the melancholy hardships, and beautiful, insightful ideas of love and life." Yeah. I guess that's where my head is now. This is a great pop/rock album as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to play this kind of music. Wish I could write a song I would like as much as I like some of these.

On a completely unrelated note, but this happened to also be in one of the reviews quoted above: "You think the R.E.M. song, "Losing My Religion" is actually about religion? No, it's about losing one's temper." Yes, I see it now. Duh. And I'm glad about it. I always liked that song.

NCAA Awards

Tonight I shot the "2007 NCAA Awards Celebration." I was on one of the center cameras in the back of the room, usually on the podium shot. There was a third fixed camera over to stage right, and another on Steadicam and yet another on a Jimmy Jib. The show tonight was for I-mag to two side screens, another hanging above the crowd about halfway back in the huge ballroom, and they also had a cool new very expensive box that let them put the I-mag image as an element in a huge wide format graphics screen behind center stage. Little in the way of wide shots or audience shots went into the line cut to the screens. But all cams were isoed (ie: each camera had a separate recorder capturing all of it's output vs. the line cut recorder that captures only parts of the various cameras' shots as they are selected by the switcher). When "off air" as far as the I-mag was concerned, we were directed to get all kinds of additional shots that will be cut into the line cut to make the TV show for broadcast. The need for two different programs is the context in which it is viewed. In the I-mag context you don't need any wide shots because everybody can see the wide image all the time live with their own eyeballs. It doesn't make any sense to put up a shot where the subject is smaller than what someone can see live.

So that's probably more about I-mag (oh, sorry, that's short for "image magnification") than you ever wanted to know. The show will air on ESPN2 on February 2nd. The schedule shows 2:00PM but I don't know what time zone that is for.

Plan B

Tonight I had what may be the most iconoclastic thought to ever enter my brain.

Among the relatively little bit of information we have in the Bible about heaven is the curious fact that there will be “no marriage or giving in marriage.” Does that mean we won't recognize our earthly spouses? I shouldn't think so. I expect that the sensory and intellectual faculties of our tremendously upgraded bodies will be better, not worse than the ones we have now. And I expect we will have very good memory recall ability about our lives in this world. Otherwise, what value would they have? What use all the pain we have suffered and how much more so that of Christ? Surely we will gain from what we learn here in this life and will appreciate the presence of Christ in the context of having lived on this earth separated from Him and then at best in a long distance relationship.

Anyway, I have long thought, based on the no marriage in heaven thing, that marriage on earth may not have been God's original plan for mankind. We may have been intended to have deep intimate relationships with many many people. If there was no jealousy, no disease, no need to work and conserve resources for the support of family, no constraints of time, there may not have been the need for marriage. This is a thought I haven't shared with many people because the ramifications are so out there and sound so contrary to what we think of as a proper Christian family lifestyle. And we know that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed before the fall and the ramifications of that fact can be hard for our sensibilities to deal with. Of course, the fall happened when there was only one man and one woman on the planet, so there is no way to know what might have been if there had been a lot of people around before it all got messed up. But based on the above known facts and the difficulty of marriage and the immense difficulties of human relationships in general and male/female relationships in particular, I truly believe that marriage is a plan B. It's a good plan B, provided by a loving God to help us survive in this fallen world. And I'm not trying to degrade it or say it's not the mode in which we should operate as things are in the here and now, just that IF there hadn't been a fall, there wouldn't be marriage. I believe we were designed for something very different.

So that's something I've thought for a long time. Now to the really iconoclastic part. One might say of marriage, “But it's the picture of the Church, the Bride of Christ.” But if the fall hadn't happened, there would be no church. There would be no segregated out bride, no chosen people, no distinction at all. All would be in equal unhindered relationship with God and with each other. In other words, all would share the deepest intimacy and the best of what now can only really exist and be blessed inside the context of marriage. As it is, we can only have a little piece of what was meant to be and that with only one person. I think God's plan A would have been mind-blowingly better.

But I suppose that if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, somebody in the billions who have lived since then would have. And if not, I'm sure I would have been the first. So I'm thankful that God is in the business of plan B. And He is amazing at it.

Trade Secret

This post is for the techies I know that occasionally take a look here.

I'm on a job using a lens I've never used before; the Canon Digi Super 75 XS. This monster zoom goes from 9.2mm to 700mm and is f/1.7. The Sony D30 camera actually mounts to the lens rather than the other way around. This combo sits on top of a very heavy duty Vinton Vector 70 fluid head. The ballroom camera guys around here tie the viewfinder under the camera with trick line which makes the work much easier on one's neck.

The lens allows a frame filling head shot from 50 yards away, which happens to be the distance from the lens to the podium on this particular job. And that's without the built in 2x converter. At this kind of magnification, even the heavy head can't really keep the image from bouncing around. But this lens has built in image stabilization. I have a little button under my left thumb that toggles it on and off. If you have to make a move, you can turn it off so it isn't fighting you and moving the image around in odd ways. But once you go tight and settle, a little press of that magic button and that super long head shot is steady as can be. It's nice to have the right tool for the job.

Come Alive

I have no idea who this person is, but I ran across this quote the other day:

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

- Gil Bailie

Homemade Music

I put some of my music up at SoundClick.com
In the interest of maintaining the thin veil of anonymity of this blog (at least in regard to google searches, etc.), you can get there with this link:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=641563

or you can type "soundclick.com/" followed by my first and last name