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Blondie and the Beast

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Inspiration

This is inspiring. The stone cut without hands shall roll forth. It's amazing to see the growth of the Church.

Happy New Year, 2009!

Wow, 2008 was an eventful year. Three new grandsons, all of whom are healthy and happy boys. I was made a manager at work and now I have 12 people in my organization. I spent a month in Japan and was able to attend the Temple there (a dream come true). Two good managers and a lot of overtime, which was challenging but economically great. Blonde and I still have our health and enjoy each other. Our son reached the end of the Golden Path with his MBA from the University of Utah.

Such a string of blessings!

I am looking forward to 2009. My photography business should start to take off and I am shooting more often. My company may be sending me to Chile for two weeks in the next couple of months, though that is not certain now. Our grandsons all turn 1 year old in a few months so we will be having parties here and in Maryland. Safire, our daughter, is coming for a month to visit and we are doing the parks in Southern Utah. Something I have not done since I was about 6 years old. We intend to take a lot of photographs. In the fall we are headed back to Maryland, possibly to do the Renaissance Festival in PA again. This is still up for discussion, though.

I have just a few of resolutions this year.

1. Spend less time vegetating in front of the TV, idly watching whatever is on. We record most of what we watch, but when my brain needs a vacation I have two places to spend my time, learning more about photography and working on the family history website. It has languished too long.
2. Finish Safire and Juice’s wedding video, complete with case. After 9 years it’s time.
3. Finish Andrew and Angela’s wedding video. This one is done, I just have to do the case. (blush!)
4. Play golf twice a month
5. Use my time more effectively at work.
6. Get my team working like a well oiled machine, complete with appropriate reporting
7. Read the Book of Mormon every day.

I could add lose weight and exercise more, but that’s a given, right?

So, in the course of the year, I hope to be able to blog that these goals are completed and how I got there. I intend to be more consistently active here writing my online journal.

See you in the funny papers!

The Life and Times of Big Blue

In the 70’s there was a popular sitcom on television called “All in the Family.” It featured an iconic character, Archie Bunker. He was uninformed, hidebound and generally ridiculous but seemed to have enough soft spots to make him endearing. One soft spot that I remember was for a chair. It was a simple chair, but the one he always sat in. Edith, his wife, decided one day that they needed to get rid of it. Hijinks ensued and in the end he kept it, because his life was in the chair, he had held his baby daughter in the chair and watched memorable football games in the chair, etc. We retired a similar chair this week.

Big Blue is a large Laze-boy recliner/rocker that has been in our family room for 12 years or so. It replaced another blue recliner rocker that my Dad pulled the arms off of while trying to get out of it (yes, I was annoyed). At first, I didn’t like the new chair. It was larger than the original and I felt a little lost in it. However, time went by and the extra size was welcome. Blondie and I could snuggle a little in it together, it was perfect for holding small children on your lap in, and I could sleep in the chair. This became probably it’s biggest attraction.

I recovered from two bouts of cancer and one gall bladder operation in that chair. My ability to sleep in it, was a great blessing. Lying down in bed after major surgery is problematic. The laying down is not the issue, it’s the getting up. It is very painful. If I could stay in the chair, getting up is not such a big deal, you just rock forward and the back of the chair supports you. This was particularly helpful with the kidney cancer, since the incision was in my back.

As grand children have come along, we have rocked them in Big Blue and they too have slept in the chair. Many meals have been eaten in the chair and many Bronco games watched. Many Sunday afternoons have been spent in the chair, napping or reading. It has been a great chair.

This week one of the springs broke underneath and the reclining mechanism is threatening to poke up through the seat. So, sadly we replaced the chair with two new leather recliners. Blonde says they are colder than Big Blue, which was fabric covered, but I like them. We will need new names for the chairs. My daughter has suggested Dino and Saur, I like Minotaur and Elsie. Any other suggestions?

Stealing Beauty

I was reading an article recently about why people get involved with photography. In many cases, young men get involved to meet girls. For myself, it was the gadgetry and art of it and, okay, later it was meeting girls. I put serious photography down for many years due to monetary constraints and a long relationship with video cameras. I still like video, but it takes sooo long to edit it, that I don’t spend as much time as I would like. Still photography is much more immediate and you can do some pretty amazing things with the new tools, no darkroom needed. (Just Adobe Light-room)

In order to improve myself, I joined a couple of local photography groups to get myself out shooting and hopefully learn a few things. Utah Photowalking is one, the other is Utah Strobist. So, what is a Strobist? I wondered that as well, but it is a person who shoots with a strobe light. Photography is all about shadows and light and a strobe is to a photographer what a lightsaber is to a Jedi. If you can control the light and manage it, you can create amazing images.

On Tuesday, we had a meeting in downtown Salt Lake. It was my first meeting, but I knew many of the people from the Photowalking group. I brought along my niece as a model. I thought it would be fun to shoot her skating on the outdoor rink nearby. We got to the site and I talked to a few of the people there and asked if any were interested in taking pictures of her. A few were interested and we went over to the rink. One of my photo friends, Ann, was very helpful. I am not that great with the strobes yet, but she is quite accomplished. She hauled out her remote triggers and two strobes, hooked them up to my camera and even held them while I shot. We played with light for about an hour, while Caitlin jumped, spun, glided and twirled, always with a smile in spite of the cold. It was pretty chilly, too. She was a real trooper.

The area around the rink was lit with Christmas lights, which made for intriguing backgrounds. By this time, several others had come by and were shooting. Two in particular, Harley and Diane joined us and helped with the lighting. Harley taught me a cool trick with the zoom and flash. I have always wanted to know how to do this kind of picture.

Photographers steal beauty and store it in their little black boxes. There is a magic in it, to be sure, but only if it’s shared. I have stolen beauty from many, including my wife, my daughter and granddaughter. To add another beauty to my black box and then share it with her and her family, well that’s the sweetest magic of all.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 30

Now and in the Future

At the moment, I am happy with my life. I have been working at the same company for over 10 years and expect to retire from there. It is a comforting thought. There is money in the bank and we are saving regularly. Virtually no debt. I could pay off what we owe today and be left with just a house payment. The lessons I learned the hard way have paid off now. It’s why adversity, if you learn from it is a good thing. Not so good if you don’t.

I think a lot about what I want to do next. My feeling is that we will be okay in retirement financially, assuming the economy doesn’t completely tank for 10 years or more. I also am working on my heath through exercise and better eating habits. These are all things that everyone should do and I don’t intend to stop there. I have other plans for my later years.

I notice that my in laws are doing pretty well for being in their late 70s and early 80’s. They watch their food, exercise and do one more thing that I want to emulate. They keep their minds and bodies busy. I have this planned as well. I have a second career planned as a photographer and writer. Yep, the career I wanted as a young man is going to be my second career. I start next semester taking classes with the objective to get a degree in Fine Arts in a few years. Obviously I want to learn as much about art and photography as I can so my photos are more than snapshots. You have to find a distinctive style to make it in any photographic endeavor, even stock photography. It has to stand out amongst the millions of photos out there. That is part of my journey.

The other half will be writing about my family history and publishing it. I already manage a couple of web sites and want to start posting stories over there. Eventually all of this will be assembled as a book and published for posterity. I figure that between those two endeavors, I will stay quite busy. Who knows, I may get a break and be able to contribute to some magazine or online community and get paid for it. Woohoo! Grandma Moses did it with her painting, I intend to do it with my photography and writing. The future is mine for the taking.

One more item before I shut this down for a while.

Being a grandpa is something I have known how to do for a long time. Being a parent of adult children is not. It is sometimes hard to see them as an adult from a relationship point of view. It’s like something that was popular in the early 70s called Transactional Analysis. It states that everyone follows 3 basic roles, Parent, Adult and Child. Parent-Child relationships are normal as long as both agree on the roles. Child to Child and Adult to Adult work just fine as well. Parent to Parent is not the greatest as there is no clear idea who is the boss in that situation and Parent-Adult is the worst of all. As a parent of an adult, you want to give them advice and help based on what you know from your experience and observations. As an adult they are not always happy with your intrusion. So, you have to stop being a parent (at times) and be an adult. An adult will let them make their own mistakes and bad choices. An adult will grieve with them, but not at the level a parent does. The same goes for the joyful times, they are far more sweet as a parent. I understand, in a small way, what our Heavenly Father goes through. The joy he feels is great when we do well. The pain he feels when our decisions are not in our best interest is probably greater than our own. I know that’s how I feel.

So, what do I do? I advise when asked, try to set a good example. Show them that they have to be equally yoked and sacrifice for one an other so their families will have strong bonds of gratitude between them. Love them unconditionally (which I do) and support them through success and crisis. If, at the end of my life, my family will sacrifice for one another, have joy with one another and love one another unconditionally, I will die happy.

That’s pretty far off, I think, dying. So I intend most of all to live with joy, follow my passions, play with my grandkids and maybe visit Mount Kilimanjaro or even hike it if I am strong enough, and I WILL remain strong.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 29

I, Grandpa

With excuses to Isaac Asimov, I will borrow the title of the story but not much of the substance. The story is about a robot becoming human. This story is about a human becoming a Grandpa.

Grandpa didn’t used to be a Grandpa. He used to be Dad and before that he was Babe and before that he was just Robert the Human.

Robert the Human was a boy who had a Grandpa of his own. We called him Grandpa Ted.

Grandpa Ted was a wonderful grandpa. He built wonderful things of wood, took us fishing and gave Robert the Human church mints.

He was so nice that Robert the Human wanted to turn into a grandpa, just like Grandpa Ted.

When Robert the Human grew up he knew that he had to be Robert the Husband because if you are not a husband you can’t become Robert the Dad.

Eventually Robert the Human met Debi the Human and they got married. Now he was Robert the Husband (or Robert the Babe!) and on his way to becoming Robert the Grandpa.

Robert the Husband and Debi the Wife decided that it was time they changed, so they became Robert the Dad and Debi the Mom.

They loved being a Dad and a Mom, mostly because they had Andrew the Human and Catherine the Human to be parents to. It was a great thing to be able to do.

After a few years of being Human, Andrew and Catherine met other Humans named Angela and Jeff. They got married and turned into a Husband and a Wife like Robert and Debi did.

Robert the Dad was happy that Andrew the Human was now Andrew the Husband and Catherine the Human was now Catherine the Wife. He still wanted to turn into a grandpa, but he had to wait for Andrew and Catherine to become a Dad and a Mom.

Catherine the Wife was the first to change. She became Catherine the Mom first. She had a little Human named Butterfly. Robert the Dad was VERY happy, he was now Grandpa Rob, just like Grandpa Ted! He could hardly wait for Butterfly to get older so he could make things with her, take her fishing and give her church mints when Catherine the Mom will let him.

So, is our story over? No, of course not!

Grandpa Rob gets to turn into a new grandpa every time a new Human joins our family. So far we have Colin the Human, Pirate the Human and Professor the Human. Pirate and Professor are twin Humans! This is a very special thing. Grandpa Rob gets two little Humans to be grandpa to.Colin the Human came one month before Pirate and Professor and he visits Grandpa Rob every day. For a while, Butterfly the Human, Pirate the Human and Professor the Human were all visiting together at Grandpa Rob’s house. He was very happy. Maybe the happiest he has ever been. He could be Grandpa Rob to ALL FOUR of his little humans at the same time. Eventually they will build things together, go fishing and maybe, find church mints in Grandpa Rob’s pocket.

Grandpa Ted would be proud.