News from the State Police: They approved my application for concealed carry. Which basically just means I’ll be OK to drive to and from the shooting range.
Last night I wrapped up a course designed for Creative Directors and taught by a CD at Ogilvy Canada. I went into it thinking it would be good to talk with other people at a similar age and experience level, gain some insight, and share any strategies or wisdom. The class size was close to 100 but seemed to be made up of younger Art Director-level creatives, with some newly minted CD’s looking for guidance. So I found myself to be one of the old heads in the virtual room offering advice more than I was learning. And because the course was taught by and for agency-style creatives, I felt a bit disconnected, being an in-house leader at an NGO. Still, it was inspiring, I did learn a few things, and my LinkedIn profile is full of connection requests.
The final assignment was to pitch a project as if we were in a room with the client, which I’ve always been good at doing. I looked back through my history and did a pitch for the billboard I designed for Deutsche Bank in New York City, when I was at an agency. Thankfully I spent a bunch of COVID sorting through and organizing my digital files so I knew right where to find it on the server in the basement. I set up the camera and did a quick pitch on tape, then overlaid some photos and video of the project in the final edit. I keep forgetting that we won a couple of Addys for that piece.
On Thursday I’m headed to Florida for a football weekend with a bunch of my uncles and cousins, which should be a blast. Dugans are flying in from all over, and we’re meeting at my Uncle’s house for the Bills/Dolphins game on Sunday. I have no idea what to expect here; my cousins and I are all older than our parents were when we were gathering for holidays regularly, so there is a very good chance we will all be asleep by the end of the third quarter. My days of drinking an entire case of Milwaukee’s Best during a football Sunday are long over, so I’ll have to pace myself and bring plenty of ibuprophen. And hopefully my Dugan’s Beer shirt will be here before I have to leave for the airport!
I’m back in Maryland after a great week in Upstate New York with my family. It felt good to spend more than a couple of days wrapped around a holiday to visit, eat good food (so much good food), help Mom with a bunch of winter chores, see my sister, and also to just sit and relax. I also did something I wish I’d done more of while Dad was alive: I asked my Mom questions about her life before she was married, how she met him, and what their life was like before they had us kids. I’ve got more questions to ask but I learned some things I didn’t know about.
New York State is beautiful at this time of year. I drove up on a Sunday afternoon and it was getting dark before I made it to central Pennsylvania, but over the next week the leaves around us began to turn. My sister lives up on a hill at a decent altitude for that area, so the winding road leading to her house was flecked with golds and yellows and oranges, all brilliant in the bright sunshine. I started for home early in the morning yesterday, so I was in the middle of Pennsylvania’s peak colors by lunchtime.
I think my only beef with the whole trip is that the radio stations along I-81 only play bible study, country music, or conservative talk radio on Sunday afternoon; it’s like the Steelers or Eagles don’t even exist.
The weather this last week has been mercifully cool and dry, and I’ve tried to take as much advantage of it as possible. Saturday morning I got the girls up and moving, supplied them with fresh pastry, and drove us over to Patapsco State Park for a 4-mile hike through the woods. This is the trail Rob and I used to bomb down on mountain bikes back in the day, and apart from a section at the bottom being closed and re-routed, I remember almost all of the obstacles along the way. Hazel was happy to chug along at the head of the pack and probably did about 3/4 of the work getting me up the hills.
I spent all of my time last week shooting interviews for a project at work, and used the experience to dial in a setup for the new camera system. I bought us a matching pair of Sony A7siii rigs after COVID and have been learning the ins and outs of their operation, which has taken some time, but I’ve got a system for shooting video and audio that’s much less complicated than the one I inherited ten years ago. I’ve been experimenting with S-Log settings for color grading and I’ve got a good workflow for that now, and using an audio limiter in Final Cut to balance out the sound. It’s almost like I’m a professional.
I also rented a DJI Avata 2 drone for the week with a set of FPV goggles, figuring I’d use it to shoot B-roll at some of the locations I was on, but it took time to set up and understand its operation. It’s a small unit with enclosed blades and a 4K stabilized camera, and takes about one minute to power up and initialize. From there, you get about 15 minutes of flight time per battery, depending on how hard you fly it. I spent a couple of hours flying it around a parking lot on Sunday, using the Scout as a subject, and I came away (mostly) impressed. The first trial run was thwarted by a controller that wouldn’t calibrate properly, which meant the joystick control only worked in 3 axes. And the SD card I was using wasn’t fast enough, so it only captured 2 minutes of footage before crapping out.
I used that time to familiarize myself with the system and went back out at dusk after charging the batteries again, and had more success with a better card. I think there are a few more settings I need to learn—there’s a way to fly it and use your head to independently move the camera that I need to figure out.
For Jen’s birthday, I got her a bird feeder with an integrated camera like the ones my Mom and sister have. I bought her a birdhouse with a camera mounted inside last Christmas, and we finally watched a family of sparrows hatch a clutch of eggs early this summer, but the camera isn’t as clear as I was hoping for. This one is much crisper. I mounted it on the post outside our back door and filled it with seed; the birds haven’t found it yet, but I’m hoping they’ll catch on soon.
It’s been quiet around these parts mostly because we’re busy with camp and travel and family commitments and work. Somehow not planning a major family vacation has made this summer busier than ever, or so it feels. Finn is off at her first week of sleep-away camp, and we are praying she is having herself a good time. We got back yesterday evening and got to bed early, but I still feel pretty wiped out. I hope the next two weeks go smoothly.
Jen made me some cream of wheat for breakfast this morning, and it made me think of childhood weekend mornings when Dad would make us breakfast; I preferred his cream of wheat to his eggs. He’d load a bowl full for each of us and make a little island volcano in the center: butter in the cone, brown sugar on the land, surrounded with some milk. The way the flavors mix always felt like a warm hug, even when we knew he was preparing us for hours of cold dreary manual labor outside.
I miss you, Dad.
With the conclusion of high school, we are now in that glorious, short-lived period of time when the household doesn’t need to be up and moving at 6:45, which means we can lay in bed an extra hour and doze. I don’t know who is happier about this—us, or Hazel.
With the onset of the Heat Dome over the mid-Atlantic region, we spent Sunday morning out in the backyard disassembling and scrubbing out all of our window units with bleach. The girls went to see a movie and I put everything back together, then humped them all up the stairs and into each of the bedrooms. As much of a hassle as it is, it was lovely to have the place cool and dry again. We’ve got a guy coming today to give us an estimate on what a ductless A/C system might cost; I have no idea what to expect but it would be good to have a number to work towards. And if I could ditch these fucking machines once and for all, I’d be thrilled.
The ladies took me out for dinner last night to the always excellent Clavel, where we sampled the tacos and drank fancy drinks. Finn had a non-alcoholic beet-based drink, Jen had a mezcal-based cocktail with vermouth, rose and honey, and I had one of the best margaritas I’ve ever tried. The tacos were delicious, and we capped things off with two slices of flan.
Here’s some clips of some of our runs yesterday. Your host wiping out and cracking ribs is at about 6:20. Gnarly dude!
In a rare case of planning ahead, I had a stacked four-day weekend full of learning, entertainment, and adventure. Friday, I did the HQL course to get my license sorted out, as mentioned earlier. On Saturday I was in the car headed down to Southern Maryland to visit with my father-in-law, take him out for some Mission Barbecue, and go through his mail. We sat and talked for 2 to 3 hours, mainly me listening about his history in rural Pennsylvania, and then I drove back home through cold dark rain.
Sunday, we hosted Karean and Zachary to go to see the Lion King at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. This required a ton of housecleaning, which mainly fell on Jen, but I threw in that morning to finish up the last minute stuff for their arrival. We were also finishing up an overhaul of the guest bedroom, following a remodel we did last year where the new color turned out to be a bit too vibrant and a couple of values too dark. It was a nice color but made the room feel smaller. We bought a lighter shade of the original color and I rolled it on three walls, leaving one for an accent. Jen framed two pieces of art we bought in Portugal and bought a third for over the bed. After sewing up the new blackout curtains and building a roller shade for the bathroom door, the whole room really came together. Jen picked out fabrics and colors that accent each other and it really feels great in there now—much lighter, larger, and complete.
Sunday morning we got churched up and drove into Baltimore at noon for the 1 o’clock show. This marks the third show we’ve seen at the Hippodrome and it never fails to deliver. This show was amazing: it’s the traveling Broadway troupe and they do an incredible job. The costumes were breathtaking and the set design is incredible. I would bet it’s even more inspiring on a large Broadway sized stage (the Hippodrome is a smaller, Vaudeville-era venue) but we enjoyed every minute and a double Vodka Matata (vodka, ginger, beer, and lime) made everything even more pleasant. After the show, we drove to a fancy Ramen restaurant in the inner Harbor and loaded up on noodles, pork rolls, and gyoza. Properly stuffed, we headed back to the house, got in some warm PJs and caught up on the couch before getting to bed early for the next day.
Monday’s activity was driving up to Roundtop for a day of snowboarding. Finn declined to go so it was just Karean, Zachary and me. We got our rentals sorted out, accompanied Karean to the bunny slope, and gave her some pointers to practice on before her lesson. After watching over her for a run or two, Zachary and I broke off and hit the blue slope. After he got his confidence under him, we really started having fun. The mountain was pretty empty, which was fantastic: the lift lines were almost negligible and we didn’t have to avoid crowds of people on the way down. The snow was typical manmade Eastern stuff, but there was enough down that it wasn’t a sheet of ice and it was cold enough outside to not be slushy and wet. But after enough people went down the slope it started getting rough in patches as they dug in and started making grooves.
On my third or fourth run, I was switching directions, my board caught an ice ridge and I flipped downward on the mountain landing on my left side with my arm underneath me. It all happened very fast and I didn’t have time to cushion myself, and I got the wind knocked out of me. My ribs felt very sore and tender, but I got up and kept boarding. Zachary and I got about seven more runs in before lunch and the grin on his face got bigger and bigger with each ride down the mountain. We did about five more runs after lunch and wrapped things up at three, meeting Karean up in the bar above the lodge. Zachary is really into snowboarding, and I’m going to redouble my efforts to get him out at least twice a year.
My ribs are very tender this morning. It’s mainly the fifth and sixth, directly under my left arm on the side. Jen found me a Lidocaine patch and I put that on last night before bed; I’m going to keep applying them until the soreness goes away. If I had to guess, they’re either bruised, or possibly fractured, but there isn’t much any doctor could do other than tell me “don’t fall on them”.