Morning Mace

Just a quick little story from my wacky life to start your day. It all started simply enough with our morning staff meeting. Like with most companies and work groups, It helps us a great deal to meet first thing in the morning to sort out who is doing what, which projects will go to which people and coordinate timelines. Every one in the business world knows the drill.. but this meeting had an abrupt turn of events!

Once we finish all the normal business, the manager always asks "Are the any By-The-Ways". This is where we bring up any time off requests, last minute changes in schedule, or just random things the whole group needs (or doesn't need) to know. And today.. we were all just a bit wacky, a little out of our minds. It's been a busy week, we have all been hitting the deadlines and working hard. This left us really loopy and very giggly. As simple questions were asked, the barbs and jokes would fly from someone in the room, sending us all into fits of laughter.

Then one of my co-workers, who is just one of the nicest people, cracked about her actually being a criminal and having a record, the thought of which sent us all into a hysterical fit (you just had to be there) but suddenly a light came on above another co-workers head. She immediately started digging through her purse and exclaimed "That reminds me! I have been meaning to ask you all something!" She then proceeds to pull a can of Mace out of her purse. Still laughing uncontrollably about the previous joke, we looked up to hear our manager state in his laughing, but trying to control himself voice "What is that?! Don't you know that stuff is illegal?! (which only got us laughing harder.. the thought of our co-worker with her Mace in her purse)

Then she replied "Really? I have just had this in my purse for years and I don't know if it still works. How do I find out?"

Now came the problem... as we had all been laughing so hard, another co-worker didn't fully understand what she was holding, or the true question. She simply saw it as a generic aerosol can. So she grabbed it and said "That's simple! You just press down here." PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHH! Out spays Mace.

Now for those who may not know. Let's look up the official definition of Mace, the wonder spray once used by women everwhere for self defense: "a chemical compound, prepared for use in aerosol containers, that has the combined effect of a tear gas and a nerve gas, temporarily stunning its victims".  Yup.. we effectively tear gassed ourselves at our own staff meeting. Nice!

Most of us were still laughing out loud over the previous jokes, as well as this sudden and completely random turn of events, while also saying to ourselves "wait, did that just happen as I saw it?" This laughter and shock mechanism managed to delay what should have been our "drop to the floor and cover yout face" reaction and instead, we all just sat there laughing, thinking "wait... what?!". That's when the Mace fumes actually hit us like a ton of bricks.

Fast forward 10 seconds and the whole scene changed. People were running out of the room, mouths covered, coughing like crazy, people crawled under the table to escape the room. Out  into the hall we all poured, some coughing most still laughing. Eyes were watering, tongues stung... nasty stuff.

After I had a chance to collect myself, make sure everyone was ok and there were no serious problems (as I didn't really want to explain to my own wife, the campus health and safety manager, what had happened) I had to figure out what to do. This was a unique situation.. one that called for an attention getting response. So what did I do? I decided to create a public service campaign, to keep us safe for the next time, by making a series of "demotivational posters" to commemorate the event.  The following are actually hanging in or break room, as a constant reminder:

I'm sure my co-workers appreciate it!

Growing up Calvin: The Hot Tub

One thing to know about me… I LOVE hot water, always have! For me, it is the ultimate of relaxation, to just sit back, chill out, and just melt into a large tank of hot water. I seriously think it triggers creativity in my brain as I tend to get some of my best, most creative solutions to things while taking a long soak. A few years back, while doing a video shoot down in Orlando, I remember pacing back and forth in my hotel room, trying to come up with an idea that would connect my whole project together, and nothing was coming to my brain. Finally I gave up and decided to head to the hotel's hot tub for a soak. As soon as I hit that water, it was as if all my creative answers suddenly awakened in my mind and I had new direction.

Even as a kid, a hot tub was the ultimate thing for me… but finding one to get in was quite the challenge. And let me clarify here.. when I say "hot tub" I don't mean a bath tub filled with hot water. Sure, that can be a nice way to relax, but I am talking about full fledged big tubs of hot water, with room to maneuver, with lots of air jets to relax your muscles, sitting outside in the cold, giving you that perfect balance of melting hot in the water, and freezing cold outside for anything not wet. Some friends of ours, a 45 minute drive away, had a hot tub that we'd go to on occasion, and we'd take family trips to Glenwood Springs from time to time. But other than that, I was "hot tub" deprived. I finally decided that when I grew up and became successful, I would know that I had achieved greatness when I had my own deck and my own large hot tub sitting outside of my home. I have yet to get there.. but I can keep dreaming, right?

Glenwood Springs Hot Spring, Colorado, 1985

And so, what does a deprived, creative Calvin-like child do, when he is forced to go without his precious hot tub time that he is oh so craving? Simple.. he looks around, and finds a simple solution.

This takes me back to one spring Saturday morning, somewhere in my middle school years of life. As always.. I was bored, my parents were gone to the temple for the day, and my sister and I were home alone (dangerous combination). Suddenly I decided that what we really needed was a hot tub and I was in the mood for a good soak. Sure, there was the whole issue of us not having one, but that didn't stop me. First I needed a list of what a hot tub was, and what its requirements would be. A. It had to be a large body of water, that I could submerge myself in. B. It had to be hot of course, and C. It had to be outside. Sure, I could have just gone and filled up my tub in the bathroom, but that didn't really count. That wasn't a true hot tub. Then there was the matter of the bubble jets, but coming up with a solution for that seemed secondary to just getting a hot tub built.

So, first I needed a container: A big container, capable of holding large amounts of water. I searched the house and only could find one possible solution: my dad had these huge metal barrels out in the drive way that were used to store the family's trash. Yup.. the trash can. Upon opening up the heavy metal lid, there was a horrid odor that hit my nose, but that was just a detail. I carefully removed all the trash from the can, and then grabbed the dish soap and hose and preceded to carefully scrub the can out. Not an easy job, what with years of trash scum coating the sides and bottom of the can, but with some scrubbing with my mom's dish scrubber, it all seemed to come off, at least enough anyway.

After a few minutes of tough scrubbing (I don't remember it taking too long) I maneuvered the can into a flat, level part of the dirt driveway. Now, it just needed water, and HOT water. And so the long tedious process began. I would go into the house, and put every pot I could find on the stove and fill all of them with hot water, heating the water to a boil. In addition, I had cups of water heating in the microwave, and then I'd also start lugging the hot water from the water tap inside in buckets, out to the my barrel in the drive way.

As you can imagine, this took awhile. The biggest challenge was keeping the water hot when it was sitting in the outside Colorado air. So maybe this wouldn't be a "hot" tub by the time it was done, but a warm tub. But still a good endeavor.

At last, my hot tub was complete. All that was left was to hop in my swimming suit, and hoist myself into my hot tub (My sister declined the invitation… go figure). Sure, it took some work, getting into the barrel, there was no ladder, or anything else for that matter that could be rigged up to help me, but I wasn't going to let this stop me. And eventually, there I was, sitting in my hot tub. Mission Accomplished.  Sure, it stunk to high heaven.. years worth of trash build up could not be totally washed off the sides. And then when heated up with lots of hot water… there was a certain odor to it (I wont mention all the "floaties". But I actually made a hot tub for myself!

Now, what goes through your parent's mind when they have just spent a nice morning at the temple, drive home only to find their son sitting in the drive way, soaking in their large trash can, now filled with steaming water (Let alone all the pots and pans in the kitchen from boiling water, and buckets strewn about). Somehow I don't remember them being too pleased that I had pulled this off, and not nearly as enthusiastic about my creative problem solving as I seemed to be. All I remember is once they drove by me, with their collective looks of shock and horror, they didn't let me stay in there very long (maybe 10 seconds). But to me, I had pulled off a great feat. I decided I wanted a hot tub, had none, but came up with a creative solution that gave me the desired end result, without the cost involved.

Interesting to me side note: I found it incredibly frustrating that my folks waited until AFTER I grew up, moved out and moved across the country to then put in a hot tub…. Grrrrrrrr.

Although I look back on that story, (being able to see things from my parents point of view) I can get just a bit disgusted (I was sitting in trash water.. what they heck was I thinking!!!!!) that skill that I practiced that day, has served me very well over the years as a media producer. How many times have I looked at camera shots on tv, said to myself "Ohhh… I have to do something like that", looked at the technology only to discover that it would costs tens of thousands of dollars to buy the camera rigs, then figured out how to pull it off, with the same results using parts obtained from perusing garage sales and thrift stores and a little engineering. I even did a blog post on this art back in 2008, read it here.

So while the story is admittedly gross (and totally Calvin-like), this one I can at least pull the life lesson from. Now off to find a hot tub.. I could use a good soak!

The Lost Link

 A quick post today, just to share this article written by Carlton Cuse for today's New York Times, as it is something that I really connected with.

First, I am in no way comparing myself to Carlton Cuse, Executive Producer of Lost. He has obtained a level of success with Lost over the years that I could only dream of as a media producer. He helped to create an AMAZING show that captured my imagination and kept me captivated for years. (Yes, I even loved the finale last spring!!!) I just create small audience films, nothing mainstream.

But as a creative person, whether you are creating a major world-wide TV show, or a small little film that is watched by 100 people, tackling a large project that you are personally inspired by, competing that project and then sitting back and going "Now what?" is a common feeling. Its a feeling I could identify with well.

So, if you have a minute and would like to explore what happens in the mind of creative folk after a large project, this could be an interesting read. It was for me, as it showed me that whether you are working on big time successes, or small little projects, the creative roller coaster of a mental process is still the same.

Thanks Carlton, for being a creative inspiration and giving me 6 great years of Lost! Best of luck in your future endeavors!

Click here to read the article

2010: At A Glance

A quick note today… Just to kick my new blogging habits off. Typically when I go for a long time without maintaining my blog, I try to do a big post to catch everyone up on what is going on in life and show how busy things have been for us. This was my original plan for this post. But when I started writing, I realized… I just barely did all this, when I typed up the family Christmas letter just a few weeks ago. So, rather than rewording that letter, or posting the text, I am simply going to add a link here and if you would like you can download a copy of our annual newsletter and read about the many things we are doing.

Click here to download the PDF

In addition, You can actually watch all of our various activities in my 2010 recap video that I do each year. Because this is something that is just for my family and our own memories, I do use normal music in these videos, something that Youtube frowns upon, so I have it stored on my own server. Rather than having the nice embedded video right on the blog you will have to click to see it, but its a fun way to catch up with all of our various events through the year.

Click here to watch the 2010 video recap

It was a busy 2010.. And with any luck, 2011 will be busy too! I don't like to be bored or have nothing to do!! Something tells me, there wont be a problem!

The Better Record

Last week in my seminary class, I presented an interesting lesson. The topic of the day was D&C section 69, where John Whitmer was commanded to begin keeping a record of the history of the church. We discussed the importance of keeping records and the fact that the Lord commands us to keep our own personal records of our lives. Not just the day to day events, but our stories, our feelings and everything that makes us who we are.

I then tied the subject back into 3 Nephi from last year and a little story that is quite amusing to me. Its a tiny little story, but to me, it says a lot. Its in 3 Nephi 23: 7 - 14. Whats happening here is that the Resurrected Christ is visiting the people in Central America, teaching them. He called out to his prophet Nephi and asked him to bring him the record kept up until that time. Nephi did as he was asked. Christ looked through it and discovered that some of the things that he had asked him to write, had not been written down. Then comes the very simple, but profound verse 12 "And it came to pass that Nephi remembered that this thing had not been written."

DOH! What is going through Nephi's mind at that moment?! Christ, the Lord, had asked him to do something and he suddenly realized he had not bothered to do it. That can't be a good thing. And what do you say? "Uhhhhh… sorry, I got distracted there…" That's just not a fun place to find yourself in.

So that brings us back to today. We have been asked by the Lord to keep our own personal records. At some point the Second Coming will take place, and the Lord will return to the Earth. And when he comes to me and says "Remember that personal record that I asked you to keep? Where is that, I'd like to see it," what exactly am I going to say? "Ummmmmm…. yeah, sorry I got so busy editing DVDs that I kind of stopped writing". "Ummmmmm, I was really busy.." That's just not going to fly and I am going to have the same realization that Nephi did.

And so, as the teacher of this class, I can't be a hypocrite.. I can't expect my class to seriously get on the keeping of their records if I am not willing to do the same. I need to lead and set the example or I can't expect them to follow. So I am committing here and now, to keep my record, in the form of my blog, more current. There are so many stories that I keep planning on telling, many events that Facebook and Twitters little update tabs can't contain. I need to stop making excuses and get back to writing. And so I will.

2011 will be a good year at Calvin's Cosmos. That's my commitment, so check back often.

As Darth Vader says on the Robot Chicken parody… "I'm bringing it back!!!"

It's my record… and it needs to be better!

Making the Trek

I know, I seem to go months without posting. But.. (you can all quote along in unision) I have been busy! One of the things that has occupied my summer was planning for, attending, filming and then releasing DVDs for our stake youth trek. Dawn and I were asked last summer if we would be on the planning committee for the trek, with our responsibilities to film the event and release a DVD to all who attended.

It was an exciting prospect.. to do another "non sports" related film, especially one where I could get my work and vision for filmmaking out to a much larger group of people. And so the long planning process began, which meant many technical things had to be thought out, and new gear purchased. We had to add a new camera to the arsenal, many new batteries (so that we could film all day without recharging), bags that would provide the right support for the conditions, and dozens of tapes. We also had to ask all the right questions such as "what do we do if it rains with all this technical gear in the middle of no where?! How do we communicate to coordinate event cues, what kind of gear needs to be set up as base camp (where we were sleeping at night and coordinating the gear). It was a huge creative and logistical challenge, but one that was well worth all the effort.

The planning year went by fast, and before we knew it, our van full of cameras was headed toward eastern Washington to set up shop. The next morning, the youth arrived and the Trek began. And what an amazing experience this was for us. Yes.. it was tough. Walking over 10 miles each day, doing possible triple miles from what the regular youth were doing as we ran back and forth filming various shots, up hills, whatever we had to do to be in the right place at the right time. Both Dawn and I had cameras going filming different groups and vantage points so that the full story could be told. We even got to watch our own son Tyler struggle in agony when he bent over to grab his water bottle, slipped and had his foot run over by a 500 pound fully loaded hand cart, breaking one of his toes. He worried the doctors may pull him off the trek, but he bucked up, stayed strong, and was an inspiration to many as he helped pull 20 hand carts up a steep ravine just a few hours later, broken toe and all.

Between the perfect weather, the costuming, the great food, the challenge of the trek and the MANY MANY spiritual experiences along the way, this was a trip to remember: A trip that, while it had its challenges, I would leave to do it again tomorrow in a heartbeat. What an amazing journey it was.

As for the video.. I was very pleased with how it turned out as well! While there were some hiccups in the production, the issues were things that only Dawn and I would notice in the final version. And we did what seemed almost impossible: Just 6 weeks after the event, we had the full 90 minute documentary film produced, DVDs duplicated and several hundred copies ready for every kid that went on the trek.

Since the message of our trek is one that we hope to share with the world, both so people can see what we experienced and hopefully other stakes can learn from our successes in pulling off a great trek, I have put the entire video online, in 6 chunks. If you would like a DVD copy, feel free to e-mail or contact me and I'd be glad to get you one. DVDs also include a montage of the entire trek and a bonus feature called "Behind the Trek" detailing the behind the scenes efforts and the logistics of how we pulled it off. So sit back and enjoy.. our 2010 trek experience:

April Fools... May Therapy

What's that old saying? Ah yes, I believe its "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." That phrase seems to be coming to mind a lot as we enter the month of April and one of my favorite days: April Fools Day. Now, I tend to be known as somewhat of a prankster, the kind of guy that thrives on a good practical joke, immature or otherwise. But the problem is, I seem to have a history of good jokes that somehow manage to backfire in their execution, causing panic, fear and internal scarring, rather than the intended laughter. I have good intentions… give people a fun joke to remember, but something always seems to go wrong. (Or I am just evil… as I keep telling my kids.) Remember this incident?

Several days ago, Little Calvin came to me with one of the worst things he could say.. "Dad, I am unprankable this year.. you just can't get me on April Fools Day." I'm, sorry Son, that's a CHALLENGE… and a creative challenge which I thrive on. I suddenly had a mission to prove him wrong, and give him an April Fools day to remember! Now, the child is 9, which means I don't have to go over-the-top in my planning. All those stereotypical, immature, fun pranks of my youth were coming in handy. I seran-wrapped his toilet, put food coloring in his breakfast milk to make it look disgusting as he poured it, loaded his school backpack with giant, heavy books so he could barely lift it, and flipped his computer desktop upside down, and short sheeted his bed (which he'll discover later).

But just as I was finishing my set up, I suddenly had a fun idea: buried deep in his closet from many years ago, were some Star Wars full sized cardboard cutouts, one of which was Princess Leia holding a blaster out as if she were shooting you. I thought it would be humorous to stick this in the hallway so that as he came around the corner, he'd see it, jump a little, then laugh because it was a Star Wars character. All innocent fun, right?

As it turned out, when this morning came, I had left early to go teach my seminary class. My wife yelled from the kitchen for him to get up and start getting ready for school. He complied and got up without turning the lights on. As he came around the corner, bleary eyed and not at all focused on reality, all he saw was a person at the end of the dark hallway, dark and ominous, aiming a gun at him. Obviously, he went into panic mode, and when my wife got out of the shower and came to check on his progress, he was huddled in the corner sobbing giant tears and scared out of his mind. It took her 30 minutes to get him calmed down enough to begin his day.

When the phone call came in to me from my very frustrated wife, and her message that I should not mess with someones deepest, darkest fears (having a bad person in the house is one of Little Calvin's) I felt horrible. Like I said, I intended it to be a little jump and a "ha ha Dad.. nice…" but instead I may have traumatized him for life.

Way to go… Dad...

But sadly, this is not the first time one of my pranks has gone askew. Several years ago, and in my former job, I had a friend that worked for me named Brian. And Brian HATED needles. Just the thought of them would make him queasy and light headed. At the end of March, after years of trying, our co-workers finally convinced him to conquer his fear and donate blood. This was not an easy task for him! It took a lot of doing! By the end of the blood donation, Brian was sick to his stomach, about ready to faint and sick for the rest of the day. His wife had to come drive him home.

Fast forward several days to evil me, wanting to come up with a good April Fools joke for each member of my staff. What better joke to play on Brian that to try to convince him that he had to go through this whole ordeal all over again. My plan was simple.. I was going to have a female friend call him on the phone acting like she was a nurse from the local blood bank. She was to simply tell him that there was a problem with his blood donation (it got lost, the bag broke, etc.) and that in order for him to receive credit for the donation, he'd have to come donate again right away. Then I could watch him go through all that paranoia and annoyance of having to repeat the whole ordeal.

But that's not what happened. As it turns out, my friend playing the nurse on the phone, was not the best actress in the world (no offense, Tracy…) and had a hard time with improv. What ended up coming out of her mouth was "There is a problem with your blood, you need to come down and see us right away!" By the time poor Brian got off the phone, he seriously thought he was dying and just about had a full fledged panic attack on the spot, at the thought of what could be so wrong with his blood that they'd have to call him. Needless to say, when he discovered it was all a joke, he wasn't very happy with me and my little "harmless tricks".

One more…

Years… and years… ago, back in my Ricks College days, I was hanging out with some friends. It was very late at night and I was supposed to be working on a readers theater project with my friends Lori, and Rebecca from the Forensics team. But somehow we got distracted and began the art of evil plotting a fun little prank.

The concept was simple… we'd call my roommate, wake him up, and make him think there had been some crazy, random phone system glitch. When he picked up the phone, he'd suddenly be listening to some random conversation between two strangers. Even as he said "Hello?! Hellllllo?!" he'd suddenly realize that while he could hear the other end of the conversation, they could not hear him. He'd then realize he was privy to a conversation between to unknowing people.

And what was this conversation? My friend Lori played to role of a hysterical baby sitter, who had apparently lost her patience with a baby, shaking it to its death (holy cow… this sounds horrible as I type this… I WAS evil…). Rebecca was the sympathetic friend she had called for advice. Through the tears and the pain of the panicked conversation "What to I do?! Do I call the police?! Should we hide the body and run?" my poor roommate, suddenly had to decide what HE should do? Should he keep listening? Should he hang up and try to forget he ever heard this? Should he call the police, and if he did, what would he tell them? Was this some heavenly intervention through a phone glitch that allowed him to know the truth of a dark secret? Thoughts constantly swirled through his head.

Eventually, he opted to just hang up (after which the 4 of us all busted up laughing, completely oblivious to our traumatizing behavior on others) and in the wee hours of the morning when I finally got home, he was still up and concerned at what he should do. While I don't remember exactly what he did, when he found out it was just a fun little joke, I know that we kept him traumatized for quite some time.

Sure, today is meant to be fun, a day of laughs with our family, friends, and co-workers. But (and I am speaking to myself) let's make sure that the stunts we pull aren't going to do too much future damage to the poor recipients.

Oh, and to the countless hordes of people who have been vowing revenge on me for years for all my various pranks, just know that I am leaving the country this afternoon (Yeah, right).. wont be back for a looooooong time, hopefully after your short-term memory has faded a bit.. Today is about me pranking YOU.. not you getting revenge on me!!!!

Now… Happy April Fools Day!

Bad Blogger, Going Mad

What?! A new blog post on Calvin's Cosmos?!

I know... I know... I managed to take what was once a successful blog, with active readers and kill it due to months of inactivity. The single best way to kill a blog is to leave it sitting dormant. And I have been feeling guilty about it. Especially this last week as I finally found a gold mine of old friends I had been searching for on Facebook for a long time. I know each could be visiting my blog, to read of all my adventures, and seeing that there had been no update since last July. And so, as busy as I am right now, I vowed to try to get a posting up.

But my lack of recent blogging isn't due to my sitting around being lazy! Quite the contrary! I have been going out of my mind nutty lately! Let me use this post as an explanation and I think it will make sense why the Cosmos has been neglected.

When I last posted in blogland, it was July of 2009. I was unemployed having lost my awesome job of the last 12 years when the economy tanked and people abruptly stopped buying half a million dollar RVs. I was keeping plenty busy with freelance work, but still needing a good job to keep the bills paid consistently. In August, things suddenly trend around. One of the vendors that I worked with a lot (the group that printed all my DVD covers) called to tell me they had an open position for a graphic designer and wanted to encourage me to apply. The position was just part-time, but I figured this was ideal, as I could spent time in my job, then spend the rest of my time building up Steve Barth Media Productions. As it turned out, I got the job and within the first month I went from working part time hours to full time, as that is what the job demanded. And so, at last, I was back to work.

About this time, I began what I can only call "My insanity"... Something I will not do again: attempt to produce 2 films, on 2 different subjects, simultaneously. Note to self: doing 2 very mentally intensive films at once is a Baaaaaad idea. I had filmed "Last Week" back in April of 2009, and while the principal photography portion was done, it still had to be edited and produced. Then, in mid-August, I began actively filming my next sport movie called "4A Foray". Half my brain was tied up in a film about a musical, and half my brain was tied up in filming and editing a volleyball film. It just about made me blow a head gasket. Soon, I had to postpone "Last Week" to the spring of 2010 in order to not go crazy and learn to just focus on one major project at a time.

One of the fun things about continuing to produce my fall volleyball film, is that I constantly have to do things differently.. to avoid just making the same film each season. And this year was no different, as I had some of the most ambitious plans ever for this film. One of my crazy ideas was for what I called a "spin cam", a camera rig that would hang from the gym ceiling, and spin around the players as they practiced. After a lot of brainstorming, I am proud to say, I built what my brain was thinking and I successfully filmed with it. Although it was fun explaining this to my wife and hearing her reaction... "Let me get this straight... you want to take your super expensive camera, suspend it upside down high above a super hard gym floor and spin it in circles?!" But like I said... we did it!

Here's a little peak at this years film (and it's the one I am most proud of, out of all my volleyball films!) If you wait for the second half, you can even see some of my spin cam footage (my favorite shot is at the 5:37 mark... Thanks Merc, for looking like a bad ass..)



And if you only have a minute.. Here's a quick promo video. Yes, I was doing more of these this season:



So... working full time, and attempting to edit one film while simultaneously shoot and edit another one, with all the travel that goes into it... what does my life really need at this point? Yup.. one more super time-consuming challenge. From 1999 - 2002, I taught early morning seminary and LOVED IT! I considered it my favorite calling in the church. So last summer when my Bishop approached me about returning to start teaching again, I jumped at the opportunity. Even with all I knew was going to be happening in the fall, I jumped at the opportunity. And so, in early September, I began teaching my class of 12 freshman and sophomores each morning at 6:15 AM and adding class prep to my lightly to-do list.

And you wonder why I slacked on the blog... Some days during the craziest part of this whole schedule played out like this: Teach seminary at 6:15, be to work by 8, work 8 - 5, go film a volleyball game from 5 - 9, go home and edit from 9 PM - 5 AM, prep seminary from 5 - 6 AM, then repeat... Who needs sleep, right?

So.. let's see.. what else have I missed reporting on? There was a trip to Disneyland in August (the weekend before volleyball filming began) to celebrate Little Calvin's birthday...



There was Halloween (and Little Calvin's awesome Legolas from Lord of the Rings costume):

There was Dawn's Birthday...

And Christmas...

And New Years, with my traditional "Year in Review" video that I put together over the New Years holiday weekend:



Even Valentines Day:

And that brings me to March of 2010. Have things gotten any better? Not quite. Take this weekend for example, where I will be:

-Continue to edit "Last Week" as it finally has a premier date of April 17th, where I am flying to Colorado to premier the film for those that helped me make it.
-Produce a video for a client that is due on Monday.
-Try to finish producing 2 websites, for local clients patiently waiting their completion
-Film 2 games of the state basketball playoffs tomorrow for one of my upcoming projects.
-Shoot family photos (another service added to my business offerings in 2009) for a local family, before their father is deployed next week.

And so... yes... I have neglected my blog just a touch. Not because I have lost interest in writing or communicating, just for pure business reasons. Plus, Facebook makes it so easy to quickly update my status....

Its amazing, I know.. to have a blog update done! With so many stories ready to share and so much that is happening in my media world, let's just hope I can continue to find time to keep this going. Calvin's Cosmos is a good thing for me, I need to keep it going!!

Blessing or Curse: Behind the Scenes of the Youtube Victory

July 15, 2009: One crazy day! The day actually began at 9:00 the night before, as the clock reached midnight on the east coast, and the winner was announced. That's when the world became a very surreal place.. then a very dark place for the next 24 hours.

As most of you know, the kids and I decided to enter a Harry Potter contest on Youtube. It all started out so simple: one day I was surfing around my typical list of Harry Potter websites as I was sucked into the hype surrounding the release of the 6th film. On one of the sites I saw an ad for a video contest, the kind of thing that typically gets my attention as I enjoy the creative challenge. This one was simple: create a 90 second video explaining a Harry Potter style magical potion, how to make it and then demonstrate what effects it had. The only problem, the contest deadline for entries was that night at midnight. We had very little time to put this together.

I quickly grabbed Amanda and Little Calvin (Tyler was in Colorado visiting the grandparents for the week) and we began to brainstorm possible ideas. As I had been working on editing my mom's documentary, and had been neck deep in listening to stories of my Uncle's cruel pranks on my mom as a kid, suddenly a story popped to mind. At one point in time, while my mom was getting ready for a date, my uncle and a buddy snuck into the bathroom, and slipped out all her clothes, towels, bath mats, etc. leaving her stranded in the bathroom. Then, with her stuck, they delivered her diary to her waiting date, so that he could read everything she had written about him. This story has always been a favorite growing up, and suddenly we had a direction for our video... just done in a magical way.

We decided to create a video that would have much the same effect: it combines a bunch of random ingredients that when drunk, would magically give the drinker the power to "zap" things in and out. Little Calvin would make the potion, then in an attempt to humiliate his sister prior to her first date, would zap the towels, bath mats and shower curtains out of the bathroom. Then, taking his prank to the next level (as is normal for me), he would zap his sisters date into the house, then into the bathroom. This seemed really funny to us in our little naive world. I never really considered how the rest of the world may interpret this little stunt. In my mind.. if the video could have continued, the very next scene would have shown the poor, embarrassed young kid bailing out of the bathroom door.

When it came time to film this particular scene that night, we had a problem. In my original vision of this I pictured finding some obviously young kid starring in the "date" role. He'd get zapped in all dressed up in a shirt and tie, holding a corsage and looking all nervous, and then get zapped in the bathroom. Seeing the fear and awkwardness of the young, scared and obviously inexperienced kid, would create the awkward comedy that I was going for. But this particular night.. there were no teenagers to be found.. anywhere. All the kids from church were at scout camp that week, and the neighbors were all gone. Little Calvin and I even rode around the neighborhood on our bikes trying to find a teenager... ANY teenager. But none could be found. In desperation to get something in place so I could at least get the timing down, we decided to film me in the role, until we could find someone, then I'd just swap out the shot. But before we knew it, the midnight deadline was upon us, and not thinking about the public perception we uploaded our contest entry and called it good. The video made us laugh, and that's all that counted. Besides.. I figured with all the competition, this would never go anywhere.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the video got some attention, receiving maybe a few hundred hits from people watching and voting on their favorites. We just had to wait until July 15th to find out who won. And the prize was very simple: the winning video was to be featured on the home page of YouTube. Nothing big. We did the video for fun, not because the prize seemed all that great.

Now we are back to July 14th, 9 PM pacific, as I logged into Youtube only to see Little Calvin featured on the front. How cool! We had won and I was excited.

Now.. quick side note... a few years ago I saw a commercial which made me smile.. I don't even remember the company that it was for. But it showed a group of web developers launching their new website. Soon after hitting the launch button they received 10 orders and they all cheered. Suddenly it was 50 orders, then 100 orders and they all went ballistic in happiness for finding success. But then the numbers kept climbing.. 1,000 orders, 10,000 orders, 50,000 orders, 125,000 orders.. and suddenly all that excitement was swept away and was replaced by horror as everyone realized that they now had to fulfill all these orders. They wanted success.. but when it came on suddenly, somewhere a line was crossed from "cool" to "fear". That about sums up the next 24 hours for me.

By midnight.. just 3 hours in, Little Calvin's video had over 8,000 views, doubling any other video I had ever posted. And suddenly I started feeling a little.. uncomfortable... It was like 8,000 people were staring at my kid, and peering into my living room. Then I realized there was a whole other level to this. I checked my e-mail only to find my in-box absolutely flooded with e-mails, coming in at almost 3 every minute. About 90% of the comments were very positive and encouraging.

"Cute video."

"This kids a winner!"

"Ohhh. how cute!"

"You totally made me laugh!"

On and on.. but mixed in with these comments, I found something I never expected.. HATE. THREATS. PROFANITY. People were saying ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE, SICKENING things about my child. I couldn't believe it. This was simply a kid who had entered a contest to show his love for the Harry Potter characters, movies and books that he loves, and people were saying far worse things than I ever thought I would be reading. I suddenly found myself sick to my stomach.. what had I just done?

By the time I woke up the next morning, after a very light sleep, over 90,000 people had watched the video and my in-box was overflowing. Again.. mostly positive comments, but many were filled with hate, vulgarity and even threats against us for putting our child on Youtube, for subjecting him to witchcraft, and even to forcing him to drink glass shards. PEOPLE ACTUALLY THOUGHT IT WAS REAL! Hasn't anyone heard of movie making?! Yes, and the Harry Potter characters actually fly on brooms and cast spells. Good Grief.

That's when I realized that my little naive idea, was being perceived in a way that I never intended in my rush to get it finished and uploaded.

"What a sick kid! He zaps some old fat creep into his sisters bathroom to rape her!"

WHAT!? NO NO NO NO NO! That is so not what I was thinking!! But the hate mail continued to pour in. I never dreamed people would read sexual innuendos into our video, they would look at it as promoting homosexuality (I'm totally not kidding), violence, sexual molestation, racism (not kidding there either) and child abuse.

By the end of the 24 hours on Youtube's home page, I was counting down the minutes until it was removed and things could finally calm down a bit. The video was getting close to clearing 200,000 views, numbers so far beyond what I was expecting, it was nuts. I spent several hours that night attempting to carefully go through over 1200 comments, deleting all the offensive ones, so that if Little Calvin ever looked through the comments he wouldn't freak out. People have a right to not like the video, that is totally fine and in our free country they can disagree or not understand the video. I left those comments there. But for those that got out of hand, or used foul language, I exercised my rights as the video owner to delete their comments and block them from making future ones. If they can exercise their freedoms, so can I.

Now, a week and a half later, views have slowed dramatically. We will soon cross the 200,000 threshold, which is still so weird to me. It was just so bizarre to read all these comments. The good news... as a struggling filmmaker, trying to find ways of getting eyeballs on my work.. suddenly having my Youtube channel pounded for a day, was great. Not only did our Harry Potter video get slammed, but all my videos as well. I went from 2 subscribers to almost 150 overnight, thus giving me more chances at exposure for my films. It just felt very odd, like having 200,000 people peering in my living room, and being critical of what they saw all at once.

Was the prize a help, or a hindrance? A blessing or a curse? Did I just do something to help my career, or expose my kids to the scum of the world? I haven't fully sorted my feelings out yet. But what a wild and crazy day, one that I will not soon forget!

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Side note: Last week I was doing some late night channel surfing to wind down for the day and came across the intro for "The Soup" on the E! network. Suddenly Joel McHale, the host, starts taking about clips of Harry Potter fans making videos of potions and I literally yelled "NOOOOOOO!" at my TV. It was weird enough to wrap my head around 200,000 Youtube views, but having my child on "The Soup" was just too much. Luckily, He was referring to something else. For a second I feared this could get even more out of control, but it didn't go there.

We Won!

Quick note!

I just found out that we won the Harry Potter Youtube potions video contest. Our winning video is being used to help promote the opening of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and will be featured on the home page of Youtube ONLY ON Wednesday, July 15th. Just go to Youtube, and watch the big Harry Potter banner across the top of the screen.. and sure enough, there is Little Calvin, plotting revenge on his sister.

More information, on the video and "what the heck we were thinking" coming soon!

2 Months of Insanity

Time to take a breath! Time to come back to the real world, step away from the camera and video editing software for a moment. Time to finally post a blog update.

Most regular readers of the blog know that May and June can be some of the crazier months for me, what with so many video projects hitting at once. As it's been a while since I have posted, let me do a quick recap. Over the last 2 months, here's what's been on the schedule:

1. Filming the Colorado documentary: I already posted on the filming process and a quick trailer for the upcoming film, which is finally starting the editing phase this week.

2. The "Sound of Music" performance DVDs: To help finance my Mom's documentary film, and since I was there anyway, I offered to film my mom's last musical, not as part of the documentary film, but for the performance, for people to buy to remember the actual play. A simple guy would just pop a camera on a tripod, press record, and burn out the results to disk. But me being me, I don't do things the easy way. I had to film all three nights from multiple camera angles and then put together a "performance" not from one night, but taking the best from all 3 nights and combining them into one. That translates into big workloads, and a fast turnaround as we promised to have finished DVDs delivered to them prior to their graduation just 2 weeks after the performance.

3. Marist Senior Tribute: A HUGE project for me, taking a ton of time. This is a special tribute DVD developed for the graduating class of Marist High School. There is an interesting story for me to tell in conjunction with this project, but I will save that for when I can post bits of the video online, whereas now, that could hurt DVD sales. So for now, suffice it to say that the project took a lot of time over the last 3 months, but the huge order of DVDs was dropped off yesterday.. and I can finally breath again.

4. Territorial Elementary: Each year my wife and I work together to document the year for Little Calvin's class and their growth. From classroom activities, to assemblies, to field trips, it all gets combined into one DVD for the parents. Since all the schools end at the same time, the deadlines for this disk are usually the same as for the Marist videos, making for one hellish, sleep deprived week! But we get it done somehow. Luckily, Dawn does a majority of the editing and assembly for these, but it still requires clean up, special introductions, and sound mixing from me.

5. Marist Graduation: Although its for the same school and related to the graduating class, it's a completely different project: filming the graduation ceremony (requiring multiple cameras and a lot of coordination) and then editing and producing the DVDs.

6. Camp Wilani DVDs: Every other year, Little Calvin's school, and I mean the ENTIRE school spends a week at a local summer camp for outdoor school. The experience is very rewarding for the kids (even when freak, intense, severe storms cause the evacuation of camp one day) and of course that means that our cameras are rolling, filming the week. This project has a FAST turn around, as the camp is held shortly before the end of school, and the disks must be produced in time to get them to parents before summer break starts. Again, my wife works a lot of hours keeping up on the editing, and I work the other details. I'd say we make a very good team!

7. Business projects: In my free time (ha!) I also produced a video for a local engineering firm to use to help sell one of their high tech products. Due to the specifics on the contract and the proprietary nature of the shoot, I can't go into details, but.. suffice it to say it was a fun shoot, and interesting video to put together as a break from looking at high school or elementary school students.

8. "The Great Pine Cone War": Finally, in a bit of insanity, I somehow agreed to help our local scout troop earn their cinematography merit badge. I joined them on an overnight camp-out to direct them in the filming of their movie, necessary for earning the badge. Sure, it was a lot of fun returning to my boy scout roots and spending a day chasing teenagers through the forest with a camera in hand, dousing them with fake blood, as well as a number of creative ideas. I also worked with them to get the film edited.

So there.. 8 big projects in 2 months. Anyone wondering why I have grossly neglected my blog, Facebook postings, and e-mails? There you go! Now it's time to enjoy my summer.. oh wait.. I have more to edit! And since I have no shortage of work to be done, anyone guess what I proposed to Little Calvin as something that might be fun to do this summer? Yup.. video production! Every day! For his blog we are doing a video diary of "almost" every day of his summer vacation, requiring nightly editing sessions together. So far we've made our own episode of Wipeout, survived the death of his beloved first pet, and had fun coming up with new ways to present each day. You can see the episodes here, and remember we are attempting to post each week day, so check back frequently.

So that's the latest from the Calvin household. Now that the "strict deadline" projects have been completed I will be able to return to more regular updates, Growing Up Calvin features and crazy family stories and adventures.

Now, I can finally scratch "update blog" off the "to do" list... Back to the video editing..

"Last Week" Trailer Released

Just a quick note today...

You read about my crazy week filming my latest documentary in my previous post, but now I am releasing the trailer for the film. Traditionally, the film is completed FIRST, then a trailer produced, but in order to take advantage of a marketing opportunity, I had to switch those around for this one. So, it may be a bit early, but at least you will be able to get a visual look at my week and the film yet to come. Enjoy!

Telling the Story.. Regardless

Two years ago, I was sitting in a middle school gym, watching my daughter performing in her choir concert. This was a special occasion. Her choir teacher had been teaching choir at the school for the past 30 years and was now getting ready to retire. This was his final performance of his long career. As I watched this whole event unfold, with tears, with flowers, with standing ovations and many hugs, I wondered what it must feel like for him. Was he relieved it was all over? Was he sad to see it all go? He had obviously made a huge difference in the lives of thousands of students.. but what kind of things were going through his head as he had prepared that week for his last show?

The filmmaker in me was very intrigued by this, and as I drove home I thought ahead to my own mother's retirement just two years later in 2009. Her story was similar.. teacher for the last 40 years. She took over the schools speech and debate team in the early nineties and turned it into the most dominating speech program in the state for ten years, with teams of 75 students. She had taken over the drama program, staging elaborate spring musicals each year. But she had done all this with the philosophy of "teach the student, not the subject" that had made her one of the most popular teachers in the high school for years. So that begged the question from me.. what would it feel like for her as she prepared for and performed her final musical of her career? Suddenly I had a story that I felt could make for an interesting and inspiring documentary film and I began to make my travel plans.

And so, last Saturday I flew to Colorado with all my film gear, ready to document the week leading up to this final performance at the high school I had graduated from YEARS ago (returning there after all these years was a bizarre experience in and of itself..) The musical was "The Sound of Music" my mom's all time favorite that she had saved for her final year. The week's schedule was packed filming all the rehearsals and the interaction between the kids as well as driving around the state interviewing former students, friends, colleagues, the cast, everyone that I could track down to give insight into the story.

This whole experience was a bit different for me. In my past sports related films, the typical "emotional" moments came when the key player on the team is injured at the end of the season and the rest of the team must figure out how to pull together to play and win without them. But this story was a very different beast as it had a much more in depth emotional story to go along with it. Most of these kids and teachers had been involved in the random school hostage crisis and the in-school killing of one of their classmates, Emily Keyes, 3 years ago (read about it here). The girl that was killed was one of my Mom's speech students and several of the lead cast members in the play had been the hostages. There was still a lot these people were dealing with from that event, causing some very emotional interviews. I certainly was not used to watching both men and women break down in tears on camera and I left many of the interviews just feeling emotionally exhausted. While that killing was not a HUGE part of the story, it was still an important part that had to be told as my Mom was one of the instrumental people that day, in helping rally the students together to cope, and in pulling the community back together with her speech at the funeral.

So I had my job... I had to document the events of the week.. regardless of how they unfolded. My goal with the project was to be realistic, not some reality show type of story where events are exaggerated to create more drama. I just wanted to tell the story of what my mother had done and the difference she had made. I wanted to visually see what she went through.. the stress, the emotional swings, and the chaos that has made the final week of prep before the spring musical become dubbed "Hell week". I was worried everything would go smoothly and I would be left without a compelling story to tell.. turns out.. I had nothing to fear.

It started first thing Monday morning with a freak snow storm, sending my mom into a panic that school (and her biggest rehearsal of the week) would be canceled.

Luckily all arrived at school, but that rehearsal was so lousy, it about sent my mom over the edge and she doubted this play would come together on time.

Then there was the truly wacky, unexpected events of the week... the two kids that attempted (for whatever reason) to crawl up into the air ducts above the auditorium (I think they were trying to ditch class) only to have one almost fall through the ceiling, as it gave away under their weight. Luckily, he caught himself and got out, preventing a potential deadly fall to the concrete auditorium floor three stories below. (the poor students who were alarmed watching his leg suddenly come bursting through the ceiling in a crash, were rather upset, however..). Then there was the cast member that was standing between two cars on a sloped driveway. When one of the cars accidently rolled backwards, she was pinned between the two cars, causing quite a bit of damage to her legs making her unable to perform. Soon I had to wonder if every time the phone rang I needed to start filming, as we never knew what to expect next.

Stress and anxiety filled the cast as everyone prepared for opening night. A week's worth of rough rehearsals was weighing heavily and no one knew if they could pull it off. But to their credit, the Thursday night opening show went off without a hitch, leaving everyone excited and ready to do it all over again for the next 2 nights.

By the time Saturday night came along.. I was very pleased with myself. I knew I had the story, now captured on camera, that I had been looking for. I had captured the events of the week, the thoughts of the students and others through their interviews, I had the emotions.. from sheer happiness and pride to the emotional breakdowns of saying goodbyes.. and I had the emotional element from showing how everyone had recovered from the Emily Keyes tragedy. It was a good story and I knew that all I had to do was get the last few shots.. odds and ends of the cast, and the standing ovations and community accolades my mom was sure to receive at the end of the night. And so I set off early to the high school to get all the cameras prepped and in place to film what I needed for the night.

Shortly after I arrived and 90 minutes before show time.. the "call" came in. Saturday afternoon, one of the students from the high school.. one my Mom's speech team members, and very active member of her drama department, had been killed in a head-on car accident on the highway west of the school (news reports here). No one saw this one coming.. no one was prepared for this pain. Suddenly I found myself in an odd spot. My job was to document the events of the week.. regardless of what they might be, and so I quickly grabbed the camera and began to film what was happening, but filming these poor students who I had come to enjoy so much over the past week, as they walked through the door looking confused as to what was going on around them, then hearing the news that their friend was dead, then collapsing in their own grief and sobs.. part of me felt really creepy and uncomfortable and intrusive filming this.

Yet this was what the story had turned into... So I had to. Suddenly this whole, documentary filmmaker role took on a different meaning from what I had experienced in the past. Sure, you want a compelling, emotional story to tell.. but watching people have to suffer and grieve.. just isn't a fun experience. I never thought even for a second that someone would die in the process of my little film!!

Soon, my mom gathered the cast in the auditorium, everyone one of them sobbing almost uncontrollably. The decision had to be made.. go on and perform the final show, or cancel it and reschedule it for another night. Although she feared the backlash from public school parents, she pulled the cast together and offered a prayer, asking for comfort to them and to the family. All the students seemed to want to be a part of it and felt bonded together from the experience. Soon the decision was made to go on with the show, knowing that so many people had traveled a long way to witness that "final show" of my mom's career. They decided to dedicate the play to Kjersti. Her schedule had not allowed her to be in the musical, but she was still a part of the drama department and friends with all the cast, even having been there the previous night to watch the show, and the cast felt it appropriate to go on for her.

By show time, most had found a way to dig deep, to turn off the tears (most just barely) and go on stage and that nights performance turned out.. brilliantly. They all did fantastic in their roles. Even the poor sophomore lead playing the Captain, who had been scared to death to kiss a girl on stage, took the opportunity to "just go for it" to the amazement of the cast!

The school principal even stated afterward that he had never been prouder of a group of kids as this one, to go on with a stellar performance so quickly after getting such shocking news. But a moment I will never forget came at the very end of the show. I don't know who had the idea or how it circulated, but just after the final curtain call, the cast all lined up in the front of the stage, held hands and sang an impromptu acapella version of the song "My favorite things" from the musical.

"When the dogs bite, when the bees sting, when I'm feeling sad. I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad," came their unified voices. Everyone knew what that meant, what they had all been through and overcome, and there wasn't a dry eye in the audience.

And so Sunday morning as I packed up my gear and got on my plane, I knew I suddenly had a story much bigger than I had ever expected. I was completely exhausted and ready to sleep for days. But now it's time to put this all together, to tell the story of my Mom, the effect she has had and one that will adequately honor both Emily and Kjersti.. two students whose lives ended up cut much too short.

It was a fun, insightful, busy, exhausting, emotional week, but having the opportunity to tell this story, regardless of how it all turned out, I feel will be very rewarding. Now.. on to the editing booth...

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Update: Here's a more in-depth article, addressing both the death and the decision to go ahead with the musical performance, even after the cast had just been notified.

Growing Up Calvin: The Fireball

It's time for another episode of "Growing Up Calvin", although this time, I am fast forwarding through time, when I was a bit older. Lets just say I was in high school. (If you are wondering what this "growing up" thing is all about, click here to read what this whole series is about, so you'll be up to speed.)

Like always, the story begins with "One day when I was bored..." This particular story takes place at a time of celebration. My friends and I had just finished our final day of school before spring break was to begin. I was very happy to have time away from home as we were getting ready to spend spring break driving over to Utah to spend time with my Grandmother and Aunt in Provo. But there was a small gap of time in between when the bus dropped us off and when my mom would be home to make us start packing to leave the following morning. What to do... what to do... Sadly, the solution came with one of my secret favorite activities: lighting things on fire. I was a huge pyromaniac, legend for what I was crazy enough to do with fire and explosives. Good thing I grew up back in the 80's where none of this stuff was considered a "warning sign". In today's world I would have been arrested long before this little episode.

My friend Alan was visiting and it didn't take us long to come up with an evil plan. It all started out so simply.. We decided we wanted to play with fire... you know, like when you take a little black powder, scoop it into a pile and light it up so you can see that little fireball jump into the air. We wanted to do that... just bigger.

We began by digging a hole in the driveway. Yes, you read the correctly. Back in these days, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we didn't yet have paved roads or driveways. So it was nice and easy to dig holes, and just make sure they were filled in by the time my Dad got home, so as not to raise questions. It didn't have to be deep, just a few inches down to be safe (safety... ha ha!), and to make room for our... ingredients.

With that done, it was time to raid my Dad's explosives storage, the one he never dreamed would be used this way. First things first, we filled the hole with, not one, but two full cans of gun powder, the more the merrier, right? But that didn't seem like a lot, so suddenly our brains vanished. We added everything we could find that had the potential of burning... Anything that had the "WARNING: FLAMABLE" label on it was fair game from the garage.. paint remover, paint thinner, flares from the back of the car, fireworks from my secret stash in my bedroom, a few bullets from my Dad's ammo case (that one really gets me today.. man, were we stupid). All of this stuff went into the hole, all mixed up like a giant stew. Then to top it all off, we grabbed the spare gas can, and added enough gasoline to the hole to turn this whole concoction into thin mud. Yes, a black powder, gasoline, bullet mud.

Now we had to have a way to ignite this thing and turned to the gasoline as the simple solution. We just drew a line with the gas from the hole, back into the garage, so that we could hide out behind the car. (Yet another thing in retrospect that makes me shake my head... It never dawned on me that the line of gasoline burning INSDIE the garage, next to a vehicle could be an issue.. luckily this wasn't an issue that day)

The plan was now all in place, 20 yards away was our mud pit, and there we were, matches in hand ready to light off our little explosion to revel in the wall of flames. I struck the match, set it to the ground and watched in awe as things were about to get really exciting. The end result? Let me just say...

It was amazing! Wall of fire to the sky!!!! Fireworks erupting, noises everywhere from the fireworks.. flames in different colors thanks to things like the flares.. it was brilliant.

Now to a few other.. issues we had not even considered. First, we had just finished a rather dry winter. Not much snow and things were nice and dry.. key word there, dry. Second, this was not a calm day, it was actually rather gusty outside. So there we were for that split second rejoicing that our plan had worked, our fire ball reaching to the sky. But that excitement turned quickly to panic, as a wind gust picked up that wall of fire, and set it back down just over the driveways edge, into the dry brush of the yard. As you can imagine, it quickly ignited, spreading fire all over the place. It became instantly obvious that if we didn't put this out, the fire would quickly spread.. up the giant trees, to neighboring homes... this could get bad.

I lunged for the fire extinguisher, as Alan ran for the hose. Meanwhile, all my poor sister could hear as she was down in her room packing, was the two of us running around upstairs in a panic. I am sure she was rolling her eyes as she came up the stairs to see what the commotion was about. At this point we had used up the extinguisher, the hose wasn't long enough to reach around the house, and so we were lugging tubs of water in and out of the kitchen at a high rate of speed.

She immediately joined the fire fighting effort, and eventually (thank goodness before we had to call the fire department) we got the fire out, just was it was reaching the tree bases. Upon surveying the scene, a nice portion of my Dad's precious land, was black and torched.. and I knew that I was dead meat, yet very lucky as it could have been so much worse.

Amazing for me, a little ray of light shown down on me that day, or rather... dark. By the time my folks got home that night, it had already gotten dark, therefor no need to confess anything... heck, what they couldn't see couldn't hurt them, right. And we (My Mom, sister and I) left early the next morning for Utah, before it was light. And as my Dad was working long hours that year, he left in the wee hours of the morning for his job, and got home late at night. It wasn't until 6 days later that I saw my mom, talking on the phone to my Dad, get a puzzled look on her face, suddenly look at me, and said "Ummmm, your Father has a question for you..."

Gulp.

Amazingly all I heard was "would you like to explain to me why my yard is all black?" To which I simply replied "No... I'd rather not.. trust me, you probably don't want to know." He agreed he didn't want to know. I think it helped that we were a state away for several more days, so that by the time we got home, he no longer had the urge to kill me.

Now.. to the part of the story where I tend to get the hardest time from people: Most people hear this and say "so what.. you were in 7th, or 8th grade? A Freshman?" Nope.... I was a senior." Yup, I lit my little fireball 2 months prior to graduation.

Sadly, this was not the last of my pyromaniac experiences, they do continue on, but those are stories for different times. But, this is one I especially shake my head on now that I have learned better. We were so stupid.. it could have been so much worse... I guess it's all a part of growing up Calvin.

By the way.. the bullets in our little mixture.... we never found a single trace of them. They vanished, not even the casings to be found. Yikes!

The "My Eyes.. My Burning Eyes!" Dilemma

One of the many things that I do to help bring in some money while I continue my search for a new job is media conversion. What that means is this: a lot of people have many great family memories, filmed long ago, that are stored on old VHS tapes, 8mm camcorder tapes, or other media formats. In this day and age, it not only does them no good, but risks that footage as old tapes wear down. So, people bring their old tapes to me and I convert their media to a digital format, either putting their videos onto DVD or providing them with the digital format, that they can now edit in their own software.

For the most part, doing this for people has been pretty straight forward, and rarely are there issues... until today. A friend of mine contacted me and told me they needed some old 8mm tapes converted from a bunch of footage shot in the early nineties. They then handed me a pile of tapes, admitting that they had no clue what all was on them and asked me to convert them so it could be edited into something useful.

This afternoon I took the first of these tapes and began to convert it over, as it can be a lengthy process, while I was watching the afternoon session of general conference, no less. Now... keep in mind.. I don't sit there and watch other people's video footage as it converts. By default, I do have to look over every few minutes, long enough to make sure that the transfer is still taking place, the quality is ok, and that there have not been any funky computer or software crashes, but other than that, I pretty much tune it out... its none of my business.

But today.. again.. while watching General Conference, I happened to glance over at my monitor, only to see my friend... um.... well... how do I put this.. let's just say "doing something on videotape that I don't think they expected to have leave their bedroom...." Yes.. my eyes boinged out of my head for a brief moment as I franticly tried to turn my monitor off.. still seeing WAAAAAAYYYY more than I ever thought I would of this person...... Not too many people can claim to have watched general conference and..... that... simultaneously.

But that leaves me to the question I have been pondering the rest of the night... what do I do now? Do I just give my friend the tapes back and the digital version and pretend like nothing happened.. and wonder how long it will take them to realize the reality of what they gave me to convert, potentially leading to some seriously awkward future conversations? Do I hand the tapes back with a warning to preview the tapes for potentially embarrassing footage before handing them over? Do I delete the embarrassing footage, hoping they don't realize it was there and will never miss it, thus taking away the chances for the "awkward discussion"? Or is that part of what they were intending for me to convert, looking forward to using it and not ashamed of having people see it?

Right now I seem to be leaning towards just handing it all back to them, and then let them learn their own lesson about previewing tapes first. But I know that the next time we talk... there could be some awkward questions.. things I'd really like to avoid. That way I did my job, I didn't make judgements for another person based on my own morales. But still..

So I pose the dilema to you.. what would you do? I welcome any comments and you can even take the poll on the right... Ah my crazy life. I guess it's fun never knowing what you'll see next, even if it could be a bit, shocking.

Series Finale

I am always intrigued by watching how my favorite TV shows end. You know.. all the popular shows have to end somehow, and you get the big marketing push to watch the final episode.. the "series finale". So how do they conclude these popular characters and situations? Some of my favorites include the Seinfeld characters getting sent to jail, the gang from Cheers faking everyone out that big events will happen, but then nothing worked out and the day ended just like any other, or my all time favorite.. Newhart, where the main character realized the whole show had been some crazy dream, as he awoke in his bedroom from his previous sitcom. But the most common send off seems to be when the characters move on to a new place and you get that stereotypical final shot of the door closing to the empty house or apartment, representing the show, that is now being left behind forever.

Today.. I had my own Series Finale. Not on life, of course, but on my own adventures of the last 12 years. And I must say.. it felt very strange. Lots of hugs, lots of tears, lots of shock and unbelief as all my co-workers finished packing up their things, slowly trickling out of the building. As I watched my own office, slowly get condensed down to a vary large pile of boxes, too many memories came flooding back and I swear I had that typical TV montage playing in my head.. the "lets look back at our favorite moments from the last 12 seasons" video that let's you see just how far you have come.

I began my job at Monaco Coach Corporation in 1997. Then, I was finishing school and trying to find something part time to help pay the bills and get through college with some kind of real world experience. I spent quite awhile trying to find a good job, but found nothing that would work. I resigned myself to having to become a pizza delivery driver, when I suddenly had the inspiration to call the college career center and low and behold, on their phone line, I heard the perfect job description. I immediately faxed in my resume that Wednesday, Thursday I had my interview (inside the giant window lined boardroom that intimidated me to no end) and on Friday.. I had my first "real world professional" job.

As I said, I have continued to stay at the company since then. The company changed and went through many cycles causing a lot of my co-workers to move on, but the fact remained throughout: I REALLY liked what I did, and I REALLY liked my co-workers. My wife used to roll her eyes when I left the house each morning. I wasn't going to work.. I was going to play. I certainly enjoyed my weekends, but come Monday morning I didn't dread waking up, I looked forward to getting to the office and getting back to work. It was a fun job, and a great time.

Obviously I can't go into too many memories here.. This blog post would just last too long. But needless to say.. life for me was good at Monaco. I believed in the products and in traveling the country in luxurious RVs. I loved to travel to shows, to meet the owners, to hear their stories and adventures. I loved that we had a private jet, making the world such a small place.. where I could fly to meetings and back in a day (or to visit family for a weekend in Utah). And even when times were crazy.. I loved staying up for all-night photo shoots, tirelessly setting up trade show displays to wow people with my stuff. I didn't care if I worked extra hours on salary as I loved what I did and what all that hard work represented.

But in all this fun, I had to keep a solid fact in mind: If anything went wrong in the world.. one of the first things people would stop doing is making major purchases.. like $400,000 motorhomes, which could put us on a quick road to destruction. And every time I visited a dealership and looked out at the huge numbers of used RVs sitting there waiting for a buyer, I asked myself "how long can we keep building new ones at the high rate that we do, until the market is saturated?" Deep down.. I knew this would all come down.. at some point.

2008 was that point and one crazy year, as the economy began to slow, gas prices rocketed and the mortgage crisis began. It was the perfect storm in the RV industry: consumer confidence slipped, people who would normally buy coaches suddenly couldn't sell their old ones, nor could they sell their homes for any money. Potential new customers suddenly walked away from the idea, scared off by the fuel price surge. And then.. the credit markets dried up causing the banks to refuse to lend money for just about anything (and especially things they saw as luxury purchases). Suddenly we saw our Indiana plant shut down and many layoffs. But, again.. I loved my job and the challenge of marketing in these new conditions and so I stayed put.

In December, the company announced we'd all be getting an extended (unpaid) Christmas break, causing us a lot of panic. That break grew and grew, making us all wonder if we'd ever see the office again. But I was honestly surprised when the phone rang this morning and I heard the words.. "The company is laying off most of the work force.. you have to come in immediately, turn in your computer and clean out your office. There are no severance packages.. your insurance ends today and you lost any unused vacation time.. too bad" Suddenly.. my 12 years of fun.. came to a crashing halt. Yes, I had been on a break for the last 2 months, but most of me really believed that somehow we'd survive and come back strong. I missed my office and co-workers and just wanted my old routine back.

But instead.. today is our "Series Finale". We said our goodbyes.. we gave our hugs and then left what used to be our world behind for the big great open. Just like that cliched series ending, it finished with us walking out of that empty room so full of memories.. and shutting the door.

Today.. is a day to mourn. To mourn the job that I loved that I don't get to do anymore. To mourn the company that I really believed in that I have now watched, (like a plane doing a nose dive from 30,000 feet,) smashing into the ground and to mourn the people I don't get to see anymore on a daily basis. Its a tough pill to swallow. But today is it. I can't keep mourning. Tomorrow is, as the saying goes, the first day of the rest of my life... time to find my next big series and my next great adventure.

And so.. goodbye awesome job. Goodbye to my large cushy corner office with giant windows and comfy couch. Goodbye to jet-setting all over the country. Goodbye to great people with great talents, and great customers whom I will never forget. Goodbye to a great team of people over the years, to "Friday fun lunches," to laughing hysterically in meetings, to watching co-workers trip over chairs in the hallway. Goodbye to all my travel.. to Vegas, Orlando and California, my most frequent destinations.

It's been a great 12 years. The series is over.. now its time for my next adventure, however long it takes to find it.