One Dad's Life

What's Up?

Well, things have been crazy busy in the "One Dad's Life" household.  So much so that normal things haven't been getting done.  Ahem.

It seems that since school has been out, the "summer vacation" thing just hasn't taken hold, yet.

For the past two months, I've had employees from Asia (both China and India) in town.  I like taking them places and showing off our great town, which has an impact on our weekends, of course.  On top of that, we have the usual weekend rehearsals, church services, dance classes, etc.

During the week, my normal work schedule has been thrown off kilter by wanting to take maximum advantage of the Asians' time in St. Louis - but this ended up pushing things that HAD to be done to my evenings.  Say goodbye to anything getting done around the house!

We had Father's day at our house this year, which was fun, but had a LOT of prep work to do during a time we weren't actually at home much.  I ended up taking a couple of days off work to prepare...because the weekends are crazy.   Additionally, with all the other activities on top of this, we ended up not being able to go to the Muny that week.  We gave our tickets to friends of ours.

My daughter has had softball games several times a week, not all of which she is able to make, and we are finding ourselves deciding  between commitments on an almost daily basis.

This weekend, we had a "Family Fun Night" at our church, and as part of this, we climbed up on the roof of the building, hung a giant white drop cloth on the wall as a screen, and watched Toy Story 2 outside!   This was fun, too, but if you are a regular reader, you know that Friday is my grass cutting night.  If I don't get it done then, I go crazy.   So, I ended up going crazy by mowing it on Thursday night.  Thursday night is our weekly big rehearsal for the weekend's contemporary service.  This gets over between 8-8:30.   I cut the grass after that.  In the dark.  TOTAL dark.  Amazingly, when I got up on Friday, it looked really pretty good!

Sunday was the annual "Arts for Life" awards event, for which our church's production company was nominated for 12 awards for our fall production of "Music Man."   I had decided not to rent a tux this year, instead saving a bit of cash and wearing something I had.

Well, as it turns out, I discovered this weekend that I didn't actually have anything. DUH!!!

So, to save money IN THE LONG RUN, I actually went out and spent a great deal of money on a Calvin Klein Tux and ALL the fixings.  It's classic, and very comfortable.  I'll post a picture here as soon as I get a chance!  (and talk about the awards)  We'd better have a lot of award shows in the future!  Also, if you are for any reason looking for a guy in a tux, I'm available for a reasonable rental fee.

Then, on Monday, after being derailed from the normal schedule of things, I took the day off work and spent around 12 hours going through 10,000 photos, selecting ones to be used for our church's new directory.  There is a lot to do on this project, still.  For example, I've yet to do ANY post-processing on these pictures.  Many were taken indoors, in available light, so I intentionally under-expose and then crank them up a couple of stops in post-processing. This helps keep the shutter speed higher, and reduces the blur from movement.

All of these activities (and more) are piled on top of the "normal" activities and commitments.  Also, I ONLY mentioned activities that have impacted me directly.  My wife has been spending a ton of time on our church's VBS week (also last week), where she was responsible for all the music and drama portions of the week, and she is putting together a drama camp that runs for two weeks and I THINK starts next week!

Are we the only people who only ADD things to the schedule?  We need an activity reduction plan!

Found Poetry

While cleaning out the dark hidden corners of our coat closet floor, we came across a crunched up piece of notebook paper.  Generally, the instinct is to just throw this in the recycling bin, but for some reason my wife opened this one up and took a look at it.

It's a good thing she did!  It turned out to be some poetry, obviously written by my first grader earlier in the year.   She is ALWAYS making up songs and poems, and can do it on the fly, but this is one that she took the time to write down.  It obviously wasn't for school or anything, since her name wasn't on it and there was no grade.

Here is the poem:

The sun is shining.
The world is happy.
All because of Spring.
The flowers are growing,
The clouds are white.
The grass is growing,
How do I feel this way?
I don't know.
How about you?
Maybe because Spring is here
Hip hip hooray!

Below is a scan of the original paper, complete with first grade spelling issues!

Not bad! 

Have a great weekend!

13-year Old Quote of the Day

This past Sunday, on Father's Day, I was picking up some of my employees that are visiting the United States from India.  They were going to celebrate Father's Day at my house. My youngest daughter, who we'll call "Rachel" since that's her name, was with me.  My wife and older daughter, Rebecca, were building a set for this week's VBS program and were not in the car.

Rachel LOVES it when people come to the United States from Asia.  Loves it.  So she is in rare form, showing off, singing, and generally making a loud nuisance of herself.  The Asians love it.  They love it because on first glance it is adorable.  Too much, though - like the dose you get if you live with her - and it becomes increasingly less adorable. 

Since pleading with her to "turn the volume down" and other similar supplications failed to control the mayhem, I turned to texting to blow off some steam.  Yeah, I said texting.  DO YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OF IT!?

So I sent a message to my older daughter, Rebecca, as I knew she would see it in about 12 nanoseconds.

Gregg: (texting) I'd like to trade Rachel in for another kitten.

See, we already have two geriatric cats and a dog that wants to eat them, and that is about all our house can contain.  You see, they don't get along and are frequently very annoying.  My oldest cat doesn't remember that she's been fed and CONSTANTLY wants food - even if she is currently eating. She indicates this want by following you around and HOWLING AT THE TOP OF HER LITTLE CAT LUNGS.  The youngest attacks the oldest for sport.  Fortunately for us, the cats are aging and arthritis is starting to slow them down, a bit.  Yep, with my cats, I'm spinning arthritis as a positive. The point is, me indicating I'd want to add an additional cat to the circus that is our house is an indication that the annoyance meter is registering pretty high!

Being sisters, and knowing how sisters love each other through thick and thin, famine and feast, and Beavis and Butthead, I knew that Rebecca would text something appropriately endearing and supportive back to me.  Something like, "she'll only be seven once, enjoy her while she's like that and not a sullen teen like me!"  Well, I did get a message from Rebecca rather promptly.  The message was simple, yet thoroughly conveyed the emotion that I knew my oldest daughter was feeling at that moment towards her precious, cute little sister:

Rebecca:(texting back)  Awwww, kittens!

Wordless Wednesday - Shock City Studios Open House

This wordless post is a continuation of Monday's...but with more pics!  These all come from last Thursday's grand opening celebration at the new Shock City Studios, home of Shock City Music.  I spent some more time there yesterday, and just have to say that if you are a band looking for a studio for your next CD or video project, and you live within 2000 miles of Shock City (or perhaps more), you'd be crazy not to check this place out!

All shots with Nikon D60, available light, 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6 kit lens.

The main video editing suite.

View from one of the vocal isolation booths into the main control room.

The main console in the control room.  For gearheads, this room is nirvana.

Classic keyboards sitting in another isolation booth. These are keys I use every week - but the REAL THING instead of the samples I use on my beloved Kurzweil PC2X.

A couple of Telecasters with cool paint jobs. Never underestimate the power of a cool paint job.

A view of much of the live room from an overlooking balcony.

Shock City Studios are located in St. Louis MO, just south of downtown, and on the northern edge of the Benton Park neighborhood, in the historic Polar Wave Ice and Fuel Company building.

Shock City Studios

My friend Dana, blogger extraordinaire and local radio personality, is just one part of a talented St. Louis family.  Her husband, Chris Loesch, is a talented musician and producer.  Over the past five years, his labor of love has been the rehabbing of an old St. Louis City building, the old Polar Wave Ice and Fuel Company, and the development of new offices and studios for his music company, Shock City Music.  Along with his partners, he has transformed what was essentially a warehouse into a state of the art recording studio call Shock City Studios. 

By state of the art, I mean it was named one of Mix Magazines top new studios IN THE WORLD, for 2009.

This past Thursday night was the official grand opening, though it has been in operation for a number of months now, and my wife Dianne and I were lucky enough to be in attendance for the event.

Congratulations Chris and Dana!  Here is my favorite shot from the evening.  More photos to come on Wednesday.  Enjoy!

 

Out With the Old

Lately, we've been going through our books and other similar items that tend to collect and then not get used for a long time (if ever).  The books are easy, we're packing them up in 12x12x16 moving boxes and delivering them to the local YMCA for the St. Louis YMCA book fair.  This annual event PACKS an ice rink and the stands with books, records, etc. every single year.  It's an amazing event.

In my home office, every couple of years I go through my collection of cassette tapes.  Nearly 100% of these were made while I was in college in the last half of the 80's.  At that point, CDs where barely coming out and vinyl was still king - though its days were clearly numbered.   The best portable way to take music around was cassette tapes.  Additionally, there was some concern about wearing out older records, when the newer ones were not made with the same quality of vinyl.  It was common practice to duplicate your vinyl on tape, and listen to the tape.

I bought a very nice cassette deck and did copy many of my most frequently used albums.  I'll have to admit that there was also a bit of album "swapping" that went on in those days, too.  I probably had 100 or more TDK SA90 tapes full of my favorites.

Well, CDs eventually took over, but I still resisted playing my vinyl where possible and until recently did not duplicate any album we had on vinyl or tape on CD.   Initially, I purchased the CDs of albums that we had on tape, but no real physical copy, so we'd be legal.   Then slowly, I duplicated some of my favorites on CD - even though we had the album.  

Over the years, my tape collection has dwindled.  I could probably condense what is left into just two, three-drawer cassette cases.  I'm guessing 3 or 4 years from now (if not sooner) the last of them will be gone.

I took such care in recording these, too.  Each one had the levels carefully set so I'd get the maximum use of the tape headroom and yet not have any clipping.  I'd also label the tapes and cases as neatly as my slopping printing would allow.   I spent some serious time working on these!

This week, I threw out another stack of them.  As is my habit, lately, I decided to take a picture or two of the stack and put them in a "memorabilia file" on the computer.

I feel a little pang every time I get rid of a bunch of these.  When they are all gone, I'll miss them!

Wordless Wednesday - Even Dead Roses are Beautiful!

In a complete departure from my recent series of Wordless Wednesday posts which have featured beautiful spring flowers, I bring you - DEAD flowers!  More precisely, these are dead roses that came from an arrangement that was in our bathroom.  They were, however, photographed in our kitchen on their way to the trash.   All photos hand held, Nikon D60, 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6 kit lens, available light.

Blur layer added in GIMP, background is our island counter-top with light reflecting off it from the window over our sink!

Shot from underneath, the background is our CEILING.  My wife is remodeling our kitchen and this ceiling will eventually be a stamped tin ceiling (or a fake stamped tin ceiling).

Background is a sponge-painted wall. I'm not sure how to describe the color, but the base is a textured plaster painted yellow, with a sponged on darker wash over that.  The final effect is that of a wall that hasn't been painted in a long time!  Heh. We're funny like that.  It was a plaster wall to begin with, but in this room had a sand finish.  Dianne (the wife), put another thin layer of plaster over that to eliminate the sand texture and give a more stucco appearance. She's crafty.

Same wall as before in the background!  I like how the light in the room shows through the petals in some areas, and reflects off the petals in others!

Even dead roses are beautiful!

Is That a Lizard in Your Bag?

This past week, my 13-year old, Rebecca, has been at confirmation camp at our church. While they have had many fun experiences, to me, one impromptu incidence seems to take the cake.

The kids were at a snack break, doing the usual talking and whatever else the kids occupy themselves with, when Rebecca and her friends noticed something...unusual...across the eatery.

One of the boys seemed to have an unusual snack companion.  In fact, the companion seemed to be:

A LIZARD!

Well, this is not an ordinary occurrence at snack time, even to this jaded adult-type.  It seemed odd to Rebecca and her classmates, too.  So odd, that they gently inquired of the young man, "Say Zookeeper (not his real name), is that a lizard in your bag?"

"Thanks for noticing", said young Zookeeper, "it is indeed!"

Though I don't have all the specifics, I'm assuming that a certain amount of giggling took place at this point.

It seems that young Zookeeper had indeed brought a small lizard to confirmation camp with him and was keeping it in his backpack. 

"What's his name", asked Giggle-buttons, one of Rebecca's friends (not her real name).

"Blue" responded Zookeeper.

"Blue?" queried Rebecca, Giggle-buttons, and the rest of the crowd.

"Blue" affirmed Zookeeper.

"How do you spell his name?", asked Rebecca, not certain she was hearing this correctly.

"B. L. U. E." replied young Zookeeper.

Rebecca was, in fact, hearing correctly.  It was a confusing name, though, as the lizard was...green.  It was a green lizard named "Blue."

This is not an everyday occurrence.  I've been alive...a long time, and I've never seen a small green lizard named "Blue", and I've seen a lot of things.  I once even saw a spider living in someone's hair.  I don't know the spider's name, though.

With snack time drawing to a close, Zookeeper stuffed the small green lizard named "Blue" into his pack and continued his day.

Most certainly, I'm worried about the kids.  I hear another one of Rebecca's friends takes her toaster for a walk....

Congratulations Benjamin!

Congratulations to my nephew Benjamin! 

Benjamin was born with profound, and progressive, hearing loss.  So, for the past 4 years, he has attended the renowned St. Joseph's Institute for the deaf.  During this time, he has excelled as a student and has done so well that it took quite a while for them to determine that his hearing aids weren't helping too much, anymore, and that his hearing was getting worse.

So, this past year, he received a cochlear implant and immediately responded very well to the implant.  Sometimes, this process takes months or even years!  Well, this past weekend, we celebrated his exit from St. Joseph's and the fact that he will be entering a "regular" school for second grade in the fall.  What an amazing accomplishment!

Naturally, there was cake.

...Special cards.... (this one from the students at St. Joseph's)...

And presents!  LOTS of presents, which he derves probable more than the usual birthday present.

And everywhere that Benjamin goes, his adoring fans follow.  On the left is his sister Emily and on the right is my daughter Rachel.  Rachel doesn't actually wear glasses, but she wants them so bad she has fake glasses!

Notice how I cleverly bounced the flash off the ceiling for a pleasing non-harsh lighting effect...and bounced it right over my subjects' heads and successfully lit the BACKGROUND instead of the kids.  Some days....

Wordless Wednesday - Flower Garden Goodness

OK, so I've been very one-tracked lately on my photos. Sue me.  It's my website.  However, it is so darn hard to stop taking pictures of the flowers in spring!

For this week's photos, taken this past Sunday, I dug out a small, light, tripod and went with small apertures and long exposure times, to try to get some more sharpness and depth of field out of the shots.  The problem is that anytime I looked through the camera, a mysterious wind would whip up. Weird.   So, perhaps the sharpness didn't improve much from my previous hand held pictures, but the depth of field sure looks nice!

All shots taken in my backyard, with a Nikon D60, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens.  Exposure information with each shot, for you technical people!

Lilly, ISO 100, f22 at 1/8 second.

Hydrangea, ISO 200, f11, 1/2.5 seconds.

Painted ferns, ISO 200, f11, 2.2 seconds.

Essentially the same shot (didn't move the tripod), though a different exposure.  This one wasn't as sharp, so I went with the blur and added an extra blurred layer in GIMP to enhance the dreamy look.  ISO 200, f11, 1.5 seconds.