Vacation - Georgia Aquarium

The second day of our vacation we stopped by the Georgia Aquarium. It was a great time with Katie, Sarah and Luke. The large tanks were impressive and the variety of fish, sharks, sea lions and penguins were amazing. If you visit Atlanta, you should check it out. You won't regret it.

Luke and Gabe.

Outside the Aquarium.


Inside the Aquarium.

The gang: Dea, Katie, DC, Gabe, Luke and Sarah.

DC and Sarah take in the sights.

Pete points out some sharks to Gabe.

Dea and Luke.

Luke staring down Pete's thinning hair.

The fam.

Vacation - Atlanta

Okay, so now that we're back from vacation, I can spend a quick few minutes to recount our time away from home. We left after I got off work and spent the night in Valdosta. That was a great idea and is something I will do from this point forward. It allowed us to break up the eight hour drive to Atlanta and made the four hour trip from Valdosta much more palatable.

Our first stop was to visit Dawn, Dea's sister, and her family. The kids got a lot of time to spend together, having fun jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. Gabe played catch with his Uncle Patrick and we were later joined by Dea's parents at Dawn's house for dinner.

After dinner, we said our goodbyes and drove over to my niece Katie's house to spend the night with Katie and her family (Brian and the kids). It was a nice time with family and allowed Dea and I to unwind and put aside all of the daily worries that we left back in Safety Harbor.

Dea prefers this pose for all future pictures.


DC on the trampoline.


Gabe in mid-kick.


Poppy at Dawn's


Nonni at Dawn's.


Patrick with Sarah.


Rachel and Dea.


Kelsey and Gabe.

More Vacation Pics

As I try to catch up on the 1493 emails that were waiting for me upon my return to work, I don't have a lot of time to write an entry today, so I'll just post some more vacation pics...

A cannon at Fort Pulaski looking toward the marshes.

The force and sound of a muskett shot was impressive.

Gabe and I in the fort.

Gabe, Dea and DC crossing the moat into the fort.

One of the underground bunkers at Fort Pulaski.

Dea and DC looking over the broken wall.

DC on a Ghost Tour in Savannah.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 62, Where Are We Now?

It’s been over 18 years since that trip to Cally. Life has not gone as we had planned back then, but life rarely does. We had many surprises and challenges, exciting achievements and heart-broken disappointments.

Unlike our trip to Cally, life is about the journey, not necessarily the destination. If we spend too much time asking “are we there yet?” we’ll miss those magical moments that happen during the trip.

Tim and I remain friends… he’s my best friend, actually. We go to movies together, watch sports together and our kids spend a lot of time together. We compliment each other very well. He inspires me and grounds me and makes me laugh more than just about anyone else. He is the most loyal and generous person I have ever known. It’s an honor to call him friend.

Tim and Beth have since been married and divorced, sadly. They have two beautiful daughters whom I love as if they were my own. Tim intended his first marriage to be his last, so such an outcome has been particularly difficult for him. Tim also has another daughter from another relationship and she’s adorable and lovable and wonderful. Tim’s managed to move on in his life and trust the Lord will guide him as his journey continues to take unexpected paths.

Beth remarried and lives with their two daughters and two step-sons in Florida. Thanks to her I was able to get to convert our home movies from the trip to DVD and put some of the screen captures on the web.

Pete Producer finally got his film produced. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to secure Robert DeNiro, but he did get a Robert to play the part. Robert Urich played the lead role of Harry Spooner in the family film Spooner.

Pete also gave me direct and honest advice on my first two screenplays. Unfortunately for me, it was an opportunity wasted because my writing talents were not good enough at the time. Future screenplays would win me awards and get produced, but not because of Pete. Eventually, I’ve lost touch with him. When I look him up on the internet, I find his last screenplay was produced in 1998. I don’t know what’s happened to him since. I hope all is well.

Sunday and Dave moved to Los Angeles soon after our trip to Cally. Sunday went on to get numerous supporting roles in television and movies. She’s most notable as Olive, the cashier with the long fingernails on Seinfeld. Her character ended up dating Kramer, who had a persistent itch. Their relationship only lasted one episode as his itch eventually dissipated.

Sunday and Dave continued to date for another ten years before finally tying the knot. Sunday converted to Catholicism when they got married and I was last able to speak to her in person about seven years ago. She mentioned how she attended the same church as Gregory Peck. I was in L.A. in 1998 and was surprised to find the last phone number I had for her no longer worked. I haven’t talked to her in a long time. About once every six months I scour the internet to see what she’s up to. I found this headshots recently, which means she’s still pounding the acting pavement in LaLa Land. I am impressed by her passion for her art and so proud of her persistence.

Within a year after college graduation I would develop Crohn’s disease, which would end up changing my professional career forever. The disease eventually forced me to give up on trying to be an actor for a living. It was not an easy decision, but inevitable. Acting was the most fulfilling profession I’ve ever had. I miss it dearly.

I was able to work at Nickelodeon for a few years, behind the scenes, but eventually needed health insurance to manage my disease. I ended up retraining myself from scratch and am now a global technology manager of a $5 billion computer manufacturer. I fill my creative needs by making movies on the side and writing a lot… screenplays, short films, my blog and this story.

I eventually met and married my beautiful wife, my soul mate, Dea, with whom I’ve been married for over 14 years. Words alone cannot effectively describe just how much I love her. We have been blessed with two beautiful children. My daughter, Dorothea, who shares my passion for acting, my sense of humor and my love of film. My son, Gabriel, who shares my love of sports and my strong competitive nature. I have so much in common with both of them… I realize that I am one very lucky man. I am truly blessed.

This trip to California in the dry, hot Summer of 1988 was memorable for so many reasons. It was my first great adventure, the first great experience for which I was uniquely involved. It had romance and drama and thrills and spills and hopes and dreams and pain and suffering. It was the first story of my life worth telling and its taken eighteen years for me to finally get it down on paper.

Goin’ Out to Cally was a journey where my world expanded and my dreams were forged. It has remained carved in my memory, where it will stay, for the rest of my days.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 61, And So It Ends…

As we pulled into Sunday’s apartment complex her face suddenly changed. The muscles that had been holding back anger and frustration and disappointment had relaxed and she was, again, beautiful.

I helped carry her massive luggage back into her apartment. We shared a long hug and we said our goodbyes. Sunday, the fourth wheel who inadvertently joined our trip, had become a source of frustration for all of us. She started out as an acquaintance and ended up being my only friend on this trip.

In an very odd way, Sunday and I had become more distant and closer at the same time.

Amongst all of the flirting and confusion and anger and miscommunication, Sunday and I had bonded in a way no one else could ever share. There is something about living through an experience that gives you an unbreakable bond. No matter how hard we could ever try to explain the journey we had just experienced it would never capture the scope of actually living through it yourself.

As we drove away and headed toward Wildwood, the last chapter of our trip was finally being written.

The back seat of the car was lighter and the foot room was available for the first time since we packed Sunday’s luggage almost three weeks earlier. However, even Sunday’s departure could not mend the great divide that had been chiseled between Tim, Beth and me.

Once we hopped onto I-75 South I watched with great anticipation as each mile marker passed, each representing a mile closer to Wildwood, a mile closer to freedom. Considering I was so anxious to get home, I was surprised a just how fast the last hour of the trip passed. Usually, when you want time to speed up, it slows down. Fortunately for me, the opposite was true.

As we pulled into the large gas station at the midpoint between Gainesville and St. Petersburg, I could see Paul waiting patiently in his small tan Toyota Tercel. Seeing Paul there was probably the closest I’ll ever get to the sense of seeing a knight in shining armor. He was my salvation, my escape, my freedom from the hell I had created by suggesting we go on this trip in the first place. He was my Get Out Of Jail Free card.

With newfound energy and focus I unloaded my belongings into the back of Paul’s car, gave a quick and rather emotionless farewell to Tim and Beth, then strapped myself into the front seat and relaxed for the first time in three days.

Tim and Beth departed one way, Paul and I in the opposite direction. It would be the last time I would see or speak to Tim or Beth for over a year.

As Paul and I merged onto the interstate he made the mistake of asking a very simple question.

“So, how was the trip?” he said.

With that simple statement the floodgates of opinion and conjecture and anger and judgment and relief and disbelief and sarcasm opened and the story spewed from me in a non-stop flow of words and exclamations and convenient revisionism.

He found the trip so funny and unbelievable that he had me recount it to my parents when I got home.

I tried to write the story down a few times earlier. Once, right after the trip was over, I tried to recount everything in pseudo-journal form, but some of it was too painful to state. One of the goals I set for myself was to get published as an author, so I thought of using this sordid tale as inspiration for a fictional account, but that attempt fizzled out as well.

It was only now, some 18 years later, because I promised myself that I would write a daily entry into this blog for a year, that I have enough distance and skill to recount the story with any sort of consistency. However, I also know that 18 years have passed. Tim, Beth and Sunday may read this story and discount or argue with some of the details and they may be right. I can only go from my memory, as broken and fragmented as it may be.

So, all of the facts may be out of order or vaguely inaccurate at times, but this is my story about my trip to Cally, through my eyes, through my memory and through my interpretation.

I can say this… that trip to Cally, for all of its flaws and pain at times, is something for which I will never regret. We were naïve and stupid and unprepared, but we did it anyway. Sure, there were bumps in the road, but the important part was that we took the journey.

I wish I could un-know a lot of what I know about life and the world and consequences. I often think if I was a little more stupid about things, I would have accomplished so much more.

And so ended the last day on our trip to Cally.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 60, Escaping Into The Wildwood

I don’t really remember much of the drive from Illinois to Florida. The only thing I can recall is, during one of the two remaining gas stops, calling my brother Paul and telling him to meet me in Wildwood so he could pick me up and take me home.

“Why?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you later. But you HAVE to pick me up, okay?” I asked.

“Okay,” he replied.

I knew that, after we were to drop off Sunday in Gainesville that the next stop was to be in Brooksville where Tim would bring Beth home. Knowing Tim and having experienced this trip I knew that we wouldn’t just drop Beth off, we would spend hours there recounting the entire trip… the same trip Beth had just described to her parents for over two hours on the phone in Illinois.

If I had to sit there and listen and wait and not be home I think I would have gone postal. I would have ended up in Starkey Prison near Gainesville with a roommate named Axel who fancied my shapely tush. My only escape, my only salvation, was my brother Paul.

Paul and I lived together my first year in Gainesville. He was entering as a junior and I was entering as a freshman. We stayed in a dark little mobile home in a darker little place called Shady Nook. It was a two bedroom mobile home that did not have cable television and in which we could only get two channels, the local PBS channel from the university and the local ABC affiliate. We would watch these two channels on a micro-black and white television while sitting on some of the most ill-conceived, badly implemented travesties masquerading as furniture one could ever imagine.

Paul was, at the time, engaged to Jean and during our first year, missed her terribly. He was often depressed and that only added a little more darkness to our first year’s experience at the University of Florida.

The only thing that got us through a depressing week at school was traveling home on the weekend. Paul would get to see Jean and I would get to see family and Tim and my other high school friends. They were my anchors that kept me grounded. I had not yet developed any significant friendships at school so these trips home were critical to our mental health.

Even though Paul and I had spent our entire lives together, we never really got to know each other until that year, until those numerous drives to and from Gainesville. He would teach me about chemistry and I would teach him about acting. I learned that he was far more creative than I ever knew. Growing up Paul was always a bookworm and I was, well, lazy and haphazardly approached school.

Paul found enjoyment in education, I found fun in fart jokes. We were so very different, yet we found commonality during those drives. Not only did we bond through shared experiences that first year, but we found common ground between us, between our interests, that we never knew had existed. I look back on those drives and they make me smile.

Paul and Jean would end up being my greatest fans. They were the only ones in my family to attend every single one of my performances while in college. Trust me, that’s love. Some of those things were downright painful to watch. But they loved me and supported me and they gave me strength to continue to pursue my dreams.

When I finally got into the Fine Arts College Paul and Jean threw a small party and took their limited resources and bought me a small Super 8 movie camera. This was a financial sacrifice for them and I was so touched. Paul, the bartender in that awful black and white video ten years earlier, knew of my passion for film and they bought me a tool to help make that dream come true. Later we would use that camera to shoot a very funny short film called The Term Paper.

Since our time in college Paul and I continue to talk about movies and chemistry. As we’ve gotten older we continue to participate in those areas of each other's lives. Paul reads all of my screenplays and continues to give me excellent feedback. He helped fund the shooting of our first feature film called The Box and he continues to be a source of inspiration to me. Through my day-job experiences, I’m able to share in his challenges as a doctor of analytical chemistry in the oil industry. Funny thing about business, no matter what you build or what you service, the problems and challenges are all the same.

And all of our history together was founded by those two hour drives from Gainesville to St. Petersburg and back, the mid-point of which was a small town called Wildwood.

And that is where Paul had agreed to pick me up and allow me to finally escape this nightmare that was our trip to Cally.

Heading Home

We extended our stay in Savannah an additional day so we could take in Fort Pulaski and the lighthouse on Tybee Island. We're heading home this morning and should be arriving in Safety Harbor later in the evening.

Fort Pulaski is interesting because it was the fort involved in a battle that made such forts... and all forts, basically, obselete. See, the Union used a rifle cannon for the first time against the Confederates held up in the fort, destroying the outer wall. The rifle cannon used a cannon "ball" shaped like a bullet instead of a ball. It was much more effective than standard cannon balls and the impact to the fort was devastating. From that battle onward, all such forts lost their value as strongholds.

Below are some of our pics from our journey today.

Dea, Gabe and DC at one of the cannons in Fort Pulaski.

Some of the damage done on Fort Pulaski by the Union cannons.
The deeper red brick is where the wall
was fixed from being riddled with rifle cannon hits.


Dea, Gabe and DC at the fort on Tybee Island
where the rifle cannons were shot.


The Lighthouse on Tybee Island.


DC and Dea enjoying Ben and Jerry's ice cream
on the riverfront of Savannah.

It was brutally hot in Savannah during this trip. I don't think I've ever sweat as much as I have over the last few days. The city is extraordinary and it would take another week to see the rest of the historical sights. It was a great adventure and we've enjoyed our visit immensely.

By tomorrow night we'll be back home, in bed.

Some Vacation Pics

DC at Mom's 80th Birthday Party. Steve S's
Mom is in the background.

Pete and Kristi at Mom's 80th Birthday Party.

Gabe at Mom's 80th Birthday Party.

Dad and Pete.

Paul with his popsicle.

Dea hangin' at the Smith's.

Mary, Mom and Rusty

Gabe, at nine, almost fits into Dad's old
cheerleader uniform that he wore in highschool.

Gabe in Heaven (aka, a Candy Shop in Savannah).

DC, Pete and Gabe on the river in Savannah.

The stunning St. John the Baptist Catholic Church
in Savannah, Georgia.

DC, Dea and Gabe in St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Dea and Pete at the Uptown Restaurant.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 59, Time Mismanagement

The long journey home through Colorado, Kansas and Missouri was as boring as the trek through western Texas, except this time our nerves were all frayed and exposed. Tim and I had discussed, prior to the trip, of trying to visit as many baseball stadiums during our journey as possible. Our first attempt in Dallas to see the Rangers play the Red Sox was nixed when we found out the teams were in Boston.

We looked at the schedule of the Dodgers or Angels while in Los Angeles, but none of the games coincided with the times we had not already booked. In San Francisco, we didn’t have enough time to watch the A’s or Giants play. And as we drove through Kansas and Missouri, our chances of seeing the Royals in Kansas City or the Cardinals in St. Louis evaporated along with our dreams of ending this trip on a successful note.

We finally made our way to Illinois and by seeing the world in five hour increments, which was the amount of time a full tank of gas would last, we knew we were three more gas stops away from being home. We were getting anxious to finally escape the Acura that had turned into a blue cocoon for all of us.

During one of our stops to get gas Sunday and I pooled our change together and had just enough to buy a loaf of bread and a small jar of peanut butter. We were less than 15 hours from home and we felt we could easily survive eating and smelling like peanut butter for the last day in the car.

After filling up with gas, Tim and Beth, whose wallets were stuffed with Sunday’s San Francisco cash, decided to stop at a McDonalds and indulge in a hit of McLunch before heading south. Or so we thought.

Tim and Beth entered McDonald’s while Sunday and I remained in the Acura meekly making our peanut butter sandwiches, struggling to get the little plastic knife to retain its shape as it tried to move through the thick, crunchy peanut butter. We looked up and, instead of finding our travel companions in line to get something to eat, Beth was on the phone talking to her parents.

Her body language and hand gestures were large and expressive as she was conveying her frustration at the current state of our trip. Sunday and I looked on, swallowing our anger along with the peanut butter, as the conversation wore on and on. Minutes turned to over an hour with Beth still on the phone, apparently recounting the entire trip.

I was furious. In the amount of time she spent on the phone talking to her parents we could have been home and she could have told them in person! Each minute that passed while we were in that parking lot was another wasted minute in the 15 or so hours that awaited us on the road. I was so pissed off I could have spit fire.

Sunday and I stewed in the car as two hours passed with Beth talking on the phone to her parents. Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Seven thousand two hundred seconds… wasted in a McDonalds parking lot in Illinois. Shortly thereafter, Beth finally hung up the phone and, despite my overflowing anger, I was just happy to get back on the road. The sooner we got back home the better.

That’s when things got just a little worse, like pouring salt into an opened wound or, more accurately, slowly pushing a hot iron into your skull through your eye socket. See, after spending two hours on the phone recounting a trip that we had not yet completed, Tim and Beth decided that they wanted to eat something before they left. Could they have eaten while they talked on the phone? Sure. Could they have gotten the food to go so we could get on the road? Sure. But they didn’t. Instead they sat down and ate in the restaurant, the clock ticking, minutes passing, rage building.

At this point, I wanted to be home that instant, utilizing a Star Trekian transporter, if necessary. However, with such technology unavailable to me, Sunday and I just sat, waited and hated.

80th Birthday Party

Saturday we all enjoyed ourselves at my mother's 80th birthday party. We arrived in the morning at my parent's house to visit with my brother John, my brother Paul and his son Jonathan, and my parents. Later that evening John's daughters Laura and Catherine arrived and we all shared a lot of laughs.

That evening we went over to a cabin on the lake at the Hinton Center where my mom was surprised to find her cousins Rusty and Ann had driven all the way down from Massachusetts. My mother was speechless and her eyes full of tears. When you turn 80, there aren't a lot of people still around from your childhood, so the fact that Rusty and Ann made the long trek down just for Mom was a great gift.

Attending the outside party was Dea, Pete, DC, Gabe, John, Laura, Catherine, Paul, Jonathan, Mom and Dad, Rusty and Ann, Stephen, Stephanie, Paul Eric and Jackie, Marie, Charles, Betty, Christina, Jack, Michael, Christopher, Brianna, Andrew, Elizabeth, Chaz, Lisette, Terese, John Paul, Stephen, Maria, Carla, Luis, Bob, Loretta, Mary, Steve, Katie, Brian, Sarah, Luke, Kristy, Robbie, Tyler, Lauren, Peter, Paul and Michelle and Andrew. I think that's everyone. We had a wonderful time and are so grateful for the large family and the love that surrounds us all.

Yesterday we played baseball at a local ball field and later that night made smores around a campfire.

Right this second, Paul is making breakfast (waffles and bacon) and later today my family is driving down to Savannah for the next few days.

I'll upload pics when we get back from vacation.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 58, Twenty-One Wishes

I was pulled from my deep sleep as the Acura jostled over a large bump in the road. I looked over to see Sunday staring out her window at the passing landscape, her eyes looking past her current surroundings to somewhere else, somewhere far away. She seemed sad, but I wasn’t sure why. I could only imagine it was the result of this trip, but I was reluctant to ask.

After a stop at a rest area where we all cleaned up, changed clothes and where I washed my hair in the sink, we continued on. The car was so quiet during this phase of the trip, but the silence had weight, substance. We all gazed out of the windows imagining we were anywhere but here. The stress of the trip was even taking its toll on Tim and Beth. Their allegiance in our game of Survivor was still strong, but even they communicated only when necessary.

Sunday’s melancholy continued as the day wore on. We passed Lake Tahoe and were heading toward Denver, Colorado. Even though the thought of adding more depression to this suicidal trip was too painful to comprehend, I was growing concerned about Sunday and finally asked what was bothering her.

“Today… today is my birthday,” she said quietly.

“Oh…” I said with both surprise and sympathy.

“My twenty-first birthday…” she said even more quietly.

Tim and Beth overheard us. “Wow! Twenty-one!” Tim chimed in, sincerely trying to lighten the mood. “That’s great!” he continued.

I thought quietly to myself… how awful for her. There are so few birthdays in one’s life that have epic value. Any birthday between one and 10 is important, then when you’re 13 you become a teenager, when you’re 15 you can get a driver’s permit, when you’re 16 you can drive on your own, when you’re 17 you can see R-Rated movies, when you’re 18 you can vote and get drafted, and when you’re 21 you can drink legally. Plus, turning 21 is an official kickoff into the long term journey of adulthood. There’s no turning back.

So, we were all depressed and empathetic to Sunday’s dilemma of being forced to celebrate such a momentous occasion in the middle of Colorado in a car full of people she had grown to despise.

The only positive about the event was that it initiated conversation in the car again that did not revolve around the immediate history of this trip, for which we all now hated. Sunday smiled a bit when she mentioned that she and David were going to have a quiet celebration when she returned to Gainesville. It wasn’t much, but it was the only part of the day so far that had given Sunday hope.

Our experience in Eureka had taught us that traveling across the country without a AAA Trip Ticket was not a good idea, so Tim and Beth found a AAA location in a run down mall on the outskirts of Denver. As Sunday and I waited in the car, I heard a little “pop” and found my shirt suddenly dotted with ink. It appeared that a pen in the passenger door compartment exploded from the change of pressure in the mile high city.

Sunday and I looked around the car for unopened soda cans or any other potential explosions. Under the car seat I found one can of Pepsi that had been unopened. Neither the idea of being doused voluntarily by opening the can or involuntarily by it exploding on its own appealed to me, so I exited the car and threw it away.

Just as I was about to reenter the car, I spotted Tim and Beth exiting the mall. When they arrived at the Acura, they pulled out a small stuffed animal and gave it to Sunday.

“I know it’s not a lot,” Tim said, “but, Happy Birthday.”

Sunday was touched, not only from the gift, but more from the sentiment. It shined a little light on the dark cloud that was our trip to Cally. She hugged everyone and thanked them. I was both happy for Sunday and uncomfortable, as the change left in my pocket did not allow me to participate in Sunday’s gift.

But, the important thing was that Sunday was happy, if only for a moment. I’m sure if she were to blow out her twenty-one candles she would include twenty-one wishes of getting home.

Fortunately for her, and us, as we neared Illinois we all knew were only three stops away from returning home.

Off to Hayesville

After two relaxing nights at Katie and Brian's house, we're heading off to Hayesville this morning to celebrate my Mom's 80th birthday. Yesterday we went to the Georgia Acquarium, which was a wonderful experience. We were able to make our reservations early in the morning, so the otherwise packed attraction was relatively empty. It made for a fun time.

Last night we had dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse and my niece Laura was able to join us. Afterwards Laura headed off to pick up Catherine and the rest of us headed back to the house to have fun and get ready for our trip this morning.

Just before dinner, my brother Charles called me on my cell phone. He said that he, along with three of his son's, was about three hours outside of Atlanta. I tried to rub it into him that we were having fun and already here and that we will have gone to dinner and had dessert and come back home and he'd still be stuck in the car near the end of an eight hour drive. Charles responded by asking "Is your wife with you?" I looked to Dea, "Yeah." He said with a chuckle, "Mine's not. So who has it better?"

We shared a big laugh. My wife didn't think it was that funny.

Atlanta

Last night we spent some time with Dea's sister, Dawn, and their family. We had a great time and a wonderful dinner. After dinner we hopped over to my niece Katie's house to stay.


This morning we spent the day at the beautiful Georgia Acquarium. A great place. I'll have more pics from the trip later.

Valdosta

9:39 a.m., Thursday, July 27th.

I'm typing this from the hotel room in Valdosta. After work my wife and I decided to get the hec out of Dodge and start our journey north toward North Carolina. We made it as far as Valdosta, where we crashed at the Country Inn and Suites.

We had a good nights sleep and are about to hit the road again. Our goal is to meet up with Dea's sister first, then spend the night at KT's house later this evening. Tomorrow we're heading to the Georgia Aquarium and spend more time with family.

Well, we're packing up and are ready to go.

Until later...

More 3-D

Okay, my eyes are getting a little buggy looking through red and blue glasses for the last few days as I play around with this 3-D stuff. Below are some more pics... I'll bring up some glasses to mom's 80th birthday weekend so people can see them as they were intended.

You can click on pics below for bigger pics. There's an art to getting a good 3-D pic and I'm slowly figuring it out.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 57, Succumbing To Fate

“What if he got out?” I asked.

“Yeah, what if someone dropped him off and now he’s on foot out there?” she replied.

“That’s frickin’ great!” I exclaimed.

Now our panic ramped up a couple of notches. Sure, being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a maniac after us, well, that was one thing, but at least the only thing we had to focus on was the headlights approaching us. With the darkness that blankets a desert during a new moon, the glow of headlights was about the only thing we could see. But now, under Sunday’s theory that our potential attacker was on foot, we now had to focus on everything… in a desert… in the dark!

Our eyes darted back and forth. We looked through the side windows and the back windows and the rear view mirrors and out in front of us.

“I can’t see anything!” I said.

“Me either,” Sunday agreed.

The length of the day was starting to get to me. Frustrated and angered from the events in San Francisco, I did not sleep well in the car. My shift behind the wheel started in a state of exhaustion over seven hours ago. Now the toxic combination of fear and fatigue had me near an uncontrollable collapse.

Just then Sunday screamed “There he is!”

My head swung to the right and I looked past Sunday, spotting a cow standing next to her window.

“Sunday… it’s a cow,” I sighed.

“Sorry…” she said with understandable embarrassment.

The sight of the cow and the momentary release from the pressure cooker of fear in our car that resulted from it put me into a state of exhaustion from which I could no longer recover.

“I… I can’t keep my eyes open anymore,” I said as I released my grip from the keys in the ignition and leaned the driver’s side seat back.

“If I die tonight at least I’ll die in my sleep,” I continued as I closed my eyes.

“Me too,” Sunday followed.

I looked over to her and our eyes met, both red from weariness.

“Good night, Sunday,” I said with a smile.

“You too, Pete,” she responded with a half-smile, then turned and closed her eyes.

It did not take long for me to fall asleep in the deep dark that night. I was so tired I didn’t even dream.

I awoke the next morning to find a sight I never expected. Somewhere between the maniac at the hotel, our drive into the rest area, our near death experience at the hands of a cow and finally going to sleep… somewhere in the night our rest area became one of the most populated spots in Eurkea.

As I pried my eyes open in the morning sun I looked to my left and, out of the driver’s side window, spotted a large recreational vehicle parked next to us, through which I could see the driver cleaning himself up from a morning shave.

“When did he get here?” I said to myself? I propped up the car seat to an upright position and looked around the rest area which now looked like a parking lot at a used car dealership. There were numerous cars and trucks and motorcycles and semis.

“Were they here all night?” I said with disbelief. “I don’t remember seeing any of them when I pulled into here.”

“See who?” Tim asked as we awoke from his fulfilling night’s sleep.

“Nothing,” I said.

About one hundred yards away, passed the cars and trucks and motorcycles was the now lit sign of the gas station… it was open.

I started the car and pulled into the gas station. Wanting to quickly change positions with Tim and Beth so I could get some quality shut eye, I offered to pump the gas if Tim paid the attendant.

The morning air was extremely cold. I shivered in my shorts and t-shirt as the cold wind whipped through my oily hair, the metal gas hose clanking repeatedly against the gas tank in the Acura. As the gas flowed into the arid, empty tank I looked over toward the hotel where our adventures in Eureka began.

The pickup truck was gone.

It made me wonder if the truck that stopped and stared us down only a few hours earlier was indeed our angered drunk. I would never know. All I cared about now was sleeping and waking to find that this once-hopeful trip would be finally nearing its end.

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Part 57, (Text, Audio) - Part 56, (Text, Audio) - Part 55, (Text, Audio)
Part 54, (Text, Audio) - Part 53, (Text, Audio) - Part 52, (Text, Audio)
Part 51, (Text, Audio) - Part 50, (Text, Audio) - Part 49, (Text, Audio)
Part 48, (Text, Audio) - Part 47, (Text, Audio) - Part 46, (Text, Audio)
Part 45, (Text, Audio) - Part 44, (Text, Audio) - Part 43, (Text, Audio)
Part 42, (Text, Audio) - Part 41, (Text, Audio) Part 40, (Text, Audio)
Part 39, (Text, Audio) - Part 38, (Text, Audio) - Part 37, (Text, Audio)
Part 36, (Text, Audio) - Part 35, (Text, Audio) - Part 34, (Text, Audio)
Part 33, (Text, Audio) - Part 32, (Text, Audio) - Part 31, (Text, Audio)
Part 30, (Text, Audio) - Part 29, (Text, Audio) - Part 28, (Text, Audio)
Part 27, (Text, Audio) - Part 26, (Text, Audio) - Part 25, (Text, Audio)
Part 24, (Text, Audio) - Part 23, (Text, Audio) - Part 22, (Text, Audio)
Part 21, (Text, Audio) - Part 20, (Text, Audio) - Part 19, (Text, Audio)
Part 18, (Text, Audio) - Part 17, (Text, Audio) - Part 16, (Text, Audio)
Part 15, (Text, Audio) - Part 14, (Text, Audio) - Part 13, (Text, Audio)
Part 12 (Text, Audio) - Part 11 (Text, Audio) - Part 10 (Text, Audio)
Part 09, (Text, Audio) - Part 08, (Text, Audio) - Part 07 (Text, Audio)
Part 06 (Text, Audio) - Part 05 (Text, Audio) - Part 04 (Text, Audio)
Part 03 (Text, Audio) - Part 02 (Text, Audio) - Part 01 (Text, Audio)

Playing with 3-D

I've always been a big fan of 3-D movies. Yes, they're usually hokie in content and cause eye strain over a long period of time, but the next great barrier the film can overcome is the third dimension. I read a very interesting article where James Cameron, Titanic director, states that his research has shown that eye strain from watching 3-D comes from the fact that films are projected at 24 frames a second and that, with digital projects, that frame rate can be increased to just about any number per second, where the eye strain would disappear.

Imagine watching a sporting event at a stadium seating theater in 3-D? Pretty cool idea. Unfortunately there are no easily implementable 3-D home video options right now, so I decided to look at an old fashioned 3-D technology.

I've been looking for a simple way to take 3-D still pics, using the old fashioned Red-Blue glasses concept, called Anaglyphs. I had a pair of the Red-Blue glasses from when Spy Kids 3 came out and I found a free program that will convert pics into these 3-D pics. The end result is really cool.

What you have to do is take two pictures about 2-3 inches apart (eye distance) and then merge them using this program to create the 3-D image. It's basic, but the 3-D images are pretty amazing, to be honest. You have to play around with how close some of the items may be and how many levels of depth you are trying to capture at one time... it's a hit or miss proposition, but if you can make it work, it's really cool.

Below are some pics from my experiments... if you don't have a pair of Red-Blue glasses (Red on the left side), then these pics won't work for you. If you do, click on pics below to make them larger and enjoy.