Little souls looking for a place to land

I'm so blessed...

Today was a "play date" for James at school. He's moving into the K4 group, and the teachers just wanted a chance to observe him in action and see how he interacts with the other kids and get an idea of which teach might be best for him.

(By the way, I realize that I haven't updated this blog in forever, but I do enough writing at work and school, that it's hard for me to get the motivation to do any creative writing. However today inspired me...)

Steph and I met at the school and were hanging out at a table in the front of the school when the kids walked in. They were so cute in their little line. I meant to ask what the heck was with many of them holding a fist to the top of their heads, and with their other hand they were holding their index finger to their lips. I can guess about the "Shhh" sign, but the fist on their head? James came around the corner and saw us, and immediately ran over to give us hugs. He chilled with us for about a minute, then the teachers started calling them over to sit on the floor.

I wasn't sure what James would do with us being there, but he was so good to listen to the teach and go sit down. After all the kids were seated, one of the teachers explained that they were going to go listen to a story, and color, and cut things out with scissors. I could tell James was interested and excited, but not so sure how he would respond with us being there.

I can't say that I was ever prouder than the moment he stood up and walked right in line when he was supposed to. I got a little sad that he didn't look back at us or run over for one last hug like he often does. But I realized at that moment that he's growing up, and he understands the rules at school.

While the kids were in the classroom doing their thing, we hung out in the front and talked with the principal about what to expect in the new classroom. Curriculum, discipline, etc. Steph was NOT thrilled at all about the fact that they will have to wear uniforms now -- that will really put a cramp in her styling of the boys, but I'm sure she'll find a way to make James look cool even with a school uniform!

After they came out, James came and sat with us for a couple of minutes, and it was time for me to get back to work. Another moment of fear for me, as I worried that James would freak out that we were going to leave him at school. But again, my little grown-up boy just said, "Nana and Papa are going to pick me up, and then you'll come get me later?" Yes, son, that is exactly what will happen, and you're starting to understand that Daddy always comes back...

Seems like such an insignificant event. He's only moving up one "level" in school. But that brief moment in time showed me so much about how much my boys are growing up. And it gave me a little relief that it seems like Steph and I are doing a pretty good job with these little fellas, in spite of the hectic pace of our lives, and the underlying fear that we're not doing all the things that "good parents" do. We are all running at a hundred miles a minute with work, my school, modeling, photography, keeping up a house, finding some way to make sure the boys eat relatively well, and everything else. Sometimes I feel a tinge of guilt for looking forward to the boys' bed time and worry that I'm not playing with them enough or just generally not spending enough time with them or that I'm too quick to anger when they fight or spill something or break something or don't listen.

But watching James be a little man at school today, while still running over to give me a hug and be happy to see me, made me realize that we're not failing on all fronts.

I often reflect on how blessed I am to have two beautiful, healthy boys -- who are ALL BOY, but still love me unconditionally and come hug me and snuggle up to me when things haven't gone so well with us in previous moments. (To put it lightly...) And I'm blessed to be married to Steph, who gives her all to me and the boys and puts up with all of my idiosyncrasies and the challenges we face every day, and still sticks around -- rolled eyes and all.

And then I think about my life over the past 25 or so years since I left home after high school. I lived life to the fullest as a single guy for most of that time. And I think about all of the directions that my life could have taken had I married this girl, or stayed married to that girl (ahem...) or taken this job or not left that job, or not made that move or this move, or any of the thousand micro-decisions I've made which spiraled around to the moment that I met Steph and we were blessed with James and Brodie.

I'm thankful for the heart-ache and difficulties and laughter that brought me to this point in time and firmly believe that everything I have done and every day of my life has been lived to get me to this one. Tomorrow I will wake up and be the father of THESE boys. All of the souls in the universe were swirling around in -- whatever place they come from -- and these two souls, James and Brodie, were waiting for me to take care of whatever I needed to take care of so that they, and only they, could show up in MY life. It's not poetic, but that's the only way for me to rationalize why I have been so blessed with these amazing boys, when I surely didn't deserve the overwhelming and unconditional love I receive from them every day.

Impropertunity

This word came to me as I was sitting in a seminar about dual controls in the banking industry. Surely this could not be an original term, I thought, but the Google-machine gave me the "Your search did not return any documents". So, let me be the first to introduce the world to this term: Impropertunity.

Seems like a perfect way to describe what one uses to take advantage of a opportunity to do something improper.

Feel free to reach out to me for licensing rights... :-)

Panic

Haven't had time (or energy) to blog lately as the studio and the boys have sapped all of both out of me. The last five days have been unbelievably hectic as I found out that my buddy had gotten the go-ahead to shoot a cover for Lowrider magazine, and they wanted it ... yesterday. When I got the news, I only had one wall of my cyclorama framed, and still had a TON of work to do to get it even remotely usable. Steph (my wife) put out the call on Facebook and got me a couple of guys to come in and help me. The original intent was to have them work for two days. Well, two turned into three, and we are ALMOST there. I still have some finish work to do tomorrow, but I have until 8 pm or so to get a couple of more thin coats of drywall on some areas and at least two more coats of paint on by then. I'm using primer, so it dries pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure I'll be painting (and sanding a little) all day. But the payoff will come when we get the car and model in the studio, and turn on the lights... Oh, and shoot a little.

I've learned much about construction along with way. Next time, I will absolutely plan a lot better rather than flying by the seat of my pants. I had to do quite a bit of re-work because I got to points where there just wasn't anywhere to connect studs, or stretchers or plywood edges. I probably lost a good day (or two) just fixing problems I'd created myself. Live and learn...

The corner of the cyc was the biggest challenge. I searched and searched, but couldn't find any really good information. We finally ended up making some pseudo-geometric curves and laying them in to more or less fit. Even quarter-inch plywood isn't really that flexible, especially in short lengths, so I bought a couple of cans of fiberglass resin and fiberglass mesh and slathered that in to make a roughly even surface over the plywood. We filled in the rest with drywall compound, and it is surprisingly smooth. I'll spend some time coming up to add a little more compound and do some more sanding and painting. It should be perfect in a couple of weeks, but needs to be workable by tomorrow night. Photoshop will definitely be our friend for this shoot...:-)

Day 1 in the new studio

Got the keys to the studio today! Very exciting to be new business owner. I'm more than a little bit nervous about how this is going to work out, but I don't really have time to worry. I have SOOOOOO much work to do to get the studio in working order and get ready to officially hang my shingle in two or three weeks.

I didn't get in until around noon. By that time, I had just enough time to unload all of my tools, make a quick run to Lowe's (my new hangout), put the mitre saw together and get about half-way finished with my first workbench when I had to go pick up the boys. We rushed back to meet with a local producer who is interested in using my space to shoot a commercial in early June. He really liked it, and is going to have the DP and Executive Producer come by to take a look at it. They would only need it for a couple of days, but I can also potentially rent some lighting and hire myself out to them to be the set photographer during the shoot, so it might work out to a little chunk of change. Just excited to potentially have my first booked gig!

The space is huge. It has about 600 square feet of office and reception and 1800 square feet of wide open warehouse space in the back. It has two nice little offices (interior - no windows) and two bathrooms, one of which is in the studio space and will be a great makeup/dressing room.

I think I have solved my cyclorama problem. I'll build the flat sides coming into the corner, then jam a bunch of styrofoam into the corner cove, and use marine foam to fill in all of the spaces. From there, I'll just carve the foam down (after it's cured, of course) and use fiberglass tape, resin and drywall compound to strength and shape it into a (hopefully) perfect infinity cyc. I'll post pictures of my progress. Going to use the new Nikon D300s I bought to do a time-lapse video too. I'll post that up somewhere -- maybe YouTube. There are a LOT of studio owners and managers looking for ideas on how to do this without breaking the bank and paying crazy money to cyc manufacturers. It would cost me somewhere around $8,000 to get a full cyc (for the size I want) from one of the big boys. I figure I can do the curve parts for no more than a couple of hundred dollars this way. Let the experiment commence.

I also plan to build a half-cyc, which is my term for a curved wall without the corner cove. I'm sure there's a better term, but I'm too exhausted and lazy to track down the official word. I'll have a couple of 2' by 4' work benches, and then plan to build several 4' by 8' flats, which can be connected in a variety of ways and painted, hung, decorated, etc. to create a lot of different sets and looks. This is VERY economical and will really increase the viability of JKB. I had thought about stretching canvas to save a few bucks. Then considered covering the frame with melanin board. I finally settled on quarter-inch plywood. It's a little heavier and more expensive, but should be more durable and easier to paint and re-paint. I can build 8 or 10 of these flats for the cost of one of the better canvas backdrops out there, and have much more variety for nothing more than half a can of paint or so.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Chapter 1

I titled this blog "Random musings about jumping without a parachute" because I don't anticipate that my future posts will be exactly linear. As my wife will happily tell you, there's nothing really linear (or always logical) about me. I'm sure that if I were to see a shrink, he or she would tell me that I suffer from at least a mild form of adult attention deficit disorder. It's not my fault... I'm just naturally curious about things and am easily distracted. SQUIRREL! See what I mean? :-)

The whole "jumping without a parachute"... Well. Yeah. About three months ago I was laid off from a job which I was really enjoying and getting paid very well to do. As a senior training manager for a large outsourcing company, I had a team of 8 other managers across the United States and Canada, and had JUST started the transition process to take over our Costa Rica training operations as well. In fact, the flexibility I enjoyed was (I thought) going to give us the ability to move back to my hometown of Roswell, NM to be closer to my parents and raise the boys (James, who's two and a half and Brodie who is 16 months) in the same small town I grew up in. Well, that was not to be, as I got the call on January 25th of this year (2010) that mine was one of a few thousand jobs being eliminated.

So, the last three months have been a struggle between job hunting, finding even a little motivation to keep working on my PhD, and struggling with the ludicrous notion of starting my own photography business.

You see, this has been my dream for about 25 years. I took up photography in college, worked for a few newspapers, did some assignment work for the Associated Press, got published in a few magazines. But, I was never really more than a serious amateur, even though I got paid for my work on occasion. In 1990 I left the journalism profession, mostly for good, and went on the road with the performing group Up with People. I stayed on for about 4 years, and found myself in Denver, CO in 1994. Getting back into journalism, and especially photography, was always in the back of my mind, but I either couldn't find the job, or as they say, life happened, and it just wasn't in the cards. But, the whole time I have had my camera by my side and have sought to document my life with photos.

Back to April 22, 2010... So, after not really getting any real job leads, my mind (as it is prone to do) started to daydream -- a little at first, and then a lot, and then it became my drive (my wife would say completely unhealthy obsession) to cash it all in and give it a shot. I cashed in a pretty good chunk of my IRA, my parents have kicked in a little change, and I put in my equipment order at B&H Photo out of New York, signed a lease on a studio space, got a tax ID, business license and merchant account, and am still working on all of the little details before moving in on May 1st. I expect to take about two weeks or so to get my sets built, sign made, and collect a few interesting props from Craigslist, garage sales and Hobby Lobby, break in the new lights and equipment, and get my "shingle" hung.

Steph has reluctantly agreed (given in) to allowing me to take a shot at making this happen. And for this I am eternally grateful. She is understandably nervous about how we're going to afford for me to not have a stable income going forward. Add to that the fact that she is REALLY, REALLY ready for a change in careers, and one can only imagine that taking this step has not been a cut and dried process for us. This is all I have ever really wanted to do for nearly all of my life. I was just always either not really in the position to do it, or was too scared to take the leap, or any other number of excuses I could come up with for not following my passion.

Thank you Stephanie for not completely digging in your heels (or at least not divorcing me) and letting me do this, as nervous and reluctant as you are. I promise you won't regret it!

Giddyup!

J Kevin