TuttleTree.com

I'm back! I'm doing Project365 again, after a (… counting …) 16 week and 5 day erm, "Vacation." I guess I figure it's better to finish what I started late rather than leave it unfinished forever.

Part of the reason I abandoned the project was being overwhelmed as a new dad, but part of it was feeling uninspired, generic, boring, and bland. So what better way to start the project back up than to buy a pre-packaged me, made in China, wrapped in cellophane, for half the price of a domestic one? From the looks of it, this one might have a learning disability.

Today I started the process of moving my studio (backgrounds) into my home office, so hopefully having them stare me in the face every day will be a good reminder to think of something to shoot, or at least to just shoot a generic, boring, bland head shot. They don't all have to be brilliant… they just have to be.

Yesterday morning, a friend gave me what I think was some sage advice. We talked about how our lives have gotten so busy that we barely have time to talk to each other, let alone work on projects we want to do together. I mentioned that my first priority has been to spend post-commute early evening time with Megan and Dylan, and he casually responded that (and I'm paraphrasing here) those are the hours that you can't recover later.

The point being that we both — he is also an IT Nerd, and has a daughter starting to toddle around — need to strive to live in the moment and spend as much time as possible with our kids, because they will only be this young once. And the corrolary is that there will be plenty of time for writing code and blogging and doing various other nerdy things later. (So :P … I have an excuse for infrequent blogging!)

I feel like I'm not expressing this as profoundly as it echos in my gut. Am I? If not: I literally have a pit in my stomach right now. If it doesn't ring true for you, sit down and think about the profundity of the idea. Once you figure out the phrasing that rings true for you, you'll get that gut feeling. (… and leave a comment explaining in your more elegant phrasing, please!)

When I started to write this post, I was worried I might offend my dad. He's recently decided he needs to be more involved in our lives — mine, Justin's, and Jared's, particularly. He feels that he was too distant or detached — or something — when we were young. Maybe he was… how would I know? What I do know is that I have a good relationship with him now — I love him, in fact! And I enjoy spending time with him, so I relish the fact that he's going out of his way to spend more time with me now. Our relationship hasn't always been an episode of The Brady Bunch, but I feel like I became the man he wanted me to be because of (or as he sometimes says, in spite of) his methods.

As a father myself now, I know that my biggest hope is for my son to go on to do bigger, better things than I have done; to be a better, stronger man than me. I have no idea what that means! But regardless, it's how I feel. I suppose it could manifest in innumerable ways. Knowing this, I also know that I could give up any desire or goal at the bat of an eyelash if I thought it meant that he would have a fraction of a chance more of being better than his old man.

So I'm thinking to myself, "Would saying these things make my dad feel worse about my childhood?" Eventually I decided that the good outweighs the bad with this one; that for the most part I think it's just me realizing something I've felt for a long time (ok, so 4 months… but to be fair it can sometimes feel like a LONG time), and perhaps a small bit of learning from his mistakes. So, in that regard, I hope that instead of embarassing him, I've made him proud. The last thing any boy (or man!) wants to do is embarass their hero.

On Tuesday, the 24th, I got word that Josta — Justin's cat — had to be put to sleep. She had terminal cancer and after much study it was decided that this was the best option for her.

Josta was — if memory serves — a stray cat that my Dad found near his office shortly after we moved to Salisbury in the summer of 1996. I guess that would make her 13+ years old. After the vet gave her a clean bill of health, it was decided that we could, in fact, "keep her" and somehow she was designated as belonging to Justin.

From the day we took her in, Josta would eat anything and everything — and I do mean everything — you let her. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was a stray. (All I can think of is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman!) She had a reputation for eating so much cat food it made her vomit, and once she ate an entire bowl of congealed beef grease left on the kitchen counter in a cereal bowl to cool over night before it was to be thrown out (obviously, not something we purposefully fed her); and surprisingly did not vomit it back up.

She was named after the short lived soft drink — Justin's favorite soda — produced and distributed by Pepsi — Dad's new employer at the time. Try as I might, I can't think of a single mean spirited or unloving thing she ever did.

She will be sorely missed.