Archive → January, 2009
What Vimeo has taught me
Vimeo.com is a video uploading website that has a great indie/arty community behind it. I love watching videos from there. They are inspiring.
Today, I was watching the video below and I realized, life is better through a nice lens, good music, and in HD. Enjoy.
Check out the HD version: My son from Gunnar Konradsson on Vimeo.
My Family
So I had to write a motivational statement for an Americorps application. The question was: Describe a moment that shaped your life. (or something like that)
Well, I find it hard to pinpoint just one experience in shaping me as the person I am today. Everyday things affect who I am and why I do what I do.
If I was to be completely honest I have to say my biggest influence is my family. Growing up, my family helped shape what kinds of people I wanted as friends, what activities I enjoy doing, and what is important to me. The biggest thing that I can say was instilled in me from my family is being myself. My mother always encourage us (3 boy and 2 girls) to be ourselves. She reminded us all that if we are true to ourselves than ultimately we aren’t living. This is the single biggest “life shaper” that I’ve had.
Through out the years I’ve determined that I am a person who loves to perform… anything. I love to shape people’s emotions. I like to surprise people, calm people, make people laugh, cry or just smile. I love to perform. It is just who I am. I realized that this love for performance stems from a deeper desire to better people’s lives.
This led me to start focusing on the state of our environment. I realized that people could live better if they treated each other better. One way of doing that is through our surroundings; having a healthy planet.
I know that being “green” is a cliche buzz word right now, but I realized during my first year of college, in 2003, that our culture has become too complacent with being a throw away society. I started to figure out ways that I could counter act the waste. Then I realized that I was so passionate about this because I had been taught as a child to be mindful of waste and consumption. My parents weren’t hippies or activists. We just didn’t have a lot of money, so throwing everything away wasn’t an option. Trying to reuse it was a necessity.
I was able to take my upbringing a step further. Now I look for ways to reuse everything. Not just for me, but for everyone around me. If I feel like I absolutely can’t use something and it has to be trashed, I donate it to a thrift store or place of need.
So, anyway, my family has been a huge influence on me… and it really wasn’t until a little while ago that I realized how huge.
The Deli
So if I remember correctly, it started when the building across the street started on fire. I was like, “oh crap, not another fire.”
I grabbed the fire pail next to the sink and started filling that sucker up. It wasn’t long after that the bird flew into the house. I was so distracted by it’s flapping that I completely forgot I was even holding a bucket half full of water. The splash echoed throughout the house. Even the bird seemed to stop flying for a moment to look at my drenched feet. At that point, there wasn’t anything I could do but laugh.
I sat in the water utterly defeated. I don’t even really know why. I probably should have got back on track, but that moment just tickled me to the core. Besides, it was too hot anyway. The water was so nice and refreshing. I mean with the building across the street lighting up the neighborhood, I needed all the laughs I could get.
Right about then that goofy bird sat down right next to me. I stared at it for a little while and then decided I could use some company in my bird bath. We had a good time right at that moment; sharing a chuckle and good cool down. Nothing mattered for a second.
Then the bird died.
I’ll miss you old friend.
Disney… come on.
So, I don’t really like watching bad movies. I usually judge most based on their trailer. I mean you can tell what kind of a movie most are going to be based on the preview. Thus Marley & Me looks exactly like what you would probably expect. A Hollywood romantic comedy with a feel good ending.
Gumball Rain
I have one exception though… kid’s movies. I love to watch kid’s movies and it doesn’t matter if they look like they are going to be bad. So, this is a long way of saying that I saw Bedtime Stories starring Adam Sandler. It looked like it’d be predictable, but fun movie… and indeed it was.
But I was shocked when the movie started ripping on being environmently conscious. First, the mother (divorced of course) made some sort of weird birthday cake out of what looked like lawn grass. The main character, Skeeter, brought over chocolate chip cookies and the kids went crazy. That’s fair. Gross food is gross and there is nothing evironmently bad about chocolate chip chookies. So I didn’t even think anything it.
Skeeter drives a huge truck with which he is forced to take up two parking spots. At first I thought they’d explain that he was just running late and accidently park in two parking spots. But I was wrong. He justified his terrible parking by saying that he didn’t want to scratch the company truck.
Then Skeeter rips on his future love interest for driving a prius. Once again I thought they’d explain it away as flirting. But he didn’t apologize and implide that priuses are for stuck up people. Okay maybe so.
Skeeter then proceeds to give the kids hamburgers which they never had before. fine. Then he lets them watch tv which they don’t have at home. okay.
So all relatively harmless things… but he does it in such a way that implies that they are missing out on great things because they don’t do these things normally. Through the way he acts, he basically is saying “it is lame to care about other people or the environment because then you will turn out up-tight like your mom and have no fun.” This is the main character we are talking about. The “good guy”. The “hero”.
Also, the mother as a child was a loner book worm who turns into a principal. The vibe I got was “If you read books, you’ll have no friends, never get to eat meat, and hate television”. Even thought the mother was nice, this was the subtle hint given by the story.
None of what I’m commenting on were the focus or moral of the story. They were just subtle things in the background. Things that developed the characters. I just felt like Disney was portraying people who care about things in a very negative light. In the past I feel like Disney has sided with nature and things of importants. But this was a harsh departure from those kind of awarenesses.
Anyway, I feel like an overprotective mother writing this. You really have to see the movie to know what I’m talking about. It isn’t that bad, but it stuck out to me.