An Aural History

Brooke made it through the ordeal today, and while it was hell for her to go through, she feels better now. The pressure is gone and hopefully she will be able to sleep through tonight.

As a sad reminder of today, her poor little Bookie ears are bleeding from the procedure :(

At Work, And Play

Numb Nuptials

Shot a wedding, very badly, on Saturday. We got a late start and misjudged where the place was. And half of I-94 expressway is completely torn up. Looked like post-war Dresden without the corpses. It was painful. I also noted at one point that the message center on my dash told me we had "0" miles to empty. The fact that we were only 20 minutes late is a testament to my Formula-1 driving style once we got out in the open.

As a result of this early stumbling, the entire wedding ceremony had to wait for us. As you can imagine, they were not happy. Probably Uncle Albert, in from out of town and sporting a rented suit was hitting on the bridesmaids, or some similar thing. When we walked in, things got really quiet.

It was very hot and humid, like Thailand. And we did numerous shots outdoors so it was pretty uncomfortable. I took extra pictures to make up for the late start.

Things went a bit downhill later, as my camera somehow became switched into "Shutter Priority" mode magically after a brief visit into Dennis' hands (not blaming you, per say, Dennis) and the last half of my shots are ruined. Not sure, but I think insufficient coverage of the biggest day of a couple's lives is even worse than being late.

Ok, recovery time. The pictures I have from "Program Mode" are very good. Yes, yes. So, just perhaps they will forget that we took pictures by that big shady tree in the park. Or the poses on the swing sets. Or the shots over by the big gazebo. Yes, maybe they will not remember those, or think to ask why they are not included in the proofs.

Maybe.

Anti-Social

The video arcade is dying. Arcades are going out of business all over the country. Another one of my childhood institutions goes the way of the big-block Trans-Am.

I can remember skipping out of high school at lunch to walk to the Space Station Arcade to play Donkey Kong and Stargate, Centipede and Galaga. The place was alive with energy (and, consequently, sweat), light, and early electronic sounds. And lots of people. I met friends there. I laughed and talked about cars and girls. I actually took a date to an arcade once. And she had fun!

Video game playing was a community event back then (did you ever think you'd get so old that you'd have to say "back then"?), and you always had an audience. There was no sitting in your underwear on the couch in the dark. This was a social activity.

Just as we stay home to watch movies and concerts on our big screen TV's at home (complete with popcorn and clean floors) we now have one more excuse to be alone.

I feel like the generation before me must have felt when they started losing drive-in theaters.

Breaking Backs With Bricks

One more to-do box checked...I rebuilt the tree circle this weekend. It was sinking in one section in a sort of bricky scoliosis.

Zach can be seen here by the half-finished work, posing for scale.