Archive for July, 2010

When I was a kid, I don’t remember my dad having any hobbies – only passions. He was an engineer with 3 degrees, including two in music theory. If he’d have taken up coin collecting, he wouldn’t have started by casually sorting through the change in his pocket for the oldest ones. He would have bought four books on coin collecting and as many instructional videos as he could find, followed by booking us tours at the closest 3 mints. Accumulate as much knowledge as you can about something, and the rest will come through practice.

I remember him getting into lamp making, kite and model building, cross-country skiing, and hunting. At a young age I sat with him and watched numerous videos on hunting, gutting, tanning, and trapping all manner of game. Our house became peppered with bird calls, small vials of animal urine, various tools covered in camouflage patterns, knife sets, and a small arsenal of firearms. I have vague memories of a shotgun, a 30.06 hunting rifle, a semi-automatic rifle, and several handguns all showing up within a relatively short span of each other. Eventually he purchased a compound bow for elk hunting. read more…

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In college I was a big dreamer. I wanted to be a movie director, but short of that an editor. Originally I had planned after graduation to move to L.A. and just “make it happen.” Nobody could say that with a little bit of talent, a little bit of creativity, and some luck I might not find George Lucas knocking on the door one day. It all seemed very DO-able in college.

In school there is a natural structure for success. The tools are just laying around for you to pickup and there are dozens of people there to help you be successful. After all that is the privilege that you are paying for. In every classroom there is someone dying to give away validation and praise. The idea that life would be any different didn’t occur to me. Considering it now, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because dammit I had a PURPOSE. I had a dream. Whatever happened it would be the strength of that vision that would carry me through any hardship. read more…