Dog days. Really?

Can't believe it's August already. So busy these days. We are making directors books for feature films. Fingers crossed. We are shooting Mojowski stuff. Getting past experiments and going into shoot stuff we will actually use. And making animation for the Ed Oven show. it's all good

Good? It's effing awesome. Doing some real cool stuff. Hopefully we can make some bucks too. But worst case we are having fun. So I can't complain.

Can't wait till September. Mel and I will take a week off and go to King's Canyon. It is a hidden treasure in CA. Basically it is a smaller version on Yosemite. Same geologic process. Same cake cut granite walls. Not 3 thousand feet tall but 2 instead. Looks just as impressive. And 90% less people. We will go up and camp for a week. Hike and fish and maybe we'll take bikes this time.

bike accident

my friend Claire was in a bike accident. She is lucky to be alive and lucky to be able to walk. Long story short, she and a friend went for a ride while we were shooting some video at the studio near downtown. She didn't see it but rode off a loading dock. Like when you don't know there is a hidden step. But this one was 5 feet down and she never knew it. The full force of it caught her in the lower jaw. The Doctor said she was lucky to be alive.

It is astounding how much damage was done, yet how worse it could have been. She broke her jaw in 3 places. The lower jaw punctured her upper palette. She broke her orbits and cheek bones. Broke her nose and had a 4 inch gash on her forehead. And she broke one of her vertebrae.

The last I saw of her that night was the ambulance driving off into the night. Then we walked the accident site with the police as we ...oh...looked for her teeth. There is some hope that busted teeth can be re-implanted. ( we didn't find any and it turns out she didn't lose but a few )

Anyway, she is a trooper. Which I have always known but she has proven it all the same. And she is making a remarkable recovery. It brings me to tears to think about it. My wife has been more than upset by the whole thing. After her accident she has a deep empathy for this in others.

When I did get to see Claire in the hospital the first thing she did was point at her head and give me the thumbs up. Her mouth is wired shut and she had a tracheotomy so she can't talk. But she wanted me to know she was fully in charge of her mind.

She has a long recovery but you can tell that she will overcome and be stronger. It is in her make-up.

Mojowski

still shot from our film project, Mojowski 77.

here Mojowski's car is pulling up to strip club. Shot it in a normal parking lot then added all the neon in post.

spring 2010

the spring 2010 media class. UCLA - Department of Film, Television and Digital Media. Professor ( lol ) William J. Barminski presiding.

the wife and her boyfriend

lol. He is from Germany and is 17 hands. How can I compete?

poppy fields

yes, poppies. California poppies. Whole hillsides of them.

Chris, Rose and I took the hour drive out to the Poppy Fields. You can see them miles away. Big swaths of orange on the distant hills. And as you get closer the orange light is everywhere. It is really amazing. Hill and dale full of flowers.

And the aroma is like a drug. More sage that anything else. All warmed by the sun and fragrant beyond belief.

Vivian

Vivian is gone. We got the call around 11 pm and drove for 2 hours . We walked into the ER and saw her. She was still breathing all hooked up to tubes and machines. But she was really already gone. A massive brain aneurism.

Somethings are like lightening strikes. A bolt out of the cold black night. They illuminate so much more than the trees. You see a quick flash of your own awe-struck eyes. Then all is dark again.

They took her, lovely sweet Vivian off the machines and put us in a private room with her. We stood the death vigil. Every breath you could hear and feel. After about 3 hours her breathing became shallow. And then it just stopped. It is a strange experience. One of those adult things. As much as I hated it, as much as I wanted to run away and hide, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else. A person deserves to have those who loved them be with them at the end. As much as it pains us to be there we own it to them.