A TALE OF TWO POSTS In the past few months, I have added two posts of note to my webpage. The first deals with reflections on my personal past, my professional present, and…. the future? The second deals with the last days of my friend, Chris Prewitt, and his sudden and tragic death. Not many … Read more
After a good friend was suddenly and unexpectedly run over by an “impaired” driver last April, we were challenged to perform the “ice challenge” or donate $100 to the Chris Prewitt Foundation.
These two videos are the result. I enjoyed making them, and I was happy to get some good video of my daughters.
I am always wanting to get more photos and videos of family, and I never seem to get/make the time to do it.
Sigh.
But I got these two videos… enjoy!
August 16, 2014 Dear Elizabeth, Well, it is the middle of August 2014 and this summer has just about ended. Your mother and I put you in gymnastics camp for one week in June, but you complained you would rather stay home with us – and from what I could see at camp, you pretty … Read more
A co-worker prepares to become a parent.“Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.” Lord Rochester April 14, 2012 Dear E-, Today is your last day of work before you go out on maternity leave, and I would say a few words to … Read more
April 14, 2012 Dear Julia, Happy birthday, my love! Today you turn five years of age. How well I remember the fear and excitement I felt around dawn of the day of your birth as your mother prepared for the final stage of delivery – the “calm before the storm.” That morning of April 14, … Read more
February 25, 2012 Dear Elizabeth Anne, Hello, my love! Today I sit down a week late to write you a letter on your birthday. You just turned two years of age, and I want you to know how much you are already such an integral part of our family. We are the following: Mommy, Daddy, … Read more
“Once Every Three Years…”Tedious and exhausting grunt work, not the less important for being so. An operating system will degrade over a few years, and there exists the unpleasant but necessary duty every three years or so of getting a clean start: the upgrade to the computer system. And so after almost a week of … Read more
A VERY “HUMAN” STORY, SET AMIDST GREAT INHUMANITY “…this life-giving, tenacious connection between parent and child.” I found myself, on a rare morning with not much planned, reading that the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” opened today. A big fan of the novel, I attended the first possible showing today at 10:10 a.m. … Read more
A BLISSFUL AFTERNOON: A PHOTO ESSAY“Oh, how I love to escape to the Malibu canyons for a bike ride!.” In the late morning of November 15, 2009 I drove to the Malibu canyons to ride along the Santa Monica Mountains. It has been a long time since I had been here. Before marriage and larger … Read more
DOING MY CIVIC DUTYAfter voting on November 3, 2009 local election… I wrote the following letter to the editor for our local newspaper but was persuaded not to send it. It was considered impolitic. Alas, I resort to posting it here: I would say a few words about the candidacy of Monique Dollone for the … Read more
ELIZABETH ANNE GEIB 18 weeks, One Day My Dearest Elizabeth Anne, Elizabeth! Finally, I can call you by name! My second daughter, Elizabeth Anne Geib. It is now some two months since we were informed that we were to have another girl. As the doctor told me this I felt a bit dazed, immediately having … Read more
HELLO! 11 weeks, Five Days Oh, second child of mine! Three weeks until your mother and I can discover your sex. You are now some three months old, and I for one am impatient to meet and start to get to know you. Your mother has had a different pregnancy than that of your older … Read more
JOY! Flowers for My Family On the “Big Day” Dear Second-Born Child, Hello! Welcome to the world! We have not yet met, and, indeed, as I write this you are gestating in your mother’s womb: a quick online search describes you as the “size of a sesame seed” and “resembling more a tadpole than a … Read more
THE MUSIC INDUSTRYThe American popular music business is not what it once was When digital technology in the form of CD ripping and file sharing ravaged the music industry, I did not mourn. I would see all my high school students take their music collection out of their backpacks and all the CDs were copied, … Read more
A DYING CHILDCheryl and Michael Haggard cradle their son, Maddux, before he died at six days old in 2005. I read an article in the newspaper this morning about “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”, an organization that helps parents to grieve the deaths of their infants by taking high-quality photographs of them. The … Read more
Are the Star Wars films overrated? Do they age well? Movies for teenage boys? The first Star Wars films were iconic, meaningful presences in my childhood. The sage of the Skywalker family, the Empire, the Rebellion, and the Jedi captivated my pre-teen imagination. Star Wars, the first of these films, opened in theaters in 1977. … Read more
“You can never know. Not for sure – one gropes in the darkness and does the best one can – this incredibly humbling job of “parent.” It grieves me to my core to hear my daughter cry. I look at her tears and hear her plaintive sobs as she struggles to catch her breath amidst … Read more
It has been a long winter. The first week of this year 2008 I gnashed my teeth at trying to take care of a child with pneumonia at the same time as write no less than 20 college letters of recommendation. What an ugly blur of a week that was! I felt I had to … Read more
DEMOCRACY IN ACTIONGovernment rebates coming to citizens soon. I read with interest and curiosity this morning that the federal government intends to cut my wife, myself, and daughter a $1,500 check as a means to boost consumer spending, stimulate the economy, and ward off a looming recession. While any unexpected monies are welcome, I think … Read more
A SICK CHILD Bags under her eyes as Julia recuperates from pneumonia. There I was, the living stereotype: the worried parent hovering over his sick child and looking down with concern and fear. All day long Julia had not been her usual self. Her cheeks were flushed. She did not giggle or play with her … Read more
NEW ERA OF HIGH-DEFINITION VISUAL MEDIAMaria browses the Internet on our new HDTV. My Internet service provider, Time Warner, has always probably held that I was a strange customer. When I first called them up to order service, they were incredulous that I wanted only Internet service and no cable access for television. They had … Read more
2008: A FRESH START“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”Andy Warhol My New Year’s Resolution’s have traditionally seen spectacular successes that made the whole exercise worth it – and a few utter failures which are recidivist in nature. In focusing on the failure, I wonder at why I … Read more
ASSASSINATION SERVES THE CAUSE OF DISCORD“Someone shot Bhutto in the neck and chest, initial news reports claimed, and then the assassin blew himself up.” DECEMBER 27, 2007 at 6:47 a.m. An unquiet mind drove me from my bed this morning. An acute personal disappointment of the previous day, and then brooding and anger over the … Read more
NEONATAL FACEBOOK PAGE: A FULLY DIGITAL LITTLE GIRL“Born in March of 2007, my daughter Julia will lead a 21st century life.” CHANGE VS. CONTINUITY: A FATHER AND HIS DAUGHTER The other day I read yet another cover article about the “threat to privacy” we Americans supposedly suffer. In 2007 we enjoy over a decade of … Read more
Of Bees and Men: A Tragic Collision OUCH! If a person bicycles enough, they accumulate stories. Most of the time I bike through the desert canyons and citrus fields of Ventura County without incident. It is just me and the occasional car passing by on a rural highway. My legs work, my lungs burn, and … Read more
Mother with child on vacation in Pacific Grove, California. “CHILD-CENTERED”? The social changes stemming from women entering the workforce in large numbers towards the end of the 20th century and the rise in the cost of living find more American families nowadays juggling the world of family and the needs of family. American women, in … Read more
“It was as if the light falling to earth was put through an orange-colored filter, and the sun was a raging red orb.” AN UNUSUAL SUNDAY AFTERNOON Upon awakening this morning we felt and heard the vicious winds whipped up against the side of our house, as well as the trees bending and straining against … Read more
VLADIMIR PUTIN“Russia needs a strong state power and must have it. But I am not calling for totalitarianism.” What exactly is he calling for then? “A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS, AND NOT OF MEN” The past few years have seen the rise of a handful of authoritarian leaders around the world who have taken great strides … Read more
ARTISTIC MASTERY“Hewitt is one of these world-class musicians whose live performances of even the most technically difficult music do not contain any mistakes of note, yet still I was a bit dislocated at hearing such a different interpretation of this music.” So I saw Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt at the Orange County Performing Arts Center … Read more
3:45 IN THE MORNING“…something tells me I shall miss these late evenings with daughter Julia.” Maybe it was the psychological trauma of baby Julia’s second day in a new day-care center. New faces, new noises, new smells – a new place surrounded by other babies and toddlers — it was a lot to take in … Read more