I missed the Oscars...and I feel fine

Last night the Oscars were on TV. For the first time in a long time, though, I missed them. You know what, I'm OK with that. I'm more than OK...I'm just fine and, dare I say, better off not having watched the Oscars.

There was a time not too long ago where my lovely bride and I were avid movie buffs and Oscar watchers. We would see a movie a week, sometimes two. But, life and mortgages and kids and other expensive expenses have this uncanny way of helping you prioritize how you spend your money. In looking at our paycheck and the myriad ways in which we could deplete said paycheck, other crap won hands down. Well, that and the fact that movies have basically sucked for the past 10 years or so.

I can't really point to one definite time, but, for some reason, about 10 years ago, the films nominated and winning for best picture all of a sudden became so much more independent and controversial and developed a keen ability to just...suck.

That is just one reason why my life just might be a better place without watching all of the Hollywood self, ummm, gratification and back-patting that was last night. I have to admit that Oscar has pissed me off a bit the past two years. Precisely why the h-e-double hockey sticks do we have 10 friggin' movies nominated for best picture? Why?!?!

Even in my heyday of movie watching and Oscar rah-rahing, I could hardly ever think of five movies that were worth a best picture award. Now, the self-lovers in Hollywood have decided to nominate 10 of them. This is getting ridiculous. This is why one of the films nominated this year was also nominated for best animated picture...there just aren't enough "good" movies released every year.

Of course, as with everything I blog about, I'm completely willing to be absolutely wrong...so please don't tell me how wrong I am on this. But, my life has gone on without the Oscars. I hardly missed it and I really don't think I missed much, based on the lack of buzz surrounding the show this year.

Perhaps one day, I'll get back to being an avid movie-goer, but Hollywood needs to start throwing us some bones here. Or just stop being so annoying that we go back to caring again.

059/365...Eye

Sometimes you get to a point when all you can say is, "Screw it...I'll just do this." With that, you get this.

058/365...Salt and pepper

Still going through a rough patch creatively, so I grabbed our Lego salt and pepper shakers and went to it.

057/365...Harmonium

One of my favorite folk instruments. Such a cool, lo-fi sound. Perfect in  the right song and moment.

056/365...Oops

Totally whiffed on the pic today, so you get a picture of the clock sometime after the stroke of midnight. At least the thought was there, right?

055/365...1965 and my parents were awesome

You miss this perspective when you're 13. At 39, looking through old photo albums, I realized my mom and dad were the bomb in 1965. I mean, check them out!

054/365...Van briggle

Had a tough time coming up with a good subject today. This turned out OK, but this was after I had searched for about a thousand things to photograph.

Creative stretching

My lovely wife has taken on some pretty creative challenges over the last few years. She started hand-making greeting cards, joined/formed a band with her brother, and taken up photography as a hobby. At the same time, she has continued to be a stellar mom and wife as well as clean, cook, laugh at my jokes and basically been the the glue keeping our life little slice of heaven together.

This year, however, she has really begun stretching herself creatively. She started blogging as well as organizing a Flickr group/challenge. For the first month of the year, I sat idly by, letting her and her circle of friends snap away and was content to be a spectator as everyone snapped and processed and uploaded. But, in February, I just couldn't stand it any longer. So, I gave in and joined the group/photo-a-day challenge.

Not to be completely overwhelmed and overtaken by my wife's creative streak, I added my own wrinkle—I would only use my iPhone for picture taking to post-processing to uploading (take that, girly-girl).

What to say? Well...so far, so good. I'm not a photographer. I'm more musical in my creativity. But, I'm learning a lot about myself and my eye and...well, that I might be able to actually pull this off without looking like a monkey.

So, with that in mind, I submit to you a few couple of my faves (so far). Just...be gentle. I'm still new and quite fragile. Who knows? Maybe, one day, I'll be almost as creative as this chick.

053/365...Contribution

My wife and brother-in-law are in a band and as they were practicing tonight, I helped them with this bit. So, this is my lone contribution to the song they were writing.

052/365...View

This is a view from the ferris wheel at the Florida State Fair. Took a family trip there and after I got this shot, I started messing with the miniaturize features.

051/365...Wii

No ideas what to photograph, so I went with the Wii.

050/365...Boys

I have to admit that this is one of my favorites (so far). I was just goofing off and decided to get on a stool and take this picture and couldn't be happier with the result. Plus, they are two of my very favorite subjects.

049/365...VW Van...of course

My wife and I went to dinner and saw this on the back window of, you guessed it, a VW Van.

048/365...Angry

Legos are everywhere in our house. I saw this one and figured he would make for a fine, albeit, angry photo of the day.

047/365...Birds

The bride is a collector of little birds (at least in the kitchen). This is just a couple of them hanging out on a window sill.

Love, old enough to drink

Yesterday was a special day. Valentine's Day? That's part of it, but not all of it. Twenty-one years ago, yesterday, I took a pretty big step. A HUGE step. As it turns out, the very best step I've ever dared take. I bought a card. Not just any card, but a Valentine's Day card. And then I wrote it in. Not just random words, but the words. And then I gave it to a girl. Not just any girl, but THE ONE kind of girl.

So, twenty-one years ago means that the adventure I began with my bride is now officially old enough to drink. Not that it needs to or wants to, just that it can if it needs or wants to. It also means that we have more history with each other than many people have even been alive. Wow...that's a staggering thought, right there.

What I love about us is that we have our thing down pretty well. We know each other and us and our own unique code pretty well. Sometimes more than we know ourselves. I know when she's asleep and when she's having a hard time going to sleep. I know when she's super happy and not-so-super happy. I know when it's me and when it's not me (and I'm not just talking about the bad stuff here). I know how to make her laugh and I know how to make her cry. When I'm freaking out, she's calm and sometimes, those tables turn. I know that no one gets Columbia House or "biology" or "2" like we do. I love that we pray, laugh, read and talk in bed, sometimes almost simultaneously.

Most of all, I love that we can expect the expected and the unexpected all at the same time...and all of it still excites me after these twenty-one years of love, life, laughter, kids, broken cars and all the rest. I love—us. The us we were, the us we are and, most definitely, the us we will become.

Twenty-one years is a long time and but a grain in the hourglass of our lives. And I couldn't be happier about any step, card or words before or since.

046/365...A minor

My first foray into B&W photos with a color splash app on my iPhone. Only the notes making up the A minor chord on the piano are colored. See what I did there?

045/365...Tone

Again...not a guitarist, yet somehow I own two.

044/365...Waiting

Hanging out at the train station in downtown Tampa waiting to pick up a friend. My 11-year old was quite bored, but passed the time on my wife's iPhone after numerous scavenger hunts, rounds of I spy, browsing through tourist pamphlets and any other lame time filler we tried to invent.

043/365...A marble and a bottle cap?

Our first geocaching excursion produced this "treasure" to which my 11-year old quite bitterly quipped, "A marble and a bottle cap? Who would want that?"

042/365...Metronome

This is the drummer in my brother-in-law and wife's band. He's a machine.

041/365...Time and shadow

This clock was hand made by my father-in-law and is super cool. Each of the balls are painted different colors and it really sets the family room off.

040/365...Hug and kisses

This is a picture I can get behind...a Hershey's hug surrounded by Hershey's kisses. The real benefit, though, was "disassembling" the scene.

039/365...Tile

I thought this would make for a great pic. Eh...I was wrong. The colors came out all wrong. The yellow is actually a funky green color that I love.

038/365...Your wish is my...

More B&W/noisy/up-close/vignette-ish fun. I promise I'll try to stop soon.

037/365...G string, busted

First off, I'm not a guitarist. However, I lend out my guitar when needed at the church where I am the worship leader. This past Sunday, the G string gave out in the middle of our set.

036/365...Ansel's handles

Experimenting with B&W photos and adding some noise. Also playing with perspective and shadows.

035/365...German "technology"

I've started geeking out on tilt-shift (miniaturize) features as well as vignettes and depth of field. All of those combined to give me this:

034/365...My salvation today...sigh

This was taken during my first visit of a month-long litany of chiropractic visits to get my back straightened out (major ouch-ness).

033/365...Slim through a bottle

Started experimenting with photographic objects through a glass. This one is a Slim Fast can through a glass water bottle. Plus some grungy effects.

032/365...Pig, emptied

OK...so this was the first photo in my participation in the 365 in 2011 photo challenge.