Move Day Bliss and Horror

So we are officially moved. All that is remaining is cleaning our old apartment, a simple task as we are not horders and while have the usual clutter, we are clean people, and turning in keys and we are officially done with apartment living. We are so excited. Our heart felt thanks go out to all of the wonderful people that helped us move from the apartment to the new house. These people are, in order of their arrival that day; Joel, Michael, Leah and her two nieces. Without all of your efforts and support our day would have been sooooo much longer and much less blessed. Thank you each and every one of you. You are angels placed on this Earth and Kim and I vow that if any of you need anything and we are capable of helping, we will be there.

We officially started loading the Uhaul truck saturday afternoon, our plan was to move an initial, small load over and setup our bed and spend our first night in our new home. It was a simple and dreamy plan. Just before we picked the truck up we were blessed with the most brillant double rainbow, this was a sign of things to come in our minds. 

 

See every time we have moved, which has been 3 times, 4 including this move, it has rained. Each and every time we have moved it has made our lives better. When we moved to Wilsonville it was fresh start in our new relationship. I had just landed a new position in Beaverton and we were preparing to get married. Life was great. When we moved back to Albany eight months later it was for survivial and to be closer to family and friends. We got to see my daughters more frequently and I landed a dream job at Kettle Foods, a position that literally fell into my lap which wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the move. When we moved to Salem it was to improve our mental health and to be closer to both of our jobs, which it did in a big way. As a result I found all of my new friends and we prospered. This last move was an opportunity of a lifetime for us. A beautiful house in a gorgeous and safe neighborhood. We were both finally able to move into a house. Awesomeness!

Now before I get into the rest of of this post I want everyone to know that our new landlord is a wonderful woman with a wonderful family and a huge heart made of gold. She has a beautiful soul and is doing everything possible to help us improve this situation. This does not reflect on her at all... this is 100% reflective on the previous tenants. 

We were supposed to be able to take over the home at 6:00PM (ish). But weren't able to make our initial run until midnigh because the previous tenants were not done moving out yet. When we arrived they were still packing some stuff and there was trash every where. They left at about 1:30AM, leaving behind a ton of stuff. They told us they would be back at 7:00AM to finish moving everything out and cleaning before we returned with a full truck and our wonderful moving crew. We off loaded the first items that night, set the bed on the floor of the bedroom, made the bed and went to sleep. It was 2:30AM. This is what we woke up to the next morning at 7:00AM in the den:

The above image was the den that morning when we woke up. We called the previosu tenants and they let us know that they would be out by 1:00PM, our estimated arrival time. We ate some breakfast at Shari's, fuel for the coming day, and then headed over to the apartment, finished packing the last few boxes of stuff and began loading Uhaul. We recieved a few texts and calls from people backing out of helping us move. Kim started to panick and I started to get a little overwhelmed knowing what we were facing at the house and knowing how much we had to load and unload again. We continued loading, starting in the storage unit. Joel showed up right on time. My wife was almost brought to tears by his arrival, tears of relief and joy. Michael showed up soon after. Kim and I found renewed energy knowing that it was going to be possible. Leah and her nieces showed up a little after noon and the next thing we know, the truck is loaded. These people we rock stars. 

We arrive at the house and found that they kept their word, sort of. They were gone, but a large portion of their stuff remained, including their trash, mostly trash and they left the garage door open. We moved all of their stuff to one side of the garage with the expectation that they would return for it, and begain unloading. Pizza arrived about halfway through unloading and we took a break to eat. A half hour later we were back at it, and it wasn't long and the truck was unloaded and all boxes were placed in thier labeled room. To top it off, nothing was broken. Not a single piece of glass, electronics or furniture. I am here to tell you... we had the very best help possible and we cannot thank them enough.

So after everyone left, we got to organizing a few things and then collapsed for the night.

The next morning, we got busy cleaning. Crayon drawings all over the walls, bathrooms uncleaned, a kitchen in complete disarray, damage throughout the place and absolutely filth everywhere. Kim started in the Kitchen and I started in our bedroom. My goal was to get all of clothes unpacked and to create a little oasis in the mess. Our friend Krista showed up to help clean for a few hours. She is a cleaning rockstar. Thank you Krista. Kim got some of the worst of it though in the kitchen. Oh and we had the power shut off on us. Our fault, for not placing the call sooner.

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Yes those are real images from the mess that was the kitchen. The entire Kitchen looked like that. Kim rocked it though and today she finished this kitchen and we got all of the kitchen boxes unpacked and put away. Now just to let you know, Kim worked on the kitchen for over 16 hours, just cleaning it. That is 16 hours of hard labor getting all of that crap off. Pictures that you don't see from the kitchen is of the refrigerator which was equally gross. Absoultely disgusting.

Today started with another wonderful person coming over to help us. The landlord's brother came over to help organize the trash in preparation to get it hauled off. He was here for nearly two hours, hauling garbage from the back and side yards, from the garage and from under the crawl space in which there was 50+ boxes that had spent the entire winter decomposing in standing water. Oh the smell. I helped him all the time and he was a freight train in clearing the trash. In the end, this image is all of the trash from around the house and in the garage. 

Afterwards we went to take him home and poof... car doesn't want to start. So off to the mechanic I go, see my previous post. 

After coming home, I sit my wife down and talk to her about my current state. I am exhausted, spent, and my pain levels are at max level. Yup all of the stress and work caused me to go into full blown flair. For those of you that don't know, I suffer from Fibromyalgia. I won't go into it here, but you can goolge it to understand what it is. I let her know that I want to completely unpack the kitchen and together we rocked it. I got this text message from the previous tenant at 9:03 tonight in response to my text to him asking if they were going to come back for the remainder of their stuff:

Basically since we paid a deposit that is to be used to prep and clean the house she [our landlord] should have allowed time for that work to be done before the new tenants moved in. If she wants to give us our deposit back, I can take care of it tomorrow, but if not I can recommend a cheap haul-off business to take that crap off to the dump. sorry man but be need to get our apartment safe for the kids. the $300 deposit we paid her should be used to clean up she should have enough to haul the leftovers for the entire house and have enough left to put some finishing touches on the house... sorry man but we paid the deposit for a reason. 

It's funny that he thinks he can get away with that. I know for a fact that the apartments he moved into, apartments my wife used to be a leasing agent for, will run their butts into court in a heartbeat. By law, any damage, cleaning and removal of garbage that exceeds the deposit can be, and in this case should be, billed directly to them (the previous tenants). This include busted door knobs, pealing plaster, permanent marker on the side of the building and crayon markings over all surfaces, not to mention the destroyed carpet. They moved a three bedroom 1600 sq' house loaded to the hilt with crap into a 1000 sq'  apartment. The trash pile you see in the image above is only 1/5th of the total stuff they had in the house, and no, they didn't get a storage unit (the wife told me that the night they were here after midnight).

In the end, we finished the kitchen together, no arguing or bitterness and we finished it today. We worked as a team and we kicked ass. This is what makes me and my wife such a perfect couple. We know our limitations and what we need from each other. I knew she had to have kitchen unpacked today, for her own well being. She knew I could not do any more than that. So that is what we did.  

As a reward, we spent 20 minutes in the hot tub which helped with the flair a little. I start my new day job tomorrow, and still need to finish unpacking the house, but we are making progress. Our landlord is making arrangements to get the garbage hauled off, and is hiring a cleaning service to help us finish the cleaning and a guy to clean the carpets. We love her so much for understanding and doing everything in her power to help us get things in order.

It has been a rough four days to say the least. But the help, love and support of everyone who stepped up to has been a huge blessing and made the ugliness of this move managable. Things are looking up all over. That rainbow promise is being fulfilled. Thanks again everyone.

 

Another Day in the Garage

Yup... more car problems, same problem, different source. At least this trip only cost me $80. It's amazing how much joy hearing your car start can bring. Of course I had to get my money's worth. Yup that's right it's another edition of Photos from the Garage. 

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In addition to this collection of photographs, I have new project idea to work on, and the project idea in and of itself is reward enough. Coming soon... a blog post detailing our recent move. :) Until then enjoy the photos above.

Be that something interesting

If you were given a camera would you know how to create with it? Could you be Adams or Leibovitz? What about a guitar; could you be Vaughn or Clapton? What about a pencil; could you be Da Vinci or Dali? What about a stone block; could you be Houser, Remington or DuBuffet? The answer is probably not. Why not? The answer to that is complicated, yet very simple. Let’s go for the complex answer first.

First, let’s ask “Why would you want to be like or create like someone else?” If every woman in the world looked like Jodie Foster or Milla Jovovich how boring would the world be. What if everybody could own a red Porsche; how boring would traffic on the road be? What if every photograph looked like Adams or Arias; would we have the unique works of Leibovitz’s John Lennon and Yoko Ono or Capa’s Omaha Beach? If Eddie Adams shot like or even shot the same subjects as Arias, would we have been exposed to “Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief”? Most definitely not; I am sure.

If you’re not getting my point yet, let me put in terms of food, one of my favorite subject to work with and consume. What if all ice cream was chocolate? What if all cheeseburgers came without bacon (oh the humanity)? What if all vegetables tasted like cauliflower? Our dining life would be pretty plain; a little vanilla and lacking a certain zest and spice. It is the variety in our life that makes things interesting and keeps us coming back for more.

Art is the exact same thing. We do what we do and how we do it because of our need of variety. Stop trying to be someone you aren’t; someone you will never be. At least this is part of the reason.

While you can mimic your favorite artists’ styles, your own style should shine through otherwise there is nothing of you in your art. One of the worst comments I could ever receive is, “This image reminds me of Dorethea Lange” or “This short story reminds me of Stephen King”. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way comparing myself to those two fantastic artists; my ego is completely in check. What I am saying is that my greatest fear is that I might be told that my work resembles them more than me. If that were to happen, then I would write myself off as a failure and walk away from that piece forever. I don’t want to mimic their work, even if I could.

Here’s a little secret about me. I am still an old school paper-bound-book buyer. In the age of digital, holding a smart phone or a digital book reader feels all too sterile for me. The smell of the ink burned into the pages and the tactile feel of the coarse paper should be part of the experience of reading the book. There you go…. a previously little known secret about me. One more is that I find it completely disrespectful to dog-ear the pages; nope not even magazines.

Oops. That was a tangent. There was purpose of talking about books. Before I buy a book, I read the reviews on the back and inside covers. I have a great deal of respect when other authors comment about how great the book of this particular author is or how it may have moved or inspired them. But a review that compares the book to another more popular book or one author to a more successful author, I put the book down and will never buy, read it or think about it again. If I want to read Stephen King, I will buy Stephen King. If I want to read Erma Bombeck I will buy Erma Bombeck.

I hold other art forms in the same regards. Movies, music, drawings, painting, sculpting, photography and poetry all have to be original and compelling. If I want to listen to Johnny Cash I am not going to buy vinyl from an artist that sounds like Johnny Cash. I will simply buy Johnny Cash. There is only one band that sounds like Metallica. There is only one voice like Fiona Apple. There is only one Mozart, one Etta James, one MC5. This is probably why I don’t watch, follow or even care about sports. I know that this drives many of my friends, particularly of the male persuasion, absolutely nuts. Sports are repetition. Sport is a huge bore for me because of the repetition. In golf, there is the tee off, the drive, the green. Rinse and repeat. In football there is the kick off, the drive, the touchdown or turnover. Rinse and repeat. Nascar, there is the start, the laps mixed in with an accident or two, then the finish. Rinse and repeat.

In the end, there is only one you. There may others that are like you, but you are unique. Make your voice/vision be heard and seen. Be original because that is what moves people and this is what should come naturally to you. Be yourself in your art simply because you are unique.

And the final reason I have that you can’t be like anyone else; you did not have the pleasure, or displeasure, of walking in their shoes. You had your own shoes and you walked your own miles in this life and therefore have had different experiences influence your development. I could get all scientific and say that when you experienced a certain pain or joy in your life, you experienced it differently at age nine than you would have at age 12 due to different active regions of brain and different tools for managing processing and reaction. But that is boring. So let me bring something a little more meaningful into this explanation, at least from my point of view.

There are two men in a fox hole.  Both are armed with the same military issued rifles and armors. Both are equipped with the same military training. Both are equipped with same strategic plan, to hold the hill. Why is it when the action reaches their doorstep they react differently? After an artillery round lands ten feet away one of the men may panic and flee or simply take cover and begin prayer while the other charges or begin screaming at the top of his lungs while firing wildly in hopes of getting lucky. Why don’t they react the same? It is because they are not the same. Their history has shaped who they are.  

Much in the same way, you are not Ansel Adams. He is a different person that you. He saw the world through a completely different set of synaptic responses than you did. In many cases he had many different experiences than you did. So even if you were standing by his side with your camera in hand snapping a shot of Half Dome, your images would have been completely different, even straight out of camera.

To be honest, I have seen much better photographs of Half Dome than Adams ever produced. But if those individuals had tried to be like Adams, their work would have never caught my attention. Their work would have simply been vanilla. Adams set the bar, I will not argue that. But our goal should never be to reach the bar; our goal needs to be to surpass it. Each and every one of us are capable of surpassing  that bar regardless of how high we feel it might be.

I don’t care if someone likes or dislikes my work. I care if they experience it. If my work looks like everything else they have seen, then they will bypass it. They will move on to something else, something new. Something interesting. So why not be that something interesting. Be you.