I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because I'm realizing I am getting old and I'm wanting to reflect on my past. When I talk to my parents about the past and I want to know what grandma or grandpa looked like when they were young, all they had to do was pull out the trusty photo album and voila. Or what was that funny thing sis did when she was 3 years old? Bust out the VHS tape for the instant replay.

But now I'm storing all my memories digitally. All my photos for the past 6 years have been either taken with a digital camera or scanned from a photo and stored on a hard drive while I've lost track of the original print. 65% of the video I've shot are on miniDV tapes and the other part are stored on analog 8mm tapes which only have a shelf life between 10 and 20 years. Which I need to store digitally before the tapes go bad. But where am I storing them? All on a hard drive of course. Along with little text clips from my past, memorable emails, college papers, and other intangible bits that I want to keep around to reflect on.

And what if this hard drive fails? Or, just like that photo album, what if it, god forbid, gets consumed in a fiery death? What are my back up options? How will I be able to safeguard my invaluable intangible digital copies of my memories?

I was reading this very nerdy but needed blog post on storing data and I'm getting paranoid. No one thinks about this until its too late and all they can do is sit there and cry about how they've lost everything. Prevention is key, but with no clear solutions on how to protect myself from this event, what the hell can I do?

Even if I stockpile cheap hard drives to back up these precious bits and bytes, there's no guarantee they'll last. Even worse is that the amount of things I need to safeguard is growing exponentially with the evolution of megapixels and high-def video. Which means, while I might have say hypothetically 20 gigs or even 80 gigs of stuff that I don't want to part with, it'll probably grow in terms of resolution as well as volume with every passing day that I want to document my memories with newer technology. No one has a good answer, and well, even if they did, there's no way to trust it.

There's a guy I know. He's young, a decade younger than me, and he thinks he knows more than I do. He called me arrogant. Its funny, because he treats me like I'm completely naive. Like my experience has blinded me to what his idealism makes him see so clearly. Unfortunately idealism is just another prism itself. He remind me of myself when I was his age. I was so ignorant to believe that I didn't need any type of experience to enrich me. I knew all there was to the world and what could experience do but cloud things up. I was invincible. Man was I full of myself. And here is this guy, under the same notion I was under. And he thinks that I'm the fool now. I guess he'll live and learn. I just don't like it when he talks shit about me like he's better than me when he hasn't even lived yet. I mean, when I was in my twenties, he was still in elementary school learning about fractions.

I sound like a crotchety old man. Maybe with age, I've gained some humility to admit to myself that yes, maybe I am arrogant at times. Although I wasn't trying to be arrogant when I dealt with him. And if I was, I'd rather be called on it than be talked about behind my back.

On saturday we took a drive to visit Donny's, my childhood friend, grave site. He died today, the 18th. Its been seven years since the car accident. My life is so different now compared to who and what I was back then. I went to visit him because well, as much as it was to pay respect to him, it was also for me and my memories of him and myself growing up.

He used to live just down the street from me for most of my childhood in our little quaint suburban neighborhood. Reston was a much more sleepy planned community back in the 80s and 90s before the huge tech boom. In the mornings, starting from 6th grade til we stopped taking the bus in high school, he'd walk up the street, knock on my door, I'd stumble out of bed, throw some clothes on and run and catch up with him. If I ever wanted to hang out with him, I'd jump on my bike, coast out of my driveway, down the slope of our street that bended towards the left and I'd be in front of his house. When we got older, he'd drive by my house and always give two honks from his pickup to let us know he was passing by.

Now, he lives up the street from me. I get in the car, drive a block over to Georgia Ave. and drive north for a few miles and cross into Maryland, and drive til we hit the cemetary on the right hand side. Its weird to think that fate somehow put me relatively close to him after all these years. I'm the closest one living to him. His parents have moved to North Carolina, his sister is in the Virgin Islands.

We had grown apart towards the end of his life. We had a falling out during college that never healed all the way. We just became different people and had different lives. After college, we kept in touch and would get together every few weeks or when our schedules weren't too hectic. We were probably on track to becoming good friends again. Then the accident happened.

I had tried to go and visit him 2 years ago around this time and while we did find the cemetary ok, I couldn't for the life of me find his burial site. We roamed around for a good hour looking at every name on each grave site trying to find him. We couldn't even inquire at the front office since it was closed on account that it was sunday. It was a fruitless day, and I felt defeated that I was letting him down because I couldn't even find his burial site.

This time, we got there, and roamed for 10 minutes til I decided that I'd go to the front office since it was open. I didn't know what I'd feel like when we finally found the spot but when we did, I was just overcome with emotion. I guess I'm not good at dealing with grief and loss because I just started welling up. We just stood there for a good 5 or 10 minutes and just a flood of memories came coming back.

I remembered with great clarity the time around funeral. It was a testement to what kinda guy he was by the overflowing amount of people that showed up. I don't know if I'd be able to fill half of a room he had at his services. I remember seeing his body at the wake, and how lifeless he seemed. I had gone up with a couple of my friends. We kneeled next to the coffin and I told him, "Good bye Don. I always remember telling you "see ya later" everytime you left but now this will truly be the last time, so good bye." After that I broke down. I don't recall what happened to my friends, but I couldn't take it and had to leave the room.

What made me sad that most of my childhood/adolescent memories and Donny's were quite intertwined and I'd never be able to reminisce with him and talk about the old times and have that understanding of what we went through and the things we experienced. I miss my childhood friend, and I am sad that he would never have the opportunity to grow up and enjoy all the things that he should've been able to have. I miss the fact that we'll never be able to reconcile some of our issues and be the great friends we once were. He was a kind soul and good person, and willl continually be missed. Rest in peace Don.

Dear Brian DePalma,

We get it, you like Hitchcock. You like him so much you want to make films that you hope people will say, "yes, that was a very Hitchcockian film." Which someone will giggle because the non-word "cockian" was uttered. But guess what Mr. DePalma, you're not Hitch. It doesn't matter how many foreshadowing elements you put into your film so you can flash back a la M. Night all throughout the third act doesn't make you a brilliant filmmaker. You tried it in Mission Impossibe 1 and you left most of the country uttering WTF? And now, in the Black Dahlia, you just tried to turn up the volume with even more convoluted flashbacks and pushing Josh Hartnett's limited acting envelope to the point where all he can do is scrunch up his forehead to look more angsty.

Speaking of M. Night, he ran right by and grabbed that title you've been striving for all along. "This generation's Hitchcock." So yeah, sorry man, its time to stop trying to be something your not. Just be happy that you're making movies and not like the rest of us stuck in cubicle jobs writing entries in our blogs about how we wasted 2 hours of our life wishing the studios would stop blowing smoke up our ass about how a movie "directed by Brian DePalma who brought us great films as Scarface and Carrie" is coming to a theater near us. Yes, you made a few great films that were good because maybe you weren't trying to be Hitch so hard. So maybe, just maybe you can go back to doing that and stop surrounding yourself with guys that say, "yes Mr. DePalma, if you insert a 10 minute dollying roving shot, it will add a lot intensity to this act!" By the way, the long scene at the beginning of Snake Eyes, was interesting, but really, sometimes those scenes are the same scenes that my parents used to call my home movies "drawing out time to waste it." There is something to say about straightforward exposition rather than the lackadasical head scratching ones you seem to come up with.

I say this because I care, and so I can feel like I've spent my somewhat hard-earned cash on something I can feel satisfied with. Thanks.

A wannabe filmmaker,
me.

Labels: film

"You know what problem with most people are?" Chris asked me.

"No," I answered.

"They like to blame others for what they're actually guilty of."

He said it with such a holier than thou quality that I didn't take with any offense, because realistically, we've both gotten on that soapbox before. What I didn't realize that he would eventually become the person that he complained to me about. Or maybe he was just really identifying it with in himself. Its not like he ever did anything about it.

Its funny that we live in a day and age where people give you credit if you can identify your own problems. You know, G.I. Joe style, because, "knowing is half the battle." But really, just because I'm aware of a flaw in myself, can I really fix it? The pessimist in me says maybe its a losing battle, but who knows, I could be wrong.

Am I to surmise that the Creative Artists Agency is randomly clicking through the dcblogs.com index to find talent? Ok, maybe that's the optimist in me talking, maybe its just some random intern bored outta their mind at work waiting for that big break from their 10 page treatment about the next big coming of age story. Or perhaps daddy's little girl is visiting Beverly Hills before she flies back to her posh apartment in Georgetown and was waiting to see him and decided to visit dcblogs. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

A few things I wanted to jot down for my own reference:

1. People always change after high school, most people were idealistic one time or another with romantic relationships, I had them for friendships. This was based on the arrogance and narcissistic notion that I was a good judge of character and well, I deserved good friends. Man, that was a rude awakening that I'm still reeling from.
   
   
2. Whatever idealstic life philosophies I've formed without empirical evidence to back up would eventually come back to bite me in the ass. I guess that's just human nature though, we fill in the blanks of what "right" should be with things we've learned. Reality is there to remind me that I don't know much of anything, and life experience might help me shed more light, but in the end, humility and wonderment should be a driving force.
   
   
3. People do change, as per #1, but they sure as hell don't need my meddling to change, especially when they don't ask for it. Its a hard concept to swallow and grasp because I always feel the need to tell people what they're doing wrong in their lives when really, I should just be telling myself what I'm doing wrong in my own life. Lady D once said to me, "I do my best to focus on my own little garden and not others." She's right. Simple to say, hard to do.
   
   
4. Love in its purest form isn't one for the fairy tale books. Its a complex beast that has a million nuances both good and bad. I guess that's part of the idealism thing again. Damn all those romantic comedies for screwing with me. Damn you Nora Ephron!
   

Someone has commented to me that my writing is too heavy and depressing. Maybe she's right, perhaps I should stop being such a stick in the mud...nah.

There was a time where I did not like writing. I'm touching on this because I actually had another highschool (one in an unlimited series) dream last night. In fact, I remember distinctly throughout most of my educational career, I hated it. It required looking up facts to regurgitate something I supposedly learned. There was an exception to this though. I had a class called "American Civ" which basically was a combination of english and history during eleventh grade and it was taught by two teachers that I thought were pretty innovative for their time and I respect very much to this day. They had a daily exercise of giving us fifteen minutes out of our 2 hour class to just write. What about? Basically whatever was on our minds. Sometimes they'd give us a subject and just say go, but what was refreshing was they wanted us to come up with something original and unique. They called them "think writings."

I didn't get it initially. I was used to the hard and fast rules of what you need to do when writing. What do you mean I don't have to have an opening paragraph followed by supportive ones and concluding with a summary? It was too much. I was used to journaling but looking at my old journals, that basically boiled down to a recount of what happened that day or stupid friend drama. Never was it about what kind of opinion I had on a situation, event, or a person. But I slowly got it, and I guess that's why I felt motivated later in life to jot down what's on my mind. So thanks Mr. Mack & Ms. Barber, you definitely made an impression.

We took the weekend driving up to Boston and after spending a little time there, there are a few things I need to hunt down in DC.

1) Ramen. No, not the cheap kind most college students lived on but authentic Japanese ramen. We went to eat at Ken's Ramen Noodle House in Boston and I am hooked. After looking up on yelp.com and chowhound.com I've come across a few leads that I'll have to investigate further upon.

2) A place that serves moderately priced lobster rolls. This might be a pipe dream since we're not that abundant on the lobsters like they are up in New England, and I know Legal Seafoods has one since I had one of those at their Test Kitchen in S. Boston.

I realized though that these goals are too food-centric, and well, maybe its also time to start expanding the list of hobbies because most of the time we spent not eating was walking off what we ate. Which isn't a bad thing because we got to take in a lot of the city sights and walk & talk with friends but it made me also realize that I don't have a lot of concrete go-to things I want/need to do on a regular basis besides veg out on the net and do house chores. Some people travel to golf or visit museums and most of the time, we travel to eat. Which I guess is a good component, but I think I'm slowly turning into my parents because they plan their vacations around what and where they can eat and I'm not comfortable with that.

What is contradictory is I also want to start visiting more Bed & Breakfast places since we had a enjoyable time stopping by Gettybsurg for an evening and we stayed at the Brick House Inn. No we were not there for the KKK event, but just to take in the local flavor (yes, more eating) and also to just relax and hang out. It was fun, and I wouldn't mind doing that again. Makes me think of the movie, Flirting with Disaster, where they stayed at the B&B that were accused of not being "B&B people!"

This must be the slippery slope of becoming an old fart when I actually seek out and enjoy just going to a place for some peace and quiet.