Baby Transitions
The title’s a double-entendre. The video (Quicktime version or this Windows Media version) consists of a series of segments of my 14-month-old daughter rolling around on the floor, connected by a series of video transitions.
Yet baby Emily is in transition herself. She just began walking on Saturday (but refused bipedal locomotion for the camera). And she has begun attending daycare twice a week (to allow me time to launch a new business).
And the videographer’s in transition, too.
It’s been almost a year since I gave up my business in favor of full-time fatherhood. Now I’m anxious to get back out in the world and create something, something I believe will enrich the community and provide for my family.
Yet I hate the idea of giving up my days with Emily. I never got to feed my other kids every day when they were babies, never got to rock them to sleep at naptime or hear them waking up in their cribs. Never got to watch them at earnest play, learning about spatial relationships and soaking in vocabulary and experimenting to see how their bodies can move and bend.
It took months, but I came to accept and enjoy my temporary role as stay-at-home dad, and I’d like to keep taking care of my little girl. But I can’t take care of her and conduct business at the same time. And we can’t provide her with the things we believe she’ll need as she grows up unless I get back to work.
So it eventually happens that, just as with her older brothers and sister, Emily will have to rely on hired helpers to provide her with milk and food and shelter during the day. That’s what family life has become for most middle-class Americans. Emily’s brothers and sister have turned out to be pretty good humans, and I feel certain she’ll turn out well, too.
A big part of me still doesn’t want to give her up, though.
→ B.Dunn, Apr 11, 2005, 02 31 pm
Ending the Week with a Ham
It’s the end of a tough (for me) but enjoyable experiment in producing daily web video amidst the chaos of daily life here at what we wryly refer to as the One-Acre Ranch.
And after a hard week of work, it’s always good to eat. Thus, this video is all about smoking a ham.
The particulars: We used a 7-pound, bone-in partially cooked ham – the kind you sometimes find on sale at the grocery, then come home and realize the reason it was so cheap is that it’s not fully cooked yet. Instead of heating it in the oven, why not fire up some pecan wood and put it in the smoker?
Before cooking, the ham should sit out of the refridgerator for about an hour. Score the flat face of the ham in both directions with a knife – about 1/4-inch deep. Rub it all over with cracked pepper and cracked mustard seed or dry mustard.
To reach the proper internal temperature of 140 degrees (F), I smoked the ham for about 3 hours. During the last 20 minutes I applied a tasty marinade of:
1/2 cup Jim Beam (or other fine) whiskey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup pancake syrup
1/4 cup dijon mustard
Whip the ingredients together in a small bowl and refridgerate while the ham is smoking.
The marinade seeps into the meat and creates a glaze on the outside.
The results are delicious.
→ B.Dunn, Apr 03, 2005, 08 26 am
Comments? [1]
Urban Exploration
All over the country, owners of old, damaged structures fade away, to leave their buildings to the whims of street people, wildlife and urban explorers. But as this Quicktime video shows poking around where you don’t belong may have consequences.
It happened on day 6 of the Amazing Videoblogging Week 2005, which happens to fall on April 1 this year.
→ B.Dunn, Apr 01, 2005, 05 00 pm
Comments? [1]
Happy Birthday, Mom!
As karmagrrl and Joel Carner have noted, it’s Vincent Van Gogh’s birthday today. However, it’s also my mom’s – and this video is dedicated to that occasion. (And mom, here’s the Windows Media version.)
In case you’re wondering, mom, I’ve been learning from a terrific group of what is known as videobloggers – a pack of cutting-edge artists creating not only video for the Internet, but an entire new media order. In short, they’re busy standing the world of media on its head.
The collection of videos below is part of an exercise known as VideobloggingWeek2005.
But don’t let that put you off. This is your day. Double-click on the picture, check out your movie and have a good time today, huh?
→ B.Dunn, Mar 31, 2005, 05 31 pm
Comments? [3]