there is hope, my daydream child
by Paul (7 Comments) 
So here we our -- my bride, my wife -- facing another hope. Another child. A third. Another laugh, another voice, another part of our story. Sunshine and a ray. Hints of excitement and anticipation; but only hints. And left lingering is that crush and burst, that pain of hope unrealized. 9 weeks. Fingers crossed. Hope lingering, yet docked on the bay, waiting for assurance.
But still hope.
You can't really make a film in 48 hours, can you?
by Paul (6 Comments)
Apparently you can. And I just took part in making one. But let me backtrack.
If you're unaware of what the 48 Hour Film Project is, here's a quick synopsis. Teams compete, city to city, and internationally to create a 4 to 7 minute film in under 48 hours. If that weren't challenge enough, each team is given a random genre (comedy, western, historical/period, holiday film, drama, horror, thriller, etc); as well as a character name, a specific line and another add on such as a certain prop -- to eliminate the chance of any pre-filming or writing, and all music must be original or public domain.
Last Friday I drove down to Nashville to take part in all the excitement. Right after getting to Shawn's house, Mark, Shawn and I started to rattle around ideas for stories, while eating pizza. Sometime around 7:30pm Bobby texted with the genre (we got drama), the name (Rob Hatch), the prop - or in this case an occupation (Security Adviser), and line ("My brother had one just like that"). The entire team then arrived and we had a group brainstorm -- discussing drama's we enjoyed, themes we could employ, anything and everything under the sun. Anything from a Hollywood murder drama about a train-wreck film whose producers decide to kill (literally) the main actor to gain attention and sympathy and recoup their budget; to a conceptual piece on Pacifism; to a single shot cry-fest about a husband and wife waiting for terrible news.
Sometime around midnight we finalized on an idea and began writing furiously till around 4:30am. After a quiet 2 hour "sleep" we (Shawn and I, and Mark who lives next door to Shawn) we headed to Sonic for intestinal awakening and headed to our yet observed setting. An 70's ranch house in suburban Brentwood -- which turned out to be magical, and mostly because it was large, and had a pool. After seeing the setting we revised the script to more clearly represent and accentuate the house. We assigned roles and characters to our actors (of which I got a nice little role, and did my best not to embarrass the family name).
At 10am we began to film -- revised scripts and lines, drank water, sweated, consumed far too many pastries (well, I did at least, for the character), set up the camera and lights; moved the camera and lights and wrapped up final shooting around 10:00pm (and took another hour of clean up and packing).
A group of us (me, Shawn, Mark and Bobby) headed to the offices of ICG Link to begin the editing and scoring of the film (and by "us", I mean Bobby because he was the only one of us who knew Final Cut Pro). The editing, cutting, reviewing and finalizing of the film -- including the amazing score by John Marshall -- wrapped up at 6:30pm; a scant half hour before ALL the films had to be in the hands of the 48 Hour judging team (or whatever they were). We reviewed the final film -- and noticed an issue; about 10 seconds of black screen (which was not supposed to be there). Bobby quickly went to work while Shawn and I headed to turn in whatever we had -- hoping for a dramatic switch-a-roo moment. I entered a small cafe/bar at 6:57pm and turned in our paperwork (releases, legalese, and our "final" DVD).
And that's the story of how we made "Disconnect The Dots".
Sadly, I can't show you the final movie (yet) -- not until the final judging has taken place on August 5th (though, if you speak to me directly, I might see what I can do).
Apparently his dog doesn't deserve to live?
by Paul (10 Comments)
Ohio got it into its dumb skull that a certain type of dog needs to be eradicated -- regardless of its true disposition or even public record. House Bill 568 is a ridiculous bill that seems to at best not understand dog behavior and breed versus human responsibility (for training, rearing and care of an animals overall temperament). Essentially the bill gives carte blanche to anyone who sees a dog acting aggressively toward someone (What about all those small annoying rat dog breeds that bite, growl and are VERY aggressive toward people -- they're just small, but far more vicious in terms of disposition -- should we kill them too?).
Sirius (pictured above) looks to many people like a pit bull -- though more precisely, to us he looks like a blend of a Labrador and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. As you can see in the picture he's harmless. Is he protective -- hell yes. Is he territorial -- yup. Does he growl and bark at strangers -- yes, just like a Golden Retriever, Labrador, or any dog in general -- dogs are territorial by their species; not breed. The fact that he looks scary (according to the bills logic) by default means that he is scary and must therefore will kill you at any second. That's the logic, and its sad. If this goes through, we might have to move from Ohio (because I'm not willing to lose our dog because of a spooked neighbor who probably doesn't like dogs anyway is afraid of our dog and calls the police who then have the right to come into our home without cause and take Sirius and euthanize him).
Shame on you Ohio.
There was sunburn and rashes, fevers and wine, pirates and speeding tickets
by Paul (4 Comments)
Another vacation has come and gone, mixing both extremes of time -- going at once too fast and at times seeming like it was years ago that it started. We started with a child sick and ended with impetigo. There was much wine and cigars, mini golf and sunburnt shoulders, stingrays hovering in the surf, extreme heat, books read, friends visited, prayers shared and passed, sleeping in sheets gritty where sand never seems to vanish, and one speeding ticket (with much appreciation to Marion, South Carolina for the $130 gesture for going with the flow of traffic and just 10 miles over -- as well as providing no information on who or how to pay the ticket) that soured the entire trip. Now were thrust back into life and responsibilities, tasks and duties -- but left with the satisfaction of memories.
To Someone Who Believes In Me
by Sonya (1 Comments)
Only God can see my tears of thankfulness for the gift given to me by a nameless family who signed their name: "from someone who believes in you" - someone who wished to remain faceless....someone who will be blessed by God for their act of sacrifice in blessing me in secret two weeks ago.
My words are stuttered, failing to reveal the gratitude of my heart properly, for the kindest note written to address the sorrows of my heart. Someone who knew, who gave me words that reached my soul and a good sum of money to help me until I fix the huge "hole in my pocket" called debt.
Thank you, someone. If you ever read this, please know how thankful I am, and how loved I feel, being the recipient of such mercy.
Sonya
p.s. I am putting your card in my memory box for the child who will not be forgotten in my dreams.
The One Where We Tell You How This Whole Debt Crap Is Going And How It All Happened (And It's REALLY Long And I Apologize)
by Paul (4 Comments)
Its been well over a month since Sonya and I looked up from the hole we had dug ourselves, found some help and started to claw our way out toward greener pastures (basically, the debt we accumulated had to be dealt with, and we knew we couldn't do it alone any longer, so our church amazingly provided us with professional financial counselors to help us through this -- free of charge).
The first issue we had to address was -- me.
I'm not a business man. I'm not organized. I'm not able to run this little machine called Wiseacre Design all on my own. All of that created a situation where I simply wasn't making enough money (that realization made me feel like crap). I was spending far too much time on things that brought us no income or far too much time distracted from things that kept me from doing what I do best. I always knew this, but knew I couldn't afford to hire someone (and risk losing MORE money) and I certainly wasn't going to presume that someone would just show up show could do it.
Well, that's all changed. I "hired" Sonya to be my Business Manager -- where she handles phone calls, emails, billing/invoicing and the finances for the business. She's done an amazing job, and in this short time I've become more efficient, less distracted and more energized with my time. I can say in all honesty that I actually feel more like a business man than I ever have in my life
The second issue we had to address was the debt (created in part by issue one).
This is where things are even more difficult. We have/had in the neighborhood of $20,000 - $25,000 of debt. And this WITHOUT any car payments or school loans -- its all just us 1) not making enough money 2) making poor decisions.
I don't feel that we're alone in this -- and I foresee in the coming years that many people will find themselves accumulating loads of debt as prices increase all on goods universally (without anyone getting pay increases). If you don't adjust your spending budgets, you will certainly go into debt.
In the hierarchy of things that HAD to be paid for the numerous credit cards that we had; many of them for my business were falling by the wayside as we had nothing left to pay them. We paid our mortgage, or home equity credit, our health insurance (which was I had lowered to $400 for non-existent coverage, which was previously $925 a month for our family) our utilities bills and food and necessity items; couple that with that fact that I might make $5000 in a month, or $150 (there was no way of predicting my income, and we had slowly depleted our savings just trying to keep up).
Then I got duped.
In the pressures of work and making money and paying all these bills; I tried my best to pay the minimum fees on the bills (which as well all know just increases each month with the 25-32% interest fees even with the minimum payments). My American Express card went to collections and I freaked out. They told me that I had to pay off the $7k balance right away, which I could not --- they called and pestered every day, several times a week; I told them I could pay them a little bit, to which I said "like $350 a month" and they told me that was not good enough. They bullied me into $800 a month, which we honestly couldn't afford. I thought they could sue us, take our cars or possessions or house. Everything quickly went down hill from there, because that payment made it impossible for me to pay for the other cards minimums or even afford health insurance.
We were drowning.
Just around this time our church did a series on money. Sonya had the courage to tell our church to pray for us as we had no idea what to do, or how to do it. Then a very next day we got help. A professional financial adviser (who went to our church) donated his time to us. They assessed our situation and came up with a game plan.
Now there's hope.
The plan?
Call it a clean slate (and also a way to get out of all the "auto pay" things I set up to try and relieve myself from stress and forgetting to pay things, which happened often, because I was trying to do too much).
Yes, stopped -- even collections. Since they can't take anything (we still pay mortgage and home equity, as those are tied to an asset; our home), the only threat might be legal, but that's highly unlikely.
In an effort to save AS MUCH money as possible (to pay off this debt) we had to do things that many people not be willing to do; not because its wrong, but because of pride. We canceled services we didn't need. We stopped shopping at big brand stores, we applied for federal aid (but couldn't get it, though do have MediCade), we started going to food banks and free stores, we looked into clinics for health issues, we shopped second hand stores for clothing or shoes, we started shopping only for food that on sale (and made our weekly menu according to what we got on sale; not vice versa), we sold things we didn't use or want; we stopped the "small spending" (its so easy to buy "little" things, like get a burger at McDonald's, get our kids a little gift or toy, etc)
Its not hard to talk about doing something, but it hard to start and then even harder to sustain. Its been about 2 months and we've not given up; knowing that this is merely a phase, a cleansing, to get us into healthier practices and then become more wise with our money
And its worked. We're ready to negotiate with a few of our credit card companies -- to tell them we have money RIGHT now to pay off such and such amount, if they're willing to drop the fees and charges (our financial adviser will be the one doing the negotiating, which is very nice, as I seem to cave to pressure).
To anyone who might feel the same was as us -- don't be afraid. But you have to change; you can't just keep doing what you're doing and expect it to go away. Be aggressive, sacrifice things. Brand names aren't important -- getting the newest clothes or most "stylish" haircuts or shoes don't matter, doing that is just you having too much fear to not fit in (I know, I was there). Stop writing a menu and buying foods to fit -- get what's cheap and make a menu based on that; you'll be amazed at how much you save. Learn to say no -- so what if you can't go to a movie with your friends, or out to eat; it doesn't mean you ALWAYS will, but if you don't start, then you'll never be able to manage that spending or that frivolous spending. Its possible to make it stop, its possible to change it, its possible to enjoy life more without wrapping materialism into it.
All of this to say THANK YOU to all of your for your prayers and thoughts -- we're not out of the hole yet, but it certainly feels like its possible to get out (where before I felt like we'd just die there). Keep praying for us, its hard; but worthwhile.
