Jason Can Do It

Feeling Better

2010-03-09T14:46:00.005-05:00

I spent much of this past weekend at Atlanta Yoga. Desiree Rumbaugh was teaching a workshop and it attracted lots of like-minded people who crammed themselves into our tiny studio to be inspired by one of the leaders of the anusara yoga movement.

See more of my photos from the weekend on our studio blog.

Living With My Dear Friend, Giardia.

2010-03-02T11:27:00.007-05:00

Intestinal parasites make you feel empty inside. They snack on everything that you eat and steal valuable nutrients from every apple or biscuit that you put into your mouth. They leave you hungry immediately after eating and they drain every last ounce of energy from you. Blog posts become infrequent at best. Pizza night turns into poop night. Apparently, intestinal parasites do not like cheese and they let you know it by sending you to the toilet and keeping you there for periods longer than what is typically required for the normal person to take care of business. Thanks to my stomach bug, I do most of my work from the restroom now.

Over two years ago, while running trails in the north Georgia mountains, I picked up this parasite. I was several miles from my car and had run out of water. After a few hours of running and despite the heat and humidity of a summer day, my skin went dry and I started to shiver with chills. I was dehydrated, quite desperate and without water purification tablets. The only thing I could do in that situation was drink unfiltered water from a stream and hope for the best. Enter: Giardia.

This particular intestinal parasite isn't uncommon; most outdoors-people pick it up at least once in their lifetime. My doctor treated it with several rounds of potent prescription medications, the kind that make you nauseous 24 hours a day, severely bloat your stomach and make the lower half of your body as undesirable as watching Sarah Palin do standup on the Tonight Show. After a month or so, I was regular again. Cheese pizza and tortilla chips tasted better than ever. But after a year and a half of normal digestion, my pesky parasite came back out to play and brought with it the stomach cramps, bloating and diarrhea that make it simply miserable to live with. Upon hearing that my parasite had resurfaced, my friends suggested that perhaps parasites get a bad rap. They help you lose weight and I know plenty of people who would kill for a parasite, they quip. These friends are women and gay men, mind you. Will they really do anything to lose weight? Because I don't know a single straight man who would kill for a strict diet of raw vegetables, no alcohol, no ice cream, no cheese, nothing fried and nothing that really tastes good, plus a stomach that rumbles, twists and turns so much that you lie awake at night wondering if it will ever stop, not to mention those frequent trips to the restroom. OK, so maybe straight guys like to spend time in the bathroom, me included. But parasites create stressful restroom experiences and not the kind where you can settle into a good book and finish off a chapter before your legs fall asleep. Parasites keep you in there so long that your dog begins to pace outside the bathroom door, and not because he's worried about you but because now he's got to go outside and take care of his business, and if you don't wrap things up soon there's going to be a mess on the carpet.

As is, I am recovering from yet another round of nauseating prescription meds and a 10-day Chinese herbal cleanse. I don't think my stomach has any digestive enzymes left but I also don't think that my parasite will be coming back around to cause any more trouble. It's rebuilding time. Probiotics to the rescue. I always thought that warm milk or tea helped you sleep at night, but for me it's baked salmon and raw carrots. God, all I want is pizza.

Nothing Lasts

2010-02-22T15:17:00.006-05:00

Do you ever feel obligated to watch the winter olympics? I do. Most of the games are fantastically entertaining but I feel compelled to watch all of them, including ice dancing. Curling is therapeutic. Downhill skiing, snowboarding and bobsled are bananas. That event where cross country skiers race with rifles strapped to their backs? It instantly gives me fond memories of Roger Moore's slaloming body double in The Spy Who Loved Me. But when dancers take the ice, I don't turn off the television like most straight men probably should. Instead, I get nauseous. And it's not just that everyone in the competition is dressed like cartoon cowboys, it's also the NBC color analysts and their nitpicking of the skaters' fancy footwork that makes me sick. I reach for the remote and try to switch it off. Then, I nervously skip channels and go right back to NBC. What if I missed speed skating? Oh god, don't tell me Apolo raced but I was watching Independence Day instead. Go back. Still ice dancing? Crap. Guess I'll just stare at these fruits till something better comes on.

This is how my nights go. I read with one eye on my book and the other on ice dancers. I break for downhill skiers and beefy men in spandex pushing a sled down an icy tube at 90 MPH. I wonder if the Russian ice dancers in nude body suits and loin cloths are for real or has ice dancing made me so deliriously cynical that I am hallucinating? Change the channel. Will Smith, save the day. Go back. Oh. My. This is really happening.

On rainy days like today, when I find myself getting a little too caught up in the drama of ice dancing, I like to think of real people who are doing real things. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting the folks at Create Your Dreams (CYD), a youth development program here on the west side of Atlanta. When thinking back on my visits with them, my mind travels thousands of miles away from nightmarish ice dancers and back to the present. CYD makes significant change. They offer opportunity, resources and a support network to students who don't otherwise have them at home. Kids come to a safe place after school and receive tutoring, mentoring and, in general, are exposed to people that are positive influences in their lives. Adults who are consistently there to offer advice and empower them to make their own decisions. They also make lasagna together. It's a beautiful family and I'd swap stories with those wide-eyed teenagers any day. Not out of obligation, but by choice.

Investigate Free

2010-02-12T02:25:00.004-05:00

In Ohio when I was younger, the late nineties were marred by the cancellation of Married With Children and the mad craze generated by Beanie Babies. While teenage boys sulked because they could no longer catch Christina Applegate in a mini skirt on cable television, moms flocked to McDonald's and waited for hours in drive-thru lines 20 minivans deep to purchase a happy meal with a teeny Beanie Baby inside. The thing was, our moms loved Beanie Babies more than our little sisters did. And us boys loved Al Bundy as much our dads did.

And so.

I've thought about a lot of things in the three months since my last real post on this blog. I wound up facing several challenges in my quest to conduct experiments, the most imposing of which being a low financial ceiling. Not having the money that you'd like to have to be able to experiment in the way that you'd like to experiment is deflating. But perhaps I set my sights too high? Or maybe I was disillusioned into thinking that experimenting was all about exotic locations instead of simply doing something new and learning from the experience. I linked my blog to Stefan Sagmeister's TED talk on the importance of taking sabbaticals and wished like crazy that I could do a year on an island where no one bothers you to work for money. In many ways, I wanted to do exactly what he did. But it simply was not possible and it probably took me 7 weeks to come to that realization. I am not as wealthy or talented as Stefan Sagmeister and thus did not spend my time off from blogging on a scarcely populated island.

Like him, I also wanted to keep a daily journal. But I didn't do that either. I could argue that journaling costs money and that is why I chose not to do it, but that would be the lamest excuse for not writing that I've ever heard. The reason why I didn't keep a journal is pure and utter laziness. I did, however, spend a lot of time thinking about where to take this blog. I failed to write most of those thoughts down but I just had this nagging feeling like I needed to take the blog to a different place.

It might sound like I didn't do any experimenting at all but when I wasn't busy making excuses for not writing, I did explore yoga. Six years ago when I moved to Atlanta, I began practicing with my then girlfriend now wife Erika at Atlanta Yoga. We'd go to a class after work on Fridays and it was a fun time for me. After work we'd forget about a week spent in an office and put off drinking beer by one hour to spend time in a studio with people we barely knew. I don't think the bars missed us. The point to all of this is that when you don't have a whole lot of cash to spend, you find something enjoyable that doesn't cost you a thing. You don't need special clothes to do yoga. You practice barefoot. It's helpful to have a mat but it is not necessary. And if you have a mat it does not have to cost more than $20. The public library has lots of books on yoga. There are an infinite number of internet videos and podcasts by prominent yoga teachers. All you need is time.

So that's what I did. I practiced yoga once a day, at home, where it is free. And what I realize now is that I was trying to determine if I could become a yoga teacher by doing yoga every day. It worked. I'm on my way to becoming certified all the while teaching at a studio that I adore with people who feel the same way that I do, and not necessarily about politics or religion or family or food, but who come once or twice a week to interpret the practice in their own way.

In retrospect, my experiment allowed me to get more involved in a community that I care about. Have I mentioned that it didn't cost a thing? I think a lot of us are in the same boat these days, left with no other choice than to be more creative in the ways that we explore our place on this world. We have to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Even if we can't afford a year in Bali. Even if our favorite television show is cancelled. Even if our moms collect stuffed animals.

Side note: Over the past three months I've worried about joining Facebook probably more than I ever have. The pressure can be overwhelming. At first, I thought that writing a blog was enough of a window into my life, but people want to know more. People want to know everything about everyone and I'm not sure if I agree with the whole idea. Is a little mystery such a bad thing? Not knowing is sometimes better than knowing, I say.

A short film by me and Robin Finch

2009-12-19T21:14:00.003-05:00

Grady Summer Literacy Camp from Jason Turner on Vimeo.

Sunday

2009-11-08T16:38:00.013-05:00

My Dad Can Do It

2009-10-22T09:27:00.005-04:00

My dad can beat up your dad, this I'm sure of. He has strong hands, arms and shoulders, a low center of gravity to out-leverage any opponent, and he possesses the shear toughness and scrappy attitude of an Irishman. And no one wants to face an angry Irishman, no one. But no matter how strong my dad may seem, his heart lies more on gentler side. I think he'd much rather shake your dad's hand and share some conversation over a bottle of red wine then get involved in some kind of physical altercation. I admire him for having this duality to his personality and, furthermore, applying his never-give-up, jump-in-the-deep end-and-swim-your-way-out resilience and strength to home improvement.

My dad can do a lot of things. Just this weekend he paid us a visit and wound up re-grouting the tile in both of our bathrooms and installing a new sink top with a shiny new faucet. These are tedious jobs that Erika and I just haven't gotten to in the four years that we've lived in our aging house. More important stuff always seems to get in the way like dogs and jobs and dinners at Mexican restaurants and, well, you just push the bathrooms aside to be worked on some other day.

This is where my dad took on his job as a dad. He's not a professional plumber or tile and grout guy but has many years of experience in being a homeowner. And that's what homeowners like him do, they don't call experts and pay them to do a job that they know they can do themselves. My dad gets done what needs to be done. I wouldn't say that he loves to read directions, but he does have a certain knack for being able to figure things out, like finding a way to remove an old sink top and replace it with a new one and reattach the plumbing so that water doesn't leak all over dry rolls of toilet paper and everything else we keep under the bathroom sink.

Above all, my dad isn't afraid to make mistakes. Who amongst us can honestly say that about ourselves? He knows that joint compound was made precisely for repairing dings in the drywall and that forgiveness is always there to be given by those who are willing to give it. And so, for a man whose intentions are whole-heartedly on the side of good, I don't think that he will be fighting your dad anytime soon. It doesn't mean, however, that he wouldn't win.

Consequences

2009-10-12T14:09:00.006-04:00

Last week I received this message in response to one of my Sapelo Island posts:

Hey Jason , your articles and pictures are great, and I do not see any information about the people that made the trip availiable. I think that would be great support for Tony Coppage Associates and Ayide Summers.

Tony is right. I failed to mention the two men whose tireless efforts made the trip to Sapelo Island possible--Mr. Tony Coppage and Mr. Ayinde Summers. The literacy program at Grady High School simply does not work without them. They are true leaders in our community.

When you have 20 teenagers who read at a 5th grade level and are repeatedly failing the same classes year after year, chances are that it's more than just a lack of literacy skills that are contributing to their delinquency. Often, the kids' character is also failing. This is where Tony and Ayinde stepped in with character-building exercises, the high ropes course and, finally, a camping trip to Sapelo Island. The kids craved positive influences who were real, honest and accessible. Never once did Tony and Ayinde let them down.

I did not intend to slight these two men who, in only a month's time, became like brothers to me. Instead, I made a conscious decision to write stories about the kids and also my experiences. I knew that I was devoting much of the film about the literacy program to Tony and Ayinde and thus paying them their much due credit and respect. What I didn't anticipate was it taking this damn long to edit and produce a short film. However, it is almost done. Like 97% done.

Tony's website is here. If you reach out to him, chances are that Ayinde will be in tow. They can ably lead you or your class, work group or family in all kinds of team building and adventure learning trips and exercises in and outside of classrooms. Tony and Ayinde are former Outward Bound instructors who have traveled the world learning from and working with kids and adults alike. They taught me that every action introduces a consequence. And that my character is made by the choices that I make and my willingness to accept the consequences of them, good or bad. Apparently, it's a lesson that I'm still learning.

color color color!

2009-10-10T15:30:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was a drag. Today, not so much.

Enter Gianni.

I'm sitting him all day while my friends Jacqueline and Jose are busy at an art show. Looks like we're having an art show of our own!

Check out Jacqueline's jewelry if you can. Her Lego pieces are especially wonderful.

Talk too too tootootoo much

2009-10-05T11:43:00.007-04:00

Ursonography (Excerpts), Jaap Blonk & Golan Levin, 2005 from Golan Levin on Vimeo.

Letters... words... punctuation...

I like them all.

I especially like the sounds you make without words.

Is that poetry? No, that is not poetry.

But I do admire poets. And storytellers.

This one is Jaap Blonk, performing Kurt Schwitters' Ursonate.

! !!!

So what if I slept with the Ultimate Warrior

2009-09-28T10:34:00.020-04:00

Sorry it's been so long. Geesh. Not blogging makes me feel guilty. I have been doing things, though, and apparently telling no one about them. My portfolio is something I worked on all of last week. Then, at the very last minute, I accidentally threw away my InDesign file. Emptied the trash. Gone. There were many people and animals and inanimate objects to blame but none were more deserving than me. The more time I spend at a desk contemplating sentences the more neurotic I become. File names appear indistinguishable. Brutus paces. And then I trash important things. Ugh! Lesson learned. If your interested, take a look at my portfolio and let me know what you think. The work may not be new to you but it should appear that way to people who haven't seen it. At least that's the hope.

What else. We run out of space daily in our home and had considered selling the spare bed in favor of a work table. When Ikea didn't offer a solution we took matters into our own hands. Our new work table is built atop the spare bed. Two 6.5 ft x 3 ft doors sit on top of a frame made with 2 x 3's.

I think about napping under the work table almost everyday. Imagine the roof of a blanket fort but instead of flimsy blankets you have real wood. It's an impenetrable fortress where monsters will never get you. If only this was my bed when I was a kid. Barricade the side walls with stuffed animals and wrestling buddies and I guarantee that my nightmares would have been scared away.

Lightning

2009-09-16T22:01:00.004-04:00

Lightning from Jason Turner on Vimeo.

August 11, 2009

Freedom Park

Atlanta, GA

Housekeeping

2009-09-15T09:23:00.023-04:00

This blog wouldn't be what it is without a post that reads like a greatest hits. It's not so much a reflection on jobs past but more like a restatement of things that I've done with lots of shameless links in the text so that you will revisit the posts and get all nostalgic on me. Sort of like when Seinfeld writers ran out of ideas for episodes. One week you'd tune in and sit through 22 minutes of clips from older shows, with Jerry hosting the charade, walking you though his fictitious apartment on the Upper West Side and acting more like a late night talk show host than the goofy comedian clad in black Levi's and white running shoes that we so desperately hoped would be delivering fresh material. Anyway, this post is like that.

Since starting the blog in April several people have asked me to do things, like build an antique bookcase, walk dogs, and house sit for an entire summer. Mostly though, it's babysitting. Which is fine by me, especially since I think that children are generally pretty great. It's why the blog exists, really. I started writing so that parents in the neighborhood could keep tabs on me and for one reason or another, it's become something much bigger. Friends, family and strangers in 43 states follow me weekly, from San Francisco to North Carolina to New York City. Readership in Alaska and Idaho seem allusive for now but are nonetheless attainable, with a little help from you.

Bubble envelope laptop sleeves are ongoing, as are block prints--two things that go really well together.

I've also been studying the works of furniture maker Robert Brou, shooting photos and film of his latest creations.

Earlier this summer I worked with teenagers at a literacy program here in Atlanta. Those were the most inspiring times, working alongside two first-rate teachers and a handful of volunteers. I can't say enough about people who choose to spend an hour of their free time with a child who can desperately use the help, because that is all it takes to make a significant change in their lives. People talk about change, it was Barrack's battle cry for god's sake, but spending one hour with a kid and guiding them, giving them the positive feedback that they so desperately need, causes real change to happen. Try it sometime, even if it's for only one hour a month. Contact a public school and ask a teacher what you can do to help. They will lead the way.

The film I shot this summer is still in post production. My friend Robin is a gifted editor who continues to find time to sort through the ten hours of tape that I dumped on his lap. He is generously donating all of his hours, working mostly nights and weekends, and enduring sessions where I ramble on excitedly about random ideas instead of focusing on the task at hand. Perhaps by the end of this month we will have a final cut to post here for all to see.

And about that antique bookcase. Here it is, hanging in Ashton's nursery, adorned with books and small stuffed animals and other baby things. Erika worked with Kelly to make this lovely bird mobile. They spent hours and hours selecting the fabrics and hand sewing and stuffing each bird. How did I pitch in? Well, I climbed a dead tree and broke off its branches. The entire ensemble twists and turns with the breezes that blow.

That is all for today. I must get back to painting a staircase and waiting for my drowned cell phone to ring.

Naturalism Furniture

2009-09-08T17:15:00.046-04:00

I met the furniture maker Robert Brou a few years ago. He was installing this piece and I couldn't help but wonder how one man could build such a thing. Fast forward to now. Robert still makes beguiling furniture, and I am eager to learn a few things from a craftsman who designs unlike anyone else. Last week, I dropped by his workshop and captured Robert putting the finishing touches on a few outrageous tables and stools. He's preparing for a show at the New York Design Center at the end of this month.

Robert says that 10,000 people must see his furniture in order to sell a single piece. Those are daunting odds, to be sure. But if you watch one of the short videos below and like what you see, pass it on to someone you know and help me spread the word about Robert Brou. Together, we might just be of help to a gifted artist and a friend.

(I shot and cut 6 videos. Watch this one and you should be able to view the rest.)

Barnacle Stool from Jason Turner on Vimeo.

White Bread

2009-09-02T13:57:00.008-04:00

** New Laptop Sleeves**

"White Bread"

For Marisa in Montana. The custom bubble envelope sleeve protects a 13" Macbook. It is trimmed in white duct tape.

"Pocket Combs"

For Conor in Boulder. The custom bubble envelope sleeve protects a 15" Macbook Pro. It is trimmed in red duct tape.

$15

Laptop sleeves will fit snug at first but they wear like a wallet and are as comfortable as an old shoe.

Thanks to Conor and Marisa for their recent orders.

me@jasoncandoit.com

On a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being Zen and 100 being screaming at the mailman for no apparent reason, I am a 24

2009-08-31T11:39:00.013-04:00

A while back I referenced a Nicholas Kristoff column about getting "back to zero." His thought, essentially, is to escape into nature every now and then to get away from it all. 'It all' being your daily routine, the grind, your boss, and all those people in your lives who think they know best, those who are certain that what is good for them is also good for you, and those who do not hesitate to let you know it day after day despite your utter lack of concern for their opinion. Also, throw in lunches on the run, traffic, humidity, and pedestrians who blatantly disobey DO NOT WALK signs as things you can only take so much of before it is time to flee. Well, last weekend, Erika and I finally took Kristoff's advice and headed off for the woods.

Hiking, rafting, picture-taking, antiquing, eating, window shopping, people watching--we did it all in Asheville, NC, a town that 99.9% of white people refer to as a town they could most definitely live in. A friend told me about vrbo.com and I was quickly able to rent a studio apartment in a quaint neighborhood just 5 blocks from downtown Asheville, within walking distance of art galleries, hippies, students and tourists like us. Without a doubt there are lots of studios in Asheville available to rent for a weekend, but the one we lived in could not have been better--because we were tucked into a neighborhood we felt like locals instead of sore thumbs in a La Quinta. The styling was 70s retro and we were overjoyed by the thoughtfulness of the owners. They left a key in a lockbox and never once did they bother us. No awkward run-ins or the obligatory feeling that they wanted to hang out. We did our thing and apparently they did theirs. They even went so far as to include utilitarian-friendly things that you don't usually travel with, like scissors, a bottle and can opener, aluminum foil and scotch tape, all in a kitchen drawer. How very neighborly of them.

Suffice to say that I'm never staying in a hotel again. In Asheville, at least. And I am not openly telling people the specific whereabouts of this joint because the memory is still fond and special to me and it must not be ruined by overexposure. However, I think I have given you more than enough details so that you can find it on your own (Hint: retro, 5 blocks from downtown Asheville). Happy trails.

Getting away from it all brings me to another topic, and that is my lack of posts last week. I had a lot to say upon returning to Atlanta but then life got in the way, and then it was traffic, and then work started to nag, and then people were telling me what to do and the stress started up again, building from zero to the point where I am now, which is probably somewhere between 23 and 26 on a fever-inducing scale that tops out at 100.

Upon listening to stories of our days spent in the mountains, a friend said, "I like being in someone else's town." So do I. And I like to pretend that I'm still there, in the mountains, at peace, resetting my proverbial clock back to zero or whatever that means--

There goes the mailman. Dude's gonna get an earful if my magazines aren't in the box.

"Hackett's Hotties," Or So They're Tentatively Called

2009-08-18T15:22:00.011-04:00

I love hot peppers. Sliced, packed and soaked in vinegar with floating chunks of onion and whole cloves of garlic. The same kind that you see here. The kind you can't find at the market. Peppers so delicious that you consider eating them for breakfast, as my wife did this morning when she asked if it would be disgusting to put hot peppers in her yogurt. Honestly, I thought that she was on to something. Popcorn, pita chips, cheese, and any type of meat, really, are made instantly better with hot peppers.

What I love most about them is the care and sacrifice that goes into making something homemade. You know that someone went to the market and bought pounds and pounds of peppers or, even better, picked them fresh from their garden. Then, they lugged the produce into the kitchen, washed and sliced an ungodly amount of hots into little rings and peeled multiple cloves of garlic. At this point, you know that their house smelled like your Italian grandmothers house always smells, and you know that they didn't wear gloves and that the oil from the peppers seeped through their skin and into their blood stream causing body temperatures to rise, sweat beads to roll down foreheads, and fire to shoot out of unmentionables. And you know that they literally burned for days after jarring dozens of hot peppers, unable to rub eyes or touch skin without it becoming red and blotchy. The hours and extra effort make the peppers taste better and, in turn, the peppers make everything else taste that much better, too. It is not the story of store-bought peppers, and if you appreciate homemade hots as much as I do, you may want to know more about where you can get some for tomorrow morning's breakfast.

Where I come from, family, neighbors and friends give jars of hot peppers to one another as gifts. In this case, Jake and Amber (my cousin and his girlfriend) graciously brought us a jar of their homemade peppers last week. Jake is enthusiastic when it comes to jarring peppers. He wants people to experience the joy that is hot peppers, wants to form an assembly line in his kitchen and do this, really do this, so that we can sell them at neighborhood street markets. I have no doubt that people crave jarred hot peppers, just as they hanker for Handle's ice cream and Briar Hill pizza from the Avalon Gardens. What I don't necessarily agree with is the name of this venture, the very name we will give to jars of homemade goodness, the result of long hours spent slicing and dicing, sweating and burning. The name, at the moment, is pencilled in as "Hackett's Hotties." Can you see where I might take issue? It's not the first half, it's the second. The "Hotties" part. I have time and space to get into this but instead will leave it up to you. Please comment below.

And If you would like to order a jar of hot peppers, leave a comment or email me@jasoncandoit.com. Jake will be thrilled.

Swimming With a Cell Phone

2009-08-11T11:23:00.015-04:00

It happened like this: I arrived at the pool, dumped my stuff on a lounge chair and jumped in the water. I proceeded to swim 10 deliberately slow and relaxing laps, my chest expanding with each deep breath and my arms feeling long; my feet motoring. It's not until I got out of the water, dried off, read the first two sections of Sunday's newspaper and came across a story that mentioned cell phones that I thought to check my own for missed calls. That is when I found my phone in my pocket. Gurgle.

Chucking the soggy flip phone in the direction of yapping teenagers definitely crossed my mind. What else do you do in that situation? You're out like a hundred bucks for a phone that you never really liked and now you have to walk into the AT&T store and try to ignore the iPhone, with its shiny black case, glowing buttons and sliding things. It is candy. Not to mention the sales people, who reluctantly agree to show you handsets other than the iPhone pointing to them with the same hand that they are using to clutch their own iPhone, which is glowing, thus making it virtually impossible to keep your eyes off of the thing.

But instead of getting pissed I went the other way. Recap: I jumped into the pool pencil style and swam a clodhopping version of freestyle for 10 lengths. And even though there was impact upon entering the water and even though I was in the pool for at least 20 minutes, the little black flip phone never slipped out of my pocket. Not once did I even feel it in there, not even when I pushed off the wall and frog-kicked my way towards the ladder. Let it be known, then, that the pockets of my swim trunks are of the highest quality, designed to be vaults for precious possessions and stitched by tailors not robots. If not for chaffing caused by the built-in mesh underwear, I would sport my trunks outside of the pool, till winter, carrying everything from signed blank checks to the original copy of my birth certificate to my father-in-law's American Express Platinum card in my pockets. Have something you don't ever want to lose? Let me hold onto it.

In conclusion,

drowning my cell phone = careless

swim trunk pockets = impressive

Friends and family please send your number to me@jasoncandoit.com. I've lost all my contacts.

Building an Antique Bookcase: Parts Two and Three

2009-08-08T23:47:00.032-04:00

I got ahead of myself.

The bookcase was not finished on Friday.

Doink.

Friday

Saturday

Next time: Photos from Baby Hackett's nursery

Building an Antique Bookcase: Part One

2009-08-06T22:29:00.021-04:00

This is a bookcase.

I began building it today and think it's coming together quite nicely. Several months ago, my cousin-in-law asked me to make a bookcase for her baby's nursery. It took time and patience to find the right wood but we finally lucked out. This post will be about my progress from this afternoon.

Update:

I'm almost sold out of my first press of Piano Key prints. Only three remain.

Unframed = $15

Custom frame & Print = negotiable

Email me@jasoncandoit.com to place an order

Drawing of a bookcase. It's nothing fancy.

I was sketching and looked down from my book and saw these guys sleeping back-to-back.

The brunette: Brutus. Yogi is the blonde.

One thing Kelly mentioned--wait, some things I should mention are that Kelly is my cousin-in-law and she is married to Brendan and they are having a baby in less than a month. Alright, feeling much better now. Kelly wanted to use antique reclaimed wood and custom build a shelf so that her daughter could rest books on it for all of her life. I really liked her sentiment. I mean, I am making something that could be around for many years and thinking about it makes me want to work through the night to finish it. But, I am tired. And it's so dark outside I can't see a damn thing.

This morning, I found these reclaimed pine boards that used to be part of an old Cotton Mill in Atlanta. The wood was salvaged from after a tornado ripped through downtown a few years ago. And now the old boards are almost a bookcase. Ta-da! Nothing is screwed in at this point. I propped the pieces together to see how it might look...

Thin strips of reclaimed walnut from a North Carolina home act as a lip for each of the four shelves. We wouldn't want In The Midnight Kitchen to slide off.

Old nail holes in one of the shelves.

And that is all for tonight--close-ups of an unfinished bookcase. Tomorrow, the finished product. C'mon back.

Slugs, Pocket Combs & Piano Keys

2009-08-03T10:43:00.038-04:00

There are more stories to share about Sapelo Island, more life-altering experiences with disenfranchised youth and inner-city public schools, and more work to be done on our film so that it can raise questions and inspire and motivate and encourage volunteerism and move donors from corporations to say, "You know, I think I'm going to cut a check so that you can teach kids how to read." In the meantime, however, a few things from the weekend.

The first, written by Nicholas D. Kristof in Sunday's New York Times, is about how important it is for young people to experience the natural world through camping, bouldering, hiking and rafting rather than by watching animated renditions of plants and animals on television, video games and iphones. He would be a big fan of our literacy program, you can tell by this excerpt:

"So let’s protect nature, yes, but let’s also maintain trails, restore the Forest Service and support programs that get young people rained on in the woods. Let’s acknowledge that getting kids awed by nature is as important as getting them reading."

Click to read Kristof's entire story, "How to Lick A Slug."

The next topic of importance is printing. I opened a few bottles of ink over the weekend and these happened...

A bubble envelope that will be transformed into a laptop sleeve by me and mailed to a good friend in Colorado.

For the record, I love pocket combs. Black ones especially. I was not graced with this guy's awesome head of hair but I still carried a comb in the back pocket of my Levi's well into high school. My grandfather and my uncle John carried a comb, and they were about the coolest people that I knew, so I had to have one too. Some boys carried pocket knives, some had bubble gum in their pockets. I preferred greaser paraphernalia.

I am also nostalgic for pianos. My inability to play has never stopped me from touching keys and making sounds that probably don't sound tasteful to anyone but me. One day I will learn to play properly something other than chopsticks but until then, I'll just keep making prints. This one in particular took a while to figure out, like a week and a day. I sketched pianos and keys and all sorts of nonsense but finally settled on a pretty straight interpretation. Piano keys are bold and iconic, and I didn't want to mess with them too much. With a little help from my wife, the idea evolved into this..

I carved this block...

... to make this print.

Long keyboard-like prints...

My niece is about to turn 4 years old and she is a huge fan of two things: her keyboard and pink. This framed print is for her. Happy Birthday, Abby.

And that is all for today... Holler if you would like to see more prints or buy something or talk about stuff in general. me@jasoncandoit.com

Sapelo Island: Part 4

2009-07-29T12:20:00.028-04:00

We were on Sapelo when Michael Jackson died. In fact, we were in the cemetery when we heard the news. Cryptic, maybe. Sad, definitely.

My mom was big on Michael Jackson when I was a kid. She always listened to MJ in the car and I happened to be at the age when music starts to affect you. The Jackson 5 kind of shaped me, as did The Beatles, their White Album and a dark-haired boy named Rocky Raccoon. I listened from the backseat of my parent's Honda and didn't let a seatbelt stop my groove. Chubby kids get down.

On Sapelo, we belted out lyrics to "ABC" while riding in the old school bus from the cemetery to the beach. The volume was up and the moment brought me back to my childhood. We were kids again, singing "Easy as 1-2-3!" while the real children on the bus looked at us dubiously. They didn't know the Michael Jackson that we did, and they didn't know that adults could sing and dance like we do, which is awfully scary at best, but nonetheless feels damn good when you get into it.

I didn't mean to eulogize MJ in this entry, it just sort of happened that way. I looked back at my photos from the cemetery and, well, it happened. That morning, we took up rakes, sickles and pitchforks and did our best to clear some brush from the hallowed grounds. High school students in Georgia are required to complete so many hours of community service in order to graduate, and their time and efforts in the cemetery would gain them a few of those hours. Plus, the manual labor would be a kind gesture to pay to our gracious hosts, the Saltwater Geechee of Hog Hammock.

Learning from my unfortunate voice recording incident the night before, I asked Mr. Reginald for permission before taking pictures in the cemetery. He asked that I not focus my camera on the names on the headstones out of respect for the families whose loved ones had passed.

As I walked up and down the winding path past hand-made headstones and under the shade of Spanish moss, I felt the haunt of the deceased and the hurt of the families who, at one time, returned their loved ones to the earth.

Hand-chiseled names on the headstones dated all the way back to the 1700's.

All headstones face east. The deceased were buried in this direction so their spirits could wake to the rising sun.

We cleared a fair amount of brush and fallen limbs from the fence line that day.

Uyinda and Raven.

The Gorem brothers, Glendarius and Marquez.

Chase.

I had to take this picture. Look closely and you can see that Mr. Sam Grovner was born on Independence Day, July 4th, 1852. That's 76 years after the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies free from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain. Mr. Grovner, however, was not a free citizen of this newly formed country; he was most certainly born into slavery.

And this is the shot that made me think of MJ. It's the only one from the bus ride to the beach that isn't too blurry. Pictured is Hakeem, singing or laughing or both.

Sapelo Island: Part 3

2009-07-22T17:10:00.041-04:00

Let's pick up where we left off--camping on Sapelo Island with 17 literate (LITERATE!) high schoolers from Atlanta. Have I mentioned that most of these children had never traveled out of their city or state or zip code? Ever, in entire their lives? Do you know what it means, then, when you take kids to a scarcely populated island off the Southeastern coast of Georgia and plop them onto a beach? I will do my best to explain.

Large patches of blue on a globe are just large patches of blue until you walk into an ocean with bare feet and trust that it will let you walk back out. Large bodies of water can be scary in that way, especially the cloudy, sandy part of the Atlantic that we were swimming in. Our kids did not have a whole lot of experience with the ocean, like none at all, but I have to admit that once they got used to saltwater, they cared less about us adults and more about underwater headstands. Who can blame them? I cannot wax poetic and even begin to do Sapelo's beaches justice with mere words. Imagine expanses of flat sand with almost seven miles of unobstructed beachfront. No volleyballs, no lifeguards, and no popsicle stands. The isolation is intoxicating.

Over the course of the weekend, we would spend time in the marshes and on the beaches, once simply for a leisurely swim and the other to catch our dinner. At dayclean, we set out fishing but not in boats and not with poles, hooks and worms. Instead, we dragged a 50-foot net into the ocean as far out as we could, standing on our tiptoes to keep our heads barely above water, then turned 90 degrees and walked parallel to the beach for 20 yards, and then, just when our thighs and calves were burning like mad from a steady fight against current and we'd swallowed enough saltwater to make us hallucinate, we made another 90 degree turn towards land and dragged that heavy, soaking net back to shore step by slippery step, trying to find traction in unforgiving sand and mud and stepping barefoot on slimy flounder and pinching crabs and god knows what else, all the time praying that our bounty would be plentiful, enough to feed every man, woman and child on Sapelo.

"Dayclean... My tale begins just before the rising of the sun, in that brief instant of time when the night clouds are being cleared away and the rays of light are streaking across the sky. Dayclean, we call this, when the day is new and the world is made fresh again." — Cornelia Walker Bailey

Justin, Hakeem, Tony, Marquez and Jake (Mr. Hackett) keep their heads above water. What you don't see is the loop of rope around Justin's waist. The other guys have wrapped their hands around the rope and are pulling like crazy.

Jake tries to keep the pole straight up and down so that the net scrapes along the bottom of the ocean and doesn't let the fish escape.

This might just be the hardest part. Legs are burning, you can't find a foothold, and you're pulling a 50 ft. net and whatever living things you've caught up onto shore while the undertow taking it back out to sea.

Jake looks over at the kids on the other end of the fishing net. After the towers have made a giant "U" with the net, the folks on the other end must keep their pole steady and then drag it to shore.

Mr. Pete lives on Sapelo Island. He's a Saltwater Geechee, an artist and a fisherman. He led us into the water in the early hours of Saturday morning and then ate fish and grits with us that night.

The kids shake horseshoe crabs, blue crabs and mullet free from the net.

Dinner.

Will, Jamie, Glendarius, and Chase sprint from the water to where I'm standing.

Glendarius takes a spill. Mr. Hackett (hands raised in the water) appears to be celebrating.

This was our private beach--miles of coastline and no people with inflated things.

Behind our campsite was a marsh. We explored it almost every day and night, mostly at low tide.

Mud.

Nadia and Raven freaked but eventually liked the marsh.

Justin was afraid to get dirty. Then he took his shoes off.

When Justin stepped barefoot in the mud and his toes sunk in, he was so happy standing there, screaming to the sky. One of my favorite moments.

The marsh went on and on.

Crab.

I think Jamie brought one home.

Glendarius tiptoes.

In the south end of the marsh was a river, which swelled in high tide and led out to the ocean.

Mecca (Ms. Handy) casts a net into the river. We fished all afternoon and didn't catch a thing. Later that same day, Mr. Hackett went out with Jamie and netted a dozen fish. So they say.

Chase takes a breather. The heat was merciless. We stood in near boiling water up to our shins.

Jamie casts his net.

Addendum:

Popsicles are delicious and should most definitely be sold on Sapelo beaches.

Sapelo Island: Part 2

2009-07-12T22:00:00.001-04:00

My very first night on Sapelo came very close to being my last.

This story begins once we reached land via the Sapelo Island ferry, with each adult and child pitching in to unload our luggage and camping gear onto an old school bus. Now, it would be an understatement for me to say that this trip is complicated. There are so many variables which factor into the equation that results in landing 16 teenagers and a handful of adults onto an island that is accessible only by boat. These kids are adverse to carrying their own backpacks, would rather sit than stand, would rather walk than run. I'm not saying they're lazy, it's just that they are teenagers and teenagers tend to be knuckleheads. In a lot of ways, I remain a knucklehead, but this is not about me, it is about them. So, when you're trying to let the group govern itself and see if they will pick up on the fact that their luggage isn't going to walk from point A to point B on its own, the event can be a time consuming affair.

The bus ride was a short one to Hog Hammock, the last intact Geechee/Gullah community in the Sea Islands of Georgia. There are no traffic lights and very few paved roads on the island, and you could tell that the kids were in awe of these subtleties and maybe even a little bit nervous, like what the hell did I get myself into. We twisted and turned through town passed the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society (SICARS), the Public Library, and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey's grocery, The Trough, which touts itself as "Sapelo's Only Bar." Mrs. Bailey and moonshine are entirely different stories, ones that I will certainly get to in the days to come. But that's about all there is in town, these three establishments and a few homes and farms, and this fact is beautiful to me but maybe a little alarming to kids who know nothing more than row homes on Boulevard and fast food joints. We finally pulled up to our campsite and, like every other unloading event we had experienced that day, this one involved walking and carrying bags and coolers down a winding dirt road. Have I mentioned the heat, humidity and bugs? The heat was suffocating, perhaps another understatement, the bugs were hungry and so were we, since we were unable to stop for lunch thanks to our good friend from my first story about Sapelo.

Our campsite was charming and quaint, to say the least. Pine needles covered the grounds, an old oak tree with twisting limbs stood in the far corner with Spanish moss draped from its branches, and a marsh alive with crabs lay just over the hill. There were two fire pits, two picnic tables and plenty of room for tents. We asked that the kids arrange themselves in groups of five or six and then handed each group a tent. There went that look of concern, again, like we were cruel and unusual for asking them to pitch their own tents. "How are we supposed to know how to do that?," they asked. "Read the directions," we replied. I'd say that it took the better part of the afternoon to set up the 8-person tents, with tent poles poking out from every which direction and nylon walls rising, crashing back to the ground, and then finally back up again and standing tall. The next order of business: dinner.

I have to hand it to the kids, because at this point in our day we had not eaten but yet we had traveled, walked, sweated and set up tents. Tempers were flaring, some were officially over this whole situation. And now, we asked them to decide amongst themselves who would cook dinner for the group and who would wash the plates, cups and silverware. We gave them hot dogs, hamburgers, a bag of charcoal, and pointed at the grill. We adults took a seat at the picnic table and started a fire. It didn't seem fair to me for these kids to prepare the meal because, after all, they are kids. In my world, adults provide for children. We ask kids to respect us and to chip in where they can, but ultimately we put the food on their table. This, however, was not my world. We were teaching teenagers to be self-sufficient and cooking for themselves was yet another lesson in a long line of lessons they were to learn over the course of a weekend on Sapelo. Two hours later, we were all eating cheeseburgers and dogs, and they were, at the time, the finest I'd ever tasted.

Later that night, we were invited to SICARS to view a movie called SANKOFA, an Akon word which means, "one must return to the past in order to move forward." The movie revisits the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana and depicts the physical and psychic horrors of slavery, and also the redemptive powers of community and rebellion as former slaves ban together to escape their oppressors. It's a powerful film to watch on an island that was one of the first North American stops for slave ships that carried men and women from their homes in West Africa to be bought and sold to plantation owners. We walk into the building, which is an open space with bookshelves lining the walls and several computer stations set on desktops. The kids take seats in front of a projection screen and the adults remain standing in the back because there were no more chairs. It was then that we first encountered Mr. Reginald Hall. Mr. Reginald is an 11th generation descendant and a proud Saltwater Geechee. His demeanor is quiet and soft, but his eyes are intense and his voice, his words, even more so. Mr. Reginald paced back and forth in front of an unlit projector screen while he welcomed us all to Sapelo Island.

My job, as many of you already know, was to document our trip by capturing moments, such as this one at SICARS, on video. Because it was nighttime and I was unsure what the lighting situation would be at the center, I left my cameras back at the campsite. I did, however, bring along my audio recorder, thinking that maybe I'd have an opportunity to capture an important conversation or, at the very least, record the night sounds of crickets, locusts and bull frogs. As I stood at the back of the room with Mr. Hackett and listened to Mr. Reginald speak, his voice struck me as one that I'd never heard before. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the voice recorder, which is black, about the size of an iphone, and has two foam-covered microphones that jet out off the top like Mickey Mouse ears. I crossed my arms, hit the orange glowing record button, and tried to conceal the device as much as possible. It's not that I wanted to hide my action because I thought it to be wrong, I simply did not want to interrupt the moment by saying something like, "Excuse me, Mr. Reginald, but would you mind if I stand back here and record your address to the group?" There was no time for that conversation. Besides, my eyes were glued on Mr. Reginald's and my heart was beating so hard and my hands sweating so profusely that I could barely hold onto the recorder. This clip is part of my recording from that night.

(I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to embed an audio player into my blog. So, click this link and it will take you to a site where you can download the mp3. Then, play it in itunes or whatever. If you know how to embed audio players into blogs, please let me know.)

Click here and download Mr. Reginald

The room remained silent after Mr. Reginald finished speaking. The movie rolled, African drums kicked in, and the man who had mesmerized us with his presence stormed past Mr. Hackett and I into an office and firmly shut the door behind him. At that very moment, I thought two things to be possible: the first being that this man was intense most of the time and this occasion was another example of his normal, intense behavior; and two, that he hated my guts. He resented the fact that I had walked into his home and recorded his voice without asking for permission before hand or explaining my intention. I could not blame him for being angry with me, but I could not stop myself from capturing that moment. Something burned inside me and I knew that it was the right thing to do. Now, I would have to face the consequences which, to be honest, scared the hell of out me. Here I was, a white man on an island and in a community where descendants of former slaves live very proudly. On the surface, they had every reason to be suspect of me, and now that I had blatantly offended them with my actions, they had every reason to ask me to leave the island.

Mr. Hackett and I were still standing up against that back wall, watching SANKOFA and trying to process images of white slave owners whipping, beating and raping African farmers. The white slave owner has a beard. I have a beard. Oh god. In his office, behind closed doors, I could hear an angry black man talking loudly with his black counterparts. As far as I was concerned, they were going to kill me.

Throughout the course of the film, Mr. Reginald walked in and out of his office and shared whispered conversations with several of his friends, who were also standing amongst us. They were talking about my ignorance and the stupidity of my actions, I was sure of it, and also plotting where to dispose of my body. Bravely, Mr. Hackett approached Mr. Reginald and explained the situation, that I was here to document the trip and to ultimately make a movie that would help to raise literacy awareness. This conversation, however, took place out of my line of site, so when Mr. Hackett returned to standing next to me in that dark room, I found his reassurance to be unconvincing.

Being one of two white folks in a room of 30 black people, combined with doing what I had done, made me feel like the whitest man in the room. This sort of paranoia would soak my t-shirt with sweat for the next hour and a half. I stood there, half paying attention to the movie and half considering ways to approach Mr. Reginald. What exactly was I going to say to this man? I needed to apologize, of course, but I also needed for him to know that I meant him no harm, that my recording was not done to profit from him or the island, but to educate those who are unaware of Sapelo Island and the Geechee who fight for their community's existence. The movie ended, the lights went up, and Mr. Reginald walked towards my general location. My eyes met his, my heart exploded, and I reached out my hand. He shook it. "Mr. Reginald," I said. "Earlier this evening, I recorded your voice so that these kids might remember your words. If I have offended you, in any way, then I am sorry." Before I could even finish my apology, Mr. Reginald was apologizing to me. He had been upset when he saw that I was taping him, there was no denying that, but he explained how he had some time to sit with his emotions and think, and that he understood why I had done what I had done. All that he asked was that the next time I wished to take pictures or record voices, I first ask for permission to do so.

I would think about that night, that moment, for the rest of my time on Sapelo, about how standing up for myself and apologizing for my actions earned me the respect that I had lost and then some, and about how integrity transcends race and the color of our skin.

Sapelo Island: Part 1

2009-07-06T09:12:00.021-04:00

It all started last Thursday in the Grady High School teacher's parking lot on 8th Street in Midtown Atlanta. 17 students, two teachers and me, a camera guy slash writer slash tagalong instructor. Ms. Handy surprised us with t-shirts that she had specially made for the occasion. Her gift set a tone of generosity that we would carry with us throughout the weekend. My t-shirt was an XL, the only size which remained. I graciously accepted the tent-like tee and slung it over my clothes. The bottom of the shirt grazed my kneecaps.

Before piling into the two vans that would transport us to Sapelo Island, I asked everyone to get together and stare into the sun so that I could take their picture. And there you have it: The group shot. The one thing that I love about being behind the camera is never having to force a smile while staring into the sun. I tip my hat to those of you who can pull it off and smile like the bright light isn't searing your retinas. My experience usually results in a mess of contorted facial features, with heavily squinted eyes and lots of biting of the inside of my cheeks to hold back the profanities that I want to yell at the camera person for forcing me to be in this position.

Like I was saying, 17 kids were in our group. That morning, in the group photo, there were only 16 students present. All week we had requested that everyone meet in the teacher's parking lot Thursday morning by 8 a.m. sharp so that we could leave promptly by 8:30. The plan was to drive on 75 South for a few hours, stop for lunch and gas, and then continue south on 95 past Savannah so that we could make the 3:30 p.m. ferry to Sapelo Island. Leaving at 8:30 would afford us enough time for lunch. Leaving after 8:30 would not.

It was after 8:30 when I took this group photo. We were all packed and ready to go, 16 kids and three adults working together to stuff gear in trunks and assign seats. We were a team destined for greatness and our reward was only hours away. At 9 a.m., we still had not left the parking lot. We were waiting on one student who was apparently on his way. It was okay, we thought. We could wait. We'd waited a month for this trip to Sapelo so what was a few more minutes, anyway? By 9:30, we were anxious. The now very late student had toppled our threshold for patience and, just to sprinkle salt in our gaping wound, he refused to answer his phone. This was just great. The kids had been sitting the vans, waiting, for over an hour. The three of us adults were staring at one another, contemplating on leaving the late student behind. I think that we all wanted to go. We agreed that in order to learn a lesson, this student would have to learn that there were consequences for his actions. In this case, the consequence for being an hour late would be that he missed the trip. However, we didn't leave the student behind because we realized how much he would benefit from this trip. He, in particular, is a boy who is chronically late for everything, including class, and he is constantly coddled at home. He has never known the true meaning of consequence, has never been held accountable and has been taken care of and treated like a baby since he was a baby. Sure, the fact that we were still sitting in the parking lot waiting for his arrival was, in a sense, not teaching him about consequences, but this was his chance to be free from the coddling for one weekend, an opportunity for this boy to learn to take care of himself. So, we waited.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m. the boy in question arrived. We tossed his bags in the van, gave him a bit of grief for being late, buckled up and pulled away, 13 people in one van and seven in the other. Now was the time to replenish all of the hope and anticipation for the trip that had dwindled while standing around waiting in the parking lot. In our vehicle, a 15-passenger van, 11 kids bounced around in the bench seats while I navigated and Mr. Hackett steered the ship towards Sapelo. We hit the highway ready to Go Go Go! The kids begged for rap music but I tried to persuade them with AM1690. They cried out, NO!, just as I had done when I was a kid, riding in the car with my grandpa. Here was a man who introduced me to talk radio but at the time, it was pure torture. Dull, boring and bloated. Nowadays, I cherish AM radio programs and I know that one day, the kids will, too. But not now. We landed on a hip-hop station and were on our way. The only problem now was speed. A 15-passenger van filled almost to capacity does not afford you the luxury of 70 MPH. And every time the wind blows, you feel as though the van will topple and roll. The kids notice of these things and their scrutiny is unrelenting. Why are we only going 55 MPH? Mr. Hackett, a semi truck is passing us! Mr. Hackett, an Oldsmobile is passing us! Mr. Hackett, an old lady in a wheel chair is passing us! You try to distract them with chatter, you ask them to relax, you try an explain the situation, that we adults are responsible for the safety of each and every kid on the van and that it is impossible to drive safely and fast at the same time. They refuse to believe our reasoning. We refuse to drive faster. Eventually, they get over it. But 15 minutes later, one of them can be heard informing the rest of the group that we will, in fact, never get to Sapelo while driving at this snail's pace.

It takes a just under five hours to get to Sapelo Island from Atlanta. We didn't leave until 9:45 a.m. Because we had to be at the dock no later than 2:30 p.m. in order to catch the 3:30 ferry or else be forced to sleep in vans until the following morning when the next running ferry was to arrive, and because the van topped out at 60 MPH, we had no other choice but to cancel our lunch plans and push through. Here's where you start to respect the kids who have discipline and, on the other hand, start to think about dumping the problem kids out of the van and onto the side of the road. You don't do it, of course, but you think about it. A few hours into our trip and now it is lunchtime, legs are cramped and people have to pee, but we're not stopping. We do, however, discover that the boy who was single-handedly responsible for our current uncomfortable situation was over an hour late because he was in line at McDonald's, waiting to for his sausage McGriddle, hash brown and OJ to be handed to him in a paper sack through a drive-thru window. We process this information and sinister laughs escape from the corners of our mouths. We spread the news throughout the van so that each hungry, impatient child can realize how the shear selfishness of one can affect the well-being of the whole. We hope the lesson will play out and that they will hold this boy accountable, forcing him to, at the very least, apologize. We continue to laugh amongst ourselves in the front seats because the mere fact that we cannot stop for lunch because one of our kids was eating breakfast, a McFlippingGriddles, has so enraged us that we cannot think to do anything else but laugh. Really, we are more angry with the parents of the kid in question. I mean, you've got to be kidding. It starts at home, where the self-serving behavior is nurtured and rewarded. And we laugh because it is not the kid's fault and it is not our fault, and we laugh because no matter how much we suffer as a group this same boy would, given the chance, jump out of a moving vehicle and run to the nearest McDonald's to fill up on chicken nuggets and orange drink. No matter how much we offer of ourselves, the countless hours of positive reinforcement and instruction, we may never be able to see this boy change his actions from inconsiderate to benevolent. We laugh because we know this to be true, and the truth makes you want to cry, but you cannot cry, you cannot let 11 teenagers see you cry and then try to explain to them that nothing is wrong, so you laugh, you pause, change the subject, then you think back on that McGriddles and it makes you laugh, again.

We pulled into the Sapelo Island loading dock area at exactly 2:30 p.m. Road weary and hungry, we had little time to waste as it was more than 200 yards to walk from where we parked to where the ferry departed and we had a heck of a lot of gear to carry. Well, let me take that back: the kids had a lot of luggage to carry. I like to think that we adults packed minimally and smartly from experience, each of us carrying a minimal wardrobe to last throughout our four days of camping. Teenagers, especially those who have never stepped foot outside of Atlanta and have never been camping on an island before, well, they carry their entire wardrobe plus sleeping bags, pillows, slippers and shower caps. Prior to the trip they were given a list of supplies to bring. We made plenty with clothing suggestions and said things like, "Don't wear jeans" and "Avoid 100% cotton t-shirts because they hold moisture like a sponge." Most kids wore jeans. I think that some even brought wool sweaters. They were the ones complaining about sweating in the 90 plus temperatures and lugging their heavy things to the dock. Lesson (hopefully) learned.

At the dock, I found it impossible to hide my excitement for this group. Before them lay saltwater and the first boat ride of their young lives. Few were confident but all were curious. They draped themselves over the wooden railing of the dock, pointing and howling at small crabs in the shallow sea. One boy stepped onto the floating portion of the dock unaware that it would move under his feet. This new sensation sent the boy into a fit of laughter. I watched him walk off by himself, testing the other boards of the dock with every step. Eventually, we loaded the boat with all of our luggage and took our seats toward the front. That's where I'll bring this first post to an end, with these kids staring out over the water, possibilities unknown, their proud chests puffed out to meet the wind.