Hamm On Wry

It’s been a stressful week. It’s the 2nd anniversary of Richard’s death, and it’s the first time that I’ve been able to spend it with Janna basically attached to her hip. During the first year of grieving she couldn’t handle being around me too much as she would attempt to convince herself it was 2005 and my being there was normal because we had lived together in 2005 while Richard was in Iraq. When he returned at the end of 2005, a new chapter of their lives started, and I helped to smooth that transition for them both since the Army hasn’t figured out how.

And then, bam! Gone.

Now, Janna, The Cheerleader, has had to deal with this loss for two years. Day in and day out she’s worked to get her life back, get her sensibilities back, and to get as well as she can. Not easy, not fast, and certainly not painless. But still, moving forward in big ways. And hanging out with her 24/7 is a lot of fun even when she’s screaming. Sometimes, because she is.

That being said, the little extra stressors in her life are not much fun. They suck. Like, transmission needs to be replaced at a cost of several grand and lots of without car time. Not making her happy.

Consider as well that the car got it’s original transmission changed at approx. 78k miles in October 2005, the second swapped out after only 25k miles and 18 months, and now the third is being swapped out for the fourth after a mere 20k miles and 12 months. Not pretty.

Worse, the car is now out of the extended warranty, so the transmission isn’t covered in any way. And as we all know, they aren’t cheap either.

But we called Honda USA and went over the events, and asked. What could hurt if we asked for help, the worst thing they could do is say no, and then we were no worse off for asking. They said they would review the case and get back to us in few days. Usually, this is corporate speak for “Let me get a social normative graph because it’s something to refer to and will take time, tricking one to think we’re making the effort, when we’re just stalling” but not this time.

After considering all that Janna has had to deal with this, it’s been sucky. Just fucking sucky. Having the car issues to deal with all throughout the Anniversary day did some good in distracting from the insanity inherent in a 32 year old widow’s life. It seemed like a good thing to me, but Janna felt that she didn’t get anything accomplished on thursday, even tho she spent the day reconnecting with various parts of her family, both the family she was born into and the family that she was married into. None of it was easy.

Honda has decided to pay all but 10% of the bill to replace the transmission. It will therefore have a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty for the transmission itself. So the little people can play their game again. And we whole-heartedly thank them.

YAY!

I’ve been offline since late last week, which was when I had a last-minute deal appear in my lap and proceed to shred my thursday and friday like a demon-possessed wood chipper. Oh so much fun.

And let’s not forget the random weather in Montana that included a blizzard that appeared at 2 am Saturday and brought along the wind from a hurricane and a couple of lightening bolts left over from last spring. It seems that the weather was being run by the same windows machine that did the fireworks for Seattle. Heavy, wet, sticky snow that was piling up sideways as I needed to depart to drive to Bozeman for a flight. Rapture.

Anyway, it ended up being a non-issue, as the new PT drives excellently (more on that lovely bit later) and the storm and I parted ways after 32 miles. I made my flight, although when I landed in Denver to switch planes, I got a voice mail from United that if I missed my flight, I could get right on the next one out of Bozeman. Nice service, really, as it had to arrive right about when I checked in, since I turned my phone off after calling home to say the snow hadn’t killed me.

Now I’m in Houston for the Second Anniversary of Hell. Mostly, it’s been pretty good. I’m not looking forward to some of the events we have to do for this, but I am glad to be here. I want to know what the word would be that means ‘an obligation that honors me to undertake, that creates happiness out of misery, and that helps all involved in different ways, but that still sucks bilgewater’. I’m sure there is a German word for it, along the lines of schadenfraude, but it’s not been made into a song yet.

Anyway, back in Houston with the Cheerleader. Back dealing with emotional wounds that blacken the sun and destroy souls, an ongoing battle that seems to finally be going our way. I wouldn’t walk away for anything, but I wish no one would ever go through this.

Yeah. Read that title again and then think of all that you know about me. So yeah, there’s a bit of a twist. I was training them. In how to wear pink. No really.

Actually I was training them on how to use Final Cut Pro. I’m pretty damn good at using that software, which is kinda surprising to me considering I use it for such specific projects and never have used some features of the software whatsoever. Literally. And yet, I was asked to train them.

Now, I’ve taken classes from Apple Certified Trainers and learned a ton. I mostly learned that what I do and what a film crew does are two totally different things. I’m not part of a crew of several or hundreds or thousands, I’m the entire crew. I film, I edit, I produce, I foley, I author, I script, I do it all. I even deal with set building and lighting. That stands in direct conflict with the roles that most editors fill for Film and TV production. And that’s ok.

This gig required that I put together a syllabus. Which I did. And then the class started and it was nearly 4 hours into the class before I realized I hadn’t opened the stupid thing and had no idea if I was following it or not.

The class, however, was going great and learning tons. Why? Because I didn’t need to know what Apple thinks the students should be learning to teach them. In fact, if I’d done the syllabus’ route, the class would have ended up learning about a third of what they learned. After three days, each student had learned the interface, navigation, common pitfalls, how to adjust settings, controls, timing, in and out points, how to deal with still images, build pieces in Photoshop, the whys and wherefores of pixel sizing, the basic insanity of television resolutions and display methods, and had actually produced a very slick, fully personalized and completely useable video to show their Commanding Officers.

Do the students know how to work in a Film Production? Well, probably not. Can they create great videos for the National Guard? Yes. And since that’s their job, my training and the fact that I catered the learning to both their current level of knowledge and a specific goal means that I was hugely successful. Would Apple approve? Don’t know, but I suspect they would.

For the last part of Day 3 we had a quick session on how to export to DVD Studio Pro, re-use of documents in the production for the DVD and then presented each DVD to the C.O. on the big screen and had a discussion with said C.O. on how things worked, looked and the next steps. All of which is to say that it was a resounding success!

To the point that they wanted to recruit me. Which is, perhaps, the best compliment this big ol’ homo could ever get from people in the military. Because when it all boils down to it, substance matters. And I’ve proved that I have at least enough of the right stuff.

Plus, my students rocked! I really did enjoy my time out there, and if we get to do some more training I’m stoked about it.

“When was the last time you saw your boyfriend?”

“In person?”

“No, through the scope of your rifle.”