THE STORY

More than likely, you have stumbled upon this page because you clicked on a link talking about a car accident, or a wedding, or something of the like, something super exciting that you can't wait to read.  I'm here to tell you that that entire story is just down below, you'll know when it begins.  If that is what you came for, scroll down and begin reading at:

Today was arguably the most incredible day of my entire life.

That's where is begins.  It is Wednesday the 15th and I still am disbelief over the whole event.  Scroll down if you want, read on if you want, I'll still be here.

It's finals week, the week every college students dreams for.  This is the week where the classes we all have been working so hard in come to a close in the form of a final exam.  This is the week that the semester or quarter or other obscure school system decides to say "sayonara."  It's an awkward time.  And it's over.

This semester is over, it's been real, it's been challenging, I've become a working man.  Overall, I really enjoyed this semester, it's been very hands on with projects rather than stuck in a book, which in my book, is a good thing.

In other news, the suit you see above has an interesting story behind it.  You see, months ago, I couldn't tell you how many, Mr. Ben Jacuk, Mr. Michael Warnecke and I set out to purchase some fine suits.  We found our deals, left with the potential of the cast of Mad Men.  Here's the catch, we needed to get our pants hemmed.  Long story short, last week, hemmed they became as Mr. Michael Warnecke's aunt graciously worked her magic.  So, somewhat naturally, we got excited, Monday we wore the suits, Monday we took this picture, Wednesday I wore a suit; naturally, we got excited.

I think it is time for the time you have all been waiting for.  Or have you?  Well, buckle up because it's going to be a bumpy ride, and please, for the safety of all passengers, keep all arms and legs inside the car at all time.  Thank you and enjoy your ride.



THE STORY


Written on Friday, the 11th.


Today was arguably the most incredible day of my entire life.  The events that went on were passed that of a blockbuster, they were passed the mind of a creative child, the events that went on today absolutely, 100% blow my mind about 10 feet out of the water.  The events of today not only went down in history, but reminded me that life is a trip, that life throws you into the craziest events at the most random of times, that life is utterly unpredictable.  I'm going to say this: I love living.  Today was all about the beauty of life, going with the flow, and sitting along for the ride.

This weekend started out as an out of control weekend.  Mr. Isaac Svensson and I were set to videograph Mr. Randy Marshman and Ms. Megan Fate's exchanging of the vows on Saturday the 12th of December.  The wedding rehearsal was set for the 11th, so, naturally, we prepared to drive down.  This morning, Isaac and I gather up our gear, pack up the car and head out, heading to the northern parts of San Diego.  (Note: upon leaving Biola's parking lot, Isaac mentions something along the lines of "I really don't like this car, its a boat, the handing is bad, and it doesn't respond well.")  So we're driving south on the 5 freeway in the far left lane, having nice conversation over a varied number of topics, just enjoying the Friday afternoon drive, when I see the car in front of the car in front of us swerve to the left, causing the car in front of us to slam on its brakes, causing us, by laws of reaction time, to slam on our brakes.  Now, when a car swerves, normally this means they made a split second reaction, realizing they would not be able to make it with a straight brake, so this caused the Land Rover in front of us, which had decent brakes, to stop on a dime.  Mr. Isaac Svensson's car, however, has the slow response he had mentioned earlier so even as he slammed on his breaks, we proceeded to smash into the Land Rover.  Here's the scene: we're driving along, I see two cars ahead of us swerve, I look over at Isaac, he yells, lifts his leg up and slams on the brakes, we skid, we slam into the Land Rover, the airbags blow up in our faces, white powder erupts throughout the car, we, on instinct, open the windows and start waving the white powder out the window, all happening within one second.  In the blink of an eye.  We are both quite alright, Isaac's glasses took a tumble, and we proceed to get out of the car, march through a massive puddle of radiator fluid/antifreeze/oil, and push the car to the side of the road.

The typical takes place: make sure everybody's alright, discuss the situation, exchange insurance information, speak with the motorcycle policeman, discuss the next steps, call up AAA, Land Rover leaves.

So there we are, Mr. Isaac Svensson, myself, and this motorcycle cop, standing on the side of the 5 South freeway, watching the people of the freeway look at our mess, cause a bundle traffic (which was incredibly interesting, by the way) and sitting tight until AAA comes.  As I'm standing there, leaded up against the car, I remember my art project.  You see, I have a final video art project based on the concept of "profile" in which I must profile someone to any extent, I needed to work on it at some point this weekend, but due to the wedding, I would have no time to do it.  I decided to bring my small HD video camera with me, you know, just in case.  As I stood on the side of this freeway, I realized this motorcycle cop was the perfect profile subject.  I proceeded to video tape him as we waited for AAA, which has turned into a completed video art piece:





Here's what is going on: I realized that the image of the motorcycle cop is extremely mysterious and illusive, everybody sees them, immediately recognizes them, but how often to people have an actual conversation with them outside of a speeding ticket?  Not to often.  I was intrigued by the persona of the motorcycle cop as he stood there, pacing every five minutes, for a half hour, not interacting with us whatsoever.  And that's okay, he's doing his job and he did a fine job doing his job.  Nevertheless, his job is definitive.


AAA shows up, the motorcycle cop leaves, and we proceed with the towing.  Everything runs smoothly and then we leave in the tow truck, soon realizing #1 we are going to miss the wedding rehearsal #2 we need to go somewhere right now, we cannot stay in the tow truck #3 we need to get back to Biola tonight #4 we need to get back for the wedding tomorrow.  We discussed our options and realized a friend we worked with at Hume Lake, Ms. Ashley Clark, was going to school at Cal State San Marcos, just a few minutes from our current location.  Isaac calls up Ashley and says something along the lines of "Hey Ashley, we're right around San Marcos, figured we'd drop by, we'll be there in about five minutes, see you soon."  We show up, in the tow truck, at Cal State San Marcos and find Ashley, who not only is surprised to see me because Isaac didn't mention I was with him, but was surprised to Isaac working for a towing company.  It didn't take long before we began emptying out all of Isaac's belongings from the car onto the concrete, to which Ashley realized the totaled car on the bed of the tow truck was Isaac's.  Obviously, there is disbelief.  We say goodbye and thank you to the tow truck driver and we make our way, with our belongings, up to Ashley's room.

From here, we have a game plan to create.  We have three options: #1 Call somebody from Biola to come pick us up in San Marcos and bring us back to Biola. #2 Stay the night in San Marcos, go thrift store/discount shopping to find dress clothes for the wedding. #3 Have Ms. Ashley Clark drive us down to Biola IF we went with her to a white elephant gift exchange party.  Upon discussion, we decided on option three.  So, because of the trade, Isaac and I needed to find white elephant gift exchange gifts.  Earlier, upon cleaning out the remains of his vehicle, I asked him if he wanted his car mats, two in the front, two in the back, to which he replied (paraphrased), "I don't really want them, but they're so nice and decently pricey.  I just don't want to have to carry them around until I get a car.  I guess we can get rid of them."  So we decided to each take two of these mats and use them as our white elephant gifts, complete with plastic bag wrapping, custom by Vons.

We go out, hit WalMart, pick up a few more people, and head to this White Elephant Gift Exchange.  Funny enough, we enter this extremely confusing area of town where there are unique gated communities within hundreds of feet of each other.  Let's just say we got really lost, some got really frustrated, I thought it was hilarious just because it was adding to this already bizarre day (it gets even better), but eventually we made it to the house.  So here's the deal, Mr. Isaac Svensson and I enter this house brewing with numbers of people we do not know.  This is an interesting situation, indeed.  We go in, start partaking in small talk with other people at the party, and begin introducing ourselves to the bulk of the group.  We enjoyed a fine meal of pasta, garlic bread, and all the additions, and conversed with the people we have never met before.

About half way through this party, it hit me...ALL OF IT.  I started busting up laughing, laughing my head off if you will.  This is what got me: When I woke up this morning, never in a million years would I have guessed I would be, at that moment, at a White Elephant Gift Exchange with 30 people I had never seen before at this house in San Marcos.  I was baffled, I simply could not believe what we had gotten ourselves into.  Bizarre is an understatement, it just gets bizarre-er.

Before long, the actual gift exchange was set to begin.  We all had a number to declare the order, when your number was called, you were to pick an unopened gift and unwrap it, or steal a gift from someone who has already opened a gift.  After a gift has been stolen twice, it is dead and the owner will forever keep it.  Upon looking at the group of gifts, our "gifts" were pretty ratty as they were "wrapped" in plastic bags, most of the gifts were formally wrapped in wrapping paper and/or gift bags.  The game began, tennis balls, movies, funny hats, were opened, gift cards, robes, were stolen.  When #14 came up, I opened a nice lavender-scented fragrance set.  It was real nice, however #15 snatched it right from me, so I got to go again.  From here, I chose this nice X-Men bag, opened it up, and found a pink boa, Disney Princess pens, a tiara/jewelry kit, and a Disney Princess pencil holder.  Let's just say, I'm not sure I was the right candidate.  Nevertheless, I was content at what I had opened and I was ready to be the rightful owner.  Mr. Isaac Svensson, #20, opened up the movie "Robin Hood: Men in Tights," but the delightful film was stolen almost immediately.  A few shenanigans later, Isaac ended up with my gift, two of his own car mats.  The gifts were growing low, Isaac had his car mats and I had my Princess pack.  #24 came up, the last number, one gift left, and the one and only Ms. Ashley Clark.  To my surprise, Ms. Ashley Clark stole my princess pack, enabling me to pick the last gift of the gift exchange: Mr. Isaac Svensson's gift of the remaining two car mats!  Obviously, I eagerly snatched these up and exclaimed at the perfect ending.  We couldn't believe it, we ended up with the gifts we had brought, the car mats that Mr. Isaac Svensson was sorry to leave.


It was at this moment, I realized I simply love life.  In the good, in the bad, in the optimistic, in the pessimistic, life is unpredictable.  You sometimes have to just laugh at the absurdity.  I am blessed to know there is a God that has it all under control, an aspect to life I cannot even fathom.  We were protected, we were provided for, and we got hundreds of incredible laughs out of it, ALL of which was completely unplanned and on-the-surface scary and discouraging.


So we leave the amazingly random party and begin to head home with the gracious Ms. Ashley Clark.  After a run in with some thick fog, some of the thickest I've seen in Southern California, we arrive at Biola safe and sound.  We drop Isaac off at his apartment and then I lead Ashley to her temporary quarters with Ms. Amanda Cooper.  After a nice discussion about the eventful day, I head back to my room, it's 1:30 AM at this point, to find my roommates not there.  I find out where they are, they're headed to Del Taco, so I join.  We go to Del Taco to find it closed, we try a number of other places to find them closed, so we end up at Yum Yum donuts to have some delectable treats.  I proceed to tell the story of today, this story you are about to finish reading now.  We have a good laugh, a good eat, hang out a while, and then head back home.  It is now 4:06 AM and I am finishing the story of Friday, December 11th.

Know what's funny?  The wedding hasn't even happened yet.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.



[Written after the fact]

Saturday arrives.  Ms. Ashley Clark, Mr. Isaac Svensson, and myself take to the 5 freeway once again to try to make it to our destination.  At this point, who knows what's going to happen, so much randomity has already happened that either we have exhausted the cause or we're just getting started.  The car ride went very smoothly, a nice contrast from the day before.  We said goodbye to the gracious Ashley Clark as she dropped us off at the location in the Encinitas area of San Diego.

Here's what happened: the wedding went incredibly smoothly.  Everything happened exactly the way it should have, no hiccups whatsoever.  Not only that, but the weather was beautiful, the house was beautiful, the bride and groom were beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, the reception was beautiful, the sunset was beautiful, and the rest of the evening continued in the same fashion.  Seriously, Mr. Isaac Svensson and I sat baffled at the incredible lack-of-the-unexpected of the entire day, definitely a nice contrast between the quite eventful day just a day before.  We had the privilege of shooting along side the photographers Nate and Jaclyn Kaiser of "The Image Is Found" (http://www.theimageisfound.com Blog: http://www.theblogisfound.com).  It was incredible to work with them, attempting to produce the most effective photography and videography simultaneously without getting in each others way.  I believe we, as a collective media team, were quite successful in capturing the entirety of the wedding and I can not wait to see the final products for both the photography and the videography.

That's pretty much it for the wedding, it was just that good.  Seriously.



Congratulations Randy and Megan Marshman!





One more: it was great seeing a lot of the Hume crew, you know who you are, it's always a pleasure.  Oh, and thank you so much to Ms. Alexa Garner and Ms. Kayla Bible for driving me and Mr. Isaac Svensson back to our home in La Mirada, without you we'd still be walking.

That's the story.  I'm still kind of in disbelief that that turned out to be the sequence of events, it seems so distant already.  Time is a weird, I think "weird" should just be a noun for nou-n on, time is simply a weird.  If you have read this blog very much, especially in the last few weeks, you know time is a topic I enjoy speaking about, and if I don't enjoy it, it's just very prevalent.

I kind of wanted to write more, but I don't have more to say.  Even though THE STORY was written on Friday and "after the fact," just having it in this post is exhausting.


So, that said, it's the holiday season, it's the Christmas season, it's a wonderful season.  Be careful, be safe.  Enjoy life, love life, enjoy randomity, take advantage of every opportunity you get even if it is a trash opportunity from first glance, it might turn out to be one of the most memorable experiences, in a good way, of your entire life.  You never know.  Bad can turn to good in a heartbeat if you heart is beating the beat of optimism and enthusiasm and maybe a little inspiration.



You can do it, I believe in you.