Friday Adventures: Forest Lake Academy

Yikes...  This is a weird one.

When researching things to do for a Friday Adventure I happened to pass over my old high school on the Google maps satellite view.  I noticed that the P.E. field looked abandoned.  This peaked my interest and when Ryan said he was down for anything I suggested we go check out the old Alma Mater.  

It was a weird impulse, I know.    

Neither of us had been to the campus in probably more than 15 years.  My feelings about my time at Forest Lake Academy are extremely complicated.  I assumed that stepping foot on the property would bring back nothing but negative feelings.  I thought that a fight or flight response was a strong possibility.

While I did get a full body shiver as we approached the administration office to acquire visitor passes, I soon learned that the FLA I used to know doesn't really exist anymore.  We spoke to several of the staff that brought us up to speed on the current state of the school and discovered that it has suffered from enrollment losses and budget restrictions.

I won a softball championship on that diamond.

The once thriving and oppressive institution has been reduced to shade of its former self.  The boys dorm was torn down a few years ago.  The track and field are all but completely abandoned and over grown.   There is now a large fence that borders the entire property.  It appears to not to keep out threats or danger from the world but to hold tight to what remains of its past.

It seemed... pathetic.  Like seeing your childhood bully take your order at a fast food place.   It has been de-fanged.

This is where Amy and I first kissed.
(Ryan rejected the suggestion of a reenactment.)

We actually had a lovely time.  

The following video chronicles our visit to the campus, featuring the site of the boys dorm, the gym, the field, the bird bath, the flag pole, and the auditorium.  Our FLA trip would be incomplete with out a stop at Taco Bell where we would frequent when the cafeteria was unpalatable, and the graveyard where we would escape the Orwellian eyes of the faculty to engage in rebelliously smoking cigarettes.  

Make it smaller.

vroom vroom. 

I have been experimenting with tilt-shift photography.

Well...

That's not quite true.  I have been experimenting with photoshop and creating a tilt-shift effect on photographs I took ten years ago.

"Tilt-shift" is a method where you actually tilt the lens of your SLR camera in order to achieve a more shallow focus.  This effect can cause objects in your photos to appear to be miniature.  Many times they end up looking like toys, or meticulously constructed dioramas for use with model trains.

I have fallen in love with the effect.  It presents the world as a land of playthings.  Nothing here is dangerous or serious.  Everything is whimsical and trivial.  Smaller.

Its a trick of course.  Smoke and mirrors.  Tilt-shift photographs are nothing more than specifically placed blur effects and over saturated colors.  It's not even hard.

That's why its appealing.

The world is a harsh and severe place.  People get bombed at marathons in Boston and fertilizer plants explode in Texas.  I have high blood pressure and my daughter needs dental surgery.  I crave the simplistic trickery of an altered perspective that makes it all seem manageable.  Smaller.

Orange County History Center.

If you want to see more, this video is probably the best example of this method done right.  I love the helicopters landing and taking off. Check it out.

Where have I been?



This is where I have been.  In my hammock.

 Or more pointedly; why haven't I been writing any blog posts?

The short answer is that I haven't felt like it. 

Here is the long answer:

I started this blog when I quit facebook.  At the time, I thought I was addicted to facebook's system of input and output.  Make a post and wait for the serotonin rush of little red tags telling me how much my friends enjoyed it.  Press the button, get a cookie.  I was scared that leaving facebook would eliminate that reward from the act of "sharing."  

So I started this blog to fill what was sure to be a gaping void in my life.   I thought quitting facebook was like cutting off a gangrenous foot and this blog was going to be my set of crutches.  What I almost immediately realized was that it wasn’t like a necessary sacrifice of a harmful limb. It was like an appendectomy.  I felt better!  So much better that I forgot what all the fuss about red tags and like buttons was all about.  It seemed absurd to think I would miss it. 

So this blog has been sitting here empty because I haven’t needed any crutches.  I am skipping and jumping all by myself and it feels good. 

So what does that mean for the future?  Why this blog post?

I have reached a point where I think it will be healthy for me to venture back out into the world of sharing.  This time will be different though.  I want my digital experience to supplement and enhance my real life experience and not exist apart from it. 

For example: 

I started a youtube channel.  This channel is home to a series of videos I call "Friday Adventures."  Each Friday I grab a friend or two, and head out for some fun.  I shoot and edit some video of our adventure and upload it to youtube.  This video series acts as a catalyst to get me off the couch, call up a friend, and do something cool.  It is enriching my real life. 

Here is an example:

So there will be more sharing in my future.  More youtube videos.  More blog posts.  This time around I do it with purpose.