What Did I Learn?

I've had an unbelievably busy Sunday through Sunday (8/2-8/9), culminating in a trip to the land of the quirky to pick up this young lady from the campground:

Age 9 or 10

And along the way, I learned a few interesting things:

When they put their collective mind to it, a long in the tooth classic rock band/artist can still put on a good show.

On 8/2, courtesy of my bro, I went to see a double bill of Cheap Trick & Peter Frampton. As most of you know, I'm not a fan of geezer rock, simply because I remember when that music was actually fresh and not murdered by commercial radio. But, away I went, and even though Cheap Trick put on a good show (highlight: John Lennon's Cold Turkey) and the 3 original band members were in good form, Peter Frampton blew them away. Among the highlights: a ridiculously long and highly enjoyable version of Do You Feel Like We Do?, phenomenal instrumental cover of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun (which can be found on his Fingerprints album) and an encore featuring While My Guitar Gently Weeps. One factoid: I was in the bottom end of the age bracket of the concertgoers.

A child can actually prove you wrong.

I have written about my son over the years, mostly behind the scenes (aka, not on this blog), and for many of those years, our relationship was pretty much like the one I had with my dad: strained. But, in the past year and a half, he managed to completely change my opinion by doing the one thing that I never thought would be possible: he grew up.

In Spring 2014, he finally saw the light. He had hit rock bottom job-wise and he finally came to the realization that what he was doing was something that he did not want to do for the rest of his life, especially in light of him finally getting his personal relationships straightened up (has a girlfriend of roughly 2 years). So he enrolled in Porter & Chester's Automotive program, which culminated in him completing the program and graduating on 8/6 with a degree in auto mechanics. Prior to graduating, he managed to land a job at a car dealership. Suffice to say, I am very proud of my son for finally doing the right thing.

On the other hand, a child can actually make you look not-so-smart.

I learned from my 14 year old daughter this past week that I really can't do something like a video on the fly. No sir. Doing a video and posting it to YouTube requires planning and the ability to actually edit the damn thing before posting. I also learned that even if you have a YouTube account, if nothing is posting publicly, then you can't be found in their search enging.

Anyhow, I came up with the novel idea of posting a video that makes me look silly this past week, and I asked my daughter to help me film it. She immediately asked if I had any moving-editing programs on my computer. I told her I wasn't sure, but I would take a look. Sure enough, I didn't have, but Microsoft had a program that I could download. Now, I'm very leery of downloading any kind of program, but since daughter says I should get the program, then I probably should.

I also should mention that computer video editing is course that she took in her last two years of middle school and is one of her electives this coming year.

Yah, I are smart.

And that is what I learned this week. How 'bout you? Any meetings with Captain Obvious or at the Epiphany Café?*

*Neither phrase a creation of me. One is from t.v., the other from a comic strip.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.