Video Trek III: The Search For Dad - Part 6...

SitRep:

13 interviews completed, 1 more to go.
Video footage has been captured and logged.
98% of required pictures have been scanned and edited.
Research at 100%
Script at second rough status, pending final audio interview.

9.25 days remain.

Status: On track for delivery.

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Hello again!

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm channeling Roger Waters a bit. Feels like I've been creatively obsessed with my father over the past few months, at least as far as my blog is concerned. My thinking is to look at these past few months and ask "why not?"

Definitely beats sitting around writing the same old shite that I had been doing over the course of the past year.

So, here we are at 9 days until Dad's last day. Quite honestly, my nerves are a bit shot. Not that I'll admit that to everyone, but as the deadline inches ever closer, I'm finding myself more filled with nervous tension. Although I suppose that admitting that on the Internet kind of negates the previous sentence. Oh, bother.

Seriously though, I'm excited. I've spent the past few months researching, talking with a baker's dozen of Dad's colleagues and friends and attempting to stalk down any photo, videotape or paper clipping that I can find. Just as it was with my granddad's video last year, I find myself having a blast.

What's really made this a fun experience is all the support that I've had from everyone that I've talked to. Most of them are curious to see what the end result will be, but I suspect that a good chunk of them are having a good time being members of my impromptu Daddy Intelligence Agency. Or perhaps members of Dad Eye-5. I really need to find a better spy agency name one of these days.

I think that is what has added to the fun behind the project. It's a fucking rush to be able to talk to the Provost of a major university, sneak into the very workplace of my subject and nick a few pictures to scan and return (with my subject not the wiser) and grab some footage of the campus before finishing my day with a refreshing Dr. Pepper and the knowledge of having made some major progress.

I can tell that others are having a good time as well because it's likely that they, like myself, realize that had we done this project in the open, Dad would never have sanctioned it. They had a retirement BBQ for him last weekend for the San Antonio crowd and although I wished that I could have been there, I knew that there was no way that I could have shown my face.

Most of the crowd there had been sworn to secrecy and it's kind of one of those "outta sight, outta brainpan" deals. It sucked to miss the event because I loved the SA crowd. They can be a ton of fun, but I just couldn't take the chance.

Mom informed me that just about half of the people I had met with had pulled her discretely aside and asked if she knew what I was up to. She couldn't help but chuckle at the situation. "Like a bunch of guilty looking kids with their hands in the cookie jar."

Couldn't help but chuckle at that one either.

Speaking of hilarity, I was over at the family compound the other day whilst Dad was in Tucson. I was rooting through a ton of notes with Mom, attempting to shore up my script and also to grab a few last pictures from their albums. While we were sitting on the living room floor, I mused that it was a shame that I couldn't have snapped a few pictures of Dad's office in San Antonio when I was there the week before. By then, he'd already cleaned out his office so only a empty shell remained.

Mom had this evil grin on her face.

"What?" I asked, adopting a curious expression.

Mom's smile curved a little as she said, "You know... Dad just happened to bring a few boxes back from San Antonio the other week..."

"Oh?" I replied, "And isn't it just unfortunate that he happened to leave them in the middle of the floor of the sewing room?"

"It is," Mom agreed.

"And isn't just such a shame that he carelessly left said boxes untaped so that someone of a clumsy nature could just accidentally blunder into such boxes, resulting in the contents spilling all over, let's say, the rug in there?" I ask.

"Yes, indeed. That is a shame. Some people should really take better care of their belongings and put them away as they were warned so that no one, as you have so rightly said, could blunder into them."

Got to love Mom's deviousness. Heh.

So, I snapped a few scans and digital stills of some of the contents. Hey, it was the least I could do to ensure that nothing was damaged after my tragic "accident." Yeah, that's the ticket.

For the rest of the week, I have taped the Provost (a story in itself) and have taped a few Skype calls to two people who've known Dad since he started working here in Tejas. I have one final phone call to make two of my folks' best friends back in Los Angeles and after that, I am done with interviews!

Coolest pair of people you'd ever meet. They even were so nice as to offer to stop by the pharmacy in the Valley where my dad got his start and snap a picture of it for me. How cool is that?

Anyway, that's where I've been lately. This next week's going to be ultra busy, but I'll stop in with another update as things progress!

Excelsior!