beach is lovely

HMC 150 (test) from Jonathan P. Baldwin on Vimeo.

love this Panasonic hmc 150

K-Grind Perspectives from Peter Barth on Vimeo.

documentary

Okay, so a friend of mine is doing a documentary about me. It's a bit crazy, but yes. People writing documentaries about me is confusing. Not much to talk about I would figure, but they think it's worthy news. That's how it should be. Nobody should go out with the intention of making their own documentary about themselves. I guess that's called an auto documentary. Well, autobiographical documentary. =D

Angels, Demons and forgiveness

Last night, as I lay awake, partially sick and partially not feeling as sick as the people in my house, I thought about Angels and Demons. I don't necessarily like to call the latter demons; I think of them more as fallen angels. Demons, I believe, are different breed had come from Genesis Chapter 6; maybe they are the nephilum. How did I get on this subject? Well, I started watching this action film called "Gabriel" that was sort of like Dan Brown mixed with The Matrix series. A lot of action, but in the midst, these angels fighting over the middle ground, the front lines between heaven and hell. Essentially, they fight on earth, or more specifically Los Angeles; that's not hard to believe. I know! Los Angeles = the city of Angels. It's better to think of them fighting in LA because it's such a messed up city. At the end of the film however, Gabriel, is sent to Earth to fight the good fight against fallen angels on a similar mission, but for the other side. The Archangel finds himself not only fighting against fallen angels, but other archangels. Michael, Raphael, several others, all came down in hopes of bettering the world, but as an added conflict in the arena, the more you use your angelic powers of healing, the less of an angel you become and the more human... you fall. It becomes harder and harder for these angels to see light from darkness and many fall prey to the sins of the world. In the end, Gabriel succeeds in doing what all the other angels could not and defeats the leader of the fallen Angels; no, not Satan; apparently, he wanted too much money to do the film... or he has to sharpen his pitchfork. Instead Gabriel has to kill... Michael who has become top dog.
I'm not saying that this movie is a perfect film, nor theologically accurate, but it did get me thinking. As Gabriel vanquished Michael, who was going under another name I cannot spell, nor remember, he forgave him. But this is where I had a thought. Is it possible for angels to be forgiven? The answer must be an emphatic "NO !" Unlike human beings who have some sense of moral ambiguity, angels do not. After all, angels have known complete good and complete evil. When an angel falls, they fall completely; there is no more good in them. Nothing that can be forgiven. Were you to forgive an angel for their sins, you would be loving the sin and the sinner. It cannot work this way. I'm not sure how accurate I am on this, but it is just a thought.�

A Documentary About Me?

ya...no joke. more to come...

Writing? (Ugh,...complain, complain)

Writing is so difficult for me, yet I'm always complimented for it. So, why do I stress? Why do I fret when writing any sort of creative work? You really should not! I mean, creativity is all about throwing colors here and there, putting nouns and verbs, pronouns and that ever elusive predicate (something I still don't know enough about) all in the places that you need. I've even read books about grammar. Grammar books that, like one, became a bestseller in Britain. Of course, a book about English grammar in Britain is much like a book about baseball in America. Nevertheless, I struggle and struggle with writing every sentence. I write, then I delete, then I write again. Rinse and repeat. After I'm done with this, I pull my hair out for awhile, then try to get a drink as the speech recognition program I use, has me talking like Joe Cocker. And then, in the midst, something interesting happens. When I finally open the doors and let everything flow through, air, trees, water, and whatever else into my mind, something cool happens. But as I was reading recently, success is a journey, not... something else. I cannot quite remember as I don't remember much from what I read. My comprehension has always been bad. Probably the reason I cheated off the redhead next to me in English nearly always. She would read, I would copy.... well, I wouldn't totally copy. I would add my own little flair. Nevertheless, it was cheating. What a little cheater I was! Although, I'm sure laziness was also part of it. I once took a report about Hiroshima from a friend of mine; he got a C+ and I turned it into an A+... again, with flair. Flair seems to = A+. He was frustrated that I got a better grade, but oh well. Now, enough of my cheating and back to my wondrous life as a award-winning screenwriter. I'm not there yet. No hot models and actresses hanging off of me yet. I wish.

from my facebook blog...

People have been asking me how my life has been going and what has been getting me down. It has been a bit of trouble. With back pain, nerve pain, neck pain... (five minutes later)... and the toenail that bugs me, it is hard NOT becoming depressed. I'm stuck in bed all the time these days until I heal up and get up occasionally for about two hours segments. This is infrequent and typically happens once every couple of days. It's not the life I wished to find, far from it. But as with any sort of artistry, life is a process of discovery, not photocopying. You put in some hard work here, some lackadaisical work there and pay no attention to other areas; somewhere in the midst, colors mix and you discover yourself or watch your shape form. Let the metaphor fly any which direction you wish. At this point, I have no answers, only the life I live (now I'm paraphrasing CS Lewis).. I thank everyone for their prayers and passions they've expressed for my own life. Sometimes I think the prayers don't do any good, but then... the colors mix and something new is created. Naturally, this is not every time! Prayers are not always solved or answered. It's much like my task list in Outlook; I have so many tasks in there, but only a small portion have been satisfied. Most of which are half finished or not even started. Some tasks are in there and I have NO intention of completing them; I know you did this too, so no judging. I'm thinking God's task list looks about the same. As for my health, I seem to be getting better, though not with the jumps and strides of some super technology in a sci-fi feature. I love those movies! They solve the problems we have every day in 45 minutes. Star Trek does it all the time and to such perfection. Can Dr. McCoy do any wrong? "Bones! AIDS needs a cure!", and "Bones! We have a cancer problem over here! "Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor not a... nevermind. I'm on it."

Tired & Sick

I hate being tired and I hate being sick even more. Whenever I start feeling tired, it makes me depressed, but when I feel both, I feel horrible. Not like you can do much about it, because flu viruses just act that way. I see superheroes and sci-fi movies solve those problems every day. A flip of the switch, or pop a pill, reset the transport buffer and you're off to a better land. No more sickness; all signs of any illness are wiped away with... sometimes... literally... the wave of a magic wand. But that's not reality! Of course, everyone knows that, not that it stops any of us. We still continue to believe in stories that give us a better world. No matter the reality of situations that don't get better, people that don't get off the table after the good-looking Dr. calls a "code" and the paddles charged up. It doesn't happen! Okay, it might happen once in a codeblue moon (I snort hysterically at my funny), but most of the time, no reality is ever so full of a perfect ending... At least not in this world. Fortunately after death, the story doesn't end, or so people like myself believe. There is a happy ending! Heaven is perfect, I spend all of eternity with my Savior and every wrong against me, no matter how great I have been cured. As for the crimes against others by myself, that was taken care of and by no means by me. Thank you Jesus

Race for the Cure

Nine years after her cancer treatment, Becky is still running (or trying to, in her case, as she has arthritis) in the Susan G. Coleman race for the cure. This is held every September and though I attended the first couple of them, I still have yet to attend another. I suppose five in the morning is a bit early for me. Still, it's a wonderful race and offers people like myself who have family members and friends who have suffered from cancer (two of them from breast cancer: Sister Sharon and Becky) a chance to support others. My father passed away a couple years back from cancer and it had a profound effect on me. You always think your parents will be there, because... they always have. When one, or both, pass away, it's daunting, euphoric, lonely. this reminds me of something C. S. Lewis said; "I never knew grief felt so much like fear." and although I don't know if I have the quote exactly correct as I'm going by memory, I do recall that book, a grief observed, as being profound. Oh, she got in the LA Times article too.

I love this song by Vast. It's called "touched."