Time Travel at Cal Poly -Journalism 285

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Eileen

Don't they look thrilled they got to meet me? Yep, that's what I thought, too.

Too bad I couldn’t travel back in time to visit my twenty-one year old self. I’d tell her everything would all be okay. And I wouldn’t mean that phrase in a way that really says, “Your life is a complete mess right now, but I don’t know what else to say.” I’d mean it because it’s true. Everything is okay.

I got to prove this to myself when I visited my friend Dave Schermer’s Journalism 285 class at Cal Poly. I talked about my job with his class and it blew my mind. The job I have today as Chief Mom Connector of Mom Central is perfect for me and I love it. If my younger-self had known this was waiting for me twenty years after I finished college, I would have been  ecstatic.

When I sat in those chairs as a student, Social Media didn’t exist; neither did blogs, twitter, facebook, laptop computers, smart phones, or anything involving what I get paid to use every day. Talking with the class made me realize how much the world, and my own life, has changed since I attended Cal Poly.

As a quarter-long project, each student created a blog and writes posts based on certain assignments. Before I went in to the class I read each blog to get to know who I’d be talking with -and I loved seeing what they had to say. One blog had gorgeous photography, one posted about SLOtheStigma.org -an orgization I feel a personal connection with, another blogged about the homeless in SLO, and a student’s blog about her passion for travel made me wish I had more stamps in my passport. The students put their personal touch on their blogs and I felt a connection to each one of them.

The class paid attention (thank you), sometimes a few zoned out (that’s okay -I remember what it was like), and many asked questions (right on!). I got off topic, back on topic, got totally pitted (what the heck was that about?), and managed to say something that got quoted back to me in a tweet later in the day. (That feels pretty great, I have to admit.)

After class I continued the conversation with three students and I loved this extra time with them. I realized there was so much more I hadn’t told them; I remembered things I forgot to share.

"Graphic Communication". Yep. That's my old department.

I had to muddle through my twenties without a visit from future-me, but this week I got to travel back to a part of my past and see what I might have looked like sitting there in a classroom at Cal Poly. I got to talk about my job and how cool it is to work in Social Media. I saw those desks from the front of the classroom and it was amazing to look back on my journey of how I ended up there. Or here. You know what I mean.

Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Schermer and the students of Journalism 285. I loved talking with you and sharing about my career. Keep up the good work and learn as much from Mr. Schermer as you can. He is an excellent resource and teacher.

I’m not sure I made this point to all of you: It’s all going to be okay. I’m sure of it.

Onward!

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Hooray! It’s our 3d Panaversary!

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Eileen

A guest post by John.

Say Cheese!

Dear Panasonic,

Sometimes thank you just isn’t enough. How do you show appreciation to someone who changes your life in ways you could never have imagined? That their presence enhances everything you do and makes it better, easier and more fun than you thought possible? This question becomes even more difficult when there is not a single person to say this to, but an entire company.

Three years ago our family was chosen to be a Panasonic Living in HD family. (Click the links to read about our first and second year and the changes this program brought to our lives.) Today, we are no less astounded by what has happened to us than we were on the first day. If anything, we are more appreciative than ever.

Last year, we were given an upgrade to our Panasonic equipment. The good people at Panasonic had shown our neighborhood what 3D was going to look like the year before, and were now giving us the opportunity to share it with others in our home. Greg Harper came once again to install an incredible new 50″ 3D plasma television and a 3D blu-ray player. In addition, we were given a 3D video camera, and a new Lumix GH2 camera with a 3D lens.

Our world, which had been blown wide open in HD, changed drastically again with the addition of 3D. I know many people think 3D is a gimmick- that’s because they haven’t experienced it. We immediately realized what powerful tools we had in our hands and knew exactly what we wanted to do with them.

Thanks to our Panasonic 3D television and blu-ray player, our weekly Pizza Night has achieved new levels of awesome. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, the glasses are not a problem at all. We love putting on our glasses and sharing a movie every Friday night. They create a stereoscopic image with outstanding full HD clarity and enhace the movie experience. They do, however, keep us from multitasking while watching movies with the kids. This simple fact has returned us to the original intent of Pizza Night- be present with the family and share a movie. The boys love having friends over to experience the 3D on Pizza Night and we love that their friends want to be here.

3D video has enhanced our lives and our ability to make and create memories. We have taken our cameras to our children’s school events, on hikes through Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon, down ziplines through a pine forest and to a local animal preserve to film ourselves feeding elephants. Regular video would have captured the experience, 3D puts us back in the experience. We relive the elephant’s trunk reaching out to grab the carrot from our hands, passing under the delicate arch, seeing our child sing with his class; the video could not be more real. The 3D still photographs are even more amazing. The memories we capture of our children become dioramas, rather than simply flat images.

This summer, we took the 3D camera equipment to Eileen’s grandmother’s house. Her grandmother had passed away long ago and this was our first opportunity to bring our boys to the home where Eileen spent every Christmas and many weeks every summer. Our goal was to capture the house as she remembered it, 3D gave us that opportunity. We took 3D stills of everything- the gardens, the staircase, the view from the upstairs window in the room where Eileen and her sister had slept as children, the overhead light that she had stared at every night before falling asleep. These little things in a regular photograph inspire memories. In 3D, they provoke a more powerful, visceral reaction. It is no longer a picture of the view through the window, it IS the view through the window. Thanks to Panasonic and these 3D products, these memories are now frozen in time and (the illusion of) space forever.

We finally got to bring the boys to the house but, better yet, we brought the house back home with us.

We continue to be overwhelmed by the kindness of the people in the Panasonic community. We got to meet the engineering team from Japan who built our television and ask questions of them.  It was an amazingly enriching experience for our boys to meet and ask questions of the people who designed the television they loved to watch. The team wanted to hear our opinion of their work, and listened when we suggested improvements or upgrades. We even went with them to our local Costco to answer their questions about marketing and packaging. It was an honor to have our opinions be so valued.

The many other families still active on the LiHD site have proven themselves to be wonderfully supportive and generous. They share our Panasonic experience and consistently inspire us by how they use their technology. One of the “3D” Living in HD families who lives in our state, (Timnevan on the LiHD site) take amazing photographs and video. They came down to spend time with us, let us pick their brains about all things photography and helped me get my G2 to take the amazing pictures it does! We’ve Skyped with them via our television and ejnoy them as part of our Panasonic family. We have had dinner with another LiHD family, the Nielsons (but unfortunately didn’t get to join them on their family vacation). We haven’t managed to pull off our LiHD family reunion yet, but we’re not done with that dream!

Thank you isn’t enough to show the appreciation for how our lives have changed. In the past three years, Panasonic has taught us that the purpose of technology is to enhance our lives. When you have the right tool for the job, everything is easier and better. Since we became a Living in HD family, we have had opportunities to travel, give to others, meet people, and share our lives. Our Panasonic products are the right tools to capture the moments that connect us to others.

We are honored to have been selected to use your products. We are honored to associate ourselves with your mission, and we will continue to share our experiences with everyone we can. It’s the least we can do for a company that has given us technology with the ability to open our world.

Sincerely,

The Calandro Clan

LiHD family #39

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I Will Always Appreciate the Stay-At-Home-Dads

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Eileen

Here's M2 -he's still a climber and proud of it. I can accept that.

One of my favorite stories about a Stay at Home Dad involves my friend Duane who is an amazing photographer here in SLO. When M2 was two years old, Duane and I were in a Parent Participation class together. Duane has a gorgeous daughter and you all know what I have: NOT what Duane has. Times three.

Anyway, M2 climbed everything all the time, including a small, soft structure inside the classroom. The other Moms freaked out as M2 scaled it and flipped off backwards, repeatedly. He didn’t hurt himself, stuck the landing each time, and had a massive grin of accomplishment and pride.

I admit, I freaked out, too. He was going to hurt someone! He was going to hurt himself! Why couldn’t he just play like the other kids? Why was I losing my hair? (Actually, I knew the answer to the last question.)

Duane is one of three boys. He assured me and everyone else what M2 was doing was perfectly normal. He even encouraged it and wasn’t freaked out at all. He thought it was awesome and helped all the other Moms in the class feel more comfortable about M2′s affinity for climbing, including me. I am forever grateful to Duane for his Dad perspective and ability to teach everyone around him it would all be okay.

I wrote this over on Mom Central about another SAHD friend of mine. I’d love to know what you think. Do you include SAHDs in your park play times or activities? Do you talk with them about how things are going at home? Do your SAHD friends feel appreciated by their spouses? 

Thanks for your feedback and conversation. I’m forever grateful to Duane and thoroughly appreciate SAHDs.  They’re the ones who understand where my boys are coming from better than I ever can and improve my realtionship with my boys as we hang out together. I will always be grateful for their perspective.

The LOML and I keep looking for that bag of money so he can stay home with our sons like he did when M1 was little. He loved it and he was fantastic with him. I always say, the LOML is a better wife than I will ever be.

Onward!

*This post take my Pledge-A-Post commitment to a total of $140.00 Pledging one post at a time to change the world. Put your money where your mouse is.*

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I’m Back, and I’ve Got Something To Say (Shocker, I know.)

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Eileen

Here's my favorite photo of me and my Dad. You can't tell, but his hair was red, just like mine.

I lost my blogging mojo. Big time. Posts rattled around in my head every day for the past three months, but I never found the time to put them here. I like the saying, “What you resist, persists.” Well, this blog is persistent. I kept pushing it aside, writing for Mom Central, spending the summer with the boys, travelling, working on our house, and avoiding things here.

But this blog persisted in working into my brain. Ideas for blog posts wouldn’t go away.

There’s so many reasons why I lost my mojo. Here are some of them:

I hate how this blog looks. I call myself an artist, but don’t have any skills in blog design. I need to hire someone to create the things I want for this space, but that takes money, money I don’t want to spend that way right now. So I’m avoiding being here.

I don’t like to hang out in a place that’s unattractive. You probably don’t either -if you’re reading this right now -bless you for ignoring the ugliness around this space and focusing on my words.

Most of all, I felt ashamed of dropping the ball on my Pledge-A-Post idea. It was all coming together. I hit the $100 dollar mark of pledge money and passed it -I even got a check for my birthday to match the funds that I pledge here -I know! Awesome, right? -and a friend offered her help and knowledge to make my idea grow.

Actually, I didn’t just drop the ball on this blog. I drop-kicked the ball off a cliff and watched it bounce down into an abyss for months.

I hate when I behave this way.

But as I said earlier, what I resist, persists. Too many things came together lately to push me to write here again. I traveled to San Francisco last weekend with Stacy DeBroff. She is my boss, but most importantly, she’s my friend. We hung out, ate amazing food and had a blast. This woman has taught me so much and given me a job and career I adore. She consistently rocks my world and I can’t imagine my life without her.

Another woman I admire and adore, Sarah Browne, met up with us to spend the afternoon as we explored The City. (That’s what we called it growing up, it will always be The City to me.) Spending time with the two of these ladies made me smile so much I grinned like a goon all day long.

The one place I desperately wanted to share with Stacy and Sarah was the Buena Vista near Ghirardelli Square. My Dad used to hang out here and told me stories of all the trouble he used to cause at this famous bar.

See that smile? Like I said, grinning like a goon. But I don't care. I loved this!

The BV (as we call it in my family) is famous for their Irish Coffee. To see them prepared here is unforgettable and they taste fantastic. We ordered a round and I took photos. And I held back tears as I sat with these two women I admire.

I wished my Dad could have been sitting with us. He would have absolutely adored these smart, powerful, dynamic women as much as I do -or maybe more. My Dad loved success stories and loved smart entrepreneurs.

I miss him.

This week is National Suicide Prevention Week. I shared coffee with two of my favorite women at a favorite hang-out of my Dad’s the weekend before our nation proclaims a unified effort to stop people like my Dad from doing what he did. And my Dad would have had a blast with us if he was still alive today. That seemed strangely coincidental.

But wait, there’s more.

Through my job at Mom Central, I met an inspirational blogger named Cristi Comes. Her blog, motherhoodunadorned.com, was created when a friend of hers committed suicide. She started the blog to help others and stop the silence surrounding suicide. Her blog is a powerful collection of honesty and proclamation. She wants survivors to have a voice and not feel alone when dealing with loss due to suicide.

She inspires me to get my rear in gear with this blog and make it the place I want it to be.

She asked me to write a guest post for her during this specific week, and then I ended up at the BV the weekend before she needed the post, and then Sarah told me about Trey Pennington’s death this week. Alright, I may need to be hit over the head with a hammer, but I get it. I need to give this blog some attention.

So here I am again. So what if three people read this blog and it needs the equivalent of Yard Crashers for blogs. (Did you hear that, blog designers?!? That idea is golden! Go ahead and steal it because, clearly, I can’t make it happen, or this blog wouldn’t look like this!) Signs are telling me I need to be here and keep doing this.

If you are a person who has survived a suicide, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for mine as well. I wish the circumstances about my Dad were different, but I can’t change that. I can only change what I do about it from now on.

So now I write. I pledge ten more dollars to my Pledge-A-Post, taking the total to $130. I talk about what happened with my Dad so others don’t feel alone. And maybe someone will realize life is much better with them than without them after reading my words.

If you are considering suicide, get the help you need and deserve. You are worth it and you will be missed, no matter what you think. Blessings to you and yours.

Onward!

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