The Positive Memory Project

Memory 4 - Grand Canyon

2011-09-25T18:29:00.000-05:00

The kids were in 4th grade. We were just starting to home school. I had a couple of of days I could take from work so we said, lets go to the grand canyon. We lived in Arizona at the time so it wasn't a long road trip so we loaded everyone up on the car and headed out. We hiked around and took photos. K started a little notebook to take notes of everything she saw including the squirrel who scolded us for walking down the path. She also had to have the ranger hat to make it official. C wanted the environmentally themed comic book.
There was just a little snow on the side of the path that the kids played in. It was a big deal because they had not seen much snow. Growing up in the north, my wife and I tried not to scoff at the 5 foot square patch of snow because the kids were having such a good time with it.

Memory 3 - Pikes Peak

2011-09-25T18:13:00.001-05:00

When the kids started high school, it was a big adaptation for them. Don't get me wrong, they were doing great but it required considerably more work especially to figure out what some of the more lame teachers wanted. Along came a surprise long weekend so we hopped on a plane and headed for the cheapest place we could fly to... Denver. We got incredibly lucky because Denver was experiencing an uncommonly warm indian summer.

It was 10.10.2010 so we got on the cog railway and headed up above 10,000 feet to Pikes Peak. The kids were born in the Arizona Desert and then we moved to hot Texas. They are not used to the cold so when we got off the train, the immediately began freaking out. It didn't matter because their photo crazy father made them stand patently in front of every view he could find for a picture.

Memory 2 - America's Got Talent

2011-05-13T16:19:00.001-05:00

The day after American Idol, we had managed to dig up tickets to auditions for America's Got Talent. Our concern had been that we would not get into American Idol after investing so much time, money and emotional energy. The tickets were decidedly easier to get and we later found out that nobody was turned away.

As you can see from this photo pulled from the web, it is a huge place. We were on the balcony. Can't wait for the show to start so we can see ourselves again!

Memory 1, its time for American Idol!

2011-05-04T12:22:00.000-05:00

My wife and I were out on date night. We just had dinner at our favorite restaurant, Tarka up in Austin and were headed home. J inhaled sharply which usually means I am about to drive into oncoming traffic or maybe a tree. In this instance, I was left looking around trying to figure out what impending doom was about to befall us. When I looked at her to figure out what was going on, she was anxiously typing into her phone. After a minute or two she said "We have tickets to American Idol next Thursday.... in LA." It turns out that on a whim quite some time ago, she had entered our name in the drawing for tickets. She just happened to be holding her phone when our name popped up on their list and got the email. Then, she clicked on the link and shazam, we had tickets.

This whole circumstance lead to about 2 days of consternation, weekend texts to my boss K and frantic planning as we tried to figure out how we could possibly get to LA to use these tickets without breaking the bank.

The plan was this: Pull the kids out of school and fly to LA super early the morning of the show. Stay in Torrance because it was cheap and I knew it having traveled to Torrance many times for work. Then see the show and take the train back because we could do so for half the cost of the last minute airfare. We were not 100% certain about the tickets so we also tried to find other shows we could see so the kids would not be disappointed if the AI thing melted down.

We got up Thursday morning, ate some Salt Lick tacos at the airport and got on the plane. When we got to LA, we picked up a rental car and drove over to The Groves Mall which is right near CBS where they film American Idol. As we walked through The Groves, we stumbled on the filming of Extra so we stopped to watch.

So there we are in the back. After hanging out there for a while, we grabbed some lunch at Chipotle and headed over to stand in line outside of CBS.

When we got there, there were about 35 people in front of us. They all had lawn chairs and all the stuff you might want if you were going to be sitting someplace for hours. I had seen a Goodwill down the road so I headed off to Goodwill and was lucky enough to return with 3 lawn chairs. Then I headed off to a little pharmacy and got some sunblock. We hung out there a few more hours until people came out and started making announcements. They eventually came by, wrote our position in line on our tickets and said we had 15 minutes to get rid of all our junk.

Well, we were parked about a mile or so away. I loaded up 3 chairs, everyone's mobile phones and various other junk and started running in the nice clothes they had asked us to come in, a mile each way, in about 85 degrees. I found the car, dropped off the junk and ran back arriving in plenty of time but drenched in sweat.

After about 20 minutes (note the extra time), they started walking us in the gates where we stopped and waited a while longer. While we were waiting, Stephen Tyler (@IamStevenT) rode by on his motorcycle to cheers. This was my first indication that he was actually much cooler than I had expected. After waiting for 15 minutes or so, the line started moving again. We eventually got up to a woman who said "if you split up, I have better seats for you." I immediately said yes, split us. From there they walked us in to a holding area where we waited another couple of hours still not knowing where we were sitting.

About a half hour before the event, they started lining people up and taking them in. We sat patiently and were eventually walked in where we had to wait under the seats while they finished up with a rehearsal. After about 5 more minutes, they walked us out and we got the first glimpse of our seats, just to the right of Stephen Tyler. We were separated by a row and a few seats but not much more.

Here we are, my daughter K under the sign, my wife just to her left and I am there to the left of her.

And, just for perspective as to our seats, here is my daughter just to the left of Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest). Awesome! The show was capped off by my daughters favorite singer, Adam Lambert singing and later she and my wife got hugs from Stephen Tyler.

Positive Memory Check!

The inspiration

2011-05-04T06:21:00.000-05:00

Last night as I sat in bed, I scanned the people I follow on twitter (@positivememory) and I stumbled across this post from @psychcentral - News: Remembering Happy Days Helps Future Happiness http://bit.ly/lqOde7

On June 14, 2011, my wife and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. At age 44, that is over half of my life. We have together with our children had our share and maybe a few others share of happy memories. Sometimes in the day to day grind, those memories get lost. I am going to attempt to jot down some of those memories.

I admit, 25 years of memories are likely to be a challenge especially in the 2/3rds of which that existed before digital cameras.

They will be in no particular order but clearly the more recent will be the low hanging fruit and so I will pick off those first.