Sat. 7-7-18

July 7th is the day I will not forget. I graduated from high school 1964 and a month later on July 7th I was boarding a plane to fly up to Alameda California for boot camp. I joined the Coast Guard reserve in May just a few months earlier. This happens to be one of the smarter moves I've ever made.

While I was in boot camp we got news of the situation in Vietnam and the escalation began. I was fortunate enough, not to be called out from reserve to active duty.

Last Sunday I was heading home from church at approximately 10:48 AM there was a slow down on westbound I-8 by the Mollison offramp in El Cajon. I was able to stop, but the guy behind me driving a Ford Excursion 4 x 4 was unable to stop. When you look at the picture below of my van, note that he did not make contact with my bumper. Because it was lifted high it went right into the back of my liftgate. If you look carefully you can see the imprint of his Lic. Plate, right below my Lic. Plate.

Fortunately he has insurance and taking 100% responsibility. The bad news is they are going to total my van because the last I heard from the bodyshop it's over $8000 worth of damage so far. I started getting pain in my left shoulder and neck the following day. I went and saw the doctor a couple of days ago and this is the proverbial "soft tissue injury". I've never experienced this type of injury before and I'm just surprised at the pain involved. They said the pain will continue for about 2 weeks and then it takes approximately 2 months for the healing process if we're lucky.

As you know in March 2017 we lost the lease for our church building. The past year I've been going to a nice church and the pastor's great. About 3 months ago I asked the guys in the sound booth if they could use some help? The lady that was currently doing the live streaming, said that she could use an alternate and I started my training. God bless Michelle she trained me well. Now for the past 2 months I've been doing it hundred percent of the time and she's got a different job in the children's Sunday school.

I took a picture of what it looks like so that you can see. They have 3 cameras that are attached to the back of the church either the ceiling or the wall and the 4th is the projector which projects onto the screen. There are 3 monitors starting from the right and going to the left, the right monitor has 4 segments and you can see the 3 different views from the cameras and then the one that is in black and white are the verses that go up on the screen if you look on the platform you can see the same verse on the screen.. The other 3 segments of the screen are the 3 video camera views and they're all adjustable zooming in and out, left and right, up and down. One of the 3 video camera angles this live, then I have a 2nd camera set up to transfer the image to the main screen. Transitions from one screen to the next are about every 10 to 12 seconds. This way people don't get bored watching the same image. The separate monitor that's in the center shows the live image and the monitor to the left shows what it looks like in live streaming if you're watching this on your computer or television. Anyway I like these type of things and I find it challenging to get the best angle and position possible.

 Yesterday it was 107° in Santee. That's the hottest it's been for a long time. Today it's going to be down in the 90s and then it will go down into the 80s the following day. I'm taking my grandkids to see one of those action movies that's kids appropriate. We have so much fun together. I've heard it said that grandkids are a reward for not killing your kids while they were growing up and misbehaving. That's not very nice, but you get the drift

I've not taken a whole lot of surf videos because the waves have not been real great. We had a swell that came in yesterday but it's not just the size of the waves, there has to be some good form. It takes a lot of time to do the videoing, editing and posting to YouTube and I don't want to waste my time on 1 to 2 foot waves.

 Here's the Father's Day card I got from Joe and Hilda.

 There's a piece of fabric that imitates here and of course it was a humorous thing. Joe and Hilda are great!

Here's a picture I took of Harriet, Hilda and the grandsons in January 2013 at In-N-Out hamburgers.

Here's a picture of my good friend Pastor Mike and Harriet, taken on the North Shore of Oahu at Turtle Bay Restaurant. They're very good hamburgers. What is interesting about this little restaurant if they have wood framed glass pocket doors and they slide all the way back into the wall that all of a sudden you are outside and of course it has the million-dollar view.

The picture below was taken at Duke's restaurant in Waikiki about 2013. I still miss my girl. You know I don't that will ever go away. They say the time heals all. I'm not sure if that's true.

That's about it for this time. I hope everyone's doing well.

Maranatha,
Frank