Big Dogs Anonymous

Hi, I'm Patrick and I'm a yip-dog hater,

"Hi, Patrick."

I have to admit, I've had a relapse. I fell off the Big-Dog wagon.

But the yip-dog was so cute. And she snuggled right up to me. And she was soft. She was almost like a cat - in fact, my daughter has cats that are probably bigger than this dog.

It wasn't a REAL dog. A REAL dog is a dog that you can body slam.

But I did stroke her. It was a "slip."

I will take my white chip and pledge to only be friendly to REAL dogs from now on.

Rocky Mountain High

Rocky Mountain National Park - June 2009

A Day in the Mountains
I took an extra day on my recent vacation and spent the day driving through the Rocky Mountain National Park. It as a great day. The weather was unseasonably cool. The high was about 65F/18C at the park entrance. But by the time I reached the summit, it had cooled down to 30F/-1C. The wind was really blowing. And when I was at the Trail Ridge Store it started snowing. It was great.

Emotional Ambush

I took my camera and, as I usually do, I took lots of photos. [Click the image above and it will take you to the web album of those photos.]

That night I downloaded them to my laptop and started to look through them. Then it struck me - I'm the only one in the photos. Boom. Trudie and I used to really enjoy traveling together. So my sadness was about not having my favorite traveling companion with me. This was a great opportunity to grieve another area of loss. Yes, it was tough - but I've learned that tough is part of the territory and that Jesus is walking with me.

So I let myself feel the sadness and I had a good cry.

I'm A Man

The Beard Story Morphs

My first digital story was about My Bosnia Story. It was a project that I did during my Basic Digital Storytelling workshop.

My second digital story was supposed to be about shaving my beard and mustache after my having them for 27+ years. I wrote it and liked part of it but I was not satisfied with how it ended. Over the course of six months I would struggle with it and then put it back on the shelf again many times.

I got the chance to take the Facilitator Intensive Training offered by The Center for Digital Storytelling. This workshop gave us perspectives on how to facilitate a digital storytelling workshop in our environment.

So I brought my "Beard Story" to be mulled over by the collective of instructors and fellow facilitator trainees in a story circle.

I was asked deep probing questions about what was the story really about?

This was tough right-brain work that I'm not used to doing. Issues were being uncovered like "what makes a man?" and "do I know I'm a man?" and "how do I know I'm a man?".

I rewrote it and then shared it again with my classmates and the lead facilitators. More layers of the story onion were probed and revealed. I rewrote it again.

Over the course of four days, the Beard Story morphed. It was hard work and my brain felt like mush but I really like this revised story.

Enjoy!

I'm A Man from Patrick Bartkus on Vimeo.

My thanks to Daniel, Amy, Kayann, Christina, Corinne, and all the great folks in our group last week.