Archives for posts with tag: Salt Lake City

retirement

By daniel incandela
August 16, 2010 //
3

(new here? read this first.)

Old man Incandela here.

I think about retirement a lot. I may never actually get to retire, but I know what it might look like. It’s this image.

I might win the lottery. My career might lead to some amazing opportunity. I might have a very rich Great Uncle out there. Who knows. I’m not asking for too much. I want a farm.

I want to rise with the sun and go chop some wood, feed some chickens, fix a fence, maybe find a duck that has a hurt wing, and in general, walk around some land that I can call my own. I might be listening to hip hop while doing this. Maybe checking e-mail on some bio-chip linked to my brain stem – or whatever the kids will be doing in the future. But I’ll take pride in all of this and appreciate my life, nature and the world around me.

Aside from chickens and a dodgy duck, I’ll have a trusty dog. I might have a lama, a goat, and if I’m brave enough, a horse. I’ll grow lots of stuff. Weird plants, herbs, vegetables and beautiful flowers. I’ll wear Wellington Boots a lot. A cap. And I’ll definitely carry a Leatherman.

I want a rocking chair. I want to eat pie daily. I want to build a fire and read books. I want to be surrounded by loved ones. I’ll entertain visitors. Every now and then, I’ll go traveling and bring back something for the farm house. Not sure what – some trinket, rug, painting from somewhere far away. I’ll always return, happier to be home.

In that rocking chair, I want to look back on life with few regrets, knowing that I created amazing opportunities, treated people with kindness, and truly experienced life.

Wish me luck.

A good retirement spot

A good retirement spot

by Casey, daughter of the best landscape photographer I’ve yet to know.

When I was little my mom would always whisk my sister and me away on camping trips in Southern Utah. We would sleep in the car, eat ramen soup for dinner and drink water out of those old reusable IV bottles. I would always get sick in the car so before we left Salt Lake I would pop a couple of Dramamine and be asleep before Provo. I’m not even sure if I realized that Utah had this whole wild middle section of brown and tumbleweeds until I was grown, I fell asleep up North and woke up surrounded by red rock down South.

I could spend hours exploring the caves and dunes of Southern Utah, one time I found what I swear were human bones, however no one was ever willing to agree with me. I lived for the time between meals when I could just explore. My sister and mom were more content to be back at camp reading or, well, honestly I’m not sure what they did because I was never around to see.

What my mom lived for were those 20 minutes that exist between night and day or day and night. Where the sun is fat and golden and the clouds finger out into fifteen different colors. I remember one morning, I was maybe 6, I awoke to everything washed in the most intense red-golden light. I poked my mom who immediately went to work, pulling out her Canon 35mm and running out the door without so much as a goodbye, leaving her two little girls asleep in the car. My mom speaks in sunsets and sunrises and thrives off sweet light.

When I imagine my mom it’s by some lake or other body of water, bathed in a rainbow of light. She has her viewfinder to her face and her old 4runner and insulated coffee mug in the background. To this day I can’t witness a sunrise or a sunset without thinking of her.

We’re going to be taking a road trip in October to the 5 states she has yet to visit (she wants to hit all 50 before she’s 60) and I am giddy to think that while at home I hate being up before the sun rises, with my mom I’ll be up and witnessing her in her element. I’ll have those memories of my mom to lock away forever both on print and in my mind.

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Categories daniel started it.

the millenium falcon

By daniel incandela
July 11, 2010 //
4

(new here? read this first.)

I’m Daniel. And I’m kind of a nerd.

This picture has always reminded me of the Millenium Falcon. Like a lot of kids my age, Star Wars played a big role in my upbringing. I can still see Han Solo and Chewbacca engaging hyper drive. That’s what this image means to me – 6 years old, watching in complete wonderment as I discovered space, robots, the force, Princess Leia and bounty hunters. It’s a miracle I didn’t break the VCR back in those days.

I’ve had plenty of time to process the first three Star Wars films (I refuse to discuss the new one’s). I do a mean Chewy impression. I’m known to slip in a “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” during conversations, and I attend Gen Con annually, there’s more…I honestly think R2-D2 could beat a T-Rex in a fight. It pains me that C-3PO is so insecure. I really don’t get it. He’s shiny, gold and can communicate in over 6 million forms of communication. What’s the problem?

Let’s just say I reference Star Wars a lot.

A few years ago, I bought two orange trees. I named them R2-D2 and C-3PO. I still have R2. Unfortunately, Threepio died. I’ve killed a lot of plants. I ordered a new orange tree earlier this year and considered the name for some time.

I’m thrilled to say that Boba Fett the Orange Tree is flourishing. I keep him on the balcony, usually by himself (bounty hunter style). The Boba Fett character was probably the coolest in all of the Star Wars films. Amazing armor, quiet, traveled frequently, made his own hours, AND, a rocket back pack. What a life.

He died a ridiculous and unflattering death in The Empire Strikes Back – it’s almost like someone played a prank on him. It still really irritates me today. But I’m coping.

All I can do now, is make sure that when Boba Fett the Orange Tree dies, it happens with a little more dignity.

4th of July

how casey sees it…

I once had a stepdad who was a mortician. I could say funeral director, but for the sake of this story he was a mortician, he did mortician stuff, he just happened to direct funerals as well.

I learned a lot a lot from him over the years, such as certain chemicals used on someone who had died from an overdose would cause them to turn Kermit the Frog green. When reconstructing a face for a viewing glass marbles are used where eyeballs used to be. A dead body left in a hot car for weeks will turn black and bloat. There are certain religions that approach death differently, and the feelings towards it are palpable among the different sects.

But there is one story he told me about a teenage girl riding down a narrow two lane canyon in the back of a friends car. They had been drinking and she had stuck her head out the car window for whatever reason teenagers stick their heads out of car windows. They came around a bend at the same time as a truck traveling in the opposite direction.

It hit her.

It tore her in half.

Many times my friends and I had been that girl, hanging out car windows while riding down steep and curvy canyons. Sometimes I was drunk, sometimes I was not. But from the moment I heard that story I was changed. I could visualize it too easily. The breeze in her face, the curve in the canyon, the headlights, the honking, that sound, the screaming…

…the phone call to her parents.

Even 13 years later I still tense up driving down winding canyon roads, especially at night.

I’m not sure if it was his intention to scare me with this story, but it worked. And while I still lived the rest of my teenage years with fairly reckless abandon, I also lived with a new fear, the fear of death.

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Categories daniel started it.

fountain of youth

By daniel incandela
July 7, 2010 //
3

(new here? read this first.)

Daaaaaniiiieeeellllllll!!! Recently, people have been calling me Dan or Danny. I don’t really mind it, but the people that know me think it’s really weird. Anyway, Danny Boy’s version -

A couple of year’s ago, I took this photo in Millenium Park. I loved it for a number of reasons. Then I randomly discovered this fountain this past weekend in Corning, NY.

I’m a kid. I often describe myself as a 13-year old. I play an adult well, but I’m often repressing the urge to simply be a kid. I filter what I say around colleagues. I often laugh at my creative ideas because I know they need to be grown-up-ulated first. I’m okay with that. I’ve made it this far.

Who doesn’t want to run around in a fountain on a hot day? Kids become even more kid like when they encounter fountains. They’re oblivious to the outside world. Adults are invisible. It’s them, in the moment. Pure energy, laughter, excitement, exploration and fun.

I love this image for that reason. And, the perfectly blue sky. The reflection in the water. The kids laughing and running. And the small rainbow peaking through the spray. I’m not sure what that rainbow is doing, but I like it.

Anyway, now that I’m all grown up-like, I guess I’m looking for my equivalent fountain experience. Most of the time, I find it while taking photos.

A fountain, kids and a rainbow

A fountain, kids and a rainbow

caaaassseeeyyy!!

During the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City someone had the brilliant idea to install one of those fountains that appear as if from nowhere in the outdoor mall downtown. I know there’s an entirely different set of words to be written about an outdoor mall in the desert/snowonderland that is SLC, but please. Let’s focus on the fountain.

There are choreographed water displays set to John William’s Olympic theme. It was cool eight years ago! But since then the fountain has turned into a free summer activity for families from all over the Salt Lake Valley. People bring snacks, chairs, towels and little people dressed in swimsuits. Some of the parents even come ready to soak up some rays.

There’s even been a little stage erected for local dance troupes to show off their stuff.

It’s a mall.

A public one.

Never have I had the desire to lie outside the Apple Store across from the giant window displays of Barnes and Nobel in a tankini as my child runs through chlorinated water with a bunch of strangers, no restroom in sight and everyone else walking around fully clothed as if they were shopping at the mall.

Wait…

Running through a fountain on a hot summer day should be spontaneous. It should be done fully clothed. One should walk away surprised at just how dark their favorite t-shirt can get when soaking wet. It shouldn’t be a planned activity…plans should be saved for super crazy places…like the public pool.

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Categories daniel started it.
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