Cancer

It's amazing to me how many people I know that have or have had cancer. Even more amazing to me is the number of people I know that have kicked cancer to the curb and are either in remission or "Cancer Survivors". All types of cancer; colon, prostate, lymphoma, leukemia, brain, the list goes on and on.

I have known four people in my lifetime that have had a cancerous brain tumor. The first was a good friend and classmate of mine. We were 16 and she was (and still is) an amazing miracle. A year or two later another student from our school had a similar tumor and recovery. The third person was a neighbor as well as the father of two of my students. They found the tumor during my first year of teaching. He has had a long road but things are going fairly well now.

The fourth person is someone I've known his entire life. I was "sandwiched" between him and his older sister. The sister a grade ahead of me in school, and he a grade behind me. They found the tumor a few years ago after he had a series of terrible headaches. Only 26 years of age and fighting cancer.

The Lakeview Softball Tournament is a late summer tradition that goes way back to before I can remember. In recent years it had faded away as the "founding fathers" of the Lakeview Softball team I grew up watching all reached "retirement" age. A few years ago it was re-established and organized once again. One of the highlights for me was watching my father come "out of retirement" and play so that Lakeview could field two teams. He even donned his old school softball pants the second night. I love my family and watching my dad, two brothers, and husband play on the same team was so wonderful, even if their team did get eliminated after two games!

The proceeds of this year's tournament will go to my classmate and childhood friend to assist with medical bills. I was asked to take the footage and put together a video since he was unable to attend this year.

So, without further ado...

Lakeview Tourney

Just a quick post before I head off to bed. Recently I (Jodi) have been working with video footage from the 2011 Lakeview Softball Tournament. I really like to make videos using both motion and still photography and although I would not claim to be excellent at it, I learn a bit more each time I work on a project. Usually when I have a task like this I jump right to it and work until its completed. This time was a bit different (more about that in my next post). I struggled to compose the video I envisioned and had a hard time deciding on music, which is VERY unlike me. I did eventually end up with four videos. Two are just uncut footage because I like to add it to the completed DVD. The one I will share tonight, er...this morning, is a video done from a preset that I used to get the creative juices flowing. Though I don't totally love it, it has some fun elements. Okay, enough talking...here's the video:




I promise I will post again very soon and post the other video, explain a bit more about this project, and talk about why it was hard to get these videos put together. Lots on my mind and in my heart but it will need to wait for a more awake time!