icedavis

If one thing is for sure, is that I did what I did for him, because he is my best friend and I will gladly do it again (although a little more advance warning that I am gonna be hiking six miles at night in the cold would be nice!) One thing my therapist reminded me of was that at some point pretty much every one has a bout with depression. We all at some point have that 'existential crisis' moment (part of my anxiety problem) but Most people sort of "come out of it" (for lack of a better term at the moment) naturally and normally without too much issue. we have to do the best we can to address it no matter how mild it is because we don't know how deep the rabbit hole can go and we want to prevent that journey down for sure. I too am glad you didn't pull the trigger. One thing I hope that you are doing is talking about it (all of it) with those closest to you. It is very important that they know and can recognize the good days and the bad so that they can respond and be your first line of defense, your support system and a very valuable outlet...amongst many other good reasons. You aren't the first or last to struggle and definitely aren't alone in the fight now, having that support system is your greatest ally.

Haha, this reminded me... So the Afghan Whigs played in MPLS a week or so ago, towards the end of The Current's member drive (its fantastic public radio that can be streamed online) and one of the on air ladies was obsessively gushing on air about the A.W. leading up to their show, like a tween fangirling at a Bieber concert. It was pretty funny.

Ouch. I can only imagine how tough of a moment that would/could have been.

For all you that travel, there is a great app out there in the event you get stranded. It is called Winter Survival Kit and is available for Apple and Android devices. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/winter-survival-kit/id482127435?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=md.apps.Blizzard&hl=en

Those unis are actually orange but the design guy forgot to put the saturation back to 100% normal in the final specs that went out to production.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I can understand where the perception of suicide being selfish is coming from but I disagree. I especially think it is unfair to the deceased to pass those kind of judgements when we don't know what kind of battle they are fighting. Imagine the things you could/would do or try to rationalize when you have no control over your mind. At worst, we should just say how sorry we are for having not recognizing the signs earlier (if we were in a place to do so), send our sympathies, celebrate the life they had and do our absolute best to not let another person take their life under the same circumstances. I don't think you (or most anyone thinking along the same lines) are ignorant in the negative sense. Depression and anxiety are just so hard to wrap your mind around when you don't suffer and you just needed more information to get a better understanding, no matter how tough that part can be. We definitely need to keep an open dialogue between people who suffer and those around them who don't. That is the best way to help everyone understand and fight the battle together.

Good point. I guess I'm looking far too deep into it...or either not deep enough. Think of it this way, and maybe it'll help you realize how devastating mental illness is. This guy had a wonderful wife and 2 beautiful twin daughters, and yet he killed himself because he didn't feel he was worth their time. I can not stand it when people say suicide is selfish. In their mind, they're killing themselves out of compassion for their loved ones. In their mind, their loved ones should not have to be burdened by a failure. It's not selfish. It's anything but. As someone who only suffers from a mild diagnosis of depression and anxiety, but has a wife and a best friend who have severe cases and are medicated, I can speak to this quite a bit from various different levels. The quote above comes pretty close but doesn't quite encapsulate it, not for any other reason than depression/anxiety is very hard to truly describe and very very hard to understand, sometimes even for me when I have only a mild diagnosis. The way I described it to my therapist was to imagine the absolute worst day of your life. It could be anything, usually I equate it to losing someone very, very close to you, like the love of your life. Or maybe, dying alone without anyone there to help. The heartbreak, pain, helplessness, feeling lost, and worthless, all those emotions. Then imagine feeling that way every single minute, every single hour, of every single day. No matter what you do, your brain takes you back to those feelings, those thoughts and you have absolutely no control. You then bottle it up out of fear of embarrassment in front of others. You say absolutely nothing about it. Then for the anxiety folks, panic sets in. I am talking "Fight or Flight mode" and you just pounded a kilo of amphetamines. You get very scared. More scared than ever (or what feels like ever) and the panic absolutely takes over your mind and now your body too. You actually start developing symptoms of a heart attack just from panic alone and you literally feel like you are going to die. Yet you have absolutely no control. Every minute. Every hour. Every day. And that is just how I felt, with my mild case. It's simple to think that you can just change your thoughts and it will go away but I can assure you, while even I think that at times, that's definitely not how it works. Your brain has placed you on an airplane at 35,000 feet, the plane just lost cabin pressure and all its engines are dead and its crashing whether you like it or not. My wife, has severe panic attacks when she is in the kitchen alone because she thinks she is going to poison the food and kill everyone that eats it and not realize she did it. You know, sorta like when you are driving for a while, sorta space out and then all of a sudden you are 50 miles down the road. My best friend and I have the same trigger, death in general. Anything death related can throw us into a spiral. Others I have heard have other triggers that may seem just as ridiculous but are triggers nonetheless. The biggest thing anyone can do is show compassion. You won't understand and it will likely seem ridiculous why. If you can, recognize the signs and get to that person who is suffering before suicide and try to talk with them. Let it happen naturally but getting them to talk helps for a number of reasons, one it helps drop them out of panic mode, two it releases a lot of pressure, three it gets them to open up about what is happening. It's easy to say a therapist can do all that but we as family and friends are the front lines and often depressed people will deny that kind of care. Helping a sufferer understand what is happening can help them figure out their triggers, what things help when panic/depressed mode sets in and also can be a solid gateway to the suggestion that there is a problem and it is more than okay to seek help. You should go to absolutely ANY LENGTHS to help someone you know that may be struggling. My best friend for example...we went to DQ with our wives one night and halfway through a panic attack set in. He completely shut down, walked outside and didn't say a word, which completely freaks his wife out. After sitting on the curb in the parking lot for quite a while he gets up without saying a word and just starts walking and without hesitation I follow him, our wives stay behind. We ended up walking back to his house, over 6 miles away, sometime after 10pm in shorts and t-shirts and flip flops on a cool fall night. I walked with him for a couple miles before he said anything to me and when he finally started talking, that is when he really opened up and just let it all out. We talked about every last detail of his struggle and mine and it was that night that he realized it was time to take control and get help. If that is what it takes for me to help anyone, that is what I will do and I encourage all of you to do the same. I am only saying all this to show how serious it is and how sufferers can be helped and overcome depression and anxiety. It will be very hard and will take a lot of work but it can happen. No one has to die. The big thing to remember is depressed or anxious is not who they are, depression and anxiety is just something they have.

The university of South Dakota is an Adidas school and they have this look going for this weekend.

I colorize photos now and then. It's not easy and takes a long time but It's a lot of fun bringing and image back to life and giving it that extra character. I always love seeing photos that others have done.

I would take out the red outline around the wolfs nose? I was thinking along the lines of the same thing. That area of the image seems to be a bit convaluted to me. White stroke outline, plus red stroke outline, plus thicker white stroke outline, then the 4 color head. I am thinking limiting the head to 3 colors instead of 4 might help the outline issues you had in defining the head and thus allow you to potentially remove one or even two of the extra strokes.

I like those a lot. That gold trim looks sharp and pops nicely off the black...unlike the silver/gray (whatever color that was supposed to be) numbers on our red alts this year.

That coach in the white shirt in the background is one of my friends and former teammates from high school. LOL. He always seems to find camera facetime with big plays like this.

There was. In 1986 when Miami was #2 and Oklahoma was #1, they came down to the Orange Bowl for a regular season game: “Hello?” “Is this Boz?” Bratton asked. “Yeah …” “Well, this is Melvin f—–‘ Bratton and Alonzo Highsmith, and this is your f—— wake-up call, m—–f—–! And at high noon we’ll see your sorry ass in the Orange Bowl and we’re gonna kick your f—— ass!” As soon as Bosworth hung up, Bratton and Highsmith told Hurricane defensive lineman Jerome Brown of the “exchange.” Brown summoned the entire defense to his dorm room, from which they called the hotel and asked to be connected to Sooners quarterback Jamelle Holieway. “Ja-may-al, come out and paaa-lay-yay,” Brown taunted, “Come on out, Ja-may-al.” When he later learned of the calls, Johnson nearly fell over laughing. And why not? His Hurricanes had won, 28-16. I hear ya. I have heard of that exchange many times. I was actually thinking along the lines of how much more there could have been. If they went that far with just phones, then they would use any and all avenues and if the twitters and such were around then, how much more there could be for all the world to see.

Imagine the internet trash talk that potentially could have been flying around if the social medias were the big deals in the Michael Irvin, Jimmy Johnson-ish era of the 80s. That would have been real fun to watch.

I only have the 5 but I will probably upgrade at some point between now and April but being that I have $15k worth of DSLR upgrades in the hopper, it's just not that high on the priority list yet. My wallet is going to take a beating over the next year. I too am not sure I need the size of the Plus, which is a good thing the upgrade won't happen right away. I have big hands so it might not be a problem but it gives me a chance to go in store and try them out. Not completely sold on the watch, especially being that I haven't worn a watch in over 15 years but I will likely have a close up look at it and may even give it a shot.

LOMS, I liked the song choice there. Did you find that song as an edited version or did you edit for profanities on your own? I have been getting into editing songs for my videos lately and like to hear how others are doing it. If so, what was your resource for learning how? I haven't gotten too crazy with my edits yet, so I haven't really done a lot of research. I know the time will come so I have started gathering youtube and other web resources as tutorials for when it does.

Nice. I was just listening to the whole album the other day. Good stuff.

LOMS I think you are talking about WickedShadows.

Gotta get some of those NZ guys in the back to commit a bit more. I learned the haka during a trip to Aus and NZ in high school. Bout wet myself the first time I saw it. Pumps me up every time since. Some pretty stellar ones from the rugby pitch.

I am curious, were the random swimmers and the drive by texter a planned part of the video? If so, bra-vo.

I agree. Frankly, I was thinking about them when I first saw the images this morning and was wondering why something like this hadn't happened before. It' only makes sense (at least in my head)

Fantastic. I wish I could get down there more to get the wide array of shots I do at the stadiums here. Gophers country has a plethora of fun facilities to shoot but there's nothing like Big Red.

Yeah, that's what I get for leaving a window open and not refreshing before I post!