LESSONS LEARNED: X2

365 Days of Thanksliving — Day 285

OH MY GOODNESS… where do I begin? Hahaha! Consider that little ditty right there your early warning for the snark level of this post. Buckle up. This one is… uffda!

As you know by now, I wasn’t home last night to post; in fact, yesterday’s edition was courtesy of my wife. I mean, it was my idea, and mostly my words, but she was typing as my proxy. See, I found myself in a bit of a time crunch, and, well... I needed to call in a favor.

Standing five feet from Fort Ridgely Lutheran in the dead of the night, while trying to align my star tracker to the celestial North Pole, the gophers in the ditches heard, “Hey Siri, Call Danielle.”

“Calling Danielle Bonn-ICK-son.” Siri still can’t pronounce our last name without over-enunciating the middle syllable. You’d think AI, with all its supposedly ‘general intelligence,’ could at least figure out Bonnicksen.

“Yesss???”

“I need your help. Can you make my post for me on Facebook? Here’s what I wanna say….”

And being the absolute champ that she is, my beautiful bride of 34 years helped her hubby out. She then heard me say, “And, oh, by the way, your chili….”

Now, backstory: the biggest reason I needed to dial in that favor was that my body had suddenly rejected my lunch. I had to get out of Dodge, quick, and find the nearest restroom.

Heavens to Betsy, y’all; I think I found the secret prep for a colonoscopy. Just eat my wife’s chili beforehand. Hehehe! Okay, ’nuff said ‘bout that. But there was a lesson to be learned here. About halfway to my destination, I heard it in my head and heart: Best stop in Morgan and use the restroom.

Oh, God, just calm my bubbly gut… please? I prayed that as I drove right on through Morgan without stopping. God wasn’t listening to that particular prayer, though. He’d already spoken… at least, I think it was His Holy Spirit. That still, small voice, ya know?

Anywho… an hour later, that lesson was YELLING. After haphazardly tossing my gear in the trunk and driving like Ricky Bobby to Fairfax, I sped into Casey's and, well…. Let's just say that 30 minutes later, after the emergency passed (along with the entire contents of my colon), I was back at Fort Ridgely under darkening skies.

And that’s when I dialed Dani as I geared back up to capture the church under Milky Way skies.

Okay, so I did everything right. Almost. I aligned my new star tracker to the celestial North Pole, then began taking my long-exposure shots. First try: 60 seconds. I looked at the image, and it looked sharp—too sharp, actually. Why aren’t the trees blurry? I thought. (They should’ve been blurry since the star tracker moves the camera to counter the Earth's rotation to keep the stars aligned).

Whelp. Homer Simpson Bonnicksen here failed to turn ON the star tracker. D’oh! I aligned it to the North Pole, got the stars sharply in focus with my lens and camera, had the composition just right… but NO, Jason Douglas Bonnicksen didn’t turn the dumb thing on. At that point, it was just a really expensive camera holder.

Another lesson learned: slow down. The universe isn’t going anywhere. And if it did disappear, well, it’d be the end of the world anyway. So….

For the rest of the night, I had an absolute hootenanny of a time. The skies were capital-G Gorgeous; a slight breeze kept the skeeters away, and I arrived home just as Danielle was going to bed. Despite the mid-evening fiasco, it turned into an incredibly enjoyable night of playing with my camera toys and loudly singing hymns to the Lord outside a 140-year-old church.

Then came the photo editing, which was another thing altogether. But in all of this, I learned lessons that will carry me forward for future shoots. And in the long run, isn’t life really just one big learning lesson?

This is the lesson I should’ve remembered (and heeded) last night. Solomon wrote, “A fool’s way is right in his own eyes, but whoever listens to counsel is wise.”

“Pity the fool,” right? Pity the fool.

So, let me leave ya with a pro-tip as I close this one out: Always bring a roll of TP with you on a long trip. Ya never know when chili will be on the menu. Hahaha!

I’ll see ya on the flipside, my friends! What are you thankful for today?