David Michael Bruno

Little Horsing Around Video

While I do not own a Canon 7D, I sort of wish that I did. This little video is a first try of putting together some shots with the Canon 7D we got at work. Not perfect by any means, but I'm looking forward to what we can do with this gear.

Oh, and if you live in north county San Diego and want to ride horses, Barking Elf Ranch is a good option.

A New Recession In My Life

There is a new recession in my life. As certain as death and taxes, I have been positive that my lion’s mane worth of hair on top of my head would remain thick till my last days. Alas, I see scalp in the morning.

The previous couple of weeks have been wonderful. A delight in every way possible. Yet over the past several months I’ve noticed my soul has been rumbling. Weird feelings have been shifting within me. For instance, I work at a university. As a good Christian man, I try to keep my eyes to myself and not scam on the young women. But these days I sometimes catch myself doing a double take to grab a second peek ... at one of the college girl’s mothers! Shamed, I remind myself of my own wonderful family, which now includes a junior higher! There is no stopping. The guy named Dave, who was once called (rather awkwardly I might add) the “Italian Stallion” by his mother-in-law, is now in a slow trot to middle age with a loose grip on the reins.

I don’t have much more to say about the subject. This is just a small confession. A public bending of my knee to the inevitability of life. A reminder to myself that recessions eventually pass but often change the rest of one’s life. Not necessarily for the worst. Often for the better. By God's grace I'm anticipating better.

The Dizzying Safety Requirements for the Modern Child

Around the dinner table we take turns sharing about our day. Sometimes we do "Best and Worst," in which we say what the best thing and the worst thing about our day was. Sometimes we do "Thank you Jesus; help me Jesus," in which we say what thing we're thankful for and what thing we're sorely in need of help for in our day. Tonight we just said what we did for lunch.

Leanne and Bridget ate peanut butter and jelly.

Phoebe ate lunch with a handful of friends because her best friend, Sarah S (Phoebe also spends time with Sarah E and Sarah B), is on vacation. Then she ran to the red bars and did tricks, like sitting on the bar and dropping over it backwards, while chatting with some other girls.

Lucy, though, got busted by a "supervisor."

When I was eleven years old, we used to call supervisors, "yard duties." The mean ones we called, "yard dogs."

It doesn't sound like this supervisor was a mean one, but she certainly was a modern one. She came running over to my daughter and her friends because they were (make sure you're sitting down before you read this) spinning around to make themselves dizzy.

"Stop doing that. You might make yourself dizzy and fall down and hit your head," Lucy reported to us at the dinner table that the supervisor had told her crowd. Lucy added, and Phoebe confirmed, "That's the point."

Totally Off Topic Random Complaint

So every night around 9:00 p.m. a barely audible electronic beep occurs near our master bedroom for about ten minutes. It is driving me CRAZY!

That's all.

Piper's Dream Come True - A Bunny

A neighbor of ours is traveling for Christmas and, since bunny rabbits don't do well on car trips, we have volunteered to bunny sit. This is a thrill beyond measure for our eight year old, who has longed for a rabbit for years. Unfortunately some very close family friends have Leporidae allergens and would explode when visiting if we owned a hairy rabbit (or furry hare). So grief-upon-grief, we've never actually bought a bunny.

Piper, the mutt we rescued from the shelter a few years ago, has been quivering since the bunny (named Mo) came over to stay with us. His issue is this. For years he and I have been going for romps in the fields behind our house. He runs like a lunatic, chasing every smell he can sniff -- coyotes, mule deer, gophers, and rabbits. Piper loves chasing rabbits more than life. I know this because he has several times nearly killed himself leaping headlong through thicket and over boulder in his reckless pursuit of a bunny. He's not stealthy enough to actually catch one. Great dog. Not smart. In fact, I question if he's ever even been close to catching one. I think he has just smelled bunny and seen dashes of cottontail disappearing among the shrub, then chased a phantom of his imagination hundreds of yards to nowhere. Piper isn't a strategist. He's mostly instinctual.

Anyway, he's been quivering, literally shaking in his boots and licking his chops. He whimpers and whines. He just cannot believe that one of these mysterious creatures has actually come to live with us!

We have high hopes for their relationship, though. We locked up Piper and let Mo play with our guinea pig Ebony. Watching those two buddy around the living room was like seeing a promo for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Since Piper and Ebony are friends (Ebony sits between Piper's front paws and let's Piper nibble her back and belly), we think that eventually Piper's disposition will overcome his instincts. Then he will have his dreams come true in time for Christmas: bunny play time.