On the road...again

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, began principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.

 
Traveling back to the Bay Area is cathartic, scary and soul-enriching all at once. This weekend my family took its longest road-trip to date, from Las Vegas to Walnut Creek, CA and did brilliantly.

It's honestly hard to quantify all that we packed into this weekend+, but I'll list a few things that are resonating in my tired head as I ponder sleeping in the bed in the room I grew up in for one more night -- for now.

*Arriving at 1am and being greeted by my very tired but grateful parents.
*Spending the day in San Francisco on our first day here. My son eating clam chowder out of a sourdough bread bowl, as he'd only imagined was possible. Visiting Baker Beach, holding hands with my wife as we looked at the Golden Gate and felt the sand between our toes. Watching our son play in the sand and say, "I really like the beach".
*Shooting the new poster for the Boys of Summer sequel. I'll post more on this later as I need some votes and opinions as to which should be the photo to go with.
*Watching an A's game with my good friend Jonathan Okanes at a local dive bar. The A's won in dramatic, walk-off fashion and Coco Crisp got a pie in the face from Josh Reddick (Pie-derman!).
*Having lunch at an old favorite restaurant in Concord and hearing our son declare that Concord, as a whole, was a boring city.
*Daring a downpour to get to an A's game. Fighting for credentials, a good parking spot and eventually our way into the stadium and down onto the field as the rain stopped and we prepared for a brilliant night. Listening to the boos explode from the crowd about a half hour after the game was supposed to start when the PA announcer declared the game was cancelled due to poor field conditions.
*Seeing a group of great friends and some of their kids at a local park.
*Visiting with my dear Aunt, Uncle and Cousin for precious few minutes in my parents backyard.
*Attending a Hall of Fame dinner for the 1987 Ygnacio Valley basketball team I was a part of -- a team that shocked the world and somehow played for the state championship.
*Lying on the couch with my wife, watching some familiar reruns of Modern Family and feeling time slip away from this beautiful experience.

Baseball is a vehicle. It's part of what brought us here. I'm pulling at the metaphor as it's not all that brought us here, but it was enough to ensure the "necessity" of the trip -- in other words, the motivation that got us to go from idea to execution. That bridge is not to be underestimated. How many ideas, some we swear to be remarkable, never make it past the gatekeepers in our mind or the conversations of fancy with friends, co-workers and loved ones?

Baseball is a vehicle. I don't know where we're headed with this year's venture. We have three days left in our kickstarter and have raised only $200 of the $10,000 we need. It's not likely we're going to raise what we need to make that go - I get that. But I won't quit. I'm scared. I'm disappointed. I'm frustrated. But I'm a long way from quitting. I don't know how to quit. I don't want to. As I told my dad tonight at the Hall of Fame dinner, "We'll make it by hook or crook". Whatever it takes.