Apple Evolution

I mourn the loss of Steve Jobs, the guy in the sneakers that gave us the coolest gadgets on the planet. My work today is better because Apple created products that were better.

In a recent photo shoot with photographer Wess Gray, we came up with this great Apple Evolution photo showing my progression from Apple iPhone to iPad to MacBook Air. If you would like to use this photo please do not copy it. Wess Gray can be contacted at WessGray.com where he can give you more details about purchasing a license to use the photo.

As Steve Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford graduation address, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.” And as we say around Shaggy Duck Studios, “Stay Apple.”

About.Me Page for Curtis Tucker

Vote for me at About.Me

About.Me is a social media website for professionals and individuals to create a personal splash page. Simply reserve your name and upload a photo for your background. Add personal information, contact numbers and links to your other web properties and social media pages. Being creative with your splash page design is half the fun of being a part of this website.

About.Me is a central location pointing visitors to all of your other online properties. One of the factors that really sold me on the website is that I was able to connect to my other online accounts including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkdIn, Instagram, FourSquare and others.

Nice looking icons are created for each of your other services and once clicked a very cool smaller window will open with the feed from that website. Instagram will show your photos, Twitter shows your updates and YouTube will play your videos.

About.Me is currently having a contest to pick the splash page that will be shown in Times Square as a part of their marketing plan. Stop by my page a vote up to once a day through September 20, 2011.

If I’m in the top 10 my page will be in the judging for the final top spot. I am currently listed in the top 5% as far as votes so please keep voting! Thank you!

My splash page is www.about.me/curtistucker.

The very edge of a fast moving storm formed just above my house this summer. I knew there was some lightning in the area so I headed outside with my trusty iPhone 4. Because the lightning strikes were happening so quickly I set my phone camera on movie. I was able to capture a great lightning crash that began at one end of the sky and shot right over my head to the other end of the darkened sky. It was one of those lightning flashes that look like fingers spreading throughout the night.

I ran the movie back and discovered that I had captured the entire flash. I paused the movie on this frame and captured the screen shot by clicking the power on/off button at the same time as the Home button.

This is one of the best frames of the movie and shows the strike at it’s most intense.

This was such a great idea I had to try it myself. The concept is to take an old photograph and return it to the location in which it was taken. You then position the photo in your view to the exact spot where it was originally snapped and then take a new picture. Each photo tells a story and can bring back instant memories of the moment that was captured in time.

This great old black & white photograph was taken by my uncle Richard Scaling. He was a wanna be photographer that spent his career in the Air Force as a pilot. He had his own dark room and would develop his own work including this photo.

The subjects in the photo are myself at around age ten, my sister, my mom and my grandmother. It was summer in the early 70′s. We were posing on the porch of my great-grandmothers Ethel Erwin’s home. At the time, my sister, my mom and I lived in the house directly across the street from this location.

The modern photo of the vintage photo was taken in the summer of 2011. My great-grandmother eventually passed away and my grandmother, in the photo, moved into the home. She became a borderline hoarder and lived there until she passed away in the home. During this time my mother had purchased the home directly next door and was living there.

The home was willed to my mother and photo junkie uncle, who had purchased the home directly behind this house. They split rent on the home until he passed away one day without warning. My mother continues to rent the home and still lives next door.

My family has owned this home longer than I’ve been alive. I remember being dropped off as a young tyke so that my great-grandmother could watch me when my mom and sister were busy. She taught me how to play dominos and canasta. I never remember her letting me win.

There was a special cabinet in the living room that had all of the things we could play with when we would go to visit. My favorite thing was a set of black and white Yorkie dogs that had magnets attached to their feet. I would play with those magnets for what seemed like hours. There was also a set of Pick Up Stix, marbles, cards and other games.

My great-grandmother always kept the house and yard immaculate. She was so tidy that she would trim grass with scissors if a blade or two were sticking out after the lawn guy left. She also had one of those plastic runners on the carpet to keep our shoes from getting the carpet dirty.

This was the home that we gathered at for Thanksgiving every year. Great-grandmother would cook the turkey and many of the other things. This was the house that had the proverbial card table that we kids had to sit at on holidays when we had to many adults. It had a neat little strawberry patch in the backyard. It had a cool old wooden boat that sat in the driveway for years. This is a great old house and large front porch full of family memories.

While visiting Las Vegas in 2008 I walked from the strip to the Hard Rock Cafe just to get this shot and buy a few guitar pins. It was taken with my Cannon PowerShot SD1000 Digital. In a city of glitz, lights and larger than life signs, this has to be one of the coolest signs ever designed. Props go to the Hard Rock Vegas and this pic was well worth the long walk.

1.) Chastity Bono would become a boy.
2.) I would be carrying a phone as powerful as NASA computers in the 70′s.
3.) The daughter of Elvis would marry a member of the Jackson 5.
4.) 8 tracks would become hard to find antiques.
5.) There would be 100 TV channels and nothing to watch.
6.) Danny Bonaduce would be bad ass enough to beat anybody up.
7.) No one would know who the boxing heavy weight champion of the world is.
8.) Dodge ball would become a movie.
9.) It would be quicker to use a credit card at McDonalds than cash.
10.) I would be in touch with 50% of my 6th grade class through the Internet.
11.) Elvis would be more popular today than when he died in 1977.
12.) Smoking and drinking while pregnant would be bad for babies.
13.) Dials would disappear from everything.
14.) David Soul’s music career would end quickly.
15.) Michael Jackson would become white.
16.) Vinny’s (John Travolta) acting career would go anywhere.
17.) You would complain about having too many remote controls.
18.) Special effects would get any better than Land of the Lost.
19.) There would be a reality show of people trying NOT to get off the island.
20.) Saturday Night Live would no longer be funny but would still be on.
21.) Popcorn could be cooked without shaking something.
22.) You wouldn’t be able to jump all over the back of the car while it was moving.
23.) Cartoons would be on everyday… all day… 7.
24.) All schools would have AC.
25.) People would pay for water… in a bottle… sold next to a water fountain.
26.) Harvest Gold & Avocado Green would ever go out of style.
27.) Shag carpet would be a reason NOT to buy a house.
28.) We would ever stop licking Green Stamps.
29.) There would be a cooler way of taking pictures than a Polaroid.
30.) Throwing an egg at a moving car would become a felony.
31.) Melting your army men could lead to counseling.
32.) Championship Wrestling was fake.
33.) Kids would rather play inside than outside.
34.) Trampolines would have nets eliminating trampoline dodge ball.
35.) Kids would stop playing Tag and Hide’n Go Seek at night.
36.) Bangs would be so important.
37.) Kids would trick-or-treat indoors!
38.) Most kids wouldn’t walk to school anymore.
39.) Your mom would be able to call you while in the creek catching tadpoles.
40.) Drinking from the garden hose would be called gross.
41.) Sliding down a hill in a box would be considered boring.
42.) You couldn’t run to a shopping center and buy a mouse or hamster.
43.) Grandma’s would no longer have fish tanks and bird cages in every room.
44.) Jeans with holes would be bought rather than sold.
45.) A black & white TV would be useless.
46.) Music buying could get better than the Columbia Record Club.
47.) Anything could outlast the cassette.
48.) Riding a wheelie would ever be outdone by a riskier trick.
49.) Dr. Demento songs would no longer be my favorites.
50.) A Hobbit would become a million dollar film trilogy.
51.) Cassette taping songs off the radio could be improved upon.
52.) A dollar would go from buying 100 Jolly Ranchers to just 20.
53.) There would be songs racier than Harper Valley PTA.
54.) Space Shuttles would not have Space Food Sticks or TANG.
55.) Songs better than Mandy and Beth could be written.
56.) The Night Chicago Died would be called an oldie.
57.) Orange Hot Wheel track could be replaced by video games.
58.) Black light posters would lose their “cool”.
59.) 4 Square and Tether Ball would not be played at recess.
60.) Pointing Roman Candles would be considered dangerous.
61.) Grasshopper would die naked, tied up in a closet
62.) KISS would be seen without makeup.
63.) Skateboarders would loose their wheels and slide down mountains.
64.) Anyone would ever out do Mark Spitz.
65.) Bikes would have more than 10 speeds and need them.
66.) Charlie Brown would still be my favorite Christmas show.
67.) Evel Knievel would actually die one day.
68.) It would cost money just to watch boxing.
69.) There would be a creepier artist than Alice Cooper.
70.) Seances and Ouija Boards did not connect with the dead.
71.) You would no longer see 4 or more boys riding bikes together.
72.) You would get sued if you poured water on a frozen driveway.
73.) Building forts would be a lost art.
74.) Saying, “smear the queer” would seem dirty.
75.) Malls would kill town squares.
76.) That wheel with the two handles really wasn’t an ab miracle.
77.) Drinking the Kool-Aid would be thought of as bad.
78.) Kids would stop learning to square dance in grade school.
79.) PETA would try to stop me from racing my box turtles.
80.) Playing football on a strangers grass would be considered rude.
81.) The Poseidon Adventure would be outdone by a bigger boat movie.
82.) Defrosting meat might kill you.
83.) Eating out could be done at every meal.
84.) Cloud watching would be forgotten.
85.) Sleeping over 4 nights in a row would rarely ever be allowed.
86.) Every kid on the team actually HAS to play.
87.) A website would be selling our metal lunch boxes for big bucks.
88.) A quarter would be considered a cheap tooth fairy.
89.) Pulling a tooth with a string and door would seem odd.
90.) Hair cuts would no longer be done with bowls.
91.) Kids would not know what Saturday chores were.
92.) A man would actually drive by and kill your dandelions.
93.) You could watch a movie in a car.
94.) The Midnight Special would become an infomercial.
95.) Family slide shows would be shown only online.
96.) The Bay City Rollers would not outlast The Stones.
97.) Using tin foil to get a better tan might kill you.
98.) American Pie would go from song to innuendo.
99.) It wouldn’t seem special to watch a real movie on TV.
100.) I would miss the cool sneakers with the curved up toes.

These are the things I never would have predicted back in the 70′s. Makes you wonder what 100 things will happen in the next 30 years that we’d never expect?

I grew up in the 70′s and spent most of those later years living on west Broadway in Enid, Oklahoma. Almost every boy in our circle also lived on west Broadway. We spent most summer days riding our bikes or skateboards from one house to another.

West Broadway was probably the greatest street in Enid to grow up on. It had many great homes running along each of its sides and our grade school was located at one end. I believe Broadway once had a middle lane to allow for a trolley. This added lane plus the other four made west Broadway a very wide street. The additional space allowed for better bike riding and game playing.

Running along the entire length of our section, Broadway had sidewalks running in front of homes on both sides of the street. Many were level and even but there were also several areas that had huge blocks of concrete jutting out and many areas had wide cracks. These obstacles were fantastic for skateboarding around and bike jumping over.

Almost every house had a front porch. Each yard was kept nice and there were plenty of huge trees that allowed for large groups of locusts to congregate in. There weren’t many things better than skateboarding over a bumpy sidewalk, on a hot summer afternoon, listening to locusts while hanging with your buddies. Listen to the video closely and you’ll hear the locusts in the background.

I shot this quick video of the south side of west Broadway. It shows many of the houses where we played. The church at the beginning of the video is where we played hours of “Kill the man with the Ball.” The second mansion along the way was the home in which we spent many hours throwing snowballs at cars from, filmed goofy movies with a Super 8 in and added our signatures to the third floor wall.

The white stucco home on the corner was my best friends house. We spent literally zillions of hours jumping on the trampoline in the backyard and spent days in the garage building our Halloween haunted mazes built from boxes we gathered around the neighborhood. We played four square on the front porch and spent many lazy days just hanging out there.

The school towards the end was my grade school named after President McKinley. Back then we were the Bombers but after a being PC came into vogue they were renamed the Cardinals. I went to school at McKinley from first grade through sixth grade. This is where I met my best friend, had my favorite teacher and got my one and only school spanking.

Dodgeball was the big game during those years and most everyone brought their lunches to school in very cool tin lunch boxes. One of my favorites was my “Wild, Wild West” design. I remember playing eraser tag, having milk breaks and crouching in the hall during tornado drills. There was an occasional reel to reel film on being a model citizen or how boys and girls should date.

West Broadway was an awesome street to grow up on and I wish every kid could have had the adventures that we had. I’m still in contact with many of those guys and we see each other from time to time. We had very few worries, the freedom to run around town, flexible curfews and imaginations to carry us from one exploration to another. Fun times.

Why happy Tuesday? I’m not really sure. I feel that my lucky number in life is two. I was born on the 20th day of the 12th month in the year 1962.

I always opt for two, twenty and just love the number twenty-two, two two’s you know. So, that leads me to believe that all goods things can happen on a Tuesday. Second day of the week and it sounds like two. What’s the best day of the year? How about February 2nd or 22nd when they land on a Tuesday.

Whenever possible I stop my treadmill when the time lands on 22 seconds. I almost always pick even numbers over odd numbers when asked for a choice. I really like Groundhog Day, February 2.

I even wanted to name my daughter Tuesday to bring her great luck through life. I lost that battle because she was born on Friday. Rats!

Anyway, it’s Tuesday. Be happy and enjoy the day! You never know what your Twosday may bring!

Wow! Summer has arrived! I used to love summer time when I was a kid in the 70′s. My sister and I were what was called latchkey kids, meaning we were usually home alone when school was out while our mom worked.

My summers were filled with days of skateboarding, bike riding and tadpole hunting. There was a creek near our neighborhood called Boggy Creek in which we spent many hours collecting tadpoles, frogs and turtles. We ruined many a pair of sneakers in that stinky creek.

I lived in an area that did not have any swimming pools so my friends and I did not do much swimming. My best friend did have a trampoline though and we spent hours playing on it. We would play dodge ball on it and on hot days we would put the sprinkler under it and jump on it wet.

The things I remember most about summers in the 70′s were the locusts and their loud noises. There were some nights that they were so loud you could barely sleep. I remember sleeping with the window open most of the summer and having a fan planted right next to my bed.

Summer was the signal it was time to “cut off” that winter pair of denim jeans. We used to cut the legs off as high as we could so we would have the coolest pair of “cut offs”. You usually had to wash them at least once before wearing because you wanted to have the best collection of threads dangling from the cut off area. Another ritual was to cut the bottom off your favorite t-shirt which made it a half shirt. Man were we styling with our half shirts and “cut offs”.

We didn’t watch much TV in the summer because we were always running around outside. We played a game in the same neighborhood almost every night. It was called Muscalins and was a combination of tag, hide-n-go-seek and kick the can. We would put our “dukes” (fists) in and do “one potato, two potato” until there were only two guys left. They were then “it.”

Everyone would go hide while the two that were “it” counted to 100. At 100 they would yell, “Here we come!” They would try to find you in your hiding spot and if you were tagged you had to go sit on base. Once a guy was on base, one of the chaser would have to stay and guard him. The other guys would come out of hiding and try to tag him on the base. If you tagged him or anyone else on base, they were free again. This turned into hours of chasing, tagging and freeing. The first two guys tagged would become “it” once everyone was caught. We could play this game for literally hours and hours.

We would also skip dinner just so we didn’t have to stop playing. And what about that 70′s craze called streaking? I have to admit that we might have streaked along Broadway Street once just to say we did. Glad we didn’t have cell phones with cameras back then.

Speaking of cell phones, we never had a way of being found and never knew what time it was. This was a big bone of contention when a parent needed us for something. There was no way of finding us! What freedom that was.

Well, more about my summers days as a youth later. Get out there and enjoy the sun!

by Curtis D. Tucker

Updated 5/23/2011 – I thought it was time to update my best coming of age movie list. I recently rented a great movie that I think fits perfectly into this category. The movie is called “That’s What I Am” released in 2011. The story centers around a 12 year old boy and the events that surround his life and his friends lives at school. It stars Ed Harris and deals with many subjects important to junior high kids in 1965 but really explores the problem of bullying. A great Sunday afternoon renter.

I’m also looking forward to this summer’s “Super 8″. A movie set in the summer of 1979. It looks to be more than a coming of age film because of the elements of the unknown creatures, sci-fi and Area 51. It follows the lives of a group of young friends in a small town in Ohio that discover a secret while using their Super 8 camera. Read more about it here. Update: I did not find “Super 8″ in the same league as these others as far as coming of age movies.

(Original post May 2009) -
I love coming of age movies! They remind me so much of being twelve, growing up in the 70′s. I had a very close group of friends that would find adventure in everything we did, much like the characters in “Stand By Me” and “Now and Then”.

We spent almost every day together in the summer and would skip dinner just so we could play late into the night. We were always outside running around the neighborhood playing games and tricking neighbors non-stop.

I’ve always wanted to write a book based on our summers of fun with a few added twists and turns. The movies listed below are the closest examples of the good times we had as youngsters. I know there are many more coming of age movies but these top my list and have bits and pieces that remind me of days gone by. They are in no particular order. Enjoy and if you’ve missed any of these, they would make great weekend rentals…

My Top 10 Coming of Age Movies

1. Stand By Me -
4 boys set off on a journey to see a dead body
2. The Goonies -
on the goofier side, a group of kids hunts for treasure
3. Now and Then -
a favorite that chronicles the lives of 4 girls
4. Pretty in Pink -
more of a teen movie about fitting in
5. Dead Poet’s Society -
a group of boys learn about life at school
6. St. Elmo’s Fire -
friends trying to make it through life’s struggles
7. October Sky -
a group of kids beat the odds at building rockets
8. Breakfast Club -
a group of kids learn about each other in detention
9. My Girl -
a cute movie about a girl coping with growing up
10. American Graffiti -
a classic about high school friends starting their lives

This list has gotten so popular I’ve decided to add another 10 movies. If you have not seen the first 10 watch those first and then check these out. Again these are in no particular order.

11. Sixteen Candles
12. The Sandlot
13. The Outsiders
14. Almost Famous
15. Dirty Dancing
16. Breaking Away
17. School Ties
18. Summer of ’42
19. That’s What I Am
20. The Man in the Moon

Okay, I’ve had to add even more after seeing a few more movies the second and third time around…

21. 13 Going On 30 (A great little girl in big body movie)
22. My Dog Skip
23. White Squall
24. Second Hand Lions
25. Flipped
26. Mona Lisa Smile