Why Yesterday Was Awesome

I had a freakin’ amazing day yesterday that I felt was worthy of a blog post to immortalize it.  What was so special?  Glad you asked.

It started in the morning. It was my first day back to work after "super-sizing" the holiday weekend. My cell phone rang and it was a 212 area code. My first though was, "Funny, who in New York would be calling me?"

It was an editor at Photoshelter.

She was calling to have me add some keywords to one of the images I have for sale:

(click on the image for a larger version) 

I guess they had a buyer who was looking for a boy blowing a dandelion and the way I had it keyworded it was not showing up in searches. If it took the researchers a while to find the image, I was probably missing out on a lot of sales of the image.

Before I could voice my next thought of, "Why are they are calling little old me me about keywords?" she went on to tell me, "We just sold it for [a lot of money]. You just made [70% of said huge chunk of change]!" It turns they’d been working on this deal for "several months" and just closed it yesterday.  Evidentially the image is destined for a very specific use (I do know for what and who), but they bought an unlimited 1yr non-exclusive license.

All I can say is, "Hell yeah!"

I then rounded out the day in the evening by taking my son to the Brewers baseball game.  Those of you who know me personally know how obsessed my son is with baseball.  This was his first game he got to go to this year and he was amped to say the least.  It was C C Sabathia’s Brewers debut and a sellout crowd.  I’d been thinking about getting tickets to a game this week and taking him.  When I heard Monday morning the Brewers signed Sabathia and he was starting Tuesday night, I decided to go to that game.  The game went from a low attendance weeknight game to a sellout in a mater of hours Monday afternoon.

The energy in the stadium when we got there was palpable.  When they announced C C in the starting line-up, they crowd erupted. When his first pitch was a strike, it did again.  He went on to struggle a bit in the new few innings. The energy didn’t leave the building, it just took a different form as folks squirmed in their seats a bit, hoping the Brewers didn’t blow the lead.

The Brewers ultimately went on to win, but I honestly had more fun watching my son watch the game.  In the 7th inning, Eric Gagne came on to pitch and gave up a lead-off hit.  The crowd sort of moaned, and waited nervously for the next batter.  My son, the optimist says to me, "It would be nice to see a double play." and lo and behold the Rockies hit into a 4-6-3 double play.  My son jumped to his feet and cheered with the rest of the crowd.

Walking to the car after the game in the warm summer night with the 42,000 other fans, my son said to me, "Dad.  Thanks for taking me to the game."  A simple moment packed in a walkway amongst thousands that was the perfect ending to the day.  I looked down at him told him "You’re welcome. I had a great time taking you." I then took a mental snapshot, knowing it was one of those times you don’t get many of as a parent.