Conversations with O

My fine and very beloved father finally came to visit. When he got off the plane he had a bit of a beard and was groggy from the jetleg, but now - a few days into the visit - he is his very own self (going on about very large and very small things at the same time, always with a list of things to do or to buy in his hand...). The first weekend we took him around Palo Alto, to the PowWow-festival at Stanford (oh yes - hundrads of indians dancing and drumming). We also went through the magical mountains of the peninsula to the beautiful driftwood-beach.
My dad, or O (we call him O since his name is Omar), has been a journalist with Svenska Dagbladet for more than 40 years. Sitting there at the beach he started telling me about how difficult it was to deliver texts from the six day-war in Israel, due to censorship all his conversations with the newspaper had to be in English. Today he told us about the reality of covering the nuclear mealtdown at Harrisburgh in 1978 - when you got different versions of the "thruth" from every official you talked to.
His stories gave me some perspective on the journalistic work I do - having all modern tools in the world, transfering media over the globe in seconds, having access to information and people through the webb. It's always good to have a larger picture. And its also good to remember that most of the time nothing beats the human story.
I keep telling O he should write a book, but he says that he likes to be lazy and that he prefers to play with our kids. For now I'm thinking about giving him a blog - then he can´t get away...
The ongoing week is intense. I've shoot a few podcasts (desperatly trying to get some space in the editing-studio), gone to a seminare on the future of news-media (that didn´t provide any bright visions), prepared for the innovation journalism-conference, done research on design and covered Swedish prime minister Reindfeldts meeting with ex-Terminator and govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sacramento for TT. I´ve also seen some lovely friends and had nice dinners with O and the family.
Things I have not done that I want to do: Drink wine in the garden with A when the kids are sleeping. Paint with the girls. Bake bread. Write to people I love. Spend more time with our fabolous roomie Leo. Put up our new lamp. Hike with the family. See the Vivien Westwood-exibition at the De Young-museum. Discover San Fransisco. Paint my toe-nails.
Theres always a tomorrow - but the challange is to capture the essence of now.