I had a vision, and it came to pass. The vision was to create a world class movie experience inside The Tiny, ideally to enjoy with a guest around the U-shaped dinette.
So when my sister came to camp, I asked her if she would like to watch a movie, a documentary to be exact, in The Tiny. We have watched documentaries together many times: at her home in California, at my home in Louisiana, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, on a cruise ship down the Mississippi River almost to Venezuela, and at a luxury apartment we stayed at in New York City. What fun! We have tended toward documentaries about Mount Everest, but that is changing.
I’m proud that I had a vision to create a big and bold movie experience inside The Tiny. I haven’t always been able to have creative visions, much less bring them into reality.
In my first couple of decades on Earth, during those sad and depressing and confusing years when I wondered what would become of me, I suspected I might be a creative person. On occasion, I would start to think of something that did not exist but which I imagined could exist. It might be an art work, or a poem, or an invention to make life easier. I would have the creative thought for a few seconds or minutes. And I would be conscious of having a creative thought, of my mind working on a vision of something totally unique. But then the vision would start to fragment. I would sense something like the heavy door on a bank vault begin to swing shut. And the creative vision would become dim and distant. An inner voice would admonish; “Oh no you don’t. Who do you think you are?” There was almost the CLANG of the door slamming and the steel bolts locking into position. I observed this shutting down. I grasped at the vision. I tried to stop the vault from closing. And I would think: Now what was that creative thought? No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the thought to come back.
You can’t use creativity up. The more you use, the more you have. — Maya Angelou
Slowly, as I sought help and therapy and group support and studied The Artist’s Way and did The Artist’s Way workshops, and even led The Artist’s Way workshops, more and more of my creative thoughts have remained in my mind to be worked on and advanced, unstopped, and eventually I even executed some of my visions into reality. My visions are now a daily part of life.
So the thought to create a stellar movie watching experience inside The Tiny, ideally to enjoy with a guest around the U-shaped dinette, arose in my mind, and it stayed there long enough for me to make it happen.
I don’t mean watching movies on a laptop or a cell phone. I mean an excellent and robust movie experience where the cabin is dark and the screen is big and it’s all you see and all you’re aware of and all you know for an hour or two. And the sound is so big and full and rich and juicy that you barely know if the dialogue in the movie is coming from your mouth or not. Is this happening to me? Is this my life? Yeah, that’s what I was after, and it’s what I created through my vision.
Bringing this about was actually a very complex operation. Here are the elements necessary for my vision to become reality:
- My super duper duper awesome 27″ iMac. In a tiny trailer, that thing is GIANT! I struggled with bringing the iMac on the journey. To buy it in 2011, I had sold my big, solid 1995 Ford conversion van. I was starting a new and very satisfying career creating online continuing education units for the building industry, and I needed a really big computer. The computer costs more than $2,000 but at this point, six years later, which in tech years is about 30 years later, the beautiful machine would only bring me about $500. It’s absolutely too big for a tiny trailer. But I decided to bring it along anyway. And if I ruined it, so be it. I don’t keep it in The Tiny when I’m traveling because The Tiny and its teardrop peers are like earthquakes going down the road. So when I travel, it lives securely and protected behind my SUV’s front passenger seat. In the T@B, it lives alternately on the table for working, or on the counter when it’s not on duty. Bringing it with me turned out to be the best decision. The work I can do on that in The Tiny is first class. Of course, I need electrical power to make this happen. That’s why “boondocking” or camping at sites without power does not work for me.
- The 42″ Vizio sound bar system. Again I struggled with taking this marvelous system on the trip. I actually tried it to sell it on Nextdoor.com, but had no takers. It’s BIG. The sound bar is 42″, plus there is a big woofer and two satellite speakers. That’s quite unreasonable to bring in a tiny trailer. Don’t you agree? But when I was getting to know The Tiny in my backyard for a few months before my journey, I hooked up the system and played some music and I felt like I was in heaven. The rich bass and crystalline treble filled me up. It felt like the drugs I no longer take. Ultimately, I decided to bring it along and dump it if turned out to be a stupid thing to bring. I keep the woofer on the floor under the table, the satellite speakers tucked behind the bedding, and the sound bar on the countertop. It creates a full-immersion experience. While I travel, I unplug the sound bar and wrap it in a blanket on the bed to keep it from getting knocked around. It made the movie-watching experience very profound. I heard that you can overcome bad visuals on a movie because the brain will fill in what’s missing. But the brain cannot overcome bad audio. So watching a movie with this incredible system is like going to a movie theater. Full involvement.
- Unlimited Verizon data plan. In order to stream movies, which is my preferred method (sorry Redbox), I need unlimited data. Happily just as I was getting ready for my travels, Verizon and ATT and others started having a marketing war and everyone started offering unlimited data for very little money. I quickly signed up for it. On my plan, I get 10 GB of 4G data, and after that, it ratchets down to 3G. I’m not sure what all this means, and I don’t really care as long as I can do my work and watch movies. In this case, the movies played without buffering, without a hitch.
- iPhone. Of course, in order to use the data, I have to connect with it. My iPhone 6 is magical. I also have what’s called a Verizon jetpack, which allows me to use 4 different Internet-connected devices at one time, like the phone and 2 computers and an iPad. Don’t we live in amazing times?
- Bluetooth. And to get the sound to go from the iMac to the Vizio system, we need bluetooth. Check. Again, wow! Wonderful times.
- Verizon cell tower. So for all this streaming magic to happen, there needs to be a cell tower transmitting a beefy signal. Many and even most campgrounds have pretty sucky cell reception. The one I’m at now has Verizon cell towers right in the campground. Some may see those as an eyesore. To me they are lusciously gorgeous. I have 5 bars of reception on my phone, the best you can get! Without the signal, I might have to rent a DVD, which I can accommodate if necessary.
Of course, there is one other critical element for successfully watching movies in The Tiny. And that is agreement between all parties as to which movie or documentary to watch. My sister and I are lucky that we both love documentaries. As a bonus, because we’re not in a movie theater, we can voice our comments as loud as necessary, exclaiming: “Oh, no way!” Or, “WTF?” Or, “Oh my god, that’s awesome.” That certainly makes for a better experience.
So what did we watch on this trip? We watched three documentaries. Two were awesome, one pretty good.
Awesome: Amy, the story of Amy Winehouse. What a talented young person. It starts with her as an adolescent at a birthday party spontaneously belting out a sophisticated jazzy version of “Happy Birthday.” Immediately you know this is pure gifted talent. The movie shows her writing, playing, auditioning, performing. This movie was especially gratifying with the enormous sound of the Vizio sound bar and woofer. It’s no wonder this film won the Oscar for best documentary. How sad that drugs and bulimia took her down. Life is so hard navigate. Highly recommended.
Awesome: Gleason, the story of Steve Gleason, former New Orleans Saints football player, who famously blocked a punt during the Saints’ first game back in the Superdome after the federal flood of 2005. A few years later, he came down with ALS and found out he and his wife were going to have a baby. This movie unflinchingly documents the progression of the disease and follows his determination to live a full life nevertheless. Sad but recommended.
Pretty Good: Life, Animated, the story of Owen Suskind, the son of Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, and his life with autism. I like medical documentaries. The beginning was especially compelling. Owen was a normal lively kid until about age 3, when he stopped interacting and talking and communicating. His parents were shocked. It was like their son was kidnapped. Where did he go? Owen was obsessed with Disney animated movies, and it turns out he was able to process the world through the characters and themes in the movies. His parents discovered that’s how to communicate with their son, by filtering everything through Disney movies. Owen’s parents are lucky to have discovered this way into their son’s mind.
The vision is complete. Time to cross it off the list. However, the pleasure of what I have created will live on, with many more movies to watch, hopefully to enjoy with a guest in The Tiny around the U-shaped dinette.
Bucket List Item
Create a Movie Theater Experience Inside The Tiny (DONE AND DONE)
P.S. Thanks to a comment from a friend, I now have a new vision, which is to eat dinner at the U-shaped dinette while watching a movie. That reminds me of the stellar experiences I’ve had at The Theatres at Canal Place in New Orleans, and similar venues, where meals are served. However, in the case of The Tiny, there would be no servers passing in front of the screen while they deliver dinner and drinks to other patrons.