Supernanny Family - Antoinette Lewis, an amazing story

This is a letter written by my Coworker Lisa. Lisa and I worked together on an episode of Supernanny with an amazing woman named Antoinette Lewis. The rest of the crew and I were all blessed to have met Antoinette and I continue to be amazed at how strong she continues to be. Please read Lisa's letter, and consider helping this incredible woman.

Josh



Antoinette and her husband, Dwight, applied to Supernanny to get help for their kids on August 13th. Dwight, who was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, wanted Supernanny to come help his wife learn to manage the kids without him. The next day, on August 14th, Dwight passed away.

The next week, I began filming the family, which started with his funeral, which was the first time I met Antoinette and her beautiful children, Selah (2 years old) and Christian (only 6 months old). I introduced myself to Antoinette as the producer who would be with her over the next two weeks and offered my condolences. She offered me her entire heart.

This woman is the strongest, bravest woman I know and opened up her home just 2 weeks after burying her husband to the incredibly intensive process of filming Supernanny for the sake of her children. She wanted to know how she was going to tell two year old Selah, who kept asking where Daddy was, that Daddy wasn't coming home. She wanted to know how she was going to raise these kids without their father's love and support. She wanted to know how her kids would ever know the incredible man their father was.

I believe Antoinette got the answers to these questions and more through our time with her and I got, not only a friend for the rest of my life, but another member of my family.

Antoinette's biggest fear right now is how she is going to support her children and keep the house that Dwight picked out for them. Antoinette is a stay-at-home-mom and her and the kids depended very much on Dwight's income. Last year, Dwight canceled his life insurance policy, just for a few months, to save money. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer just three months later.

A website and fund has been set up to help Antoinette and the kids at www. helphernow.com You can easily donate money through the site. I know she would appreciate the smallest of help ... or even a card or letter of support.

If nothing else, please pass the word on and watch tomorrow's show.

With love and thanks,
Lisa

Tuesday morning

I have a recurring dream. It's a dream that is more like a feeling than an actual narrative. It's a dream that perhaps I've lived before, sometime in high school and now I remember it some nights, or maybe I really made it up, I have no idea. I rather think though that it's a day I will live to see sometime, maybe a long time from now. I wonder if when I finally live the day that I've dreamt so many times, it I will die shortly after. Am I remembering the day the I will die, or is it just the melange of so many other memories and dreams, sliced together into one impressionistic morning.

It's Tuesday morning. It is cold and raining outside, but I am inside, dressed warmly. I am not where I'm supposed to be, maybe I was supposed to be a t work, or at school, but instead, I am in an art gallery or a large open space with white walls. I have a packet of cigarettes in my pocket and the day is mine, to explore when the rain stops.

See? It's not so much a narrative as a feeling. I'm not crazy, I swear.

Vote NO on prop 8

Update

So this is it. I'm giving you an update before I hit the hay.

You might already know, but I switched over to Supernanny Production from casting. What does this mean? Long hours on the road, lots of work, but a great group of people to work with who are out there trying to make a real difference in peoples lives, Jo included. A real difference, not something for the camera. Real.

It's a neat feeling to work towards helping someone with a group this dedicated and talented.

It means I'm gone a lot, but I'll at least have something real to show for it.

It rubs the lotion on it's skin

An oldie but goody. The Greenskeepers at it again.

Just brilliant.

quiet

Ruth Mills: 1910 - 2008

This morning in Ohio, we lost an amazing intelligent and kind woman, my grandmother Ruth "Grandma Ruse" Mills. She led an amazing and long life that began in a house without a telephone and spanned two world wars, countless presidents, and many many loving grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She is pictured above with her great-granddaughter Avery.

I grew up in Columbus Ohio, and was able to see her and my grandfather quite a lot, but after having moved to Los Angeles in 2003, I wasn't able to see her as much. I was very fortunate to come home recently and spend a few days talknig with her. We sat for hours and I told her about my life in Los Angeles and she told me about hers in Ohio. I had such an amazing time learning things about her childhood and her family.

I can't describe the amount of love, respect and admiration that my entire family felt for such a wonderful woman.

I love you Grandma Ruse, and I'll miss you.

Traffic shaping for p2p

I feel like p2p technology like bittorrent is a valuable way of sharing information, as well as allowing indie media developers/musicians/writers/artists in general distribute. I don't think companies like comcast have the best interest of it's users in mind when they use packet inspection and throttle back on p2p transfers. If there is a general bandwidth shortage problem, why don't they charge accordinly for internet access and use those profits to invest in more backbone infrastructure or newer faster transfer methods? Instead, there are companies who are deceptivley restricting bandwidth for customers who are paying for the services they use.

Also, does anyone know if you surf the web while running bittorrent or some other p2p application, does that cloud the ability of isp's to discern p2p traffic from "normal" web traffic?

I'm really curious.

Josh@Joshmills.net

p90x plus!

John McCain's Personal War

Watch this, and please vote in November. It's never been so important. If you agree with the war in Iraq or not, you cannot deny that it has taken an enormous toll on their country and on ours. Please watch this and email me if you disagree, agree, or just think this is left-wing propaganda.

I know where I stand, and agree or not, I am standing up to be counted.

Josh
Joshuatmills@gmail.com

Barack Roll

Earthquake '08

So as many of you know, we living here in Southern California recently experienced a larger earthquake.  I say larger not because it did any damage, but because we actually have a lot of seismic activity in the area around Los Angeles and most people don't feel it.  This however, was a 5.4 centered on Chino Hills, a mere 26 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Personally, I have been living in Los Angeles since April of 2003 and haven't felt a single quake since moving here. I guess that makes me lucky, but I always kind of wondered what it would feel like to experience one.  Well, now I can say I felt one.  You could say I was lucky that I was working at the time and sitting on the 4th floor of an office building that was fitted with rollers that ensured that instead of breaking from the shaking, the building would gently rock bath and forth, absorbing the force of the quake.  I kind of do feel lucky, in that the damned building didn't collapse around my ears.  On the other hand, being high up in a building that is on rollers kind of feels like the world that seemed so solid a second ago, is not only now insubstantial, but undulating  in large sickening waves that might pitch you out the window to the ground below.  My guess is that what I felt was a little more dramatic than it would have been had I been standing on the  street, but since it was ultimately safer, how can I complain?  Later that night I went to an appointment in a very tall building in my neighborhood, all the way up on the 27th floor.  I can say that it made me think twice about aftershocks before getting in the elevator and riding to the clouds, but knowing that these buildings are built to withstand the shaking, made me feel comforted. Phew.  Although, they say the "big one" is still coming in the next 30 years, so we'll see how good those rollers really are.  *fingers crossed*

It's true... I did.

Pop goes the creepy

Pop goes the weasel


I can't begin to tell you how creepy it is to run into something like this in the middle of nowhere South Dakota. Just watch it and imagine you just paid a quarter for this to play and you're standing in a dusty convenience store watching this thing play through chicken wire. I'm so glad I wasn't killed.

The Ghost Horse Comanche

What can I say about this? If you were trapped in a Rob Zombie movie, this would be the last thing you saw and heard before some insane redneck came and chopped you to bits with an electric knife. Having said that, this is an actual video of a display from Buffalo Ridge, an "historic" town Steph and I ran across while traveling from Minnesota to Mount Rushmore.

Ghost Horse Comanche

Song just for you...

"West Coast" by Coconut Records. Jason Schwartzman is the genius behind this music.

Nut Shot.

I know, I'm a classy guy. Enjoy this vintage nut shot. That's me getting smashed in the nuts by a bouncy ball shaped like a 20-sided die.

More good times

This time: My awful, goofy dancing. You're welcome.

-J

Freestyle Walking

Enjoy this vintage, albeit pixelated, journey back to classic MADD Camp at Camp Aldersgate in Ohio. Good times with J. Martin and the MADD Campers. All were great sports and I miss them a lot. Word!

- Josh

Wall-E

Wall-E is an amazing movie. 
If you like Sci-fi, or if you just like movies, go see it.

On a darker, and much more important note, Wall-E is a counter-culture dystopian sci-fi epic disguised as a kids movie, that will help to loosen the stranglehold that large corporations and technology hold on us all.

If you watch Wall-e and don't want to go jogging afterward, or just turn off the tv, I don't know where your heads at.

But that's just the opinion of one guy typing on a portable computer.  Ironic, I know.


Still seriously, go see wall-e.  You won't be disappointed.

Love,

Josh

Skinner

Skinner got it right
split it out
Prangin out.
I've not got much brandy, but here I sit anyway
I'm broken and tired, taught enough pupils for a whole warehouse full of glasses
I never asked for this class, just got run down
I feel your thumb, just over my shoulder
I didn't know it was over, till it was too late, if I ever needed you, would you be there?

It was supposed to be so easy...

Set a world record!

Help Firefox, the totally awesome and superior open source internet browser, set a world record by downloading their newest product Firefox 3 today.

How many chances are you going to get to help set a world record in your life? Click the banner to download.

-Josh

This is my new motto!

This is the time

All I have to say about the state of our world today, was probably best already said by Phil Collins. I'm not kidding. Watch this video and enjoy.

Vegas

Mikey sits in his Sinatra hat and plays pai gow. A great time!

About F***ing time.

It has been apparent to me (and most of the rational world) that Hillary Clinton's campaign has been over for a long time. It is also apparent to me that she cares much more for herself than the Democratic party and by extension the American People. So it is with great excitement when I say, it is about fucking time. It is time (and has been for a a while now)for Hillary to GTFO.

Drinking out of cups

Awesome, simply awesome. Watch the whole thing and laugh.