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