Flying High

 

In my previous life - before I started a technology company, I worked for two guys who owned their own planes. I love flying, and it was always a treat to fly on a plane that left when the boss was ready. I like to sit up front and watch the pilot. When I first started writing, I wrote about the newest PC software, including Flight Simulator, and even wrote a chapter in my first book about that program. Later, I took ground school on the path to get my pilot's license, but a soccer injury to my eye meant that I lacked the depth perception necessary to safely fly a plane.

I got exciting news this month. I got a book adaptation gig!  It is a movie being produced about an existing book, Hijacked: The True Story of the Heroes of Flight 705. I never got asked to do this job - I aggressively pursued it. After my manager got back from Cannes, we had a Zoom where she updated me on all my scripts, the studios and producers that had requested to read and who she had sent to. I was so elated and toward the end, she mentioned that she met this amazing producer who was trying to get the rights to a book about a hijacking of a FedEx plane. I wrote that down and after we were done, I did a search on it and found the book on Amazon. I verified that was the story and went to bed reading the book (it was free with Kindle Unlimited.) 

The next day, I got up excited and wrote a long treatment of how I'd handle the story - compared to how the book is sequenced. I realized that my manager had NOT requested this and might think I was silly, but instead, she forwarded this to the producer and that the option had not been secured. I knew my manager had two writers who did book adaptations, so the only way I'd get this gig was to be the eager beaver - early bird, etc. Needless to say, a few weeks later, my manager said that the option had been secured and that the producer wanted to talk to me and she set up a Zoom.

I ended up reading the book four times and made Keith read it and explain a lot of the technical stuff (the pilot inverted the plane at one point), and then I started learning everything about the producer and her production company. www.HELICOPTER PRODUCTIONS.com

We spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone - and had a real meeting of the minds. A few odd things - she used to own a manufacturing company is a supplier to Ford, etc. They make the little tubes for electrical wires under 1 inch that run to the visor, and windshield wipers. She is still in Detroit. I explained my connection to the automotive business. My two airplane-owning bosses were car dealers.

My manager and the producer saw this as a faith-based movie. There are a lot of funds for this type of movie. I agreed, but there was another issue – race. A big producer had optioned it before - and couldn't get past the race issue, especially right after the death of Rodney King. Since the hijacker is black and against three older white dudes - some might think of it as being about race. The book goes into detail about this, but I proposed removing his race - and even suggested removing his face, etc. It didn't have to be part of the story of how three pilots were able to beat all odds and land that plane after being critically attacked with hammers. This hijacker is a very evil man, did horrible things and had planned to crash a huge D10 into the FedEx sorting facility and kill thousands of workers - most of them black. He didn't care - he wanted to destroy his employer and get the 1.3 million life insurance for his kids because he was about to be fired (for good cause.) 

At the end, she wrote to my manager "Had a wonderful meeting with Sandi.  We discussed a lot.  This is our writer! We are so excited to get started and move quickly.  Sandi has amazing ideas, and with her strength in structure, and her aviation knowledge, will make this a winning script! She is on the same page with creative direction as an inspirational / faith-based film.  Nothing "in your face", but as Sandi confirmed, God is mentioned 16 times in the book."

So, I got the gig - not a huge fee, but a percentage that could be huge if it goes to a tent pole like Sully or Air Force One instead of A Wing and a Prayer. I've been dancing on air, taking more meetings - writing, writing, writing and loving it - flying high!

Here's the link to the pitch deck.

Aloha Princess

This picture is of Dave Villwock (the famous hydroplane driver) with me in Hawaii. He visited me at my new job in Hawaii with one of my former bosses. In my career, as a business manager, I stayed friends with my former employers and employees. 

I've lived in seven states, and nothing compares to my years in Hawaii.  My time in Hawaii was magical. I've written over a dozen screenplays and pilots, and one of my favorites is Aloha Princess. 

Aloha is a Hawaiian word with many meanings, ranging from love, peace, and compassion to pity and grief. It's commonly used, especially by visitors to Hawaii, to mean "hello" and "goodbye."

My move to Hawaii came at a magical time in my life. I got a dream job to live in paradise, and I had recently learned that I was Native American and joined the Cherokee Nation tribe. I took a trip to England during the height of the Princess Diana obsession and became a "royalist," the term they call fans of the monarchy. I knew every Disney princess story and could sing the words to all their songs.

I changed my fascination with princesses to the Hawaiian Monarchy. I learned everything I could about Queen Lili'uokalani - the last queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The thing that I found the most amazing, is that she visited the United States twice, once in 1887 and again in 1897. She was an incredibly educated and well-read woman and must have known about the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the ongoing American genocide of Native Americans. She loved her people - her love was so great that she made a King Solomon-like decision to not call her people to arms and avoided a similar fate for Pacific Islanders of the Native Americans who were corraled and marched into reservations -- all because some resisted the land-grabbing government.

I would like to write a screenplay based on her now out-of-copyright autobiographical novel, Hawaiʻi's Story by Hawaiʻi's Queen, but I thought a story set in the present-day would be a more marketable movie, thus my script, Aloha Princess.  In addition, that type of historical script should be written by a Pacific Islander - although I wouldn't mind co-writing.

You might wonder what caused me to leave Hawaii? It was hard, I have dozens of close Hawaiian friends who I've stayed in touch with over the years and I truly left my heart in the islands. But I worked for a man that broke all three of my rules. He lied to me, broke a promise that he made that he'd help me buy his company when he retired and yelled - yes, yelled at me. You might think I have thin skin - but I grew up in a charmed house. My parents never yelled at me (or each other) and never struck me. No, there weren't "new age" parents - they beat the heck out of my brother. My mom used to tell the story of how she had to put him in an upside-down playpen and put the TV on top. He was a terror and deserving of Mom's daily screams. On the other hand, I was a shy and bright kid who easily understood the rules and tried my best to stay out of trouble.

After getting yelled at for an outrageous reason, my boss had three strikes, so I had to quit. To prevent it from happening again, I decided to start my own business and never have a boss disappoint me again. Creating a technology company was the excuse I gave him for leaving his employ because it wasn't important that both of us knew why. I ended up having him as a client, along with dozens of others in Hawaii - and I returned often until I sold my software company enabling me to live my dream of writing full-time.  He died that same year.

 Aloha Princess means so much to me - along with the word, aloha. It sums up the "hello" I gave to Hawaii by spending hours in the Iolani Palace, Bishop Museum, and local library, learning everything I could about my adopted state. It means "love, "- which reflects the love I have for everything Hawaiian - and "goodbye," the hardest thing I've ever had to do - leave a job that enabled me to meet celebrities, stay in my boss's waterfront homes, fly on his private plane, and attend dinners where the "per plate" fee was more than someone like me could ever afford. 

If you click on this link, Aloha Princess, you can read more about my script and I hope that someday it will be made into a movie and filmed in beautiful Hawaii.

Finding Your Own Happiness and the Japanese Diet

 

My granddaughter, Chandra was born in Hawaii. When it came time for her first birthday,  her parents didn't have a lot of money, so they gave her the gift of happiness for her birthday.  They made sure for the full day that she got whatever she wanted and didn't cry.  She got her favorite foods, picked up whenever she wanted, hugged, and lots of kisses.  After lunch, they took her for a ride in her little wagon along the road from their house in Aikahi Park to the beach where she loved to see the ducks along Aikahi Loop.

When I lived to Hawaii, I found it one of the happiest places on earth.  Our first house was on Hauoli Street in Kailua town - Hauʻoli means happy in Hawaiian. Keith recently remarked that his happiest times in Hawaii were walking with me along Lanikai Beach that was a block away.  The song, White Sandy Beach of Hawaiʻi by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole still pulls us back to those times.  Why is Hawaii a happy place? Maybe it is because so many people are there on vacation or maybe it is the spirit of Aloha.  One of the things that delighted me in Hawaii was the Asian cuisine.  I worked for Mike McKenna who was one of the first investors of Roy's Restaurants and friends with the founder, Roy Yamaguchi.  We'd eat often at the original Roy's in Hawaii Kai  where there is a tribute to Mike on the wall as you walk in.  Whenever we would dine there, Roy would come to the table wearing a McKenna Windward Ford baseball cap and prepare some special new dish for us to try.  Roy's blend of Asian and Hawaiian cuisine help me discover the  Japanese diet.  

The Japanese word for happiness is Kōfuku which means; euphoria, bliss, blessedness, satisfaction, beatitude.  The Japanese diet is a focus on satisfaction.  The Japanese Diet is the reason that Japan has some of the longest life expectancies in the world.  But what is less well known is that Japanese women have the lowest rates of obesity (only 2.9%) in modern cultures.  Naomi Moriyama writes in her book, Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat that the basic elements of the Japanese approach to eating is “not a diet plan but a whole new way of falling in love with food”.  The emphasis is on small portions of fresh seasonal food.  We need to value quality over quantity and to eat slowly so as to appreciate the flavors of the food and reach a feeling of satisfaction with less food.  I like to call my plan the ELF plan - or  eat less food.  I eat whatever I want, but less of it.

The Japanese put a great deal of emphasis on visual presentation and making the food look beautiful and appealing to the eye.   I recently made a new dish called frushi that I discovered at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival.  It is sort of a cantaloupe/pineapple sushi.

https://recipesofdisney.com/frushi/

 Here are the basic plan of what I eat;

Fish - salmon.  I prepare a nice salmon filet for our Sunday brunch and then use fresh wild canned salmon to make "tuna salad" with vegan mayo, mustard, celery, and pickles.

Vegetables - lots of kale and sweet potato that I grow organically in my yard.

Rice (preferably brown) but I also like sticky rice and risotto.  

Soy (tofu, miso soup, soy sauce) and frozen vegan Gardein products made from soy, but I try to stick to more unprocessed food.

Fruit such as apples, grapes, and watermelon.

Green tea.  It is hot in Florida, so each morning I brew 2 cups of green tea, add stevia, then pour into 6 Rubbermaid-BPA free 16 oz water bottles filled 90% with water, then put in the refrigerator to give me an all day source of water and green tea.

The diet also recommends noodles, but I haven't figure that out yet, but plan to add it later since  I know it has lots of carbs and I'm still trying to burn fat with 10 more pounds to go.  I avoid the 8 bad fats and use only olive, coconut, and avocado oil.

Dairy and bread are not part of my diet and when I do eat pork, beef and chicken they are regarded more as a special treat rather than the main focus of the meal. Fresh fruit is my preferred dessert however if a richer dessert is eaten it is in very small quantities.  I often get the latest cupcake at Disney World to sample it, but I cut it open, then eat a few bites. 

I am truly happy; probably the happiest I have been in my life.  I run/walk each day, do yoga, and strength building exercises.  I have lost 40 pounds and have 10 more to go.  I think my diet and health are a big part of this, but more importantly, I have found my own bliss.  I no longer look to others to make me happy for the day, I keep myself happy.

Visit my website for info on my books - https://www.sandijerome.com/