Trick-or-treating was a success for our family tonight. Our kids joined up with 9 other kids and 5 parents herded them around the neighborhood (chased them is more accurate) and helped them carry back all the booty from their conquests.
At home we sorted out all the candy that they can have (they can’t have any gluten, found in wheat, rye, barley and oats) and then fought through the sugar high and subsequent crash. A scene no doubt repeated in many homes this evening!
I got a few interesting shots of kids and sights around the neighborhood tonight. You can see them all here.
The City of Richardson (suburb of Dallas) has an annual Expo, which is a great excuse to go out and play games, visit various community groups that setup booths, and buy snowcones. They had the country dance groups from 2 local high schools perform and lots of other fun stuff to do with kids.
There was even a very talented young ballet dancer showing her stuff!
You can see all my shots from this year’s Expo on Zooomr here.
The Cowboy game yesterday was a lot of fun, despite the end result (at least for us Cowboys fans). I’ll write more on the experience in the next couple of days.
Also, despite my complaining about not being able to take a camera, I ended up taking a camera and getting a few decent shots. More on this in the next couple of days as well. (the suspense may kill you, I know…).
You can see all my shots - I’ll be uploading them over the next week - in my Zooomr smartset.
I’ve been a Dallas Cowboy fan ever since I was old enough to yell at the tv with my family on Sunday afternoons, wondering why the first play of every game was Dorsett up the middle for no gain. I had no choice in the matter, really - growing up in Dallas in the 70’s and being alive meant that we watched the Cowboys and that the tone of our Sunday evening and Monday morning was set by the outcome of the game on Sunday afternoon.
Having lived most of my life in Dallas, I’ve ever only been to one regular season Cowboys game, however. The tickets were always too expensive for us when I was growing up, and now it’s just easier to watch them with the family on tv.
Last weekend, though, my wife’s cousin’s husband from Pittsburgh called and said that his boss had somehow acquired 2 tickets to this week’s game against the Patriots, and offered them to him. He called and asked if I wanted to go, and after convincing my wife that he did actually ask me and not her, told him I would love to go with him. He is actually a huge Cowboys fan as well - despite living in Pittsburgh!
He’s flying in tomorrow (Sunday) morning and I’m going to pick him up from the airport and head straight over to the iconic-yet-dillapidated Texas Stadium for an afternoon of football. I can’t wait!
I looked at the Texas Stadium website tonight, however, to check on their camera policy. It’s somewhat as expected but still disappointing:
CAMERAS: You may bring a small, still shot camera to Texas Stadium. However, video cameras and cameras with extended or zoom lenses are not allowed at Texas Stadium.
Not that I have a very big lens to use to capture any football action - I’m still just using my 50mm f/1.8 about as much as I can until I can buy some additional lenses - but I would love to get at least some crowd shots with my DSLR. I’m not going to risk carrying my D50 up to the gate with me, only to have them refuse to allow it in and then walk back to the car to store it probably unsafely there.
If you’ve ever known someone with Alzheimer’s, been around someone with Alzheimer’s, loved someone with Alzheimer’s, you’ll understand. None of my family members have experienced this disease, but I’ve been around several people who have at the nursing home my family and I visit every week.
If you want to know what it’s like, listen to this song. Listen to the chords. Listen to the melody. Listen to the intensity, the cutting high pitches, the confused actions. Minor keys mixed with majors, diminished chords, beautiful voices.
If you have cable or satellite and get MTV High Definition, they’re running their Storytellers series featuring the Dixie Chicks right now, so try to catch it there. It’s beautiful cinematography and really cool to hear them talk about their songs. If you watch it you’ll learn what the line in this song means about the shredded pages of the book.
I’m learning to bring my camera everywhere. I still don’t bring it quite everywhere, but I’m bringing it more and more places.
Sometimes I get discouraged and mad that I don’t have (make?) time to process all the photos I’ve taken, and so I decide to leave my camera at home. I get weary - literally - of a string of 4-5 hours-of-sleep nights when I choose to work on photos rather than rest. I get frustrated that I’m almost out of disk space, and while disks are cheap, I still don’t have the ability to get as much space as I really want (need?). I become exasperated when I just sit and listen to my MacBook Pro valiantly churn its disk for seconds and seconds and seconds, while it shows me the little spinning beach ball to remind me I’m pushing it right up to its limits, but can’t currently afford to get something more powerful.
Maybe if I punish my camera (or myself?) by leaving it at home and not taking beautiful pictures, I reason, it will become shamed and remorseful and decide to help me have more time, more disk space, more computer in the future.
Childish, but true.
If I had given in to the self-pity and frustration on Friday, however, I would not have been able to pull over on a side street and run back to capture this beautiful sunset on my way home.
And this image reminds me there is a Power greater than me who loves me and has a plan for me. One who is bigger than cameras, disks, computers and even time. I trust Him to help me take the next step.
And I’m going to try to keep my camera with me to document what He does.
My wife has been playing on a co-ed softball team for the past few months, and she really loves it. She played softball in high school and apparently was a pretty good pitcher - the fast-pitch, underhand style.
They played under the lights tonight and I was able to go watch and, of course, get some photos. I’ve created a smartset on Zooomr for all the photos I’ll be able to capture this fall - you can check it out here.
The team’s name is Glory, and they usually beat their opponents by the 10-run rule before they run out of time or innings. Their secret? They have girls that can hit and field.
From an article I’m reading about choosing and changing careers:
Job mismatch
Job mismatch is the most common justification for people to quit their jobs. Experiencing a lack of fulfillment and corresponding low motivation toward work, along with a sense that they have chosen a field of work that is not a good match for their talents, are the primary factors that have caused people to quit their jobs without having other jobs lined up. The vast majority of these who quit their jobs are stressed out, even to the point of not wanting to go to work every morning. In some cases this job stress has been so acute that it has resulted in health problems. So, to ensure a less stressful and healthier life, they have quit their previous jobs and are job hunting.
That’s me!
I’m really learning some things about myself and am coming to terms with who I am and what talents and abilities I have. I have learned that I really want (need?) to create things.
I won’t bore both of my readers with my thoughts and how they’ve come about - at least not now - but I know this. I want to be a photographer and a writer. A creator.
[submitted to the Oasis Project via TeachMac; I have granted the Oasis Project permission to use this material in whatever means they would like]
Your home is your place of refuge from the world. It’s the place where you nurture and are nurtured, where you give and receive love, where you rest. When you walk in the door of your house, you enter an environment that you have created, a place with your own comforts, creations, memories. Your home protects you from the elements - the wind, rain, heat and cold outside as well as the daily battles, disagreements, fights, obligations and annoyances of the outside world.
You host parties in your home, inviting others to share in your comforts and enjoy your collection of memories. You raise children in your home, giving them a safe place to grow, learn, explore the world and themselves. You have pets in your home, showing and teaching responsibility to other living things by caring for and enjoying other creatures.
Your home is the best place in the world.
But for victims of domestic violence, all of this is turned upside down. What should be a place of nurture in stead becomes a place of torture. What should be the place of rest from the day’s troubles, in stead becomes an escalation of suffering. A collection of comforts becomes a heap of horrors. In stead of protection there is only fear. Rather than comfort there is condemnation. Physical rest and growth changes to terror and injury.
Their haven has become a war zone.
There is a way out for them, however, but as in most wars, victory comes with help from the outside. Domestic violence is a closed system that will not stop itself. The solution lies in intervention from those outside the system. The Oasis Project gives women and children who have had their homes taken away by domestic violence - the refugees of this war - the safe place of nurture that they need. The comfort and protection that was unavailable now becomes available for these women. They can finally let their guard down, finally rest, finally grow, finally heal.
Support the Oasis Project. Your gifts help heal the wounds of the war of domestic violence. Your contribution helps end some of the suffering, helps provide for them what you probably already have - a safe place to rest, grow, love and be loved.
Help for victims of domestic violence comes from you and me.
Our church just broke ground on the construction of a new building on a patch of land we also recently purchased. Buildings are nice but they are only a means to an end for a church. The church isn’t the building, the church is the people in the building.
We had a fun time all together where the new structure will be, hopefully in less than a year. To see more photos I took from the celebration, see my Flickr set.
Reading through an article about choosing and changing careers:
Job mismatch
Job mismatch is the most common justification for people to quit their jobs. Experiencing a lack of fulfillment and corresponding low motivation toward work, along with a sense that they have chosen a field of work that is not a good match for their talents, are the primary factors that have caused people to quit their jobs without having other jobs lined up. The vast majority of these who quit their jobs are stressed out, even to the point of not wanting to go to work every morning. In some cases this job stress has been so acute that it has resulted in health problems. So, to ensure a less stressful and healthier life, they have quit their previous jobs and are job hunting.
