Photos from Camp

One of the things that I love about my job is that I still get the opportunity to go to Camp Walter Johnson from time to time and take part in various programs that are going on there. I got to do that today - with the sole purpose of taking photos of kids arriving at camp.

I'm not going to post the photos here, but you can see them at this link.

There are some decent shots in there. All of these were shot with a Nikon D40 with either a 18-55mm lens or a 55-200mm lens.

Let me know what you think.

Des

Shots of Brody

another go green

I didn't like how the text looked on the other one.

Here's another one.

Des

Girl Effect

Thanks, Sarah, for showing me this video today.

http://www.girleffect.org

goGreen

I'm feeling graphically inclined the past few days.

And environmental.

This is at 1900x1200 if you need a new wallpaper.

Des

Images

So, it's really cool that as I've been checking out some of the profiles around mychurch.org/salvationarmy I've seen some people using an image that I put together several months ago for their youth ministry. I was just messin' around, but I'm glad that someone has been able to use it and benefit from it.

Here's that image.

http://desmerizing.blogspot.com/2007/03/sally-ann-and-her-strange-friends.html

I was messing around today and came up with this:



If you like it, let me know. I have it at a higher res if anyone needs a better copy of it. It would be good for desktops or backgrounds for powerpoint/mediashout stuff too.

Peace,

Des

The Gods Must Be Crazy

This is crazy! I didn't realize that there were about 100 tribes of "uncontacted" people still in the world. Here are the first few paragraphs from the CNN story. Read it all at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/05/30/brazil.tribes/index.html

Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.

Indians are photographed during an overflight in May 2008, as they react to the overflight at their camp.

Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest.

That's amazing to me.

Grace,

Des

This is an error as well . . .

I've been having some funny errors. Here's another one just like the other one.

Des

That's an Error???

So, you know that I love my Macs.

But even they have their interesting errors.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Really???

And that's bad??

Des

Kaki King - Playing With Pink Noise (Live)

Heard Kaki (like Khaki) on NPR last night.

Dang.

Des

The Meter is Running (A Spotlight on Fox News)

The best line is from Mr. O'Reilly . . . "Bush is doing justwhat Jesus would have done."

Yes . . . I'm aware that I just published a post on taking things out of context . . . and I understand that these are a bunch of snippets of things taken out of context. I wouldn't use this as a source of political information.

It's still quite funny.

context

found this today.

I hate when things are taken out of context.

follow me on twitter

What is twitter you ask?

Think of it like the Facebook "status" message on some crazy, expensive mind-altering substances.

I guess it's a little geeky . . . but you have 140 characters to express whatever sentiment you may choose to. Some of mine are on the right of this page . . . . you can twitter about something your doing, thinking, or involving any other random activity.

But it's at least interesting so far . . . I've only been doing it for a few days.

Follow me.

Des

Eureka

About 7 months ago I was in Atlanta for some meetings.  Of course, being a technophile . . . I travel packing a considerable amount of gadgets: my weapons of choice, if you will.  Of course, I also love when I come across amazing deals on technology too . . . like the time that I found a Linksys Travel router online for $12.

Here's what it looks like.

Naturally, my need to be connected drove me to bring this router of mine to Atlanta with me just in case I couldn't hit a wireless internet access point.  If there was a port in the wall, I can make my own wireless.

It worked flawlessly as usual.

Unfortunately, it was a few days later when I gave in to the harsh realization that I had left this prized piece of networking technology in the big crapple (sorry, I know it's not that bad - I'm just not a fan).

Reality is a cruel, cruel mistress.

Especially when she's wrong.

Tonight, while looking for something else incidentally (I lose stuff) . . . buried in a box in our closet I came across the long lost router - sitting there so lonely and ready to "packet" all in (networking joke). It's like being reunited with a long lost friend . . . that's about 5 inches tall and has the ability to transmit and receive radio frequencies.

Oh happy day.

Des

Christians are Nuisances Too

If you know me, it's no secret that I find several of my neighbors to be nuisances . . . completely because of noise and the inconsideration they show to Kristy and I. They play loud music late at night - and there must have been a sale on sub-woofers because evidently EVERYBODY in our stinkin' building has one. I've started a nuisance log where I keep track of when the music is too loud. I started it on Tuesday . . . I've got entries for every day so far.

As usually happens, Kristy went to bed, I was up finishing some web stuff for a client and at about 10:30 PM I feel the boom of what is usually my favorite kind of notes through the wall (i.e. bass notes . . . just in case you weren't sure). As I usually do I put my ear up to our various walls to try to figure out where this sound is emanating from. Unsuccessful, I remembered that I can often figure it out by going outside . . . now that the weather is warming up . . . and sitting on the balcony. It definitely worked a few nights ago when the party upstairs was in full swing.

And it worked again tonight.

Only instead of what is usually vulgar end hip hop, toinght it was Kirk Franklin and his merry band of gospel elves.

Let me tell you something . . . nothing about that was screaming the name Jesus . . . and I can't imagine that any of my other neighbors were appreciating it too much either. Now, in the past week we've had to call the police and submit a few complaints to the office.

And sister, let me tell you, I have no trouble reporting that you're stompin' all over my peace and quiet . . . which by company policy I should add starts at 9:00 pm. I'm actually recording as I'm typing . . . maybe I'll post it so you can all hear it . . . that may be a fun project in fact: posting the sounds that I hear at night if for no other reason than to document them.

Great . . . now she's singing.

In all seriousness, it's keeping me up because I'm wanting to document start and stop times for all this stuff. We're paying good money for this place and to be CONSTANTLY disturbed like this is horrible. We are never guaranteed our peace and quiet and I'm just about as sick of it as I can get.

So, Christians can definitely be nuisances too . . . she's certainly not doing anything to show me the love of Jesus tonight let me tell you . . . and the thoughts that I'm having about what I should say to her . . . they're probably not from Jesus either.

And you'll be happy to know that as of right now (11:50 pm) the music has been turned off and it SEEMS as though peace has been restored once again.

I may see if Kristy is still asleep.

Grace,

Des

Bad Things Happen

I had put the video portion of this together for youth councils . . . but then never finished the audio and subsequently never actually showed it.

I think I'll probably make it available from WebandFlowDesign.com for download in a few different formats.

I'm sure someone would find it useful.

What do you think?

Grace,

Des

Professional Cable Wrapping

As I have been wrapping a lot of cables lately, I've been reminded about one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to audio cables, etc.

There IS a right way to wrap a cable.

Please don't crank it around your elbow for the love of all that is good and decent in this world!!!

Enjoy this wonderful demo.

Des

heaven v. hell

It's been a while since I've waxed philosophically here. Mostly I haven't been thinking philosophically much - not sure why.

Let's just say that I'm emerging from a long, dry spell.

I've been thinking about heaven and hell.

It's something that I've written about before and something that I've definitely continued to think about. I guess it all started with the Brian McLaren and his writings - Generous Orthodoxy and the "A New Kind of Christian" series in particular. Then there's Rob Bell too.

At Watershed lately, they've been talking about the questions that some of the peeps there have had. It was part of the "Quandary" series. So it's been back in my mind.

We've got this dichotomous view of heaven and hell. Black and White. Or, we'd like to think it's black and white. We also have this view that heaven and hell is a "something to come later" concern. All this combines and results in a group of people that try to convince people that they're wrong and need to "turn or burn."

Here's what I've been thinking.

First: Heaven and Hell are present realities. They happen in various amounts and through various means every day. There are some big things we can cite - Darfur does far too much to increase the amount of hell that we encounter. At the same time there are countless moments of heaven on various scales that make the kingdom of heaven a little more of a reality. Jesus talked about the Kingdom of heaven being at hand - being present. Our job is to make that a reality.

Secondly: Rather than being a dichotomy, heaven and hell represent endpoints on a scale. I don't want to get to scientific with this - all I mean is that if we think about the kingdom of heaven (that is a reality where things are as God intends them to be) as being one endpoint and the kingdom of hell (that is a reality where thigns are exactly the opposite of what God intends them to be) then the things that happen here place us somewhere on the scale between heaven and hell.

Thirdly: We can AFFECT where we are on that scale. The decisions that we make and the actions that we take culminate in such a way that can move mankind towards one of those endpoints (either heaven or hell). We can choose to bring heaven to earth or to bring hell to earth. In practical terms, when we choose to be kind to our neighbors that are far too loud late into the night (not that I have any experience with that) we bring heaven to earth. When we choose to sit and talk with a homeless man rather than just pass them by or maybe just blindly throwing them a couple of bucks, we bring heaven to earth. In the same way, we can choose to bring hell to earth by choosing to do things that are less than what we know we should be doing.

All that to say I wish we could stop thinking about hell as a place that "sinners are condemned to" and start thinking about how heaven "is a place where people act as though every one is a child of God; where His love for them is greater than our condemnation of them."

It's dangerous to think this way - or at least threatening. People think that you're universalist and that you're throwing out what it says in the scripture. In reality, I feel like it's holding more closely to it. There's no judgment - that's not my role. I'm doing to others as I would like them to do for me. I'm loving my neighbor regardless of who they are. I still think there's a "right" way to live. It's not heretical.

Anyway - just thoughts.

Grace,

Des

wikimedia

I really like getting images from Wikimedia Commons. There are some really interesting photos there.  Lots of old interesting stuff.  I've found some great anatomical drawings there that I used as the basis for some of the Youth Councils stuff.

They have an image of the day that I try to download as often as I can remember it too.

Des

Live from Youth Councils 2008