Apart from Lanie giving her stewardship talk, I was scheduled to usher at the 9 am service and I had a meeting between services at 10 am. I’m glad I had to be there for all three services as it meant I got to see my friends John and Kris receive their EfM certificates. Four years, all done.
Kris receives his EfM certificate
The best bit was saved for last. Afterward in the parish hall Kris’ son Landon, after studying the certificate, asked Kris if he was now a priest? (no), “What then,” Landon asked, “can you do with it?” Kris replied by doing a most peculiar little dance. Classic parental response from a man after my own heart!
Which may leave you wondering what is the point of EfM? It’s in the title – Education for Ministry. It is preparation for service, however you happen to be called. For some it is the first step towards ordination, for others it is preparation for other leadership roles within the church. And many find it just a good solid grounding in the Christian faith.
Anyone who has been keeping a count will realize that it should be my turn to graduate next year. Well, that should be the case, but right now I’ve got too much voluntary work on top of my growing real work commitments to do year four of the course (theology) justice. So I’m taking a year off and I’ll start my final year in the Fall of 2014.
Today Lanie (and Landon) delivered speeches at all three services on the topic of giving gratefully. They both did a great job and Lanie did us proud. My how she is growing up. Notice the purse – since starting high school I don’t think it has ever left her side.
Having to be a church for all three services meant we arrived before 8am, and didn’t leave until after 11:30am. The early start was difficult for Lanie (wasn’t easy for me either!) as she took part in a 5K fun run last night and didn’t arrive home until late.
Landon delivering his stewardship speech today at the 11am service
After watching this video the best summary of my thoughts is: ‘perplexed’. There’s more going on here than meets the eye (sorry). Apparently, these octopi are color blind – which makes this feat even more impressive. They are fascinating creatures as this Wikipedia article shows.
Many years ago I managed a video/software production department. What the team would have given for access to the technology on show here. Back then cameras were big and expensive, and edit suites bigger and frighteningly expensive.
These relatively low-cost camera platforms make use of high-end DSLR cameras and are handing high video quality movie production to the small independent companies. Companies producing good storylines, while the big studios bankrupt themselves on costly ‘names’, ever more complex Computer-generated special effects, and poor scripts. By my estimate, the production equipment: RC Helicopter, Camera Gimbals and Camera used here are about $27,000. How inexpensive and cool is that!
Below is another video showing the use of a similar set of camera gimbals without the multi-rotor helicopter. Enjoy.
I attended an ‘Active Shooter’ training session at church a couple of days ago, I think this should be filed under ‘Things I didn’t expect to learn/discuss at church’.
This sums up the day pretty well. Hot and windless.
It’s always windy on Stockton. I’ll re-phrase that. It’s almost always windy on Stockton. I can remember another calm day on Stockton, and that was at the same time of year, September 2010.
It was fairly windless when we arrived at the marina. With a hot day forecast, we reckoned the breeze would pick up as the day went on so we motored out, put up the sails and drifted around. There was just enough wind to let us ever so slowly travel up the lake. Not only was the wind slack, but its direction seemed to change 180° on a regular basis.
It was also hot – one of the hottest days of the year. Not bad for September. Needless to say, I no longer consider the Bimini a frivolous accessory. It was absolutely essential to stop us frying in the sun.
John searching for a breeze
At one point John commented “I Could walk faster than this.” To which I quipped “You’ve spent enough time on EfM to be qualified to try it.”
The astute will note that the boat is leaning into the wind because there is not enough wind to counter balance my weight on the windward side
It was a slow but good day….
The lake is pretty
At the north end of the lake, we managed to pick up a small breeze, just enough to get us moving for a while. Luckily the wind stabilized in direction so we managed to crawl our way back down the lake under sail. Finally, we gave up and started the ‘iron topsail’.
It was a long but good day. We managed to sail around eight miles at a little over one mile an hour. John was right. My average hiking speed including stopping for pictures, food, and exploring is 1.1 miles per hour. I could have hiked it just as quickly.
Jim asked me to take a picture of CD (Carol’s Dog- though I’m not sure that the name fits). Being sneaky I fitted Jim into the picture at the same time. Jim doesn’t like posing for pictures, so it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Gary and Jim put the world to rights – Picture by Lanie
Labor Day weekend, some much-needed down-time, good company, and a nice cold beer. We had a cookout with brats, hot dogs, and lots of conversation around the fire on Friday night.
Gary – caught off-guard by Lanie
Saturday, contrary to expectations of a sleep-in, I was up at 6:30 am to accompany Jim to my first Midwest auction. Two in fact. They were great fun, very entertaining and not as undecipherable as I expected. I managed to follow what was going on and didn’t buy anything. It was fascinating to watch and listen to. Almost always the auctioneer managed to get some bidding going, and despite any early reluctance to start bidding on his initial opening price, the final price ended up very close to his opening price. I was perplexed as to why people spent the money they did on some of the things they did, but hey, that’s up to them. We got off very lightly as Jim spent under $25. The two high-value items he was interested in went for a lot more than he thought it was worth spending on them.
In the evening we all watched a movie on TV and then played games.
Sunday we managed to sleep in until 10:30 am when I was woken by the call of bacon. After a bacon and egg breakfast I adjourned to the workshop and took a picture of a tool display for Jim, I say picture, but as we didn’t have a backdrop big enough, I ended up taking five pictures to stitch together in post-processing, there was a lot of setting up and trying different things out, before I got the shots I wanted.
Ginger then took a load of pictures of Jim’s Jewelry working tools to post on her blog. Finally, at Lanie’s insistence, there were yet more games. I reckon that’s at least three year’s games credit I’ve earned this weekend.
After dinner we had an uneventful drive home to Springfield. Lanie must be extra lucky as we treated her (and ourselves) to a double-dip cone at Braums on the way back. Back home the kitties seemed to have fared okay in our absence, though there was a larger than usual pile of barf in the hallway.
Christ Episcopal Church Ministry and Stewardship Sunday invite – Front
Invitation to Ministry and Stewardship Sunday at Christ Church. I wanted to make a reminder that people would want to keep around for a while, A selection of pictures offered an opportunity to broaden the appeal and also represent the various activities of the church. We’ll see. I’m not a copywriter but the words seemed to work fairly well. I do like playing with fonts for emphasis.
I finished working on this some time ago, I had to wait for them to be printed and posted before showing them. Hopefully they are already adorning people’s fridges, shelves and mantelpieces.
Back:
Christ Episcopal Church Ministry and Stewardship Sunday invite – Back
Lanie had a break in her rehearsal schedule, so I thought I’d take her kayaking to get her out and about for a while.
We jokingly refer to the kayaks as ‘stealth pods’ because as soon as we put them on the van it becomes invisible. People cut in on us, people pull out in front of us. We have learned to be extra careful when we are carrying them. Today was no different, except I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. We’d not gone a couple of blocks from home before someone drove into the back of us at a junction.
Luckily neither the van or any of us were harmed. Though I’m not quite so sure about the front end of the car that ran into us. I did a quick check to make sure that all was well and then we were off again – with no more incidents.
It was hot work getting the Kayaks loaded and unloaded. Ginger agreed to help load and unload the Kayaks, drop us off and come and get us at whatever access point we ended up.
We put-in at the Southwood Access, and I had hoped to finish up at Lake Springfield. Unfortunately Lanie was short on time (homework to be done), and also got tired quite quickly – probably a result of being away doing Churchy stuff this past weekend and all the Little Mermaid rehearsals she attends -1-2 hours per night. So we just went up and down the James River, getting Ginger to pick us up at the same place she dropped us off.
In all we paddled nearly four miles, not bad for a quick run out.
Spent the day with cap’n John getting the boat ready for some real sailing – he has a mainsail. Unfortunately, the ‘iron Topsail’ is currently broken, and beyond my knowledge to repair.
Jim and Carol came by this afternoon on one of their regular trips to Springfield. Jim brought with him his latest piece for me to photograph before he submits it for display and then sale in a silent auction in aid of the Ozarks Regional Arts Council.
The rules for submission of an art piece were simple but challenging. The completed piece must fix inside a six inch cube. According to Jim, getting the wine (wax) into the goblet was the hardest part of the whole thing!
While Ginger and Carol dropped Lanie off at church for a weekend retreat in Kansas City (Yay! a child-free weekend!), Jim and I went shopping – man-style. Jim bought some hardware and a set of cushioned floor tiles for his workshop. While he was doing that, I scoped out the pneumatic hoses and fittings as the hose on my compressor is kaput.
Today’s hearty breakfast – Egg Steak and veggies – very good.
I’ve been spending far too much time at my desk and not enough time out and about. The lack of exercise has taken it toll, and it’s time to start doing something; reduce my weight and get more exercise.
We eat very healthily anyway – very little processed food, lots of salad and vegetables, I just probably eat too much of all that good stuff. Ginger found a Paleo Diet, with pre-prepared menus – which is a great bonus. It’s a sort of Atkins meets New Age diet. Lots of protein and very little carbs. there’s a very regular pattern of meals with tasty snacks. Lots of unusual stuff too.
The great news is that bacon is on the menu! Any diet and menu plan that sets me up with bacon and eggs for breakfast gets my vote. Today’s breakfast was steak, and veggies, all topped off with an egg – sunny side up.
We’re hoping this diet will work for us, as it looks really good. Time will tell. Thus far the food’s been very good, though I’ve been left feeling quite hungry – even with the four planned meals a day. However, if I’m overweight that’s a price I’m going to have to pay as I transition to a slimmer me.
Yesterday someone marked the above picture as a favorite. Not a big deal, people like and favorite my pictures all the time. Except. Except this isn’t the sort of picture I’d expect to be liked. It’s dark, somber. Moody even.
It made me stop and think. I pulled up the picture, which I took in June 2011, to re-examine it. That was when I realized that somehow over the past couple of years I’ve lost my photo-mojo and I missed the memo.
I’ve slipped into a trance of formulaic non-challenging picture taking. The darks and lights are gone at the expense of a plain average picture. I’ve become a mediocre photojournalist at best.
The joke is most definitely on me.
A couple of years ago I thought I might have a go at taking pictures for money. I did the research, I checked what the local photographers were doing. Generally, there was nothing particularly outstanding. Then I realized what the buying public actually wanted. It was truly awful (in my opinion). Twee pictures that are either faded to look like a seventies print, or colorized, or over processed to make the people in them look plastic or just as bad, photographs taken at jaunty angles – I suspect to cover the photographers’ inability to take a straight, decently framed picture. It was all far too artificial.
America is BIG on artifice. You only have to look at how the buildings are fronted with a frosting of false towers, embellishments, and facings. All to hide the plain wooden or metal stud construction building that lurks behind. People actually seem to be impressed by this particular brand of emperor’s clothes.
Anyway, I couldn’t do it. No-way José. So I quietly shelved that plan, I wasn’t selling my photographic soul to the Devil of Artifice. I wanted to go my own way. So what happened? What I saw today is that I’ve slowly slipped into the safe ground of the dull and boring. I don’t take a lot of time over my pictures anymore – they’re typically set pieces, that I’d call snapshots, not even inspired snapshots. I do what I have to do to illustrate our blogs and meet the needs of the occasional commercial small product shoots I do. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the pictures I’ve been taking. The quality is good, but the inspiration and artistry are absent.
Now the memo has finally arrived. So, do I want to just carry on taking the pictures I am? Or should I embark on an adventure to rediscover that ol’ photo-mojo?
I volunteered to take pictures at the Dedication of Rose Cottage, a shelter for abused women and their families. The pictures have now been made public so I can post them here too.
Lanie volunteered to acolyte. Unfortunately I distracted her – this is moments before she forgot to lower the cross to pass through the door.
Sunday July 14 I was scheduled to be an Usher and Lanie wanted to go to church.
When we arrived I went straight into ‘meet and hand hand-out bulletins’ mode, leaving Lanie to find some youth group friends to hang out with. At the start of the service I was surprised to find Lanie all robed up and carrying the second cross. They were an acolyte short and she volunteered to help out – even though she’s not served as an acolyte for over a year.
I decided to try and get a picture of Lanie processing out of the church – I thought Ginger and Carol would appreciate it.
The procession came bowling down the aisle at a fair lick and my fingers had trouble adjusting the exposure as the light increased near the open doors. I ended up with a blurred picture, and a messy background. I decided to try and rescue the picture and this is the result.
Just after I took the picture she smacked the cross into the door frame – forgetting to lower it. My fault – I distracted her. Oops!
An advantage of ushering is that I can take pictures to accompany the sermons. Today I was in luck as Jonathan was delivering the sermon, my ushering and his delivering a sermon had not coincided before, so now I’ve a ‘stock image’ to accompany his sermons (when I finally get round to processing the audio files that is).
Here is my pick of the other pictures I took. They are quite grainy – it is very dark in the church.
Near the end of the service – starting to process
Fr. Jonathan delivering the sermon
Fr. Jonathan delivering the sermon
