Tag: photos

Christmas Part 1: Dinner at the Clarks

We began our official Christmas celebrations tonight with dinner at the Clarks, along with the Carlsons and the Fenrichs. The kids all had a blast- playing, jumping on the trampoline and generally running around.

I have been very busy at the office over the past weeks and tonight is the first chance I have had to slow down and enjoy the season. We are blessed to have such good friends and my children are and will be blessed as they remember these fun and wonderful times for the rest of their lives. There is nothing that relaxes me more than the chaotic sound of children at play. Tonight, as I do often, I walked outside and sat watching the kids while they played. These kids have known each other for almost their entire lives, and in many ways it is like they are one big family. It takes a community to raise a child- and we are fortunate to be a part of this one.

Tomorrow, we will gather again after our respective Christmas Eve church services. On Chistmas Day and over the next weeks and years these wonderful kids and their wonderful parents will continue to enrich our lives.

It is truly the season to be merry.

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Incredible Photos, No. 2

Get ready, here comes another Flickr post.

flickr

I’ve preached before, both here and over lunch, about the many wonderful features of Flickr. How you can upload, organize and share your photos. How you can select who can see each photo (from anyone, to friends to just your family). How you can order posters, bound and professional looking books of your photos, prints (yes, prints) and even real stamps with your photos on them. All directly from the Flickr page.

What I haven’t talked enough about is all the beautiful photos you can admire by exploring the Flickr community.

Explore a little. Explore a little more (click Reload in the upper right of the second link to see more photos). It’s like a museum, right on your computer screen.

If you want to see a particular kind of photo, search by tag or description (use tag and fill in something- like “old shed” or “marbles“).

Feeling stressed? Stare quietly at this simple yet stunning photo by Andrew Morrell for a few seconds- see how calming it is (notice the colors, the focus, the beauty and peacefulness). Instant zen. And it doesn’t cost a thing.

Take a few minutes to marvel at Thomas Hawk‘s amazing photography. His work absolutely stuns me. And he does it because he loves to take pictures and share them with us. Just like thousands of other Flickr users.

There are thousands and thousands of photos to be discovered in the great hall of Flickr. The uploading is just the beginning. There is so much more to be seen.

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Grain Silo


I took this picture of this old grain silo this afternoon in Manvel, Texas. It was built in 1905 along with four others. It is the only one still standing and will almost certainly fall over the next time a hurricane passes through the area.

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Soccer with the Kids

We set up a soccer field in the new yard and Cassidy, Delaney and I have come up with a way to play one on two (old slow daddy against young and tireless Cassidy and Delaney). Here’s how it works. Cassidy and Delaney can run anywhere on the field, but I have to stay within around 12 feet from my own goal (we use one of the trees as the marker). This means that all of my shots are long distance shots, which makes it hard to score. In fact, I am 0-5, having lost 3-2, 5-2, 2-1 and, in a couple of one-sided marathons, 20-8 and 20-9. During the last couple of games, Cassidy actually concluded that I couldn’t score on an open goal and that there was no real need on her part to play hard on defense.

It’s amazing how much the kids get into it when they think it’s playing instead of practicing. Cassidy has already figured out four things on her own that she never learned at soccer practice:

1) If I get the ball, either by stealing it or after she scores a goal, she runs back to her goal and guards it (more casually now than at first since she thinks correctly that I can’t kick the ball straight). Since I am kicking from the other end of the field, I cannot (and probably never will) score a goal if she gets back into position. My only chance is to kick it around and past her while she’s running back. This is hard to do, which is why I have lost 5 straight games.

2) If she’s dribbling towards my goal and I challenge her, she turns around and kicks the ball back out to mid-field, beyond the tree- where I cannot go, and starts over.

3) If she gets close to my goal and kicks it hard, most of the time the worst thing that will happen is the ball bounces off my leg and she gets another shot. If she kicks it hard and repeatedly, she often scores, since I can only block so many shots in a row.

4) She and Delaney have learned to work together. One of them gets on one side of my goal and one on the other. When they do this correctly, it is almost impossible for me to stop them from scoring.

If we’d had this yard when she was 3 years old, Cassidy would be a good and interested soccer player. I don’t know if it’s too late to get her interested in it, but I’m going to try. Delaney may actually become a good player by the start of next season.

This is the first sports game we have come up with where I can try as hard as I want and it’s still competitive and fun. It is a whole lot of fun, especially for them. It’s easy to have fun when you’re clobbering your daddy.

Renaissance Festival

The Newsomes, Clarks and Veldmans went to the Texas Renaissance Festival today. This was the 6th straight year we have been and, as always, it was great. The kids had a blast.

We rode elephants, camels and llamas. The kids rode the merry-go-round, the spinning cups and the big swing. Cassidy did the bungee cord/trampoline thing and loved it- she was higher than the top of our house!

We dug in the rock mine and found some really cool rocks.

We ate some good food, saw some jousting and watched a funny mud pit show. Mostly we just walked around and had a great time.

On the way back we stopped at a Greek restaurant and had dinner. My sister won’t believe it, but I actually liked the food. Mercifully, there was not a grape leaf in sight.

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37 Years Ago

I was thinking this morning what my Dad would think if somehow he came back for a visit today.

Many things would be the same. People still drive cars, eat the same sort of food, watch a little TV (many more channels), play golf, hunt, fish, go camping and farm. Airplanes are still more or less the same. We made it to the moon, and then quit thinking about space. Some people still smoke cigarettes, but not in restaurants. Politicians still lie about each other and care more about discrediting the other side than doing anything meaningful. Tony Bennett is still alive. Johnny Cash is dead.

Many, many things would be new or different. Telephones have buttons, not a dial. Computers are everywhere and typewriters are rarely seen. Banking is done at machines on the sidewalk or over the phone. All of the good TV shows have been replaced with softcore porn. Mom died (after 30 years as a widow). My sister got a couple of graduate degrees. She got married and then divorced. I grew up and moved to Texas, where I neither farm nor sell cars, but do camp and fish. Nobody listens to Vic Damone. Vietnam is over, but we have new wars on TV, fought with technology and embedded reporters. Things cost a whole lot more than they used to.

As Townes Van Zandt once said, time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana.

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Halloween

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We went to the Fenrichs’ tonight for our annual Halloween party. It was raining like cats and dogs for most of the night, but we still managed to do some trick or treating and the kids had a big time.

Raina, putting her pregnant tummy to good use, was a jack-o-lantern. Delaney was Ariel (the mermaid, not Prospero’s ghostly servant, but that would have been cool too). I was a werewolf and Cassidy was a “spooky spirit” (Delaney has Cassidy’s wig on in the photo) Rachael (Cassidy’s pal) was a groovy witch. All of the kids and most of the grown-ups were in full costume atire. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood.

It was a lot of fun.

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Order Prints @ Flickr

I have written many times about Flickr, the photo storage and sharing web site and community. I think it is the single best addition to the internet in many years. In fact, I did a little experiment and tried to drag my friends and family into the 21st century by getting them to appreciate and use Flickr (the experiment was a total failure, but that had zero to do with Flickr and is a topic for another day).

Today’s news is that Flickr has added the one feature that it needed to add to become the undisputed king of photo sites- the ability to order prints. Like everything else at Flickr, this feature was added seamlessly and with many options.

With this addition, you can easily order posters and glossy photo books, prints and even postage stamps, right from the Flickr page. You can select who can order prints of your photos (friends and family or anyone) just like you can select who can see your photos.

Flickr is simply brilliant. If you are a digital photographer and would like to share them with the people you select, Flickr is simply the only choice.

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