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September 29, 2006
Groan!!!
Posted by jackdas at 1:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 28, 2006
Lunch Break Guerilla Photography
The clouds and blue sky were brilliant today, warranting a lunch time photo drive. I work in a beautiful area.
There are some new ones in the Nature and Flowers set too...
Finally, a self-portrait from the end of today's exploits to show off facial scruff, which prompted a student worker the other day to remark, "So, are you trying to look like a bear," later covering her remark with some mention of it being a teddy bear she meant. Yeah, that helps. It was amusing. No really I am going more for the George Clooney look. Yeah, that would be Clooney ala Syriana.
Oh, and the camera and I have our first separation tonight. She is off to see Chihuly glass, whilst I go to the ball game. The break will be good. My last picture today was number 903. That is about 300 pictures per week, if you are keeping score at home.
Go Cards!
Posted by jackdas at 4:57 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
Side of the Road
One of my happiest thrift store music finds turned out to be a tape of Lucinda Williams' self-titled release from 1988. It cannot really be purchased any more as a CD and only a few places as a download, though MSN music has it for a good price (you can hear a sample of "Side of the Road" here). Almost every song on here is brilliant in a country-blues sort of way, with many describing life in depressed rural Louisiana. "Passionate Kisses," which was later, and rather more successfully, recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter is on here too, and is the peppiest song on the album.
Perhaps my favorite song on the album, though, is "Side of the Road." There was a time when I would have reacted strongly, in fear, against this sentiment if I were in a relationship and my partner had expressed it. I would understand it pretty well now I think. Indeed, I believe I would own it for myself at times, understanding the need for separation...reflection...creation...recreation...reconnection. The words are brilliant, but your really have to hear the song to get the full effect. Favorite stanza? 2.
Side of the Road
You wait in the car on the side of the road
Lemme go and stand awhile, I wanna know you're there but I wanna be alone
If only for a minute or two
I wanna see what it feels like to be without you
I wanna know the touch of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind
I walked out in a field, the grass was high, it brushed against my legs
I just stood and looked out at the open space and a farmhouse out a ways
And I wondered about the people who lived in it
And I wondered if they were happy and content
Were there children and a man and a wife?
Did she love him and take her hair down at night?
If I stray away too far from you, don't go and try to find me
It doesn't mean I don't love you, it doesn't mean I won't come back and
stay beside you
It only means I need a little time
To follow that unbroken line
To a place where the wild things grow
To a place where I used to always go
La la la, la la la, la la la, la la la
La la la la, la la la, la la la, la la la
If only for a minute or two
I wanna see what it feels like to be without you
I wanna know the touch of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind
Posted by jackdas at 5:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 21, 2006
New to the Blogroll, Long Overdue
For your reading pleasure, two additional ladies from my church who are thoughtful bloggers. Both Claire and Meg are in grad school so blog postings are not necessarily their top priority, but as luck would have it, both have recently posted. And with more readers and commenters, who knows, we may be able to coax more regular entries out of them after all.
STOP THE PRESSES OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU STOP WITH BLOGS!!!!
Sweet Chicken is in the house with a lovely reflection on the meaning of true friendship. Yes, I get to live with some awesome dudes, or as a group of us labelled them the other night, MOGs, you know, as opposed to their counterparts, WOGs.
Posted by jackdas at 8:28 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Reasons to Clean Your Car
OK, so I have a perpetual struggle with clutter. Rather like Pigpen, it seems a cloud of clutter develops everywhere I go, bedroom, office, and, yes, car. I blame it on entropy. Not having the classic guy reason to strongly battle entropy when it comes to my car i.e. impressing a potential significant other, yesterday I discovered another one, for my camera to see better. My baby needs some clean windshields! And judging by the time we've been spending together, I think it is getting serious.
Now, I don't really recommend taking pictures while driving and talking on the cell phone. OK, so I wasn't on my cell phone. However, the sky was just too amazing, I was late for house church, and I was very careful, so I risked getting the shots you will see if you click on either the second take of the leaves at my Dad's or the Busch eagle. Oh, and if you see smudges from the dirty windshield, just pretend that its a cloud. How does one get smudges on the inside of a windshield anyway.
Posted by jackdas at 8:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 19, 2006
Hitting the Loop
The Loop in University City is so picturesque that the photos almost take themself. I did have to wait patiently for some of them though (click on the photo above to go to the photostream.. Having a hard time getting going today I elected to take the morning off (and then the afternoon too), and these are the fruits of my walking, as well as the beginnings of another cold, I'm afraid. Also, having been sick so much, I am beginning to think of myself using that antiquated term "sickly." Groan.
The dangers of smoking
It was only upon looking at this picture on the computer that I realized someone has carved a face into the stump. If I had realized it, I would have turned the cigarette around so it fits better with the title I gave the shot.
Posted by jackdas at 4:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 18, 2006
In Series
So, this may be the beginning of a series of sorts...
...and perhaps another one for cell phone towers. This one I am going to call "Ubiquity."
And, more flowers. Wild ones this time.
Posted by jackdas at 5:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 15, 2006
The Sadness Post
Today, twice I watched my sensitive nephew’s lower lip stick out ever so slightly and quiver as he valiantly tried to fathom and control disappointment. First, as we sat down to dinner, his Veggie Tales plate was being given to a visiting cousin as there were only three of them and there were four children. I saw the lip and the frightened sadness in the big brown eyes. This time it lasted only a moment as the older of the cousins sweetly offered him her Veggie Tales plate, taking the ceramic “adult” plate for herself.
Later, the sadness was not so easily quelled. The visiting cousins were being given a sizeable chunk of his and his sister’s video collection to help them pass the time at Grandpa’s house. He went to his room and quietly began playing with his toys, but that lip and those eyes illuminated his soul, and when his Daddy came in and picked him up, the flood that the lip was trying to keep at bay overflowed in heaping sobs. His Daddy said that it was OK. OK to be disappointed and OK because the tapes would be back. Andrew clung to his Daddy in the full contact way that children do when the hurt is strong, burying his teary face into his Daddy’s shoulder. He stayed that way until we left, his Daddy softly assuring him.
This must be a journal entry from 3 years ago or so. Sorrow at its core emanates from a realization that things are not the way they should be, that loss has occurred. And children understand this implicitly, much as they seem to have an implicit understanding of fairness, even if they do not always put it into practice. And they are, if they are allowed, unafraid to express sorrow out loud. My nephew, five at the time, knew that the plate was his, that the videos were his, and he could not understand why they were being taken from him. There would, of course, be time to explain the virtue of sharing, some of which was done even as he was being comforted, but what my brother did at the time was to address his sorrow. To assure him that, indeed, in that instance at least, everything would be alright.
Of course everything is not alright. And as we grow, in situation after situation, we come to understand that the world is broken, beautiful, full of joys, yes, but broken nonetheless. Life, from one perspective, might be viewed as a succession of realizations of loss, each with its own attendant sorrow: the death of a pet, the death of a loved one, the death of kindness, the death of a friendship, the death of a marriage, the death and carnage in the world every day. Depending on the culture and family in which we grow up we are taught differing things about what to do with our sorrow, some positive, some soul numbing. Sorrow will not go away, though, until the world is healed, so it is important to get it right.
Continue reading "The Sadness Post"
Posted by jackdas at 11:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 12, 2006
Lucky Number 13
I have added some more photos (flowers, advent, passion, hydrants, harry) to the Misc. Photography-September 2006. Thanks for indulging this wee honeymoon with my new camera. Click on the hydrant to go to the photostream.
I am also a big fan of this number 13 who also wears red. He had a tremendous start this week. Here's hoping his offensive line steps up and he has an injury free season, so we get see what he's got left in the tank.
Posted by jackdas at 5:09 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 11, 2006
The Dassler Effect Gets Eyes
Well, I have wanted a digital camera for quite a while, but I waited, until the prices went down and until my itchy trigger figure could not resist any longer. So, on Friday the mail brought a much anticipated package. If you are the sort that cares about specs on cameras, here is a link. I have not gone out just with a mind to taking pictures yet, but if you click on the picture above (yes the one with me in my Mr. Rogers cardigan) you can go to my new Flickr account (which I haven't figured how to get to talk to my blog just yet) and see some pictures from this past weekend, about a third of which I did not even take myself.
Oh, and if you are in the market for a digital camera and want some guidance, holler and I can recommend some good review sites and discount sites.
So here is looking forward to a more visually sharp blog, or perhaps more accurately to a blog with a greater percentage of visual sharpness actually created by the blog's author instead of from pilfered photos and art.
I have not forgotten about Sadness, Part Deux, by the way....It will come.
Posted by jackdas at 7:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 4, 2006
Sadness
I was rather surprised how sad this news story made me feel. I was not even a huge fan of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, and my strong response may be more a function of having been down for the last few weeks or so, but I think it also has to do with hearing about someone with such vitality and eagerness who has a wife and two small children being cut down in the prime of his life. I don't know if Steve was doing something ill-advised or not, but that is immatererial for the sadness that this causes.
I am doing a Bible study for house church this week on the topic of "sadness." I have not really looked at yet, so I don't have much to say about it particularly. In some preliminary thinking though I have been thinking about some questions about sadness. Can presistent sadness be sinful (like mourning as those who have no hope)? If so, when does that crossover occur? Does this differ between sadness over the loss of a loved one and sadness over disappointment about how life has gone for you? If sadness can be a sinful choice, what are the contours of healthy Biblical sadness and recovery from it?
Big questions. Please comment if you like. I may do a post with some of my thoughts post Bible study preparation and discussion. Oh, and if you do, do pray for Steve's family, and, more personally and presistently, pray for someone you know who is sad.
Finally, a verse that stuck out to me from the hymn "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" at church this morning that seems pertinent here, which illustrates the awe and comfort of God ordering all things (even tempests) and being everpresent as we experience life.
There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.
Posted by jackdas at 2:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Random Thought of the Day
As a guy you know you are getting old when you have to trim those pesky nose hairs (not to mention the ones on your ears). And then it is confirmed when white hairs start to pepper your head. Ah, but today the ignominy of ageing was really driven home with several white nose hairs that need trimming! Groan!
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