Red, White and Blue

Happy Memorial Day.  You know my favorite thing about Memorial Day?  The flags.  People fly their flags on Memorial Day.  It gives me goosebumps.  As a little kid, we would go out to the front yard with dad when he would put the flag up for Memorial Day or July 4th or any other good day for national pride and remembrance.  Good memory. I don’t have a flag, nor a place to fly one really.  But, when I do, I will.  Enjoy the day, and take time to remember those who gave it all.

Parc Guell

Came across this old pano a couple days ago when transferring files from my old computer to my new one. This is from the three crosses at Parc Guell in Barcelona. When I studied abroad there I remember I would often make the trek to the park just to soak up the view. One day, prior to my hike up to the three crosses, I happened upon a guitarist who was playing. I sat for a while and enjoyed, then bought his CD. When I need to feel peace, I find myself pulling up his album on my iPod.

This pano is manually spliced together, unlike the others I've shown you, which were merged automatically in photoshop. There's something nice about a manual splice.

It's in her name

This is Cameo. I take lots of photos of Cameo, I can't help myself. She's real good around my camera. And, I've posted a pic of Cameo to the blog before. She is sweet, sweet. She and I play some serious frisbee together occasionally. Then we follow frisbee time with a treat, which is exactly what she is staring at in this photo. Trust me, those endearing eyes are meant for the cookie, not me.

LOST no more

Meet the LOSTIES. Preston, Kemp (Michael), me, Lyndsay, Brian and Alli. Oh, and Oreo, the cat. This crew has pretty much watched every episode of the series together. And last night was the final episode. It was the end of an era. If you've never seen LOST then I can't explain it to you - it's just too out there to synopsize. The show had a smoke monster, a disappearing island, time travel, electromagnetic pockets, and so forth. Wierd stuff. But, the characters on the show were awesome. They were in constant struggle and always depending on each other. Which is proably what kept me tuning into it.

First Kings Five

Nine years ago this summer I started down the path to architecture. I thought quite a bit about it through my junior year. After researching various kinds of engineering, I began to be drawn to architecture. This made sense because I had a love for both science and art. Choosing a college within the university was a looming decision, which I had toiled with in my head for some time. And, it was going to take no less than divine intervention for my decision to be made. Well, that's exactly what happened.

I remember very vividly the moment I discovered architecture was to be my path. My youth group had gone on a trip to West Virginia to participate in the Appalachia Service Project (ASP), a mission of the United Methodist Church dedicated to helping rebuild homes in need of repair in the Appalachia region. The drive to West Virginia was long so we stopped in Knoxville on Saturday night at Fountain City United Methodist Church. We spent the evening there on cots, then woke up the next morning to attend the church service, before heading on our way. Since we stayed the night at the church we were naturally the first ones to the sanctuary the next morning. To pass the time before the service started, I pulled out the pew bible and started reading whatever I came to. As I was flipping, I remember thinking very clearly to myself how I'd like to read something about the building of a church - half-thinking it was a far-fetched wish that I might happen upon that in that moment.

With architecture on my mind so much around then, I had given ample thought to what type of architecture I would want to be a part of, should I head that direction. Sacred architecture was what stood out to me. Hence my wanting to read something in the bible about the building of a church. Just seconds after I thought that to myself, I flipped to 1 Kings chapter 5. My jaw literally dropped. That chapter is about the building of Solomon's temple. It goes on and on about the dimensions and materials and methods of building the temple. It speaks also to the massive labor it took to accomplish the construction. I was half in shock and half teary-eyed, because I knew I'd just been called. It was the most amazing feeling I have ever had. I wanted to tell someone, anyone. I looked side-to-side considering sharing the moment immediately with a pew mate. But at the same time I knew that only I was going to truly understand and appreciate how powerful an experience I had just had. So instead I began to carefully read the chapters about Solomon's temple, then I jotted on an offering envelope the chapter I had flipped to so I wouldn't forget that moment. I've kept that envelope since then. It's a beautiful reminder of that experience and the beginning of my journey in architecture.

And, the wing nut, well that was part of a devotional later in the week put on by the ASP staffers. The point of the wing nut devotional was that the two wings were symbols; one wing was to represent your experiences on ASP, and the other wing to represent your life at home away from ASP. And the circle between them was a symbol of bringing the two together. It was fun that night during the devotional, because I knew how I was supposed to bring my two wings together.

It's been a long road to becoming an architect - one that isn't over just yet either. Architecture is no cake walk, and I haven't always loved it. Despite the woes I feel every now and then on my road to getting licensed, it's a great profession that I thank God for bringing me into. I just hope I can make an impact within it one day, somehow.

That's my story. Thanks for hearing it.

Simply showing off

The reason for posting this photo is purely to show off the capability of my lens (and, I guess, to continue to promote the awesomeness of Shae's wrangler). A Jeep Wrangler is not a big car, and a normal camera would not be able to capture this much of the car in one shot. But, my new lens is not normal. This lens will be fantastic for shooting landscapes, so I'm anxious to go to a place worth shooting. Landscape opportunities aren't exactly knocking the door down here in Dallas. Road trip?

It's a Jeep thing

If you are in the market for a classic Jeep Wrangler, this one is for sale. This is Shae's Jeep that she is letting go of with some regret. It's a beauty. We went to White Rock with it on Saturday to take some photos for a craigslist listing. This was a fun shoot for me because I was using my new wide angle lens. The photo was taken at 10mm - or super wide - hence the "in your face" nature of the shot. The overcast light was perfect on Saturday afternoon for shooting a white Jeep. If the sun had been out, I would have struggled to get the exposure correct.

Happy Jeeping to whoever becomes the next lucky owner of this ride.

8 track heaven

Speaking of music boxes, how about these classics? I've never owned an 8 track, I'm from the records-forward generation. But, I've heard plenty of stories about these guys. Mainly how the deck would get caught in the player and the tape would string out and lay to rest a good album.

I took this photo several months back when we stumbled upon an exhibit at a small gallery in Deep Ellum. The exhibiting artist was actually presenting his installation when we walked in. Imagine a room lined wall to wall with 8 tracks just like this. This guy was fanatical about his 8 tracks. They were like his babies. I found some I liked and snapped this shot. He had some serious classics in his collection, including as you see in the photo, Bob Dylan. And, in case you're wondering, my favorite Bob Dylan song is "Boots of Spanish Leather". It's a beautiful song and the lyrics are sweet. That song has the sound I hoped his son Jakob Dylan (from one of my favorites, the Wallflowers) could accomplish when he went solo. Unfortunately for Jakob, Bob Dylan is a tough act to follow, even if you have his blood in you.

When in Marfa

Came across some old photos from Marfa last night. I don't believe I have shared too many from the trip to Marfa. The best way I can describe Marfa is it is a twilight zone, a blip in the state of Texas full of a bunch of old hippies and some strange art galleries. Oh, and a liquor store on the edge of town called El Cheapo. Just so you know, should you ever go to Marfa and need to buy cheap liquor, this is not actually a good place to do so. It's a fraud. Very expensive. When in Marfa you have to meet some locals, have them take you on a party bus to see the Marfa lights (pretend to see them, otherwise you're going to feel left out), watch the train fly through town at 70 miles an hour (because why slow down, it's just Marfa), and go to the Judd galleries, just to say that you did. Then get the hell out of there!

Land that I love

Last night I was digging for some stuff I'd been wondering about, and I came across this little music box. I'm not sure it's actually a music box since it doesn't have a box at all, but nonetheless. I can't remember where I got this little guy or when, but I sure did enjoy finding it. It plays "God Bless America". There is definitely something soothing about rotating the lever of a little music box. I think I played this guy at least five times this morning. It makes really good sound, which you wouldn't expect from such a cute, small thing (he's only about 1" x 1.5"). A fun find for sure.

Double feature at the drive in

Ever been to the drive in? I hadn't until Saturday night. A crew of folks went down to Ennis in celebration of Scott's birthday. It was quite the experience. The best way I can describe it is, it was like chilifest but much more chill. There's a big field, everyone slowly piles into the field arranging their cars (trucks) just so, then they set up however they want. In our case we had chairs. Some people, like the folks in this photo, had mattresses on the roof of their car, some had sofas in the bed of their truck. Little speaker boxes were all about the field, and before the movie started they played music over them - classic stuff, which reinforced the notion that you had gone back in time about 50 years.

The devil was beating his wife

Last night I was studying at the coffeeshop (surprise, surprise) and it was raining out. After awhile I noticed that the sun started peaking through quite a bit so I decided to enjoy it for a moment on the porch. Turns out it was still raining even though it was sunny - which made me smile. When I was little I learned that when it's raining oustide and the sun is still shining that the "devil is beating his wife". Odd, right? Well, it's a common phase. It's a crazy phrase, but it's common, or atleast it's common to people from Louisiana. Ask a cajun if they've ever heard that phrase and they will say, "yup." Ask a non-cajun, and chances are you will get a funny look. Then you'll try to explain the phrase to the non-cajun, and you'll realize as you are explaining it how very crazy the phrase actually is.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the coffeeshop so when I wanted to document the whole devil/wife situation I had to resort to my iphone camera and the best I could get was this little puddle shot. About the time I was taking this photo, I realized there were two very prominent rainbows in the sky. Naturally I tried to document that too. The iphone doesn't capture nearly as strong a shot as my Nikon, but hey, it's still a memory. As I was taking photos on the porch, the one other guy out there started taking photos too. It didn't take too long before several other folks joined us on the porch gazing at the phenomenon. People really love rainbows. The two rainbows stuck around for awhile, well after I decided to get back to studying. Lucky for me though, I had a window view of the rainbows from my chair. Once the sun finally went down and the rainbows bowed out I decided to log on to facebook to see how many rainbow photos had been posted - as I suspected, there were more than I could count on my fingers and toes. And, honestly, most of them were far superior to my little shot here. Anyways, the whole thing was fun and a very welcome study break.