On the Road Again!

Leaving for England, Ukraine and Turkey on Weds. for an amazing opportunity that has presented itself.
Some friends from here in town are going over to preach/teach at a conference then do some ministry work in various parts of the country.
Since I have enough points for a free ticket, I thought I'd just go over to England when they did to have some people to pal around with. Also wanted to take the opportunity to meet a young man that's become a friend over the last couple years who is a missionary in Kiev. Thirdly, want to see a dear friend who was like a dad to me when I was younger. He's living in Istanbul which provides the perfect excuse for heading over there.

Looks like while I'm over there's going to be some chances to partner up with some people to be involved in ministry.

Spending 4 days with my friends from here who will be going down to Burnham-on-the-Sea and then over to Wales. Not 100% sure what we'll be doing there, just know I'm "part of the team" though, I'm quite sure how that happened. ;-). This is a pretty spontanteous group, so could be a wild ride.

On June 6th, looks like I'll be headed down to Maidstone near Kent to work at a children's festival. Sounds like great fun!!

Headed over to Kiev on the 12th where there may be yet another chance to work with kids who've just gotten out of school. My friend's group is having a day camp where the kids are taught all kinds of skills including English language skills and he's trying to arrange the chance for me to work there.

In Istanbul I'm hoping to be able to do a little sightseeing and explore the art, music and architecture of that city.

I'm scheduled to be back on the 19th...but to be honest, if the opportunity arises to stay. I'm doing it!

I'll be blogging the trip here for those interested.

Signs - Thematic Photography

This week's installment for Carmi's Thematic Photography series.
I've posted this shot before. It's a shot of an actual sign that we saw on a road trip through Northern France. It was just too good to pass up!
It's been my best seller so far and is always good for a laugh.

Sign

more here at Written Inc.

Sunday Funnies

After Graduating from High School, David moves away from home to study at University. One of his letters home reads:
Dear Father,
University i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard. With all my $tuff, I $imply ¢an't think of anything I need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, a$ I would love to hear from you.
Love,
Your $on.

After receiving his son's letter, the father immediately replies by sending a letter back.


Dear David,
I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love,
Dad

Thematic Photographic

Decided to play along with the folks over at Written Inc. who are doing a weekly theme photograph. This is my entry for this week's theme "Yellow".

ht to Dennis

Sunday Funnies

Happy Mother's Day!!

San Fran Singer

Saw this fantastic singer playing out at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Loved his voice and he was gracious enough to let me video tape him. Pretty much my first video so I thought I'd post it here so you could enjoy the music too.

iphone phun

Last week I finally caved in and bought an iphone. So glad I did!
Mostly been goofing around with various photography applications, some of which are great fun.

So far, these are my two favorite images.
The first one my mom took of me at a local resturant. It was about the 15th photo she'd taken in about 5 minutes trying to get a good shot without moving or getting the blinding window light in frame. You can tell how excited I am by that point ;-)
Had a good time tweaking it in photoshop and actually think the finally image is a pretty good representation of where I am right now.



This next one is a picture of my mom taken with the "shake it" application. I love this shot! The application is great fun because it gives the look of a polaroid photo by shaking the phone till it's fully "developed". If you just wait, it works too, but shaking is more fun!

Hookers and Robbers

I so want to plan a liturgy with this as the song leading up to sharing communion.
It's the one thing frustrating about not being in the same state as the church you belong to. ;-)
Well...that and the fact that communion is not as big a deal to the guy that pastors the church as it is to me.
Iona community has a wonderful prayer that would go with this song. It was read at the emerging church conference. I'll have to dig it out and include it later.

Sunday Funnies

Fry and Laurie featuring Hugh Laurie singing his song about America

New Gear

I've gotten a couple new pieces of kit over the last couple weeks.

First I bought a "Flip" video recorder. So far, all I've managed to record is a couple seconds each of my mom being annoyed with me recording her, and a friend being annoyed with my recording her. Next step..the Oscars.
I really want to try this thing out for real doing "The One Thing" excerise from Facebook.
The idea is to find a wise friend, I have a few so that's easy, and ask them "If there were only ONE THING you could tell me, what would it be". I want to record their answer or have them write it down on a paper, which I can then photograph them with. I'm not quite sure yet which direction I want to take this.
I'm sure it would be a quite awkward moment for someone to be asked a question like that. I'd want to capture what they say, when they say it, but not intimidate them with a camera while they think. guess I'll just have to give it a go and see what happens eh?


Secondly, yesterday I finally caved in and just bought an iphone. Got a pretty good tax refund, so felt like it was ok to splurge a bit. Plus, I have some folks that call pretty regularly and do nothing but complain about how crap my old phone service was. Finally just got tired of all the whinging ;-) Tonight I get to load up my ipod and download some apps.

Any ideas of which ones I need?