You’re still here?

December 22, 2008 · Posted in Blogging the disease, Life · 3 Comments 

Persistent buggers aren’t you?

I have been spending time getting everything ready for my big adventure on Friday. I am trying to keep myself occupied so I don’t psych myself out anymore than I already am.

Had to go to the doctor today because my bronchitis is not totally gone yet, this is not a good thing since I cannot have it when I go to surgery. The doc gave me the antibiotic that they usually perscribe for pneumonia. She said this should work and have me where I need to be by Friday. When I went to get the perscription filled they cashier asked me for 123 dollars! I about had to be carried out of the store. It’s all good though, they just accidentaly ran it through on an old insurance number, took a few hours but it got straightened out and I got my money back. They actually gave it to me for free and didn’t charge the co-pay to make up for the trouble.

I am supposed to be posting more about Christmases past, but I haven’t got it in me today, hopefully tommorrow I can get it up here.

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Remembering Christmases past.

December 18, 2008 · Posted in Life, Reflections · 3 Comments 

I remember the days leading up to Christmas very well. We usually put up our tree just after Thanksgiving. Decorating the tree was a family affair. Most of the ornaments were just plopped on the tree, but I  had a special ornament as well, it was a little blue eyed, blond haired angel. I loved that ornament from the moment I set my eyes upon it. My mother gave me the ornament a few years back and now it resides on my tree every year.

angel ornament

angel ornament

Sitting in school waiting for the last day till Christmas break. That last day was torturous to me. Knowing that in just a few short hours the official countdown to Christmas would begin.

Then there were the Christmas specials on TV. I watched them all and was especially fond of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas“. I watched them all, those are just 2 of the many that I loved. TV was my best friend growing up, but that is a whole other post.

I would listen to my 45’s of Christmas music incessantly, I imagine my mom still has issues with this one in particular:

I still love this one but I don’t have the 45 anymore, thank God for YouTube.

More to come…

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A quick note to you

November 28, 2008 · Posted in Blogging the disease · 4 Comments 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was alright despite everything that was working against me.

My surgery has been scheduled for December 26th, yes that is the day after Christmas. Yes that means I will not be partaking in the traditional Christmas meal. Yes that also means that I will be spending the last half of Christmas in the restroom. No, I am not going to let it ruin everyone else’s Christmas!

That’s all I have right now. More to come, I hope!

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Happy Halloween

October 31, 2008 · Posted in Life, scary · 2 Comments 

I’m not going to lie to you, Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays since I can remember. I have always enjoyed donning some scary makeup or mask and scaring the bejeebers out of anyone foolish enough to be near me. I have spent hours before just putting costumes on, my zombie was by far the best. I used to have a picture of it as I had one first place in the costume contest my employer was holding. The photo has long since disappeared, but the memory remains.

For awhile I had serious doubts about whether I should be enjoying Halloween. I was told that a good Christian should have nothing to do with such a dark holiday. It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized that the thought process that got me to that point was rubbish. First off it is a great opportunity to witness to the neighborhood children. What other night are they going to willingly come to my door and let me give them a tract? Yes I do give them candy also, but the tract is key to this whole thing. Secondly, it is the only time of year when I can find some good horror movies on the television.

My scary experience

When I was around 7 or 8 we lived in this old house that was just naturally creepy to begin with. My room was on the second floor and my parents room was on the first. The first time I slept in my room I kept being awoken by the sound of footsteps. Now being that young I was naturally scared witless. The thump thump thump of footsteps in a dark room is enough to give anyone the heebies. The fact that I had a light on and could still not see who was moving around up there made it much much worse!

After the third time of waking up I just lie there awake trying to hear the noise that kept bringing me into this wakeful state. It didn’t take long before I heard the noise again. It was a distinct thump scrape thump scrape. I was now downstairs in the living room, it took me about two seconds to get there! I went to tell my parents what was going on. My dad at first told me it must be a tree branch, I reminded him that there were no trees near the house. He then wrote it off as a squirrel, now I was young and easily fooled, but that was no squirrel, way to loud for a squirrel to accomplish.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the night sleeping on the couch downstairs within easy run of my parents room. The next day my dad and I went up to try and figure out what was making the noise. We sat for the longest time in silence trying to hear anything that sounded like it but never did. There was a storage room off to the side of my room, it had a small door into it. I opened this door to see if there was anything in there that might make noise. When I swung the door open there was a dress makers dummy right there in front of it. I screamed at the top of my lungs and made my way away from that room as fast as my little legs would carry me.

I would not go upstairs in that house ever again, as much as my dad tried to get me to, I flat out refused. While downstairs sleeping on the couch, you could still hear the noise at night, but it was not as loud. It was definitely coming from upstairs. My mom heard it a few times when she would get up in the middle of the night for something and my dad heard it once also. The day after he heard it, he started looking for another house for us to live in.

End of scary story

What am I wearing this Halloween you may ask? A simple mask, store bought with no modifications. I thought it was creepy enough just the way it is. All you have to do is wear it and not say a word, it creeps ‘em out every time!

Boo

Boo

The creepy lighting is courtesy of the auto focus light on my point and shoot, I couldn’t have asked for a better light! Yes, you can click to enlarge!

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Finally, a good weekend!

October 19, 2008 · Posted in For His glory, People, Photography · 1 Comment 

I finally got out of the house to do something that didn’t involve medical testing! I drove 112 miles north to see my good friends band play. A long long time ago, he was the bass player in a my band, I call it my band loosely, it was all our bands I just didn’t feel like figuring out another way to say it. Anyway, that band was about the furthest thing from Christian that it could possible have been. Now he plays in a Christian metal band called Suffer the King. Good stuff if you are into metal, so no Linda, don’t even bother! ;) So this first shot is a band shot, I apologize in advance for the quality of the shots. This was my first attempt at shooting a band with this camera and I had a few challenges to overcome. Mostly it was just inexperience, with practice I should be able to do a lot better. I have never had a whole lot of luck shooting in dark places before either.

All photos can be clicked to enlarge!

Suffer the King

Suffer the King

Yes I broke the cardinal rule of concert shooting and used a flash. I couldn’t help it though as I don’t have any fast lenses yet. The best I have is still 3.5 wide open, I really need a 1.8 at least, but 1.4 preferably. Anyway, this next shot is of the singer, who has the coolest name in the band IMHO.

Jeff

Jeff

Did I mention that I shot most of the show in RAW mode, which made it even more of a challenge for me since I had to figure out what all the different sliders in the conversion program do! Next up is my buddy Quentin, he’s a really good guy, which makes me wonder why he puts up with me? Quentin has some mad bass skills and is showing them off here, granted you can’t tell since this is a still photo, but you can pretend or go to their mySpace page that I linked earlier.

Quentin

Quentin

Next up we have the guitar wizard himself Dan, who by the way is hilarious. He reminds me of myself when I get going, only he is actually funny!

Dan

Dan

Last but not least we have the drummer, whom I could not for the life of me get a good shot of because every time he looked up someone got in front of me.

Derek

Derek

I hope I got everyones names right, I had to write them down from memory and as you all know, my memory is pretty poor! Suffer the King rocked the show Saturday night and I can’t wait to see them again!

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