A Classical Experience of a Lifetime

note: You may consider playing the video (at the bottom of the post) in the background while you read this post.

I'm very grateful to a very generous friend and his wife who gave me one of the best gifts I've ever received. The gift was season tickets to the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Although its 'just tickets,' my friend knew me well enough to know how much I would enjoy them. Its selfless generosity that truly magnifies the power of the gift...its not just the tickets, its the message communicated in the giving of the gift from the heart that makes its so special. I don't feel I can thank him enough.

To add to the value of the gift, it gave my wife and I an opportunity to do something we enjoy together that we could never afford to do on our own. (And we didn't have to fight kids to sit still through the concert.)

The musical experience was special to me because you can't match live music. Especially music with such complex textures and activity that you can only get from having so many instruments working together.

No matter how good your sound system is, you can't get sound waves to dance from a recording and speakers like they do in a live concert hall. You have each instrument creating its own sound waves from different positions in relation to your ears. You also have the sound waves bouncing off the ceiling and walls at different angles and distances. So the timing and stereo effect of each individual soundwave presents so much depth and detail to the listener. The pure, uncorrupted, and unmanipulated waves from each instrument mix together in organized timing and frequency--sometimes cancelling each other out and sometimes building on each other and complimenting each other. I can't express it well enough how incredible live Orchestra music is-- from a general entertainment perspective to a mental-scientific analysis perspective.

It was so relaxing and wonderful to be totally submersed in the sounds of the Orchestra. I also really enjoyed watching the different instruments and hearing what they truly sound like with all of their overtones and textures. I was amazed at the skill the musicians showed as they executed the pieces with seeming perfection.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to a live symphony, take it! And if you have people in your life that treat you like a king or queen, you will understand why this was such a special gift for me. Thank you, Rich and Ruth!

Note: I really like music surrounding the baroque era (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and others). One of my favorites is Mozart's Symphony no. 40. Although this is no where near live-quality sound, it gives you a little idea.

Ready for Christmas

One of the things I'm thankful for around Thanksgiving is Christmas time. Although I've been enjoying the Christmas Season since September with some of my favorite music of all time (or if you count the Christmas lights in our living room that we haven't taken down for two years we've been enjoying it year-round,) Thanksgiving kicks off the Christmas Season. What better way to kick-off the Christmas Season than to remember all the things for which you are thankful.

Each year, my dad puts up his Christmas village and train. We had a tradition growing up where each year we would each paint a house. Mine, of course, always looked the best (regardless of what my brother and sisters might say.) Since we've all grown-up somewhat, Dad supplemented his village with more professionally-done village homes....although they still don't look as good as the one's I did, I'm sure.

I love the mirror ice ponds. I've learned that Christmas decorations and lights look much better when taken without a flash. Generally, for that matter, point and shoot flashes really ruin a picture unless there is enough light from other directions to reduce the visually abrasive light the aggressive head-on light produces. I also really enjoy taking pictures from a 'being in there' point of view of tinier scaled environments. I think it adds depth and perspective to photographically 'imagine' what it would be like if that was your world.

Out of a half dozen attempts to get ornaments in focus (with no flash) this one is about the only one that turned out. I love how the clear glass is in focus and you can see all the surrounding lights reflecting in the glass. I love the classy Christmas colors in this picture.

Again, several attempts yielded this truly focused picture of a Christmas light. I love how the light filters through the texture of the plastic cover. Then add the actual glass light with its unique textures. I like how the light seems to concentrate on the tips of the flower. Then add the fir tree background with its needles adding a nice subtle texture.

A Mixed Pair

This morning the boys got themselves dress for church while I was at meetings. They had shirts laid out, but their church pants were in the dryer.

The two older boys did alright, but as we were walking in from the parking lot, I noticed my middle son's (age 7) pants were extremely short.

After sitting down, we noticed our youngest son (age 4) was wearing pants that were too big, but not big enough for our middle son.

Fortunately, our second oldest son (age 5) was also wearing pants that were too large.

So a quick trip to the bathroom and they all came back with the right pants-- a miracle considering all the extra choices they could have made.

The Office With A View

I feel blessed to live on the Oregon Coast. There is so much beauty in so many things. One of the special blessings I have is the opportunity to have a decent job allowing me to live here. To add icing to the cake, I work with some of the best people in the world.

The sprinkles on the icing on the cake have to be the location of my office. Where else can you have an office job and look out a window at some awesome sites? My office is on the second floor of a strip mall-sort-of-complex that is located right off of Hwy 101 at the corner where Hwy 101 (north/south coast hwy) meets up with Hwy 30 (East/West along the Oregon-side of the Columbia River.) My window faces Southeast towards the Coastal Range--I overlook the hwy and the Astoria Coast Guard Air Station.

This picture was taken a few weeks ago from inside my office as the sun was coming up. Click on the picture to see the full impact. I love the layers of the clouds, fog, sunlight and the contour of the terrain/trees in contrast with each other. You can see Saddle mountain (looks like a saddle) on the top right of the picture--clipped off by the clouds and partially protected by that tree. The building in the picture is the Air Station. This is one of the best views I've ever seen from my window at work.

Note: I like taking pictures at high resolutions and then cutting them out to make a panorama view. It gives a great spacious perspective. The main reason I cropped this one the way I did, was because the details were drowned by all the space around it (and there was a parking lot light sticking up just to the left of the picture.)

One unique thing about the coast is the opportunity to observe the US Coast Guard. We have the ships and we have the helicopters.

We watch the helicopters train almost everyday from our office. The USCG air station is at the Astoria Airport, so we get to observe a lot of different craft every once in a while (Navy, experimental, Air Shows, smaller commercial).

This picture was taken with the camera's optical zoom to the max and the lens looking through some zoomable binoculars--so its not the greatest, but when you compare the size of the building in this picture to the size of building in the picture above (also noting the camera zoom was at its max for that one) it worked out pretty well. You can even see the blur from the engines' exhaust. Those Jayhawks are amazing to watch.

This is a broad view of what my office looks like. I love all the plants. Out the window you can see Hwy 101, the Air Station and Saddle mountain is just behind the tree (near the flash reflecting in the window). I have my chair set so I can look north east and see part of Young's Bay. I see a lot of different kinds of birds. Quite frequently we will see bald eagles fly over or perch in the bay.

I love the plants in the office...they make it a warmer place to be in all day long. And notice the fish bowl. Actually almost all the plants, the fish and most of my decoration is compliments of the great people I work with. Additionally, they water the plants because they know how much I don't.

Here is my fish, an office-warming gift from our Accounts Receivable person. I named the Beta, "Kim." As in 'Seaweed' in Korean.

It was pretty much impossible to get a well-focused picture through the glass with the camera I used. This is Kim.

Constant Learning

Elder Richard G. Scott

Quorum of Twelve Apostles

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
@ BYU Education Week Devotional, August 21, 2007

At Least Little People Don't Fall Far

Even though I feel bad for the little guy who is more stunned than hurt, it's still makes me laugh the way he suddently dissapears from the camera--like a cartoon.

Then as you look more closely at the smirking brother in the bottom corner of the video, you gain a whole new understanding.

Finale Notepad

About five years ago I came across one of the best pieces of freeware ever in existance: Finale Notepad. Finale Notepad is from MakeMusic, Inc. who makes high class professional music-writing Finale brand software.

Finale Notepad 2008 allows you to make nice quality looking music by simply selecting the staff layout, the time signature, and key. Then you make your music by clicking on the staff where you want the notes, rests, lyrics, articulation, or whatever you want to include in your music. Here what the toolbar looks like:

You can also import midi files into the program to instantly create the sheet music. I haven't played with that feature much, but what dabbling I've done, took some editing to clean it up, but did a pretty good job.

You can also play back your composition and select different midi instruments with incredible sounding SmartMusic Midi codec (for lack of a better term) to play back different lines of music. This works great for people like me who can't play the piano in real time worth beans. Its also nice when you have multiple staffs to play all at the same time with different timing. Mix that with the different instruments and you can literally compose for an orchestra and hear what it will sound like..

Its amazing to think you could get better than Finale Notepad. If this powerful software is free, it makes me wonder what the $600 Finale software can do!

Free does have its price, though. You are limited to one key (no key changes mid-song). You are stuck with only the most common time signatures and a limited number of articulations. There are a few other limitation, but, quite frankly, I'm not knowledgable enough about writing music to know what's missing. Considering the price, those limitations are easy enough to work around.

Here's a sample of how nice the music looks:

A Kindergartener's Theory: Size vs. Speed

My five-year-old and I were running part way to his afternoon Kindergarten class. Amazingly, he stayed slightly ahead of me the whole time. Finally we started walking and he beamed with pride that he was able to go faster than an adult. That's when he explained to me his newly realized theory that smaller people can go faster than bigger people. Therefore the smaller you are the faster you can go.



Then he curled his fore finger into his thumb to make a small hole the size of kidney bean and said, "...a baby...this size (showing me his hand) can go faster than everybody."


This idea threw me deep into contemplation about how a tiny baby developed only to kidney bean size could speed past every other person, until the last part of his dissertation caught my attention, "...if we don't step on it..."

Monster House

Last year we learned that our house turns into Monster House around Halloween time. Although narrowly escaping with our lives intact, we were successful in snapping a few pictures:

The Real Group

Probably my most current favorite music group is The Real Group.

The Real Group is a five-member a capella group from Sweden. They do a lot of vocal jazz, which I love, as well as some very good, original, and creative contemporary music. Their well-trained voices blend really well, they have excellent technical execution (i.e. the way they use time, dynamics, and general vocal acrobatic ability), and they sound good live. Having experience with live performance vs. recording, I have a lot of respect for vocalists (especially a small vocal ensemble) who can sound as good live as they do recorded.

Here are some videos of The Real Group so you can get a taste. I hope you have the time to listen to some or all of the songs. (There's more on the net and on their website.)

[Unfortunately, Internet flash video quality sort of dilutes a little of the experience. To really appreciate good a cappella music (or any music for that matter) you need the full, crystal clear, frequency range to capture the fullness of the human voice with all of its overtones and depth. Often in recordings and playback equipment the lower frequencies are 'clipped' off leaving kind of a 'telephone' quality. So if you have the means, I recommend listening to them on a system that lets the bass through, otherwise you probably won't hear the bass or baritone. ]

Alright enough technical details. :-)



This is The Real Group's arrangement of the popular ABBA song, "Dancing Queen" featuring Frida from the original ABBA. I've been impressed with the bass vocalist, Anders Jalkéus, because he has a pure tone, bounces amazingly accurately between the notes without 'swooping' to the right note--he also doesn't do the 'growl' bass thing that a lot of contemporary bass vocalists do which makes them sound lower without having to use as much tone.



This song does a good job of illustrating the bass' ability to take big, clean jumps between notes. Although they are Swedish, they have a pretty good command of the English language and I find their English lyrics down to earth and often poetic. Although they all take part in writing and arranging songs, I think Anders Edenroth is on of the genre's most creative musicians. One of the challenges that I love to hear when its done right, crisp and clean, is dissonance. No other instrument can make dissonance sound as good as with the texture of the human voice. Its also a challenge to 'clash' with someone an hold your tone. But when its done with exactness, it creates an incredible sound...its like a whole new spectrum of tones pops into existence at that moment of dissonance. If you study sound wave characteristics, you can understand what I mean.



This song is simple, but has a beautiful feel to it. One thing that is actually very difficult in singing is singing the same note straight over long periods of time without slowly dropping the pitch. Its especially hard to make single notes maintain an energy over time. Breathing is also a very big challenge in a song like this...to hold steady and breath at strategic times so it doesn't disrupt the flow of the song. Then synchronize that with four others. Singing a unison note with multiple people can be almost as challenging a singing dissonance--multiple people matching the same pitch.



This is one my kids really like. I like it too--it's fun. I'm fascinated because the bass sings the lead at such a 'non-bass' level. The Real Group was popular in Korea and did a tour in Korea. Look at how the Korean translators translate "Perpetual Motion Thingamabob." In Korea, they don't have an 'f' sound (they replace it with a 'p' sound) in their language. Just goes to show how confusing English is. After serving my mission in Korea, it makes these Korean tour videos extra special to me.

Actually I learned some things about singing from the Korean language: English has so much slurring which tends to slow down the energy of singing, but Korean is crisp and clean; the consonants have a quick, solid attack and the vowels are an exact, pure tone. Listening to a native Korean speaking is very cool. I've tried to speak and sing English with more clarity when bouncing from consonant to consonant, but it still doesn't sound as clean as the Korean language.

Adventures With Children

CHAPTER 1

The event my wife has been organizing for the past several months took place yesterday. The plan was (1) we would drop mom off at the church, (2) help her set-up, (3) go to my workplace for a few hours, (4) pick-up mom after her event, (5) go home and live happily ever after. The boys consider going to work with me a special treat because they all get to play online computer games while I get caught up on some of my work.

CHAPTER 2

Things went according to plan...until the 'help mom set-up' part (OK, so we lost on the 2nd step of the whole day.) My 7-yr-old (T), who has behaviors characteristic of Autism Spectrum Disorder, doesn't know how to deal with variation from his expectations. Immediately he started throwing a violent fit because he expecting to go straight to the office to play on the computer. I sent the rest of the four boys into the church to 'help' while I tried to calm T down before he destroyed the van.

When I got into the church my four other 'helpers' were doing everything except helping. Running around, make lots of noise. My middle son followed me in and continued his protest against helping mom and continued his attempt to manipulate me into getting what he wanted. He noticed the wreath rings sitting on a table and decided they would make good Frisbees. He decided the 'Shepherds Staff' Christmas staff example would make a great marshal arts fighting stick....filling in the gaps with yelling and calling me a liar for not taking them to the office right away.

Finally, with a growl from my wife to take the boys home, and leaving a trail of overturned chairs in his path, the boys and I left with T over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and the other kids screaming at my sudden cancellation of going to the office until T repented the best he could.

CHAPTER 3

The whole ride home was nothing short of a Tavern Brawl of upset little people in a mini van...empty water bottles flying over the seats, crying and screaming and blaming and arguing and fist swings. The windows fogged from the steam pouring out my ears as I helplessly tried to talk (or yell, rather) the kids out of fighting each other. To add to the experience, the bridge between the church and home was up so a lone fishing boat, whose mast was probably only a few inches above the bottom of the bridge, could pass slowly underneath.

The gnashing of teeth followed into the house with the oldest in time out and me holding T to try to calm him down.

Eventually T agreed to earn the back the opportunity to go to the office by doing the dishes with me. For now, after an hour and a half of intense battle, all seemed calm. Dishes, Lunch and the trip to the Office went well. Then we went to get mom from the activity.

CHAPTER 4

Idle time is dangerous. Young boys sitting in a car seat waiting is like watching a lump of sodium start to slip into beaker of water. Eventually the potential energy reaches beyond its bounds and in an instant a quick and violent reaction occurs. Before we could reach that point, (signalled, in part, by T bursting a packet of ketchup on the seat and ceiling), I decided to let the boys 'run around' outside--at least then the violent reaction would have a wide clearance.

Next thing I know, half the kids are having an all out leaf fight...not innocent dry leaves fluttering in the wind; leaves sitting at the bottom of a puddle created from the last five days of wind and rain.

CHAPTER 5

Once a chemical reaction starts there is virtually no way to stop it--and can trigger chain reactions. No amount of verbal demands changed the dynamics of this 'party' It didn't help that they were all spread out and moving at light speed either. Soon half-empty (yes, not half-full)water bottles from the van quickly became utilized as ammunition cartridges. The idea spread like wild fire and all the boys were grabbing what they could and trying to get each other.

Regardless of any destruction to themselves or other objects, they had fun with huge smiles on their faces while I felt like gum on a the highway...run-over, over and over again, sometimes stuck on the tire and repeatedly slammed between the road and the heavy vehicle. "Passerbys" just looking on...you can only imagine what they were thinking: "glad that's not me."

CHAPTER 6

As these types of activities usually end, someone got mad, and hurt one of his brothers, and sometimes its reciprocated...or another common occurrence, the lone ranger runs in on the scene and inflicts justice on behalf of the brother who got hurt. Parental intervention resulted in most of the boys buckled in their seats and the others in the bathroom cleaning the mud and leaves off of their face.

CHAPTER 7

The adventures of the day were enough to set my 기(Qi) out of balance and I was cranky the rest of the day. And this wasn't even our regularly scheduled weekly battle!

Back to the Ten Commandments: Even though I don't mean 'kill' in any literal sense, there are those days where the Savior's fulfillment of that law to include the avoidance of anger is a little bit harder to follow. I guess that's why I like writing about these experiences because its helps me feel better about the situation and less angry about it--I can look back and see the comedy in it all. Most of the time my boys were only doing 'innocent' mischief and not hurting anybody--so I do have to give them credit where credit is due. But, this post reflect the most 'memorable' events from my perspective.

Electrocution Chair

We spent the morning today at the local hospital, so my second youngest could get a mole removed. Since the bigger boys were at school, it was just my wife, my two youngest sons, and me.

The people at the hospital were very friendly and did a wonderful job of helping them feel comfortable and happy. That meant the boys were comfortable talking to the nurses.

Right after we checked in, they took my five-year-old to a small room, took his weight, and had him sit in a chair next to a blood pressure machine. As the nurse started pulling out the arm wrap and finger monitor along with all the tubes connecting it to the blood pressure machine, my four-year-old asked, nonchalantly, out loud in his high pitched little-kid voice, "Are you going to electric [electrocute] him?"

I wonder if my four-year-old remembers when I yelled at my middle son from the attic a few years ago when he tried to help me with our re-wiring project by turning on the breaker as I was connecting two black wires. ...I certainly remember.

Halloween: Great For Pictures

Halloween is one of the most artistic holidays of the year: Pumpkin Carving, make-up, costumes, decorations, haunted yards and houses.... Halloween also provides some good picture-taking opportunities.

Here are a few pictures from previous years in an attempt to give you some ideas for your photographic experiments this year:

Jack-o-lanterns are great fun to photograph without a flash. I found if you throw-in a few three-point lighting componants, it adds some pretty cool affects. Note the right-side glow on the pumpkins from the inside light shining through the window with a dash of white shine on the top left (from an LED flashlight). All done with a tripod and no-flash to show the glow from within the pumpkins. Its cool just having the faces glow in blackness, too.

If you want to see some real pumpkin carvings, check out the gallery at the Pumpkin Gutter website.

The macro feature did a great job with these autumn-colored Candy Corns...one of our seasonal favorite foods. This makes a good desktop backdrop.

Monster house comes to life in the dark (no flash). [But I did have to use photo software to brighten the picture up enough to see the glowing features clearly.]

As the fall temperatures shrink, dew beautifies spider webs in shiny diamond beads.

Unfortunately, no amount of diamond dew makes spiders attractive to me.

Are you ready?

About two years ago, not long after we moved to the Oregon Coast, I got a call from my wife telling me that we received a Local Tsunami Warning email from the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC). I rushed to home, which is a few miles upstream from the great Pacific--just barely above sea level, as my wife and kids were grabbing their 72-hour backpacks and getting ready to leave to the designated Tsunami-Safe area.

Fortunately, there was no Tsunami and we didn't need to leave the house.

The interesting thing about this warning was that neither the city or radio stations had any announcements about the the Tsunami. I had such trust in those sources of information that I risked staying home assuming that if there really was a threat, surely they would let us know. Next time I won't take that risk.

I learned a few things from that experience:

1. If we didn't sign-up for the TsunamiWatcher email list from WCATWC, we would have known nothing about the tsunami. Since then I also signed up for the Earthquake email notification list from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We get a surprisingly large amount of email from both of those lists. Fortunately, most of the Tsunami Warnings report that there is no risk of Tsunami to our area.

2. If we didn't have at least the beginnings of a 72-hour kits, we wouldn't be prepared to race out the door without being in a flustered panic. We still have some missing odds and ends from our 72-hour kits, but we have enough resources to survive if we needed to leave quickly.

We haven't updated our 72-hour kit for some time, but this last weekend, while listening to General Conference, my wife updated our 72-hour kits. (In an emergency, its always nice when your kid's clothes fit them and the food isn't moldy.) We've decided to make a tradition of updating our 72-hour kits every six months while listening to Conference. It might be wise to change the smoke detector batteries at the same time. Or you can do both every six months when you change between standard and day-light savings.

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Here on the coast we get frequent wind storms and power outages are all but guaranteed periodically throughout the year. Last year we had a pretty powerful wind storm that knocked out power for about three days. Some places were without power for longer.

The local stores sold quickly out of ice, flashlights, generators, and other items you might want in an emergency.

Fortunately for us, we had plenty of candles, flashlights (with batteries), radio (with batteries), a kerosene heater, ice in the freezer, a little single-burner butane stove, and our water heater is gas. Although the storm thrashed around us, we were able to cook warm meals, stay warm...and after the storm blew over, the stars were brilliant.

I learned some things from this experience also:

3. Having resources to fill-in when outside resources are cut off is very important to the comfort and peace in a challenging situation. It made us grateful to have the resources we happened to have, but also made us realize we need to be prepared for every situation...what if the water is cut off? What if the gas is cut-off? We needed to look for more ice by the third day, but what if that opportunity was not available?

I see the importance in the council of having a year supply of food, water and fuel if necessary. If you are prepared, there is no need to fear. And it doesn't have to be a major catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina to be a blessing.

We still have some things to add to our preparations and some more detailed plans to create, so we aren't perfect, but we are certainly grateful we've followed advice in this regard as much as we have.

This evening, we recieved an Earthquake email saying there was a small earthquake off the coast of Oregon (not too far from the one that triggered the Tsunami Warning two year ago.) Are you ready?

To Change or Not To Change

The Sermon had ended

The Preacher descended

So delighted were they,

But preferred the old way.

--???

Every six months the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints conducts a world-wide conference in which the top leaders of the church speak to the world. The meetings, consisting of five two-hour sessions, are broadcast via satellite, cable, internet and printed word to all the world and translated into several languages. The leaders who speak consist of the President of the Church, his two counselors, the Twelve Apostles, and other General Authorities of the Church.

For me, I anxiously look forward to listening to or watching all ten-hours of the conference every six months. What would make sitting in meetings for ten hours on a weekend so exciting?!

The answer is simple. When else in the history of the world do you have the opportunity to listen to all the living prophets and the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ in one weekend?

Just as Jesus Christ, himself, called Peter, James, John and the other disciples to follow Him and be special witnesses of His work on the earth (including the Atonement and the Resurrection); so also, in these latter-days, since the restoration of His church on earth, the resurrected Savior calls men to be special witnesses of Him to the world. The First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are these modern special witnesses of the Savior. Listening to these men is like listening to Peter, James, John, Paul and the other apostles who led Christ's church after His resurrection and His ascension into heaven. The tone and power of these modern day apostles' words matches the tone and power of Peter, John and Paul as found in the New Testament.

You can't listen to these righteous men without feeling the truth of their words and their testimony of the Savior. You can also feel their sincerity and love for the Lord and for all people.

I am surprised that more people don't take advantage of this unique blessing every six months.

Although I've developed my own conviction of the significance of the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the more difficult part of Conference (and studying the scriptures) is following the council provided.

Listening and feeling good about what is said (and read in the scriptures) is easy. But the real test is afterwards when you face the everyday world and can no longer hide behind the temporary protection of ignorance. In the instant you are forced to make decisions, great or small, is the test of whether you will fulfill the personal commitment you made as the Holy Spirit confirmed the truth of the words of the Lord's representatives. In the blink of an eye, in an instant...and sometimes within seconds of gaining the new depth of knowledge, your commitment may be tested, the decision made, and the uncontrollable consequences unleashed.

Hopefully the right decision is made, releasing the blessings associated with obedience. But, unfortunately, all too often I fail the test, forfeit the blessings, and sit ashamed that I disappointed the Lord and sabotaged my own potential. I end up with a 'mess' that I must 'clean-up' in order to repair any damage made to myself or others. And gratefully the opportunity to sincerely try again is made available by the atonement of Jesus Christ.

The ultimate challenge from the historically unique opportunity of listening to the Lord's representatives at General Conference every six months is: To Change or Not to Change. But I know the Lord gives no commandments that we can't keep and gives us the opportunity to turn things around when we don't do what we know we should do. Heavenly Father loves us so much, he gave his only begotten son to give us every opportunity in the world to choose eternal life.

You may listen/watch archives from this weekend's General Conference to learn these truths for yourself. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Playing With Blogger

I played a little bit with Blogger today. They have some pretty nifty add-ons. Today, I decided to try their poll feature. Give it a shot...its down on the right below the Trail Heads.

Scenes From The Columbia River Coast

I sit here 'freezing,' in the dark gloomy evening, as the reality that summer really is over soaks painfully to my bones. I decided to look at some of the beach pictures we've taken over the years...there is some association of beach to summer and summer to warmth and light that is very inviting now that the hot chocolate I just drank has lost its warming effect.

Ironically most of our good beach pictures weren't taken during the summer. I think the beach is like coast residents...just kind of hangs low until the vacation rush ends, then comes out to play. (Click on the picture to see more detail.)

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse @ the Mouth of the Columbia River (Ilwaco, WA)

North Head Light House (Ilwaco, WA) and a sample of the Coast's great avian populations.

Peaceful Light clouds and pure blue sky backdrop a boldly colorful Kite.

Indian Head Beach, Ecola State Park, where the water dances majestically over giant, beautifully scatter rocks.(Cannon Beach, OR)

Blue Sky; White-tipped,Blue Ocean; Scattered Clouds; add Sunset = Unmatched beauty.

The sun goes to bed behind the endless Pacific Ocean under a warm blanket of clouds!

Going to bed under a pile of warm blankets sound really good about now. Maybe I'll dream of walking barefoot on a warm, soft, sandy beach with the calming hush of the waves in the background and the cool water lapping at my feet...hand in hand with my wife as a light, warm breeze blows from the yellow, orange, red sunset shimmering across the eternal sea.

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[Technical note: If you hover over a picture in the blog, you will see a web link address show up on the bottom of your browser, depending on which browser you use. Towards the end of the address you will see text between a set of slashes that reads: "s1600-h"--or a variation.

If your picture doesn't link to a bigger-sized picture when you click on it, you can add it by copying the picture address as shown in the Edit Html tab (starts with 'http://..." and ends with ".jpg"--or some other picture format extension following the name of the picture you uploaded.) Now, switch to the Compose tab, click on the appropriate picture, click the 'Link' icon (the green circle with a chain link overlapping the top in the tool bar), and paste the web address in the field provided. From there you can change the 's400' to 's1600-h' (or your desired resolution) resulting in a bigger picture when you click on the blog picture.]

Special Effects Photography

These photography special effects actually have very little to do with photography other than maybe posing the subjects. They were done with the free Gimp program. Note: I can only take credit for a small part of these special effects, my wife did most of it.


For a while there our family was really into Star Wars (about the time we got the Lego Star Wars video game.)

If this were real, no one would be smiling. Rest assured no one got hurt in the creation of these light sabres. Please create your own sound effects.

Two against one...not fair.

No we don't have twins...or super powers.

The Weekly Sabbath Day War

Sunday is our sabbath-day. The sabbath day is supposed to be a Holy, spiritual day of rest...and for the most part it is except for the weekly four-hour-war: Church and getting ready for church.

I imagine everyone understands the challenge of getting young balls of kinetic energy motivated enough to get dressed in uncomfortable clothes in anticipation of sitting through long meetings of people talking about abstract things that are hard to understand. For that matter, maybe that's exactly how you feel getting up every morning to go to work or school. Unfortunately my wife has to fight that battle alone because I'm at church early preparing for the next battle.

The next battle, for me, starts out calm and sweet and peaceful as I see five bright, shiny boys in white shirts, smiling wide as they open the glass doors of the Church to greet me. This is part of their strategy...start off disguised as sweet and reverent so the gullible parents will be thrown off guard later. (As a parent, I sadly confess, it works every time--'surely they will behave this time.')

As a precaution, we usually start out in one of the sound-wired side rooms apart from the main chapel to minimize disruption. With difficulty, they maintain their reverent disguise through the sacrament ordinance/ceremony, but once the talks start, they unleash their attack.

Its not so much an attack against us as parents, but against each other and the social laws of public places. My two oldest usually start touching each other for no apparent reason and start giggling louder and louder until one of us parents fires a counter attack, "Shhhhh!," to quiet them down. Meanwhile, another trooper quietly starts doing loops around the rows of chairs until another one starts pressing keys on the piano. This technique successfully lures at least one of us parents away from the front lines so two more kids can fight over which crayons or books to use. The kids are brilliant, there's a new battle strategy, planned or unplanned, each week.

The well-trained sniper among them is my seven year-old, middle son. Today, my wife ran into one of our friends coming out of the men's bathroom with a mop. He explained there was a river of hand soap streaming across the floor of the bathroom. My wife wondered to herself who would do such a thing, only to realize the answer before she finished the question: #3! Fortunately, our boys are generally very honest. When ask about it, #3 was stunned and speechless that such detailed knowledge came from one who wasn't there and wasn't told. The wide eyes of shock and the guilty complexion revealed the truth and #3 succumbed to the only logical response--he confessed to the crime. So we engaged in a unique father-son activity of cleaning the bathroom during the chapel meeting...or was it playing in the water, I'm confused about which event it was.

After the main chapel meeting, the boys have the opportunity to go to a class designed for their age level. Most of the troopers behave relatively well during this part of church...I'm not sure if they tired themselves out from the first hour's battle or if they have adapted to the culture of sitting through their classes and trying to follow along. In any case, I'm hopeful that they get something out of their classes and, on a more serious note, their teachers do a great job working with them.

However, our little church sniper stays active during this time. Usually, he just does his covert wiggly nervous body technique sliding back and forth across empty chairs in his row, or crawling on the floor underneath the chairs. Today, after a 15 minute attempt to get him to go to class, I saw him scoot backwards on his bum across the bench until he bumped into his class mate, then playfully pretended to bop him on the head repeatedly. This action triggered a teacher to come sit by him to minimize the damage.

He remained calm for the next half-hour or so, until the last ten minutes of church when he executed his last strategy for the Sabbath Day War. He got impatient and fled the building. You always know there is something up when a teacher from the children's classes pulls you out of your class. I've learned to expect it--I even know who its about most of the time. As I quietly walked out of my class, the teacher explained to me that #3 ran outside. I walked down the hall to see another adult staring out the glass doors, quickly glancing my direction and said somewhat passively, 'He's long gone.'

Unsurprised, I walked outside watching and listening for any signs of him. I've learned that chasing him, makes him run away faster, so my strategy is to take advantage of his tendency not wander too far from places he knows are safe. Knowing he likes to check back to verify someone is watching out for him, I applied some stealth of my own minimizing his vision of my location.

In the end we walked back to the church together and he sat the last few minutes with me in my class.

"How long 'till it's over?" he asked.

"About thirty seconds." I responded.

A few seconds later, and frustrated that the instructor was still talking, "I counted to thirty!"

"Keep counting," I said.

"Its been a minute!..."

The instructor ended, and in the middle of the closing prayer: "It's been two and a half minutes!"

"Amen." And the war was over...

7-yr-old Guest Blogger: :-)

shadens Birthday was a few days a go:-)