East Inlet

This is a loon. She is nesting . I thought about naming her Claire and making some fantastic pun along the lines of “Au Claire de la Loon,” but I couldn’t quite manage it without being ridiculous.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago while I was helping on the “Young Men’s Time” (more commonly known as “Guys’ Week”) trip up to Pittsburg, NH. On the second day we were there, we piled into the van and headed to East Inlet, canoes in tow. East Inlet is an official “Moose Sanctuary” or something like that, and we were hoping to see one of those legendary creatures in their natural habitat. Alas, we failed in that respect, but in several other ways we were most successful.

East Inlet is one of those spots in creation where you lose track of how many times you have said, “This is so beautiful!” The vista is breathtaking. Though shallow, the water is smooth and vast. The shore is thick with tall, vertical pines – a kind of tree that I have generally thought looked drab and scraggly compared to, say, a maple or a birch, but which by East Inlet somehow becomes the most beautiful of plants. And, of course, the wildlife is lovely, as wildlife generally is. I didn’t see any terribly exotic species, and nothing but birds, but when you have time to really look at it, even a crow is a miraculous creature. Fortunately for us, we had nicer animals than crows to gaze upon, and we had all the time we wanted to do so.

The beauty of East Inlet is not just skin deep, either. There's some kind of a beautiful aura there. It is so quiet – so peaceful. The kind of place where it’s easy to think about God and to be completely awed by His power and creativity. In that respect, it’s in the same category as mountain tops and secluded beaches. I love such places. They feed my soul. Have you ever experienced it? That feeling of just drinking in the glory, beauty, and serenity of your surroundings? If you haven’t, you’d better go climb a mountain right away. You’re missing out on one of the best experiences this planet has to offer.

“For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.”

Oh, by the way, going to East Inlet was also successful because we had lots of fun. When you get past the vast lake part of it, it turns into a winding maze of a stream that turns 180 degrees countless times. And, boy oh boy, it’s waters like that that separate the canoe men from the canoe boys. Craig and I shared a canoe, and we had a blast seeing how sharp we could make that thing turn. We got it down to quite a science, too. We even raced past one of the other canoes on the inside of a curve, though it passed us again a dozen or so switchbacks later.

Some of the other guys were having slightly less of a blast, and when they tried to remedy this by switching places in the canoe, it flipped and drenched the three of them. They complained long and hard when we got back, but I think secretly they enjoy having the memory, and some of them at least do enjoy telling the story.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t the one who stepped on the side of the canoe…”

We continued our labyrinthian voyage until approaching darkness and obstructive beaver dams bade us return. It was a fun time, a fulfilling time, and – for us photographers – a fruitful time. I’m going to go again some day. Count on it.

Determination

The Course of Pranking Never Did Run Smooth

This post is actually written from a computer, for once. I guess you could say my phone has gotten me at least slightly more into the habit of posting, and when something too good for 1000 characters and 1 picture comes across my path, I must get me to the press room.

Just such a something did indeed come across my path in recent days. It all started last week. Since Rachel was publishing an article with testimonies from the seven first-years in TOR (our church magazine), she wanted pictures of each of us. We were to get them to her by the end of the week. Sadly, we did not succeed (at least, the guys didn't), but that is not the point of this post. Saturday evening we finally got around to taking the requisite photos. Craig got out Clyde's handy dandy Nikon D70S, and we all pretty much lined up for a photo shoot. We all got pictures. They were good.

But there is so much more to the story than that! You see, we didn't just want to send Rachel boring old portraits. No, we wanted something original and lively! With this in mind, we all settled down around my computer while I clicked and dragged and typed until our pictures looked like this:






Rachel was highly amused when she opened the folder. "They were too good not to share," she said, and they quickly found their way to the Fairwood kitchen bulletin board.



We all laughed, of course, but we didn't know just how far Rachel was willing to go to share our hilarious photos. The next evening, we were stunned when she showed us a copy of TOR... with our edited pictures!

Good grief! Imagine the embarrassment and devastation! I was pretty stunned, to say the least. What would the magazine's faithful readers think of Fairwood's first-year guys? Would they call us names? Would they complain to the editors? What about my reputation? I went to bed and sobbed all night.

Let me correct myself: I MIGHT have sobbed all night, had it not been for the fact that Rachel pointed out (after allowing just a brief period of unutterable anxiety) that this was only a rough draft, and the official copies - the REAL ones - would be published with the much less original - but, oh, so much more acceptable! - traditional portraits which we had included in a subfolder.

Well, relief was ours, and the end of the story was a happy one for all. We got our laugh, and Rachel got hers. But the moral of the story is this: never play a prank on someone without evaluating what he could do to get you back.

Life's Frenzied Course

Some of you may be interested to know why I so rarely blog. Others may wonder what my day is like at Bible school. I will now attempt to kill two birds with one stone, as it were, and satisfy everyone's curiosity. This is an outline of a typical school day at Bible school, with stories thrown in here and there. Please enjoy. I put a lot of time into it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I generally get up around 6:30. Mornings are usually the hardest time of my day, partially because that's when I want to be in bed the most and partly because my blankets are really warm and soft. Also, I have a tendency to stay up late working on one of the many projects and skills I have set as goals to work on (including, but not limited to, composing music, working on the school website, reading a book from my lengthy book list, and...um...sharpening my Minesweeper skills). Despite the hardship, however, I arouse myself as best I can, do my devotions, and get dressed just in time for the 7:30 deadline: work meeting.

Work meeting takes about fifteen minutes. We get assigned our morning jobs (things like cleaning the dorm, taking the trash, and random small jobs like raking leaves) and pray over the day. If we finish before the breakfast bell rings, I sometimes play the piano for a while.

After breakfast and chores, there are fifteen minutes before the nine o'clock meeting. There's not a lot to say about that time, other than that there is always a really good message and that, if it's Wednesday, I play the piano for the songs (Jane T. plays on Mondays, and the rest of the time it's usually either Mr. T. M., Craig, or Aunt Elaine).

Class is the next thing on the agenda, and boy do I have a thing or two to say about class! First of all, I really enjoy it, as I mentioned in a previous post. There is so much to learn, and, with this group, it's often easy to have a great time doing it.

My first class of any significant length was “A Harmony of the Four Gospels,” presented by Professor Dan. That class was just the first-year students together, and we had a lot of fun. The most memorable time of the whole class was when we had an SMD, or something like that: a Student Moderated Debate. We, the seven first-years, were given a couple questions on a sheet of paper and told to discuss them on our own. We were to debate on the meaning and symbolism of the parable of the ten virgins and on the meaning and application of the parable of the talents. Fifteen minutes was the time limit for the whole thing. Well, never having come to an agreement on the meaning of the oil, we didn't get very far with the application. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we didn't notice the time, and class was over before we were halfway through the discussion. We continued it on the way to – and throughout – our lunch.

Late in November, I finished my next class: Acts and the Epistles of Paul (aka Paul's Life and Letters). Mr. M. taught that class, and I enjoyed it (surprise!). The ENTIRE student body took this class at once!!! Well, almost the entire student body: we were never actually all there at once, due to sickness and traveling. Still, the vast, vast, vast majority of us usually made it. Which leads me to point out that the entire student body of the school numbers sixteen. Which leads me to point out that it's quality – not quantity – that counts.

Throughout the year, some of the students try to keep a record of the more humorous and/or interesting quotes. Interestingly, most of the ones I've written down have come from the A & E of P (P's L & L) class. For example, when Mr. M. was teaching us about the dead in Christ rising first (I Thes. 4:16), he described it thus: “There will be a great shout, the archangel will cry out, and the trumpet will sound, and pop poppity, pop pop pop, the dead in Christ will rise!” And when he was describing someone who was new at something (whether a biblical character or a former student I can't recall), he said he “had some green stuff behind the ears,” presumably meaning that he was green and a little wet behind the ears.

The last class we had before Christmas break was Beulahology (the study of Israel) under my very own cousin Craig. It was a fantastic class, and I now know so much more about the Holy Land. For example, the study of it is the chapstick of the soul.

Some background is needed here. When Ethan from RI (mentioned in just a couple paragraphs in more detail) was at the school for a weekend, he showed the guys a video of Andrea making an extemporaneous speech about lessons from Napoleon Dynamite. It's a tremendously humorous clip, and you should watch it some time; but the long of the short of it was that ND teaches the importance of chapstick, which can represent the chapstick of the soul. Now, Andrea was cut off before she could explain what the “chapstick of the soul” was, but Craig took the opportunity in his class to explain that it was the study of Beulah! I never would have guessed it. Of course, knowing the origin of the term, the guys all laughed uproariously. The girls tittered politely and looked with querying gazes to the other side of the room. We explained later.

Beulahology wasn't all fun and games, though. I really did learn a lot. I know what the Cardo is, and that there's a menorah there. I know that Petra was carved from rock and was the site of Indiana Jones: the Last Crusade. I know that En-Gedi means the Spring of the Wild Goats, and that it flows into the Dead Sea (but nothing flows out). I know the regions of the land, the major cities, and oh so much more! If only my teacher knew about my blog so he could see how much I know!

Back to the schedule...

After class and lunch comes afternoon work. That can be anything from raking leaves to chopping wood to installing sinks to making apple cider to painting trim to washing windows. My favorite assignment I've had yet this year was when Ben and I had to crawl around under the men's dorm installing a venting system for the dorm dryer. The aria “The People That Walked In Darkness” from Handel's Messiah went around in my head nearly the entire time.

Although crawling around with a headlamp in a two-foot tall room singing an oratorio was fun, the most memorable work time came another time. My friend Ethan from RI stayed an extra day after the youth weekend in early November, and he, Ben, Stephen, Andrew, and I were assigned to do a lot of leaf raking and hauling. Leaf raking is a fun job because you can work super hard for ten minutes and then goof off in the leaves for a bit before you get a nice quiet tractor ride up to the Designated Leaf Dumping Area; plus, you can talk while you work, and when you have a different friend than usual helping you, it makes the time even better. We whipped up several enormous piles of leaves by the apartment building and then got some awesome pictures and movies of ourselves jumping into them.

Then we moved to the lodge, and the fun only increased. The lodge is designed much like a two-story motel, with an outdoor staircase to the second level. We piled up a tremendous amount of fallen foliage near the stairs. Can you see where this is leading? Ethan was, I think, the first to jump off the staircase railing into the leaf pile. It was a perilous feat. Gritting my teeth with anxiety, I stood watching as he cautiously climbed the precipitous rail, evoking memories of an audacious Anne Shirley walking the ridgepole of the roof. I knew it wasn't 100% safe, but I also knew that Ethan wasn't stupid; or was he?



Suddenly, with a great cry, he vaulted himself into the air, cleared the hedge, and whoosh! Landed safe and sound in the pile. (Did you like my deceptive foreshadowing?) Stephen quickly followed, and then Ben, then Ethan again. Finally it was my turn. Now, for those of you who don't know, I would not exactly call myself an acrophobe, but I do have this...er...hesitation to throw myself from heights that are anything other than diminutive. I don't like rope swings, I (presumably) don't like sky-diving, and I don't like the idea of jumping off railings. I spent all of two minutes gathering my stupid nerve, but finally I took the plunge. To my relief (if not to my surprise), I didn't kill or even hurt myself. But to my embarrassment, I instinctively plugged my nose. I just lay in the pile of leaves laughing at myself for a minute or two. At least it made a good picture.



One of the easiest things to do during work time is radio. Fairwood has its own low-power radio station, and five guys a week get to sign up to run it for an hour of work time. It can be really enjoyable to sit and listen to classical music, turning on the microphone every so often to say, “Good afternoon, and thank you for listening. You just heard Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, performed by Van Cliburn. Now we are going to listen to Isaac Stern play Humoresque no. 7 in G flat major, by Dvorák.” What is not so enjoyable is when you find that you left the microphone on during the song, and repeated those sentences over and over, practicing for when the song did end; and when you reach for the microphone switch to turn it on, you find that it was on in the first place and that you had been talking throughout much of a nine-minute piece of music. Not that that ever happened to me or anything...

Dinner generally comes after work, and after that is generally free time, which I generally use up by practicing the piano. The big exception to all these generalities is Thursday, when we have no dinner after work because there is no work. We have a few extra meetings in the early afternoon and then have an early dinner, followed by HOURS of free time. This time slot is when most of the students opt to go on the town trip to Keene to get whatever they need at Wal-Mart, Target, the bank, the grocery store, etc. This time slot is when I usually choose to remain at home and bask in the quietness and the lack of other things to do. I am the sort who is easily drawn out of reading or studying to sit around talking, and when there's no one to talk to it's so much easier to make progress on the things that are, in the long run, more productive.

With the exception of Thursdays, the only real variations of the schedule come in the evening. Monday evening we study; Tuesday we have sports; Wednesday we have “heart group,” Thursday we study, and Friday we relax and bask in the Sabbath peace.

The end.

Snow and Ice

Someone get a senator on the line, quick!

Washington ought to pass a law against poorly manufactured technology. It causes so much hassle.

On the night of Saturday, August 11, I purchased myself a brand new desktop computer: a Compaq Presario with 2GB of RAM, a DVD-RW DL drive, 250GB of hard drive space, and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ dual core processor, for those who understand such specifications. It also came with a 19-inch LCD monitor and a printer, and it runs Windows Vista Premium. I like it very much.

Don't worry: I plan to clean my desk this week!!!

As I was adding some of my music to this wonderful new piece of technological equipment Friday morning, I was surprised by the computer crashing.

"That's odd," I thought to myself. "Brand new computers with Windows Vista and such fancy specifications as this computer has are not SUPPOSED to crash, at least not before they've been purchased a full week."

I restarted and continued with my work - at least, I tried to. It was not fifteen minutes before the computer crashed again. In fact, it continued to crash every five to fifteen minutes for the next hour while I ran diagnostic tests of every variety (Compaq desktops with Vista have a LOT of diagnostic programs). Well, I was running a test on the memory in my computer when suddenly - pffft. The whole machine breathed what appeared to be its last and lay lifeless on my desk. No matter how many times I tried to resuscitate it with the power button, all my efforts could elicit were a few mournful beeps. I was sad.

I called the computer hospital (a.k.a. HP support) and explained the situation. (Oh, another law should be keeping Spanish speakers from operating English support lines. I had to ask the support guy to repeat himself so many times that it was not even laughable.) To make a fairly long story short, he figured out that one of my memory cards was bad. I took the bad one out, and voila! The computer roared back to life, and all was well.

All, that is, except for that I now have to wait for a box to arrive; then I have to send my PC's bad memory away; then I have to wait for another box to arrive; then I have to put the new memory into my PC. THEN all will be well. But all this hassle could have been avoided if it were not for POORLY MANUFACTURED TECHNOLOGY!

Judd Gregg? John Sununu? I DEMAND a change!

Oh, and while you're at it, enact a Comprehensive Rebate Reform Bill, please. Thank you.

Aaron and Me

Well, I'm back from Guys' week and the Fairwood youth convention. It was terrific fun. We camped, hiked, swam, had "special activities," watched Facing the Giants, played volleyball, sang, and worked. We played ping pong and volleyball. The food was delicious. Not all my friends were there, but I made some new ones and had a great time anyway. The meetings were excellent, with subjects ranging from putting on the armor of God and being clothed in humility to revival to being in the White Cavalry. That's about all I'm willing to tell you for now. There's just way too much to recap.

A few days before I left for the time at Fairwood, a little blogworthy incident came my way but did not make it to the internet...until now!!!!!!!!!!

I was sitting at the piano playing some classical piece when a little dark object on the carpet caught my eye. I glanced over to the left, and what should running around in little circles but an eensy weensy mousy!

I jumped up and tried to find a way to capture the little rodent without harming it. There were no jars or containers around, so I grabbed a tennis racket that was handy and half-heartedly tried to scoop up the little varmint. To my delight, the critter clung to my racket with a vehemence, even trying to crawl through the strings. I took him over to where I knew I could find a jar of some kind and made him a little house. I soon moved him into a much larger and more mouse-proof vase. He had everything a mouse could want: paper towel, cardboard, seeds, water... but it was not long before we noticed that he was not eating.

"Aha!" I said, "This mouse is not yet weaned!" So we fed him milk from an eyedropper. He crawled in a baby-mousish way across my hand, lapping up his dinner, and often sitting in it as well. It was great fun.

I had great dreams of the mouse becoming a sort of adviser and bosom companion, like the famous mouse Ben of "Ben and Me." Unfortunately, the mouse would not eat enough, or we did not feed him enough. The cold truth is that he died after a short two days of happiness. We hadn't even named him! We had discussed what we should name him, to be sure, but nothing was agreed on by all sides. Now that he's dead, it doesn't really matter. I think I'll name him Walter anyway.

This is Walter:

Cape Cod!

I Am NOT Impuissant!

As writer, designer, and editor-in-chief of "Aaron's Blog", I strive to achieve a fair balance of humor and meaning, pictures and text, and reality and fantasy. Of course, I don't strive very hard, necessarily, which explains the prevalence of fantastic pictorial attempts at humor throughout this publication. I would love to reverse this trend, but I keep running out of time and having too much school or work of other kinds on my plate to consider a serious post-writing session. For one thing, I have other things to write about for school if I feel like writing seriously, and for another, I'm slow at writing anyway. Sometimes I can design a new blog template in less time than it takes for me to write a page-long blog post. (I was going to say "full-length", but what's a "full-length" blog post?) Finally, how am I expected to find the time to write on my blog on Monday nights when I HAVE to watch 24?!?!? The question borders on inanity.

So, I am going to continue the trend.

This past weekend, I attended my cousin's graduation from the Bible school in Dublin. After the ceremony, I hung out with some friends on the front lawn and proved to them, once and for all, that I am not a light-weight, muscle-less, exercise-hating, athletics-shunning, geeky twerp of a weakling. I showed them, all right! I showed 'em my special flips! I twisted, turned, jumped, and glided, and when I had finished gamboling about, they had to admit that Paul Hamm would have nothing on me if I just worked out another thirteen hours a day and lifted weights while I did my school.



Of course, it is rather strange how my arms get so muscular and tan when I jump - perhaps even as muscular and tan as my friend Tony's (!) - while my face remains pale. Natural phenomena can be really perplexing sometimes, can't they?

A Word of Advice

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever touch your middle finger of your right hand firmly to the middle of a baking sheet that has just been in a hot, hot oven, especially if you play the piano. Trust me: it will hurt. I was reheating some pizza in the oven today, and, well, the rest is history. Don't EVER touch your middle finger firmly to the middle of a hot, hot baking sheet (did I already say that?). It may, just may, end up looking like...

...this:



Of course, it may also end up looking like that if you dip it in moderately hot wax just so you can take a picture of it and put it on your blog to try to fool people into thinking that you got a burn from touching the middle finger of your right hand firmly to a hot, hot cookie sheet...

A Little Legacy

I have a rich uncle. Actually, he's really just the husband of one of my mom's second cousins, but we have always called him Uncle Martin.

Uncle Martin wasn't always rich. When he was born in Tallinn, Estonia's capital, in 1943, his family lived in a slightly cramped, albeit well-kept, apartment in the outskirts of the city. Although it was really too small for the family, they could not afford anything larger.

Uncle Martin's parents, Rasmus and Anna Tamm, were not considered poor by many of their fellow citizens. At a time in what was then the U.S.S.R. when the average worker had to give up fifty-six hours' pay just to buy a pair of jeans, being able to afford an apartment at all was a sign of affluence (or at least thrift). Uncle Rasmus was the manager of a major textile factory where he was paid the same salary as newly-hired workers. Aunt Anna worked as a seamstress for a slightly lower rate. They both worked hard, and managed to keep the household income above the national average. Nevertheless, the faulty Communist economic system kept them from attaining the level of wealth they deserved.

Uncle Martin realized all this, and he did not want to put up with it. A rather adventurous type, he somehow managed to emigrate to Australia before he had graduated from high school. He had almost no money left when he got there, but he soon found work on a cattle ranch and quickly caught the attention of his superiors with his skill and industry.

After several years, he had earned enough money to buy his own ranch. His household was prosperous. It was not long before the Tamm ranch was well known throughout his area for both the quality of its beef and the amazing amounts of profit its owner was able to achieve. The truth was that Uncle Martin was a genius with money. He could take a dollar and convince someone to give him two dollars for it; when that failed, he would work until his money had expanded some other way. He invested well, he worked hard, and he raised his livestock properly. All this would have been enough to make him rich, but there was one more reason for his wealth. I will expound momentarily.

One day when Uncle Martin was out riding, his dog Klimpi fell into a large hole in the ground with a piercing yelp. Uncle Martin quickly dismounted and tried to see if he could reach him, but this was not a possibility: the hole was too deep. Just as he was about to ride back to his barn to grab a shovel and perhaps a few of his workers, however, Klimpi came trotting up from another direction. Uncle Martin was quite pleasantly surprised - the thought of another entrance to the cave had not occurred to him.

Uncle Martin determined to find the entrance, and it was only a matter of half an hour before he had found it. Behind some briers on a hill not far away, there was a hole about three feet high and five feet wide that led to a uphill passage. The passage was about the same height, but it was significantly narrower. Armed with a flashlight from his saddlebag, Uncle Martin crawled up it, carefully watching for signs of hostile wildlife. There were none. The tunnel continued on in the same way for about ten feet, after which it suddenly turned downward. Another twenty feet later, it widened into a sizable room. Uncle Martin was thrilled. As a boy, he had always dreamed of finding an exciting cave, and now it was reality. And furthermore, the walls of the cave were sprinkled with gold. That fortunate fact was beyond his wildest childhood dreams.

It was not long before Uncle Martin took full advantage of his situation. He had a professional mining company excavate the cave, and his reward was in the millions of dollars. He continued to invest wisely and soon became one of the wealthiest men in Victoria.

Uncle Martin moved back to Estonia in 1995, not long after the nation had regained its independence. The rest of his family, with the exception of a younger sister who never married, had died, but he quickly became a successful businessman in Tallinn. He invested heavily in the country, and as the Estonian economy flourished under its capitalistic system and flat tax rate, Uncle Martin's wealth only increased.

I suppose you may be wondering why I'm giving you all this information. Well, it seems that Uncle Martin happened to be perusing blogs one day when he came across my post about Glimpy Soup. Since that is a family recipe, he figured we must be related, and a little bit of research convinced him. Both affluent and generous, he decided to send me a little present. Imagine my surprise when this showed up at my door:




OK, I admit it. This was all made up. I came up with the idea a while ago when I was thinking about Agatha Christie's novels: it seems that each of her characters who becomes suddenly wealthy explains it as "a legacy from their uncle in Australia." Besides, very little in the way of newsworthy material has come my way in recent days. Anyway, writing this was fun, and I learned some stuff about Estonia that I hadn't known before.

Un Post Senza Un Titolo

As this picture should make clear, green is quickly becoming - as it should - the dominant color here in New Hampshire. Spring has absolutely and irreversibly arrived! Of course, it isn't yet late spring here, as evidenced by the fact that Eagle Wings remains placidly parked in the driveway.

Other signs of spring: peepers, beavers, open windows, open doors, sprouting lilies, later sunsets, and (gulp) mosquitoes. (Say it isn't so!) Fortunately, the last item in that otherwise happy list has not yet become a nuisance. So far I have seen about ten of the little bloodsuckers and have killed about five. If I can maintain that ratio of mosquitoes killed to mosquitoes seen (or is it the other way around?) throughout the summer, I will be very, very pleased with myself.

One of the ways I have been taking advantage of the relatively, and sometimes indescribably, beautiful weather we have been enjoying of late is to go rowing in the morning before I do school. As you can see by Exhibit B (at right), the pond is currently clear, glassy, and full. Alas, before long the algae will have significantly marred our view to the west, but so far so good. Several times now I have been in our boat when one or more beavers have come out of their lodge and swum around the pond. One time, while I was enjoying the breeze and reading American Literature, I tied the boat to a tree at the end of the pond. I was just lazily studying (there's a paradox for you!), when two baby beavers swam out of the swamp, right by my boat, and into their lodge. After a while, a big one came out, swam around for a while, and then returned.

The more exciting time was when I was actually rowing. As I went from one side of the pond to the other, the beaver would swim to the opposite side, swim around for a bit, and then dive under with a terrific smack of its tail against the water. 'Twas cool.

And now for a confession: after writing my last post, I have only read about seventy-five pages of Les Mis, and most of that today. At first it was from lack of time, but as the week went on and the book remained untouched, I was struck by this observation: sometimes the less you do of something, the more tired of doing it you feel. Now I have resumed reading it and am enthralled once again.

Upon the Return of Winter

Wherefore, once we the taste of spring had known,
Didst Thou, O Lord, deem right another storm?
The snow, whose ceaseless falling does transform
The scenery, has over flowers blown;
The vernal sun, which just so brightly shown,
Is hidden: sunshine is no more the norm,
And infant buds, perplexed it is not warm,
Must once more wait for south winds to be blown.
Is it to make the springtime fairer still?
I truly yearn for verdancy the more
Now that the white of winter has returned;
If this surprise was sent by Thy pure will,
‘Tis worth the wait; the spring for which I yearned
Will come, and I'll be gladder than before.

- The brilliant Eric Snadforth

Prepare To Be Shocked!

I showed Brad and Claire's self-portrait to Daddy, and right away he said, "You know, what they SHOULD have done is make a picture of them together as one person."

It is Biblical, after all: "[Therefore] a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." (Gen. 2:24) Now technology has made it more possible than ever before!

Strangers!

As I had anticipated, Friday's photo challenge proved to be the most difficult for me. I forgot to bring my camera when I went to Manchester on Monday, I only got a fuzzy picture of the back of the UPS delivery man when he came, and I didn't anticipate going out again this week. Yesterday, however, Bria wanted to do a little shopping and felt too tired to drive the standard transmission. I snatched at the opportunity, and, with my camera close by, we set out for the city blaring Le Nozze di Figaro.

Unfortunately, I forgot about actually using the camera until we were almost on our way home. Then I was driving, and Bria couldn't get up the nerve to take a picture of the dude with the Honda Civic who tried to pass us on a very narrow and very definitely NO-PASSING road, and then, as we came to a light, ZOOMED by us so he could stop at the light first. So there we were, side by side, he thinking himself ultra cool, and Bria and I thinking him ultra stupid. We had a clear view of his face, and he wasn't looking, but Bria didn't want to find out what he would think of us taking his picture if he DID see.

I got a very sneaky picture of the side of a cashier at Hannaford, but it wasn't the best quality, and besides, his hair covered his entire face.

SOOOOO.....

I dug up some stranger photos from from my Italy trip, which just happens to have happened EXACTLY one year ago! Ben took most of them (he's a lot less timid than I am), but I did get a couple.

Venice, March 24, 2006 - Ben H. photo
(I got a picture of the same girl, but mine didn't come out as well.)


Florence, March 26, 2006 - Aaron S. photo


Pisa, March 27, 2006 - Ben H. photo
Note the two incredibly cool guys walking off into the distance...


Rome, March 29, 2006 - Ben H. photo


Rome, March 30, 2006 - Ben H. photo


Rome, April 01, 2006 - Aaron S. photo


Netherlands, April 04, 2006 - Ben H. photo