on me

this blog is entitled "the Doug's thoughts and ramblings".  Seeing how I'm the Doug in question, and my thoughts are often all over the place, I thought it suitable.  This post might be comprised only of my thoughts and it will in all likelihood ramble.  Whether you agree or even understand said thoughts is irrelevant. 

You have been warned.

So my brain is stuck.  Where? I'm not sure.  It's stuck somewhere in a lazy place that is rather boring.  Like all the walls are an ick shade of white.  It feels a little like when I was much younger we'd sometimes watch the static on the TV and see if the white dots or the black dots were winning.  Not really interesting, but hard to tear your eyes away from anyways.  That might be where my brain is.  

I haven't taken a picture of anything that I really like in some time.  That's weird for me.  I even got some cool gear for Christmas and even a little boost to the photographic ego recently and still my inspiration for photos is dismal at best.

My brain is in such a place that if I'm of any use to anyone (and I try to be... really) then it is likely a direct intervention of God himself.  Not that I have a problem with that, in fact I'd rather he intervene and do stuff through me that is so obviously not me that no one notices me; would make life less stressful I think...  So here I sit and have a maze of ideas in my head, some helpful, some decidedly not helpful, some things I have to do, some things that I want to do but shouldn't (I'd like to sleep all day tomorrow).  

I have feelings of immense gratitude going on in my head.  I know that God is alive and well.  He has been blessing the stuffing out of us recently, or so it seems.  Yet I still feel all self absorbed.  I know I shouldn't be.  I could write a pretty good sermon at myself I think, it would go like this: "dude, suck it up, and quit being lame!"

So I dump this stuff out of my head, not so much to sort through my ideas, but to see which ones are mine and which ones are God's.  

I'll wrap up this bizarre thread of thoughts by a prayer of my own composition:

God, 

I know you're there.  I know you love me.  

Today though, I don't feel it.

I have seen your provision, your touch - recently even,

but today I don't feel it.

I know there are many things I should be doing,

but today I don't feel it,

I know that there are things that I could be doing,

but today I don't feel it.

The things I do feel, I'm not sure I like.

Those feelings are likely unjustifiable, crazy silly indulgences of a person who is too self consumed to think or feel about anything else.  

Lord- come.  Fill me.  Restore me.  Recharge me.  Give me more.  More of you.  I know a great deal, but I want to more than what I read off a page or talk about in a sermon.  I want to feel a passion that consumes, consumes more than an appetite of food, or toys, or gadgets, or hobbies - Show me again my raison d'etre.  THE reason I'm who I am, where I am, with whom I live and breathe and work.  

I have hope O God, that while today I don't feel it...

I have hope that soon - I will.

Amen

Another video of insanity

I know I posted a video about this a little while ago... but WOW! Incredibly crazy, and kinda cool all at the same time, although I bet you can't do it here in Saskatchewan.

Amazing Windsuit Flying

Wow. One of those things I likely won't do. Tara... this will give you nightmares.

Today

Today has been a little bit of a strange day. More ups and downs then I would have expected. Some within, some from the world outside of my head.

Part of me is unsure what to do with it all. I'm still processing things that happened last week. I'm still thinking and feeling and musing and wondering. I'm not sure how to answer the rather bland question "how are you?" truthfully. Part of me feels pretty good, other parts feel: a little frustrated, confused, amazed, thankful, overwhelmed. So ya. I suppose I sound like I'm all mixed up. To a point I suppose I am.

I bought Keith Kitchen's new album "Broomtree" in iTunes tonight. I haven't worked through all of it yet but up to this point, I'm enjoying it greatly. I'm biased though, Keith was one of the guys who I went to Bible school with. SO there's the personal connection, and I'm a sucker for acoustic guitar. I will say this though, he has grown as an artist since school. That may be taken for granted, but I enjoyed his stuff greatly then. At first blush, I'm uber impressed.

For now I'm resting pretty strongly on some of the words I've been thinking through a bit from Psalm 103.
verse 13

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

My identity as a geek is now secured...

I have been following a website/blog/flickr group about cameras and photography, in particular off camera flash at Strobist.

 Awhile back there was a post about making a ring flash.  Ring flashes are used to give a distinct look to pictures.  Flat, diffuse light with a neat 'halo' kind of a shadow.

I like the idea, wanted to try a ring flash but couldn't find a design I liked.  Then a friend asked me a question about photography and my brain kicked into overdrive.  I ended up designing and building something.  I posted what I built to the Flickr group and the response was very positive.

Well, my fifteen minutes of fame may have started!  The Strobist himself, David Hobby wrote about my design and incorporated my pictures and even a sample picture of Olivia that shows off the effect.  You can find that post HERE.

I'm terribly surprised that something my brain came up with is going over this big...

And I'm afraid that I will irreversibly be labelled a geek now.  Meh... I'm okay with that.

edit: from the FAQ section of the Strobist site:

     How much traffic does Strobist get?

As of November, 2007, about 1.5 million page views a month, from over 170,000 photographers around the world.

Ya... that's insane.  All I have to say is "uh.... hi, I'm Doug."

A few pictures

Some pictures I made using a weird little contraption. Makes a neat picture in my opinion. Enjoy.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.