Happy Festivus!

Today is Festivus, so after you've decorated your aluminum pole, be sure to proceed to the airing of the grievances and finish with the feats of strength. If Festivus isn't your thing, then Merry Christmas. I hope it's the best ever for you and your families. Last year, my friend Erich wrote a truly great post on the Christmas Truce of WW1. Now would be a great time to read it.

HDV...I'm impressed

I've been digitizing footage from a shoot in Puerto Rico and one in India, shot with JVC's new HDV camera. It shoots 24 frames per second, just like film, but we shot it in 30 frame per second mode, progressive scan (which means each frame is a complete image, unlike your standard tv picture, which breaks the frame down into 2 separate images and "interlaces" them together).

That short lesson is important because the old rules of video said that screen grabs were difficult, and virtually unusable. HDV is not the resolution that you could get with a digital camera, so this picture wouldn't do well for an enlargement at all, but it's downright good for many other purposes. I'm just really pleased with the results, especially since it's a $6000 camera, separate HD lens included. It's a brave new world we're living in.

India

OK, I guess I should start posting some images from my trip to India. India was a photographer's paradise. I took 2000 pictures, and could've taken 10 times that many, but at some point you just have to stop and say, "OK, I've probably got enough." We were shooting in HD video, so we came back with lots of great shots. I'll post some of the better ones here as I have time. Here are 2 of my favorites.

She turned me into a newt!

An anonymous poster asked for more photos, and included a special request:

I for one would like to see a photo of a lizard - I guess a newt would do, as long as it is a close-up and you can see the flecks of water on its translucent skin.

Since this is a reader-responsive blog, I searched far and wide, as newts are not native to Texas, but imagine my surprise when I happened to see one in the median as I was driving along the freeway. I checked my Audubon Society field guide that I always carry with me, and confirmed that it is, indeed, a newt. So enjoy. If there are any other anonymous requests for specific photos, I'll do my best to accommodate.

Saying it ain't so don't make it not so.

This compelling Reuters article popped up on the wire today.

"Bush momentarily switched the names of his two greatest nemeses in a news conference at the White House where he was defending his decision to authorize eavesdropping on Americans suspected of links with al Qaeda and other organizations in the U.S. war on terrorism.

First of all, Reuters, those two people are not George Bush's personal nemeses. They are America's. It is incredibly irresponsible to reduce Osama Bin Laden to such a trivial level of dialogue in the name of presenting a "gotcha" to President Bush. Bush said the following:

In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said.

And guess what happened. Saddam ...Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated. We're at war. And we must protect America's secrets."

So why is this news? I've heard plenty of people mix up the names. The names are ubiquitous in our national consciousness, he had been mentioning Saddam in the press conference already. It's not a far stretch for anyone to get the names mixed up in an hour long nationally televised presser. The final sentence of this comedic piece clears up the reason for it's existence.

The Bush administration sought to convince Americans before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government had links to bin Laden's al Qaeda. No such links have been proven.

So this article's sole purpose was to ridicule the President, trivialize the dangers we face, and lastly, to advance the New History as Reuters sees it. To say that "no such links" have been found is a blatant falsehood, and Reuters knows it. Saddam offered asylum to Osama, Saddam paid suicide bombers, Saddam had a known terrorist training camp at Salman Pak complete with a fuselage of a 727 aircraft. These details are not new, but the media has conveniently forgotten what many of them reported in 1999, as documented by this article by Michael Reagan in Front Page Magazine:

Here’s what ABC News reported on January 14, 1999: Citing an alleged key military adviser and a man believed to be "privy to bin Laden’s most secret projects" who had been apprehended, ABC News said: "The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny. ‘It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons,' bin Laden told ABC. 'But how we could use these weapons if we possessed them is up to us.’"

Commented ABC: "With an American price on his head there weren’t many places bin Laden could go unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction. ‘Osama believed in the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with. That’s certainly the current case with Iraq,' " an ABC reporter involved with the bin Laden interview said.

And the ABC narrator added, "Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists, Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abas – the most notorious terrorists of their era all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad.

"Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after (Clinton’s bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory) on August 31st, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq’s Vice President arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack.

"ABC News has learned that during these meetings senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden asked if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum. Iraq was indeed interested. ABC News has learned that in December an Iraqi intelligence chief … (who in 1999 was Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey) made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden." During the meeting, ABC says their sources reported that "bin Laden was told be would be welcome in Baghdad."

ABC News was not alone in revealing this trip. In 1999, The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat (Iraq's intelligence service), had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al-Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," The Guardian reported.

ABC News continued: "Intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an (Iraqi-bin Laden) alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC that his network is wide and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name that he does not even control."

Here’s what bin Laden told ABC News: "It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God we did that."

Further, Bill Clinton also spoke of this connection. The media knows it. But it seems to have forgotten what happened 9/11 because they hate Bush so much. If you yourself doubt it, just do a google search for Saddam Al qaeda connection and read articles like this. The media hopes you won't, and will just continue to believe their "truth".

UPDATE: Of course, I find one MSM mention of Ted Kennedy mistakenly referring to the newly elected Senator from Illinois "Osama Bin...Osama...Obama." But you have to look at the very end of a glowing article about the rest of his speech to get there. No ridiculous article, no accusations that it's a slip of the freudian nature, no suggestions that Kennedy actually thinks black people are terrorists. Yet Bush does it, and it proves a nefarious plot to mislead the American people. Sheesh.

Another Lame Apology

Sorry for not posting.

You say Bombay, I say Mumbai

So here I am. If I had been a faithful, dedicated blogger, the sort of communicator that puts his message ahead of all else, then you'd know where "here" is. Instead, I am left to bring you up to speed after the fact. I do apologize, and have hopes that I'll be more diligent to post quick updates occasionally, because what I have to say is that important.

"Here" is India. I'm currently in a hotel in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), home to 20 million people. I'm here shooting a video, which should be a fun experience. Do keep my family in your prayers, and pray for my safety as well. Our flights over here were relatively uneventful, but it's now been a full 30 hours since I left, and I've only had a couple of hours of sleep. I don't have much in the way of pictures, because airports are relatively un-original. I'll post when I can, although internet access will likely be spotty where we'll be staying. But keep checking back, and I'll try to share something interesting.

Sand Cave

I'll have more backstory on this later, but I wanted to go ahead and post a cool picture I took in Kentucky at Cumberland Gap Historical Park. This is Sand Cave, a cave with...well...lots of sand.



Click to enlarge

BREAKING NEWS! RITA UPDATE!!!!

Rita missed us. I know, that was 3 weeks ago, old news. I've been busy, but I wanted to put everyone's mind at ease. We received zero inches of rain. It was a little breezy, but that's all. I should be grateful. A hurricane is a hurricane, even several hundred miles inland. We could've used the rain though. It's been a long, dry summer. It's finally cooling off a little, with highs in the 80's.

I apologize for my long absence. Work has kept me very busy, (I'm trying to nail down a marketing and advertising contract for this company.) and blogging is a luxury item until I can find a way to make my fortune with it. But I am aware that my absence was keenly felt. I frankly don't know how the blogosphere has held up without my witty wit and museable musings. But never fear, I do have some items to share. I've just returned from another trip to Kentucky. While there, I took some time to go hiking with friends in Cumberland Gap. I'll share some of that as time allows.

Chance of Showers

They say we're gonna get some rain around here this weekend. Good thing too, cause it's been a hot, dry summer.

Seriously, say a prayer for the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, and for the 1.5 million people that are en route somewhere to get away from Rita.

Evacuation...Texas Style

As a possible category 4 hurricane heads for the coast of Texas, the disaster evacuation plan is being properly implemented. One of our local commuter trains is headed down to Galveston to evacuate seniors who can't make it out on their own. The nice thing about this train is that it's a diesel and can therefore go on any rail line, as opposed to the light rail in Houston and Dallas. This train normally goes between Dallas and Fort Worth, and runs a few miles away from my house.

It can be argued, I suppose, that there's no way we would risk flubbing this one, given the consequences of Katrina, but I don't think that's the case. The governor just implemented a plan that has already been established. Alabama and Mississippi also seemed to have no problems getting their people away from the storm. So what's the difference? Corruption and imcompetence in the Louisiana governments, that's what. But I digress. This post is not to bash Louisiana, although it accomplishes that. I am merely pointing to the greatness of Texas. I suppose it would be prudent to wait until everything goes well and the storm has passed. But that is not the Texas way. Luckily, I can delete this post later if things do go amiss.

Anyway, the Trinity Railway Express has a cool paint job also. Can you imagine the Louisiana flag emblazoned on the side of their train? Or worse, Minnesota's? (Come on, Phil. Now you're just being provocative.)

Yup.

UPDATE: Rita is now a Cat 5 storm, and there's a chance it could still be pretty strong when it reaches Dallas, if it stays on it's projected course. I also corrected my spelling that Erich was kind enough to point out.

Looters aren't dummies

Found this little note from this article.

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything _ all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

"Oh we've got both kinds of music...country AND western." -The Blues Brothers

There's a reason we call them "Acts of God"

Amidst all the emotion of the past two weeks, some items have become established fact, established by the media. I've avoided jumping into the fray, not wanting to discuss the political issues of a tragedy while my friends are still cleaning up debris from their homes. I still don't want to jump into a huge political discussion, but I feel that some items of "fact" must be corrected, namely that the Bush performance in the face of this disaster was inexcusable and cost perhaps thousands of lives. The truth is, as information is finally getting out about what happened, it appears that the governor of the state and the mayor of New Orleans have a lot of explaining to do.

Unlike other's that I've read, I'm willing to cut them a large amount of slack. This was a once in a century storm, and I'm afraid people expected too much of some people that have never had a situation like this arise. This is not to excuse blatant blunders (like letting the Amtrak leave town empty, or letting the 200+ buses get flooded, rather than use them to evacuate), but it is to say, Hurricanes are bad. There's a reason we call them "Acts of God". As cocky as we humans get, building levees, developing flood control, we will never be able to "defend" against a hurricane. We are lowly humans, and He is God. This world is bigger than us, and always will be.

Anyway, here's a good article to read about the federal response, and how it compares to previous federal responses to natural disasters. Without this comparison, then there is no basis to say that "the federal government did a terrible job".

READ IT HERE

The View from Up Top

What would a trip to Wilmore be without a visit to High Bridge? The High Bridge homecoming festival was held while I was there, so I went with my parents to check out the festivities. It was great getting a chance to be a part of small-town americana again. There was music...



Here's a shot of my parents enjoying the show. See if you can guess the inspiration for the title of my post...



OK, actually the title of my post is for this...



Note the riverboat down below, from Shaker Landing. For those unfamiliar, High Bridge is still the tallest railroad bridge over a navigable stream. It used to be quite a tourist attraction, with people coming down by train from Cincinnati to hang out at the park and look at the bridge. The park is now restored, and the pavilion that was the site of many dances to bluegrass music over the years is once again the site of some great bluegrass music. Our culture doesn't just dance much anymore though, so everyone sits down to listen.

High Bridge is fascinating to those of us who lived close because it's our little secret. You can't get to High Bridge unless you're trying to. The road ends there, although if it went through it would shave about 30 minutes off the drive to Harrodsburg and Danville. Once, while touring the Smithsonian, I saw a model of High Bridge in their railroad section. It's probably still there. So this wonder of engineering and piece worthy of the Smithsonian is in Jessamine County, KY. Countless idiots have ascended the banks of the bridge to walk on it, and I'm sure in its 100+ years, there have been plenty of deaths on it.

Many years ago, they raised the level of the track so they could widen it, and to support ever heavier trains. They straightened the approach at the time, and much of the old railbed still exists. This guy has a lot more history on the bridge, including lots of pictures of construction and renovation. He's also lobbying for a "rail trail" to follow the old bed, as a hike from Wilmore to the bridge. I don't live there anymore, but I'm all for the idea. The old bed followed the river for a while, and covers land that is not easily accessible, but is some of the most unique in the area.



So that's High Bridge, a surpisingly influential part of living in Wilmore for so many years. I can't believe I wrote so much about it. It's just a friggin' bridge.

Biloxi Blues

With all the attention of New Orleans, the reporters forgot for several days that Katrina hit further up the coast also, stronger in fact. Now that things are stabilizing in NOLA, I guess the news channels needed some new material. Now a full 10 days after Katrina made landfall, I saw overhead video of Biloxi and surrounding areas right on the coast. It was unbelievable. The devestation in NOLA is bad and makes for good TV, and it is disturbing to see the city flooded with water, but there was NOTHING left of the houses they showed on Fox News last night. Nothing. Except lots of debris where people used to live. It was as if a bomb had gone off and leveled everything to the ground. They covered several miles of the coast in the story, and it never got any better. I've never seen anything like it. They estimate that a 20 foot storm surge had pounded the coast.

My friend Becky is from Biloxi, and has been posting some pictures and thoughts. Thankfully, she left town, and her apartment was spared from the type of devastation in the pictures. Be sure to check her site for frequent updates.

My Old Kentucky Home...

Here's one of the things I miss most about Kentucky, the beautiful, misty mornings. I tried to appreciate them while I could. There were many mornings when the fog would hang low along the rolling hills of the horse farms, while the stone fences seemed to hold the fog inside the fields. It made the drive into Lexington worthwhile at 7 am. The drive to work is no longer beautiful for me, although I do pass 3 Starbucks on the way to the office. And it's only a 3 mile drive.

Young Idealists

I saw this gathering as I was driving by Asbury's campus on my visit. I thought it would be a familiar site to many of my readers. It's been 12 years since I was this young and ideal. Take a good look at the faces...now guess which one will write the next edition of the Asbury Redbook.

Survey Says...

If you've read Luke's Audible Mind blog, perhaps discovering it from my site, he'd like to know about it.

Kentucky Blogging, Part 2 - The Nectar of the gods

Ale-8-1 (A late one) is probably not new to most of my readers. It's a great ginger ale from Winchester, Kentucky. You can find it in stores in surrounding states, and Dallas has a great store that stocks just about every regional soft-drink they can find, but it's really expensive there as you might imagine.

There was nothing like knocking back an Ale-8-1 after mowing the lawn. I miss that now, and have to settle for beer, but it's not the same. So I was glad to be in KY and taste the love once again. Unfortunately, I was unable to take any home with me, since I was flying.

There seems to be some disagreement as to the proper way to spell Ale-8-1. To settle the matter, I will post some pictures of the bottle.

It's a Doggy Dog World

I'd like to first acknowledge that I know the proper phrase is "dog eat dog world", but there are people that exist that believe that the title of my post is the correct incarnation. Perhaps you are one of them.

Anyway, the point of the post is to welcome my friend and occasional commenter, Lupmo, to the blogging world. He's started a blog and company, Lupmo Technologies. Be sure to check his site and welcome him. I believe we're going to see some very exciting things come from his company.

Kentucky Blogging, Part 1

Last week, I was in Lexington, Kentucky for several days. It was a nice visit that reminded me of what I liked about living there (scenery, horse farms, unique restaurants), and what I hated about living there (traffic, traffic, and traffic). Most people look at me funny. When I tell them that the traffic in Dallas is better than the traffic in Lex. (My, that was a poorly placed period.) But if you hit a light in Lex, you could easily read a chapter of "Mere Christianity" before you'd need to move again.

Anyway, I took some nice pictures that I'll share here in the next few posts. Some will be to taunt others (Ale-8-1 photos), and some will be to share the beauty and history of my home for 8 years, (and the place of my birth).

Irony

So I'm actually in Saratoga Springs, New York this week, visiting a client. His wife is the daughter of the CEO and Chairman of Reader's Digest. They have a great old home, and I happen to be staying with them. Well, as often happens, I received a call from nature, and used the facilities here. Imagine my shock when I discovered that there were no copies of Reader's Digest in the bathroom. There was no reading material of any kind, in fact.

The Reader's Digest was a staple of bathroom reading as I was growing up. We used to fight over who would read the joke sections first. The occasion of the arrival of the new Reader's Digest was much heralded each month. So I thought for sure that such an atmosphere would exist in your home when your father is the CEO. I was wrong, and I think it says something about our culture. I don't know what, but something.

Hello.

OK, since my adoring public has grown increasingly impatient, I will post once again. When I started this blog a couple of months ago, things were at a lull in my business. The last few weeks have been extraordinarily busy, which is good, but the silent victim has been my online publishing.

So I now will make a few posts, if for no other reason than to give "anonymous" more fodder for his criticisms.

One More Reason...

...I'm glad that I'm a Mac user.

Friday's Featured Foto

This was a church in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Actually, it still is a church.

A Scientific Conceit

This is the coolest story of the week. It's short. Go read it and come back. I'll wait.

`Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit'' to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. ``Now we have found the Pool of Siloam . . . exactly where John said it was.''

A Gospel that was thought to be ``pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history,'' he said.

The last line is a bit of hyperbole, I think. There have been plenty of findings over the years to prove the truth and accuracy of the Bible, and as Christians, we don't really need these discoveries, because by faith we believed them already. (Well, most of us.) But it's still nice to see the "scholars" disproven while the Bible is proved accurate. By the way, I have no problem with scholars. The pursuit of knowledge is a good thing, and a Biblical principle to boot. But it's always good to remember that "scholars" are just people, and we should not blindly accept what they say simply because they've read a little more about it.

Young Geniuses

Today marks the release date of a new album from one of the best groups in existence, Nickel Creek. Their album, Why Should the Fire Die? hit the streets after months of anticipation. It doesn't disappoint. These kids write and play some amazing music. Their debut album, released in 2000, was an instant classic, essentially creating a new genre, "New Grass". Now I never liked country growing up, and I still mostly despise the twangy, mournful steel guitar sound, but these guys are making me appreciate the mandolin and fiddle. Their second album, This Side, solidified them as the real thing. They write most of their own music and infuse it with a depth of intelligence and emotion that belies their youth.

They are not a "Christian band", although they are Christians, often performing hymns as part of their concerts. At one of their shows, the encore was "Be Thou My Vision", every verse, without amplification. Everyone pushed to the front of the room, and it took awhile for the ears to get used to the low volume, but everyone was literally holding their breath as they sang in 3 part harmony. It was more moving than any altar call I've heard at any "Christian" concert. Did I mention they're kids?

I actually heard them the first time on "Prairie Home Companion" back in 2000. I guess Garrison Keillor is good for something after all.

Music for a Muser

My regular guests will catch the humor of the title. I used to listen to music quite a bit. A lot, in fact. Not just the type of listening where you turn on the radio while getting ready. I'm talking about active listening, where one sits in a room perfectly positioned between 2 very good speakers, turns the volume up beyond a level where conversation is possible, let the wall of sound flood the consciousness, and listen, paying attention to all the layers of the piece. Children cut into that type of leisure for awhile, followed by the political season where talk-radio and reading took my spare time. I'm now cycling back to a stage where I really crave good music, and want to play more. I still know enough piano to tinker with some songs, and I'm attempting to learn guitar. But I'm mainly starting to listen to music again.

Active music listening is much like a fine wine tasting. Various influencing factors can "color" the sound your ears hear, and while you might not be able to pick out with the naked ear that something was amiss, if the cleaner sound were introduced, even an untrained ear would be able to tell the difference. I was fortunate to find, some years back, a pair of really good speakers on clearance at Circuit City, and music has never been the same since. I was suddenly able to hear layers of sound that I never knew existed before on many of my favorite CD's. I was hearing music the way the producer heard it in the studio. I pulled out CD's I hadn't listened to in years, and it was like I was listening to a brand new album. If you're going to take up music listening as a hobby, I highly recommend a decent receiver and excellent speakers. The receiver does matter a great deal. Yamaha makes the cleanest, affordable amp that won't color your music. Now, if the budget won't allow such an expenditure on speakers, don't let it stop you from this exercise. Music is meant to be processed, just like other artforms. You stare at a painting to discover the beauty and to interpret the artists intent. You dissect complicated paragraphs of history's greatest philosophers and thinkers to try to understand what they're conveying. You talk about films and what the director meant by using this color of that Tupperware®. The great musicians of this and previous generations deserve no less.

So I intend to add a good deal more music discussion to my upcoming posts, primarily because it's what I'm interested in right now. In the days to come, I'll talk about many artists and albums that I believe are underappreciated/undiscovered. Feel free to chime in with some of your favorites that I may not know about.

I've previously talked about my upbringing a little bit. One of the forbidden fruits of my youth was "SECULAR MUSIC"!! (cue forboding music-dom dom dom) I don't mean to demean my parents in any way here either, they were doing what they believed was best for us. But the idea was that all music that didn't talk specifically about God was secular. Now, there were some very fine christian artists, but not really a lot of world-class musicians. I really wasn't exposed to the musical greats during my formative years, which is a bit of a surprise considering how important music was in my family. (My dad's a songwriter/recording artist, all of us play some instrument) So college was really my first opportunity to discover the genius of guys like Stevie Wonder and Wang Chung, and I would say my real formative years started there. So I'm still discovering some of the greats, and I'm excited to introduce you to some of them.

So join in and let me know who your favorite artists/albums are.

Respect for Life...Even unto Death

I was encouraged to find this blog that challenges my assumptions about abortion clinics. All this time I've been under the mis-guided idea that these clinics have no respect for human life, and just want to see as many women have abortions as possible as part of their agenda. I'm glad to see I was wrong. Here's a key paragraph:

Our clinic is the kind of place where women can ask, as one did today, if we would bless and baptise her baby. i was able to do that for her. honoring her pregnancy as she herself chooses is part of what we hope to do for each woman. using water (she had planned to bring holy water with her but had at the last minute forgotten it) and saying the words i know from my catholic upbringing, i did as she asked. she had a name in mind for the baby, one that could work for either gender and i gave it that name.

we want to be a clinic that respects life, that honors women's choices. the two are compatible. believe me!

Listen, baptizing a baby you just slaughtered is not respect for life. In your case it's just good old-fashioned customer service. What gymnastics must the mind go through to come up with reasoning like this? I hope this is a parody site, ala "Screwtape Letters" to demonstrate how morally bankrupt this industry is, and to try to show the truth about abortion in stark terms. But I don't think it is.

Words fail.

Hat Tip: The Corner

Human Nature

This may make me the world's worst father for posting this on the internet, but it's such a telling commentary I'm going to do it, if only for a short time. Abraham started toilet training this week, and I snapped this picture 2 days into the process. He already knows what to do.

Note that he's not reading some Thomas the Train shlock. It's a Guitar Center catalog, and he's checking out the high-end microphones. That's my boy.

No Guarantees

Twenty years ago today, William Mayberry of the Dallas area was driving home from his work as an auto mechanic. The sky was cloudy, and storms were forecast. Texas has legendary summer storms that can come out of nowhere, wreak havoc for a few moments, and then be gone. But the only evidence so far were white puffy clouds. Hidden inside those benign-looking clouds, a ferocious storm was brewing, a localized weather catastrophe waiting to happen. It's called a microburst. A microburst creates tornado-like winds blowing straight down to the ground, and is not easy to predict or to even see the symptoms. This one happened to be located right in the landing path of Runway 17L at one of the busiest airports in the world, Dallas/Fort Worth International.

Delta Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 with 163 passengers on board was cleared for landing, and was on final approach. The pilots, seasoned professionals, saw nothing out of the ordinary. All the planes that landed ahead of them mentioned no problems. As a microburst forms and produces a downdraft of up to 160 mph, an updraft is obviously created on the perimeter. (An explanatory graphic can be viewed here.) As flight 191 entered the microburst, and updraft increased the aircraft's speed past the acceptable level for landing. To compensate, the 1st Officer pulled back the throttle. The Captain immediately recognized the first effects of wind shear and cautioned the 1st Officer that the updraft was going to go away. It did, almost as soon as he said it. The pilot started to push the throttle back up, the crew yelling "Way up! Way up!" The throttle was wide open as the plane entered the core of the microburst, but the force of the downward pointing wind kept the plane from recovering. There was not enough airspeed to push through it.

The airplane hit the ground in an empty field a half-mile short of the runway. It bounced in the air, crossing over highway 114, a six-lane freeway on the north side of the airport, and finally crashed in a field just short of the runway. It slammed into two 4-million gallon water tanks, filling the field with knee-deep water and jet fuel. 137 people were killed, one of the most deadly in US aviation history. One of the victims was William Mayberry, the auto mechanic.

He was driving in his Honda on highway 114, and never saw flight 191 dropping from the sky. The plane crushed his car, an engine cowling slicing through his body as it skimmed the surface of the highway. He was 28 and left behind a 26 year old wife and two young kids.

I'm normally a (what I believe to be) healthily cynical person, and the lessons I take from funerals about living each day to the fullest, as if it were my last, seem to be quickly forgotten, and I'm cynical because I know how easily I forget once the emotion of the moment goes away, and my perfect life resumes. William Mayberry is a constant reminder to me. I think of him every time I drive by the two 4 million gallon water tanks that still stand on highway 114, a short ten-minute drive from my house, a landmark that I pass weekly.

William Mayberry never saw it coming, he didn't see his life flash before his eyes. One moment he was here, the next he was facing his maker. His tragic ending is a tangible example that I'm not guaranteed another day to do the things that God requires, and its a reminder we need much more frequently than the rare funerals we attend of people who went too soon.

Saturday Flower Blogging

It's too darn hot to get out and work in the yard, so I thought I'd post some garden pictures. A friend of mine has these very unique flowers in his backyard. They're called Passion Flowers. The different parts of the flower supposedly tell the story of the Passion of Christ, but I think it's a little bit of a stretch. It's still a beautiful, unusual plant. It's a climbing vine, FYI.



Here's another view.



And here's a close-up.




UPDATE: Rick Lee has many more photos of plants.

Musable Musings from a Muser

Well, this is sure to offend somebody, so my disclaimer is that it is not my desire to offend, only to observe. I never really read blogs regularly until last year about this time, during the presidential campaign. News was fast and furious, and I loved the instant analysis/opinions etc. I was hooked after several blogs took down Dan Rather's fake Texas Air National Guard memos. I knew that a new media world was upon us, that power had been wrenched from the powerful.

Of course, the number of blogs by normal people like you and I has exploded over this last year. With so many people trying to think of clever titles for their sites, there are bound to be redundancies. This leads to my question: When did we as Americans start to do so much darn musing? As I look over titles of blogs, I think "musing" comes up more than any other, right in front of "random" (sorry Becky), "rantings" and "notes" (sorry Erich). I'm not denigrating anyone who uses these words. They're all fine words, good words, words rife with meaning. It's just that I never heard much about "musing" before blogging came en vogue.

Me: "Hey, what are you doing."
You: "Oh, just musing."
Me: "Cool. Muse away."
You:
Me:
You:
Me: "Anything?"
You: "Nope, still musing."

I find it interesting.

My second observation is this. When did seemingly normal people start to think of themselves as lunatics or relatively unstable. You've seen them. "Ravings of a Certified Crazy Person", or "Stark. Raving. Mad." It's not socially acceptable to publicly identify yourself as a little off your rocker, so why is it cool to be nuts in the online publishing world?

Anyone? Feel free to muse about it in the comments. But take your prozac first, please.

A Nominal Question

Dawn asked a question in the comments of another post, to which the answer deserves its own post.

"I have a random question. In college I (and others) called you Phil. I notice you seem to go more by Philip now. Do you prefer I call you that?"

Short story long, my full name is obviously Philip. Since my parents wanted a Biblical name, the spelling is from the Bible, which is one L. All of my life, I've dealt with people mis-spelling my name, adding a superfluous L. Now, I'm not so hung up on my name that I can't deal with mis-spellings every now and then, but when the digital age began, and I needed to choose an e-mail address, I chose Phil because it cannot be misspelled. Well, not easily anyway. Also, during high school, my friends (yes, I had friends) just started calling me Phil, it's quicker, not as pretentious sounding (I think the name sounds pretentious. Imagine a british accent, "Philip, would you like a spot of Earl Grey with your biscuits?"), so I stuck with it and never corrected anyone.

This caused great distress to my mother. She named me Philip, not Phil. So out of respect for her, I've been calling myself Philip for the last few years, although I've kept my e-mail addresses as Phil, for practical reasons. My business cards also say Phil Putnam, but only because my business e-mail is phil@doesyourmediapop.com, and I didn't want to create confusion. But if someone asks me my name, I say Philip.

It is confusing, I admit, and I do have to answer the question periodically, of which name I prefer. The answer is, either one. I don't really notice when someone uses Phil or Philip, I answer to both. The one exception is when my dad calls me "Phil". It sounds strange coming from him, and I think he does it to antagonize anyway.

So I hope that clears things up.

Daycare Shmaycare

Dawn has an interesting discussion going about daycare.
I'll have some thoughts about a 60 Minutes article on the same topic coming soon.

Meanwhile, Erich gives some suggestions to help you round out your Nazi and Communist Propaganda music collection.

Time Flies

I was looking at Katiedids Blog today, and she has a nice "Today in History" script. Today's included the Olympic Park bombing in 1996. Nine years ago, I had finished my third year of college. Man, I'm older than I thought I'd be at this age.

Anyway, that event stands out to me because I was there. I had been at the Olympic Park the night before the bombing. I was working on the broadcast of the games, working some looong hot days. I learned of the bombing in a rather exciting way. I was staying at a friends house about 40 minutes from my venue (which happened to be swimming and diving), and had gone to bed as soon as I got home that night. Most days I worked about 18 hours, so I was exhausted after several days in a row. The next morning, I was driving back after a few short hours of sleep. As was and still is my habit, I was listening to a CD as I drove, instead of the radio. I still remember the CD. It was this one. I realized after a few minutes I hadn't heard any news for awhile, so I switched to the radio.

There was much discussion of a "bomb" of some kind. I thought they were talking about another country somewhere, and I wasn't that alarmed. It took me a little while to figure out that they were talking about a bomb in Atlanta! Literally seconds after the realization sank in, I passed a bus on the side of the freeway...in flames. I had a momentary panic of "what the heck is going on!??", certain that I'd awakened to a war zone. Everything was well though. It was an isolated incident, and Eric Rudolph will be sentenced next month for the bombing.

So that's what I was doing on "This Day in History".

Trackbacks

Well I added trackbacks to my blog. Why, you may ask, did I do that?

I don't know.

Seriously, I know the basic concept, but I read a tutorial about it, and it seems awfully complicated to me. If someone knows that they're incredibly helpful for some reason, and different than referral links like I have on my sidebar through referer.org (which nobody's done either), then please let me know. Otherwise I'm afraid every post will just say Trackbacks (0).

Baltika Update

In an earlier post, my friend Erich recommended I try Baltika Beer, brewed in his favorite country, Mother Russia. He said it might be hard to find, but I checked out my favorite shop up the road, the one that has every beer I've ever looked for, and they did indeed have 4 varieties of Baltika, numbers 3, 4, 7, and 9. So I've now sampled all 4 of them. All of them had a very nice, smooth taste. My favorite was number 4, a dark beer. Even the lighter lagers had a nice flavor. I'll probably stick with the number 4 in the future, although I'm on the lookout for number 6, a nice dark porter. In the meantime, Joe 6 pack of the Beer Can Blog has inspired me to try a few more American Microbrews, and not always buy British, which I've preferred thus far.

Happy Birthday to my sweet bride.

Yesterday was Holly's birthday. There is no logical reason I should be married to a woman this beautiful.

Saturday Morning Gardening

My wife and kids enjoying the cool time of the day, when its only 95 degrees.

A Political Exercise

In case you needed any proof that the Media and the American Political Left (sorry to be redundant) hate everything about President Bush, this brilliant body of thought by Jonathan Chait is published in the LA Times. I was going to post some rebuttal thoughts, and might still, but it really would be too easy.

Ok, ok. I'll comment. But only a little. You've read it, right?

Here's a key paragraph:

My guess is that Bush associates exercise with discipline, and associates a lack of discipline with his younger, boozehound days. "The president," said Fleischer, "finds [exercise] very healthy in terms of … keeping in shape. But it's also good for the mind." The notion of a connection between physical and mental potency is, of course, silly. (Consider all the perfectly toned airheads in Hollywood — or, perhaps, the president himself.)

It is, of course, not silly to make a connection between exercise and mental health. A quick google search will disprove that. Note the sentence suggesting the President is stupid. They can't have it both ways. Either he's an evil genius with plans to take over the world, or he's a mindless numbskull who can't find the bathroom without Karl Rove taking him. But he's one or the other. Of course, he also fails to note that John Kerry had worse grades at Yale.

At the same time that the left is constantly harping on the obesity problem in the US, they hate Bush so much that they mock his dedication to one of the primary solutions to it. Contradictions abound. I haven't even mentioned Clinton yet. I don't recall similar articles when he jogged daily (and stopped in McDonalds on the way). See, I said it was too easy. I'll stop now.

Read it.

UPDATE: Independent Sources has more.

Speaking of pictures...

I'm trying out a service called Exposure Manager for my photos. You can see my photo page here. I was looking for a good service to print my images from the last couple of years. I don't like the one-hour places, and the web services give you virtually no control over how your image is printed. Exposure Manager allows complete control. It even allows me to sell my pictures and apply my own prices to my images. So go ahead, buy a couple of 20 x 30 prints for your collection. They could be worth something someday!

But really, photography is a hobby for me. I make my money with video and producing marketing campaigns, so pictures are just a side outlet for me, and exposure manager is really designed for pros and event photographers, but I like the pro features that are available. I'm just trying it out right now, so feel free to let me know what you think as you navigate the site.

Picture Perfect

If you like photography, I recommend you bookmark Rick Lee Photo. Instapundit links to his work occasionally, which is how I first came across him. He's a commercial photographer in West Virginia...wait, don't go just because he's from WV, give him a chance! (Sorry, a little prejudice from my past. When I lived in Kentucky, that's how we made ourselves feel better. "It could be worse. We could live in WV.") OK? Ok...where was I...oh yeah...a commercial photographer from West Virginia who regularly posts images from his shoots (which are excellent), but what I love about his site is that he keeps a tiny camera with a great macro function with him, and takes various shots he comes across during the day. It's a great way of looking at the world during the day, always keeping your mind looking for a neat shot or unique perspective, such as this. It's also a great reminder to me that I can hold off buying that Canon 20D that I've been drooling over. My Canon Powershot G3 has a pretty decent macro, and I can get good pictures with it. It's not the camera, after all. It's the photographer. It reminds me of a story about Chet Atkins I think. Someone came to him after a show and said, "That's a great sounding guitar!" Chet set the guitar on the ground and said, "How's it sound now?"

One of my favorite ongoing series that he does is Produce Blogging (because Thursday night is grocery night).

Anyway, check him out frequently because he posts new images frequently. Just scroll down his page. It's chock full of great images and has provided me with lots of inspiration to just get out there and take pictures.

If you're a Mac lover, stand up and holla!

I've noticed a few of my readers are using Mac OS X and Safari to navigate to my site, so here's a little survey.

Who among you is using a Mac, what hardware is it, and what version of OS X are you running?

Secondly, why do you have a Mac? Is it for work? Is it at home?

I've got 6 different Macs that I use throughout a week. My main computer is my 17" PowerBook G4, my main edit station is a dual 1 gig G4. It's 3 years old now, so I'd like to upgrade soon. I also have 3 G5's that I work on occasionally at other people's studios. My favorite workstation is a dual 2.5gig G5 with 4 gigs of RAM and a 30" Cinema Display.

What about everyone else?

Because I'm around many different Macs, Apple's .Mac service has been a godsend. I can sync all the computers together and carry my bookmarks, address book, etc to any other Mac very easily. If you use a Mac, you should consider the .Mac service. If you'd like to sign up, let me know and I'll refer you, which will give me credit for next year.

HTML Bleg

Anybody with more html knowledge than I know how to change the color of my links in my template? I think they're kind of difficult to see, and I'd like them to be a nice soft blue or something. But if possible, I'd like to keep the sidebar links the same color that they currently have.

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I'm a published photographer!

I stumbled across this article which is about a project I've been documenting for the University of Kentucky for the last 2 years. I didn't realize it had been published. The professor in charge of the project is a good friend of mine, Dr. Brent Seales. So like a good friend, he stabbed me in the back, and used some of my photos from the trip without giving me photo credit. That's ok though. I'm glad to see the project getting some exposure, it's a very interesting and worthwhile subject. It's a short article, give it a read if you've got a couple of minutes. You can see the article as it was printed here.

You'll notice my wife Holly is in the pictures. This particular trip was May 2004, and it happened to coincide with our 5th wedding anniversary, so she came down for the week and we stayed a little longer than the rest of the team. It was a very wet week, but very sunny for our vacation portion. Anyway, I highly recommend Puerto Rico as a vacation destination. It's always around 80 degrees, the water is so incredibly blue, it's not nearly as dirty as some caribbean destinations, you can get by on english, and the currency and electricity is US. There's also a lot of culture and history, so you're not just limited to the beach, although the beaches are incredible, especially on the island of Culebra.

If you're still not convinced, here are some pictures I've taken on a few of my trips there.

When we go, we usually stay at the Caribe Hilton which has its own interesting history, not to mention the only private beach on the island, and is the birthplace of the Pina Colada.

Worship Education

My friend Erich has an interesting post dealing with attempts to instruct visiting worshipers at his church in the proper protocol of the procession (he's orthodox. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) It got me thinking about what I think is a glaring problem in our more contemporary worship, which is lack of training. At our church, if you want to join, you just walk up to the front during the altar call, profess your faith, get baptized (if you haven't already been), and you're a member. We do offer classes to learn more about the church, but they're not mandatory.

My business partner recently completed almost a year of classes to join the Catholic church. A full year. He learned about doctrine, history, church structure and polity, and came out the other side with the ability to know why he believes what he believes, as well as the proper place to hold his hands during the procession. Erich makes a good point, that it's too much to ask a visitor to know and conform to unwritten standards, but I think our protestant churches should require more of their members, keeping in mind that it is by grace that we are saved through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast.

My wife has joined the fun...

Of blogging that is. For those of you that know and love her, be sure to check out Holly's Place.

Saturday Evening Post

As part of my discipline to regularly update my blog, I decided I should post something today. Tonight I took my sweet wife out to dinner (for some mediocre italian) and then we went to get Starbucks at Barnes and Noble. It's actually been a very long time since we've been out on a date, due to the difficulty of getting away from the kids. We love our kids, but those of you without them yet, enjoy your ultimate freedom of going out easily on a whim. I know we took it for granted.

Bloglines. You should use it.

Seriously. You should use bloglines if you're not already. Bloglines is an RSS feed collector. It's very easy to configure and update. You basically create an account, then start adding the URL's of all the blogs you like to follow. Most people have RSS feeds already for their sites. You should take advantage of this powerful feature.

When I first discovered blogs, there were several I liked to read during the election season, and at least twice a day I would go down my bookmarks list and see what was new, because news came fast and furious. If I didn't keep up, it would take forever to read everything I wanted to. Bloglines eliminates that. I can just go to my bloglines page and see at a glance what has been posted since my last check. It's been a major time-saver, as well as has enabled me to keep up with friends that don't post regularly. After a couple of weeks of checking back with nothing new, you eventually stop checking back. Bloglines just lets me know. Also, bloglines is available from any browser, so no matter where I am (and I'm on several different computers throughout a day) I can keep up.

One more thing for Mac OS Tiger users out there. You can download the bloglines notifier widget that will show you on your dashboard how many new posts are on you bloglines account, so you don't even have to keep checking bloglines to see if anything new has posted.

If you need the URL, let me know.

Summer Fun for Abraham

Abraham LOVES the water. Here's a recent picture I took after a little game of "spray Abraham" went a little too far and became "soak Abraham". Click on photo for larger image.

Time to get a move on...

OK, I've got plenty of time to do this. I just have to make it. Blogging is easy. I really hate the word "blog" though. Perhaps that's why I'm hesitant to plunge in fully, and join the ever-growing group of "bloggers."

Question: "So do you have a blog?"
Answer: "Why, yes. Yes I do have a blog. I'm a blogger. I blog."

Blog. It's such an un-elegant word. It sounds more like a sound effect than anything else, like in the old Batman TV show, when they're fighting, "Whap! Zoppo! Blog!"

Oh well, the impetus for my new motivation to really try this is finding lots of blogs by many of my Asbury friends. A LOT of them are doing this, and doing it well, and I want to join the fun, keep everyone up to date on my great kids, what's going on in Texas. A lot of them live in the North East, and I think they might need an occasional dose of good old-fashioned Texas conservatism to keep perspective.

Anyway, I'll figure out how to get my blogroll updated with many of their sites, and you can keep up yourself, if you happen to be an Asbury alum.

So here we go. I'm going to dig in and figure out how to do this and get my page customized. In the meantime, before I start spewing...I mean enlightening the world with my wit and wisdom, I'll post some more pictures of my kids.

My Kids

Since I'm going to do some photoblogging on here, I thought I'd start with the best images I have, pictures of my sweet children.

Here's a recent picture of Rachel.



And here's one of Abraham at a recent Texas Rangers game.

New Experiment

I'm trying a new experiment in posting. It's been difficult for me to post because it's a bit of an ordeal to log on to my account and have slow response times, so I just don't post anything. I'm using a widget for Mac Tiger OS called DashBlog. http://dashblog.theonelab.com/ It uses a dashboard interface, so I just have to type in this nifty form that floats on my desktop, and BAM! I'm posting like a pro, baby!

I suppose I'll have to learn how to format my posts easily, because that's what makes the Blogger interface so nice, the ability to post links and other formatting issues. In the meantime, I love the simplicity that this interface provides. I think I'll hit the "post" button now.

Another one bites the dust...

This is a test. Like many people I know, I've avoided starting a blog. Frankly I don't know that I'll have time. I read several regularly, and people like Glenn Reynolds post several times a day. Also, there are so many people doing it, that I'm not sure that I'm adding a unique thought, but if nothing else, it'll be an outlet to organize my thoughts, which typically bounce around in my head, desperately seeking escape, but rarely finding one. Sometimes I don't really know that I like something until I tell someone that I do. There is something about giving voice to a thought that hardens it into a reality.

So I'll try to talk about things I like, specifically music and books, as well as my reaction to them. I'll also talk about current events a lot, since I'm a politics and news junkie. I'll talk about photography. I'll talk about my family and what I'm learning through parenthood about the nature of God, and I'll talk about my field, which happens to be media and marketing.

So maybe you'll find something of interest. I know I'm certainly interested in finding out what I think.