Geamy

Perspective

2011-04-13T12:36:00.003-04:00

Satisfaction of something whether material or otherwise is entirely dependent on one's perception and expectation. Someone can have something that is less than stellar in performance, but if they decide that they are satisfied with that performance they will be content. They can simultaneously have something that is perfect but choose to not be satisfied because of preconceived ideas of how it should be. Case in point: I met with a customer yesterday for whom we installed a door several months ago. He refused payment on the grounds that the door was not installed properly because the panels were not aligned the way he thought they should be. So, I agreed to meet him at the job site and adjust things as needed until he was satisfied enough to make the payment. I stood there with him looking at his list of complaints, and agreed to deal with every single one and proceeded to do so. The major issue was that the sections go in and out about a quarter of an inch over the height of the door; this is necessary for the rollers to be free in the track and roll easily. His perspective was that the panels were not aligned properly because they go in and out; his statement was "It is common sense that things work better when they are straight and aligned with each other." He failed to realize why it would work better as installed. But I adjusted it to his liking and the door works horribly. The performance of the door is greatly diminished because of his idea of how it should be installed. But, he decided that he liked it and handed me a check for his past due balance. Then he started telling me all the trouble he has been having building his new house. He's been at it two years and so far has a foundation, walls, roof, windows and doors-- just the shell of a house. He can't get anyone to come work for him because they will not meet his expectations. He told me how every single contractor he has hired has done a horrible job and he has to show them how it is done. I know at least three of the contractors he has fired, and they are three of the best in their respective fields in our county. This from a guy who has zero experience in construction. He can't get the electric company to bring power to the house because they will not do it his way (obviously they have specs to follow and a grid to worry about; I'm sure their engineers know more about sending electricity through long wires than he does). He is proverbially shooting himself in the foot by demanding things that are not practical, reasonable, feasible, or necessary. His house would have been done 18 months ago if he would just let the professionals do their job. An illustration: if a jug of milk in your fridge at home is not sitting square with the refrigerator shelf, is it true that the jug is crooked? Yes. Does the truth of that fact mean that something is wrong? No! Is it ok to be satisfied with a crooked milk jug in the fridge? With out hesitation... YES! It is most often easiest to not worry about small things, and trust the judgement of the people around you.

Random thoughts

2011-03-24T11:40:00.003-04:00

We have had what I hope is the last snow of the year; it came yesterday and again this morning. I usually enjoy winter, or at least don't mind the cold and inclement weather. Since I do the scheduling at work, and a snow day means that everything will need to be rescheduled, those days are usually not fun but other than that inconvenience I enjoy the winter season for the most part. This year, however, I am ready for warmer air. We've had an unusually long snowy and cold winter for PA and I am a creature of change-- I don't like things staying the same for very long; the warmth of spring will be most welcome.

One thing I have accomplished this winter is converting the Monte to stick shift. The automatic trans has been in the car since 1999 and was needing some attention. Rather than spend the money of rebuilding that I decided to convert it to stick shift. What tends to happen with an automatic when a car sits a lot is that the valves and things will get sticky and hang up, and the trans will not work properly; my theory is that with a stick shift it can sit for any amount of time and work just fine. (That, and stick shift is more fun. In the words of my good friend Doug, it is a good thing to get rid of the girl-o-matic and put a man-pedal in the car.) As a side note, in the process what I have enjoyed almost more than actually working on the car is the way I funded the project. Instead of just outright buying something the cars needed, I set a goal and did work on the side to make it possible. The money for the new transmission and related parts was funded almost entirely from dumpster diving-- if I see something good in the dumpster at work, I will drag it home, post an ad on Craigslist, and wait for the phone to ring. It has worked out quite well and not just financially-- instead of just deciding I want something and buying it using our regular funds, it is very rewarding to set a goal, start at zero, and over time work my way up to that goal. Knowing that I'm doing my part to keep the landfill smaller and reduce my carbon footprint is rewarding as well. The accomplishment is now more fun than using the finished product.

Everyone says the older they get, the more they see themselves doing things just like their dad. I've said that in the past too, but now it's to the point that I find myself trying to see how much I can be like Pop. Hey, it worked for him. Some afternoon stop by the shop-- you might just find two pairs of legs soles-up above the sides of the dumpsters with a Stauffer on the other end.

The buffet table that I started last winter for Amy was finished the end of January, just in time for the Super Bowl party. It is serving us well and keeps the coffee pot and desserts well above the floor. It turned out ok for a first piece but I can't say that I am proud of it; the level of craftmanship is far from where I would like it to be.

Amy started a new blog and website for her artwork. It can be found at www.amystauffer.com She is becoming more and more talented all the time, and I am quite proud of her work. She started working with a new medium and the results are very impressive. When she began creating more works with a goal of producing income in addition to her regular job, I agreed to start doing more things around the house, mainly making meals for us. I have always had a fear of what goes on in the kitchen, i.e., I perceived it as some mysterious, elusive craft which was not to be attempted by mechanical types such as myself. Thanks to Amy's patient encouragement I have discovered it is not such a difficult thing; with a little bit of know-how and some good tools, a quality meal can be put together without too much trouble. In that respect it is just like hanging a door or doing a brake job. A few weeks ago a group of my friends and I went to a cabin for the weekend; I cooked all the food and actually enjoyed myself quite a bit doing it.

Right now our small group is studying James, and they elected me as the discussion leader one Sunday when we could not be there to defend ourselves. I picked up a few commentaries and have been studying it in depth. James has got to be one of the most practical book in the NT.

To assist in Amy's artwork she decided to get a good camera. We snagged a good deal off eBay on a Canon 40D with virtually no use. I find it very complicated to use while Amy is on it like syrup on pancakes.

Lots of big things happening this year. We have several weddings of close family and friends, there is family day which looks to be a good time once again, and we are hoping to take a trip to the western US mid-August. We'll see how that works out.

Of Life & Poetry

2011-01-23T19:42:00.002-05:00

This is a bit of a rant, bear with me if you will.

Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. The horror of the legalized murder of defenseless human babies disgusts me, and there are other matters of life and death within our society that the evangelical church as a whole turns a blind eye towards and in some cases endorses, much like the slavery issue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These issues tend to float to the top of my consciousness on SOHLS.

How can a person at once vehemently condemn abortion and anyone who endorses the practice or has participated in the procedure, and almost in the same breath have an enthusiastic opinion on why the death penalty is necessary, good, right, even biblical? It does not work out logically in any way. If God is responsible for life and death, who are we to decide in what cases we will take it upon ourselves to make the decision?

This brings me to another thing: How can I endorse something if I'm not willing to carry it out myself? If I am willing to endorse the death penalty, I must be willing to pull the trigger, make the lethal injection, pull the lever on the gas chamber. I could not do that, therefore I should not endorse the death penalty.

With that in mind, I feel it is imperative for God's people to become more active in providing a way of escape for pregnant women who do not want their baby. Too often we want to condemn abortion without offering alternatives. If we believe that human life is sacred, then why isn't enough done to preserve it? We simply condemn those who want to end life, at least in the cases we choose. Anyone willing to condemn abortion must be willing to adopt the baby of a woman considering having an abortion, or they have no right to condemn the woman who must choose.

I woke this morning with shards of this floating in my head; I jotted it down and filled in the blanks before breakfast.

It's presence made her laugh and cry

Although she did not try

Inside her it began to stir

Although it clearly was not part of her

She did not want to make the choice

It soon would have a voice

Of all she knew, one thing for sure

Alone, it clearly was not part of her

Needing help, needing some reason

It was just a season

She stumbled up the steps into

A church, it would know what to do

Her presence made them laugh and cry

In scorn and pity sigh

To God's bride it did not occur

She clearly was not part of her

She told them what her choices were

Then they began to stir

The child inside, though still alive,

Inside a shell would always hide

They told her, "It's your lot to bear,

Duty we will not share"

Love of life they all would claim

But greater still their love of shame

She clearly was not part of them

The church was not her friend

It made her cry, she made it die

She had her reasons why

She clearly was not part of them-

Casting stones this sure did show!

She wanted life, they gave her strife

Not help, not love, not soul, not life.

Romance, Life, and Accomplishment

2010-08-19T11:07:00.004-04:00

He was a war veteran, and had the prosthetic to prove it. He made a donation of one leg, probably in the vicinity of Korea, in the name of preserving the American way of life. Forty years ago he and his lovely wife moved into a new house, fully intending to live out the rest of their allotted days; last week that dream was realized.

Thirty-six years after he and his wife moved into their new house, they got some new neighbors who were and still are filled with a romantic fervor regarding life and accomplishment. We didn't get to know him as well as we should have, or as much as he deserved. Our first interaction with him occurred on the road, actually; he was on I-78 in the slow lane, holding it at a steady 50 mph. We of course with our youthful enthusiasm blew past him in the left lane well over the speed limit, commenting how dangerous it was for someone to be driving that slow on a busy 4-lane highway. Irony is lost on an enthusiastic youth. Minutes after pulling into our driveway, he pulled into his. We hid behind our doors, hoping he had not recognized us. We certainly had not recognized him as our neighbor until then; we sure are the friendly sort. Several weeks later I meekly followed him at a safe distance along our little back road at a steady fifteen miles per hour. For miles. And more miles.

One day lost in thought and mowing the lawn, he startled me quite a bit when I chugged around the corner of the house and there he was, leaning on his geriatric cane and smiling. He introduced himself to me, and asked for a bit of help with something at his house. We talked for a bit, and he struck me as a very polite elderly gentleman. It was the day before Mother's Day, and he was the first person in my whole life to wish me, a childless male, a happy mother's day. I protested that wish with "But, I'm not a mother!" He adjusted my thinking a bit by responding "Does that mean you can't have a good day on mother's day?" We shared a good laugh, and then he told me how he lost his wife just months earlier. They had been married for many decades, and I could tell he missed her dearly.

They had a son who struck out on his own; the last contact they had with him was 20 years ago. At that time he was living in California. He never visited, even when his mother passed. This man was very alone. Our local police sergeant told me that his cell phone rang at least once a month with a report of suspicious activity in the neighborhood; none was ever found. The policeman believed he was called out simply so there was someone to talk to.

We invited him to our house for Thanksgiving dinner the other year; he politely declined, stating he had a prior engagement at the Heidelburg Restaurant. I saw his car parked there many evenings. I knocked on his door several times just to say hello, and he was always very friendly and loved to talk. His door didn't meet my knuckles nearly often enough. Once when discussing some of the latest happenings he told us of a local, extremely colorful weekly newspaper which he deemed as the best source of news and events. He tucked a copy of that newspaper in our door every week for some time. I'm going to miss that little reminder that he thought of us.

Another neighbor mowed this man's lawn every two weeks, necessary or not. On schedule for this past Saturday, he showed up to do just that. The doors to the house were locked and no one answered repeated knocks. The fire department came out and broke down the door for the medics who found his body in his forty year old house, where he had lived out the rest of his days according to plan. The authorities are searching for next of kin.

2010-03-12T13:04:00.002-05:00

The winter woodworking experiment is working out nicely. Every Monday night I run from my desk, jump in my truck, and eat a Lebanon bologna sandwich and an apple on the road in order to make it to Reading at the appointed time. Old men talk about how fun a good busy retirement is, middle-aged men bend wood with steam and muscle and imagination, and strong-willed women overachieve with warped cedar and a patient instructor. It is a fine thing to inhale the scent of freshly milled lumber and the sound of a spinning lathe.

These are to be the end panels. There will be pieces very similar to this which will serve as the doors.

Camera-phone pix of the wood shop at Goggleworks and assorted personalities.

2010-02-25T19:10:00.004-05:00

There have been a lot of changes since I updated last, namely the completion of the grisaille. I made a significant adjustment to the curvature on the right side of the pitcher after another artist pointed out the lack of symmetry. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I hadn't noticed the error myself; now that it's been pointed out to me it seems extremely obvious. Working from life is far more challenging than working from a photo for reference; translating the 3-D environment before me onto a 2-D surface while trying to produce the illusion of 3-D is far more harrowing that I previously assumed. That process is entirely new to me since with the photographic references I'm accusted to most of that work has already been done by the camera lens. At this point, I'm fairly comfortable with form with the exception of a few folds of fabric and the pitcher's spout, with which I'm not yet quite satisfied. I've started layering in color, thinly at first such that the grey actually shows through in some areas, and I'll continue this step until the entire canvas has at least one layer of color.

Pitcher with Grapes - Still Life

2010-02-20T12:22:00.005-05:00

I thought I'd share a WIP here rather than Facebook. I'll probably only post completed images to Facebook from now on and share works in progress here. Some of you may notice that my technique, subject, style, or all of the above may change from one piece to the next. The source for behavior is not undiagnosed bi-polar but rather my utter lack of professional training. There about as many varied techniques for producing a peice of art as there are artists doing the painting and I'm trying to explore the vast range of options to find what works best for my temperment and hand. I have an appreciation for multiple styles from painterly alla prima, to classical realism, and even photorealism. And within those styles, I'm attracted to many subjects, from wildlife, to portraiture, and my newfound appreciation for still life. It may all seem vastly schizophrenic for me to be rendering each hair on a tiger one moment and then producing a painterly still life the next, but I assure you there is a method to this madness. Eventually I hope to settle upon a technique which works best for me and begin focusing on that.

For this piece I am loosely following what is known as the Flemish Technique, an Old Master style that employed multiple layers which helped those artists achieve such masterful control of light and color. This is the first time I'm actually painting from life and I've already grown to appreciate why so many "purists" advocate working only from life. Modeling form and value is so much easier when I'm viewing the subject through my own eyes rather than the mechanical lens of a camera. What you see here encompasses three steps. The first step was a fairly detailed pencil drawing of my composition on the canvas which has now been fully covered. Second was the imprematura which is the brown tone that you see. The canvas is covered with thinned paint and the lights are wiped out with a rag and the darks are accentuated with more paint. Once the imprematura is dry the third step is the grisaille and is basically a value study of the completed piece. In this step form is modeled and is most important for creating the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. Some artists will complete a grisaille in multiple layers; here I will use only one. Once completed it will resemble a completed painting in monochrome. After I am finished with the grisaille, I'll start layering on thin glazes of color to start giving life to the piece. The technique also traditionally includes a "dead layer" which I still have not yet managed to fully understand, and depending upon who you talk to, rubbing a dried onion accross the surface between each stage, but for the sake of retaining my sanity, I will not be completing those steps.

It's fairly small, only 9X12 so the tiny grapes were giving me a headache by the time I set down my brushes. This represents probably about three hours of work not including the thumbnail sketches I did before working on the canvas. That is far more time than an experienced artist would have invested in this already. I'm still not very efficient so the actual process takes painfully long for me.

The latest

2010-01-19T21:05:00.003-05:00

The lack of updates has not been due to a lack of activity... but perhaps a combination of Facebook updates and lack of blogtastic inspiration. We've been busy with a number of things, most notably getting more involved with our church. In addition to being asked to lead worship Sunday mornings every four weeks (three other men and I share the responsibility), Amy and I were asked to teach an equipping class. Our church has a concept of "Win, Build, Equip, Send" for growing the body; the goal of Sunday school (aka Equipping Classes) is to build and equip so that we become missionaries not in the classical sense but in the workplace and neighborhood. For a time last fall enthusiasm was at a bit of a low for us; one Sunday we attended Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan to experience worship with intelligence before going to see The Milkmaid. What we heard from the mouth of Tim Keller was "we need to as a church win people to Christ, build them as believers, and equip them with the tools they need to be sent into New York to repeat the cycle." We came away from the service with an appreciation for our country bumpkin Evangelical Free church and our pastor who is evidently 5 years ahead of the leader of the most intelligent church on the east coast. We don't have small groups for post-docs and artists and executives, and that's ok. We do have classes for engaged couples and on world religions and in Galatians and that's ok too. Our goal for the class we are teaching is to explain how that just as a successful marriage is so much more than just sticking it out until death because that is the vow, a successful life in Christ is so much more than just forgiveness of indiscretion because that is the Promise. It is a beautiful thing.

This past fall the Piker within roamed freely and with little hesitation decided that bookcases are too expensive. Instead the #2 pine from and Amish-made shipping crate transformed itself into a proper bookcase and surprised us both. Now I've received requests from a particularly enthusiastic fan who would like a few more things of that nature. An end-grain cutting board made an appearance in the kitchen, and a maple buffet table is on the way and set to debut in the late spring.

This is about the way it should look. Very likely in the spring I'll be more humble about it...

But for the winter we are holed up reading marriage philosophy and freeing ourselves from the bondage of chasing fulfillment and learning the freedom of servanthood, and while she paints an accurate sand piper beach scene with her hands upstairs I smash and cut mine in the basement with power saws and spinning knives. The general appreciation for hand tools and the safety and lack of dust that comes with them is growing within our household.

Woolly Bear Afternoon

2009-11-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

I made a new friend today...

It's not particularly easy to convince a caterpillar to pose to have his portrait taken. My subject spent about five minutes in defense posture before concluding I wasn't planning to eat him, and then another five minutes warming up enough to move. I then took this photo of a woolly bear's eye view of the world; thorax raised in defiance of the vast distances between he and...I don't know what. He's currently inspecting the area around my trashcan quite thoroughly, perhaps in search of a place to over winter.

For those of you who may be wondering, the woolly bear is actually the larval stage of the Isabella Tiger Moth. They over-winter by producing a biological antifreeze in their tissue. So when you find one in your garden mid-December, don't throw the carcass away assuming the sorry thing couldn't cocoon in time for frost, he's just cryogenically frozen. In summer, he will look like this, provided my blue birds don't get to him first.

Sorry for a post of such utter nonsense.

Wow

2009-10-19T18:17:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure what to make of this... thoughts, anyone? Shoot me an email.
a-gbody@hotmail.com

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091019/opledereligion194.art.htm

2009-09-28T18:11:00.002-04:00

Exploring

2009-09-21T19:52:00.004-04:00

We rode along Front Street in Harrisburg yesterday afternoon. Perfect weather.

The gravestone of Mr. Harris, the founder of Harrisburg.

This waterflow looked a lot like the underside of a blue whale.

This very to-the-point sentence was at the Holocaust Memorial along Front Street.

Amy exploring her talent.

White & Black

2009-09-05T22:29:00.005-04:00

A Zebra's Stripes

I'm gonna keep this pretty quick because it's far too late for me to be doing this, but this is my most recent creation. White Charcoal on black Mi-Tientes. I wanted the effect of the black stripes blending seemlessly with the black of the paper and I think it works well. The zebra is such an enigma to me; that such an outrageous outfit could serve it well.

The Splendor of the King

2009-08-17T20:38:00.004-04:00

Source: Hubblesite.org

This is an optical image of the Eagle Nebula, located in the constellation Serpens, photo courtesy of NASA taken by the Hubble space telescope. Pictured here is a region of the nebula where gases coalesce into greater masses until the increasing force of their mutual gravitation cause them to ignite in sustained nuclear fusion, a.k.a. a nursery for stars. The light being emitted from the gases is the result of ionization (the process of electrons being separated from their respective nulcei thus producing light) caused by the energy released from nearby stars. Off the picture to the upper right is a bank of young stars whose activity is slowing eroding away the pillar in the photo.

According to NASA, this particular nebula is 6500 light years distant or just over 38 quadrillion miles away from Earth. The section pictured here does not even compromise the entirety of the Eagle Nebula, yet this small piece is nearly 57 trillion miles from top to bottom.

Current estimates place our galaxy as one among 10 billion others, each containing at least as many as 10 billion stars, making our sun one of possibly over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe.

"When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?"

Oh, how little that the psalmist actually knew. Now that we have the technology allowing us the capability to see this far into the depths of space at greater wonders than that ancient writer could have possibly dreamed, do we still allow ourselves the same awe, or have we grown up too much? I personally think I use that simple word too easily in my daily vernacular. To study its meaning shows me how easily I fail to practice it. Let us stop for a moment in the midst of our otherwise tremendously important activities and remember that as only one among billions on a world that could be one among quintillions, the Lord your God is mindful of you. As Christians blessed with the personal experience of the sacrifice and grace of Christ, I think we tend to view the Creation as a direct benefit to ourselves and fail to recognize how truly insignificant we are. It is by the grace of Elohim, Creator God alone that we have breath, and it is this same Creator who is this very moment directing the birth of stars in the deep fields of space far beyond our wildest imaginations.

For more info about the nebula in the picture above and other awesome photos taken by Hubble check out these links.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2005/12/image/b/

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

La clase espanol

2009-08-05T22:11:00.003-04:00

Yes, it is true. We have begun classes every Wednesday night with the end goal of speaking and writing spanish fluently. Tonight was our third class. Our profesor assures us that within six months we will be capable of communicating effectively. He is a recent Venezualian immigrant who was a college professor in his home country. He now lives here in Pennsylvania with his children and studies and tutors privately. So far, so good: we have learned a number of words and phrases, and this week our assignment is to learn to count from 0-100. Es muy bien.

Violation

2009-08-02T17:24:00.002-04:00

Our house was broken into Friday while we were both at work. I came home to find the back door unlocked but kicked in anyway, and all the drawers and doors inside the house wide open and everything rifled through. Not much was missing, just a few hundred dollars worth of stuff and my sense of security.

Leslie Zimmerman told me at church that I need to go through a "grieving" process: shock, anger, guilt, sorrow, then finally peace. I'm definitely still in the anger stage; I want to hurt the person who did it. But deep inside logic says that wouldn't help myself or the bum who done it. Amy reprimanded me for my lust for revenge, and I feel like a little boy who just got picked on and wants to kick the bully in the shin but the teacher wipes my tears and makes me stay in my chair until I get over it. And I remember Darrin's black shirt that says in bold white letters "An eye for an eye leaves both blind."

Pop

2009-07-16T21:55:00.004-04:00

It is rather fortunate that I am one of a small number of American sons who gets to work with his father. Not that it’s a rare thing, but uncommon enough. The days of growing up on the family farm and gradually growing into a role of running a farm with/for Dad are long gone for the vast majority of Americans thanks to advancements in technology and general hugeness of farm equipment; many kids simply know what their dad does at his job, but not how he does it. They see Dad in the morning and evening perhaps, but don't interact with him through the frustrations and joys, problems and accomplishments of the day's general tasks. But lamenting the fact of time lost with Dad would not make any family unit stronger.

Going along with Pop to work as a kid exposed me in a small way to the business. I wasn't much help except for background noise, and my short skinny 11 year old body couldn't do much more than sort the hardware, put the tracks together, run the drillers in with the impact, then clean up the trash and pack my pouch, impact, and extension cord into my toolbox- a WD cardboard box. At the time I hated it: I had glamorous dreams of being a brain surgeon thanks to a Reader's Digest article that I read and re-read. Working with Pop was more than a few notches beneath my level of dignity and high volume of peach fuzz. My hopes of being a surgeon were dashed when my hands proved unsteady in an 8th grade motor skills test. I did however learn how to wrap an extension cord quicker than anyone's business; it’s a talent I'm quite proud of to this day.

High school and jobs came and went. Frustrated at the lack of doing something I liked, Mom convinced me to go work with Pop. Originally the plan was to work there temporarily until I found something I liked; I soon found that I liked working there. This fall will be 9 years.

I like my job overall; I get to interact closely with dozens of people daily and thousands annually. My favorite person to interact with at work by any measure is Pop. I have to confess that in the early years of working there it wasn't something I saw as special; it was just something that was. I would see Pop in the morning at home, maybe on the dock for a few minutes at the shop, but then not until evening at home again. Now that I spend my days at the shop all day, I get to see Pop most of every day. The more time that we are blessed with together helps me realize how much I love the man, and how much he has taught me seldom with words or even discipline, but with his often quiet example. He has set me straight in some pretty big choices in life just with a half dozen carefully placed words and a look or two. Working by the piece taught me to work, but watching Pop taught me to live.

Pedaling

2009-07-12T21:50:00.003-04:00

We are happy to report that we have faithfully been getting our share of exercise on our bikes. We drive our bikes in the trunk of our car to Blue Marsh and ride into Reading. Round trip is about 14 miles. Hardcore bikers we are not; there is no spandex involved, and if there are any creatures along the trail we stop to inspect them and offer any assistance. Today we helped a toad with an injury to a rear leg and a bat which seemed to be lost. It was struggling on the floor of a covered bridge making pathetic little squeaks, so it was helped onto a beam of the bridge where it could groggily crawl back to its place with its buddies making sqeaks that I suspect were bat snores and sleep until dusk. People sometimes fall out of bed in their sleep; perhaps this bat fell off its beam while having a bad dream.

The Spider's Cosmos

2009-07-01T13:52:00.030-04:00

I was stopped this morning by the sight of a funnel spider's web. I thought "isn't it neat how the web resembles depictions I've seen of the theory of general relativity" Is it merely a great way for the spider to catch itself a meal, or the fabric of space-time on a tiny scale? Who is to say? But I digress. I was struck by the simple beauty intrinsic in the spider's web and so I spent the next hour wandering around our property in the mist taking pictures of other examples of arachnid architecture. And struggling to make our point and shoot camera focus where I wanted it to.

A person does not need to know me for long before they learn that I have an unusual appreciation for the insect world. I usually attribute this to the fact that I am equally fascinated by all life, but insects are far more accessible than a bird or a leopard. However I think that might be incorrect. I've concluded the real source of the appeal for me is that life should exist on such a tiny scale. This is a world where skyscrapers are built from shafts of wheat, the leaves of trees are separated by an unfathomable distance, and a human is a frighteningly large ogre. Lit only by moonlight, the world's spiders methodically create spinning wonders of gossamer stronger than steel. Taking literal leaps of faith on the end of their lifeline of silk, the very smallest throw themselves to the wind seeking an anchor for their webs. They can neither see where they will land nor comprehend the geometric beauty of their final creations; they do this simply because instinct dictates they must. I suppose a wonderful allegory for life could be drawn from that statement, but I will leave that for another time.

The affairs of men are of little import to the spider as it waits patiently for a meal, yet we squash them at every opportunity and create a toxic soup of chemicals to rid them from our homes. Little do we consider how intimately we depend upon even the smallest of creatures. If mankind were to obliterate itself tomorrow the world would gradually revert to the state it enjoyed ten thousand years ago. If spiders and the rest of the phylum of animals they represent vanished the damage to the balance of our planet's delicate ecology would be irreparable. So maybe the next time you raise your hand to squash a spider or another of the one million members of its kin, you'll wonder that we should owe a debt of gratitude to something so small and allow it to continue its work in peace.

And then we came home

2009-06-14T21:18:00.004-04:00

Last Saturday afternoon (June 6) we flew south to the DR. A group of locals who go by This Little Light Mininstries organizes two trips a year to support a school for poor kids in a town by the name of Punta de Garza. In a nutshell the school is run tuition-free by a local medical doctor and his wife. They have preschool up to 8th grade. They also have a recently installed water system which provides safe drinking water at a low cost. The good doctor provides a bit medical care for the kids and the adults in the community as possible. Most if not all of the support comes from various organizations in the States; feel free to get involved, as the last few months' support has not been sufficient due to the alleged difficult financial times in the US.

During our time at the school, we did a few odd maintenance jobs, spent a large amount of time with the kids playing games and doing crafts and skits, hauled a bunch of food and a morsel of spiritual nourishment to a Haitian migrant worker camp, and took the director shopping for some school supplies.

On Friday we had the fortunate experience to witness a group of fantastically wealthy businessmen from the US and Japan stop by the school. If my facts are correct, they are from a world-wide multi-level marketing outfit and have made truckloads of money selling some manner of nutritional drink, and now use their time and resources spreading their wealth around the world a bit. One of the men in the group asked where we are from; when told "Pennsylvania" he responded, "Oh, that's where my golf course is. Uhhh... can't remember the name of the town right now." We were all very impressed by his obvious wealth. Later on, when shown the benefits a vo-tech center would provide to the community, he committed to providing the funds necessary to build such a center. The group as a whole provided the school with backpacks and the funds necessary to fill those backpacks with the textbooks for the upcoming school year.

The doctor told us of much witchcraft and demon posession which the center is battling with a measure of sucess thanks to a certain teacher who is able to by the power of Jesus release kids from the control of those voodoo spirits and free them to turn their souls over to the powers of the Gospel. He told us of a pair of 14 year old girls who decided their way out of poverty was to run away from home and live with their adult boyfriends. Amy became attached to some sisters whose father was murdered a year ago; they wanted to know if they could call me Padre and if we would be willing to stay. The doctor's son informed me that in the entire school of 150 kids, there are only three families with both the father and mother intact. Many kids live with an aunt or older sibling, and many more kids only have their mother. Please pray for these families in this community.

This blog post could go on for some length, but suffice it to say that the school/center is a place of much potential. The grade school is only a part of what could be accomplished, if only enough people could come along side with the resources necessary to make it happen. It looks like the Vo-Tech center to teach trades varying from plumbing and electrical and welding to sewing and cooking will happen, but there is more that the doctor dreams of. He would like to expand the school to all twelve grades, and on a vacant lot across the muddy pot-holed street the goal is a small hospital where teams could come for a week or two and perform light medical care for the entire community. My only concern is that the buildings will get built with no monthly support for the expenses necessary to sustain such a complex. We had originally planned to pour concrete this week, but the doctor made it known that he was running low on funds, so we poured the money into his hands instead. He will put it to better use than a fresh section of concrete would ever do. Its easy to say, "Oh, we'll come down and build this building or paint that one for you" and enjoy the experience and fulfillment of doing something; the need I sense in this ministry is simply pure cashola. There's no lack of labor or knowledge of what the needs are; the place is run by the guys in the middle of all of it.

2009-05-27T20:47:00.009-04:00

Although the following is somewhat outdated, much of it still remains contemporary to the debates of today. So, I can't help but wonder, what is your opinion on the matter... To what extent can mainstream (and I emphasize mainstream) science contribute to a Christian worldview, or is it simply foolish to think that it may? Should Christians ignore or more commonly, attempt to deride the validity of current research that seems to contradict traditional views, or can it be used to create a more thoughtful view of what it means to be human?

The Lowest Common Denominator

Reading current headlines one would think that religion and science are locked in the midst of a clash of wills, and that one will inevitably fall. Though the two traditionally focus on very different aspects of the human experience, and should be viewed as separate schools of thought, each have begun encroaching upon the other’s territory. It is increasingly common in the academic community that one cannot be a scientist and a theologian without becoming lost within the dissonance of ideals. There is widespread acceptance that the two cannot be reconciled, with genetics and evolutionary psychology meeting traditional Christian anthropology at the forefront of the divide. Science, its nature being rational and objective, demands that evidence come with measurable validity and a sure degree of falsification. Religion on the other hand, is considered subjective and personal, allegedly emphasizing blind faith to accept its precepts. Those who seek intellectual and spiritual truth that may coalesce are left unsatisfied; truth cannot contradict truth.

While much of this conflict seems to have originated with the ideas of Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 raised increased speculation regarding the future of scientific study into humanity. With our entire genetic endowment as a species open for interpretation and study, incredible advances in genetics and medicine loom just over the horizon. Geneticists are carefully mulling over DNA sequences to systematically find the heritable basis for some of humanity’s most debilitating diseases, from breast cancer to Alzheimer’s. Slowly, systematically, the genome is surrendering its secrets of human biology at the hands of scientific inquiry.

However, the excitement of these discoveries is hampered by a darker and more controversial pursuit of truth. Though once not highly respected, sociologists and psychologists are beginning to integrate genetic and evolutionary theories into their research, and effectively distance themselves from the intellectual stigma of being the “soft sciences”. With the help of the Human Genome Project it is possible, even quite likely that “psychiatry and psychology will be revolutionized” (Wade, 2001). On nearly a daily basis, new announcements are made regarding the genetics of behavior. Thus far, there are recorded findings of genes for proclivities to violence, spirituality, and adultery. A study completed in 1993 seemed to establish a correlation between a specific gene marker and a predisposition to violence within a single extended family (Peters, 2003). Twin studies comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins, also suggest that genes are the proximal cause behind much of our behavior. Meanwhile, a culture war rages over the nature of human sexuality, as the homosexual community hopes a positive correlation to genetics would foster acceptance of their lifestyle.

The rapid rise of sociobiology has shifted focus towards the adaptive value of many of our behaviors, specifically those once considered exclusive of the human soul. By asking questions deeply framed within evolutionary thought, scientists are developing a largely deterministic view of human nature. According to Richard Dawkins, whose book The Selfish Gene earned him a reputation as “Darwin’s Rottweiler”, living organisms are merely temporary vectors, or “survival machines” for the replication of immortal DNA, our purpose being nothing more than to ensure its transmission and survival. Echoing many of his ideas, a recent Time article proudly defends the hypothesis that our social institutions of marriage and family are products of our genetic heritage, bequeathed us by ancestors who successfully manipulated their mates. Women manipulate men for resources and men manipulate women for sex. In short, the most selfish propagate a greater genetic investment in the future.

Even more problematic, is the scientific scrutiny that has recently befallen human convictions regarding the existence of God. Some have suggested the existence of a “spirituality gene” may be entirely responsible for our sense of transcendence. The faithful interpret this universal calling of God on the human soul as indisputable proof of His existence. The evolutionary psychologist would identify the same as evidence of the adaptive qualities of such a belief. “Anticipation of our own demise is the price we pay for a highly developed frontal lobe. In many ways [a God experience] is a brilliant adaptation. It’s a built in pacifier” . The theory is reminiscent to the ideas of Fredric Nietzsche, for whom God was nothing more than the “opiate of the masses”. All thought regarding the meaning of life before the onset of Darwinism is considered futile pursuits of fancy. Theistic beliefs remain attractive and atheism so repugnant allegedly because we evolved to believe in gods, not science, a trait defining us as an infantile species.

Even as neuroscience probes into the enigma of the mind, it threatens to expose us as machines of genetically and environmentally determined behavior. There is a recent trend towards the belief that our personalities and even our daily moral choices may be the result of genetic preprogramming. Although there is still weight given to the contribution of environmental influences to our behavior, it is only under the illusion that environment is somehow less determining than genes. It could be seen that our individual humanity is nothing more than a complex dance between the genome and the environment in which it is expressed. Additionally, few higher order behaviors have not been parsed into their neurocognitve correlates. The belief that humans are beings whose minds can be exhaustively determined by the expression of DNA and abide by the laws of chemistry and biology abounds within these fields. The brain is being identified as the organ of the mind, and its products: behavior, thought, and the emotions of the soul, however complex, exist with the supreme purpose of passing genes onto the next generation.

These assumptions erode at the traditional model of human nature. Cartesian Dualism, the belief that man is a corporal body imbued with an immaterial soul came under increased attack in the late twentieth century. Indeed, any move towards a reductionist model of humanity seems to revoke from us our very souls. Some fields of science might lead one to believe that our free will and our status as decisive, autonomous entities, is simply an illusion. According to Francis Crick, co-discover of the helical structure of DNA, “your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identify and freewill, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”. We are given only one comforting thought: that as long mysteries of the mind exist that have not yet surrendered themselves to science; we can continue to believe in our own free will. Otherwise, we would become trapped in a web of fatalism, our minds doomed to decay. However, when seen in the light of recent progress, what is currently unknown to science is unlikely to remain so for long.

How should Christian anthropology respond to these intellectual developments? The painful progression of science into the ontological and ethical realms of religion has produced what has come to be known as “the God of the gaps”, a hardly omnipotent being left to explain what science has not yet conquered. Are we to allow ourselves to be intellectually reduced to the lowest common denominator of all species, the genome, and our common biology? Or must we retreat into a doctrinal corner, impugning science with the proverbial slap on the wrist when it seems to go too far. Neither of these should be our natural response, instead, our goal should be to reconcile the disciplines towards a unified whole.

Should we lose our souls to science, we lose our irreducible worth as humans. It is only in the human soul that we may be separated from the rest of creation. Only into man did God breathe the breath of life. It is through our souls that we may relate to God as spiritual beings created in His image, and this is what lives on after physical death. Should our existence be limited to our physical composition, the implications to society could be severe. It is not the place of scientists to make claims regarding the existence of a human soul; yet, this is what so many have done. One cannot test for a soul or spirit any more than one can test for the very existence of God. These things are well beyond the scope of science, and when an individual, however impressive his credentials insists otherwise, he steps beyonds the bounds of his discipline. In the words of Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, “the human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is, or what love is”. Science may say that the brain is the organ of the mind, but we are aware that our consciousness and our physical existence are separate things. This may be because the brain did not evolve to understand itself, only to survive, or it may be that something is within us that we understand as an immaterial soul.

The Bible is clear in its understanding of the dualistic nature of mankind. For example, when Jesus was on the cross, he told the thief being crucified next to him that he would be with Him immediately after his death and before the final resurrection of his body (Luke 23:43). Jesus described the body and soul as being separate entities when he said, “Do no be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). The Apostle Paul said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 2:6).

Closely connected with the soul is the concept of free will. Free will, understood as the human ability to make choices that are unconstrained by external influences or other determining agent, is under threat. The sinister danger imposed by reductionism is the idea that human identity may become defined by the genome and individuals may surrender to natural tendencies to sin, conveniently assuming that what is natural is good. Determinism taken to its extreme could see morality break down as people are reduced to the sum of their parts, responsible to no one except their own selfish instinctual desires. This acceptance of the explanation for deviant behavior could pose incredible strain on the judiciary system, as thousands of guilty parties plead the claim that “my genes made me do it.” It could also lead to acceptance of a new breed of eugenics, which would rationalize an individual’s future contribution to society based upon their genetic profile. At the heart of the issue, is a challenge to our relationship to God as creatures made in His image, capable of morale and reason. A worldview where our behavior is hardwired into our genes cannot be compatible with individual accountability and our very understanding of good and evil.

Empirically, many of the gene-behavior causation claims are out of proportion to their scientific validity. The media, in its need to find sensational material that sells, often advocates outlandish claims before they have been conferred any credibility by the scientific community. Similarly, Journals and scientists often publish studies before they have been systematically validated in order to draw attention to the work. The result is an abundance of studies that lack consistency and replication. For many of the identified behavior genes, the correlation is so minuscule as to render the findings dubious at best.

However, it is still true that each of us bears a natural inclination to sin; the moral life is not something that seems to come naturally. This is true even for the greatest men of faith, including a great purveyor of Christianity to the ancient world, the Apostle Paul, who shared in this struggle nearly two thousand years ago. In his letter to the Romans, Paul mourns his evil human nature. From the NIV, Romans 7:15,18-24

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do….I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

In this passage, Paul is describing an innate propensity to sin, one he describes as being part of his nature. He is referring to what is known by Christians as original sin, a spiritual condition of disobedience towards God consigned to humanity since the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. What is experienced is a dichotomy between the mind, or the will, and the body or our physical nature.

Could it be possible that basis for the inner struggle Paul is experiencing is what geneticists are discovering in our genetic blueprints? It falls neatly in line with a biblical understanding of the fallen nature of man, and so is it any different than the traditional assumption that we are born into sin. Thus, acceptance of a genetic foundation for the human will to sin need not constitute advocating determinism. An individual with a particular disposition to sin may be more vulnerable to a temptation, but these weaknesses do not remove our responsibility to make proper moral judgments. It simply exposes the source of our orientation towards evil and why we are so easily tempted. Rather than promote a sense of determinism, this knowledge should empower us, as we now have a clearer understanding of the battle that lies between what is perceived as the soul and the sinful inheritance of our bodies.

Rather than being machines, we retain our identities, as moral creatures made in the image of God, who holds us accountable for our actions; our burden of proof is heavy with the consequences of our sin. Like the Apostle Paul, we lament our own insufficiency, over which we have so little control. However, in the same passage of Romans, Paul reminds us that “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set [us] free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). There is no need to be slaves to our sinful nature. Through the grace of God and the sacrifice of His Son, we have been empowered to overcome our nature. Though we may continue to sin, “if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit, who lives in you” (Romans 8:10-11). When we accept this truth for ourselves we are no longer slaves to biological determinism; the chains have been broken.

These arguments touch only the surface of the complex relationship between science and Christian theology. For the Christian scientist, this antagonist relationship creates tension that becomes part of daily life. It seems impossible to take the opinion of science and weigh it on the same scale as that of faith. The temptation is to resign them to being incompatible, and accept science and religion as separate studies of vastly foreign ideas. However, what must we do when the ideas seem to overlap? When it comes to the study of human life and behavior, one cannot accept the views of either discipline without somehow rendering the other void. Yet is does not seem proper to disregard the virtues of reason for the sake of adhering to outmoded doctrine that is not central to a saving knowledge of Christ.

As Christians, it is wise to assess the pragmatism of science, and yet remain aware of its restrictions. Though many men may attempt to explain every aspect of reality using the scientific method, it inevitably fails. Science is not equipped to isolate and quantify the realms of God and soul. Science can only study the measurable and observable, it cannot study the unseen. When used wisely, however, it may lead us to paths that deepen our understanding of our relationship to God and creation. Through the critical review of science and theology as seen in this article, it is possible for both schools of thought to edify each other, rather than destroy.
Reconciling science and religion in their views of human life is far more difficult than this article would suggest. From this point forward in our society, there will always be individuals on the radical extreme of each perspective who will elicit conflict, which has characterized this relationship for centuries. It is common for scientists to disassociate themselves from the issues their research and ideas are creating, and chose to leave such things for the humanities to consider. Yet, it is dangerous to allow oneself to become so lost in the fundamentals; doing so causes one to lose part of the human experience. It is the responsibility of both the scientist and the theologian to ensure that the truth is what is being conveyed to society, however elusive it may be. In areas such as those questioning the essence of human nature, it is improbable, if not impossible, for two opposing views to exist in complete harmony. Responsible science should learn to appreciate the point where measuring and quantifying evidence is not longer effective. Likewise, responsible theology should appreciate science as an integral part of exploring the mysteries of God’s creation. The religious should accept the discoveries of science and weigh their validity, critically and empirically, remaining aware of the limits of its methods. Only if these things are done will we ever approach an image of reality that is holistic and true.

2009-05-24T22:37:00.004-04:00

Amy's 25 now. She is officially an adult according to State Farm. She got a card from me, a sight-seeing trip to DC from the Mazda, and a set of BBC nature DVD's from Amazon.

It was predictably busy with tourists around the war memorials, this being Memorial Day weekend. We watched grizzled veterans in biker garb sniffling in their own private remembrance, high-schoolers loud and oblivious to the horrors human beings have heaped upon one another in the last few hundred years, Oriental tourists using their large purses as bumpers, Marine One land and take off, and ducks race the length of the Reflecting Pool. We decided the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is not nearly as up-to-date or as well-stocked as the one in NYC, and that the Holocaust Museum is particularly moving. We also decided that we need to visit DC again to see more of the museums.

It is my hope and prayer that there is never again a need to add another War Memorial to the current US collection scattered around the steps of the Capitol. I thank all service members who have given themselves to give the rest of us a Freedom which is in short supply in a large part of the world; may we manage to maintain that hard-earned freedom with diplomacy and peace in lieu of aggression and war.

Invisible Elegance

2009-05-14T20:12:00.003-04:00

Well, in truth it's not literally invisible, but essentially is for all practical purposes. Even for the least scientifically minded among you, I would highly recommend you take a few moments to watch the following animation. Make sure your speakers are turned on because the video is accompanied by a soundtrack that is stirring in its application, if not somewhat irksome for its use of synthesized instruments.

http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodaily/videoplayer/?src=ai4/harvard/harvard.swf&width=640&height=520

This particular sequence seems to be focusing on the workings within a typical leukocyte (white blood cell), yet let it not be forgotten that this bewildering array of activity is occurring incessantly in each of the ten trillion cells that form the sinews with which your body is knit together. The activities being portrayed are as accurate to our current understanding of cellular machinery as any I've ever seen and in brilliant colour and dimension nonetheless. The unfortunate disadvantage most of us meet in the modern biology classroom is the sterile, 2-D world of the textbook from which the inner life of the cell seems as stuffy and uneventful as the pages from which we read. However, there exists a stunning elegance in the "simplest" form of life that we have only just begun to understand. Far from being a gelatinous bag of protoplasm is the cell, rather it is a microcosm of even our greatest cities, complete with power plants, markets, libraries, production lines, and mass transit. My particular favorite is the scene in which DNA is spliced in preparation to create mRNA (the process of which is not shown in its entirety) which is then united with a ribosome beyond the nuclear envelope to produce the proteins that keep the cell alive. The video ends with the leukocyte migrating from a capillary to intercellular space in response to the identification of a foreign body. A simple action really, but one built upon marvelous complexity, and upon which we depend upon with our very lives.

Very rarely do I have the happenstance to meet someone else who shares my rapt fascination with cellular biology, so my hope is that in watching this video you will possibly share in some of the wonder.

2009-05-06T17:12:00.001-04:00

A Fine Example of Avian Architecture

2009-05-02T14:44:00.009-04:00

Discovered this morning that someone built a home for themselves in our weeping cherry tree. I'm not sure what they were thinking since this is fairly low to the ground and entirely exposed; wouldn't be my choice for a home, but since our property is a death zone for cats they should be okay. I just saw a robin perched in it a few moments ago, so that is obviously the species responsible for the construction. I suppose if all goes according to the robin's plan, we'll have three or four chicks in there in about three weeks.

I marval at the sophistication of instict inherent in even the most common of backyard animals.

It's Done!!!

2009-04-24T20:55:00.003-04:00

I took some excellent advice from members of the WetCanvas community and added a thin glaze of burnt sienna over the tail and hind quarters to give it more depth. As one individual remarked "the tail looked like it was growing from the cat's head". Too true. I feel like the adjustment has fixed that problem for the most part, and has also helped the composition a great deal by pulling more attention to the cat's face. I haven't signed it yet, but I'm willing to call it done now. In a few months I'll varnish it and it should be ready for a frame, or sale...

Almost Done

2009-04-18T14:55:00.002-04:00

It's so close to being finished now that I think I might set it aside for a little bit before I call it really done. There are a few finished touches that need to be attended to, but for now I've become so weary of looking at it that I need another diversion for a while.

Here he is again...

2009-04-11T15:40:00.002-04:00

Quite a bit further along now. I took about an inch off it's back since the last photo was taken, and I feel like the proportions are now much more accurate. Gave him some whiskers because I was tired of looking at that area and feeling like something was terribly missing. I'm still not too happy with the tail, I'm having a hard time finding a balance between a softer look since it's further from the viewer and the same crazy detail as the face. There are so very many things I think I'd do differently now, and as I'm nearing completion, I'm becoming only somewhat satisfied with the finished product. But this is the first painting of a cat that I've ever done, and I've never before attempted the fur look with anything else, so I'm trying not to get frustrated with myself. I still don't have much of a "style" since this is only the third oil painting I've taken this close to completion. I think I might want to work a great deal "looser" than this in the future.

Speaking of the future, I think my next project will be a four panel series of orchids. Something using my own reference material that I can actually market. :)

Sorry about the ugly glare in the photo by the way, some of the paint is still very wet.

More Clouded Leopard

2009-04-01T15:17:00.005-04:00

Here's the current status after last night's work. I feel like it's finally starting look like the whole animal and it has more of a body. The whole thing feels less like a disembodied head to me. I'm frustrated by the tail and the cat's hind portions. Those areas in my reference photo are out of focus, so my hope with this was to use the same effect. However, my attempts at that thus far have been less than satisfying. I've seen some artists place objects outside of the focal point out of focus, especially with wildlife art, but it seems I'm not one of those artists that can do that successfully, at least not with this piece. I'm also not happy with the curve of his rump on the top right hand corner, so I think I'm going to cut into it a little bit when I go over the background again. As it is, if one were to follow the line of it's back beyond the edge of the painting I think the current proportions would make it look a little humpback. I'm hoping that streamlining that space will slim him down a bit. Any C & C's welcome.

Sincerity

2009-03-24T22:06:00.003-04:00

The fourth Wednesday of every month we have a meeting at work where all the partners and employees eat doughnuts or pies made by the owner's wife and discuss a topic as chosen by Character First, an Oklahoma-based organization which publishes literature on various character qualities. They have so far found sixty character traits that are commendable; tomorrow's topic is Sincerity. I am the chosen speaker.

In researching the etymology of the word (one of my favorite ways of finding out what a word means), I found that the word in Latin is translated "without wax." The popular origin of the word is that Roman potters began selling faulty pottery with the blemishes carefully hidden by wax and paint; when heated, the wax melted and the contents would leak out. Potters of higher talent began marketing their pottery as sine cere or "without wax." Wikipedia tells me that this story is false, but rather sincere is derived from the Latin sincerus meaning clean, pure, sound; Amy's Oxford Dictionary agrees. Either way, the meaning is essentially the same: to be without disguise; to be in reality as in appearance. An antonym of sincerity is hypocrisy, which has Greek origins of "play-acting" and more specifically in reference to a successful actor (which was not an admirable occupation) named Aeschines who became a politician. Ha. Aristotle said that sincerity is the ground between self-depreciation and boastfulness.

Can someone be sincere? True sincerity insinuates that someone is without fault, but rather shows 100% excellence in every aspect. In a world where human nature is inherently good, sincerity is within reach. However, in the Christian world of an evil human nature, true sincerity is a mere construct (ideal). This leads me to believe that someone bearing the label of "a sincere person" (as we use it) is an approximation, a near-bull's eye. Whether that label is self-inflicted or uttered in observation by another determines whether said label is hypocritical or a compliment of epic proportions. Either way, it is a burden.

In every way, sincerity is a virtue necessary for permanent success. Any small amount of play-acting (hypocrisy) negates whatever amount of sincerity we possess, just as Amy's injera fermented with just a morsel of yeast. In the context of a rich man entering heaven through the eye of a needle, it may be easier to purge dough of yeast after it has risen than it is to purge one's reputation of hypocrisy.

Horton said it best: "I said what I meant, and I meant what I said." Regardless of potential harm to himself, he hatched the egg and later got that speck with the colony of Whos safely up to Mount Nool. Sincerity in the purest definition may or may not be within reach, but without question the ideal behind the word is: to do what is right, irregardless of what is best for self.

Lasagna!

2009-03-23T18:20:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite dishes from my childhood was lasagna. I think a large part of the reason for that was Garfield's obsession with it. I always loved cartoons; since I liked food and Garfield liked lasagna, I decided to like lasagna too. Mom never did appreciate it too much when I called lasagna "cat food", even as I devoured platefulls of the stuff. My hunger for lasagna has never diminished.

Clouded Leopard Continued...

2009-03-18T15:18:00.004-04:00

Here's the next step in the process. There was about four hours worth of work between this photo and the last one that was taken. All that consisted of was patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) marking each visible hair with a single brush stroke. This however, is my favorite part of completing any painting. It's the work of detail that is the most enjoyable as the image begins to slowly take on the look of the finished product.

Evolution of a Clouded Leopard

2009-03-13T17:41:00.018-04:00

Since I've humoured you all in the past with photos of my paintings/drawings in their various states of completion, I thought some of you might appreciate seeing a W.I.P. (Work In Progress). This whole exercise might in fact, prove to be completely boring to the rest of you, but I enjoy seeing the steps through which other artists take to complete their work, so maybe you will too. Rest assured, the evolution of this painting is far from smooth; my lack of experience seems so painfully evident every time I have to scrub over what I've already done. But you should be able to get the idea.

This is Felis Nebulosa, commonly known as the Clouded Leopard, native to Southeast Asia. For a little background info, its name is a reference to the shape of its spots, which are dark-edged ellipses that allegedly resemble clouds. It's highly arboreal; almost squirrel-like in its ability to maneuver through the trees, and although it's a bit of a light-weight (averaging 33 to 50 lb) in relation to it's body size it has the longest canine teeth of any living feline. In other words, I think it's pretty cool.

In the first step, I laid down a basic sketch of the reference photo on my board (I'm not using canvas for this one because I don't like its "tooth", the woven texture does not lend itself too well to the detail I try to accomplish).

The second step was to block out all my negative space. I decided to put the cat against a completely dark background to emphasise its secretive nature. I also painted in the darkest areas that would later define the cat's spots.

Now for some color. This is where things become really interesting, and really frustrating for me. I'm terrible at mixing color!! It's not that I can't tell when shades match, rather it's that I don't know how to make 2 + 2 = 4. So the tones of the whole thing look altogether "off" from the reference photo. Hopefully the class I plan on taking this summer will help to remedy my problem...

That is as far I've gotten so far. Now that I'm finished with the more "rough" stages, the process will speed up a bit since I enjoy the detail work far more. I'll be sure to post updates as the work progresses.

This (http://www.onlineartdemos.co.uk/pages/print_pages/leopard_print.htm) is an excellant example of the realism I would like to acheive. If it is even possible remains to be seen.

Sand is white, sunsets are red

2009-03-08T19:31:00.003-04:00

And it is still cold at home.

Painful Separation

2009-02-24T17:06:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I accompanied a group of friends to a cabin in Lycoming County. We have taken to calling it our annual Men's Retreat. Everyone met at our house Friday afternoon. I left work early, and on the way home stopped in to bid Amy farewell at her work. It was rather painful.

We stopped at Sheetz and McDonalds and Giant on the way and stocked up on foodstuffs. We sat around and ate and talked and sang (we forgot to take a music box along, so we made our own music, complete with lots of cackling) and played games and shot our guns and slept all Saturday afternoon. We argued with the propane; it did not want to burn steadily, but it would occasionally light off when enough came out of the nozzle. Ker-thump. The good news is that the oven did eventually light, and we were able to make egg casserole for brunch and lasagna for supper.

All the married guys complained all weekend how much we missed our wives, and the single guys listened with great wonder. By Sunday morning the loneliness was at an all-time high, and we set a new record of 10:30 AM for leaving the cabin Sunday. We made it home again by 2:00, so I was MIA for exactly 47 hours. A very joyful reunion took place at that time.

A friend from work tells me he avoids home, because his wife makes him clean. I want to tell him to clean the house for her, and perhaps she won't make him do it.

Quite a number of people have told me over the years that when a fella gets married, he loses contact with the friends he had in his single days. My old friends and I are determined to get together at least a couple times a year and relive our glory days. (We'll try not to call ourselves "The Gang.") This past weekend was one of those times. Methinks the glory days are right now, at home, with my best friend ever.

Comin' Round the Mountain

2009-02-11T14:29:00.000-05:00

There is a men's group that meets every Tuesday morning at 5:30 AM at Womelsdorf. I've found myself attending sporadically. We watch videos on the projector that circulate the via email and sing rousing songs like "Shine Jesus Shine" and "We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise" and drink coffee and eat doughnuts. We have a man-book with lessons that we study, and everyone says they are very good. We learn how to be real men of God that truly put our wives and families first and not just exist as self-centered religious domineering males in the conservative tradition, but rather be leaders in our homes that our wives want to follow. After the lesson, we gather in small groups and talk about how the lesson challenged us and what changes we will make in our lives as a result. In my group there is a man who has one of the most soft-spoken personalities ever; he tells us about his anger problems. Another extrovert tells us how great his kids are turning out. There is a variety of denominations present; out of 70 or 80 registered attendees there are something like 50 different congregations represented. It is the most diverse group of men I have ever seen gathered in a Mennonite church building.

It is good.

Newbs

2009-02-01T01:59:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had our young married couples group together again. We started up about a year ago, and have really strengthened some friendships with other young couples from church, and made a number of new friends as well. We started out with 8 couples, and now we're somewhere around 12 or 14 couples in three groups, plus mentor couples. Tonight we discussed applying Old Testament law to daily life today; specifically, how the laws regarding clean animals and the type of cloth our garments are crafted from are really obsolete, but how there are practical applications we can draw from them. Kind of a dry, dusty subject. We had a great discussion, and could have kept it going for quite some time.

The farmers talked about tractors, the mechanics talked about bulldozers and four-wheel drives, and the contractor types talked about roofing in the winter; the ladies had a rather in-depth discussion about pregnancy that I found rather entertaining... as I eavesdropped from the other side of the room. Its amazing that the human race has managed to survive, given all the precautions that seemingly must be made these days.

We also discovered that my listener has still to become functional. I made what I thought was a rather clever suggestion for our next meeting; evidently Josh had already made the same suggestion and everyone had already concurred. Except me. Not sure where I was at the time. Maybe thinking about four-wheel drives.

Patience is a Virtue

2009-01-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

Ugh, I have come to the sad realization that I am not nearly patient enough to really develop my skills as an artist. I've stumbled upon a wonderful website called wetcanvas.com, which is a online forum where thousands of artists from around the world share ideas and critique each other's work for the purpose of bettering themselves. Contrary to what recent trends in modern art would have you believe, there are countless people out there who are indescribably talented. I am now being constantly reminded how little I actually know and I've realized my greatest weakness is my lack of patience. Even with the piece I'm working on now, I hate underpaintings with a passion, and would much rather do miniscule detail work, so I rush through the underpainting only to realize that the finished project suffers as a result. So my goal right now is to slow down and try to emulate these people who are capable of rendering even the finest blade of grass to acomplish realism with a paint brush I can only dream of.

End of Year

2008-12-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

Now is the time when everyone gets sappy regarding the end of the current year and the beginning of the new one. It would be best to spare myself (and you, dear reader) the pain of such disjointed musings. What would be nice instead is a lovely mug of Earl Grey and a day on the couch reading.

I will say that in the past year, some of my thinking has been challenged and to a certain extent remodeled. An anti-abortion, pro-war, pro-death penalty mantra as exercised by mainstream evangelical America is conflicting at best. Who really deserves to die?

Re: Current Events

2008-12-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

Habakkuk 2:4-14

4 “Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.[b] 5 Wealth[c] is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave,[d] and like death, they are never satisfied. In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples.
6 “But soon their captives will taunt them. They will mock them, saying, ‘What sorrow awaits you thieves! Now you will get what you deserve! You’ve become rich by extortion, but how much longer can this go on?’ 7 Suddenly, your debtors will take action. They will turn on you and take all you have, while you stand trembling and helpless. 8 Because you have plundered many nations; now all the survivors will plunder you. You committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the towns with violence.
9 “What sorrow awaits you who build big houses with money gained dishonestly! You believe your wealth will buy security, putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger. 10 But by the murders you committed, you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. 11 The very stones in the walls cry out against you, and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
12 “What sorrow awaits you who build cities with money gained through murder and corruption! 13 Has not the Lord of Heaven’s Armies promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes? They work so hard, but all in vain! 14 For as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the Lord.

Stages of Incompletion

2008-11-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

Since Gene posted a photo of the very much incomplete version of my most recent painting, I thought I could provide an update of my progress...

I'm not sure if I should yet call it finished or not. Perfectionist that I am, I struggle quite a bit with actually deciding something is finished. So, here I am asking for some feedback. If anyone looks at this and thinks something doesn't look quite right, I am open to suggestions. Since this is probably only about the fourth painting I've taken this far, my inexperience is a great liability.

Gene just financed the purchase of a real easel for me. Previously, I had been working on a card table that was barely larger than the canvas itself and the whole affair was generally inconvenient. Now, I can paint like a "professional". I took for granted how much difference working on an easel would make. I'm not sure what I'll do after I'm satisfied with my Tuscan villa. Gene wants me to do a still life a a wine glass with some red wine and grapes to keep with the Italian theme, part of me wants to try another beach scene. We'll see...

We Have Seen The Enemy, And He Is Us

2008-10-27T23:15:00.000-04:00

In light of the recent and ongoing debacle afflicting Wall Street, our current political condition, and the probability that this point in our history will be analyzed for generations to come, I have tried my best to remain current. After a few weeks of reading the opinion of our nation’s über educated, I thought I could add a few of my own thoughts to the cacophony.

As we stand at what may very well be a great precipice, we have come upon our own undoing. And if I may be so forthright, it is the result of our own hubris. Ultimately, the only solution is to humble ourselves, lest we tumble over the edge like so many Gollums grasping in misplaced love and horror at the thing which has betrayed us. In the face of a slowing economy we clench our fists and stomp our feet in defiance that we can no longer afford two hundred dollar handbags and thirty-three percent of us believe we have already entered a depression. I know this is over simplifying the matter, but rightly so. I am in no way trivializing the plight of thousands who have lost their jobs in various industries and have thus become the collateral damage of events far beyond their control. Yet, I am appalled to find in a recent USA Today the story of a family who has made what the journalist presents as “difficult choices” to cope with the economic slowdown. Their hardship: forgoing tickets to attend a major league sporting event in exchange for viewing the game from their big screen. No, the sarcasm is not unintentional. Our nation has come to enjoy arguably the highest standard of living ever known. We consume far more than our fair share of the planet’s resources and have ravaged the environment in our tireless pursuit for more, all while millions around the world subsist on $3 a day or less. There is nothing inherent in our nature that we should feel somehow entitled to the blessings we have. We should be gravely humbled.

I am surely no economic scholar, and I barely understand the laws of supply and demand, yet I see what is happening in our greater economy as a correction that has long been due. As markets everywhere violently revert themselves to their condition over a decade ago, it strikes me that the wealth that is being “lost” on the stock exchange was never ours to begin with and furthermore, never existed. The public outcry to our leaders is clear: fix the mess and punish those who are responsible for it. And shame on the finance industry for glibly lending us money that we couldn’t afford to pay back. Yet banks across the country would never have offered exotic and often foolish financing en masse were there no market for it. Credit flowed like liquor at a college frat party and the nation became drunk on it. We have funded our gluttony with borrowed money and, collectively, the bill is coming due and our pockets are empty. We have no one to blame but ourselves, and precious few are entirely innocent.

Go Fasting

2008-10-01T15:05:00.000-04:00

Dale, Marcus, Austin, Dallas, and I attend a car show last Saturday at Pocono Raceway. It was... wet. It rained the whole way there, and drizzled all morning, but dried off in the afternoon. We really had a good time. The boys took part in a coloring contest and a few other things; they said it was a good time and that they are going back next year. The highlight of the day was making laps on the track.

We're fighting colds.

Sharbat Gula

2008-09-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

Sweetwater flower girl

It's not a perfect likeness by far, but I guess none of my portraits ever are. First of all, the subject in the drawing is a thirteen year old Afghan girl whose portrait was photographed by Steve McCurry in 1984. She was a refugee of the border conflict between the Soviets and Afghanistan in the early eighties and shortly before the photo which was used as reference for this drawing had been taken, she witnessed the destruction of her village and the death of both her parents. The human eye has for quite some time been my favorite subject to draw, so it seemed fitting to draw a portrait of someone bearing such a striking gaze. There it is, for all it's worth, now I must retire to bed.

West and Wewaxation

2008-09-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

Wednesday-- slept late, mowed the yard, packed, attended a viewing for a co-worker's brother, drove to the cabin, read, ate, slept

Thursday-- slept late, ate, read, slept, read, ate, slept, read

Friday-- ate & read. Watched it rain all day. No sleeping.

Saturday-- ate, drove to State College, found several art galleries and a musuem. Looked at $3500 prints and $10,000 originals for sale. Laughed. Ate. Slept.

Sunday-- ate, read, slept, cleaned, came home.

I have two more days off until my fall vacation is over. I have big plans.

So it goes

2008-08-27T21:49:00.000-04:00

Said shriek of shock was not of fear, as my dear mother would so dependably render, but of anger and a thirst for blood. I was a bit shocked by the tenacity of the pursuit. The fury was unquenched until the creature was caught; at that point, cooing and "aawww"-ing started. "Look at him! He's cute. I can't possibly kill him! I think he can just be let go in the woods."

We nearly got two kittens today. Amy's boss opened the shop this morning to find some abandoned at his doorstep. Thankfully, the neighbor girl agreed to adopt them, letting my .22 and/or the fan of my truck off the hook.

Tonight the prospect of any pencil on paper potrait project was abandoned by the household artist. The oil and canvas was attacked, with much success in my opinion. It is with much eagerness that I look forward to this completed image hanging in my dining room.

Musings and such

2008-08-26T20:46:00.000-04:00

Well, it seems that now would be an appropriate time for the female element of this outfit to contribute her own two cents. Our lives have recently been what I would call fairly adventurous as of late, at least for the poor souls blessed to live in cow country, usa. Sunday found us at a Missions Aviation Festival in Lancaster, where I had the delight of flying in a bush plane which serves tribal missionaries during its day job. For one as easily amazed as myself, this was an awesome experience (and I mean truely awesome, not simply just the colloquial use of that word). In all my wonder and picture snapping excitement I recall turning back to my dear husband (I was in the co-pilot's seat :) with a look that surely did not belie my excitement, only to receive a modest shrug in return. I suspect he was more entertained watching my reaction to the trip than the trip itself. Such is the story of our lives.

I'm still plugging away at my artwork, though I'm prepared to break the most recent vow I made to myself. Somehow, I often manage to lose my dedication to completing one peice before I move onto another, as a result I have a myrid canvases lying about in various stages of incompletion. A strikingly bare wall in our dining area had me previously commited to finishing a painting so that our space might have a little more decoration. And though I feel the future for this particular canvas is far more promising than most, I find myself once again tempted to set it aside in favor of my newest diversion.

Our trip to the Missions Festival has again renewed my awareness of the human condition around the world. It is so easy to become detached from the reality that billions no different than myself do not live the life of the quintessential American. That coupled with a trip to the bookstore where I spent many happy minutes staring into the eyes of protraits taken by Steve McCurry and I feel very motivated to produce another portrait in pencil. I've spent so much time trying to teach myself even just the fundamentals of oil paint that it has been years since I've sketched the likeness of another. Like many others, I have long been struck by the image of Sharbat Gula, known the world over simply as the "Afghan Girl". She has a beautifully haunting gaze and since the eyes of my portraits are generally accepted as my forte, this picture seems a fitting reference. Although this is a copywrited photo, I have no intention of selling any finished product, so I don't expect that appropriating the image for my purposes should be a problem.

Oh, and I nearly forgot the other bit of excitement we've had, and on the same day as our flight nonetheless! We had an unwelcome visitor of the rodent persausion in our home on Sunday night. While sitting at the computer, I was startled to see a furry grey blob scurry across the floor. As it franticly made it's way to the perceived safety beneath the refridgerator I quickly announced to Gene with a shriek of shock and indignation that there was a mouse in our kitchen. It turned out that I was incorrect in my assignment of "mouse" to this fuzzball, it was more accurately a vole. To make a long story short we pursued the poor thing for a healthy ten minutes before we secured it in a tupperwear bowel. Only after having displaced much of the furniture in our living room, rooting through our hall closet and mcuh banging around underneath the fridge, oven, dishwasher, and desk did we finally succeed. The vole chittered vehemently at one point at it raced across our floor with the bumbling humans in hot pursuit and I couldn't quite tell if it the was sound of fear or of laughter. However, my murderous intent quickly vanished by the time we had it captured and I was able to perform a closer inspection of the critter. It was just a little guy and my appreciation for its healthy will to live (to whatever limited extent a rodent is aware of the precariousness of its life is an entirely different discussion altogether) found me tossing it into the woods accross the street with an adament charge to never return. I guess at the heart of it all, I'm still just a girl.

Summer of '08

2008-07-30T20:26:00.000-04:00

Time has a way of passing by much too quickly. Tomorrow is the last day of July, already. Ironically, the pressure to enjoy life becomes urgent as time passes more and more swiftly. The more we enjoy life, the quicker it slips away. The quicker it slips away, the more alarmed we become at its passing.

Amy's tiramisu is forming one layer at a time as I type. Tomorrow it will be plundered and be gone (if I have any say in the matter, anyway). So is life...

This summer has been fairly wet. Things seem greener than other years. It could be my much brighter outlook; I am more content now than I have ever been. Either way, the grass and trees are growing nicely.

August is almost fully planned, already. This Saturday we are having a party at our house; the following weekend is our family cabin weekend; the next is Rough & Tumble (nobody should miss the smoke and sweat of that event); then there is weddings and birthdays to contend with. January will be here until we can catch our breath. We are doing a Christmas show again this year, and rehearsal starts in September, along with small groups and the busy season at work.

All this makes me feel a little Powwaqatsi-ish.

We are giving up

2008-07-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

Alas! We have lost the company of yet another kitty. It met instant death this morning in the fan of the work truck. You would think that a cat that had one encounter of the cooling kind would steer clear of vehicles known first-paw to hurt and maim. But no, our cat was not very intelligent, and kept on climbing up in there for the night. It was just a matter of time. We have buried the poor dumb thing; that made me late for work... again. Sorry, no pix.

Should we try again? I'm thinking not-- I hate being late for work. 'Course, maybe a smart cat would stay out of there; our first one did.

Keep my secretary and her husband in your prayers, please. He had a quadruple bypass today. He had a number of stents (spelling?) put in just a few months ago. I'm going to see them tomorrow after lunch.

We are looking forward to the weekend. We'll be busy. We're meeting Darren and Jen in Brooklyn for a concert Friday evening, going to the Musuem of Natural History, going to another concert Saturday evening, picking up a free hydraulic press from a friend in NJ, making it to our church Sunday morning, and going to a picnic in Hamburg Sunday afternoon.

Couple's Cabin Trip

2008-07-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

We spent the weekend hiding in a cabin near Port Royal, PA. There were five couples, plus a couple that stopped in just for a few hours, and a couple that came to do some teaching.

This is my favorite pic from the weekend-- its the view from the easy-chair.

Life and stuff

2008-06-26T15:42:00.001-04:00

We have been biking more again. I think it was the 90-100 degree weather that kept us indoors for several weeks. Rode twice this week.

This weekend our young married group from church is going to a cabin near Port Royal, PA. We are leaving Friday evening and coming home Sunday. We have a speaker coming Saturday evening, and there is to be an abundance of food. Mountain pies, hooray!

Amy has a new hobby: sewing. Husband Claus got her a sewing machine for her birthday! So far the house has received curtains in the kitchen (sorry, no paintings yet, that is still to come) and Amy has received a new dress. Said dress has yet to be worn in public.

Last Saturday we had the privilege of going to a GM show at Carlisle. We went with some new friends from the neighborhood. They are a young couple about our age that moved in from Long Island, and they build high-end hot rods and show cars for rich people. We were both interested in stuff like this:

Uhh... not so committed anymore

2008-06-12T21:00:00.000-04:00

And the last time I rode my bike was Memorial Day. Go figure. Not from lack of desire, mind you. Been distracted lately. That red Malibu in the garage has been getting the bulk of my attention. Its all ready to go back together, as of tonight. All parts are degreased and repainted.

We got a new kitty. Our succession of cats have all had Biblical names; this one is all white, so I thought he should have the name of an angel. I picked Gideon, then realized that Gideon wasn't an angel. But the name stuck. Unfortunately, he only seems to answer to "Hey CAT!!"

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-28T00:05:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that our committment to getting in shape is intact. We have been riding our bikes at least three times a week. Yesterday (Memorial Day) we went to Reber's Bridge and rode the trail into Reading. That is about 8 miles round trip. It is a nice ride, do it sometime. It is the old Union Canal tow path along the Schuylkill River. There's a bunch of old museum-type buildings you can go in, including the Gruber wagon works.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning of the weekend. Friday was Amy's b-day (she's 24, and feeling old) so I took her to Shady Maple, where she had never been. Saturday morning I traded cars with a friend of mine, his needs some work done. Did the recycling, then mowed the yard.

In the evening we went to the parents of Amy's friend's fiance for a rehearsal dinner. They had some of the best ribs there I ever tasted. Sunday I skedaddled from the house ASAP, cuz all the bridesmaids for the wedding were preparing themselves for presentation at our house. I went to first service to hide from them. There were two more that are not in the pic, plus a couple of the cutest little flower girls.

After the ladies left for pix, Amy and I bummed around the house until it was time for the wedding. It was a wonderful wedding. The bride comes from a situation that was not so good, and it made her into a very strong, committed, honorable person. You can really see Christ in her life. She's 21, and the groom turned 19 yesterday. He is the most mature 18 year old I have ever met. They are made for each other, and the wedding was one of the happiest things I have ever experienced. After the sniffling and giggling stopped, we came home to relax. Monday I worked on my friend's car, then we went to the bike trail, then went to another friend's house for a Memorial Day party. There was smoke from the grill and smoke from the tires of said friend's Camaro. A good time was had by all.

Took Pop & Mom and Marvin's to Newark today to catch their flight to Israel. Back to work tomorrow.

Commuting

2008-05-12T19:20:00.000-04:00

Now that we have bikes, we will be in shape soon. There has been some talk of riding them to work, since the new job is only 3 miles away. Of course, this evening it is too cold and wet to go out riding, so here we sit at home as always. It supposed to be nicer weather tomorrow... we'll get in shape then.

They had me singing at church again on Sunday. It really is quite enjoyable. Something about Thursday night practices makes me full of energy and ready to go. Sunday mornings are that way too, but not as much.

We are getting busier at work again. It is quite welcome, as there was a bit of worry around the shop as to how slow things had been. It seems the housing market in our area is not hit as hard as some places. We have been doing a lot of commercial jobs, and we also are selling a tremendous amount of replacement doors. It used to be that our sales were 95% or greater new construction; now, more than 50% is replacement doors. Many people are simply getting nicer looking doors, so if you want a good used door now is the time to call Pop.

Our grass is growing nicely. Our soil is very poor, and in some areas we have almost no topsoil. With all the rain we have been blessed with lately, the grass is really shooting up, albeit some places much better than others. I mowed on Saturday for the first time this year, while Amy went to Longwood Gardens with her sister.

New York again

2008-05-05T10:23:00.000-04:00

Friday night our young married group was together again. We had a campfire and got all smoky under the trees.

Saturday morning we drove up to Manhattan to my cousin's apartment. We met them for lunch, then took the train over to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for Sakura Matsuri, the cherry blossom festival. It was very nice. They have Kwanzan cherry trees in a couple of rows that make a pink tunnel/arbor kind of thing under the trees. There were Japanese artists there making music and other demonstrations. We got there late for most of the events, but we did take in some absolutely beautiful Japanese flutes. We also briefly strolled around the Brooklyn art museum after eating some Jamaican grub, but we were all a bit weary and went back to the apartment.

Sunday Jen took us through a local park, and we stood at the place where legend has it the Europeans purchased Manhattan island from the native Americans for trinkets worth abut $24. What a ripoff. It reminded me again of how unfair some of the European politics were. For the afternoon we went down to 32nd St to a Korean restaurant. Amy had some kind of fish dish, and I had a taste of octupus. Very interesting. We got home about 7:00, in time to watch part of Amazing Grace, which as a movie I highly recommend. Its about William Wilberforce's efforts in England in 1780-1800 or so to abolish slavery.

Musings

2008-04-26T21:47:00.000-04:00

I've had a moment of sheer serendipity that I simply must share. I've been agonizing for several months over the drab state of the dining area in our kitchen. When the house was brand new, it was fairly refreshing for everything to remain pristine; now however, the empty walls are starting to chew at my patience. Much to my chagrin I have a supportive husband, who has encouraged me several times to fill the place with my own work, rather than purchasing mass produced art at a department store. Therein lies my dilema. Aside from pencil sketching an image of his car, I've had a general creative hiatus for the last few years. There has always been some excuse, but generally my grandiose ideas have been squelched by my lack of talent and available time. Now, having been abandoned by my husband for the evening (he went dirt track racing with a friend), I found myself with nearly a whole day to occupy and nothing pressing on my agenda.

I've recently becoming fascinated by the Toscana region of Italy with all its trappings of culture and art and have been eagerly trying to imbue my kitchen with a touch of Mediterranean flair. That sparked off a desperate search using our feeble excuse for an internet connection to find some sort of subject. Since I plan to work with oil paint with which I have little experience and am fairly new to mixing color, I was hoping to find a photo that wouldn't require too much of my own invention to get the right ambiance. Unfortunately, people don't often consider proper composition when they are sightseeing with their point-and-shoot cameras and needless to say it has been a very fruitless, very exasperating search.

Now for the whole point of this rambling, I've finally stumbled upon just what I was looking for: an image of a villa on a hill overlooking rolling vinyards lined by cypress trees. It's so simple, I still can't believe it's taken me so long to settle on a reference. I just completed the underpainting and my brushes are happily soaking in turpenoid. With any luck, I'll be able to see this project through to completion.

I am a Piker

2008-04-07T19:20:00.000-04:00

Undeniably so. It flows red in my veins, just as pure and sure as Stauffer, Wenger, Burkholder, and Martin. With no misgivings or second thoughts, I built this for myself. While you laugh, I'll be hauling water for my trees with this contraption. Possibly under the cover of darkness.

Darren, you were startled to become your father. Try this.

Yah well, it was cheap. (More proof of the Piker within.)

March Madness

2008-03-31T18:56:00.000-04:00

March is supposed to be the beginning of warmer temperatures. And it is. So why would a sane person head north when things are just starting to warm up?

That's what we found ourselves doing this past weekend. We left home Friday morning about 4:30 and drove up to Old Forge, NY. A guy wanted a garage door put on his boathouse at his vacation home, and offered to let us stay the weekend if we drove up and installed the door.

Normally a door with an electric operator can be installed in about three hours. It took me nine. See, The Door got installed on this enclosed dock thing, and the bottom of the door was 4-5 feet off the ground. Yes, ground. They lower the lake in the winter. (Whoever "they" is, they sure get a lot done; ever think about that?) So, with a lot of creative ladder propping, shivering (it was 12 degrees and very windy), and cheering from my personal fan club (of which there is only one member), the door got installed.

Then we had the rest of the weekend to vegetate in the cabin. That was the better part of the trip.

Came home to find some new trees on our doorstep from Arbor Day. And a dead apple tree on our windowsill that we forgot to have someone water in our absence. It was growing so nicely, too...

Yeast and Wine

2008-03-21T22:28:00.000-04:00

We took part in Communion tonight. The breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup is always a reminder of Christ's sacrifice; sometimes the reminder is much more powerful. Tonight with the pastor painting a word picture of what Christ's words meant to the disciples in context of the culture at that time I was reminded that giving myself to God is not so much a privilege for Him, but rather an awesome opportunity with a lot of responsibility for me. When Christ gave the cup to the disciples, he was literally (essentially) proposing marriage. Awkward. I am offered that same cup today; will I accept, and drink the cup and become his bride like a maiden of Israel may have done in those days? If I do, I am obligated to all the responsibilities that come with that. If not, I will never get to take part in the tremendous relationship with Him that is only known by believers and never understood by non-believers. Any husband and wife in a good marriage knows that the sacrifice one makes in getting married is more than worth it; it really is not a sacrifice at all, but rather an improvement in life. So it is with accepting Christ's cup, His "marriage proposal": the things we give up to follow Him are not sacrifices, for we are not losing anything when we gain the security of our souls for eternity. By not giving those things up, we lose our souls for eternity in exchange for an earthly lifetime of pleasures that really do not satisfy anyway.

What an awesome opportunity: the choice between a lifetime of disappointment, or an eternity of full satisfaction. How much more simple of a choice could one have to make? And yet, so many of us choose the former, convinced that we will not be disappointed by the things that life and the world offer. It is strange that even though I know what is permanent and what is only earthly, I still regularly attempt to satisfy myself, only to be disappointed yet again when the day is over.

Only God in His wisdom had the foresight to see that we would never be capable of redeeming ourselves; only God in His grace would give us the opportunity to redeem ourselves, to "cash ourselves in." What we get in return for giving ourselves over to God is more than just an exchange, or a good deal. It is beyond the opportunity of a lifetime. Accepting His cup, His "marriage proposal" is a simple choice, yet an unbelievable gift, for He is truly the Model Groom.

Saturdays

2008-03-15T19:17:00.000-04:00

Weekends with not many things that have to be done are usually fun. Like today. Mix two of my brothers and myself, and there is usually a fair amount of boyish behaviour. We shot our guns, cut down trees with our chainsaws, and made a lot of noise. We also did this:

Funny license plate

2008-03-11T12:21:00.000-04:00

Saw one the other day. It said BOO EEK

My mind is easily amused. . .

Veteran's Day

2008-03-05T15:30:00.000-05:00

Today marks 35 years that my dad has been at Shank Door. We celebrated in the lunchroom with sloppy joe's and a vegetable tray. Congrats, Pop!

Cabin

2008-02-29T13:22:00.000-05:00

This weekend I (Gene) am being whisked away... by my buddies. They called and informed me that they are meeting at my place at 3:00 this afternoon and we are going to the cabin for the weekend. Should be fun, there's usually a lot of sleeping and other manly activities that take place. This is the cabin of the infamous bear taunting episode.

Yes, I am leaving Amy at home to fend for herself. I'm already feeling lonely. Last night I dreamt that one of the other guys was only allowed to go if his wife went along. I guess she decided she would rather spend a weekend with her husband in a cabin with a bunch of smelly guys than be alone all weekend. Definitely a dream.

New York City & The MET

2008-02-25T22:12:00.000-05:00

Needless to say, the prior post was a complete farce. Our church did have a program last Saturday night, however we did not attend as our post from Feb 21st would lead one to believe. I had every intention of being home all weekend, however my darling husband had other plans. Gene had been taunting me for several months now of a planned trip to visit his cousin and her husband in New York City, yet for all this time had successfully managed to keep the exact date under wraps. I came home Friday night to find dinner on the table and his bags already packed. The drive north to New York was somewhat "white-knuckled" with the questionable weather, but we arrived without incident and with the help of a friend's GPS. While coming off the George Washington bridge into Manhattan I was further reminded of how much of a country girl I truly am. I found myself gazing out the sunroof with what I'm sure is the characteristic awestruck gaze of a tourist. I've been to NYC several times now, yet I'm far from acclimated to the environment. Gene is fairly adept at blending in, charging ahead with his head lowered and eyes averted like the best of New Yorkers; yet I still struggle with tripping over myself whilst trying to take in everything and anything around me. It seems to me that the city has a life of itself, completely independant of it's inhabitants. One could exist in relative annonimity while the city looks on with a quiet sentience, detached from the human drama that plays out on its streets. There was a moment when I likened the subway system to the vascular network of some great organism, but I'll leave my biological ramblings for another post.

We were graciously provided with a bed for Friday night and treated to a personal tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for most of Saturday. I had not put too much thought into what we might see at the museum prior to our trip and I was delightfully surprised to find exhibits of much more than just the Renaissance masters. The most impressive of which was their collection from Egyptian antiquity. Far more than the traditional model of "art", we saw everything from ancient sarcophagi to amazingly detailed models of everyday life along the Nile. I've come to realize that despite the many articles I've read and documentaries I've seen, I had grossly underestimated the sophistaction of of the Egyptian civilization. Though I haven't seen the pyramids nor likely ever will, far more impressive to me were the many peices of fine jewely. Stone and gold formed so elegantly and with such fine detail one would expect to find no better at the nearest jeweler. Their culture was a rich and complex as ours today, and their technology limited it seemed only by their lack of electricity. I did manage to get chastised by one of the guards while in the display. A massive granit sarcophagus stood all by its lonesome imploring me to touch. Without putting too much thought into the obvious sacrilege I would be commiting in the eyes of the museum, I walked around it while tracing the outline of millennia old hieroglyphs. Needless to say, my thoughts were quickly interrupted by the gaurd informing me in no uncertain terms that touching was strictly forbidden.

Thank goodness for my wonderful husband, who before I came along would probably have never willingly set foot in an art museum. Gene made it through most of the day despite his aching feet and reserved only a few snide remarks for the modern art exhibit. He gives me yet another reason to do my best at remaining supportive even after we've wandered past the hundreth car in a sweltering parking lot filled with much of the same one after another. Thanks honey...

Jury Duty

2008-02-21T17:33:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to go to the courthouse today for jury duty, but last night they said I didn't have to report. So I took the day off anyway. I had a lovely day rolling around under the Chevelle putting the transmission back in and getting nice and greasy. Right now I have supper in the oven, so we'll eat when Amy gets home from work, then its off to church for Praise Team. We are having a special worship service Saturday night and have to sing about 15 songs.

Snoozing

2008-02-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

I am a chronic snooze junkie. When I was like 14, I decided that people who used the snooze button were of a very weak self-discipline. I never once used the snooze. I started having trouble getting myself out of bed, but still refused to use the snooze. I would turn the alarm off and go back to sleep, then be late, thinking that was somehow better than using the snooze. I started putting the clock under the bed, which worked until one morning I woke up under the bed. At that point I started putting it across the room. I gave up when I started running across the room, turning it off, then leaping back into bed. Now I use the snooze, but I'm embarrassed to say how long I hit it in the morning. Here's one possible remedy:

http://www.art-and-home.net/servlet/the-4696/Flying-Helicopter-Alarm-Clock/Detail

And another:

http://www.nandahome.com/products/clocky/index.php?color=raspberry

I kinda wanna get one of these just for the geek factor.

For Eyes

2008-02-06T00:49:00.000-05:00

If Mom had made me get these 15 years ago, I would have freaked.

Dallas & Elaine, your new frames are sweet.

Oh Yeah. Amy's best friend from high school took the plunge on Saturday. We were there to witness it. Amy played the piano quite well for the processional, then quick went truckin' over and got in line so she could be a bridesmaid, too. Then there was lots of pix and food. Here's some of the pix (sorry, the food is long gone).

This week

2008-01-27T19:49:00.000-05:00

Didn't do too much out of the ordinary. Just our regular schedules. Amy works Monday 9:00-7:00, has Tuesdays off (that's the day she uses to shop and clean), and works Wed-Fri 9:00-5:00. I work every day app 7:00-5:00, though I set my own hours and sometimes go in early and often stay late. Neither of us work Saturday, but I go in a couple times a year when I have had a particularly busy week. So anyway, that's our typical weekly schedule. Thursday night is praise team at church for me, that is from 6:30-9:30. When I came home Thurday night from that, there was a bride standing in our house. She's a friend of Amy's who is getting married in the spring, and came over to try her dress on. Amy seems to have become the official bride advisor here lately.

Forgot to mention, last Saturday Dale and I took down a tree close to where Carol used to live. A guy at work lives on Bleeker St, and had a pretty good-sized maple in his front yard. He had to have it taken down cuz it was dropping branches on people's cars. You can't just cut a tree down and let it fall in the street, so we took it down from the top. I got a scissors lift at work that took us up about 25 feet (a scissors lift is a buggy with a platform that a couple of guys can go up in the air and do work safely and comfortably, and drive around up in the air), but there was still branches 20 feet above that yet. It was a lot of work, a lot more than I bargained for anyway. I will hesitate to volunteer for that again. Dale got a month's worth of heat from it, and it saved my buddy about $1800. That job took all day, I got home about 8:00.

Yesterday I went back to CMTS in Bernville. They are an organization that provides technical support to mission organizations. They take cars and furniture and clothing and just about anything you can imagine and give it to a mission or missionary who requests it. A couple times a year, they pack up some school buses with stuff and drive them nonstop to Mexico. They have a huge house that missionaries who are home for a short time can stay in, a large shop to work on the cars, and a couple of smaller houses for VS'ers to stay in. ANyway, I went back to do some door work for them on some box trucks that they have.

Jet propulsion

2008-01-22T20:45:00.000-05:00

The last day or two I have been fascinated by jet propulsion. Too bad I don't have an engineering degree, 'cuz I would pursue some of these projects if I did.

http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ZSartell/HLonGoKart1.gif&imgrefurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ZSartell/jetkart.htm&h=375&w=500&sz=164&hl=en&start=11&tbnid=QiXY3RDxMhO5GM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djet%2Bgo%2Bkart%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

Enjoy!

This week

2008-01-13T13:25:00.000-05:00

This week went by much too quickly. Wednesday afternoon felt like Monday, and Friday felt like Tuesday. Made an engine stand this week from 1" square box tube. Now there's a stand to set a complete engine on and roll it around the garage, and even fire it up if necessary (which it will be) without it tipping over. A fella from church gave me a bunch of used engine parts for cheap, so there should be a motor in the works soon here.

2008-01-06T18:52:00.000-05:00

Today we went to the Farm Show. Looked at the sheep and pigs and cows and chickens and ducks and geese and goats and old John Deeres. Shore was fun. Watched a chick hatch. That was neat, too.

Praise Team

2008-01-04T15:29:00.000-05:00

I (Gene) have been asked to join the praise team at church. That is the group that stands up front and leads the singing on Sunday morning. They had a practice last night; they talked about how they want to do things in 2008 now that the play is over and done. They have not had any new people for a couple of years and really needed some more help.
Amy has been selected for jury duty. The trial is in February and will last four days. Her boss (again, a great guy) graciously is paying her anyway.

New Year's Day 2008

2008-01-02T09:41:00.000-05:00

Monday night we laid around & watched a movie. We got Evan Almighty, a story about a guy who God tells to build an ark cuz its gonna flood. In the end, a dam breaks, and they are all swept away (on the ark) with the reporters and neighbors who were making fun of them.
We slept until after 8:00, then Amy cleaned and did laundry (all day) while Gene got the snow plow for the tractor working and messed around in the garage.
Still feeling sick. . .

2007-12-30T21:39:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the last night of the play at our church. I'm glad its over, cuz it kept us busy for the last few months. I (Gene) had a nasty cold this morning and couldn't sing at all. I refrained from speaking (that was tough!), took a nice long nap, and drank a lot of water. When the first scene opened, I was very unsure of myself, but when I opened my mouth to start singing it came right out. I really felt that God gave me the ability, cuz I sure didn't feel capable.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. We are planning on staying home for the evening, cuz we are old now.*grin*

Amy's job

2007-12-29T13:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday when Amy showed up to work, her boss gave her a Visa gift card with $250 on it and told her to go shopping for the day. He gave everybody a paid holiday, took them to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch and Viva Bistro for supper. What a great guy to work for! We are very thankful for Amy's good job and nice boss. He is a great Christian man of God who shows his love and concern for everyone he meets.
We both feel a little under the weather today; Amy is sniffling and Gene has a sore throat.

Sunday

2007-12-28T14:38:00.001-05:00

We are helping in the play at our church. It was cancelled from the other Sunday when we had the ice storm. The rescheduled date it this coming Sunday 12/30 @ 3:00 and 6:00. General admission tix are available at the door.

Hello

2007-12-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

Well, Hi there! We have tried blogs before, but never seemed to make a habit of them. Just decided to register here.