3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

Elmwood-Murdock

Day 127/365: Photographic View of Church

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Today was my day of playing around in Photoshop again. This time with plug-ins from Xero-Graphics. The subject my home church of Trinity Lutheran in Murdock Nebraska. I was driving by ans a friend was taking pictures for our upcoming open house dedicating the new fellowship hall. So I stopped, said “Hi” and took a few myself. Turned out to be a perfect subject for some special effects.

Which one do you like best and why?

#1: Straight out of camera (SOOC)
#2; Xero Tweak w/burn edge
#3 Xero Illustrator w/burn edge
#4: Xero Line Art
#5: Not sure which effect, misname it, but it's a xero effect, I can find it again.

Here is a different photograph, but taken at the same time in black and white. I’ll tell you which is my favorite after the comments and voting is tallied.

#6 Different image, taken at the same time, but an effect I like

Day 123/365: High School Track Begins

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Day 123: High School Track Meet
Day 123: High School Track Meet

High School track season has begun in Nebraska. My daughter missed the first meet due to the State Speech meet, so the Yutan relay was her first meet. She ran the 4 x 800 meter  relay and the long distance medley, the 1200 meter leg. My son, a senior is also doing track this year, it’s a way to get in shape for the Marine Corps.

Day 113/365: Joe and the Jungle, The Band

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Rockin' the Philson Basement (SOOC)

Meet Joe and the Jungle as they gave a free concert in the Philsons’ basement. Beth lives across the street and her family’s philosophy should be  “Life is an adventure, explore and experience”. They have traveled to all over the United States, Europe, and have hosted multiple international exchange students. They are registered Couch Surfers and the Los Angeles California band, Joe and the Jungle, were their latest guests as their tour brought them to the Midwest.

The band has been compared to a cross between Guns n Roses, Cheap Trick and The Beatles with a splash of the Sex Pistols for flavor. If that doesn’t make you curious nothing will.  They are the best of both coasts starting in New York City and moving to the LA Strip and selling out venues on a regular basis.

Knickerbockers in Omaha canceled on them at the last minute so Joe and his band rocked away in the Philson basement in Elmwood Nebraska this week. Although the band drives a stereotypical van and couch surfs across the country, they have never stayed in a house with it’s own amps, woofers, drum set and extra bass. Papa Philson is a closet musician and has all the toys.

The band signs were hung, blue and red bulbs went into shop lights and the atmosphere was created. Didn’t matter that the acoustics were a tad off, the rock and roll beat was alive and a Joe and the Jungle rocked the Philson house. Those in Omaha missed out. Check out their music in the video below.

 

Faith, It’s Not Just Black and White

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Sometimes faith is shades of gray. As some of you know who have been reading my blog my mother died in January of 2011. It has taken years to go through her things and absorb the life I never learned about. There are some things I still don’t understand, family history I don’t know. But through her death God opened a door.

Faith is God stretches beyond all comprehension
Faith, it’s not just black and white…

Although she made sure my brother and I were baptized, attended Sunday school and church every week,  it was only out of duty and respect to my God Mother Granny Turcotte. After we were confirmed, she never stepped foot in church again. The topic of religion and faith often brought a scornful look to her face and I never knew why because my faith has always brought me a great deal of comfort.

I grew up in a small country church, Grace Episcopal in Broad Brook Connecticut, and God brought me to the Lutheran church in college. My church home now is Missouri Synod Trinity Lutheran in Murdock Nebraska.

Not only did my Mother cut herself from God, but from family and friends. She didn’t think it was important to create relationships with relatives and her children. I rarely saw any of my aunts and uncles who lived in Oklahoma and California. The few cousins I knew as a child drifted as I got older.

There was one family member that consistently and faithfully maintained contact, a niece, my cousin Gail. I found saved cards, photos, and letters in my Mothers desk of an older cousin I never knew and never met.  In February a forwarded letter from Gail arrived in my mailbox, so I reached out with the news of Mom’s passing, including my email address. An email arrived a  week later.

Here is where God’s grace and divine intervention becomes apparent.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Devotional StoriesChicken Soup for the Christian Woman’s Soul:

Gail and I learned quite a bit from each other the next week.  Her Mother (Mom’s sister) was also not religious. We lived very parallel lives and had similar experiences and troubling childhoods with both of us having a difficult relationship with our Mothers.

During the normal course of telling each other about our lives Gail stated that she is a faithful member of Missouri Synod Trinity Lutheran Church in Woodward Oklahoma. This news brought goosebumps, tears to my eyes,  a lump in my throat, and a prayer of thanks to God. How can this be a coincidence? I believe it’s not.

What does it mean? I don’t know. But I do take comfort in this has to be a sign, a message, an indication of God’s hand in our lives. Acknowledgment that to everything there is a purpose. Wait and the message will be revealed. Listen and hear God’s word in the world around us, from the people around us.

Better yet, when you find yourself in church pray for your family, your friends, those who have lost faith, who are lost. The Lord Jesus Christ will find them and guide them home. Gail’s Mother, my aunt, and the last of the five brothers and sisters, died last week. I truly believe our prayers that were delivered up to God were received and now our Mothers are safely and lovingly in the arms of Jesus and are at peace.

 

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Day 95/365: It’s High School Speech Season

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Day 95: Speech Poses
Day 95: Speech Poses

Competing in Speech takes poise, confidence, concentration, composure, and self confidence which I believe prepares students for a life and their future careers much more than any athletic sport.  Elmwood-Murdock High school has a strong athletic program, with many teams competing at the district and state levels, but their academic extra-curriculum activities such as speech, FBLA and FCCLA are just as strong with many students participating in overlapping contests.

Normally a speech meet is not a spectator sport. Yes, it is a team activity, and while not normally physically draining it is always mentally draining. Speech meets are often all day affairs, requiring the students to leave at six in the morning and not getting home until nine that night. This is my daughter’s first year in speech and this year she  is doing Humorous Interpretation, “What Makes the Perfect Parent.” I thought having three characters to portray would be plenty, but next year she said she needs to add more.  I watched her classmates duet rendition of  “Hansel and Gretel, Open to Interpretation” and was in awe with over 20 characters and voices depicted in just ten minutes.

Now I know, that duet is probably over done, and judges probably hear the same scripts year after year? So the trick is to make the presentation fresh, make it your own, and do something no one else has done. This is where speech team support comes into play. Teammates suggest changes, dialects, inflections, and special added touches. I nearly died when I heard the Austrian Body Builder version, “I vill pumpp vu into ze oven vitch, ohh (strike pose)” and I think the judge did too. The Elmwood-Murdock duet team placed has placed in the finals during most of the season.

Project 365 Lesson: At the last minute I decided to splice my daughters various poses together from my camera video to add to the end of the post. This image was so much better than my original “planned” image of three girls talking to the “wall” that I totally changed the focus of the essay. So lesson learned, sometimes your unexpected, last minute inspiration will win the day.