Self-Portrait

Yup, I shaved my beard and head, but kept the goat - and took a before and after photo with my point & shoot. Now that I look at these two photos, I think I should grow the beard back. Hmmm, oh, well.

We are away this coming week visiting our son. No email, I need a break from the internet. Do you ever feel like that? More blogs when we get back though.

We are up and running again

OK, the guy who does my website and hosting, told me how to fix the Blog and other stuff on the website. Basically, I had the equivalent of a garage full of old junk stored on his server under my account. There was no more room, so we called the local garbage company and got a dumpster. The choice was, he could do it, or I could do it. Advantage for me doing, no cost, disadvantage, time, oh and a lack of knowing exactly what to get rid of. No not that file, your whole site will crash. If he does it, it costs me money, but it's done right. So I forked over the credit card and we are up and running again. I don't have a lot of time right now, soooo...

The slideshow below is something I learned about this winter from a friend. These animoto slideshows are very cool, and if someone wants a full length version, the company creates DVD's with tremendous quality. I'll be doing more of them, when I get some time again.

Animoto Slideshows

From a photo session last summer

My Blog is Full & the heroes in my life

Looks Like I've reached a capacity on this Blog, so I need to either . Clean everything off and start a new or call my web hosting company and buy more space. I'm debating as to what I should do. I am in a money saving mode these days, but I'm also wondering if I want to let all this material go.

You'll know in a few days, what I've decided.

In the meantime, I want you to watch this short film by Zack Arias. He's become one of my heroes. I'm 49, I don't have many 36 year old heroes. So why is he a hero?. His photography is great. www.usedfilm.com . And he taught me so much about lighting in a short one day seminar I took last year. That's part of it, but not all of it, not even a big percentage of it. It's a certain ruthless honesty that he has about...life, and death, and art, and faith, and politics (we disagree), and just this general sense of integrity he has about living.

He's a hero, not because I want to be like him, but because he seems to be so much himself, that it makes me want to be more fully myself.

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A week ago, I lost a friend. Ralph was 59, married, with two kids in college. He had heart attack last Thursday night. 6 hours of surgery and they couldn't save him. We buried him earlier this week. Ralph was not my best friend, not a close friend. But he was a friend.

He was also a hero. Why? He was one of the kindest men I knew. He was quiet, unassuming, but he was the type of person who's greatest joy in life was doing something for someone else - no strings attached. He would help you paint your house, or fix your car or drive hundreds of miles out of his way or any one of a million things. And if you tried to pay him, or offer anything more than a Thank You, he would be offended. These days, I'm thinking of a new slogan WWRD - What would Ralph do?

He's a hero because he modeled a life of faith, that was rarely, maybe never based on words, but based only on actions.

The Rain Forest

From a trip to Costa Rica in 2007. I found this image today, and recalled how small I felt in that Rain Forest.

A great Photo Site

It's called a Daily Does of Imagery. This Toronto Photographer put a photo up each day, and the variety of images is quite good. A great source for ideas and inspiration.

Click here

The Mom Song.

Images from Honduras

A collection of a few photos from our recent trip to Honduras. For the photographers out there, most of these were taken with a Canon G9 point & shoot. I think it's probably the best point and shoot on the market these days.

We spent the week building Pilas and Latrines. Pilas are essentially large outdoor kitchen sinks. Since most of the families in the village of Chachagualla just have a line of pvc coming into a 5 gallon bucket, this is a big improvement. Latrines, well you know what they are.

This has to be the poorest village I've been to in my 6 trips, yet, this may have been my most rewarding trip yet. Partly because we were working side by side with Hondurans to build these things. At one home, the mother and her 13 year old nephew worked just as hard to dig and mix the cement.

If I could talk Lisa into it, someday, I'd like to move down to Honduras. Well, my Spanish needs more work. There is something very attractive about this very poor country. The culture places such a high value on friendship. Would I miss the states. of course, and I'd probably tire of the rice and beans. But, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up in Honduras, not this year or next, but down the road. Who knows, with the stock market these days, cost of living in Honduras might make for a good retirement.

The images below are : from top to bottom. Claudia, our translator in her Grandmother's cooking hut, Lisa & Juan Ramon laughing as they try to remember words to a song together, Children at our first home where we built our first Pila, Jack & John from our group with fans, me with Claudia's 84 year old grandmother, The Black & White of Maria, who at age 83 got a new much need Latrine, and her first ever Pila., A young Honduran girl in the school, and Lisa reading to some kids at the school.

The After School Photo session

I'm back from Honduras, and will post some photos soon. Before I left, in mid january I did some work in New York City for the After School Corporation. They will be having a big event in march with George Soros, the billionaire and philanthropist. he helped start the non-profit, and they were looking for images of the children involved in after school programs in new york City. These are a few.