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Several weeks ago my wife and I took a vacation down to the hill country of Texas. We split our time between two places and did a lot of fun things (some of which almost killed us). I STILL have photos I haven’t finished editing, but I am going to start posting those that I have made it through since its already been three weeks.

This is the first cabin we stayed in was just a few minutes outside of Wimberley, TX. There are actually three small cottages at Canyon Sunrise and you can’t see one from the other. Yep, total privacy. Each one has its own kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom, just like an apartment. Each also has it’s own hot tub on the back porch and it’s own private swimming pool. Yep, private pool…in the woods…fun. That’s all I’ll say about that.

As you can see from the fridge space, there isn’t just a whole lot of room for storage, but mix in an ice chest fro drinks and you’re good. We went to the store in Wimberley and picked up some groceries to minimize our need to travel into town to eat/waste money on buying dinner out. It was fantastic. We used this cabin as a place to relax and do nothing part of the time, and as a base for our explorations into surrounding areas that you’ll see in future posts (so subscribe to my feed NOW!).

<i>And as always, click on the thumbnails to open the slideshow!</i>

[View with PicLens]

This is how I normally get to work. Well, I would if I lived MUCH closer to the office.

I have wanted one of these since Canon released a special edition that was given away at the last Olympics. It took me about three weeks to get it in because I had to order direct from a company in Hong Kong. Why order a lens from Hong Kong and not here in the US? And how did I get an $1,800 lens for less than $30? Scroll down…

Just to be sure I didn’t get ripped off, I used a checking account that I keep very little money in just for such purchases. To further be careful, I used my PayPal account to make the purchase. The next morning my wife received a text alert saying we had hit the mark in our checking account where we have created an alert so the account doesn’t get TOO low. That made me nervous because we had BOTH just deposited our paychecks the day before and hadn’t yet paid the monthly bills! I had a momentary panic before realizing the most I’d probably be out was $50 thanks to fraud detection, but that was a scary moment, nonetheless. Long story short, the alert was because Mint.com hadn’t updated our account balance since we deposited our paychecks.

So have you figured out how I got this so cheap?

I have a whole mess of posts that will be showing up over the next week or two. First, I have to get done editing pictures from my vacation, then I’ll get to writing the posts to go with them. Subscribe to my RSS feed to be automatically notified of new posts. We went to some cool places and saw some interesting things on our trip.

Here is a tease:

One of the primary things that draws me to photography is knowing that one day I will be able to look back at photos of places I been and remember what it was like “back then”. The process of recording a specific moment in time has a certain magical quality. Memories are can be reshaped by time or our perception of events at the time they occurred, but a photo is a true visual representation of what life was like.

I love going back and looking at old photographs from earlier in the century. Its awesome to stare down a city street now and then find a photo of that same street 50 years earlier. One photographer has found a way to do exactly that with old World War II photos. He has taken pictures from WWII and the same locations in present time and blended the two using Photoshop. This create some visually powerful images and I can only imagine what they would do for someone who was actually in these places during the war.

(Thanks to Keith at BagOfNothing for posting.

Okay, I broke down and got a Tumblr account. I really didn’t know much about it, except that more and more people I know were signing up. After messing around with it for a little while, I like the ease of posting things from my phone.

I am keeping this site just as is, but I have added a feed in the side bar (see it to your right?). For now I think Tumblr might come in handy for random things I find while I am out that don’t deserve a regular blog post on this site. This will allow me to use dchristian.net for regular things like articles, et, while Tumblr. will get mobile photos, quick thoughts, and similar useless items.

Check me out: Me on Tumblr.

I am slowly coming around on the idea of “mashups”, taking two things and combining them. Here are a couple of movie trailer mashups that made me giggle.

Fight Club and Toy Story

Inception and UP

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing. It is believing though we cannot see, touch, or hear God in a literal sense. Yes, we may “feel” His presence or see the glory of His creation, but we don’t see God as a physical being.

Last Sunday, our Bible class discussed Gideon. During this discussion, I began to think about the differences in our faith and those of people who lived in Biblical times. Several times over the years Ihave wondered if faith today is more difficult, or more hard won than it was then. The story of Gideon once again brought this to mind.

Think about why you believe in God (for those of you who do). Surely, nothing as complex as our universe could be created by chance or accident. Imagine for a moment all of the functions that go on within the body. Or look at the different ecosystems around the globe and how they interact. Many people will claim this is evidence of God’s existence. Yet, at the core, we still must rely on faith, because we haven’t seen or spoken with Him (literally…I don’t mean through prayer).

Is our faith different from Gideon’s? If you remember, Gideon was chosen by God to free the people of Israel from the Midianites and Amalekites. He had a hard time believing God would choose him because he was young and from an unremarkable clan. His lack of self-confidence cause him to ask God for a little proof of that God really was who he said he was.

36Then Gideon said to God, “You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. 37Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel.” 38That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water.

But that wasn’t quite good enough for Gideon…

39Then Gideon said to God, “Don’t be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet.” 40 That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew.

People in Biblical times saw Jesus perform miracles. They spoke with angels, and even God. How many times have you wished you could ask God for a sign that He exists? Wouldn’t faith be easier if you could ask for a donkey to talk and it happened without the help of Eddie Murphy? Would it be easier to believe if you saw a man who was crippled for many years suddenly get up and walk with the mere word from a man in the room with you? We don’t have these things. Many claim to see miracles today, and I am certainly not saying they don’t exist, but certainly not in the way they did 2,000 years ago. A child with cancer may mysteriously be cancer free at her next doctor visit, but I doubt any of us will ever see a stick turn into a snake.

Have you ever wished you could have the physical proof of God’s existence like those who were able to witness miracles first hand? Would it be easer to have faith?

If you are involved in the Empire Avenue beta or plan to sign up for an account on July 28th when the site launches, this may be for you. If you use WordPress for your blog, there is a brand new plugin called Empire Avenue Tools. One simple plugin adds two features to your WordPress blog. The first lets you quickly add a link to your profile page along with an icon before your ticker. The second is a profile badge widget. Installation and configuration for both took me about 3 minutes.

Here is what the icon and my ticker looks like: (e)DPC. To achieve this, all you have to do is type “(e)”TICKER, without the quotation marks. That’s it. It will insert the icon and link directly to your Empire Avenue page.

For the badge, you simply add the widget to your sidebar, enter your ticker symbol, a title (if you like), and choose from two sizes. Then your done. You can see mine in my sidebar to the right. Pay no attention to my plummeting value.

A big shout out to Olivier Lussier (e)OL for the development of the plugin. And another to Bill Pitcher (e)RZR for his article about the plugin.