My Nat Geo Photo Contest Submission
Last night I submitted my photo entry to the Nat Geo Photo contest. I basically had 2 or 3 months to do this and OF COURSE I waited to till the very last moment to submit my entry. So at the zero hour I created my account and uploaded my photo and paid the 15 dollar submission fee. It was cool to enter. I want to try entering some songwriting contests as well for my music. It was a little odd feeling to click the submit button... I was actually kind of nervous to submit my photo! I almost backed out but decided to just go for it. What the heck. Why not?
Well, they made it on the site that you can link to it to share with people. So what better opportunity to share than right here!
Real quick I'll just give a quick what the photo is...
The photo was taken when the Chili's down the street from where I live caught on fire in the middle of the night. After hearing several sirens and see the lights through my blinds of a number of fire trucks go by I decided to get up out of bed and head to the window to check it out. The whole street was all blocked off! And not just any street it was Lancaster Ave (The main road through the whole town... although it's a pretty main road in general). Initially when I saw the first truck parked and thought it would be cool to just photograph a fire truck, lights all on and the water hoses all out. I wasn't expecting to get anywhere NEAR to even see the fire really. So I took my camera just to see if I could ask the first police officer if I could take a picture. But he let me go right in... and the same with all the fire fighters. They all said go ahead and take as many photos as you like... just don't get too close to the fire to get hurt. I thought I'd be gone 5 minutes and then right back to bed. But, an hour or 2 or whatever later when the sun was just starting to come up, I was finally going to sleep! I took about 300 pictures.
As far as I know no one was hurt in the fire. I thought those men and women fighting it were real heroes and very brave and courageous people and they deserve infinite amount of thanks for what they do!
So anyways long story short they let everyone who wanted in close enough to actually even feel heat from the fire! It was crazy. I was using my telephoto lens. So I was able to get a bunch of shots of the firefighters actually doing their job. This photo just really stuck out to me. I don't know there was something very interesting about it I guess. So when I saw the nat geo contest a little while later I immediately knew I wanted to submit this exact picture.
OK, basically the rules for the Nat Geo Photo Contest said very little editing allowed... I decided to just not touch the photo at all and submit it as is. So here is the photo I submitted. It's unedited right out of the camera and was number 281 of the pictures I took. Oh and I'll keep everyone posted if I win or place or get any kind of response or a runners up prize or anything...
I decided to title it after a lyric in my song Wish Upon A Hero and call it:
"The Heroes Inside Us All"
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2011/entries/122659/view/
Well today I'm blogging on my lunch time. It's about time for me to get back to work!
Trying out a new church
So I've decided that I've only ever really gone to one church. I went to the presby church down the street one morning a long while back and that was cool but it just didn't grab me as much as the Victory church.
So I still like the Victory church but I want to just see what other churches are like! So I'm going to try a different church maybe even for a few weeks in a row to see how I like it. Then I'll maybe try a few different ones in the area. I'll have to do some more research but I think for now I've decided to try another one that's right nearby in Wayne.
So the church I'm going to check out is:
Church of the Savior - http://www.cosnet.org/
I don't know a lot about it but I think I'm going to just go to the 11am service and see how it goes. I think maybe the 11 will have a couple less people than the earlier times so maybe I can just quietly sit in the back. Maybe try that for 2 or 3 weeks... unless I feel super uncomfy then I'll try a different one. it took me a LONG time to get comfortable at Victory... but I just think I want to try new churches maybe there will be a new one that will fit even more than that one... who knows! And if nothing really fits then I can always go back to Victory. But for now I think I want to try new churches and just see how things go.
The 11am service doesn't allow me to sleep in... but it's ok I can always nap after if I feel the need to.
I think sometimes in life it can be good to step out of the comfort zone and trying new things.
If I could be a cat instead of a human for a week I might consider it
So if I could trade places for a while with an animal or something... maybe just like a week...
I'd trade spots with a cat. Well as long as the owner was good at taking care of me. I mean that would just be sweet. I'd get fed and watered and have a place to do my business.
And then at the end of the day I'd have a nice warm bed with someone to curl up next to.
I don't know... I mean it would be pretty sweet. I definitely need a nice big window with a warm sunny spot and a couch or something to sleep near during the day. Maybe every now and then there would be a visitor or two and I could brush up against them and get them to pet me.
Ya know just act all cute and innocent... like hey I'm a cat here... pet me!
And then maybe every now and then I can chase around some string.... and maybe get one of those awesome little pet treats.
I mean is that NOT the life? I think it pretty much is.
So yea let's just say I'm a little jealous of pet cats. They got the life!
Sleep, eat, affection. It's a pretty sweet deal.
My number one thing for a significant other is must love God
So my number one thing for a significant other is that she must love God. She must be familiar with the 10 commandments and adhere to them.
Today I had someone message me on a dating website that I am on. The site is OKCupid. The girl messaged me seeming to be genuinely interested.
After a few messages back and forth... She then messaged back a response to me to a question I asked saying that "Her husband works a good job so she can do art all day but she doesn't make any money doing it."
Stop. Right. There. You are already married! You should not be on a dating website.
I told her I wasn't interested and she came back with... well that's too bad to hear.
What?!?
No. Gross... gag. Blah.
If you are married and you are on a dating website looking for sex there is something VERY wrong!
I mean all I have to do is reference the 10 commandments.
http://www.esvbible.org/Exodus+20/
Exodus 20:14
"You shall not commit adultery"
GOD SAID THAT!
And the definition of adultery is: "voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse"
So my number one thing for me to be with someone is that they have to listen to what God says first and foremost and that must be number one.
I feel like writing but don’t know what to write
I feel like writing, but I don't know what to write. I guess I'm thinking about all kinds of things. I don't know... what I do know for sure is that I was stupid this weekend and had a bit too much to drink because I was definitely acting immature. I still feel sick from it. I pretty much slept most of the day and this evening as well. I just woke up a short while ago. It's 2 am I'm about to go back to sleep. So yea, I just feel yuck all over. And as well my apartment still smells gross... from... well... yea went out last night and had too much to drink and got sick after passing out in my room but not making it to the bathroom... Gross I know. I've got a whole bunch of fresh flower smell things going on to counter it. It's all cleaned up... but I don't know... there's still a yunky smell. It's going away. Again gross.
I guess what I do want to write is how disappointed in myself I am. I just keep doing stupid things to try and find love or try and make it happen. And I know that love will happen when it does. There is no magic way to make it happen or force it. When it does it does... and when it doesn't it doesn't. I'm definitely bad at realizing when people need space and not trying to talk to a person that I like every single day. I guess I don't like that I do that... whenever I like someone I just want to talk to that person a lot. And it doesn't mean just romantically. Even just friends I still want to talk a lot. But I have to respect people's space and time and be more just around and if we talk a bunch one day then maybe the next few days or whatever maybe we don't talk at all. Instead of just wanting to talk EVERY single day. It can be too much.
I'm kinda sorta out of it a little so if that doesn't make a lot of sense... I don't know I'm going to try to write some more tomorrow. But yea... I just need to chill more and let it all come when it does and not get sad or feel frustrated at life. I think what I do a lot is compare myself to others. I mean everything I have now even is a gift from God and I need to just be thankful for every little precious day. And eventually the things I want to have like love will happen. And if it never does then it wasn't mean to be. But me being all cranky and complaining and immature definitely won't help the cause. And it won't be attractive for any lady that might be interested in me and would probably turn them off and turn them away. So yea. I need to just learn to be ok with how things are at any given moment.
Ok, I'm going to try and get back to sleep. I feel yucky all over. A lot of lesson's learned this weekend. That's for sure.
Happy turkey-day!
Soooo it's actually turkeyday eve. But I wanted to go ahead and wish everyone a Happy Turkey Day!
I don't know why I just capitalized happy and turkey and day but that makes things more officially official.
Soooo now it's official!
Anywho I hope everyone has an awesome day and it's filled with joy and love... and peace and all sorts of good things.
Turkey day AKA Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays. Soooo I'll be enjoying it for sure. I'm going over to my moms house to hang out for the day and just relax and enjoy it. So it should be just a good nice relaxing holiday.
The other plan on my way home or on the way over to her is to go check out a little condo that i'm going to be eventually looking at. A condo! I know, it's not a real house... but it's a step in the direction of owning my own place.
So I'm just going to have a quick drive by and see what it looks like. I saw pictures but you can't really get a feel unless it's in person. Then I'll go have a real look at it with the realtor if I like it.
That sounds a little creepy of me... but I'm just having a quick look at the area around the condo. Not really the condo itself. I mean I might look in that direction for a quick moment but I just want to get a feel for the neighborhood and all that to see if I get a good feeling about it.
Then I plan to just come home and relax and work on creative stuff. Mostly music.... and edit photos from the shoot on Sunday. So I can get those done.
I might do some chores too... maybe vacuum or clean.
Tonight I did a whole mess load of dishes that were piling up.
Soooo yea that's the plan for tomorrow!
So I hope everyone else has a spectacular holiday as well!
I give sooooooo much thanks to just so many things. What does everyone else give thanks for? Well it's time for me to get to sleep. I've been kinda falling asleep and waking back up and falling asleep anyways already. So might as well stop trying to fight it and try to stay awake and just go ahead and turn in for the night. Night everyone!
There are many important things that most people never know even exist
I'm a bit tired so I'm gonna make this post a shorti one.
So at work we constantly have to fix things and it's just a never ending on going battle against technology (or maybe it's a battle for technology). Just when we think we've got it all fixed and good and we sit down and say ok... ALLLLLLLL FIIIIIIXED... what's next?
BAM.
Something else breaks. It's just that things are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO complex that there's sooooo much happening at any given moment that any one thing even the smallest thing can have a cascading effect and then it can break other things.
So yea it's always on going and always super whoa.
But the thing is the students/staff/faculty really don't have any idea what's going on behind the scenes. They just kinda go... "Oh, well I mean if it stops working, I call or email helpdesk and then it works again."
Stops works... call helpdesk... works again.
But there's a lot missing from that equation... where we do all this stuff that they don't see or know about to fix the problem. But we know about it... and I mean that's the beauty of it... they don't have to know anything about it. They can do their job and focus on the stuff they do and we take care of the techy stuffs.
But it does make me appreciate how many things in other systems or industries that I don't even know.
Like lets take for example any of the items in my kitchen. I mean, I LOVE food... and I love coffee and tea and every now and then I like to relax with a nice beer or a glass of wine with dinner and put something on netflix...
But most of the time I don't think about hey where did all the ingredients come from for this? I mean I had an awesome greek pizza last night at California Pizza Kitchen. I took my mom there for her Birthday and it had ALL kinds of crazy things on it.
All I know is the waitress came out... asked what we wanted... I gave my order from the menu... then a little bit of time passes... and...
WOW... there's my pizza... HOT and FRESH and mmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm sooooo good. I never really think about all that went into getting that pizza to my plate. It's a lot to follow... not just cooking but the raw ingredients that came in on trucks, and someone had to build the trucks and pump gas into those trucks to make em go! And someone had to drive em...
and people had to pack up the trucks and they had to gather up off of farms all the stuff on the pizza. Like the olives on it probably came from maybe Italy... or something where in the Mediterranean. So there were boats and things too.
Also there's the whole idea of owing what we have now to history.
I mean stoves weren't invented yesterday. They have been refined over a LONG time to become what they are today! And...
I could go on for a long time with this. But the point is... sometimes I forget to stop and think and appreciate it all and be thankful and be humbled by it all. I think you know what I'm getting at.
Maybe we should say grace not just before meals... but before we fill up our cars with gas... and maybe before someone from helpdesk fixes someone's computer? Well... I don't know... but I mean... I'm going to try and at least keep in the back of my mind just how many things I really rely on in the world that rely on efforts of other people around me.
Like... the words I'm using to type this post. It's kind of magnificent... brains speaking language.... understanding it...
I left that out of my restaurant scenario... the whole ordering food by communicating words... and conveying meaning.
I guess there's the whole paying for it at the end... so you have banking systems and financial transactions...
Hmmm ok my head hurts now.
But yea the point is... wow. The world is a REALLY complex place! So just try to appreciate it all and it's beauty.
Oh and... maaaaaaaaaaybe also... the next time computer stuff doesn't work for a short while.... ya know... maaaaaaaaybe give the IT dudes a break.
I mean, sometimes it takes a hot minute or five to figure out what's wrong and diagnose the issue and then get it back up and running.
Kinda shows just how much we really rely on all this tech stuff! We really do don't we?
Okeys, well it's bed time for me! I should try blogging during the day. Apparently I'm a nocturnal blogger or something.
Sometimes I come up with things that make my life easier
I came up with this about a week ago. OK, yea yea yea, I know someone else PROBABLY thought of this already. But I had never seen it used. The only thing I've seen before are the little cargo net things that come in "pricier" cars. Well I drive a little cheapo bottom of the line automobile... it gets me from point A to B and back again and that's all I need.
So I don't have one of those fancy pants cargo nets. But what I DO have is a little bit of creative smarts and a bungee cord! Also I have two back seats that have head rests.
Soooooo as you can see from the pictures below I fixed up a problem I've been having.
What was the problem? Well the problem was that my bags would always shift and spill on my drive home! It was annoying. I didn't even drive that fast or make very many twists or turns at all! I'd go shopping and pack my backs up all nice and neat and then they will always NO MATTER WHAT spill out things into the back of my car.
Soooooo I decided enough was enough. And I came up with a way to fasten them in place. Here are two pictures... now I use re-useable cloth bags but it also works just fine with regular old plastic bags. This idea came out of how I secure my folding bike in place when I put that in my trunk. I use the same bungee cord to hold it upright and instead of letting it roll around from side to side.
So what I do is I thread the bungee cord through the handles of the bags. Then I just hook up the cord to the head rests. The bags stay nice and snug and in place and nothing ever spills out!
This makes me super happy. It works like a charm EVERY time. Soooo if you have the same type of setup... I'm sure that you can bungee your bags in place as well!
So that's secret number one to easier living. I should start writing articles for readers digest or something!
Well, that's all I got for now. So give it a try out and let me know how it go... or goes...
Night internets worlds!
The Power of Love
Huey Lewis and the News penned a song "The Power Of Love"
The chorus goes something like this...
You don't need money
don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train.
It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life.
That's the power of love
that's the power of love.
Now why am I referencing this? Well, I've been thinking tonight about the power of prayer. I think maybe that chorus... minus the whole "it's cruel sometimes" part... omit that... but the rest of the chorus could be the power of prayer. SO replace love with prayer.
I mean, anyone can pray... and it doesn't take a certain amount of cash... or a certain status level. You definitely can't activate prayer with a credit card. It's VERY STRONG and can be sudden. Def not cruel though...
And as far as saving your life? Yep. I think that's the power of prayer.
Tonight in church the pastor talked about prayer and how if you pray for them God will listen and do amazing things. It's definitely something I've been thinking about like what if I pray wrong? And it mucks up and then something bad happens instead of what I prayed for!?!? But I don't think there's a "wrong" way to pray for someone... because as in my reference to the power of love... the words prayer and love kinda seem to be interchangeable. If you are praying for someone... it's out of love and only good can come of it. Because if someone was ever asking something bad to happen to someone... that's not prayer at all. That's the COMPLETE opposite. That's like the work of evil.
It's funny because tonight when praying for people was mentioned... I kinda thought about it and was wondering... well does prayer actually work? I mean what exactly is it?
Then our regular meet up group didn't meet. People were busy and it was the first time that no one could meet since we started it which was like 3 months ago!
So I went to my next thing (Walmart) instead... but as I got to the parking lot I just decided that I really wanted to keep it going even if it was just me sitting there reading. So I started up my car. I went over to starbucks... when I got there the dude that works there seemed kinda sad that our group wasn't meeting. We chatted for a few and then he randomly gifted me a box of cranberry bliss bar. I was very thankful... I'll have to package it up in little ziplock bags or something and share it with friends.
Well I got a coffee and a small slice of pumpkin bread as well. I settled in and started reading. Now, the book I'm randomly reading is just a random book I downloaded because I have no idea what I want to read next... it's called "The Help"... I'm on page 30 or so. 28... somewhere around there. Well... so the exact part I read next was talking about how the main character makes a list of people she prays for and she writes down her prayers each week. It's because she was told that she needs to keep reading and writing so she started writing down her prayers and reading them back way forever ago.
So her one friend points out that every person she prays for gets what she prays for them! And she was saying that her prayer as some kinda direct connection to God... the words in the book were something like everyone else is close to God but she's sitting there whispering in his ear... paraphrasing and I forget the EXACT words but it was something like that.
It's just kinda suspiciously coincidental to me that I would read that exact part about how her prayers work and God listens to each and every one of her prayers right after the pastor at church tonight would talk about praying for people and then I would kind of have a question as to does prayer actually work.
If that's not a direct answer then I don't know what is.
Well anywho so I guess what I came up with is that praying for someone is a way of showing you care for that person. And that you want God to show that person love.
And prayer is so powerful that if you are praying for someone (or even yourself) who might be in such a situation... It might just save your life.
THAT'S the power of prayer.
Foods that I like that also do more than just taste good!
I've been posting some serious blogs lately. So here's a lighthearted one about foods that I like that also do more than just taste swell.
They do neat things for your health and such. Or, supposedly they do. I don't know if I feel any different after eating foods that are not healthy as opposed to foods that are.
Like I just ate a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and I feel kinda fantastic. I'm pretty sure that's probably not super healthy. But it's good for the soul. Soooooo that's all I care about at this very moment. Just like all those hershey's kisses we have at work that I've been eating out of the giant tin of them that we were given make me feel just fine and dandy.
Ok, so... I've always found it interested the effects that certain foods are supposed to have on you. Like Chamomile tea is supposed to make you all relaxed. I enjoy chamomile tea. Especially when it's mixed with something citrusy... always good. Oranges and mangos and pears and such. Yummmmmmm.
Then of course there's red wine... and olive oil. Supposed to be heart healthy or something.
Blueberries are supposed to help with heart stuff too! And they have fiber and such in them. As well they are super high in antioxidants. I'm blue daba de daba da... isn't that the song?
I enjoy them in my cereal every morning. But I've been eating blueberries since before I knew that. I don't know... I just think they are so darn tasty in cereal!
Let's see what else do I like that's got more going on. Hmmm well green tea. That's good and it's good for ya. There's like a billion things that green tea does.
Then there's Banana's... I have one of those every day. And almonds... I eat some of these as a snack every day... AND... avocado's. I don't eat those every day but I DO love guacamole. Chips are gauc always rock.
What do those foods do? Well.... apppppparently they increase your sex drive. Soooooo I mean... in theory. I should be bow chicka bow wow when it comes to that department. Driving sexy should be my thing after a little snackaroo of banana's almonds, and avocado's. I guess I will keep that in mind the next time I'm going down that road... or something.
Ok ANNNNNNYWAAAAAAAAYS....Ok what else?
Let's seeeeeeeeeee well... the last one I know about that rocks your socks for helping out your body to do cool things is anything with heat.
Yep... feel the burn.
Hot peppers have all kinds of helpful benefits.
I LOVE spicy foods. Hot hot hot. I usually will sprinkle a little cayenne pepper on things. Tonight I made a little burrito/taco thing... and I put some spice in it. It was good.
So what does the hot stuff do?
Well... here's the official source on really important knowledge of things that we should be up on and know about...
Oprah's website.
http://www.oprah.com/health/Hot-Peppers-Dr-Perricones-Superfood-No-7-Superfood/2
That's a list of the health benefits of Capsaicin which is the chemical in hot peppers that causes the "I'm on fire" feeling.
One of the cool things I didn't know it helps with is headaches... That's kinda neat!
"Headache help: Substance P is the key transmitter of pain to the brain. In fact, Substance P is the body's main mechanism for producing swelling and pain throughout the trigeminal nerve, which runs through the head, temple and sinus cavity. When the nerve fibers come in contact with Substance P, they react by swelling—an effect that yields headaches and sinus symptoms. Clinical studies have shown that capsaicin, a compound in hot peppers, is extremely effective for relieving and preventing cluster headaches, migraine headaches and sinus headaches."
Apparently Substance P is the key. You just talk to Master P and P Diddy about that. They'll school you on all things related to P.
So as you can see it really kicks some butt in the good for you department! As long as you can get past the fire feeling.
It's taken me some training... but I can handle some pretty hot dishes now!
There's probably lots of other things that are good for you that I eat... but those are just a couple.
Well... it's time for me to get some sleep. I have work in the AM.