Say What?

Rachel made it safely home after a full week of camping. Their trip took them (if you're directionally challenged at all you're going to hate me for what follows) west through South Dakota and into southwestern Montana then south through Idaho and into southwestern Utah before returning home through Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa. She snuck in unnoticed early Monday morning and crashed on a couch after driving through the night. After recuperating from her drive, she spent an hour filling us in about the details of her trip. Much of the planning they'd done had to be entirely reworked on the fly because of heightened bear activity warnings in West Yellowstone where they'd planned to camp. They made the most of it and had some very memorable experiences. She also took some beautiful photos along the way. They all pushed themselves to  their limits at Upheaval Dome with not enough water or food for the 8 hours the hike required. Oh, and they stayed at a campground for s...

You know, sometimes I seriously question my religion. But then I think about it and I decide that it's more so conservative Christians that I question, until I ponder it all a little more and find myself at a place where I'm not only suspect of conservative Christians but I'm back to questioning my religion as well because of the influence a conservative agenda has had on Christianity. And today, conservatives are enjoying tremendous influence on the church. My faith is strong, in that, I believe in a higher power but the tenants of my religion are very much in doubt. I was in a Facebook discussion a couple nights ago with a friend I used to work with. He was talking about Obama and how before his term is up "He is going to declare martial law, because of an economic crisis that he orchestrated." He then went on to talk about a CNN report about a financial meltdown that was going to happen on 9/27/2016. (It was actually a bogus CNN report that's since bee...

Rachel is on a camping trip out west with friends. She takes her camping seriously as do the others she's with, and it shows in their preparation . But for all of the planning they've done, they've had to "go rogue", as they're referring to it, because of high bear activity warnings along their intended route in addition to more snow and cold than they anticipated this early in the fall season. So, they're making it up as they go. Tammy and I were never ones to want to camp. My parents used to own 40 acres of land in Webster, Wisconsin when I was in my teens and they would routinely make the 2-hour trip up there on Friday afternoons with my younger brothers Keith and Tim when the weather allowed. They would pull a trailer home behind my dad's 1971 lime green/yellow Ford F150 pickup truck and park it up on top of a hill in the middle of the forest of land they owned. I would occasionally accompany them but for the most part, I would remain behin...

I used to love my GAF Viewmaster as a kid. I got one as a gift when I was a boy and I would sit and look through it for what seemed like hours on the couch in our front room getting lost in the 3D images inside it. One of the photo reels I especially liked was of the Grand Canyon. It was so breathtakingly real to me. Tammy actually bought me a newer version Viewmaster several Christmases ago but (not surprisingly) it no longer held my imagination the way my original one had. I suppose I'm guilty of being a sucker for anything that's 3D. I used to play around with making my own 3D photos. Here are two examples I did of stained glass lamps I made: Dragonfly lamp and Laburnum lamp . And here's a link to a set on my Flickr account where I have several more. So I thought it was kinda cool when I went to the mailbox a few days ago and found a package from Google and inside was an un-asked for  Google Cardboard  virtual reality viewer; sorta like today's version of a Vie...