David...

The thing that bothers me, is that Scripture only addresses individuals who play a role of strategic significance in God's redemptive plan, or play a necessary role in illustrating an accurate picture of Divine Character. There is no book of Joe. Or Jane. Scripture does not address the Average Slob. We get no direct description of how such an individual can expect to be treated in a relationship with the Almighty. Everything is inferred, mostly from the wriring of David and Solomon, and this pop theology is presented to us from the pulpit. As for the Bible thumping "Gawd speaks to us throo his worduh!", Peter Lord reminds us in "Hearing God", that a huge number of Christians lived and died before Guttenberg's printing press, and never owned a Bible. Most of us would like to think that we have a 1-of-a-kind role to play in God's plan, but is this realistic? It feels empty, to me, this doctrine of intimacy with God, an Entity capable of 400 years of silence. How do I reconcile this with a man who claims that he stands at the door knocking, waiting to come in and interact with me? I cannot follow David's example, because I am not being groomed for Great things, and I am not nearly the man David was. I can sin with the best of 'em, but I cannot measure up to David's faith. From time to time, in his whining, David doubted God's concern or attention, but never his existence. It seems God only answers those who need to hear him for his purpose. What kind of a relationship is that? I have read my Bible, and listened desperately for a still, small voice. This merely puts me in touch with a lot of fleeting thoughts that may or may not come from Jesus. When I knock at your door, and you don't hear me, I knock louder, even though I don't love you near as much as Jesus does...

The Magic Donkey made an ass out of me

Explore, the flickr photoblog showcase is difficult to enter. As near as I can figure the math, only 500 in about 10,000,000 photos possesses enough "interestingness" to be inducted. "Interestingness" is determined by a patented algorythm, which is subject to change, and a closely guarded secret. Flickr keeps track of how many views, comments, and thumbs up a photo gets, where the traffic comes from, and how fast it flows, along with (supossedly) the photographers current level of exposure, and gives it a rating, along with the other photos, about 10 million uploaded that day.
Explore is dynamic... your picture, in relation to the other 10 million recieves a new rating daily. Every day, the photo can make it into the Explore, or lose its place.
The interestingness algorythm works real good, a casual stop on the explore page will almost always be interesting, but the algorythm works by community response statistics. This means it can track popular opinion, not artistic worth.
I have one picture in explore:

Backpack Contents, sans food & water, originally uploaded by use2blost.

It has little artistic value, and is far from my best, but was weird enough to generate traffic at the right speed and intensity to make the cut. I would love for one of my photos to make it just because it was a great picture.
This is why I was dumbfounded when I logged into scout this morning and was informed that 1008 of my pictures had made it into Explore. I had completely forgotten about April Fools Day.

A million miles away

A million miles away, originally uploaded by use2blost.

ohhh, where did the break go? Classes have begun again, and I did not even come close to unwinding properly. I got some good shots of the Riverwalk in Macon today, along with some nice ones of Colin, Debbie's grandson.

sunset over an unknown church

sunset over an unknown church 3 exp hdr, originally uploaded by use2blost.

A 3 exposure HDR... the technological solution to a perfectly exposed photograph (not that this even comes close) but High Dynamic Range Imaging technology allows you to photograph a shot multiple times at different exposures, and then combine the images to get the best of both worlds (or three, or ten). I pulled over on the side of the road on the way home from Sendup, last night and caught this little series.

mischief

mischief, originally uploaded by use2blost.

whew... the quarter is over (or will be for me, at about 12:30). This was my third, and hardest one. I will be free, scholastically, and another three days should see me finished up at work, paid and with an opportunity to get to the mountains for a little hiking time... It cannot happen soon enough for me. I look forward to wilderness trials of some new lightweight gear, and a digital, single lens reflex camera