Seattle's Best

These are pictures that I took on one of my trips to Seattle earlier this year. Despite what most people assume (because I like coffee), Starbucks is not my favorite coffee shop. In Texas, it is just the easiest to find. When I am in Seattle, I always take the opportunity to visit a Seattle's Best Coffee Shop. This shop is right around the corner from the Original Starbucks. Both within walking distance of each other. Not exactly the same in Texas...

Play on...

I see the piano and organ at the front of our church every Sunday (or at least every Sunday that we are there). Went to church one Sunday afternoon wanting to find the extra in the ordinary. Left with a new perspective... at least on the piano and organ...

Maybe this is my life...

Ok, I was going through some pictures that I took a few weeks back. For this picture, I was walking into the kitchen and noticed a frog on our back door glass. Sherri thinks that I am weird, because the first thing that came to my mind was what a neat picture. At any minute the frog appeared that he was about to jump. Fortunately, I was able to get quite a few pictures prior to the escape. Makes me come to the realization that most of my pictures come from spur-of-the-moment boredom (see below)...

In the details

It is amazing what you can find in the details. I was looking through some pictures from an airshow in Oshkosh that I went to a couple of years ago. I found a few pictures to post, but this one really caught my eye (ha ha)... I cropped the rest of the airplane out of the picture to just focus on the image painted on the side. If you stare at the bottom part of the eye, the image jumps out at you and it appears that the skin is peeling back.

Still bored...

Not much to say on this one. Sherri and I were in downtown Greenville today and we stopped at a garden park on Washington Street. As usual, I had my camera and took several pictures...

BTW, I love weekends with really nothing to do!

Am I really this bored?

Ok, was I really this bored today? Spent the day with Sherri - got up early, ate breakfast (drank coffee), did yardwork, washed/dried/vacuumed the cars, volunteered at the "Rally Around Greenville", ate at CiCis, watched TV, took a nap, went to Rockwall, ate at Molinas... And I still had time to take pictures of some mushrooms in our neighborhood. This is what happens when you have one kid away at college and the other spending the night with a friend. Two parents with nothing but time. I would say that Sherri and I had a great day together!

Buffalo Stampede

Here are a couple of pictures from this week's cross country meet. The weather was perfect, but the course was tough to follow. In many places, the path was defined by logs laying on the ground. Did I mention that the course was on a horse ranch??? Unfortunately many of the paths were also marked with deposits from the horses. There were nine colleges at this meet. Texas A&M Commerce came in fourth. Maci placed third overall with a time of 20:45. We have a few weeks off before we head to Stillwater, OK.

Memphis Twilight Run

On Saturday night Maci ran in here first official college cross
country meet (actually this was her first cross country meet ever).
It was a 5k in the pouring rain in a path around a soccer complex in
Memphis, TN. Here you see her making the final corner near the finish
line. She placed 72nd out of 184 with a 20:39 time. She was the
first TAMUC runner across the finish line.

Coffee Makers...

So the coffee maker (or the more technically correct term is Super Automatic Expresso Machine) on the left is my most recent purchase. There is such a long story and life-lesson associated with this machine. For those in my Sunday School class, you know it all too well (after three well-intentioned lessons). Being a coffee snob, this was my dream machine (the best part of waking up is NOT Folgers in MY cup). I have been looking at it for over 2 years, just couldn't seem to justify buying such an expensive machine for coffee!

Now, the coffee maker on the right is Sherri's coffee maker. It does exactly as she wants; it makes coffee. $49.99 and she is proud of it! She loves the smell of her Folgers brewing in the morning.

Time will tell if Sherri will ever completely come over to my side of the counter, but for now we have to maintain two coffee makers... If this is our biggest disagreement, I am a fortunate man!

Mecca (for a coffee drinker anyway)...

So this is where it all began... Most of you probably know the story about Starbucks. When I started going to Seattle, I photographed the store many times. After all, I reaaaaalllllly like Starbucks coffee. And I really liked the different coffee cups that you could only get at the original Pikes Place store. Every time there was something about the picture where the mood didn't seem right (too many people, too dark, cars, too modern). Well, last summer we were down in the Pikes Place Market after dark and things were closing down. Most of the cars were gone and for some reason this one car was left in front of Starbucks. Talk about the perfect photo op! Unfortunately, the only camera that I had with me was a small point and shoot camera (one step above a cell phone camera). In case you don't know much about cameras, small point and shoot cameras don't do very well in dark conditions when you don't want to use the flash. The pictures tend to be blurry. Well all of that money that I spent on all of those expensive lenses and cameras didn't help a bit here. They were all at home and here I was with the perfect photo chance. A friend of mine once told me that the best camera in the world is the one that you have with you. This photo proves that. Probably the best photo that I will ever be able to take of this store... No matter how many times that I go to Seattle.

The Man...

Now this is something that I would love to buy and bring home for our backyard... However, I have been married to Sherri long enough to know that this would not be a good idea. There are certain things that you just know that are not worth an argument (unlike a very expensive coffee maker). You can spot these guys at a gift/coffee shop in Childress America along Highway 287, almost right in the middle of town. The coffee shop serves Seattle's Best Coffee. I would consider this some of the best coffee out there, even better than Starbucks... Ok, so back to the picture. There are several of the little guys tied to the posts, just waiting on someone like me (or you) to come along and take them home. I had to settle for the picture. :( Let me know if you travel through Childress America and see them...

Christ Died For Us...

So I took this on one of our trips to New York in 2006.  Not exactly my style of spreading the Good News, but I have to respect a guy like this...  In the middle of Time Square in New York City; one of the busiest places in the world.  How many people are REALLY paying attention to him, his salesmanship or his sign.  Yet, he continues...   Not in a "Bullhorn" kind of way (for the Noomiacs), but in a matter of fact kind of way.  So what is the probability that he will reach someone?  Well if you think about it, probably pretty good!  The chances are slim, but the number of prospects are high.  Plus, what makes ME think that I can actually convince someone to come to know Christ on MY own with MY dynamic ways of sharing the Gospel?  Both of us (he and I) are on a level playing field.  We both need God!  Without His prompting or plan, nothing happens on the other end...  In both cases, it starts with a person willing to share and ends with a person who needs Christ.  Hits me right in the face!  Who seems to be the more willing person to REALLY share Jesus???

The Wall...

This is a portion of a wall leading down to an alley below the Farmer's Market area of Pikes Market in downtown Seattle.  Every time that I have been to downtown Seattle I take several pictures of this wall.  Honestly, I can't say that I ever read the actual posters/advertisements/artwork.  I just think that when you put it all together, it has an appeal for a picture.  Some day I will compare all of the pictures to see how it changed (or stayed the same) over a long period of time.  I will be back in Seattle next week...

5K - Maci

Got up this morning at 5:30 am to get Maci to a 5K in Mckinney! Oh
how deep is a father's love (did I tell you it is Saturday
morning?)... Charles (her running mentor) came along too. Of course,
I brought my camera. So I look like the stalker with the camera. At
least nobody will mistake me for a runner...

Results:  Maci got 2nd place in her age group (15-19), 42nd overall (men and women) and 9th in the women's division. She beat all of her previous times. I think that she did great! Charles placed 1st in the Masters age group and 19th overall (men and women). Congratulations Maci and Charles!

Maci - Soccer

Over the years, I have taken probably more than ten thousand pictures of Maci playing soccer.  Tonight I decided maybe that I should post a few.  The bad part of having so many pictures is trying to find that one that I really like.  Found several, but I picked these mainly because I got tired of looking and decided to make a decision.  If you know me, I don't do well making decisions.  Oh well, funny how I have all of these pictures of Maci playing soccer and now she suddenly likes to run.  It is hard to take an exciting picture of a runner...  So in the first picture, she looks like she is dancing and playing soccer.  If it were me, this would be a sure sign that I was tripping.  The second picture shows the focus on the ball.  Incredible, considering that everyone around her (that you cannot see) is running towards the same ball.  The last picture just shows that girls are mean too...

An Intersection

So this intersection is outside of Childress, actually in Kirkland, TX.  Interesting in the pattern.  Notice the intersection of Road 22 and Road BB (hopefully, you can click on the picture to enlarge it to make the signs big enough to see).  Coincidence that it was a repeating second number and a repeating second letter (kinda like having to explain the blonde joke to the brunette)?  Looked for the intersection of Road 21 and Road BA.  No luck...

It's lonely out there...

Another picture from nowhere.  That seems to be one of my favorite things to do.  I remember being out in the middle of nowhere, walking through another cemetary with prairie grass and mesquite trees (and let's not forget the occasional headstone).  So I was not exactly in an area where you would expect a phone call.  Absolute quiet; the only noise was the wind.  My cell phone ringtone blares an intro to the David Crowder song "Everybody wants to go to heaven... but nobody wants to die".  It was as if someone jumped out of the grave next to me.  It was Sherri (on the phone, not in the grave), calling to see if I was ok...

Jamaica

These pictures were taken on a family trip to Jamaica during spring break in 2005.  It was interesting to me that if a tree died or if it was blown over, they didn't let it go to waste.  They would carve an image in the remaining part of the tree.  The first tree was right on the beach adjacent to the reclining chairs.  The second carving was done while we were staying in our room.  Our room was right behind this statue.  We woke up every morning to the sounds of a hatchet cutting away at the tree.  I guess they started early, because by midday they were busy partaking in a favorite local past time in Jamaica...

Cheese

Sadi would kill me if she knew that I posted this one.  It was blurry and I made it sorta cartooned to make it look less like her.  Sadi likes to take "random pictures" with my camera.  The problem is that she usually takes a hundred or more "random pictures" at a high frame rate.  I have to sort through them and delete most, but I HAD to save this one of her taking a picture of herself in the mirror.

More Best Friends

Ok, so now I may have found a way to take pictures of my kids (or maybe this is my calling in taking pictures).  First Maci asked me to take pictures of her with her best friend before they went off to college (separate colleges).  Then, after Sadi saw the pictures, she wanted me to do the same for her.  Again, I resorted to downtown Greenville and visited the same locations, but changed up the poses.  In this first one, they were peeking through the crack in the doors.  Looked cute to me...  The second one was just a good closeup of them both smiling.  Plus, the garage door handle and cracked wood/paint add character to the picture.  The last one started out goofy, but after I took a few, it started to look better.  Sadi and Mikayla actually liked it...