Jamie comes home.

my wife had a good post about this, but i just wanted to put my picture up on my own sight. so here they are. i took some time taking a few photos up at my dads cabin, most of them were portraits. So see one see them all. plus i was just playing around with depth of field and compression. it was fun for me to see how to do different effects with my camera so that i don't have to do them on photoshop. however they are not very pretty to look at. the pictures are not, but my sister in them is a pretty good looking girl. i am not going to post any of the crappy ones.This was one of the ones that i was just goofing with compression. But i thought it turned out okay enough to post.
This photo actually took for freaking ever to do on photoshop. I am happy with the way it turned out though. and by forever i mean like, well long enough that heidi took a nap and woke up before i was done. it was fun to learn what it did though. i think it looks authentically old. for once i am happy with my work, not just pleased.
here is a before shot of the picture just above.

and to all readers of B.A.R.M.... don't be afraid to comment on any of my posts.
click on image for a larger version.

who gets offended?

lately i have been hearing about a lot, i mean a lot of people getting offended. by the silliest things. i am seriously appalled about this. small little things are making people crazy. not only that but people are scarred to talk cuz they are scared of offending others. i was on the phone the other day with a friend of mine and was a bit tired. a couple days later when i talked to him at church he was really worried that he had offended me some how and he really couldn't figure out how. just because i didn't sound normally happy on the phone. Not because there is something wrong with him, but because this is a near universal problem.
so here is my spin on it. when i was a young man, like 9 years ago, i this is what i decided. and i decided this on the basis of what i have felt personally and recognized in myself. i truly think that the only reason a person is offended is that some one found out something about them. i believe that most people somewhere deep down know all of their short comings and try very hard to hide them from themselves and everyone else. and to some extent feel a guilty about those things. so when another person finds out one of these safely guarded secrets, the person try what he/she can to keep that hidden.
finding out the truth about some one that doesn't want you to know it is about the only thing i can think of that would get them to the state of being offended. personally i believe if you are the type of person that gets offended easily, you are giving to much power to other people over your life. think about that for a moment before you get to offended. if you get on my blog and are offended for one minute, you have just given me complete control over you life for that moment. how much worse is that if you are offended for a whole week end. personally that is a power that i absolutely refuse to give to someone else other than me.
i happen to believe that people who do get offended are most likely looking for a reason to feel like a victim of some sort. to get some kinda of sympathy or something.
there was a point in my life when i decided to try to get rid of all my favorite sins and that i didn't care who found out about them. not saying i have been successful, i still have many imperfections. but i don't cry about people knowing them.
now i have spoken just about truth. what about people saying things about you that are not true. (witch i think is rare after high school) who cares! let them tell lies, i don't care about lies about someone else or about me. water off a ducks back. if someone is saying or writing lies about you... really who cares! there are far more important things to do than cry about a silly lie!
in short the mind is an amazing thing, and guess what, you can control it. if we are sad, we can tell ourselves to be happy. if we are tempted with something bad, we can stop an walk away. there are always choices in life. we don't have to choose to be mad or offended if something we don't agree with comes across our path. we can choose to just be happy. my three year old has figured that out. i think if he can do it we all can do it.

Nothing else to say to this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaNXqZGDYWc

to every american.

Watch this the whole way through. And pay attention when he walks away. I love America! I happen to be in Mexico right now and tomorrow is their independence day. And.... well i just want to say America is the best country on earth! No question about it! Click on this link. All green letters in my blogs are links. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4fe9GlWS8

Work Party.

This friday my little family and i was lucky enough to be able to borrow my dads camper again and go camping on the lake for two nights and three days. Friday night I was going to try to make it to the lake early enough to get on fostins boat and ride the sky ski. But guess what, Heidi's sister was late... again. .. and well its getting old. Just about everything we want to do is negatively affected by her. But it was a good time anyway. I loved it. We just had a lot of fun. I took about five thousand pictures and only had like five good ones. I didn't photoshop any of these photos.
This is Jaden.
Just some fire.
I liked the way the fire pics looked so... more fire.
Grandpa Fred. (real name Allan Justice)

salmon run

Tonight me, heidi, deegan, and rouzer went an hour and a half up the mountain; took a wrong turn and finally made it to sheep creek to look at the Kokanee Salmon Run. We seen three or four. But i got some okay pictures. For the first time here are two pictures that i have not photoshoped. They are totally the way that they came off my camera. I am happy with them.

This is the water where the salmon should be.

ya'll know who this is...

Heidi said I had to.

My dear wife in her blog said that I would write about my weekend. I was not planning on it. Plus she said that I took some really good pictures, but i don't think i did. The only one that I did like is already on her blog.
So anyway about my weekend. For over two weeks I have been planning a spectacular ride this for this weekend. Then about about a week ago we decided on devils playground. Well friday we hustled and got the camper over to altonah then come home so that I could wake early and go riding. We got to devils and well three min later I had an unfixable hole in my left side radiator. I jumped my bike down a 30' cliff. Smart, eh?
Then Heidi had to go to church on sunday and didn't want to drive the chevy home so i drove her. Without a thought of how fast we were going I was just driving, casually talking and taking our time. When I passed a sheriff on a 35mph road going 62mph. He didn't cut me much slack. The idiot, after figuring out my ticket told me I was going 29 over. Is it just me or is the difference between 35 and 62 not 29? I could be rusty on my math. I could see if he said that at the spur of the moment but he was in his truck for ten min. with a computer figuring this out.
All and all with out any of the cost of just going to altonah i am out like 4-600 buck.
nice.

Ive been hoping for early snow. even just a small bit, hoping for a sign of a good winter. I do love my sledding. and guess what i found on the internet tonight. its snowed 1.1 inches today at the trout creek snowtel tower. winter is coming and i couldn't be happier.