Buried Beneath a Thousand Pictures

I dug myself a big hole in 2009 with my new camera. I took an outrageous amount of pictures but seem to have been left with a dismal amount of pictures I like, or that are worth showing. But here are some from Christmas break. All shamelessly edited but I like the results. Also I've resolved never to shoot in RAW again. For all the effort, I didn't gain a noticeable advantage.

I must have taken 400 pictures of Rainier over the 7 days I was home. But since that view is from my parents house, it wasn't that hard to do. I was and still am enamored with that mountain.



Love this one. Dirty but I really like the dark frame the clouds above and the trees below give the mountain.



HDR shot, I tried to keep this one as modest as possible.



Another HDR pic, this one just got worse and worse as I tried to get it back to normal but when I gave up on it I realized I liked it. A lot.



Night shot of Butte, MT with the old mine scaffolding lit up in red. I didn't even plan on cars and semi trucks passing put it made for some cool shots.



Finally Butte gave me a reason to stop, even for 10 minutes instead of just driving through

So This is the New Year

Ok. I'm working on 3 things this year:
reading one book every week
posting every week
using as few words as possible on my posts

For now, here are two thoughts.

"Family Time" - This is the small group my brother attends at Pepperdine. Incredible group. A model for wrestling in prayer and petitioning for each other. An infamous group, frequented by complete strangers but treated as brothers. In an hour's time I felt like I really had missed out on something going to a public(secular school,) yet was encouraged knowing my brother was a part of this group.

I just read Love Beyond Reason by John Ortberg to begin my goal of 52 books in 52 weeks.

I cried at every turn of the page.

I had to put it down several times and collect myself.

I'm quite sure that when I re-read it in the future I won't have the same response. But somehow it was precisely what I needed to hear at this moment. It broke me. Its words compel me. I do wish to pass it on to others, but I can't guarantee it will have the same effect. In any case, I've missed reading and cannot wait to devour much more this year.