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Years ago I discovered a personal meaning for the word “adventure”. I was telling a friend my plans for taking a solo, cross-country trip to New Mexico. He asked why and I told him I was “looking for adventure”.  His reply was,  ”Really? You know adventure begins when things don’t go as planned, right?”. Sure enough, I found my adventure and realized the truth in my friends words.

While on my way through Oklahoma I encountered the first of what would be many “adventures” on this trip. My car broke down in Stroud, Oklahoma and I ended up spending several unplanned nights at the Skyliner Motel. This, being  a spring trip, coincided with Oklahoma’s tornado season and several powerful thunderstorms developed. One night I felt trapped by the rain but  decided to make the best of the situation and get out my camera.  A few weeks later, after returning home, I found this image on the last frame of the last roll from that night:

Skyliner Motel

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What 3 things do Polar Bears and Trillium flowers have in common?

Give already? The obvious one is they’re both white, but what about the other two?

Click image to view the Trilliums 2010 Gallery

Polar Bears and Trilliums are also both vulnerable and just trying to survive. I know, kind of the same thing, but really different if you think about it.
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I wanted to “ring in the new year” by sharing a special collection of images with everyone. However, I sorely underestimated my own procrastination and now, January has nearly passed us with February hot on its trail.

So, rather than allowing myself to push the project off into next month (and the next and so on), I decided I would apply myself and finish the darn project. As a result, I’m pleased to say, it is complete. The 2010 Screensaver Collection is ready and available for download!

Choosing the Images

In selecting the images for this project, I wanted them to be colorful, peaceful, and not too busy. In short, good for display on a computer desktop or screensaver.

Most of the selected images stand on their own apart from the collection. The few that are a little more abstract may serve as good starting points for further collections. We’ll see. Time will tell.

Downloading the Collection

Since widescreen monitors are becoming more common, the collection is available in two sizes, normal and Widescreen.  Choose the size that matches your monitor the closest.

Both downloads are high resolution images for use on your personal computer’s desktop and screensaver. Please respect the copyrights on these images and do not copy them for other uses.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click one of the links below. Your browser will prompt you to save an executable file to your hard drive. The best place to save the file is in your pictures folder. When the download finishes, click on the downloaded file to unpack the images – you will be prompted for where to unpack the images. Click on “Extract” and the images will automatically be placed in a subfolder called “2010 Screensaver Collection”.  Once the images are unpacked on your hard drive, tell your computer where to find them for your desktop background and screensaver.

2010 Screensaver Collection (1280 x 1024)

2010 Screensaver Collection Widescreen (1920 x 1200)

(Update: 2/3/2010) The self-extracting files above will only work on the Windows platform. For those running other platforms or those who want to unzip the files manually, you can download the naked zip files here:

screensaver-collection-2010.zip
screensaver-collection-2010-widescreen.zip

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the images, especially after you’ve had a chance to view them all through a few times. Just throw me an elbow in the comments.

Enjoy! Ed.

Two Futures

Two women symbolize humanity, each looking to a different future.

One future is characterized by recent choices.

The other holds out the promise of something brighter.

Mural in progress on one wall of G.R. Community Foundation building

Promise of a brighter future

Daan hopes to be in Top Ten

Daan has been working for several weeks, away from family and friends, his days dominated by this work. read more »

First up, Do you SoFoBoMo?

I won an award in a contest over at the website SoFoBoMo.org. Of course, since the only competition was myself, I had some say in the matter.

SoFoBoMo is short for Solo Photo Book Month. The contest is to shoot, edit and publish a book of 35 photos in 31 days. Since I was able to do this, I am recognized as a “Finisher ‘09″.

The book tells the story, in photographs, about spending 24 magical hours touring the countryside when the cherry trees blossom near Traverse City, Michigan.

You can download the book, titled “Cherryside” and all 35 images from this link: SoFoBoMo.org

Enjoy!

Lastly, An inspiring and unfortunately true story

Through personal connections I’ve had the privilege of following a story about a family, David and Amy Wenzel, who recently learned their life will never be the same – David has a brain tumor. Even typing those words strikes fear into my heart. So actually going through such a trial is a stretch of comprehension for me.

David and Amy both have begun writing about the experience online. Both are very talented people and possess the ability to communicate at high levels. Both are leaning on their faith in a loving God to guide them in this experience. Nobody knows where all this will lead, and even though they are not superheroes with supernatural strength, their reaction to events so far has been inspiring.

Take the time to read through their posts, I doubt you’ll regret it.

David Wenzel’s Blog
Amy Wenzel’s Blog

Be Inspired!