christopher’s lives (v5.3)

so, this is the second year the church has had the “Broken Home Thanksgiving”… this year it was at the Lockmans’ and it was quite an event, the drive-in totals are 59 pics, 3 vids, somewhere between 80 and 100 people, 1 football game, deep fryer fu, electric carving knife fu, and i think the final count was 9 dead turkeys…
people are already asking for these, so, they’re up, and the rest of my november pics will be up in the next few days…

i once again used the BluPlusPlus album skin, i have found a winner and am sticking with it… comments can be left on any pic, videos will play right there in your browser, the slideshow mode is pretty darned good, and i used an autumn theme on this album, just to see what it would look like to try something different…

so, enjoy the pics from The Second Annual Calvary Chapel Rio Rancho Broken Home Thanksgiving…

all right, roll it…

(…and we do it all again for christmas!)

karl sent me the news…

99% of the readers of this post have no idea what i’m talking about, but, to those of you that do, this is truly the end of an era, even if that era ended for us long ago…
no more Ch@bTalk, URL Chat, and, if i read it right, no more MyRooms… all those things we spent so many late frustrating hours for months trying to figure out… i remember clearly Curtis announcing he had finally figured out how to get it to work, even making a long-distance phone call to japan (jeez, that was almost five years ago)… then, months later, after everyone had given up on it, Vegitto figured out the way to open Ch@bTalk to the masses… the controversy over the selling of ISAO ID’s, people stumbling through the programs to create them for everyone… and, speaking of frustrating, trying to teach people how to use it… they were certainly our most used guides… then came DreamPassport Premier Ch@bTalk and all the amazing features and having to feel around in the dark all over again to work out all the buttons (the definitive exhaustive guide created by the guy at this keyboard)… JavaCh@b and then DPPC and no one believing Danny that he got it to work until he finally posted a screenshot of it running on his machine… hours spent on the URL Chat at ISAO, trying to get someone who could translate for our guides… months of trying to carry on conversations with people who spoke little to no english, but, needing their knowledge so continuing to try… and several times that it was declared that it was now impossible to create new ID’s, yet, someone always found a way… and, of course, several Ch@b directories, just so you could actually find people to chat with…
Drobb was the first person to Ch@b us… minutes after posting our number in the original DCBG Ch@b listing…
when i installed ICQ on my psion, i even switched out all the sound files with Ch@b sounds… and, here a few months ago, i dusted off my old generation 0 dreamcast and logged into Ch@b to check my messages and just see who might be on…
man, i can hear that god-awful music that played on DP3 when the client would open and close when you went in and out of the email client… sometimes blaringly loud because you turned the volume way up to hear the quiet VoiceCh@b someone sent you…
and who can forget “HALLO! HALLO!”, no matter how bad we want to…

those glory days were great while they lasted… and now, one more piece of those days is about to expire…
glad i was there for it… we really did make a bit of history, even if no one knows but us…

ok, so, i really do honestly believe that the pics i just posted are the best it has ever been my privilege to take… words like ‘breathtaking’ , ’stunning’, and ‘moving’ come to mind… so many of them will surely be desktop wallpapers for a long time to come (good thing i run dual screens, i can double up on them) and they are already my screensaver photos… and, it was probably the hardest whittling operation i have ever had to do… i took about 100 and could only shave them down to 70… i probably should have just posted them all…

the content is sunrise on the flight from abq to los angeles… i bounced back and forth between a couple of white balance settings, so, the colors are not always exactly true, but, perhaps that’s where the art of photography comes into play :) to borrow chris dunn’s comment, i was practically directing the scenery to pose, saying “come on! work it!”… it was the most beautiful flight i’ve taken yet and photos can only convey the slightest fraction of the majestic artwork god created that morning… he created it, i can only humbly try to capture some parts of it to share with those who couldn’t be there to see it themselves…

annnnyway, i might also add that there are pics from the event for which we went to L.A., those do not fall under any of the descriptions above :P but, i didn’t put the two sets in separate folders, so, if you watch them all in slideshow mode, your “ooooohs” and “aaaaaahs” will come to a screeching halt when suddenly pictures of bleary-eyed merchandising reps appear… but, ah well…

i used the “BluPlusPlus” album again and YAY! i figured out how to set up the “viewer remarks” feature!! (bow before my leet php and mysql skillz!) so, you can now add a comment to every single pic you view… sweet…
anyway, using this album again also mean that means there is a nice layout, a nice slideshow mode, and the vids will actually play for your viewing pleasure… i set the pic slideshow times to 10 seconds and the vids for 45 seconds, it seems to work ok, feel free to leave a comment on how well it worked for your connection speed…

now, i need to re-do all the collections from the past so they all have these features… but, rest assured, all future pic postings will have all this cool stuff and, sooner or later, i will even set up the slideshow audio commentary…

anyway, so, on with the show, click here to view the latest photos!

what a thoroughly and hopelessly depressing, painful, miserable day… with more to come in the next couple months…
but, i’m not here to talk about that…

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so, with no further ado, the huge amount of pics i took this month are now all online… i had already posted about 150 pics from balloon fiesta and now i have uploaded the 259 pics/vids i kept from all i took for the whole TMEW conference thing (i took over 500) and 141 just regular pics i took this month…
that’s a grand total of 550 pics! that has got to be a new record…

the regular pics include my first time bowling, the conference in belen, a few of the lockmans/ferreris home fellowship, the church “fall festival”, as well as a few pics during balloon fiesta that i never posted in that collection, and, of course, just random things that came up throughout the month…

anyway, i will let the albums tell the stories…

speaking of - REALLY HUGE news… i tried a new album skin called “BluPlusPlus” and it has WORKING VIDEOS!! no more right clicking, save asing and such, just view them right there… very nice…
it has a pretty darned decent slideshow feature, too… i set the pics to stop for 5 seconds, but, only 30 seconds for the vids, and i probably should have made it 45… hard to get it just right… the vids are 20 seconds, and they take 10-15 seconds to load on my 1.5mb dsl line, and your mileage may vary, especially if you are on dial-up… you can always hit the slideshow pause button…
this skin also has the option to add an audio commentary and for people to leave comments on each pic, but, i haven’t set either of those up yet, will try all that out on future albums…
since i am sure i am going to take a ton this month, as well, it won’t be long until i get my chance…

so, click here to proceed to the photos and scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see the ones that start with “2005-10″… or follow the direct links below…

Albuquerque International Ballon Fiesta 2005

2005 Most Excellent Way Conference

Miscellaneous October Photos

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“well, it’s been ten years and [countless] tears, look at the mess i’m in …… i’m lonely and i’m tired, and i can’t take any more pain”
     -Mike Ness/Social Distortion