TrevorCarpenter.com

Up A River

trevor — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:16:18 +0000

Today’s submission for the 2009 Challenge comes from my commute home. This is along Highway 154, crossing the Santa Ynez River, down stream from Lake Cachuma.

Adoption

trevor — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:00:10 +0000

About 10 years ago, this old friend of mine named Brad introduced me to his girlfriend. Honestly, some of the details are sketchy. I thought I had remembered them correctly, but when discussing it, I think I had remembered it wrong.

Anyways, I met Brad’s girlfriend, Stephanie. That I know.

Fast forward several years, and Brad is married to her. I’m married too, to Deanna.

It can be difficult to maintain friendships, over long distances, these days. But, with the likes of Facebook, and blogging, and such, we’re able to interact a lot more. So, we’ve continued to get to know Brad and Stephanie. They’re cool. I like them.

Track with me now, or you’re gonna loose me.

Brad comes from a small group of friends that hung out in college. There was a variety of us, always fluctuating our numbers. The point is that we all worked hard at keeping in touch after we left APU. Three years ago, we organized a short trip up to Mammoth Lakes, during the summer. We hiked, played Xbox 360, and generally were lazy. It was good fun, and we decided to do it again. This summer marks the third year of this Man Trip.

So, through all this, I’ve paid attention to Brad, Stephanie, and their marriage, raising of their two boys, and their commitment to the Lord. No doubt, this family loves God, and passionately wants to serve Him.

It’s clear that Brad is the kind of hard-working man that many men only wish they could become. He is strong in character and work ethic. Very few men I know can compare to him as a husband and a father.

Stephanie too is a committed wife. She clearly works hard to care for her home, nurturing her boys (including Brad), creating an environment most of you women reading yearn to provide.

These are admirable people. The Lord has blessed them with obedience.

So, fast forward to today. Brad and Stephanie have been blessed with two healthy boys. They care for them and provide for them. In the midst of this blessing, the Lord has lead them to desire to raise yet another child. I’ll spare you with stealing the details of that decision. You can read the whole story at their blog. This blog tells the story of their journey towards adopting an international orphan. The organization they are using had what appeared to be a stressful selection process. Maybe they’re all that way, I don’t know.

But they have been given the go-ahead, and they’ve also been awarded a sizable grant to help ease the process.

However, they still have a decent amount of money to raise. So, without further adieu, I’d like to encourage you to head over to the Brad and Stephanie Gerards family blog, Adoption Mission: Possible. Read their story. They already have several posts, so you can go back and read several months worth of content.

Then, when you see the vision, and are just as excited about their new adventure as I am, hit the DONATE button on the right column. It’s really easy, just click it and you swept away to PayPal. Making a donation at PayPal is quite easy. It’s easier than buying a new book or DVD from Amazon. In fact, why don’t you skip this month’s online purchases, and do the Gerards a favor. Send them what you would have spent on all that crap you don’t need!

Truck Stop, dead on arrival

trevor — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:08:16 +0000

This abandoned truckstop is along highway 41, connecting Interstate 5 and Highway 101. It runs between Kettleman City and Paso Robles.

You can buy me…

trevor — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:22:40 +0000

I just thought I’d mention to you all that there’s a sweet camera I’d love to have some day.

I’m not looking to replace my dSLR, nor to meet every photographic need. I simply want a nice, semi-compact, high end camera that I can carry around when I don’t want the complexity of the dSLR and all the lenses.

The Leica family of cameras are amazing. They’re not for everyone, for sure. But, the first time you pick one up, and simply click the shutter release, you very well maybe cursed for ever. The curse is because Leicas are outrageously priced.

I have a fun, metal, small SLR for film, so I’m interested in Leica’s digital offerings. With a little bit of curiosity, I’ve chosen the M8 as the one I want. Why? Well, it’s not as high priced as some of the newer M8’s, but still able to use the standard Leica M-mount for lenses. It’s also small enough to carry along without too much effort. I won’t be forced to bring a large bag for it.

Anyway, that is all. The next time you’re feeling generous, hit B&H, (or some other vendor), and pick one up for me. Don’t forget a lens. Voigtlander makes a few affordable ones. Thanks.

Freedom, today we celebrate freedom

trevor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:00:27 +0000

In the United States of America, we celebrate Independence Day today. What is that really?

Today marks the day that the people of the British colonies in America declared their independence from Great Britain, under King George III. On this day, the representatives of the 13 colonies signed a declaration, making a formal announcement that they were now independent states, no longer under British rule. This assembly was called The Second Continental Congress.

Want to listen to the whole thing? It’s only 10 minutes long. I got this from Americana Phonic. Listen below (direct link):

An awesome depiction of these events can be seen in the HBO mini-series, John Adams. Of course, HBO doesn’t get all the credit. Their work was based on a top selling book by David McCullough, titled the same, John Adams.

Interestingly enough, we were not actually independent on July 4th, 1776. No, we had declared our independence, by vote, on July 2, 1776. The formal Declaration of Independence was simply the written explanation of our declaration.

Much can be learned in many other places. The links above will get you started. However, USHistory.org can be an awesome tool as well.

On a side note, each time I visit our capital, in Washington, D.C., I revel at the opportunity to see documents like The Declaration of Independence, The Magna Carta, and The Constitution.

Me, live!

trevor — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:00:26 +0000

So, earlier this week Qik released their mobile app for the Android platform. If you’ve been under a rock this past year, then you wouldn’t know that I’m sporting a sweet T-Mobile G1 phone, that runs Android. So of course I immediately downloaded the app and got it up and running. Bummer was that it took me a couple of days to find something worth filming.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Qik allows you to share live video from your mobilephone. Yeah, you read that right! Live video!

I’m currently working on the final stages of a paint job for a cool new gun cabinet. With just one coat of silver paint on the door, I thought I’d take a short video. At first, I couldn’t get the Qik app to work, so I went ahead and recorded it with the built-in camcorder app. I posted that to YouTube, to test it all out. Kinda cool. My first real mobile camera recording from my mobilephone.

A few kinks later, I got the Qik app working. So I recorded a short clip. The reviews I’ve read indicated that it clips off the first few and last few seconds. This is true for me.

Below are the YouTube and Qik videos, in that order. If you bookmark http://qik.com/trevorcarpenter you’ll be able to see any future live videos. Cool!

*****Update*****

Huh. Watching the Qik video kinda sucks! Yeah, it clipped out about 8 seconds of content. I knew it was choppy, but that’s bad.

I’m not sure how often I’ll need/want live video from my mobilephone, so we’ll just keep that one as an in-a-pinch tool.

In the mean time, I think I’ll stick with recording it, sharing it with Twidroid (which auto posts to Twitter), and uploading directly to YouTube.

The patch you wish you could wear…

trevor — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:20:24 +0000

So, my pal Evan, serving in the United States Army, currently deployed to A-stan (Afghanistan), just requested some cool ideas for funny military patches. His example is the word “NINJA”, in the form of a Ranger Tab.

I googled around, and found several really funny ones. Some involve not-so-appropriate-words, so I’ve tried to skew them a bit. Please, please, please, share your own ideas in the comments below.

Let me give you a bit of background. The military switched their battle uniforms back in 2005. Read the Wikipedia article for more info. Not all branches made the switch at the same time, and even lately I’ve seen a handful of Air Force personnel wearing the old woodland camo BDU.

Anyway, the photo to the right is the Army’s current ACU (Army Combat Uniform).

The “Ranger Tab” is a small patch worn on the left shoulder by an Army soldier who has completed the US Army Ranger School. The soldier need not be assigned to a Ranger Unit in order to wear the tab. In fact, they’ll get to wear it for the remainder of their military career.

Ok, so on with the patches. All are funny, none are approved. Here’s a great place to buy several of the ones below. What can you come up with?

Eatin’ & Celebratin’

trevor — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:38:34 +0000

I’m working tomorrow. So, my fam celebrated today. This is what the wife brought me home. I love Chicago style, deep dish pizza. Only one place we’ve found near us that makes it. Yuuuummmm!

Cold Springs Bridge

trevor — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:56:12 +0000

Today’s submission to the 2009 Challenge. The theme? BRIDGE.

Checkmate!

trevor — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:46:41 +0000

My first submission for the 2009 Challenge in quite a while.

This one is for day #169, CHECKERBOARD.