This past weekend, my dad, brothers, and I were able to go to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon was on my dad's "bucket list". I was so glad we could all go. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Today has been a long day. Tomorrow we arrive at the Grand Canyon. One of the things dad's always wanted to do. I'm afraid of the "what then?" The "what next?" I know fulfillment in life isn't doing a certain thing or going to a certain place. It's in knowing a certain One and knowing each other. I guess that's what tomorrow should be about. And the "what then" is to keep building our relationship and to keep fighting. And mostly, no matter the future, to draw near to the God who made us and who makes us whole.

For a camera to use high altitude balloon project, I ordered a Canon Powershot A560 from E-bay for $15.  I want to use the camera to take pictures and also create a time lapse video.  I reprogrammed it with the Canon Hack Development Kit to take a picture every 10 seconds.  


As a test, I laid the camera on its back facing the sky and left it taking pictures for an hour and a half.

I used a software package called VirtualDubMod according to instructions published online to convert the images into a video.  Here it is:

This morning changed with a phone call. My dad called and rasped one word. "Help." I threw on my clothes and drove across the street. I walked in and my dad was on the couch, shaking. I looked closer. It was like a seizure, but limited to his left side. His arm and leg. He was scared. He kept saying "damn" over and over again. I called 911. EMS arrived. His oxygen level was low. They put him on oxygen. I helped carry my dad to the gurney. They loaded him in the ambulance. Through the ER he made it to ICU. Tumors. One in his head. A large one in his lung. Several lesions in his liver and bones. Cancer. Stage four. No cure. A year left at best. Biopsies on Friday to confirm and identify.

My wife was here. My brothers. My aunt Brenda. My sister. Her mom. We cried. We helped each other.

Yesterday, my dad was sick. I thought it was depression and COPD. We thought he had pneumonia. I thought he was tired.

I should have checked in more. I should have taken care of him more.

After they told him, dad asked about my sister, Misty. He was going to take her to thanksgiving with her mom. My dad, after hearing about his limited time hear asked about my sister. I think everything he's done the past several years to care for her. As best he could.

It wasn't "good enough" for me. My dad's house is a wreck. He's been unemployed. I didn't understand why he only sat on the couch watching TV. Turns out, he's sick. Very sick! I didn't give enough grace. I didn't give enough time. I didn't check in as often as I should have.

I need to give myself more grace too.

We have an opportunity most people don't. We see the train coming. There's still time to right the wrongs. There's still time to give the grace.

Dad keeps signing that he's sorry when he comes to. He sorry he's sick. He doesn't want to be a burden. Always thinking of others and not himself.

We're still at the hospital. I'm tired. I'm a wreck. I'm holding it together. Trying to be here. Trying at the same time not to wear out. I owe him that and much much more.

I love my dad. I just want him to know his life means something. To have no regrets. To be at peace. If I could have anything, it would be for his health to return. For him to see his grand kids grow up. There's always hope.

On the night of November 9, I got to play with my Meade Jupiter Telescope.  My wife bought it for me for Christmas about ten years ago.  I've used it about a dozen times.  This was my first video I've captured through the telescope using its electronic eye.  It was a clear night around two days after a full moon.  The electronic eye sends out a standard NTSC video signal, that I captured on my laptop using a Pinnacle video capture device.  The video turned out awesome!

Everyone I've shown it to has the same response I do.  Isn't it amazing the things God has created and put in front of us that we all take for granted.  In a word, the moon is, by all measures an amazing creation of God.

These are some AZ Shelves I made for Evan's room based on a picture Samantha showed me of some Pottery Barn Shelves that are out of manufacture. The hardest cuts were the 30 degree cuts on the inside of the A. I used a vertical sled to mount the board vertically on my table saw with the blade set at 60 degrees. The shelves turned out nice and the Sketchup model is available for download below.

This morning we lost a great business man. Truett Cathy was the founder of Chick-Fil-A. Chick-Fil-A sponsors the Winshape program at Berry College. When I was a sophomore at Berry, I got to hear Truett speak and shake his hand. But what strikes me about him is how he operated his business, a franchise of fast food Chicken restaurants that I didn't even know existed until I was in high school and now are spread all over the Southeastern United States and nearly nationally.

1. Take care of your employees. Your employees interact with your customer. Take care of your employees and they will take care of your customer. Samantha interviewed with Chick-Fil-A. Their philosophy was to invest in their employees. The benefits, childcare, pay, and training they give to their employees and managers is top notch for the industry.
2. Generously give. Give scholarships, sponsor events, give discounts, give people free food. I'll never forget last January when we had the snowpocalypse and Chick-Fil-A was providing free dinner, shelter, and breakfast to stranded motorists.
3. Go the extra mile. Whether it's the "it's my pleasure" at the checkout, the clean high chairs with folded placemats, the employee refilling drinks at your table, or visits from the cow, Chick-Fil-A lives out going above and beyond what is necessary. They go the extra mile for their customers.
4. Family is number one. Chick-Fil-A is one of the most kid friendly restaurants ever. For years, we had the same waitress checking on drinks for our family. She would always talk to the kids. She felt like family and I was always glad to see her there.
5. Stand by your convictions. Chick-Fil-A is known for two controversal things. First, they don't open on Sundays. I swear every time I want Chick-Fil-A, it's a Sunday. But somehow, I always manage to visit them later in the week. They do seven days of business in six because they don't want to compromise worship and rest by chasing every dollar. Second, they support a Christian view on marriage. They don't want to exercise their religious freedom by limiting the families they serve or the people they hire. But it is well known they are owned by a family that has strong Christian values and they don't compromise their values for the sake of seeking more business. And it doesn't stop people from coming to order chicken sandwiches.

Truett operated his business from a Christian perspective that values people above profits and others above self. And he taught his family, employees, and customers like me to do the same.

Why Not Tripod

Congratulations, you've found me. I've abandoned my Tripod site. I had been a Tripod customer for over a decade. The reasons I'm not hosting my site there anymore are:

• Agressive Advertising. The advertisements had gotten too aggressive. I'm fine with banner ads. But pop up and hover ads made my site hard to navigate.
• Dropped functionality. I was an old school free customer. But slowly the classic functionality was being abandoned by Tripod for their in house website builder. When they dropped CGI support for free accounts, I was forced to either give up contact forms or use their builder to redo the site.

Why Weebly

I decided to look at other free hosting solutions. I had tried a couple of sites and my wife suggested Weebly. It's turned out to be the best I found because:

• Less advertising. Weebly has thought things through with their business model. Free accounts carry Weebly branding. We also pay to have an online store. If I make money on my site they make money. If they host it for free, I advertise for them. It makes sense.
• No arbitrary limit on pages. Other free hosts (including the new Tripod builder) limited the number of pages on free accounts to an handful or two. Weebly does limit some functionality, but it's well thought out so my page carries their brand responsibly. The less limited my content, the better they can attract business.
• Good website builder. You can create a great page without knowing a thing about HTML, CSS, or the other technologies behind web pages. It's intuitive for the average person. But their tools are flexible enough that you can dig around in code if you want too.
• Built in mobile website view. Around 10% of my traffic is mobile. Weebly was the only host that provided mobile automatically for free. A desktop web page is no fun viewing on a phone.
• Lots of documentation and support. Almost as easy to use as the web page builder.

Why Free Website Hosting

I can afford paid hosting, and I've hosted this content with a paid host before. Here's why I went with free hosting:

• Some security concerns about owning a domain name. Owning a domain name isn't worth the risk of being registered and your registration being public for a personal website. You can buy domain privacy, but you still share some personal information. If no one is paying you for content, its not worth the risk.
• Lead by example. Perhaps you want a personal website and you can't afford hosting. Free hosted sites give some direction to people interested.
• Let's face it. If you have some project you want to share on the Internet and no one is paying you for using it, why should you pay to make it available? And why should the cost of hosting limit your ability to share a good idea?

So, if you have a good idea, story, music, pictures, or videos, etc...just put it out there!!! It'll be worth it. And Weebly is both easy enough and inexpensive enough anyone can do it!