Slight-Snow Country

For a part of the country that normally is thickly blanketed with snow at this time of year, we are in short supply right now. From this photo that I took yesterday afternoon, you can see we certainly don't have much snow on the ground.


Denver, Colorado, on the other hand, is in a much different situation with their second blizzard of the holiday season! This is of particular interest to me because, Lord willing, tomorrow evening I should arrive at the Denver International Airport from Timmins via Toronto.

Eking out a snowmobile expedition

Yesterday afternoon Cameron and I took a 2-3 hour ride on his snowmobile. Although grass was poking through in many places, there was enough snow to reasonable ride. Whatever the case, it definitely doesn't look like late December outside here!

Not croaking, but rather cloaking

Need to be invisible for a while?
It may be possible in a while!

The mathematics of cloaking (external link to physorg.com)

Artificial Snow

Since natural snowfall amounts have been quite abysmal so far this winter, we've decided to do our part to remedy the lack of frozen precipitation. Mixing water with a small amount of these tiny white crystals we purchased for $1.29 produces a rather realistic-looking, snow-like substance. Ok, ok, maybe we won't be skiing on it any time soon...however, we managed to made a small area of the kitchen table look rather "snowy" for a while!

Christmas Wishes

May the miracle of Christ's birth fill your heart with peace, love and joy this Christmas season!

Hopefully your holiday season requires only
a small amount of corn and no pickles...
I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas :-)

Cameron's Close Cash

Photo by: Cameron Donaldson

Above is an uncropped photo of the tiny yellow "20"s on the White House side of a US $20 bill. Cameron took this photo using the setup described in my previous post. Click to download full res image (~1.5 MB). For perspective, here is an area photo...

Photo by: Cameron Donaldson

Some Super Macro Magnification

This afternoon my brother added a massive extension tube (i.e. poster board lined with black hockey tape) to his DSLR camera & macro lens setup.

The results were quite impressive, as can be witnessed in this album* of his gallery. Most images are of prepared microscope slide specimens.

* (external link to camerondonaldson.com)

There's lots of snow somewhere!

While most of eastern North America has little or no snow, the West Coast seems to have no shortage. Take the Shames Mountain (external link to shamesmountain.com) ski resort in British Columbia for example: in the last few days they have received over 2 meters (~6.6 feet) of fresh snow, effectively closing the resort!

Screenshot from: http://www.shamesmountain.com/mountain.html

Resumption of Unicycling

This evening Cameron and I went out for a short unicycle ride; my first in more than three months. While my technique is still valid, I am definitely out of shape! I guess that's what a few months at college, with only mediocre exercise, can do for you...






Archived 2005 image of Cameron by: Bonnie D.

My Weekend

While the first few days of my return home were quite quiet, Friday to Sunday were quite the opposite. After supper on Friday, Ben and Melissa arrived from La Sarre via Timmins, where they picked up two rental ATVs.


Soon after they arrived, we departed to attend a Bible study which lasted about 1.5 hours. We looked at Hebrews 10:22-25, and the various "let us" admonitions in that passage.

Following the study, we returned home and suited up. In the December darkness, we explored the trails around Cochrane for about two hours before turning in for the night.

Bright and early (i.e. ~6:30am) Saturday morning we set off again into pre-dawn darkness.

Turning down one unused country road we were slightly spooked by multiple sets of large, quite fresh, paw-prints in the snow. Wolf, we think.

Soon, the morning dawned. We stopped at our friend's place to pick up my brother's snowmobile before continuing our exploration. Over the course of the day we managed to find plenty of snow, water, mud, ice, and gravel to ride on, over, and through.

Click here for more photos from our ATV expedition!

As part of the Sunday morning service I gave a very brief update from college, followed by a short devotional highlighting the "Miracle of Christmas". Sunday evening I preached from Romans chapter 12 at New Post First Nations reserve, about 20 minutes from town.

Quick Update

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last several days. So far, my Christmas vacation has been great! The first few days following my return home were mostly spent sleeping, talking, eating...and sleeping some more.

Friday afternoon Ben & Melissa arrived for the weekend. We rented ATVs in Timmins which Ben transported here with his new truck. In the coming days I plan to post more photos (and maybe some video) from our adventures Friday night and Saturday.

Photo by: Cameron Donaldson

Safely Home!

Just a quick note to say I have arrived home... Thank you to those who prayed for a safe trip!

Proverbial Sunset on the FA-06 Semester!

Earlier this evening I completed my final final of the FA-06 semester! Lord willing, tomorrow will find me flying back to Canada for the Christmas holidays. This has been a terrific semester in so many ways! Here is a photo of this evening's sunset; a fitting close....

Majestic Monday Morning

Reflection of a December Sunset

Late afternoon sun reflecting off an office building in downtown Cincinnati:

GBS Christmas Program

This evening I attended the first of three nights that GBS is presenting this year's Christmas program, "I Choose Jesus". Here's a photo showing most of the cast on stage...

Friendship Fountain - Christmas Config.

Accumulation of Snow

Snow this morning on the GBS Campus!

Free Antivirus & Firewall Software

Do you have up-to-date antivirus software installed on your computer? Are you SURE?

Most new computers come with only a limited subscription (several months) to virus definition updates from McAfee or Norton. Once this expires, unless you pay to renew the subscription, your system is no longer protected against new virus attacks. If you are looking for a free (quality) alternative, try AVG available on download.com:
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (external link to download.com)

Also, for good free firewall software, try:
ZoneAlarm (external link to download.com)

God's Way or My Way

The topic of rebellion in a recent class reminded me of a powerful presentation by Frank Peretti I heard this past summer, entitled "God's Way or My Way". My Mom purchased the CD recording of the program from Focus on the Family, which is available here (external link to family.org). I also found a streaming version of the two-part program online, but am waiting to hear back from FOTF concerning possible copyright issues before posting the link.

In my opinion, this presentation is well worth the listen! If you do listen to it at some point, I welcome your thoughts/comments in reply to this post.

10,000+ Views!

The view count on my Photo Journal has surpassed 10,000! Thanks to everyone who views my site and makes it enjoyable to maintain...

It Snowed Today!

Just a quick post to say today it snowed here at GBS for the first time this fall (that I've noticed)! No photo though, sorry...

Word Processing Shortcut

When typing a document in Microsoft Word have you ever needed to change:

this is sample text typed in the wrong case

to

THIS IS SAMPLE TEXT TYPED IN THE WRONG CASE

or

This Is Sample Text Typed In The Wrong Case

??

Sure, you can just retype it...but it's usually much faster to simply highlight the text and then hit the "Shift" + "F3" keys at the same time. Each time you press this combination, Word will cycle the text to a different one of the three font case combinations shown above.

A Couple of Quotes

.
Here are two quotes from Dan Glick, professor & chair of the Missions Department here at GBS:

.

.

.

"If we think there is any good outside of God's will, we are vulnerable to missing His will."

"I don't want to go through this thing called life, without the Creator of life along with me."

...and yes, the photo above has been tinted!

Thanksgiving in Amish Country

Starting last Wednesday evening I had the privilege of spending a few days over the US Thanksgiving holiday with the Glicks in northern Ohio's Amish Country. We shared great food, conversation...and boxes, since I was also helping them move down to northern Kentucky.

On the way there (and back) we stopped at Tim Hortons (external link to timhortons.com). A taste from home, eh?

I had a great few days...and Monday is also a holiday at the college!

US Thanksgiving Greetings

Last week simply seemed to sizzle by; and it's hard to believe there are only a couple of weeks of this semester remaining!

I'm planning to leave for northern Ohio with the Glicks this afternoon for Thanksgiving Break. So, to my US friends:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy (Early) Birthday Elizabeth!

Last evening an early birthday party was organized for Elizabeth. More photos from our fun evening.

Photo by: Timothy G.

Winter in the North!

My brother just sent me this photo that he took earlier this evening of the front lawn in Cochrane, Ontario.

Photo by: Cameron D.

Schnittke, Mozart, & Rachmaninoff

This evening a large group of students from GBS went on a school-organized trip to see the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (extenal link to cincinnatisymphony.org). The concert was also preceded by a complementary dinner buffet. This was all a new experience for me, and we had a great evening.

Malcolm, Andrew, Jenny, Elizabeth, Alona, Alisa

From the Photo Archives: Polar Bears

Last winter at the Polar Bear Habitat in Cochrane, Ontario
(external link to polarbearhabitat.ca)

More of my photos here
.

Lest We Forget

.

Remembrance

Day

2006

Image from: http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/

Live.com E-mail Addresses!

For many months Microsoft has been rolling out service-after-service under the Windows Live umbrella. Liveside.net explains here how to register for a yourname@live.com e-mail address, which will function like Hotmail (but since it is a new domain there are many more options for usernames!):

Windows Live email addresses start to become available (external link to liveside.net)

Balancing

Photo by: Kristen N.

Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D

Update: Great overview of features (external link to imagine-windowslive.com)

In the last day Microsoft released an update to include 3D terrain world-wide & 3D buildings for select cities in their Virtual Earth mapping service. Here is the quite impressive rendering of the Statue of Liberty:

.

Image from: local.live.com

Internet Issues

For the last several days, the guy's dorm suffered a complete (or almost complete) loss of internet access. Due to two too-long* days of intense training sessions, we weren't able look into the problem until this evening. After over 1.5 hrs of troubleshooting, which involved testing network cable along with replacing connectors & 2 hubs, we finally succeeded in repairing the problem.

During the time the internet was down, I would tote my laptop to the window at the end of the hallway to access the wireless connection on main campus. Here is my roommate, Shane, on location to check his e-mail.

* did you notice the three spellings of the word 2 in a row? :-)

Popcorn + excessive time = fire trucks

Last evening around 11:15 the fire alarm in the guy's dorm began to sound. We dutifully made our way outside to stand in the crisp night air. After several minutes the sound of sirens could be heard; still in the distance but rapidly approaching the school. Soon, two ladder trucks pulled up but not before the culprit was discovered...a burnt bag of microwave popcorn!

East African Cuisine

More photos from our Friday evening outings.

Map on Windows Live Local marking restaurants we have visited.

Missionary Convention

Last Sunday evening Missionary Convention started at GBS. The series of sessions and workshops ended today at noon. Over the course of the past few days we heard from a number of missionaries from around the world.

The featured speaker was Harmon Schmelzenbach who treated us with his stories of the Power of the Gospel to transform lives for the better in Africa where he grew up and spent most of his life.

Bioluminescent Fungi

In other words, glowing mushrooms, found recently in Brazil... Details in this article from NG. (external link to NationalGeographic.com)

Photo from: NationalGeographic.com

Treatise about USB Flash Drive security

Do you have a USB Flash Drive (otherwise known as thumb drive, USB key, etc)? If so, in my opinion this post could potentially save you some future anguish if it's ever lost or misplaced.


I own a 512 MB USB Flash Drive which I use regularly. On it I store much important (and personal) information. Recently, I thought (thankfully, only thought) it had been lost or stolen. Since that event, I have taken the following steps to secure my drive in case it ever does actually escape my possession.

1. Used the built-in encryption software from SanDisk to secure my "sensitive" data (financial records, business invoices, etc). This is to prevent any dishonest individual who may find my device from using the information for nefarious purposes.


2. Created an unencrypted text file in the main directory. This file contains my contact information (temp & permanent physical addresses and e-mail & website addresses) in addition to a reward notice. This file is for any honest person who may find and want to return the device.


3. Now carry the drive in my wallet to minimize the risk of loss.

USB Flash Drives are great for moving and storing data, but also can allow a large amount of data to disappear from your hands or appear in the wrong hands.

Missions Booth Time-Lapse

I finally took the time this morning to put together the time-lapse photos of our Missions Booth construction. You can download the 43 second WMV clip by right-clicking the link below and choosing "Save Target As..."

Missions Booth Time-Lapse (1.2 MB download)

Enjoy!

Fall In The Forest

More photos from this afternoon in Mt. Airy Forest.

Restaurante Mexican

Last evening, a group of us from GBS went to Fontova's, a restaurant in Convington serving homemade Mexican food. Good stuff!

Photo by: Alona H.

Internet Explorer 7 Final

Microsoft has released the final version of its new IE7 browser. I've used two beta editions and most recently the RC1 of this version of IE and like many of the new features.

Free download from Microsoft here (external link to Microsoft.com)

All logos and graphics are trademarks of their respective owners.

Good Quotes Day

So far today I have heard several good quotes in class. Here are two:

Quoted by Dr. A. Philip Brown in Advanced Homiletics:

"Good intentions pave the road to hell"

Quoted by Mr. Miles in Principles/Problems of Missions:

"The heart of the matter is the heart"

Lifespan of Recordable Media

I recently read this article in PC World's AnswerLine column with interest. As someone who relies on CD/DVD backup for photos, documents, and video, the expected lifespan of recordable media concerns me. Although there seems to be some conflicting opinions on the issue, this article sheds some additional light:

Answer Line: Will My CD-R and DVD+R Discs Still Run in 10 Years? (external link to PCWorld.com)

GBS Group to Ukraine

This afternoon a group of six people from GBS, including four students, left on a 9-day journey to Ukraine... May God bless them and make them a blessing on this trip!

Construction Destruction

Friday night, once the Homecoming crowd departed from the gym after 11pm, we started dismantling the booth. After taking four long evenings of work to build, the booth took only about 15 minutes to tear to the ground! Removing nails to salvage the 2x4s, hauling the rest of the materials to the trash, and final clean up was finally finished just after 1am. Our Homecoming Missions Booth project was done!

More photos

GBS Homecoming '06

Friday, October 13, 2006

More photos here!

Construction Completed

Digital Model

Physical Booth

After many hours of work our digital model became a reality on the GBS gym floor! A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the booth happen...

.

Update: More construction photos added to album