Sunday, May 30, 2010

Another Band

AiG has produced yet another armband so I now have four on my wrist.





The black one is the new one, for the miniatry's new campaign. Iamnotashamed.org has more information.

Here they all are:
1. Creation Museum (prepare to believe)
2. I Am Not Ashamed
3. The Seven C's of History (Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, and Consummation)--made for AiG's first VBS program.
4. Answers in Genesis (Genesis 1:1)

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Another Overnight

and my annoying persistent cough is still with me. *sigh*

I'll do my best to still enjoy the evening. I really hope the cough doesn't bug others--that is what I dislike the most about coughs.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Hebron,United States

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Cheap Gas




This is the cheapest gas I've seen in a long time, and my tank is almost empty! A great combination I think.

I looked at my car's log book and I paid 2.459 on April 4 and 2.469 on January 30. Otherwise every other tank this calendar year has been higher.

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:River Rd,Cincinnati,United States

Woods in the Spring




~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cat Sitting




I am watching Amanda's cat while she and Kyle are on their honeymoon.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Pacific Ave,Erlanger,United States

Monday, May 24, 2010

Delicious

I travelled down to Berea for lunch today. My parents and grandma were bringing my nephew back to his summer job at college.

We enjoyed macaroni salad, fried chicken, and strawberry shortcake!



~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Finale

I'm about to start watching the Lost finale. Yes, I'm really looking forward to this.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Cutting the Cake

First you look puzzled.



Then you consult the coordinator.



Listen to other instructions.



Inspect the cake closely.



And finally pick the right pieces.

YouTube Video

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Other Side of the Camera




I couldn't go the whole day without taking a picture. Especially since I told Jimmy I'd take at least one shot of him. I did have to use my iPhone as my camera definitely isn't concealable in the tux.

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Bielby Rd,Lawrenceburg,United States

Sister's Help

Well I had to get some help from my sister Laurie, but I think I have everything figured out now.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Dressing Up

In a bit I'll have to dress in the clothes inside this garnet bag. Well I suppose "have to" is a bit strong. Dress clothes aren't that bad if worn sparingly, ;-).


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Friday, May 21, 2010

Rehearsal

Tonight was the rehearsal for Amanda and Kyle's wedding. I was a bit late, but so was the A/V guy. Everything went well. I hope it goes even smoother tomorrow.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Without a Hitch

This picture was taken over a year ago, at my apartment.  Hard to believe that Amanda and Kyle will be married this Saturday.  The finger is mostly okay... ;-)

I was reminded of an old joke today when speaking of the wedding.  Hopefully the weekend will not go off without a hitch.

I received notice earlier today that my tux is ready...I just have to pick it up.  I doubt I'll have room for my camera, but I know there will be other photographers running around, and I'm sure that they'll snap my picture also.

It will be lonely not having a roommate any more, but I don't think that Kyle will miss my couch that much...

Here are some more vintage photographs...  :-D

Kyle really likes Iron Man...and pocket knives.  So he has a perfect pocket knife to go with his bobble head!

He loves the knife so much we had to, well, give him a way to easily carry it wherever he went.

And here is Kyle's attempt to pose Iron Man style--do note the cracks in the floor!

I've always wanted to get this picture photoshopped with Force lightning, but I don't have the skills and haven't managed to ask the right people at the right time.

Kyle has his own lightning attempt.


This is an old picture of Cafe Kyle, disturbing I know!  But worse is yet to come.

Kyle sometimes tries to hide, but can't find just the right spot.

You can usually find Amanda in the bookstore.

Okay, are you ready for more disturbing pictures?  Well if you weren't I'm sure you'd have stopped reading long ago.
(Fortunately his face didn't stick like that)

Just remember Kyle hates to eat, so don't offer him food.  He'll be deeply offended!

He can appear studious at times.

Amanda prefers to be skeptical, or was she trying to stare me down?  I'm not sure...

She does do hair cuts...but I'm not sure I'd trust her.

Yep, still not sure.

Amanda probably would make a good nurse--which is beneficial, just ask Kyle about injuries due to Ale-8 bottle caps... :-D

And she can dress nicely in something that isn't a work uniform.

Just watch out Kyle!

Oh, never mind.  He's a goner.

They make such a cute couple!

And lastly I'll leave you a picture of hard work as they stripped down an old dresser and refinished it.  I helped quite a bit, but made sure to also take pictures.

Well I only intended to post one picture, but then I realized how many good shots I had when I started diving through my archives.  I couldn't let them all go to waste, could I?

~Matt

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Voting




I'm not sure why, but a couple years ago I started putting voting stickers on my bathroom mirror. Interspersed are nametags from AiG events.

I left work early enough to vote this evening. The polls open early at six, but they close early at six. If I don't show up in the morning I don't always make it away from work in time. I'd worked an overnight last night though and thus couldn't go in the morning. I made sure to leave work early then.

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Monday, May 17, 2010

All Night

I'm working the second overnight of the month at the Crestion Mueum. It is a small group, but still a fun night thus far. The kids will be heading for bed quite soon, as will I.

Then in the morning comes breakfast and a great Planetarium show!


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Floating LEGO

A short time ago one of my nephews sent me pictures of a LEGO boat that he'd made.  I thought that I'd share them here as it is pretty cool.  I haven't had much time to build lately, except for some small modifications to my medieval village and castle setup.  Hopefully when I see him this summer we'll have some time to build together.

I can just see this boat swishing through the water.  I'm not sure, but it looks like it might be built off a floatable base.  I always wanted to have one of those so that I could build a LEGO boat that would actually float, but I never have bought one.

It looks like there is plenty of room to load up passengers or freight.

Yep, all around a pretty cool boat.

~Matt

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Do your Parents use Chrome?

When I read that question on a blog I frequent I had to chuckle.  My parents actually do use Chrome.

Several years ago when my parents moved from California I persuaded them to switch to Gmail for e-mail.  My mom had been with AOL for years (since originally having a CompuServe account in the nineties), but I'd grown to strongly dislike many things about AOL.  I explained to my mom that since they wouldn't have an ISP while they moved (they were going to be on the road for months before settling into their new house) they should switch to a web based service like Gmail so they could permanently keep the same address--no matter what ISP they had.  At the same time I set them up with Firefox and a bookmarks synchronization so they could run the browser off either their laptop or memory stick.

I used Firefox for many years but didn't like how it turned into a memory hog.  Therefore when Google deployed Chrome I was quick to try it out.  I've loved nearly everything about it.  There are still some sites (especially Microsoft ones) that you need to use IE to properly access, but by and large I can do everything I need on-line with Chrome.  I especially love the Incognito feature as I can thus be logged into two different Google accounts in the same browser.

Recently I downloaded Chrome onto my mom's laptop and asked her to try it out.  After several weeks she called and asked me how to make it the default browser as she preferred it to Firefox.  Don't misunderstand me, I still like Firefox and will always remember it fondly, but I've discovered that I enjoy Chrome even more (and I won't consider using IE as my primary browser).

~Matt

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sitting on the Couch

I'm sitting on my sister's couch using my iPhone while my nephew and sister surf the web on their Macs.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Friday, May 14, 2010

Hiking




~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Petersburg,United States

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Verdant after the Rain

This is the view I see in spring and summer behind my apartment--when looking out of my garage or bedroom window. It isn't a bad sight. Of course in the winter the view isn't as nice.

I took this picture yesterday after a night and morning of heavy rain. It was a wonderful morning with plenty of thunder and lightning to keep things interesting. The foliage seems so much greener after a storm--even though my camera doesn't quite capture all of the sight.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Breakfast

'Tis almost done and the time nearly noon.



Delicious berry coffeecake. The morning has been full of rain and thunder. A beautiful day so far.

~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Location:Highland Ave,Fort Mitchell,United States

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Poison Dart

I pulled my camera out today and took some pictures around the Creation Museum. It has been far too long since I've snapped candid shots of fellow staff members or of the exhibits.

This little guy is in the poison dart frog display in the Main Hall. I spotted him hanging on the wall and took the picture at an angle so the flash wouldn't bounce back. I think the shot turned out rather well.

~Matt
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Sunday, May 09, 2010

Mothers Day

I remember Mothers Day when I was growing up.  A day or two before Sunday my dad and I would go to the grocery store.  I think it was often the Ralphs that was just down the street.  There we would pick out a flower corsage for my mom.  We'd take it home and put it into the garage refrigerator to keep it fresh.  I'm not sure if we put it out there to also hide it, not that mom didn't know to expect it, ;-).  Then on Sunday morning we'd get it for mom so that she could wear it to church.

Obviously I haven't been able to do this for many years, but I did give my mom a call.  As usual I told her that she was my favourite mother.  For some reason she always brings up the insignificant fact that she is my only mother when I tell her that.  :-)

~Matt

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Shōgun




I'm playing Shōgun with Tim and Kyle. I've never played before, so I'll blame my losses on that, ;-). Honestly though this game has been a valuable learning experience. I'm looking forward to playing more games in the future. Tim has played many times and this is Kyle's second game.


~Matt

-- Posted from my iPhone
(c) 2010 iWolff Ltd.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Come See the Planetarium!

If you've known me in the past three years (or known me previously and talked to me in those three years) then you know I work at the Creation Museum.  I love my job there, partially because I get to do so many different things.  One of the things I did the most during my first year or so was to work in the Stargazer's Planetarium.  It is a fantastic theater--partially because of the technology, but also because of the credit that it gives to God.  Even if it wasn't high tech (and it is) it would be worth the ticket price for the biblical perspective.  I've long told people that they need to see the show--especially when I'm selling tickets.  I'll admit I get no commission on Planetarium sales, I just want them to see the show because I've seen it so often that I know it is a fantastic presentation.

Well I've changed my tune--no, not in a bad way, ;-).  If the Planetarium was fantastic before it is now awesome!  The theater was closed for four days this week so that new projectors could be installed.  The old projectors made the previous planetarium systems (points of light from a ball in the center of the theater) look antiquated but the new projectors make those ones look...well...pathetic.  The new projectors are high definition, i.e. 1080p.  The picture is clear, colors vivid, and wow!  I watched our two main shows today and was blown away.  There were a couple of tweaks that still needed to be made because of some software upgrades--but by and large everything was positively amazing.  If you've never seen the Creation Museum's planetarium before then you really don't have an excuse any longer.  I've long told people the DVD was good because it gave you a crisper show than the live show--though it wasn't immersive.  I'll no longer tell anyone the DVD is better in any way but the fact that you can take it home with you.  And if you've seen the show before then you owe it to yourself to come back and experience the new projectors.  I predict you'll walk out saying "wow."

~Matt

PS If you need a few more superlatives then check out the Creation Museum's blog.

Another Milestone

My blog is approaching 230 posts for the year!  As I've mentioned before I don't just blog to increase my post count, but it is cool to watch the numbers nonetheless.  I had 23 in 2004 (I started in December), 147 in 2005, 270 in 2006 (that was a good year).  Then I trailed off after I started at the Creation Museum in 2007 (145) and 2008 was dismal with 9. 2009 saw a recovery late in the year with at least one per day for a total of 215 and I'm now at 230 for this year only five months in 2010.


It is pretty boring to go back to a year like 2008 and try to remember what I was doing.  With no blog posts to remind me my memory is notoriously unreliable.  Even if nobody reads my blog I'll keep writing it, even if only for the reason that I'll be able to go back and read it in the years to come.


~Matt

Part Three, Day Three is not the end

There will be at least two more posts of swamp pictures.  Hopefully y'all aren't tired of Okefenokee yet.  I'm still enjoying writing about the trip.  Please comment and let me know if you've enjoyed looking at these posts.

Again, this is what I think of as classic cypress swamp.  I enjoyed looking back into the forest, realizing that the water continued along with the trees--despite the fact that it almost looked like we were on the lake in the midst of a mountain forest.

It was scenes like this that really made me think we were in the forest.  I'd hear bird calls and the wind whistling through the trees just like I've heard it so many times in Colorado.  I miss the west...

So many still surfaces made for great reflective pictures.

I tried to capture several pictures of canoes passing through trees.  I think a couple of the other photographers got a picture of our canoe doing the same.  I need to take a look through the nine plus gigs of pictures (which I burned to 3 DVDs) that represent our combined photographic efforts.

This sign actually turned out crystal clear.  I'm pretty sure this referenced the shelter where the Boy Scouts decided to eat lunch.

I wonder what caused this tree to grow into such an unusual shape.  It certainly wasn't snow or ice.

This was an important gator.  I saw him and called out a warning to the canoes behind ours--not to watch out, but to slow down so they could get pictures.  We then steered our canoe back the way we'd come so that I could get more pictures.  I then discovered that there was another gator behind this one.

This is my favourite gator picture from the swamp.  I've been using it as the desktop background on my computer ever since I got back from the trip.  For a time it was even the lock screen image on my iPhone, but I change that frequently.

This is the gator from the last shot.  He actually ducked down into the water a little further than you can see above, but here you can see how part of his tail is still above the water's surface.

Deb and Marty took both pictures and video of the gators.  I haven't looked through their pictures, but I'm sure they had a good angle on the gator on the log.  All I could see of him was his backside.

Denise certainly didn't want to be left out--but she was just a bit further away and her camera only has a 10x zoom (mine has 12x).  She did get several great flower pictures that I either couldn't master or was too impatient to get.

This mile marker was the end of the road...er...river.  I didn't take many pictures during the stretch between the last gator and this sign.  We exited out of the narrower part of the swamp (though the lakes were much wider than some passages had been the previous day) onto Billy's Lake.  Some darkish clouds were overhead.  I really thought I felt drops a couple times, so I thought it might rain.  My first reaction was that I didn't want to be rained on, then I realized that as long as my camera was safe it might actually be fun.  We'd prepared for rain, but it hadn't actually happened--so why not?  ;-)  However, the clouds simply blew over and the day stayed hot and warm.  It didn't start raining until I started driving home.


Perry and Stephanie had waited on the water for us to catch up.  After the rush of the day before we decided that there was no point rushing this past day (as I think I mentioned previously), so we were fine with being the last canoes to arrive, especially as we were still earlier than our planned exit time.


Stephanie grabbed this shot of all of us around the last mile marker.  There was a sense of accomplishment, realizing that we'd paddled 31 miles in three days.


Billy's Lake had many other boats on it, including boats with tour guides, double-decker craft, and awninged (I can't believe spell check allowed that word) craft like this one.

This turn-off marked the last leg of the road into Stephen Foster State Park.  Plenty of the park is swamp land and even has some canoe trails, but there was also a road that came all the way to the Okefenokee refuge border.

In case you were wondering where to get just about everywhere in the swamp you could follow this sign board.  I bet plenty of people still get lost, however.

Dry land and vehicles seemed a somewhat strange sight.

Our canoe had actually created a wake a couple times.  Once just for the heck of it we raced across a lake, paddling as fast as we could (and this isn't as easy in a fully laden canoe as it is with one empty of all but two bodies--the live bodies of the paddlers that is).

I assume these canoes belonged to a rental company.

This was the van that had come to pick us up.  He'd arrived early and told us later that he always arrives early as many people end up finishing before they think they will.

This was the last picture that I took from the canoe... :(

We had so much equipment that it wouldn't all fit into the van.  We had to repack the bottom canoes with equipment from everybody else's boats.

After packing everything up we headed into the small store and nature center.  I'll post pictures from those locations next, then iPhone pictures (my camera's memory card was full) from the visitor's center in my last two swamp posts.  I might try to scrounge videos for a video post but I'm not sure if that will happen soon or not.

~Matt