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Author: ABQChristopher

  • flickr’d photo: dad dying at home



    DSCI5464_1.jpg, originally uploaded by insidious_plots.

    since i brought up dad in the last pic, i wanted to show another that means a lot to me…

    that is cheryl, a nurse with hospice… hospice nurses are amazing people – dad didn’t like anyone much but he liked cheryl… she did so much to help him and take care of him in his last days… she and the other nurses (but especially her) did so much to help us…

    this pic was taken as discreetly as i could, trying to keep the camera semi-concealed, or at least not calling attention to it so i could get a genuine moment… i am shocked it came out as good as it did, but, focus, etc. is far from perfect… but, the moment is captured and that’s all that matters to me…

    i love the accidental composition of mom looking so concerned yet distant – evocative to me of helplessness or powerlessness – we often felt that way… just watching his life drain away and not in a hospital, surrounded by disconcerting devices and ominous terminology where you expect sickness, but here at home where he hangs all his hats, in his living room, in his favorite chair, the place he probably felt safest for many years… while home i’m sure is a more pleasant place to die, my point is one doesn’t associate home with death… i’m not coming up with the words to fully express what i mean, but if i could always SAY what i felt about what i see or experience, i doubt i would have the desire to do photography…

    so, just look at the picture again with all i said in mind…
    as i said, it’s one that means a lot to me…

  • flickr’d photo: dad’s last cigarette



    IMG_0306.JPG, originally uploaded by insidious_plots.

    this continues to be one that is very meaningful to me… the description on flickr is: “this is where i used to sit with my dad and smoke before he died… i haven’t had the heart to take his last cigarette butt out of his snuffer…”

  • flickr’d photo: old hands

    old hands

    old hands, originally uploaded by insidious_plots.

    ok, let’s see how this works…

    i love this pic and all but it needs some tweaking…
    we were in cloudcroft and got in the car and, in front of us was this old guy leaning against a post with his hands behind the post, as you can see… i scrambled for my cam and only got a couple shots before he moved and this one is the most acceptable…
    i really wish i’d had time to get better, but at least i got something…
    btw, i DID do some gimp work on this, but i seem to have lost that version 🙁

  • MY movies ratings

    i was just complaining on twitter a couple weeks ago (one, two) about the netflix rating system being very restrictive…  one star = hated it, two = didn’t like, three = liked, four – really liked, and five = loved…
    there are SO FEW films i want to give a five-star rating, but, according to their system, if you love it, give it five stars…  and, since you are doing this for the social aspect of finding like-minded people, it only really works if you abide by their system…

    so, it got me to thinking about what i WISH i could change them to and i came up with a couple ways of looking at it:

    since i have a large movie collection, one way i thought was in terms of what i might say about a film as a collector:
    5 = “I own every release ever put out on LaserDisc, DVD, and Blu-Ray”
    4 = “I have the Criterion DVD, is there a Blu-Ray release date yet?”
    3 = “I’m waiting to come across it on sale”
    2 = “I have a badly compressed file i downloaded off BitTorrent sitting on my media server, but that’s good enough”
    1 = “It’s been on my NetFlix queue for months…  Near the bottom.”

    and, being a home theater enthusiast and loving to watch movies with people, i was also thinking of how i might rate movies as a host, so to speak, if someone were to suggest watching a certain movie:
    5 = “Great idea!  Here, have the best seat!”
    4 = “Sure, it’s been too long since I saw that one”
    3 = “Um, ok, that’s cool, but make sure you’ve looked at everything else first”
    2 = “Hmm, well it’s in the sell stack, but, I could dig it out if you really want to see it”
    1 = “WHAT???!!!  NO I DON’T OWN THAT!!  WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?!  GET THE HELL OUTTA MY HOUSE!!”

    Blogged with the Flock Browser

  • my “attitude toward homosexuals”

        i was invited to blog my “attitude toward homosexuals”, so here i go and much of this is responding to his questions and expanding on answers i had already given, so, other readers please forgive what seems improperly segued 😛

        yes, the bible clearly says that homosexuality is a sin…  the bible also lists adultery, fornication, and christ went as far as to say that if you look upon a woman  with lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your mind…  overeating is also listed as a sin, as is disrespect to parents…  the bible makes it clear that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of god” and that no sin is worse than any other but that sin is that which keeps us from a relationship with god…
        while the bible clearly says that sin is not to be taken lightly, it also says that we cannot outright avoid everyone who sins because, again, all have sinned and continue to…  nor do i see the bible commanding me to feel or think a certain way about sinners (except myself, to whom it gives much instruction and wisdom) and certainly not to condemn them…  the bible records that jesus had occasion to eat with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other people whom much of society shunned and, if he had openly condemned them, i don’t think he would have been welcome at their table for long…
        and i said i have had many gay friends and that my best friend in albuquerque was gay…  she and i spent a lot of time together…  and, if it had been a ploy to get her to convert, she would have known it…  and she was not my only gay friend in albuquerque and they were friends – people i valued and shared much with and they with me – not people i was subtly trying to make converts of…  i said that i am firm and outspoken in my faith – well, she knew that i believe what the bible says and that the bible says she commits sin and that i do, too…  i believe the bible and am compelled to live my life according to it…  she does not…  there were times she asked me questions about what the bible says, but, mostly it didn’t come up…  we were both film snobs and art snobs and music snobs and most of our time was spent persuing those things…  i was in leadership in the church back home and i would talk about things going on in my life and she would ask questions about why things were done a certain way and sometimes she might think it was a bit silly to feel compelled to do what the bible said, but, i thought some things she did were silly and we could both talk about it light-heartedly…
        i have never been a “manly man” (i have no interest in football or cars and, right this very moment, my toenails are painted) and rarely fit in well with my peers and spent my youth with those that also didn’t quite fit in with the “normal” people of the world…  so, i may be the wrong christian to address this issue…  i don’t see gay people as a separate category of human…  i have biases and prejudices that i endeavor to work out in my life, like anyone else, this just isn’t one of mine…

        now, i said that no sin affects my relationship with people and i made a caveat and i just want to clarify…  there are people who take part in activities the bible calls sin that i am tempted by…  as a former drug addict, it would probably be a mistake for me to hang out with drug users, as i may very well get weak…

        so, the last question you asked me was if i thought being gay was a sin…
        you already know i will say what i think doesn’t matter, it is what scripture says that matters…  so, do i think it is sin?  i KNOW it is sin, according to the bible, as is many things i have done/do/will do…  and, as i said, the bible doesn’t tell me i have to treat anyone any different because of their sin…  i had no opinion on the gay marriage issue…  when i heard the ruling, i neither smiled nor frowned…  i think christians waste a lot of time and make a bad name for themselves when they get involved in certain issues…
        so, perhaps you meant to ask if i am at all repulsed by gays and i use a religious dogma to justify it and i think i have answered that…

        my view on gays does ruffle some feathers in christian circles…  i am used to “them” while most others still see them as some distorted kind of person that they cannot relate to and are even disgusted by…  i think that is a prejudice or perhaps a distorted attempt at morality… and i take some ribbing or even complete disapproval of my relationships with “them”…  even this post will get me some comments, i’m sure…  i bring this up because you certainly are not getting a fair sample of the popular christian consensus on this issue when asking me…  but, no one has yet to show me scripture that clearly proves me to be in the wrong in my view and scripture is the final court of arbitration…

       i also want to point out that, in another sense, i do represent the current christian worldview…  i pastored the addiction recovery ministry back home for several months, hosted a devotion in my apartment every weekday morning at 6am for a year or so, taught bible studies, did work with the homeless – all under the leadership of and accountability to calvary chapel rio rancho, and the worldwide calvary chapel movement is one that most christians would agree is a solid bible-believing church, and has been since its start in the 1960s…  they believe what c.s. lewis called “mere christianity” – the essentials of which have been believed by most christians, most of the time, since the time of christ and, as he puts it “is what it is and was what it was long before i was born and whether i like it or not”…  there are secondary issues i disagree with them about and they with me, but, my point is they are not renegade or radical and they did not consider me to be… 

        so, anyway, there you have it…  there are many kinds of “christianity” and the wild ones make the news and there is an unfortunate prevalence of what i can only see as unbiblical christianty and that is where the problem is…  my friend did not want me to know she was gay because i was christian and she expected me to judge her…  it gave her a whole new view of christ and the bible and those who follow him and it to know me…
        and perhaps i have similarly put you at some ease that not all christians are the same…

  • How have you been?

    ok, i get this question a lot and i have never really used my blog for posting stuff about my personal life, but, i’m going to make an exception and give the short version…

    yes, i am living in alamogordo, i moved here in october to help take care of dad when they put him on hospice…  and he died on december 16…  and now i am living with mom, helping her…  i have every intention of moving back the abq and bringing her with me…  but, that isn’t going to happen any time soon…  she has a lot of medical catching up to do, so, there are a lot of doctor visits and such, plus, she just isn’t ready to move yet…

    a gal named terra, and her 2-year-old son are living with us…  she was the best nurse with dad when he was in the hospital for a few days a week or so before he died…  she did a lot of above and beyond stuff, even coming to the house to help with him…  she moved in with us shortly after dad died – she helps me with mom, she helps me with a lot of stuff, and she had a few disasters hit her, so living here is very helpful to her as well…

    i am very involved with calvary chapel alamogordo here, including hosting the proverbs devotion at the church, every weekday morning at 6am…

    i miss home very much and my friends and church and disc golf and real coffee shops and my apartment, etc. etc., but, i have to be here for mom right now…

    and, yes, as of march 24, 2008, my divorce from mary is final…

    i have tweaked a few things here on the site…  if you look over at the side bar, you will see i have added links to every place i have an online presence, such as netflix, pandora, del.icio.us, and twitter…
    twitter is a fantastic way to keep up with me – it is sort of a ‘micro-blog’ service where, a few times a day, i make a post from my cell phone, sometimes with a pic, briefly telling you what i am doing at that moment – or a scripture that spoke to me, or a quote i liked, or whatever…  no, it won’t give you major details of things in my life, but, if you keep an eye on it, it certainly gives you little snapshots and sort of a wireframe of what my life right now is like…  the feed is on my sidebar, you can subscribe to the feed via rss, or, you can sign up with twitter yourself and get the updates to your phone, live, and you can make posts and we can get glimpses INTO EACH OTHER’S LIVES…
    wouldn’t that be cool?  i think so 🙂

    anyway, that is the quick version…

    i have really come to dislike talking on the phone, but i do email sometimes, i text message, and of course, i keep up with a few people on twitter, and they with me…  so, your choices for actually having a conversation are kind of few…  you could still trying calling and see if i answer, but, even when in the mood, i am one busy dude…

    so, look at the sidebar on the right, you will see all my contact info and, below that, some links to find me if you have a playstation 3 or see how rarely i update my photos on flickr or see what movies i’ve been watching lately on my netflix profile and what i thought of them, my taste in music on last.fm and pandora, some links i think are interesting on del.icio.us and, a little lower, see live updates to my twitter…

    that should keep you busy awhile 😛 (more…)

  • 2Timothy 3:16-17

    i wrote this on february 27, 2005 and just came across it on my psion the other day and thought i’d post it here so i can point people to it since i have been referring to the things mentioned in it lately…

    here is the original word document for those who want it…

    “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” — NASB95

    Theopneustos is the Greek word translated “inspired by God” — literally “God-breathed“. And this sets the Bible apart from any other document. Indeed, an ‘extra-terrestrial message’ sent to us from outside time and space, written by the One who created time and space and all that is in it. Everything else this passage says is because of those first few words; that Scripture is God-breathed. The same breath that He blew into the nostrils of Adam to cause him to have life causes the word of God to be alive (Hebrews 4:12).
    However, there are many Scriptures that refer to God’s breath in terms of judgment. In Nave’s Topical Bible alone, I find several passages to this effect. Like 2 Samuel 22:16 (quoted in Psalm 18:15) where David seems to equate the breath of God as “the rebuke of the Lord”. In Job, Eliphaz speaks in 4:9 and 15:30 of people perishing by the breath of God, yet interestingly, in 32:8, Elihu speaks of the breath of God giving man understanding.
    So, with the facets of God’s breath I have referred to so far, it is no surprise that we are told that His word is profitable for teaching, reproof and correction. And Elihu was obviously onto something, as in 2 Timothy 3:15, we are told that these sacred writings are able to give “the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus“. As has been well said, we must first know “the bad news” of man’s guilt and the penalty of sin if “the good news” of the Gospel is to mean anything to us.

    Now, since the Bible is from The Creator of All Things, it is most certainly the only truly accurate manual for the human condition and the Christian walk. As the summary of divine revelation, it contains everything we need to know to for “training in righteousness” and to be “equipped for every good work” that God will call us to do. As Matthew Henry put it, “whatever duty we have to do, whatever service is required of us, we find enough in the Scriptures to furnish us for it“.

    All of this being the case, we as Christians, ought to fill our minds with the Word. Through prayerful reading, devotions, study, and memorization, we “renew our minds” (Romans 12:2) and conform it to His will that we may be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (James 1:22). Ephesians 6:17 speaks of the word of God as the sword of the spirit, the only offensive weapon in the Christian armory, and we need to practice our swordsmanship so that we may battle the enemy the way christ did with “it is written” until the devil flees (Matthew 4:1-11, et. al.).
    Since the Bible is how we learn the will of God and equip ourselves for spiritual battle, the Scriptures need to be our obsession, our hobby, spending the rest of our lives searching them, learning them, studying them. There is no pastime more worthy of our attention. As one of my favorite passages on the subject says “…commit yourselves completely to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:18-20). If we spent every moment of the rest of our lives in the Scriptures, we still would not know all there is to know, so, we should fill as much time as we can with our minds on the Scriptures, “making the most of your time, because the days are evil“, endeavoring to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (excerpted from Ephesians 5:16-17).

  • new pics

    those of you i stay i contact with know the new developments in my life lately, the rest of you can get in touch with me if you want to know…

    anyway, since it has been since may that i uploaded any pics, i quickly went through the last 5 or 6 months of photos and quickly grabbed some of my favorites… they are uploading as i write this… most are final, edited pics (see, i make prints these days and don’t upload as much) and some are just unfinished product… but, go have a look, i really love some of them in there and there are a few i am very proud of…
    and, btw, billy, christine, catherine, jennifer, and dana, there are pics of you in there…

    btw, i must once again apologize to those who get the email notification of changes to my site… that bug has once again started up that causes my blog to revert back to the default style and, every time that happens, it sends out an email… and then, it is sometimes days until i notice and fix it…

    anyway, i hope to hear from any and all of you, this is a lonely place…
    right now, email is best…

    as always, top right of the page under “my stuff” is the link to flickr, where the new pics are, and all my contact info is right above that…

  • photo page updated

    i had created that photo page a few months ago as a gateway to all my online photo collections and i have now updated it, with a bit more explanation and notes, as well as adding links to the collections i have on flickr…
    if you have never taken a look through my photos, this is a chance to have it be easier to get an overview of than ever…

    the link is always over there on the right in the sidebar, near the top, under “My Stuff” (it says “photos”), but, here is a direct link…

    and, in case you hadn’t noticed, my webcam is back online, now new and somewhat improved…

  • a couple site-related notes

    i know, i know, it seems impossible, but, i actually did a thing or two to the site…
    i noticed that i have had a blog for nearly four years now, in one form or another (and a non-blog site or two for a couple years before that, btw), and it got me thinking about it…

    so, for one, i finally fixed the chat box… after a year or so of my old flooble chatterbox thingy being expired (it was an externally hosted script), i finally installed my own – namely, SmileTAG, an ajax shoutbox gadget… i have gotten some good use out of it for the last year or so over on our local disc golf site, so, i finally added it here…
    since the old chatterbox expired, i lost every message ever left in it 🙁 so, you can try to make me feel a little better by leaving a note and letting me know you stopped by!

    i also added my good friend chris dunn to my “twinners” links – which is the last category in the my links list – and i did a long overdue update to my “Apps I Can’t Live Without” list – which is the first category in my links list…

    also, i have been putting my flickr photostream to much more use and i may continue to do so… if you haven’t been to it lately, you will see i have added a lot of pics and made a few changes…

    i really do want to get caught up on all my photo albums, but, i may just go ahead and start posting current pics and not worry about posting past pics just yet… i don’t know… i spend so little time doing stuff like making albums and updating websites and such anymore… however, i did create a nice-ish page as a starting point for all the photos a while back… it even tells you if the pics are in an album or it is just a directory of files…

    anyway – are there any more updates coming?

    i have no idea… if there are, i will post about them…

    i would, for instance, like to get the webcam/screencast going again…

    we’ll see what happens…