Monday, March 07, 2011

8"x10" photo of Calkins Lake, matted to 11"x14"

I took this photo last fall on a chilly, misty morning out at the lake. It was completely quiet, a peaceful scene for drinking in the beauty.

7:03 AM | 0 comments

8"x10" photo of Calkins Lake on a misty autumn morning, matted to 11"x14"

7:03 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, November 01, 2009

My real blog is somewhere else, but I'll continue using this one to mention uploads and reloads.

6:23 PM |

Friday, February 08, 2008

The Passionists' Compassion Magazine has a new editor, Paul Zilonka C.P. His first issue is now live. His article, The Survival of the Cross, seems like especially timely reading for Lent.

10:03 PM | 0 comments

Monday, September 10, 2007

Alison Barrows Young has updated her fine art site; take a look.

9:38 AM | 0 comments

Monday, August 13, 2007

Well, well, well.

Oregon Catholic Citizens is now representing itself on blogger as ARCHDIOCESE OF PORTLAND OREGON over at gorgehiker-occorg.blogspot.com

What a travesty.

Not content to spread calumny in correspondence, they now have to publish it on the Web.

Makes sense, I guess,

These are, doubtless, the good folks who have registered the domains oregoncatholiccitizens.org, .com, and .net but seem unable actually to launch a Web site. The good folks who, for some reason, feel the burning need to subscribe to the Shield Your Identity, which their domain register apparently facilitates by returning bogus "whois" information.

That's a little more subtle than the approach Fred Umar, late of the Refiner's Fire mess, took. He registered, I think, through domainsbyproxy.com, where the front page -- the front page -- has links, in red, "If you are in law enforcement" and "For our subpoena policies".

What a world.

I'm almost amused that these folks fly the "Christian" flag. WWJD? Hide his identify, of course!

12:11 PM | 0 comments

Friday, May 25, 2007

A week from Sunday, there will be a ceremony to recognize the sainthood of this good man: Father Charles Houben, known more popularly as Charles of Mount Argus.

He lived in Dublin for about half his 71 years and this native of The Netherlands would never have been taken for a native speaker of English. But he had a great love for the people among whom he had been sent to live. They knew him not as a great preacher, nor as a teacher of theology. Rather, he was the one they called to minister to the sick and dying. Father Charles was known to be kind and deeply humble; in reading his biography, it is hard to think of anyone less self-absorbed.

The persistence of these qualities through his whole life is more remarkable because, as his biographer puts it, he gave hope to people in their sufferings. He prayed and they received strength and grace to go on. Sometimes he would discern that they would be cured, physically, and they were: the lame walked; the blind saw; the mortally ill rose from their beds and returned to long, healthy lives.

As Roman Catholics, we believe that the "communion and fellowship of the saints" is something that death does not diminish. As a consequence, we believe that we share our life of faith with Father Charles and the others in our "cloud of witnesses". We believe that we can ask them to pray for us, that they can and will, and that God hears them. And so even today people continue to beg Father Charles' intercession. And, even today, people are still being healed and cured.

That's the headline, I suppose, of Father Charles' life: God answers prayers of holy man. But the story is what so much attracted me to him from when I first learned of his life 14 years ago when I, too, was a stranger in a strange land. The story is one of quiet goodness, of hope triumphing over fear and pain.

This is a project that has been on my mind since I first began to work on the Web a dozen years ago. Although the text is complete, except for revisions still being made to the second edition, I know I will continue to find keyboarding errors. And I expect to continue to work on better design solutions and illustrations. It is a work in progress.

A word about the biographer, Paul Francis Spencer C.P. When we arrived in Paris in 1993, he was pastor of St Joseph's, the Anglophone mission. Since 1996 he has been rector of Saint Mungo's Church in Glasgow, where his parents were married and from which he recently buried his father. He has ignited tremendous hope in Townhead, a part of Glasgow devastated (would that it had been "decimated", only!) by urban "renewal". Somehow his co-conspirators from Paris, Fathers Marius Donnelly and Anthony Behan, have ended up in Glasgow, too: hard workers in hard work. Many people came into our lives during our sojourn in Paris; these men are the ones who have stayed.

Father Paul Francis caught a vision for the Web when few religious had even heard the word "Internet". He "introduced" me (i.e., he asked me to call a complete stranger, something I would never do, except that he asked me) to Victor Hoagland C.P. in 1995 and things have kind of gone along from there. It is a great privilege to bring this work of his onto the Web.

9:08 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, March 29, 2007

There's a new post over at Not a NIckel More that publicizes the new spam king, "Rev" Lou Sheldon at some outfit called Traditional Values Coalition.

Like spam is a traditional value.

9:45 AM |

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Uploaded:

The Second Sunday of Easter: the Risen Jesus offers the power to believe
The Third Sunday of Easter: a God of Surprises

Reloaded:

Holy Week and the Triduum for Children
The Easter Tree
Heart Prayer for Palm Sunday and the Easter Season

8:56 PM |

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I'm posting over here only to mention again that I'm now over there.

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Monday, February 12, 2007

Colin Portnuff has died.

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Psssst. Over here.

I'm not thrilled with it, haven't decided whether (or how) to archive my archives, and haven't got the blogroll on board. Oh, well. I'm less not thrilled with it than I am with blogger.

11:53 PM | 0 comments

I'm working on migrating my blogging, but didn't feel like giving up a perfectly good opportunity to be an ambassador of information about the City of Longmont. It's probably true that a lot of other cities on the Front Range have mishandled snow removal -- or, like Longmont, haven't really handled it much at all. But they're not the municipalities with line items on the property tax bill I've just received.

3:49 PM | 0 comments

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

So just now I received -- uninvited, of course -- email from "Media Relevance" suggesting that I apply for a grant to help my AIDS ministry.

So what's Media Relevance? A "Christian" spam outfit. Some of the organizations they claim as client might have received grants from me in the past. I think maybe it's time to start another blog... maybe something along the lines of this.

4:49 PM | 0 comments

It isn't the easiest thing, but here's where to contact blogger about whatever is going wrong with your blog.

Submitting the form leads to this non-response: Thanks for your feedback. We appreciate your bringing this to our attention, and we'll investigate. We'll follow up with you only if we require more info or if we have additional info to share.

Right.

4:36 PM | 0 comments

I've spent some time today exploring non-Blogger options and am looking at how to implement one most expeditiously.

I think it was really badly done of Blogger to migrate my account without my consent.

One of the "features" is that they want to "upgrade" my blog template (they've already made some changes, as you probably notice) -- but they'll have to lose a bunch of my current template settings. Not to worry! They say they'll store them somewhere for me.

Whether they could be restored is, of course, another question.

4:26 PM | 1 comments

I am cranky as hell about the fact that Blogger has just required me to move to their new version.

8:09 AM | 4 comments

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Today at the conservatory.





The good husband.

7:54 PM | 2 comments

Golden rectangle calculator - not that you'll need it anytime soon.

7:21 AM | 0 comments

Monday, January 29, 2007

This semester I'm taking a photography course (it's in my major and will transfer to MU -- say: MOO) at a local community college. I'm learning a lot, starting with Why I Do Not Need a New Camera Because I Do Not Understand and Have Not Exploited the Capabilities of the One I Have.

Anyway, just now I received an email from the instructor with a link to something we looked at in class today: photography of DAE Bien-U, a South Korean photographer who took these pictures in the 1950s. These are really splendid. The interface is not real clear, IMHO, so you might want to know that you can navigate through the exhibit with the little red arrow in the upper right corner.

Go.

7:14 PM | 5 comments

Friday, January 26, 2007

Whoo-HOOOO... Amazon has decided that a top pick for me is "All-Clad Stainless 9-Piece Cookware Set with Nonstick Fry Pan." (It really isn't; I'm not that good a cook!)

In other news, since dusk the temperature has been dropping like a rock. Everything that had melted, which is quite a lot, has quickly frozen again. Things are treacherous. For insurers covering vehicles in Northern Colorado, this is going to be a rough night. There will certainly be some very bad accidents that will break fenders, not merely bend them. When I was out a little while ago, many folks were driving like it's 50F and daylight.

7:43 PM | 3 comments

Maybe your mother did not tell you,
so I will:
There is usually a way to get through things.

11:04 AM | 0 comments

Bliss is 42F and not thinking about the forecast.

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The month of January is a time when people get together in some way or other to celebrate the spirit of William Stafford, the American poet who lived in our old neighborhood.

With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach (audio) is a wonderful poem, one of a number contained in the William Stafford e-book of poems. (Kit, by the way, was a little girl, not a little boy as stated on another Web page. For some reason, I think that matters in reading that poem.)

A number of broadsides (that's simply a single sheet on which something is printed) can be seen in a digital collection at Lewis and Clark. I find it a little kludgy to navigate the documents -- and they take a minute to become visible on the page -- but it seems to work to hit the middle of the text in the thumbnail that displays. Pages particularly to look at: In This One Life / Letters from Notables, At the Coast, and A Ritual to Read to Each Other. Maybe spend a little time with William Stafford: An exhibit catalog and bibliography.

But I've saved the best for last: Wisdom is having things right in your life

9:27 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Don't mess with... Colorado?!



A friend dropped by this afternoon to drink tea and break my heart. "It's going to be really cold next week," she said. This photo, taken in early autumn, is in memory of the rose garden I used to have.

7:49 PM | 0 comments

So. Are the adjectives "pompous" and "self-important" interchangeable? I know what Webster's implies; I'm thinking things through in connotation, not denotation.

7:21 PM | 0 comments

This is very exciting. Weather Pixie doesn't seem to know it, but it is already 32F this morning. We could get a little bare pavement in front of the house today, which would be lovely to have in advance of the next snow, which is scheduled for Saturday. Although they have consistently underestimated quantities, the forecasters have been stunningly accurate about times and places.

8:01 AM | 0 comments

The latest column by Francis Cardinal George in his archdiocesan newspaper is causing plenty of excitement around the blogosphere. I don't go looking for this stuff, but any mention of his name triggers a google alert for me.

Some snippets:

Many of the more external signs of Catholicism, the practices people associated with life in the Church, were abandoned thirty or more years ago. The disappearance of external protections left the internal life of faith exposed to error and confusion.

and

There are many good people whose path to holiness is shaped by religious individualism and private interpretation of what God has revealed. They are, however, called Protestants.

Yup. That summarizes exactly what I deeply respect about my dear Protestant friends and also why I am no longer Protestant. There's the divide. Maybe it's a matter of being called one way or the other and of answering that call as faithfully as possible. Anyway, to me the point is that the Cardinal is not asking Protestants to be Roman Catholic; he is simply asking Roman Catholics to be Roman Catholic.

For some reason, Amy Welborn's blog didn't show up in an alert, but the comments are a good snapshot of why I no longer read her. One of her regular commenters who has always struck me as outstandingly pompous weighs in: I have to say I'm very unimpressed with Cardinal George on this issue. He seems to lack any depth at all in an understanding of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Americanism, and what his council might have been asking for.

And there's: I keep hearing that Cardinal George is the pre-eminent intellectual of the American bishops but I certainly can't peceive it in this article.

Disraeli comes to mind...

The Cardinal has a public record on this topic, but I suppose his detractors critics have reviewed that and found it wanting, as well. As a small-minded, uncharitable, and cynical person, it naturally occurs to me to wonder how, exactly, Brian and Todd feel they are moving the ball forward. What's the purpose of their peevish remarks? Do they think they are helping or encouraging the faithful or their leaders? Or do they feel that they, themselves, have something in the way of leadership to offer?

Off to prepare the house and myself for the industrious and indefatigably cheerful Jen.

7:25 AM | 4 comments

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

PFCP has put up some photos he took very recently inside Saint Mungo's Church. They are quiet, lovely pictures and I think you would enjoy looking at them.

11:31 PM | 0 comments

Maybe I'm just cranky (that'll be news to y'all), but an airline's decision not to make 112 passengers wait until parents could cope with their three year old's tantrum seems all right to me. Gerry Kulesza's announcement that he will never again fly AirTan should cause worry among those of us ported to other carriers. Here's a blogosphere roundup on the story.

7:49 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Look through the windshield and you'll see that this truck is outfitted for a couple kinds of snow removal jobs. In case you can't quite make it out, it's a...



This kind of kit is a money machine for enterprising souls here in northern Colorado. Shopping centers, in particular, hire these independent contractors to clear a path to their front doors.

On top, that's my CR-V on the right, perhaps intimidated because the plow and its reflection look ready to take a bite.

10:09 PM | 2 comments

Monday, January 22, 2007

Cold feet.



We're truly not getting any traction on getting rid of this stuff. Drainage isn't that great. Is anybody wondering where all this is going to go?

Don't go hurling yourself into one of these fluffy-looking snow banks, BTW. The snow has been building up since December 20, so these are less snow banks than icebergs. You jump on that thing and it's gonna hurt you.



View on the road that takes me most places.

5:34 PM | 6 comments

Sunday, January 21, 2007

So are they gonna call it the "State Line Superbowl"?

Probably it shouldn't be such a happy thing for me, but animals (Bears and Colts) over paragons (Saints and Patriots)? Oh, yeah. Besides, the pope's coat of arms has a bear in it and obviously that counts for something ;-)

7:54 PM | 2 comments

Sometimes, it is dry in January. It really is.

The little spots of dirt and grass in the field are well buried today.

4:09 PM | 0 comments

We had this tortilla soup last night and it is very, very good, especially as modified chez OotFP. Left out the cilantro, of course. Mr OotFP is not a fan of avocados, so that was omitted, as well. Doubled, at least, the chili powder and didn't stint on the cayenne.

Neither the ingredient list nor the directions specify this, but my opinion is that the chicken really needs to be cooked before it is tossed in at the last moment. Poaching it in a little chicken broth and water (maybe half and half or two to one), chili powder, a decent pinch of salt, and half a sliced onion or so helps. We're dealing with chicken breast here, people! It needs some flavor!

Finally, even half the recipe, as made at our house, would have been enough for at least three people. Maybe four.

Mr OotFP has asked that it be added to the kitchen's rota.

10:10 AM | 2 comments

The good news: it's 28F. Other news: it's snowing.

10:01 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Quicksilver Road, about two miles from here.











Longmont sidewalk: watchyerstep.











From County Line Road, near Quicksilver Road.







.

4:49 PM | 3 comments

It's a whirl of post-holiday consumerism around here. From the wilds of the https:// cash register:

Crabtree and Evelyn are having (we'll go with the British form; "C&E 'is' doesn't quite hit the note) a three-for-two sale on products that include a daily necessity around these parts. If you sign up for their email list, inside of a few hours you'll get an email with a code for free shipping.

Dahlgren's dress casual socks are absurdly expensive, until you take into account that around these hard-wearing parts, they wear at least three times longer than others and, according to Someone Who Would Know, they add significantly to foot comfort, especially on days that require several three-quarter mile or more sprints through airports. Annnnyway, these socks are on sale for a buck cheaper on Amazon right now, with free shipping for orders over $50. Don't bother with Zappo's; they sell only in packs of three for what amounts to about $18 a pair.

Dry winter air deals cruelly with my feet. Eucerin made things worse and Kerasol didn't help that much. What is working a treat is AmLactin, an alpha-hydroxy acid that is available either as prescription or, get this, in exactly the same strength and formula OTC for one-third the price of the prescription. No wonder most prescription plans won't cover it.

Finally, for years I have worshipped unwillingly but necessarily at the altar of clipart.com. Making an offering of $100 or so a year seemed high, but not excessive; $169.95 is excessive (they will come 'round to make a concession offer of $129.95, but by that time you will have figured out that LOC and even the weekly Dover Sampler will give you a good jump on creating your own clip art file). No more. Wikimedia Commons works well enough for me, viz. this snippet and this, too. I'm happy to add attribution, even when not strictly necessary as in the case of Gunnar Bach Pedersen's useful photo. Buh-bye, clipart.com.

Yes, thanks, I am aware that those are old magazine bits. The images and code are new because there's a big project going on to spiff up gnarled things like this and this.

9:55 AM | 0 comments

So my friend Fran calls this morning to let me know that her boy and his band, Interstate Cowboy, are on the radio. (Tim's in the middle.) Nice way to get hoppin' on the day.

Weather report: sky looks like a two year old trying to make up her mind about whether a tantrum is worth the trouble. There'll be some snow, je crois, but how much?

9:14 AM | 0 comments

Friday, January 19, 2007

Here's something interesting.

Some spam walks into a bar.

Er, start again. Religious spam forwards to my private email. I reply with my usual "What would Jesus spam, @$$401e?" (well, that isn't quite verbatim, but you get the drift).

There's a reply. Spammer replies usually hit my bit-bucket instantly, but I take a peek -- it's Friday night; why not? -- at a very polite "Oops, you were a victim of a list I purchased of priest's email addresses."

These so-called targeted lists are evil. They are compiled by spam bots and I would bet the car (though not the house; we've been there on other occasions, friends) that the majority of email addresses on that are not even priests'. But here's a guy who says that he truly didn't realize what he was purchasing.

It's odd to publicize a dead-tree book by way of spam, but the author seems to think spam is his viable alternative to an expensive magazine ad. He makes, he points out, 30¢ a copy. Because lots of religious books don't sell more than a few thousand copies, he's not going to be buying an ad in anything very soon.

I can't imagine that spam works as an advertising medium for dead-tree. What think ye? There's no need to comment on my Luddite mindset about spam and I do not need any recipes for it. Send those straight to my buddy in Pennsyltucky. He's the real cunOYshure around these parts ;-)

In the "coals to Newcastle" department, snow is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday. Hey, it's winter, right? Mr OotFP's driver, a gentleman who has seen at least 65 Colorado winters, says he's never seen one like this. But this thought keeps coming back to me: it is winter.

Addendum on Saturday morning: more of the same spam, now sent to more addresses at cptryon.org. Those spam-bots think there must be a gaggle of priests there, including one with an email address that begins "patricia" *shaking head*

8:49 PM | 3 comments

Thursday, January 18, 2007

...and I worried that a 24" screen would be too big. (See, Melissa? I haven't forgotten!)

7:54 PM | 4 comments

Photos of hydrogels, rotated and not. Pay attention to those little bits called fibrins; what happens with those could make old age a helluva lot easier.

6:07 PM | 2 comments

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Very Lady Patricia the Careless of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

HT, Countess Jordana the Dulcet of Bartonhurst in the River

1:19 AM | 4 comments

Monday, January 15, 2007

*head banging*

I just discovered that the template for something else I was working on had been running as the front page of The Passionists Compassion magazine, which could be a reason google hadn't picked up the big piece on Theodore Foley, C.P., the Superior General of the Congregation from 1964 to his death in 1974.

It's an interesting piece: imho, maybe one of the most interesting yet of this little magazine. On the official site, the generals seem to kind of disappear after their terms, which is too bad. Recently I tried to find a photo of the general before Ottaviano, C.P., the architect who was just re-elected. (Hey, I'd link to the official site, but I've already told you what becomes of generals there.)

3:24 PM | 0 comments

Cory Sause's apologists have come back. I'd like them to come around -- not necessarily to come around to this blog, but to some moral sensibility that would require them to demonstrate that they have reflected fully on the gravity of the offense for which they demand compassion.

2:03 PM | 2 comments

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Although we struggled to get as high as double digits (yes, that's Fahrenheit, kids), fortunately the extended forecast includes snow.

10:51 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, January 11, 2007

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 10 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

In other news... we have been condo shopping in Denver in recent months. This story about a lawsuit certainly gives me another think about that. The saga began when the Smiths sued... citing the ‘reckless and negligent use of her bathtub. From the demand letter written by their son, one Sheldon Smith, Esq of Denver: [Your] intransigence … and tortuous conduct have resulted in incredible sleep deprivation for Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Your obstinacy has ruled the day. That will now cease. And get the demand: that this special ed teacher not run her shower before 8 AM.

Here's a lawyer, presumably about the same age as Mrs and Mr OotFP, who is a partner in a Seventeenth Street law firm and a recent inductee to The American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, which appears to be a fairly prestigious professional organization, who does not seem to know how to work things out. Is it just that he's outside his area of professional -- well, maybe not competence... erm, maybe, hmmm, what is the word I'm reaching for... experience? Sheesh.

Mr Sheldon Smith has put a damper on my enthusiasm for the Denver condo market. Should real estate companies and people trying to sell their condos in this chilling market sue him?

HT to Suz at Large, a Denver blogger, for these. She was away for a while, but seems to be back. Good news!

8:11 AM | 2 comments

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Even if there's a ways to go...



...it's exciting to see bare pavement.



Only a little in our neighborhood...



...very little, in fact...



...but at least we can find our front door...



...for the moment.

3:09 PM | 2 comments

Monday, January 08, 2007

Charles Aznanour - le site officiel (in English; no, really)

10:03 PM | 1 comments

Sunday, January 07, 2007

For the repose of the soul of James Spencer, let us pray to the Lord.

Mr Spencer is the father of my dear friend, Fr Paul Francis Spencer C.P., rector of St Mungo's Church in Glasgow. He was known to be a good man who dealt patiently with the difficult crosses that must be borne by those who are called to see many years in this life. May God be very good to him and may the hope of the Resurrection deeply console his cherished wife and sons.

1:40 PM | 0 comments