finally

I'm finally getting to the blogging. It's taken over a week to decompress enough to go for it. I really really needed this vacation, and I'm thinking I need to try to take more home-based vacations in the future. I get 24 days a year, so I should be able to swing it and still get my travel on. I don't always have to galavant across the globe. But I must confess that I'm already planning my next vacation. I'm still pretty set on Spain. Maybe in the spring.

My friends Pete and Shirley are here from the UK and we've been doing the tourist thing. It's been a ton of fun taking pictures of everything, but I'm trying not to let camera envy get the better of me (they both have enviable cameras). I can still get a good shot or two with my little Powershot. It's all about composition...at least that's what I keep telling myself. The picture above was something that I saw in my plastic cup as we sat on the beach last Sunday sipping Riesling. I don't know why my friends all showed up in my cup while my hand was distorted, but it sure did look cool. I took about 8 pictures of it and this one came out best.

The three of us went to the gorge on Saturday and took as many pictures as the overcast sky's poor lighting would allow. We hit the beach on Sunday with my other Friends Jov and Lauren. It's been great to have this down time, but I have a big project to finish for an art show this Saturday and I haven't done it yet. It involves photos and homeless people, and tomorrow's the day I'll go and ask homeless people to let me do a portrait with them holding one of four cardboard signs I've made. The signs have paraphrased scriptures about how God wants us to treat the disadvantaged. It will either be a pathetic excuse for a photo essay or it will be really amazing. The point of the exhibit is to trigger people's hearts to do something effective about the issues of poverty, homelessness and other injustices in our city. I can't wait to see what the other artists do.

So I may have some crazy stories to tell tomorrow. If I do I'll try to make myself blog them.