My Wife the Photographer

Unpublished icon w/ revetment, 14th cent (?), Benaki Museum

Betsy is finished with her language programme in Athens, so the second part of her trip (research) has begun. That means travelling, mostly by herself, all over Greece and into Macedonia (the part that is in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, not the province in Greece). You can read about the details of her trip on her travel blog.

Before she left we bought her a second camera, a discrete little point-and-shoot canon sureshot along with a small tripod. It honestly seemed a little redundant to me to bring two digital cameras, but they have turned out to be very complementary. For instance, when visiting sites she has often given a friend her point-and-shoot while she takes charge of the DSLR. Also, there is a lot of sensitivity in some places about looking too professional when you are taking pictures of the art. In low light situations it simply isn't practical or advisable to try to set up the DSLR for a tripod shot. The point and shoot, on the other hand, can be deployed quickly and discretely.

She has been taking hundreds and hundred of pictures of churches like this one:
Panagia Koubelidiki

as well as some more artistic shots like this one:
Lake Kastoria at sunset

I'm very proud and her and her pictures. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of them when she returns...

-t

Charlie and the Chicken

Here's another video of my sister's family visiting my dad and his wife. They have a number of semi-feral chickens that run around the place eating bugs. Here, with Mary Lou's help, Charlie learns how to pet a particularly tame hen.



-t

Dad's Engine

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting my father out it Hawai'i. My dad likes to restore old engines--by which I mean old farm/industrial engines of the type used to pump water or run mills, etc. Here is footage and explanation as he starts up a 1931 Fairbanks-Morse engine which he has restored at attached to a generator. He can run his whole house and the guest house on this engine quite efficiently. The start-up procedure at the minute mark is pretty neat. Basically you just give in a shove and it starts running. There no electricity in this engine whatsoever. It was built to be tough as nails, too, this thing spent many decades rusting the tropical weather before my dad got a hold of it and restored it.



And people wonder where I get my technical bent!

-t

A Southern Wedding Weekend

I know I haven't been blogging much during this down time. It's partly because I've been very busy between prayer, Tay-time, website development, and then just this past weekend with a wedding I did in North Carolina. Normally, I would not have consented to take a wedding during the middle of my vacation time, but it was an old friend (more than 13 years) and you just don't turn those down. I just got back to the monastery a few hours ago, and my body feels like I was in a fight.

It was a real Southern wedding, complete with Antebellum plantation backdrop, mint juleps, and the sort of stories and drama that you could never make up. Alas, a lot of it is not blog-safe, but I will tell some stories about it eventually ;)

-t

Holy Cross's New Website

Okay, the new website for Holy Cross Monastery is up and running. Still a lot to do, but it's ready for it's "shakedown" cruise. If you spot any typos, do let me know...

Still left to do:

1. Redo the Order's Website (as opposed to the Monastery's website that I just did!)
2. Implement an .htaccess to execute server-side 301 redirects (though I did put HTML-based redirects in temporarily)
3. Add a search engine
4. Add a shopping cart front/back end to process online book store orders
5. Add a Script to auto-generate RSS feeds
6. Migrate the site over to a CMS back-end
7. Add a social-networking site for Associates (possibly Jomsocial?)
8. Add videos highlighting aspects of HCM life including worship, community life, vocations, hospitality ministry, outreach, history of the order, etc.
9. Train the monks to maintain the site
10. Possibly add dynamically-generated Ordo?

Anyway, it's an ambitious project. I'm pleased to be this far with it. Obviously, a lot of content came from the monks (especially the photos from Br. Randy). But as usual I relied on my trusty ORAC running Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Bridge to compile everything and make it look pretty. Thank God for Photoshop scripts! I saved myself a lot of time by creating batch processes to add drop shadows and borders and such.

For the next stage (CMS-Content Management System) I've set up a testing server on ORAC that basically creates an emulation of an Apache Server with MySQL so that I can set up and test my scripts locally before I go live with them.



I'm particularly proud of some of the detail touches like a new Incense order form that is a fill-able PDF form.

The monks say that virtually everyone that books a retreat or comes considering vocation has spent considerable time looking over the website, so having a decent one is an obvious priority. I was glad things worked out for me to help them with it!

As for the videos. I have two of twelve interviews done. Each is a about an hour. Plenty of content coming together already, but I have more B-Roll to shoot (tomorrow I'll get Edward cooking) and won't be able to film much for the next 10 days anyway as the monks are on "Long Retreat."

You see, now that the Guest House is closed it's time to take a break. 10 days of silence and prayer and meditation. We kicked it off with a party, of course (read Bede's description if you're curious), and now things will get deep in a different way.

My project for Long Retreat (since I can't interview any of the monks, anyway) is to build my amplifier. I've got almost all the parts (still need the wood and brass to build an enclosure) and have started assembling the circuit board. I'm substantially modifying the K-12G design using VoltSecond and Bruce Heran's recommendations. I find myself really wishing I had a good bench Oscilloscope with an audio analysis module. Both VoltSecond and Bruce did a lot of trial and error and testing to perfect their builds, and I'm just standing on their shoulders.

Still, the smell of solder is pleases me!

-t

A Side Trip to NYC

Here's the video from my recent trip into "the city" to see my friends Francis and Ally and my sister and her husband. Enjoy...



-t

The Doctor is Within

The Dalai Lama has been in exile for 50 years now. The New York Times has a short reflection from a reporter that has been covering him for many years. It's as good as synopsis of H.H. Dalai Lama I've seen. Here's a sample:

I’ve been spending time for 18 years in a Benedictine monastery, and the monks I know there have likewise found out how to be delighted by the smallest birthday cake. Happiness is not pleasure, they know, and unhappiness, as the Buddhists say, is not the same as suffering. Suffering — in the sense of old age, sickness and death — is the law of life; unhappiness is just the position we choose — or can not choose — to bring to it. (source)

Being in my own Benedictine Monastery, I know what this writer says to be true--you do find great happiness in little things, which aren't necessarily pleasurable or not pleasurable. It's just a different orientation of spirit in the cloister that changes everything.

-t

Quick Update from the Monastery

I've been taking a break from blogging, for the most part, during my my vacation/retreat/work at Holy Cross, but I thought I would do a quick note to check-in.

Already this time at Holy Cross has been very special to me. Something about the silences and the overall deliberativeness of life here has been remarkably good for my soul. I feel totally at home and have been resting into the reality of this place. Lots of prayer and eating and meditating. The evening I went with Bede to an "Insight Meditation" group that meets nearby.

I've also been productive. The new version of the Holy Cross website is almost ready to go live--just a few pieces left to finish on the basic website. Then I'm going to really push myself to add some sophisticated CMS (Content Management System) tools to make editing the site easy for non-specialists. I'm also going to add some kind of on-line catalog/shopping cart kind of thing for the book store and possibly a way to see Guest House availability and even request reservations. What could possibly be next after that? How about a social networking site like Facebook, only for Holy Cross Associates and Monks? And did I mention the videos? I've already gotten some great content "in the can"--with the bulk of the interviews still left to do.

I know it sounds like a lot, but actually I've been making rapid progress. Feels good to have creative work balanced with prayer and mediation just about right.

-t

Zac Sunderland Sails Home...

I mentioned a while back Zac Sunderland, the teen on a quest to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world singlehanded. He completed his journey, sailing into Marina Del Rey this morning after more than 400 days at sea. It's possible to make the trip faster, but Zac wasn't racing for a speed record, he wanted to meet people and explore countries along the way. Here's a short excerpt from his press conference.

I think his comment about teenagers being encouraged to do "difficult things," is good to heed. His mom says that a lot of people gave her grief about letting her boy take on such a dangerous task, but she point out that first, Zac an extremely experienced sailor, and second, life without risk is hardly worth living. There was a time when kids his age did all kinds of dangerous and exciting things. Romeo and Juliet were dead by his age! But I think another thing worth noting is the role of faith in this family. These are clearly religious people, as a few of their blog posts make clear. I think there is a relationship between having faith in something larger than ourselves and the ability to take risk.

-t

It Makes the Heart Glad...

This picture just pleases me in a million ways. Look at that smile!

You can follow Betsy's Studies/Travel this summer of her travel blog...

-t

Road Trip!

Photo by Randy, OHC

Last night I was exhausted by the time I picked up a friend from the airport and got home and had supper. Plans to pack up my computer last night dissolved under the influence of red wine and pizza! But I did manage to pack my suitcase.

This morning I got up at reasonable hour (7 A.M.) and loaded the car with the stuff I'm taking from home. Then I said goodbye to the cats and headed over to my office to do some last minute stuff (like burn CD's to listen to in the car) and pack up my computer. My computer ("ORAC") includes a VERY heavy full-tower unit that houses the drives and motherboard and all that, there are two-monitors and two external hard drives and a gazillion cords. But I couldn't imagine producing these videos for the Order without my workstation, so it was worth the effort.

After some last minute banking I finally got on the road at 11 a.m., but I made excellent time (7.5 hours) and managed to sneak in to the last part of supper before they cleared away the food! On the drive down I listened a pretty eclectic selection that included Tori Amos, Jay-Z, Neil Diamond, and even a bit of Enya! The border crossing into the U.S. was faster than usual and the roads were relatively clear. Being alone for a while gave me the chance to think through a number of things on my mind. I used to drive like this often all over Connecticut.

After supper I unpacked my car and went to a flute recital in the church. A well-known flutist is holding a "master class" workshop this week and kicked it off with a recital of his own. On Sunday afternoon the whole group will perform a concert together in the church. I attended it in years past when I was in Residency here, and I can tell you that the voice of the flute just sores in the church acoustic! Most of the students that come to study the flute here for an intensive week are already very committed and skillful, as you might expect! I also have permission to record the concert.

When I went to the recital this evening I noticed something right away. The windows were open. The city-sounds would make this unthinkable for a recital in Toronto, but out here all I could hear were a few faint song birds. I sort of forgot how quiet it can be outside until this afternoon!

The monks put me in the same rooms were in the last time I visited. Sort of a guest suite for Residents. It's quite, and very spacious. I set up one room as my office and still have a bedroom and a sitting room to spare! Once up a time this was the publications office. Long before that (when the building was built) I believe these were small chapels. Back then Anglo-Catholic priests (and back then all the Brothers of the Order were also priests) would say a Mass once a day as part of their vocational piety. To accomplish this in a house full of priests you naturally need a lot of little chapels! They would take turns saying the Mass and being the acolyte, then switching. No congregation except the heavenly hosts. All that changed after Vatican II, of course.

It's 11 P.M. and I'm exhausted. Time for bed. Mattins in the morning!

-t

Wrapping up Before the Trip

Today was nuts. Got up very, very early in the morning and pretty much non-stop. I was fueled by coffee in the morning and some Power Bars in the afternoon. Ran around doing errands like a mad man. Got the oil changed in the car and cleared off my desk of stuff that needed to be filed, etc. I even put two more wheels on my baptismal tank to make it easier to move when it's loaded with water.

By the time the evening rolled around I had time to clean up the house on last time and then went to the airport to pickup a friend who will be housesitting/catsitting for us. I'm confident that things are in excellent shape all around. I even thought to make up a sheet of emergency phone numbers for the fridge! Whew!

Tonight I packed up my clothes. Tomorrow I'll pack up my video gear and my computer and be on my way! I've already staged most of the pieces in my office, so I should be able to get out of here at a decent time tomorrow. I may even have time to burn some mix-CDs for the drive. We'll see!

Incidentally, more applications for the Music Minister job have been rolling in today. Excellent, Smithers.

-t