Moving day

We “moved house,” as the British say, on Saturday. We were a little sentimental about leaving the vicarage, since it was the first place we called “home” while in Cambridge. We had good times there; lots of relationships were nurtured; it’s where I perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe; and, more importantly, it’s where our baby was…. well, you know.

We were stunned at how much stuff we had accumulated in a short 18 months! So on moving day, we called in the troops. I sent an email out to “the guys” asking for help, and then I started preparing what I hoped would be the most awesome move ever. Of course, I couldn’t have a move where we all just picked up boxes and carried them; that would be boring.

Ideally, since we were moving from the third story of one house to the ground floor of a place across the street, I would have liked to rig up a zipline from one place to the other, sending the boxes zooming down from the ‘top flat.’ Candice convinced me this was a bad idea. (Although, I will say that Candice suggested that we just throw all our crap out the bedroom window directly into the trunk of our car below! I convinced her this was an even worse idea.)

I decided that having two steep flights of stairs to carry boxes down might be a safety hazard… after all, what if someone fell?! So as an alternative to our zipline, I decided to build a slide :). I thought that a bunch of cardboard duct taped together would form a nice slide for us to zoom the boxes down. This way, no one would fall down the stairs, and we would have some fun while moving.

After some testing, I discovered that the heavier boxes would just collapse the cardboard slide, and they would also pick up a LOT of speed…. so, to avoid a 30 lb. box of books zooming toward the person at the bottom of the stairs at 40 mph, I decided to rig up a kind of “sled” on which to lower down the boxes.

Here’s me tying nylon cord to the end of the sled :)

Here’s the slide in all it’s glory…

As you can tell, these stairs constitute something like a 14 foot drop, so this smaller box, one of our “test shots,” tumbled down, end over end, pretty quickly… so we decided the sled was a better way to go. Once we got in a rhythm, we had the whole flat 95% cleared in about 30 min! The slide on the outside didn’t fare as well, so they had to give it up and do it the old fashioned way.

Here’s a pic of us in our new place… I thought the John Deere shirt and cowboy hat were appropriate for our style of moving…

After the move, we treated “the troops” to some pizza and had a nice Saturday lunch.

A big shout out to all our homies who helped us move. Thanks everyone! Even though the pregnant girls were not in on the heavy lifting, they made quick work of the unpacking and organizing, which, as everyone knows, is really the hardest part.

Farewell, Vicarage, you’ve served us well, but it’s time for us to part ways.

Kelleigh and Jared

We recently had some visitors from Oklahoma, our old friends, Kelleigh and Jared Whaley. Even though they had the absolute worst travel experience getting over here, they were in very good spirits and we had a great time!

We toured around Cambridge on a reasonably nice Spring day… the city was beautiful, obviously, but the best part was getting to catch up on the latest with friends that we don’t get to see nearly enough. Here’s a picture where we really look like American tourists with our North Face jackets worn proudly :). The guys who work for the punting companies kept asking us if we wanted to “go for a punt”, and Jared asked me how they knew we were tourists… this is how:

We went to see Kings College Chapel, which I’ve seen like a bajillion times (or is it bagillion?), but every time I go inside, I feel like I’ve forgotten how cool it is. I think this is the best shot I’ve taken so far.

Candice and Kelleigh grew up cheerleading and slumber partying together, so we’ll put this photo with the large bunch of pictures from the days of braces and jean shorts.

This one turned out great! I know it looks fake… but it’s not.

We were sad to see them go… they were a little less sad to go, I think, because they were headed to Italy for 9 days. Nonetheless, they left us a nice present upon their departure… part of which you can see Candice wearing in the photos posted a couple of days ago :).

Nice Oklahoma shirt! On a nice Oklahoma girl :)

We went for a walk on a nice sunny day last week, and we did a little bit of an impromptu pregnancy photo shoot. I must say, I’ll be darned if ever there was a cuter pregnant girl.

Royalty

We had a couple of sunny days this past week, and one afternoon, Candice and I went for walk towards town. We turned the corner by Corpus Christi College and stumbled upon a crowd of people just standing around looking across the street at the entrance to the College. There were a few men in suits with earpieces and walkie-talkie’s, so we were intrigued and asked someone what was going on. They were all waiting for Prince Charles to come out!

It’s not unusual for members of the royal family to be doing things around Cambridge, in fact, the Queen has been in town a couple of times since we’ve lived here, but we’ve never seen any of them before. Since we had absolutely nothing going on, and nothing better to do, we decided to stand and wait for him to come out… it was, after all, somewhat exciting to watch the crowds build.

It was kind of humorous that no one seemed to show up at that place and time for the purpose of seeing Prince Charles, people just gradually joined the crowd as they were walking by, and apparently, they didn’t have anything better to do either… much like us :).

Here’s his car:

It was actually quite shocking how very little security there was for him… the car didn’t look bulletproof, and there were only a few bodyguards… I guess that’s how they roll over here. Here he is waving at the crowds.

And here he is staring RIGHT AT ME!

Nice to meet you, Charlie; next time stop in for a spot of afternoon tea :).

A friend of mine…

Last year I think I wrote a post about how Cambridge can be really nice for a couple of days in March, just enough to make you think Spring has arrived, but then it turns cold again and laughs in your face for thinking it was going to get warm. I called this the Fake Out, and I think it’s happening again.

This year’s winter hasn’t been nearly as bad as last year’s, but, nonetheless, I’m still desperately looking forward to sunshine and warmer weather. Well, in the past few days, we’ve had a glimpse of the sunshine and it warmed up enough so that if you were standing with your face in direct sunlight, it was just warm enough to be pleasant. Alas, these times don’t last long, and it soon grows colder and gray again… but I know that these times will get more and more frequent until, finally, summer arrives.

When you live in a place like Cambridge, it’s hard not to draw analogies between life and the seasons, between the “long, cold death that the Winter brings, and the sweet resurrection, Spring” (see this blog post).  Somehow, the darker, colder winter makes the resurrection of Spring sweeter. The truth that the seasons illustrate is a deep truth, going well beyond the lengthening days and warmer temperatures… the truth is that death is not the end. The reality is that sometimes, when you’re in the middle of winter, death feels like the end.

A couple of weeks ago a seminary friend of mine named Clint was murdered. I absolutely hate writing those words; they ring with such finality. Clint was a pastor of a church in Arlington, TX, and he and his assistant were both attacked in the church, and Clint was killed (last I heard, his assistant, Judy, was still in critical condition). He was only 28. He was the kindest, most compassionate guy you’d ever meet, and all he wanted to do was serve the Lord and help people.

It is senseless… a brutal end to a good life.

Sometimes I wonder if the truth of resurrection is deep enough for this kind of tragedy. The darker the death of Winter, the sweeter the resurrection of Spring… by that measure, on That Day, Clint’s resurrection will be about as sweet as it gets.

Photography: Filters!

This post is about photography stuff, so if you’re interested in that kind of thing… keep reading :).

50 years ago, Photoshop was called “filters”. In other words, before there was computer photo editing, photographers put special pieces of glass up in front of the camera in order to produce different effects (e.g., a sepia colored piece of glass in front of the camera would give you a nice ‘antique’ looking image). Nowadays, most of these effects can be easily reproduced on the computer, so filters have largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

However, there are a few things that are still so difficult to photograph that the best way to do it is with a filter. “What could be so hard?” you ask. Well, have you ever tried to photograph a sunset (or, even, the lesser appreciated but still spectacular, sunrise)?! It’s nigh impossible to get the thing to look in the photograph like it did in real life (a testament, perhaps, to how awesome sunsets really are).

There are a few ways to get a good sunset shot, but one of the best is to use something called a “neutral density graduated filter.” Don’t let the confusing name scare you, it’s just a piece of glass that looks like this…

It’s simple, the top is darker and the bottom is clear, and in the middle, there is a “gradient” that blends from clear to dark (hence the name, “graduated filter”).

When you try to take a picture of a sunset, you usually have a really bright sky and a fairly dark foreground, so your picture either look like this…

… where you have darkened the exposure enough to get the detail in the sky, but you’re foreground is just a silhouette of shadows. On the other hand, if you brighten the exposure to get the foreground, you end up blowing out the detail in the sky, like this…

Now, if you’re a photoshop whiz kid, then you could try to combine those exposures into one… but, trust me, it’s not easy, and it takes forever!

It’s much easier to hold this little piece of glass up in front of the lens (you’re supposed to have a “filter holder” that holds it in place for you, but mine hasn’t arrived yet).

Anyway, here’s an example of what it does:

I’ve just dipped the corner of the filter into the sky to show you the effect it has. See how the foreground is properly exposed, but this time, the filter is darkening a part of the sky so that the camera can capture the bright sky and the dim foreground all at once.

So, the end result is something like this…

Now that’s more like it… this is closer to what it looked like in real life. Also, for those who doubt, I will add that this picture is completely unedited. It came straight from the camera looking great. All for about $16 (£10) on eBay! There are about a billion different kinds of these filters, but, in case you were wondering, mine is a Cokin P121.

Top ten ways to know it was a rockin’ party…

10. People keep showing up with food and drink that you didn’t ask them to bring.

9. Better than half of your guests have or are in the process of getting their PhD… and the party is fun in spite of that.

8. People mention sleeping over because they don’t want to leave.

7. You ask if anyone wants water and no one raises their hand. You ask if anyone wants Scotch and 8 people raise their hands.

6. Midway into the party, one of your guests starts going by the nickname, “Blade.”

5. There was ranch dip (you have to live in England to truly appreciate how important, and rare, the Hidden Valley is for a party… apparently, there are no Hidden Valleys over here).

4. By the end of the night, the women had sequestered themselves in the food room to plot world domination.

3. The cake has four layers with chocolate strawberries on top.

2. The people who were there were all people you love!

1. You were at the party with the cutest pregnant girl ever!

Birthday project

I like projects… and I don’t like to work on serious stuff on my birthday. So this morning, after dropping my wife off at work (by the way, thanks for going to work, honey), I went to the electronics store to find a project to work on (I mean, thanks for going to work while I play all day, honey).

For several days, I’d been annoyed with how terrible the twenty-one year old speakers in our Happy Honda sounded. Fair enough, they’re old speakers and I’m pretty sure they’re all blown out (which causes a really awful rattling noise), but I can only take so much. So I went into the store with the goal of giving the Happy Honda an audio pick-me-up.

Now, it may sound crazy to want to do that… after all, why spend money on a car that only cost £125, right? I understand your thinking, but I wasn’t looking for something extravagant, and my goal was to spend less than £20.

I have some decent speakers in the house that plug into my computer, and I thought about buying a power inverter so I could plug those into the car… which would effectively bypass the entire car stereo system, but then I would have wires and loose speakers to deal with, and I wouldn’t be able to plug anything else into my cigarette lighter (like the GPS or phone). Not a very elegant solution (and I drive a 1990 Honda Accord, so, clearly, I’m looking to keep things classy). And, in any case, the power inverter was £30, which was over budget.

Now, I’ve done a lot of things in my 27 years, but I have never done a single “car audio” related task in my life. However, when the guy in the electronics store asked me if I needed help, I started talking car stereos with him, and before long I was convinced that if this guy could replace car stereo speakers, then I could definitely figure it out!

So, after an hour and a half of me crawling around the back seat/trunk of the car… the task was completed. The new speakers sound great, and the whole project only cost me £16. It was a good birthday project… just me, some multi-tools, and my headlamp… and, let’s be honest, any day where I get to use my trusty headlamp for over an hour is a good day.