Arts Festival

Downtown Southern City for the annual Festival of the Arts...

The Gang

Ducks and Koi

Band on the Water Stage

Land Pics

These were shot mainly to use up the rest of the film in the disposable camera used for the Worlds of Fun photos and will serve as "before" photos. Hopefully there will be an "after!"

The Woodshop, Barn, and Trailer.

Same view from a slightly different vantage to show Southern Man's impressive collection of brick and stone.

This washout will one day be a lovely garden pond.

Southern Man is a little obsessive about collecting, cutting, and stacking firewood. No, he does not yet have a fireplace.

A couple of boats that he's had for nearly twenty years. They've yet to be on the water. That will change Real Soon Now.

The firepit and beginnings of the dock. It looks like Southern Man will need to go up one more cinderblock on the dock pilings.

Worlds Of Fun

The Church Of The Nazarene will once a year rent out amusement parks for Nazarene Night. Southern Man has been to many down south at Six Flags but with Teen Daughter living up north he went to Worlds of Fun with her this year.

There's nothing like an evening at an amusement park with a pack of middle school aged girls.

After driving seven hours to get there Southern Man went straight for the Go Karts.

Teen Daughter and friends in the Old Time Cars.

In line at the Timberwolf.

The Mamba.

Teen Daughter was worn out by eleven so Southern Man took her home (nabbing a Missouri geocache on the way) and then drove all night to be back at The Land by six-thirty or so for a tiring but eventful twenty-four hours.

Running Shoes

This appeared in yesterday afternoon's university email:

Southern Man understands the need to respond to an atrocity like this even if in an entirely symbolic manner so he is wearing running shoes today.

Asics, of course.

But for a born-again Bible-thumping evangelical, that's not enough. In James Chapter 2:14-16 we read that

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

So for those of us who must have works to prove our faith, here is a list of charities that are supporting the families of those affected in Boston. Of the activities and charities they list, Southern Man recommends these two:

• One Fund Boston
• The Salvation Army

Southern Man gave life to his faith through works. Why don't you?

Boston Marathon

Back in his graduate school days - that would be thirty years and about eighty pounds ago - Southern Man was an avid long-distance runner. We would run just about every day, on the indoor track or on the outdoor quarter-mile track or in long loops around the city. And we got pretty good; there's a fair collection of trophies back there where we ran as a team in the name of our department, and Southern Man has dozens of personal awards and hundreds of race shirts. He's going to make a quilt out of them someday. So it was with particular sorrow that he read of the bombing at the finish of the Boston Marathon. Lord, comfort the families of those who were killed and bring swift healing to those injured, and may Your judgement of those responsible for this atrocity be swift and sure. Amen.

Week Update In Pictures

Southern Cousins at the Ancestral Manor

Lunch with area geocachers

Southern Father hard at "work."

At a singles dance. Sadly, Southern Man has not yet mastered the new camera to the point that the low-light dance-floor pics came out. Too bad, as many of them were pretty funny. And by "not mastered the new camera" he means he leaves it in full auto mode and ignores the rest of the settings.

Also, Southern Man has learned how over-ride Blogger's default photo-size settings so he will be going through the blog and up-sizing photos as time and interest permits. It sure beats working!

Misty Mountains

A long, long time ago the junior-high-aged Southern Lad and his friends were at a Star Trek convention where in one corner were a couple of girls and a guitar. We'd already discovered the wonders of J.R.R. Tolkien by that time and we sat spellbound at their feet as they sang of elves and dwarves and the cold distant Misty Mountains.


From The Hobbit Part I; music by Howard Shore. Sadly, it's only a few verses, repeated over and over and over again. If you like, there are even longer edits...


From the animated Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit.


A favorite fan cover. This one always takes me back to that convention so long ago...

In The Navy...

...Southern Daughter will, starting next week, Sail The Seven Seas in the USS Gunston Hall, a Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship.


Defending The Constitution and kicking ass, wherever ass need to be kicked.