TIME posted a wonderful photojournalism article on a community of cloistered women in New Jersey.
While this isn’t a recommendation for last minute planning, let me share this story: In most cases, planning ahead when it comes to travel helps to save money. That’s usually true when buying a plan ticket or reserving a hotel room. And, in some locations, car rental companies can run out of inventory.
Three weeks ago I planned and booked a trip to go see friends in San Francisco this coming weekend. I am always stunned at how much it costs to rent a car at SFO, but I booked it anyway. This morning I decided to recheck rental rates. The price to rent the same car from the same agency (I use Hertz and Avis), was $45 cheaper booking today than it was three weeks ago.
Since car rental reservations can be altered, I recommend booking ahead, but come back later to recheck the rate – especially in high-priced markets like San Francisco, Boston and Seattle.
An owl visited the fieldhouse at St. Margaret’s. It was pretty cool.
Here are pictures of the owl.
Google has defined me.
If you Google “Roland Allen” and come up with my web portal RolandAllen.com, with there’s a bi-line:
Personal site with photographs and weblog of school counselor and former Jesuit.
Wow – they got me on target, and it’s accurate information. I can’t help but think that some at Google, who knows me, made that happen.
I’ve gotten into Photoblogging. I’m “fessing up” to folks who were regular readers of this weblog.
I hope to step it up with photoblogging. I make regular posts to my photoblog: [seeing-things], and I “microblog” posts on Facebook and Twitter.
Also, I try to spend time each day looking at other photoblogs. I like the community that is out there taking pictures and experimenting with composition, editing, etc.
We’re a group of amateurs, for the most part, and that’s cool.
Sample of Photoblogs I Like
- payam rajabi: colourbliind
- Patrick Byrne: Frozen Pieces of Life
- Carveli Studios: Daily/Weekly Inspirations
- PRAIRIE DUST – exploring the rural midwest
- doris hausen photographie
- Sven Seebeck: From10to300mm
- Sherri Schaefer Bagby: Pearweed
- Brandon Hoover: Java Jive
- Fish and Onions Photography
- Chris Cardelli: Deep Mechanics
- Fuji
- Sam Javanrouh: [daily dose of imagery]
- Mayuresh Patil Photoblog
I spent part of the morning hiking the hills above my house.
Drake’s home from college. He brought his dog, Maggie, along with him.
Drake easily talked me into leaving my office for a couple fo hours yesterday afternoon and we took Maggie to Diamond Beach in Laguna Beach.
Drake and Maggie at Diamond Beach
Here’s a link to all the photos.
I was planning my spring break trip to Europe and happened upon two helpful tools.
Seat Guru shows the layout of particular aircraft and clicks on each seat to site pros and cons.
The second site is FlightStats. Flight stats provides historical on time data on particular flights. This is particularly helpful when booking a flight with short connection times.
An Unnecessary Corner
Not that I spend time keeping up with what’s going on in Colorado Springs, but the Ted Haggad scandal – and the subsequent “spin” to keep a shine on his name – is disturbing because this is a corner than evangelicals painted themselves into. Simply put, evangelicals refuse to live in a real world, where people are broken, hurting and struggling with all sorts of issues: health, relationships, financial, family problems. The evangelical playbook of raising your hands in the air and just praising Jesus doesn’t get to life beneath the surface, where we all have to get to if we’re to live meaningful and productive lives.
I don’t wish anyone harm, and it is unfortunate when someone’s life struggles gets splattered across the frontpage, but this is an unnecessary situation. The fact is, there are evangelicals who struggle with sexual issues, including those of sexual identity. I watched the movie Prayers for Bobby on television this week. Fortunately I had it on dvr so I could watch it small bits. It was painful to watch the struggles that the Griffith family endured. Bobby Griffith’s suicide was a tragedy. It didn’t have to be that way. I can’t imagine the guilt and pain and questioning that his family deals with every day – even though they’re publicly telling his and their story.
The Haggard story is like so many “revelations” in the past: evangelicals who have particular struggles have to live life in dark corners because their religious ethos doesn’t permit living life authentically. I think forcing people to live inauthentic lives is a shameful way to structure religious practice.
from → Commentary, Cultural, Current Events, Religion