It’s My Birthday (Part 1)

It’s my birthday!  Another trip around the sun completed successfully!

And what a great birthday it was.  Every one here at Koinonia stopped me and told me “Happy Birthday”…I got quite a few emails and some cards from folks.

Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me at lunch and while I tried to pretend to be embarrassed, secretly is was kinda nice to have it happen.

Big difference from last year.

Last year on my birthday I was on the bike trip.  I spent my birthday on the side of a mountain in north Georgia…alone.  It was kind of a relaxing day.  Slept late and when I finally poked my head out of the tent it was snowing.  Not snowing hard, but that soft gentle snow that just seems to absorb all the sounds around you…know what I mean?

I built a little fire to heat some coffee and sat there drinking a cup and smoking a cigarette or two and just watching.  Watching the snow fall, watching the gray sky, listening to the silence.

Early afternoon I rode my bike ten miles to the closest town and had a hamburger.  Took my time eating it and was busy watching everyone else as I ate.  People coming…going…rushing around.  I had the blessings to leisurely eat my burger in peace before heading back out to the tent.

It had stopped snowing by the time I got back to the tent and the moon had come out.  It was a full, big, white, bright moon.    And with the light reflecting off of all that fresh snow, well, almost seemed like daylight.

The perfect birthday…almost.  I’m not an “alone” type guy.  Oh I like my times of peace and quiet, but I prefer to be around people… activity… noise…things happening.

That’s what made this birthday special.

After work, I was invited to a friend’s house for my birthday dinner.  Guess she didn’t think I’d be good company by myself, so she invited Craig…another friend.  So the three of us sat around and ate my chosen birthday meal…hamburgers, carrots and baked potatoes and laughed…and chatted…and gossiped…and laughed some more.

After dinner, we settled in to watch a movie.  Can’t remember what the movie was exactly, my mind was elsewhere.  I kept thinking about how much better it was to be in a warm house on a cold December night with a pretty lady and a friend.

*Yah, I know this is a couple days late.  But it took a few days of thinking about how great this birthday was for it to sink in.

Elizabeth, Mom and Panasonic

Elizabeth

I’ve been putting off writing this blog entry for a week now ’cause sometimes I just have to pinch myself to make sure I’m awake and not dreaming.

Most of you know that last month my camera was stolen.  Some moron who probably can’t even spell camera decided he wanted it more than I did.  No, it wasn’t someone that lives here at Koinonia and it wasn’t even a visitor.

And you remember what happened next.  Kurt came to me and let me borrow his camera.  So for the past several weeks I’ve been using his camera to take photos and post them at www.KoinoniaBW.blogspot.com and www.soawkoinonia.blogspot.com as well as a few other places.

Well, a couple weeks ago, Elizabeth started asking me techie type questions about cameras.  What’s the best kind…what megapixel does a camera need to be…what’s the top shutter speed of a good camera and so on.

I helped her all she could…I figured that she was getting ready to buy herself a Christmas present.  Also, my male ego was stroked ’cause I could answer her questions.

Well, Friday evening, a week ago today, she asked if I could meet her in her office for a minute.  Feeling so much like the kid that gets called to the principal’s office, I hung my head and went.

She handed me a box and told me to open it.  WOW!!!  Elizabeth had bought me a camera!  I didn’t have the words to full tell her how much I appreciate what she did and I still don’t have the words to express it…just understand that it was and is a big WOW!!!

The camera she bought for me is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-F8Z.  It’s the Cadillac of camers in the price range.  Every single camera equipment reviewer I’ve read on it says it’s easiest the best camera in the bracket and even exceeds some cameras that cost three or four times as much.

If you take all the best features of the camera that I had, add all the best features of the camera Kurt has been letting me borrow and put them together, well, you have the camera that Elizabeth bought me.

So who is this Elizabeth person?  I’ll have to let you know more about her later…right now I’ve gotta go shoot something…with my camera that is.

And one more thing…December 10th is my b’day.  My mom got me a years subscription to www.photo.net.  So I’ve got another place to upload and show pictures…yah, I’ll be bugging you some to go look and rate them!