Where Was Moses When the Lights Went Out?

   In the dark, of course!

   This morning I began a temp gig at the OSU Student Union Bookstore.  Spring semester classes start a week from today.  Today, though, at around 10:15 or so (maybe a little before), the power went out to the temporary building housing the bookstore as the Student Union is getting renovated.  I took the following picture during the outage, before the power came back on roughly an hour and a half later.  I turned my flash off, and tweaked the brightness a bit to get things visible.

   Fortunately, this power failure happened at a slow time.  Most of the faculty and students are gone this week.  Despite the outage, we continued to get ready for the Spring Semester rush, which will really hit in a week.  We'll get busier each day this week as more students come back into town, and next week we'll really be buzzing, especially during the first half of the week.

   I took other pictures today, but this is the one I chose to post to my Flickr account for my yearlong project.  I find it interesting how we tend to take power and energy for granted until it's gone.

Crisp and Clear

  The weather this morning was crisp and clear and cold.  I think it was about 20° F, give or take a few degrees, when I took this picture.  It's of the OSU Campus Fire Station, which is a familiar landmark in Stillwater.  It's one of the older buildings in town, and it sits on Campus Corner at the southeast edge of the campus.

  Like this morning's weather, my goal for this year is to maintain a crisp and clear focus on everything that I do.  We all have the power to influence others, and I intend to do so in a positive way.  

Welcome to 2011!

   I have decided to start a new project this year - to take one picture a day, each day.  I'll probably take more than one on most days, but I have set a minimum of one.  I've started a Flikr album for this project and by December 31, there will be 365 photos.  I haven't decided how I will choose which photo to add for a given day.  Maybe it will be my best shot of the day, or perhaps the most interesting, or maybe one that tells a story, or one that is special to me for some silly reason.


   Why am I doing this?  The way I see it, it will give me something to focus on each day.  I may also become a better photographer in the process as I try to get the most out of my little digital camera.  This will also give me something to talk about (as if I'm not talkative enough) with family and friends.  It may, at times, give me an opportunity to stretch my creativity as I look for something to photograph.  Overall, I think that this will help me see things from different perspectives, and possibly give me better insight about the complexly simple person that I am.


   Here's my first photo (and the only one I took today) of 2011.  I went to Mass at 9:00 this morning - a clear, chilly day.  My faith has kept me going through these dark times as I search for work, so this picture really has a special meaning for me.