Time for my monthly post?

Hey all. You know, I think, that once school is in session it is a rare day that I actually do anything with the ole bloggerino. I do regret that. Really.

The news of the week is that I'm half-way done with the weekend Wood Badge course in our council. What is Wood Badge, you ask? Hmmm. Good question. The short answer is that it's training for scout leaders. The longer answer is that it's 6 days of hanging out with other folks who care about what happens to youth, learning gobs of stuff about communication, team building, games, and what it means to be a Scout in the 21st century. It's good stuff, to be sure. I'm happy to be doing it. Weekend #2 is Oct 22, 23, 24. More after that.

The pic is of me with the rocket we built on day 3. Our patrol's (EAGLES!) rocket flew the farthest. No need to mention the howling wind that carried it to the record distance.

It's a good time for family portraits

Many of you know that I do a bit of photography on the side. I've had a ton of fun doing family, senior, and wedding portraits in Twin the past couple of years.

If you are thinking of doing family portraits as Christmas gifts (or for Christmas cards), you might like to know that I'm giving 10% off sitting fees and print prices this month. 'Tis a good time to get 'em done because of the cooler evenings, the upcoming fall colors, and the fact that everyone's pretty much done traveling for the summer, etc. Mention this posting to get the 10% off.

The 10% applies to senior portraits too.

ClarkDraneyPhotography.com

clarkdraneyphotography@gmail.com

410-1328

Harvest time

Our tomatoes FINALLY came on... and boy are they ON! Anyone want tomatoes?

:)

Job security... at least for now

The following is from a press release from CSI today:

"More than 8,300 students are enrolled at the College of Southern Idaho this semester marking the first time the college has ever reached the 8,000 figure and its highest one-year increase ever."

It is something of a maxim in higher education that economic hard times are generally a good thing for enrollment. People out of work tend to want to improve their job skills or change careers entirely. CSI has had continual growth throughout it's 40+ year history and this year, as you saw above, continues the trend-- in a big way.

In practical terms this means that I have full classes and they are staying full. In other, leaner years I often start the semester with full classes, but once they get a gander at my syllabus and/or hear me talk, some certain number of them scamper off to another section (or, perhaps they drop college entirely-- who knows). This year, however, if they want to go for that AA or AS, there is no other section of 101 or 102 for them to go to. EVERY class is full. We even opened a bunch of new sections (once of which is an overload class for me). Hurray for higher education.

The flip side, of course, is that we're being asked to do more for more students with less money. When the economy is in the tank, people come back to college but they don't buy big screen TVs or wave runners (and thus sales tax and other state revenues are down).

You know, though (I hope), that I love what I do. It's work, but I love it. . .

. . . most days.

Saturday is a special day...

... it's the day I harangue lovingly, patiently persuade my children to get them to do their Saturday work.

In addition to inside work, we're mowing, raking, generally cleaning the yard, AND mowing, raking, and generally cleaning the yard at a neighbor's house.

What are you doing today?

I'm a-learnin'

I'll be the first to admit that I have a long way to go in mastering the real power of PhotoShop. I'm nothing like the master that others in my circle of friends (Sonnet) have shown themselves to be. I have, however, had a bit of fun learning some new things and trying them out on the pics I took of Nick and Lindsay last weekend.

I was so taken by one of these shots, in fact, that I've set it as my profile pic over on facebook (where, in fact, some of you are reading this post, I'm sure).

Do me a favor, will ya'? Tell me which of these you like best. Which ones don't work?

Another darling couple

I had some real fun at the temple with Nick and Lindsay. They were married in Ohio (at the Columbus temple), but since Nick is from Twin, they had an open house here. Their open house was at the stake center adjacent to the Twin Falls temple, so we took some pictures there. Here are some o' my favorites....