Scott Fillmer » rain

Fall Storms Roll Through Auburn University Today :: Photos

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:04:53 +0000

It was a dreary cloudy day in Auburn today, but almost 80*F in the middle of November, until this really fast moving storm system sort of caught everyone saying “what just happened?” These storms have now moved east doing about the same damage as they head towards the east coast. We didn’t have any damage at our place but there was pretty significant damage all around Auburn in the form of downed trees and power lines, some turned over cars, and apparently some damage to Auburn High School and Haley Center on campus. We are thrilled to hear that, so far, there haven’t been any injuries associated with the storm.

The only reason Deb and I happened to be on campus at lunch time today was to get her out of the house for a quick lunch in Foy Hall where they have one of her favorite places to eat. Once the sirens started going off on campus (see a really splotchy video here) everyone headed for the hallways and campus became like a ghost town. It’s just part of living down here in the south, glad no one was hurt. I did however get some photos while we were walking/driving around trying to get home (all taken with my cell phone here). Stormy weather always makes for such great lighting conditions, even if it is just on your cell phone.

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Cloud Explosions in the Sky at 40,000 Feet

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:41:39 +0000

Today, a quick photo of the day post with one of my favorite inflight photos from my recent flight between Amsterdam and Uganda. This is a huge thunderstorm over the Mediterranean Sea that towered at least to the 40,000 feet we were flying at this day, and you can see went quick a bit above where we were flying. Somehow these two massive thunderstorms looked like (to me) two nuclear bombs exploding, and of course we were flying into these storms.

I have another post almost ready to go with photos about water, and the well, and kids, and all that stuff so look for that next time.

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Trying to Figure out How to Tell a Thousand Stories Simultaneously

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:05:57 +0000

I came here, in part, with the hope of being able to tell some stories through pictures, now, with a few days left on this trip I don’t even know where to begin. There are a thousand stories for every scene and situation that we come across. If I have time, I’m going to post a few here tonight while we still have power (it’s off and on). Yesterday we went to a few houses to install rain catches. I know nothing about installing these things but the lady of the house came out to get water in this 50 liter jug(?) thing and I couldn’t believe she was going to do this by herself. As you can see below I couldn’t even carry it by myself. This lady, and several others were around the front of the house and they got to laugh at the two white people trying to carry something a woman did every day. There were really sweet ladies. For some reason I haven’t figured out yet, the kids when you take their picture (for the most part) grin from ear to ear but the adults go stone-face when their photo is taken, so many of the adults, like these three woman in the photo below were laughing with us and smiling until the second we took the pic. They are pretty amazing.

The first shot below shows the rain barrel that was partly full of rain runoff. I am filling the blue bucket with a pan to take it back to her house. The second shot and third is just trying to life the can which had to weigh something like 70 pounds at a minimum. The lady in the shot below is who we were taking the water to and if you look in the back behind her that house (the lady sitting in the opening) also had a great story. The shot of me with the little boy actually ended up being Tonya Styles sponsor child who was watching us install the rain catch systems (so if anyone on Facebook can tell her it’s over here that would be great).

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T-Minus 10 Days and Counting Plus it Rained :: Friday Feet

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:49:40 +0000

Another last minute Friday Feet but it’s still Friday for about another hour. Last Friday I was talking about how it hasn’t rained at our place in forever, and this week it rained off and on all week. My day today started out with rain and ended with rain and our pond in the photo from last week has more than quadrupled in size, what a difference a week can make. Today’s Friday Feet comes from looking towards our house at the same pond as the rain clouds moved across the property. The shot was taken with my iPhone after hours and hours of cutting grass in 100% humidity right before the heavy rain came back.

This week has been crazy busy as we (Cornerstone) continue to prepare for becoming a multi-site church and I can’t believe there are only 10 days left before our team leaves for Africa. I would like to say I’m ready to go and have everything done that needs to be done but that probably won’t even be the case come next Monday when we leave for Atlanta.

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Patience Results in a Magnificent Sunset :: Saturday Summary

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:20:29 +0000

Above is how my day ended yesterday, but what was in between was almost a blur. I know today is Sunday, but I’m doing my photo Saturday Summary today. Sunday’s in the summer are usually a little more laid back but they haven’t been so far, and yesterday was pretty incredible, and exhausting. Within two services we had more baptisms than I could count (pics here), a Uganda team trip meeting (for the October trip), four video sessions shot for our small groups (see April’s blog), a quick trip to Starbucks in severe lightning storms (see photo below), then another Uganda trip meeting (July trip), which was semi-rained out but still took place.

Uganda 2011 July trip update: So our Uganda team is leaving at the end of July (details here), just four short weeks away now, and is commissioned to (among other things) put together a soccer camp of sorts for the kids. The team is all guys this time, and for the most part, skilled in coaching soccer, except for me who will be behind the camera. We follow a full mission team that leaves the U.S. mid-July and we arrive in Uganda about the same time they leave to come back home. We have been meeting together as a team to get to know each other and plan the trip, and yesterday was one of those this-is-what-we-planned but this-is-what-happened-meeting. We were going to meet at a local soccer field and everyone was going to get some practice in, including me with my camera. As lightning bolts rained down we all ran for cover, stood around for an hour getting to know each other better, got out on the field, kicked the ball approximately two times each and scattered when the next lightning bolt came down in close proximity. I did manage to get one shot of Jason kicking a soccer ball to prove that we both got our practice in, sorta.

Driving home about 8pm last night I was so tired I couldn’t really think straight at that point and then all of a sudden the sun burst out of the storm bank just above the horizon line and I pulled over to the side of the road where I could see the horizon (not an easy thing to do in Alabama where you can’t see more than 20 feet because of all the trees) and got the shot at the top. The beauty that only God can produce in the sky with a mix of clouds, rain, lightning, and sun was a truly magnificent end to the day (it didn’t matter that the storm had fried my gate and I couldn’t get into my own property when I got home… but that’s another story).

As some of you may know I am still trying to raise money for these two mission trips, and every single donation helps no matter the amount, even $10 will go a long way when combined with everyone else’s donation. If you would like to help visit the info page or make an online donation here. Thanks!

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Rolling Summer Thunderstorms and Dramatic Clouds in the South

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:09:13 +0000

It seems like these storms have been way to far and few between the past few years, but at least we are getting a small amount of rain. This thunderhead rolled by yesterday afternoon about 2pm and today it’s the photo of the day. Down here you see these nice little points developing in the clouds and you start to take notice. This one never picked up any rotation to it, but it made for some nice dramatic cloud shots. This image was taken just a few miles from my house when I was on my way to work, I literally stopped on the side of the road and rolled down the window to get the shot. My favorite part is how this tiny little truck way off in the lower right corner looks like it’s trying to outrun the storm like it’s the movie Twisters or something. It would be nice if we could get these every afternoon for the rest of the year.

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Late Evening Thunderstorm and Some Lightning Photos

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 15:14:49 +0000

Last night just around midnight we finally had a thunderstorm go through our property. Feels like the first one that has come across our house this year, but it brought some nice lightning with it, for a very short time period. I took these shots right out my office window. I rendered the one image above both in black and white and color so you could see the vapor trail from the previous bolt that hit just prior to my shutter being pressed. Look on the black and white just to the left side of the image and you will see where the bolt that is no longer visible went through the clouds. I really love shooting lightning, wish the opportunity came about more often than once a year or so. You would think being in the deep south that wouldn’t be the case but we seem to be lingering in a 5 year drought. As usual the exif metadata can be found on flickr if you want to see how the shots were taken. This was really the last time I have been able to get some decent lightning at our place, back in the summer of 2008, see How to Successfully and Safely Photograph Lightning and Humidity, Storms, and Lightning in Alabama are Back for my last two examples.

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Finally, We Actually Got Some Rain Here in Auburn

Scott Fillmer — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:05:22 +0000

We finally finally got some rain down in Auburn. It rained most of Friday and by Saturday morning everything already looked a little greener than it did the day before, and a whole lot cooler than 96*F. Amazing what a little water will do. No, we don’t bale hay out here, but the guy down the street does. We just mow it down, as you can see from the tractor above. Saturday’s are just too short sometimes.

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A Mix of Sun and Rain So Time to Stop and Smell the Roses

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:47:42 +0000

They say you should stop and smell the roses. It has been so cold, wet, dark, and raining for the last few days that you couldn’t get outside and do anything, let alone smell a rose. It finally cleared up enough this afternoon to jump outside for a quick break, and today that makes this shot the photo of the day. I took the shot of the roses with my iPhone today, and in my ongoing battle to make the iPhone a viable photographic alternative to a big DSLR I am testing out some new apps (blog post review to come some time).

There is so much going on this week and my mind and heart are in basically three different places so this was a nice walk around the house break. My friend and marathon prayer partner lost his sister unexpectedly this week and today he is in Tennessee with his wife at the funeral. He has usually been on the other side, praying for myself and Deborah as she continues with her tests at UAB, but this week it changed.

This morning, going through my normal continuous reading of the bible, I just happen to be reading Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12:26 that says “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”, and this is truly the case. As we get ready for the next round of tests at UAB on Friday (depending on whether UAB and BCBS can figure out how to talk to each other) I know he will be back on the other side praying for me once again, and that is such a comfort to me.

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Imposition of Ashes Mixed with the Pouring Rain

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:30:07 +0000

The photo of the day today comes from my back yard, as it was being clobbered by wind and rain. This photo sort of summed up the day in some respects. We had two unexpected calls by two different doctors for Deborah, neither of which I was all that excited about, it was cold and obviously poured, for most of the day… and then…

We went to our Ash Wednesday service (my first that I can ever remember as an adult Christian). At this moment I am trying to figure out how to mentally unpack what just happened.

My emotions were on edge from the day already but sometimes just being able to worship with raw emotions allows the Holy Spirit to have an impact. Brian led worship with a song I hadn’t heard yet (apparently everyone else has) by Tomlin from Passion called “Spirit Fall”, written by Jason Ingram, Louie Giglio, Kristian Stanfill and Daniel Carson, which has some incredible energy with a room of 500 people singing…

Oh, come
Magnify the Son
Savior of the world
The hope for everyone

After an incredible message from Genesis through Luke led by Josh (podcast will be up tomorrow), followed by the “imposition of ashes”, Allen closed with this prayer called The Valley of Vision.

The Valley of Vision

Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see you in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold your glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter your stars shine;

Let me find your light in my darkness,
your life in my death,
your joy in my sorrow,
your grace in my sin,
your riches in my poverty,
your glory in my valley.

Amen

Sometimes it’s just hard to explain to how God works during corporate prayer and worship, but God was there, waiting for us to bring our worries and cares to Him. As explained by Josh tonight, today started a journey that walks down into and across a long valley and eventually ends up at the peak, the resurrection. I feel right now like I literally have no idea what is going to take place in our house over the next 7 weeks leading up to Easter, but I hope to look back at Easter and see that this night was one of those nights you just want to remember, even if the day wasn’t what you hoped for.