Scott Fillmer

I am glad we still celebrate Memorial Day in this country.  Somehow it seems that as the political correctness of our culture takes over everything we end up loosing an understanding of what made this country great in the first place.  It sickens me to see stories like the one of the Iraq veteran who displayed the American flag in his apartment window and was told to take it down or face eviction due to the fact that the flag is offensive to some of their residents.

Charlie Price of Wisconsin served 8 years for his country in Iraq and Kosovo to find that he isn’t even allowed to fly the flag he fought for in his own window. The couple is now fighting to amend the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 to include renters, and I hope they are successful.  Sometimes it seems that you are no longer aloud to hold an opinion in this country because it might offend someone.  Who are these idiots who have now decided that we need to be a country of brown plain-jane, average, robots, who all believe in the same thing and can never disagree with anyone else?

There is no greatness in average, no conviction of ideals or principles in living a life of medium gray, and these types always seem to get the headlines. It gets tiring to hear the moaners, whiners, and complainers beat the drums of complacency and strive towards moving the country to be average, but sometimes they seems to be yelling the loudest.  Now, instead of being the innovators and inventors, we are having to rely on Russia and Russian built rockets to take us into space, who would have thought that 20 years ago.

It is still the greatest country in the world, I just wish some of it’s residents would take a history lesson and see that America was not built on being average.  The History Channel just finished an interesting series called America The Story of Us.  Though some of it was a little subjective, it showed the overwhelming story of how much innovation, determination, and sacrifice people made because they believed in themselves and what this country stood for.

My family has had people who fought in the Civil War, WWI, both of my grandfathers served in WWI (see Son of a Son of a Photographer), one flew a B-24 Bomber in WWII in Europe, my dad served in the Air Force, and my cousin decided to go into the Navy after 9-11 and is currently serving in the Navy on a nuclear submarine.  I am thankful for their service to this country.  Because they served, my wife and I are able to enjoy living in this great country.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day.  It has been quite a stormy weekend with some crazy weather but I managed to get outside and take a few photos (and some of the dog of course).  The heat is definitely on its way, the pasture, trees, and everything around has taken on the brilliant green of summer.

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I haven’t posted a Friday Feet shot in a while so I thought I would get a few shots of Ebby before we left tomorrow.  After a long semester we are finally leaving tomorrow for Anderson SC (to worship at NewSpring on Sunday), then to Virginia to visit LU, and then over to the Outer Banks.  One of our favorite spots on the east coast, the Outer Banks, is also one of those gems we have in the U.S. that is very empty once school starts and has some of the greatest locals around.

I am looking forward to spending at least one full day on the quiet beach reading a book.  Till then, meet Ebby.  I did just cut the grass but she is still a little shorter than the grass is tall.

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What a difference just a few days makes in the fall. This is what our tree (and swing) looked like this afternoon.  Compare that to this Fall Has Finally Arrived in Alabama, and My Swing Loves It, taken just a few days ago.

It was a totally different time of day of course, but the colors have changed dramatically, and many of the leaves have started to fall off the trees.  I don’t remember this tree turning colors like this last year but as the years click off each fall probably looks more colorful to me.  How were your fall colors this year?

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The temperature yesterday did get close to the forcasted 78*F but the leaves on the trees are starting to turn colors.  Our place is covered in a small forest of pine trees and just a few hard wood trees which are mostely these Sweetgum Tree which most people around this part of the country consider to be a weed-like nuscence.  Mine however holds our tree swing which provides a great place to relax and sit in the peacefulness of the day.

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This is sort of a follow up to Do You Have a Quiet and Peaceful Place to Hide? which for some reason is one of my highest traffic posts and also A Foggy Summer Morning in Auburn Alabama (both different views of the swing).  This is yet another view from our tree swing, this time looking back at my house.  This is where I ate lunch yesterday.  Sometimes when I should be going to the dog house, I just go the tree swing.  It is my quiet and peaceful place to hide, where no cell towers or wifi reaches (at the moment), just wind, trees, and birds.

Friday Feet

This also serves as the first post of what I am going to try to make in a series of posts called Feet on Friday.  A popular shot on blogs and Internet sites is that is your own feet standing somewhere.  We are all in different places every week, I thought it would be good to take the popular foot shot on Friday and post it, so this is the first one.

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What a busy weekend it was this past week. Being a holiday weekend with the 4th of July on a Friday it was just a little chaotic but all tranquility of a Monday has returned. I think I would have to qualify a Monday or Tuesday in January or February as the most tranquil, but this one will do.

For those of us in the south, the summer bring little rest from the heat but a rare foggy morning is one of those reprieves for July. We have been in a horrible drought for the last few years and this summer has proven to be more of the same, except a few mornings where fog blankets the grass and trees.

Our tree swing has quickly become one of my favorite places to eat breakfast and today, it wasn’t cool, but it wasn’t hot either. I took the photo of the tree swing about 5:30am right out my bed room window, and by the time I grabbed a bowl of cereal most of the fog had burned off, but still left a quiet misty pasture to look at while I ate.

The spider webs I just love early in the morning. They are transformed into some pearly design only nature can create. Now as I write this post, it is full blasting sun at what feels like 95* or higher. Guess if we didn’t have the heat the cool foggy mornings would get boring, but I don’t think so.

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How busy was this weekend for you? For me it was close to frantic pace, but a lot was accomplished. The busy pace of our lives got me to thinking about the question in the title or course, and I often ask this question of myself.

Not really to hide out so the world can’t find you but a place to relax, take your mind off of the craziness of the day recharge the batteries a little. I actually “try” to do this twice a day. I usually eat my breakfast outside, walking around in our garden away from the computer or cell phone… but… now I have a place to sit too.

Building a Tree Swing is One Place

On Saturday we put together a stand for a swing in the garden which was too small for our larger wooden swing we already had, so we put the one together the way it had come packaged and put it in the garden, and put the other one under this large Sweet Gum tree close to our house.

From the photo above you can see there was a perfect lateral branch coming off the side of the Sweet Gum and just strong enough to hold our swing, while being completely under the tree’s canopy. Can’t wait to eat breakfast out here this week.

Friday Ice Cream and Board Games

On Friday I went over to our church to get some photos of the first monthly meeting for Friday Ice Cream and Board Games. Actually it is going to be a different activity each month but this one was pretty neat. Hard to beat 10 gallons of ice cream and 25 board games for a few hours.

When I left Friday night it was dark enough to get an image of the entry way of the church at night. I have been waiting to do this and finally got an image I like. The images here is one of many of course, and you can see the entire Friday gallery on the flickr page for Cornerstone.

Saturday Playground Construction Continued

On Saturday we did a mix of things from here at the house, to the church, to running around Auburn. We tilled up the majority of our fenced in back yard to prepare for a fall vegetable garden. We did this until it was too hot to stand it any more and then went into Auburn.

The clearing and tree removal continued in full swing at the church on Saturday and I ran over there to get some additional future playground images. It is not all that easy (to me) to get something photographically pleasing in a construction site with dust and bulldozers flying around, but it does keep me focused on the basics of photography and keeps me from being photographically lazy. See construction gallery here.

After the construction it was back to the house for some more tilling and swing building. It was a busy weekend (so far), but an enjoyable one.

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