Questions from answers

A few weeks ago my friend Jason and I went to see Flogging Molly at the Commodore Ballroom. I first heard about Flogging Molly at the beginning of the summer and really got listening to them a lot. When I heard they were coming to Vancouver, I knew I had to go.

Before the show Jason and I went to an Irish pub for a dinner we both quite enjoye, although it was quite a lot of food. I think the waitress thought I was an idiot for wondering what the countdown clock was for–St Patrick’s Day, duh!

At the show we sat through 2 opening acts, The Girls and Beat Union. I can’t remember much about The Girls, except they were guys and Beat Union, sounded like what you’d expect to hear from Brit-Punk.

When Flogging Molly came on the crowd was ready to have a good time with a mosh pit and all. We were right at the front with one person in front of us. It was a great spot to see the show and we mostly avoided the mosh pit beside us, I am 36 after all! The sound was quite loud I thought and I like it loud! At the front it seemed like the sound wasn’t quite balanced as I couldn’t hear the singing very well. After I while I went back a bit in the crowd to get a bit better balance of the sound.

As for the show it was a lot of fun, I knew most of the songs and was signing along when I could. I even went in the mosh pit for Rebels of the Sacred Heart. I almost lost my glasses in the process, but it was fun. At the end of the night I could barely talk and my ears were ringing.

If they come to your neck of the woods I’d definitely recommend you check them out.

Here are a few pics from my point and shoot from the night

Back in June our local Photo Club held it’s annual Photo Hunt, I did blog about it. Our club reconvened after the summer break and one of the things they did was announce the results…I came in second place out of 21 photographers, I guess my 50mm lens came in handy!

I even received a funky trophy too!

The crowd gathered, the band came on, the crowd squished together and the rain began to fall. This was the scene when Radiohead came to Vancouver. I’ve never been a hard core Radiohead, but have enjoyed a lot of their songs. This was my first Radiohead concert, so I was eager to see them, as it’s been 5 years since they have been in these parts.
Radiohead had an interesting stage with organ pipes dangling around them and the ever changing light show, but for Radiohead it’s about the music. They’re a band that is not so high in entertainment, but more in letting sense their soul through the music.

During some of the more mellower songs I could hear the rain falling around, which was kind of weird. Keeping close with everyone around me I didn’t notice the rain too much although I finally took my glasses off as they kept steaming up.

At one point the crowd on one side was getting pretty rowdy and Thom had to remind them they were not at a Rage Against the Machine concert.
Radiohead had come out for their second encore and had played 24 out of their 25 song set and I had yet to hear Paranoid Android. Thom asked the crowd if they wanted to hear Idioteque or Paranoid Android, I am glad the crowd agreed with me. And when we awere all singing ‘rain down’ it seemed very appropriate. A nice way to end the show.

Despite the rain, Radiohead still put on a fine show even without the entertainment.

Here are a few pictures from the concert.

This is after the show as the crowd was dispersing.

This past weekend was the inaugural Pemberton Music Festival. I have to say it takes a lot of vision to want to turn some farm fields into the biggest music festival BC has ever seen. When I first heard of the festival I was quite excited, then I saw the ticket prices at $250 plus fees for the weekend plus camping seemed way over priced. Then I looked at the 3 day line up and most of the acts I wanted to see were on the Sunday with Coldplay headlining. When tickets first went on sale they only sold 3 day passes, but I was hoping they would eventually sell one day passes. Then I was being optimistic and hoping they would sell one day tickets for $100 each. When they eventually went on sale they were selling one day tickets for $150 plus fees! That was crazy to me, could you spend one day at a concert and spend $170 at a show and say it was worth it? So I skipped on buying one day passes and said I’d pay $100 to go the show and not more. I resorted to daily checking Craigslist. About a week and a half before the show I reached a deal with a girl to get 2 tickets for $225 for my friend Glen and I, it was a bit of a compromise as I would be spending $12.50 more that what I had hoped. A time transpired I lost contact with the girl and I was again looking for tickets. Then a week before the show I put an ad in Craigslist looking for 2 tickets at $200 and then a day later I got and email from someone who lives close to me was selling 2 tickets for $200. He won them on the radio and was unable to go, his loss, my gain!
Pemberton is 30 minutes north of Whistler with generally only one road to get in and out unless you want to make the long journey the other way. When people began arriving on Thursday, there were news reports of people waiting in traffic for up to 8 hours and confusion as to what exactly was going on. Then on Friday with the dry weather we have been having, there was lots of dust and some people leaving early because of allergies. On Saturday there were reports of the kinks slowly working themselves out and I was optimistic that by Sunday things would be going along a lot more smoothly.

On Sunday I met up with my friend Glen in Whistler at 11:30am for lunch. The trip up to Whistler went a lot faster than we were expecting considering the whole road is practically a construction site. We ate lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory and were on the road again to head up to Pemberton at 12:30. We left ourselves 1.5 hours to make the 30 minute journey in order to make the first act I wanted to see at 2pm. The drive was going well until about 10km to Pemberton when traffic was at a standstill. There were a few times were did not move for 20 minutes at a time! It took us over 3 hours to make the last few km. Needless to say I missed The Airborne Toxic Event at 2pm. The next band I wanted to see was Vampire Weekend at 3:30. The time was getting to 3pm and my friend Glen wasn’t to into seeing Vampire Weekend so I said I’d walk/run to the show while he would eventually find a parking spot. So I started running to the show, uncertain how far exactly I had to run. It ended up being about a 5km distance in the warm sun. Ironically as I started running the traffic became better and my friend Glen wasn’t too far behind me.

Once I got to the show things got better, I had arrived finally!
I missed the first few songs of Vampire Weekend, but I caught most of their set. The sound was great and the mostly college age crowd music. I thought they put on a decent show.

There were 2 stages and once one act finished the other started. Next up on the smaller stage was Wintersleep from Halifax. I had heard only a couple songs from them, but was pleasantly surprised their set was more electric than the acoustic singles they had put out. Glen and I were quite impressed with their show and after Coldplay was probably one of our favourite bands of the day.

Next up on the other stage was Death Cab for Cutie. This was another band that I had only heard a few songs from. They had a good size crowd watching them, but seemed to only put on a mediocre set. I did however want to hear more stuff from them and have been listening to the Transatlanticism and Plans albums recently which I have enjoyed.

We had missed the band N.E.R.D. because we weren’t too interested but they were late and made the 2 stages start overlapping, so we missed the beginning of Matisyahu. Again I think I had only heard one song from Matisyahu before, but I have to say he put on a solid show, which I really enjoyed. Even though he is a white boy and Jewish too, he really can do reggae/rap like the best of them, with a great backing band as well. I would definitely see him again.

Next up was Jay-Z, we weren’t too keen on seeing him, but we did want to position ourselves to get in a good spot for Coldplay after Jay-Z. I can’t say I really understand rap, like women are called bitches and we should say ‘Ho, ho ho’ like it’s Christmas. Anyway for the most part it was entertaining and the crowd seemed to be into it as well.

And finally at 10:10 Coldplay finally showed up on stage. We were about 15 rows back and feeling very snug with the people around us. We thought their would be a lot of pushing a shoving when Coldplay started, but thankfully the crowd was quite well behaved, except for those making out in the Porta-potties during Coldplay’s set??
Anyway Coldplay put on a great show and had the crowd singing along for a number of songs. Then they went into the crowd and sang an acoustic version of the Scientist which the crowd enjoyed as well. They put on a great show as I was expecting, a great way to end the day and the festival.

It was midnight before we returned to our car and the parking lot didn’t move for 2 hours and we finally made it back to Whistler at 3am. It was a long day but worth it. If I ever go again, I really hope they work out the traffic problems, otherwise it could be a great festival for BC.

Last weekend our camera club held its annual photo hunt. I was able to use my new 50mm 1.8 lens which Shelby gave me for my birthday, thankfully I was able to use it a few days early.

For the photo hunt we could only take one picture per topic, no deleting pictures. It was a little tricky as I’d find a photo-op for a topic but wondered if something better would come along. We had 8 hours to complete the task within a certain boundary in Langley.

These were the topics we had to find:
1. Self portrait

2. Texture

3. Foreign

4. Nature

5. Reflection

6. Something old

7. Something new

8. Something blue

9. Lost or Forgotten

10. Something broken

11. A picture of your camera taken with your camera

12. Empty

13. How bizarre!

14. What’s in your bag?

15. Pairs

16. Quiet

17. Stranger

18. Odd one out

19. Yellow vehicle

20. Things thrown out

21. Lunch

22. Graffiti

23. Red shoes

24. Object in a parade

25. Colourful

26. Black and white

27. Train

28. An interesting sign

29. Shadow

30. Stairs

31. Shiny

32. Thing which name starts with the letter “F”

33. Wildlife

34. Bricked up doorway

35. Unique trash receptor

36. Langley

Here is a link to the pictures I took, see if you can match any to the topics.

So I joined e-music about a month ago. They charge $10 a month and give you 30 tracks to download, which is pretty good as it about a third of the price of iTunes. Some benefits are the music has no DRM and they are high quality mp3’s. emusic only deals with indie labels which cuts out a lot of music, but still leaves a lot of good music to be found. When you sign up they give you 50 bonus tracks to download as well. During my first month at emusic they created an emusic Canada, seems the same to me except they now charge $12 a month, but they threw in an extra 10 tracks to download. So for my first month I have 90 tracks to download for $10-12, I have to see how much they actually charge, still a great deal though. So now I have been inundated with new music. Since I have downloaded a lot of music some of the music hasn’t been listened to as much as others.

This is what I downloaded:

The National - The Boxer
The National - Alligator
Arcade Fire - Funeral (I had most of the album before from a friend but now I have it legally:-)
Cool Hand Luke - The Fires of Life
Andrew Osenga - Photographs
Northern Room - Only Seconds EP
Sigur Ros - Von
Flogging Molly - Float

I would have to say I have enjoyed The Boxer the best so far, I mean I like Funeral as well, but I had heard it before. Cool Hand Luke was a little diapointing, Andrew Osenga was a little depressing I thought, Sigur Ros was very ambient but I kind of expected that. All those albums I do need to list a bit more as well. I have only listened to Flogging Molly and Northern Room once, so I still need to form an opinion on them.

Anyway emusic is a great indie music resource and if you are thinking of signing up, you can use me as a referral and I get more free music as well, a win-win for everybody.

I was reading on a blog an advertisement for a new church in this bloggers area. I thought it was kind of intriguing and , although I don’t know anything about this church, I would definitely be interested in checking it out

I think it’s the idea that often churches seem to settle for mediocre and then that tends to makes them lame and any church that recognized this sounded interesting to me. Yesterday our pastor spoke on grace and a line that stood out to me was ‘To non-Christians usually Christians are known for what we are against and not what we are for.’
I try to formulate in my mind what a church I would really like to be part of and it would probably be only a church of one, which was me because I would be the only one that thought this way.
I find it interesting to contrast the early church to the grand cathedrals in Europe to today’s evangelical church in America. They all seem so different and hopefully trying to reach the same goal of having Christians meet together to give God glory.
I feel the tension of reaching our culture and not watering down the Gospel. I know that the Bible transcends cultures, so how does a church effectively reach our generation while preserving the the Gospel? I realize there is more than one answer and not everyone wants to be on the cutting edge technology etc.
This is something I a still working through and feel I have a piece to add the to the answer puzzle.
I try to keep remember the saying ‘Actions speak louder than words’ and I have a purpose each day to ‘Love the Lord your God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind and love your neighbour as yourself.’ I know that God can use me right now and not just in the future.

Yep, I am still a work in progress.

On a recent trip to Hawaii with my family technology followed me. I’d like to think that I don’t rely on technology as much as I probably do. So why can’t I at least take a one-week break from it?
Let’s see if I can justify my tech gadgets.
So I brought with me:
Nikon DSLR camera
Canon point and shoot camera
Video Camera
GPS receiver
Laptop
iPod Nano
Jumpdrive

Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it was, but when we met up with my friend Dave on the last day of our trip, who has the same iPod as me I asked if he brought his, he replied no because he was afraid to lose it.

The jumpdrive I could have probably left home, but it is small and part of a Swiss army knife, which came in handy on occasion
My iPod I have been enjoying as I have been using the Nike Plus system and keep track of my running, which I did go for 3 runs on the trip.
The laptop is a recent purchase as I have never owned a laptop before, but my home computer was slowing down and unable to edit the videos I have wanted to do. When it came to the trip it seemed handy for the kids to watch movies during the flight and avoid some restlessness by them. The hotel had a free wireless connection but that was a bonus, as I wasn’t expecting it. On the way back since the flight was a red eye the kids just slept through the flight
My GPSr is a hobby where I go geocaching, I think it’s a good way to explore new places as it usually takes you to places you would not normally go to. My brothers and I each left a trackable item to see where they end up. I read already that my brother’s item is already heading to California. I think mine might be in Hawaii for a little while.
My video camera, this can be a pain to carry around sometimes, but I like to get video of our travels as it brings a clearer understanding of what a place is like. Sometimes pictures don’t do it justice and I don’t mind editing videos, which make for a good memory of the trip.
My point shoot camera, this is handy to me because then I don’t have to lug around the bigger camera all the time, it has a decent video function on it so I don’t need the video camera all the time either.
My DSLR is a bit cumbersome at times but allows me a lot more flexibility when taking pictures. I think the fact that I bring a tripod, flash and a different lens makes it a bit much to carry around all the time.

If I really wanted to lessen the load, I think I would still bring my cameras since it’s something I enjoy and I really feel that when a trip is over all you have left is your memories and your pictures.

I guess it is a blessing to have this technology, but also a curse when you need to keep track of various items and they become my ‘kids’, something else to think about. Finding a balance to enjoying a trip and using technology as a secondary means rather that a primary means seems to be the way to go in my mind or bring along a photographer/videographer on the trip.

Any thoughts on my list? Is it too much or just right?

Since I started this blog a few years ago I kind of made a goal for myself to post at least once a month. Sometimes my entries were pretty lame, but I have managed to keep it up. I knew the end of this month was approaching quickly without an entry, so I have been thinking on what to write about. Usually the thoughts in my head are pretty jumbled and organizing cohesive thoughts are difficult. I know at the same time it can be therapeutic, so we’ll see where this goes.

I wonder if there are ecclesiastical counselors out there? If there isn’t, there should be, because I am sure I am not alone. When it comes to church, specifically the church I attend, I find myself very ambivalent.
I think the part that is causing me to be in a stalemate is whether it’s me or the church. Probably the easy answer is both, but to what degree? (This is the part where i need the counselor)

I guess we can analyze each part.
I’ll start with me:
My spiritual state is probably receiving a passing grade right now, but not by much. My devotions are still going, although I am reading through Jeremiah, which is a tough go at times. My prayer life could be better, although if someone requests prayer, I do pray for them, at least once:-). There isn’t a deep rooted sin in my life that I am not dealing with and no one I know of that I need to ask for forgiveness for something I’ve done, but I do ask forgiveness from God for my daily sin. Yet, for the most part I am in a comfort zone where I am not really challenging myself to share my faith as I know I could. That’s probably my spiritual side in a nutshell.

As for the church:
I think the the biggest positive of my church is that most of my best friends go there. I think if, for some reason some of my best friends end up at a different church or we do, I am pretty confident that our friendship will transcend the fact that we are at different churches.

Our church is fairly united. That is not to say conflict has never arisen, but for the most part people are on board with what our church is doing. There have been a few that have left over the direction of the church, but it has not caused a church split, so the main vision of the church is allowed to continue. When is comes to financial goals with building a church, we have been able to meet our targets every time, and at the recent business meeting things seem to be progressing positively.

Serving- Since our church meets in a gym there is constant set up and take down each week. We also have a large number of young families in our church so the number of people required to run the various kids ministries is very large as well. We do have a very high number of people who serve in more than one ministry in our church, including myself. Although since we have moved to 2 services we can still use some more workers, I think we do have a very serving oriented type church.

Growth- I am thinking in terms of physical and spiritual numbers. There has been some growth in our numbers, I think it has been growing slowly and steadily, as perhaps some people have left, we have gained more people than have left. I think the same can be said spiritually, as ever once in a while I hear a story of someone sharing their faith and people receiving Christ, which is always cool to hear.

So where’s the problem?
A couple things come to mind. First I am not really getting much out of Sunday morning service. The odd sermon I’ll actually remember something, but on a few ocasions I can’t remember a single thing that I spend 30-40 minutes listening to. I also find the service rather routine. Actually they are trying to do some different things, but I am not sure how much it will change.
I also feel a lack of expectancy that God is going to do something in the service. This might only be my thoughts, but sometimes it almost feels like a duty that I show be at church, rather than wanting to be there. I also think there is a lack of creativity being used in our service and the fact that creativity is not generally encouraged. At the same time it’s not discouraged either. I mean creativity is not a spiritual gift, but I think God has given people creative ideas to be used for His glory and yet I sense a lot of creativity not be used in our church apart from singing or playing an instrument.

I was talking through some of this with a prominent person in our church and he said. “If you go to a church, for say 5 years, and there is no change then you can only blame yourself” I think that is pretty good advice, so as to not become non-chalant about things and only verbally criticizing things and not actually do anything about it. So I am thinking I actually want to make some changes. I know there are a few of my friends who think somewhat like me to brainstorm and see how we can implement some of these changes that have been bothering me. I have actually taken steps to make this a reality, but have not spoked to the leadership about this yet.

This is the part where i need the ecclesiastical counselor again. How do I figure out if these changes that I feel need to happen, is something that church would generally be in agreement with or if our church is generally fine with the direction it’s going and it’s more my own problem and I should find my ecclesiastical fulfillment somewhere else?
I believe every church has its own personality, which makes sense, but am I the one to change our church’s personality, it feels a little presumptuous. I know what they say about trying to change your spouse, perhaps the analogy works here as well, I’m not sure.

I feel my brain is feeling pretty empty of thoughts regarding this, so I think I have generally put them out there as best I could. If you have any thoughts I would love to hear them and thanks for ‘listening’.

Till next month…

Merry Christmas!

You know the old question “If you had a month to live what would you do with your life?”
It seems predictable that you wouldn’t pursue trivial things in your life and do something meaningful. Yet it seems I can go through weeks and not seem like I have done the meaningful things I have wanted to do.
I try to realize that life here on earth is quite temporary and in the grand scheme of things were not here very long, so why do I still pursue the trivial things in life?

I think I’m slowly coming to terms that I’m 35. I’ve been 35 for a few months now, but I’ve justified it with thinking I feel 25. I might feel 25 inside, but there is a big difference between a 25 year old and me…10 years. I think the idea that I’ll be 40 in 5 years doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve never really been good at long range planning, but if I make a 5 year plan, where does that take me?…40.
I am not sure if what I am going through is a mid life crisis, I’ve never been old enough to have a mid life crisis and even now I’d like to think I’m still too young.

Our kids have so much stuff and they are only 2 and 4. Most of this is to blame from their grandparents, aunties and uncles. My new idea is that if they want to give something to our kids, they have to take something old. Seems to make sense to me.

These are not really great shots but, I see it as the beginning of some astrophotography experimentation that I would like to do more of in the future.

This is a 15 minute exposure

This is a 30 minute exposure

This is another 30 minute exposure, the clouds rolled in during the exposure.

I wasn’t really planning on photographing the eclipse, but my wife woke me up as it was a total eclipse so I went out a took a few photos. From where I was standing there was a tree in front of the moon.

These are the buildings I manage on Google maps.
I think it’s cool that you can embed it into your post.
I may try some others like this.

Recently we took a trip to Vegas and then rented a car and went to see the National Parks of Utah and the Grand canyon. I called it the Photo shop tour because I took photos and my wife shopped. That’s not entirely true as I shopped as well and she took some photos. It was our first trip without kids since we had kids, so we took advantage of that and tried to see as much as we could in a week. Here is a brief summary and a few pictures from our adventure.

These are a few nights shots from Vegas. It reached 110F during the day so walking around at night was a bit more bearable.

This is Bryce Canyon, we enjoyed walking into the canyon. We did it first thing in the morning, so it wasn’t too hot.

Then we were in Moab, UT which is close to Arches National park and Canyonlands National Park, which are both great.

We also made a trip to the Grand Canyon which was nice as well.

We really enjoyed our holiday, maybe next year we will be able to something like that again.

The global community seems to be getting smaller everyday, or is it getting bigger, I don’t know, but you know what I mean:-) In my part of the world Facebook seems to be the latest trend in social networking which maybe reuniting long lost friends, on the flip side do I really want to know all this information and isn’t a breeding ground for stalkers? I know these social networking things have been popular for a while, especially for teenagers. I wonder if my kids will ever lose track of any of their friends throughout their life?
Another thing quite popular is blogging about your kids. Now we do this as well with having pictures and videos out there for the world to see. I wonder if they will appreciate that as they get older or regret their blog-happy parents? It will be interesting to see how this and other future technolgies shape our children, I am not sure if it for the better or the worse? I don’t think the world is getting better so maybe it the latter.
I also wonder when I’ll break out by saying when I was you’re we got our first computer….

On a related note, Mark Cuban(who must be a little depressed today) wrote on his blog blogmaverick.com some thoughts along the same lines.

You are what your search results return.

We are living in an age where Life is an Open Book Test. Like the open book test in school where you just needed to know where to look to find an answer, today everything we need or might want to know is presumed to be a Search Engine Query away.

We no longer “know what we know”. We have to confirm everything with a search. If we are publishing , we confirm it with a hyperlink to our search results. Ask someone about a person you just met ? Sure, but then make sure to do a search on them as well.

Im not telling you anything new, but what I am telling you is that the way it is today is nothing like what it will be for kids being born now.

Our past, and really our profile was defined by the contents of shoeboxes and milkcrates. The places where we kept old papers, pictures, grades, notes we passed to the girl we had a crush on.

Over the last few years, its evolved to the equivalent digital placeholder. Its on Flickr, photobucket, Myspace, Facebook, wherever we host and store all the digital pictures, videos,blog entries , comments and discussions we participate in that we share publicly. Or its in an email database that is hosted or backedup online that we may or may not choose to make public.. And these are just the elements we self maintain.

Then there are the elements the rest of the world maintains about us. Put aside privacy issues. There is plenty out there that is published for us, or about any of us. It may be the picture in the local newspaper or neighborhood website of your 3rd grade recital, the box score of your little league baseball game. What groups you were in at your high school, along with all the pictures that didnt make the yearbook. The paper you did in college. The company website with the pictures of the training class you took.

Our lives are being documented , cataloged and indexed whether we like it or not. But since its a relatively new phenomena, there really isnt much history out there . Our pasts, even of high school kids has far more offline and out of the reach of search engine spiders, than online

But for kids being born now, like my daughters, both under the age of 4, it will be completely different.
As their dad, I will be building their digital profile through the pictures and videos I share as a proud parent (as i write, my oldest is at her dance class with camcorder in action recording her every move). I will go online to get anything and everything I need to keep me up to date on her schoolwork and activities and everything and anything she does outside our home. What I cant find online, if its associated with her activities, like pictures or videos parents of her friends took, I will encourage them to share them online, as Im sure they will do with me.

Taking pictures and video is so cheap and easy today that its not inconceivable we could recreate full days and weeks through media.

By the time she starts dating, I wont need to greet her dates at the door with a shotgun, I will have a digital history of the poor kid and know pretty much everythng about him, before I meet him.

We are beginning a generation where much of everything they do will be recorded, monitored and maintained and more importantly, shared online. Every generation of parents has used the tools they can afford to be our kids biographers till they leave home. This generation will have the fortune or misfortune of those tools having an ever declining cost to with no cost per capture (no developing pictures or even having to buy tape), and as it stands today, little or no cost to share all those digital hours online.

As parents we wont pay attention or even attempt to understand the lifelong consequences of our actions. The pull of sharing dance class and report cards and recital videos with family and friends will be just too strong.

Plus of course the kids themselves will blaze their own digital media paths as different from their parents as possible. But it will be shared digitally and online.

Which brings me to the point of this post
.
Hopefully, writing all this out will remind me that everything digital that I share online will become an entry in my kids digital profile that will always be just a search away and stay with them forever. Nothing will be thankfully lost in the garage anymore.

A guy(Brad) I know a bit from the Langley Camera Club has a blog called Living Martyrs that I think is an interesting read.
He has one post called Screaming in a Soundproof Room and the first paragraph goes like this:
A dream is a myriad of disconnected thoughts trying to weave themselves into plot points. Hello and welcome to tonight’s episode of the sedentary life. You’re instructed to sit and wait it out. It will all be over soon. The world is polluted, the food supply is contaminated with genetic modification, and animal life that we haven’t even identified yet is dying. You should care. All this and more, after these messages.
If you want to read more of that post you can go here

His latest post has a link to a video called Bloodline about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, which I found challenging to watch.
Brad is also a decent photographer as well.

Anyway you can read more at Living Martyrs.
His feeds appear to be down right now, maybe he will be able to fix that soon.