Since returning to the Maritimes we have been treated to several intense storms. This of course is simply an opportunity to get out, marvel at creation, and get some photos!
Stormy Fields
Barn Storming
Into the Storm
Storm
I have spent quite a bit of time driving around on the Tantramar Marsh trying to get pictures of the storms as they moved in.. sometimes as late as 2:30 AM (it is a vacation after all).
Jupiter, the Moon, and a storm over the Bay of Fundy.
One storm in particular (at 4:00 AM) was such that many people have said that they had never seen a storm like that here in New Brunswick. When that one was going over head there was almost constant lighting flashes from all directions with continuous rumblings and crashings as the thunder shook the house. A bolt of lightning struck on a tree near a relatives home and when they told me about it I had to go look.
So here is my photo essay:
Why you shouldn't take refuge under a tree during a storm.
A piece of the destroyed tree is embedded in the ground some distance from the tree.
Ready made toothpicks.
A close up of the splitting done to the tree.
One of the first things you notice about the tree is how little bark is left on it. Over 50 feet away I was still finding bark shrapnel scattered across the lawn.
Even the roots were cooked. Any exposed root had the bark blown off, and where the big roots were underground the soil above was split, exposing the roots.
Lesson: Stay away from trees during storms!_____________________________________________
Stormy Fields
Barn Storming
Into the Storm
Storm
I have spent quite a bit of time driving around on the Tantramar Marsh trying to get pictures of the storms as they moved in.. sometimes as late as 2:30 AM (it is a vacation after all).
Jupiter, the Moon, and a storm over the Bay of Fundy.
One storm in particular (at 4:00 AM) was such that many people have said that they had never seen a storm like that here in New Brunswick. When that one was going over head there was almost constant lighting flashes from all directions with continuous rumblings and crashings as the thunder shook the house. A bolt of lightning struck on a tree near a relatives home and when they told me about it I had to go look.
So here is my photo essay:
Why you shouldn't take refuge under a tree during a storm.
A piece of the destroyed tree is embedded in the ground some distance from the tree.
Ready made toothpicks.
A close up of the splitting done to the tree.
One of the first things you notice about the tree is how little bark is left on it. Over 50 feet away I was still finding bark shrapnel scattered across the lawn.
Even the roots were cooked. Any exposed root had the bark blown off, and where the big roots were underground the soil above was split, exposing the roots.
Lesson: Stay away from trees during storms!
Labels: Photography
Unplanned Nap
Today Adelaine turns six months old!
It was a year ago that Naomi and I were in New Brunswick for vacation and complications started with the pregnancy. The doctors initially told us that the unborn child likely will not survive.
One year later we are back in NB, but this time we are celebrating the six months of life of dear little Adelaine, our happy little baby!
Labels: Adelaine
I have uploaded 41 photos of David and Sherry's wedding to my photography site. You can view them at: http://www.troyandnaomi.com/photography/Bucks/
Labels: Photography
Here is a familiar scenario ::
Five hungry people decide to get pizza. Excellent choice. But a problem arises when it is revealed that two of the five want to have the abomination pizza: Hawaiian. So eventually a compromise is made. For the five people two pizzas will be ordered, one good one and one Hawaiian.
The two Hawaiian pizza lovers (HPL for short) will dutifully take a few slices of their Hawaiian pizza. Meanwhile, the other three good pizza lovers (GPL) look in dismay over their slice at this little pizza that has to be divided by the three of them.
Then it happens.. the HPLs decide that they also want to partake of the good pizza too (it is good after all) and take a slice or two each. The GPLs are distraught and hungry over this grave injustice. The end result of this sad situation: two full Hawaiian pizza lovers, three other hungry people, and four slices of unwanted leftover Hawaiian pizza.
_______________________
This is exactly the situation where a Pizza Eaters Code of Conduct is needed. What I propose is this:
Your comments are welcome. Oh, and Stephen Harper, if you have dropped by again, please talk to your guys about bringing this into law.
Five hungry people decide to get pizza. Excellent choice. But a problem arises when it is revealed that two of the five want to have the abomination pizza: Hawaiian. So eventually a compromise is made. For the five people two pizzas will be ordered, one good one and one Hawaiian.
The two Hawaiian pizza lovers (HPL for short) will dutifully take a few slices of their Hawaiian pizza. Meanwhile, the other three good pizza lovers (GPL) look in dismay over their slice at this little pizza that has to be divided by the three of them.
Then it happens.. the HPLs decide that they also want to partake of the good pizza too (it is good after all) and take a slice or two each. The GPLs are distraught and hungry over this grave injustice. The end result of this sad situation: two full Hawaiian pizza lovers, three other hungry people, and four slices of unwanted leftover Hawaiian pizza.
_______________________
This is exactly the situation where a Pizza Eaters Code of Conduct is needed. What I propose is this:
Should you be in a group and want a lesser pizza (be it Hawaiian, vegetarian, or really anything not loaded with cheese and meat) you must then consume only that lesser pizza. Once the others have sat back and loosened their belts you may then abandon your lesser pizza and proceed to eat a slice of the greater pizza (Meat Lovers, Canadian, etc.).
Your comments are welcome. Oh, and Stephen Harper, if you have dropped by again, please talk to your guys about bringing this into law.
Labels: food, ramblings, Rants
Ellie loves airplanes. Go outside with her or even near a window and she will spot an airplane and repeat "I see an aaiiiiirpane" until you too observe it. So we knew she would be excited to go on an airplane as we travel to the Maritimes for a vacation and deputation work.
Our first weekend in my home town has been quite busy, but we have been able to reconnect with lots of people right away. Friday night was a BBQ for my home church.
Saturday was a Johnstone reunion to honour my grandmother's 80th birthday.
Johnstone clan. Great grandmother, grandmother, Troy's sisters.
Ellie catching bubbles. More on their flickr page
Troy and his cousins Devin and Darryl
And the lucky ladies who married those guys.
Its Troy pretending to be Darryl. No wait.. its Darryl pretending to be Troy. At least Ellie knew the difference.
Forget cake. We were saving space for Uncle Brian's famous BBQ chicken wings.
Unfortunately, Darryl got most of them.
Sunday saw us in Woodpoint twice, once to share about our ministry at Woodpoint Baptist Church and then again in the afternoon for my grandfather Wheaton's 80th birthday party and Father's Day BBQ.
"I'm the Boss" Or so says his pin at least.
Driving the tractor
Ellie playing in the fountain. Who needs expensive toys?
Playing ring toss
Whew.. busy first weekend home but we were glad to see lots of family and some old friends.
P.S. my sister rented a Nintendo Wii. We have been having some fun with that.
Dell has created a good introductory video called "Linux 101: Whats all the fuss?" for their Ubuntu computers
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Labels: Linux
David and Sherry Buck - June 9, 2007
This past weekend I was privileged to be the photographer for David and Sherry Buck's wedding. It was a really nice day and a great testimony of God's working in their lives.
With the help of a number of our friends who helped with babysitting, Naomi was able to come along and be my assistant.
Stay tuned for more photos of the wedding sometime soon. We are going to be busy trying to prepare to leave for the Maritimes this week, so it might take a while.
Labels: Photography
From the headlines:
Wow.. sounds bad.
_____________________________________________
There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years from now...
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard pressed to keep up with it....
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. ... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
Wow.. sounds bad.Even though it sounds just like the stories we hear every day, this is actually from Newsweek's coverage of scientists warning about global cooling from their April 28, 1975 edition. See the whole report here.
Labels: Climate Change, Rants
Friday, June 1 marked the last day of classes for the fifth class of students from our Canadian Word of Life Bible Institute. The students have completed 9 months of training and are now ready to really learn some lessons as counsellors at our summer camp! That is where the classroom stuff becomes real to them as they work with kids of all ages. Please pray for our students as they are on break and for their return in a couple of weeks for the start of summer camp. It has been a great year for our students and we are praying for many salvations from the camp's evangelistic kids ministry!
Upcoming events for the Johnstones
Thanks for praying with/for us!
Troy & Naomi_____________________________________________
Upcoming events for the Johnstones
- June 14-July 8 Deputation trip to the Maritimes
- August 19 Graduation at WOLBI
- September 7 Registration Weekend
- September 18-21 Troy teaching a GoodSeed seminar to new BI students
- End of September moving to Alberta
Thanks for praying with/for us!
Troy & Naomi
Labels: Ministry Update
Last week was last week of the academic part of our year, it was also the last week of formal wear. During the summer the office gets a bit more casual (read: shorts and t-shirt). So in honour of the last week of classes, I followed my annual tradition of Ugly Tie Week.
Ellie helping smooth my beautiful tie. People can't help but touch this tie!
The Grocery Store Tie_____________________________________________
Ellie helping smooth my beautiful tie. People can't help but touch this tie!
The Grocery Store Tie
Labels: ramblings
While we were in Ottawa a couple weeks ago my D70 camera started having problems.. the main control dial stopped responding! I had to send my camera by overnight courier for service and was suddenly without a good means of taking pictures. It's like taking a painters brush away, stripping a musician of his instruments, breaking the thumbs of a clay sculptor!! Ok, melodramatic, but you get the picture (no pun intended). I called a service rep at Nikon and told them about my camera, that I had a wedding to do photography for in two weeks and a trip to the Maritimes after that. The service rep wasn't really sympathetic. He told me that they would look at the camera when it arrives and would call me within five weekdays to tell me how much it would cost to fix. After that it may take 4-6 weeks for the parts to come in, depending on the problem. GAH!!
I had a few frantic days trying to find an alternative camera for the wedding, wondering if it might be better to purchase a new camera than pay to fix a three year old one, etc, etc.. After 10 days I called Nikon to find out what was up, and they told me that they had just got the camera from their receiving department. My hopes fell for getting it back for my vacation.
The next day a box arrived from Nikon. I was shocked.. thinking that they must have sent it back without doing anything for some reason. But I opened the box, pulled out my fully functional camera and an invoice for $0. Dunno why, not gonna ask as the camera was beyond warrenty. Just thankful to have it back, especially in time for the wedding! Let the picture taking resume!
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In other photographic news I recently posted some photos of a strong storm on my flickr page. Normally my photos get a few views from friends and occasionally others who happen by them. Most of my photos have less than 50 views and the highest was around 260. I was therefore very surprised to check a few hours later and discover that the three storm photos were up over 250 views and climbing by about 5 a minute. By the end of the day they had reached 600.
Turns out a weather web site (http://natures-wrath.blogspot.com/) had discovered them and linked to my photos.
(click on an image for a larger view)
Dark Storm
Alberta Storm - This storm front moved in quickly from the mountains. I could see it coming for quite awhile and once it got close I was overwhelmed with it's size and power. I had never seen such a clearly defined storm front before. It hit hard with thunder, lightning, hail and heavy rain. And then it was over as quick as it began..
Storm Front
Dark Line in the Sky
_____________________________________________
I had a few frantic days trying to find an alternative camera for the wedding, wondering if it might be better to purchase a new camera than pay to fix a three year old one, etc, etc.. After 10 days I called Nikon to find out what was up, and they told me that they had just got the camera from their receiving department. My hopes fell for getting it back for my vacation.
The next day a box arrived from Nikon. I was shocked.. thinking that they must have sent it back without doing anything for some reason. But I opened the box, pulled out my fully functional camera and an invoice for $0. Dunno why, not gonna ask as the camera was beyond warrenty. Just thankful to have it back, especially in time for the wedding! Let the picture taking resume!
______
In other photographic news I recently posted some photos of a strong storm on my flickr page. Normally my photos get a few views from friends and occasionally others who happen by them. Most of my photos have less than 50 views and the highest was around 260. I was therefore very surprised to check a few hours later and discover that the three storm photos were up over 250 views and climbing by about 5 a minute. By the end of the day they had reached 600.
Turns out a weather web site (http://natures-wrath.blogspot.com/) had discovered them and linked to my photos.
(click on an image for a larger view)
Dark Storm
Alberta Storm - This storm front moved in quickly from the mountains. I could see it coming for quite awhile and once it got close I was overwhelmed with it's size and power. I had never seen such a clearly defined storm front before. It hit hard with thunder, lightning, hail and heavy rain. And then it was over as quick as it began..
Storm Front
Dark Line in the Sky
Labels: Photography
