Wooden Flames

Lake Lanier is far below normal level, and it has exposed things like this base of a tree trunk.

A different look

Lake Lanier, the only source of drinking water for Gwinnett County, where we live, is more than 10 feet below normal level. Along the barren shore, new plants are starting to grow, like this flower. The "different look" of this image is due to the lack of foliage in the back ground. This photo was taken at the end of the first of two Wood Badge sessions I attended at Scoutland, along the shore of Lake Lanier.

Welcome Home and Good-bye

In February, Michelle went to see the King's Singers, with both of her sisters, twice. They had two performances in Rexburg, ID. Michelle went to both. She experienced something that generally we are only vaguely aware of: the crowd makes a difference. The audience made the first concert more fun than the second one.

When she got home, Matt and I had picked out these flowers for her. It turns out they were "welcome home" flowers and "Good-bye" flowers too. A few days after she came back, I left for a two week trip to Taiwan. You can read more about that in the entries below. The two weeks in Taiwan led into a week in Malaysia, and then that grew into two weeks in Malaysia.

Buga-what?

Bougainvillea.- Having first learned the name in Spanish, this official spelling was more complicated than I anticpated. Click on the word, and you can learn from Wickipedia that the name comes from an admiral in the French Navy who first came across it in Brazil. (Wickipedia uses the word "discovered", but that's too Euro-centric for me. Others had known about it long before then.) This image is an intent to capture the flower within the flower.

The more common perspective below is more recognizable.

These pictures were taken at the Equatorial Hotel in Penang, Malaysia near the end of March, 2008.

A "Colonies" connection clear over here.

Today I found that you can meet people with roots in the Colonies all over the world. I'm pictured below with Alan and Sonia Call. Alan is the son of Dean, the son of Charles Helaman. This picture was taken today, at the Georgetown chapel on Penang Island in Malaysia. Alan and his wife are here for a year. He works with Intel. We reminisced about our vacation visits to the colonies. He knows Dana Call. He remembers Uncle Mac having a strange sense of humor. Mom, I know you would have been proud of me, if I had made the connection. But I must confess that even though I knew he was a Call before he knew I was a Whetten, he was the first one to bring up the Colonies.

Jump to the beat:

This next series of photos were taken at Tze En Tower, which was part of the WuChuan 2nd Branch's trip to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. One person had the interesting idea of getting a picture striking the drum. It looked like such a fun pose that a bunch of us followed. I wish I knew everybody's names. I'm missing the names of the girls in the first and fourth photos. :( Sorry.

Wu Chuan 2nd Branch: Trip to Sun Moon Lake

Today I joined the Wu Chuan 2nd Branch's excursion to Sun Moon Lake. We rode in a tour bus from the church. There were 38 of us on a bus with 40 seats. I felt lucky to get on board.

Our first stop was Chang Tai Chen Buddhist Monastery, which has some very impressive architecture and artwork. Here is the happy Budda.

From there we went to Wen Wu Temple on a mountain side over looking Sun Moon Lake. I'm sure that on a clear day the view is beautiful. The pictures I took can't do justice to the view.

Opposite this view is the temple entrance.
From there, the tour bus took us along a winding road, up the mountain to the Tzen En Tower which "was constructed as the late Chiang Kai Check was in memory of his mother".

This is the view from the top of the tower, with Sun Moon Lake in the background.