I found this little guy as I was getting the kids' bikes out and ready to go to their BMX races tonight. He's a pretty brave praying mantis that hammed it up a little for the camera but then decided he'd had enough and kept trying to jump on my camera or crawl up my arm.
I tried to take several pictures, but either my camera wanted to focus on my hand or the bug wanted to take off. So I ended up taking a video instead. He cooperated for quite a while and then I decided to let him go up the tree in our front yard so he could go practice his Praying Mantis Kung Fu or something.
I recently mentioned that my son celebrated his 12th birthday. We had quite a bit of fun at the go-cart track. He and I got to take a ride together in the two-person carts. I would have let my son drive, but you have to be 18 to drive the two-person carts. But he got to drive plenty of the one-person carts - so don't get the impression that he didn't enjoy himself or that I denied him any amount of fun. While I drove I let him shoot a short video. It's pretty short and kind of bouncy, but here it is
My 11 year-old son is trying his hand at stop-motion animation.
I loaned him my camera and tripod and we created a short ( about 7 seconds or so ) little film with Windows Movie Maker. He did all the clay and animation stuff with a little help from his little sister. She manned the camera for a while. I helped out with uploading the pictures and figuring out the movie maker software.
For now, the windows movie file resides on the web host's server. But, I think we are going to look at uploading the video to You Tube and see if that works better for him.
We're learning a few things by doing this and I think it would be kind of cool if he started sharing his experiences while doing this.
First off - a bit of a disclaimer. I neither condemn nor condone homosexuality. You live your life and I'll live mine. I won't judge you if you don't judge me. I believe in the right to express your opinion. After all, I wouldn't be blogging with the freedom I have if I didn't. I also don't go to church on a regular basis.
I attended Catholic schools for a portion of my life and it's kind of hard to buy into what great people priests are when they condone the kind of violent behavior I saw ( and witnessed first hand ) while in school. Perhaps it screwed up my faith a little.
I want people to know that the beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church are not my own.
I didn't post this so that I could further their cause. They also do not reflect the beliefs of the vast majority of Kansas or the United States. I find the behavior of the people in this video rather despicable.
You really have to wonder what has to happen to someone in their life to cause a deep hatred for others.
I first heard of the Westboro Baptist Church when my family and I lived in Omaha. A student at an Omaha high school had committed suicide and the members of Westboro decided it would benefit society to picket the kid's funeral . . . because the kid was gay.
I debated publishing this post because I really don't want to give these people any more publicity than they already get at the expense of human emotion. However, I'm one of those kinds of people that believes knowledge is power.
Well, that and the fact that I have to at least try and answer the question of, "What screwed these people up so badly?"
So, when I found this documentary by the BBC on You Tube, named, "The Most Hated Family in America," I just had to watch it. I watched the entire thing - it's a seven part series of videos that will consume about an hour of your time.
I'm still waiting for an opportunity to see K. Ryan Jones' documentary. I just haven't had one that works as well as watching it over the Internet.
