Stained Glass

Libby's cousin Martha Barksdale was vending for the first time at a street festival in Canton, NC, where she lives. She has launched into marketing her stained glass to the public. Read about her work here. We drove over this evening to wish her well and see what she was showing at "Materfest 2009." That's 'mater with a long-a as in tomato, not with a short-a referring to someone's momma. Martha has also launched a web presence at www.MajicGlass.com. Please stop by and take a look and buy something. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of Martha's work soon.

Martha has also begun working at a gem mine, something I think she's wanted to do for a long time. When we came to the mountains on vacation a few years ago and visited Martha, she took us to a gem mine near Canton. This place, Randall Glen, is way, way off the beaten path, but might just be worth the trek.

If you want, you can get this lighthouse for me for Christmas!

Eli at Rockmont Day 6

Here are some photos from the past couple of days. Eli has been playing dodgeball and whiffleball, and getting in lots of canoe time. Tonight is the big dance with the girls from Camp Meri-Mac and Hollymont. Eli swears he danced with a girl last year, and that he planned to again this year. We never had independent confirmation on that last year; we'll see what transpires tonight!

Camp pictures day 3

Eli is helping his folks a whole lot better this year by managing to get in a few pictures. Here are three (3 in one day!!) from Wednesday. We read that his cabin group was camping under the stars on Monday night.

One photo

This is a shot of the boys in Eli's cabin and their counselor, Thabo. Nothing (out of 305 pictures today) of Eli in a candid. We'll try to be patient.

Eli at Rockmont

We delivered Eli to Camp Rockmont this morning. He'll be there for 2 weeks. There are 380 boys participating this session! One of the kids in Eli's cabin is a buddy from last year, plus Connor, whom we know from church, is also there this session. The C session (in which Eli is registered) is the full two weeks; there is also the C1 session which runs just the next 6 days. So things will thin out a little next week. We loaded things into the cabin about 1130AM (we are so thankful that church right now is on a single service schedule, with that service at 930AM!). We met his cabin counselor, Thabo (from South Africa) and then had lunch on the lake front. Eli and I also had a chance to paddle around the lake in a canoe before he was due for the opening session.

Eli would enjoy mail, though he notoriously did not send a single card OUT last year. (Email me for the address.) Last year Eli appeared in a scant 6 photos (out of nearly 1500 taken by various photographers), so his instructions this year are, "if you see a camera, get in front of it!)

Briggs at the dentist

Briggs was at the dentist yesterday. They have these oversized glasses to keep the exam light from being a bother. Only on the boys they look kind of goofy. The dentist is a member of our church. She also used to practice in Eden, NC, so kind of small world. She took this picture while Briggs was finishing up. She snapped it real-time and emailed it to Libby before we even got out of the office. He had two cavities filled, and got a stern lecture to be a better brusher. He didn't seem to mind much, saying only, "it feels funny to smile and talk." And yet he was deterred from neither.

Linville and Blowing Rock

We headed out on Saturday for Linville Gorge and Falls and Blowing Rock. The weather was gorgeous in the morning (we left at 1030AM) though clouds moved in throughout the day. We took I-40 and US221 to go (about an hour to Linville). We used US221 and US70 then I-40 to come back and gained a little time. We parked at the gravel lot off NC183 and walked to the falls. There is a nice viewing area 4/10 mile from the lot at the top of the falls. It was a nice reward without too much effort, though I was carrying Calvin in the baby-backpack the whole time. We spent some time there at the top. We then hiked an additional 4/10 mile to get to the first of 2 lower viewing points. It was very nice. We could see some folks in the pool at the bottom of the falls, from about 120 feet up. Awesome!


We then got on the Parkway and went to the visitors' center lot and drove through (by then it was 230PM and we were starving, so no stopping there). The went to the (very nice and large) picnic area for Linville on the parkway and had a feast. We poked around the river a little bit. On the way to Blowing Rock, we passed Grandfather Mountain, and drove over the Linn Cove Viaduct. Those are really nifty sights. We then stopped at the Moses Cone home on the Parkway. We rested there and watched a turner carve some wood tops and wine bottle stoppers. We got a top. (At this point Calvin had slept a grand total of 20 minutes, so he was off-and-on fussy. Briggs also missed his daily nap, but swore he was fine until we set off for home: five minutes in the car and he was OUT. See the photos.)

Last stop was Blowing Rock. It's in private hands but is well-maintained. The rock is cool and there is a nifty observation tower that looks over the whole valley. That was pretty much worth the admission price. Calvin took a tumble running down down the tower walkway and hurt his lip and nose (Eli, ever the rescuer, ran for help). We were the focus of attention way more than we like to be for a few minutes there.

We used the Parkway to go up from Linville to Cone Park and Blowing Rock. We used US221 the whole way down. The Parkway is the better choice for speed and ease. The only benefit of 221 is an awesome view of the Linn Cove Viaduct from about 300 straight down at one point on the highway. US221 eventually straightens out a little bit and we made a dash back to Linville Falls, and ultimately Marion where we had supper at Fatz (kind of dark and a little up-scale for us hiker-refugees). We were home by 8PM.

Pictures are here.

Remembering Space

It's one of those moments in time when you know where you were when it happened. The landing on the moon was big for our family. My dad had working for Martin Marietta for a few years in Florida, but we were now living in Charlotte. He had worked on the Saturn V project, but we were now watching the Apollo project reach its climax. It seemed later than it was on that July 20 night. The three Barker boys were hunkered on the sofa watch the lunar landing. My mom happened to catch a picture of us all in our scivvies more ready for bed than for history-making.









Unlike the more traumatic events that are seared on my brain ("Where were you when the shuttle blew?" "Chapel, at Wesley Seminary." "Where were you when the towers fell?" "In my office at Crestwood Church."), this was a wonderfully positive and gratifying moment in history. I had no understanding of the context or the ramifications of the lunar landing. But I knew that we, humanity, had achieved something great, and that only our humanity, that same humanity, would let that be the last stage in our reach into space.

Cradle of Forestry

The three brothers and I set of for Pisgah National Forest and the Cradle of Forestry today. It took a little less than an hour to get there. I expected all the staff to be fairly ragged out due to the holiday weekend just past, but they were really on. Very friendly and helpful. We did the exhibit area first, with Eli and Briggs doing the scavenger hunt. They finished all the sitings pretty quickly and had a blast doing it. Calvin really enjoyed the tunnel with the fox in it. We watched a movie about Vanderbilt, Pinchot, Schenk and the others involved in establishing this forest preserve and the science of forestry in American in general. We took a ride in the fire suppression helicopter simulator. Briggs enjoyed it most; it was kind of lame for Eli. We had a scouting mission in the store then took a break for lunch (we had packed a huge cooler of picnic elements). After lunch we hiked the Forest Festival Trail. It was very nice particularly because it was paved, which made taking a stroller very manageable. We saw the old logging train, the log loading crane, the fish hatchery, the old homestead and several salamanders. On the way back in Briggs tripped while running and had a couple of scrapes; the very friendly and helpful rangers had band aids available for him and happily applied them. Briggs was very impressed. We made a final swoop through the store and made our purchases. We had gone down using the Interstate highways; we came back using the Parkway. We could see Biltmore from a couple of overlooks. It was a great day! The pictures are scrolling in the right column. Here is a video of Eli and Briggs ringing the bell on the old logging train.

W&M Friday

Today Mark Sedio did an anthem reading session. Most of the music was "global" in nature, with a heavy dose of his own stuff. (I realized I need to get on the mailing list for Concordia Publishing to get information about their new releases).

Paul Huh talked about baptism in his session today and didn't flinch as the conversation circled about to re-baptism and re-affirmation of baptismal vows.

David Eicher talked about the Presbyterian hymnal project, now officially called the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song (PCOCS, pronounced "peacocks"). He shared in written form the committee's statement on theological framework and foundation. It's a very nice statement that reveals that the guiding framework for the new congregational song resources will be the construct "history of salvation." It will be interesting to see how that is fleshed out in hymns and liturgy in the new resources.

Eli at Science Olympiad

Eli scored a place at the regional Science Olympiad summer camp last week. There were 60 middle-schoolers from our area at Asheville High School. The kids were able to choose 3 from an array of 15 science projects to work in depth on during the week, after exploring each on the first day. Eli chose "mystery architecture," a session on catapults and other launching devices and "scrambler car" (they build a car with a set-able braking system). We were very pleased because Eli actually had a good time. We were not sure he would like the need for focus and concentration involved, but the projects seemed to capture his imagination and he had a very good week. The camp ended with a contest on Saturday with everyone using formulas and skills they had worked on during the week to complete a specific task. Eli and his partner Mica took second in the catapult (long-distance) challenge.

The camp is sponsored by NC State and the NC Science and Math Center. It was free, to boot. We learned about it from a robo-call from the County school system. The school doesn't have a team during the academic year, but Eli might have something to say about that after his positive experience last week. The whole family shared lunch with Eli on Saturday before the awards ceremony. The pictures are just from Saturday.

W&M Wednesday

Work responsibilities curtailed my participation today somewhat, but here's a brief run-down.

Mark Sedio worked some more on Latin rhythms in the Global Music seminar. Seeing a clearly delineated description of various rhythms was very helpful. I was struck by how much work the new Lutheran hymnal resources have contributed to Hispanic music for worship.

This afternoon I attended the Caring for Creation seminar, which was trying to make connection between our conference theme, "Come to the Waters," and ecological concerns and a renewed interest in the stewardship of creation. This session was pretty exclusively devoted to ecological facts, with some theology added in. I've heard from sources that other sessions have been a bit more balanced. It was an interesting 50 minutes.

Bob Hobby spoke about hymn introductions and registration this afternoon. Lots of stuff I already know and practice, but it was gratifying to hear someone else discuss the theory and the practical applications.

I hope to attend the hymn festival service tonight, but we'll have to see how things are on the home front.