Kicked Out Of The Nest

Well, I'm being kicked out of the nest of sorts.... My dad wants me to be my own business entity officially... .so now I'm left with the hardest part of the whole ordeal... what to name myself. No really, everything else is not too hard after i figure that out.

I though about just staying Kelling Photography (while officially registering my business as SKelling Photography), but then the problem is the website, which seems to be the big problem...

So I am officially taking suggestions for names for my photo business. I considered and liked Big Ox Photography, but that didnt get past the committee (aka, Bwige).

I would like my name in there.. but I dont like the other words for photography. I don't want it to say 'Event' in the name because them people wont call me for weddings and portraits...

what do you think?

Hey, lets make it interesting, a prize for you if you come up with the name I use!!!

Rude Awakenings for my Poor Brother

so my brother was watching Jay Jay the Airplane today (a kids show) ... and as he was talking to me over chat, he was coming to some rude awakenings. The poor guy. I think we all need to keep him in our prayers as his little world comes crashing down around him



What he said to me:

wow, there are a lot of logical inconsistencies in Jay Jay...
I mean besides talking planes, right now there are some planes flying with a helicopter... they don't fly at the same speed!
and here comes a space shuttle!!! like they fly at the same speed as a helicopter!

hehe, they are going on a camping trip... AIR PLANES going on a CAMPING TRIP!
how do you "get things ready" for a camping trip when your arms are wings?



(by the way... this is a fun joke said in love..... just in case anyone missed that....)

Rubik's Cube

Last Friday afternoon, I bought a Rubik's cube (I kinda got hooked on the idea by a guy in Italy). Well anyways, I spent many many hours on Friday (till 3:30am) and Saturday (most of the afternoon) working on it (~9 hours). Then, life got busy and I didnt get a chance to play with it much. I would fiddle with it for a few minutes every other day this week, but it was a bit busy.

Fast forward to today. My beautiful wifey came home sick (after going to school when she shouldn't have (stubborn girl)) and so I spent the afternoon caring for her (and yes, she was unhappy when I added extra cheese to her mac & cheese, but that was cuz I didnt know dairy was bad for an upset stomach and I was trying to make it better for my princess. Besides, when have I EVER done anything by the directions on the box!?!?.... YAH RIGHT!) So I got stir crazy tonight and went and got her soup and brought it to her and then went to the mall and picked up some jewelry I bought her (she liked it :) ).

So then before I went to bed, I decided to pick up my old friend once again. Now, I am proud to announce....

I SOLVED THE RUBIK'S CUBE!!!!

Yep, I did it all by my self!! No manuals, no cheats, no one showing me how. Just hours and hours of problem solving!! I am really really happy. I am also very proud of myself for not asking for directions. :)

Well, you ask, what is next for this puzzle king (move over Kat!)? Well, next I am working on Rubik's Revenge. Classic Rubik's is 3x3. The Revenge is 4x4. Oh yah baby!!! Bring it on!

Confessions

OK… in the spirit of Swing giving her confessions… I guess I should reveal my deepest darkest secrets also… so here goes…

1. I am an email freak. No really… I probably check my email between 75 and 100 times a day. Yes, this may be because I am waiting for my next photography order to come in, but its also because I so enjoy getting a message from someone. Every time a new message pops up in my inbox… it just gives me a small bit of joy. Maybe woven in there also is a sense that someone cares about me and wants to talk to me… but that’s neither here nor there.
2. when it comes to food… I’m a bit strange. My favorite foods are on the ends of the temperature spectrum. A cooked piece of whatever, is ok.. but it could be better. For example, I LOVE frozen vegetables. Man… a bag of frozen snow peas or frozen corn…. YUM!!! I will eat just about anything frozen (obviously, it needs to be small things that can be broken easily… you cant eat frozen steak or pieces of broccoli because they are too thick). On the other end, I love it when things are REALLY well done. I love to cook a pan of corn till the corn is extra dry and crispy – almost burned. That way, it really jumps in your mouth and crunches in your teeth. Same thing with ground meat – if its real dark brown and extra crunchy – PERFECT. And there are few things closer to heaven than boudain, taken out of the wrapper, and cooked well done. Oh wow… so tasty..
3. like swing.. I think I have friendship issues. I don’t have any REALLY close friends (outside my wife). Now, I do have good friends, Valerie and Andrew, Estevan, but they are just friends. (I must be careful to not offend anyone here.) I think at the core of what I am saying is…. is that I don’t have anyone that I can really just hang out with on a regular basis. We have few people who we can just see each other all the time because we click so well and just really enjoy each other’s presence. We really enjoy time with Valerie and Andrew, but they live 45 minutes away and so we don’t get to see them much. It’s a similar situation with most people from church, they are just SO far away…
   Swing said once to me that really deep friendships wont happen much after college because you just cant spend that much time together (swing, maybe you can clarify that better). I refuse to accept that. I deeply believe that we are desperately in need is true relationships. So many people spend so much time looking on facebook, and texting, and im’ing, and playing World of Warcraft. Too many people have their deepest friendships online. That just isn’t good enough. You just cant get the depth of communication and friendship online as you can in person… I crave that type of relationship… its just so hard to find it (and even harder when you consider the time it takes to develop it)
4. that’s about it… umm… oh.. this is something I have never told anyone… so don’t spread it around….
   I am madly in love with my incurably hot wife!!! *growls* She’s hot stuff!!
5. lastly… I think my definition of who is going to heaven is narrowing. The more I read scripture, the more I see that Christianity is not about church or rules. Its about being madly in love with Jesus Christ, our only savior and only way to heaven. I am beginning to believe that if your life is not producing fruit, that your lack of results just gives evidence that you have missed the point and don’t really get it. This is as far from legalism as it can get, but if you are not doing a mad dash towards God BECAUSE of his mind boggling love for us, then maybe you really don’t understand Christ at all. (again, this is not legalism, it’s your inability to live your life the same after Christ did so much for you, its you wanting to radically alter your lifestyle to mirror Christ BECAUSE of what he did.)
   Now, I know that most of you will probably disagree with this… but the more I read scripture, the more I see it to be true. That’s not a clear explanation, but its just something I wanted to share.
   One thing I want to do over thanksgiving is to put this down in a cogent written form so that my thoughts are clear and well spoken. At that point, I will post it and deeply desire all of your thoughts on it. I know I’m wrong in places and I look forward to ferreting out those errors.

OK, I need to go. I love you guys.. *sniff* maybe some of you will email me and make me feel loved… J by the way, don’t email Spartacus at hotmail because I’m locked out of that… *cough* Stephen at kellingphotography dot com *cough email me cough*

The Job That Keeps On Giving

(this is about last weekend, not yeserday)

So my last two weeks have been consumed with pretty much one thing only – The Reklaw Fly-In at the Flying M Ranch. First, a fly-in is where a bunch of guys with planes fly into some small private airport, hang out for some period of time, and fly home. At this fly in, a bigger one, people come and hang out for 3 days and then go home. It 2 hours southwest of Dallas. So my plan was to take pictures of the 400 planes as they landed and took off.

I spent all last week getting ready. Including buying some new equipment. I got all the computers working and talking to each other at home perfectly. The plan was for me to head up Friday afternoon to take some test shots and get everything prepped. Then, everyone else would come up Friday night and spend the night so we could be there early Saturday morning. However, because my package was delievered over 2 horus late on Friday, and then Kinkos didn’t have my order ready when they said they would, I ended up leaving the house 6 hours late and went straight to the hotel. But that was ok. All the bad stuff was happening on Friday so Saturday would come off without a hitch.

I wish.

I arrived and set up and the computers would not talk to each other. This killed everything. I cant show the pictures to the people if they don’t talk to each other. Therefore, I took 10,000 pictures and sold 5. Yah. A big bust. A huge bust. I lost a ridiculous amount of money (paying people and getting equipment and stuff).

However, I decided to persevere through it. I got home and starting sorting the pictures (yes, all 10,000 of them) to put them on the internet so people could order them. That took till Wednesday. Thursday I spend updating the pictures and reuploading the ones that got deleted. So far I have received 2 orders bringing in $120. So I am still in the hole in a VERY bad way…

So… now for the back end of this. I am ok with the whole thing. I trust God. He is good. All the time. He is always good in every situation every time without fail. I know this. I may not feel it right now, but I know it. And I’m not freaked out about losing so much money. I know that God will provide. He will not let his beloved son starve. He has always given me such amazing gifts, why would he stop now.

This is definitely an improvement. A couple of years ago, I would have yelled at God for this. I would have griped and complained. However, I think he has grown me. He has matured me so that my faith is bigger. I trust him.

Its good, but still not where it will be. I look forward to the time when I could lose everything, my wife, family, ministry, job, house, kids, money, camo hat… everything, and still fall on my knees in worship of my Savior. He gave me the ultimate gift. Who am I to complain when he takes away something temporal?

Well… that’s about it.. it pleases me that I’m maturing. So hows your walk going? Hows life?