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October 08, 2009
> 3:42 PM
rainy day thoughts These are always kinda dangerous, but oh well. I'm going to include at least a couple of links to other blog posts here as well - thanks to those who posted them...
Labels: liturgical prayer, photography, random thoughts, vocation 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | November 21, 2008 > 6:49 PM on my desktop  Well, Bryan wanted to know, so here you go. This is my present desktop image... for now. I have my desktop images set to a group of several 19 photos that I have taken from my iPhoto. They change every hour - that's why I say "for now." If it changes here in a few minutes, I'll take another screen shot and put that up here too. UPDATE: Look down there - there's a new one.  Labels: computers, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | October 21, 2008 > 4:36 PM life recently  First of all, as of today, I have a 15 year old son. Conor James Alan Creech came into this world, the largest, as it turned out, of our four children, on October 21st, 1993. That's him there with nature's devil horns this past weekend as we were camping. He's still a goofy little boy in a lot of way, for which I am grateful. He acts enough like a "teenager" to balance it out, but he's still my little boy. My "little" boy is 6' 3" tall and weighs like 210 pounds by the way. He is now officially taller than Dad and is still growing - Lord have mercy. Anyway, we're very proud of him and love him very much - happy birthday Con!  This past weekend we went camping for two days. We have a sort of tradition of doing this as a family in the Fall, usually in the Smokies, but not this time. Didn't reserve it in time and we didn't want to travel that far this year. We ended up at Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park here in Kentucky - only 48 miles from Lexington. It's a nice park. Mostly campers but there were a few spots for us tent campers. People had halloween decorations up - seriously. There was a nice Pioneer Museum there that we went through - that's a replica Kentucky Militia Man there on the right - cool history stuff, oh yeah. You can see more photos, plus some more of St. Peter's church here in Lexington - here at my Flickr page. Here's a closer, more focused photo of the altar cover at St. Peter's I promised. I went to Mass yesterday and stayed after to take a few shots. I got some good ones of the outside too, including some door arch details that are very sharp. They're on the Flickr site too.Labels: family, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | August 23, 2008 > 12:17 PM pictures of the past  Above are two early pictures of me - wait, yes, that's me, inside my Mother in August of 1966 in front of my Mammaw's house in Dionne, Kentucky. That's almost exactly 42 years ago - crazy.  This photo is of me with two of the earliest friends I can remember - Jim and Jane Pak. They lived across the street from us in Harlan. Their Father was a Doctor who brought their family here from Korea. He was doing a Residency program at the hosptial where my Mom worked, which was down the street from where we lived. I think I was 4 and this was in 1970. I'd love to know where they are now.  And this is me - dapper young man that I was - in probably around 1978. Check that collar out man, and that hair. Woo hoo! I think this was a school picture taken at Hall Junior High School when I was either in the 7th or 8th grade - so, I was around 12 here. I always find it interesint to see photos of myself at a younger age - my hair was much lighter then, and straighter. After puberty, it turned nearly black and became very thick and much more wiry and wavy.  Oh Lord, check out dude there. That's my Dad in his Army MP uniform in around 1963. This photo was taken in Korea I think. He was stationed there for a year up near the DMZ. He's lookin' all tough, which he was. He was drafted and did his 2 year stint, fortunately missing the Vietnam mess by the very short hair of his head.  I've shown a variation of this photo before. This is a closer shot they took on the same day. This is my Pappaw (that means Grandfather, children), Lester Nelson, in front of the coal mine where he worked, sometime in the 1950s. I'm not exactly sure when it was taken. I just like the picture a lot. Labels: family, friends, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | > 12:42 AM partay We had a great party to inaugurate our new deck tonight. A good number of people came from different parts of our life, all mixing together. It was a very good time. And I sit here and realize that I have done something (or not done something as the case may be) tonight that is highly uncharacteristic of me at a gathering like this - take pictures! Can you seriously believe that I took NOT ONE photograph tonight. I even got my camera out earlier to do so and never got to it. You'd think this was 1800 or something, when people got together with one another and couldn't record it in such a way. Good Lord! I actually feel bad about it - kind of sick, like I've lost something important. I don't guess I really have, but for me, it just feels very weird. Thanks to all present. It was a very good time. Very good old friends, finally met face-to-face internet friends, fairly recently made friends. We love hosting people in our home. Next time, I assure you, camera will be IN hand. Labels: friends, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | July 27, 2008 > 12:53 PM photos > food and drink I was playing with my photos on Flickr this morning, adding new photos to sets, etc. I created a new set called food & drink - pretty cool idea, I thought. I was amazed at how many images I have just on my Flickr account which are food and drink related. Food is such a central part of our lives, anywhere from survival to friendship. I've included pictures of food of course, and drinks - all different types - including restaurants, bars, coffee houses, kitchens, food prep areas, etc. Here's a couple of rows of samples from the set. You might have fun looking through them. Hey, you might even find yourself in there somewhere, you never know.  Labels: cooking, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | June 16, 2008 > 12:55 PM sandals and tomatoes  Those are my feet in my sandals. They are Chacos (I have the Z/1 with the thicker sole) and I highly recommend them. They're not cheap but they will last you a long while. That's not really why I took a picture of my feet in sandals though. I was sitting in the park around the baseball field before Conor's game the other day and had something running through my mind. I'm not sure how widespread this word is but I saw it on the internets and it kind of stuck with me.Here you go: Sandalista. Alrighty then - I think a Sandalista is supposed to be some kind of "whacked out, liberal Catholic" or something. It seems a bit of a negative slam of sorts. Some random thoughts that came to mind about it were as follows:
 Yesterday was a gardening day for me and Liz. Well, after Mass and naps, we got out into the yard and I finished putting together these tomato cages I wanted to put around the tomatoes that Liz planted. We also transplanted some of the "wild" tomatoes that sprung up in the garden from last year and built a cage system for them as well along the back of the house. We're 'gonna have a heap 'o 'maters this year I'm thinkin'.You can go here to check out photos I took yesterday of what we were doing. Also, I took another bunch of photos of the whole garden a few days ago - you can see those here. Liz is way ahead of me on this gardening thing, but I was finding yesterday, that this was really good "work" for me. It was just good and healthy to be out there. Productive, peaceful, and for us too, very prophetic in how it kind of foreshadows a life that we will have in that rural, monastic community setting here in the next few years. I encourage any of you who are monastically oriented, if you have room, to just do the garden thing. It's just some good old ora et labora stuff - thanks St. Benedict. technorati tags > sandals, name calling, gardening, photography Labels: gardening, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | March 29, 2008 > 11:01 PM lester nelson > coal miner  This is my Grandfather, my Pappaw, Lester Nelson. He was my Mother's Father. He was, as you might notice, a coal miner in Southwest Virginia. My Mom had a copy of this photo of him that I asked her to bring me so I could scan it. The full photo is below - pretty cool. He's sitting on a coal car that they drove into the deep mines. And check that car out in the background. This photo must have been taken in the 40's sometime, maybe early 50's, not sure.I'll try to find a closer, more focused photo of him to share sometime so you can see his strong Native American features. He was also a lay preacher in his small Methodist church in Exeter, Virginia. I'm told he used to go into the mountains to pray and fast for revivals. He was a Scout leader and also coached the local kids at baseball. He also struggled with alcohol for most of his life. Good people, Christian people struggle with things they have a hard time shaking. We're broken people and fixing us takes a lot sometimes. I have no reason not to believe he is praying for me in the heavenly dimension now. He died, as I remember, in 1970 or 71, when I was 4 or 5 years old. I don't remember a lot about him, only good memories. He had a red Jeep wagon with a white hard top that my Uncle Barry inherited - I remember that. Apparently, as my Mother tells me, I was very upset when he died. He was only around 60. He had black lung disease and heart problems because of it. My Mom says that I was mad at God and couldn't quite understand. I don't remember any of this. I guess we knew Fr. Killian (the man who would later help usher me into the Kingdom, baptize me, etc.) at the time and he helped talk me through this. Interesting that I don't remember this at all. I remember his wake, as he lay in the coffin in my Granny's living room - all us kids walking by and trying to shake his hand. I know, odd, but we were little and we wanted some contact with him I guess. Anyway, I like this photo and wanted to share it and some thoughts about him with you. Peace.  technorati tags > lester nelson, coal miners, old photos Labels: family, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | February 17, 2008 > 4:03 PM this afternoon  This is my view this afternoon as I sit at the kitchen table. Trying to relax around this house is a seemingly impossible situation sometimes, but today it's relatively quiet - relatively. So that's what I see.It's extremely windy outside - Spring-like temperatures today, which always throws me off. Tea is in the mug. I learned to drink/make hot tea from Pakistanis, which means India, which means England, and Ireland for good measure. It's very sweet and has lots of milk or, in my case, half and half. Very nice. I uploaded a few photos I took today to my Flickr page if you want to take a look. I want to go fishing - that's what happens to me when it feels like Spring - early onset Spring Fishing fever, not good. Actually, I wouldn't mind going hunting before the bird season is out. I don't hunt a lot - hardly ever really. It's either Grouse or Quail when I do. Maybe I'll get to the mountains and flush up a Grouse before the end of February, we'll see. That's all my rambling for the day. I am now going to take a nap - naps are good. Labels: fishing, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | February 12, 2008 > 11:49 AM gracious and merciful is He > ice > lent Rend your hearts, not your garments,From the Prophet Joel this morning, telling us to deal primarily with the inside, with the heart. Don't just do external things that look like you're turning to God. That is of little use or good unless your heart is turning toward Him. And why, why should we return to the Lord - BECAUSE He is gracious and merciful - not because we are afraid - because of His Love. We don't have a God who is waiting to give us the smack-down. If you do, I'd take a look again at which God you are serving. Make sure that's not a mask on his face. As you fast and dicipline yourself during Lent, remember why you are doing this, why you can do this - "for gracious and merciful is he..." Ice storm last night/this morning. I wish it was all snow but oh well, this is what we got.   OK, I've decided one thing that would be good for me to try to do during Lent, as a dicipline, is to give up -- controversy. This is what that will look like: Not engaging in controversy in conversation, in blog posts, in comments. I will also avoid taking controversy into myself by reading controversial blogs, blog posts, comment threads, etc. I mean theological, ecclesiological, and political controversy. Now, not all controversy is inherently bad, but a lot of it is unhealthy - and for me, right now, it's not good at all. I've already found this a little difficult. I'm drawn toward controversy - aren't many of us? I'll see something in my feed-reader and I have to make myself not click to read it. So, I fast from controversy. Hopefully this fast will give me some rest. technorati tags > lent, ice, controversy Labels: blogging, lent, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | December 21, 2007 > 10:08 PM family advent  Labels: advent, family, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | August 18, 2007 > 9:20 PM that's what I'm talkin' 'bout  technorati tags > fly fishing, bass fishing, pond fishing, fishing, photography Labels: fishing, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | August 11, 2007 > 12:45 PM random > garden, photos, billy joel OK, time to talk about random regular stuff. I'm tired of being serious and thinking too hard about things. So, here are a few things. First, folks, if you take a look on your left (not really, play along with the bus tour guide please) you'll see a couple of photos I took recently...   Beans and Cucumbers and a veiw from and of my desk in the study. Liz put this garden out, mostly grown from seed inside in the Winter, and we've recently been getting a decent yield. Lots of cucumbers. Do those things grow overnight or what? The one row of beans she planted are still producing well. I just picked quite a few Roma tomatoes and some chiles earlier today. It's time to cook something hot I think.   On the music end, I'm not sure if I've ever talked about how much I love this man (left=then, right=now). I mean, I don't sit around thinking about kissing him in the mouth, but you know, that's not what I mean. Now, I might if I ever met him, but that's different. Billy Joel is my favorite single artist. He has been for a long time.Billy has to be one of the most consistently talented musician/songwriters in American Pop/Rock history. Of course I heard his music as it was played here and there on the radio back in the '70s and early '80s. In High School was when I was really introduced more properly to the man and his music - by my friend Tim Welch. If you, by some weird chance, read this Tim, thanks.  My first purchase was Glass Houses, his current album at the time. A couple of big hits on that album, but for me, it became a whole album deal with Mr. Joel. Sure, You May Be Right (playing as I write this) is great and everybody knows that one, and It's Still Rock & Roll To Me. But how 'bout All For Leyna, I Don't Want To Be Alone or C'Etait Toi? And yes, I can sing those verses in French! And that's just one album. I have most of his work, a lot of it on vinyl. I've re-bought a good bit of it on CD over the years, and now some from iTunes. It is the 21st century after all.I regret that I've never seen him in concert. I have friends who have and what I hear is - yes, it's all that and a couple'a bags 'a chips. He's even been to Lexington while I've lived here, back in the '90s sometime. I actually sold some wading boots to a roadie of his when I worked in the Orvis store here in town selling fly fishing equipment. Close, but no piano keys I guess. Maybe one day. Seems like he's doing a little touring again, playing his non classical music. Hopefully. That's that I guess. Thanks a lot Billy, for all the great music! Thank you for using your talent like that and giving it to us. technorati tags > music, photography, family, gardening, billy joel Labels: music, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | July 09, 2007 > 1:08 AM the pond > fish count  This is my pond on Saturday night at sunset. You see how close to the neighborhood it is. On the other side is a farm still. And I do know, at this point, that yes, Virginia, there ARE fish in this pond and I can catch them. Any of you who have been keeping up with my fish count to the left there have noticed a spike of late. That's due to some trips to the pond and many many Bluegill and some nice Bass being caught. It's a very comforting thing to have a place so close to go fish and relax. Last night I caught 18 of one sort or another. Liz came with me, sat in a camp chair and read her book while I was fishing. That was cool. I had to make sure I didn't back-cast her in the face as I was fly fishing. I notice, too, that the fly fisherman here does pretty well compared to a few others I see around the pond. It's the magic of my Irish fly I've been using - a wet fly I bought in Oughterard, Co. Galway when I was there. The wee fly has done me well. I forget the name of it, though, so I'll either have to figure out how to tie one meself or get hold of some more over there somehow. We shall see. OK, that's it for our fishing update for the month. Surely I can work some Trout fishing in somehow, don't you think? technorati tags > fishing, ponds, fly fishing, flies, photography Labels: fishing, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | May 18, 2007 > 2:54 PM recent photos  I really should intentionally take more photos. I need to spend more time just going out to shoot, finding good subject matter, etc. Oh well, hopefully I'll do that soon, but I have taken a few lately and uploaded them to my flickr page. I end up with a lot of these Eucharistic shots from before and after we liturgize on Sunday nights. I'm drawn to the subject, what can I say. People seem to like them. Pax vobiscum.technorati tags > alan creech, photography Labels: personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | February 05, 2007 > 7:21 PM photo > monasticism > new feeds  First, a photo for your enjoyment. Guess where? :^) And this is how it looked. I didn't doctor that photo up. It was a great day as I drove around the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. Not really any rain that day - blue skies, as you can see. It was a gift.This is the West coast of Ireland near the Western most point in Europe. The Great Blasket Islands are to my left. I'll tell you about this scene here. This, I believe, is one of the places I cried a little bit. Not sure. That grass bit down at the bottom in the foreground is the edge of a cliff, probably higher than what you see in the distance there. Yeah, it just drops off right there where the grass ends. There was a pull off parking area adjacent to this overlook, so I pulled off, got out of the car and sat down on a hump of grass several feet back from the edge there and just sat there taking it in for a while. I breathed deeply and reminded myself that no, I was not dreaming. Amazing. Monasticism - You need to go read the quote Antony put up about the beginnings of monasticism. Very good stuff. It was confirming of a lot of my sense about the spirit of monastic reform - that it has always been just that - a reform movement. And not just for reform's sake, but to get to the heart of the Church, to recapture the transformative power of Christian community. One of these days. RSS Feeds - Here are a couple of long overdue feeds for you to subscribe to. Both these folks are good friends and have been blogging for a while, but have never had feeds. Well, we finally convinced them and they're all burned up with feeds now so subscribe away. Introducing Debi Warford (feed here) and Peter Matthews (feed here). technorati tags > photography, ireland, monasticism, church, rss feeds, debi warford, peter matthews Labels: blogging, ireland, monasticism, personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | January 28, 2007 > 10:49 AM winter triptic > photography    It actually snowed last night/this morning again, enough to see and be emotionally moved by. It's still snowing a little bit. The picture on the left I took out our back door this morning. The trick to catch snow flying in the air is to turn your flash on. I don't generally use a flash in my photography. I don't like what it does to a photo. But in this case it's a handy gimmick. The fireplace shot I took last night. I was sitting, watching a documentary about the band Low, whom I like and have seen in concert once, and felt like taking some odd photos around the living room, so I got the camera and did just that. You can take a look at that batch here. The other shot is pretty obvious, a lamp and a little fake flower arrangement, in front of the window and behind the arm of our couch. On all these photos I had the "wrong" white balance turned on - set for outdoor cloudy instead of inside. That's how I got the warm yellow hue on all the shots. And of course, purposeful blurring and all that jazz. technorati tags > winter, snow, fireplaces Labels: personal, photography 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | May 28, 2006 > 10:41 PM anniversary > gethsemani > merton   Yeah, I know, how cute. 18 years ago today, Liz and I were married in St. Mark's Catholic Church in Richmond, Kentucky. It was a Saturday and, much like today, it was HOT and humid. There weren't very many people there, maybe 100. I doubt there were that many. I wore a suit, as did my groomsmen. Liz had her wedding dress and the bride's maids had matching dresses, but that was about it. We were young. Liz had just turned 20 and I was 21 that May. I think there were even some people, friends of ours, who told Liz not to marry me. I know one Priest, too, said we shouldn't get married because we scored too far apart on a personality test (what the?). I'll probably talk about this another time, but this recent business about having to be "totally compatible" with someone in order to have a successful marriage - load O' crap. Oh, yeah, and her family weren't too hot on the whole thing either. I was Catholic and slightly cocky and that didn't go over well. Our divorce was predicted that day. There have been divorces, but none of them ours. Not happnin. I have made a choice and a commitment to love and live life with this woman for the rest of my life. Good stuff.  I made it to Gethsemani yesterday. The plan was for a half day retreat, leaving after lunch. Ended up there most of the day, till around 4pm. It was a good day. I got there around 9:30am, went into the church and sat quietly by myself for a while. It was hot yesterday too, so even with air conditioning I was sweating already. My running photography for the day is largely in black and white. I may have taken 3 or 4 photos out of 75 in color. I made myself do that - set my camera on b/w and stuck with it for the day. I think I got some decent shots. After my meditation time, I walked, prayed the stations of the Cross in the retreatant's garden in front of the monastery - good time of saying thank you to Jesus. The shot above right there is a close-up of one of the stations. Then I walked up on St. Joseph's hill and sat for a while, said the midmorning office (terce) on my own up there. I came down and went into the visitor's center/gift shop for a bit, then off to sneak around and find out what that little building surrounded by trees in the middle of a field was. Midday prayer in the church with the monks, then lunch. Dan Phillips and I had arranged to meet each other there and eat lunch together, as he was there for a retreat with some members of the International Thomas Merton Society. So we spied each other in the lunch line (no talking) and then went to eat in the "talking lunch room" - there's only one, the rest, quiet please. Great to meet and talk with Dan. We've been in some degree of e-contact for a few years and we finally met. Very cool. We had a good time chatting, telling our stories to each other, talking about this and that. Dan is a member of said society and, as such, gave me the gift of sneaking in on one of their retreat sessions - a Q&A panel session with a few of the monks there who knew Thomas Merton (Father Louis). Fr. Matthew Kelty and Bro. Patrick Hart didn't make it - one sick and one something else - anyway, as you can imagine, this was one of those little gifts from God that you get every now and then. I got another one at Gethsemani once - getting to go up to and into Merton's old hermitage. So, Bro. Paul Quenon over there, laughing at something Bro. Chrysogonus said in a story. Also Fr. James was there, whom I had known as guest master at a retreat I took. They had all been students or novices under Fr. Louis in the monastery back in the day. Great stories, very funny, good stuff. Thanks Dan! So, I was there a little longer, but it was worth it. Don't forget to check out the photos. Pax vobiscum.technorati tags > wedding anniversary, marriage, abbey of gethsemani, retreat, black and white photography, photography, dan phillips, thomas merton, international thomas merton society Labels: family, merton, photography 0 comments
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