I’m in Hawai’i, hanging out with my parents and BOTH of my sisters (yay!).  I won’t be posting a lot, but I will be posting photos.  Check out my flickr page (or the photos to the right on this page) if you’re interested.  I’ll be back in Indiana next week.

I love this beach. It’s the best swimming beach I’ve ever been in - clear, bright blue water that looks like it’s straight out of a travel agency ad, and warm to boot! Fun waves. And surrounded by beautiful scenery (instead of tourists, buildings, or hotels):

first try at hdr, originally uploaded by tara.aukerman.

Posted tons of pictures on flickr. Click one of the pictures below to view them all. Wanna see something else? We were playing with the continuous capture settings on my new camera - it was meant for capturing fast moving objects (sports, etc), but we played a strobe game… Continue Reading ->

This storm is great.  =)  Lots of thunder and lightning, not too much rain, and a twilight-colored sky at 3 pm.  I LOVE “bad” weather.

Remember how my camera was broken?  Well, I can’t fix it and I’ll bet I couldn’t pay anyone to fix it (it’s an old model digital point-and-shoot).  I loved that camera, but I’m moving on.

I just bought a Canon EOS 350D (a “Digital Rebel”) online.  I’ve been wanting a camera like this for ages, but they’ve always seemed too expensive for someone like me (not a pro).  Now that I have a good job (I’ll be working some overtime to even out the expense) and now that they’ve come out with a newer model of this camera, it’s finally worth it for me to buy it.  I’m so excited - I should get it by next week, and definitely in time to learn how to use it for Hawai’i!

In other news: my dog loves popcorn and soy sauce.

We’re back from Kaua’i. =)

Pictures here.

We went to church this morning.  My parents’ church recently split when their pastor left, so the remaining members are in the middle of a pastor search.  The interim pastor gave the sermon today and at the end gave an invitation.

It really, really bothers me when preachers ask to have “every head bowed and every eye closed” when they give an invitation.  There was nothing private about what Christ did for us.  If you’re making a statement of belief in Jesus, it should be bold and unapologetic.  Christianity, true Christianity, will change your life dramatically - it’s not a lifestyle to step into half-heartedly, it’s a worldview change, a paradigm shift.  I think it’s inappropriate for a pastor to minimize the gravity of the decision to follow Christ by allowing people to slink into the relationship.  I think it undermines the importance of the commitment and makes the relationship seem like it doesn’t have to be THE priority of your life.

That said,  I think the “close your eyes” approach can be appropriate in youth ministry because kids are so wrapped up in what their friends and peers think of them, but adults should be able to make decisions - especially such important decisions - without basing them in vanity.  If you’re not ready to stand up and stand out for Christ, are you ready to commit to a life in him and for him?

I sound judgemental, and this is something I struggle with - snap decisions about things I hear and see, and the people that say and do them.  I need to think more, but I wanted to post my initial thoughts here so I could hear what some of you think.

So, what do you think?

My body doesn’t know what’s going on.  After 4 hours of sleep, I stayed awake for 20.  Then I went to bed at 6:30pm (HI time).  I woke up every 15 or 20 minutes after 2:00am (which is my normal wake-up time of 7:00am, IN time) until I finally got up at 6:00am (HI time).  I’ve made it ’til 9:00pm tonight, but I’m fading fast. 

I’ve been trying to get in a last hour of work today, but work right now is some graphic manipulation, trying to squeeze an image and find an extra 24 pixel rows - then trying to use that image as the base of a 20-image series.  It’s just too detailed for me to really focus on right now.  So I’m posting a funny video.

We ate at the Hickam AFB officers’ club tonight - at a mongolian barbeque.  It’s a building with only 2 walls, opening out over Pearl Harbor.  While we ate, submarines and motor boats floated by.  I got some fun pictures of my family, but can’t put them online or they’d cry…  my favorite is one of my dad’s face right after a baby puked all over the table in front of him and in his coffee.  =)  Use your imagination.

Leah and I asked Kelly (mom’s friend) to take a picture of us goofing off.  I handed the camera to her in video mode instead of picture mode.  =)  Here’s us posing for her, then waiting, then posing for a second shot just in case the second didn’t come out (pushing the capture button started then stopped the movie):

[coolplayer] http://tara.elmadera.com/images/hickamposes.AVI [/coolplayer]

Other pictures from tonight are posted on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/taukerman/.

David’s task is to come back to Indiana with a “glorious” tan.  He might just make it, by IN winter standards.  =)  We’ve spent the last couple of days (and will spend some time tomorrow, too) at the beach.  Christmas on the beach…  man, I don’t think it gets any better than that!

Look at the color of this water…  It was crystal clear, even while we were boogie-boarding!

 
Dave, doing what mathematicians do at the beach.  Solving mathy puzzles.

Leah.  =)  (Mom in the background.)

Here we are.  Here we’ve been for the last week.  =) 

We arrived Wednesday afternoon here in O’ahu after flying all day.  Went straight from the airport to Debbie, Bianca and Kyle’s house.  It was fun, getting to see them right off.  The last time I was here, we spent a lot of time together and I made friends with Kyle.  This time, he was a bit shy - it’s been six months since we’ve seen each other, and he has two other Woodrum girls to take my place.  We’ve seen him again since and things are returning to normal.  =)  I love that kid.  This time, I’ve gotten to see a little more of Bianca one-on-one…  not much, but more than before.  I’m glad.

So.  We flew off to the Big Island for the weekend.  Pictures are here.  While there, we stayed in a military camp within the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.  We visited volcanic craters, areas devastated by past lava flows, rifts in the earth made my volcanic earthquakes, and the highlight: took a rainy night hike out to see the current lava flow.  We saw red lava flowing into the ocean, making new land.  It was phenomenal.

Not such a highlight of our Big Island trip:  I spilled an entire cup of coffee into my laptop keyboard.  The computer shut itself off and never came back on.  I had gotten my leg stuck under a desk - really stuck - and, panicking, tried to stand up.  I knocked the coffee right into the computer.  That was Monday. 

I spent all of Tuesday looking at current models of laptops after I found out it was cheaper to buy a new one than to repair the Vaio.  Went to BestBuy and found a replacement.  The most important thing I did, though, was to pay for a whatever-the-heck-happens-to-your-computer-we’ll-fix-or-replace-it warranty.  Forget this manufacturer’s warranty crap - I paid for one of those last time and came out with nothing.  Waste of money.  I figure that I’m clumsy enough I’ll make this policy worth what I paid.

I haven’t been able to get hardly any work done, and I can’t show you any other pictures - everything was on my old laptop.  When I get home, I’ll borrow some equipment from a friend and copy everything onto this machine, but for now, it’s locked away on an inaccessible hard drive.

After we got back from the Big Island, we had a day at home, then we spent 4 days at Bellows AFB.  My folks rented a cabin right on the beach and David, my sister Leah and I stayed there for 3 nights.  Mom and Dad joined us for night #2 and my sister Melissa was there night #3.  I got a sunburn that I hope will turn into what my pastor refers to as a “glorious tan.”  We’ll see.  At least I won’t come back without any color.  And at least David spent some time outside without his t-shirt on.  =)

We just got back this afternoon.  I spent the afternoon going through a thousand emails from a client and getting things squared away with that account.  Since then, I’ve spend most of the night in the kitchen making various types of cookies.  My folks are semi-hosting a Christmas dinner tomorrow for their group at church and we’re doing desserts and mashed potatoes.  They went to buy a paring knife, to develop some film for me, and to get my mom some flour for “fudgy bon-bons.”  David and Leah are busy sweating and jumping to DDR (a video game that has them dancing on mats).  Melissa is playing World of Warcraft.  I’m doing my civic duty here.  =)

That’s it - we’ve been busy, but now you know what we’ve been up to.

There was a big earthquake on the Big Island of Hawaii today - my family felt it on O’ahu.  They’re staying at Bellows this weekend, which has cabins literally on the beach.  They were in their cabin when the earthquake hit - Mom said they all ran for the same doorway and had a collision.  =)  After the shake stopped, they ran out to the car…  their first thought was big earthquake = tsunami.

No tsunami actually came, but the quake shook some gas pipes loose on the base.  They can’t get back in to get their stuff - and they can’t get back in to have my Dad’s birthday party with their friends.  But hey - they’re all still alive, and no loss of life has been recorded as a result of this 6.6 quake!  Since they can’t get back onto the base, they’re going over to Debbie’s - Mom said she and her kids were a little shaken by the earthquake (who wouldn’t be, on an island after the 2004 tsunami in east Asia?).

No earthquakes here in Indy - just a long, long 24 hours.  =)  Our Saturday/Sunday schedule (this isn’t even much crazier than a typical day for us!):

SATURDAY
7:30am-8am - prayer meeting at church
8:15am-9:30am - breakfast with church folks
9:30am-11am - work day at church (we raked and raked and raked leaves and acorns)
11-12 - shower and dress
12-12:45 - drive to Anderson
12:45-2 - lunch with Dave’s family
2-5 - errands
5-5:45 - free time
5:45-6:45 - meeting with contractor who’s going to do some work on our house
6:45-7:00 - dinner
7:00-1:30am - chaperone youth lock-in at church (we left when they went to sleep)

SUNDAY
8am-8:15 - prayer meeting
8:15-8:45 - serve breakfast to the kids & clean kitchen
8:45-9:30 - shower & dress
9:30-12:30 - Sunday school and church
12:30-2 - prepare, serve and clean up after youth-hosted lunch for entire church
2-4 - crash HARD (2 hour nap)
4-5 - stumble around waking up
5-6:30 - choir practice
6:30-7 - wash dishes left over from church lunch

This kind of schedule is why we’ve been so exhausted.  =)  It was a good couple of days, though - I had a great time with the Mead kids at the lock-in, and I always enjoy the folks at church.  As hard a day as today was, it’s nice actually serving.  Sometimes I feel like I just exist - I go to church meetings, but that’s it.  Today, we were USEFUL.  =)