Jacen's web site

As part of computer class, I'm teaching Jacen to set up a web site. His first site, jacen.garriss.org, was created with iWeb on our iMac.

Birds on Wrightsville Beach

We spent part of a day playing on Wrightsville Beach, just east of Wilmington, NC. I managed to catch a few shots of the birds scavenging a meal:

101112 Wrightsville Beach

101112 Wrightsville Beach

101112 Wrightsville Beach

That 200m lens really came in handy here, though I could have put a 300 or 400 to good use, if I had one.

Fowl at Greenfield Park

There's a 5 mile walking trail around the lake at Greenfield Park (in Wilmington, NC), which we walked. Along the way I saw these birds, a napping duck and a fishing heron:

101111 Duck at Greenfield Park

101111 Heron at Greenfield Park

No swimming

While in Wilmington, NC, we spent one morning at Greenfield Park. It has a decent-sized lake in the midst of it which has this encouraging sign:

101111 Sign at Greenfield Park

Video of the Walking Street Market in Chiang Mai

Jacen took some footage of our favorite market while in Chiang Mai, and he recently made a short video out of it. Enjoy!

The Walking Street Market from James Garriss on Vimeo.

Glassblowing

While in Wilmington, NC, we went to the Burchetta Glassblowing Studio and Gallery, where they give demonstrations and even lessons on blowing glass. Unfortunately their furnaces were down for maintenance, so we didn't get to see any glassblowing. So we looked at their gallery, which has many nice pieces.

101111 Burchetta Glass Blowing Gallery

In this picture, direct sunlight is coming into the gallery from the opposite direction and shining on/through the glass pieces. It was so bright that it effectively blinded everything else in the picture. This effect was not done via post-processing.

A flower on the beach near Fort Fisher

I found this flower growing in the sand near Fort Fisher. Anyone know what it is?

101110 A Flower on the Beach

The Bridge to Terabithia

Our family watched The Bridge To Terabithia last night. While a bit weird at times, it was overall a good movie. It's an especially good choice for parents to watch with their 8-12 year olds, as there are many opportunities to discuss how a Christian should respond to situations in life, especially to those who mistreat them. Watch this movie and speak the Gospel to your children.

Jacen's post on Fort Fisher

Jacen had to write a paragraph about Fort Fisher for school. Here's his work:

Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort built in the year 1861. It was constructed near Wilmington, North Carolina. Its sole purpose was to protect Wilmington from Union fleets, because Wilmington supplied Confederate General Lee with essential supplies like clothes and blankets. Its protection was 20-40 sand hills, a wooden palisade, a large connection of bunkers, 3 mortars, 5 siege cannons, and 47 other cannons. The fort was destroyed in the year 1865 by an amphibious assault. The remains of the fort were later used as an anti-aircraft training facility. Many of the sand hill remains were destroyed so that a runway could be built for the emergency landing of targets. Today, Fort Fisher is a historical site that tourists at Wilmington can visit.

The marsh near Fort Fisher

Between the fort and the Cape Fear River was this beautiful marsh:

101110 The Marsh behind Fort Fisher

A palisade at Fort Fisher

There were two amphibious assaults made upon Fort Fisher in Jan 1865. The second succeeded in part by the luck of the uncoordinated timing. The main assault was by sea, which drew all the attention of the Confederate defenders. But the secondary assault, which come from the back side of the fort via the Cape Fear River, was late, thus it found the sally port relatively undefended and broke through, which eventually led to the taking of the fort.

Here is a replica of the palisade near the sally port, looking onto the Cape Fear River:

101110 Palisade at Fort Fisher

A cannon at Fort Fisher

Here’s one of the cannons used to defend Fort Fisher from the attack of the Federal armies during the Civil War.

IMG_0847

Test

This is a test. I’m posting this to my Blogger blog from Mac Journal.

After dorking around for a bit, I judge Mac Journal to be a total failure regarding Blogger. You can’t preview posts, nor can you insert HTML snippets for things like pictures on Flickr. Useless.

An anchor at Fort Fisher

Fort Fisher was a sand fort built by the confederates during the Civil War to protect Wilmington, NC, which provided supplies to General Lee's army. In 1865 it was the site of the largest naval bombardment--58 federal warships participated--in history until WWI. Here's Emmy sitting on one of the anchors at the fort.

IMG_0832