Top Ten

A friend of mine, Eric Langhorst has a podcast that he produces that is unbelievable. If you want to check it out, go to http://www.speakingofhistory.blogspot.com/ . Many of the ideas that I use in class, I have “borrowed” from him. I have been lucky enough to attend several technology conferences with Eric and many times I get more out of our conversations than I do from the sessions. Eric has been named the Missouri Teacher of the Year and I cannot think of anyone who is more deserving.

Recently on his website he talked about his top ten pictures from 2007. I thought this was a great idea. Anyone who knows me knows that I take a TON of pictures. (1500 in a week at Disneyworld, another 1200 in a short week for the space shuttle launch, 800 over two weeks of class in Colorado Springs with the majority of those being taken while scared to death going up Pikes Peak.) I thought it would be a cool idea to do a top ten pictures of 2007. Now I will say that I didn’t take all of these pictures. I will give credit where credit is due. Some were taken with my camera, just not by me. I may end up adding a couple others later just because it was SOOOO hard to narrow it to ten. Here they are.

Number 10
This picture was possibly taken in 2006 but it was really close to midnight. This one was actually taken by my wife at my cousin’s wedding. On the right is my dad, and on the left is my uncle Paul who has since passed away. Even in the last year of his life, he was one of the toughest guys I have ever known. He had the strongest hands of anyone I've ever met.

Number 9
This picture just makes me smile. I took this one using Steve’s camera. Steve is the guy in the picture. Steve has a great camera. While I was in Florida for the space shuttle launch, we had some time to go to the beach. I don’t swim so I became the official group photographer. I think this picture looks great, like a real surfing picture. I say a “real” surfing picture because the truth is that while they were really surfing, where this picture was taken they were close to shore and there was only about a foot of water. Number 8A

Okay, so I was having some technical difficulties in finding the picture I really wanted to use for number 8 so for now I've included this one (which is one that I wanted to include anyway but didn't know where). This is of my wife, brother, and sister-in-law. The part that I really like on this one is where it was taken. It was taken by my cousin at a creek near Jefferson City. Actually near my mom's hometown of Loose Creek (this might actually be Loose Creek). Anyway, when my brother and I were kids my dad would take us to this creek to skip rocks. I was way better than my brother.

Number 8
This picture was taken actually by nobody. While we were going up Pike’s Peak, we stopped at this beautiful valley (not really a valley but I’m not sure what else to call it, actually it was more like the top edge of a valley or at least we could see the valley below.) No one took this picture because we sat the camera up on a mini tripod. I love this picture because even though I’m smiling, I’m scared to death. The actual name of the place where this picture was taken was Devil’s Playground and it is the last stop before you get to the top of Pike’s Peak.

Number 7
This one was taken from the rehearsal dinner at my wedding. In it are my dad and brother, my cousins, Mr. Eltiste, my wife’s brother and cousin, and a couple of my other good friends. We had given everyone baseball bats as gifts for being in the wedding.

Number 6
The only thing I don’t like about this picture is that it is taken over a parking lot. What you want to look at are the clouds in the sky. They actually aren’t clouds. That is the trail from the Space Shuttle 4 or 5 hours after the launch. They were completely lit up at sunset. It took us a long time to get back to Cocoa Beach after the launch and we went to this little place on the beach to have dinner and as we were walking to the car we noticed the clouds, there hadn’t been another cloud in the sky all day long. It was an absolutely perfect way to end a great day. Number 5
This one was taken by the photographer for Zero G. I just love this picture because I think it pretty much sums up the microgravity flight.
Number 4
Okay, so I had to include a couple of Disney photos. I read that something like 4% of all pictures taken are taken at Disneyworld! I don’t doubt that, I definitely added my to that total. I actually don’t know the name of the person that took this one, it was a member fo the Dream Squad. As my wife and I walked into the park these two people came up to us and asked us if we were going to be riding one of the roller coasters. We said yes and they asked us which one. We told them Tower of Terror. The whole time I’m thinking, “sweet – we’re going to get front of the line passes” Boy was I wrong, they asked us to help open the park. We got to be the first ones into the park, had to say some lines for the opening ceremonies and got to ride in Walt Disney’s car to the front of the Tower of Terror. Then we were the only two in the car to ride it. Talk about amazing. This picture is fairly rare, notice that there is no one in the background. You never see that, there are always people in all of the pictures. Number 3
I took this one and it is one of my favorite pictures of all time. My wife, Sarah, latched onto this HUGE stuffed animal and started to give me those puppy dog eyes. It is a good thing that we flew to Florida because otherwise I’m pretty sure that Eeoyore would have been coming back to Liberty. Number 2
Nothing can ever come close to capturing the power and awe that you experience at a Space Shuttle launch, you truly have to be there. I love this picture, it is one of only 4 that I took during the launch. The first three just show little bits of smoke coming out and then I got this one.

Number 1
No explanation needed.