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Tommy is over his cold, our doctor reported today. If I understand him, Tommy has small nasal passages that make a little noise when he breathes, and he'll outgrow that. (In other words, he's been over the cold probably longer than we thought. He just sounds congested sometimes.) And more good news is that he's almost weighing in at seven pounds now. So we're, as always, grateful to the Lord for His mercy and care! Sunday, February 26, 2006 We thought we'd post a rare photograph of Tommy with his eyes open. We've been thinking about what to call him. Tommy? T.J.? Thom? Thomas? T.G.? Well, considering how much this baby sleeps, I think we'll call him Rip Van Winkle! Tommy is doing quite well. His cold is better, he's up past his birth weight by a fraction of an ounce, and he has more alert, wakeful moments. We just have so much for which to be grateful, and we thank the Lord daily. The girls are still fascinated by him, Anna calls him "it". That's a step from calling him "her." Erika is being helpful with errands around the house and being a big sister. We've had some extra help in the past week. Kassi's mother Norma was here a few days ago and plans to return this week. And we've experienced an outpouring of generosity from my coworkers at the library, from our congregation, from friends, and from family that's just unprecedented in our experience. We thank the Lord for all of you. (And I'm impressed that so many are checking our website for baby news and updates. This is one of the good ways to use the Internet.) Tommy is just a few days now from his official due date. We're told by some that premature babies wake up on or about their due date, so we'll put that theory (or wife's tale) to the test next weekend. Finally, I have to say after having two girls that this is very interesting having a boy. I find myself calling him, "son" and thinking differently about him, what the future holds, and so on.
Our latest update on the new baby is still a good one, but he's taken a cold. According to the doctor we saw today, he'll be fine, but we need to keep him sleeping in an elevated position, keep him aspirated, and watch him closely. Meanwhile, Erika's strep throat infection returned from a couple weeks ago, and while Anna is getting better, the girls have to stay away from us a few more days. Please pray that everyone will get better soon so we can all be home together.
[At left is a haggard but proud Dad hefting his new son in the car seat.
Uncle Doug took this photo as we were being discharged and escorted from the
hospital Tuesday evening.]
On Monday, the girls, Gale and Kathy (Eric's parents) and Norma (Kassi's mom) got to see Tommy for the first time. They were ecstatic! Anna gushed over getting to "hold" the baby, and Erika just turned into a little Mommy and even got to spend the night with us at the hospital. On Tuesday, Uncle Doug arrived and spent the greater part of the day with Kassi and Tommy while I took Norma and the girls back to Forest City for a few days (while Mommy and Daddy get settled with the baby). Tommy seems to be doing really well, having more and more alert moments and eating better. He has an appointment with the pediatrician today, so we'll have more information later. Our prayer request is for Anna, who on top of everything else going on, seems to have come down with a cold. In addition to her getting better, please pray that no one else, especially tiny Tommy, catches it. Monday, February 13, 2006 Tommy and Kassi are doing great today! He's breastfeeding, the milk has "come in," and all his natural functions are functioning naturally. We'll still be at the hospital for another day or so until he's cleared to go home. I'll post more details later. Sunday, February 12, 2006 Thomas Graham "TJ" Job was born at 1:39 p.m. yesterday, weighing in at 6 pounds, 2 ounces, and three weeks early. So he's still getting acclimated to the world, trying to wake up, feed, and stay warm. He's still at the hospital, and I've got to get back to help his Mommy, but I wanted to get these photos out there for family and friends. Please be praying for him to take to breast feeding and get more alert. According to the doctor, however, he is healthy! Praise the Lord! We also got a visit from Rick (Kassi's dad), in spite of the bad weather outside. Whenever any of our kids have been born, Rick has come either right at or shortly after their births.
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 Whew! We've been busy! We've had Christmas, Anna's Birthday, preparations for the baby, tons of extra work with Highlands Media, a few childhood and even grown-up illnesses, visits, and much, much more. We're going to be busier. The baby is due within the next three or so weeks. The photo below is from the summer of 1997, a scan of a 35mm slide taken of Roan Mountain. This is representative of the quality achievable in film, now considered obsolete by many. Our extended family has purchased a Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED scanner, and we plan to digitize our Dad and Grandpa Job's photographic works over the next few months. I'm already thrilled with the CoolScan's ability to process out film grain and eliminate dust and imperfections in the emulsion. As the digitization process unfolds, we'll reveal details of where the photos can be found online (not here).
We visited
Speedway in Lights
at the Bristol Motor Speedway last night with the girls and Paw-paw (Kassi's
dad). This event is a fundraiser for the
Speedway Children's Charities.
Every year, the speedway grounds are decorated with, who knows, billions of
lights arranged in archways
The route culminates in the festively decorated arena with fires to warm by, snacks and drinks from local vendors, as well as crafts and rides. Last night's weather was pleasant, not too cold, and just a bit damp from the front that had passed a few hours earlier.
We thoroughly enjoyed the trip and endorse it for children of any
age (including adults). It's fun to hear the kids gushing over the
We took in the Forest City, North Carolina Christmas Parade last weekend, where I saw my first-ever blue fire engines (two of them from the Cliffside, North Carolina fire department). What's up with that? I have seen yellow engines, which look a bit odd, but I can understand yellow from the standpoint of visibility. But blue? Fire engines in designer colors are coming to a community near you. Monday, November 14, 2005
Gary and Pat Edwards, founders of ERE along with David Ellis and his wife, Kathy, approached me six weeks ago about creating a website for their business. They were looking for an Internet presence that would promote their choose 'n cut operation to a wider audience and provide their customers with informative and useful resources about Christmas trees. When I asked them what kind of look they wanted, Pat expressed she wanted something warm, homey, inviting...with lots of photographs. (Ah, customers after my own heart!) One of the most rewarding aspects of doing web development is getting to know small business people, to see the care and pride they put into their work, and to witness the passion they have for their trade. I saw in the ERE people a sincere desire to create the best experience possible for their choose 'n cut customers. They have two locations in Elk Park where you can walk around the farm, pick your tree, have it cut, shaken (to remove loose needles), baled and loaded on your car. But that's not enough for these people: they'll warm you back up with hot chocolate and refreshments in a cozy and interesting gift shop environment to keep you more than occupied while you wait. I could go on and on about this. Please take the time to visit their site at www.elkriverevergreens.com. Highlands Media would love to talk to you about your business. Are you on the web yet? Or do you want a new look, a new approach for your website? Send me e-mail at info@highlandsmedia.com. Wednesday, October 19, 2005
We had a sightseeing day today, visiting the Wright Brothers Memorial and museums in Kitty Hawk and the Roanoke Island Festival Park. The girls most enjoyed the Elizabeth II, an actual sailable replica of a 16th century seagoing vessel. They explored the entire ship, and Anna begged not to leave. After the girls were asleep, I drove down to the Bodie Island Lighthouse to create this moonlit portrait of the beacon. This was my second try at this; I experienced utter frustration the evening before, when I learned that manually focusing a Nikon DX format camera in the dark is nearly impossible. I relied on setting the camera to infinity, and was a bit puzzled that the lens could move beyond the infinity marking. Hmmm, I thought, as I waited out 30 second exposure after exposure, swatting mosquitoes and hooting back to the owls. When I got back to the cabin, I discovered my photos were horrendously out of focus. It took about twenty experimental shots off the deck to find where infinity focus really was on the 12-24mm lens. By midnight, I was too tired to try again. So tonight, things went much better. Shooting under the full moon presents unique pictorial opportunities. After several seconds, you actually have enough light to render a subject, and you get the stars and other lights thrown in. [Nikon D70, 12-24 f/4 at 24mm, 30 seconds at f/4; ISO 200; NEF] Monday, October 17, 2005
We also visited the Bodie Island Lighthouse, and it was Anna who amazed us with her excitement over the "white house". She pointed, exclaimed, gazed, and gushed about it. Anna is asking lots of questions about the new things. Erika finds answers for herself now that she is reading so well. She enjoyed reading signs and learning about the lighthouse in the museum as well as the plants, fish, birds, and animals that abound in the marsh. The rest of the day was naps, grocery shopping, plucking splinters from Anna's hand, and so on.
Erika basks in her first encounter with the Atlantic Ocean, a little over a month since Hurricane Ophelia beat the Outer Banks torturously. Where Erika is standing, just six weeks ago there was a road, with likely a fifteen foot barrier dune beyond that. Gone. All beach now, and just a few hundred yards either direction from our cabin either way, stilted beach houses stand in the surf, condemned, and waiting to be razed. All this is lost on Erika; she just can't believe the sheer size of the ocean and the beauty of the moonrise. Friday, September 23, 2005 Hurricane Rita menaces the Texas and Louisiana coastline tonight as it nears landfall. Just a few weeks ago, Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed the large city of New Orleans. What should we think about these hurricanes? The outcry of the global warming crowd cites these as evidence that activities of man have raised the Earth's temperature; therefore, we must undertake massive, global initiatives to stop whatever it is we do to warm up the Earth. Is that what we should think? Then we talk about rebuilding New Orleans and the other coastal villages wiped out by Katrina. We can build them back better, stronger, with higher levees and better engineering, right? I'm going to wade into dangerous waters tonight as I muse about this hurricane. This gets into the "why do bad things happen" philosophical realm that causes so many to doubt. No, I don't have an answer to that question that will satisfy everyone. As I said, this is musing.
Look at all of creation! God made gargantuan stars, and billions of them; He made planet Earth teem with life, color, sound, aroma, taste, and more! Everything physical is made from infinitesimal, invisible, nearly theoretical particles called elements. If that's not powerful enough for us, the fact that each person has consciousness, can read and understand what I'm writing, and picture in his mind the very thoughts written in this paragraph convinces me that God, as Creator and Sustainer, has infinite power. In the Bible (Mark 4:35-41), it tells about how Jesus and His disciples were crossing a lake when a terrifying storm threatened to sink their small entourage of boats. Jesus was asleep, in spite of the storm, so I imagine that His disciples were hesitant to wake Him up. There are forces of nature that are totally beyond the capability of man to resist. Thus, fear got the best of them, and they turned to the son of God for help. Jesus, in a word, stilled the waves, cleared the skies, and stopped the wind. In a split second, the event was over. The power of God was demonstrated in quelling the storm, but even more so, in leading men to acknowledge their need for His help. So here's a purpose of hurricanes. I believe God allows hurricanes (and other geological or meteorological events) to remind us of how helpless we are without Him. We are powerless. Our best engineering is no match against a force like Hurricane Rita. Yet hear what we say: we can change the climate to bring about hurricanes; we think we can change the climate back; we think we can build a stronger New Orleans to handle a category five hurricane. Who are we kidding? Instead, we need to depend on God! We can pray, express our fears, our concerns, our heart to God! Indeed, I know people who for the past two days have prayed that Hurricane Rita head for the state line (to miss Galveston and Houston directly) and to weaken before landfall. I've been praying that Rita head to Tennessee to end our drought, but she is forecast to stall in Texas. Time will soon tell how God may answer these prayers. Does that mean nobody prayed about Hurricane Katrina? I doubt that; I'm certain many did. Indeed, Katrina bobbed to the right just before landfall, a move some said may have spared New Orleans a more direct assault. With so many still in the city, that may have made a huge difference in the outcome of that tragedy. I know there's no easy answer to this; we all wish that God would just dissolve every hurricane before it caused tremendous harm, loss of life, and suffering. But perhaps in His infinite wisdom (another of His endless attributes), He uses disasters to draw people closer to Him. Beforehand, we offer prayers for deliverance; during, prayers for survival (Psalm 46:1); and afterwards, prayers of gratitude for life and for help (Romans 8:28). After Jesus calmed that storm, He asked His disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" That's a step beyond what I've written tonight. That's the realm of trust and belief, the realm of knowing that God has the best in mind for those who love and trust Him.
Visit Archive for Summer 2005
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and wireframe sculptures in a motor course that
zigzags around roads, parking lots, pedestrian walkways, and ultimately, the
racetrack itself (which you get to drive partway around, although I don't
recommend taking a minivan up on the banked turn). 
displays (Anna's word of
the night: "Wow!") Erika enjoyed the arena activities the best,
including a gigantic cup of hot chocolate and marshmellows. When pressed about her favorite part, she just says, "It was all good."
Highlands Media (my web development, photography, and
future publishing business) is pleased to announce the opening day for Elk River
Evergreens' new website! 
Today was our "down" day, spent making plans for the week, recovering
from the long drive, and finding a suitable beach. Since the beach near our cottage
was obliterated and had debris from the hurricane strewn about, we settled on Coquina
Beach a few miles south in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Anna took
to the beach a bit better than last night, when she clung to Daddy's leg.
Until tonight, I thought the purpose of incredible
storms was to demonstrate the power of God. A combination of Bible study,
satellite photos, and prayer have changed my perspective dramatically.
Yes, insofar as evidence that God created amazing atmospheric forces that play
out in overpowering and awesome ways, whether in hurricanes, lightning, hail,
tornados, or blizzards, certainly God's power is demonstrated. But in the
grand scheme of things, it shouldn't take a storm to convince a person that God
is powerful. You've seen hurricane pictures in satellite photos.
Compared to the size of the Earth, they are relatively small.
