Jeremy Cowart and I will be attending the Presidential Inauguration together in Washington D.C. on January 20th. We’ll be amongst possibly 4-million people descending on the capital to see Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.
Jeremy is a world-famous photographer, and so I’m bringing my camera and intend to challenge him to a one-on-one contest. And you get to vote. We will both come back with our five favorite photos and ask you to select which ones you like best.
This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I hung out with Jeremy for a weekend a couple years ago, shooting along the California coast. His pictures looked like four seasons in Tuscany and mine looked like twelve minutes in Kansas. Nothing against Kansas. There is plenty to do in Kansas.
In addition, both of us will be twittering from inauguration. I’ll be speaking at Georgetown, then attending a ceremony at the Kennedy Center, then Inauguration, then the Mid-Atlantic Ball and finally the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, Obama’s first event as President of the United States. Jeremy and I will both be twittering the moments that interest us as we graze like cattle on the green grass of democracy. (If you think that sentence was the worst you’ve ever read, just wait till I start texting from inauguration.)
To get live text updates from Jeremy text:
“follow JeremyCowart” to 40404
To get live text updates from me text:
“follow donmilleris” to 40404
While you are home, warm and slurping a bowl of tomato soup, you’ll get to hear from Jeremy and I about the tree we are standing behind while Obama is being sworn in, and how quickly fingers go numb in 7-degree temperatures. It’s going to be awesome! Come with.
I was wondering how I could find out more information about this Jeremy fellow? The 1/2 dozen links that are sprinkled throughout this post don’t seem to be enough. I did enjoy the link to mini-golf too.
Have a great time in DC. I’ll be watching the Inauguration from my classroom along with 50 students (and I’m the Spanish teacher). We’re ordering pizza. Should be a good time.
You vs. Jeremy? Isn’t this why the quasi-English term PWNED was invented?
Hey, Diane…
It’s a small world, friend
Get this, a very good friend of mine from the Nashville area – well, his mentor is Jeremy’s father. Crazy, huh?
facebook me, email me, call me… you know where to find me.
Great post Don. This sounds like fun. Looking forward to your updates.
Margie
Jeremy and me, and when u said come with, I’m pretty sure u were inviting me to the ball…weren’t u?? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Margie! You’re a hoot! Is Mars Hill going to gather in the student room and watch the Inauguration at noon?! I’m trying to convince our Principals to have an assembly for this historical moment and it’s SO important for our kids. I heard that Celebration Cinema is going to air it on the big screen and are giving 1200 tickets to area high schools.
Oh and Margie – I have to talk to you about getting my friend Susan Isaacs to speak at Mars Hill. I think she’d be a great fit.
Don – I see you took out several links. I already miss them. Please do not remove the mini-golf link, okay?
This will be great!
“as we graze like cattle on the green grass of democracy.” Mmmmmmeeeewwwwwwwww. That’s Moo+ew 2 U.
I mos def b fllw U on twtr 1ce I get ma iphone + unlt txt msgz. Ahsm!! (jst praktsn)
Suz
Don, the cold isn’t so bad. You could have an ice storm with it. Oh wait, that was me, moving back to NY in January. What was I thinking?
Glad you are getting this tremendous culmination of all your shleping around the country last year. What an amazing experience. Barak and Jeremy. Good combo. (they’re both kind of everywhere right now, so you should be, too)
Don,
Thanks for posting the photo of the Capitol and stage. I was in D.C. a couple of weeks ago as the construction was underway. Standing where all those chairs are now, I took a photo of my fat face obscuring what might have been a nice photo of the Dome and Lady Justice. At the time, I couldn’t get my mind around what millions of people in that space will look like. (Luckily I’ll get to see it in the papers as well as on the web and TV in a couple of weeks.)
Have a great trip. And don’t pass up the opportunity to use the Metro; it’s full of interesting people!
Diane, I’ll connect with you off-line re: your questions.
Don, I hope you’ll post updates on your blog in addition to the text option, as I don’t have text capabilities. Just like you did on your Ride:Well tour, that would be great! Thanks!
Thanks for giving a shout out to Kansas. : )
You should really come out here some time! We’d love to hear you speak.
Blessings,
Jonelle
Hahah, You make me laugh so hard! Can’t wait to read your twitters; good luck with your photography.
This is so awesome. I can’t wait. Also, I hate to say this but I feel like you’re going to lose. I’ll try not to be too biased and vote for you only because I like you better (meaning, I don’t know Jeremy at all so I like you better by default, lols).
Don,
Easy on Kansas, I am from there. You know we have a lot of great sites, like the World’s Deepest Hand Dug Well. Ha ha! Well I tried!!!
Chad Miller
Don–the contest sounds like a great idea. Just make sure you don’t tell us who took each photo. I’m sure you want unbiased voting!
Fun! Jeremy is great! I’ve hung out with him a few times in LA. SO talented. Enjoy!!! I know it’s a sin to envy…but I am going to be honest and say that I am. Yup.
Don- Have a great time at the hottest happening of 2009! I am debating if I should just quit my job to experience the awesomeness myself. Ok, I probably won’t do that, but the temptation to be in DC is beyond compare. Can’t wait to read your blog about the experience of a lifetime.
Don, I was just reading your bio on your website and I noticed that in the second to last paragraph you (or whoever made the page) mixed up the words affect and effect, using affect as a noun, instead of the verb that it is. Just letting you know.
A dual of the keen eye of beauty. Photography is one of those talents where science and art come together. A photographer is mearly a technician opperating a complex peice of equipment. Even you Don can do this. But as you may as well know, it takes an artist with the knowledge of the camera to opperate it, tweek its settings for each moment, to capture the most perfect and beatiful scene. Sure, you can by a Kodak with all the fancy-schmancy automatic settings, and yes they take wonderfully amazing pictures. But for someone to know how to do all the hundress of things manually that the camera is doing automaticly, and do it better… its just plain astonishing.
However, I just stick to the auto setting on my Kodak M1033. I will be traveling across the country sometime in the next month or so, and I will have some pretty amazing photos of the places I visit, so you guys should check em out… its on my site.. just click my name above…
Anyway, I can’t wait to see these photos of yours Don, I’m sure they will be great.
Man, I’m so jealous that you’re gonna get to see the inauguration in person.
Look forward t o your pics and live feed.
I read this post to my wife, who lived in Kansas during her high school days. She wants the record to show that there are recreational options beyond mini-golf.
Teens would flock to the cemetery and dare each other to run around Ole’ Crazy Nelly’s tombstone thirteen times. Rumor had it that those who did would die seven days later.
She also told me that there’s a Beer and Pop distributor with reasonable prices.
“…12 minutes in kansas” dude, that’s the funniest thing i’ve read in a while. (c: thank you ever so much for the amusement.
I live just outside D.C. in Maryland. I’ll be staying far, far away from all the madness. I would love to be there for the historic event, but I have a fear of having no available restrooms in large crowds.
the end.
I look forward to your tweets and photography.
I’m jealous even though I’ll be there too but not w/ real tickets or entry into some of the other events. Can’t wait to see these pics.
just remember the stuff i showed you at the mentoring for president event! kick his ass bro.
I look forward to getting your take on the inauguration. I am actually leading a group of people reading Blue Like Jazz, and we start that night. I am sooo going to use whatever you have posted that night. By the way, I live in Kansas….and I totally mini-golf.
Don,
I’m not sure you’ll get this, but even if someone else does, I’d REALLY appreciate a helpful answer. I am in a real desperate situation when it comes to my close friends, my family and my church. I am being treated with much distance, awkward stares, silent get togethers (so long as I’m in the room) and verbal and email assaults. (The emails are surprisingly worse)
God has changed my heart in the past few years through allowing me to suffer the awful and similar persecution I once thought the ‘real sinners’ had coming to them. (I’m embarrassed to say these things). I was brought up in the usual church with a brand of arrogant self-righteousness, condescending, elite, judgemental, pious, “WE” have special knowledge, etc. type of Christians. It was all I knew or thought serving Christ was about. I took these things, to my ever lasting shame, with me as a youth pastor, and a Christian. Well basically, after being a Christian for 10 years, and then a pastor for 6 years, I finally met Jesus. I couldn’t be more different than I was today.
Many of your books have helped me beyond compare, and I although this isn’t probably the best place to contact you, I didn’t who else to ask for help.
With tomorrows amazingly historical moments ready to introduce our country into something more beautiful in so many areas of ugliness, I, like many, have begun to receive a multitude of the typical fear ‘emails’ about FOCA that Obama is going to overturn.
Now I, again-like many in here I’m sure, serve as the single bridge to my former group of close-minded Pharisees, and its very hard to try to bring them to a healthier view of themselves in light of the cross. I mostly enjoy the journey, because it makes me feel alive to help people see truth. God has just opened my eyes to what I thought truth was along. Its like being a brand new Christian and Pastor all over again. I am so very ALIVE!
I do, however, have a hard time coming up with a healthy piece of encouragement, explanation, and/or dialogue regarding the FOCA conversations with my family, the emails and passions of some very close friends of mine. I know there is some, I’m just at a loss.
I really do grasp the other components of Biblical responsibility regarding my choice of a vote: the poor, eliminating greed, deception, widows, orphans, unclothed, the marginalized, the oppressed, the forsaken by men, and the need to restore Kindom priciples to them. I don’t see them as the ‘less’ important to abortion and/or other issues that the typical Judeo Christian Republican.
I might disagree on MOST things with them, and although my perspective on how to lower abortion is vastly different, I really needed some help articulating how, and to quote what I get in response: “how someone who cares about so many Biblical issues like you say he does, could make his first act as President something that allows partial-birth abortions, a lack parental contact, etc” and on & on they go with what FOCA will allow. They can’t rationalize it with my new picture of this man who loves and fears God.
If there is untruths in these worries, I’d love to know. I just am looking for something that can help my friends see the heart our new President has for God when it comes to some of the key issues of FOCA. Anyone who can help me, I’d appreciate it. I literally have had to fly ‘undercover’ at a relatively large church where I am making silent changes and loud statements about what Christ really values. It has often been a lonely road and I am relieved to even believe I could receive some support here, and I just needed some help on this one.
I’m so sorry for the long post. Please count it as it is, my real desperate attempt to help bridge people to truth that can liberate them of bondage to ideals that aren’t Biblical.
Chris in SoCal.
you mentioned throngs of high school bands in DC today. this high school band’s story in the NY Times brought tears to my eyes… http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/18/us/20090118_marchingband_multimedia/index.html
i am sure you are having a great time!
So when and where do we get to see your pictures? The World Wide Web is holding its breath in waiting to judge the victor between you and Jeremy. Hope you had a great time at the inauguration (I was at the parade and though cold, thought it was quite an amazing experience) and hope to see those pictures soon!
In response to Chris’ question…sorry bro…wish I could give you a good answer regarding Obama and FOCA. All we have to go on is how he voted in the past, and what he has said he will do in the future (neither of which look too good if you’re an unborn baby).
I feel for you though. I too am being treated with the distant, awkward stares, and the verbal assaults. To be a 20-something Christian in Portland, as well as being a Conservative…I might as well be a leper. For people who claim to be so open-minded and accepting, they labele me a arrogant/self-rightous/condecending/elitist/pious/bigot/racist/homophobe (take your pick) if I ever try to present an alternate viewpoint on anything. And Lord protect and watch over me if I happen to disagree with Obama.
I agree, the bible does not specifically talk about abortion, and it is not a hot-button issue with me…But the bible also does not talk about Government being the solution to eliminating greed and taking care of the less fortunate. Presidents and politicians can talk of these things all they want, but for some reason I always thought that was up to us as individuals and especially as Christ-followers. You wouldn’t believe me even if I gave you the link, but there was a study done that showed people who claim a more conservative political philosophy are more generous with time and finances than liberals. However, with increased taxes that will even out as I won’t have that expendable cash to donate to my church and great charities around Portland…perhaps the government will help better than me anyway.
Sorry, that’s all I have and I have said too much already as I walk around in fear of being labeled and targeted as one of those close-minded pharisees. All I can say is watch and see.
Dave in P-Town