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Daniel of Doulogos Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich

His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole

[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train

This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos

Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead

There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
 
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Thursday, October 06, 2005
This is what I look like now!
Frank Turk made a wonderful observation from his blog that if you are going to post "this is where I am right now" sort of posts you may as well give up going for stats because no one cares where you are right now. Or something like that.

Clearly that does not include the inane, "this is what I look like right now" style of posts - so in the flavor of the month category I give you - this is what I look like now!

One of the dangers of posting your own image on the internet is that you naturally want to select the "bestest" image you can come up with - either the cutest, the funniest, or the most glamorous - and that practically eliminates the "this is what I look like now" style of photo - really, who looks good all the time?

Yet in an effort to cover all my bases, I have selected a few photos - most of which are between 10 minutes and a couple of weeks old. I have tried to select the good along with the bad - but it does give a good cross sectional view of what I am presently looking like.

Something Art Nouveaux? This is me at work in the men's bathroom blowing the hand dryer up into my hair as I glance over artistically. Thankfully no one came into the bathroom while I was holding my palm pilot taking a photo of myself fluffing my hair up in order to look casually windy. Notice the Erudite glassess? Clearly the urban professional look.

It isn't my personal favorite.

I had also considered doing the patriotic cowboy motif. You know where I put on my cowboy hat and cut out the background stuff and juxtapose a Canadian flag behind me - as though I were perhaps artistically glancing out at something patriotic - like a beaver (see our nickels), or perhaps the bluenose schooner (see our dime). Or maybe some canadian wild life - we love our wildlife up here - usually with mashed potatoes. Anyway - I tried to keep my face from looking too happy or anything - I am after all supposed to look like a cowboy who is affiliated with his country by means of a background flag image, and I don't want to take away from that by looking all cheerful or something. Best to just stare off blankly, as though someone else were taking the photo while I was deep in thought, and not me holding out my palm pilot at arms length and trying to look thoughtfully unawares...

But then I thought - Hey! I could also do the whole "dark trip" too - the somber, sort of Johnny Cash thing, so instead of chopping out the background, I could just do a touch of "darkening" and butta-bing - I am the brooding, or perhaps thoughtfully brooding, but ever so mysteriously somber guy. Begin married however, I have no need to really put on the whole "misunderstood tough guy" thing - you know all tough as nails on the outside, but secretly soft as a kitten inside - the girls always ate that one up (I have said too much already - forgive me all you single guys who are still using this one).

Then I thought - what about the plain Jane cap on backwards look? You know - the direct face full into the camera look. It works well enough for the photogenic - but come to think of it - it makes me look even more brooding than the one where I was actually trying to look brooding. Besides, it looks like I am wearing some kind of funny hat - not a baseball cap on backwards, but maybe one of those mechanics hats or a painters hat or something. Not the urban professional or even the urban cowboy - just I don't know - french? And it is a pretty small pic too - and while I am at it - whose skin is that color in real life??

I could try a variation on the theme - the sort of upwards glance with the 1/8 head turn that demonstrates the "baseball cap-ness" of my chapeau - and isn't that a hint of a smile? Not Mr. Brooding anymore, now I am Mr. Suavé. I should have cocked one eyebrow - but Frank Turk would cite me for copyright infringment. I didn't want to over do it either

The bonus from these little pics isn't that you face is so small that no one can really see it clearly enough to complain - though that is a plus - the big bonus is that the little pics don't get distorted by the Google uber hash - that program that seems to hack good photos down to size so that they can be viewed in comments - but in hacking them down to size really butchers the clarity.

Then there is the old archive footage. This is put in for comparison- I hate to pull it out because it is practically dishonest - this is the "Me" from -like- fifteen years ago, before age-related- sag™ set in. The internet is rife with people whose images are reflections of them in that small window we refer to as the "glory days" - years before the desk job and hard weather ruined their all-state good looks. My wife took this pic when she was in school planning to be a photographer - I went out to her friends barn with her to be her subject (she liked my ripped up jean jacket - good texture she said) . We weren't married yet. In this pic she caught me just as I was licking my lips, but even with that - or perhaps because of it Calvin Klein is still asking me to model their underwear.

Never the less I can't really post a pic like that without quickly adding that I don't look that way anymore - now my jean jacket has no rips.

By now you should all be familiar with this one.
I kinda liked it for a while - I just stuck my head under my work lamp and snapped a quick one with a lame-o quarter-grin. That sort of sounds like an olympic dive? "Now on the center platform, Daniel steps up with a reverse tilt quarter grin inverted smile - he executes it - no splash- the judges are estatic, except for the obtuse one who just plain hates smiles. " What I like about it is that I don't look angry, bored, or hopelessly fool-like. I would say foolish - but I think that word is overused.

One problem in presenting these "up to the minute pics (most were taken today) is that my sony (a TH-55 palm pilot with a 0.3 Megapixcel camera in it) doesn't work well in poor lighting - and the lighting at work is poor at best. We keep the lights out all the time (we are programmers after all - and allowed to be weird, ...er excentric), and if I turned the lights on to take pictures of myself, well, lets just say in Canada you don't do that, not if you want to be called a manly-man at least.


Likewise with my palm pilot you have to be about 18 inches from the lens if you don't want a super grainy image. So it is not exactly the best medium for "this is what I look like now" sort of pics - nevertheless - this is what I looked like today.




posted by Daniel @ 3:52 PM  
7 Comments:
  • At 9:07 PM, October 06, 2005, Blogger David said…

    This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day. Am I to understand that you did this on your employer's time? Tch. I liked your reference to Canadian money. It's cool, with all those animals on it. Too bad it's almost worthless. The secret code for posting on this site is lndkaju, in case anyone needs it.

     
  • At 9:29 PM, October 06, 2005, Blogger Dan said…

    LOL, I agree with David. Best post I've read today, and I can't quite say why.

    I think Frank Turk's Law of self descriptive posts needs to have a couple qualifiers. As proven by Pecadillo, Pyromaniac and yourself one can write a very good self post but I haven't put my finger on what differentiates it from the awful ones...

    Boy, it's inspired me to go dig up some better photos.

     
  • At 9:31 PM, October 06, 2005, Blogger Dan said…

    By the way, photographing yourself while holding the camera also brings about a certain look. My brother loves doing that. I'll have to get him to post some of his winners.

     
  • At 10:50 PM, October 06, 2005, Blogger Brad Williams said…

    After looking at all your pictures, I still do not think that I could recognize you on the street. You have some cool pics. Me, I look like the same nerd no matter what I do. I'm cool with that though.

     
  • At 11:26 AM, October 07, 2005, Blogger Bryan said…

    Daniel, you need to put up the picture of you from the Vacatian Bible Study week where you had that flower thing on your head ;)

    Bryan
    SDG

     
  • At 11:54 AM, October 07, 2005, Blogger Jonathan Moorhead said…

    Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.

     
  • At 12:11 PM, October 07, 2005, Blogger Daniel said…

    Bryan - I have to get that picture - that was hilarious!

    For those of you on the outside, this summer I had the joy of participating in our congregation's vacation bible school - our "theme" was "lava island" - a VBS package we borrowed from another church who had used it the year before. The already clichéd "survivor" motif. So everyone had "lays" and whatnot.

    In the final skit I was supposed to be a frazzled party organizer. I hastily looked around for a prop to help and found one of these multi-coloured "lays" - so I wrapped it around my head twice and it looked like a wild hat. Our pastor took a photo of me in mid speech, and I don't know what I was saying, but the facial expression was quite amusing - I really should get it for the web, it would be perfect!

    Jonathan - It took only about fifteen minutes. I -do- have too many hats at work though. I should have put the beret on...

     
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