This is Dave. 2 years ago Dave went to the Democratic Republic of Congo with our church to help teach carpentry and masonry work to orphan boys and young men at the Elikya ("Hope") Center. While there he realized the significant lack of resources available and observed the state that the tools the men had to work with were in, and upon returning to the states he took it on himself to begin collecting tools and useful supplies to send back to the Elikya Center. Over the past few years Dave has collected 37 complete sets of human-powered tools (nothing electronic). 27 sets have already been shipped to the Congo, equaling over 1,200 lbs of tools in a 4-foot-square container - enough to provide tools for 17 carpenters, 8 masons, and 2 mechanics. The final 10 complete sets are now in the process of being packed, and faith and trust are being held that God will provide the necessary funds for the final shipment. If this is something you would like to help with or donate to, or if you would like more information on developments at the Elikya Center, shoot me a message. It's a pretty cool thing to be a part of. ____________________________________________________________________________________ one favor to ask of commenters: please avoid bulky group icons or awards if you are not going to leave a real comment. the feedback is the only reason i have pictures up on flickr, and mass-generated "love your picture" group badges are not what i'm looking for. thank you for understanding! to real commenters: i appreciate you. you are the reason i am here. thank you :)

On University Avenue's West side, just South of Queen's Park, Toronto (the Ontario provincial legislature building), sits a large, curved glass building, originally built for Ontario Hydro and now home to Ontario Power (among other things). I have always liked the facade and a couple of days ago as I walked past it on the way to a social function, I was jogged by an old mental note to photograph it since I had somehow failed to do so before. The sky was rather bland. The reflections limited. I took the shot anyway and decided to work with it in PP. This is the result. - JW Made from a single image taken using a hand-held Nikon D5000 fitted with a Nikkor 18-105mm lense set to 45mm, ISO200, Aperture priority mode, f/8.0, 1/400 sec. PP in GIMP: duplicate the image as a new layer and in the new top layer add an alpha channel, use the threshold tool to reduce the top layer to a line drawing look, use the layer mode set to soft light to get colour into the line mode look, flatten, sharpen (slightly), add border, and scale to 1024 wide for posting. ================================ DSC_7339_onthydrobldgthreshbordx1024