{"id":28320,"date":"2025-02-09T20:04:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T20:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=28320"},"modified":"2025-02-09T20:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T20:07:17","slug":"4-great-birthday-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=28320","title":{"rendered":"4 Great Birthday Gifts!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today is my Birthday, and I’m celebrating 79 trips around the sun! \u00a0I just returned from a great week with my wife in Durham North Carolina for the Carolina Nature Photographers Association’s Annual Convention where I was honored to be one of the presenters! \u00a0That experience was one of the 4 great birthday gifts I received, please let me elaborate!<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. 1. \u00a0The great people at CNPA!<\/strong> \u00a0Two years ago David Hartfield called \u00a0from the club to ask me if I would consider being one of their four main speakers for the annual conference. \u00a0My response was, \u00a0 “Are you sure you’re calling the right guy!?” \u00a0My teaching and speaking career has slowed way down and I was a little shocked about the invitation! \u00a0He then explained then that the invitation was for February 2025, two years in the future! \u00a0I told him I would be happy to sign a contract but they would have to forgive me if I didn’t live that long because on the date of the call I was 77!!!!! \u00a0We agreed and a contract was signed and so began a two year period of my regretting that I had a agreed to do the talk. \u00a0Since agreeing it got even worse when I \u00a0had to have a heart valve replacement last year, then started having AFIB, \u00a0week later coded twice in the emergency room and had to get a pacemaker, and started using walker to get around a lot of the time.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The point is that for many years I’ve been asked to do lots of talks to groups of all sizes, and to be honest, I have a reputation of consistently knocking it out of the park, not to be immodest, \u00a0but with all these health issue I was concerned that I would not give them what they wanted and to the standard I’ve held myself to! \u00a0I prayed, as I always do, Father I pray I will do the best I can and that you will get all the Glory! \u00a0As He always does, my prayers were answered and it went very well! \u00a0I want to thank the wonderful attendees and staff of the convention, Don who introduced me, David who arranged everything for me, Nicole the president of CNPA and everyone who were very warm and welcoming and treated me so vey well, I can’t thank you all enough! \u00a0It was a great experience!<\/span><\/p>\n

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    2. \u00a0My dear friend and former boss at Nikon, Bill Pekala. \u00a0Bill was kind enough to come over and attend my two lectures on Friday morning and we had a wonderful visit! \u00a0As I told the attendees at the conference, Bill provided me so many wonderful opportunities when we work together at Nikon, He was the best boss I’ve ever had and a true lifelong friend! \u00a0On top of everything else after my first talk he said “You haven’t lost a step!” \u00a0I needed that!<\/span><\/p>\n

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    3. \u00a0My wife Sherelene knew I was a basket case about wanting to do well for those great folks at the conference and she insisted on going with me and keeping me in good shape! \u00a0We had a great week together and enjoyed a rare time alone away from the house. \u00a0Sherelene is a world class nurse practitioner and her schedule is brutal so this kind of one on one time was a treat for both of us! \u00a0On the 14th we will celebrate 55 years of marriage! \u00a0I really knocked out of the park when I asked her to marry me! \u00a0She had all her Sunday School class praying for me last week and this morning we were able to give them a good report!<\/span><\/p>\n

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    4. \u00a0Lastly a very nice lady approached me after my last talk and shared that she was so happy that I was open about my faith and that it was a blessing to her! \u00a0I so appreciated her sharing that with me and of course I told her so. \u00a0Being an out spoken Christian in our world today is not always easy, but with all God has done over my career and life there is no way I would be reluctant to give Him all the credit. \u00a0I would not be enjoying all the blessing of this life without Him!<\/span><\/p>\n

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    So I’m having a great birthday, feeling very blessed to have all of you in my life!<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Blessings,<\/span><\/p>\n

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    the pilgrim<\/span><\/p>\n

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        Today is my Birthday, and I’m celebrating 79 trips around the sun! \u00a0I just returned from a great week with my wife in Durham North Carolina for the Carolina Nature Photographers Association’s Annual Convention where I was honored to be one of the presenters! \u00a0That experience was one of the 4 great birthday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28320"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28327,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28320\/revisions\/28327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}