{"id":8879,"date":"2013-08-31T01:30:35","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T01:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=8879"},"modified":"2013-08-31T01:30:35","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T01:30:35","slug":"im-smiling-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=8879","title":{"rendered":"I’m smiling tonight!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What makes you happy?<\/p>\n

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Please allow me to share a few thing that have me smiling, actually laughing out loud tonight! Above is a picture taken of Dr. Charles Stanley and I at his 80th birthday party in Atlanta last year. \u00a0That evening we not only celebrated his birthday and ministry but the release of his new book, I Love To Tell The Story<\/strong><\/em>. \u00a0This gigantic coffee table book is some of his best work over a very long life of photographing his favorite subjects. \u00a0Please forgive me in advance, for bragging, but the reason i was there was to receive one of the first books signed to me, in thanks for my having written foreword to the book. \u00a0I know, I can’t believe it either! \u00a0Charles is such a dear friend, and tonight he called me to tell me Santa Claus had just come to his house. He was as excited as a child on Christmas morning, thus the Santa Claus reference!<\/p>\n

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Charles and I are teaching a workshop along with my partner Jim Begley, and the His Light team in Glacier National Park in mid September, \u00a0It is traditional that you pay the “star” speaker a fee, but Charles kept refusing to let me pay him, so I knew what he loved and got him several boxes of cool photography toys, a Fuji X-E1, 18-55, 55-200 and some key accessories. (He already own most everything Nikon makes!!!) \u00a0I knew he was also trying to lighten his bag and I thought this might help! \u00a0So \u00a0back to what is making me smile! \u00a0 I have to say his joy was infectious and I have smiled all night at his happiness! \u00a0Charles knows how to do a lot of things very well, and one of them is show appreciation! \u00a0I wouldn’t have been any happier if the boxes had arrived at my house!! \u00a0I can’t wait to see all our friends in Glacier and get to spend that time with Charles too!<\/p>\n

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The second thing that has really made my day is the wonderful responses you guys have had to my latest Kelby Training Class, Photographing Vintage Auto Americana, at Old Car City. \u00a0So many of you have shared kind words. \u00a0I always dread seeing myself in my classes, I have a hard time watching myself, but I felt pretty good about this one. \u00a0You’ve made me feel even better. Now if all of this were not blessings enough on Tuesday I fly out to Las Vegas for Photoshop World and a great reunion with so many of the NAPP family!<\/p>\n

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God has so richly blessed me with wonderful friends and great experiences! \u00a0Best of all I’m home a lot more and get to be in the same room with my bride of 43+ years, Sherelene.<\/p>\n

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Thanks you Father, I know I don’t deserve any of this, but I’m truly thankful for your wonderful gifts!<\/p>\n

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Blessings,<\/p>\n

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the pilgrim<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What makes you happy?   Please allow me to share a few thing that have me smiling, actually laughing out loud tonight! Above is a picture taken of Dr. Charles Stanley and I at his 80th birthday party in Atlanta last year. \u00a0That evening we not only celebrated his birthday and ministry but the release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879","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=8879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8882,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions\/8882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}