I’m glad I have my camera working again; and a non-shattered lens for that matter. My new lens is a bit better than my old one. It’s not pro level, but it does feature image stabilization, so my low-light shots should be a little better. I randomly saw my camera and something to shoot, so here’s some random fun. Try and guess what the pic is. If you want to know, it’s the filename.

cheers!

Well, I finally got my camera fixed (thank you wonderful fiancee!) and can now take pictures again. I am quite excited about this as I have been without a camera for more than six months. (I ran over it, reference one bad day.) I have wished that I had it on many occasions. Especially, I have been missing it since I got Yaddie. So here’s a bunch of photos when we went out today.

This is the box my camera lens came in today. Great fun for kittens. Why such a huge box Amazon?

Evidently, she wasn’t sure why her tail was straight up either.

Yaddie has determined this must be toxic waste. There’s green stuff and everyone knows there’s none of that in California this time of year, unless it’s toxic.

Just cuteness running towards me.

Yaddie spotted a litter box that violates code. It’s covered!

What in the world is a dog doing here?

This pool is “kitten approved”. (It’s dry.)

This is just a cute action shot.

Hope you enjoyed! Yaddie is quite the hyperactive kitten and has grown a lot. However, right now she is being sweet and sleeping at my feet. Once I move, that will be all over.

cheers!

Yes, I am actually going to get married! Some people have been asking me why it’s taken me so long, my answer has been, “We haven’t even been dating six months yet!” Which is true. It just seems that our closest friends and family have expected that we would hitch up and we went slower than expected. As one friend put it, “Some people you just know are supposed to be together.”

Well, I don’t want to write a long message about how we got together, so please read A Story Nineteen Years In The Making. It will explain most everything and then come back and finish the rest and I’ll fill in the gaps from my side.

Well, lets go chronologically. First, somewhere in the following 2-3 years after she moved, I do remember seeing her at camp meeting. But we didn’t talk and I was too shy to even say hi.

The next would be about my side of getting to that point. As most of my friends know, I’m regretfully and thankfully divorced. But this isn’t about that sad part, so, I move on. I basically told anyone that asked, “I’m going to wait until God drops someone in my lap, because it’s going to take someone special to marry a divorced guy and be compatible with me.” I’ll come back to this, and yes, the italics are intentional.

Women’s retreat, three sessions a year of 200-300 women at each. The first year that I ran sound, everyone teased me about meeting someone at the retreats. Well, three retreats passed and as I figured, nothing. The next year, no one teased me about it, ironically. It was at the second one that Kellie and I met. Now, I wrote it off as nothing more than a friendship right off the bat, as well. But here’s some info to illustrate how well we clicked. Within half an hour to an hour, we could read each others minds, or as Ali puts it, “mindspeak.” Emotions/thoughts could fly across her face and I could tell the whole thought process she had just gone through. (This has only gotten stronger with time, it’s almost scary how well we can read each other!) Another thing is that the guy I work with and others thought we were old friends that had gone through school together. They had no clue that we had just really “met” for the first time. Also, some friends, including the women’s ministries leader immediately started praying for us. I found this out semi-recently and it blew my mind away. I think the only friend that totally grasped the situation was quite confused.

Well, time to hit up a couple months later. She forgets the part where she actually asked me to put together the slideshow tribute the day before I was going to pass through. By the time I left I already had arranged to stay the first night. Without getting into the details as well, I basically got there just in time to be the support she needed. But that wasn’t by my own power, God had been preparing me over the week prior to be there for her. And getting back to the italics, she did basically drop into my lap. I was prepared to walk away at that point if she didn’t want to date me, but thankfully, she did.

The rest is history … well, so was what I wrote, but that’s beside the point.

I’m sure we’ll be posting more as things get closer to the wedding. Oh, and the story about the engagement will have to wait for another time. Sorry … well, not really. Suspense is good for you.

cheers!

Well, GC or Geek Cat didn’t sit real well with me when I found out it was a girl. Not because girls can’t be geeks, it just didn’t seem like a female cat’s name to me. Well, my girlfriend had started calling her princess and that stuck. Then she was looking at some videos and this frame caught her eye.

She and everyone she showed the video to thought it looked like Yoda. Well, I couldn’t have a male name for a girl so I thought of Yaddle, the Yoda-like female. That almost worked, but not quite. So we ended up with: Princess Yaddie. That’s it.

cheers!

So, once upon a time I was a little guy. I know, that was a long time ago. At any rate, I scared my parents a couple times by being lost to them. I don’t remember the first time because all I did was fall asleep. Evidently while moving one time, I found a nice little hole under a bed or between boxes and fell asleep. I was not found for some time and that freaked my parents out. The second time was because I was mad at them. I’m not sure what it was about, but I found a nice little spot to hide in behind the futon. I could hear everything going on. They thought I might have gone down the street to the lagoon and drowned. I did come out before they called the cops, but I scared them really bad, first.

There is a point to my delving into childhood stories. I thought that I had lost the kitten today. The door on my trailer doesn’t always latch well and while I was in the office, the door swung open. I came out and found it wide open and couldn’t find the kitten anywhere inside. I rechecked the trailer several times over the next hours. And the shop. And under the house. And under the cars. And under the woodshed. And the area I thought I saw a hawk take off from. And then one more time under the house. I saw the momma cat and some other eyes, too. I became quite hopeful. I went to a different access hole and four adorable kittens came running to the sound of my voice, but not mine. (At this point, I figured out that mine was definitely the runt. The others were a little bit bigger and more filled out.) I was happy to find other kittens, but still sad. I went back to the trailer and sat in my doorway playing with her toys. (Despite what some people thought, she is not too young to play with toys; at least, she doesn’t think so.) I was hoping that the sound of the toys would bring her out of hiding. I was on the phone with my girlfriend, barely holding it together; I hadn’t felt that awful in a very long time. Then, I thought I heard a mew, but it was so faint that I couldn’t tell if it was a cat or a bird. I stepped away from the doorway to look under the trailer, but still no kitten. I looked up and there she was in the doorway. At that point I couldn’t hold it together any longer. I can stifle tears of sadness, but tears of joy are just unstoppable. She, of coarse, had no understanding of what I was feeling. Partly because she didn’t even know that she was lost and partly because, well, she’s a kitten. I had told some people that “she must be sleeping somewhere”. Well, she disappeared again not long after and found out where she had hid. Evidently, she can scale higher than I expected and was sleeping behind some blankets on the couch. Not all that hidden, but I was looking too low.

Today, err, it was when I started writing this, I had just a taste of what my parents went through. I know its gotta be worse with a kid than a kitten; so, I hope my kids don’t do to me what I did to my parents. The kitten was bad enough.

You may have noticed that I have not written her name anywhere in this post. Well, I told some people that I was going to release the new name for the kitten this weekend. I shall do that, but I need to pull a frame out of video first. There is a story that goes along with the new name; so, you’ll have to wait till Sunday to find out, unless you’re lucky. At any rate, you’re still lucky because the story isn’t nearly as long as this one.

cheers!

So last night I finally made it home. I haven’t been here in about a month and a week plus. Instead I was enjoying the coastal weather while it roasted here. I get home and can’t find my keys to the trailer and spend about five minutes searching for them. About the time I find them, a very noisy kitten shows up and starts following me as I move. It climbs on my shoe every chance it gets. It wasn’t hard to figure out that it was hungry and after a little bit I decided to go to the store to get some milk for it. When I get back, a neighbor walks up to make sure everything is ok since a car came and left in a short while and is back. (It’s great having a neighbor that will check on things for you.) He recognized the kitten as one that my land lord had bought formula for and had been feeding before they left on vacation. I went into their house and got the formula and dropper and fed the noisy critter. It calmed down and slept the whole way through the night. I’m thinking it is probably at least 4 or 5 weeks old. I made a little video of the little girl.

cheers!

Well, I finally did it. I now have a B.S. in Computer Science. One of the jobs I work on is PUC graduation, which happens to be where I graduated from. Since some family was going to be there for someone else, I decided to march. I really didn’t get anything out of it but a few pictures, but that’s enough I guess. Oh, that and happy family members.

Its kinda funny though. People keep asking me what I’m going to do now and the only answer I have to give is “Nothing…?” I guess people are just used to students graduating and then being released into the world. Well, I haven’t been in school in 4 years now and I just had to finish by doing a class via email (Thank you Dr. Ivey!!!) and petitioning the administration to let me graduate under an old program. So pretty much, at this moment, the degree means nothing for me except something that it is finished.

So that’s it. I’m happy its done and over with but life continues unaffected for now. Congrats to everyone else that graduated this year!

cheers!

Attentive

Miracle

Astonishing

Zany

Inspired

Nocturnal

God-fearing

[Update:] Added the underscores because people didn’t catch that the words spelled a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Tuesday is one day I wish never happened. It was probably the worst day I’ve ever had. It was one of those days that is so streaked with unluckiness, you are constantly wondering, “what next?” Any one or even two of the things that happened could be written off as an unlucky day; I think this was more like a cursed day.

It started off innocent enough. I woke up late and didn’t get a shower. Ok, like I said, innocent, but it bugs me when that happens. So I get to work and realize I need to reshuffle the stuff in my car so a friend could borrow it. I take out the things I might need and set them beside the car to take in to the job site once I move my car. Long explanation shortened, I run over my camera. It’s worth about $1700. Rather, it was. Number three came while crawling out of the attic. Yes, almost out and (can’t think of a sound). I cut a 3 inch gouge across my back, just above my butt. I could actually feel through my gloves that there were now two separate pieces of skin. It went from a scratch on one end to about 1/4″+ deep on the other. That put me out of commission for about 4 hours while trying to make sure that it would close and stay closed. (Butterfly bandages rock!) While resting, I find out that my bank account became overdrawn by some stuff that took 3+ business days to post. I figure, that has to be the end. I mean, seriously, how much worse can it get. Oh, I didn’t mention that all that happened before 10:00 in the morning. The afternoon was pretty uneventful. Was able to do a little bit of work and then working on one of the final things I poke myself with a staple. Well, so I thought. I mean, I do that all the time trying to open little bags. No, I had to go and slice the tip of my thumb with the staple. It still hurts today worse than a paper cut. So there you have it.

I guess I should tell the rest of the story. The camera body is still OK as far as I can tell, so I only have to replace the lens. The gouge is healing nicely and hasn’t split open again. I was able to put some money in my bank account that afternoon, so I won’t be overdrawn again. So the major things are pretty well taken care of.

It was kinda ironic that I was reading the last two chapters of Mark that morning and the next. Talk about a bad day! The amazing thing is that that was the purpose for which He came. He came to be beaten just because some leaders were jealous of the power He held with the people. He came to die because Satan decided he needed more power than Him and He couldn’t let that affect our chance to live with Him.

So, in that light, my day wasn’t as bad and I shouldn’t let it get me down. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. The cuts still hurt and my lens probably won’t get replaced for about 5-6 months. I’m gonna miss my camera, but it will get better eventually. So I leave you with a blessing, that you don’t have a day like my Tuesday.

cheers!

There is a lot to this story and I only know a little bit. I wish I could remember all of the different parts that I’ve heard. I guess it starts with a little girl. She had to do dialysis three times a week. That is the reason the she was living at Pan American Health Services (PAHS). Well, this last Fall or Winter, her family’s house was destroyed by a storm. It was an adobe house of some sort, mostly sticks and mud. There was a lot of horizontal rain which softened up the walls and then a heavy wind knocked them down. They moved down to PAHS to be with their daughter who also developed a problem with the shunt. She basically was done fighting and I’ve also heard that the government doctor refused to treat her, but at any rate, she died just a couple weeks before we went down. The family then moved in with family or neighbors in their village.

The first Sabbath down there, we went for a hike through the rain forest land owned by PAHS. The trail starts in the village that the girl comes from, so we went and checked out the house before the hike. Basically, there were the four corner posts and three other support posts holding up a tin roof. PAHS didn’t have a major project planned for us; so, we decided to build the house back up. Pastor Steve had been to Pakistan and learned a new way of building a small structure. He shared that with Gary, our resident engineer, and promptly left us. (To be totally fair, it was always planned that he was only there for four or five days.)

Sunday, we pretty much finished up the painting project on the PAHS campus and Monday, I was part of the crew that went up. That was one of those times I was glad I was the #2 cameraman on the trip (Tom was #1). It was only a partial crew because the rest were supposed to stay behind and finish the painting, but wasps made it impossible to finish. At any rate, the first day was spent digging a trench, pouring cement into the trench for the wall foundation, and stretching seventeen wires around the whole structure. And, that’s how we left it for a couple days. It kinda looked funny.

Tuesday/Wednesday were mostly touristy days and Wednesday evening four of us picked up three metric tons of sand in town and shoveled it off at the site. Oh, something I forgot to mention. This town is quite a bit higher up in the mountains and probably only reachable with four wheel drive. We carried everything up there on a flatbed trailer behind a good sized truck and when there was more than four people, most of us rode on the trailer as well. Definitely not something you could get away with in the states. I’m not to sure of the trip time, because I didn’t have a watch or cellphone while down there, but I think it was about 45 min drive. With the sand on Wednesday, if I remember correctly, it took one and a half hours. It was quite the heavy load. Although, Thursday’s load wasn’t light.

Thursday, we loaded up 25 100lb bags of cement, a cement mixer, and 20 people. On this day, I actually arrived late because of a little adventure, but that’s another story. During that time, they had back filled the trenches and stretched the wires vertically, so they were taut. Next, was tar paper and chicken wire around the whole structure. They also erected the window and door that I had helped Gary make on Monday. Next was putting cement mud against the side walls. This took the rest of the day and most of Friday.

Friday was spent finishing up the mud and also adding plywood. When we realized that we wouldn’t be able to finish mudding all the way up the wall, due to time constraints, and it was decided that plywood would be used on the upper half. Also, Tim did some electrical work so they would have two lights and a plug. That pretty much sums it up and I’ve got a slide show uploaded now. Just click the picture below.

cheers!