Eddie...

...kindly mentioned me in his blog on Saturday Oct. 27th.

I'm finally mentioning him here. You should visit his site for some interesting observations about missions and the church in England, as well as some thoughts on Bible translation. (This pic is from their travels to England's Lake District.)

And David also mentioned me. So now I'm returning the favors. Check out his site too!

2 seconds, $700 - part two

[If you scroll down to the Oct. 23rd post, you can see part one.]

This little picture shows the damage to our car - basically a small scratch. I didn't even bother to get it repaired.

Now the deal is - the fact that I damaged the other vehicle to the tune of $700* points to the fact that his rear quarter panel should have been made out of the same impact-resistant plastic that my bumper is. If it were, my repair bill would have been a lot less, times how ever many thousand of little fender benders happen like that all over the world, each day.

(*Oh yeah - another $165 or something was added to the bill paid by my insurance for his rental car while his truck was being repaired - so the bill was more like $870.)

A footnote: Saturn made its cars with plastic body panels for many years. The point was to avoid getting dings on your door in the parking lot. I'm not sure if they still do; I think they went mainstream. Sigh.

"The Dread Cancer of Stinginess"

Here's an article for those of you interested in Christian missions, that a friend (Doug Wicks) pointed me to.

And another article that is worth reading is here. Here's a teaser: "spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships."

Sad but true

My good friends John and Amy are moving to Germany. Today, in fact.

Saturday, I joined their "pack the container" party.

This is yet another fallout of the death of the organization we both were part of, Caleb Project.

I am glad they are going, for their sake. It's a cool place. (We very briefly visited, on our way back from Kenya.) They'll be joining our friends Jim & Sara, who are already working there.

But I am really sad they are going, for my sake.

The Rockies in the World Series

Most of you out there know that baseball's biggest contest is happening right now. Our town's team, the Colorado Rockies, is vying for the win. Actually, they are about to die and blow away. Their performance prior to the final World Series games was amazing - they won 21 out of 22 games! But they have done incredibly badly in the first 3 games. (It's a best 4 out of 7 game series.)

Tonight is probably their last game.

It would have been fun to go to one of the games, even if the Rockies lost, but tickets are just too durn expensive: anywhere from $200 to $2000 per ticket.

Having said that, I found this amusing listing in craigslist: "I have 2 rockpile seats I am GIVING AWAY for tonight's Game 4. I am sickened by how the Rockies have played and don't care anymore. I can meet you by the stadium one hour before first pitch. The person who convinces me most will get the tickets. Call me at..."

Update: they lost game four.

Apple software coupons

Has anyone out there ever been able to use one of these Apple software coupons?

Maybe if you take one to your nearest Apple Store, they will let you surf the internet for free... oops, they already do that.

[By the way, today is the launch of the new Apple operating System - 10.5, alias Leopard. For a mere $129, you can bring your Mac into the latest realm of computerness. I'm gonna wait.]

I have tried this

Yes, Russell Stover has a new line of chocolates. They are good.

I was visiting my mom in Texas. (Well, I was there on business - and I stayed with her for part of the time.) She likes chocolate, like I do. (Genetics.) She found a buy one get one free coupon. We did it.

I had to note that the castle featured on the package is not in the Black Forest. In fact, it's pretty far from it. (Double-click the pic to see a larger version of the package.)

Update: I wrote to them, and here's what they said: "The German Black Forest Truffle is representative of the Black Forest Cake dessert- dark chocolate, hint of cherry center and accented with milk chocolate. Though we recognize and acknowledge the Neuschwanstein is not in the Black Forest, we felt it was an appropriate icon for Germany." Pretty lame, I think.

I missed it

The first snow hit Denver, while I was in Texas. The kids had a great time making a snow tunnel.

But there was still some left, even yesterday (Tuesday) morning. I took this shot in our back yard.

I love snow. I love it when the snow is coming down hard. I love it when I have a warm place to go after I'm done experiencing the snowstorm.

The leaves that are still green and sticking to the trees are looking kind of sad.

2 seconds, $700

I backed into this Nissan Titan pickup. A minor dent, I thought. Sigh.

Well, my naive idea of covering the damage myself so our insurance wouldn't go up did not work. When the gracious guy who I backed into gave me his estimates, I saw that life is indeed more expensive in North America.

If I were in Nairobi, it would have cost about $70 to fix this. Ten times less!!

Moral of the story - pay attention, every second you are behind the wheel. Or have your accident in Nairobi.

Spear for boots

Alan used to work for Nike. We made a trade.

When I first lived in Kenya, I brought over a Maasai spear that I traded for a pair of Nike hiking boots.

The boots still work great. They may not be the latest style, but they do fine. The spear? I haven't asked, but I'd guess it's still working fine too.