05Feb
The Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute’s annual Night of Music is being moved from Antrim in Greencastle, PA to the SMBI campus here in Harrisonville, PA. (Because of the blizzard moving in.) Please pass the word around and link here so people can get any updates. The service is still happening at 7:30 PM, Feb. 5.
14Jan
The shaman of Pang Klang, the Lisu village in Northern Thailand where Craig and Rachel (a couple from our church) are living
21Dec
This is the view from our hotel in Xi’an, China. Technical details: 2 exp HDR + Lucis, f/8, 30sec (+2 EV) & 8sec (0 EV), ISO 200
29Oct
Drudge simultaneously lambasts the health care bill for being too long and complex (”Pelosi’s biggest one yet! 1,990 pages…”) and for having a high money/word ratio (”$2.2M A Word), which is contradictory. A simpler/shorter bill will have a higher money/word ratio.
22Oct
I got the below email from Amazon this morning after having ordered a new International Kindle. They’re giving me a $20 refund because they decided to drop the price! This cements my status as a very loyal Amazon customer. I have an Amazon Prime membership, getting free Second Day Air shipping and Overnight Shipping for $3.99 per item. Their prices are excellent and I don’t need to waste time driving to town and shopping, so what’s not to like? When you find WalMart contacting you after a purchase, offering to give you a $20 refund because they just dropped the price, let me know. In the mean time, I’m even getting some of my groceries from Amazon. The email:
Hello,
Good news! Due to strong customer demand for our newest Kindle with U.S. and international wireless, we are consolidating our family of 6″ Kindles. As part of this consolidation, we are lowering the price of the Kindle you just purchased from $279 down to $259. You don’t need to do anything to get the lower price–we are automatically issuing you a $20 refund. This refund should be processed in the next few days and will appear as a credit on your next billing statement.
We’ll also send you a follow-up e-mail to confirm the refund once it has been completed.
We hope you enjoy your new Kindle. Please send us your feedback at: Kindle-feedback@amazon.com
Sincerely,
The Kindle Team
I’m pretty sure Amazon is hitting back against the Barnes & Noble Nook ebook reader announcement as well.
22Oct
I dreamed last night that Cuccinelli and Bolling lost and McDonnell squeaked by with just a single percent. Talk about bad dreams… 
20Oct
I chuckle every time I read something like the following paragraph in a WaPo editorial:
REPUBLICANS ARE upset that House Democratic leaders may try to get the D.C. voting rights bill passed by attaching it to the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill. They argue that it would be wrong to include controversial legislation in an unrelated bill. Do they really think everyone has forgotten that they used the same ploy to sabotage voting rights in the first place?
[...]
Bravo to Mr. Hoyer for his continuing commitment to District rights and for calling out Republicans on their hypocrisy.
This story plays itself out often. The Democrats are doing something that Republicans did when they were in power. When the Republicans were in power, the Democrats condemned the GOP’s actions on principle and the GOP defended it on principle. Now that positions are reversed, the Democrats are defending the very actions they condemned and the GOP is condemning the actions they defended.
But what adds a further layer of absurdity is when someone tries to make the argument that one side or the other is hypocritical for their current stance because of their previous position. The truth is, that in that situation, by definition, both are being hypocritical. To criticize just the Democrats or just the Republicans is to ignore the essence of the situation.
This simple lack of logic by the WaPo editorial board strikes a strong blow against those that would claim that it is evenhanded and non-partisan.
04Oct
I had a fun Sunday afternoon helping some folks in need! Some missionaries from a hard-to-reach African country called Golden Rule’s 24/7 emergency hotline for help. They had been scheduled to return to the U.S. for furlough on 15 Oct, but their daughter in the U.S. is having pregnancy complications at the 6 month mark, so the mom needed to fly back as soon as possible, which in this case is Tuesday. So, I tried to change their tickets, but was unable to because the space was just totally sold out on that airline from Europe to the U.S. But because they were on our flexible, refundable, missionary, non-profit tickets, I was able to refund their tickets and purchase other tickets on a different one of our missionary/non-profit contracts whose schedule was better and actually saved them about $150 after the refund penalty! It’s so satisfying to be able to help people out of difficult situations! In all it was about a 2-3 hour job, but it was lots of fun and quite fulfilling!
02Oct
Excerpt from this month’s Newslines column in Sword and Trumpet:
Jimmy Carter stated that, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American.” Those who are strongly against a socialist health care system were not impressed that they were being dismissed as racist, when they believed strongly that a socialist health care system was bad for America. I think this is validated by the same animosity from the Right toward white folks like Sen. Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and others from the Left that have advocated government-run healthcare. Obama has been commendably honest on this issue, rebuking Carter by saying, “Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are. That’s not the overriding issue here.” Excellently stated.
Sources: AP, Washington Post
14Sep
Categories: Asides, Tech, Work
Please go vote for my comment so that we can get some free marketing from InfoGroup, a large US marketing company! All you need to do is two simple clicks! Please do it right now. I would love you forever if you did! Just click the little green thumbs up! Next time you contact Golden Rule for a ticket, contact me directly (hans at goldrule dot net) and let me know that you clicked the little green thumbs up and I’ll squeeze our margins within my discretionary amount for you. Do it now! Update: The contest is over and we lost, despite having the most votes. But thanks for your votes! (Also, for those of you that didn’t follow the above instructions of contacting me directly for “squeezed margins”, what can I say…)
09Sep
Heidi took this terrific shot! (And the next one)
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07Sep
I’m finally getting to posting pictures from Norman and Edith’s wedding. This was one of the most fun weddings I have ever shot. Norman and Edith used to be Amish and most of their family is still Amish. Thus, their wedding was the most delightful fusion of Amish and American culture. Plus, Norm and Edith and their families were simply a delight to work with!
I have so many pictures I want to post, I’m going to have to split it up among several posts. I’m going to start with one just of some of the cute kids.
The flower girl
The candle lighters (this and the next three are during rehearsal)
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07Sep
Categories: Personal, Photos
All of the older set of cousins, minus Samuel, Maria, and Ronald who were inexplicably not present.
I have the coolest cousins one could ask for! I hadn’t seen all (though I had seen some) of my Mast cousins for over four years! This was a big change because before we had gotten together at least once a year. Those intervening years brought many changes. The first of us cousins–Maria–got married and is pregnant with her first child. Another one of us cousins is dating. She brought her boyfriend–Dennis–to the family reunion. He professed extreme nervousness when stepping out of the van to be greeted by all (roughly) 30 of us! Us boy cousins had a grand time playing the overprotective cousin, taking care of our fair damsels. So we delighted in giving him a hard time.
My favorite picture of the entire trip is the following one. I am proud to report that it was my brain child. All us guy cousins grabbed garden implements of various kinds (sharper ones were preferable) and chased Dennis the Menace the Boyfriend:
Isn’t that sublime? The look of terror on Dennis’ face is perfect!
We all liked Dennis quite a lot and had a blast with him, in case you hadn’t noticed. btw, that title Dennis the Menace (which stuck) was how cousin Renita referred to him in the email that went out to the whole family giving a schedule of the weekend. Isn’t that awful? 
02Sep
I had the privilege of having the Jerry Miller family as my first portrait (besides weddings) shoot. I enjoyed it immensely. I would also like to point out that the best photo of their family was at a spot chosen by their son Vernon. Kudos!
Definitely the best family shot
What do you think of it with Pioneer Woman’s colorized PS action? (Hat tip to Trina who introduced me to PW’s excellent PS actions)
Sisters
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