• Security Lockdown

    07Feb
    Categories: Personal Comments: 1

    SMBI is in security lockdown right now. All doors and windows are locked and no one is allowed outside unless necessary. There was an attempted homicide just down the road and the would-be killer is on the loose in our immediate neighborhood (his car was found parked at the bottom of the hill by the funeral home). Helicopters have been circling throughout the day and there are police roadblocks around.


    Unique locking mechanisms


    Chained doors

    This is somewhat strange in light of a recent similar event at CBS. If I have the details right, CBS also went into lockdown because of a killer on the loose. The man was caught when someone at CBS looked out the window and saw a man hiding in the woods.

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  • Huckabee Endorsement

    14Jan
    Categories: Personal, Political Comments: 5

    Since I am too busy writing my thesis for graduation, being on Student Council, and studying Greek, I will take the lazy route and reprint a portion of a Huckabee endorsement written by my friend Randy that closely mirrors my own thoughts on the matter:

    [B]oth sides seemed to be pointing out the same things about Huckabee. It seemed to simply be a matter of his stances and not a problem with the man himself. As the presidential-hopeful field expanded I didn’t see another candidate that I thought better represented my views on the “issues” that Huckabee. Now granted, a candidate here or there may have been closer on a specific issue, but as a package Huckabee was the best that I found.

    By the time the debates started last year I was extremely impressed with Huckabee, just ask Tricia, and I believed, in spite of the opinions of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc., that Huckabee could be elected. At different times I heard all three of those I named say that Huckabee was a good guy, and while they didn’t agree with him completely a decent politician, but they always came back to he has no chance among the better known candidates. I even heard Sean Hannity say last spring that Huckabee shouldn’t be allowed to take place in the debates, because he was a perpetual “second-tier” candidate who just distracted from the “real contenders.”

    [...]

    While I realize that Iowa is a small state, and not necessarily a bellwether when it comes to American politics, the state does show that when Huckabee’s positions are heard he does impress people. Over the next month or so we’ll find out if Iowa was a fluke or if it was the beginning of Huckabee’s road to the nomination. As I’m sure it comes to no surprise, I’m going to guess that in just over a year there will be a new President from Arkansas (and I don’t mean Hillary Rodham-Clinton, although if she is put up on the Democrats side it would help Huckabee or any GOP candidate’s chances).

    Go read the whole thing.

    I would also like to give a bulleted list of more reasons to vote for Huckabee:

    • A Godly, commonsense stance on immigration that does not mirror the Republican establishment’s (at times nearly racist) stance.
    • A person who actually knows and believes the Bible rather than a political opportunist that tries to harness religion to advance his own ends, like the rest of candidates.
    • FairTax – a sales tax on consumption that is every consistent laissez-faire, free market, economic conservatives ideal. I don’t care about tax increases that AR’s Supreme Court forced Huckabee to make–it’s not fair to attribute those to him. The simplification of the tax code is in itself a significant tax cut/economic boost, not to mention a taxing paradigm shift that would streamline, revolutionize, and incentivize our economy to incredible lengths.
    • Strongest candidate on the abortion issue. (McCain thinks an exception for rape or incest is OK and Fred Thompson thinks it should be an issue for the states.)

    There’s more, but I need to get back to memorizing Greek declension 2.2 for neuter nouns–declension #2 of about 40. A declension is a set of 9 noun endings (360 total) for the five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, and dative) and the three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). That’s not to mention the 507 grammatical forms a Greek verb can take…

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  • Acclimating to Kansas

    31Dec
    Categories: Personal Comments: 2

    The other day in church, I asked a guy, “You live on the South end of Yoder Mile on the West side of the road, right?” I think I’m becoming acclimated.

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  • Cambodia – Day 4

    29Dec
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    On this day, we went to Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world.







    Eric




    Alex


    Eric vainly trying to stop himself from walking into my picture



    Angkor Wat started out as a Hindu temple, but has since been converted to Buddhism



    Climbing the rather steep stairs



    Katrina gazing out an upper window






    The group of us: Hans, Alex, Katrina, and Eric. Kelly and Dru had already been to Angkor Wat, so they didn’t come



    Dru teaching English in the village


    One of the temples had ancient tree growing all over it



    It would be exceedingly hard to pinpoint who the clown was on this trip



    I like this picture. If you look at the filename, you can see one “tweak” that I made.







    Kiat talking to the children at his friend’s orphanage


    Kiat decided he wanted to figure out what Americans liked to eat, so on this trip many times he ordered whatever Alex ordered. In this case it was a Coke, fries, and a cheeseburger (with an extra Asian flourish of an egg on the cheeseburger). However, Kiat loves milk, which he also ordered. He had a few travails in getting the kind of milk he wanted on this trip–he tried to order fresh milk, but he kept getting about every imaginable permutation of milk.

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  • Cambodia – Day 3

    28Dec
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    Kiat and Dru left us to go to a village where the org we were with had an outreach. They taught Book classes and English classes and simply hung out in the village. Bathing was done in the traditional SE Asian way–at the village well. Dru held off taking a bath for as long as he could, but finally, he could no longer find excuses not to. So he donned his skirt (1, 2 – they are called different things in different countries) and went to village well. The local shepherd was quite concerned that he put it on tightly so that it wouldn’t slip off. He waited until it was almost dark, and carefully went to the village well which was in the midst of several huts and took a very quick, clothed bath. He said he felt very… white.

    Dru and Kiat were at the village most of the time we were in Siem Reap. We’d see them during the day sometimes because it wasn’t all that far from Siem Reap.


    A baby sleeping in the village


    Alex cheesing wildly upside down in the reflection, while consuming his ever-present Coke


    Katrina consuming some of the finest cuisine of Cambodia: fried yellow noodles!


    Some of Katrina’s amused students


    Katrina, our professional English teacher (she TESOL‘ed for a year in Taiwan), leading a class of young’uns while receiving assistance from the two native teachers


    Playing soccer at recess


    A shy young lady not playing with the others during recess


    Kelly trying to comfort this poor young maiden in despair after being on the receiving end of a tragic affair


    The tragic affair: the beautiful helium balloon wafting skyward after being lost in a tussle. The previous pictures shows the heartbreak that ensued.


    Kelly was rapidly outmaneuvered in this game of soccer and finally gave up in mock tears


    Playmates sweetly trying to console the young maiden of the lost balloon


    Kiat with a Cambodian acquaintance who had attended Payap University in Chiang Mai; this man now runs an orphanage in Siem Reap.

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  • Cambodia – Day 2

    27Dec
    Categories: Personal Comments: 0

    Most of our time in Cambodia most of the group stayed at a guest house in Siem Reap. Each day we would go to The House of Dad (as it were) to teach English at that organization’s school. So any thorough narrative of each day’s events would grow quickly boring.Therefore, my narrative shall be non-exhaustive and anecdotal with many pictures.


    Kiat


    Hog transport


    Tuk-tuk driver taking a siesta


    Trademark infringement is apparently not a serious crime in Cambodia


    Happy kids during our English class

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  • Introductions

    27Dec
    Categories: Blogosphere, Personal Comments: 13

    I know my readership is quite diverse–and that’s only the ones I know! If you read this blog, please introduce yourself in the comments of this post. If you are shy, simply introduce yourself anonymously by saying a few things about yourself.

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  • Showers

    21Dec
    Categories: Personal Comments: 2

    It would be hard to overestimate the incredible luxury of a high-pressure hot shower. (When I say high-pressure, I am speaking of only normal, North American pressure.) In Asia, the most rudimentary showers I partook of were in an outhouse in a village and consisted of large barrels of quite cold water dipped out and poured upon myself. Most of the time, however, it was simply a shower head with high-pressure (most of the time, except when the tank on the roof ran out), very cold water. This became somewhat of a trial later in the year after summer had waned when I would get up before the sun cracked the horizon and try to remain silent (as the rest of the dorm slept) while taking a very, very frigid shower. The last week of semester, we got one electric shower head for the dorm. However, when using it, one was presented with an unfortunate choice of luxuries: pressure or heat. One could get plenty of pressure, but without much heat. Or one could get very hot water at a trickle.

    Thus, I am immensely enjoying my high-pressure and high-temperature showers. It is an incredible American luxury that I did not recognize as a luxury before.

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  • Photoblogging India: Traveling Back

    16Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos, Uncategorized Comments: 0


    Landing in our beautiful Chiang Mai! It was a wonderful trip, but it’s so good to be back home!

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  • Photoblogging India: Camel Rides

    15Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos, Uncategorized Comments: 0

    Sam hired a camel driver (very, very cheaply) to come to their house and give us all rides.


    Riding a camel!


    The ladies were quite amused by the awkward angles at which the camel thrust them in the process of rising


    Witness




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  • Photoblogging India: Medical Camps – People

    14Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos Comments: 0


    A happy patient


    A not-so-thrilled patient


    An onlooker


    A grandma


    Waiting in line


    Alvin teasingly keeping the children in line with his little stick & schtick


    Peeking shyly through a crack in the tent


    Amusing himself while waiting for his mom to go through the line


    Father and daughter


    An old man who was angrily complaining to Sam that the doctor wasn’t treating him fairly, that his children had abandoned him, that everyone had abandoned him, that no one cared for him. When Sam told him, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you and make sure the doctor treats you fairly.” The main became overwhelmed with gratefulness. He began bowing, hugging Sam around the waist, kissing his own hand and then grabbing Sam chin with the kissed hand, and rubbing Sam’s stomach. It took several of the volunteers to gently guide the man back into line.



    Craig happy with a Sprite just his size


    Communicating despite language barriers

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  • Family

    14Nov
    Categories: Personal, Photos Comments: 3

    My brother Dietrich has been having a high fever (105) which induced a serious seizure. He was also totally unresponsive. My family rushed him to the halfway point between our house and the hospital where they met an ambulance. He was unresponsive for 3 hours. The docs said he shouldn’t have been unresponsive for more than 1 hour. The doctor was very suspicious of meningitis, but the spinal tap came back negative for bacterial meningitis. However, the doc thinks it’s viral meningitis and the tests for that will take quite a bit longer. He definitely fits the symptoms: headache, neck stiffness, seizures, altered mental status. If that’s the case, he’ll be sick for at least another 2-3 weeks. The fortunate thing about viral meningitis is that it’s barely contagious, unlike bacterial meningitis. Pray for him and my family as they take care of him.

    I have understandably been thinking about my family through this time, so here are some pics I’ve been looking at:


    An old picture of us kids seven years ago


    Banquet at SMBI–Benji, Heidi, and I


    Christmas 2006 portrait


    Collage of Christmas 2006

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  • Photoblogging India: Medical Camp

    13Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos Comments: 1

    We held a free medical camp in one of the slums on one of our days in India.


    Counting vitamins into little bags for the kids


    Getting a shot — Sam hired a local doctor and a nurse or two to diagnose and administer


    Ouch!


    The eye testing chart


    The eye doctor testing people’s eyes


    The medical camp


    The doctor and some patients


    Examining an x-ray


    A lady delighted with her new, free pair of glasses


    Stress


    More eye tests

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  • Photoblogging India: Misc

    12Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos Comments: 0


    One of the hotels in town looks like a medieval castle on the outside and inside. We went there to partake of their wonderful Indian buffet.


    More medieval decorations.




    Hyderabad House is an AMAZING “fast food” place. If you ever see a Hyderabad House, go inside right away. Their food was the best we tasted in India. We ate there the last night before Sam dropped us off at the airport.

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  • Photoblogging India: Youth Center

    12Nov
    Categories: India, Personal, Photos Comments: 2


    One of our English classes


    A girl across the street in an unfinished building that both her parents were helping construct. The next two pictures are the same story.




    Maria teaching English


    Concrete transport system


    Houses near youth center


    Doing laundry


    This building shows much of the concrete building process. On the bottom left is a pile of sand. On the bottom right is a pile of gravel. In the middle are bags of concrete and the mixers. The yellow/concrete-colored tracks going up hoist the mixed concrete to the top. Once up there, they load it into pans which are carried on the heads of ladies to the place where the concrete needs to be poured.


    A large (crow-sized) bat


    My face is illuminated by my laptop as I sit on the roof, drink chai, and work on a website for the youth center

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