Mi Casa

It's been a while since I've posted anything.  I really thought that I'd be posting at least once a week.  I've been keeping so busy with studying Spanish and applying for jobs and working that I just haven't put time into this.  But I'm going to make more of an effort to post regularly.  I'll start with some pictures of where I live.  I have a 2 room apartment.  It's not too bad for the most part.  The refrigerator motor gets really loud at night.  It's never loud when I'm watching TV.  Just at night when I'm trying to sleep. I don't have AC but I have a fan that has been good enough. I have a woman that does my laundry and cleans the apartment once a week.  Also there is a woman that comes a few times a week to do some cooking.  That took nearly 6 weeks to set up.  Mostly because there were a few hitches in the process.  Rather than doing anything to negotiate those "hitches" they just let it drop.  I guess in the hope that I would just forget about it.  But finally she's started to come.  It's been good having her come.  I live in a gated community with one of the administrators of the hospital.  He lives in the house in the foreground in the first picture.  It's kind of far from the Center where I work but it's a relatively safe place.  It's been fine for a short stopping place for a nomad.

I live on the top apartment in the building in the back.  I also relax on the roof a good bit.

My bedroom/living room/kitchen.  Obviously, I took these pictures right after the cleaning lady was there.

I got a good shock from the shower head one day.  Luckily it's only 110 v here.

Took a while but I was finally able to get a couch delivered. It's much better than sitting on the bed all the time or at the tall table next to the kitchen counter.

Laissez-Faire

Before I left, I was talking to someone about my impending trip to Honduras.  They told me that I had a very laissez-fair attitude about my trip.  It might have been Carrie Hanbury but I’m not sure.  Whoever it was, that’s a pretty accurate description.  I wasn’t always a laissez-faire traveler and I’m not sure when that changed.  But it’s totally the best way to travel. 

I never know what’s going to happen next.  To a certain extent, I do it to myself.  Like when I go with the girl that doesn’t speak English to the Cafeteria, where they don’t speak English, to get my lunch.  I know a few words and just kind of guess at what the rest means.  The food couldn't possibly be worse than what I was eating in The Gambia so I’m not that worried about it.  Plus, if I don’t like it, I can just go to Ruby Tuesdays or Little Caesars just up the street.  Of course, just getting every couple words and guessing at the rest doesn’t always work.  Like last week when the people in the lab were talking about hamburgers.  I thought they were just saying that American’s eat a lot of hamburgers.  Somewhere in the conversation they tried to tell me that they were going to get me a hamburger from Burger King.  I didn't understand that so I ended up with 2 lunches that day.  But now, I won’t forget the grammatical structure they were using. 

Sometimes, I don’t know what’s happening because I’m given the wrong information.  Like a few weekends ago, I was told I was going to get a tour of Picacho (like Christo Redentor in Rio) with one of the girls (Karina) in the office where I work and the CEO of the Center (Dra. Duarte).  We were supposed to go after work on Saturday.  As noon approached, Karina (she doesn't speak English) left.  I was told that I was going to go somewhere with the CEO then meet up with Karina downtown.  I would later learn that was not the real plan.  I went looking for Dra.Duarte and asked where we were going.  She wanted to take me to the birthday party of an 80 year old friend of hers.  OK.  I’m game.  So we jump in a leather seated SUV with another friend of the Dra. and head to Valle De Angeles.  The house is on approximately an acre of land; the grounds and house were very beautifully kept.  There were some doctors from the hospital at the party and one of the woman’s sons who is running for the office of Deputy Mayor.  After eating a ridiculous amount of food, we left; I thought to meet the girl from the Cancer Center where I work.  I was wrong.  We went with one of the people from the party to what is probably the nicest house I’ve ever been seen.  There were 6 or 7 bedroom suites, a separate guest house, a separate building for a theater, and well over an acre of land all very well kept.  The house also had the biggest TV I’ve ever seen outside of a professional sports stadium.  After that, we returned to the city where, I still didn’t meet up with Karina.  On Monday it was explained to me that our trip to Picacho was postponed so I could go to Valle de Angeles. 

My friend Pam asked me once why I like to travel.  Of course I answered with the usual response of “helping those in need”.  There is a little bit of that.  But really, it’s more about the crazy.  It’s really fun to not know what’s coming next.  You just have to be able to roll with the punches.  Once you learn how to do that, you can have a lot of fun.

Pictures from Roatan

This is the plane to took us to the Island.  The windows don't actually open but I had Mariam going for a min there.

This is our room at Las Rocas:

The beach was so beautiful:

We went snorkeling a couple of times.  First off of a boat then later we just swam off the beach to some good coral.  The guide book said that the coral here was the 2nd or 3rd best in the world.  There was a lot of fish to see.  Next time, we're totally doing SNUBA.

We also spent time doing other things:

Ro at the swim-up bar:

This is a fruit called "noni".  Apparently it is good for your health.  I touched one.  It smelled TERRIBLE.

What a great time!  Thanks, Mariam and Ro.

Roatan

Starting a new job with a week-long vacation on a Caribbean Island with two awesome, beautiful women might have to be a new tradition for me.

A few months ago I told my friend Ro that I would be working in Honduras for my.  She excitedly told me that her grandparents are there and that she would be visiting them during Christmas break.  As we made plans she told me she wanted to go to the Island of Roatan, just off the coast of the main land.  She also had a friend that wanted to join us that was going to join us. 

The resort we stayed in was sufficient.  The room was small but we made due.  Though, I was forced to stay in the bathroom for interminable amounts of time while they got dressed.  Seriously, how many “outfits” do you have to try on for dinner on at the beach?  /sigh… traveling with girls. The food wasn't so great but the drinks were adequately cheap.  The beach was only a few minutes walk away and was gorgeous.  The water was an awesome clear bright blue. 

Our days progressed similarly from one to the next.  Early morning walks on the beach with a stop at the coffee shop, breakfast at the resort and then lounging on the beach.  We spent 2 mornings snorkeling.  The reef was very beautiful with tons of fish, a snake, and Ro even saw a turtle.  I saw a couple of small jelly fish but it was nothing like the scene from Finding Nemo.  Late mornings and afternoons were largely dedicated to the search for the best Piña Colada.  Over which we had a lot of deep conversations about: health care and health care systems (yes, Ro and I are nerds), books, movies, dating and how both girls and guys are “crazy”, throbbing uteruses, and our experiences traveling.  I think our favorite waiter and our favorite Piña Colada was at the Infinity Bay resort (good place to stay but probably expensive).  We also got ourselves free wrist bands for use of the pool and beach towels.  We were able to try a couple of different rums as well.  I think the best was called Plata.  I would probably remember better if I hadn’t had so many Piña Coladas.  We usually ate dinner on the beach and then watched a movie on my laptop.  I was really glad to be able to educate Mariam on some old classics like: Big Trouble in Little China, Short Circuit, and Sneakers.  I would have taught Ro but she usually was asleep about 10-15 mins into the movie.  I will admit I was HUGELY impressed when I made a reference to Ghostbusters that Ro got.  So her education isn’t so bad.

Sadly, Ro had to leave on Tuesday, while Mariam and I got to stay a couple more days.  We moved to another part of the island (from West Bay to West End) because the first hotel didn't have room for us to stay.  The new place was bigger but the beach was small and more crowded.  We also took up a new activity, cards.  We played gin rummy using the rules as I remembered them.  I’m sure I got some of them wrong but in general we probably got the rules right.  We didn't keep score because I couldn't remember how points work.  We should have just made it up and kept a marathon score for the couple days.  We also did some souvenir shopping and continued the epic search for Piña Coladas.  The last day we spent lounging on West Bay beach, drinking our favorite Piña Colada and wading in the water. 

That brings me to now.  We just hugged and kissed good bye.  She’s walking to her departure door as I sit with my eyes tearing up, waiting for my plane to start boarding.  I miss her already...   On to Tegucigalpa now; time to get on with my work.  I’m nervous.  I don’t know what I’ll find there, what I’ll do or what they really expect.  I guess that’s never stopped me before.  

Arrival

I’m off to Honduras today.  Actually my posting this means I’ve arrived.  I’m writing this in the airport and won’t get to finish/post it till I’ve arrived.

I’m heading to Tegucigalpa, Honduras (still not sure I’m pronouncing that correctly).  I’ll be working in a cancer hospital with the hospital administrators.  They asked me to work to improve the lab and the pharmacy.  I’m not sure what I’m getting into.  That hasn’t stopped me before.

Before I start there I’m heading to Roatan.  It’s an Island north of Honduras.  I’m meeting up with my friend Ro and her friend Miriam for a few days on the beach and whatever fun/trouble we can find.  I’m looking forward to it.  I hope we all get along well.  Hopefully we have complementary travel styles; no one too hyper, no one too relaxed.  I’m really looking forward to it. 

My friend Amy asked me if I’d be keeping a blog of my trip.  I had thought about doing so before she asked but hadn’t really decided.  I wasn’t successful in keeping one about my adventures in The Gambia.  You can see that my last entry was 3 months into my Peace Corps experience.  I never even tried after that.  I couldn’t do it.  Part of the problem was that I just couldn’t sit and type a story knowing how incomplete a picture it would give.  Also sitting in the computer lab at PC headquarters wasn’t really all that fun.  Plus, the Larium (because we always blamed the Larium).  I did enjoy writing one when I returned from India.  I was inspired by Dave and Lori to start one and I found it was pretty fun.  Maybe I can do a better job this time around.

So… Yes, Amy, I will try to keep a blog.  It won’t be a complete picture.  But hopefully you’ll get the general idea. 

Enjoy!

Look Who The Cat Dragged In!

So I guess I should start with an apology. I was slightly mistaken about when my next computer access would be. I had no internet access during my time in training. It was mostly spent in a small village where the only electricity was from personal generators. I of course did not have one. It wasn’t on the packing list from the peace corp so I didn’t bring one. After 9 weeks of language and technical training we were back in the capital for a few more training sessions, our swearing in as official volunteers and then shipped out to site. That week was a crazy whirlwind and I had so much trouble writing a blog entry. I didn’t know how to sum up those 10 weeks of training. How could I tell you about it all: the frustrations, the fun, and all the cross cultural mistakes I was making? It was all just too much too write. It was so daunting that I ended up writing nothing. I thought it would be alright that I wasn’t able to write as I thought that my site mates had said that internet was accessible at my site. It pretty much isn’t.

So now I have the same dilemma as last time I was in Kombo. I just finished my 3 month challenge. That’s what they call the first 3 months at site. (What do they call the rest of our time, the 21 month challenge?) They tell you to not leave site for 3 months and observe the village and get to know the people and language. So I have mostly done that, I only left site for 2 days to visit someone. So now I’m back and have 3 months to write about. I want to tell you about everything that I’ve been going through and know that I can’t write it all here. So I guess I’ll just write a little about my site and what I hope to do while I’m here.

My town is called Bwiam. You can find it on Google Earth. It is pretty large with about 10,000 people. There is a small hospital, elementary, Jr High, and Sr High schools as well as a few nursery schools. There are a number of small shops (batiks) where I can buy most things that I want and a small vegetable market were I can buy some fruits and veggies, what ever happens to be in season. There are no restaurants only a canteen at the hospital. That’s one thing I miss a lot from home. I miss being able to run out and get something to eat whenever I’m hungry. I have to plan ahead for that now. I am a Health and Community Development volunteer. I’ve been spending time at the hospital in the lab and also at child vaccination clinics. I spend a few days at the Family Planning Center, where I hope to get involved in education about HIV/AIDS other STDs and reproductive health. I am also going to be involved with the village chief and Village Development Committee. I want to help with getting clean water for the community and there were a few other smaller things they spoke to me about. It will take some time before it’s clear what I’ll be doing with them.

Over all I’m pretty happy with my site. My host family is good though there have been many frustrating nights of miscommunication. I am learning to like it here. Well that’s all I have for now. I am keeping an off-line blog. I guess the less technically savvy would call it journal. I hope that I’ll keep up with it and be able to publish it when I return to the US. For now though, I’ll make more effort to post when I make it back to civilization. At least you’ll all know I’m not dead yet.

Africa Ill!!

As many of you may have guessed I’m in THE GAMBIA now. I have to be honest it was really anticlimactic. It was a really tearful good bye to all my friends at church, work and my family. So I get on the plane to DC and things went well there. We bonded well as a group. There are 21 of us that all came over together. So we get all our shots together, get to the airport, get on the plane and about 20million hours later we are in Africa. No trumpets, no dropping of confetti or letting loose 1000 doves. Just walk off the plane and get on the bus to the terminal. We were met at the airport by lots of Peace Corps people who helped with our bags and got us all loaded into the van and off to our training site. It’s at a catholic retreat center that’s on the edge of town. The beach is 20 min. walk away. Coke is plentiful, though not nearly as good as it was in India. It’s like I’m on vacation still. Except for the 3 hours of language class a day. Then the rest of the day is filled with discussions about how to treat and prevent diarrhea and malaria. And then at meals we talk about our mefloquine induced dreams. That’s right, as a US government employee I get to take the malaria drug that makes you go crazy. So it’s actually been a bit of a let down so far.

Tomorrow, though, should change all that. The reason that we have been getting pounded with language is that we go to our training villages tomorrow. (I think they all have little wheels on them.) We travel into the bush to start living with our host families. This is where we will learn our language. I’m learning Pular, spoken by the Fula people. There are 2 other trainees going to this village so there will be 4 people total that speak English in our village, us and our language trainer. I’m actually rather excited about that. The part I’m not so excited about is the pit latrine. I’m not sure I’m down with the whole no running water thing. I guess I should have thought about that before I signed up. I’m sure that I’ll have some great pit latrine stories for you all though. I guess I’ll start to come up when people search for S#@$ smearing on google too, Tiffany! How exciting!! Anyhow, it will be 2 weeks without internet/electricity. So I will miss you all for 2 weeks. But when I get back, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of things that are making me bitter that I can rant about.

Ceace Porps.

This post will come in 2 parts. The first to my friends and family and the second to the idiots out there.

My dear friends and family, this will be my last post from the US, probably. I leave for DC tomorrow. I’ll be there for a few days and then off to my adventure in The Gambia Africa. It has been really tough to say good-bye to my friends this week. I cried a lot at church today as I said good-bye to my friends and my small group bible study. It was quite possibly good-bye forever to some of them. Many are in Grad. School or Med. school. They will finish before I get to return. They pain of saying good-bye to them was excruciating. But I’m really glad that I had the last 7 months to get to know them. I will miss you guys so much.

Tomorrow I say good-bye to my family and I know that won’t be too much easier. Thankfully my brother and sister-in-law came in from Ohio. It is so good to have them here to help me pack and get ready and then say good-bye. I will miss my family a lot as well.

Now for the Idiots out there. You see I was reading the volunteer handbook. They say in there that if I keep a website that I have to make it clear that my posts are my thoughts. Then don’t reflect the views held by the agency that I’m working for. So I don’t know if I’m going to spell out the complete name of the agency. So for now I’ll just have to call it the Ceace Porps. Thanks to all the idiots out there that would mistake my thoughts for someone elses.

The muscle of the party:
Good-bye, Jean-something

My African Connection:


Bye girls, remember that I'm not that far from Kenshasa!

Happy Next Two Birthdays to Me!

What a beautiful cake,


Baked and decorated by the beauty on the right.


I love you guys and will miss you SOOOO much!

All That and A Bag of Tortilla Chips

I recently had the opportunity to go salsa dancing, twice. Of course, by recently I mean during the last 2 months. It reminds me of the last time I went swing dancing (read about it here on June 14th). That was one of my favorite posts.

The first time was with Renee from my bible study. There was a 1-hour lesson before the dance started. I got there about halfway through the lesson. So I missed how the basic step was supposed to go and also why the guy was counting 1-2-3-5-6-7. What about 4, if there’s a 4, where’s 8?!! I learned how a couple of turns go but without the basic step (or count) down, the turns made little sense. Renee is rather experienced, at salsa, so she was in the advanced group. After the lessons, she was able to teach me how the basic step goes and how the turns all work into it. Though, I never did ask about the counting. We were the only ones from bible study that were there so I only knew her. She was well known by a number of people there. So luckily she had other people to dance with. Lucky because she didn’t have to dance all night with me and also because it gets really boring when all you know how to do is the basic step and one turn. She tried to teach me other stuff, with mixed results.

The next time there were a few more of us in our group. Doug came. Doug’s your typical masters in engineering student. Not as geeky as your typical computer science nerd but not as cool as us bio-geeks. He hadn’t been salsa dancing before but had done some swing and other stuff during the summer. We were able to teach him a little. Chansonette was there too. She’s more free spirited in her dancing that Renee. She doesn’t take leading so well but she also doesn’t wait for you to lead and then say things like “why don’t you throw a girl a turn sometime?” She also didn’t yell at me to keep my hand in the shoulder plain. Probably the most interesting way to be told to get your hand off someone’s butt. Actually it’s the only way I’ve been told that. Too bad for me I guess. I bet Tiffany has lots of good stories about grabbing people’s butts. Our friend Dan was also there. He grew up in South America so he was somewhat better than Doug and I. The band was fun too. They played some Christmas music. It was fun to hear them sing about The Grinch to a salsa beat. I think we all had a good time. Doug and I did and the girls as least pretended that they did. So it was a successful night. I wonder how much I’ll get to practice while I’m in Africa. Maybe I’ll start a salsa club in The Gambia. I bet it would go over really well.

NOG!!!

I told Dave I would drink a glass of eggnog for him. I had other glasses this year. This one was for Dave. Its not a “fun” glass though. Its just eggnog. You can tell its not a fun glass because I’m not smiling in the picture. I used all my brandy at my super cool friend Joy’s super fun Christmas party and sadly I have no rum either. (Too bad Tiffany isn’t around. Then it would be a fun glass!!) Anyway I used all of my brandy making mulled wine for Joy’s party. I made a whole crock-pot full of it. That’s from 2 bottles of wine, 2 cups of brandy, 2 cups of water plus sugar and mulling spices. Though the party was super fun they weren’t a drinking crowd. After the party was over, there was 1.5 wine bottles worth left. I left the half bottle for Joy. I hope she and Kristin enjoyed it. You can tell it was a super fun party because of the antlered creature featured here:

Of course, Kristin looked beautiful with the antlers on, not like me. Unfortunately nobody got a picture of her wearing the antlers. Why were there so many pictures of me with them on?

Anyhow. Cheers, Dave! It was a good glass of eggnog!

Anybody Got a Light?

This is my dad at church on Christmas Eve. Thankfully he waited till after the service to put these on. Tiffany isn’t the only one that has weird family. Though I think she probably won with her parents running around the dinning room like horses.

Why It Gotta Be A BLACK-Out!?!

Today at work; not so great. It started out pretty well. There wasn’t too much traffic on the way. I did get beeped at twice while waiting to get out of the Eckerd parking lot. Someone didn’t want me to wait for the pedestrian crossing in front of me. A little after I got to work Darrell got a call from Sarah that she is going to be at the bus stop at Ikea soon and she needs picked up. I think she missed her normal bus. It wasn’t clear when she would be there because she left a message. When he tried to call her back she wouldn’t answer. Of course everyone wanted to be the one to go get her. We should have taken a bigger group it would have been even more fun. It was Darrell and I that went to get her. We pulled up to her and she totally didn’t know it was us. She just kept standing there while Darrell was banging on the window. She got it after a few seconds and climbed in. So we went back to work. Darrell and Sarah make me laugh a lot at work; it was a fun car ride. That was the fun break of the day. When I got back a few of us went to give blood. That was the not fun break. No big deal till I was done and they let me up from the chair. I walked over to the cookie table and as I sat down I was feeling hotter and hotter and rather light headed. I said to Mary Anne that I wasn’t feeling well and put my head down on the table. The next thing I know I hear Kim, the head nurse, calling my name asking if I can hear her. I heard her call my name about 5 or 6 times before I could answer and even then it was really hard to open my eyes. It was a new experience for me; I’ve never passed out before. It would’ve been cool if it ended there but it was another hour before I left. I was back in the reclining chair for quite awhile. Every time they put my feet down I kept getting really hot, nauseous, and dizzy again. Finally, on the third time, I was well enough to go sit in a normal chair. I sat for a while at the cookie table drinking as much juice as I could. I felt well enough to go back down stairs after a few minuets. I went down and sat at my desk going through waves of cold and hot, dizzy and dizzier. After sitting there for about 40 minuets and everybody asking, a lot, if I’m okay I called home for my parents to come and get me. I could barely stay in the chair let alone get any work done. I’m feeling a little better now. I’m still a little dizzy but I was able to eat dinner and of course write all about my exciting day. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get the chance to say “goodbye” as I blacked out. My brother did that once and that made the nurses pretty upset. I told everybody that story before we went up. I was going to do it but I thought I was just going to vomit not loose consciousness. Too bad too, I don’t plan to get the chance to do it again.

Indian Fall

I’ve had some interesting “Indian” experiences the last few weekends. It’s not as packed full of Indian fun like my friend Greg’s weeks are. He was just sent to India by his company. He wasn’t as excited about it as I would have been. He got really sick on the trip home from his last excursion to India. He ended up in the hospital for 3 days when he got back. He thought that would be a good enough excuse to not have to go back. But a few days after he got back from China the CEO of the company thanked him for being willing to go back to India, and so soon too. So, I’m sorry Greg that you missed our safer Indian experiences.

Two weekends ago I had my chance to experience Jaljeera. How exciting after the review it got from my friend Lori. I went to the apartment of a friend, Ratna. She is a co-worker of a friend of mine that likes to play Scrabble. She had a scrabble night and I was invited. My friend, jokingly, demanded that she make Jaljeera. Extra crispy at that! Of course she made it. It reminded me of a drink that I had tried in India. I was given a glass of sugar cane juice in a social situation that I couldn’t refuse it without really insulting the guy. The juice is squeezed from the sugar cane with an old, rusty, oily press with water that was clearly not going to get along well with the bacteria in my stomach. But it was too late to refuse so I just prayed that it wouldn’t kill me (this is a good example of learning to pray without ceasing). I know what those of you that have tried Jaljeera are thinking. A glass of seawater is almost as salty as Jaljeera, wouldn’t sugar cane be sweet? The sugar cane juice was sweet with pockets of extreme saltyness. The same flavor spice as in Jaljeera. I didn’t make it through the glass, of the Jaljeera or the Sugar Cane juice. Paul was able to drink his whole glass. Way to go on that Paul. After that I was so shaken that the best I could do in scrabble was to loose with less than 1/3 the amount of points as Paul whom also lost to Ratna. I did much better during the rounds of Uno. I should mention that the Chai, Gulab Jaman, and the other things that they served were really good and made me think fondly of India.

Then this past weekend I found out that the latest Aishwarya Rai movie Umrao Jaan was playing in a theater in Pittsburgh. Actually I found that out at Ratna’s apartment. So I asked my friend Chansonette if she wanted to go see it, knowing her love of Indian things. So we got a small group together to see it Saturday night. When I was a few blocks from her apartment I got a frantic call from her that she and her friend were looking online and the movie wasn’t showing. Crapski! When I got to her place it had been confirmed. So we rented another Ash movie from an Indian grocery store. On the way there her Indian friend found out about my time in India and asked if I learned Hindi. Then informed me after I started to speak in Hindi to her that she speaks Telagu. Which was just as well because the 2 sentences that I got out were about as much as I remember from 2 years ago. Anyway the movie was Mohabbatein. It was a lot of fun, had Big B, Ash and Arukh Khan. It was much better to watch at home (Jeanette’s home actually) because we talked and commented on and laughed all the way through the Love story. I can’t wait till we can do it again!

AWW TAGIT!!

I know that you posted this a long time ago, Tiffany, but here are some of my answers. There were a lot of questions. So I decided to cut out some of them and do the more interesting ones.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Lab Tech at Univ of Pittsburgh
2. Building Manager at my Church
3. EMT
4. Lab Consultant for a Hospital in India

FOUR JOBS YOU WISH YOU'D HAD:
1. CIA Field Agent
2. Green Beret/Navy SEAL
3. Doctor (surgeon)
4. CEO/President of a HUGE company. They don’t have to do any real work.

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN:
1. The Long Kiss Goodnight
2. Matrix
3. Mystery Men
4. Bride and Prejudice

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Delhi, India
2. Raxaul, India
3. Pittsburgh, PA
4. Washington, DC

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. Studio 60
2. Heros
3. The Unit
4. My Name is Earl

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELED TO:
1. Disney World
2. London, BABY!!
3. Cancun, BABY!!
4. Maui, Hawaii

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. BBC News
2. Tiffany’s blog
3. Dave’s blog
4. World of Warcraft.net

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Garbage Plate from Nick Tahoes
2. Permanti’s sandwhich
3. Skittles
4. Cookies

FOUR THINGS YOU WON'T EAT:
1. raw meat of any kind
2. Jaljeera
3. Coffee or anything coffee flavored
4. Goat brain. (One of the Docs in Inida wanted to make it for me. Lucky for me he never followed up on it. Though the word is that it’s really good.)

FOUR PEOPLE YOU’D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH:
1. Kofi Annan
2. John Stewart
3. Aishwarya Rai
4. Tiffany, cause holy crap you’re funny!!

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW:
1. My throat hurts
2. What the heck will I do for the Peace Corp
3. What the heck is “bringing sexyback”
4. Why does the video I’m streaming keep freezing up!?!

My Friend's Best Wedding

My good friend Pam was married on 10/21/06; 10 days ago. It was a nice wedding I suppose. You shouldn’t take that as an insult in any way Pam. Though, since she never posts a comment, I have no idea if she ever really reads this. I think I just don’t get the ceremony. I’ve been in 3 weddings, best man at 2 (always the best man never the bestest man), and it’s mildly fun if you are standing up front. Plus as best man you hold the ring. But watching is not nearly as fun. Especially when your friend/date (were you my date?) who is in the wedding talks to you like you have any clue about what went on behind the scenes but really you’re totally lost on who/what the heck she is talking about. So anyway they said their “I do’s” and that was that. I did get to sit in the back of the sanctuary with a friend from college that I haven’t seen for a while with his new baby. So that was good.

The reception however was one of the best I’ve been to. This is largely because of the live band. The food was pretty good and the open bar was nice, though I only had wine with dinner because I was driving. The band was awesome! Instead of the normal DJ where you get tons of top 40 that nobody really likes, with a few slow songs thrown in for good measure, they had a live band. It was a lot of funk style music. They were really rockin’. I’m really not into dancing that much so I stayed off the floor for most of the first set. I was pretty much ready to leave when I got too close to the dance floor and was ordered by the bride to join in. I ALWAYS have fun with Pam so I went out on the floor. I stayed the rest of the night. It was so fun. We even dragged Lori out onto the floor. It was a fun night.

The band was Brass Taxi at www.brasstaxi.com. If you are having a wedding in the Rochester area you should totally get them. I don’t know how far they travel but if you are having a wedding anywhere they don’t go then that’s sad for you.

"How did it turn out?"

"Hello!! The two most beautiful women here!!"

Pledge THIS!!

A few days ago my friend Dave put a post on his website that I wanted to reply to. As I was writing my comment, I quickly realized that it was probably going to be longer than the original post. So rather than have a really long reply I thought I would just blog about it. His post with the comments is at: http://onegeek.net/blog/2006/10/25/abstinence-pledges-dangerous/#comments . Here is the post itself:

Just read an interesting news piece on abstinence sex education and pledges in the US. It noted that 88 percent of pledge takers had sex before marriage and that were less likely to seek STI testing and less likely to use contraception when they did have sex.

There is a saying that we geeks use: Correlation does NOT prove causation. I hate all statisticians and laugh at everyone that tries to use statistics in an argument.* Statistics can be a useful tool but much they aren’t the last word. Like a hammer is only useful for nails, a statistic has very limited scope and application. Though that limit is almost always ignored. Most would say that this statistic proves that Abstinence Only education is ridiculous and kids will just do it anyway. That’s not what it says. What does it tell us? This number speaks only to success of the program in its current state. This number is useful in evaluating the teaching of our children. What are the numbers of the “war on drugs”? Why haven’t we given up trying to stop teenage drug use? They keep using drugs, why not just assume they will do what they will do? What about teenage drinking? So what if they like to drink at parties? Why hasn’t anybody used the drug and alcohol abuse statistics to prove they should give up?

Because failure means you need to try something different, not give up! When “Just say no” wasn’t enough, they show commercials with a guy frying an egg. If that’s not enough show them Whitney Houston (if she isn’t a walking anti drug commercial, I don’t know what is!). So stop saying that failure is proof that it can’t work.

The Abstinence Only program needs to take some cues from the Drug and Alcohol people. Don’t just tell them “Don’t do it”. That doesn’t work for anything. They need to give the kids tools to keep them out of situations where the decision is already made for them. Help them make good choices about making out all night in a car, at a party (with drugs and alcohol), or in the hallway at school for 4.5 of the 5 mins they have between classes. They need to be taught how to have a healthy, nourishing, loving relationship. They need to be taught how to deal with the emotions and hormones raging in their bodies. The reason that they don’t use contraception or get STI testing is that they are ashamed of their actions. Don’t teach them they are failures for not keeping their promise; teach them the forgiveness of the Father when we fail.

WE are the failures when we don’t support our kids in their own decisions.

*I don’t really hate all statisticians. There’s one at my church that actually has a good sense of humor.