Monthly Archives: January 2006

Jan 22 2006

photo time

Tonight I was playing around with my camera, and took a couple of cool pictures.


I thought this picture turned out kinda cool. I was originally just trying to get a picture of the flower (a tiger lily, one of my favorite flowers), but when I set it down the kitties immediately came over and posed for me.


I am finally done with the dermatologist, and I’m pretty happy with the results. This is my bad side too (the right side of my face was much worse than the left). There’s some mild scarring, but that can’t be fixed unless I’m willing to commit to staying home for several days. I don’t want to take that much time off work just to sit at home where I’ll be bored, so I’ll just be satisfied with my face as it is. :-)


Here’s the best “before” picture I could find. I didn’t exactly keep many pictures where my face looked really bad. :-) This was taken last March.

Jan 21 2006

End of the Spear

Tomorrow I am going with Susan and her family to see the new movie that just came out called End of the Spear. I don’t know too much about the movie itself, but I do know the story on which it’s based. The story is of 5 missionaries who are killed by a vicious warrior tribe in Ecuador when they try to make contact. closIt strikes close to home because Peru is e to Ecuador, and once my dad accompanied two other missionaries for a month in the Amazon in an effort to make contact with an isolated tribe. (side note: when the tribe was eventually reached, they found that their language was close enough to another Amazonian language that they could use the same Bible translation! I think that’s pretty cool.) This story has been told in the book Through the Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the five missionaries. It’s one of those stories that make you think, “Isn’t God awesome how He works through tragedy?”

Now they’ve made a movie of the story, and I’m going to go see it on Sunday. I’ve heard some controversy surrounding the film, most specifically about the fact that the lead actor is gay. (There are other things, too, like the lack of clothing for the indigenous people and the watering down of the Gospel. But those are other topics, maybe I’ll post on after I see the movie.)

This made me wonder, should a Christian support a movie where the main actor is a homosexual, if the movie itself is fine? I’m inclined to say that the actor’s personal life doesn’t really matter; it’s the content of the movie that matters. But maybe I should be more concerned about this?

I’ve been thinking about it, and it seems to me that an actor living an “alternate lifestyle” is not much different than an actor who, say, lives with his girlfriend. So should we refuse to see/support any movies where the actor has a sinful lifestyle? Should Tom Cruise with his Scientology and his pregnant fiancée be banned? Or maybe being gay is much worse than sleeping with members of the opposite sex?

What do you think?

Jan 21 2006

this week

So this week has not been one of my better weeks. It’s not anything specific that happened… just a bunch of little things. For example, we download all our pictures for the ads from this one website. They redesigned the website and now it ONLY works on Internet Explorer!! That’s great for all you PCs out there, but some of us use MACS! Sheesh it makes my blood boil. I wish there was someone I could complain to, but my boss told me they really don’t care because their primary users are retailers.

Speaking of browser problems, I have to fix part of my Gerig-Taylor site so it looks better in IE. I haven’t dealt with it yet because the emails that informed me also accused me of using Thunderbird to design WHICH is an email client (just so you know).

Okay, rant over.

Two good things did happen this week.
1) For my birthday, Paul sent me Season One of Futurama. Now I don’t have to stay up to watch Futurama on Adult Swim! He’s sweet and gives perfect gifts! :-)
2) Most of the advertising that we do is sent out either in newspapers or by direct mail, which is when you get all those ads stuck in your mailbox. Well today I was checking my mail and I got one of our ads! I thought that was pretty cool. It wasn’t one I had designed, but I definitely remember the template, and I think I’ve done ads for that dealer before. I’m going to keep it so I can show people who ask me what kinds of ads I design. You too should keep an eye out for furniture ads that you might receive. It might have been designed by me! :-)

Jan 17 2006

vonage

Last night I called Tree. Now while that might not seem unusual, let me describe the situation:

I am in Atlanta.
Tree is in the Dominican Republic.
I picked up my cell phone, dialed her Chicago area phone number, and talked to her.

How the internet has changed “international”! She and Daniel have Vonage, so they have a local phone number to their parents, which means I can call her on my cell phone and not worry about massive international charges. I think it’s pretty cool myself.

When we first moved to Peru in ’92, we sent hand-written letters to our friends and family in the States, and talked on the phone occasionally. When we returned to Peru after furlough in 1996, Internet was just coming out. “Email” was a new thing, and I kept in touch with Beth electronically – when she was “Funky Fred”. :-) (Remember that, Beth?) That was before we had our own email accounts. I had to walk to my dad’s office to send emails, and I had no clue what the internet was.

During high school, I not only discovered my own email but I also discovered Instant Messaging and ICQ. I was able to meet Beth online and chat about life. My senior year, we even hooked up Net2Phone, and were able to call phones in the states using our computer and a microphone. When I went to college, I discovered the joy of phone cards and was thrilled to be able to call my family. Then I got a cell phone with free long distance – I don’t even have to dial 1 before the area code!

How times have changed. Now I can talk to my former roommate who is on an island in the Caribbean as if she was next door. I can dial Paul (who has an Atlanta cell phone) from my landline. I can email, IM, blog, even write letters if I want! :-) Technology has made loved ones who are far away seem closer.

Jan 16 2006

friend to animals

A few weeks ago I decided to get a new license plate when I renewed my expired plates. Not that I disliked the old one (which had the number “26″ on it), but this new one is special.

Proceeds from the sale of this specialty plate will help support sterilization procedures in Georgia, as well as educating people on the benefits of spaying and neutering. I’m all for this cause. If we can spay and neuter feral animals, then we’ll have less cats and dogs roaming the streets, trying to survive off the garbage and getting hit by cars.

Anyway, I’m excited to support this cause by a new license plate that says “Animal Friend”. :-)