My First piece of Art

I bought this piece of art today from a place in Verettes. Beautiful acrylic, my first piece of art ever - aside from cool posters on my wall in college.

Blown Generator

It blew a rod last night. No power, fans or lights.

Sophia

This is Sophia, a slave girl I befriended last time I was here. She remembered me and greeted me with a big smile.

We don't look like tourists do we?

As if we didn't look like tourists by being white, we went to the market and bought the one thing touristy: straw hats, and some cane.

Festival in Velo up in the mountains

We went up into the mountains tonight up in Velo to see a festival at the catholic church.

Prestige World Wide

We went up into the mountains tonight up in Velo to see a festival at the catholic church.

This is the only beer in Haiti. It's great cold. Decent warm.

Kelly and the goats

Kelly wanted to take one home like a puppy until we explained how big they get.

Off road

We heading up into the mountains to see some of the goats that Faith in Action has been helping to breed for more food. Echo, Willie and I rode in the back of the truck standing up through some pretty rough terrain.

Haitian sunset

We took three trucks, two for luggage, one for us. Our driver must have been a NASCAR driver prior to a bus driver. The sunset was a nice break from the poverty and devastation we saw in Port au Prince. It was nice being able to take in what we were seeing as a group and be able to talk about it. The roads were crazy, with three cars simultaneously trying to pass each other on a one lane road.

Arrived in Haiti

We made it into Port au Prince safely.

Rodney loves Ricky Martin

Rodney insisted that i take a picture of him posing next to this picture of Ricky Martin on the 'Miami Latino Wall of Fame'. Who knew Rodney felt such a connection?

Something to ponder

Found in the Miami Airport

I saw this woman wearing this feather outfit walking through the airport with her dog in the suitcase. I plan on bringing one of these home for Maddie.

Running in Michigan: Hill Block View???

I went for a run on Saturday (click the link here to see the map and pictures in the context of the map) and there were times I just stopped in awe of what I was looking at.  I ran down a bunch of back roads that I don't normally go down and I was reminded of part of why I choose to continue living in Michigan.


The trees were changing colors and it was unbelievably beautiful.  What I love about running is that you don't just see fall with your eyes, you smell it with the smell of leaves, damp leaves, burning leaves, dry leaves; you hear the crackling of leaves as they crunch under your feet, you feel the leaves surrounding you as you run through the tunnels of color.  These pictures don't do it justice.

Maybe it's part of getting older, but as much as I hate to compromise my times while running, I couldn't help but stop and stare at what I was seeing.  I've come back from motorcycle rides and tried to explain to Cathie some of what I'd seen and she jokes that I'm the double rainbow guy (click here to see what that means).  I was out riding my motorcycle as the sun was low on the horizon.  I was coming through a tunnel of trees and on the other side of those trees the sun's orange light lit up the dust from a horseback riding area, creating this amazing contrast and color.  I tried to describe this and the "Double Rainbow Guy" label was born.

I'm not an artistic guy, but I like the fact that God created this beauty in the world with no real function, just to be appreciated and enjoyed, and that God has wired me up to be able to enjoy it in my own small way.

Em & I's trip to the Animal Shelter

Last year Emily and I took a series of training classes at the Humane Society of Livingston County so that we could become certified volunteers and be able to walk the dogs and play with the cats. It's a great time for just Em and I to spend time together and talk and meet Em on her own turf.  When we drive, it's normally her playing DJ and we both end up singing Taylor Swift songs at the top of our lungs.  We head out there every few weeks to volunteer.  Saturday was a perfect day to go there on the motorcycle, so we did.

Emily loves riding my motorcycle, probably more than any of the kids.  She loves the speed, especially the expressway where we'll get upwards of 75.  We have a great time riding together, she'll point out different things she sees and tell me what she's thinking when we stop at a light.


We go to the shelter and do anything from walk the dogs, take them out and play with them in fenced in areas, do dishes, laundry and general clean-up.  We normally play with 2-3 dogs and a cat or two over the course of an hour or two's visit.  Em has this amazing affinity with the animals, and this deep love and compassion for them.  She sees each animal, no matter how old, how injured or how ugly - she sees them all as beautiful.  She sees animals the way Jesus saw people.  She sees the intrinsic value in each of them where lots of people can't get past the surface.

When we go get a cat to play with, you can see which cats have been played with by the cages that don't have a colored ring on it any longer.  Those cats are normally the mean ones that no one wants to play with, and what was explained to us was that those are the ones that need it most, in order to be socialized for adoption.  Emily will always pick one of those mean ones, wanting each one to get a chance to be played with and feeling like she's giving that one a chance to make it.  I'm the one who ends up paying the price as I take these cats with all of their claws out of their cages into a carrying case.

We ended the trip with a stop at 7-11 to get some slurpees.  What better way to end a perfect day!

A Dirty Pair

This is what happens when you have a dog that is dumb and single minded: Trixie went after a critter under our deck. She found its hole and dug, putting the fresh dirt by her escape route, blocking her in. Neither Nate or I could fit in under the deck so Emily was brave enough to go under in the dark, through the spider webs to rescue our dumb, now filthy animal.

Getting ready for Haiti

I'm starting to get excited about heading down to Haiti.  I was there this past March and it was a life changing experience.  I went down there with a guy I barely knew named Bill and we became fast friends; making an odd pair with a 70ish year old man and me, the young punk - two white american guys standing out like sore thumbs. We stayed with Tom and Facilta and family and I got to know the rest of the crew to the left like family.

This time, I'm heading down with a group of people from my church. It's a fabulously diverse group from an 18 year old to  70+ year olds , including some great friends of mine and some that I don't know at all.  We're leaving next Thursday and will be coming back the following Thursday night.

I went down the first time to see and learn and try and figure out where I could help.  My plan was to go back this time and make a difference, and I was gung-ho to make sure we had giant plans to do so.  At our team meeting, my pastor and friend, Joe Muzzi, gave me a chapter to read from the book When Helping Hurts (How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and yourself).  We talked a lot about how to support those people on the front lines in Haiti, humility in our approach and looking at this as an opportunity to learn from the people we're down there with.  The piece that's really messing with my head is my view of poverty in Haiti - well, really materialism.  When I was down there, I felt sad for the total lack of possessions I saw around me and the total poverty I was witnessing.  The book flipped a switch in my head and made me realize that I see the lack of possessions as this as a negative state of existence and got me thinking about how I live and what I value.  I want to go down there and learn from the people I'm around the answer to this question:

"How is it that you're so happy with so little?"

My love/hate relationship with Steve Jobs

Last night at youth group, my phone went crazy. I pulled it out of my pocket to look down and see 4 messages, all sent within minutes of each other. Steve Jobs was dead. Now there's a reason that people would send me this note: I'm a bit of a geek and considered an apple fan boy by some.

My love/hate battle with apple and my appreciation for Steve Jobs began when I was in at MSU studying Computer Science. I worked at a computer store called CompuAdd selling computers, windows machines (in the days of DOS and Windows 1/2/3.1) and selling a few Macs. Prior to the sales job, I in high school worked at a basement PC builder, building and troubleshooting computers for customers. I came to the world with a very PC centric view of the world, working in DOS, OS/2,and Windows 3.1 and I was thrilled when I got my first substantial interaction with a Mac (not an apple, a Mac. Growing up, the Apple IIe/c's were all the rage, but these were not the graphical beauties that the Macs were). Even then, people were in Apple or PC camps, and the Apple camp really didn't have much of a case. The Mac's were new and cool, but it soon tapered as Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple by Woz & Sculley.

One of Jobs next ventures after being publicly booted and humiliated by Apple was NeXT computers.  This image doesn't capture the asthetic beauty of the computer or the operating system.  Nothing like it had been seen.  It was built on the MACH kernel, which we studied in our Operating Systems classes at MSU and that later came to become the core of the Apple OS.

Towards the time I graduated and got my degree, Apple computers came to represent a tiny but vocal clique (normally headed up by Graphic Designers) that believed that their technology was superior, regardless - just because it was apple (it wasn't even that pretty at the time).  As a newly minted computer science major who had studied most major systems and felt like I knew everything, I was disgusted by the Apple groupies.  There were good things about apple, but no better on the whole than other systems.  Microsoft had become the 800lb gorilla and everyone was taking shots at them, especially the apple fan boys (Noel).

I bought one of the first iPods and loved it.  It drew me into iTunes, which wasn't too shabby either.  From there (just the way Jobs intended) I bought my first mac computer I bought was a mac mini.  I bought it as a multi-media system to hook to my tv for video.  It worked great and I loved it for multi-media, especially iTunes.  Apple then released the Apple iPhone, but it was slow and buggy, as most new products are.  After seeing my friend Noel giddy as a school girl about his 3G, it seemed like it had finally realized it's potential and gotten rid of its bugs, so I jumped in with both feet.  I loved it and even shifted my work laptop over to a MacBook Pro, followed a few years later by my iPad.

I felt like Steve Jobs and I had an understanding.  Apple products were good, but not perfect.  They were beautiful and more focused on the user experience than any other product I've ever experienced.  I respected and even enjoyed the audacity of Jobs to beat the hell out of every other product.  They were great and they knew it.  Jobs's vision created a brand new market with the iPod and iPads that didn't exist before.  His company single handledly changed the way music is purchased.  All very impressive stuff.  I think this quote sums him up best:

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.” — Steve Jobs

Today is the 5 year anniversary of my Mom's death

Five years ago today my Mom died of pancreatic cancer.  Only a day after Steve Jobs.  Coincidence?

The sadness is mostly gone, and filled with happy memories of her.  My family and I still talk all the time, with smiles, about things Mom would say in a given situation, things she loved, or things she hated.  "You know what Mom/Grandma would have thought about that?"  It's how we keep her memory alive and make sure our kids remember the amazing woman their Grandma was.

I still laugh when I see this family picture.  As you can imagine, my Mom really loved this picture (not at all). At some point when these pictures were being taken, I thought it would be funny to cross my eyes in every single one of the poses. She had no idea until we went to pick them up.  Her explanation was this: "The people who looked at the pictures probably thought 'Oh, look at that cute little retarded boy' and picked the best out of the bunch."  I still find it pretty funny.

Triad Wheel of Death

This is how we hurt ourselves on a regular basis at Triad during our morning workouts.