Type 11 Error

Movin' on up...

2006-07-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to a new, hosted blog powered by WordPress. At the same time I'm combining my two blogs into one.

The new url is: www.losingfight.com.

Enjoy.

Marry rich

2006-07-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sweetie has taken another one of those blog test thingies.

This one is of particular interest because it addresses the question of: which one of us has too much free time and spends it taking silly internet tests? To prove my point, I took several of the ones at that site, but all of them failed to answer the all important question. I guess I'll have to go retake them sometime.

Allegedly the test also says something about how successful you'll be... blah, blah, blah. I tuned out after I found out I didn't score as well as Sweetie.

My results:

Your Chances of Being a Multimillionaire: 64%

You have a good chance of being a multimillionaire. Better than most people.
You simply have a natural knack for money and the personality for success.

Will You Be a Multimillionaire?

Sweetie's results.

As you can see, Sweetie has a much better chance of becoming rich than I have. Most guys would be emasculated or embarrassed by such a revelation. But not me.

I plan on marrying rich.

New Template

2006-07-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

The new template is "Nautica" from Blogger Templates.

Its pretty much stock, except for the About Me section. It was off by default, it was a bulleted list for some reason, and the picture was off center. So I rearranged everything until I was reasonably happy with it.

Same lame blog, but with a new shiny plastic exterior.

Tell me you don't want to lick your screen right now.

That's what I thought.

Yay Italy!

2006-07-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Italy beat France in a shoot out.

Razors, shaving, and the draft

2006-07-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was recently thinking about razors and shaving. Probably because I just switched razors.

I used to have a Gillette Sensor Excel. I rather liked it, mainly because it was free. All I had to do is register for the Selective Service. It was a great deal. I trade the opportunity to be drafted for a ten dollar razor. Well, its a great deal only because there hasn't been a draft in my lifetime. If one comes, then its a total rip off.

Especially since I don't even have it anymore. It was one of the many things stolen. Maybe I can use that as an excuse if there ever is a draft. I don't have a razor, therefore I'm not eligible for the draft. Except that its illegal not to register when you turn eighteen. So the best I could probably do is talk myself into some jail time.

About a week ago, I went out and bought another razor. Someone recommended a Gillette Mach 3. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I took her advice since she has never used one, and has never even shaved her face. Anyway, the big "upgrade" is supposed to be the Mach 3 has three blades, as opposed to the measly two blades of the Sensor Excel. Not that I could tell a difference. Shockingly, the three blades didn't shave any better than two. Its as if the "more blades is better" was pure marketing hype. My trust in humanity took a big hit that day. I suspect that two blades shave better than just one, but after two.. eh, doesn't matter.

The only noticeable difference between the razors was the neck. On the Sensor Excel the handle was right behind the blade. The neck allowed the blade give and flex up and down. On the Mach 3 the handle is in line with the blade. The neck flexes so the blade can move front to back as well as up and down. The result is its very hard to nick yourself with the Mach 3. The downside is you can't apply any real pressure to the blade. If you do, the neck bends and no pressure is applied to the actual blade. It didn't seem to make any difference in the shaving ability, but it was a bit unnerving. I guess I'm used to having more pressure when I press down on the razor. The other thing is the Mach 3 had trouble around my jaw line. It doesn't like changing directions quickly. I'm guessing its to prevent nicking, but it means I had to go over my jaw line a couple of times.

The design of the neck is pretty important, as I experienced when using a disposable razor. Yeah, I ended up having to use the shaving kit. The disposable razor had two blades, and was shaped a lot like the Sensor Excel. The only difference was the neck of it didn't give up or down or any other way for that matter. As a result, the shave was really rough. I had to get the angle of the blade just right, to get it to shave correctly. The wrong angle meant that I didn't get all that close and left hair, or got too close and got nicked or razor burn. I guess using the Sensor Excel made me lazy. I just had to get the approximate angle and the neck would flex to the correct one.

All of this is because I can't use an electric razor. When I first started shaving I was using an electric razor. But it had a bad habit of chewing up my face. My hair is slightly curly, especially on my neck. For some reason, the razor couldn't handle this. Probably because all the hair on my neck was pointed in a different direction. I'd have to go over my neck many times, just to get most of the hair. As a result, I got some pretty serious razor burn. I gave up on electrics early on in my shaving career.

All this thought about shaving brought me to the ultimate question: why do we even shave to begin with? Well, if you've ever seen a shaving commercial, you know the answer: women. Yep. All the shaving commercials, whether about razors, shaving cream, after-shave, pre-shave gel, or whatever, they all feature attractive women. Its never just a dude shaving. And who wouldn't believe this answer? After all, its from the same people who said three blades are better than two. Plus there's my personal experience. I took advice on shaving from a woman. She's never shaved her face or even used the product she recommended. But I wholeheartedly took her advice. Why? The answer is obvious.

France beats Brazil (1-0)

2006-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. France just beat Brazil 1 to nil in the World Cup.

Losers.

Mission trip report

2006-07-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico. Well, I got back earlier this week. It went well, save for one distraction.

I went with Elaine's church. We went with a group called YUGO, which is really targeted towards youth groups (despite we were a young adults group). Since we were such a small group, we were teamed with another small church from Idaho to make a team.

As a team, we were partnered with a local church. With the support of the church, we had a children's ministry (VBS style), women's ministry, a sport's ministry, and then helped out with an evening worship service. I served in the children's minstry.

I'm going to write about the trip here, but I'm going to back-date the posts. So I'll post an entry for each day, dated the day it happened.

Missions Trip, Day 11

2006-06-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

Monday was the day I was supposed to fly back to Dallas.

Elaine woke me up. I'm don't remember when though. Got a shower and had some cereal and bread for breakfast.

Elaine had to work that morning, so she was taking conference calls and whatnot. I borrowed her cell phone and made some calls. I finally got ahold of Mike. He hadn't gotten any of my messages. He agreed to pick me up from the airport, and offered to let me crash at his place if I couldn't get into my apartment. I called the apartment complex next, and let them know what happen. Fortunately, it was Carrie who picked up. She recognized me by voice. She agreed to get duplicates made of my keys and find me a gate key. I arrange for Mike to go pick up the keys. A while later, Mike called me back when he was in my apartment. I had a fun time trying to remember where I kept my spare car keys, and directing him to them. But he eventually found them.

Elaine also helped me get my flight info (since my itinerary was in the backpack that was stolen). We ended up having to go to her dad's office (a few blocks away) to print it out though. We also swung by Albertsons to get me some lunch, since I'd be in the airport during that time. Elaine also loaned me her backpack to carry all this stuff.

Even though my flight didn't leave until 2:30pm, Elaine got me there a little before noon. We didn't know how long security would be for me. First, I have to say the San Jose airport is not laid out well. They have lines waiting to just get into lines. And figuring which line I needed to get into to talk to a person wasn't easy. The man who helped me get a boarding pass wasn't fazed at all when I told him I didn't have any ID. He just printed out a pass, and wrote "ID stolen" at the top of it. As I would find out later, it also printed out "SSSS" in a couple places on the ticket.

The woman at the head of the security line didn't seem too fazed by me not having ID either. She circled the two "SSSS"'s on my ticket and sent me through. I went through the metal detectors like always. Then the screener looked at my ticket, saw the "SSSS" and told me I had been marked for a secondary screening. That involved him patting me down and going through my carry on bag. He tested several things in my bag for explosives.

But that was it. I waited for my flight to leave. It left on time and was uneventful.

Mike met me at the baggage claim. He gave me my keys and drove me out to the remote parking lot. I asked him to wait for me since I didn't know if I could get the car out. I had the keys to it and cash on me, but I didn't have the ticket they gave me on the way in. You know, the one they use to figure out how long you've been there. I had trouble tracking down someone who knew what happens when you don't have the ticket. I eventually just walked up to the man in the booth and asked him. At first he asked if I had a driver's license, and I said no. But he said the proof of auto insurance would work.

So I went and got my car and drove up to the booth. They took my auto insurance card and started work. I'm not sure how they knew, but they knew exactly how long I'd been there. All they did was make a phone call. Mike said they took pictures of my license plate on the way in. There was a little bit of confusion, because he didn't think I had money on me at first. So they were just going to send me a bill. But I had the cash and just settled up then.

I let Mike know that I was all squared away, so we split up and went home. I made sure I followed the speed limits, because I wasn't sure what would happen if I got pulled over with no license on me. It took me a little longer than usual to get home, but I made it.

Thus ended my missions trip to Tijuana, Mexico.

Missions Trip, Day 10

2006-06-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we made it the rest of the way back up to the Bay Area.

As usual John got up early. I'm not sure what time. He came back and got Tiger. About 7am or so they came back for Phil. Now Phil isn't easy to get up. At this point I was sort of half awake. I knew they were there, but I was still dozing a bit. I think Tiger was trying to get Phil up, in that brotherly sort of way. Phil didn't want to get up, so he was thrashing around -- and managed to kick me right in the gut. I sat up immediately, just out of reflex. I think I scared Tiger because he ran back to his bed. I just laid back down and tried to get some sleep.

I eventually got up, and got a hot shower. I then went and met Elaine at her room and most of us went down to the lobby. Eventually everyone showed up and we checked out. We asked the concierge about directions to an IHOP about two hours away. They wanted to give us directions to one just around the block. The idea was we'd just munch on snacks in the morning then stop for a brunch or early lunch at IHOP.

We took off and the drive up to IHOP was pretty uneventful. John and his sons had already eaten breakfast, so they just ordered drinks. Elaine and I ordered a dish and split it. Well, mainly I ate. Elaine was very engrossed in teaching Phil sign language.

We switched drivers for the next leg. Elaine was driving, with me riding shotgun. Noel and Melissa ended up passing out in the back seat. It was nice because it gave Elaine and me some time to talk about the missions trip.

About 1pm or so John and the other vehicle stopped to get lunch (since John and his boys didn't have brunch). The problem was they didn't call us until they had already stopped. We were right behind them, but in traffic. So we didn't see them get off, and they didn't tell us where they went until we had passed the exit. So we stopped at the next exit and got gas. We spoke with Kristy and there was a lot of confusion as to if we were ahead of them or behind them. Somehow we decided they were still ahead of us. So we drove north until we hit 152. At that point, we knew we were ahead of them. So then we had to decide if we would just meet them at the gas station we stopped at, or go all the way back to where they were. Eventually, Melissa made the executive decision to go all the way back to them. That took a while because we had driven so far past them.

Anyway, John split off in his van to go home, and the rest of us drove the rest of the way to Kristy and Noel's house. We unpacked everything out of the rental car that had to be returned that day. We originally thought we would go to a evening church service. But it was fairly out of the way for most of the people. So instead we just had a short worship and prayer time at Kristy and Noel's house. Kristy and Noel agreed to take one of the rental cars back that day.

Elaine, Joy, Carol, Melissa, and I all piled into Elaine's car. We dropped Melissa off at her parents house, then continued on to Casa Wong Ho Chao. We got everything unloaded. That's when we found out that Carol's car had been vandalized while we were gone. They smashed her driver's side window.

Neither Elaine or I were very hungry yet, so we just went on over to her parent's house. They were out for a walk when we got there. Elaine started nosing around for food, because we were getting a bit peckish. Her dad got back first, and we ended up talking about identity theft. He had clipped out an article about the veterans' records being stolen. It was pretty interesting because it gave advice on what to do when your identity had been stolen. Her mom got home soon afterwards, and actually cooked up some stir fry for us. It was broccoli and some sort of fish product. It was really tasty. We also had some pot stickers. This gave me a chance to show off my mad chopstick skillz. Those skillz that make Asians say: "Are you physically handicapped?" We also had some watermelon. It was good, but Elaine didn't want me spitting seeds at her. Spoilsport.

Her sister was there too. She's definitely an extrovert. She was telling us about her visiting her boyfriend in Denmark. She had a funny story involving rubber and her trying to be friendly and polite. It was quite amusing.

We washed some clothes because I didn't know how long it would be before I could sleep in my own bed (I had my keys stolen). After eating, Elaine and I watched most of a John Wayne movie. It was one of her dad's favorites: Hamtaro. We didn't make it all the way through though, because it got late and we were tired.

The bed they gave me was comfortable. I slept well.

Missions Trip, Day 9

2006-06-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday was supposed to be a day of traveling.

I got up at the usual time. A couple of the groups were most of the way packed by then. The shower was just as cold as all the other days. After the shower I took a walk, just to have some time to myself.

By the time I got back, some more people were up. We talked for a bit, and I packed up as much as I could of my stuff. We went to breakfast as soon as possible.

On the last day, each team was assigned a duty. We drew bathroom duty again. So after breakfast we went and clean the bathrooms. I got to scrub the sinks again.

We immediately got to the task of packing up. It took us a while, since some of us (ahem, me) didn't know what we were doing. But the Idaho guys were really helpful in getting the tents down and put away. During this time the coordinators came by to check the bathrooms and make sure they were clean. Some of the guys had to go back and re-clean some things that had gotten dirtied in the meantime.

We were one of the last groups to finish packing. We prayed before we left and agreed to meet up with the Idaho group on the other side of the border.

Crossing the border wasn't too bad. The line to it wasn't that long. They did ask our car for IDs. Fortunately the border guard believed me when I said I was a US national. He wanted to see the police report and the stolen passport report from the consulate. Its apparently all computerized, so he just looked it up from his terminal. The Idaho group said they didn't even get asked for ID. They had offered to let me ride with them across the border.

We met the Idaho group at a Ranch 99 in San Diego. We were originally thinking there would be lots of Asian restaurants around and we could pick one to go to. But all that was really there was a couple of restaurants inside the Ranch 99. So we went to one of them. I think the guys from CFC wanted to show the Idaho people some real Chinese food. It was a headache getting the food ordered though. We did it family style, so there was a lot of confusion of who would order what and if we would have enough food. I don't know if I technically ordered anything since I never saw a menu, and I didn't have any money to pay for it anyway. Not that it mattered since it was family style. I have to admit I was starting to lose patience though, because I was hungry and they were all arguing about who was getting what. I'm not that picky, so my feeling was "just order something, and I'll eat it. As long as its not the foot of chicken."

I felt much better after I got some food in me. The food was pretty good, especially the honey shrimp. Tiger packed away the food, while Phil barely touched his. He actually disappeared for about twenty minutes. Not sure where he went. He had piled food high enough on his plate that people thought it was a serving dish. We ended up having to order some more food because there were a few of us that were still hungry.

After we ate, we milled about the Ranch 99 for a while. I think the Idaho people went in search of chopsticks or something. I know they ended up with some Bolba (sp?). It looked pretty good. Elaine and I went looking for snack foods. We got some for us and some for Mike and Amanda. We got them Pocky, some White Rabbit, and other sweets.

We said goodbye to the Idaho people at the Ranch 99. We took a picture, and those of us who still had phones loaned them to the Idaho team so they could call home. (They had both their phones stolen).

Afterwards, we continued up to Burbank where we had a hotel waiting for us. We were originally going to go see "Cars" but decided we'd just go swimming instead. So we took showers (hot ones at that) and went down to the pool.

Swimming was a lot of fun. It'd been a while since I had the opportunity to. Mainly we just joked around and swam a little bit. There was the occasional water fight. We also were trying to teach Noel how to float. He floated a lot like a rock, and I don't mean pumice. He started getting the hang of it after a while.

On their way back to their room, Kristy and Noel found a sauna. I don't know who but someone came back to the pool and told us about it. Anyway, we all ended up in there. We talked about what to do the rest of the evening.

We went upstairs and took showers. Most of us were just going across the street to the Black Angus for supper. John decided that Tiger and Phil needed to be in bed by the time we were supposed to get back. So they went somewhere else to eat. The Black Angus was good. I hadn't had a steak in a while, so it definitely hit the spot. Elaine and I order a steak and some chicken strips and shared.

It was about 10:30pm or 11pm by the time we were done eating. Despite being pretty early, Elaine and I were tired. So we stopped by an ATM then called it a night.

Like before, I was sharing a room with John, Tiger, and Phil. This time, apparently Phil had drawn the short straw and I was to share a bed with him. When I got in, they were all asleep. Like Tiger before, Phil was managing to take up the entire bed. His body was on one side, while he was using the pillow from the other side. He was a lot harder to move than Tiger. I literally picked him and moved him to his side twice. But he immediately rolled back over to take up the entire bed. On the third try, Phil woke up long enough for me to point him to his side. I then put a pillow between us, for all the good that did.

Being in a real bed again, I slept pretty well.

Missions Trip, Day 8

2006-06-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

On Friday I got up at the usual time: when my unconsciousness ended. First job was the shower. Unlike the day before, I actually had soap and shampoo on the way in. The penguins playing in the water were nice enough to scrub my back.

After my daily hosing down, I decided I needed to take walk. There was a trail around the edge of the YUGO property that took you away from most of the people. Being an introvert, being around people all the time (especially large groups) is pretty draining on me. I was pretty burned out emotionally. I was actually really surprised that it took me until Friday before it started catching up to me. I figured the burn out would hit me Tuesday or Wednesday. Anyway, the walk allowed me to get away from people and recharge a bit.

I apparently made a friend on my walk. When I first started out, one of the many dogs that hang around the campsite followed. I don't know the dog's name, although he had one. He was about medium sized, and had long black fur, with tan underneath. I say "he" because it was marking its territory about every ten feet. On my way back to my tent, the dog took a different way back. But he kept sight of me, and met me at my tent. I sat down in a chair and he plopped down next to me. I gave him a little scratch on the head and then left him alone. Which apparently wasn't enough. Because he then stuck his head in my lap and started whimpering. So I was obligated to pet him. That lasted until Tiger and Phil noticed him and started harassing him.

Breakfast was something. Food allegedly.

The children's meeting ministry was really short. They went over the craft, then had the last team present a lesson. We got done so early that our team's children group just stayed and went over what we would do that day. We decided that we should keep the afternoon's as they were, but change the way we did the evening service. We felt that it was important to give as many invitations as possible. To that end, we would give two lessons in the evening. I was going to give the lesson on Cornelius, even though I hadn't prepared it. Because of the previous day's overcrowding we would keep the kids on street level as long as possible. We would also attempt to split up the group when doing crafts so they would have room and we could keep some semblance of control. We also spent time in prayer over that evening. It was something we hadn't done the previous day.

The worship service was about the same. The speaker finished up his talk on advocating being a foreign missionary.

My quiet time was mainly focused on keeping God's will in mind when I got back on Monday.

I don't remember what we did during team meeting time. The children's ministry didn't really meet since we had covered everything earlier.

Lunch was hamburgers. Afterwards I spent a little time going over the Cornelius lesson. I found out John was going to be translating for me, so agreed to try to meet at supper to go over it.

We headed out to the park next to the church. The kids showed up pretty quickly. We had the jump rope, frisbee, and a volleyball going. Noel, Brian (one of the Idaho youth), and I were taking turns turning the jump rope. It seemed like this time went by pretty quickly. One of the Idaho youth gave his testimony. We also passed out tracts and tried to go over them with the kids. I wasn't so successful with this since I don't speak Spanish.

We didn't want the kids showing up when we were having supper, so we decided to go to the park that was nine blocks away. Yep, the same park we got robbed at. We parked in a better, more visible spot. Also John, Noel, and Kristy took turns sitting in the vehicles while we had supper.

Right after wolfing down some food, I started working on the Cornelius lesson. John was eager to practice it, but I hadn't even got it together in English. I also got Kristy and Elaine to help make one of the visuals I wanted to use. We didn't spend a whole lot of time at the park, and went back to the church.

Once we got to the church, John and I did get together and go over my lesson. I think it really helped him make sure he knew all the words he needed. It helped me a lot just to have a real run through with it. Doing a run through of a lesson really helps me to cement it in my mind.

As soon as the first kids started arriving we started playing games. We had some jump rope, and then they played a Mexican game. I don't remember the name in Spanish, but in English it means Ocean, Earth, and Sky. They stand on a line (representing Earth) then "sky" is in front of the line, and "ocean" was behind the line. Someone would call out a sequence of ocean, earth, and sky. Everyone else had hop in the right place to follow that sequence. Anyone who messed up the sequence, was out. The game continued until there was only one person left.

After playing some games, Kristy gave a lesson on Peter escaping from prison. The kids were pretty attentive. We also had a couple of the Idaho youth sitting with the kids, which seemed to help. Kristy did the lesson by picking out kids to play the different roles. The kids loved that. Kristy gave an invitation and lead them in a prayer.

We sang songs after the first lesson. Being the helpful person I am, I held the poster board with the lyrics on it. It was something to do seeing I don't have a great voice and don't speak Spanish. We actually sang several songs that Joy picked out. At the end we sang slower songs in the hopes of calming the kids down.

Then it was my turn to present the Cornelius lesson. It went pretty well. I think I did much better presenting, even though I had a lot less preparation. I kept better eye contact (not staring at the translator waiting for them to finish). The eye contact also seemed to really help with keeping control and attention. If someone was misbehaving, I just had to make eye contact and they would straighten out. It just felt like everyone was paying a lot better attention than they had the previous days. I really feel that was the Holy Spirit's work.

I asked the kids if they knew what sin was. I got a lot of examples of sin. It was really refreshing to learn they at least knew what sin was. I then presented the rest of the gospel. Like Kristy, I lead them in the sinner's prayer. Its hard to tell if there were any decisions made. The kids all prayed out loud and together. It was hard to tell if they were just repeating what I said, or if they meant it.

Nevertheless, I was ecstatic that we got to present the gospel at least twice. I was happy that the kids at least had the opportunity to make a decision.

Afterwards we went down to the room to do crafts. We didn't have as many kids as Thursday. We had about twenty kids again, which was actually nice. Joy went over how to do the craft and passed out the materials. We took the quiet girls and Valentin, who was always well behaved, down to the back of the sanctuary. They worked on the crafts there quietly. That gave us even more room upstairs so the kids could spread out and work on the craft. The kids were well behaved and relatively quiet.

The evening service had special music and aspecial speaker again. But they didn't go over as much as they did on Thursday. At the end of the service, the church asked all of us (from CFC and Idaho) to come stand at the front of the church. Matt (Idaho youth pastor) prayed over the church. Then the church prayed over us, and there was some laying on of hands by the pastors. This church was one where everyone prayed at the same time, out loud.

After the service, we hung around for a while and talked with people. We also loaded up the van and SUV. I remember talking to a member who was going to school to be a pastor. Noel was there, and at his lead, we laid hands on the man and prayed for him. After a while, a lot of us ended up sitting in the van with the doors open waiting on a few people. The no-PDA rules were being bent a bit, and I had my arm around Elaine. He asked if we were dating, and we said yes. He came and sat in the passenger's seat and started talking to us. Elaine and John were there so they were translating for him and us.

I remember there being some small talk and such. Most of what he said I don't remember. But there was something that did stick out. He was one of the pastors who was laying hands on people at the end of the service. He said that when he laid hands on Elaine he felt an unction on her. Since I don't speak Spanish I'm a little hazy on what he said exactly. I also seemed to have gotten a few different translations of what he said. The gist of it was, he said Elaine had the potential of being a great worship leader. That she would be able to say the name of Jesus and people would be healed. Then he said I would be there, although he didn't go into any detail. He asked me if I had anything to ask. I said "no." I had no idea how to even respond to that.

We eventually said our last goodbyes and headed back to YUGO. We were way too late for the sharing time.

I went to bed in a good mood.

Missions Trip, Day 7

2006-06-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning was interesting, mainly due to the previous day's events. I got up about the same time (6-6:30am).

When I was getting my stuff ready to get a shower, I remembered that my toiletries were in the backpack that was stolen. So I had no soap or shampoo. Oh well. I needed to at least rinse off. Fortunately my shower picking skills are a notch above the rest, and I snagged one someone had left soap in.

Guess what? The shower was still cold.

Since I didn't have a Bible or journal, I couldn't do my devotion or anything in the morning. So I sat outside the tent in an attempt to be sociable. I'm not sure how successful was in that venture.

Breakfast was something we had before.

Thursday was Elaine's birthday. I had gotten her a card, but guess where it was? In the backpack that was stolen. So the group got together and made her a card. Noel did the front and everyone signed it. I rather liked it. We had to keep it hidden from her until it was ready to present. We were planning on presenting it during lunch (we had lunch duty) in front of everyone. Melissa really wanted to do the initial announcement and I figured having someone with a big mouth do it would be a good idea. (haha)

I also started asking around if anyone had spare or extra toiletries. Fortunately Melissa had snagged several extras from the hotel earlier. She had extra soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and... wait for it... a shaving kit. She was particularly proud of the shaving kit. She kept asking me to shave, just so I would use it. No one had extra deodorant, so Elaine loaned me money and I went and bought some from the YUGO store.

The children's ministry meeting was the usual. They went over crafts and had a couple of teams present a lesson. They also got a few teams to demonstrate some songs they had learned during the week.

The worship service was good. The speaker went further into his message of convincing youth to be foreign missionaries.

I had to borrow a bible for my devotions and quiet time. My focus on Thursday was mainly staying on task and not allowing the theft to distract me.

We had our team meeting time. The children's ministry just picked which lessons we were going to present.

We had lunch early because we had lunch duty. I was originally assigned to wash dishes, but quickly was promoted to server. They obviously saw my potential in gravy serving. It was pretty easy. We ran out of mashed potatoes pretty quickly. They had parmesan chicken, and they didn't know if they had enough. So half way through, they started cutting the chicken in half. Then at the end, they started giving out whole ones again.

Anyway, Melissa made sure the kitchen coordinators knew what was up. Melissa and I would go out in front everyone and make the announcement. One of the coordinators lured Elaine out to where she needed to be. Elaine was wiping tables, and she kept telling Elaine to wipe one that was closer and closer to us. Anyway, Melissa pretty much did all the talking, while I modeled the card. We didn't give out her age because I didn't know how sensitive she'd be about it. We were right next to the table with all the coordinators. They commented on how young Elaine looked, and how she didn't look 30.

I also told Elaine what the card I had bought her said. It was extremely sweet and sappy. She was suitable impressed.

We finished up the kitchen duties, which didn't take much.

Afterwards, I checked with the office to see if the phones were up yet. They weren't. I wanted to check with the US Consulate and see if I could get out of the country.

After lunch, we headed out to the church. On the way I used Elaine's phone (she had a Cingular signal) to call the US passport services. I let them know my passport was stolen, and asked how I could get ID to get back into the country. She said I had to file a police report, then go to the US consulate before they could issue any ID. She was nice enough to give me the address of the consulate in Tijuana.

So at this point Elaine and I left the rest of the group to walk to the church. We went to one of the pastor's home to get help. One of them agreed to go with us and help us file and police report and find the consulate. At this time, I was making phone calls to Mike and parents trying to get a hold of a copy of my birth certificate. The woman told me I would probably need one.

We went back to the park to get a vehicle. Noel had the keys and he agreed to drive us around. We had to first take the pastor to his house to get changed, get his ID, etc. After, he took us to the local police department. It didn't Elaine and the pastor long to find where we needed to go. The officer was really helpful and we got police reports for all the important documents that were stolen. The pastor and Elaine were great at getting things translated and communicated correctly. When we got done we went back out to the car, and reviewed the reports. That's when we found out they spelt my name wrong. The pastor and Elaine felt it was serious enough to go back. Fortunately the records were electronic, so the officer just fixed my name and reprinted the reports.

We left to go find the US Consulate. About this time, my parents got back to me and told me they didn't have a copy of my birth certificate. They just had a birth record from the hospital where I was born. I only knew where one copy was, and I would need Mike to get it for me. But he hadn't returned any of my calls. On the way to the consulate, we had to stop a couple of times so the pastor could ask for directions.

When we first got there, the guards told us the section we needed to talk to was already closed. Their hours were 8am to 11am Monday - Thursday. We decided to go up anyway, just so we knew where it was. We also copied down some numbers given on the window there, and called the after hours numbers. I was told it wasn't quite after hours yet, and to call back in an hour. By a person, not a recording.

There was a person at the window, and the pastor was talking to her. She eventually told us there was someone there who could help us right now. So an older lady came up to the window and spoke with me. I told her my passport had been stolen. She told me that I wouldn't have a problem getting back across the border (I am a very pale man), and that she could go ahead and file a stolen passport report. I agreed that that would be best.

So security let me in. They were Mexican and didn't speak any English. So we communicated through gestures. It was pretty standard. Metal detector, etc. After going through, I had to go outside (but inside the consulate). That took me around to another outside door that went back inside. I'm sure there's a logical reason for this, but I don't know what it was. Why not an indoor hallway? Anyway, I filled a report there, and the woman assured she would file a report immediately. She also gave me a copy of the report, which had my passport number on it so it could be checked (this would be important later).

All this done, I felt a lot better. We went back to the park where the kids were playing. They were actually wrapping up by then. I would later learn that I was supposed to give one of my lessons that afternoon (that I had just missed). Instead, Joy had to give it. Not only that, we had all the visuals and such that was supposed to be used in the SUV we were driving around. But Joy told me it went really well because Annais and Sapphira had a lot of people dying.

We went back to the church to eat and get ready for the evening service. Supper was the usual sandwiches. The only problem was the kids knew where the church was and showed up while we were trying to eat. It was also the time we cornered one of the pastors and had him give us a history of the church. It was amazing to hear how God was working through them. Their big concern was buying the land they were currently using, then improving it. The problem was they had no money. All of it went for medication and running the rehab center.

We decided to start the children's ministry outside. They did songs and games up on street level. Meanwhile Noel and I were downstairs in the room preparing Noel's lesson. Noel was going over it, and I was holding the visuals and just trying to be helpful. After running around Tijuana filing police reports and consulate reports, it was hard to get back into the groove of ministry. Anyway, they got done with the songs and games sooner than Noel or I expected. We went up to street level and Noel gave his lesson. Being the helpful person I am, I held the visuals. We had a hard time keeping the attention of some of the kids. A lot of boys sat in the back and didn't pay attention.

Afterwards we went down to the room to do crafts. The craft for that day was comparatively complicated. Lots of cutting and gluing and string things together with yarn. So there was a lot of mass confusion when trying to do the craft. Plus we had kids still arriving. We ended up with more kids than we had the night before. We were so packed into the room, that the kids didn't have room to spread out to do the craft. We had kids out in the "hall" (the "hall" was outdoors) we were so crowded. The boys were also getting way out of control, and refused to listen.

This was also the anniversary night of the church. The evening service had special music and a special speaker. This meant the service was going very long. So even though the craft was really difficult and took a good amount of time, the kids still got done before the service was over. We couldn't just let them go, or they'd disturb the evening service. So we had to keep the kids corralled, which was very difficult, and get them to work on some activity sheets.

Afterwards, we had to clean up. It was insane the mess that was made. But we got everything cleaned up and pack away. We left for YUGO.

We got there late and the sharing service was already over.

It was a very long and tiring day. I went to bed as soon as possible.

Missions Trip, Day 6

2006-06-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

Wednesday. Whew. As someone would say at the end "it was our best day and our worst day."

It started out the same as the other days. I got up about the same time.

Shower. Cold. Still.

After doing my impression of a polar bear, I read my devotions and worked on the YUGO journal.

Breakfast was the same as it was on Monday. Or Tuesday. Whatever.

The children's ministry meeting was about the same. They went over the craft and had a couple of teams give one of their lessons. Just about everyone was acting them out.

The worship service was the same. The speaker went on in his message of trying to convince the youth they should go into foreign missions to a land that had never had a missionary. I remember him really stressing obeying God as opposed to living a good Christian life. He was talking about how raising Christian kids was a given, as was most of the other things Christians strive for. He really railed against the comfortable Christian life that so many Christians have picked out for themselves. I remember getting a lot of this message. It really challenged me to make sure that I was living God's will and not mine.

After the worship service was quiet time. I remember Joy, John, and few other people talking about the speaker. He was pretty galvanizing and was very focused on foreign missions to places that have never had a missionary before. The conversation was about if people agreed with him and all his points, etc. John made some good points about the speaker being a soldier (metaphorically. The speaker also used the same word to describe himself). He was trying to kick the youth in the butt to knock them out of their comfort zones, and get them seriously thinking about missions, and if that's where God was calling them.

During my quiet time, I found myself dwelling on the speaker's message. I had been really challenged about following God's will, and not my own. Its something I've always struggled with, and this just brought it back to the front. I made a list of agendas and goals of mine that got ahead of God's will in my life. Number one was my career. I logically followed through with answering questions like: What would it look like if I followed God's will? and How do I ensure I'm following God's will? I actually wrote it down at the time, for all the good that did. It was a very productive time for me.

During the team meeting, the children's ministry decided that we were going to go to the same park as the sport's ministry. It was close by and there were kids around. We actually would play in the road right in front of the park since it wasn't heavily traveled. That way we didn't interfere with the sport's ministry.

Lunch. It was some sort of food-like substance.

After lunch, we went to the church. The children's ministry originally had the idea of starting a few people playing, and then sending some people out inviting. But after a little bit of playing, it became apparent that no inviting was necessary. We just had the frisbee and jump rope going, but that was enough. We had about 20 or 25 kids there playing. It was great. I didn't play any frisbee, but turned the jump rope a whole lot.

After playing for a while, we decided to give one of the lessons. We managed to get most of the kids sitting down in some shade. The "hook" of the lesson was to tie a kid's legs together and have them try to run. I picked two kids to do this, and had them try to run a telephone pole and back. I probably tied their legs too closely together because they just hopped their way over to the pole. About that time, the ribbon came off, and they just ran back. It was quite amusing. The lesson was on Peter and John and when God healed the lame man. They kids listened fairly well, but there were a few distractions. I don't think the lesson went as well as it could have though. I was having trouble working with a translator, in this case Elaine. I kept looking at her to see when she was done translating. I also should have been closer to the kids, and kept better eye contact. Oh well. I didn't present the gospel this time because they were getting very restless. Instead I just invited them to the church that night, and to invite friends as well.

We played some more, then we packed it in to go have supper. We decided to go to the other park (the one 9 blocks away). Now on Monday and Tuesday, we had gone to the church first and locked our bags in a room there. But on this day, we didn't go to the church first, so some of us had our bags with us. The park was "nice" so some of us just left our bags in the van.

We went into the park and had supper. It was nice to not have supper in the church.

When we got back to the van, things went south. We discovered someone had broken into van by jimmying the lock. They stole three bags. Matt's, the Idaho youth paster, Alan's, one of the Idaho adults, and mine. Matt and Alan had some things in their bags, but really only their cell phones were of worth.

Unfortunately, I was not so lucky. I had only brought two bags with me from Texas. A soft-side and a backpack. The soft-side contained all my clothes. Since I was packing for ten days, my soft-side didn't have any room for anything but clothes. So my toiletries, Bible, etc were all in my backpack, which was stolen. I had also been storing my valuables in there, like my cell phone, passport, wallet, and keys. On Monday and Tuesday the bag was locked up in a room in the church so it was fine. Unfortunately, being locked in a van is not the same thing. It was not a smart move on my part.

As everyone I spoke to afterwards was more than happy to point out, I shouldn't have done that. I should have kept my passport hidden on my body (lots of ways to do that), and kept my wallet and keys on me.

Meanwhile, we had to get back to church and prepare for the evening service. The robbery was a pretty big distraction. Elaine and I ended up praying at the church that God would help us put this aside and do God's work.

We had discovered that there was a room above the sanctuary that we could use for the children's ministry. Which was a good thing. Because before we knew it, about twenty kids showed up. At first, we tried to keep them in the service, with the understanding that after the music we would take them up to the room and do crafts. But they kept running in and out, so we rounded them up and took them upstairs. We did crafts and Joy gave a lesson. The timing was good; the kids finished up about the time the evening service was over. The kids were fairly well behaved, but there were a few kids who were hard to keep from disrupting.

After the service we went back to YUGO. We told the coordinators and such about the robbery. Unfortunately, their phone and internet system was down. The children's coordinator let me borrow her cell phone to make some calls. I called all my credit card companies and canceled the cards. I also called Cingular and canceled my phone. They apparently only got to a couple of my credit cards, and some of the transactions had failed. I felt a lot better after making the calls canceling everything.

By the end of the phone calls, the sharing service was over. I think a few people from our team did manage to go, but I was on the phone and didn't make it.

Despite all the action during the day, I slept pretty well.

Missions Trip, Day 5

2006-06-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

Tuesday didn't start off as early as Monday. I think a full day on Monday had taken the edge off most of the youth. I still think I ended up getting up about 6am or 6:30am.

Shockingly, the showers were still cold.

Although I was feeling better than Monday, I still wasn't feeling all that sociable. So I stayed in my tent and read the Bible and worked on the Journal thing we were supposed to do for YUGO. It was mainly a reflection on the previous day. It was trying to get you to think about how things were working out vs how you imagined them.

Breakfast was the same as Monday, but with a different dish.

The children's ministry meeting was pretty short. They had each team give a high and a low of the previous day. I'm not sure what our high was, actually. Our low was, "no one showed up." All the other teams said they had about 20 kids show up. After the high/lows they showed us how to do the craft for that day. Like most crafts, it was really easy.

Then came the practice lesson. Since I had been nominated to give the one for the team, I had to give mine on Tuesday (since both my lessons were Tuesday lessons). The group that went before me actually acted theirs out. Since we were made up of two different churches, we had talked about it, but never really practiced it. So I went up there with Nate (aka "John") and gave it. Nate just helped out with the hook (I need to punch someone bigger than me) and hold the "visuals". I'm not sure how it went. Most everyone was giving me a freaky look. I'm not sure if that was because I was doing a bad job, or I was the oldest looking youth they had ever seen.

The morning worship service was next. I was feeling better, so I participated. That said, the woman leading it has one of the highest pitched voices I have ever heard. There were times where it was physically painful for me to listen to her. That and the sound was cranked way loud. It also made singing along difficult, since I don't have a high pitched voice.

The speaker of the week, started laying out his message for the week. He basic message was "You should all be foreign missionaries to places that have never had a missionary before. Go now, go now, go NOW! Why are you still here?!?!" That's only a partial exaggeration. He had a lot of good points throughout the week though. He talked about how a lot of people tag God onto the end of their life. As in, if they have time, they might do what God wants. As opposed giving everything over to God, and doing what He wants first.

After the worship service, was the daily quiet time. I had been struggling with a bad attitude so far, so I devoted my time to that. I analyzed what I was feeling the best I could. Then I tried to figure out why I was feeling what I was. I found that I resented any kind of assumed leadership over me. I found that I felt like I was being treated like a youth and not an adult. I also found that I was still having serious doubt about God using me. I felt that the cause of all of this was simply me being selfish. I was focusing on my wants and needs, instead of why God had me here in the first place. I also was worrying about how I could work to do good things, instead of trusting God to work through me. I used my quiet time to ask God to give me humility and the heart of a servant. I felt much better after my quiet time.

After the quiet time was the team meetings. I'm not sure what was said during the team meeting, but I do remember the ministry meeting. Joy, Kristy, Noel, and I talked about how to actually get kids to show up. We also tried to come up with a "Plan B" in case all we got were the church kids like Monday. We decided to go to a nearby park and play and invite kids that way. In the evening service, we do crafts like before, but we'd include a little bit of the stories.

Lunch. Same as before, but different.

After lunch we left for the church. We got there a little before we did on Monday. The children's ministry went to a local park. The park was about nine blocks away, and not the same park the sports ministry was at. Because of cultural differences, we didn't want little kids around when the big kids/adults were playing in the sports ministry. The park was nice. Probably a little too nice. Noel (aka Bob), Tiger (aka George), Cat, me (aka Jim), and sometimes Elaine were playing four square. I found out everyone plays by slightly different rules. I'm not sure if Mexican kids play four square because no one paid us any attention, much less asked to play. They had a jump rope going too, which was more successful. That actually attracted some attention and some kids joined in for a while. Unfortunately, this was a more affluent part of town, and none of the kids (or their parents) wanted to go to the drug rehab church.

After spending time at the park inviting kids, Noel shuttled us back to the church using the SUV. We waited for the kids and had supper there (sandwiches, as always). None showed up.

The evening service went as before, except this time I didn't even bother with the collared shirt. There were several members of the congregation who showed up in t-shirts, plus I was going to be in the back, working with kids. Like before, they sang lots of Spanish songs that I didn't understand. But it had a nice beat, and you could dance to it. And in this church, someone probably did.

The crafts went really well. There was a small turn over in kids. We only had five all together, and two of them had been there on Monday. Kristy went through Monday's lesson on Jesus really, really quickly. That was so we could explain Monday's craft (that some of them were doing): "Why does Jesus shoot into the sky like a rocket ship?" I also got involved this time. I got to explain the new craft, since it was tied to the invitation of the lesson I was supposed to have done. It was a folded piece of paper with gift paper on the outside. On the inside was Jesus enclosed in a heart. The message being: having Jesus in your heart is a gift from God. Anyway, I got to present a very concise version of the gospel to explain the craft. I also got to help one of the kids, Valentin. He was there on Monday. He was very quiet and well behaved. I provided him with crayons and glue.

Elaine was back there translating for us. I remember her asking Valentin what the word for glue was. This amused me because I actually knew the answer (goma). We had just learned it in our children's ministry time that day.

After the service, we went back to YUGO. We managed to get back earlier than Monday, I think. We even made it back in time for snacks.

I don't remember going to the sharing time, but I guess I must have. But it was the last time we made it.

After the sharing time, I went to bed. It had been a long day, but I considered it better than Monday.

Missions Trip, Day 4

2006-06-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

Monday got off to an early start. Did I mention John gets up early? He was gone by the time I woke up the first time. Our tents were right in front of the main bathrooms. I didn't have a clock or watch so I just got up when it sounded like a reasonable number of people were already up, and I felt reasonable rested. On Monday, a lot of people were up early. I think I ended up getting up between 5am and 6am, closer to 5am.

I had slept pretty well. We had gotten ear plugs from the hotel the night before. Which was a good thing, since John snores pretty loud.

Despite it being hot in Mexico, the showers were cold. Very cold. It took my breath away the first couple of times I stuck my head under the water. Fortunately, it didn't take long to get accustomed to the water.

Breakfast was at 7:30am, so I had plenty of time to kill. I still wasn't in a great mood, so I decided to stay in the tent and read my bible.

Breakfast was forgettable. It was the standard "we're cooking for a lot of people" type cafeteria fare. It wasn't bad. And when you're hungry, it tastes pretty good.

After breakfast was the ministry meetings. I was in the children's ministry, so I went to that one. The coordinators introduced themselves, etc, etc. One of the things they were going to do is ask each team to present one of the lessons during the ministry meetings. So each team would have to present one of their lessons sometime during the week. I immediately knew I was going to be the one from our team to present. I didn't really want to, so I didn't volunteer, hoping someone else would step up. But Joy asked me if I would, and I said yes. Oh well.

On Monday, they flipped the schedule around a bit, so I think we had team meetings next. We were supposed to prepare the team for what we were going to be doing that day. We could also split into ministry groups and go over more stuff there. I actually don't remember what we talked about during this time. I wasn't really in a good mood. And as we would find out later, it didn't really matter what we planned for Monday, 'cause it wouldn't go like we thought.

Next was the worship time. Not being in a good mood, I didn't really participate. I didn't feel that I meant the words in the worship songs. The speaker for the week was a man who had been a missionary to a remote tribe in Papa New Guinea. On this day, he just introduced himself and told a little about his ministry.

After worship, was lunch.

After lunch, we had bathroom duty. Not bad. It had been cleaned recently and we had plenty of people. So it didn't take long.

After "special services" (what they called bathroom duty), we piled into the van and a SUV to drive out to the church we'd be working with. Apparently someone had decided we should all wear our YUGO shirts the first day. I'm not sure why, because if you're trying to not freak the locals out, you probably shouldn't have a bunch of gringos show up dressed the same way. Maybe its just me. Anyway, not only had no one told me this, no one had given me a YUGO shirt. Fortunately Melissa was kind enough to go find me a shirt, after someone told me I was supposed to be wearing one.

The pastors of our church actually came out to the YUGO campsite to lead us to the church. So we crammed everybody inside the van and drove out. The church is actually part of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Right next to a building where a drug dealer works. I'm not sure if that's the best location or the worst location.

The actual church building was below street level. You had to take wooden stairs down that a Picasso aficionado had designed. There was kind of a courtyard there at the bottom. The sanctuary was to your right, a so-called bathroom to your left, and bunk rooms in front of you. As you might imagine, it was very run down. There were cats and kittens everywhere. Also a couple of chickens. They cooked out in the courtyard.

We went into the sanctuary and met with one of the pastors. We went over what they had done to prepare for us, and what we planned on doing. They were coming up on their three year anniversary so they had already been passing out flyers for that. We prayed and decided that we should go out door to door inviting people to our women's and children's ministries. The sports ministry would just go over to a local park and start playing.

The women's ministry must have got their stuff together quickly, because they left before us. Joy was going out inviting, but wanted someone to go with her. I decided I'd rather go out inviting than wait on kids to show up, so I volunteered to go with her. Unfortunately, the women's ministry took all the translators with them. So the pastor paired Joy and I with a couple of the brothers from the church. Except they didn't speak any English, just Spanish.

The inviting went pretty well considering. Mainly the brothers from the church did all the talking. I would just smile, maybe say "Hola", and hand out a flyer. We did run across a few people who spoke English. One man was a Mormon. He refused a flyer, but he told me that he understood going door to door. Another man was giving me a hard time after he found out I didn't speak any Spanish. He told me to go to school. We ended up stopping by the park that the sports ministry was playing at. They seemed to have a lot people there playing.

After inviting, we went back to the church and waiting for kids to show up. None did. At one point someone said "Hey Andy, there's kittens outside." I thought they said "Hey Andy there's kids outside." So I went outside looking for the kids. Elaine had a good laugh at my expense.

We had supper (sandwiches) and prepared for the evening service. Most Mexican churches are fairly conservative, so I was supposed to wear a collared shirt. Unfortunately, mine was long sleeves, and it was very hot in the church. I didn't understand any of the songs (all in Spanish, and none were English translations). So I just clapped along the best I could. Noel gave his testimony. During this time, we noticed that some of the church kids had shown up. Kristy had the idea to take the kids to the back of the sanctuary and do crafts with them.

The crafts went well. The kids were well behaved, and seemed to enjoying making something. There was one little girl who didn't like strangers though, and didn't want to do anything. Her mom (I think) was there, but that didn't seem to help. There were only about four or five kids and they were jammed around the table. I didn't get all that involved because there wasn't room, and because we had such a high teacher to kid ratio. So I just ended up picking out stickers for when the children finished their crafts.

After the service, we hung around for a while. Some people ended up talking with people in the congregation. We finally packed up and headed back to YUGO. When we got back, we unpacked, and went to the sharing service. I think Monday was the night we wrote down what we felt was holding us back, and taped it up on a van. Each day someone from the team would go down and remove a piece of the paper.

At the end of the day, I was feeling a lot better than when I started it. I think actually being at the church and attempting to do some ministry put me in a much better mood. It was more of a "ok, this is why I'm here" kind of thing.

I went to bed as early as possible. It wasn't long after the sharing time was over.

Missions Trip, Day 3

2006-06-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

Technically, the first thing I remember on Sunday was the alarm clock going off. Someone had reset it or something so it went off at midnight. I let it go for a while, hoping John or someone would get it. But apparently I'm a much lighter sleeper than John/Tiger/Phil. I don't think John even stopped snoring. So I got up and turned it off.

I slept fairly well. Every so often I woke up, pushed Tiger back over to his side, or turned over, then went back to sleep. John is a very early riser. He got up about 4am or so to go get breakfast. He got back around 6am or so (I think he just biked around) to get Tiger and have breakfast. I think about 7am or so he came back to get Phil. As I would find out, Phil is not easy to get up.

I don't remember what time I got up. But I had the last hot shower I would have for a while.

We went to Newsong Church. Its called a multi-cultural church. It looked like it was about 80% Asian. There's not anything wrong with that, but I would have described it as an Asian church, not multi-cultural. I guess I envision a multi-cultural church having a more ethnically balanced congregation. i.e. A bunch of Chinese people plus white dude doesn't make you a multi-cultural church. It just makes you a Chinese church and a white dude.

I remember spending a long time looking for seats. There plenty of open ones. But there was apparently something wrong with them. I'm not sure if we were looking for someone, or for quieter seats (it was loud there) or what. I'm pretty easy to please, so my feeling was "just sit somewhere." I don't think God had blessed one chair more than the other.

After church we continued driving. We met up with the Idaho church at a park near the border. We had a small worship time, then an ice breaker. They taped a name to your back, then you played twenty questions with people you didn't know to figure out who you were.

The Idaho people were nice. Your standard Baptist church youth group. A lot like the one I went through.

We also used the time to meet in our ministry groups. The children's group went over our lessons again and prayed. I found out that despite our feelings of unpreparedness, the Idaho group was even less prepared when it came to giving the lessons.

Oh, during the meet & greet for the children's ministry, Noel jokingly introduced himself as "Bob." Somehow I got labeled as "Jim." Tiger and Phil were there, so not only did the names stick, but they had to get nicknames too. Tiger went by "George" and Phil eventually went by "Alex" (after changing his nickname a few times).

We left the park to go to Albertsons to get some food for supper (since we'd be in Mexico that night, and YUGO wasn't providing). We then went on to the border. We didn't even get stopped, just waved right through.

Not that it mattered because we immediately got lost. We eventually stopped and John asked for directions. He got us most of the way there, but we got lost on some dirt roads. Alan, one of the Idaho adult leaders, then took the lead, and got us the rest of the way to YUGO.

Once there, YUGO gave us all the rules, etc. The Idaho youth were acting like... well, youth. We had to set up our tents and unpack. That took a while. I've been camping many times, but never with a tent; always with a camper. So I basically stood around watching everyone unpacking and setting up tents. This wasn't helping my "what the hell am I doing here" mood.

We also had bathroom duty that night. It wasn't that bad since people had just gotten there, and it had been cleaned just before.

There was a worship meeting that night, but I definitely wasn't feeling like it. I actually don't even remember if I went or not. I think I might have caught part of it. It did not have an impression on me.

I spoke with Elaine that night. I told her I didn't really want to be there. More accurately, I didn't feel that I belonged there. I think it was a mixture of being unsure of how God could use me, and all the youth, and the mickey mouse rules that come with them. That, and I don't think I had much of a servant's attitude. I was feeling pretty selfish at the time.

I was ready for the day to be over, so I went to bed as soon as I could.

Missions Trip, Day 2

2006-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

The second day was spent traveling, mostly.

We started out by driving back over to Kristy and Noel's house. That was the rendezvous point. We picked up Melissa on the way.

Once there, we pack everything into the rental cars and figured out the driving arrangements. We had six registered drivers on the rental cars so we could rotate. Kiki was also there to pray over us and send us off.

The driving was pretty uneventful.

We stopped in Irvine for the night. We got a quick supper then went back to the hotel. Once back at the hotel, we started some last minute preparations for the missions trip. The children's ministry mainly reviewed our stories.

During this time, I think a lot of us were starting to feel really unprepared and inadequate. I know I did. I had my lessons down pretty well, but I was having a lot of doubts about how God could actually use me. I don't speak any Spanish. I don't really relate well with kids. I am a strong introvert, and definitely don't feel natural in front of groups.

We didn't go over all the lessons, but instead prayed, and really just gave everything over to God.

I think I got to bed around 11pm. I was sharing a room with John, and his two kids, Tiger and Phil. Tiger and Phil are 7.5 and 6 respectively. I was sharing a bed with Tiger. He was already asleep by the time I got in, and despite being small was managing to take up the entire bed. He was pretty easy to move over though.

I slept pretty well.

Missions Trip, Day 1

2006-06-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

The first day for me was really Friday, since I had to travel out to the SF Bay area.

I couldn't find a ride to the airport (waited too late, and Mike was out of town), so I just drove there. I left early because I knew traffic down TX-121 would be bad, especially with the construction. By the time I got to the airport, the Remote North parking lot was full. Fortunately, Remote South was still open. The remote parking lots are reasonable, only $6/day.

I got there with plenty of time. More than I knew. My flight got delayed because the plane we were using got in late. Apparently there was some bad weather around the DFW area and planes were being routed around it. So my flight left late, then it took longer to get to San Jose. We had to be routed around the same bad weather that had impeded the flight on the way in. The suspense apparently got to the kid two rows in front of me. She threw up, which really added to the atmosphere.

By the time I got to the San Jose airport, I was not in a particularly sunshine-y mood. The flight was long and I was very tired. Elaine met me there (she seemed very chipper at the moment), we got my bag, then went to the car rental.

So before I arrived, Elaine had been at the car rental center. We had reserved a minivan for the missions trip. By the time she got there, they were out. So they offered her a full sized van for the same price. So she signed all the paper work, paid for the van, then went to the other side of the airport to pick me up.

When we got to the car rental together, we went straight to the parking lot to pick up the van. But it wasn't there. The man handing out keys seem really confused. He told us we had to go back to the counter to figure out where the van was. It didn't take long to figure out they had rented the van out from under us in the time it took Elaine to go to the other side of the airport to pick me up. Nice.

They kept telling us we should have taken the key. Apparently their booking system is as sophisticated as "do we have the key?" If they have the key to a car, they're renting it. So never have a car rental employee hold they keys to your car. They'll rent it out. It doesn't matter if you've paid for the car.

Anyway, Elaine and the woman renting the car spent a lot of time going back and forth, trying to work something out. They didn't have any more vans, so they offered to rent us two cars. The problem was, the cost kept coming out to more than what they were going to charge us for the van.

Meanwhile, my sunny disposition was not improving. I was getting more fatigued and dealing with the whole "are we going to have transportation or not" was not helping. At one point they needed my license to put me on the driver's list. Normally, I wouldn't have minded. But I was tired, and felt like I was being forced into driving because of the rental company's mistake. Elaine noticed my deteriorating condition and called Kristy and Noel to come out and drive one of the cars back to their place. The idea was I could just crash at their place until the next day.

But Elaine got everything worked out shortly thereafter. That's when Kristy and Noel arrived, and we drove the rental cars (two of them) back to Kristy and Noel's house.

Elaine and I then continued on to her parent's house. She pointed me to a bed and told me what time to get up.

I slept like a rock.

Yet another personality test

2006-06-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

I took it to compare/contrast what I got with sweetie.

Exciting.

Not quite sure what the point is.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|	20%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|	16%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|	16%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|	16%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|	16%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Female cliche	\|\|	10%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Towel Day

2006-05-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

Don't leave home without your towel tomorrow.

You don't want people to think you're not a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is, do you?

I thought not.

Interview with the creator of STL

2006-05-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

Most of the interview is really dry, but there's some good stuff in there.

My favorite quote:

"So, putting it simply, STL is the result of a bacterial infection."

Politics & Money

2006-04-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Found this while browsing Digg. It shows how many campaign contributions by zip code using google maps.

As for my area, can you tell what the dominant political party is? Can you say "Republicans"? I knew you could.

There are perks to living in the south.

Lilliputian Geek Humor

2006-03-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

Its time for my geek humor corner. Technically this entire blog could be considered geek humor (sans the humor), but bear with me now. This is quite amusing, I assure you. Assuming, of course, you have a CS or EE degree and you are easily amused. I know for one that I fall into that catagory.

If you don't, I'm sure its ok. God probably still loves you anyway.

Anyway, I'm working on porting a Mac/PowerPC application to Mac/Intel. As any geek worth his weight in Cheetos knows, that means dealing with big endian vs little endian issues. The problem I was looking at had to deal with strings of text. I'm looking at the string in the debugger, and everything looks fine. So I decide to actually to view the string as raw memory.

Well now. That's funny. In a "that's going to ruin my entire day" sort of way.

Silly me, here I was on a little-endian machine thinking I'd see little-endian string. But that's where I'd be wrong. I was now staring at a big-endian string (a string literal built by the compiler, no less).

BUHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

I guess you had to be there.

Possible new contract

2006-03-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

My business partners and I were reviewing an NDA for a potential contract today. We were marveling at the dense prose used in it. I mean, the lawyers really earned their keep on this one. No one with a soul was going to understand it.

Anyway, that got us to thinking about NDA's in general. I suggested that NDA's should be written in a lighthearted poem format. My suggestion was:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Please work for us
But don't tell anyone you knew

Its a good thing I'm an engineer.

The other guys tried, but they were even less successful than I was. I mean theirs didn't even rhyme. psh. Whoever heard of a poem that didn't rhyme?

After coming to the realization that we weren't poets, we started talking about how much we should charge this sucker. I mean mark. I mean customer. Customer. Whatever.

Its always a delicate balance. If you charge too much, they assume you're trying to rob them outright. But you charge too little, they assume you're going to steal something on the way out. So you have aim for the price range that says "I'm probably not a thief."

Regardless, I'm pretty excited about this. Its always good to have new suckers come in. I mean customers.

IM from an old acquaintance

2006-03-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

I got an IM from an acquaintance today. He works for Apple these days and was asking me if I was interested in a job. It would involve me moving back to California, but I would get to work for the Mothership.

I told him no, there's only one reason why I'd move back to California at this point.

Although I wasn't interested in the offer, its always nice to hear things like this. Its good to know someone's keeping you in mind, and it definitely helps the 'ol ego.