X-mas pics

Newly updated photo album containing pictures from the weekend at Jason and Winter's house in Redlands. We had a delightful x-mas party complete with authentic Espana appetizers, Christmas Jeopardy, and a frustrating game of Battle of the Sexes. I couldn't believe it - those questions were sexist! Those in attendance were mainly from the old PLNU crew, but J and Winter also have made new married couple friends to replace us. Kal and I have nicknamed them Kosh, Ballie, Machel, Frenda, and this is my replacement, Lola:



Good times were had. Brenda and I stayed the night on Saturday and then woke up and ate with Josh and Kallie before they had to leave for Robyn's surprise 50th b-day party up in Stockton. Brenda and Winter then played Halo for 7 hours. No kidding - they started around 11am or 11:30am and stopped when we left at 6:20pm. I think Jason and I played a total of 40 minutes and were yelled at to stop. Well not yelled at, but forcefully suggested. Crazy girls and their Halo. Jason and I played darts a lot on his new dart board and downloaded music and made mocha frappacino drinks. A delightful weekend and great to spend time with friends around the holidays.

Audio

OH HOLY.... NIGHT

Going Steady?

Go steady for a while with several different girls. Enjoy it. Learn about yourself, and different kinds of girls. But don't expect too much. Don't make any commitments. That makes sense.

It's all so clear to me now!!!

A R N O C O R P S

The Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute band

YHBTM

Did you know You Have Bad Taste in Music?

Worst episode ever

I'm watching Simpsons Worst Episode Ever (no really, that's the title of Season 12, Episode 11).

Agnus: Sunsets. Thank God there's only one of these a day.

Comic Book Guy: Could it be any more orange?

HOT

For some reason it's hot outside... the high for today was 74... WTF mate?

watch online | PBS

Watch more FRONTLINE for free here.

frontline

is wal-mart good for america?: watch the full program online

Watch this 5 part series about how Wal-Mart works. How it reversed the roles of the retailer and supplier so Wal-Mart could tell the suppliers what to supply, how much, how often, and for what price due to their backbone of volume; forced the suppliers to begin manufacturing overseas (mainly in China) to meet expectations pressured by Wal-Mart; lowers the standard of living due to outsourcing factory work; uses bottom price marketing to discourage local competition; and much, much more. Does a very good job at showing how it's true to the capitalist manifesto, but how when all things are *not* equal, the trouble begins and exploitation takes place. Definitely worth the watch.

Victoria Reynolds

Who's hungry for some art?

News from Kelly

Friends and Family -

Hello hello, I hope this letter finds everyone doing well and enjoying the holiday season. It has been a little while since I last wrote, so let's see if I can update you (semi-briefly) on some of the happenings here in Grenada.

I did get to move into my own place almost five weeks ago, and it is fabulous. It is a spacious one-bedroom apartment right in the middle of St. George's, and I have a lovely view of the lagoon. It is a good thing that I enjoy my place, because I spend enough time there - as I mentioned before, transportation stops running around 8 p.m. and, as a female who is not from this country, I am not supposed to be out on my own after dark to "be on the safe side". So I have been reading, watching movies, practicing my cooking skills - I am not half bad, although I learned that if you are multi-tasking (aka talking on the phone) and cooking, the liklihood of catching a hand towel on fire over the open gas stove increases significantly.

In addition to settling in to my new place, I have been working a bit with a couple of different organizations. I am helping Grenada Save the Children do assessments of hurricane damage in some of the communities surrounding St. George's, and it has been eye-opening to see just how many people are still without proper shelter and are even struggling to obtain food on a regular basis. There are also many people out of work since the hurricane, and this is a problem that many of the hurricane relief organizations are trying to combat by hiring Grenadians to assist in clean-up and repair. So even though people are working hard to make life feel normal again, there is still so much to be done.

I have also been working with Grenada National Council for the Disabled, which is to be my primary assignment. Our biggest focus as of late has been the organization of a trip to St. Vincent for 25 kids with disabilities from Grenada. The national council in St. Vincent has invited us to join them in a march for disabled awareness, as well as a Christmas party at the Governer General's house and lunch with the Prime Minister, all in an effort to show the Grenadian children a good time after the hurricane. It should be a lovely weekend (the event is December 2-5), and we are working really hard to iron out all of the last minute details over the next few days. And lastly, I have been spending some time at Dorothy Hopkin's Center, a home for persons with severe disabilities. It sounds like a lot of stuff as I write it all out, but don't be too impressed - this is all still a part of my "3 month integration phase", where I mostly get to know people and organizations, and start thinking about ways that I can really jump in and get involved.

And I have definitely been making some time for relaxation and a social life (I don't want to spend THAT much time in my apartment alone), trying to get to the beach at least once every week, making ventures to various parts of the island to hike and sight-see, getting involved at church, hanging out with some of my new Grenadian friends and my fellow volunteers. All of the Peace Corps volunteers got together for Thanksgiving, and we feasted on ridiculous amounts of food. It was a good time, a decent substitute for being away from home and family.

So I think that will conclude my not so brief update. Grenada is beautiful, the people are great, and I am working at finding my place here. I hope all is well with you, and if anyone feels inspired to drop me a line I would love to hear how you are doing.

Grace and Peace.
Kelly

Kelly doesn't send pictures. Bad Kelly.

News from Mindy

Hello family and friends,

Merry Christmas! I hope this email finds everyone enjoying the blessings of this season. I am coming to the end of my stay here in New Zealand and actually leave in 4 days!! The time has flown by and I have cherished this phase in my journey.

My last email was right before we left for our 3 week family trip to the South Island and my 1/2 marathon (all in the same day!). I was very excited because I did better in the race than I had ever expected--especially for my first time (1:48). So the excitement from the race was quickly focused upon our S. Island trip that we were departing for within a few hours. Needless to say, New Zealand is absolutely STUNNING! I think that the South Island is as close to paradise as imaginable!

We spent 4-5 days traveling down the west coast of the island, stopping for tramps, beautiful sites and restroom/stretch breaks! Uncle Larry surprised us once we arrived in Queenstown when we found out that our housing was going to be quite different than we had ever dreamed. Our friends let us use their holiday home (for 10 days)located in one of New Zealand's finest resorts, Millbrook Resort! We had complete luxury--spa's to duvet covered beds with chocolates beside the pillows! The best part was the view from my bedroom window--the Southern Alps! I would have to add that the fact that they had satellite TV was pretty nice as well considering I got to see the ESPN college football highlights TWICE!! My Sooners pulled it out in both games so I was a happy camper. My cousin Kent (6) has become a sooner fan and is always yelling Boomer Sooner!! It was very wonderful to watch kids that have never had this type of luxury in their life, nothing was taken forgranted.

Anyway, I could go into so much detail but the main highlights of the trip included a backpack trip on the Routeburn Track, horse trek, Lord of the Rings location sites (I think I have seen almost every site imaginable!), and wonderful family memories.

These last few weeks have been incredibly busy and packed full of all sorts of projects the kids and I have set as our goals before I leave. This weekend we are making the Blowers traditional gingerbread houses. I am excited to experience this from a different perspective and I have always heard about Uncle Larry's gingerbread houses. My mom and I will have some new ideas for our houses.

This time here has taught me so much and the Lord has blessed me tremendously. My life has been enriched in many ways. I have also had a peace about my future (well near future). I have decided that I am not going to apply to grad school this year, I don't want to rush a good thing and the timing doesn't seem quite right. I did do well on my GRE which I took here but I still fill that the time is not right. The Lord has opened my eyes to the fullness of life and really experiencing it for all it's worth. I am not "resigned" about this decision but an excitement and peace!

I don't know what my future holds--but that is part of the excitement and joy! The newness that this season brings is even more symbolic in my life today. May the joy of the Christmas season be real and fresh to you this year. Thank you for your love and prayers. I look forward to seeing everyone when I return home and hearing from you.

Merry Christmas,

Mindy

She also sent 3 new pictures you can see here.

From cell phone to sunflower

CNN.com

Cool link from Sage

Ghetto bird

While talking to my good friend Jeff Purganan for over two hours on the phone tonight, I suddenly heard a woman screaming "let me go" out the window. At first I thought it was our neigbors that I occasionally hear making babies, as they get into yelling matches at times. Then I thought it was the other couple that lives across the way that has a bout of anger every once in a while (same guy that had "something for [me] to take a picture of" a couple months ago), but soon discovered it was coming from out front of our apartment complex. I watched as a woman screamed "why are you doing this" "let go of me" "don't hit me" etc. but the guy really wasn't doing anything except trying to calm her down. As I called the cops (which takes longer than it should for a non-emergency) I kept my eye on them to make sure I didn't need to intervene and watched as the guy threw all the woman's stuff out of the car (purse belongings, nothing big) and drove off. She then walked towards Adams, hysterical. I was going to check on her but the police said they were sending a car over then (someone had called it in already). I didn't see a squad car, but the ghetto bird looped our block for a good 30 min. It's never boring living in Mid-City.

ELITE DESIGNERS AGAINST IKEA

Design inspiration is everywhere; in the call of a Blue Tit whose wing is wounded; in the smell of rain on the cheek of an enfant.

Loop

Another instance showing sarcasm doesn't convey well over the Internet

Eric Lee: sorta neet: LINK

David Overholt: uh oh when does it end

Eric Lee: it doesn't

Eric Lee: it's just a flash trick

David Overholt: i've been watching for the last 10 minutes, i think it's about done - how long is it?

Eric Lee: it's a loop

David Overholt: the frame?

David Overholt: it goes into the other picture

Eric Lee: go back to the boingboing link and there's a link that shows you how to make it

David Overholt: i'm kidding eric

Museum of Media History

Hmm I don't remember this happening...

The Elegant Universe

3 hours of free PBS video online on NOVA

I did this at this time

Yest'a'day I worked until 3pm, took a quick jaunt over to Costco with Rach to get some food supplies, then went to the NBH around 9pm. One of Tiana's friends from home was here checking out PLNU at preview days and came over with another of his friends and their youth pastor from Concord. We just sat around and talked all night. We turned in around 2:30am so I just crashed on the couch. Scott and I were planning on playing tennis this morning but it was crappy weather out, so instead of that I came over, did some dishes and made a nice western egg skillet for myself (broke the handle off the pan... very odd...). This afternoon just worked on Music Period, Koning.us, some e-mails, and a video compilation of my crazy videos I have accumulated over the last few months. Evening: Renee, Stef, Jenn, Scott and I went to American Apparel (check it out, they're a very cool American made, non-sweatshop, apparel store with mostly illegal immagrants working at full US wage) in Hillcrest to grab some stuff to send Kelly and then met up with a group of people we were planning on having a bonfire with (too wet outside) at Coco's Bakery in PL, chatted for a bit - Renee dared me to moon the 10 other people still at the table and the rest of the restaurant by smashing my cheeks against the window... couldn't resist that one, then Renee, Stef and I went to the UTC in La Jolla to ice skate. They were closing early so we got in for a free 30 minutes - the ice sucked and the skates were dull, so luckily it was free. Then grabbed some In-N-Out fries and watched Spiderman 2 at our place. The End.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

SVS Search SVS database - very cool zoom videos and still images of various landmarks around the US.

Link from Sage

Lipsmacking good time

I couldn't add these few postings without at least mentioning last night's evening fun. Whitney and I made our way to Lips last night at 8:30pm for "Bitchy Bingo". Lips is an incredible drag queen bar/lounge/restaurant in Hillcrest. About 2 or 3 miles from my neighborhood. Yes, that's right - we sat at a bar and played bingo with a bunch of drag queens. They then performed a musical selection on stage (good job Cashmere!). Regretfully there was only 30 minutes of bingo entertainment so we went to an Italian restaurant down the road. We sat and chatted for a good couple hours then walked around a bit and came home. Mmmm and also Whit had Scott (her dad) bring me a space heater before the 4 hours of meetings I had yesterday. Definitely nice to have some heat around here.

For those of you that are interested in the entertainment at Lips, here is the schedule as I remember it:

Tuesday - Karaoke Luau (although they say "you people", being non-drag queens, can't sing so it's only lip sync)

Wednesday - Bitchy Bingo

Thursday - impression night (Cher, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson = a white girl doing an impersoation of a black guy doint an impersonation of a white girl)

Sunday mornings - all you can drink bloody mary's, because the drag queen motto is "why go to hell sober?"

And apparently, according to Whitney, the bartender at Lips was hitting on me. Always nice to know I've still got it! ...

Whimsical graphicsing

First I should say that I don't believe Bush blatantly lies to the American public on a regular basis - I honestly think he believes what he's saying is helpful and correct - no matter how completely messed up what he's saying may be. But I couldn't think of anyone better to use this concept on, so I just made this graphic on a whim.



Let me know if anyone wants the original version (it's 14.5MB - a very large picture).

Congrats

Congratulations to Eric and Tiana on their one year anniversary today. May the blessings of a thousand camels' flies dwell in your hearts until the coming of the locust filled peanut butter robots to take us away to that magical place we call Chattanooga, TN.

Also congrats to Danae and Layne who got engaged a couple weeks ago, and to my ex-gf Amber who will be engaged... shortly, and to Melanie for the wedding she will be having in February. Am I missing anyone else? Probably... crazy kids...

Music Period

Launched this new site today. I started working on it a very little bit last week after talking to Steve (who came up with the initial idea and we ran with it), worked on it a little yesterday, and then pretty much all day today. It's cool, uses Dreamweaver templates with dynamically generated lists for the teacher pages, and all kinds of crazy relative path scripting for dynamic navigation. Horrah. At the same time this is just a temporary site - we just want to see if people will be interested and if it goes anywhere. The plan is to hire Dodeci to make a full-blown website when it starts bringing in money. Enjoy.