Where do I even start? The past week has been very crazy. A sewage backup into the front side of the basement, flooding into the back side, an acute case of pink-eye, and lots of work left undone!
My pink-eye is thankfully not going to prevent me from going to help Juli celebrate her graduation from Mississippi State University! Grandmother and Rachel are going to drive with me. So hopefully I won't get head-aches. It's a problem when you don't have current glasses and can't wear your contacts.

I had to get a new template, and I lost the comments temporarily. I'll be getting those back as soon as I can!

Check out my sister-in-law's swanky line of purses and jewelry! Rachel just purchased the Foxtrot, and she's very happy with it.

Life is slowly returning to a slower pace for us. We just have been travelling a lot this spring, after my project at work allowed the opportunity for us to actually leave town for a while.

We were happy to be able to attend a wedding in Key Largo in April, and we took the opportunity to take a few extra days off to drive to Key West, and enjoy a mini-vacation in the Keys. We highly recommend Bahia Honda State Park. There are some wonderful camp sites there, that we'd like to get more family together sometime for a ocean-side camping trip. The camp sites are actually covered with a natural dome of vegetation, so they stay shaded most of the day, and they are really close to the beach. The water is so shallow and clear... Next time we'll have to go snorkelling to see more of the interesting life "under the sea".

Last weekend we went back to Mississippi State for Super Bulldog Weekend. It was a really nice trip -- lots of crawfish, catching up with old friends, and meeting my younger siblings friends. Rachel and I enjoyed meeting my step-mom's mother. She is Taiwanese, but has spent a lot of time in Japan as well. Rachel is so good at communicating with someone who doesn't speak English -- I'm always amazed. She loved eating the crawfish, too. They were remarkably fresh and good. She knew a few English words -- so much of the communicating was done by sign language, and non-verbal communication. We even learned some fun Japanese and Mandarin words. oishii -- means that the food is tasty (and it can be emphasized by drawing it out!). Ichinan (oldest son) was what I was named. and arigatou is "thank you". And Rachel was Ichinan Aisai (Oldest Son's Wife).

Well, the last 6 weeks or so have been a marathon of User Acceptance Testing for the project that I'm working on right now. So that means that as the Quality Assurance Manager, I've been trying to keep afloat in the midst of status report, bug fixes and the like. I'm hoping to have life return to some resemblance of normalcy soon. We are to go live with our release on March 8th. I'm not sure if that means things will slow down or speed up! I guess it depends on how many of the bugs we found in testing, and what we might have missed!

The Streets of Sarajevo We went to visit a Bosnian family with whom Rachel has been friends for many years recently. Their son had recently returned to Sarajevo and he was kind enough to show us his video tape of his return to the former Yugoslav republic, starting with his old apartment building. Their building had been near the airport, next to the border. Apparently they were in the front lines of the war. Their building had been repaired, and they got to visit with some of the old neighbors. He filmed as they drove through the city, visited the ancient city center, and then as they drove throught the beautiful countryside to their property out in the country.
The most interesting part (to me) was the visit to the small town where his parents had grown up. Everyone was so happy to see him, and it was very interesting to see how Ramadan was celebrated in a completely Muslim culture. The lights on the tower of the mosque flashed, and in the film you could see people running to their homes to break the fast. It was interesting too -- he filmed part of the prayers at the mosque, and we could see the Imam calling the people to prayer.
I was very interested to learn more about what happened with the war... who the factions were and are? etc. Rachel told me that most of it is related to religious strife. It's so sad.
Rachel and I were given a book for Christmas about a fictional Sarajevan refugee who lived in Chicago. Perhaps Nowhere Man will shed some light on what it's like to leave the former Yugoslav republic and move to America! Hopefully we can find time to read it!

On the local front... This story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution this morning happened not far from our house. The owner's message is very clear... let's hope the robbers take note. I like the quote from Mr. Adams, "Make your own money; quit trying to take mine!"

Speaking of intimidating tactics, Rachel had to tell her students that if they couldn't listen and wouldn't quit talking her head was going to explode, and Mr.C wouldn't be too happy if his wife came home with an exploded head. I think about going up to that classroom and telling those kids that they'd better be good to my wife, or else.... What ever happened to corporal punishment. At least bring some nuns back with their rulers (Rachel teaches 3rd grade in a catholic school here in Atlanta). With a class size of 29 students, there's not much one can do to maintain order, especially with so many little people growing up with so much TV and video games that they can't sit still and pay attention! I'm not sure what would work. I think we should use the same combination of tactics that I heard a commentator talk about using with North Korea this morning on NPR, "carrots and threats"!

I enjoyed checking out Darren's blog, and his Tipping Point entries. Kind of interesting from a church planting perspective.

Darren also tells of his Mosque visit. On his visit, however, he was shown on national (Australian) television. There weren't any TV cameras when we went to the Mosque, just freezing cold weather.

What I've been reading... The Tipping Point is a very interesting book especially if you are interested in how phenomena get started. What is it that makes an unknown author's work become a hit? It is about the moments when a social epidemic reaches critical mass and takes off, called the tipping point.

There are three types of people that have tremendous impact on the rest of us: The Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. This was the most interesting part to me. A connector is one of those rare people who run in many different circles, and stay in touch with many people. They are the ones you call when you move to a new city, want to help a friend network for a job, etc. A Maven is a subject matter expert. If they make a recommendation to you in their area of subject matter expertise, you listen! And a Salesman is that type of charismatic person that has the unique ability to influence your decisions.

My brother-in-law Thomas gave this book to his father for Christmas, and when I fell ill over the holidays, I picked it up, and couldn't put it down. I bought myself my own copy for the trip to the Northeast, and am almost finished with it now.
Has anyone else read this book? Any ideas about it? What did you think?

Happy New Year! Rachel and I were in the Northeast for New Years, hanging out with a houseful of Rachel's cousins in Glouchester, Mass. We actually rang in the New Year at a barn party near Essex, Mass.

More details to come!

A fun Guidepost story... On Saturday we were going to visit some Afghan refugees who live down the street. We were thinking about what small gifts we could bring them, and ended up gathering up a candle, a doll, a Christmas Hat, and decided to bring a nativity scene that was not expensive, but was cute. We were debating on the nativity scene -- it had been a gift from a former student. We ended up taking it, and it turned out to be a great idea. There was a second family there, and the nativity was a perfect gift for the second family. They seemed to love it, and of course we pointed out who the people were, etc. It's a neat way to share the Christmas story... most Muslims aren't exactly anti-Jesus. They consider him a prophet, but of course have issues with immaculate conception and the fact that He's the Son of God. So, we shared with them.
Well, several days later, we got a call from a lady who had a wedding present for us. Yes, you guessed it! They brought over a bigger and more beautiful nativity scene than the one which we had given away!

Well, it was a busy weekend in our household. I won't bore you with all the details of all the activities, but the couple that I blogged about on Thursday had their baby on Saturday evening. So we got to visit the happy mother and father in the hospital last night. Incredible! The baby is a girl, but they hadn't picked a name yet. We were giving suggestions, as apparently everyone who had been visiting all day had been doing! The baby was 5 lbs, and apparently was a few weeks early, but God blessed and everything went really smoothly! We had a great time visiting with them last night. What a proud papa!

We are so happy to have met a newly arrived family from Iran who live in our community. They are such a great couple, and will soon be joined with a third, when they have a baby. Yesterday was the wife's birthday, and we got the opportunity to join them at another friend's house for dinner. It was a fun time. They love supplementing their English with more and more phrases, and we've enjoyed picking up more Farsi from them.