It's the Most Wonderful Time of The Year

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone out there in internet land is having a wonderful Christmas, I sure plan to. I am writing this from St. Louis in my parent's house. Tomorrow we will travel up to Eureka, IL to spend the day with my Grandma and my Mom's family. Then on Tuesday it is out to Pennsylvania to get together with all of my immediate family. We will drive down to Williamsburg, Virginia to spend the rest of the holidays.

This will be my first chance to see my new niece Norah. I will get more pictures of her when I am out east.
















And here is a message from Linus:

Adorable

Maybe this little game can give you a little winter cheer. It seems to get harder the higher you go, and the doves are very important. I got 21450 after about 10 tries.

Crazy Blogging Software

Blogger offered me to change over to their new system, and somehow it got set to moderating comments. I just realized this and fixed it. Now if you posted a comment in the last week it is now showing.

You Have The Poor With You Always

On an investment forum I read a thread a started about poverty in the world. One person posted a link to this story. It is very lengthy, and I have not finished all of it, but it was an interesting look at volunteer aid work in Tanzania. One of the problems that does not have an easy solution is that when lots of clothes are given to a poor country, then their textiles industry cannot compete, and close up shop. The same problem with giving food, then the local farmers cannot compete with the almost free food, and cannot sell their goods.

This paragraph was also interesting:
"My suggestion to people who want to help Africa is to save $1 a day and 7 years later go to Africa and spend two weeks there. It is a worth vacation and much better for the world in my opinion. Perhaps save the $1 into a economic development fund to be used by African businesses to grow."

On most of my mission trips to poorer countries, I have been doing things for children or the deaf. I do not have much first hand experience with his story of trying to help the general population improve their living standards. To achieve this end, sustainable development must be set up. How that is to be done? I wish I knew.

Political Commentary Circus

I think this Family Circus speaks to some political climate today. Oops, that is not a real family circus? My mistake.

I do agree with the quote here though, do not become the thing you fight.

Killer Toys from Beyond the Grave

This article is about the toys from yesteryear that would not make it to market today. I mean, who can't appreciate a toy that impales your skull, or irradiates you? Kids today have it so easy.

Big Mac Daddy

Well I have now ordered my first Apple computer. I will be receiving a MacBook on Thursday from Amazon. I wanted a new laptop since my old one is on its last legs, and I can't really take it anywhere (it also weighs 8.3 lbs). So I might from time to time post on how the new Mac is working out.

I also have to say that the apple commercials shouldn't be converting anyone to apples. I just don't think that they are a very good argument about why Apple is better then Microsoft. They also reinforce the mistaken notion that PC = Windows. PC stands for personal computer, which technically apple computers are too. In fact Apple made the term popular with the Apple II back in the 1970's. The term has been modified to mean IBM PC compatible, as in running on the Intel x86 architecture, which now that the Macs are on Intel they are also IBM PC compatible. I guess they just can't have the Bill Gates guy say "And I am a Windows Box."

We will see how much my opinion of Macs change, but I have this impression from using them and watching others use them that Macs are real easy if you are doing what Apple wants you to do, but just as complex and nitpicking if you want to do anything off the beaten path.

For unto us a child is born

I got a call this morning at just past one AM from my mother to inform me that I have another niece. Nora Ann Miller came into the world on 12/10/2006 at 3:22 AM. She was 8 lbs. 4 oz, and 20 in. and healthy.

I am excited to see her in a few weeks when I travel out for the family Christmas.

Jokesy Rhymey

For a long time Southwest Airlines has been a lot more uptight then their old happy-go-lucky days in the past. I vaguely remember joking stewardesses and pilots in way back past times, but for a long time they had discarded this persona. They became the cheap and efficient, but not too different airline. Lately however this has been changing, and I couldn't really put my finger on it until my flight on Saturday morning.

As we were coming in to land the pilot came on the intercom and talked a little then broke out into song. He completed three verses of "There's No Business Like Show Business" with the lyrics changed to be about Southwest. It was an impressive feat while we were about 500 feet above the ground coming in to land. This is not the Southwest of the last few years, but a kick back to the old Southwest. I wonder if there is a command from on high in the company to rekindle this persona. Perhaps as the TSA becomes more neurotic and unfriendly Southwest is trying to distinguish themselves form the other airlines again so as to imprint the customers with good memories of their trips with Southwest. I guess we will see how this works for them.

Heroic Attempt

I don't know how widely this story has circulated outside the western states. This man James Kim was an editor for Cnet in San Francisco. He attempted after nine days stuck in the mountains to walk out to save his family.

This story hits close to home because a number of years ago the men in my family spent three days rafting the Rogue River which was just a half mile down at the end of the creek where they found his body. That is pretty sparse country, very wild. To be stranded out there in the winter when there are no other humans for many miles would be disheartening.

I hear from home and read in the news of the mighty snow storms back in the Midwest which knocked out power to more then half a million people and claimed at least eight lives in St. Louis alone. My parents were without power until Monday morning. I posted below about the fires in the LA area. Nature keeps reminding us of her power, and that we are still in the hands of God.

The Four Seasons of Southern California

I have just returned from my trip to Southern California. It was a good trip, I stayed at the Aberle's house in Moorpark. They hosted a church potluck on Saturday night with many people in attendance.

The wind was pretty amazing coming off the mountains to the north east. In the morning there was a lot of smoke in the air, and the winds continued to gust. Here is a news story on the fires. It was pretty impressive, and stopped our first attempts to get to church. We encountered a blocked off road with good reason, there was so much smoke (the fire was bordering several roads we tried) that it would be almost impossible to drive through. The water carrying helicopters were pretty impressive, even more so that they were flying so heavy laden in the very high winds. We finally had to travel north and around to get out of the area. This greatly increased our time to church and we were about an hour late.

Now I just have to experience the other seasons of Southern California: mudslides, earthquakes, and riots.