We've had some cooler weather lately. It seems like the summer weather is coming to an end. It's been a busy summer with friends from Germany visiting (Waldi, Nelly and Daniello) and my brother (Lewis) took a week of vacation to hang out here. Of course, I talked about some excitement when Waldi and Nelly were here (getting kicked out of a restaurant). When Lewis came for a visit, we went to watch a Broadway musical. This was a first for me. It was actually off Broadway and it wasn't really what I was hoping to see, but we got cheap tickets and it was fun to see a musical. Now I know where the tickets are sold, and which days are better to go for performances.

I've also been keeping busy playing Volleyball. We usually tried to have a game every week. Volleyball, fencing and running have been keeping the summer a fairly active one. I even tried bike riding when Lewis was here, but the poor MCC bikes weren't up for the task. Lewis' bike popped a tire about a 1/2 hour into the ride.

And of course, there were plenty of Airport Trips. I did 15 trips during July and August.

Here's some other things that I really enjoyed over the past two months:
- The Olympics: Michael Phelps 8 golds was amazing. For the next Olympics, I think that Butterfinger can sponor the US mens and womens 4x100 teams. Usian Bolt also provided a great show.
- Batman. What a movie. Non-stop action.
- Pennsylvania Renaissance faire (http://www.parenfaire.com/), a fun place with plenty of shows to watch.

June 28th, Mt. Gretna, PA. We had our monthly service unit activity (all of us MCC volunteers) and the plan was to go to the lake at Mt. Gretna and spend the day at the beach, and after that go to a local restaurant for supper. We had some former volunteers join us on this outing (they were on vacation). The time at the beach was good. After a fun day in the sun we decided to head out for supper to Hideaway cafe (very close by).

Here's where it gets interesting. We came into the restaurant and were seated in a separate area outside the normal outside eating area. There were 18 of us plus two babies so we were seated on 3 separate picnic tables (the round type). One couple brought their baby stroller with, but the other couple with a baby didn't (the two couples with babies were sitting together furthest from the regular eating area and nearest the parking lot but furthest from the entrance). After seeing how the seating was, the couple without a stroller decided to get their stroller from the car too. They didn't want to walk all the way around again (the parking lot was only a couple of feet away from their table), so the dad walked through a walk way that was marked off with a string (but no sign). He got the stroller, but on the way back to the table he was chewed out by the cook for walking in a place he shouldn't. The rest of us at the other two tables didn't notice that this had happened because there was some space between us all.

We had all already ordered our stuff and we had our drinks when one of the babies grabbed the car keys and pressed the panic button. The car horn started to honk, and so the dad tried to stop it remotely, which doesn't work. He walked up to but not into the area with a string around it. At that point, the cook and other staff ran up to the line and yelled not to go there. But there was, even further off from the line, a bench which crossed over into the parking lot, so he jumped over that and turned off the horn. Then he walked all the way around through the entrance back to his seat. The rest of us noticed the commotion, but we didn't know what was happening. Well, the cook had enough with our group and decided to kick us ALL out. He even threatened to call the cops if we didn't pay the bill for our food (which they were getting ready to box up). We tried to plead with them, saying that the baby pushed the panic button, but they said that the area was under construction (due to a fire that damaged their kitchen) and that someone was suing them when they injured themselves walking through that area. I tried to say that there were no signs saying not to walk there and it wasn't obvious that the bench was a dangerous area. No go - they kicked us out.

This is a first for the service unit that I know of. A whole group of volunteers kicked out because of a panic button. It would've been nice if they had warned us before not to go into that area. No signs, no yellow tape, nothing indicating that we shouldn't go there. Having them yell at someone who is focused at turning off the panic feature of the car doesn't make things less confusing (especially since he didn't walk near the marked off area, but an area further away).

Needless to say, we won't be heading to Hideaway Cafe in Mt. Gretna anymore.

I recently returned from vacation in Florida. I travelled for a little less than 10 days, and at the end, I'm refreshed and a little tired from the travel. On the trip, I visited: Miami, Key West, Cape Canaveral, and Disney World.

Cape Canaveral:

While I visited the place, I didn't actually go in to the visitors centre, and I didn't take the $28 tour bus to go to the launch pad to see the shuttle sitting there waiting to launch. Sigh, the only disappointment during the trip was not seeing this, but there wasn't enough interest in the group, and we were eager to get back home since this place was visited after doing Disney World.

Disney world and Sea World:

We visited 4 of the Disney parks and Sea World during our stay: Sea world, Epcot Center, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and then Magic Kingdom. And while I didn't see all that there is to see, here's what I liked:


Sea World: The dolphin and whale show was fantastic, a must see. The other shows are good too, but the dolphin and whale show really is the best.

Epcot: The world showcase (where you can visit a sampling from a number of countries), Spaceship Earth (the giant sphere) and Test Track rides are nice, my favourites are "Mission: Space" (a space ride simulation), Soarin (feels like your flying), and the 3D show "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience".

Hollywood Studios: It's like walking on an extremely large Hollywood set, lots of fun. It was too bad that "Sounds Dangerous" (starring Drew Carey) wasn't running when I wanted to see it, but there was plenty of other fun stuff to see and do, like watching the Muppet Vision 3D and going on the "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster" and "The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror". What I liked most was "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!" and the "Lights, Motor, Action!", both are shows where they show you live stunts and then show you how they do it. For those who like cars, "Lights, Mother, Action!" is a must see. The evening show "Fantasmic" was a great way to end the day - very nice water/light effects.

Animal Kingdom: We didn't spend too much time here, but there's some fun stuff to see. I especially liked the Dinosaur and "Expedition Everest" rides. I had to wait long for the Kali River Rapids ride (it said 40 minute wait but it took over an hour) - I should've gotten a Fast Pass for it, since it wasn't worth waiting an hour in line for.

Magic Kingdom: This is mostly targeted at small kids, but there's still some fun stuff to do here. It actually rained hard while we were here, so the rides were stopped for about an hour and because of time we missed some rides like the "Monsters, Inc. Laugh floor". The "Space Mountain" roller coaster is a really fun ride. "Splash Mountain" is also a fun ride. Of course they have actors playing all sorts of characters throughout the parks all day long at various places, but I have to say that I was really impressed with their Captain Jack Sparrow - the look and mannerisms matched so well, it was fun to watch.

Three or 4 months ago, my vacuum cleaner's belt which connects the motor to the rotating brush, broke. Since then, I've just been using suction from the vacuum to clean up the dirt in my floor. That is, until I got a Roomba to replace the vacuum cleaner. It was easy to setup and it worked better than my old vacuum (plus it is quieter). I turned it on and let it go. It got stuck a couple of times on the same spot. My table legs make a nice ramp which it tries to climb but then it gets stuck. It then beeps a distress call. At that point, I need to pick it up, put in on level ground, and then press the clean button to get it going. It picked up a lot of dust and dirt where my previous vacuum couldn't get at. I'll see if it keeps up the good job.

Next week Friday I'll be taking some vacation time. I'll be heading south with some friends to Florida for a week. Should be fun.

The Manitoba Moose played the Hershey Bears at the Giant Center today and the Moose won 3 to 1. It was a fun game to watch. In our group of service workers, we had a good number of Manitobans, so we cheered for the Moose. This is the first time that I was really hoping for the visiting team to win. I cheered when the Moose scored, and I sat silently when the Bears scored. This was the opposite of what the rest of the crowd was doing, so I felt out of place. It's a good thing that the Moose won.

A little more than a year ago, I came back to the US from India. Since I left for India, this is the longest I've been in one place. I haven't had to pick up and move my stuff around to a new place yet. While in India, I stayed in an apartment for 9 months, and that was the longest stay I had in India. It's good to unpack bags and just let stuff accumulate for at least a little while. I won't get too comfortable though, there's talk that they'll be eventually knocking down the apartment, so sometime in the future, I will have to move to another place around here.

Last week I saw a play at Sight and Sound Studios. The play is called "Daniel and the Lions Den". The productions are mostly Bible stories and always have a Christian theme. The production I saw was about Daniel's life (found in the Old Testament book of... you guessed it, Daniel). I enjoyed it a lot. The stage is huge, there are lots of actors, the effects are amazing and the sets are big too. It was great watching this gigantic hand write on the wall. The web-site for the place is: http://www.sight-sound.com/WebSiteSS/getlanguages.do

A couple of weeks ago, almost everyone from the service unit went ice skating. A good time was had by all. My skating is actually getting a little better (that is, I didn't fall, even when fast people went past me).

In the last week, we added three new service workers to our group. It's nice to see more people in the unit these days, it makes things more exciting.

I have an iPod touch. This is my first post using the touch. Entry isn't as fast, but it goes.

Happy New Year!

Two Thousand Seven is done and 2008 is here. This last year was pretty busy:

• January - Completed my time in India


• February - Took two weeks to visit friends in Germany, then returned to Akron, PA and started working in the computer services department


• May - Joined a small group at Church


• July - Used my Home Leave and spent just over a month in Winnipeg to see friends and family


• September - Got my braces (my mouth looks quite different now)


• October - Started fencing lessons


• November - CIHSR finally opened their doors (Hospital in the North East India)


• December - My emachines m6805 died (after a long slow decline in health). Two weeks of vacation in Winnipeg

It's two days late, but Merry Christmas. I've been enjoying my time at home visiting with friends and family. It's been almost two years since I've felt the cold winter in Winnipeg... and it hasn't even really been that cold.

After slowly dying for the last year and a half, I have the feeling that my laptop had it's last boot yesterday. Maybe it was that India was just to rough for my laptop? I have been trying to boot it this morning, but no go. The lights flash, the hard drive spins, the CD drive blinks, even the fan turns on... but the screen doesn't turn on, and nothing loads. I guess I can try opening it up to see if there is some dirt plugging up the system.

More often now, the fan spins high and then it just powers down. Sigh. Time for me to save up for a new laptop. Any suggestions?

This is just before I head off to home for Christmas vacation.

I guess I'll keep on trying to get it going again.

There's a few things for me to talk about this time:

I recently started taking free fencing lessons. We're using "foam swords" for now and learning the moves. I've had 2 lessons so far, and I'm having fun. It's a good workout without really wearing me out.

On Oct. 29th, CIHSR (Christian Institute of Health Sciences and Research) in Nagaland was inaugurated. The hospital has not actually opened, but it might be opened soon. Here's a link to the story --> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071030/asp/northeast/story_8487194.asp

I'll be going home for Christmas. Expect me to be around Dec. 20th to January 3rd. I look forward to a white Christmas... or a brown one.

It's now been about 2 months that I've had braces.

The big thing for me these days is that I have braces. Just had them put in this last Monday, and my mouth is still getting used to them. Often, I'd just like the pull the whole thing out of my mouth. They say it'll be a year, maybe more, with the metal stuff in my mouth and then a retainer for another year after that. To make room for the teeth on top, I had a tooth removed (this was done this last week too). So my mouth has been busy with a lot of work being done on it.

I'm back in Winnipeg. It's been a long time since I've been home in the summer time... maybe the last time was in 2004? I'm not quite sure. The weather is really nice, comfortable, warm, and no mosquitoes. There are actually more than in Akron or India, but I was expecting a swarm, and so far I've been bit only a few times. They did some fogging for the mosquitoes just before I came, so it'll be good for a little while at least... and only while I'm in the City.

Last week wednesday, I went with some friends to Hershey Park. That was fun, though they had some storms, and we got stuck waiting a real long time before they re-opened rides twice during the day. During the wait, we didn't have any idea if it would be a short or long wait, so we just waited. Both times, it ended up being over 1 and 1/2 hours.

I've been home only two days. While at home, I hope to:
* Hang out with friends
* Go to Grand Beach
* Go fishing
* See some movies
* Do some bike riding
* Finish off some programming on the TurboCare project
* Sleep in

I'm looking forward to whatever comes (except mosquitoes).

I went to the Canada day celebration at the Forks. There was a good sized crowd there. One interesting bit of news was that there was a band called "Burn out" (if I remember correctly) which has twins, whose last names are Penner. What a coincidence. The fireworks were a let down. 10 minutes of something less than spectacular. I expected more.

For a while there it seemed like summer wasn't going to come. This weekend is very nice, and it's the first one where I get to wear shorts. It's nice to have the windows open and play basketball outside.

Now that good weather is coming, there's a number of things I'm looking forward to doing, like going to Hershey Park, doing some hiking, ultimate frisbee, eating ice cream and BBQ. One thing that I've been hooked on lately though is Carcassonne. It's a tile based German style game (from the Wikipedia entry: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_%28board_game%29". The version I have is "Hunters and Gatherers". I've managed to get a number of people hooked on the game too.

During my time in India, I had some troubles with adjusting to climate, food, and culture, but I got used to it and learned to enjoy it... except that I don't think you can ever really adjust to the 45C heat during the summer. But if I thought I had it tough, my laptop had a rougher time with it.

Three issues plague my laptop, all of which started while in India.
1. Flickering back light.
2. Problems with screen stretch, like when I boot up, it's difficult to read the boot-up messages. It's like a corrupted font.
3. Random shutdowns. Usually this doesn't happen when my laptop has been running for some time, but it can happen up to three boots in a row where my laptop will start, then the fan will start going on full, then the computer will shutdown. I don't think it's software since the shutdowns can happen during boot up (before the OS is loaded) and it can happen when in Linux or Windows. Don't think it's BIOS either since I had the BIOS for about 2 years before these problems started happening.

All three started while in India, and they got worse while I was there. I don't know if this is an issue with this emachines laptop, this particular type of board, or the fact that India's power is poor quality, and at least one time I noticed ants going in and out of the back of my laptop (was there something in there that they liked?).

To me it's a bit of a mystery. I had the laptop a year before leaving for India, and the only problem I had with it before was the hinge (poor workmanship on the laptop).

I left India, traveled Germany and now I've returned to Akron PA.

On the way out from India, I had thought that I trimmed my baggage down enough, but when I arrived at the airport to go to Germany I found that the 2 weeks in Germany meant that I could only get European baggage limit. So I had to drop a whole bunch of stuff in airport (either drop the stuff or pay 30 EUR per kg over the limit).

I had a great time visiting my friends in Germany. They helped me find the cheaper ways to travel around Germany. Aside from eating a lot of great food (mmmm... cheeses, plunders and good bread), one of the high-lites was going on the ICE, the fast inter-city express trains. Next time though, I think I'll visit Germany during a warmer time of year.

I returned to Akron this last week. It snowed this last week, enough for them to close the office down for 1/2 a day.

It's getting really close to Christmas now, but it still doesn't really feel like Christmas.

I've been very busy lately and haven't had time to update this blog. Some stuff has happened (and will happen), here's the summary:

1. I was part of a Naga song competition, where I and another project worker joined one of the groups (with about 30 or so singers) and sang a certain hymn. The people took the competition fairly seriously, practicing many hours on a several occasions. Perhaps they shouldn't have invited me along then? The song was sung in 4 part harmony (which is their regular singing style) with no instrumental accompaniment. We came in second out of 5 groups. The song was in the local language: Ao.

2. We're planning on having a Christmas lunch at the site for the workers. Hope

3. I managed to watch the whole of (95% at least) the movie "Robots". Normally, because of cable and power outages, it takes a number of tries before I "watch" a full movie.

4. I was up in Kohima at the beginning of December for the Hornbill festival, an annual cultural festival with traditional dances, craft work and food. I managed to also see part of a concert and some of the local sights during that time. Kohima is the capital of Nagaland and is about a 2 hour drive into the hills (1.5 km above sea level) from Dimapur. There is no train station or airport. We spent two days enjoying the festivities.

5. I got a Christmas card from the Chief Minister of Nagaland (and a cake). They almost got my name right.

That's enough news for now, maybe I'll have more to say after Christmas.

Blessings.

When getting an auto-rickshaw, I sometimes use a combination of Hindi and English or just English. Normally I mention the destination name and then the price I'm willing to pay. When Dave and I took the auto to the office this last week, I just used english. The driver was a little grumpy about the price he got from me (40 rupees) and started to complain. So I told him in Hindi that it was 30 rupees by meter. So he asked in Hindi if I knew Hindi, and I told him that I knew very little.

Then the driver became a little excited and thought that since I knew so little, he could help me by increasing my vocabulary. He we would point out a tree, then say "tree" and then the Hindi word for it (something like "Perr"). Then he would point at a woman and say "woman" then "O-Ret", and so on (boys, girls, men, etc...). He tended to mention women a few more times (to make sure we knew what a woman was).

Who needs Hindi lessons when you can get them for free on the ride to work?

There are a lot of people asking for money on the streets in Delhi (y'know, just like everywhere else in the world). Some people go around asking for donations to a special cause these days. They walk around with a paper asking for a donation (usually a sizable amount compared to other street begging) and then you sign their paper (or not, I'm not sure). One day, as I was working in the apartment when I had a ring at the door. There were three kids asking for a donation for children at a school who were in need of food and money because they lost their homes in the earth quake that affected Jammu and Kashmir. They had a nice piece of paper with all the information of what they wanted and another paper to write in a donation.

I'm always suspicious of these types of donations, so I told them that I needed a phone number on the piece of paper to talk to a person and confirm what is on the paper. After a good 15 minutes of talking about this, they finally left.

That was more than a week ago. They came again. This time they had a piece of paper from Delhi University with a name and phone number on it. Well, well, I thought, they're working hard. I tried the phone number and started talking to the guy on the phone. I told him about the kids at the door. The person said that while what happened in Jammu Kashmir was real, he had checked into this group and said that their work was a scam. Hmmm....

Maybe they need to do more work.

It's getting close to the end of my time in Delhi. In a little over a week, I'll have to pack up and move all my stuff over to Dimapur, over in the North-East of India. Should be fun, since we have lots of stuff we need to move. I'm guessing I won't have any more train rides after this one though.

I had a recent trip over to Chhattarpur (I think there is supposed to be an extra "h" in the name) where I did some sessions explaining a payroll program I wrote. To get to the town I had to take a night train (leave Delhi at 9:30pm, get there at 5:15am) and then take a car ride for about an hour. I was travelling with two others from the office in Delhi, so I wasn't too worried about getting off at the right stop. I usually get a little anxious about getting off a train at night, since I have a hard time telling exactly where I am, and not too many people are awake to give me helpful information. On top of that, the train often stops at night and it's hard to tell where we're stopped. This is because a lot of the rural train stations aren't well lit so you can't see the train station sign, and the trains can often stop before a station for many reasons (like another train switching tracks and getting preference over your train). But I wouldn't have to worry since I was travelling with a couple of guys with some travel experience...

Since the train was supposed to stop at 5:15 am, I thought I would wake up at 5am (so I set my alarm). Normally trains are late so getting up at 5 isn't too bad. I actually woke up at 4:30am and noticed one of the other guys was up while the other was still asleep. After a while we found the attendant and we tried to figure out if we were on time or late, but he wasn't sure. Some time after 5am we learned that we were the next stop.

When I looked down the aisle in the train, I noticed someone else was awake and had their bag ready. I guessed they were getting off at the same stop. A little while after 5:15am the train stopped, but I couldn't see anything outside. Then I noticed that the man who had been down the aisle earlier was now gone. So I got up and went to the door and looked out and realized that we were actually at the station! The attendant told us to hurry (since the train stop is a 5 minute stop only). I rushed back to get my stuff and the guy who was awake was waking the other guy and quickly getting their packages ready to get off the train. The attendant helped us get our stuff off, and just as we stepped off the train, it started to roll away from the station. The guy who we just woke up was still rubbing his eyes when the train was gone.

Later on, I was given a number of first-hand accounts of missing your stop by several hours, and the adventures that usually follow. If I was told the story before the train ride, I would have been more attentive.

Wes.