The Weekend Report

Whew! It's Monday morning, and I am just trying to sort out how exactly the space between Friday evening and now could have vanished so QUICKLY!?! Not sure where it all went, but I have at least a couple of suspicions:

1. Friday night - Scientist Acting Troupe - On Friday, Kat and I went with some non-scientist friends into the dangerous world of "Scientist-Thespians" - This was a first for me. The TSRI playwrights presented 5 Short Plays for the Attention Deficit to a packed crowd. I've got to hand it to them... For people who spend 12+ hours in the lab, they really had their stuff together on this acting business.

2. Saturday - MBAs and Amillenialsists - Kind of a strange combo, right? I started the day with Admit Day for the MBA program at UCSD, and finished it at a debate about Amillenialism vs. Postmillenialism out at a house in east county. (For those who were similarily as fuzzy as I was, these are two similar but different views held in various Christian circles about the "end times")



I've got no proof of this, but statistically, I think it very unlikely that anyone else on Earth on Saturday attended both an MBA session and an Eschatology debate. Prove me wrong!

Kat worked hard in the lab, and then had a middle-eastern FEAST with some of her fellow scientists... I was fortunate to be saved some leftovers, which were divine!

3. Sunday - Day of rest... Once we get past the busy Sunday morning, with kids to teach, announcements to make, and stuff like that, the day did finally relax a bit. We had a visiting scientist named Juliet over for dinner, too. It is so neat to hear biologists talk about their research. I bumble through the terms and terminology, they smile and correct me, and then use the dinner napkin and their hands to try to explain what the cellular membrane is doing. I LOVE it! So neat to have a view down to life at its most minute level.

Anways, that brings us to today! *Sigh* - Vacation in just 4 weeks... We can make it!

You start to forget...

"... that this is really happening." Or at least so go the first few lines of the Al Gore documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," which we watched this weekend. It has really been one of those weekends where life seems so idyllic out here in the fun and the sun of San Diego, but is so menacing everywhere else.

First, the film. I am developing a growing interest in climate change. The data is, quite frankly, pretty horrifying. As the level of CO2 in our atmosphere climbs further and further into uncharted territory, our summers get hotter, storms get fiercer, droughts get fiercer... and this is just the beginning. I find myself really fired up to do something about this, even if it means in the short term just reducing our carbon output. Longer term, I think it would be great to target clean technologies for post-MBA employment. Its a pretty hot (no pun) topic around UCSD. I think there will be lots of opportunities there.

Yet, on Saturday night with friends at a Beach BBQ in Encinitas it is easy to forget that such environmental horrors loom, as we bask in nature's splendor on a rather chilly evening at the beach.


Kathryn, with Sara and Katie

Humans seem much better at dealing with imminent, immediate threats, as opposed to longer-term, slower-developing threats. I wonder when we will collectively realize we can't be just "business as usual" about climate change?

And this horrible news from Virginia Tech, and to a lesser though still chilling extent, the NASA command in Texas. Back in San Diego, I watch the kids run around on the lawn after church and shake my head at the thought that any kid could grow up to do what the gunman in Blacksburg did.

Yet it happened... and will undoubtedly happen again. Its interesting how our reactions to such a tragedy are so varied. I read a recount of the violence and felt... anger. I felt that sense of bile rising in my throat, as my thoughts flickered to somehow delivering vengeance. Kat said that she felt a wave of grief, followed by just sadness.

The presence of evil in our world is one of those most uncomfortable things, for both Christian and secular humanist alike. For the humanist, it seriously undermines their theory that all people are really good, and just need the right circumstances to show this. The college educated shooter seemed to have the advantages and opportunities necessary for success, yet was trapped in such darkness. For the Christian, the question we must ask is how a loving and supposedly sovereign God would allow such an event to occur.

Our pastor preachd on this subject this evening, from Romans 9:9-22, when Paul writes of how God's power and glory are shown most clearly when His wrath will be delivered to the evil. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."

So back to my reaction. I realize how foolish it is for me to steam about such things. God is a just judge, and this gunman in Virginia will experience the awful consequences of justice. And God is a great god, who can use even something as dark and dreadful as a mass murder, to show his glory and power to a world which, if nothing else, for at least one news cycle has been reminded of how little we truly control our own lives and how blessed we are to have faith in a sovereign God who does.

Vaccination Quiz

OK, folks... Let's see how well you know your world travel trivia... Or at least, how much paranoia you have to be checking the CDC website!

Question: In order to travel to Africa, it is either required or highly recommended that you receive a vaccination for: (Choose all that apply)

A.) MMR (Booster)
B.) West Nile Virus
C.) Hepatitis A
D.) Meningococcal (Meningitis)
E.) Whooping Cough
F.) Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis
G.) Typhoid
H.) Yellow Fever
I.) Green Fever
J.) The Gout

Want the answers? Scroll below













Answers: A, C, D, F, G, H

Whew! I tell you what! These CDC cats don't mess around! Our trip is coming along well, though. We met as a team for the first time this week, and we are hard at work getting ready to raise support, develop our project, get those vaccines out of the way, and more!

The Stegosaurus on the Ark

It's Monday morning, and I am sipping my third cup of coffee, working up the motivation to head into work today, and reflecting over the course of events this past weekend...

All in all, relative to Midwestern tornadoes and Eastern Nor'easters, our mild, partly sunny weekend was superb. We were fortunate enough to see some good friends, visit a new place, plant some flowers, and do a great deal of prep work for the Uganda missions trip that we are involved in...

Not to say there wasn't any wierdness for me to ponder this morning along with my third cup of joe. We had plenty. The main source of befuddlement was our "couples date" on Saturday at the Institute for Creation Research with my former landlord and current friend, David, and his girlfriend Lisa.

Now, this ICR place is something truly exceptional...



It is located in East County San Diego, and according to their website, they do the following:

The Institute for Creation Research equips believers with evidences of the Bible’s accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.

It all sound well and good until you find yourself deep inside their labryntine museum staring at an illustration of Noah's Ark with a stegosaurus in one of the bays of the hold. It's at that point that you realize you aren't in Kansas anymore!

I think the thing that felt the wierdest to me was that I felt like... the enemy there. We walked in and got latched onto a tour group, and from the moment I arrived I felt like a total outsider. I should say that I embrace more of a "Theistic Evolution" perspective. Though I am certainly not an expert in the field, I recently read Francis Collins' wonderfully readable book, "The Language of God" and really resonated with the compatibility he outlines between modern genetic biology (which owes much to the theory of evolution) and Christianity.

Alas, such compatibility is not to be found anywhere in the winding passages of the ICR museum. I only made it through Day 3 of the 7 days of creation with the tour group, before the leader's bandying of that most horrid of Christian-ease aphorisms, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" drove me over the edge and I had to flee for fear of becoming unhinged. Kat made it to Day 4 before fleeing in similar anguish.

We somehow escaped from the museum that day with our sanity and friendship with Dave and Lisa still in tact. After further prayer and reflection, Kat and I were able to come to a conclusion about why we were so disturbed in there. We realized that the people who run this institute, while certainly well-meaning, have become so totally fixated on this one non-salvation related facet of Christianity that they set it up on par with the cross. "You must believe on the Lord Jesus... and a literal 6-day creation... to be saved.'

We serve a bigger God then that, one who didn't crumble when scientists in the 1600s showed quite clearly that the Earth revolved around the sun, and not vice versa, and won't crumble now if we see that He works His sovereign will for us through the means of seemingly random genetic mutations over many millions of years.

Or at least that's what my great, great, great grandpa Mr. Bojangles told me the last time I stopped by to seem him in Gorilla Tropics at the San Diego Zoo... *grin* - B -

Our new neighbor

This handsome footballer just appeared the other day at our complex. We're working on bringing him cupcakes as a welcome gift.

Of Birthdays, Beaches, and Borders

This past weekend, Kathyrn and I celebrated her birthday. In keeping with the newly-minted Applegate tradition of "mystery" birthdays, I concocted a weekend of "firsts" for us.

First... Kat had told me awhile back that she would want to go horseback riding "more than anything else" - Being the ever eager husband, I tucked that info away for later. I found this place in Imperial Beach called Beach Horse Rentals . It was such a trip - It's like 10 feet from Mexico, as far south as you can get, and its run by these two European girls. Really small scale kind of operation, but neat, as they guide you out on a 3 hour trail ride that ends on the beach where you can trot your horse through the surf!







Next, since we were so close to Mexico, we did another "first" and crossed over the border on foot to check out Tijuana. We went to a really great restaurant called Cien Anos, checked out the Tijuana Cultural Center (which is about the history of Baja California... Talk about "European-ancestry Guilt" though) , and went to the Arts and Crafts Market.





The crossing home was smooth ~ Only slightly trepidatious part of the trip was the van taxi that we unwisely took from the museum to the market. We got in and I had that "bad feeling" - It was packed with an entire family, and this boisterous guy who looked a little bit sketch started talking with me immediately ~ The close confines, the shady character, two naieve gringos... I had visions of "Traffic" going through my head.

But they got us there, and only 2 dollars the poorer we were. It was a great weekend, and a wonderful way to celebrate Kat's birthday

Recipe for a birthday surprise

Now, the recipe for an excellent birthday surprise is very easy to follow. Here's what you do:

Step 1 - Find two good friends with birthdays just a few days apart from each other (Kat and Sara)

Step 2 - Have one boyfriend of one of the two friends (Shawn) secretly change his travel plans to arrive a day early to be picked up by the other of the two friends (Kat)

Step 3 - Have the same boyfriend (Shawn) recruit the husband of the other of the two friends (Brent) along with two other friends of the two birthday friends (Dena and Katie) to arrange for food, cakes, and the like.

OK, here's where it gets a little tricky.

Step 4 - Convince the two birthday friends that the birthday lunch is for the other one (So, Kat thinks they are celebrating Sara's, and vice versa)

Step 5 - Surprise both birthday friends with bunny ears, cake, smiles, and good times in the sun!

Easy as pie... You can see the rest of the photo's here

Two tickets for Uganda, please

I bought and paid for two tickets to fly to Uganda today.

Now, I won't startle you with the price of such seats (Blasted vacationing Europeans and their 8 weeks of vacation running up the prices in August!), but I will tell you that if you are reading this, don't be too shocked if you see a letter requesting support for our short-term missions trip to Uganda this summer...

*grin*

Still, it is an exciting time. God is moving in our hearts, and I pray that he would continue to stir us and use us in whatever way that he pleases... So goes it.

NCPC Mission to Uganda 2007

Great news!

We've been putting together a team to travel to Uganda, East Africa, for a 2-week missions trip this summer, and Lord-Willing, we've got our team and dates lined up.

We'll be going with a team of 6 people from our church from July 30 - August 13. We will do a church-planting project in Kampala, the capital city, for the first week, and then will be doing work in support of the Orphan Sponsorship Program that members of our church administer for the 2nd week.

There is much more to be done, but the first hurdle has been cleared, and we are on our WAY!!!

Weekend Recap

It's been a lovely, mild, sunny weekend out here in paradise. San Diego is definitely earning her 500K median-priced home this weekend! Here's what's happening with us!

Driving lesson - Part 1

Kat and I went over to our local driving range on Saturday. I haunt this place pretty regularly, though my progress has been pretty slow since I haven't taken any lessons since the wedding... It was Kat's 2nd time at the range in her entire life, but let me tell you, this girl can HIT!

She is one of those classic Softball-hitting golfers. Its so neat to watch her wrists just flip the club effortlessly through, like its just total muscle memory. True, true, getting clean contact was a bit more challenging, and she may have averaged more than one swing per ballstrike, but when she hits it, it GOES!

Driving lesson - Part 2

Fresh off her triumph over the game of golf, we decided to try another "first." My car is a stick, and her family hasn't had a car with a manual transmission since she's been driving, so for all of our marriage, she hasn't been able to drive one of our cars.

We set out to change that! Now, hear me now, THIS was like total "Ripley's Believe it or Not." I explained to her how it works, we drove over to an empty parking lot, switched places, adjusted the seat a little,... and she just... STARTED DRIVING!

It was the most amazing thing! First time driving a stick, and she just puts it in first and starts going, easy as you please! She did so well driving around the parking lots and side streets that I, ever of the pedagogy of "throw 'em in the deep end to teach 'em to swim," said, "Why don't you just drive us on home from here?" (Home is about 10 miles away)

Kat, to her credit, is one tough cookie, and so reluctantly agreed to do it! We pulled out on the road, crossed busy Mira Mesa Blvd, drove down Vista Sorrento, crossed under the 56 Freeway, and were almost home when we had a little snag with a stall at a red light and some rude honking drivers behind us...

But that crisis was quickly averted, and she got us the rest of the way home. It was TRULY a remarkable feat!

Golf



Not that that time at the range was too helpful, but some buddies and I took advantage of the beautiful Sunday to play golf at Tecolote Canyon. Its a fun Executive course that really makes you work on your short game. Good times!

All in all, this was a wonderfully blessed weekend!

B

Hot news from the Journal and Courier Online - Weddings

The work of a proud mother and the hometown newspaper... I hope the town doesn't go aflutter at the misguided suggestion that we are one of those "hyphenated" couples (Thompson-Applegate)

I don't have any real beef with hyphenators... I just see the next generation and the next generation spiralling out of control in a sea of dashes. It's not pretty, I tell you!

But fortunately, we don't have to deal with that dilemma... *grin!*

Journal and Courier Online - Weddings

Brent and Kathryn Thompson Applegate
March 18, 2007

Kathryn Ann Thompson and Brent Allen Applegate were married Sept. 3. Pastor Nathan Hitchcock officiated in the North City Presbyterian Church in San Diego.
Parents of the couple are Craig and Jan Thompson o Fayetteville, Ark., and Roy and Jan Applegate of West Lafayette.
Honor attendants were Jennifer Duncan of Fort Worth, Texas, and John Hatcher of San Diego. Other attendants were Jennifer Strange of Shreveport, La.; Sara Brownell, Hank Miller and Gordon Fletcher, all of San Diego; Julie Monaghan of Wooster, Ohio; Avalon Moore of Henderson, Nev.; and Brad Stratton of Corvallis, Ore.
The bride graduated from Plano (Texas) Senior High School and has a bachelor's degree in biophysics from Centenary College of Louisiana. She is a member of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and is a doctoral student at Scripps Research/La Jolla.
A graduate of Harrison High School and Purdue University, the groom has a degree in industrial engineering and is a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He is program manager at Hewlett-Packard in San Diego.
They live in San Diego.

The Catch-Up Post

A week-plus since the last blog update, and my "blogger guilt" has become overbearing!

This past week my camera has been sadly inactive, though we seem to be moving a million miles an hour. I'll do better this next week, I promise!

Anyways, here is a run-down of what is happening with us:

Doing

This past week, Kat and I have both been doing a lot in the area of Missions. Since getting catalyzed by the visit we had with a Ugandan pastor named John Mugabe, we've taken the lead to get a 2-3 week missions trip to Uganda organized for August.

This has meant lots of emails to travel agents, missions-sending agencies, and people over in Uganda. We are coming up on "Decision-Day" when we see who is in, and are praying that God would bless us with a good group of enthusiastic people.

Watching

Still haven't watched broadcast TV in months... Have a dim notion that some show about Idols gets talked about a lot. We are becoming so out of touch. After the Crash-fiasco, I cleaned up our Netflix list to PG-13 and below, and Over the Hedge was a nice antidote to the bleakness of crash... Certainly, there was some serious themes in it, like when the turtle takes the wagon of stuff... oh, ok, so its all just fun and silly, but THAT'S OK! It's entertainment!

Eating

Well! Very well, in fact! Kat's friend Katie's parents took us to a really nice restaurant in La Jolla to celebrate Katie's birthday... Kat's aunt and uncle totally amazed us with a dinner of Filet Mignon in early celebration for Kat's birthday. I feel plump and happy, to say the least!

Reading

Kat- Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barabara Hughes

Brent Logic of Failure by Dietrich Doerner

Learning

God is faithful, even when we are faithless. I find life in Uganda so appealing because with so little, they are forced to live on faith alone. Kat and I are learning more about how to celebrate our marriage... The honeymoon shouldn't end after just one week in Hawaii...

And THAT'S all I am permitted to say about that! :-)

Better sign off here before I get into any trouble with my wife!

Crashing inward

I saw human kindness displayed today, when I wasn't even expecting it, and it left me feeling ashamed...

I blame it partially on my poor Netflix-choice of renting "Crash." So the movie won a bunch of Academy Awards, and a number of friends have really liked it, but I should have done just a little bit of research to figure out that the film is dark, bitter, angry, fear-mongering, and that Sandra J. Bullock plays it totally straight with absolutely ZERO humor (Oh, how I wished she would do that snorting laugh of hers just to lighten things up!) -

We didn't make it too far into it, but caught the jist that it was about racism and dysfunctional relationships... Nice choice for newlyweds, right?

Anyways, so I was heading down to a restaurant at lunchtime today. I was stopped at a light, pondering the rest of the day, and enjoying that acquarium-like feel of staring obliviously out your car window at nothing in particular.

Until I realized that there was something going on right beside me. A middle-aged Asian man was walking around and looking confused. I noticed he was carrying an old school walkman, which for some reason always triggers memories of "Rain Man" for me for some reason.

He was being attended by a roughly dressed woman, who seemed to be trying to calm him down. Our eyes met, and because my window was open a crack (A leak in my acquarium) she came over and started talking to me. I noticed that she didn't have the middle 4 teeth in her bottom row. My heart started beating faster.

"I think he's really messed up," she said, and I flashed back to scenes of a carjacking in the movie. "He's looking for a McDonalds... Is there one around here?" I stammered a bit until I recalled one, less than a quarter of a mile away. "Yeah... Yeah. It's down that way." I gestured, praying that the light would turn green so that I could speed away to my team lunch of mediocre Mexican food at Chevy's. "Thanks," she said and turned back to the man.

And as I looked back, it was like my eyes cleared of the fog of fear. I saw that the man was not disturbed, but just confused by the fact that the sidewalk he needed to cross was under construction. I saw that the woman who was roughly dressed was so garbed because... she was a construction worker. And last, I saw that woman put her arm around this now unscary man and show him the path through the construction site to those fabled arches in the distance.

When we get to be so focussed on protecting our own self, it's easy to forget how our role model came to us saying, "I am the bread of life." The point of life is not living in fear to avoid trouble, but its living in love to help those in trouble to find their way out. Amen...

Walls

We had one of Kat's friends from her lab, Khoulud, over for dinner this week. We had a nice dinner of oh-so-tasty lasagna, and then watched a movie about the Israeli settlement movement in Palestine.

The film is called "The Iron Wall," and it was produced by a Palestinian agricultural group, which unto itself is a bit strange because the movie is about 90% about politics and 10% about agriculture... Still, its a lot more entertaining than most agricultural productions I recall from my rural childhood (ie, the 5:00 Corn and Soybean Futures report, Milking Monthly, etc.)

Anyway, the film, which can be viewed in its entirety on Google (its just under an hour long) tells the story of the history and impact of both Israeli settlements into the occupied West Bank territories as well as the more recent and ongoing wall construction project that is underway.

I guess I find it totally astounding that the Israeli's are in the midst of a 650 KM wall project inside the West Bank, that when completed, will form a physical barrier between Israel and a smaller chunk of Palestine than was taken after the 1967 war. Probably the most astounding thing to me was that I was totally oblivious of this fact. SOmehow, in all the stream of news, I need to grab ahold of the actual stories, and not just read the headlines.

The film is unabashedly pro-Palestine, and I would really be interested in hearing the pro-Israel response to it. I have always instinctively "rooted" for Israel whenever I hear of news from that region. Whether because of their Biblical roots, more familiar western lifestyle, or perennially picked on and persecuted status, my bias is always for Israel. Khoulud made some good points in challenging this "gut check" reaction...

The film is interesting while certainly slanted. Its worth seeing and knowing what is going on in the Holy Land. Now I know I will pay much closer attention to anything relating to "settlements" and "walls."

Pastor John

Pastor John Mugabe stayed a night with Kat and I. John is visiting from his home in Uganda. He has come to our church to help raise support for his numerous ministries.

John leads a large prison ministry, presides over a primary school and a newly-established secondary school, and pastors a growing church. Oh, and he and his wife have developed an in-home ministry to protect the babies of female prisoners from almost certain demise by taking them into their own home... They've take in 30, to go along with their two. John is 31 years old, and I am so impressed.



It was such a neat time of fun and fellowship with John. Kat and I are looking into how we can best support his ministry. But more than anything else, his visit is a reminder that God is faithful, and that we shouldn't look at anything, not money, jobs, education, or any such thing, for our confidence in this life.

Seeing a man who was given so little and has turned it into so much. It made me simltaneously aware of all the gifts we have been blessed with, and how little we have done to put those gifts to good service.

C.S. Lewis says, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." I feel the call roaring like a train whistle through my heart this evening...

Bridge to Teribble Theology

My good buddy Hank and I went to a movie on Friday night... Hank and I get together for a bite to eat and a movie every so often, and I usually try to pick movies that are more towards the softer and gentler side.

We went to see Bridge to Terabithia, which I knew very little about at the time though I have now learned that it is a movie based on a very popular kids book of the same name by Katherine Patterson. I was just going by the fact that it was a solid "B" pick by critics and yahoo readers, and seemed a much less graphic pic than, oh, say "300" which was debuting as well.

The movie's rough plotline follows "An 11-year-old boy has his life changed forever when he befriends the class outsider, a girl. Together they create the world of Terabithia, an imaginary kingdom filled with giants, trolls and other magical."

I loved the imagination of the movie, and it really was a fun film. Yet, it also takes these insidious jabs at Christianity. Though not falling into the usual categories of disapproval, aka sex, violence, etc, the film paints Christianity as a religion based on artificial fear-mongering that must be overcome with the "purity of one's imagination..." Secular characters are presented as free-thinking, free-expressing, and likable. Christian characters are dull, plodding, and uninspiring.

Ahh, the foolishness of this world, to keep selling this lie that "everyone is good on the inside just the way they are..." It really just motivates me to try and live more openly before a watching world. Christians need to show the world that yes, we are serious about sin, but only in the sense that you don't have much appreciation for grace if you haven't first considered sin. Grace only becomes amazing when you realize that it is offered to you, a sinner, who doesn't deserve it but so desperately needs it...

Highlights from the Photo Shoot

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille"...

Here's some of the best pics from our recent for-class Photo Shoot with our good friend Dinah... Kat looks amazing! Best story on these: Dinah shot them on film, so they were developed in her class dark room at UCSD. Another of our friends is in that class, and was in the dark room working on her stuff, when she moved some things aside and all of a sudden, was staring at pictures of... us! She was not a little bit confused!

Anyways, these are some of my favorites, but you can view the whole set on Flickr here!

Of Romans and relations...

Kat and I went to a talk last night over at a dark building in the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. I mention that the building was dark, because its not a bit too creepy to head down to this dark, looming building down near the wharf... Feels a bit like the kind of place you might leave from for a dip in the ocean wearing cement shoes.

FORTUNATELY - These are much nicer folks with the UCSD Graduate Christian Fellowship. The talk featured Dr. Peter and Rebecca Jones, who are affiliated with the Westminster Seminary and have a ministry called Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet (CWiPP).

The topic was on gender, and in short, he built up a very fascinating foundational approach for why the preservation of gender roles and sexual orientation norms are so,... well,... foundational.

The main text he cited was Romans 1:25-26.

25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

He pointed out that the progression here goes: Step 1. Cosmological- Who do we see God as?, Step 2. What do we worship, the creator or the creation?, and Step 3. How do we interact with each other, esp. with regards to sexuality.

I had never really comprehended the connection between sexuality and worldview.

Nevertheless, in a group of grad students, even "Christian" as part of their title, there was a lot of bristling and tension that I felt. This is definitely one of those divisive "flash points" where I think Christians need to take stands, but in love, and for the right reasons and motivations

My vote is Springfield, OR

Hey, they may not have a nuclear power plant, but other than that, my memories of Springfield, OR are that it has just about the right mix of kooky characters...

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/article/urn:newsml:tv.ap.org:20070309:springfield_simpsons__ER:1

Tales of tables, kitchi-puters, penguins, and amateur modeling

The weekend... Has left the building

Ahh, me... How the time does fly by? OK - What have we been up to? Oh yes!

First, new table

Kat and I made the difficult decision to put our old four-legged friend down. Yes, 25 was a ripe old age for a table, and this one had been handed down through multiple generations of her family.

But it was tricky to have a table that only could seat 4, and so when Kat found this cool table on Craig's List, we pounced!



Fortunately, we did find the old table a nice new home with a young couple at Scripps... Maybe we can stop by sometime and visit, just for the memories...

Second... Now why did it take us so long to think of this?



It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... a laptop strapped to the shelf of our kitchen!

So, it might not win any style awards, but we were able to put this old laptop to use as our "Kitchen Computer Console" - Now we have easy access to recipes, files, etc. Not too shabby, I'd say.

Third... Down by the sea

One of the best things about a year in which you've a.) Lived in San Diego, and b.) Had a ton of visitors in from out of town, is that you start collecting all these memberships. Wild Animal Park, Zoo, and of most relevance, Sea World.

Yes, we indulged in that most American of pasttimes this weekend with a quick trip down to see Shamu... We actually didn't see Shamu (or at least one of the 7 Orca whales called Shamu), but we did see lots of sharks, dolphins, and of course, penguins!



I think the most fun about going to a park like Sea World is to hear the kids reactions to everything. I want to foster that kind of amazement with God's creation.

Fourth... Last, but not least, Just Shoot Me!

Kat was asked to help out our good friend and amateur photographer Dinah to sit for some portraits for a class she's taking.



Kat looked GREAT! I can't wait to see the results back. Dinah had asked the "dark, brooding, and handsome" Bulgarian guy from their lab to pose as well, but when he didn't show, she shoved me in front of the camera. I'm less excited about THOSE results, but it will probably be good for a laugh, which I hope you've at least once had yourself as you've read about our little weekend in this post. Until next time...