Itinerary for Namibia

May 9
- Seattle, WA (7:25AM) to Washington, DC (3:20PM)
- Washington, DC (5:20PM) to Johannesburg (2:35PM - May 10)
- overnight in Johannesburg

May 11
- Johannesburg (1:20PM) to Windhoek (2:20PM)

Then, I recover for a couple of days before orienting with Rev. Boylan and the UBS crew from May 14-18. I will then orient to Windhoek (solo) from May 19-23.

May 24
- Windhoek (12:50PM) to Johannesburg (3:45PM)
- Johannesburg (5:55PM) to Washington, DC (6:00AM - May 25)

May 25
- Washington, DC (8:50AM) to Seattle (11:19AM)

Hair due

So, here it is. It's decent, given what Michelle had to work with. Though, I'm seriously considering going back on Wednesday and having her take the whole back side off so I don't look so mushroomy. The bits of perm that wouldn't come off gracefully are sticking out stiffly. Ew. Lesson learned, me.

The packing is begun in earnest today. We have a target of 10 boxes per day before I take off for ... Namibia! Yes, I'm going for an orientation (2 weeks), solo. So, we have to get everything done before I go so Rob's not still fussing with it when the people we're housesitting for return. Plus, I wanna take our first load with me as checked baggage.

Next move

At the library now, waiting for my haircut at 5:15PM. Then, back up to Bellingham this evening to take care of kitty and settle into housesitting.

May have big Namibia news (other than the new hairdo) in the next 24 hours ...

The Move

Today, we travel back down to Woodinville to retrieve the rest of our stuff and move it up to the house we're housesitting at in Bellingham. Actually, we'll be coming back up here tomorrow since the rest of our day in Woodinville is spoken for. Rob has to drive further to Tukwila to pick up his repaired guitar case. I think I may be able to pick up my new contact lenses today, if we have time to drive through Bellevue. I'm thinking of going to Awana with Kate and all.

I had a captive audience with Rob in the car during our long drive back to Bellingham and we worked out a plan for sorting all our stuff. We hope to finish as soon as possible so that we can actually spend some good, solid time with his folks ... who live 2 houses down from where we're housesitting. June has mentioned a return trip to Vancouver Island.

My siblings

Now that we're all on Facebook and Ringo, I can show you what my family members look like.

This is my older brother, John.

This is Jesse, who is a few years younger than me.

This is Robert, while he was in Hawaii with the Canadian Navy.

Hope is the oldest of my younger sisters.

Joshua is my youngest brother.

And Lily, shown here with her baby, is the baby of the family. She is 10 years younger than me.

Tiny happy people

Dark Waters release

It's released! The Dark Waters module for Neverwinter Nights 2! And the YouTube promo has a clip with some of my dialog in it; I'm the voice of the Heather character. Check it out!

One year-old Yank!

I totally forgot until just now: yesterday was the 1st anniversary of my U.S. citizenship! Check out the April 2006 posting to relive the excitement.

Awana have a good time

Did music last night for some of the wee folk at the Avondale Bible Church Awana. Nothing fancy, just the classics: Jesus Loves Me, My God is so Big, Blessed Be the Name of the Lord, This Little Light of Mine, Peace Like a River, and Jesus Love is Very Wonderful. Heavy on the actions. Looked at my thighs this morning and realized that I had beaten a small series of tiny bruises into them with my We Will, We Will Rock You version of Jesus Loves Me. There's a song in that, I think; "Tiny bruises, on my thighs..." [snort] Sorry. Didn't want to resist that one. Yes, I have the gift of musical satire. That's listed in 2nd Galatians 7:9, I think.

My big task today is to try some clothing on Rob that we got from Sierra Trading Post. Trying to make sure he has some nice pants and to replace his holey T-shirts.

Rob's big task is to get his guitar case fixed. He's driving to Tukwila this morning to get that process underway. He's been dragging that case around with rubber bands all over the handle that broke, the bands holding it together and concealing all the little wires that snapped out. He gets weirdness going through airport security with it the way it is, insisting that the security people hold the handle a certain way so they "don't get hurt". Yikes.

B'ham time

We're currently in Bellingham with Rob's folks. Tomorrow, we meet with the people we're housesitting for next month to go over how their house works; cat, plants, etc. I think we're driving Rob's mom to Target this afternoon. I guess I'll know when she gets back from the mailbox.

I did my 'Psalm 150' presentation at Cross of Christ LC on Sunday, in the Adult Ed. class.

Rob's bro

Larry was featured in the Fig Tree: check it out here. Way to go, Lar!

Easter Vigil with The Vigilants

Thanks, Pete, for the great pics!

American Idle

I do watch American Idol once a week, on Tuesdays, to see the big performances mentored by a star. Weirdness; the Sanjaya thing. I had heard that there was a move to keep him on to "ruin" A.I. and I wondered how that was even possible. Behold, the techonology of eeeevilllll ...

There's a piece of software called the Sanjaya War Dialer. You enter Sanjaya's number after a show and it will dial it every 15 seconds, voting for him again and again. "And I think to myself ..."

Of course, technically, you could use it to super-vote for anybody, since the number has to be entered manually each week. But still.

The irony? Sanjaya is steadily improving as a performer week after week. It's kind of bizarre. Like, his unique environment of exposure and harsh criticism are working for him.

More PhotoBooth fun

They should call it Fun-o Booth

This is what 2 people look like when they're using PhotoBooth in the library and realize that the "beep ... beep ... beep" before the shutter-sound is not only NOT muted, it's LOUD.

Digital camera research

We had to find a digital camera before heading over to Namibia and wanted to get one with camcorder capability since we're going to have to produce a ministry DVD each year. I've been researching for a bunch of days and have narrowed it down to this one:

Here's what I wanted it to have:
➀ Image Stabilisation - don't want it to be all blurry just because I'm shooting from the back of a moving truck
➁ AA battery powered - have to be able to get replacement batteries anywhere
➂ Hi-res movie capability - this one has the 640x480 at 30 frames per second; any less than 30 fps is jerky
➃ Sound with the movies with low camera noise
➄ Long movie clip length - the capper on this model is 4GB, 4x what most other consumer level digicams have
➅ Not too expensive - can get it on Amazon for $250, plus a 2GB card as a bonus before June 11, 2007
➆ Built-in flash

The only drawback that I could find for this camera is the long flash-recovery time but apparently you can't get short flash-recovery and AA battery power in the same model. In fact, every camera I saw reviewed online, even highly recommended or rated ones, seemed to have an equal-sized collection of pros-and-cons. No-one makes a great or perfect digital camera at the consumer level, it seems. So, every consumer review collection ranged from "love it. best camera ever!!!!!!!" to "sucks. do NOT BUY THIS pece of jnk!" Given that we're going to be taking pictures in a bright, sunny place, we figure flash delay is a small price to pay.

Risen indeed

Good Friday: Rob got to read as Jesus and I got the part of a Witness.
Easter Vigil, Saturday: Went to church early to set up for the party after the service that night. Christy took me to check out her vintage dress collection and gave me a loaner green beaded capelet to wear over my black formal for the show that night. Went home after set-up and crashed before the show. Will post more on this when the pictures arrive.
Easter Sunday: Had breakfast at the church, service at 11AM. Had Easter dinner with the Zaffke family, crashed a bit afterward, watching recorded TV. My adrenals were shot from all the excitement and I got a headache.

Today, I'm taking it easy, recovering. The headache is gone but I'm still taking it slow, looking at some software to maximize our move productivity. Talking to mom on the phone right now.

Good Friday

We're getting ready now for the Good Friday service this evening, at 7PM, at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church. I got my Canadian passport application couriered this afternoon so I can hopefully get that before leaving the country. I also gave Rob something like a haircut but not quite. He's reading the part of Jesus in the service tonight, from up on the altar, so I thought I'd better tidy him, just a little. We hope to get him in for a real haircut with our friend Michelle soon.

Holey wooly

My favorite cardigan is giving up the ghost ... again. I had briefly salvaged it by creatively patching the elbows while I was at seminary. Alas, as you can see, the hole has migrated beyond the patch. A sad day; it's not that I can't just go get another cardigan. Really, I could. But I found this particular sweater to always be the perfect temperature in air-conditioned buildings, a true necessity in the air-conditioned South. I don't know how it did it but it did. I guess I just need to 'take the bullet by the hand' (as Jilly would say) and chuck it. Though, I won't be doing that until the big move to Africa. I don't have the heart. We've been through too much together, this cardigan and I.

Optomap

Went to the eye doctor today and got an optomap of my retinas. Here they are!