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First, let me appologize forw the lapse posting. The internet connection at the hotel has gotten overwhelmed a few times in the last few days. Secondly, rest assured I am taking a plethora of pictures but due to the slowness of the internet connection, I will not be able to post them until I get back home. Monday morning we made a trip to the Venezuelan version of our blue or orange big box home building supply, In Venezuela it is called EPA and the logo is a giant creepy looking scorpion. We purchased so many supplies that we filled a Ford Ranger past the roofline. Much like the big boxes in the states, they did not have everything we needed, so after lunch with the boys at Project Jonas' farm, we drove into downtown to the electrical supply store. Despite having a translator along to assist, I had a difficult time getting anyone to understand what a inch and a half male adaptor was. I resorted to pointing to pieces on display. I finally spotted a listing on the end of a she...

We awoke at 7:30am Sunday and headed to breakfast and had a buffet of scrambled eggs, fried plantains, chopped hot dogs, what looked like really small biscuits. The food was enjoyable and filling. We met for a brief meeting with our team and I gave a devotion and shared with the group a brief description on my life story which was met was gasps. I still get weepy when I recount the struggles I have been through over the years and how God has steadily provided and guided me through it all. We attended the morning worship service with a Church in Barquisimeto that has partnered with Northpoint Ministries in Alpharetta, Georgia. I was amazed to hear that since they had adapted to what our church campuses have been doing that they have went from around 1,000 people attending their Sunday services to over 6,000 a Sunday. We took a tour of their children's ministries which were packed to the gills with children who were laughing and playing and had huge smiles on their faces. We set in...

Up before the sun. I'm so not this early of a morning person. Dash Transport arrived at 4:10am and we headed out in the darkness to the airport. Much of the trip follows the same route of my daily commute. Funny there isn't as much traffic on Saturday morning as on a weekday. I honestly think there is traffic all hours day and night on weekedays. We meet up with the rest of our 17 member team for our day of air flight at the airport and fly to Miami then on to Caracas, Venezudeal and then finally to Barquisimeto. I am already tired just thinking about it. I have packed books for reading, chips, nuts, and jerkey to stave off hunger with extras in my checked bag. In the event of emergency, your seat can act as a floatation device and my backpack can feed you for a week. Weather guessers are predicting rain. I won't be outside again until 8pm so, ok. 9.29am landed in Miami, found a restaraunt across from the gate that serves pancakes. i'm in like flynn. the wai...

Its been a long several weeks at work. We have had construction going on in our offices and my team has been busy relocating folks to temporary office space on Thursdays and Fridays and then moving them back to their reconstructed office space on Mondays. This has involved a lot of crawling under desks, moving computers, relocating phone circuits, moving heavy printers, and the like. It has been four weeks of this process, and we have quickly arrived at a point where we do not want to hear the words office and move in the same paragraph let alone the same sentence. This past weekend was the final phase of the four phase project. But to make the weekend a little more exciting, headquarters also scheduled a phone system replacement/upgrade on Friday as well. So after two days of relocating staff, we then spent Friday night at the office performing a cut over of the office phone circuit and from the old phone switch to the new one as well as swapping out all of the phone sets with new ...

Image Source: TruTV "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure, than to live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt Are you stymied by the fear of failure? Is there a dream that has been knocking around in the back of your head to venture out and attempt something, but you have never took that first step? I want to encourage you to strongly consider pursuing whatever that dream may be. We were not designed with mediocrity in mind. Never took a motorcycle ride that was more than 3 or 4 hours on a Saturday? Always wanted to go to Sturgis? Time is a wasting. One of the most enjoyable rides I have ever taken was an 8 hour ride to Tampa/St. Pete for work a couple years back. Yes, it was a long time in the saddle, but boy that ocean sure looked good and the salt air smelled wonderful when I arrived. Ever thought there was a calling on your life for a certain occupation or mi...

Last night, after the sun had started setting and the temperature dropped below 95F, Allison and I took Sadie and Kramer (our dogs) out for an evening walk. At one point, we were walking down a long sidewalk that leads to the neighborhood swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts. Across the street on the other sidewalk were three girls who looked to be about 7th or 8th graders wearing bikinis headed towards the pool. A boy around their age was approaching them. As he got closer, he said, "Hey, where are y'all going?" I thought it a dumb question if one considered the three were bikini clad and their direction of travel was in direction intersection with the community pool. One of the girls responded, "Were going to the pool." In my head, I inserted "Duh Huh". The boy then replied, "Cool, can I come?" The girl responded, "Sure!" He then said, "OK, let me go get my swimsuit." And started off towards his house when one of...

image source: http://www.valdosta.edu/~klflesher/Four_seasons.jpg As I get older, I have come to understand the concept of the seasons of life. Some interests or passions from earlier years seem to fade and new interests take their  place. As I think of what consumed my thoughts and time 25 years ago, I am amazed that I am no longer even casually interested in those things. Those chapters of my life are closed and I move on to new motivations. Through the 1980s, I was consumed with auto racing. My  brother began drag racing and i enjoyed helping him with the car. I followed  NASCAR with a passion. I went to truck and tractor pulls and monster truck competitions. I began working as a volunteer crew member on a dirt track stock car team. That led me to building, owning, and driving my own dirt track car. I then spent 10 years racing stock cars and dreaming of breaking into NASCAR as a driver. At one point when I had put racing on hold to start up my own computer c...