Hello old friends. If you spent a summer or more with Mission Hills at San Miguel Chapel back in the late eighties and early nineties, this post is for you. Recently, after visiting Crested Butte, my friend Leigh Ann and I took the long way home to check in on “Camp Norwood“. We wound our way along highway 145 scanning the valley for signs of a pull-off and the old motel. After passing the condemned bridge, I knew we were close. But no dilapidated motel was forthcoming… only a few familiar ponds. That’s right, Camp Norwood is no more. The past is past. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’d hoped, I’ve been having a lot of conversations with the people I’m meeting during my South African odyssey. Some things I’ve heard and seen: Read the rest of this entry »

For the last few years I’ve lived a sedentary life, mostly exercising my mouse clicking finger and little more, so I packed a full supply of Advil in anticipation of the inevitable aches and pains of throwing my flaccid body into the tumbling waves. Well, my first dousing was a simulated one, but no less painful for it.

Read the rest of this entry »

They say that our smell remembers the best. Perhaps that’s why elephants don’t forget anything, why, with that big ol’ snout of theirs. Then again, I’ve never really believed that in any case. Remembering migratory paths isn’t exactly remembering everything. How could we really know whether elephants can remember any better than bees, lemurs, or the likes of us? But regardless, I’m always amazed at how precisely I remember a smell, and returning to a place that’s brimming with nostalgia and ancient memories occasions many remembrances. Every place has its smell, whether it be Colorado’s wonderfully aromatic crisp air or Los Angeles’ warm, smoggy, muggy cocktail. After arriving at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo airport I passed by a bakery and instantly its unique and unmistakeable scent took me back to the mornings my mom would take me to the bakery at Florida Center in Johanessburg when she was preparing a talk. It’s amazing to me the lucidity of this smell so many years on, and how it is so tightly bound to the memories of that place. Another wonderful and distinctive South African smell, believe it or not, is the smell of burning fields. South Africans regularly burn the fields to prevent fires from getting out of control and this scent in the air is wonderful. It’s something akin, I’d say, to the first whiffs of cut grass in the Spring in Colorado. Read the rest of this entry »

… are hanging in the pantry on the right hand side. Look for the King Soopers card.

After the long journey to South Africa, I was surprised to meet my mother at the airport in Durban. It was great to see her and she had a coffee while I had my first Appletiser in years. Apparently my dad had insisted that she pick me up instead of staying with him at the hospital. She had just received a call from the doctor that the operation had been completed successfully, so that’s great news. He will be in the ICU for the next couple days so I won’t get to see him till tomorrow. Now his rehabilitation begins, but the first step has been a good one. I’ve been reading about heart surgery and it looks like it will be a while before he is back at full strength. While it has been a shock to realize that my dad had to undergo double bypass heart surgery, we can be relieved that it was caught before he had a heart attack and I’m grateful that in our day and age one can expect a full recovery from an operation such as this.

This morning as I was making final preparations I received a call informing me that during the angiogram my father was undergoing today they discovered serious artery blockage, serious enough to warrant double bypass surgery. So, in the next few days he will be going under the knife to correct the problem. It seems providential that my brother and I happen to be traveling half way around the world at such a time as this. I hope that we can be an encouragement to him and my mother at this difficult time. I ask that you’d be praying for a successful operation.

After working virtually all day, every day for as long as I can remember, I’m taking (count it) a full month of vacation to colorful South Africa. It seems an opportune time to blog about my misadventures there. It promises to be a tad more interesting than my normal goings on… “I just applied my 30th hard light filter in Photoshop”, or, “I just wrote a wicked CSS file”. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s wishing you all everybody here in the US of A a very happy Thanksgiving. Whatever your case may be, no doubt there’s plenty still to be thankful for. There certainly is in my case. I’ll be headin’ to my bro’s house to play my part as Uncle Jungle Jim. There’s nothing like three giggling, bouncing boys to bring a smile to your face. Yes, even for a misanthrope like myself.