This Pilgrim's Progress

Di-lithium Crystals!!??

Researchers are reporting success at producing table-top fusion utilizing a crystal that generated a strong electric current. Does anyone remember "cold fusion"??  I'd rather hear about exploding frogs or exploding Democratic Senators (maybe that's what's happening to Ted Kennedy??).

Exploding Frogs - Now Denmark has them!!!

The "exploding frog" plague has spread to Denmark now!!!  At least it's more fun to read than the Democratic Senators' obstructionism or the sorry state of city government in San Diego!!! The spring monsoon this morning made my morning commute 1.5 hours long!!! I kissed the ground when I arrived safely at work!! Oh, well, back to the mundane.

Exploding Frogs Too!!

I almost forgot, BZ had a story about exploding frogs earlier in the week!! What a dreadful mental image!!! The story is also here in English. Although it sounds funnier in German!!  Der Tümpel der explodierenden ERDKRÖTEN!!!!  That was the headline, say it out loud for maximum effect!!. 

Blondes with Brains!!!

Stop the presses!! BZ-Berlin has found 7 successful blonde women with IQ's of 120 or above!! This ranks up there with the prehistoric hobbit bones found in Indonesia!!!! Must have been a slow news day in Berlin, or the reporter just wanted to hang out with 7 beautiful and smart women?? It's nuggets like this that have made me an addict of reading BZ and the Sun Online . That and the distinct European world view that's so different from mine they might as well be writing from Mars. Oh, and they sometimes have pictures of pretty women...wait...that's the connection. These guys know how to generate circulation on the net!!  I just hope the corporate firewall doesn't tag them as triple x sites and set off the content alarms in my bosses office!!!

Proves I've had a slow day too!!!

Labradors -small

Well the breeder finally got back to us. We are definitely in the running for a puppy, but not the one she originally emailed us about!! Go figure. Anyways, that pup is going to a family that was waiting ahead of us. So now we are in the running for a pup from a different litter. But they are only 4 weeks old, so it will be late in May before we can get one to take home. Monday we go over to be grilled interviewed by the breeder to make sure we are worthy enough to adopt one of her puppies. Breeders can be quite possessive of their litters!! So we are studying up on dogs, puppies, labs in general, and practicing an attitude of humility. We hope this is it, this patience thing is becoming very wearing. My daughter can't sleep, and the rest of us are having a hard time getting back to routine and reality. We really do need a pooch in our lives!!

Labradors - big & small

In the last few days or so our family has been in an emotional rollercoaster as we strove to get a new family pooch. We've kind of settled on a Black Lab for our next dog. We've been looking at the local Lab rescue group and contacted a few breeders. It's been especially hard on my wife and daughter. They've been visiting the rescue dogs, and naturally they get attached to a dog only to find it isn't available (for various reasons). Last night a breeder sent us a note saying she had a male black puppy that unexpectantly became available.  We then were torn whether to go with the 1 yr. old rescue dog we were supposed to pick up today or to try for the puppy. And what makes it even tougher, is at this point nothing is for sure!!! Either dog could be eliminated by circumstances beyond our control!! Oh well. Someone in our family must have prayed for patience lately, since we are definitely in the midst of learning it in this process of finding a new family pet. In the end it will be worth it, and we'll get the dog/puppy that the Lord has set aside for our family. We just need to be patient with the Lord's timing!!

Busy Weekend!!

Well our family had quite an action packed-fun-filled-weekend!!

I went off to our church's men's retreat in the local mountains (Mt. Palomar Christian Conference Center). It was a real blessing. Dr. Julius Kim from Westminster Seminary, Escondido taught us how to be more effective in our prayer. The fellowship was great, and the facilities as always were very good. And they fed us very well, almost too well!!! I took hike Sat. afternoon with some of the men, and it was a great hike. The weather was a bit gloomy, but the woods were beautiful. We saw some ancient oak trees, and a small group of deer. Coming down the mountain was a bit eventful!! Some friends stopped to say hi, I had pulled over to photo the sunset. They then discovered that one of their tires was going flat.  Well, we also discovered that the owner's manual wasn't in the car (a Lexus!!). So, the three of us were trying to discover how to change a tire on a Lexus!!! It was pretty funny, but we managed to get it done!!

The family did a hike in the mountains too to a small waterfalls, Cottonwood Creek Falls. See the posts below for the pictures. We had cousins from Colorado visiting this weekend too, so they all met at my mother-in-law's beach condo for a big get-together Saturday. It was a good time for the family.

And in the middle of all this we were shopping for a Labrador too!! We were thinking about getting a dog from the local rescue society, but now we're starting to lean towards getting a puppy from a breeder.

Well, I better get back to work and pretend I'm into it (not!!).

Men's Retreat Photos

I've posted the photos I took at the Men's Retreat in my photo albums which are listed on the right or just click on this link. If anyone would like a higher resolution file for printing, just let me know by email or a comment on this post and I'll email it to you asap.

Waterfall in San Diego Mtns.

This is the waterfall that my family hiked to. I don't know the name of it yet. I'll update this post when I find out. (It's called "Cottonwood Creek Falls"). My daughter took some pictures also, maybe she'll post them on her site. This photo was taken by my wife with her little cell-phone camera!! Not bad, considering!!

4/25/05  My daughter has a beautiful picture of the falls on her site. Check it out!! She has quite an eye for photography (father's heart swells with pride!!).

TGIF

Well it's kind of nice and laid-back here at work. Everyone has alternate Friday's off, and most people take this rotation, so it's real quiet here.

This weekend I'm off to our church's men's retreat up in the local mountains at Palomar Christian Conference Center. I'm looking forward to the fellowship and teaching and being up in the pine-trees.

My family went hiking this morning to a local water-fall (I wonder if it actually had water in it???).  I received a garbled cell-phone voice message, so I guess they are ok (actually they are, I exchanged some text messages which indicated that they were ok). I'm a little envious of them, but perhaps I'll get in a little hiking up at Mt. Palomar. They just sent me a cell-phone photo of the water fall, it looks just beautiful!!!

We are still in dog-shopping mode. It's getting a little hard, it seems every dog we like gets snapped up by someone else!! Oh well, I'm sure the right pooch will come along, we just have to be patient. I was looking at the Springer rescue site, but it's still too soon to think about another Springer. I think that's why we are looking at Labs and retrievers.

Still gearing up for our summer vacations and what-not. Looked up approved bear canisters yesterday. I ordered a new lens (Tamron 28-300mm) which should help me get those long distance wildlife pictures a bit easier. I forgot to order a small tripod too, but I'll get to that eventually. Telephoto works well, but you either need a real steady hand or a support (mono, bi, or tripod) to keep the camera still, or lose your shot or it's blurry because the camera moved. I guess that's why "real" outdoor photogs lug around those full size tripods with them. If you are going to go to all the trouble, you might as well make sure you can get the shot!!! I'm not that serious about it, but maybe when I'm retired I'll get more into it and do a more intense pursuit of getting the perfect photo. Right now I'm ecstatic if you can tell what's in the picture!!! Mostly my outdoor shots are memory joggers, to help me remember the incredible beauty I experienced!! I'm usually to tired out by the physical effort and lack the patience to make the settings adjustments for the perfect shot. But, I do manage to get some half-way decent ones by providence (since I don't believe in Luck).