New Year's Eve Day Trip

We loaded up the kids in the family truckster and took out for a nice drive. We went north on Hwy 107 to Chiang Dao. Now, this is not the same as Qingdao, China. It was an absolutely beautiful drive through the mountains. We passed by an elephant preservation camp and saw around 15 elephants standing by the road. There were two calfs and one looked like he may have been born in the last week or two. Later on in the drive, we passed a sign (in Thai) that said something like: "Caution: Elephant crossing" and had a picture of an elephant. That isn't something you normally see just every day. We also saw lots of "evidence" that elephants had been walking down the road. Big evidence.

We don't have much else planned for to celebrate New Years. We wil just stay at home and listen to the neighbors shooting off fireworks.

Anyway, you all have a safe and happy New Year!

Boomer Sooner

Read all about it here. Wow! Talk about a season that I had given up on! Turns out, Oregon shouldn't have been complaining about having to play a "non-ranked" team in a bowl game.

Oklahoma 17- Oregon 14.

Boomer Sooner!

God is Good

All the time.....

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, do lean not unto your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge the Lord, and He will make your paths straight."

Sounds easy, huh?

Well, yesterday, I didn't do that. I trusted in my own efforts (made a conscious decision to do so) and today, I paid for it. Turns out, I worked all day long yesterday on a project. And I mean worked hard on it! Well, since I had decided that it was a "no brainer" and I didn't need God's help, I totally messed it up. Wasted the entire day yesterday, which affected two other entities in the work that they have to do to clean it all up.

But, God is good; all the time. All the time, God is good.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been and the one for whom it meant the most work turned out to be a gracious woman of God who has forgiven and already fixed the problem that it present to her. I contacted the other entitiy and they hadn't completed the task on their end and was able to stop her staff from entering any more data, which would have ended up being double work for them.

Thank you God for looking out for me. You are such an awesome God!

Happy Boxing Day

Happy Boxing Day, whatever the heck that is.

Do they know?

Today, the world is "playing" Christmas. Many, many people are "playing" Christians, too. Do they know? Do they really know that we celebrate the birth of the Savior? Do they understand that this Savior was born to die? Will they ever understand that in His resurrection, death has been overcome and we can have life eternal?

Are you "playing" Christian today? Quit playing and start living. The best Gift has already been given. Just accept it. Take the Gift into your heart and truly live.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve in Thailand. (and probably where you are, too).  The last minute shopping is done.  The presents are wrapped and under the tree.  There is a chicken in the crock pot and a pan of dressing in the oven.  We are getting ready for a nice Christmas Eve dinner, then we have decided to go ahead and open the presents tonight.  This is a change from our family tradition, but with Christmas on Sunday, we want to be ready for church tomorrow, so, we get the goodies tonight!

 

Merry Christmas to you and yours.  In the words of a friend of mine, “may you have a Christ-centered, non-politically correct Christmas!”

Merry Christmas!

In a few hours, I will be done at the office until next Tuesday and really don't know if I will post or not from home over the holiday. However, I wanted to take this moment and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

The Reason for the Season

Here in Thailand, people are beginning to put up Christmas trees, holiday music is played in the stores and folks are starting to celebrate Christmas. However, if you ask any of them what is the reason for the season, they will say things like "to show love" "to give gifts" "to have a party". They do not know that the reason for the celebration is the birth of the King of Kings. Jesus was born 2005 (more or less) years ago. It is for THIS REASON that we celebrate; not to simply give gifts. We give gifts because of the gift that God gave us in Jesus. We also follow the tradition of the wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus, so many years ago. And, of course, that gift now gives us the free gift of eternal life and forgiveness for sins, if we ask Jesus to save us and believe in Him.

This Christmas, instead of just tearing into the presents and stuffing yourself silly, how about a true reflection on the real meaning of Christmas. If you have a Bible, turn to Luke chapter 2 and read the story. If you don't have a Bible, go to this web site and read the section online.

Have yourself a very Merry, blessed, Christmas and may the real joy and peace that comes only from the Creator God reign in your life in the new year.

My drive to work this morning

Living in Thailand is always an exciting adventure. There are so many wonders to see. Sometimes, however, it just makes you wonder, hmmmm.

This is a short list of things I saw this morning on my drive to work:

• a foreign man out jogging in shorts and muscle shirt;
• a Thai guard bundled up in winter hat, coat, and gloves; huddled over a fire trying to get warm;
• two stray(?) dogs sitting directly across the road from each other, seemingly guarding the road like two statues in front of a bank;
• a large dump truck completely full of people (all bundled with warm clothes) on the way to a work site;
• a newly painted bridge, even though they painted over the bare re-bar exposed from vehicle damage;
• motor cyclist driving down the wrong side of the road;
• a car driving down the wrong side of the road;
• a man leading two very large white Asian cows down the road;
• a woman taking her kids to school; (big deal you say? well, there were four of them on the little motor cycle!)
• a tree of beautiful orange flowers;
• a woman walking down the street in her pajamas; (no, she wasn't an insane person!)
• a 300 year old woman peddling her way on a bike; (well, she looked that old!)
• a bunch of chickens will little chicks spilling out into the roadway;

and more, just on the way to work this morning.

Ain't Thailand great?!?

Thailand Confirms Talks on Jets-for-Chickens

Jets-for-Chickens

Oh my goodness! And I thought the international barter system was dying!

54 degrees

It was so nice and cool here right now. Yesterday, it only got up to 77 degrees. It was 54 this morning when I got up.

There was a news report of a death attibuted to the cold(!) weather!

I didn't realize it was THAT cold. It wasn't quite "crisp", but I thought it is very, very nice.

58 degrees

It was 58 degrees this morning here in Chiang Mai. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Pleeaaasssseeeeeeee

Can we open "just one"?????

Christmas House Pic

Lights Pic

The "Christmas House"

"The Christmas House"

My kids met some new little friends in our neighborhood. I asked the little girl if she has seen our Christmas lights and she replied, "Oh yes! My family calls it "the Christmas house"! That just absolutely made my day yesterday!

The Christmas House. Wow.

Bubble Time

I'm tired.

OK, it's time...

It's finally time to make this an "official public declaration": WE ARE MOVING TO HONG KONG! That's right! Next June, we are packing up the kids, selling the car and buying our Octupus card. We will be living in Ho Man Tin and frequenting such delights as Dan Ryan's, TGI Friday's, Amaroni'sl, Fat Angelo's, and Ruby Tuesday's. I have already submitted applications for enrolling the girls at HK ICS. We are all looking forward to the move, although life in a high-rise apartment will be MUCH different that what we have experienced as a family.

We are going to miss living in Chiang Mai. We love it here and will miss our friends a bunch.

Top Ten Reasons

I subscribe to Plaxo and they just sent this out as:

The Top Ten Reasons I Didn't Send Out Christmas Cards Last Year

Winter has finally arrived

Well, not here in Thailand, anyway. I have this list of cities on "My Yahoo" weather center and I was amazed to see that Vinita, OK, was colder than Fairbanks, AK, or Lhasa, Tibet (but not Ulan Bator, Mongolia!). Looks mighty cold. Ah, for a little of that here.

Chistmas lights fiasco

OH MY GOODNESS!!! I never thought that a little "exterior illumination" would be so difficult to maintain! First, on Monday, my little "gazebo" lighting display decides to have some sort of short, triggering the GFI for the entire house. No matter which cord I unplug, it flips the breaker. I still haven't gotten that taken care of. Then, last evening, it started raining and it flipped the GFI AGAIN!!! Bummer.

Just call me Clark W. Griswold.

Sally and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by dining at the "Le Coq d'Or" (the Golden Rooster) this evening. It was quite possibly the nicest restaurant I have ever had the opportunity to dine in. It was beautiful, elegant, romantic, delicious, and quite expensive. But worth it once a year! I had french onion soup, Sally had Shitake mushroom soup; I had Caesar salad. Sally had a very nice steak Dianne; I had pan fried snow fish. We then finished with a spectacular crepes suzette, with coffee (for me) and tea. What a wonderful evening!

I love you, Sally.

Sooners Are San Diego-Bound

Holiday Bowl, December 29, Oklahoma vs Oregon.

Not bad for such a horrible season!

Boomer Sooner, forever.

Happy Anniversary

I married the love of my life 13 years ago today. I would do it all over again. I love you.

Quake jolts three districts in Chiang Mai

Bangkok Post Monday 05 December 2005 - Quake jolts three districts in Chiang Mai

It was a 4.1 on the Richter Scale with an epicenter in Hang Dong, about 19 miles from my house!

EARTHQUAKE!

At about 4:30 pm local time, we had a small earthquake here in Chiang Mai. It scared the kids (and me) but didn't do any damage. We did run outside where we saw our two large fish ponds still sloshing the water back and forth. That was kind of cool, I guess. Anyway, there were three "hard punches" with three loud "bangs". It almost sounded like an explosion. Sally even thought it might have been a plane that crashed near the airport.

I called a friend up in extreme northern Thailand, to see if he felt it, too, but he had been driving on a bumpy mountain road at the time and didn't feel anything. I tried to call a friend in Bangkok, but her phone was on "voice mail".

At this point, I can't find any "real" information about it; scale, epicenter, damage, etc. As soon as I find out something, I'll let you know.

Santa's list

We were discussing the fact that the kids ought to be getting their letters to Santa in the mail pretty quick. Sally mentioned to the kids that, when they write their list, they need to remember that Santa usually is only able to provide "locally available toys".

I thought this was pretty funny and something that parent's in the States don't have to say. It is an "overseas parenting problem". You see, the kids know what is here, what is at Toys R Us in Hong Kong and Singapore, and what is back at Wal-Mart! The problem is, there is no Wal-Mart or Toys R Us in Chiang Mai, so, some of the things that they may ask for would be IMPOSSIBLE for "Santa" to bring! Egads!

Christmas lights

I'm pretty happy tonight! We came home from a dinner party and found that our next door neighbor has decorated his house for Christmas! It looked really nice and and he did a really good job in his trees. It compliments my lights and he has even done it in the same style.

(now I think I might need a few more lights in my trees.)

Working Late

Well, after having worked hard all day, I came back to the office after supper. It is now 10 pm and I am finally caught up! YEA!!!

It feels good. Really, really good to be this caught up!