Finally

So here is the deal. After many phone calls and a lot of run around I was informed that our passport, of course, would not be here on time. As an alternative we could go to San Francisco (where our application was held) and apply in person. The hours are convenient only for homeless people or others without jobs 9am-4pm. We were able to get out of work early and go up there. Below is a picture of all of the fun we were having at the passport office.


We were able to get our passports thankfully and it only took two trips to the passport office, 1o hours of waiting in line, $200, and of course a couple of hours on the phone talking to a robot and listening to Bach.
Below is a picture of the weirdest person I have met since as long as I can remember. "Phil" had drank 3 double shot espressos before getting in line and could talk to a brick wall. He was warned by various other people to leave them alone or they would call the security guards. He would come up to us and just start talking and jump into all of these weird stories about his brother getting a head butt by a 5'1'' Israeli in 1982 when he was trying to enter into a national park because he was carriying a can of Coke. I also took a video of him and I think that he talked to everyone in the office, but I can't post it here and it does not do him justice.

Well we are on our way as of Saturday and would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

P.S. If you intend to get a passport soon... start now. Do not listen to the people (government officials) when they tell you a timeline. Some people in line had to fly out here from Wisconsin to get their passport because it was held in the SF regional office.

DR here we come...as soon as our passports get here.

Brenda and I are getting ready for our trip to the Dominican Republic. For those of you that don't know, Brenda and I are leaving on saturday for a twelve day service trip. We are going to be building a second story on a medical clinic in the town of Puerto Plata. Although our passports have yet to arrive I am assured that they will be here by wed., but I am still skeptical. We have been blessed by our church, friends, and family helping us out with the construction/project costs. All of the costs for the project have been covered and then some. Enough money was raised to fully fund this project as well as partially funding a future project in that area.

Tonight we went on a walk and were passing the dumpster in our apartment complex and we could not believe our eyes. There on the ground (eventhough we have a huge dumpster none of our fellow tennants seem able to get close enough to actually make it in the dumpster...idiots) was a Christmas tree. Are there really people that have a Christmas tree up almost till easter. How lazy can you be. I guess that is the type of people you get when you rent instead of owning your own place. We hope to be moving to a different apartment in the near future, but will keep you posted on our seemingly futile efforts.

Sunday we had two of our friends over for dinner, conversation, and games. Myron Kamper and Andrea soon to be Kamper are very fun and a picture of them is below. We are going to thier wedding out in Iowa this summer and plan on having a great time as well as making quite a scence.


After dinner we were treated to Lemon bars for desert. These are Brenda's favorate, but I like them as well. Of course no desert would not be complete without living the "hign life" with Champange (the Champange of Beers that is)

Sailing on th Monterey Bay

It has been a good weekend and I have had a great time down in Santa Cruz racing sailboats. I have been sailing competitively for about 1 year and have been sailing on a Santa Cruz 27 called Mistress Quickly. Above is a picture of our fiercest competitor during the winter series and her name is Sumo. There was not much wind on Sat., but we were able to finish and keep us in second place for the series.

Here is a picture of us heading for the harbor "bar" and our captain always seems to go faster when the course is set for home (while he whispers more Scotch, more scotch, more scotch.)


Below we have a picture of our fearless crew minus one who was on vacation. From left to right we have Steve, Larry at the tiller, and Eric. All of them are fun to sail with when all is good, but when it is not going well you had better cover your ears because you may hear some word that are not fit for church.

I was woken up this Sun. with a call from Steve and was offered a ride on a Medges 24 and was able to oblige. We raced two races and did not do well. We were competing against three team Pegasus boats. For those of you who do not know, team Pegasus is owned by a billionaire in Santa Cruz. He hires world class sailors to crew for him, his son, and race in general. They are very good and have nothing to do but sail, eat, and sleep. What a life. Below is a picture of the Melges I sailed on.


All excuses aside and the fact that we had old sails and a rookie crew we did come in last, but had a lot of fun. Below is a picture of Go Dogs Go and is another professional that we raced against and lost to. At the end of the day all boats are hoised out as seen below and dry docked because there is no room in the slips for all of the boats.

In the Begining

Yes this is the begining of what may end up to be a very interesting but non-important display of information that all of the kids these days like to call a blog. I am not sure why they cal it a blog. I think that it should be called a inlog(internet log), dilog(didgital log), or even a welog(short for web log only by one letter).

This weekend I was inspired by Myron (Kamper) and my love of anything that is free and went to the SF Zoo. We got free tickets from friends of ours and went up there on sat. Very nice and I would have to say I loved the tigers and bears. We did see two hippos in the water and thought wow that looks like fun untill we noticed that floating all around them was...well...very large turds. That was a little disappointing, but I guess there is only so many places that they can crap inside of a 20x20 enclosure. I did not get any good pictures of there so below I have a cool picture from Mono Lake CA where I went on a motorcycle trip way back in October.