grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.

This past weekend was one for the annals of your friend here. I was utterly humbled on Friday evening when about fifty people gathered to pray for me. Several people drove in from out of town, including a professor and good friend from college, my parents, a friend from my church back home, and my old roommate Pete who now lives in Arizona. We began and ended the evening with good food and conversation. The middle was wonderful filling of moving prayer. I am not eloquent enough to describe my gratitude and other emotions for the special night. I can only offer a simple "thank you." You have made me feel very loved. Thank you.

The fun continued into Saturday when we got together with my Mom's side of our family for lunch. It was a great time to catch up and see some faces that I hadn't in a long, long time.

Here are some pictures of the events (click on the picture to get into the album). If you were at one of these events and have other pictures, please email them to me.

Saturday evening ended in some country line dancing. Let's just say that it's a good thing that I didn't get hurt. And sorry, there are no pictures. Please use your imagination.

Time that is. Seven days from now I'll be scrunched between a large Frenchman and a window on a jet plane over the Atlantic. It won't be the first time … at least in reference to the Frenchman. I once flew back over the Atlantic sitting next to a 300-pound Frenchman and his eight year-old daughter. She was cute. He wasn't so cute. I'm not small either. This perfect marriage of West meets old West (as in Europe) was only enriched by the fact that my seat's headphones did not work. I watched the very gloomy, dark movie Dark City and made up my own words. I turned it into a love story. What can I say; I'm a hopeless romantic.

But I digress (that's for you Wally). Anyway, it is true that I'll be traveling within the week. I'm going to take my first anti-malaria pill now ….

There it is. The deed is done. The type of anti-malaria medicine I've been prescribed has some fairly common side effects including "vivid dreams" (oh yes, I quote) and hallucinations. Please stay tuned to see if I am common.

I feel like I didn't get much done today, but this is a flat out lie. I probably feel this way because my desk is still messy. Much that was not done when I woke up is not in a complete status … whether that be truly finished, indefinitely postponed, or deemed unworthy of my time. I'm happy to say that most things fell into the first category. Sadly, my taxes did not fall into any of the three categories seeing that my TurboTax program got an attitude around 9 in the p.m. After a couple reinstalls, I'm back in action and ready to get back the money that the proverbial man has been holding for me all year.

I had lunch with my many of my old team members today from the small pharmaceutical company that has granted me a leave. It was great to see them and catch up a bit. I enjoyed talking about "business" for a little while, though I quickly realized that I missed the people more than I missed the work. So far my unemployed status feels mostly like a vacation – as if I should be headed back to work tomorrow. I'm sure that once I hit the ground in Sierra Leone that the vacation feeling will have stayed safely back in the States.

Welp, that's about all I should put in tonight. I need to get to bed and see what this medicine can do to me.

Four guys. One Accord (manual transmission, blue exterior). A stuffed monkey recently named Whiplash. … all ingredients for one heck of an adventure. I have ventured out to the great state of Colorado with Cam, Doug, & Scott to spend a week in Beaver Creek. I turned in my badge and proverbial gun (an HP laptop in this case) at 6:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. I am officially without employment, having been granted a leave from the small pharmaceutical company for which I worked. The drive home was surreal: so familiar, yet with an undertone of finality. The full impact of what I'm going to do has not yet hit me. I'll be in Africa in a little under three weeks. I guess it is a little ironic that I'm preparing for my coming stint in equatorial Africa with a week in the mountains of Colorado. The last hour of our trip here was during near whiteout conditions. I won't be worrying about such things in three weeks.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a week of great conversations and times with my friends. We stopped off in Denver on the way up and amassed a 12-person crew to eat dinner and catch up. After a few rounds of the name game we discovered that we're all practically related, having only two degrees of separation between most of us. The world is small. I plan on making mine smaller day by day. I should have plenty of time to think, write, and read up here, so you, the reader, may find a steady stream of posts to enjoy. For now I'll leave you with a picture of us at the border.

1945

My last week working for a small pharmaceutical company before I go on leave to Sierra Leone has proven to be an exciting adventure all its own! I'm running around tying up loose ends and having great conversations with coworkers. An additional tidbit of excitement has come my way in the form of dental work. My semi-annual cleaning revealed a weakening filling. Knowing my situation, the dentist recommended that I have the filling replaced before heading out of the country. Long story short, I'm getting a root canal in six hours. Don't worry; I won't post any pictures of my "procedure."
For those of you who don't know much about root canals, you can learn about them here.

I must say that my dentist has been wonderful about getting me in on a tight schedule and even calling the endodontist to set up an appointment for me before my insurance is gone on Friday. If you're ever in Indianapolis and need a great dentist, check out Dr. Taube at Kilgore & Taube, DDS.

To the faithful who check back here often, I apologize for the many theme changes. I hope that this does not confuse either of you. I promise (as long as I can get the pictures to work) that I won't be changing it anytime soon.