Ouch, I’ve been Zapped! Please Pray!
Yes, we’ve been zapped. No, it doesn’t mean I’ve had an electrical shock. I’ve now created a new background (with our lovely faces) for people’s mobile phones using a new website that is in beta called GotZapp.com It really cool as this site allows you to create different graphics for your mobile phone. In our case, if you want to pray for us but keep forgetting – just load our Zapp (you can find it here) to your cell phone, mobile phone, or “Handy” (as they call them in Germany) and every time you use your phone, you’ll be reminded to pray for us.
Laughing while in the toilet (WC)
I was in a public bathroom recently and I must say the decorum was quite intriguing. Each of the bathroom stalls had a picture on the door of various people laughing and having a great time. They didn’t seem to have any reason that each of the pictures (which take up the whole door, kinda like wallpaper) were what they were about. One of the pictures was some women in a circle drinking and laughing, another was a couple signing some papers, and the other was a group of party go’ers.
So when I went into one of the stalls, I thought it was interesting that when I sat down on the toilet to do my business, I looked up to see this life size picture of a couple staring at me – laughing. I then had to use another stall that had a picture that just wasn’t as intimidating.
Who are you?
Mondays are a special day for me. Every Monday I receive my web reports. These reports tell me how many people have come to my website, the country that they connected from, what phrases they used in the search engines to find me or what links on other websites people used to get to mine. I get all sorts of information from these reports however there is something I don’t get:
Who exactly are the people who stop by my website?
I’d love to know more about those of you that stop by (whether I know you in person or in the virtual world or if we are complete strangers).
Please leave me a comment telling me more about you. Thanks.
A good way to filter Internet content to your home, office or computer center
We are currently working diligently on putting together what we call an “eLearning Center” solution. In just a couple of weeks, a few of us eDOT’ers are going to be in Ukraine to install our first all Microsoft Windows based computer center. The problem is that we don’t have everything working together the way we want it. But we’ll get there. The fun part will be that we will be doing our first install in Russian (I have yet to learn Russia, but at least Microsoft puts the same icons and places everything pretty much in the same place when they do different localizations).
Anyway, all this to say that we found (through eDOT’er Andrew) this great way of filtering your content and reporting on where people are going that use your Internet connection. It’s called OpenDNS.
Now many of you are probably wondering what DNS is. Well, to use this free service you don’t have to know what it is but if you do desire to know – DNS is Dynamic Name System which is when you type in “Google.com” that your computer figures out to go to the IP address 72.14.207.99 (kinda like an Internet Server’s phone number) to view that website.
While this way of doing content filtering is not 100% perfect (none of them are other than just not going online), it is effective and easy to set up. And best of all, it’s free!
So if you are a person that just doesn’t want to accidentally see some of the stuff that is in the Internet world, or don’t want to be tempted by it, maintain a computer center or small office, or have a kids in the house that you want to help protect their innocence – consider setting up OpenDNS on your computers and networks.
Being a part of BlogRush
In an effort to draw more people here (other that all of you who are searching for better ways to grow roses), I have signed up with the free service called BlogRush. I’m just testing it out right now so we’ll see how it goes. For everyone that hits my website, my website feed is then shown up in somebody else’s blog inside the BlogRush box (as seen to the lower right) that is a part of a similar category. Then there’s a little bit of a pyramid scheme where if I refer people to using BlogRush on their blogs, then I (as well as the owner of the blog) get shows on the BlogRush. And then their referrals and their referrals, and so on and so one. Well, you get the picture.
If you are interested in using BlogRush, then click on this link
Getting back in the saddle
Sorry I have not blogged for a while. The day that I last blogged was the day that my parents came for a two week visit. It was wonderful having them here. It also gave us an excuse to take some time off and do some of the sightseeing that one can do around here in the Black Forest and Switzerland.
It was really great catching up with them here and listening to them repeatedly say how much Alex has grown and matured. It was ironic that they came about 8 months after we left the US and in about 8 months time we are planning on returning to the States for a visit. So they came right in the middle.
You can see some of the Photo Albums from our trips using these links (these are just some of mine – between all of us, we had over 4 GBs of pictures):
Oh, in some of the pictures you will see John. John is an eDOT member who is currently raising his support to be a part of our team that is located in Kiev, Ukraine. Also, you will see Krista’s Dad, Howard. He was able to have a two day layover with us on his way from Kenya to the USA.
Alex’s First Day of 1st Grade
This week was a big week in our family. ALEX IS IN 1ST GRADE!! He has begun to go to the international school here in town. They have an exciting tradition to start off the year where there is an opening ceremony. In the ceremony, the senior class (the school is 1st thru 12th grade) comes in carrying flags from every country that is represented (either a student holds a passport from there or their parents live there). It was a lot of flags. Later, they read each country and the students stood up if it represented them. It was truly amazing to see where everyone came from.
Another exciting part of the ceremony was the presentation of the Class of 2019 (yes, that’s Alex’s class). Seven little first graders went up on stage and the director of the school interviewed them. Here’s what we found out: Alex is not afraid of crowds and he says whats on his mind. At the end of Alex’s interview, the director made the comment to the crowd: “Future class president”. I don’t know, but something about that comment scares me.
Anyway, Alex is in a great class with some great teachers. His primary teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, is also the elementary school principal so in the afternoon Mrs. Riffe comes in. His class is made up of five boys (including him) plus two girls. Several of the children speak both English and German and one boy is just learning English so our hope is that Alex will still want to learn more German (he still takes official German classes in the school) even though his classes are now in English.
Please pray with us that Alex will make some great friends in his class and that he will be a good student. Please pray for his teachers. They are really good teachers and have a great experience so we are really excited that he will be in their hands.
Check out the photos of his first day in the Photo Album