Someone is a Bit Overly Paranoid

We all know Google, the search engine, the mail, the maps... I always thought that everyone loved them as much as I do. I recently discovered that there are people that fear Google and have created a site explicitly stating why Google is awful. They call the site Google Watch. I read a bit of the site (it is pretty extensive), and a lot of it pretty amusing. In particular, one of their fears regarding Gmail:

Google offers more storage for your email than other Internet service providers that we know about. The powerful searching encourages account holders to never delete anything. It takes three clicks to put a message into the trash, and more effort to delete this message. It's much easier to "archive" the message, or just leave it in the inbox and let the powerful searching keep track of it ... Google wants very much to get to know you better.

Wow! I never realized what a risk I was taking. From now on I will only use my own mail server, and to be doubly safe I will only keep hard copies of all my email. I'll even take their advice and refuse to write to anyone at a Gmail account.

Fortunately I don't have to waste my time writing a full response to their site. Someone else already has. Check out Google Watch Watch.

Home Group Dinner

Right now our home group is on a four week break between sessions. Rather than just calling off meeting all together, last week we got together for dinner and an evening of fellowship. Bill and I did our best to cook a meal of Indian food. It was my first attempt at making anything more than a lassi or chai. I can't say that it tasted quite the same as it did in India, but we did manage somewhat similar flavors. It was quite a feast, and I really enjoyed doing it. The most amusing event of the night was when Sierra (the Palladino's five-year-old) daughter informed me that I was eating like a baby because I was using Indian "silverware" (my right hand).

Stolen

As I often do on Wednesday nights, I went swing dancing. Last night I had a new experience. One women actually stole me away from the partner I was dancing with. I've never had that happen to me (other than in a birthday dance). The story changes a bit when you know the details, so I'll just leave those to your imagination.

Home Group

I love my home group so much! I just discovered that I can actually upload pictures on Blogger, so here's a picture of us that we took last night. There were a handful of people missing, but that seems to happen every week, especially during the summer.

Back Row: Joyce, Bill, Kristina, Phylene, and Sarah.
Front Row:Me (Philip), Ron, Tim, Steve, Diego, and Heidi.

I Wonder...

My blog recently got a hit from someone searching Google for Nabo Jibon. What caught my attention was that it was someone from Spain. During my time at Nabo Jibon, there were a handful of volunteers from Spain there too. I wonder if it was one of them that happened to stumble upon my blog.

I'm Male Again!

I finally got my new (and correct) license from the DMV!

Joining in Suffering

So that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
(1 Corinthians 12: 25-26)

Over the past week, two friends have hit particularly difficult events in their lives. Both have opened deep parts of their hearts to me and brought me into their pain. It has had an amazing effect on me. I feel honored that they would trust me with the pain in their hearts. I feel honored just to be able to sit with them, listen to them, cry for them, and pray for them. I feel pain at the hurts they are experiencing, yet I also find great hope in the healing and transforming power of God.

More than that, God has shown me healing for the hurts that my heart is holding. So many times I have felt locked out from people in my life when I know they are hurting. I've felt the unspoken message again and again of "I don't trust you." I know that isn't what people are trying to say, but all too often that is how it has felt. There was something so powerful for me about being let in. For someone letting me be a part of their lamenting and healing process. It is amazing to know that they trust me with the weakest, most vulnerable parts of their heart.

This relates directly back to India too. As my time in India went on, more and more I had trouble bringing myself to care about the pain around me. It didn't matter if it was the pain of boys at Nabo Jibon, the pain of people on the street, or even Todd's (my closest companion throughout the journey) pain. My heart was just closing. A lot of it was probably just being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the pain around me. I hated feeling numb inside, but eventually I just came to accept it. The past week I've been able to suffer with people to a depth I haven't been capable of for months. Somehow Jesus has brought me back to a place where I can weep and cry out to God for the pain of those I love. It has been something I have really needed, even if I didn't realize it.

The Jungle

That's my new nick-name for the office I share. We've got plants, we have fish, and starting today, I noticed that we have crickets up in the ceiling. I have no idea how they got up there, but my ears tell me they are there. I think if we add some vines, it'll be the closest thing to a jungle anywhere in Santa Barbara.

First to Work

I just got into work about 10 minutes ago, and I was the first one here. More precisely, I was the first one to arrive at this building, which is our secondary building. Still, it was a new experience for me to turn of the alarm system when I came in the door.

What Does That Number Really Mean?

I am looking through a 61 page document at work. Right now I'm on page 63. You might think I'm crazy, but the page I'm on says 63/61. The second number being 61 made a lot of sense to me... right up until page 62. Now I'm wondering what it really means.

Will My Personal Information Ever Be Right?

I just got my first ever box of business cards... and my name was misspelled (Phillip instead of Philip). Maybe in another month I'll have a second iteration with a less obvious error. On top of that, the California driver's license in my wallet says that I am female. Supposedly a correct one should be coming in the mail any day now. I'm wondering how long to wait for it before going in to the DMV to harass them about it. Supposedly they can take up to 60 days to arrive, so even though this one came in a week, I have a feeling that at the DMV they'll just tell me to keep waiting since it hasn't been 60 days yet.

More Free Stuff

Yesterday I was at Ian's helping him fix up a sail boat his cousin gave him. We needed a few supplies, so headed off to the hardware store. We were only a block away from his apartment when Ian spotted a Foosball table on the side of the road. The following exchange occurred:

Ian: Dude! A free Foosball table!
Me: Really, where?
Ian: At the side of the road. We are so picking that up on the way back.
Me: Do we really want to risk waiting?
Ian: No, let's grab it now!

So we turned around, grabbed the table, and carried it back to Ian's apartment. The table needs a bit of work before it is ready for a game, but the price was right. Oh, and we need to figure out why there are two audio plugs coming out of it...

A Day Worth Reliving

Today (Saturday) was the sort of day I wish I could relive. All too often I have days where I might want another chance to not make some mistake. Today wasn't one of those days. I would enjoy living through today again exactly the same. It was just a wonderful day. Highlights:

• A free pancake breakfast with Ron, and some other people from home group.
• I enjoyed a few hours with Diana from my LAUP team. In two weeks she is leaving to spend four months in Sri Lanka. I'm so excited for her to have this opportunity!
• I spent the rest of the day with Sarah, a women from my home group. She is hoping to go to India next summer. We talked a lot about India, but I also just had a great time getting to know her better.

People, that's what made today great. God continues to place so many wonderful people in my life.

One Man's Recycling is Another Man's Stuff to Give Away

I just took out some recycling to our apartment recycling bins. At the top of the bin was a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As far as I can tell it is brand new except that it is missing the dust jacket. I figured "what the heck" and grabbed it. Seeing as I haven't read the first five books in the series, it seems unlikely that I'll read this one anytime soon. If anyone wants it, just let me know and it's yours. If I don't get any takers within a week or so, I will probably see if the library or a local used book store wants it.

Saturday

Last weekend I was down in LA. The primary reason I went down was to go to this year's LAUP visiting day. As usual, once I've got an excuse to be down there anyway, I quickly fill the rest of my schedule visiting people. As it turned out, Saturday ended up being quite a roller-coaster of a day. Here are some highlights and lowlights of the day:

• In the morning, a group of ten of us hiked up part of Mount Baldy. There wasn't much parking at the base of the trail, so Jon and I used one large parking spot for both of our cars. There was just barely enough space to park like that, and no room to get out once I was parked. Apparently that's what trunks are for.
• After the hike Jordan and I were going to carpool to the LAUP event. That's when we discovered that Jordan's car had been broken into. You can read his description of it here.
• I drove to the LAUP gathering along with some other Claremont folk. By the time we fought through a lot of bad LA traffic, the official time slot was past the halfway mark. Fortunately things like that never end on time anyway, and I was grateful for the time I got.
• Phone message #1: My Mom let me know that my cat, Grey, had been put to sleep and was buried. When I left home to come down to California this time, I knew that it was unlikely that I would see her again. Just seeing her after coming back from India was an amazing gift from God (See this and this). Certainly I wasn't happy to hear it, but it was a lot easier to deal with than it had been in India.
• Phone message #2: Recently my Grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer. This message was the news that the cancer is still localized so that a single surgery will remove all of it.

There was other stuff that happened too, but that hits the basics. I could also get a lot more into the emotions the day left me with, but I just don't have the time. I can thank God for one day like that, and also thank Him that not every day is like that.

Car

One of the main events from the last week was that I finally bought a car. It was something that I needed to do, but that I really didn't want to do. I ended up going through a dealership mostly because it was easier (although obviously it costs a bit more). I've never bought a car before, but I've heard plenty of horror stories about used car dealerships. I was pleasantly surprised by the way they treated me. They really seemed interested in making it a good experience for me, not just selling me something quick and getting me off of the lot. Some of the things that come to mind:

• They told me exactly what I would have to pay on top of the price of the car (just sales tax and California licensing fees), and they actually meant it. I've heard plenty of stories about extra "dealership" fees and there was none of that for me.
• They paid to put insurance on the car for the first 21 days so that I could drive it home without having to figure out insurance immediately.
• Since I drove a car down, I had the problem of needing to get two cars back up. At no cost, they had one of their men come pick me up and bring me back down to the dealership (about 45 miles away) to pick up the second car. They didn't have to do that, I had already bought the car.

So anyway, the car itself is a 2002 Saturn SL. It is a fairly simple car, but I wasn't looking for anything fancy, just something reliable and efficient. It has a reliability record higher than Corollas and Civics for that year. The specs claim it gets 40 MPG on the freeway. I've been keeping track of my mileage, and thus far I've been getting a bit over 37 MPG. Most of that was on the freeway, but in did contain a fair amount of stop-go LA traffic. Overall I'm fairly happy with my car buying experience. More than that, I'm just glad that I don't need to worry about it anymore.