Asian Thing

I was at Best Buy looking at appliances. There was a dad looking at appliances with his little half-Asian girl (no mom in sight), probably 1 1/2 years old. When the toddler saw me, she "ran" to me and said "MOMMY!!"

I was scared and ran away from the little girl. Poor little girl thought her mom ran away from her. :)

Facebook: The Christmas Story

At church today, they played this video. Basically it tells the Christmas story, Facebook style. It's cute.

We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas! So thankful Jesus came into the world!

Phone Conversations at Work

Have you made these observations at work?

• While on the phone, people talk in a high volume when it's a work-related phone conversation but then the non-work related conversations are at a low/normal voice. I get it, you're working...but please talk a little quieter! :)
  
• If you're talking to someone on the phone and they are looking up something like on the computer, they make random noises (e.g. humming, noises with their tongue, clicking noises) to make some sort of noise to show they are working on something.
  

If you haven't yet, start noticing this stuff!

My Workout Songs

My music workout playlist is so great (for me)! While some of the music may not be considered workout music, I love it.

1. Crazy Love - Van Morrison
2. Bubbly - Colbie Callait
3. Fireflies - Owl City
4. A Moment Like This - Kelly Clarkson
5. Make a Joyful Noise - David Crowder Band
6. Because of You - Kelly Clarkson
7. Jesus Messiah - Chris Tomlin
8. Did You Feel the Mountain Tremble? - Matt Redman
9. Uncharted - Sara Bareilles
10. O Praise Him - David Crowder Band
11. Rock & Roll - Eric Hutchinson
12. I Gotta Feeling - The Black Eyed Peas
13. How Great is Our God - Chris Tomlin
14. Holy is the Lord - Chris Tomlin
15. Season of Love - Rent soundtrack
16. I Want it that Way - Backstreet Boys
17. Haven't Met You Yet - Michael Buble
18. Glitter in the Air - Pink
19. I Will Rise - Chris Tomlin
20. King of Anything - Sara Bareilles
21. Jesus I My Cross Have Taken - some church

Any other suggestions?

My Invention - Moneymaker or Bust?

I've always wanted to design my own gadget, sell it and then reap the financial benefits of my invention. There's a big problem though - I have no good ideas.

That is, until now.

Introducing the Husband Stroller! Imagine a stroller for a baby/toddler but much larger, like for an adult male. The idea came to me when we were shopping after Thanksgiving this year. Husbands can get tired, cranky, hungry and need to rest after a "long" time at the mall (in my case, 30 minutes). However, you are not done shopping - in fact, you just started. Wouldn't it be great to let him rest and not listen to whining or "when can we go home"? In the Husband stroller, he can take a nap if he's tired, watch football on his smart phone if it's Sunday, rest and eat his snacks, listen to music if he just wants to rest his legs and people watch, etc. You get the picture.

Imagine this but put a husband inside.

What do you think - moneymaker or bust? ;)

Anonymous Conversation Between a Husband and Wife...

Husband: I'm the most amazing husband ever! You're so lucky to have me.

Chick Music

I really like the Sara Bareilles song "King of Anything" (I just watched the video in the link and the video is really cheesy but it's a good song). It's a fun and catchy song. In Pandora, I created a Sara Bareilles station and boy, it's chick music after chick music!

My wonderful husband knows I really like "King of Anything" and bought me her CD "Kaleidoscope Heart" as a surprise. The CD is really, really good. I highly recommend it. My favorite song on the CD is "Uncharted". Rock on, Sara Bareilles.

It's Sunday football when...

You're sitting on the couch and your husband moves his head horizontally to kiss you with his ear.

Love that boy though!

Anonymous Conversation Between a Husband and Wife...

Background: Wife doesn't turn off lights when leaving a room in the house.

Husband: Look! My wife is in 3 rooms!

Got Milk?

We sure do! At one point we had 3 1/2 gallons of milk in our fridge for just us two. We live close to the grocery store and go to the store 2 -3 times a week to pick up items. Not because we're disorganized (maybe a little...) - I just like to buy fresh produce. So apparently I kept buying milk for a couple of trips! I hope we can finish it all before it expires!

I've never been one to bring a grocery list to a store. I try to memorize the items I need and/or walk down every isle at the grocery store to get all of the items. :)

Anonymous Conversation Between a Husband and Wife...

Wife: Do you think I look ghetto in this wife beater?

Husband: First of all, it's purple. Second of all, it's called a TANK TOP on a girl.

Yellow Cheese 2010: We ain't done yet

Yellow Cheese 2010,
It's been one heck of a ride in 2010!! We finished the regular season 11-1-0 with an almost perfect season. We dominated most games. The loss was a great learning lesson for Yellow Cheese - it taught us humbleness and showed us there is no such thing as human perfection, especially in the game of softball. Lets take everything we learned from our solid season and give the fans something to never forget about this Friday (preferably in 1991 World Series fashion). I always live* for championship games and this week's games on Friday is no different. We have some unfinished business to take care of on those softball fields off of Lexington/Victoria!!! No more "best record champion" or "co-champion". This championship will be deserved and for Yellow Cheese only. Our team is talented and motivated enough to win it all and just needs to execute on game day, simple is that. Anything is possible. I mean, isn't this the Yellow Cheese team down by 11 runs in the last inning, came back and scored 14 runs against the highest ranked team?

I've put together a video as a way to get our heads preparing for the big day. A special thanks to Dave for the Photoshop work. (when watching the video, pump UP the sound but unfortunately the video doesn't look good on the blog site)

"Having the time of my life",
MJB # 22

*not really

Egypt: Day 13 (Abu Simbel & Aswan Spice Market)

Today we took an early morning bus ride (starting at 5 AM) from Aswan to Abu Simbel. It was an amazing bus ride for me. I really enjoy looking out the window while traveling and watching the sun come up over the desert in Egypt was near the top for me. It was so desolate out there, you would maybe see a bus or two on the road then nothing for some time. The trip was about 3.5 hours each way. We had to go through military check points since this is close to the border with Sudan.

Abu Simbel is the location of two temples. One to Ramses II and the other to his first wife, Nefertari. The two temples were moved in the 60s and 70s by UNESCO because the creation of Lake Nasser was threatening to flood their locations.

Artificial mountain built behind the temple to mimic the original structure.

69 ft tall statues of Ramses II in front of the temple.

No photos inside. There were some amazing carvings though.

Really, the statues are large.

Yeah, jumping picture.

Entrance to Nefertair's temple.

The two temples seen together.

It is pretty amazing to think that they dismantled both of these temples block by block and moved then to the current location 200 feet higher.

Looking North towards Cairo on Lake Nasser.

Looking South towards Sudan (less than 20 miles away) and Lake Nubia.

Islands on Lake Nasser.

***

The ride back to Aswan from Abu Simbel was a hot one. The high was 102 F with a low of 87 F. We were quite tired from the early 5AM bus ride. I tried not to sleep because I really like looking out the window at scenery. We were heading through part of the black desert. It's called the black desert because deposits of basalt have eroded away and sometimes cover the desert with black rock. It was a pretty remote place, it would not have been a good place to breakdown.

Missy napping.

Sand with basalt formations in the distance.

Crooked picture taken from the moving bus of the black desert.

***

Our last dinner and evening on the boat. I have only been on 3 cruises so I am not sure, but it seems like having baked Alaska desert is tradition on the last night. I thought the meals were quite good on the ship. There was not much local food, but the dishes they had were good to try.

The waiters and kitchen staff singing and dancing with our desert.
***

After dinner we took a trip to the Aswan market. It is called the spice market, but they sell all kinds of items here. The general feel in Aswan was much different than other parts of the country. People were very laid back and the market experience was much better than in Cairo. The vendors didn't really hassle you and you felt like you were in control of the shopping experience for once. Since it was the last day and we hadn't really purchased anything we were eager to buy.

Walking through the market to find bargains.The obligitory tour stop at a spice stand. We quickly left to do our own thing.Colorful spices.The locals come out at night due to the high day-time temperatures.Missy's favorite shop owner.

One shop owner that was nice to us and bargained pretty fairly (see photo above). In Egypt part of the bargaining was about talking with the other person and it would take some time to get the price lower. In most cases you had to determine how much time to invest to lower the price. A common line from the shop owners when we were close in price was: It's only a dollar difference, not much for you, but a lot for me. We enjoyed this evening and were a little sad it was our last night in Aswan. We were looking forward to getting home and out of the heat.

(Dave blogging again)

Anonymous Conversation Between a Husband and Wife...

Wife: Will you please clean the carrot peeler when you're done with it? Dried pieces of carrots on there grosses me out. I don't ask much, thank you.

Husband: Actually, you ask a lot of me.

Egypt: Day 12 (Aswan, Philae, Two Dams and a Felucca Ride)

This morning there was an early trip from Kom Ombo to Aswan, the boat's loud engines kicked in at 4 AM. It was expected to be the hottest day yet, but we were rewarded with a wonderfully moderate day with a breeze. The first site we went to was the Temple of Isis at Philae. After the old Aswan dam was built the temple was periodically flooded. In the 1970's the temples were moved from their old location to a new island 66 ft above the old location. Our guide showed us where the temple was located by the ruins of the dam they created around the site during the move.

Since the temples were on an island we took a boat taxi. There were so many of them waiting to pickup passengers.The driver's boat wasn't in the best mechanical shape. This was the shifter for the transmission. He used a rope to tie it up for most of the trip, but when we got close he used his foot. Classic Egypt.

Thank you tour for your insistence of wearing bright orange life jackets. On second thought, maybe it was the right call after seeing the boats.
Beautiful day at the temple of Isis on the island.

Just think, each one of these blocks were removed from the old structure, labeled and repositioned in the correct order. There were a total of ~40,000 blocks for this temple.

Mmmm, ankh. Isis giving the key of life to the pharaoh.

Notice the small cross in the lower left hand corner. Early Christians marked this as a place of worship.

Our guide pointed out this carving and claimed that Egyptians created baseball. You can judge for yourself.

Missy in front of a monument. Can't remember what it was for.

The temples at Philae were a really nice break. The breeze and what felt like cooler temperatures were fantastic after what seemed like a week of really hot/dry weather. It almost was surreal to be boating around on this reservoir, it didn't feel like Egypt.

***

After visiting the temple, we visited the old Aswan Dam.

The Old Aswan Dam. Built in the early 1900's. Obsolete shortly after.

What the first cataract of the Nile looks like just after the Old Aswan Dam.
Missy was so happy to buy this Nubian hat for me. I was almost as happy to wear it.

***

Since we are on a tour we had to chance to stop at a papyrus factory. It was a nice opportunity to see how this ancient "paper" was made (and perhaps buy a piece...). The stems of the plant were flattened and soaked in water for a period of time. Next, they were placed (more like weaved) in a crossing pattern and pressed until dry. We purchased a small piece. It showed the Dendera zodiac we saw a couple days before.

Papyrus factory demo.

***

Next we stopped at the High Aswan Dam. This dam was built in the 50's/60's with help from the Soviet Union. It really is massive. Over two miles wide and nearly 3/4 of a mile thick at the base. This dam formed Lake Nasser in Egypt and Lake Nubia in Sudan. The lake displaced thousands of Nubians (60,000 estimated from Wikipedia) and submerged ancient monuments (which were rescued by UNESCO). However, the dam provides protection from the yearly flooding of the Nile and has greatly increased the available water for irrigation. It also has provided a substantial amount of electricity for the country.

Aswan High Dam. You can't tell, but it's huge.

***

In the afternoon we headed towards downtown Aswan to take a ride in a felucca. It's a traditional boat that has been around for quite some time. It was a joy to be so near the water without any engine noise. There was a pleasant breeze to keep us cool and great scenery to check out. We even had some musical entertainment. There were younger boys paddling on the river with Styrofoam rafts that would sing songs that you almost could recognize. Yes, we did have to wear our bright orange life jackets.

Did this group have to wear life jackets? Nope.

A felucca, the River Nile and some sand. This is Upper Egypt.

***

I don't have anything in our notes for this evening so we were most likely in bed early. Tomorrow's 5:00AM departure time to Abu Simbel had a lot to do with that.

Scene on the River Nile around Aswan

(entry done by Dave)

Egypt: Day 11 (Temple of Horus at Edfu and Kom Ombo)

Today we started in Esna and took a short ride down the river to Edfu where the Temple of Horus was located. This was the last large temple built in Egypt, it was started around 237 BC. The temple was perserved quite well because it was nearly covered by sand until the mid 1800's.

Notice the grooves in the walls. This is where banners where hung to inform the locals that a festival was to be celebrated.

The entrance to the temple. At one time wooden doors three feet thick were here. Notice the area in the upper left hand corner of the entrance where the door hinge was.

Here is a very early form of a storyboard. The whole wall was filled with carvings that told the story of how Horus was able to capture the evil god Seth (can be spelled set) (who killed Horus's father Osiris)
Since the temple of Horus at Edfu was the last large temple built is it one of the best preserved. It's sad, but after seeing cravings and hieroglyphics for so many days you take them for granted. When you look at them up close you are really see the detail and skill it took to carve them.

I liked the detail of the sandstone texture and the duck.

Now it's time for a lesson in hieroglyphic numbers (this is pretty much all I learned from our lecture on the boat). Look at the the photo below starting from the right. First you have an owl and a three symbols. Next on the bottom there is a l like the Roman numeral for 1. That is a one in hieroglyphics. There could be up to nine of them. The upside down U's are 10 each (again there could be up to nine of them). The curly figures are 100 each. The flowers are 1,000 each. The staff is 10,000, the animal is 100,000 and the dude with his hands up is 1,000,000. So, what is the number?

Missy had to use the restroom at this temple. So, we walked all the way back to where it was supposed to be. As we approached it we saw a couple of men working near it. One of them stopped working and stood in front of the woman's entrance with his hand out looking for a tip. Missy gave him 1 Egyptian Pound and went in. After this he just walked back to working. We weren't quite sure if he actually cleaned the bathroom or just wanted to get a free tip.

Missy at the rear of the temple.
***
South to Kom Ombo

As we traveled further up the Nile the desert came closer and closer to the river. The rocky hills shown here were seen on both sides of the river.

The floating building is a pumping station for irrigation canals along the river. These were somewhat common sites.One of the fun experiences was seeing the locals yell and wave at us.

I am not sure if this was a house or a place for the animals to live

Small village as we approached Kom Ombo

***

Next stop the Temple of Kom Ombo. Missy was not feeling very good today (she had her case of mummy tummy) so she stayed back and got some rest. As the photo below shows we were able to walk directly to the temple, no coach buses here. This temple was built in the Ptolemaic Dynasty (sometime around 180 BC). It is unique in its layout because it is dedicated to two gods with each side a mirror image of the other. On one side Horus the falcon on the other Sobek the crocodile. Sobek was the god of fertility and at one point in time crocodiles could have been found on the banks of the Nile at Kom Ombo. After the creation of the Aswan dam these animals became extinct in this area. The dam had blocked the migration route of the crocs from further south in Africa.

Other Nile cruise ship with the Temple of Kom Ombo in the background. Our ship looked pretty similar to this one, I think it was a German tour company. The reason I know that is we actually had to walk through other ships to get to shore, it was a pretty busy location.

Temple Entrance

Carvings of Horus (falcon head on left) and Sobek (crocodile on right)

Artsy

In most of the temples throughout Egypt wooden dovetail joints were used. At Kom Ombo there were still petrified wood pieces left.

The hieroglyphics in this area show a set of medical instruments. This temple was a place of healing, our guide showed us graffiti scratch in Greek where Egyptians were waiting in line for medical service.

We were one of the few ships that stayed here overnight. Tomorrow we set sail for Aswan, the final new city on the trip.

(entry done by Dave)