tonyandkirsten.org

I’ve been bogged down the last few days with Daylights editing (my next deadline is Friday-ish) and with preparing for the Ezekiel Project fundraising campaign. Assuming all goes as planned with the fundraising campaign, the month of April will be very interesting, with a new deadline for Z37 printed materials several times per week. I will (God-willing) not be designing all those items myself, but I will still be basically responsible to make sure 10 different items from newsletters to dinner invitations are created and produced.

Tony will also have a busy month of April as he prepares for his “Prelim,” which is basically a very long oral exam where he will have to discuss and answer questions about his research work in front of other grad students and in front of faculty members. This is one of the key steps along the way toward his Ph.D. so it is important for him to do a good job preparing for it!

Apparently knowing we would have a busy month ahead of us, God provided us a little extra help. Jamie returned earlier than expected from her year of teaching in Honduras and needed a place to stay until her new apartment opens up on May 1st. We were happy to give her a place to crash in our basement. Even though she will be busy looking for a job and catching up with all the people she hasn’t seen since last July, I’m sure she’ll have some time to give me a hand with Madeline or things around the house. Even just in the little over a day she has been here she’s been a great blessing. So, between her and Holly (our regular housemate who has been living in our basement bedroom since January) I think we’ll survive all this craziness!

Madeline, of course, has all kinds of excitement of her own. Last Saturday Dan and Wendy Bovenmyer and their son Jake came over to visit. Even though Jake is almost two months younger, he is similar in size to Madeline…but Madeline is definitely faster and more coordinated! They had fun trying to tackle each other and racing to see who could knock over a tower of cups first. Pictures coming soon!

Walking is not too far away for Madeline. She can now stand for quite a while without holding on to anything and also walk behind her activity-board-on-wheels (like this, only an older, simpler model I got for $2 at a garage sale last summer) all the way across the room without our help! Otherwise, she still seems more interested in crawling to get from one place to another…but those days will probably come to and end soon. She’s also cutting tooth #5, which has made her quite crabby the last few days.

Well, it’s back to work on Daylights or Laundry or one of any other number of pressing projects for me…

This is really Tony’s story, but I don’t know if he has thought of posting it…so I’ll do it instead. You might only find this funny if you know a little bit about computers. I laugh every time it comes to mind.

So, the first day of our trip we wanted to get some free wireless internet access. Our hotel had wireless, but it wasn’t free. Not being sure where to find free wireless nearby in downtown San Diego, we drove quite a distance to go to the one Panera Bread in the San Diego area.

Our laptop, which runs Linux, was able to access the web for a short time, and then was no longer able to do so. A Panera bread employee was wandering around with a Tech Support name badge, and had told us to let him know if we needed any assistance. So, Tony called him over. Tony gave a brief, technical explanation of the problem he was having (not mentioning the computer runs Linux) and the guy sat down to look at the system.

After poking around for a moment or two, he pauses and asks, “This is Mozilla, right?” Tony replied that it was. The guy pauses again and then asks,”So, did Mozilla take over your whole operating system or something?”

I think Tony and I both just wanted to laugh hysterically at that point. Tony politely told him that no, it was running Linux. The guy said that other Linux users have had problems with their wireless in the past, but he didn’t really know how to do anything about it…and then he left us to ourselves to figure it out. Wow.

Tony soon figured out a creative way around the problem we were having, and we were able to get at least some of the information we had set out to look for in the first place. A while later the “tech support” guy walked past again and noticed that Tony was browsing the web again. The guy asked if we had fixed the problem, and to keep things simple Tony just said that he found a way to make things work. The guy walked away again, muttering something about needed to try out his ‘Linux emulator’ again. We have no idea what he meant by that, either!

I finally got our San Diego pictures sorted and uploaded, along with a few others. Happy viewing!

Our San Diego Trip
Flower pictures from San Diego
A few new Madeline pics

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There’s not much time left, and a lot of spots open. So, go sign up, already!

http://tonyhill.cheme.iastate.edu/easter/

Today is Madeline’s 10-month-old birthday, and she is celebrating by sleeping, I guess. She woke up a little bit later than usual this morning — about 7:45am. She was probably able to sleep later since we finally covered her window with something to darken the room after figuring out that the earlier sunrises is probably what had been waking her up earlier in the first place over the past couple of months.

Then, surprisingly enough she fell asleep on my lap after eating. We put her back in her crib and she slept until after 11am. She got tired for a nap again at 1:30ish and now at 2:45ish she is still asleep. We think she might be teething again, and perhaps that combined with exhaustion from all our travel adventures meant she just needs to catch up on sleep. Maybe she’s also getting ready for another growth spurt. She’s not acting sick otherwise, so that isn’t much of a worry at this point.

Whatever the cause, I am not complaining…with laundry and house chores to catch up on, administrative tasks waiting in the wings and another issue of Daylights due soon…I can use all the time I can get with her asleep!

The continuing story of our trip to San Diego:

Monday, March 14th: Tony checks into his conference and attends a few sessions while Madeline and I explore the Gaslamp District (the area of downtown we are staying in), Seaport Village (a touristy area of shops and restaurants) and walk along the harbor. We enjoyed sushi from a mall food court for lunch and ate at a nice Italian place for dinner. San Diego has lots of outdoor dining — it seems nearly every restaurant has tables on a patio, sidewalk or courtyard. We’re finding this to be really nice when dining with Madeline, since she can make more noise while still not disturbing very many people!

Tuesday, March 15th: Instead of attending sessions at the conference, Tony has a meeting to attend at Scripps Research Institute to meet with the developers of some software he uses in his research. Meanwhile, I visit “Old Town,” which, not surprisingly, is one of the oldest parts of the city. Many original buildings are now part of a state park and contain shops, museums and restaurants. Tony caught up with Madeline and I for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the park. While Tony goes back to the conference in the afternoon, Madeline and I relax and run a couple of errands to pick up things we need from a grocery store. We stay in and eat leftovers for dinner while Tony works on his presentation for the conference.

Wednesday, March 16th: Tony planned to be at the conference all day, including a lunch meeting so Madeline and I headed to Balboa Park. This is a truly amazing place! It’s a 1200 acre park in the middle of the city with dozens of museums, gardens, performing arts venues and sports facilities, plus the San Diego zoo. There really is something for every interest here. Madeline and I visited a free art museum, a few gardens and a photography museum that turns out to be rather disappointing since most of it was closed for an exhibit switch. After Tony’s day is finally over and his presentation is behind him, we all go for fish ‘n chips at the Tin Fish and then we share an amazing sundae at the Ghiradelli soda fountain. Even Madeline gets in on the action with her first (very small) taste of ice cream. She would definitely have eaten more if we would have let her!

Today: We had most of the day to be tourists together, since the conference was winding down and Tony only wanted to attend a few sessions in the morning. We went back to Balboa Park since Tony was interested in seeing it too. We spent most of the time just wandering around and admiring the landscaping and architecture. While wandering around we discovered an area of artists’ studios and we spent a while watching someone learning to blow glass. We ended up purchasing a beautiful handmade vase from that studio.

After taking an afternoon break in the hotel room while Madeline napped, we headed for Tijuana! It was a trolley ride of a little over half and hour both ways to get there and back, plus a bit of walking to get where we needed to be. It was a pretty interesting experience, and something I am glad to have done. I had never been out of the US, so at least I can say I have now been to another country. Tijuana is obviously highly commercialized, and full of many people trying to make a buck…many honestly by selling food and trinkets, some probably less honestly. It was heartbreaking to see small children trying to sell you flowers and jewelry and having to say no, knowing that it might just be a ploy or distraction of some sort and that even if it isn’t, you certainly couldn’t say yes to all of them. As you walk by, everyone from taxi drivers to shop keepers yell for your business. After walking for several blocks down the main commercial street, we turned down a side street to try and find a quieter, less touristy restaurant for dinner. We found a small diner and went in. The staff of the diner were warm and friendly and the food was great. Madeline got to try avocado chunks and jello for the first time, and she loved them both. After dinner we headed back to the US, where we didn’t even need our birth certificates at the border checkpoint. I guess Iowa drivers licenses are believable enough to prove we are US citizens!

Tomorrow we start our journey home. We fly from San Diego to Dallas to Chicago, and we’ll drive back to Iowa on Saturday! It’s been a great trip but I will be glad to be home.

If you are curious…here’s the play-by-play of our trip so far

Saturday, March 12th: After a fairly uneventful drive to Chicago the previous night, we fly out of O’Hare at a little after 9am for a non-stop flight to San Diego. It was a flight of about four hours and twenty minutes, and Madeline was, much to my surprise and pleasure, was really good on the flight. She slept for about the first hour and was fairly happy to play, eat, and smile at other passengers for the rest of the trip.

After grabbing a quick lunch at “Baja Fresh” (a fast food Mexican restaurant) we settled into our hotel room and did some driving around. Knowing that Panera would have free wireless internet, we drove to the one Panera location, about 20 minutes north of our hotel. The wi-fi worked only marginally on our laptop. We then got a few groceries for the week and stopped by a Target to see if we could pick up a cheap portable crib or pack-n-play for Madeline to sleep in. We had discovered that the hotel wanted to charge us $10 per night to rent a crib, and since we were staying for six nights, we knew we could buy something for far less than $60. Our decision to try and find something cheaper was very worthwhile: I found a returned pack-n-play on clearance for $20 after tax!

Sunday, March 13th: Upon the invitation and suggestion of an old-friend we drove to Los Angeles for the day to attend church at Kairos and do a little bit of exploring and sight-seeing. We left early enough in the morning that we didn’t hit much traffic and made the drive in just about exactly two hours, including a brief jaunt off the interstate to get our morning caffeine from a tiny drive-thru coffee hut. Visiting Kairos was a great experience. They are meeting in a section of a wonderful old church building, which they have very tastefully decorated and furnished. The music was great and the portion of JR Woodward’s message I was able to hear was very interesting (I missed a great deal of the message taking care of Madeline, since she was hungry and mothers in church comfort rooms seem to universally talk during messages!)

We didn’t catch my friend Heather at the Kairos service (I didn’t realize they had two services, and had previously assumed we would just see her there), and had to leave a message when calling her cell phone. We still want to at least see Hollywood and grab some lunch before heading back to San Diego, also knowing that by killing a little bit of time Heather might give us a call back. So what do we do? Without a map, we start driving around with little more than a hunch as to where to find the Hollywood sign and those famous sidewalk stars. After maybe 20 minutes or so of driving we know we are in the right area but haven’t hit the jackpot. We’re so hungry we get drive-thru burgers for lunch from a fast food chain we’ve not heard of before, and soon after Heather calls. We found out we were only a block or two from the main “touristy” part of Hollywood, and she agrees to meet us at a nearby intersection in about 45 minutes.

We spend a while walking around hanging out with Heather and and a friend of hers that Tony knew from a previous conference but I had never met before. We saw the stars-in-the-sidewalk and the famous sign…and those were about the only things in Hollywood we really cared to see. We started our drive back, and ended up stopping at an outlet mall to look for a sport coat for Tony to wear during his presentation. We scored a pretty good deal on a jacket for him and also found a new pair of Khaki pants for me.

On the way back we stopped in the town of Oceanside for dinner. We stumbled across “Rockin’ Baja Lobster,” a restaurant right along the harbor with outdoor dining. It’s a chain in this area, but the food was wonderful and new to us. We got a “bucket” filled with well seasoned chicken, beef, shrimp and lobsters (small lobsters — a warm water variety from the pacific, apparently) served along side rice and beans. Yum!!!

Wow…that’s a lot of writing already…I’ll continue with the recounting of our adventures tomorrow!

We arrived here in San Diego on Saturday and finally have internet access in our hotel room today. We had tried and failed to log into the hotel’s internet service earlier in the trip and attempts to use our computer at a Panera Bread location and a local cafe with free wi-fi were also duds. An incompatibility between our laptop running Linux and something on the part of the hotel’s internet service provider ended up requiring a phone call to tech support to straighten things out.

Tony had been taking the laptop with him to his conference sessions during the day and then using it to work on his presentation some in the evening anyway…so I might not have had much of a chance to use it before tonight. But with Tony’s presentation out of the way as of late this afternoon and the wi-fi situation in the hotel room worked out, I am finally free to relate the details of our trip so far while Madeline sleeps and Tony watches a documentary about nuclear bombs on the History Channel…

My plan is to next write an entry detailing what we’ve been up to…so look for that if you care to know…here’s a preview — it includes a trip to LA!

Here are a few pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

Various pictures of Mars Hill’s cash donation to the Ezekiel Project

Madeline pics from March so far

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Since we’ve been talking here anyway about the subject of Godly Womanhood and what it looks like to be a mature Christian woman, you might want to check out Noel Heikkinen’s blog entry today on Proverbs 31…one of the other great Biblical passages on what a Woman of Character should be like.