3 July 2010 – Contain Yourself!

The which we were hardly able to do, when the truck with the forty foot container inched its way through our red oxide gate. It was like a relative…one you like…showing up just before grace at Thanksgiving dinner, whom you believed still to be in Suriname. The long, tortuous bureaucratic swamp and the Oakland, CA to Shanghai to Port Kelang Malaysia to Durban South Africa to Mombasa Kenya to Lukenya Daystar Red Rhino Orphange Project site journey are behind now. It is home, just in time for turkey.

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And like a good relative, it brought presents. Lots of them. Like…

- tractor with frontloader

- John Deere Gator

- trailer with 350 gal water tank

- 2 welders

- huge generator –  12 KVA

- 5 hp Honda generator

- 3 water pumps

- laser site level

- chop saw

- Saws All

- 7″ grinder

- compressor

- battery charger

- floor jack

- weed eaters

- Skill saw

- compound miter saw

- drill press

- drill bits

- 4 wheel barows

- masonary tools

- wood working hand tools

- wrenches and sockets

- shovels, mattocks, pry bars, sledge hammers

- 3 aluminium ladders

- screw drivers, pliers, snips, hack saws, hand saws

- rolling Craftsman tool box

- smaller tool boxes

- concrete tools, and 20′ leveling bar

- heavy duty metal shelving

- a ton of rebar

- plywood, lumber

- uncountable hand tools

- nuts and bolts – innumerable

- solar panels

- two way radios

- solid core doors

- windows

- heavy duty steel I beams

- 1000′ of pvc pipe

- an incubator for Springs of Hope

- a jaundice light

- a baby scale

- 5 bikes

- 2 basketball hoops

- soccer balls and nets

- toys and stuffed animals

- books

- many many clothes

- 40 sets of sheets and blankets

And other stuff I’m forgetting. But will not forget to use or be thankful for.

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Here’s the pictorial version.

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Many, many people worked very hard to get our jumbo present filled and here. So thank you for all your, in some cases, overwhelming generosity. And accept, when you can, our invitation to come, and see your stuff in use, here, in its new home. There are two people without whom the six stone and concrete pedestals would be forever vacant. Gary Guthrie worked tenaciously and tirelessly to gather so many of the things that came. Thank you, Gary. I know it wasn’t always easy, but we’re all here deeply grateful. And Pat Shepherd. Pat you endured more headaches and put in more, often very frustrating hours, to “make it happen” than anyone will ever know. But now it’s here, and the kids, will know when they sleep on the sheets and read the books and wear the clothes and live in the place kept in good trim with our new tools. Thank you both.

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I’m still on a borrowed laptop, and it’s worth remembering we’re all still on borrowed time. Let’s live it up.

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In praise of the Loaner of our time,

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David

25 June 2010 – The Death of Computing

A couple of days ago, I sorted out a problem with my US bank account, spoke to my daughter, listened live to the last inning of a Giants game, got a recipe for potato leek soup, lined up three business meetings, and fiddled with the website. Then I got out of bed. Me and my little, flat white box with its glowing forbidden fruit logo.

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I come home from work, crack it open and ask, in the habitual greeting of my late father-in-law, “Any news?” The real answer is always, “No.” That is, the need that gets transposed onto this interaction has nothing to do with recent events, or the desire to be surprised, even by tragedy. It is my need to be connected, to something, at times, it seems, almost anything will do. And so I continue to knock on the big door.

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“Is he going anywhere with this?” a reasonable person might ask. Well, no, not really. It’s just that my laptop died, doornail dead, and sorting through the post-mortem debris I’m looking at the balance sheet. The website has been unattended and you’ve gotten “no news” from this side. I don’t know if the Giants and Pads are still holding off the demon Dodgers, I think McChrystal got canned, I assume the gulf is getting slipperier, I’m less interseted in all of the above, and feel a guilty sort of freedom, a dog who has slipped his leash.

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Wendell Berry advises us to avoid looking at screens. So now I’m typing on this borrowed laptop with my eyes closed.

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I’ll come to my senses in a while and things will be back to normal. But meanwhile I’m going to roam with the released pack and see what happens.

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Back soon,

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David

22 May 2010 – Neighborhood News, Pipe Dreams, Queue for the Loo

Come on in. It’s been a long week, and now, it’s finished up. The tools are cleaned and stowed in the container and the guys have cleaned up, changed into their good clothes and headed off for all that Saturday night offers.

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Here’s some of the fading footprint of the last week or so.

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The Band is right now testifying, “Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.” I think they mean all of us. I wonder what that will look like? For tonight, I’m settling for a seat near a big TV in Nairobi and the Champions’ League final with B, Martin, Mr and Mrs Masa, and flock of hollering Inter Milan and Bayern Munich fans.

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Mael is getting ready to crawl. So it’s ok.

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David

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