« November 2005 | Main | January 2006 »

Mail Scanning

Here's a note from the acting IT director that I think you'll find interesting.

While we were all opening gifts and enjoying Christmas dinner, our
trusty servers were working hard here in the office. On December 25th
alone (not even a workday!) you can see below the number of e-mail
messages that were processed, and the number of viruses and SPAM
messages that were rejected by our system.

Posted by David at 07:41 PM

Bird's Eye View

Just for fun, here's a web cam view of Overland Road in Boise, just down from Lowes. The image is courtesy of the Ada County Highway District.

Posted by David at 01:15 PM

Endless Trips

I must yet again make a trip to Lowes. I bought the last two knobs for the kitchen cupboards, and arrived home with only one. It's a long story as to why it's taken so many trips to get these knobs and how I lost this one, so I won't go into it. Suffice it to say, I don't expect things to go like this in the States. If I were still in Ecuador, it wouldn't surprise me at all to have to make three or four trips to the hardware store for what should be a simple job. But here it seems to be all the more aggravating because it shouldn't be so difficult. It's a good thing Lowes is only ten minutes away.

Posted by David at 11:04 AM

Winter Days

Yesterday I found myself wishing for a hot humid day in Shell and a swim in the cold clear water of the Rio Alpayacu. Alas, no such luck here. Here we have cloudy skies and cold rain. The bright side of it is that I'm going to take the boys snowboarding one of these days. It's snowed twice in Boise so far this winter, and the boys had a blast each time. They missed the snow.

It appears that I'm just about done with the task of hanging pictures and things on the wall for Ellyn. I still need to finish putting pulls and knobs on drawers and cupboard doors in the kitchen, and should do that today. We are very comfortably settled into our new home, and finding it to be very livable. What does that mean you ask? It means we like the floor plan and it works well for us. There are a lot of things about it that we've never had in a home before.

We're learning to live with the thermostat turned down, and I'm not looking forward to seeing the gas bill for a full month. We did get one for the first week that we moved in, and it wasn't a pretty sight!

Posted by David at 10:53 AM

Warmer

I've made a spur of the moment trip to the MAF office in Redlands (where the weather is a tad bit warmer than Boise). The idea came up in a conversation with the IT infrastructure manager on Tuesday. Wednesday morning I flew down. It was the second time Ellyn and I have had to drive to the airport, and we're glad to be relatively close--we can be there in a little more than fifteen minutes. I was up at 4:30 AM to catch a 7 AM flight, which meant I was able to work in the office for all of Wednesday afternoon.

One of the system administrators is leaving MAF at the end of the month, and is choosing not to relocate to Idaho. I'm down here to learn parts of his job so that I can fill in for the next couple months. Someone will be hired to take his place, and I'll pick up some of the slack in the meanwhile.

Posted by David at 04:45 PM

Next Steps

We are in a different world at our house. Well, let me start by saying we are in a different house. What makes it a different world is the fact that we have no access to the Internet at this time. I'm writing this entry on Thursday, December 8, and will post it when I have access again. Actually, now that I think about it, that will most likely be tonight. But, let me back up first.

Ellyn flew to Portland last Thursday for her aunt's wedding. We woke up that morning to about three inches of snow, and it was still falling. I went to the men's Bible study at church that morning, leaving a few minutes early so I'd have enough time to drive in the snow. I also needed to stop at the grocery store since it was my turn to bring donuts. It had been years since I'd driven in snow, but it wasn't bad at all. The fact that I was in a small front wheel drive car on flat roads made a big difference. I thought about staying home so I could drive the boys to school instead of Ellyn, but I figured she could make it. Besides, she's going to have to start driving in snow sometime, so it might as well be right away.

She made it to school and back fine, but the round trip took almost an hour longer than it normally did. As soon as she arrived back at the apartment we loaded her bag into the car and left for the airport. By then things were calming down and the temperature was warming up, so there was no trouble getting to the airport. Her flight left on schedule, and she was off for a weekend of fun with family.

On Friday the fun started. I drove the boys to school for one last time. Once I was back home I loaded the loaded the van and then headed over to the house. We had our final walk-through that day, and I met the builder for that at 11:30 AM. Soon after that I had the appliances delivered. Dustin walked home from school that afternoon, and I drove over to get Taylor, since I hadn't told him to walk. Actually, I thought I'd be done at the house by the time he was out of school, but it didn't happen that way. First, the appliance delivery was late, and then when they got to the dryer, the found they had a gas dryer with them, and we had bought an electric dryer. Fortunately they had the right one in the warehouse, and a second truck brought that over.

By 5 PM I dropped Taylor off at Ellyn's cousin's house, and Dustin and I went to meet Ellyn's cousin at the business he manages. His name is Dustin Todd, which is interesting, because our Dustin's full name is Dustin Todd Hoffman. Oh, and Dustin (Ellyn's cousin) has a son who is also Dustin, but they call him DJ (good thing, or we'd really be confused!). Anyway, Dustin Todd had told us he'd like to help us move, and he could use the Isuzu box van from his place of work. So once we met him, we headed over to a couple different stores to pick up a table and chairs that we had bought months ago, and a mattress set that we bought last week. When those were loaded up we headed over to the apartment to empty some things out of our storage garage and make a decent load of it. I suppose we finished with that around 9 PM.

I must have been up well past midnight on Friday, as I finished putting everything in boxes. Ellyn had done a great job of boxing most things up, but I needed to finish packing my things, and the boys and I threw our clothes in some boxes. Dustin and I had taken our mattress set that evening, so I slept on a spare twin mattress. One last night in what had been our home for five months. It had been a great place for us, and we have no complaints about our stint of apartment living. If you're looking for a good apartment complex in Meridian, try Aspen Hills.

At 8:30 AM three couples from our new church showed up with four vehicles. Dustin Todd also brought the box van over again. I had already filled our van earlier in the morning. We managed to get almost everything over to our house in one trip. What a blessing to have so much help. At first I thought we might have too much help, but it turned out to be just right. I think we were all unloaded from that first trip by 11 AM, and I said goodbye to everyone and thanked them. All except Dustin Todd. He and I headed back to the apartment for a last trip. I was extremely grateful for so much help.

I won't go into all the details that followed, but needless to stay, it's been busy around here as we unpack and set up. We picked Ellyn up from the airport on Sunday afternoon. The boys were looking forward to seeing what she would do when she got home. I had done quite a bit on Saturday evening, but hey knew that their mom could make the mess look like a home. They were right, and by Sunday evening the place was looking great. The last few days have been a blur of unpacking boxes, making bed frames, hanging things on walls, installing blinds, building dining room chairs, and many other things I can't remember.

We're the second family to move into a finished house in this phase of our sub-division. As I write, the street is full of trucks of all descriptions, as workers frame for foundations, put on siding, load sheetrock into houses, frame houses, paint, plumb, and who knows what else. The lot on one side of us is still empty, and on the other side they will be pouring the foundation next week. We're going to hear the sounds of construction for some time to come.

We are so thankful that we can be here for Christmas. The boys are very happy to be closer to school. They can walk or ride their bike. The temps the past two days have been in the low teens on my thermometer, and they are grateful for a ride on those days. I heard on the radio it was six degrees in downtown Boise this morning. Brrrrrr!!! That's cold for us, MKs who have just returned from the tropics. We're walking around our new house in awe, and that is certainly keeping our minds off the cold weather. Taylor is desperately wishing for snow. He can't think of much else. From what I gather, a snow fall of a couple inches doesn't happen all that often in Boise. For his sake, I hope it's a snowier winter than usual.

The other big news for us is that we are now at 100% of our full monthly ministry support. Back in August we made out a plan with some goals, and thought that reaching our ministry partnership goal in December was possible. We've been praying toward that, and God has been faithful. On December 1 we ended our deputation time, and I am now back to work for the Information Technology department. This has been a long time of transition for us since we left Ecuador in June, and we are excited to start the next step. We are also full of praise to God because He is so good. There is so much peace in resting in Him, especially when you are in such a time of transition as we have been.

Posted by David at 02:21 PM

Last Day

We signed loan and title papers on Wednesday. Yesterday Ellyn flew to Portland for her aunt's wedding, and she will be back on Sunday. Today I have the final walk through of the house with the builder. I think they've been slowed down the last couple days by cold weather, and I hope everything is good for us to move in. I do know there is still some outside painting to do. Yesterday we had several inches of snow, which was bad for builders, but good for boys who haven't played in the snow for over five years.

Today is the last day for us all to get up and drive the boys across town to school. We made it. It's been a long three months of doing that, and we're ready for this stage to come to a close.

Posted by David at 06:44 AM