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Three more hours 'til

Three more hours 'til midnight. We've already been out lighting some fireworks. We'll do the rest later.

I'm back to work

I'm back to work this week. It's a frustrating time for me, as I'm trying to get a server going with Red Hat 8, and I'm getting a lot of lockups. Not sure what's going on, but I'm not getting off to a good start. This afternoon I went up to Mangayacu to get water for a few of us families that are left here on the MAF base. A couple guys were working today--Bruce and Dave shared a plane today. Bruce flew it this morning, and Dave this afternoon. Darryl came up from Sucua with his family and he flew a couple flights out of Shell also. We've got three planes down for maintenance here in Shell. That and being short on pilots is sure putting a cramp in things.

We took my mom and dad back to Quito on Friday. They flew out of Quito early on Saturday morning and made it back to Pennsylvania without any problems. We had a good time with them here, and it was great to be able to show them where we live and what we do here. On Friday night we took the boys to one of the malls and I bowled with them. That's a big treat for them. Then sometime on Saturday they must have eaten something bad. By Sunday morning they both were making frequent trips to the bathroom, and that meant it would be difficult to travel. We had planned to travel to Shell by noon on Sunday. We pumped them both up with Pepto Bismol and made the five hour trip without incident. Giving Dustin some Dramamine also helped him make it, and he slept most of the way. Clean restrooms at gas stations are few and far between here in Ecuador.

By the time we got home on Sunday night, it was 8:45 PM. I'd made three round trips to Quito in December. That's thirty hours of driving, and I was glad to get it behind me. Driving on the road here in Ecuador is quite a challenge, and it seems to me that often times people make up the rules as they go. Stop signs are a suggestion, as are painted lines on the road. In Quito, when it's the middle of the night, or very early in the morning, you're EXPECTED to run red lights. Oh well.

We had a rat

We had a rat (or big mouse, who knows) in our kitchen drawers and cabinets on Monday night. That hasn't happened since May. So with Dad's help I plugged up a few more holes I found in the back of the cabinets. Dad spent most of Tuesday working on the source of the problem. There's an area above the water heater downstairs where there is access to the space between the upstairs floor and drop ceiling downstairs. The area is full of pipes and is really hard to close up. I've tried to use screen wire in the past, but wasn't very successful. Dad is making good progress getting the area closed off. He's even going to leave a little access door so I can put in poisen or rat traps as I need to. What a big help this is to us! Who needs rats in the kitchen?!

I should have written

I should have written a bit about the work here. Bruce flew on Christmas Eve. About 3:30 PM it was looking really bad here, and I wondered it he'd make it back into Shell for Christmas Eve. But the weather cleared and he showed up. He was only twenty minutes late getting to the McCleery's place for dinner. Then he had to fly again on Christmas day. First he had to do an RTS flight, as HC-BZE and just had some maintenance work done on it. Once that short flight was done, then he was off to pick up an emergency patient. He didn't fly all day, and I know he made it over to the Schmidt's place later in the afternoon for some Christmas with them.

We went to visit

We went to visit an orchid garden on Monday. I'd never been before, but Taylor had. I thought it would be a good place to take my parents. Turns out my Mom didn't want to take the whole tour. With her heart problems it wasn't good for her to walk up hills, and there was a lot of up and down as we walked through the garden. The tour was about an hour. Normally two hours, but we asked for the short version. They garden is on 72 hectares of land. I think that's a bit more than three square miles. It's big, and a beautiful place. They have over 300 varieties of orchids, 72 varieties of bromelias, and about 70 varieties of another plant I can't remember the name of. They had some flowers there that looked like lips. That inspired Dustin. The paint on his face is from another plant the the indians in the Ecuadorian jungle use for painting their faces.

Yes, it's been a

Yes, it's been a few days since I posted anything in here. Been too busy with my parents here. I'll add a few things tonight, and it may be a bit 'stream of conciousness' as I try to get a bit caught up. Well, I'm not going to write many details. I'm too tired. It's been a long day. The Manock family came over for Christmas dinner at 1 PM. We ate around 2 PM. Well, let's just say we ate the first time at 2 PM. It was a delicious and traditional Christmas meal. I think the only thing we lacked was some candied yams. Can't get anything like that here, but Jennie made a dish with carrots, nuts, brown sugar and marshmallows that was almost identical in taste. After some table games we had dessert, and then after some more games we snacked again. Our guests didn't leave until almost 10:30 PM. It was a great way to spend Christmas. The boys are really happy with their gifts. Here's Dustin reading his Guiness Book of World Records. I think the best thing about Christmas was having my parents here with us. I think we'll all remember it as a special Christmas.

This morning we went

This morning we went to a small 'zoo' outside of Puyo called Fatima. It's really more like a ecological reserve. Their goals are research, education, and rescue of injured or abandoned animals. Here I am with a capybara, the largest rodent in the world. They are more active at night, and great swimmers.

Eyes Closed

I'm enjoying having my parents here. My dad and I just did the dishes. Ellyn and my mom are downstairs watching a movie. Right now I'm showing him how I post these (almost) daily updates. We had Taylor take our picture about five times, but try as he might, my dad couldn't keep his eyes open.

The boys only had

The boys only had a half day of school today, so now they are on their Christmas break. Tomorrow we'll all go off to visit Fatima, a local wildlife refuge. I haven't been there, but Taylor went with his class a while back. He wants to take us all. I'll have to post some photos of that. Then we'll go out for lunch at our favorite restaurant in Puyo, El Jardine.

Well, the time is

Well, the time is creeping by with my parents and I realized today that it's going to be over before I know it.

Last night the kids at NSMS presented their Christmas program. It was at the evangelical church in town, and the kids were each given two invitations to give to local Ecuadorians. Not that others couldn't come too--it was open too all. We sang a lot of Christmas carols in spanish and english. Afterwards enjoyed visiting and snacking on cookies. Today was a half day of school. The kids had spent the past two weeks bringing things to school to make some 'baby bundles' to give to moms at the HVO hospital. They collected things like diapers, diaper covers, toys, and other useful things that I can't remember now. Today they all walked over to the hospital to deliver those. Four of the bundles were given directly to mothers there. The kids also sang carols while they were there. My mom and dad were able to go along with them.

I'm too tired to

I'm too tired to write much in here. We left for Quito on Saturday about 7 AM. Got there just after noon, and managed to get some errands done. The boys enjoyed having lunch at McDonalds, as they always do when they are in Quito. Santa Claus 2 is in the theatres there, but is in spanish, so they didn't want to see it. They don't understand spanish that well to watch a movie and get it all. The boys wanted to go to the airport to pick up grandma and grandpa, but they couldn't stay awak until 11:30 PM. As it turned out, the plane didn't land as the weather was poor in Quito, and it diverted to Guayaquil. At 9300' and with high mountains around the airport, it's a difficult place to land. Mom and dad spent the night in Guayaquil and came to Quito in the morning, arriving in Quito at 11:30 AM. By the time we left Quito it was 1:45 PM, and we arrived back in Shell at 7:30 PM. It was late 'till I went to bed, about midnight. I'm supposed to ride with John this afternoon, but I'm too tired.

My parents are in

My parents are in Shell with us now. We drove down from Quito with them yesterday. More later.

Well, there's good new

Well, there's good new since my last post. We managed to find the receipts for both of the bad hard drives that I have and I'll be getting them replaced under warranty. That's great, as I'll be getting all the new software for this next project tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get the new drives this weekend too.

I think John and Oscar got a lot of work done on planes today. The new engine is in HC-BZE and Dave took it our for a Return to Service flight. Now John is out doing some final calibrations of instruments and the compass.

I have the van ready to go to Quito first thing in the morning. My mom and dad fly in tomorrow night. But first we are going to our staff Christmas party tonight. Might seem a bit early, but after Wednesday of next week, three or four families are heading to the US for Christmas.

The boys are off participating in the Shell Days parade. I think it already started, so I need to run. I'm going to watch for a bit and snap some pictures.

Arrggghhh! Now I find

Arrggghhh! Now I find out the hard drive is bad. Not a good way to end my day. Can't just run down to CompUSA and buy another one.

Not having much success

Not having much success getting a hard drive formatted today. It's a 40GB drive, and try as I might, I can only 'see' 8GB of it. Not sure what I did in the past to it, but something isn't working for me. Darryl and Chad (from our Sucua base) were here a while ago. They didn't have plans to come to Shell today, until they landed in Makuma. There they found a lady who is eight months pregnant and who had been bitten by a snake. She had been carried four hours on jungle trails to get her to Makuma. It was obvious she needed to get to medical attention, so they flew her to Shell.

My back is slowly

My back is slowly feeling better. Maybe I'll be able to mow the lawn today. Need to get that done before my parents get here this weekend. We'll be driving up to meet them on Saturday and return to Shell on Sunday.

The average Ecuadorean earned

The average Ecuadorean earned $1,460 last year, according to the World Bank.

Well, I'm back from

Well, I'm back from Quito. The trip Friday took a long time. Lots of little delays that added up. The weekend was good, but I sure was tired. Saturday afternoon I took an hour hike with Taylor up on the trail to the north repeater. Of course we didn't go to the top, but he had a lot of fun with that. Then on Sunday afternoon I played war with him in the backyard using his plastic army men and legos. My back didn't like that too much, and now I have a pinched nerve. Hopefully I can work that out soon. Maybe a bike ride this afternoon will help.

The trip started yesterday

The trip started yesterday in one vehicle, but because of clutch problems I had to turn around ten miles out. Fortunately I had access to another vehicle and had left early. So we finally left Shell about 12:40 PM. Then, halfway to Baños we had to wait at least thirty minutes while they cleared the road from some blasting they have been doing. Also, the road was in such poor shape that we couldn't go very fast at all. What should have been an hour and fifteen minute trip took me two hours. Then there was some construction past Latacunga, so that slowed us down even more. Finally, as we entered Quito, there was hard rains and some mild flooding on the road in spots. But I did make it. Sandi, from the Sucua base, came with me, as well as a friend of here, Lora. Her friend has been visiting her for three months and is heading back to the States tonight.

I've been at the MAF office here since 8 AM this morning. I'm trying to get an old server set up with Windows 98 and an HP LaserJet printer that needs to be shared. I also did some maintenance and applied some Windows updates to browsers and e-mail programs.

I'm in Quito. Interesting

I'm in Quito. Interesting trip, but more later.

Oscar and Mateo are

Oscar and Mateo are making great progress on the engine change on HC-BZE. And yes, I'm up way too late. I'm working on some maintenance on a friend's web site.

Bruce is working on

Bruce is working on his log book. He's been flying here since May. He has 816 landings since he's been here!

Guess I ought to

Guess I ought to clarify a couple things from that last post. Communigate Pro is a program for sending and receiving e-mail over the internet. And when I say 'box', I mean a computer.

My day started off

My day started off with a trip to the GMU camp at Mangayacu. That's where Ron goes every Tuesday to get drinking water for the MAF families. Today he's been busy getting a house ready for a new MAF family that's coming after the first of the year, so I did the water run for him. The morning ended with the web page class I'm teaching the three seventh and eighth grade boys and their teacher. That's a fun time for me, as I enjoy working with web pages and sharing that with others. Right now I'm in the middle of switching drives and cards from one PC to another. I'm trying to free up a box and a couple 40GB hard drives so I can start working on a new http://www.thehoffmanfamily.com/ server that will handle our e-mail with Communigate Pro. So far, so good. I've got a couple more boxes to swap drives in and I need to install http://www.thehoffmanfamily.com/ on one of them before it's all said and done. Maybe by the end of the afternoon I'll have things where I need them. That would be good, as tomorrow I head up to Quito for a couple days.

Brrrrr. I'm cold this

Brrrrr. I'm cold this morning in the hangar. It's rainy and cool. We've got one plane off the ground. Bruce is across the office from me, buried in all sorts of paperwork. I think the guys probably have an hour of paperwork that needs to be done each day that they fly. Get back from flying at 6 PM that night, and it gets put off until the next day. You can see that it's not too hard to get behind on the paperwork.

Being cold today is the opposite feeling we had yesterday. We put up our Christmas tree and lights. And were perspiring. Yes, it's not going to be cold and snowy in Shell for Christmas. But the house does feel like like Christmas now.

What a funny place

What a funny place I work. I just went out to the bodega (storage room) to put the pull start rope for the lawn mower away. I'd forgotten to hang it on the mower on Saturday after I used it. That room is where things are stored that we bring in from the jungle for people. We often bring in food things that people in the jungle would like delivered to their family or friends here in Puyo or Shell. The items aren't that big, and aren't first priority, but then there is room in the pod we bring things in. Like smoked monkey. I saw one in there on Saturday when I put the mower away. It looked like it had been sitting there a while, with quite a few flies around. This morning it was gone...except for the forearm and paw!