An Unfinished House

I took some time mid-day today to visit with Pancha, Oscar and family - something I haven't done in a while. And whilst I was digesting my lunch I noticed a page from the newspaper embedded into the dirt outside in the "front yard" of the home. I found it humorous and interesting so I whipped out my camera and snapped a shot. I then noticed something else peculiar and then something else and fairly soon I was like a house afire, taking photos of anything that crossed my lense. These then are the following interesting scenes found at two of my favorite people's home this warm, breezy Tuesday Afternoon. Hmm, I think that's a song...ok, quick, random thought. I've always loved and been frightened by that song. I remember listening to it on 102.7 KISS FM late at night as a boy as I lay trying to fall asleep. Maybe it was a combination of the haunting opening bars and the soft, green glow of the stereo set but it always gave me shivers and forced me to burrow furth...

So I'm trying something new. I recently bought a new camera, a Nikon (I loves it), and that left me with my old point-and-shoot and nothing to do with it. I decided it might be fun and interesting to start rotating ownership of the old camera between various, trusted children in the Laureles community. I'm curious to see how they use the camera, what catches their eye, where the lense leads them. The following then are the fruit of the first trial with Chiro, the boy in the last picture. I had to cull a lot of photos and videos but these are the more interesting ones he came up with. not quite ready to enter school the ubiquitous marley chiro's mother being visited by alvina and michael recovering guiselle eden? frightening the smokers' and i mean smokers hang-out these remind me of pumpkin leaves two of chiro's brothers playing cars two more the oldest one furious chiro himself

So this is off topic a bit from my normal ramblings on the life and happenings of the Laureles community but something hit me the other day as I was brooding silently in a corner. I'm getting old. I'm 28 and neither as spry and energetic nor as mentally dextrous as I used to be, that I know to be for certain. More importantly there are a lot of meaningless goals that I have set out for myself to accomplish and the clock is ticking. Goals like learning German, taking up piano, writing a book, owning a railroad and floating a "Huck Finn"-like raft down the mighty Susquehanna. This revelation of my impending mortality and complete lack of meaning in life then spurned me to start acting on these goals before I reach 35 and all hope is lost. Thus I've decided to open a railroad between La Ceiba and the Garbage Dump, we'll call it the "Trash Train" and we'll offer on-board promotion of recycling and conservation. Ok, that's not really where my mind...

I feel like a proud parent - at least I think I do; never having been a parent I can't really say for sure what it is to feel like one...but proud I know, and that I am. Yesterday our U-14 team competed in their final game of the season and won, bringing us to second place in the league. To be honest we didn't play that well, we looked sluggish and sloppy during the first half and went into the break trailing 1-0. We made some player changes though, sat down and talked and in the second half we were a different team. Melvin especially (standing 3rd in from the left) , perhaps the shyest and most humble member of the team, came alive and just started firing off shots, 2 of which went in. The defense then, held it together for the rest of the game and we won it 2-1. Even though we didn't play as well as we should have I came away feeling satisfied and brimming with pride. We began the season miserably, we were pathetic, we couldn't work together, we didn't know our po...

I wrote once, a long time ago, about how we thrifty German Pennsylvanians from the upper Susquehanna Valley, as a means to pass the time and not spend money in the process, play various games amongst the family, one of which pokes fun at our Quaker neighbors for their silence in meeting. We call it Quaker School and if you'd like to read more on it go here ...turns out we may be wrong though about those wily Quakers and their precious silence. For 10 days in mid-August I was accompanied by one Quaker Jamie Moon who could not for the life of him keep his yapper shut for longer than 3 consecutive minutes. If he was spending time in thoughtful contemplation it was certainly not in my presence and must have been between the hours of 11:30 pm and 6:00 am because throughout the day he just simply prattled on about any old thought that came down the pike. Despite the chitter chatter I really enjoyed having him and must say that I saw him connect to the kids in Laureles and life here in ge...