Hertzler’s Outpost

Cathy called me today just after Andrew and Audrey drove off by themselves. Andrew passed his driving test (”It was easy,” he said) and has his regular license now.

He was very happy to discover yesterday that the additional cost of our insurance (due to him being a licensed driver) will be half what we were expecting. Since we’re making him pay the difference in insurance, this meant he had six months of insurance saved up rather than just three.

Our Overflowing A/C Unit

My caulk plug on the outside wall washed away, so I’ve spent the last two afternoons soaking up water as it gushed in during our afternoon downpours. Last night I plugged the hole with roofing tar and placed a piece of plastic to shield it from any more rain, so I’m hoping that holds until we can get the stucco repaired.

So today when I saw yet more water where it shouldn’t be I just laughed.

Fortunately, this problem was easy to fix. Our inside A/C unit’s drain pipe had clogged and began spilling out onto the unit’s platform in the garage. This is not the first time this has happened, so I remembered the solution; vacuum out the drain pipe. Fortunately my neighbor’s wet/dry vac was handy, and I had the problem fixed in less than a half hour.

StudiuBiblic.ro

With 26 translations of EveryStudent.com going, we still have just a few translations of our follow-up site, StartingWithGod.com. One thing we did to try to make it easier to produce new translations of this site was to create a tool so our translators could enter their text directly onto the site. Our Romanian language site, StudiuBiblic.ro, is the first one produced using this tool.

The idea of using a tool like this for producing new translations wasn’t completely successful. Our initial version proved too difficult for a non-experienced translator to use, and some more features need to be added before we can produce multiple new versions simultaneously. So the future of this tool is unknown at this point.

1986 Yamaha Maxim

Last night I became a motorcycle owner, and today I did my first commute to work on it. It was the first time I’ve enjoyed the commute to the office since when I rode my bike to work back in Budapest. It was really fun!

Raining Inside

Today we had a strong storm, and the water came flowing in our new house hole. I scrambled up to the attic looking for a potential roof leak but found nothing but heat (!) and dry insulation. But back down on the ground the water kept coming in, so after the rain let up a bit I got the garden hose out and sprayed until I had repeated the leak. Sure enough, the hole is in a rusted-out seam of our stucco near the foundation, just above the grade. The seam rusted out because the bottom of it goes below the grade and sits in water every time it rains. Normally stucco is not installed below the grade of the yard, so this should never have happened. I think some caulk should plug the hole until I can fix the source of the problem.

After stucco repair, gutters and a drain field should probably eliminate the excess water in the area of the leak. This whole problem seems to be caused by poor construction, so it’s a bit frustrating.

While we were away Cathy talked me into buying that Yamaha Maxim I had been riding. It was actually harder for me to find a justification for it, but I finally found one. I’ll use our auto savings for it until we need to buy another car. Then I’ll sell the motorcycle and put the money back into the auto savings fund. That’s the plan for now anyway. I get the motorcycle Sunday afternoon. Woohoo!

After a week at camp without their small screens (all campers turned in their phones and iPods for the week), Andrew and Audrey returned home tonight. The first dilemna they each had to overcome upon arriving home related to their small screens. The screen on Audrey’s camera broke, her phone recharger didn’t work, and Andrew’s iPod recharger broke. This created some re-entry stress for the two of them. It reminded Cathy and me of our own re-entry stress last Sunday night as we walked into the problems that awaited us after getting back from vacation ourselves.

They had a good time at camp, though. And in just three weeks they leave for their missions trip to New York City, and they have a lot of work to do in the mean time.

If the last ten years saw huge advances in the information available on a computer screen, the next ten years should see advances in what you can see and do on a small screen. That is, the small screen of a cell phone or an iPod. Campus Crusade recently began using video iPod’s and short film to create spiritual conversation opportunities for our staff members and students, but one of the things we want to begin developing are ways to make our message available to spiritually interested students on their cell phones - when our staff members or students are not around. We have some ideas but no proven model that works. I’m thinking of taking this on as a project.

Rising Waters In Our House

Returning to real life in Orlando after two weeks of vacation in Illinois and Wisconsin has been an uncomfortable jolt, but it’s nice to be with our friends here in Orlando again. Including our week in St. Louis, we were gone three weeks.

Our vacant house seemed available while we were gone, though, and several things took up residence while we were away. Ants, an armadillo, and more rising water.

We can deal with the ants. The armadillo who dug a burrow under our palm trees in the backyard will probably be more of a challenge than the ants. But the rising water has us completely perplexed.

This is leak #3, and we still haven’t finished leak projects #1, and #2.

The water is visible at the floor level, but we’re not sure if it’s coming in through the window or through some gap in the wall system. Unlike the other houses in our area which are built with concrete blocks, our house has pre-fabricated, steel reinforced concrete wall sections. Between the wall section and the foundation is a seal of black stuff, and I’m wondering if that seal has not sprung a leak. I think I’ll have to tear into the drywall to find out.

Andrew, Audrey, and Cousin Amanda
at the high water point of the Mississippi River
near the St. Louis Gateway Arch

Here in the St. Louis metro area rising waters are the big concern right now. Near where we stayed last week, a community soccer field became a community lake due to the flooding. Only the tops of the soccer goals and the top of the picnic pavilion were visible above the water. We even saw someone paddling their kayak around in it. But none of the places we’ve stayed have been low-lying, so it’s mostly something we’ve seen on TV rather than something we have been affected by. We drive to Wisconsin later this week, though, where some of the roads have been flooded along the way. We’ll see how that goes.

Today I have no more appointments, but it’s just as well because I have plenty of work to catch up on. Starting last Sunday I had a week of catching up with friends, meeting new people and telling about what God has done through our work recently. These weeks are always one of the best parts about what we do. It’s energizing to look back and tell people about how God used their investment in this ministry to change lives.

Downtown Paducah, Kentucky

Tonight we went to downtown Paducah and walked around the Lowertown Art District. For dinner we had a picnic in the park next to First Baptist, where our friends Grant and Elisabeth got married years ago. Then we went to the “Downtown After Dinner” area by the riverfront and walked around until we’d seen it all and heard it all. A fun evening with family.

We’re on the road today, heading toward Paducah, Kentucky where we’ll stop at Sister’s house and see cousins, see friends, and give an update at one of our partner churches, Heritage Bible Church.

This trip we have three drivers, so it’s been easier, too.

Yamaha Maxim

A friend of mine let me know of a motorcycle for sale last week; a 1986 Yamaha Maxim. I decided to take it for a test ride, as my friend had it at the office. It has a 650 cc engine, half the size of the V-Rod I rented but it was still a fun ride. It’s not something I was ready to act on, so I figured it was just another fun experience.

But then last night my friend called me again and said the same bike was available for me to ride this weekend if I wanted. The owner is certainly a smart man, providing opportunity for a potential buyer to get hooked on the product. But I’ll take that risk anyway.

Last night I did another night run around the neighborhood, and later today (after I finish my chores) I’ll take it out for another spin.

Squirrel in our Patio

Annie came and woke Cathy up this morning, terribly concerned about something. She led Cathy to the back door where Cathy discovered this squirrel inside our screened patio. It must have found its way through the tear in the screen that Annie created the last time she bolted out the back door after the squirrel. How ironic.

Anyway, the squirrel was in no hurry to leave but instead took a nap above the screen doorway. Cathy was amused and enjoyed having a new friend for the day. Annie was not amused.

Front Door Drip Guard Installed

The duct tape holding the weather strip up under the front door finally gave out - for the fifth time - so I decided to get the job done already. It took me most of the day, but I figured out a way to make it work. Ironically, I don’t think my solution will have a weather strip under the door, but it should be OK because there is no room between the threshold and the bottom of the drip guard anyway.

Total savings on this project: ~$850.
Total cost of the project: 5 Saturdays + materials ($65)

UPDATE (2 June) - Tonight we had some severe thunderstorms with about twenty minutes of driving, heavy rain against the front door. A little stream of water ran through the gap between the bottom corner of the door and the door jamb. D’oh. I may just ignore the problem for now, as most everything at that location is made of vinyl and shouldn’t be damaged by water. But most likely I will resort to cutting off 0.5″ of the bottom of the door so I can fit the proper weather stripping under it. That’s another day-long project. Maybe I’ll wait until next winter when it’s cool again.

Hertzlers at Graduation

Tonight Audrey graduated from 8th grade and Trace Academy. On to high school for her now. Her class size will jump from 4 to over 1,000, but she is looking forward to the broader horizon.

Cathy graduated tonight, too. After seven years teaching at Trace Academy (with a three year stint at the International Christian School of Budapest), she has now completed her responsibility at this parent-led school. She’s looking forward to catching her breath this summer.

Today I upgraded the software that runs this website, and it reminded me how far my life has moved from about three years ago. At that time I was intrigued with figuring out how to produce this site, and I was making changes weekly. In my free time I would upgrade the software that runs this site within about a week or two of new updates being released. Now my life has different things in it, and it has been nine months since I last upgraded. For now that’s OK. I’m more interested in using my free time to figure out how to get a motorcycle into it than the latest upgrade to this website’s software.

Three years ago Tom and I were also just figuring out how to get students to respond to the gospel on a website. Now I’m wanting to help figure out how to get students to take the next steps of growing spiritually and reaching their world with the gospel on a website.

KoveliStudenti.com, our Georgian site

That would be the Georgia that lies just south of Russia, as apposed to the Georgia that lies just south of Tennessee. We’re building an EveryStudent.com site for this language, KoveliStudenti.com, and we’re finding the Georgian alphabet to be a bit of a challenge to display in a normal web browser. There aren’t many Georgian fonts out there, and even fewer that work on both a PC and a Macintosh. Georgia uses their own unique alphabet, and since they are a small country there is not as much developed for the Internet in this language. While this is a difficulty for us now, we anticipate this will give us greater visibility later as our site will be one of a smaller number of sites in this language.

After we figure out how to produce this site, advertising it will be the next challenge. Google, our main ad supplier, does not offer Georgian ads, so we’ll have to be creative.

The 7 Of Us Before Starting Out

Included in the tuition for our motorcycle class was a free one-day Harley rental. Today was the day, and I am now completely ruined. Even though they’re way overpriced, Harley V-Rods ($19k) are really cool bikes and I REALLY NEED one now. I used to think our recently acquired Escort had good acceleration, but after dropping off the bikes tonight and driving it home, I was wondering why it felt like a school bus by comparison. It’s a good thing I have no money for such things, otherwise Harley Davidson would have it now.

Seven of us started out the day riding together and headed northeast on the back roads toward the coast. After lunch in Osteen three of the group headed home while the remaining four of us continued on to put our feet in the ocean at Harley Mecca, Daytona Beach.

Riding a motorcycle with no windshield at, let’s say, “highway speeds” is not unlike holding on to the side of airplane in flight. Pretty fun, but the faster you go the harder it is to hold on. That V-Rod’s 125 horsepower was smooth all the way through the gears and really easy to ride, other than the wind.

None of us had any close calls during the day either, but ironically I almost got hit twice (by cars) in the Harley Davidson store parking lot as I was pulling the bike around to park it at the end of the day.

This was certainly one of the funnest days I have ever had, and I’m hoping it won’t be the last of its kind.

Yesterday I borrowed a friend’s motorcycle and did some more learning-driving. He has a Kawasaki Concours (an older model), and it had plenty of power. After a few trips across the CCCI Lake Hart campus, I ventured out south down Moss Park Road and around Lake Mary Jane. Really fun. On the way back I opened it up on the straightaway to several miles an hour over 55. It rode as smooth at that speed as it did at 35.

We sold our gray van today! It feels great to own one less vehicle, and it feels even better to have sold it to a young family that looked like they could really use an affordable family van.

This time I remembered to visit the tag agency with the buyer. A few years ago I simply gave the title to the buyer, and they failed to transfer the registration. They got in an accident and had an insurance dispute over it. Since my driver’s license was still tied to that vehicle the state of Florida suspended my license! They never notified me either. It wasn’t until six months later when I went to write a new auto insurance policy that my agent told me my license was suspended. It was not difficult to resolve, but it would have been easier to have done it right the first time.

New Motorcycle License

Yesterday afternoon I got a new driver’s license; one that has a motorcycle endorsement. And we made reservations for our complimentary one-day Harley rentals for next Friday. I reserved a V-Rod. “Are you sure you want that much horsepower?” was the Harley salesman’s question. So now I’m shopping for full-face helmets since the Harley store only rents half-helmets. Maybe that will make up for the extra horsepower.

And the “shocked” license photo got shredded yesterday, too. It went out with glory. I asked the license clerk who took my new picture if I could see it before she printed my new license. “My last one got comments for ten years,” I said. “Ya, it’s the eyes,” was her comeback. “I saw your license and wondered what you’d look like in person.” D’oh.

This week was an experience. One that I would not want to repeat anytime soon. I certainly don’t feel anonymous at this point. After finishing my duty, I went and did some Internet research and decided it is best to move on and not discuss anything here. I’ll be spending more time with my family…

About ten minutes after I wrote my last post about being able to work like normal, they called my number. Seven hours later at the end of the day I was seated on a jery (mispelling intentional to prevent searches being associated with my name). This means I must be incommunicado until it’s done.

But here’s my observation on EVERYONE who commented about my jery duty. No one wants to do it, and everyone seemed to have an angle for getting out of it. As I went through the process myself, though, it developed more into an act of God. That is, responding truthfully to each stage of questioning resulted in the outcome I now must live with (being seated on a jery). Had I put an angle on it, I may have found an excuse, but I couldn’t do it with a clear conscience.

So now my American Government class will become more than just book knowledge.