Sammi Salvage

The plucky little TWR Suzuki Samurai work beast has suffered a couple broken leaf springs during its first year of service. Makes me wonder about our two trusty Samurai(s). We've been all over the place with them but haven't broken any springs yet, gulp.

Rich West happened to spot a couple Samurai at the dump (land fill) this week while he was disposing of some old junk. He told Udo, who went and got permission to go glean parts off of them and we zoomed out to see what we could salvage. The cars were pretty much picked bare, but Rich did get a few springs. Hooray.

Here we see Rich using his handy-dandy, one size fits all, salvage tool to remove the leaf springs from an old Suzuki Samurai.

You can click on the picture to see the junk better. :)

What's Wrong With this Picture?

It's time once again for you to try to figure out what is wrong with this tranquil Bonaire waterfront scene.

You can click on this picture to see it bigger.


You can use the comments feature to post your answers.

Rainy Winter Revisited

It's been windy and dry on Bonaire for a while now, but if you were reading my blog this past winter, you will remember that we had especially heavy rains.

The countries in northern South America had heavier than usual rains too, with much more serious results. There was widespread flooding, mudslides, and many casualties.

Here is a letter from one of our listeners in Guyana. It took 6 weeks to get here, so I'm sure things are drying out down there too by now. But rebuilding the damage, both physical and personal will take much longer.

We experienced a devastating flood here in Guyana. This was due to a breach of the water conservancy dam and at the same time, we experienced heavy rainfall. There wasn’t an inch of land visible. There was water everywhere. Homes were flooded. In the lower flat of our home, there was 18 inches of water and in some parts of our yard, there was approximately 36 inches of water. The streets were literally turned into rivers and the only means of transportation was by boat.
On Sunday, Jan. 16th, at 11 pm, it began to rain. I was listening to TWR.
On Monday, Jan. 17th, it was still raining and we woke up about 4:30 am and the water was at the edge of our house foundation. We started to prepare to set up our sandbags at the 2 doors to the lower flat. We started to place everything as high as we possibly could. We worked 17 hours straight, stopping just to take a snack at midday. While my parents baled the water from the doors, my brother and I were moving everything higher. It rained continuously.
On Jan. 18th, when we awoke early in the morning, we noticed the water in the lower flat was getting higher. It took us 12 hours to take our things to the upper flat and at the same time, make stands for things we could not take up. Thanks be to God, that was only after we had moved our things to safety that the water started to gush in the lower flat and it became completely flooded.
We were unable to leave our home. It is only now that the water has receded and we are able to get out. My brother was traumatized by the amount of water he saw, so please pray for him. My mom lost a few plants. We suffered no more losses. It would take us approximately 2-3 months for us to really get back to normal living. Right now we are in the process of cleaning up and it is extremely hectic and stressful.
There aren’t words to express what we went through. I would never like to experience something like this in my life again. I don’t even like to remember it.
It was TWR that helped me through that difficult time. It is our deep faith in our Lord and Savior that has helped us to cope in these tough times. We were able to praise Him even in our storms. Please ask your listeners to pray for me and my family and the people in my country.

Washington Park I

As we began our tour through Washington Park, one of the first stops was at Playa Chikitu. The waves were really rolling in that day. Back in the late 70's, when I worked nights, I used to body surf here twice a week. It was great, but one had to know what one was doing, because of the power of the waves and the weird currents and rips generated in this small inlet.

The park strongly recommends that one not go swimming here, and I agree. You could be in serious trouble before you even knew what hit you.



There seemed to be a lot more sand on the beach and behind the beach than there has been at some times in the past. It was really beautiful, and of course, we had it all to ourselves.

You can click on these pictures to see them bigger.

Washington Park II

Boka Kokalishi was really pretty, even with the hazy skies. The sand here is made up of crushed sea shells and has an interesting texture.

You can click on the picture to see it bigger.


The sand had moved around quite a bit, possibly due to big waves washing in, or more likely, from water runoff heading towards the sea from the super heavy rains we had a few months ago.

Friendly Flamingos

We visited Washington Park this past week. I didn't bother to bring my camera because the skies were hazy due to the high winds we've had for a few weeks. Our friend, Jim Ruskowsky, brought his and it is a good thing he did.

The flamingos were hanging out right by the road and were remarkably tolerant of our presence. Jim got a bunch of cool flamingo pictures. Here's one of them.


You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

Fresh Fish

We had dinner at Richard's restaurant the other night with Jim and MayAnn Ruskowsky. Here is the view from our table, thanks to Jim, who brought his camera along.



For those who were wondering just how fresh the famous grilled local fish is, Richard brought around an example. You can click on these pictures to see them bigger.

Name this Picture

For all you dog lovers, here is a shot of one the brave members of our home security team.


Ok, lets put the comments feature to good use. We need a CAPTION for this picture!

Solar Eclipse

It was cloudy and hazy, but we got to see some of the solar eclipse this afternoon. We saved our solar filter eclipse glasses from the total eclipse of 1998 (I think) so Sandra watched as much of the eclipse possible through gaps in the clouds.

I took pictures with my ETX 90 telescope and solar filter. Here are a few pictures. I have more pictures in my club photo photo album. Scroll down to the bottom of the club photo page to see today's eclipse photos. You can click on the thumbnails to see larger pictures.

You can click on these pictures to see them bigger too.

About 6:09 pm.


Around 6:21 pm.


Around 6:31 pm.

Dream Car arrives on Bonaire

There are some really amazing new mega high performance cars out there these days, according to what I read online from the auto shows etc. Of course, they all cost a zillion dollars.

This has been my favorite "bang for the buck, fun to drive, fast, yet pratical" dream car for the last few years. A couple of Richard's friends at Bucknell have them and he reports that they live up to their reputation. They are out of our price range, of course, but I freaked this week when I drove by the dealer on my way to the transmitter site and saw that one of them had actually landed on good old Bonaire.

So we stopped by our friendly Suzuki, Chevy, Isuzu, and Subaru dealer yesterday to check it out. Here Sandra gets as close as she probably ever will be. You can click on the picture to better see the drool marks I left all over fenders.

Actually to be my ultimate dream car, it would need to be Subaru Rally Team Blue. That color must evoke memories of the Sunoco Blue cars that Mark Donahue drove for Roger Penske back in my impressionable teen age years. But if one can't have Rally Team Blue, I guess Mid Life Crisis Red is a good alternative.

There is a Mitsubishi dealer right down the street, so now that an Impreza WRX has hit these shores, can a Lancer EVO 9 be far behind? I suspect not. These two performance car lines are as intensely competitive as the Mustang and Camaro were in the 60's.

However, since EVO stands for Evolution, this missionary can't very well lust after one of them can he? Did I just say "lust", yikes. I wonder which is worse, lusting after a WRX or actually driving a car named Evolution, heh-heh.

Google adds Maps and Satellite Images

We will be in the States later this year visiting our family, friends and ministry sponsors. So naturally my thoughts are turning towards travel logistics, as in "how do you get there from here?"

Well, Google has added Maps to its gaggle of services. I'm finding them pretty useful.

The really cool thing is that they now have satellite images tied in with the maps. It is simple to enter a town and state, zoom in on the map to an area of interest, and then click on the satellite image link and see the area for real.

You probably won't want to do this with a dial up internet connection, but on our meager 128k connection, it works pretty well. I found ok pictures of Bucknell University, and Willow Valley in Pennsylvania, and a truly amazing high resolution image of my old stomping grounds in Little Falls, NJ. I could easily idendify stuff like: individual houses, pools, driveways, the reservoir in Cedar Grove, Montclair State Univ., Mills Reservation, the Chapel on the Hill, all the new housing developments they built in the woods we used to play in, etc. etc.

If you don't already chew up too much time surfing the Net. This new Google service should help you max yourself out.

Mowing

Well, a nice packed down bare dirt yard with crushed rock accents is de rigueur here on Bonaire.
See my blog from Nov. 1. You can click the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

But we had a really long rainy season this past year and I got tired of hoeing the weeds. Pushing a mower is a LOT easier, so we bought a used mower the other day.

I had to try it out on what is left of the weeds in our back yard.
The mower buzzed the weeds down nicely, but raised a huge cloud of dust as well.


Sandra snapped a picture. It was getting dark and the flash lit up the dust particles, but didn't reach me. Kind of like driving in a snowstorm...... really. :)

Here is the original picture. You can probably download it and have a go at it with your favorite photo editor. It would be good practice, in case you ever take a one of a kind, but really dark, picture.


You can click on the pictures to see them bigger, heh-heh.