Urban Onramps

Check them out: Solar Panels installation at Harambee, Day One

This Thursday is the public unveiling of solar panels on one of our Harambee properties. This project was done in partnership with Leadership Pasadena, a civic group here in town. We are looking forward to the energy savings as well as the inspiration toward alternative energy. Yes! Me, myself, Mr. “Commence The Drilling.” Hey, I think we need to develop all types of alternative sources of energy and reduce our dependence on oil. But I’m not afraid of oil, nor nuclear power (to take a page from our French friends).

It will take another two days for the installers to complete their task. We should be live for Thursday’s public event. We’ve also got the local newspaper coming out tomorrow morning to shoot some photos. Dig it.

I was driving away from the house and forgot my iPod. We have an iPod hookup in our van that is built-in to the stereo system, so it’s just a matter of connecting a small cord jack from car stereo to iPod. I never imagined hooking up my Sidekick phone to it. But there I was, and the thought just crossed my mind. So I reached for the jack, stuck it into the Sidekick. It crackled for a second, and I thought, “I just screwed up bigtime.” But then it just worked. I’ve got 7 or 8 drm-free songs on my phone, but you better believe I’m going to fill the phone’s disk now. Next frontier: What will playing mp3 on the car stereo via my Sidekick do to the phone’s battery life?

Wikipedia:

“This film [There Will Be Blood] was the second co-production of Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films to be released in as many months, after No Country for Old Men (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture).”

Interesting. I wonder if it was the same executive or executive team that green-lit and shepherded these two projects. Someone should have received a promotion. One movie gets Best Actor (Blood, Day-Lewis) and the other Best Picture. Another detail: Both films had budgets of $25 million and made over $70 mil (to date).

We ordered Dreamweaver through TechSoup all the way back in the winter. We received all the items we ordered (InDesign, Microsoft Office, etc.) except that one. I’ve waited for months for Adobe to make more of the downloadable product available, but nothing happened until two weeks ago. I emailed a request to the TechSoup people, and they replied by saying that they’ve been authorized to send a boxed copy for the same price (25 bucks, I think). All good. So I’m still waiting. Not that I have very much that I do with Dreamweaver anymore, since I maintain the Harambee site using Wordpress, this blog is in Wordpress, and I’m updating my article archive using wordpress. I had to do something funny the other day, however, and I really needed a stand-alone HTML editor with some power. So I’ll keep waiting, but I’m really hoping to see this new Dreamweaver app this week.

My birthday is later this month, but we’re going to celebrate it tonight at Red Lobster. I dig Red Lobster, and I’m glad that Sam now loves shrimp (we munch on shrimp cocktail platters whenever Mom remembers to buy one on a Costco outing).

Air travel is a bazillion dollars. Unless you use American Airlines‘ “price and schedule” option in the “book a reservation” section of their web site. It will show you just about every flight they have that fits your general criteria, and it will tell you exactly what seats are available at what price. So I just found a $175 one-way ticket cross country. I stick with American, I’ve got status with them (which helps when you are trying to get the last standby seat on the mid-week flight from Chicago to LA), but I may fly Virgin America once or twice this summer.

Over the past 24 hours the wife and I have been doing massive Ofoto uploads. Kafi is doing scrapbooking (Creative Memories, etc.) and I’ve got lots of family photos in my iPhoto. So I think I’ve now learned what will break the internet in the future: downloading files is one thing, but uploading lots of stuff takes a LONG time. A long long long time. It slows down my computer while I’m trying to work. Oh well.

We’ve got a friend named Arne visiting Harambee right now. He leads a mission agency in Denmark called Impact. Impact has sent us a number of wonderful volunteers over the past six years. He’s passing through LA on his way from Chicago to Tegucigalpa. We saw some sights and places yesterday, and today was really wide open. Other Harambee volunteers agreed to take Arne around town. So I was left to pick some spots for him to see on his first-ever visit to the City of Angels. What do you pick? I went for “memorable,” particularly sights that he would be useful for him in the context of leading a missionary-sending agency. Here’s the path I chose for him:

– visit Skid Row in LA: he’ll see the worst in our city, and can reflect on how bad things can get when human misery combines with the unexpectedly negative consequences of well-intentioned social engineering
– drive on Sunset Boulevard from the 101 Freeway to the 405 Freeway: they’ll see a wide range of what LA has to offer as they drive from Hollywood (which goes from fairly seedy to ultra hipster) into Beverly Hills and then into Bel Air
– go from Sunset to Santa Monica Beach & Pier, with a short drive up the Pacific Coast Highway: they’ll see landscape they’ve seen in numerous movies, TV shows and commercials; plus the pier is a place to see people from all walks of life
– drive home from the pier to Pasadena: wherein they will hit Olympic-level traffic and wonder how traffic on a Saturday evening can be as bad as business day rush hour

Me? I’m trying to stay awake and stay available for my family. Kafi is off scrap-booking. Grandma is here and about to take the kids to the big Pasadena Public Library. I’m going to drop them off and then go find boxes for shipping some stuff to our friends in Valpo, Indiana.

And it’s humid. I feel lethargic. But that might have to do with the great steak and bratwurst and potatoes we had for dinner last night.

LINKS

• Americans are calling the shots — with gusto — at the Lambeth conference:

The absentees have inadequate representation at the conference, but they could have made their voices heard had they bitten the bullet and come to Canterbury.

Bishop Gene Robinson is not invited, but he is coming anyway, ensuring that his viewpoint and beliefs remain at the forefront of peoples minds’. At Gafcon, the African bishops were with likeminded individuals, effectively preaching to the converted, but at Lambeth there are far more hearts and minds to be won. There is still time.

• Low-fat diets not the best for weight loss. I knew it.

• Obama takes the “faith” out of faith-based initiative. I may have already blogged this, but in case I didn’t.

Below is the text of the latest Harambee e-newsletter that was sent out yesterday.

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SOLAR PANELS UNVEILING & MORE
Harambee Ministries Update
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You are invited to the
Harambee Solar Panels Unveiling
Thursday, July 24 at 6 p.m.
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With the support of Leadership Pasadena’s Class of 2008, we are installing solar panels on one of our properties and will publicly unveil them on Thursday, July 24th. Our program starts at 6pm with a greeting by Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard. A community meal follows (no charge; donations accepted), and then we have our program. The program includes Councilmember Jacque Robinson, Pastor Jean Burch of Community Bible Church, and a presentation by Leadership Pasadena and Harambee leaders. The location for the event is the Harambee campus, 1609 Navarro Avenue, Pasadena 91103 (map). Please RSVP via email or by calling (626) 798-7431. We hope to see you there!

Extreme Garden Makeover
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During the day on July 24th we will transform a section of our property into a garden that grows vegetables. With the help of a youth group from Cornerstone Church of Boulder, Colorado, land will be cleared, soil tilled, planters built, and veggies planted. The vision is that children and youth at Harambee will learn from the experience of managing a garden. We are in need of donations for the following items: Soil (24 feet, with manure), tools (12 rakes, 40 sets of garden gloves, trash bags), wood for planters (72 2×6, 48 1×3, etc.). If you can and would like to assist with these donations, please email or call (626) 798-7431.

Day Camp Highlight
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[ PHOTO BELOW ] We are excited that we can provide time during our summer day camp for learning via computers, especially after experiencing a theft of children’s computers last summer. It took months to raise funds to replace the lab, but we finally achieved our goal in the winter. When summer rolled around, we were ready to put the children on to excellent equipment and guide them in lasting learning experiences. MORE DAY CAMP NOTES: · We are thankful to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for providing 6 summer interns to work in our day camp. · We are grateful for Uncharted Waters Sports Ministry, which brought a team of volunteers from Colorado to run a sports camp each afternoon this week as a part of our day camp offerings.

Urban Ministry Internships in Boston, Chicago,
Denver, Los Angeles, Washington DC & Seattle
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The deadline is fast approaching for paid urban ministry internships through TechMission. Visit the information page and then contact thierry@techmission.org.

In Seattle/Tacoma
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On Wednesday, August 6, Harambee’s Executive Director Rudy Carrasco will give a keynote address at the Act Six National Convention. If you will be in that area and would like to connect with Harambee, at that event or at another time, please send an email to Rudy.

and finally…

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A VERSE: “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” Proverbs 16:32

Thank you for your support of Harambee Ministries!

Rudy

This morning I gave a talk to some staff members of Villa Esperanza Services here in Pasadena. They do work with developmentally disabled children and adults. One of their staffers heard me give a five-minute overview of Harambee at a public gathering. This person liked what they heard and invited me to speak to the staff about public speaking. I did so, and had a good time doing it. I used a powerpoint to go step-by-step through my talk, which was decidedly unorthodox. The PDF of my presentation is here.

The surge in Iraq worked, why not in Afghanistan?

An adviser to the campaign told The New York Sun that, in a speech to be delivered in Albuquerque, N.M., the senator will call for an increase in combat troops and the creation of a special Afghanistan tsar to coordinate policy toward the country. “There will be a surge for Afghanistan. It will be moving combat troops in and applying the lessons from Iraq and the strategy that was successful in Iraq and taking that to Afghanistan,” this official said.

Larry Kudlow:

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Now isn’t this interesting?

Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices won’t decline for at least that long. And they, along with Obama and McCain, bash so-called oil speculators. And today we had a real-world example as to why they are wrong. All of them. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, McCain — all of them.

I’m ready to link this audio interview at the resources page of the Harambee web site. Kudos to the Fuller Youth Institute for broadcasting Eric. I wish there was a print transcript of the interview. Perhaps Bro. Iverson could go on and make a Lulu print version of this interview. Hint.

Well, then. I’m here waiting for my flight to DC. I’m on an American Airlines flight from LAX to Miami (what up Benny Salas), then connect to Reagan (I love calling it Reagan airport; you can’t convince me the man didn’t single-handedly bring down the Berlin Wall with all that “pointing the nukes east” stuff and suchlike; but i digress). I’m going to speak Sunday night at the World Vision Youth Empowerment Summit. Jeremy Del Rio is keynoting that summit tonight (or did, rather). Then Tali Hairston is up on Monday night. I took public transportation from Pasadena to LAX. I calculated 22 bucks for someone to drive me to and fro, and the Metro Gold Line (buck twenty five) and the FlyAway bus from Union Station (foor bux) added up to $5.25. From the time I boarded the bus to the time I stepped off the bus, it was 75 minutes. From the time I arrived at the train station (Sierra Madre Villa; we had eaten dinner at Islands Restaurant following Micah’s ballet recital), it was 85 minutes. So this public transportation thing is all right. I know someone who may begin working at the downtown MTA building soon, so perhaps I’ll hook up and do more public transpo in the future. All right - after I keynote on Sunday night, I’m spending the night and then catching an 8am flight out of DCA back to LA. I’m scheduled to arrive back just before noon. I’m guessing the public transpo will put me back in Pasadena at about 2pm. So, yes, it’s another Road Warrior trip for Carrasco. I rented “There Will Be Blood” off of iTunes, so I’ll watch that. I’m also helping shape this project, so I’ll do some of that during my travel, too (note: they’ve listed me as Dr. Carrasco, which I’ll receive as a prophetic word, since at present I’m the holder of a BA).

A photo: Micah backstage at her dance recital, 4pm today

I just got off the phone with Kafi. She called me because she found a piece of electronic equipment in the trash at home and wanted to alert me. I got the call as I was in the check-in line at the American Airlines Terminal at LAX. My love for my wife is not because she called me about tech, but just because a good woman is hard to find. My life is totally enriched because Kafi is in my life. It’s true, newlyweds, that the romance changes after a couple of years of marriage. Kafi and I are coming up on 14 years (in August) and yes, you’ve gotta work at keeping the romantic fires burning. But there is something wonderful about a relationship where the person you are with loves you, thinks about you, can anticipate things about you, and is a decent person underneath all that. I’m very glad that Kafi is the one who nurtures and co-raises and shapes my children. It’s such a privilege for all of us to be shaped and formed and influenced by her. She’s got a love for God that is palpable, overt, and primary. She has a passion for children. She is an educator through and through. But she’s also a learner. You can talk to her and convince her that something is different from what she thinks. Now, both of us can be stubborn, and in that respect we found each other. Like attracted like, I guess. And we wonder why our kids can be stubborn, Samuel, Micah (who exhibits mild diva-like tendencies, but also a tender repentant heart when corrected), and Gabrielle - well, Gaby already has a strong streak in her. I say good all around. Anyway, got a ramble going on here. But I appreciate my wife, and I hope to be the great husband she deserves.

UPDATE: I re-read this post and thought about Sam. Sam’s stubbornness helped him fight the cancer. This guy endured tremendous hardship. We have a sense for how much he endured because, now that he’s done with chemo, the smallest medical treatment induces howls of pain and pure drama. I think, “Dude, you’ve handled much, much worse.” He really did, he really handled it like a champ, and so now he’s forgiven for falling apart at the mildest treatment (the other night he got pencil lead stuck under the skin on his cheek, so we had a nurse gently pick at it. Sam should have won an Academy Award for the drama, you would have thought the Lakers had lost to the Celtics all over again (sorry, fellow Laker fans, I had to pour more salt on the wound; I’m hoping it’s cathartic to do so.)

The App Store opens tomorrow. Then it’s iPhones on Friday. Keep up with the frenzy at the TechMeme River. I agree with David Pogue of the NY Times: The App Store is the “killer app,” or - as he puts it - “one towering tsunami of a feature.”

Investor’s Business Daily:

It’s a little known fact that, after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. found massive amounts of uranium yellowcake, the stuff that can be refined into nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel, at a facility in Tuwaitha outside of Baghdad.

In recent weeks, the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada, where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear fuel — thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes in the region…

After all, much of the early opposition to the war in Iraq involved claims that President Bush “lied” about weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam posed little if any nuclear threat to the U.S.

This more or less proves Saddam in 2003 had a program on hold for building WMD and that he planned to boot it up again soon.

This is clear, since Saddam acquired most of his uranium before 1991, but still had it in 2003, when invading U.S. troops found the stuff. (The International Atomic Energy Agency seems to have known about the yellowcake in the 1990s, but did nothing to force Saddam to get rid of it. It’s duplicating its error today with Iran and North Korea).

That means Saddam held onto it for more than a decade. Why? He hoped to wait out U.N. sanctions on Iraq and start his WMD program anew.

Alas, I’m still fasting. link