Hey Myers....how about putting some time in out getting people out...

Africa

As I've blogged here before, I've recently delved into the "Africa" topic. I've always had a fascination with the black continent, but lately it's grown.


I've started a book called "The Heartless Stone" by Tom Zoellner. It's about the diamond trade, which includes Africa, Japan, the U.S., etc. So far it's a fascinating look into how the diamond, and diamond mining has caused problems in several African countries, and even in Japan, how in 20 years time, through intense marketing, the diamond entered Japanese cultures so that now almost every Japanese woman is given a diamond engagement ring, where as 40 years ago it was 60%, and 20 years before that, it was 1%.....but I digress.



We recently watched "Beyond the Gates", a movie about the Rwandan genocide, that eerily parallels what I believe is happening in Kenya.








Also, as I've mentioned before, the book "When A Crocodile Eats the Sun" is a good inside look at the problem "white" Africans face, as people (an many times farmers) who have lived in Africa their whole lives, and are descendants of Europeans. However, when push comes to shove, they are often forcibly removed from their land, creating even more economic and social problems.

Crazy Crazy Links

Check out these crazy (and not so crazy) links for some reading enjoyment:

ESPN's Page 2 writer Eric Neel had this to say about the Phillies chances in 2008.

Part of me wants to grumble about the Phillies wasting time with pranks, but this one was pretty good.

Okay, not crazy, but Friendship Community is building a 4M apartment community in Ephrata.

A 45M "village" is being planned for Intercourse, PA (heart of Amish related tourism country).

They could have promoted the speaker a little better, but here's a look at the community calendar for the Men's Retreat.

Wild Weekend

This past weekend, the family and I went to the "Loggers" Cabin. This cabin is a simple, rustic cabin, a little over 1 hour north of where we live.

To heat the cabin, we had to fire up the wood stove, and keep it going. While it was really cold at the beginning, once we got that thing cooking, it made for a nice cabin experience.

I really hit the bottle hard this weekend.
We had bought some weird organic coffee/carmel "fair trade" drink, that was convincingly awful, but after that, I would pour soda or tea into it, for the "bottle effect". What you see here is delicious blue cream soda.



Cole seemed to enjoy the weekend, though I think he is teething, as he was fussier than normal.





Last, but definitely not least, the cabin experience included a few trips to this little (cold) building.....home of 1001 "flushes"


But fortunately there were instructions for the uninformed....

Warning: Traditionalists May Need to Unclench....

Be Very, Very Careful

WARNING: We've hit the period of the sports year where, if you're not careful, you talk yourself into watching NASCAR, the NHL or the NBA faithfully on TV. If you're really desparate, you might sign up for fantasy bass fishing (yeah!).

First, a quick moment of silence for the end of everything good about sports....the football season (both pro and collegiate).

However, do take heart, baseball spring training is only a week away. Pretty soon you can browse for split-squad scores, follow a young surprise athlete as they have an impressive spring and try to make the big club, and dream about what it must be like to be in Florida or Arizona at this time of year.

So, unless you're a big hockey or pro basketball fan, sit back, maybe even crack open a book, and wait a few weeks for March Madness to set in....the basketball tournament, not the frame of mine.

Spring is juuuuuussssssttttt around the corner (even though snow is currently falling outside).

Great Game???

It was extremely delightful to see the undefeated Patriots fall to the wildcard Giants on Sunday night. However, like all Eagles, Panthers and Rams fans, we can only wonder...why the Giants, and not our team?

It is highly likely that if Eli does not escape that sack, and fling an offering downfield to Tyree, who somehow catches it....that the Giants join the aforementioned teams in a "so-close" category of Super Bowl losers.

Give the Giants their props...they had pressure on Brady for most of the night. However there were too many missed opportunites, on either side to fully understand why this game finished the way it did.

Is this the end of the Patriots. You could say that the parallels to them and the New York Yankees are similar. The Yankees, while still incredible good, slowly got older each year, and have yet to get over the hump and win a world series. The Patriots are getting older with Seau, Bruschi, Harrison, etc. Sure they still are loaded with talent, but throw in a Belicheck-spygate suspension, Asante Samuel and Randy Moss leaving via free agency, and suddenly they go from elite to what I would call (gulp) Philadelphia Eagle status (prior to this year). Or as one writer put it, all offense and no defense and they're the Colts of a few years ago.

Time will tell (like pretty much anything in sports), but hopefully this is the last we've seen of the super bowl version Patriots, for a good long while.