Before I begin with what I really want to say today, there is something I’ve been meaning to write about but haven’t yet taken the time to do so. So here it is. I hope someone finds it helpful. I’ll call it “Blog Reading 101.” Several people have commented that they don’t see the pictures anymore. If that is the case, they are also not reading the entire blog entry and are often missing the main point of the posting. So, you experienced web browsers, hang with me while I quickly bring everyone else up to speed. When you come to the words “Read More” in blue with a little blue arrow pointing to the right, click on it and you can read more.
The purpose of the “Read More” link is to keep the home page of a blog from getting too long to manage. Many blogs have important information at the bottom and no one wants to spend five minutes scrolling down to that information. For example, if you are curious about the current weather conditions here, scroll down to the bottom of this page and you will find a link to a weather report.
Blue is and always has been the color of text containing links on the Internet. Unfortunately, not everyone observes that international standard. Unless it is obviously a link by its context (like being in a box similar to those at the top of this blog), a hypertext link should be blue until you click it. Then when you come to that link again, it will be purple, indicating that you have already clicked on it. Now, see those two little blue words coming up? Just click them and you can read what I really wrote about today. 
Ready, set, go! [Time out!] I just changed themes and wouldn’t you know it, the new theme does not use the “Read More” text to continue. It uses a red ellipse in square braces. And the title of the post, which is also a link, is not blue, but black. See what I mean about not everyone following the rules? OK, now you can click the link.
Alright! Now on with the show. I would like to have written this yesterday, but it turned out to be rather a busy day, especially for what I’d hoped was going to be a day off. When I went up to the radio station a little before our 6:00 AM sign-on to do the weekly reboot of the on-air computer, I saw piles of trash here and there on the grounds. That didn’t really get my day off to a good start. It looked like someone had had a BIG piñata party, put their trash in huge plastic bags, and then left the bags on the grounds here so the stray dogs could have their own party later on. And it looked like the dogs had a pretty good time!
After performing my studio duties and eating breakfast, I started cleaning up the mess. Then I got going on my actual plan for the day, which was to choose a new motherboard, processor, and memory for our home computer. The present system is showing signs of impending failure. After hours and hours of research over a period of several days, I made my selection yesterday and then began the adventure of buying it. I tried paying through PayPal using our credit card, which is the way we typically make our on-line purchases, but that wasn’t working. I called PayPal and they said the problem was with the card. So I called Chase and talked to the security department. It seems that after well over two years of making on-line purchases from here in Honduras with this card some over-zealous drone in their security department decided that the behavior was suddenly unusual and stopped the card. I asked why the same thing didn’t happen three months ago when I spent more than twice that amount at the same vendor from the same location – our home here in Honduras. I also asked why it didn’t happen at any other time over the past two and a quarter years of making purchases on-line from here. If it was really unauthorized use, did they not think that now was a little late for closing the barn door? I also asked why they did not look at our buying history to see if the purchase they denied was out of the ordinary before stopping the card. They had nothing to offer but apologies, and I only had enough energy left to tell them that I sure hope they never mess up like that again.
We had a sad event this past week. One of our long-time listeners passed away Wednesday. Miss Alvis Auld was a believer and we rejoice that she is with her beloved Savior. Her conversations always seemed to involve Him in some way. But she left behind a very close-knit family. This is a hard adjustment for them, so I hope you will pray for the Aulds. Alvis’ husband, Arnold was a pioneer educator there on Roatán, and there is even a school named after him. Sadly, they are incredibly poor despite all that Mr. Auld gave to Roatán over the years. The schools are planning to have some sort of special recognition for Arnold on the 17th. This morning at church, a friend said that he saw us on TV. He said that they showed a picture of the Auld family on the local news, and the photo was one that was taken with us on their front porch several years ago.
Alright, now that the negatives are out of the way, let’s get on to the positives. And I do think this was a good week. Our equipment is running well. In fact, I finally got around to reinstalling the FM codec up on Dixon Hill. These codecs are little boxes that convert our FM and AM audio to digital and then digital back to audio so that we can send our programming over a wireless network from the studios to the transmitter site up on Dixon Hill. Because of the malfunction, our FM transmitter had been in mono rather than stereo for a week or two. It’s a bit of a long story, so I will not burden you with the details, but I’ll just say that it sounds much better now.
Another highlight of the week is that Jim and Karen Avella finally arrived, or as the islanders say, they “reached.” They were a day late because, as so often happens, their flight out of Tampa was delayed and they missed their connection in Miami to San Pedro Sula. As a result of that, they missed their connection to Roatán and had to spend a night in San Pedro Sula. But now they are here, they are helpful, and they are great company. When I met them at the airport, I hugged Jim and said, “Fresh meat!” Being a retired marine, Jim knew just what I meant and got a chuckle out of that. Karen is getting a refresher course from Mildred in the studio operations. Jim has been helping with all sorts of chores and has a long list of my dreams to try to fulfill. In keeping with my policy of getting people who come here sweaty and dirty, Jim’s first chore was some repairs to our lawn tractor. But that has led to a metal fabricating and welding job for me next week to repair more rust damage to the mower deck.
We also learned this past week that our new family, the Mittens are due to arrive on the 22nd if they can get their plane tickets. (More fresh meat!) In fact, their shipping container with their household goods is already here. I just need one more document from our home office before I can get the customs process started. I hope to have the contents of the container in the Mittens’ house before they arrive. We’ll see how that goes. Please pray that that would all work out and that our friend Mark Elwin would be able to find them a good four-wheel drive vehicle, suitable for a family of six, for a reasonable price.
Our Request and Dedication program has had an amazing surge in participation lately. Typically, we have 30-50 requests per day with more on Saturday since it is a longer program. Mildred in particular has been seeing some mind-boggling numbers. Here are the amazing numbers for the past week:
- Monday – 146 with 18 birthdays
- Tuesday – 160 with 11 birthdays
- Wednesday – 133 with 19 birthdays
- Thursday – 95 with 8 birthdays
- Friday – 51 with 9 birthdays
- Saturday – 147 with 25 birthdays
Since so many of the island men are sailors and sailors often come home for Christmas, the birthday number tends to jump quite a bit this time of year, but these are figures beyond human explanation. Please pray that God would work in the hearts of each listener.
Among the mundane delights of the week was a little stop we made yesterday on the way back from grocery shopping. I had the pleasure of taking Mildred to our new Wendy’s for a Frosty. It is amazing how a small thing like that can lift our spirits. Another pleasures is visiting with our island friends. Below is a picture of Dr. Raymond, the friend who has been treating Mildred for hives. The hives, by the way, have been stubborn, but they are now dissipating after Dr. Raymond prescribed a longer course of medicines.
May God bless you and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you. Thanks for praying for us. Let us know how we can pray for you.
been meaning to write about but haven’t yet taken the time to do so. So here it
is. I’ll call it “Blog Reading 101.” Several people have commented that they
don’t see the pictures anymore. If that is the case, they are also not reading
the entire blog entry and are often missing the main point of the posting. So,
you experienced web browsers, hang with me while I quickly bring everyone else
up to speed. When you come to the words “Read More” in blue with a little blue
arrow pointing to the right, click on it and you can read more.
The purpose of the “Read More” link is to keep the home page of a blog from
getting too long to manage. Many blogs have important information at the bottom
and no one wants to spend five minutes scrolling down to that information. For
example, if you are curious about the current weather conditions here, scroll
down to the bottom of this page and you will find a link to a weather report.
Blue is and always has been the color of text containing links on the Internet.
Unfortunately, not everyone observes that international standard. Unless it is
obviously a link by its context (like being in a box similar to those at the top
of this blog), a hypertext link should be blue until you click it. Then when you
come to that link again, it will be purple, indicating that you have already
clicked on it. Now, see those two little blue words coming up? Just click them
and you can read what I really wrote about today.
Ready, set, go!Alright! Now on with the show. I would like to have written this yesterday, but
it turned out to be rather a busy day, especially for what I’d hoped was going
to be a day off. When I went up to the radio station a little before our 6:00 AM
sign-on to do the weekly reboot of the on-air computer I saw piles of trash here
and there on the grounds. That didn’t really get my day off to a good start. It
looked like someone had had a BIG piñata party, put their trash in huge plastic
bags, and then left the bags on the grounds here so the stray dogs could have
their own party later on. And it looked like the dogs had a pretty good time!
After performing my studio duties and eating breakfast, I started cleaning up
the mess. Then I got going on my actual plan for the day, which was to choose a
new motherboard, processor, and memory for our home computer. The present system
is showing signs of impending failure. After hours and hours of research over a
period of several days, I made my selection yesterday and then began the
adventure of buying it. I tried paying through PayPal using our credit card,
which is the way we typically make our on-line purchases, but that wasn’t
working. I called PayPal and they said the problem was with the card. So I
called Chase and talked to the security department. It seems that after well
over two years of making on-line purchases from here with that card some
over-zealous drone in their security department decided that the behavior was
suddenly unusual and stopped the card. I asked why the same thing didn’t happen
three months ago when I spent more than twice that amount at the same vendor
from the same location – our home here in Honduras. I also asked why it didn’t
happen at any other time over the past two and a quarter years of making
purchases on-line from here. If it was really unauthorized use, did they not
think that now was a little late for closing the barn door? I also asked why
they did not look at our buying history to see if the purchase they denied was
out of the ordinary before stopping the card. They had nothing to offer but
apologies, so all I had the energy to do was tell them that I sure hope they
never mess up like that again.
We had a sad event this past week. One of our long-time listeners passed away
Wednesday. Miss Alvis Auld was a believer and we rejoice that she is with her
beloved Savior. Her conversations always seemed to involve Him in some way. But
she left behind a very close-knit family. This is a hard adjustment for them, so
I hope you will pray for the Aulds. Alvis’ husband, Arnold was a pioneer
educator there on Roatán, and there is even a school named after him. Sadly,
they are incredibly poor despite all that Mr. Auld gave to Roatán over the
years. The schools are planning to have some sort of special recognition for
Arnold on the 17th. This morning at church, a friend said that he saw us on TV.
He said that they showed a picture of the Auld family, and it was one that was
taken with us on their front porch several years ago.
Alright, now that the negatives are out of the way, let’s get on to the
positives. And I do think this was a good week. Our equipment is running well.
In fact, I finally got around to reinstalling the FM codec up on Dixon Hill.
These codecs are little boxes that convert our FM and AM audio to digital and
then digital back to audio so that we can send our programming over a wireless
network from the studios to the transmitter site up on Dixon Hill. Because of
the malfunction, our FM transmitter had been in mono rather than stereo for a
week or two. It’s a bit of a long story, so I will not burden you with the
details, but I’ll just say that it sounds much better now.
Another highlight of the week is that Jim and Karen Avella finally arrived, or
as the islanders say, they “reached.” They were a day late because, as so often
happens, their flight out of Tampa was delayed and they missed their connection
to San Pedro Sula. As a result of that, they missed their connection to Roatán.
But now they are here, they are helpful, and they are great company. When I met
them at the airport, I hugged Jim and said, “Fresh meat!”Being a retired marine,
Jim knew just what I meant and got a chuckle out of that. Karen is getting a
refresher course from Mildred in the studio operations. Jim has been helping
with all sorts of chores and has a long list of my dreams to try to fulfill. In
keeping with my policy of getting people who come here sweaty and dirty, Jim’s
first chore was some repairs to our lawn tractor. But that has led to a metal
fabricating and welding job for me next week to repair more rust damage to the
mower deck.
We also learned this past week that our new family, the Mittens are due to
arrive on the 22nd if they can get their plane tickets. (More fresh meat!) In
fact, their shipping container with their household goods is already here. I
just need one more document from our home office before I can get the customs
process started. My goal is to have the contents of the container in the
Mittens’ house before they arrive. We’ll see how that goes. Please pray that
that would all work out and that our friend Mark Elwin would be able to find
them a good four wheel drive vehicle, suitable for a family of six for a
reasonable price.
Our Request and Dedication program has had an amazing surge in participation
lately. Typically, we have 30-50 requests per day with more on Saturday since it
is a longer program. Mildred in particular has been seeing some mind-boggling
numbers. Here are the numbers for the past week:
Monday – 146 with 18 birthdays
Tuesday – 160 with 11 birthdays
Wednesday – 133 with 19 birthdays
Thursday – 95 with 8 birthdays
Friday – 51 with 9 birthdays
Saturday – 147 with 25 birthdays
Since so many of the island men are sailors and sailors often come home for
Christmas, the birthday number tends to jump quite a bit this time of year, but
these are figures beyond human explanation. Please pray that God would work in
the hearts of each listener.
Among the mundane delights of the week was a little stop we made yesterday on
the way back from grocery shopping. I had the pleasure of taking Mildred to our
new Wendy’s for a Frosty. It is amazing how a small thing like that can lift our
spirits. Another pleasures is visiting with our island friends. Below is a
picture of Dr. Raymond, the friend who has been treating Mildred for hives. The
hives, by the way, have been stubborn, but they are now dissipating after Dr.
Raymond prescribed a longer course of medicines.
May God bless you and keep you can cause His face to shine upon you. Thanks for
praying for us. Let us know how we can pray for you.
Comments on this entry are closed.