Cola in the Middle East

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment.
A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there.
But, I had a problem I didn't know I had to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...



First poster - A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.
Second poster - man is drinking our Cola.
Third poster- Our man is now totally refreshed.
Then these posters were pasted all over the place"

"That should have worked," said the friend.

The salesman replied "I didn't realize that Arabs go from right to left"

HB2Y Adrian

Today my big boy turn's 9. He had his party last week with his mom so today I took him and Jade out to celebrate with me since I wasn't in town for his party. We went to the Magic Time Machine restaurant. We had a blast, ate in a walk in freezer with packaged meat hanging from the ceiling, and drank UGLY bubbly potions while being served by Harry Potter. Adrian had a birthday song sang to him by about 8 waitresses, which he has forbidden me to post the video of, while Jade had her face painted. Here's a few photos.

Adrian and I waiting in the lounge to be seated at out table. (photo by Jade)

Adrian with his cool birthday Viking hat.

Jade, after getting her face painted.

Jade snapped this photo of the amour.

Angelina Rieli

Angelina Rieli, is a friend from my distant past... haven't seen her in nearly a decade. She was in Houston on her way to Taiwan when I spent the night at Jer's so I picked her up from the home she was staying at and took her to the party. It was fun to hang out and catch up a bit on old times. She has started a blog and I follow it when I have time... looks like it will be a good one. I have added it to my blog roll, give it a look and leave her comments. Ange I hope you don't mind me stealing the photo from your blog.

HB2Y Jeremy

So I was passing through Houston yesterday on business and called Jeremy and Mila to ask them if I could spend the night at their place before heading to Dallas for other business. It turns out That they were celebrating Jeremy's birthday with a little party at their place which was totally fine with me. We had a great time hanging out and I got to see some awesome friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in a coon's age. Here are some photos from the night.

Jeremy, the big guy himself and Angelina looking on.

Mila, trying hard to explain something to me and me just laughing at her.

The lovely Ambie, my personal goddess.

Clair Costello, debatable the life of any party.

Ricky and Rosie

Countless Miles...

Seems that in the past few years I have done a lot of driving on the open roads... a lot of the times I have been alone. That leaves for lots of time to ones own thoughts. These trips have been made for basically been for visa trips or fund raising, sometimes to see my kids.

I am taking another one of those trips now, this one will be different then the others in the reason for the trip. Before the trips were for what I needed or what was needed of me. This trip will be done for the purpose of someone else. After 8 years of living a certain way, I am changing for the one I love, doing things different than before.

When looking back over the countless miles its easy to wonder what was worth it and what was just filling time. I hope the end of my journey is as good as the journey itself has proven to be.

HB2Y Family.

Happy Birthday Family

Valentines Hugs

Yesterday we sent a team of 10to the center of town, armed with SLY tracts and wearing "free hugs" t-shirts and signs in attempt to hep cheer people up. They were out for a couple hours, gave away lots of hugs and tracts and prayed with over 200 people to receive the Lord. What a day.

Gabo, Olympia, Ivan, Katrina, Fran, Lynette, Israel, Lena and Esther

Katrina hugging a little girl.

Lena giving a hug while Esther is giving the tract.

Olympia and a young woman.

Esther hugging two at once.

Sucker for Love

I know you have seen it before but this is my Valentines day word for you! Enjoy and have a good one.

Best of Craigslist

I sometimes visit Craigslist, an online classifieds website, when I am looking for good deals on things I need. They have a section where you can vote to add one of the ads to the "Best of Craigslist" section for funny, bizarre, sometimes strange and totally out there ads. Reading a few always provides me with a good laugh. I am going to include here one of the ads I saw that I had a good laugh at.

Vintage British 3 Speed Bicycle, Very Nice! - $30 (Dover)

Date: 2009-01-18, 11:49AM EST

Perfect for commuting and just leaving outdoors. Great for everyday use. Great "Winter bike"
I cant remember if it is a Mens or a Womens, but I know its a 3 Speed. Pick up only. Bring a shovel.

Case Dismissed

In Florida , an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor,how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

Vacation: Day 10

Today my back is completely out, I can barely walk. It's the last full day here and I am just resting staying in bed Please pray that I can heal quickly.
The boys went to the beach today for some water and air sports. They said it was great fun and something they would do again. Just a few photos I stole from Bruni.

Fran taking off from the beach pulled by a motor boat.

Fran about 60 feet about the water.

Gabo at takeoff.

Gabo, high above the sea.

Vacation: Day 9

Today we went out to the island again for a lazy day at the beach, I read a short book about the importance of small talk and how to make people comfortable in conversations. The kids went snorkeling and shell hunting. By the time we got back in the evening my back was hurting quite a bit so I just went to bed early.

Alex, wanting to drive the boat to the island.

The Island Beach

A cave Lena and Alex found that was littered with thousands of sea shells.

Lena, Fran and Alex snorkeling.

Sailboats were a common sight today.

Vacation: Day 8

Day Eight: Laguna de Potosi
Today the 8 of us went to a lagoon about half hour from Ixtapa. We intended on taking a boat tour of the lagoon which takes about an hour and a half, but after swimming and shell hunting and having a good lunch no one was up for it. After just lazing around in hammocks and drinking from fresh coconuts we ended up heading back to the hotel in late afternoon, a good all around relaxing day at the beach.

Restaurants lining the lagoon.

Alex with fresh coconut.

I guess I was wondering if they added rum to mine.

Later that evening Bruni and I went to the beach to watch the sunset, we sat on the beach taking photos, me drinking Baltika 9 and her sipping on a French wine. We got so many photos of that sunset trying to get the perfect one, you know where there was either a pelican flying over the sun, if the shadows were just right and getting annoyed that two collage age girls were sure set on ruining our perfect photo by having picked the setting sun as thier backdrop for thier splasing around in the waves. All in all I think we got one or two good ones so I will put them up here for you to see.

The beginning of the end...

The pelican...

The reflection...

Final moments...

Vacation: Day 7

Day Seven: Zihuatanejo
After spending the morning at the beach we headed into the local town of Zihuatanejo. Since Ixtapa is the expensive touristic town catering to Canadian and US tourists, Zihuatanejo is the cheaper town where almost all the locals live. It is the small fishing port and commercial heartbeat of the area. We do all our grocery shopping and things here. But tonight we spent some time to just explore the town in the cool of the evening, we got a few trinkets and took some photos and had dinner at a quant little side street resturaunt. It was a very relaxing day.

A trinket shop where we got a few inexpensive items.

The bay at dusk with table's set on it from a local resturaunt for romantic dinners.

It took us nearly half hour to get Alex to let us take his picture.

Bruni and I

Dawn, Phillip, Fran, Bruni and I at dinner. Gabo took the photo and the young ones, Lena and Alex sat at " the fun table."

Our dinner of chicken fajitas and vegetable soup.

Vacation: Day 6

Day Six
Today we just lazed around on the local beaches and hung out resting and relaxing. Bruni, Alex and I had a buffet breakfast at a 5 star resort. It was pleasant and a nice way to start the day, we also took a tour of the hotel and we ended up about 12 stories up with good views of the beaches and city so here's a few photo's for you.

My breakfast. Chilliquilles with srambled eggs, potatoe wedges and rolls, accompanied with a fruit plate and fresh grapefruit juice.

The town of Ixtapa, looking inland.

The beach and pools below.

Lena and Alex riding horses up the beach.

The sunsets here are spectacular.