Nathanael’s Gecko Party
Nathanael had a gecko theme at his 2nd birthday party. He loves geckos – in fact, gecko was one of his first words. I'll try to upload some photos soon that will show a few more geckos, but here's an overview of the party…
Misc
Empanadas
Three times in March I made empanadas. Yup, I’m a fan now.
What are they? The term comes from the word empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. You’ll find them in a number of Spanish and Portuguese countries. In Mexico, they can be a variety of things. I made one kind for dessert which was more or less fruit inside a pastry. It was similar to pumpkin pie, baked, but each serving is wrapped separately. These fruit-filled empanadas had plantain, raisins, oranges, and some spices.
I also make some empanadas de viejas ropas. I took a few pictures which you can see below. These are more or less meat mixtures (in this case pork with chillies, onions, etc) wrapped in a corn tortilla. Let me tell you, it smelled like a Mexican restaurant in here. Squeeze on a little lime, dip it in some salsa and I bet you can’t eat just one. Here’s my most recent attempt, from Sunday. Not a professional job, but they still tasted good!
 Making tortillas with the tortilla press |
 Empanadas with filling inside |
 Frying the empanadas |
 The finished, hot empanadas (although you can eat them cold too) |
Enjoying empanadas with Aunt Amy
Shoes
The other day I went to buy new shoes. For the past few months, the treads in my shoes have been almost nonexistent, and there’s been a crack in the bottom of one. Now since Calgary is one of the driest cities on the continent, this hasn’t been a big problem. But at the end of February we got some snow, and so I’ve been living with a wet foot. Things have been pretty tight financially since the fall, so I’ve been reluctant to spend the money, but I think the time had come! The shoe salesman laughed when he saw the bottom of my old shoes.
I’m not sure when I bought the bottom shoe, but it’s been with me all across the country, across the USA and in Mexico. Nathanael was born, we moved. At the same time. God really has been faithful over the last couple of years. We’ve seen our financial support continue to rise, people in Mexico coming to know the Lord, spiritual growth in our family and in others. At times when we didn’t know where our meals were going to come from, someone would show up with some groceries.
I found a shoe that was sturdy and that could breathe – perfect for walking around the streets of Mexico. Lord willing this shoe will see our move to a new city, a new country, and into more adventures with God. We’re walking forward, in His steps, to Mexico (figuratively speaking, of course)!
Introducing other bloggers…
I thought you might be interested in some other bloggers out there…
CAM International bloggers
CAM International is the mission agency that we are with. Slowly but surely a few "CAMers" are joining the blogging ranks:
I’m getting to know quite a few non-CAM missionaries in Mexico who are blogging. Among those are:
And lest we forget, a few family and friends who blog:
Words (and music) worth hearing
We recently heard some of our friends sharing about some of the things God has been doing in their lives. Now that’s fantastic, but not necessarily unusual. The unusual part is that you can hear from them too!
Our friends Will and Kelsey Plowman were on the NCEM (Northern Canada Evangelical Mission) TV program, Tribal Trails this month. We know Kelsey from our time at VTI, and have since got to know her husband Will and daughter Tatyana. I think the things they share about God will be a real encouragement to some of you, so I wanted to be sure to point out the broadcast while it’s still online. Kelsey also sings in the broadcast, which is a treat.
The program is in RealMedia format – I recommend the free Media Player Classic to play it, but you can also use RealPlayer. It’s streaming video, so I’m not sure how it will work on various internet connections. But it’s worth trying! The show will be listed on this Tribal Trails page for a little while.
You can also order the program from NCEM. It’s from the weekend of January 22, 2006, episode K104.
By the way, Kelsey just had a birthday. Happy birthday!
What’s a Technorati tag??
At the moment, you may notice that some posts on this website have something at the bottom that says,”technorati tags”. What in the world are those, and who cares?
Well, one thing at a time. What is Technorati? Technorati is a site that tracks and indexes weblogs, like this one. The site was founded by David Sifry, who has his own blog called Sifrey’s Alerts. Technorati claims to track over 25 million websites.
Ok, so what are tags? Well, in this context they’re kind of like subjects or categories. In fact, Technorati uses the categories in this blog as tags. But those categories are only so helpful (in fact, one of these days I should probably improve them). Tags make things more specific,
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and can link you to others who are blogging on the same thing, even if you only mention the topic once.
Technorati isn’t the only site using tags. Flickr, the popular photo sharing site, also uses tags to make photos easier to find. For example, if I type in “Mexico music” I get photos like this one (thanks to pulpolux for the photo).
It works great for photos, and it works ok for blog entries, which are far more subjective and easier to actually search than a photo.
So, what are the advantages and uses of tags? Most obviously, you can click the links and find other people blogging on related topics. You can even use the tags to search for related entries in your own blog (I don’t really have too many yet, but if I did). You can see how many people are talking about a topic – for example, what are the hot tags in the last hour? You can search tags, for example, see what a search on Mexican culture brings up. In other words, you may be able to find what you’re interested in, and find what’s being talked about, faster and easier. Hopefully, someone will find something helpful on this blog that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.
The downsides? Well, when you use a Technorati tag, you’re promoting their website, and people leave your website. At the Technorati website, they’ll find related posts but they may also find worthless or even bad posts, from people just trying to get your attention. Like much on the internet, the tags rely on the honour system, and can be abused.
So, I’m not sold-on Technorati tags, but they are interesting and worth trying out. In a few months or years of trial and error there will be improvements and better ways to index things.
I decided to give tags another try after reading What are These “tags” All Over the Web?, a post by fellow missionary Josiah Ritchie. Thanks again, man! On this site, I’ve been using a plugin called Ultimate Tag Warrior by Christine Davis. Thanks, Christine!