Each Saturday.........

Each Saturday, I help lead the "Kids of Hope" club here in my neighborhood. I've been posting to another blog with pics from the program over at this site (CLICK HERE). Browse on over there and check it out to see more pics of what happens each Saturday!

More elephant fun......

Love taking pictures - and video..... Need I say more?

Chillen with the elephants.....

So I was driving around a few people this last weekend
and we came across this rather "not so happy" bull elephant
that felt like he needed to make it known that we were not
welcome on his turf. I love it when they do this!

Don't forget to check your mirrrors!

With yet another opportunity to go down south to see the elephants, I was able to take plenty of pictures and even a little video this time - all while driving more than 15 people around in (and on top of) an SUV.

Cutting it a little close.....

So after all was said and done with the Christmas outreaches, I had yet another opportunity to head on down to see the elephants in December. As you can see in the shot, I'm standing about 20 feet from this guy trying to get some good video and not get stomped on. It was a great rush and YES - the video turned out quite nice as well!

Back up and running in 2008!!!

Soooooooooo, 2008 has been quite an interesting year so far. In keeping with our newest tradition here in Burkina Faso, we (Joel and I) like to start off the new year with COMPUTER PROBLEMS and all kinds of crazy errors, viruses, crashes, trojans, and the like! Okay - not really - but i have been spending the last 3 weeks trying to get my computer back into working order and it has been a HUGE challenge.
It all started right around Christmas, when I thought I was doing someone a favor by putting some music (recorded by a friend here in Africa and PERFECTLY legal) onto a USB key for him. As soon as I inserted the key into my laptop and looked to see what was on it, I knew I had made a mistake - WAMO @#$@#$#@$!!!! - and just like that, I had a trojan horse planted deep within my system. So for those of you who think you have to be connected to the internet to get a virus 0r the likes of one - BEWARE!!!
To make a long story short, I spent most of the following week hunting this rotten thing down on my laptop. I then made the second BIG mistake. I installed YET ANOTHER virus that - YES - I paid for!!!!! in the hopes of protecting my computer (see pic: above right). Yes folks - that's right - for the next 3 weeks, I battled this rotten virus that I had a TWO YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to trying to figure out strange things on my computer - like WHY my broswer stopped working - of course this was only Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 but NOT Opera. Why I couldn't access certain sites - like my Yahoo! Mail or even THIS BLOG!!!! Strange things indeed - like why the firewall program showed that I was connected to the internet and gave access to ALL the programs that I chose (latest versions and updates included) but I STILL could NOT connect to the internet!!!!!
LONG story SHORT - Mcafee IS A VIRUS!!!!! For those of you having problems with your computer - check your "ANTI-VIRUS" program FIRST! In an attempt to prevent ALL bad things from happening to your system, these companies think that blanketing and blocking everything possible from accessing the internet is the ticket, and though that may be partially true, I would have to say that in the process Mcafee has become a VIRUS itself.
Well - that is all for today. Thanks for reading and don't worry - my virus problems have been solved for now - which means - more posts to come!!!!