Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

So a few of you found out that I turned 50 this week from my parent's note in the church bulletin.  What most don't know is that I was never supposed to live this long. The doctors who dealt with some of my military injuries concurred I would never live to see 30.  So I am twenty years past my expiration date.  Technically I was supposed to have a mid life crisis when I was 15.  So turning 50 is a little unsettling for me because I honestly never thought I would make it this long. Add the fact I turned 50 in Tanzania by myself and it was a bit empty.  I only had a couple of birthdays that were good ones (almost all are just another day with dinner out).  One was here in Tanzania when we did the safari the day of my birthday.  Another one was ...uhm maybe there was only the one. So I am not a big birthday person.  I certainly don't celebrate all month like a significant number of people I know.  I was hoping to do a vacation trip, but...

I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes via facebook.  I especially want to thank T. Welborn and my parents for the very cute cards sent via post.  A lot of folks asked what I did for my birthday.  Well I spent the majority of my birthday gearing up for a next stage in our current big project, though one of my Peace Corp Volunteer friends took me out to breakfast and we got in a couple of games of cribbage, which she won (she is on a roll right now).  Since many of the folks I know back home do a birthday month celebration, I thought I would combine these two weeks and discuss the things I was doing to celebrate my birthday this time.  As many of you remember last year was a big number of importance, but this year it is just a regular number with no mathematical significance.  So to preface any discussion of the thing I have been doing these last couple of weeks I need to first discuss the weather.  Technically we are in w...

Some of you who follow my Facebook postings know I suffered a bit the other weekend with stomach issues that also hit me this last weekend.  I am going to use that as a convenient excuse why I did not get to this posting earlier, but in reality I have just struggled with what to say about these last two weeks so I am doing another clearing house of interesting (to me at least) tidbits.  I promise there should be something in here for everyone. Zachariah is the second from the left Family members of the guest of honor wear a flower necklace Let's start with Birthday Parties.  Young Zachariah (the doctor's son who follows me around) had a birthday a couple of trips ago and I have been planning to tell you about that.  I was invited to the celebration mainly because the photographer only had one roll of film.  (For those only born in the digital age we used to have to buy rolls of film and put them in our cameras that normally only took...