i'm sitting in my bed, able to use my computer for the first time in months really. my power cord broke and i'm too broke to buy a new one. so jamie's letting me borrow hers, cause her computer is having bigger issues.

it's 1:37 am and i'm really looking forward to sleep but wanted to browse the inner-net for while. i just saw funny people with jason at the dollar theater where it was actually cheaper to buy 3 tickets, as you get a discount. 3 for $1.50, weird. the movie had parts that were enjoyable, but overall, i can say that i hated it. i still had a good time tonight, but the movie just didn't sit well with me.

oh, my job with bill didn't pan out, as some of you might have already heard. horrible miscommunication and i don't even really wanna go into it here, cause i'm over it, but as my employer for a few days, i have little to no respect for the man. i might be working at whole foods soon though, my friend brennan works there and says i'm supposed to get a call tomorrow from his supervisor and hopefully this all works out. a good job and discounts on groceries would be really nice. i like food a lot. i've been cooking meals a lot more down here in kentucky. i mean i always made food, but usually sandwiches and other stuff that wasn't really a meal meal. i'm going to be cooking the meal for the lunch on friday at the farm.

even though i'm broke i'm really happy. i can just feel that i'm in a good place in my life and there's so much potential and i'm optimistic. there is just so much to do out there.

p.s.-the church i go to, jeff street baptist at liberty, amazes me.

7 months...wow, a lot has happened

last you read i was in sedona...looking at red rocks.

i now live in kentucky, moved from grand rapids with jamie and lydia. they work on a local organic farm (field day family farm) as interns and i had an americorps position at a refugee-focused community center for two months (americana community center). i had a job there as it was only two months long and it was really challenging and interesting. i had amazing co-workers and many elementary kids who have been through some tough things already in their life. we did some screenprinting, we played some soccer, we had water games, mustache days, ESL, went to the zoo, gardening, made a giant cyanotype, reading, we went to six flags, they got to throw a lot of water balloons at me, had pirate adventures. it was great.



some of my favorite names of kids:

abdirahman
dieu
jean jean
bagat
abdisamad
dargbason
tai tai
hey say
benediction mwendepeke
hope
bob brown
yav
abdirashid
nyenke
abdimajid
nurto
barmu
behya
bihimana
jeanette
ivona

their name for me (the progression)

mr. brad
mr. bread
roti-putih (means white bread in bahasa indonesia)

here are some photos.







i just started my new job, i'm taking care of a garden for a man named bill. he's in his 30s and too busy with his internet business to take care of it anymore. he asked ivor, the farmer of field day family farm, for someone to help. it worked out perfectly. so i have begun to plan and research and weed and seperate crazy vine plants from other plants so they don't suffocate and am going to plant some fall crop this week. eventually i'll be helping to get a larger plot in a nearby lot ready to winterize so that it can be used as a garden next season. i also took some soil samples which i need to mail off today!

samples!
garden: day 1
garden: after 2 days!

on a side note, i really really like living in louisville and i could easily see myself moving back here in the future.

we've also been doing some canning all of a sudden. jamie and i have both done blueberry jam. lydia has done some tomato jam, jamie has also done some peach jam, and this weekend jamie an lydia made italian tomato sauce while i made dinner for the three of us.




side note, canning makes you very very tired.

red rock!

that's the apache sandstone you're seeing on the top of that plateau like formation in the center of the photo

good clouds
this is my dad smelling a rock next to the sandstone (you'll have to click on it to see)
i believe these little succulent plants are different than the tree trunk they're growing on as they looked really different from the leaves on the tree. but regardless, i think they look pretty sweet growing out of this peeling bark.

i've been meaning to post

really, i have. the farm is just really busy. i have so many things that i want to share with you but do not have pictures of them and pictures are really good for a lot of these things but instead i will just write some words.

jamie and i went to a garage sale in rockford and i got a hologram of a mountain and lake scene with ducks. i also got master of the universe live action film for jon and jamie got an nsync album that her mom took away when she was a kid because of the sons digital getdown.

i have aaron's plant light set up in my room. i have new cuttings from an apple tree, some kind of maple and another mystery tree from my backyard, 5 different varieties of succulents from my aunt's garden in cambria california, along with a staghorn fern that is mounted on a piece of redwood, which she also gave me.

i have pictures of redwoods from a hike a did with my parents at big basin state park in california 2 weeks ago. i just don't have those pictures on my computer yet. speaking of pictures i don't have yet, i have a roll of B+W that jon is going to develop for me at calvin next week and i have a roll of color that i need to take in as well. both are from the summer and both i can't wait to see. i'm also hoping to set up a darkroom in our basement after i get a safelight. speaking of california, my cousin also got married that weekend.

i've been overhauling my bike this week. i will post more with pictures at a later date.

get mopped!

slavic soul party...and the one who searches and destroys

i just bought all of iggy pop & the stooges' albums at a flea market in moscow on two mp3 CDs for 8 dollars. it's a sad day. well, i got it because i only know one of his songs and i really liked it, and didn't really know where to start with their records, so i got this. if i like an album, i will go and buy it eventually. all of you are my witnesses and will hold me accountable...so as you may have gathered. i am in russia. i've been here for the last two weeks visiting with my dad and old family friends. no, unfortunately i don't have any old russian family friends, although these american friends are still good to catch up with. all of them are parents of kids i grew up with while i lived in egypt, a few were parents to some of my closest friends.
there are many things to share about my time spent in russia though. too many probably, so i think i'll stick to the most meaningful or interesting things i've experience or had happen to me, things that i want to share.
the virgin mary, saints, tzars, generals, composers, writers, soviet leaders, unknown soldiers, hammer & sicles, and the common soviet worker. all of these things russian's hold in some way. it's their legacy, whether they believe in it or not, whether it was a hard time in their history or the crowning glory; each of these forces are still alive and at work in some way or another. i can see it in the people and the. there are impressive statues of heros in city streets, elaborate memorials in cemetaries, and intricately designed mosaics inside churches and metro stations. it's been a priviledge to experience all of these things.
since i've been here there i have noticed new things that i enjoy and appreciate about grand rapids as well. so much so that while i was at the market today i almost bought a historic map of michigan from 1905 that i thought was in russian. right after i asked how much it was and went into sticker shock, i looked it over again and realized that it was actually in german. i suppose in my excitement to see my home i neglected to read the language...as it was all unknown to me, but admittedly it's pretty bad to get german and russian confused. needless to say, i did not pay up. i'm still trying to process the things i've realized about michigan, but one of them that i can say right now without having to explain much is traffic. it sucks and is completely non existant in my world in grand rapids. thank God. lastly, and on a different note, my dad and i are sorta jobless now. the company he works and started working for over 30 years ago, Amoco (now British Petroleum), had a deal with a russian oil company called TNK made back in 2003. over the past few months there has been clashes between russian stock holders and BP management. a recent lawsuit has put everything on hold and eventually all the infighting has caused BP to repatriate 88 of it's 100 plus expat employees back to their home countries where they've been told they will most likely be offered a job by BP there. my parents hadn't even really moved here yet and are going through a ton of transitional hassles because their plans have changed so abruptly. they sold their house in houston two weeks before this all happened. i can't believe it. all of their stuff had just arrived at the port city on the eastern side of russia, which has now been put on another ship back to the U.S.
i've lost my job for mostly unknown reasons as i wasn't able to go to our staff meeting we had at the beginning of this week. we will be closing on the 12th of july and i've been offered a job at the bakery instead. i probablywon't be getting as many hours but i've accepted for now. i think this is a good time and sign to really pursue a job in my interests. so it goes i suppose.

and again, on a completely different note, here is my moped as of 2 weeks ago. running great but still things to fix as usual. but i'm finally happy with it.

i'll be coming back to michigan on the 11th. i'm ready.

where am i living in 11 days?

this picture symbolically represents what my moped project has been like so far (and yes, this is an actual picture from the first day of the project).  it still doesn't run, but it's getting closer and closer. last night i finally had spark! but, the belt is too loose still and when i hook up the decompression cable it decompresses the cylinder even when it's not engaged. hopefully when those two issues are fixed it will start right up.the garden is coming along really well so far though.  jamie, lydia, ally, jordan, and i have made mounds and rows and seeded and transplanted and almost everything is in the ground now. i have some wood and we're going to make a sign for the front. more updates on all of the garden happenings very soon as things will be growing like crazy soon enough.

oh, and these are yellow squash i believe.

here are some of the postcards i was talking about in my last post. i had picked up this exotic plant book at the "friends of books" store at GR Main a few weeks before. i ended up cutting the pages in half and screen printing the backs to write messages, the address, and to mark out a stamp placement spot. mickey already bought two packs! so these are the remaining three.

in case you missed peter brant's epic speech at the son lux show a few weeks ago, i happened to record it...enjoy