Cute Baby Alert

This kid is pretty spankin' cute. I can't wait to hang out with her in January.

Some Jack Handy Goodness

For some unknown reason, I quite enjoy Jack Handy quotes. Andy sent some to me the other day just out of the kindness of his heart. Here they are:

~Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

~Children need encouragement. So if a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way he gets a good, lucky feeling.

~Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.

~When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmm, boy.

~Even though I was their captive, the Indians allowed me quite a bit of freedom. I could walk about freely, make my own meals and even hurl large rocks at their heads. It was only later that I discovered they were not Indians at all, but dirty clothes hampers.

~The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. but the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around until he's completely draped in it. then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm Vine Man."

~ When you're going up stairs and you take a step, kick the other leg up high behind you to keep people from following too close.

I Want One

This is pretty awesome, if you ask me. More info here.

Meduza vs. The Bomb

Meduza was kind of a popular place to hang out last year. This summer, over a little matter having to do with the mafia, the place was bombed, and now it's just a pile of wreckage.


Some thrifty person is determined to make the most of it and salvage as much as possible. And to him I say: Good luck with that pool table remnant, I hope you have a lot of fun with that.




The debris is pretty impressive, huh?

Group Photos

Scheduled photo shoots are pretty much a drag, but we had some fun today taking team pictures up at Trsat.

Pirate, Philosopher/???, Sad Baby Tiger, Pirate, Tiger, Pirate



An "approved for general public use" photo.








The roommates.

John likes monkeys.

That about covers it.

Random Entertainment

Whenever I feel stressed out or depressed or tired or sad or anxious or just not 100% for whatever reason, one of the best antidotes is laughter. You just can't beat unexpectedly funny things that induce good, hard, loud laughter. Towards the end of last week I received 4 emails in one day that were so funny I could hardly stand it (3 of them were from my sister), and my attitude was consequently revolutionized.

The following links may not make you laugh out loud- usually somewhat personalized humor works best, and some of these are more interesting than funny- but I hope that you gain at least marginal entertainment, if that's what you are looking for:

~Sarah May left these links in the comments section a while back. I kind of want to try to recreate the experiments myself.

~This gem was discovered while watching The Learning Channel with some friends shortly before I left for Croatia. Keep in mind that this is a serious website, not intended to be humorous.

~A report from the front lines of the battle between good and evil in suburban America.

~Finally, if you're looking for a good movie, I highly recommend Little Miss Sunshine. I saw this about 8 hours before leaving the U.S. It was so awesomely unique and funny and engaging that I actually forgot all about Croatia for almost the whole film.

All together now...

The other night we went past a restaurant and saw this, a bunch of older couples dancing together. It was really sweet, but we were in the car, so it's a very poor photo and you can barely see what's going on.

An Afternoon With Mirela

Yesterday Taylor and I went to visit our friend Mirela. Mirela is unique and brilliant. She reads widely, speaks multiple languages, paints, writes, studies philosophy and pharmacology on her own, plays the violin, and articulates her strongly held opinions very well. She's moving to Slovenia for school pretty soon, so we enjoyed the few hours we were able to spend with her here in Rijeka. We ate pasta and grapes off the vine, and talked about art and stories and God. She took us to a nice big field with a great view of the sea and plenty of fresh air. And we got to meet her dog, talking bird, and cat.

The bird was pretty funny and kept making whistling and coughing noises. Apparently, when Mirela and her mom brought their kitten home for the first time, the bird exclaimed, "Mačkica!" (the word for small cat). This surprised them because they'd never spoken the word in front of the bird, but the previous owner had taught it to him.

While we were sitting and talking in Mirela's room, the cat jumped in through her window, carrying a small lizard straight from the garden. She proceeded to dismember the animal and eat or stow the various portions right in front of us. In the picture you'll notice the tail. What you can't see here is that it continued to jump, spin, quiver, and twitch for a full 10 minutes- completely independent of its body or organs. It was kind of gross, but weirdly interesting, too.



The view from Mirela's balcony