Day 10 - Nov 29

Day 10

Little to do at work. So I type emails and copy/paste them later when I get access. Supposed to be trained on something later this afternoon.

Got a nice email from my friend Bridget Dodson. Sad, but checking email is one of the highlights of my day. Getting an unexpected email or post on Facebook makes me light up and gives me extra strength.

My wife wrote to me about how many of those that God used were out of their homeland and out of their comfort zone. Well God, here I am. Use me! She talked about Daniel, Paul, Moses.

My friend Amy had me read Psalm 40-43. David was really lonely and felt he couldn't find God, but he still praised him. Sometimes I feel like David. I can sure see his handiwork, though. I catch my bus to work right along the Mediterranean. It's light when I leave the house at 8, but the sun hasn't fully come up yet. Watching it rise over the horizon of the sea is breathtaking. God is awesome!

Going to the bus stop every morning is full of surprises. I think we have a ferry in Alabama that runs from Mobile to somewhere near Gulf Shores. They have them here that run from Sicily and West Africa to here in Genoa. Some mornings you'll see them, they look like cruise ships. I'm told it's about 12 hours by ferry to West Africa. There are all sorts of ships out early in the morning. Neat to see. Can't sit around and stare out at the water long, though. The buses don't stop at every stop. You have to indicate to the passing bus that you want to ride, or it keeps going. Learned that after watching them pass a couple of times.

This is a very fit country. Seems like everyone jogs. Hard to understand why, though. EVERY SINGLE PERSON SMOKES! They take a smoke break almost every hour here at Siemens. They get here at nine and smoke and drink coffee until 9:30 or so. They drink coffee after lunch, too. The coffee here is not like Starbucks. It literally is 3 or 4 sips. It's in a glass about the size of a shot glass. I have a coffee mug that many of you have seen. It has a lot of pictures of my kids on it. I have taken that thing all over the country while I've traveled. It has over 150,000 miles on it. Over here, it's useless. If I were to put coffee in it, it would be 3 sips and done. So I've kind of weaned myself off of coffee. I've been drinking lots and lots of water. It is cheap here. I can get almost 4 of them for the price of one in the US. When I go downtown, I splurge and get a "Coke Light" - Coke Zero in the US. That costs about $1.95 US money.

I found out today that next Friday (December 8) is an Italian holiday. Something to do with Mother Mary. But I get a paid day off. J Supposedly when I come home on the 21^st, I don’t have to come back till sometime around January 12. That will be 3 full weeks at home. Be prepared to get sick of me. Cause I miss all of you tons!

Watched 2 movies last night – The Sentinel and Lake House. Both good movies. I especially liked The Sentinel. It had Keifer Sutherland and Michael Douglas. They’re both Secret Service guys and there’s a plot to kill the president. My wife and I love Keifer from 24. On there, he never follows the rules. In the movie, he’s the exact opposite – strictly by the book. Was a nice change of pace.

My daughter called me last night with good news – she’s got all A’s on her latest progress report. On her last report card, she was 3 points shy of all A’s. I was thrilled with that. When she does something like that, I usually get in trouble with Deidra. I’m always sneaking and buying Rugrat something to show her how proud I am. I’m so proud of her. I love hearing her voice because she gets so happy when she has something good to tell me.

Man, I miss everybody. At home, I’d be at church. I love Wednesday nights. I get to eat dinner with my family, see all my friends and this year I started teaching 4^th grade RA’s. That was a bit challenging to start, but those guys are awesome.