New House

In August I closed on a house in South Austin that I am finally getting settled into. It's a 30 year old house with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and about 1200 square feet, which is just enough for me. The house had a lot of work done on it a couple of years ago, but there are definately projects for me to undertake.

Here's the view from the front.

And the view from the backyard

And my nice open kitchen

And a great tree in my backyard. So, if you want to see any more of the house, you will have to come and visit!

What I've been up to

Here's a bit of an update on my life in the last few months. My job with Maximus is going extremely well, I am working on the Children's Health Insurance Program in Texas as an Analyst, which means I do all sorts of things. I have been out to our call centers in Midland and Athens (TX...) and working on improving the efficiency of our operations. The job provides many challenges but I am working with a lot of great people and will have many opportunities to do many things with this company and this project.




Fall is the start of college football season and I have been fortunate to attend all three UT home games so far, Hook Em Horns!

That would be my girlfriend of 11 months Sarah, who is currently a graduate student at Texas A&M, wearing that hideous shirt.

I've also bought a house, which there will be more about in another post, and have spent some time at family birthday parties, which are always a joy.

Don't know if its safe to give kids sticks to swing around, but it sure is fun!

DR Trip Post 2

My apologies for the delay in these trip posts - I've been in the process of finding a house...

I thought I would include a map so everyone can see where in the country we were. As I mentioned before, we flew into the country's capital (and where Columbus first landed, mind you!) of Santo Domingo, and drove the four hours along first the coast and then the hills to get to La Meseta, which is just outside the city of Elias Pina, which is circled in red in this map. The village is fairly large, with several hundred kids attending the primary school where we stayed. Most of the families have crops, some have small patches near their homes, and then larger sections surrounding the village.

Obviously the village is very close to the border with Haiti, but I am not sure of the exactly split of the village between Dominicans and Haitians. I would say there are more Dominicans living there. Some of you may have been following my adventures last summer on the north coast in the Haitian bateys that are set in the sugar fields there. Most of the sugar is grown close to the coasts, with coffee and fruits grown in the interior and more hilly regions. Haitians are the primary laborer in the sugar fields of the Dominican Republic and usually will settle near the fields (or quite literally, in the fields).

For construction, our team produced five latrines during our stay in the village. This was a two day process. The first of the days we mixed and poured concrete and layed the cinderblocks. The second day (after the concrete had dried) we would come back and build the frame, door, roof, and lay the seat. Needless to say, we all got lots of experience in mixing concrete, leveling concrete, laying block, sawing, building frames, hammering and more hammering, and piecing everything together. Construction efforts were led by Mario, one of the villagers who has helped the FPC groups build most of the latrines in the village. He was phenomenal (at correcting our mistakes!)

Here's a photo of Mario and Craig finishing the door on one of our latrines. Funny story about Craig, he usually was inside the latrine while we were hammering, pushing nails back, making sure everything was straight, and other important tasks. He was standing over the hole (use the picture below as a recreation of actual events) when somehow the hammer slipped from his hand and plummeted the 12 feet or so down the now almost all covered up latrine hole. Well, Super-Mario comes to the rescue, and in pure Macgyver style, he uses a flashlight and some wire to retrieve the wayward hammer. Needless to say, there wasn't anything Mario couldn't do!

DR Trip Post 1

The FPC San Antonio DR Team is back safe and sound from the Dominican Republic but we had quite the adventure! To start, we only made it to Dallas the first day. Instead of being in Santo Domingo, we spent the night at the Baymont Inn in Grapevine because we missed our flight from Dallas to San Juan. Well, American Airlines decided to give all of our seats away even though we made it to the gate while the plane was there. So we were already a day behind, which took away one of the days we were in the village. But we had team members coming from all over the hemisphere - one from Seattle, one from Oklahoma City, one from Nicaragua, and the ten of us coming from San Antonio. We finally all arrived in Santo Domingo and set out very early Monday morning for La Maseta, the village that FPC has gone to each of the last four years.

Once in the village, we made up for lost time through five days of VBS and four days of building latrines and making home visits. I will post some of my favorite photos and memories of the trip in the next few days.

Sailing!

I don't think I can begin to describe what an incredible time I had sailing. We flew into Canouan Island (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) and sailed to many different islands which were all beautiful. Every night featured a gorgeous sunset and wonderful stargazing. The natives were all super friendly and we met numerous travelers from all over the world, some on short sailing trips like us, some who were sailing around the world, and some who had taken permanent residence on their boats. Each day's sail was exciting and I got to help raise the sails, drive the boat, swab the deck, lookout for pirates, and other exciting duties. The snorkeling is also very good, as we saw all sorts of tropical fish, some exciting coral reefs, turtles, rays, snakes, and there even was a small shark sighting.

Some of my favorite highlights include having drinks on Happy Island, so named by the local who built the island out on the reef by hand using conch shells, taking him five years. The island houses one bar, and that's what makes it a happy place.

Swimming from the boat to numerous beautiful beaches.

Seeing a ship and island used in the first Pirates of the Carribean movie.

Not worrying about work and having a great vacation!

Moving On

Today is my last day of employment at Trinity University. It is with mixed emotions that I am moving to the next phase of my life. Here I am moving some of the crap out of my office (a lot can accumulate in three years!)

I will be starting a new job with Maximus in Austin, working as an analyst on a project with the State of Texas. Ask me in a month as I am not entirely sure what I will be doing.

Otherwise, keep posted to the blog, as I will be updating on my summer adventures. Here is my schedule:

June 5-14: Sailing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

June 18-29: First two weeks of work at Maximus

June 30-July 9: Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic

Exciting Summer!

It's been too long

This fall has truly flown by and I can hardly believe it is a mere few days from Christmas. A lot has happened in my life since then, so I thought I would provide an update. Let's see, to start, in September, I had the opportunity to portray King Louis XVI at the opening weekend of the San Antonio Symphony, with my partner as Marie Antoinette. Although I could not imagine wearing something like that every day, it sure was fun for those two nights!







October came and I went camping with some friends of mine from church (First Presbyterian, San Antonio). We spent a weekend at Lost Maples State Natural Area, which was truly gorgeous. It was a great time away from San Antonio, fellowshiping with old and new friends. We hiked, camped, swam, hung out, and for fun, hunted armadillo. Although there are no photos as proof, we actually caught one. Well, notably, my friends Josh and Robert caught it, but I feel pretty confident that I could tell someone else how to do it. Armadillo are quite interesting creatures, if you've never been up close and personal with one, I can't say that I recommend it.


This Thanksgiving, I got the chance to see and spend time with almost everyone on my Mom's side of the family. We had 26 for Thanksgiving lunch, 12 kids and 14 adults. Let me say that you would not want the ratio to swing in the kids favor. It was a truly blessed time to have all of our family together. God has blessed our family abundantly.


Here's my brother and I.
















Titus and Carter









Beau and his son Light







Our house got in the Christmas spirit by decorating a 70 foot sycamore in the backyard with lights and a star. One of my roomates and a couple friends spent hours in the tree finishing this masterpiece, which can be seen from the highway (those in San Antonio look for it on 281 just south of the Quarry)

Ruben in Austin!

One of my favorite Dominicans, Ruben, was in Austin this week for a visit. He took a week off from his family, his coffee, and ministering to his village to connect with friends in Austin and visit Dominican Joe, the coffeeshop started by Sharla and Mehul that will support the ministry of Makarios. If you're in Austin, go by for a great cup of Joe, it's located in the shopping center at Riverside and South Congress (down from Freebirds). The flan latte is very good, as are the fro-joes.