Things can change in a year

Well as I let the one year anniversary slip by of my Blog it reminded me that I have been a slacker with it and I decided I should send everybody an update to what I’m doing.



Kara has been gone visiting family and friends in the states for the past two weeks. Which means that I’m living like a bachelor, dirty, naked and starving. I’ve actually been doing OK on my own but it sue hasn’t been fun. She is helping a good friend of hers get ready for her wedding. She is also visiting with everyone she ever knew in the Houston area. I wonder if this is going to be our routine for however long we live here. I guess that is why they give us an extra two weeks of vacation each year. We’ll just take it one year at a time. It has been good to hear all about what she is doing. It sounds like she is having a lot of fun. She went to a cocktail party in Louisiana and was asked where she was from. She initially said Texas but was prompted by the groom’s mom to be more accurate and she told the group Qatar. She then explained that was in the Middle East. When she said that one guy blurted out “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, that is so dumb.” I really wish I could have been there to interact with this enlightened argument but I was not. I guess money doesn’t make you immune to ignorance. I may have thought the same thing myself if my only source of information on this was Fox news but I doubt that I would have ever said anything so disrespectful.



I guess it shows me how much things have changed in my mind since arriving here. I hear a comment like that and to me it’s like calling A&M a third rate country bumpkin school, Texas a state of hillbillies or teaching an easy job. You just don’t know until you’ve been there. I do complain about my host country from time to time but overall it has been a great new home for us to live. What I need to remember is people won’t and really can’t know where I’m coming from. As long as they are respectful I can tolerate that. I don’t know what life in Louisiana is like. Maybe its acceptable to make an ass out of yourself in front of complete strangers.



An Era has Passed




Well, it was fun while it lasted but I decided to put the Beast up for sale. I don’t know if it was 5th or 6th trip to the mechanic or the impending summer and its weak AC but I felt it was time for us to part ways. The last time I drove it the engine was overheating but you couldn’t tell by the broken temperature gauge. It was the rattling of the engine that gave it away. I know from experience what an engine low on oil sounds like. Thanks to my old escort that ran out of oil on a regular basis. I checked the engine and smoke was coming out of where you put the oil in but the dipstick was telling me I had plenty. I guess something wasn’t working. A $100 later it was fixed. The engine would do a couple of victory laps when I turned it off as well. That was fixed to. So I slapped a for sale sign on the window with my number and in 24 hours I had 10 calls asking to see it. The first guy wanted it to pull his boat on the weekends. I told him that would be a good use for it because it is not an everyday car. He paid the full price ($1200) and it was done. I used that money to buy Kara’s and my tickets to Germany and it was done. I was really amazed how fast it went but much more relieved.



As I followed him to the traffic department to change the title I started to get seller’s remorse. I was thinking that I was going to miss it and wondering if I really should have sold it. When we got to the traffic department the guy who bought it told me the engine was heating up but that was OK he knew how to fix it. Good for him because I didn’t have a clue. I then thought to myself “Now that’s why I sold it.”



My new not so new ride



Before I sold the beast I bought a Hyundai ’97 Galloper which is based off the Mitsubishi Pajero. Both are vehicles you probably haven’t heard of but are big on this side of the world. It was being sold by a female teacher returning home. This is important because she was selling it because she had to, she had her maintenance records and it had never been to the desert. It only has 45k miles on it. It helps that she only lives 1 mile from where she works. So I bought it for a good price and at this point I went from 0 cars that I could drive to 3 in a matter of a day. Kara left for the states, the beast was fixed and I bought this car. So I decided I didn’t need to start collecting cars and that’s when I sold the beast. I also leased the Galloper back to the teacher for her remaining stay here. It was cheaper then her going through a dealer and I didn’t need two cars until Kara got back.



John 3:3



I was walking out of the mall yesterday and a guy walked up to me and said John 3:3.



In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."



I was like well hello I’m Russell. I was wearing a BUCs (Brother’s Under Christ) Island Party T-Shirt that had a scripture on the back of it so I figured that is what had triggered his comment. We talked for a while and the guy poured out quite a bit in the first 5 minutes about his walk with God. I’m quite an introvert with people I don’t know and it amazes me to see people who can just start talking with in 30 seconds of meeting you. It turns out the guy is from Conroe about 15 minutes from where I used to live. It brought me back to running through the neighborhoods on cool spring mornings. That’s hard to forget. He’s been living here for 6 months and hasn’t found a church to go to. I got his email and told him I would connect him with the one I go to or the other predominately western expat one. You never know who you will meet when you go for shwarmas (Arabic Fast-food).