Those Blumes are still on the lookout for flying horses and found yet another. This time it happened in my old backyard, Rio. This horse was not so lucky as the other though. It was killed and the driver was taken to the hospital. These images are graphic.

I navigated over to the Blume’s blog and was treated to this:

The commentator points out that the car did not leave the race even after breaking a part on the front of the car and only lost 27 seconds while in the pit getting it fixed.

Incredible!

These past few weeks I was able to participate in the annual Bilingual Camp put on by the Igreja de Cristo em Itu. I first visited Itu in June 2005 on AFCSA and have been able to return several times over the years.

Well I visited Itu about a month ago and was immediately put to work by my friends Mark and Ali, the youth ministers. I was just taking the opportunity of some other friends visiting a nearby town to visit my friends in Itu and, bam, I find myself to have become “the other intern.” Ali was reading an email to be sent to a potential intern and, if I recall correctly, it went something like “Come to Itu where your talents will be used and abused.” I was used. It was so good to work alongside Mark and Ali and their other interns – Carol, Katie, and Mary Lou.

Some of my recent work for the Itu church:

Upon leaving, I was given the invitation to return to help at the bilingual camp. Less than a week later I was back in Itu.

So camp. I thought it was going to be just a five day camp where we spoke English and had some fun but it was so much more. As Kris, another recently added intern, said

…it was a Christian camp where there happen to be people who spoke English and Portuguese.

Two campers, one a former atheist, decided to follow Christ. It was an incredible experience that refreshed my spirit. Good food, dynamic groups, fun staff, a dance party until 3A, s’mores, beautiful facilities! Who could ask for more?

I returned to Rio on Monday but with the Johnson Street church youth group from San Angelo that went to Itu to run the camp and participate in the inaugural activities of the church in Itu, which were awesome. They invited me to spend their last two days with them at a nice hotel on the beach. It was a great time and was, actually, the first time since moving to Rio that I went to the beach. That may tell you HOW far from the beach I live!

I received the best birthday gift this year – my parents.

They flew in to Santiago on my birthday. It was a bit of a nerve racking wait. They were stopped by the agriculture department for two apples that Mom had forgotten she had her in bag. Dad almost swore that they were originally from Chile, but that didn’t matter.

We had a good few days in Santiago, which was good since one of their pieces of luggage did not make it until the next day. We visited Plaza de Armas, Cerro Santa Lucía, Cerro San Cristobal, Mercado Central, and ate our way through the city. They also had the delight of riding on Transantiago, the public transportation system of bus and metro lines.

Santiago was good but southern Chile was excellent. More on that soon.

It’s always good to spend a bit of time with old friends and experience a bit of their lives. I had the chance to do that with the Blumes. I spent four days in Porto Alegre between Santiago and Rio with them. My time included new friends as well and I’m not really going to continue talking about it because Kevin did us all a favor and wrote about my time there.

Here’s a bit:

We don’t stop much in our day to day lives. We told Garrett to jump in wherever he wanted to as well as just stay home and chill when he needed to do that. We told him he could stay with us as long as he wanted. His two night stay turned into a 4 night stay… Continue reading at The Blumes in Brasil.

More photos on flickr from Machu Picchu. I will blog soon. Sorry for the wait.

Well I’m currently transitioning from Chile to Brazil. I hopped on a bus and rode for 36 hours to Porto Alegre, Brazil. I’ll be staying with the Blumes for a few days and then head to my new home (for six months) of Rio de Janeiro.

Very soon I will be putting something up about my parents’ visit and my trip to Peru with my friend Robert. In the meantime, check out some of the photos on flickr.

It began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and spread across the globe. Today at 8:30P (your local time) cities around the world will participate in Earth Hour by turning off their lights to raise awareness for energy conservation. I am happy to say Chile has committed to participate in this global energy-saving event.

Be a part of the action and turn off the lights and unplug all non-essential appliances to show your support for government policies to take action against global warming. The Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009 will convene soon and this is one way you can show your desire for change.

Learn more at Vote Earth.

So do you understand what “mark to market” or “toxic assets” mean? This week’s episode of This American Life provides a basic overview of banking and how the U.S. and world economies arrived to where they are now.

Some of the provided statistics:

Bank of America and Citigroup have 25% of U.S. deposits and are they are not doing, supposedly, so hot.
The top 20 largest banks have 90% of U.S. deposits.
Household debt to GDP has been 30-50% until the 1980s.
It reached 100% (i.e. Americans owe more than the entire economy produces.) in 2007.
When was the last time it was that high? 1929.

Listen to or download it (free download until the next episode is posted).
If you enjoy the show that much, subscribe to the free weekly podcast.

Woo! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything and originally I was going to post this two weeks ago but I kind of messed up my blog management system. Well all is well now. Thank you Jeff.

Enjoy.

Scribd

Take a break today (in the US) and tomorrow (international) from the endless consumption. Shop less , live more.