Posted anything here. And today I actually deleted a couple of posts. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but they're being published on theooze.com this month and next. So, head over there on January 26th to read my article on the church reaching out to the marginalized, and on February 22nd you can read my article on true fasting.

I'll be back later for an update on my video projects. Five words for you: My hard drive is full.

having some blog issues here, just testing. btw, this post is for you guys, matt and luke.

This is a piece I did for our church a couple of weeks ago; we conducted some basic interviews in Mission Beach and downtown and asked the questions you'll see in the video here. The video was played right before the sermon, just to show the congregation what some of the people of San Diego had to say in response to our questions. Most of the people we approached on the street about participating in these surveys weren't interested in doing so, but those who did participate were great sports about it. One thing I was concerned with was that they not feel like they were the target of a video ambush, or that we were looking for a particular answer, but rather, that they understand they all we were after was their answer, whatever that might have been. I think we were successful in that.

Technical note: this is the first real project, other than some test clips I've done by for myself, shot with the Panasonic DVX-100B that the church purchased for use in our documentary projects. All I can say is, I love this camera. Many indebted thanks go out to Jesse for the boom operating, and Paula and Jeannette for asking the questions. Great job, guys!

Launch in external player

Here's a little clip of some stuff I shot at our family reunion in Oregon back in March. I should warn that it's a large file (35 megs), so it will take a while for your media player to buffer it before it can play it, but your patience will be rewarded with a sharper image and better sound than if I had compressed it more. On a technical note, this was shot with Justin's Canon ZR100 and crappy tripod. It did a pretty good job, although there is a pan in there that's a little sticky. Oh well.
You can also download it here.

    Some of you may have heard, and many of you probably haven't, but I'll be heading to India for two weeks this summer (July 19 - August 1) as part of a missions trip that my church, Kaleo Fellowship, is taking. Our team, along with a group from Providence Community Church in Plano, Texas, will be teaching at a pastor's conference and helping out with vacation Bible school for some kids at an orphanage run by Vision Nationals. My job will be to film a short documentary on some of the widows and orphans that Vision Nationals is helping. The documentary is part of a longer-term vision at Kaleo, which I have started working out in the vision statement for the film side of Kaleo's mission:

    "Film has become the most influential artistic medium, where the values
of our society are demonstrated and wrestled with. In a film, we are
being asked to imagine "what if," and try on a different worldview for
a couple of hours. Depending on how well a film has been made, this
new suit of ideas may fit like a glove, or it may chafe and constrict.

    Kaleo's clarion call is that it exists to delight in God above all
else, and to spread His glory to all people. Because we believe that
no area of our lives escapes the grasp of God's influence and control,
and that we are called to be heralds of God's good news into every
area of life, the film world is one such area that desperately needs
to be engaged by Christians. The film ministry at Kaleo will seek to
engage this world by critiquing and contributing to film's ongoing
marketplace of worldviews.

There are two main ways we will do this:

  1. Film & theology nights- At a typical film & theology night, we
will head out to the theater to watch a currently showing film, then
move to a public place such as a restaurant or coffeehouse to discuss
the merits of the film manifested in its story, acting and production
values; consider the filmmaker's intent and the worldview he or she is
presenting, and discuss possible Christian responses to the worldview
presented.

  2. Film production- Following Francis Schaeffer, we believe that
excellence in art adds strength and credibility to whatever worldview
that art may be communicating. Therefore, through the making of short
fiction and non-fiction/documentary films, we will seek to present the
hope of the gospel and the integrity of our worldview in a manner that
is both technically proficient and aesthetically pleasing. When
someone enters into the art worlds we create, our hope is that they
would see the reality of our fallen world, as well as the hope of
redemption that we have in Christ, and the internal consistency, the fit,
if you will, of our worldview."

  The aim of the documentary will be to profile the lives of 2-4 subjects,
whether widows or orphans, to show the lives they used to lead and where
they have come from, contrasted with the hope they have now. Towards
this end Kaleo has (with the help of some generous donors) purchased most
of the gear necessary to start such a project, including a camera, tripod,
microphone, boom pole, filters, editing software, etc. Before we head out
for India, there are some remaining items and expenses that we would
definitely need prayer and/or help with, some of which are for the team in
general, myself and Pastor David, and some camera gear in particular.
   

 

I'll be tinkering around with the look and feel of the blog here in the next few days/weeks, including fixing, changing, deleting and adding some new links. Just glancing through them, some of them are broken, and some of them I either don't subscribe to anymore or just aren't relevant. Plus I've got my buddy Jon working on a new header graphic, so it should look pretty snazzy.

It's been a long, long, long time since I've done any proper blogging here, but I will be doing some soon, as well as retooling the blog a bit (it's a sad state of affairs when half of your posts are come-back posts.) I'm probably going to stash some of my posts on politics and current affairs in another sub-category, mainly because I don't think that stuff is as important as I used to. Kind of burned out on what people in office have been up to lately. Also, I recently wrote a couple of short articles that both deal with some of the fallout from the church's inconsistent practice of true biblical community, and I hope to be getting those published on some of the better Christian e-zines/blogs very soon. Each one takes a different approach, but the root problem is basically the same. So if I manage to get those up anywhere, I'll definitely be posting links to them. In other news, I'll be giving the lowdown on a missions trip I'm taking to India this summer, as far as what we're doing, what we need, all that good stuff. Part of my job on the trip will be filming a documentary on an orphanage we'll be working with down there. But more to come on this soon. Still working on the Saudi Arabia stuff, but time is a scarce commodity these days, as well as money. I'm going to need some if I'm going to get some of my super 8 film footage transferred to mini-DV tape so that I can use it in the video. I'm should have a trailer of some sort finished soon, and hopefully I can find a place to put that up on the web so that people can see it, and perhaps be moved to invest in the India project, or other film ideas in the works. So that's the short version. Keep checking for more!

    For all three of you who have been reading my very occassional posts here, you may recall my post-election prediction about the left using every available means to sabotage the war in Iraq. Well, Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, has chimed in with his strategy. Here, why don't I just post the whole article?

What Iraq needs is a Walter Cronkite

 President Bush went on the air this week to pretend again that things are OK in Iraq. Shades of President Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam nearly 40 years ago. The most important similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is that both Democratic and Republican presidents lied to us in wartime. To refresh your memory, here's how we got out of the Vietnam quagmire:

• Walter Cronkite, CBS-TV news anchor known as "the most trusted man in America," after a combat tour of Vietnam in 1968 declared, "There is no way this war can be justified any longer."

• Johnson lamented to aides, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." He announced he would not run for re-election.

The crucial difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that there is no Cronkite to call Bush's bluff. Without a strong, trusted, non-political voice, too many of us remain Bush-blinded. Bush tried keeping the wool over our eyes again Tuesday on national TV by repeatedly tying Iraq to 9/11. That charge is as phony as his discredited prewar claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Most of us who have had personal war experiences strongly believe this great country is worth fighting for at risk of lives. My World War II Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman's Badge on the wall behind my desk remind me of that daily.

They also remind me that war is hell, that we must fully support our servicemen and women and put their lives at risk only for honest and just and noble causes.

That's why I'm convinced the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later.
____________________

    My first problem with what Mr. Neuharth has to say is that President Bush did not go on TV this week to pretend that all is ok in Iraq. As a matter of fact, he acknowledged that we have a tough road ahead of us. Neuharth is not clear whether or not this is the lie he's referring to, regarding Vietnam versus Iraq similarities. Presumably, he is including this in with the WMD "lie" (which I don't believe was a lie; why lie about something that will be verified or not verified just a few months later? Nay, I think the president believed what he was telling us, and he had the distinct misfortune of being wrong. There's a big difference between being wrong and lying). But either way, it appears Mr. Neuharth believes that lying about war-related issues during a time of war is a pretty serious sin, an egregious breach of faith, if you will. I would agree. However, I believe this standard should apply not just to our government, but also to those whose job it is to give war-related information to the general public. Making stuff up behind the shelter of an "anonymous source" that cannot be verified as true or false doesn't do us a whole lot of good either, although I guess I might disagree with some in the mainstream media about what is meant by "the good of the people" in this case.

    Next we have the left's familiar and (to me) overused talking point: Iraq as Vietnam revisited. I think Mr. Neuharth demonstrates the bankruptcy of his arguments when the best similarity between the Vietnam and Iraq wars he can find is not to be found in the wars themselves, but in the political scene surrounding the wars, namely that in both wars we were lied to by presidents about the war. The best dissimilarity he can find is that this time we have no trusted media figure to destroy support for the war, but again, he has nothing for us when it comes to similarities between the actual military campaigns themselves and what those similarities may or may not tell us about the winableness or worthiness of the war in Iraq..

     I'm not going to spend too much time on this, since many others have written on the dissimilarities of Iraq and Vietnam, and have done so better than I could, but here's a brief refresher anyway.

    First of all, the insurgency in Vietnam had popular support, and was waged mostly by the Vietnamese people. In Iraq, the insurgency does not have anywhere near the popular support with the people of Iraq that the insurgency in Vietnam did. One of the first rules of fighting an insurgency is, don't piss off the population, which is exactly what the insurgency in Iraq is doing. Having your children, husbands, brothers, sisters, and parents blown up by people claiming to represent your interests tends to get old after awhile. It is precisely this that has resulted in an explosion in the amount of quality, credible intelligence and tips our troops have been receiving from the Iraqi people. Another reason why the Iraqi people are getting sicker and sicker of this insurgency everyday is that so many, if not most (at the very least, the most effective attacks are by the foreign fighters sneaking into the country from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.), of the insurgents are foreign fighters, not Iraqis. Yes, there are many Iraqi insurgents, but more and more they are beginning to see that their insurgency is a losing proposition, especially when they see the lives that the rest of Iraq are beginning to make for themselves. Hence, the recent negotiations with some of the Iraqi militants. The more we can bring those types in from the margins of Iraqi society and back into the mainstream of civic participation, the easier it will be to isolate and crush the foreign terrorists living in their midst.

    The second dissimilarity between Vietnam and Iraq is that in Vietnam, we simply did not understand that besides just defeating the communists militarily, we needed to address the social and economic problems in Vietnam so that there would be a credible alternative to communism. In Iraq, we are very aware of this, and a huge amount of energy is being put into solving these problems. What's more, Iraqis are buying into this more and more everyday. This doesn't preclude the possibility of the war going on for several more years, but it does show that it is progressing slowly but surely towards an end that will be good for Iraq and the world.

    Which leads me to the topic of "quagmire". Technically speaking, the Vietnam conflict was what is known as a "war". The term quagmire as it is utilized here by Mr. Neuharth is a great example of loaded language. For those interested in a great primer on basic logic and expository prose, I would highly recommend Anthony Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments, where he defines loaded language as "language whose only function is to sway the emotions."  Neuharth's use of the term quagmire functions to smuggle in his assumption that the war in Iraq is unwinable, and since it works at the emotional level, he doesn't have to (or so he thinks) acknowledge or argue for this assumption. I wouldn't have a problem with him using the word quagmire if he were to first define what he means by quagmire (why it's a bad thing, etc.), and then show how it is a good analogy for both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. I might still disagree with him, but at least he'd have made the effort to justify his use of the term. Emotive language in an expository or argumentative essay can be persuasively powerful and pleasurable to read, if it's backed up with solid arguments, or if the essay doesn't stand or fall simply on the basis of the emotive language, but on the basis of other evidence.
  
     But Neuharth does not do this. Just because a particular endeavor is difficult, costly and may require a long-term commitment, does not necessarily rule out success in said endeavor. Neuharth's vision of a quagmire may be that of a tar pit, entombing forever any creature that ventures too close to it, but at the same time, the argument can be made that the quagmire we're in (if you're even willing to grant that we are in one) is more like a football field covered three feet deep in thick, sucking mud. If you keep at it, it is possible to get to the other side.
   
    Ok, so there's my simplistic little summary of some of the reasons why I disagree with the Iraq qua Vietnam metaphor. The irony of the whole thing is that were it not for Walter Cronkite, we may have been able to extricate ourselves from the Vietnam "quagmire" with at least a tactical victory, if not a strategic one. If we had a Walter Cronkite equivalent today, we would again be taking a tactical victory and turning it into a strategic defeat. And this is exactly what I believe most members of the mainstream media want to do. I don't see how people can credibly deny this when the founder of USA Today, one of the most mainstream of all media, is openly pining for some media-hero to come along and mouth the magic words, "There is no way this war can be justified any longer." So Walter Cronkite said "Let there be peace", and there was peace, and Walter Cronkite saw that it was good.

    All of this is basically just to say that the mainstream media is having a harder and harder time trying to mask its desire to go beyond simply reporting the news in as objective a fashion as possible to actively advocating a specific partisan position, namely, end the Iraq war now, regardless of the damage it does to American, Iraqi and world interests. And we also discover Mr. Neuharth's other fantasy, given this comment:
      
    Johnson lamented to aides, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." He announced he would not run for re-election.

    If the media today were respected like they were in the '60's, Mr. Neuharth seems to believe, a Cronkite-like media messiah would simply have to say the words, and George Bush would resign (or better yet, never have been elected in the first place). I suppose nostalgia for the good ol' days of mainstream media dominance is to be expected, coming from the founder of USA Today, but is it asking too much of Mr. Neuharth if we also expect him to acknowledge or address the causes of the public's skeptical attitude toward the media, and specifically what the media has done to deserve its tarnished reputation? (*ahem*, Dan Rather, I'm looking at you).

    I think a big reason many people are so disaffected with the mainstream media is the hypocrisy with which they claim to be the objective bearers of the tidings of the world, be those tidings good or bad, when in fact they are at least as guilty of partisan advocacy as anyone else. Advocacy is fine, as long as you're up front about it, but this is not what people look for from the news media in particular; they want the truth about what's happening in the world.

    On the other hand, total objectivity is not even possible in any subject matter by any person. Cornelius Van Til  famously discussed the myth of neutrality given the basic assumptions about life that we all have (presuppositions), and the philosopher Francis Bacon had addressed this same idea in New Organon as early as 1620. Bacon outlined four biases, or idols as he called them (again, Van Til's presuppositions): idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the market place, and idols of the theater. By these he means the biases of being a member of the human species, the biases of our own personal point of view, the biases of language (viewing language as transactions and exchanges of ideas), and the biases of philosophies, religions and cultures. He sums it up well when he says, "And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it."

    At this point many would throw up their hands and decide that if complete objectivity is not possible, then why bother? Why not just let your biases run roughshod over everything you do? I would say that since truth is what most of us are after, as long as we take into account these biases, and media folks are aware and honest about them in their work, truth can still be found, and this is why we should not just give up the quest. Being aware of our and others' biases is exactly what is meant by taking something with the proverbial grain of salt. By claiming to be absolutely objective, the news media crushes itself under the unrealistic expectation of something that it cannot deliver; pretending to be unbiased will not make those biases go away, rather, it will simply muddy their work even more. If instead they acknowledged those biases and tried to remove or work around them as much as possible, I think we'd all be able to form a much clearer picture of the world around us.

    In Neuharth's last point, he bases his whole article on an argument from authority, namely his (and other combat veterans') authority. His credential that justifies him being considered an authority or expert witness is his combat experience from World War II. I would agree that being a combat veteran makes Mr. Neuharth an authority on combat at the tactical level (and the tactical level is precisely where combat earned its reputation for being hell), but I think he oversteps the bounds of that authority when he uses it as grounds for qualification to make strategic claims, inferences and observations. I'm not saying he can't make any sort of strategic claims, as that is the right of all American citizens to debate, but his combat experience alone does not make him a strategic authority. Any side you care to think of can point to at least one combat veteran who says, "Take my word as a combat veteran that this is the right position on issue x." When you have combat veterans disagreeing among themselves, then what? Who or what decides who's right?

    The ad hominem argument cuts both ways; an argument is not necessarily wrong just because of something about the person who is delivering or conceiving it, but it's also not necessarily right based solely on some feature of the person making the argument. The rightness or wrongness is bound up in the arguments themselves, and Mr. Neuharth needs to make those arguments, so that we can discuss the merits of those, not simply agree with the assertions he's made based on the fact that the person asserting them is a combat veteran. Lest any combat veterans think I'm disrespecting them, let me say that any particular subject matter expert, whether they be a combat veteran or anything else, should be taken seriously when they are expounding on the subject on which they are an expert. So if Mr. Neuharth was writing about whether or not war is hell, or the merits of a particular weapon or tactic he used in World War II, I would say that his words would have to be taken very, very seriously indeed. On top of that, I am glad that Mr. Neuharth answered our country's call to duty, and did so with distinction, at the tip of the spear. But with all due respect, if he aims to convince me as to the relative worthiness or unworthiness of the war in Iraq, he's going to have to give me more.

Ok, enough rambling for today. Also, this is subject to revision if I think of anything I left out, or was wrong about.

PS- Props to anyone who can name the song that the title of this article is making reference to.

    "We will have to kill you now." For a brief instant, the tent is filled with the kind of silence usually reserved for the kind of places that have people who are already dead in them. We are not dead, however, and a quick glance at my travelling companions reveals the sharp focus of men who have no intention of going quietly into the proverbial long night, yet all of this is masked by the placid composure of their faces.
    Minutes earlier, we (Kent, Chris, Mike, Jeff, Doc, and myself) had been taking photos of the remains of an old Turkish fort, the only one we hadn't already photographed during our five-day survey of the long-defunct Hejaz railway (thanks to T. E. Lawrence's adventures in World War I). We had already seen as much of the railway as we could manage within the time we had available to us, so on our way home to the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, we'd simply pop into Al-Ula, get our shots, and be back on the road in a matter of minutes.
    Light rains the night before had sprinkled the area, in places turning the fine red dust to a mud which now squished between the treads on our tires and spattered the thorn-scratched quarterpanels of our trucks as our four-vehicle convoy began to roll out in the direction of the paved road back into town, and then on to the highway and southward-bound. Just as the last truck was about to pull out, a young Arab man approached them from the walled compound facing the fort, just across the sticky dirt track from it.
    Jeff's steady voice crackled from the radio, "Hey One, we've got a guy here waving us down. I'm gonna see what he wants."
    "Roger that, Four", Kent replied. "We'll wait up for you." After a minute or so of wondering what this was about, Jeff radioed back that the guy spoke English, and that he wanted us to join him in his tent for tea and gawa (a heavily spiced coffee). A short radio huddle was followed by the decision to spare an hour from our drive home for a brief cross-cultural encounter.
    We were met at the gate of the compound by our host, Mohammed A., and several other men, as well as a few boys. Mohammed greeted us warmly in his thickly-accented English, "Come, come inside my friends. We would like to show you our culture. Eh, then you can see, in Saudi Arabia, we are not all terrorists."
    To call it a tent would be slightly misleading, although not entirely. Inside the compound, there were a few white-plastered, low buildings, and the tent was set up on a foundation of concrete with short retaining walls around the outside. The whole tent was hung and carpeted inside with huge rugs and tapestries, black and deep maroon in color, with intricate geometric patterns worked over white stripes. The front of the tent was dominated by a white wall with a faux red brick hearth in the center. Flanking the hearth were arched, backlit shelves, white with gold trim, holding silver, brass and ceramic tea pots and a black-and-white framed photograph of an important clan ancestor. The mantel of the hearth stood at about head level, with a row of seven large brass teapots, arranged in order from tallest to smallest, looking like a formation of proud, golden birds, their beak-like spouts upheld in a haughty attitude of disdain. At the foot of the hearth lay a tray with tiny cups for tea and coffee, a dish of sweets, a bowl of dates, and off to the side, a fancifully ornamented bellows, patiently awaiting the need for its services. In the corner next to one of the shelves sat a large, four-horned altar used for burning incense. Over this scene burned the incongruous pale light of evenly-spaced fluorescent fixtures.





    This particular day marked the end of Eid Al-Fitr, the week-or-so-long celebration coming on the heels of the month of Ramadan fasting. Our hosts looked their traditional Muslim best, with plain white or gray robes, the freshly shaven heads of those that had made their pilgrimage to Mecca, shaggy beards, and some sporting red and white checked keffiyehs. After a quick round of introductions, Mohammed asked the seemingly innocuous question, where were we all from? Until this point in our travels, we had jokingly debated whether or not to answer this sort of question with the predictable and convenient lie that we were Canadian, but it simply had not come up until now. Because our initial impression of our new friends was a favorable one, we decided that "toss the maple syrup, hockey and the bloody queen of England; we can't let the Canadians take all the credit for the goodwill we're sharing here." It was our reply "America" that killed every smile in the room, followed by Mohammed tossing his conversational hand grenade into the middle of the tent.
    As we sat sipping our coffee, outnumbered and with the only exit covered, the thought flashed through my mind:
"Well, this is quite a pickle we've gotten ourselves into."

Last night I picked up an album called 'Let Go' by a band called Nada Surf. I've only listened to it a couple times through so far, but I'm loving it. So far my favorite songs are 'blizzard of '77', 'inside of love', 'blonde on blonde', 'killian's red', 'neither heaven nor space', 'paper boats', pretty much the whole thing. It's beautiful, so go buy it, and turn it up loud! It's songs like this that make me miss playing music.

Ok, so I still need some suggestions for a blog name. I'm eventually going to change things up a bit (like the actual address of the blog) so that my full name is not floating around for the malicious in this world to have fun with. So I suppose I'll have to come up with some sort of handle or nickname too, but that's where my loyal reader(s?) comes in. Fire away!

    I rented this film mostly out of curiosity and to see what I might learn from it, as far as cinematography and just to look at how the film was put together overall. I had read good things about it, so I was at least game to try it out. To be honest, I wasn't necessarily expecting it to be enjoyable. After all, it's not a period of history I'm particularly fond of, and to read the synopsis, you just know it's going to be a little slow, and probably a bit of work to get through. It turned out to be both of those things, but for some reason, I found myself enjoying it anyway, and before you know it, I was watching it again.

    The story is relatively simple, as is most of the dialogue; the movie basically follows a guy around the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg and as you enter each room, you see different phases of Russian history taking place in the flesh. The narrarator (whose eyes we are looking out of throughout the film) and his companion, an 18th century French marquis, are mostly unnoticed by the people they are observing, although there are some interactions. But mostly we get a tour of the museum with the marquis providing commentary and insight. While the movie is about Russian history, it also illustrates the strange variety of Franco-Russian relations over the years. Sokurov's portrayal of these relations shows that while Russians are fiercely proud of their culture, they still can admire and sometimes even emulate European culture, while Europe tends to vacillate between arrogance and an amused patronizing of their eastern neighbors.
    In the end, the message seems to be that the three hundred years' history contained in the Hermitage museum represents, perhaps not a golden age, but some of the high points of Russian history and culture, and as Russian society sails through the turbulence of the present and future of our world, trying to reinvent themselves post-communism (and in the midst of terrorism and a resurgent authoritarianism), this ark and these highpoints contain the seeds of renewal for whatever good may come next.
    As for the production values of this film, the images are calm and beautiful throughout. The movie was filmed in one complete 96-minute take with a single high definition steadicam, which gives you the sensation of floating through the museum, like a ghost. The lighting is at turns warm and cool, and very believable. The sound design is lush, with big empty rooms that echo and reverberate the way only a big, empty room with wood or marble floors can. The music matches the rest of the film; it is serene, soft, joyful, sentimental, romantic, and sad.
    Overall, I'd have to say that I highly recommend this film. If you don't like slow movies with subtitles and history you're not familiar with, don't bother, unless your sense of adventure outweighs those. But if you've ever found yourself wandering around a chilly art/culture/history museum in Europe, or would like to, you should definitely check it out. You'll feel right at home.

      

    This is a map made by Jeff, one of the guys that went with us on our Hejaz Railway excursion last year. This was our proposed itinerary, but it ended up changing a bit. The Day 1 leg is actually Jeff, Doc, and Chris coming from Riyadh to meet me, Kent, and Mike in Medina (we were coming up from Jeddah, which was 'home' for us). A little context for those that are lost here; Kent's my brother-in-law; he's an infantry officer in the U.S. Army and he was the one I went to Saudi to visit. The other guys are all Army officers as well. They all had jobs there for a year advising various parts of the Saudi military. You couldn't ask for a better crew of guys to go exploring the history of a semi-hostile foreign nation with.
    So, Day 1 had us camping just a few miles outside of Medina, on Day 2 we camped somewhere around the Wayban or Tuwayrah train stops (I don't recall exactly which; I'll have to double check that one. All I remember is, it was in the middle of nowhere, with some great red mountains that were made of a gnarled, weathered lava rock that was murder on tires.)
    Day 3 saw us make it through Al Ula and Mada'in Salah, and we stopped for the night somewhere in the vicinity of the Mutalla station, on a vast flat plain, with our camp behind one of the only hills to be found. Day 4 was a long, tooth-rattling day along the rail bed, through lava plains with small, knife-sharp rocks and gravel that were at various times red, gray, or black, and then the pumice would give way to hard-packed dry lake beds, and some stretches of sweeping dunes. On the last stretch before we came to a real paved road again, the rail bed threaded its way in and out of a Saudi military firing range. Needless to say, everyone's eyes were peeled for any unexploded ordinance that might have been laying around, or worse yet, a barrage of live rounds. Finally we made it to Tabuk, where we stayed at a western housing compound (I think it was mainly British oil workers and military types) in some of their guest villas. One of Kents's Army buddies from their days at the Armor Officer Advanced Course hooked us up with the villas. By the way, remind me to tell the story of Kent's and my airborne "onramp" experience sometime. Good times.
    On Day 5, we went back down to Mada'in Salah via a much faster paved highway, and managed to squeeze in the Nabatean ruins there before the sun went down. For those not familiar with the Nabateans, they're the ones who built the city of Petra in Jordan, which was featured prominently at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That night we camped near a huge elephant-shaped rock a few miles down the road from the Nabatean ruins, much to the chagrin of the officials there. They were either worried for our safety camping out in the open, or thinking that we might think them inhospitable. They really, really wanted us to stay in one of the local hotels, but we really enjoyed camping out under the stars, especially near something as cool as the Mammoth (or Elephant Rock as it's also known). That night as we assembled skewers with shrimp, goat, peppers and onions for our bbq, a rain storm blew through to the south of us, giving us front row seats to a brilliant display of lightning, and the rain gave the air a refreshing humidity and a sweet scent.
    On Day 6, we made one last stop in Al Ula, so that we could take a picture of the one train station that we had missed on the way through the first time. We had only intended to do a drive-by and then hit the road for the long trip back down to Jeddah, but as we pulled out to leave, some guys from the house across the muddy road from the station and the mosque stopped us and invited us into their tent for some tea and coffee. We hesitated at first, as we had a lot driving to do (and we'd done an awful lot of it already that week), but they were insistent that we come inside and experience some genuine Saudi hospitality. We spent an enjoyable hour with them, and then it was back on the road and home to Jeddah. So that was just a brief synopsis of our Hejaz Railway trip. I've left a lot out, like more cross-cultural experiences, history of the Hejaz Railway, etc. Don't worry, we'll get to that. Time allowing, I'll be posting all the stories bit by bit.

    Be sure to check out any photos I post, because a lot of them will have captions/commentary, etc.

So anyway, this is my blog. Nothing to say yet, just trying to figure out how this thing works. What can you expect to find here? At first, I'll probably just post some photos from my Saudi Arabia trip, and maybe some stories as well. When inspiration strikes, I may write on some important topic or other. Likely I will include updates on whatever creative projects I'm involved in, such as music, film, or what have you. Mostly, I just want this to be a place where friends and family that are scattered all over the world can use to keep in touch with me, wherever I might be. So check in from time to time, and I should have stuff up here for you to read/look at/mock/disparage, etc.

Ok, folks, I need some suggestions for a name for this blog. post away...