My friend wins "Best Evangelical Blog - Ministry"

I just got the news that my close friend Brad over at 21st Century Reformation won and award for Best Evangelical Blog in the Ministry catagory determined by popular vote at Evangelical Underground. Congratulations Brad! I am very proud of you.

Ashkan Sahihi

Sahihi has two great photo exhibits going Women in the IDF, and The Drug Series. Both are completely work safe, BUT backing up to the Index page out of either of these two links will bring you in contact with some work that is questionable.

Women in the IDF is a collection of pictures showing normal everyday women toting machine guns and a smile. It is both captivating and disarming.

The Drug Series is interesting. Sahihi captures facial expressions from drug users, each drug/user is subtly different.

Mr. Snaky

Upon returning from my trip to Hungary this weekend, cleaning the snake cage was high on my wife’s list of "Honey Do's". Nothing brings you back down to earth like cleaning the snake cage. My wife and sons draw the line at feeding Mr. Snaky. It is my responsibility to clean the cage. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, snake cages smell something like... well the smell is indescribable.

Mr. Snaky is my only reptile pet. I want more but have been reluctant to buy any because Mr, Snaky bites so damn much. I have been bitten on the nose, fingers, cheeks, and ear. I love my snake, I really do, but he thinks I'm food. Mr. Snaky is also a “Musker”. His main defense mechanism is to spray musk from his anus when frightened. Trust me; you do not want to get any on your pants. Your dog will go crazy.

Mr. Snaky is an Albino King snake. He eats three to four mice every two weeks or one large rat ever three weeks. The rats scream like babies while they die. Of course, nobody told me this, or else I would have bought gold fish.

Mr. Snaky is expected to live for 20 to 30 years.

This is weird - Kissing President Bush

I found this while surfing: Rachel Mason: Kissing President Bush. I guess it's art.

One last shot

I know I mentioned this before, but I wanted to include one more shot. Budapest is full of Graffiti. It is everyplace. This is typical, every building, every wall, every advertisement. Graffiti was everywhere.

Budapest Street Scene

The roads in Budapest are normally guarded by guardrails like the one in the picture above. At first I thought this odd, and then I noticed guardrails near any high volume road. I started looking for crosswalks, but did not see any except for in low traffic areas. I went on a walk later in the day, and found that each major intersection had an underground passageway. Beneath the city was the invisible city, cold, highly commercial, and wet. I stood beneath the city for a few minutes and watched pedestrians. I snapped a few pictures, the one below is the only passible shot




I did not like the underground. It was wet, cold, and dangerous (at least for me). I had a hard time climbing the stairs because of the ice. The natives zipped up and down with ease, while I maintained a death grip on the handrail. Also, the cold made my knees hurt, which made me feel less stable while descending, but enough about me...

The vendors in the underground are willing to barter. I’m fairly sure my travel mates over paid for the cold weather gloves and scarves the purchased once they realized how cold it was. After all, when it rains, how much does a $5 umbrella cost?

Gellért Hill, Budapest

Gellért Hill overlooks Pest from the Buda hills. I would have liked to take a walking tour to the top of the hill, but I fear I would have frozen before I reached the top. I've got to come back to this city when its warm.

Magazine Stand

One thing I noticed in Budapest was the prevalence of easy access to pornography. The first thing I noticed was a man selling porno magazines from an island in the middle of a major road. The man had a makeshift sandwich board showing samples of various hard core skin mags. I thought this was strange but perhaps a one time affair, then I noticed another, and then another. It was common. This magazine rack sold Playboy, but it also sold hard core porn. I asked about it, the proprietor told me there were no laws against selling hardcore porn, but they were careful to not sell it to children.

Icy Road

This picture is of a country road on a very cold afternoon in the middle of rural Hungary. I shot about a dozen black and white shots; this one is the only one that adequately captured the mood.

Snow and Car Wrecks

I stopped counting accidents after I passed 20 cars in ditches next to the road. We were stopped for 20 minutes behind this 10 car accident, there would be two more large accidents before we reached good roads.

Long Beach from the WTC

This hellish view of Long Beach is my Photo Friday submission under the "Distorted" catagory.

20 Things I learned in Budapest.

1. The thumbs down symbol mean, “I want a BJ”.
2. Hungarian beer is good, but toasting with it is considered bad form.
3. Goulash tastes a lot like beef stew
4. Paprika is taken very seriously and it is used in everything
5. Hungarians do not like Russians (not at all).
6. Hungary has done a great job removing signs of the Soviet Union.
7. Hungarian woman are pretty and age gracefully.
8. Prostitutes are plentiful, attractive and inexpensive (I was just browsing)
9. Hungarian food emphasizes meat and is heavy with potatoes. It reminds of American Midwest farm food.
10. Hungarians like pancakes.
11. Graffiti is out of control, every building in Budapest is covered with it, and all of it is bad.
12. I felt like I was welcome and safe. Hungary reminds me of parts of America. (Not big city America, but little city America, the towns you drive through when driving between big cities.)
13. Hotel beds are for very small people. Hotel service on the other had, was outstanding.
14. The Hungarians I met were well educated, efficient, and professional. I was impressed with their potential for growth. It might take awhile, but Hungary is going to be a player in the EU.
15. The weather in winter sucks. The forecast for today, cold and gray, forecast for tomorrow, cold and gray with snow…
16. Many Hungarians speak very good English – on the other hand, I did not pickup a single word. Their language is very hard to understand and even harder to pronounce.
17. I did not think Hungarians were particularly religious until the Pope got sick, then the church bells started.
18. They listen to bad American music. Madonna seems to top the list. But I heard just about every tasteless POS top 40 pop song imaginable.
19. Hungarian rap is bad. Imagine hoards of Snoop Dog want-to-be’s, only white, ugly, and with little talent except mimicry. I won’t go into TV…
20. Hungary is the porn capital of Europe, now I understand why.

Jet Lag

This is my Photo Tuesday submission under “Everyday Items”. I’ve spend endless hours looking at my travel clock while spending the night in some nameless hotel. I found myself doing it again last night even though I was dead tired.

The pool

It was too cold to swim, but being a bit of a polar bear I would have tried it if the pool had not been frozen over.

Dinner in Nemesvamos

Wild Boar with potato pancakes – yummy.