Repenting And Catching Up

You know that, "Live fast/die young; leave a good looking corpse..." saying? I am working on the first bit but too late for the latter.

I am always thinking about other opportunities and think I would like to
start an NGO or a tour company.

NGOs are Non Government Organizations: Sierra Club, Green Peace But some do good work: Habitat for Humanity, Care, Unicef etc.

There are bzillions of them and I have thoughts around things that improve lifestyle for campesinos, education for children and so forth. People get sucked into giving so much money to bad/useless causes and there are so many folks in my neck of the woods with too much money that I think I could reach with my information and winning smile that I think it is worth a shot for something I am confident is a meaningful cause. There are hundreds of Peruvians that would work with me in something like this.

My other thought is to put together a company that gives tours of Peru. I know a lot about it now that I have lived here for twelve years. Imagine that! I have at least one great possible employee here who works for me now who would follow me to hell, I think. Anyway, I am thinking about targeting LDS church members who are interested in possible Book of Mormon sites and other stuff. I know something about eco tourism here too. The deepest and darkest Amazon forest is here just out of Cusco, lots of backpacking venues etc.

I am just cogitating at the moment.

My eldest daughter is getting married in Louisville Kentucky because she and her pretended are living in Bloomington, Indiana and Louisville is the closest LDS temple. She is a definite vagabond. She finished at BYU and went to live in Boston for two years but decided to get a Masters in Spanish linguistics and that led into a PhD. And meeting him...

He is a bit younger than she and is studying Mechanical Engineering in Indianapolis. I have talked to him on the phone and on SKYPE about three times. My wife is back there as I write this from the Peruvain altiplano and has seen and approved but I won't meet him until the wedding. My daughter will be 30 this November so don't know how much of a vote I have anyway. Seems like a great guy. She has a self portrait with him in her blog, she is a much more faithful blogger than I as you can see, if you want to take a look @ http://misshass.typepad.com/.

One son is finishing up a MS in geology but with a petroleum bent in DFW at
Texas Christian University. He has a son, is married and has a two year old son who calls me papa and loves my masks on my wall and my dogs and the rest of life. His wife is expecting a baby girl in five or six months.

My other son has finished his BA in Arabic Linguistics at BYU and is going to start law
school in August at Lubbock, Texas Tech. He got accepted to 7 law schools
so took the one he liked the best. He is also married and has an adorable one year old baby girl.

My wife, My twin daughters are bringing a friend of the girls and My wife's
brother, wife and three kids to Peru in July. This was planned before the wedding entered the picture, actually weddings. My wife and I will be padrinos for a dear friend here in Arequipa while they are here. It gives me rights to threaten bodily harm to macho little Peruvian men who might not be sufficiently attentive to the women in question. The culture shock for the other gringos might be fairly extreme in the fiesta. None of them recognize Salsa, Huayno, or Saya, let alone know how to dance to them. It should be entertaining.

Our girls will be juniors this year largely due to the whole Peru thing.
They get straight A's and my youngest (technically because they are twins) takes voice and sings beautifully, the 45 minutes older daughter writes stories and poems and they both read a lot. The latter asked for "Caesar's Conquest of Gaul" and a copy of Thucydides for her birthday you can guess who she takes after... the first has a thing for boring British literature. Go figure. The older kids are voracious readers as well. Peru was responsible for that in all but the eldest. We had terribly dull TV and for 6 months none at all when we got here. They became victims of my library and worse yet, they have no sense of modern music, just 60's - 80's blues, and rock and really old music. They actually recognize and like the blues and know who BB King and John Hyatt are. Weirdos!

In regards to my blogging it is not that I have quit but life just got a little bit ahead of me. I have also gone a fair bit into writing a book that is suspended at the moment. I am not sure if I am repenting and getting back into it but perhaps, just with smaller bits after this one. Goad me and fill my head with flattery and I would probably start again...

Regarding my book, interest in writing has mostly to do with places and people I have known. A great friend gives me a push now and again. He and I have nearly identical interest in the literature area...Well I like some reasonably weird stuff from the reading end and I read more than he does but what he likes to read, I like to write about. I have been reading lots of historical stuff, Herodotus, Xenophon, Shelby Foote and so forth, mostly military stuff of late. Of course I always read The Book of Mormon.

I have actually never left Peru. I go back and forth from New Mexico and feel like air travel is something that Dante left out of his circles of Hell. Still I love it here. I have thought of retiring here but it is a little troubled because of the whole security thing and with the resurgence of the Shining Path etc...

I am working more than I ever. It is cold down here now. I have spent less than two months at home so far this year. I do love Peru after these 12 years here but feel a tremendous disconnect with family and the states. I often think of Charles Boyer throwing away his little bag of French soil in the movie about Jean Lafitte.