San Diego Update

Arrived in San Diego with relatively few problems. Actually no problems. We did however get rear-ended. We also witnessed an armed robbery. All that aside, we have started this trip with many adventures.

We daparted T-town at around 9 am after filling up on some of Moms homemade cookin'. Starting a trip out in the right way is very important. We got on the road and headed straight south to Medford where our adventure was just getting started. As we were turning in to a small taco joint, the car behind us thought they would pass us but they actually ran into us....small problem.....the funny thing is, the guy sitting in the passenger seat jumped out and after looking at the damage his girlfriend had caused, he had the audacity to ask me this....

"Uh, are you going to pay for this out of pocket"

Huh? What? Apparently it was my fault he ran in to me. He claimed I didn't have my signal on, that my brake lights didn't work, and the list went on of why it was my fault. This 19 year old twerp almost got a backhand. Finally, after a witness to the whole thing emerged, the guy said he wasn't going to claim it. Classic

Later that evening after another few hundred miles we pulled in to a rest stop and gas station. We figured we'd give the truck a test sleep. While we were setting up for the inagural camp in the camper, we noticed three young men loitering in the back of Carls Jr. These guys looked quite suspicious. Even moreso was the running towncar sitting at the back of the parking lot, running, and waiting for them. We knew something was going down. These guys walked up to the front of the store, held a poor guy at knifepoint, and demanded that he hand over everything. Two knives, throat, gut, and a pat down. Apparently they only walked with the guys sunglasses, which were fake Oakley's. 15 minutes after this ordeal, the cops showed up, clued us in to what had really happened, and took our statements. Nuts. For the first day on the road, this is pretty good. Needless to say, we ended up moving the truck for a more favored camp spot.

More driving today and more surprises.... not in the landscape. It's flatter than eastern Oregon down here. We did however receive the gift of ELK. I love elk. They appeared about 100 feet from the road. Two large bulls and two cows.

We are in San Diego and heading for Mex in the morning!!!!

We are pumped and ready to roll.
Tim is the man and we are enjoying the trip, though it kinda feels like the trip before the trip.

1100 miles down, 8900 to go.

Updated Truck

Tim's been tweaking the truck. Here are some updates.

You'll see that the bed of the truck has been transformed into a sleeper. This will be nice for beach camping, parking lot sleeping and the daily SIESTA.



There have also been extensions added to the rack that will support a tarp for shade on those hot days, and a hammock for those other days. A combination of the two is probably ideal.


There is much to be done in the next few days.

Thursday.
Tim arrives in the pm
My brother Matt arrives from Boston
Matt Hartzell bachelor Party

Friday.

Nuts

Saturday

Crazy

Sunday

Leave in the morning!

School starts August 25

This means I have......68 days off

Sorry.

Truck Update

The Truck is nearing completion. At least the work on it is....

Last week he mentioned that we should probably take the truck up to the mountain and scramble it. This means that Tim would put the truck through the ultimate off-road test, to see whether is was capable of sustaining a 10,000 mile round trip. The checklist for this off-roading excursion would include, but would not be limited to the following.


Standard test -

4 x 4 working.
4 hi
4 low
limited slip differential working properly
clunking?

Tim's Test - (now comes the good stuff)

Rock crawl
60 degree pitch ascent
try to get it high centered
try and try and try to roll the truck
circular burn-out in 4 wheel drive, to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right.......
hi speed reverse-to-180-and drive off
..and last but not least....
at least a foot of air

The truck stood up to the test. So the confidence level in our vehicular choice is now at an all-time high.

Since my visit, a lot of work has been done to the truck as well. Here's a good look at some of the latest additions to the truck.

1. lights on the rack. These are "illegal for road driving, they're just too bright." As you can see they look bitchin' too.


2. Spare tire mount. Now this is my idea of a Baja rig. We'll carry two spares, multiple fix-a-flat bottles, a puncture kit, and a small compressor that can run off a cigarette lighter.




Here's the bad and the ugly.....

Upper ball joint...must be replaced



center support bearing for the driveline needs to be replaced...it's gone...toasted

The bell sounded - school is over!

The final bell has sounded.
The final card has been dealt.
The pencil sharpener has stopped.
The lockers are done opening.
The late work will not be accepted
The end had come.
Oh yes, the end is near.
It is clear, so so clear,
the sky that is, and my mind.
clear like glass,
clear like clear water
clear like the fluid in your eye.

uhhhh.

Excuse me if that makes no sense.

TRUCK

A few pics from the trip to Idaho.



welding

This is my favorite: Tim just discovered that the original spark plugs are in the truck. Yes, that's 167,000 miles on the same 6. We rushed to Napa immediately to pick up another set of the same kind!
draining/replacing all fluids

Truck Rack - primed.....time to paint

we got a problem

water pump replacement

w t f ???

What's the deal with us? We still burn coal to generate electricity? We still have coal miners? We imploded the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant? I just don't get it anymore.

I remember driving through South Africa. Every 40 miles or so (64km) there were strings of 3 or 4 nuclear reactors with huge steam towers. I'm not talking about 1 here, and 1 way over yonder. I'm talking about 3 to 4 towers right next to each other...like matches in a matchbook....like asparagus in a rubber band....like crayons in a box.....That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about row or nuclear reactors and steam towers EVERY 40 MILES!

I remember watching the video of Trojan being imploded. W T H?

I remember hearing stories on the Japanese, and how they are something like 40% dependant on nuclear to power the country.

W T ? and What say you?

Surfing the web

I was surfing the web today, "researching" surf spots in Central America and ran across this beauty. When I started planning for the trip, I thought the surf in Mexico and Central America was going to be weaker, considering the season. Apparently we are going to be there for the peak surfing season. Hopefully the surf isn't too large! If it looks anything like this undated photo of Sunzal, El Salvador, this trip will be epic!

"The Trip"

The Trip:

A 6 week journey through Mexico and Central America
Surfing, Mayan ruins, fine cuisine, and adventure.

The Vision:

Doing board repairs, surfing with locals, making some new friends, giving away a few surfboards, handing out a few Spanish Bibles...

The Crew:

J Small, Tim Rousse (childhood friend and MacGyver), Jason Terwee (pick up in Costa Rica)

The Truck:

'92 Nissan hardbody extended cab 3.0 l V6 5 speed manual 4 x 4.

This weekend was the first weekend of "work" for the trip. I drove to Boise on Friday afternoon immediately following school. Laura stopped by and hooked me up with a ridiculous care package....mainly edibles to be consumed during the trip.....free good food (all using double letters) is very good!

After my first stop in the Dalles to urinate, I picked up a hitchhiker named Thunder. (I have a policy of picking up hitchhikers that I know I could throttle if it came to it). I didn't ask Thunder if that was his real name or not, I felt that would have been stepping over into his territory. Thunder it was. The peaceful drive to Boise was gone, and so was half my sub, an apple, chips, and many other misc snacks. Thunder passed out about 4 hours into the trip and caught his falling/bobbing/falling asleep head for the remaining 2 hours

Made it, a little over 7 hours and about $80 in gas. Not bad.

9 am Saturday began the work on the rig. Tim is not a mechanic, but I'm certain he could earn a healthy wage if he opened a small business. The great part about Tim travelling with me on the trip....is the fact that he can make anything run, blow-up, or die. I'm pretty excited about this!!! He popped the hood and within minutes, he knew the waterpump, timing belt, distributor cap, rotor, plugs, airfilter, pcv valve, vacuum hose, radiator hose, and all fluids were in sad shape. We replaced them all! I say we, but I mean Tim. My only contribution was the cash I payed for everything. It was a team effort. I buy, Tim install.

While Tim cursed and groaned on the truck, I was busy finishing a rack I've been working on for the past three weeks. I finished the welding, wiped it down with mineral spirits (steel is coated with grease so it wont rust) and primered and painter the rack. Together we think the rack could support about a dozen road killed deer, two dozen surfboards, 4 spare tires, 50 gallons of water, and 36.5 gallons of gasoline.....ALL AT THE SAME TIME.......this thing is BEEFY.

Tims best guess is this...Despite the truck having 167,000 miles, the spark plugs have never, repeat, NEVER, repeat, NEVER been changed. Yes, I say this thrice. Apparently the timing belt, which should be replaced every 60,000 miles is an original too. How this thing hasn't caused serious, ultimately fatal truck damage, is beyond Tim.

Other fixing options include, but are not limited to.....getting more than 1 speaker working, rigging up a locking method for the tailgate (it has no lock), buying one more spare tire, finding a trail jack, rigging up the bed and canopy for camping, and areas to hide either firearms or sharp cutlery. Crossing the border with guns and large knives....bad things happen.

We still need to collect a bunch of equipment for the trip, first aid, emergency road kit, camping gear, but after this weekend we are both resting a little calmer when it comes to heading south. The rig is nearly ready.

Soon I start shaping surfboards.

Ye of LIttle Faith

I have a Christmas Tree!

Deracinated off of highway 26 during the monsoon. Smells great, looks great, and has 150 lights on it!

Picture coming soon

Aloha

No, I'm not dead!

I will try and do this again. Sorry, Sorry

Arrival in South Africa - Pretoria

After more than 24 hours of travel, we've arrived in Pretoria South Africa where we are staying with a local pastor and his family. His wife is in Brazil leading a team of 10 missionaries. Stephanie Brockett was on our flight to DC, we snapped a few pictures and wished her a great trip as she is heading to Europe for the next two weeks.
Our flight was pretty good. They have personal entertainment centers on the seat in front of you that offer games, movies. music, TV shows...etc. They even have these sweet Nintendo type controllers. Very nice. it was a total of 15.5 hours from DC to Johannesburg, so you can imagine there were a couple movies watched and many games played. I particularly liked the logic games, which made me feel good about sitting down for more than 15 hours. They made my brain feel good at least, the hind end was a little sore.
We narrowly missed an opportunity to exchange our direct flight to Joburg, for a roundabout...England to Joburg. The payoff was either 400$ or a free round trip ticket on South African Airways. Dangit. Considering we have an overnight in Joburg, it might have been nice to re-route through England in exchange for another $2500.00 ticket. What do you think?
Apparently Joburg is a dangerous place. There are lots of muggings, carjackings, and Willie, the pastor, his house looks bombproof. His neighbor has metal fencing that resembles hundreds of vertical SHARP spears, along with 5 electric lines, never mind the razor wire. We are not in the ghetto either. Willies house has steel bars over ever window, all doors and screens are locked separately - add steel bars too. His place has been broken into 3 times in the last year.
Willie and family speak English and Afrikaans, a derivative of Dutch and German that has been spoken here is South Africa for the past 300 years.
Started reading John Eldridge's book "Wild at Heart", midway through chapter two...a very good book so far! No, I haven't read it yet, despite it being quite old. It has great things to say as to the way we were designed as men and the passions of men's hearts. (He even mentions women's hearts too)
There is still a great sense of expectancy as we head to Malawi tomorrow. Once there we embark on an 8 hour van ride to Mzuzu where we will be getting dirty with building and working in some schools.
Please continue to pray for us as we travel, also that we may be changed!
Dankie - Afrikaans for Thank You

Malawi - ready to roll

All packed and ready to roll. We're staying at Jen's house, getting up plenty early in the morning, and flying for an entire day.

PDX to Washington DC = 4:45
DC to Johannesburg = 15:15
Jburg - Malawi = 3:00

Sounds fun!

My brother Ben helped me pack up some gear early on and decided he wanted to take the trip with me!


Try to post from Malawi.
Keep Prayin'
J

Big Wave Surfing

Though surfing big waves is not my passion. I deeply respect guys who charge, especially considering the punishment they receive when the don't make it.

Fireworks

After a little prodding from Ian, we met in Gresham and left for The Dalles. Actually across the river from The Dalles. We went to buy fireworks from the Indians. You know, the kind that you don't find here in Oregon, Boregon when it comes to fireworks. No, we are not in high school anymore, but can't men get into some fireworkage? I certainly think so.

Made the drive, rounded up the necessities..



Not enough money.

Back to The Dalles to withdraw more, +$2.50 service fee. ah

Now back to the reservation! At one point I busted out the line "What kind of stuff do you have under the counter". This brought back memories!!!

The drive back is the weird part of the story. Everything going great, we get back on 84 and head for Portland. We'll Ian never bothered to check the gas. We're on E...actually, well below E, and apparenlty we had been for some time. 40 miles from the nearest gas station, what to do? After about 30 minutes at 60 mph (the speed at which we thought we would get the best mileage) we pulled into Multnomah Falls and begged several people for gas. None had any! We got back onto 84.

Then we see the sign for Corbett, low and behold, there is a gas station in Corbett, albeit 1 1/2 miles straight uphill. So off we go in search of gas for a truck that has gone way too far already. Little did we know the gas station was already closed. It was actually a convenience store with a half pump in the front by the porch.

Decided to ask some locals. Ran into a fire chief who was mowing his lawn with his last tank of gas....no dice there either...

Enter Steve.

Steve pulls up on his cherry red Titan motorcycle. Very nice! He is a rock sold believer, works 50 yards from Ian, and is excited about cruising to lunch with us in the upcoming weeks! Steve calls his girlfriend, her cousin jumps on his Harley with a gallon of gas in his side bag, rolls over to us 20 minutes later, tops us off (not really) with this gallon, and sends us on our way!

Steve is my man of the week.

Despite the trip taking 5 hours with no food. We realize the trip was a total encouragement to us and Steve and a confirmation that Braddah J.C. is large and in charge.

I'm amazed at God's provision and the Body of Christ.

Braddah J got a job

Thanks for all the prayers! It's now official. Jon is gainfully employed with the Banks School District. He will be teaching mathematics (most likely Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry classes), he is also the new head wrestling coach at Banks High School! Stay tuned for updates.

Mahalo Ke Akua

Grad Party Time

Invited: EVERYONE
Day: Saturday June 16th
Time: 5:00PM - Whenever
Address: 15435 SW Hall Blvd. Tigard
Menu: Hawaiian style: BBQ Chicken, Burgers, Mac Salad, Rice, and many appetizers

POTLUCK: If you would like to bring a plate for everyone to share, that would be much appreciated.

Wear your finest Aloha wear (Hawaiian Clothing)
(If you have some)

BYOB

Malawi Africa 2007

It's official. We have tickets, and we are going! I'm stoked on the trip for many reasons, here are a few...

1.) God has called us to Go to the nations.....
2.) I've had a desire to go to Africa since I was little.
3.) I feel called to the mission field in some way and hope to refine this calling.
4.) We will be working on a building project to help the local people with several microenterprises and a start-up internet cafe.
5.) We will be training teachers new and effective ways of reaching children in education.
6.) We get to spend time in Kruger National Wildlife Park
7.) C'mon, it's Africa
8.) There are many others

Here's what I'm not excited about...

1.) Getting all my immunizations, but will do so regardless.

Please check out this video I put together that details the upcoming trip.

Thanks for reading, Jon

Graduation

Well. It's not official, but it seems this is the way Pacific University does things. They have you pay almost $100.00 for a cap, gown, tassel, and hood, never mind the $20.00 red thing hanging from my neck (I don't even know the name of it-anyone?) then they sit you in a two hour ceremony, give you a bottle of water, march you across the stage, toss a hood on you (which is kinda funky) then have the nerve to give you an EMPTY diploma holder. Then they schedule a class the following monday??? Are you kidding??

Ok, despite how bizarre that sounds, I actually had a great time. Two work samples to go, and a reflection. Stay tuned for the Grad Party in early June!

Mahalo Ke Akua

King Herod 's tomb found

This is cool on many levels. First of all, it's always neat to find old things, I mean REALLY old things, particularly those that have not been seen since they were buried and have been for centuries. I equate it to finding GOLD or DIAMONDS. Secondly, Israel is a hotbed of historical and achaeological digs, and people routinely find ridiculously neat artifacts, which are Priceless. Thirdly, It validates what the Bible claims through the uncovering of TANGIBLE historical evidence.