Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 142

Wildlife Wednesday - the Saola

I had two other ideas for my post today, but then this adorable little creature came back into my head and said, “pick me, pick me.”
Over the weekend I was looking up something totally unrelated, when I discovered the saola on the World Wildlife Fund’s website. Only first discovered in 1992, the elusive saola lives in the Annamite Mountains of Laos and Vietnam. None have survived in captivity for long and no one is sure what their numbers in the wild are. Estimates range from a few hundred to less than twenty. Scientists have only positively identified the saola in the wild four times.
The word saola (pronounced: sow-la) means “spindle horns” in Vietnamese. The animal is named such because of its two parallel horns which can reach 20 inches in length and are found on both males and females. Their coloring is chocolate brown to deep red with distinctive white markings on its face. They can weigh between 175 to 220 pounds and average 32 to 35 inches tall.  
Often called the Asian unicorn, they are most closely related to the cows, though they look more like they should be in the deer or antelope families. I don’t remember that much from high school biology, but I do remember trying to memorize certain class-order-family-genus-species of certain animals and that there was a reason each animal went in each group. 
But back to my beautiful little saola. They are so critically endangered because they only live in a very limited habitat, one which is shrinking from deforestation and development. Many are caught and killed in snares which are set up by the local people to catch other species. It has been through the locals, however, that the most information about the saola has been gleaned. (Pictures from the WWF website. Please click here to learn more about this critically endangered animal.)

Guess Who? then guess what

 You haven’t heard from me in a while. That is a good thing, though, coz I usually only write Mom’s blog for her when she has a headache. She is very sad coz she has had this headache for two days and it really bugs her. She says she has too many things to do and that she doesn’t have time to lay around waiting for her headache to go away.
I think she just needs to spend all day cuddling on the couch with me when she has a headache and that would make it go away sooner.
Anyway, now that I have the computer, I wonder if you would like to help us out. Everyone always asks what breed I am, to which Mom answers, “Mutt”, and I am totally ok with that, but we do just wonder sometimes what my real mom and dad might have been.
I know you have seen lots of pictures of me, but here are some more. Also they say I weigh about 60 pounds and I come up just past Mom’s knee. If you want to take a guess at which champions’ blood I have running through me, let us know. It would make Mom very happy.    What else do you need to know about me which might help you out?   I love to run.  And I love to swim. I even love being in a pontoon boat just looking at the water.   I love my cats.  But mostly I think they love me more.  But what I love the most is my whole family!

Let the Anticipation Begin!

My husband and I are horrible home-bodies. We each come home from work and never leave the house (or yard) until we have to go to work next time. Saturday nights we do venture to church and once in a while we go out to eat afterwards with some church-friends. Other than that, my husband goes grocery shopping once a week and I go shopping or to see my daughter every couple weeks. There’s the occasional road trip or a day trip, but that’s mostly in the summer.
Sure I make plans for vacation every year. This year, in addition to our daughter’s wedding in August, we have two other out-of-town weddings to plan for. Sometimes, though, it just feels like we never do anything.
So this weekend I made plans. Yes, my word of the year – anticipation – has come into play. I’m so excited. My husband and I talk about doing this kind of stuff all the time, but it just never happens. So Saturday afternoon, I was on the internet, I found what I wanted to do, and what I was positive the hubby wanted to do, checked his schedule and found that he was off. And just like that, I ordered us some tickets.


Hotel California, here we come!!!!

Not up on current events, but . . .

I don't follow the news as much as I should. I just can't stomach all the senseless violence. Instead of one anti-christ, it seems as if there are 30 of them out there, terrorizing innocent men, women, and children around the world. Then they have the gall to say that these killings are in the name of their god. Exactly who would follow such a god? 

Because I don't stay on top of current events, I can't comment much more than that about what I see going on around me. All I know is that it is getting pretty bad, and according to the Bible, is going to become even worse before it is through. But these mindless killings occurred even during Biblical times. 
Day 27Herod, when he realized that the scholars had tricked him, flew into a rage. He commanded the murder of every little boy two years old and under who lived in Bethlehem and its surrounding hills. (He determined that age from information he’d gotten from the scholars.) (Matthew 2:16)
Several times in the Bible, a king ordered the extermination of all young boys. Back in the Old Testament book of Exodus, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, commanded that all baby boys be drowned. He wasn’t afraid of any one boy in particular growing up and threatening his power. Instead, Pharaoh saw all Jews as a menace. Because they were such a strong people, he feared they would one day arise and conquer Egypt. To prevent this from happening, he ordered that the baby boys be killed, but he left the baby girls alone because he didn’t see them as a threat.

Wouldn’t it be horrifying to live in a time when such things happened? Are you thankful that you do not live in a society where that could occur? Surely you have heard on the news where countries around the world are currently killing babies and children. Is abortion in this country any different?
(From "The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days", available through Life Sentence Publishing, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and of course me.)
A very sick baby from my first trip to Kenya. All babies should have the same chance at life. 

Frustration

I spent the day yesterday with my daughter Val working on our nonprofit organization. The better part of two hours we slaved over our business plan. Neither one of us has any clue how to do this and are just winging it from sample business plans we have found on the internet. Val has asked a few “experts” but hasn’t been able to get a straight answer from them. The one guy just keeps sending her documents. We have enough documents; we can pull more from the internet. What we need is someone to go over the business plan we have and say, “yup, you are on the right track” or “boy, maybe you should scrape this and start over”.  
Simple enough. Feedback. That’s all we want. Why haven’t we been able to get any???
Next thing we worked on was social media. Tumaini Volunteers is already on Facebook and has a website. I thought that LinkedIn would be an appropriate place to get connected, so we tried that. After typing in our organization’s name, they wanted the work e-mail address of the person (me) who is the designated contact. We thought that the organization’s email address should be the one to use, which is tumainivolunteers@gmail.com. And LinkedIin can’t accept gmail accounts as a business email. Why would that be? It is the truth. That is our email address. So that went nowhere.
Next I set us up on Twitter. That actually worked out okay. I found a bunch of other nonprofits to follow who all either work with Kenya or orphans or clean water. Now they all just have to start following us. Except that I really don’t get Twitter anyway. I think that there is just too much going on. The goal, I suppose, is to have lots of followers, but the more followers you have the more Tweets start popping up and there is no way to read all of them.
On my personal Twitter page, I can get a hundred Tweets coming in within a few minutes. And often times there isn’t even anything to read. All that comes up are random numbers, letters and hash marks, which I know are all links to websites, but when there are four or five of these in each Tweet, which link do I even want to go to?
Arggh! Is there anyone out there reading this who can help us with any of these issues? We would so much appreciate it.

Thanks so much and have a great weekend. My goal is to have a weekend without frustration. Which may mean unplugging.  This is little Monica. Her father had abandoned her and her mother. When her mother couldn't take care of her child anymore, she hung herself from a tree outside their home. A neighbor took Monica to Agape Hope Center orphanage. This, believe it or not, is a story with a happy ending as Monica is now being taken care of. Thousands of children in Nairobi end up living on the streets - or worse - when their parents are no longer in their lives. 

A Different Ploy

Yesterday, I told you about my latest book, “The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days”. Tonight I am going to switch gears and try marketing something else to you.
If you have ever read my blog before, you know that in addition to writing, I have a passion for Africa. I came home from my first trip to Kenya in 2006 feeling as if I hadn’t accomplished a thing, confused why I even went. How things have changed since then! It all makes sense now and I know exactly why I went to Africa eight and a half years ago. (And if it is not cheating, I will put in one plug for the book I wrote about that fateful trip. “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven – One Woman’sTrip to Africa” is still available.)
What that trip set in a motion was a string of events which led my daughter and me to start our own nonprofit organization, Tumaini Volunteers. Why Tumaini? Tumaini (too-my-ee-nee) means hopein Swahili.
The following is from our January newsletter (our first newsletter!).
It has been a busy 18 months for Tumaini Volunteers! Back in September of 2013 we first became an incorporated charitable organization. After that, the long process of applying for tax exempt status began. Just a year ago, we sent in the 31 page form, along with several attachments, and the $850 filing fee.
On September 5, we found out our application had been approved. Tumaini Volunteers, Inc., is now an official 501 (c) (3) tax exempt organization.
We wished there was time to celebrate, but our work had only just begun. We had started writing a business plan a few months before, but now we had to get serious about it.
In addition to the business plan, we have begun planning our first volunteer trip. We hope to take a team of five or six volunteers to Kenya next fall for two weeks. We have several people on board already, but are recruiting a few more. Within in the next month or two we will choose a project to work on while we are there. If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch as soon as possible as deadlines are looming.
We remain in contact with our Kenyan friends to help us choose the project which is most helpful to the community’s needs.
Also contact us if you would like to join our team here at home, working on paperwork, fund-raising, marketing, etc. We can always use more help.
You can click here to go to our Facebook page or here to go to our website. I hate to sound desperate, but we are at the point where we really need more help. My daughter is so excited at the prospect of returning to Kenya and really making a difference. Won’t you help make a difference too? And bring Hope to Africa? 

Blatant Marketing

It is hard to believe that I took a marketing class in college or that I had a passing interest in going into advertising. There are so many things which I do not know about marketing. I suppose the hardest part is that by trying to market my books and my own writing, I am really marketing myself. And who wants to do that? But then who can afford to hire someone else to do it?
I know that I have told you that my latest book, “The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days”, is now available through the publisher, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and “every place where books are sold” (which may not quite be true, but I would love it if people would try that). Or of course you can send me a message by whatever means works for you, and I can get you a signed copy, price negotiable.
It might help you if I told you more about the book. The cover blurb reads like this:
Jesus' life on this earth began in a humble stable. Thirty years later He began preaching the good news of salvation for lost sinners. Have you ever wondered where He was for those three decades in between?
Take a few minutes each day to learn about the infant Jesus and His parents Mary and Joseph. Find out what life was like for a simple Jewish family two thousand years ago. Travel the countryside of the Middle East during Biblical times. Witness Jesus becoming a young man.
By reading The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days...•          “Your faith will be strengthened as you learn more about the boy Jesus.”•          “You will feel closer to God by knowing more about His Son.”•          “You will understand what life was like for Jesus growing up.”•          “You will know more about living during Bible times.”
But is that all there is to it? A friend of mine said that she read somewhere a fictional story about Jesus as a young boy. He was goofing around with a friend, the friend fell out of a tree and broke his arm. Jesus touched it and it was healed. His friend is like –whoa! And Jesus is like, don’t tell anybody!
I kept my book as close to fact as possible, throwing in just a little bit of speculation. But I so badly wanted to write a story like the one above. Or maybe make something up about Jesus out fishing with His brothers. Naturally they each want to catch the biggest fish, but they all know that Jesus is going to always pull in a fish bigger than anybody else’s.
Did His brothers and sisters get tired of Him always being perfect? Or did He always keep a low profile, even in the family? Did He always catch the smallest fish? Did He always come in last when running a race? Did He do His chores just good enough to pass inspection?
I’d like to think that Jesus was like any other boy growing up in His time. Ok, maybe, He never did get in trouble, He never disobeyed His parents or fought with His siblings. But wouldn’t you have liked to have known Him then?

 All I can offer you is my 40 days of thoughts in my latest book. Available at all of the places mentioned above.     

My word is heard from again

Last week, I chose my “word” for the year, the word which was to guide me and keep me on track this year. The word I would turn to for inspiration or for tranquility. I picked the word “anticipation”. Or maybe it picked me.
I live to anticipate stuff – trips, holidays, days off, retirement. Yet, here I have been sitting for nearly a week feeling as if I had nothing to anticipate. There were no plans in the works, no holidays on the horizon, and until the number of days until retirement is less than a four digit number, that is just a depressing thing to look forward to.
But I won’t give up. On Monday, I turned in a vacation slip for a wedding out of town next summer. I wrote a note to the manager in big bold letters. “I know this is a long ways away, but I need to know as soon as possible so we can make reservations”. Usually I need to turn in such a vacation slip two or three times, always getting the response that the manager can’t plan that far in advance because change happens.
Then yesterday afternoon, the manager set this benign piece of paper on my desk, with her signature and an “x” in the line next to approved. That’s what I’m talking about – let the anticipation begin! I will continue to anticipate the day I can return to this, my favorite place ever. 

The Mischief of Two Dogs

Earlier I shared a poem about a naughty little dog, who was actually a compilation of three dogs I have run across in my life. I mentioned that my Dino was one of the dogs and what his indiscretion was. And here is the rest of the story.
Back in the early 70’s when I was around ten years old, my sister and I started bugging our parents to get a dog. We had a few cats over the years, all of whom seemed to meet their demise under the tires of a car. But my parents didn’t want to be tied down to a dog. Fate stepped in when one of Mom’s co-workers asked if she knew of anyone who would like a dog as they just couldn’t keep theirs any longer. The woman said he was a miniature collie and that he was about a year old. That spring, my sister and I met him just the one time, tied up in the woman’s small back yard in town. He was perfect. We could hardly contain our excitement.   Mac in 1973, shortly after we got him. Sorry that I cut off my sister's head. Mac came home within a few days. The woman who gave him to us issued two warnings. He liked to run away. And keep him away from the Christmas tree. The only Christmas that they had him, they had left him alone in the house with the Christmas tree and had come home to find it completely destroyed. My mom was cautious the first Christmas we had Mac, but he never gave the tree a second look. Mac in 1981. What a beautiful face, huh? Just last week I met the third and final dog who inspired my poem about a destructive pound-puppy. My son rents a room in an old farmhouse in the southern part of the state. His landlord has always owned Springer Spaniels. In fact when Nick first moved into the house, the landlord’s dog’s name was Mac. Crazy, huh?
Well, just like my family’s Mac, this man’s Mac was up in years and had to be put to sleep. The man said, I don’t want to be tied down to another dog, yet within a few months, he heard of a young Springer who was looking for a good home. Gage is three years old now and still 100% puppy. When I spent the night in the spare room of this farmhouse last week, Gage was into everything. He didn’t destroy stuff, he just took everything he could get his teeth into, took it in his kennel and not give it up. Nick warned me about him, yet the dumb dog got my socks, my gloves and my bra.   Our Mac with Nick in 1987. If this picture doesn't melt your heart, nothing will.
Why do we put up with this stuff from these four-legged demons? Because they look up at us with those deep brown eyes and we melt.    

One Dog's Mischief

This would be crunch-time for me on the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I work until seven tonight and I have Bible study at seven Tuesday morning. Very little extra gets done in my world in that time period. I was going to write some extra blogs on Sunday, but already did one here and on my other blog. But I am going to plow through and still somehow post something witty every single day this month!
In addition to everything else on Sunday, I wrote the following poem for my local writers group Facebook page. We have been having trouble getting together in person, so try to share stuff at least on Facebook. I posted the challenge to write a piece which included the line, “And that’s when the Christmas tree went out the door.”
The dog’s name was Bingo just like the songBut he did not know right from wrongHe got in the garbage, the cupboards, the washAnd chewed up so many things – oh goshNo matter how many scoldings or swatsHe kept getting into things, and I mean a lotThen he would gaze up with his little dark eyesA tilt of his head which made him look wiseHe would whimper a moment and raise a pawAnd just for that second I would forget all his flawsAs Christmas approached, I thought I had had itWith all of his messes, that four-legged sh - -I couldn’t imagine him not dragging awayEach present and package I had wrapped through the dayBut I was determined to keep Christmas good The dog would go first, yes he wouldHe seemed to relinquish his mischievous spreeAs if finally he realized what it meant to meThe house was all ready, the lights all aglowEven the nativity which was more than for showWith the Baby Jesus in his bed fast asleepUnder the tree, Mary and Joseph to keepIn the middle of the night Bingo jumped in my bed  An innocent mixed breed who might have been deadHad I not saved him at the shelter that day Picking him from all of the straysWhen I went in the next room early next mornI screamed like a banshee when I looked at the floorEach present, each Santa, each snowflake, each ballHad been dragged from the tree and that’s not allBaby Jesus had become a scary sad sightHaving been torn in four pieces overnightI looked at the dog and started to roarNo more of you, dog, you are out that doorAs I pointed one finger and shook another at himHe lowered his body and started to shimFlat on the floor he slinked over to mePut one paw on my toe, looked at the treeI decided right then something must giveThis kind of a mess is no way to liveSo I picked up my mutt as I scanned the floorAnd that’s when the Christmas tree went out the doorMy wish for next year is not for a tree But to still have my Bingo spend Christmas with me.  My dad's dog Mac under our Christmas tree in 1981. The broken leg is a story for another time. 
You perhaps think that this poem was inspired by Dino, the Wonder Dog. Actually, there was only one line which referred to an incident he was involved in, but I took it out as there was a 300 word limit on this challenge, and I was already over by 100 words! Dino’s indiscretion involved chewing up my underwear, only the dirty ones of course. Arrgh. The disgusting little mutt! But that was when he was still a puppy. He is all grown up now. All he chews up now are used Kleenex’s! He’s matured so much.

Watch for tomorrow’s post where I will tell you about the antics of the other two dogs I thought of when I wrote this. (Yes, one of them is Mac.)