2004 September » Hertzler’s Outpost

Archive for September, 2004

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Wednesday, September 8th, 2004

Scouts

I was feeling a little green last week in Warsaw, so while my traveling buddies walked around Old Town, I sat down and watched life go by. Sitting next to me was this troop of scouts. They were in Warsaw to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland. We also saw a commemoration ceremony at the Presidential palace which involved about 50 ambassadors and a color guard of Polish troops. Really interesting.

2 Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Wednesday, September 8th, 2004

Soccer practice, purse thieves, and no power

Normally I just help coach this crew, but today I ran practice by myself.

Five minutes into practice Stewart, my friend who does the lead coaching, got a call from his wife. Someone had just run through their front gate, through their front door, through their hallway and grabbed her purse!! They had just taken off, so Stewart left in hot pursuit since their house is in the same village as our practice. But they got away.

What a mess for them. Four of their passports were in her purse, and next week they are scheduled to renew their residence permits for living here. Not to mention the pile of money.

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Tomorrow our village, Budaörs, will have no power. Just like yesterday. Local construction needed the leeway - but all day for two days?

Around 2:30 pm yesterday Cathy called me in a panic. She had carpool duty, but since the power was out, she couldn’t open the garage door without the electric door opener. So we had to borrow someone else’s car to make the run. It made me think of all our friends in Orlando who experienced the same power outage due to the hurricanes, so we didn’t complain too much.

No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Wednesday, September 8th, 2004

Life lurched into high gear this week!

This last summer things really slowed down here since many of the people we work with were in the US raising funds or involved in summer outreach programs. Everyone was back by last week, and now life is moving at 100 mile an hour again. Last week our Fall had a few things scheduled. After today, there are only a few times unscheduled, and now we just need to hang on for the ride!

No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Monday, September 6th, 2004

Woohoo! No damage from Frances.

I just talked to our friends that rent our house in Orlando, and they said it survived Hurricane Frances with no damage. We are thankful that God spared them and our house! But now we’re watching Hurricane Ivan.
<AP Photo>

No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Sunday, September 5th, 2004

Budapest Half Marathon; good day for a race.

No rain, overcast, not too hot. A good day for a race. Results are posted here.

Running in Budapest was not too different than running in Orlando, except that I couldn’t really talk with anyone during the race. Even more difficult were the pre-race arrangements.

All runners were invited to change in the Széchenyi Bath House in City Park, but I did it wrong. Instead of going in the free entrance (marked “Women’s changing area”) which was intended for all racers, I paid 1900 Forint to go in the normal entrance for men. At first I felt like a stupid foreigner when it was clear I was the only race participant in that area, but then I realized I had unwittingly outfoxed the other 4500 runners. Instead of waiting in line for 20 minutes for the stinky port-o-lets, I had my own clean private restroom! And after the race I had my own shower and nearly private changing room - well worth the price!

4 Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Friday, September 3rd, 2004

First Hurricane Charley, now it’s Hurricane Frances!

Hurricane Frances is now bearing down on our house. This time our friends put up plywood shutters, and they’re bunkered down for a few days. I don’t suppose any of our trees will make it this time.

This all got me wondering why no one has yet made millions of dollars on hurricane proof windows. So, before I quit my day job to start a new company that would revolutionize Florida’s window industry with hurricane proof windows, I checked to see if someone else had already done this.

Yep.
Next house I buy in Florida will have these windows.

No Comments » - Posted in General by Jerry

Friday, September 3rd, 2004

Art militants don’t like artistic cows.

Yikes! It seems the Prague Cows are in jeopardy. Is nothing sacred anymore?

1 Comment » - Posted in General by Jerry

Thursday, September 2nd, 2004

Warsaw meeting

Now in Warsaw. Another day of meetings. They are further down the road developing a new website for students than our Czech friends. www.podprad.pl - if you can read Polish. Had a great of lunch of perogies.

Click on the picture of the cow in Prague - I got the gallery out there. www.hertzlers.com/photogallery/praguecows