Hey Pals!

Not a lot of big news lately, but here is a summary of what's new with Charlie and Marcela.

- We got back from Buenos Aires last week okay. Long flight, but now we are almost unpacked and getting settled back into the house.
- We've both got about a MILLION things to do, from budgets to painting bathrooms, organizing boxes we just moved in, to hanging new closet racks... wow. busy stuff.
- Marcela is starting to think about what she'd like to do, from event managemet to helping out spanish speakers with legal or other troubles... ideas for her?
- As many of you know, my workplace is downsizing, (more or less closing for new business) and I'm now starting to look for other opportunities... I have a 3 pronged attack plan, so I think things will work out okay!
1. Pursue freelance Search Engine and Marketing Consulting. "Have a site, but don't see it on Google? I can fix that."
2. Catch up with old friends and co-workers, network for a new full time gig.
3. Work on the business plan for my personal identity theft product/company idea... I'm sure you'll hear more on this soon. If you have been a victim of any type of identity theft, please drop me a note, I'd like to hear about it.

Anyway, that's the main focus of our days... 8-)

Have a great week!
Charlie

Your wife/accountant does NOT want you to see this

Wow, Amazing monitors... here's to us all winning the lottery!
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A BRILLIANT article you SHOULD READ!

Bravo to Ms. Henneberger! I've been thinking on exactly this subject for a while... my ire has been directed at all the gold and art in the vatican, but the same point with us lazy americans. Between this great article, and several by Fareed Zakariah, I think I'll be subscribing to Newsweek soon.
Any Comments?
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Overturning the Gospels

Katrina has reminded us that Christian morality should be about responding to the wretched and loving the unlovable—not about other people’s sex lives.

By Melinda Henneberger
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We as a nation—a proudly, increasingly loudly Christian nation—have somehow convinced ourselves that the selfish choice is usually the moral one, too. (What a deal!) You know how this works: It's wrong to help poor people because "handouts'' reward dependency and thus hurt more than they help. So, do the right thing—that is, walk right on by—and by all means hang on to your hard-earned cash.

Thus do we deny the working poor a living wage, resent welfare recipients expected to live on a few hundred dollars a month, object to the whopping .16 percent of our GNP that goes to foreign aid—and still manage to feel virtuous about all of the above.

Which is how "Christian'' morality got to be all about other people's sex lives—and incredibly easy lifting compared to what Jesus actually asks of us. Defending traditional marriage? A breeze. Living in one? Less so. Telling gay people what they can't do? Piece o' cake. But responding to the wretched? Loving the unlovable? Forgiving the ever-so-occasionally annoying people you actually know? Hard work, as our president would say, and rather more of a stretch.

... more after the link...

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Hope you are all well. We are back in Buenos Aires after a week of traveling by car to the northwest area of Argentina! It was great, and very different from the rest of the country that we've seen before. We saw spectacular desserts and mountains with amazing colors in the dirt and rocks. We also learned about many of the indiginous peoples that still survive there and their history. Inca invastions as well as Spanish invasions and liberation of the country after that... good stuff.

We'll be back in Austin this weekend, looking forward to being back in our house! w00t! Anyone buying a new ipod? I'll also be on a new job hunt after 2.5 years! ouch. 8-)

Shalom!
Charlie

BA Update: Back in Bs. As. Argentina!

Hey all!

Hope you are all well. Marcela and I are back in Argentina for a few weeks. We are in Buenos Aires for a week, then up to the north west of the country, in the mountainous dessert area. I understand there are more native/indigenous people in that area, as most of the rest of the country has few native peoples. I'm really looking forward to seeing and learning more about them.

We'll fly in, then rent a car to drive around to Salta, Tucuman and the JuyJuy areas. It's up near the border with Bolivia to the north, and Chile to the west. If I'm lucky, we'll get to go to one of those countries too, just a step over the border, like when we spent a day in Brazil.

Hope you are all well!
See you soon!
Charlie & Marcela