I had to smile at this:



This car is the NmG (stands for “No More Gas” ). You can read about it here. It’s not a hybrid; it’s pure electric. Goes about 30 miles on a charge, so is mainly suited for buzzing around town. Seats one, so you’ll have to get a separate NmG for each passenger. Fortunately you can park four of them in a standard parking space.

I wish we can a couple of these at 3ABN!

On July 15, I received my first adertising by mail for Christmas cards. This comes from National Geographic. I need to write to Lands’ End and L. L. Bean, and ask them if their marketing departments are asleep. I mean, if they were following the lead of National Geographic, they’d be selling holiday sweaters and winter wear, instead of swimsuits and summer duds.

Each year it seems the Christmas season gets pulled further ahead. You may have seen this cartoon (it’s been around), but I think it depicts the situation perfectly.

This past Sunday, July 20, I went biking with Hernando and two other guys from 3ABN, Ralph S. and Tim L. It was a really nice biking trail, which started in Harrisburg. This is one of those old railroad beds that has been converted into a bike trail. The first portion was paved, but after that it was mostly limestone, which is not too bad to ride on.

We went 30 miles roundtrip, with the turn-around point being the small town of Carrier Mills. Further on down, this same path crosses the famous Trail of Tears, but we did not go that far.

It got quite hot. Fortunately we started early. Still, by the time we finished, the temperature on a bank sign said 103 degrees! I lost a lot of fluid, even though I was drinking like crazy. I was still re-hydrating on into the evening. I also got a bit sunburned.... I have to remember to use sunscreen!

The number of people who have become “fans” of 3ABN’s Facebook page reached 300 last Monday, the 14th. Activity has been a little slow, because — frankly — I am the only person maintaining that page. I’ve been adding news about major upcoming events, but other than that I haven’t really had any great inspiration for what our page visitors would like to see. A page like this gains value as more people become fans of it, so the future looks good.

Our ASI event on Facebook has taken on a life of its own, with other people inviting friends, beyond my circle of friends that I personally invited. Although the number of people who have indicated their intent to attend is relatively small, it is still good to see regular additions to the numbers just about every week. A frustrating aspect of Facebook is that you can’t simply invite fans to an event (or so it seems); the most you can do is send an update to the fans, and invite your personal friends.

Tags: 3abn

This week was our first 4-day work week. Previously all 3ABN employees typically worked 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, Monday through Thursday, and 8:00 until noon on Friday. With a half-hour lunch break this came out to 40 hours. Now we are starting at 7:30 am, and working essentially 38 hours per week (but pay remains the same), with Friday off.

With finances a little tight, 3ABN has not been able to give raises for some time, and this was deemed one way of benefitting employees without increasing payrolls. Besides the advantage of having a 3-day weekend—like many church entities have, as well as various ministries—it also saves employees the expense of the Friday commute to work. With gas prices getting so high, it is potentially a significant savings.

I’m really happy about this new arrangement, and hope it works out.

Tags: 3abn

A friend asked me to do a personal favor of retouching a photo. Here is the progression.

The original image (cropped to the face—the whole image is much larger, but I wanted to show the details):



Brightness adjustments:



Color adjustments:



The eyes could not be salvaged from the original data, so I redrew them from scratch in Photoshop:

Tags: photoshop