We Apologize in Advance

Due to sheer boredom B and I switched our faces from an old picture. The results were so ghastly that vomiting incurred.

So....

We thought we would share it with you. Have a nice day!

Our First Practice

We had our first Little League Coach Pitch Baseball practice last night. Needless to say, I was pretty confident in my abilities to coach until the kids began to show up. I have so many stories from those two hours alone it is hard to know where to begin.

Here are some of my observations after the first practice.
*I have 14 kids. 6-8 year olds 5-9 years olds, and 3-10 years olds

*I have 6 girls and 8 boys.

*I have 5 Americans, 8 Arabs, and 1 Iranian.

*Only 4 of them have played before.

*Only 6 brought a glove. Most didn't know they needed one.

*Most of them speak some English. Three of them for sure don't have a clue what I am saying, and as many at 7 are confused the majority of the time.

*I don't speak whatever language they speak in Iran


Here are some phrases in Arabic that I now know that I dont know.
*Stand arms-length apart

*Keep your feet shoulder's width apart.

*Keep your weight on your back leg.

*Take a knee

*Run a lap.

*Swing the bat level.

*The word for "base." You know, first base, second base, etc. So that was ackward, "After you hit the ball, go to...uh....go over there."


With all that said... it's going to be fun. Read the post below this one and cast your vote. Feel free to express how well you think we are going to do. It won't hurt my feelings. The kids are having fun, so I am happy.

How Will We Do?

Since you've read about all the things that are completely backwards about our team. How do you think we will do? What will our final record be? The first number represents "Wins," and the second represents "Loses" For example, 0-8 means "no wins and 8 loses."

A. 0-8

B. 2-6

C. 4-4

D. 6-2

E. 8-0

Vote by clicking on the comment link below.

Coach Clayton

I just got off the phone with the director of the Little League here, apparently I am now a coach. I have a team of 12 kids from ages 8-10. I just wanted to let you guys know. Once a week 2.5 Bulls will briefly turn into Arab ESPN to cover all the ins and outs of the upcoming Arab Little League Season. Stay tuned.

Mother's Day Video

Today is Mother's Day in the Middle East. We were able to go downstairs and celebrate with our family here. I apologize for the poor quality of the video. We recorded it on our digital camera. Just the same we thought it would be nice to introduce you to our family here. Click on the picture to enjoy the video.

Forgetful is as forgetful does

Who would have ever thought that a small piece of metal would completely guide and direct an entire day.

For those of you who have known me for very long at all, you know that I have a problem with misplacing my keys. I am forever locking myself out of things...my parent’s house, my car, my apartment, once or twice I left my keys at the bank where I worked overnight. Luckily, someone always has a spare, or some kind person will suggest the necessity of a hide-a-key, and I will be saved.

Well, this week we have had a visitor staying with us. He took my set of keys so he could come and go as he pleased. The house is usually locked so he needed the freedom of his own set, (We get in trouble from our sweet little land lady if we don't lock our door). The only trouble is that Clayton kept running errands, or worse meeting with our friend who was visiting, I forgot to make sure I had a set, and I was locked out several times. But there was nothing to fear because our little old land lady has an extra. Twice this week I had to go down and ask to borrow it. But you can't just run in and borrow something in this culture, you have to sit and drink tea and talk for several hours.

Yesterday I came home and as I was walking to my house from where the taxi let me off I realized, "Oh no, I do not have a set of keys AGAIN!" So I prepare myself for a two hour visit with Mama. I get to the house, and there is no Mama. She wasn't home. So I thought I would sit with her daughter in law who lives in the apartment next to us. The only trouble was she wasn't home either. So it was 11:30, Clayton and his friend had just gone on a visit, which again means about an hour and a half or two hour minimum wait. So I thought I would call and see if I could meet him somewhere to get a key. Well, I try to call and my phone was completely out of money. I didn't even have enough to send a text. And I didn't have enough money with me to go buy another card. So I waited up on the roof and tried to finish some homework. I checked on Mama another two or three times, but she wasn't ever home, same thing with my next door neighbor. Finally about 1:30 I decide I will just wait and quit running up and down the stairs.

At about 1:45 I got a call from Clayton that said they were on their way home! Yay! By this time I was getting HUNGRY!!! So needless to say, I spent two and three quarter hours on the roof. All this goes to show...a hide-a-key is a good idea anywhere I go! If anyone thinks of a creative way to hide a key on a cement block of a building let me know!

Birthday Thank You

I was officially 24 years old yesterday. Depending on where you are at determines what you say to that. Example: When I was 16, I thought people died after 21, so for all my 22 and under crowd you guys are waiting for me to have a kid and start looking for retirement homes. All of you other people....well you are thinking that I am still young and clueless. You are more right then the younger crowd.

So, depending on your stage in life depends on how clueless or wise I am.

With all that said, I want to say that I was completely blown away. I recieved email, ecards, and phone calls from four different continents. It was really cool for me. It really was a oasis for me to rest in yesterday.

You guys are great. Thank you!

I Need To Wash My Mouth Out!

I learned my first really bad curse word in Arabic the other day. I didn't know it at the time. I had learned the word for prostitution. I know, I know, what could I possibly want to know that word for.

Well, I was trying to tell the story of Jesus in John 8. About the adulterous woman, so I needed to know the word for prostitute, so I looked it up in the dictionary, got the word, no problem. I was talking with a buddy about it and passed it on to him, because it was a new word for him too.

Well later that day we had a meeting with an Arab brother and my friend was talking about how some Arabs leave the middle east and go elsewhere for alcohol and "prostitution." This brother almost falls out of his chair in shock.

Apparently the word in the dictionary that supposedly means "prostitute" in common, everyday language is actually is a really, really bad word. We would use it in English to describe someone as "a son of a [insert the vulgar word we just learned here]"

So instead of saying that they leave for the alcohol and the women, we said they leave for the alcohol and the @#$*%. Wow! I am going to have to wash my mouth out with soap. Oh, the embarrassment.

Taxis Aren't Good

I had a friend coming in the other day and I needed to go meet him at the airport. I've made several taxi friends over these past months, so I called one of them and asked if he could give a ride to the airport and pick up my buddy. "No problem" was his reply and so we agreed on a time an hour before the plane arrived to meet. (An hour before because it takes 30 minutes to get to the airport, and it will take him 30 minutes to pick me up) The plane arrives at 2pm so we agree to meet at 1pm. Here is a timeline of the events that followed:

1:00 - I call him and he says, that he is on the way, but will be a little late. I figured this, so we were cutting into my 30 minute buffer.

1:30 - I call him again. He says he is on his way, be there in 5 minutes.

1:45 - I call him again. He says he is almost to my house.

1:50 - Yup, you guessed it, he is right outside my house.

1:51 - I am in front of my house and he isn't there.

1:55 - I am walking to the main street to find a different taxi.

2:00 - The plane has landed, and I am standing on the side of the road 30 minutes away, waiting on a taxi.

2:05 - Grab and cab and negotiate price and headed to the airport.

2:07 - Call the original cab guy. Tell him I've left and will talk to him later. He is upset that I didn't wait on him, but he is still not at my house.

2:15 - Friend texts me from the airport, He is through customs and waiting on the side of the road.

2:23 - We get pulled over for speeding! Gets a ticket.

2:31 - Back on the road.

2:40ish - Giant car eating pigeon smashes into the windshield. Have to stop and clean off pigeon guts.

2:44 - Pack on the road with a clean windshield, well sort of clean.

2:50 - Hit a random Government check point. Pull us over and search the car, take my passport (PTL I am finally legal) and run background check on the driver. They take their time.

3:20 - They let us go.

3:30 - Arrive at airport and pick up friend.

From this experience I would like to add a modifier to my invitation for all of y'all to come see us. When you come see us, please arrange your own transportation to our house. Grab a taxi and say, "I want to go to the Bullion's house." They for sure will know us and bring you straight to our door. :)

How to be a Stupid American 101

Arabs tend to do things in smaller, yet more frequent, portions. Instead of going to a huge supermarket and picking up more quantity, they go to the little corner store five times a week and pick up a few things. They very seldom make the huge grocery store "stock up" run.

Well today we made the "stock up" run. We came home with a taxi trunk full of bags. We each had both arms full of groceries. We were heavy laden to say the least. All the neighbors were just shaking their heads.

I wish it ended there, but I had to take out the trash after I put up all the groceries. We'd waited a bit too long, so the trash had built up a bit. We had built up a collection of Pizza Hut boxes, from several get-togethers we had had for our Western friends.

I decided that carrying a 55 gallon trash bag and 4 big pizza boxes wasn't a good idea, so I put the boxes in another trash bag and headed out the door. So instead of one huge, black trash bag, I had two huge, black trash bags.

The kids out on the street just froze as I got out there. You may remember the kids from the "Kids and the Tire" Video. Those same kids, just stopped and watched as the stupid American carried two huge bags of trash. People here don't do that. They throw out the trash when the fill up their little trash cans. B and I went out the second day we were here and got a big kitchen size trash can, so we wouldn’t have to go to the trash everyday.

Well, that single act set us up to stick out like stupid Americans. I bet the kids are out there digging in the dumpster just to see what could possibly fill up those two huge bags.

Life....it's funny.

Language Blooper #2456

Arabic has letters that sound the same but don’t sound the same. Does that make any sense? Example: they have a heavy “d” and a normal “d.” The normal “d” to us sounds like an English “d.” Well, to be honest the heavy “d” sounds like a normal English “d” too.

I am learning that it isn’t so much that these two sound very different; it is that they affect the vowels around them and how you say them. (Does that make sense to anyone, because that sounds completely goofy to me?)

Anyways, it kills me in conversation. I was calling a guy trying to arrange a time to go and have shyy (tea) with him, so I kept asking him, “Inta faadi? (are you free?)” He sounded really confused on the phone, so I thought maybe it was a bad connection, so I kept saying it over and over. Inta faadi? Inta faadi? Inta faadi? Finally, he gets it, or I said it right, and we set up a time.

So here was my mistake: if it’s a heavy “d” it changes the “aa” to a sound like an “o” in “cot.” The way I was saying it was like the “a” in “fat,” which is the normal “d.”

If you think you’re confused, imagine having this explained to you in Arabic like it was to me. Yikes! No wonder, I’m lost.

So the reason he was lost, was that I wasn’t saying, “Are you free?” I was saying, “Are you my redeemer?” Yeah, I can only imagine how awkward that was for him. Me, of course, being stupid, just kept saying it thinking it was a bad phone connection. “Are you my redeemer? Are you my redeemer? Are you my redeemer?

Geez, I’m such an idiot.

Like Father, Like SON

We made our monthly visit to the doctor today. It went well. This was the visit where we looked at all the vital organs and made sure they are all there and in tact. To be honest, they could have been showing an old black & white movie for all I know, because I can’t read those things for nothin’. But despite my ultra-sound challengedness (how’s that for being PC) we saw pictures of HIS liver, kidneys, bladder, and several other things that I had no clue about. They all looked the same to me.

The only thing that I knew for sure was where HIS heart was. It was the only thing moving, but right in the middle of it HE fell sound asleep. HE wasn’t moving. HE slept like a rock through the whole thing. We couldn’t get any measurements of HIS spinal cord. The doctor had B jump around, cough, and roll over to see if the kid would wake up and move so we could check HIS spinal cord.

The doc told us to come back after an hour and maybe the kid would be up by then and we could get a look at HIS spine. Yeah, after an hour……HE was still asleep. Like father like SON, I guess, so we have to return again after two weeks and hopefully HE is up by then.

I Found the Problem With Iraq!

Stupid ideas. They are everywhere. It is amazing how many people will believe things that are completely dumb, just so they can keep blame on someone or something.

I am not denying that this could be happening, but merely commenting on how far we will go as humans to find a scapegoat for our problems and then beat it with everything that goes wrong in our lives.

So on with the story.. (please read this with sarcasm)

I was having coffee with an Arab friend of mine. I asked him what he thought about the “Family War” in Iraq. Arabs don’t have a word for “Civil War,” so they call it a Family War. I asked him why he thought the Sunni Muslims and the Shia Muslims couldn’t get along. Can you guess his response? The AMERICANS are doing it! Gosh, never saw that one coming.

For those of you not actually following the whole Sunni/Shia conflict, it actually started back in the 8^th or 9^th century with the 4^th Caliph. Sunnis said one thing, the Shias said another, and since then they’ve been quietly trying to blow the other one up even though they are both Muslim.

I, of course, told him this. He, of course, didn’t care and went on to tell me how the Americans are ruining Sunni/Shia relations. My only response was, “Gosh, really? How?”

So, did you know that the American government will go in and steal a car from a Sunni and put a bomb on it? Yeah, they do. They then return it to the Sunni. The Sunni, thinking that this is normal I guess, gets in his car and drives off. The Americans then watch and see where the Sunni goes. If he happens to go close to a Shia mosque or hangout, (which never happens, I mean, come on, do you think Catholics and Protestants are hanging out together in Ireland?) then the Americans will blow up the car by remote control, killing the surrounding Shias. They do the same thing with Shia cars in Sunni areas.

Did you know that? Of course you didn’t, but everyone here knows it. Why didn’t I know? I guess I was just dumb. I should’ve seen it coming. Of course, why wouldn’t I expect the American government to blow up mosques and kill people and keep the country at a simmering civil unrest, so it is actually harder to establish the government there?

My eyes have been opened!

So, fellow Americans, I urge you to stop blowing up mosques and killing Sunnis and blaming the Shias and vice versa.

Xutbeh Video

I was finally able to track down some footage of the Xutbeh we went to last month (you can look in the February Archives and find the original post about it). This is a quick shot of the bride's dance. Basically the women gather around the bride and they dance. I am quite fortunate, and so are you for that matter, that we didn't get any footage of the groom's dance. Click on the picture below and it should take you to the movie clip.

B's First Post

For my first official blog entry I just wanted to let everyone in on a little fact from my week. I found out today that the olive trees are in blossom. As much as I love those dainty little treats, I have realized that I do not like their blossoms. For the first time in my life I am suffering from allergies. It has turned into a beautiful spring here, but every time we open the windows I start sneezing my head off (or at least my nose). It turns out, we have an olive tree garden in front of the house, and there are probably 20 of these trees standing right outside the front door. Now I know why I am sneezing, all the dust in our house is blown in from the olive trees! So I just wanted to give y'all a picture of B's big red nose. However, we are thankful for the green of the trees again. And hey, who would of thought, there is actually some grass here. It is the prettiest this town has looked yet.
-B

Arabic and I are through! I mean it this time!

Today is a good day. It is good because the LORD created it. Other than that…..nothing else is good. Arabic isn’t good today. Getting up early isn’t good today either. I am filing for a divorce from Arabic. My relationship with her is done! She is too complicated, demanding, and time consuming. She has too much baggage.

I sat through my second period Grammar class and thought, “Please, shoot me! God, I love you and I am ready to see you, let’s finish this and I’ll come Home.” As you may have guessed, God isn’t really into making deals, so I had to finish Grammar class. I realize that me telling you how awful it is won’t convince you, so I’ve included photos of my doodling from class. Enjoy!

Arabic is like being run over by a truck.


The Arabic Bear is always hungry and likes to eat foriegners.

Language Blooper #2317

Following my least favorite class, "Grammar" I have one of my favorite classes, "Story Telling." The first half of the semester we bring something for "show & tell," and the second half of the semester we are going to be telling stories from the Bible. I am pumped.

Well, today we had "Show & Tell" and a girl brought her sunscreen. She talked about how it was good for the skin and blah blah blah. We then talked as a class about it, and I was trying to use the two new words I'd learned (sunburned and "looks like") in a sentence. I meant to say, "We have a saying in English that when you get sunburned badly, you look like a tomato." Sounds simply right? Yeah, that is what I thought, but I couldn't figure out why people were looking at me funny.

So, "tish-bih" means "you look" and "tim-shi" means "you walk", I apparently mixed those up. Yeah, I said, “We have a saying in English that when you get sunburned badly, you walk like a tomato." The Europeans we looking at me really funny and the teacher was laughing and walking around the class acting bloated.

So......I hate Arabic today. :) Tomorrow can only get better, right?

The Votes Are In!

Here are the results from your votes. Thank you for participating and we will be sure to keep you up to date with all the things we learn from our appointment on Wednesday.