Category Archives: Miscellany

Oklahoma Trip

This week will be a slow week around JeffRandleman.com.  I’m taking one of my sons to Oklahoma to go rock and fossil hunting.  As a result, there will only be a minimal amount of activity here.  My normal, weekly posts will appear as scheduled, including the Saturday Quote, Sunday’s Memorize Scripture, and Monday’s Coffee Break.

Normal activity will resume next week.

Wish us luck.  My son hopes to find some pretty cool fossils and rocks, but whether we do or don’t, it will be some good time spent with him.

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Running To Raise Awareness Of The African Water Crisis

Running For Active:Water

Active Water BannerMany of you may know that I have decided to train and run a marathon. What you may not know is that I have decided to do this not for myself, but for people in Zambia, Africa, and around the world who do not have access to clean drinking water. I am running so that Africans do not have to walk for their water.

My goal is twofold: I want to train and condition myself to run a marathon, and reach for even loftier goals afterwards. And I want to do this in partnership with Active:Water, raising funds for and awareness of the crisis in Africa and other places around our globe where people do not have access to clean drinking water.
 

The African Water Crisis

Water Pouring***Much of the following information has been taken directly from Active:Water’s website. You can read about the African water crisis in more detail here: www.activewater.org.***

For a large portion of the earth, water is scarce. In fact, less than 1% of the world’s fresh water supply is readily accessible for human use.

For millions of others, water may actually be available as an abundant natural resource, it just simply isn’t available to them. It may be below shallow ground cover, but there is no technology to access it. Or it may be fresh spring fed water, but it is owned by major corporations that bottle the water for other countries more fortunate. The truth is, water is a luxury item most simply cannot afford.

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Holding History In Your Hands

One of my hobbies is coin collecting. I enjoy building mint and date sets of American coins, and a few varieties of Canadian coins. And I have found that there is much to be gained from the hobby of numismatics.

Coins are beautiful items, worth much more than simply face value. You can enjoy the physical beauty of the coin, considering it’s strike and luster. But if you look deeper, you can see a whole lot more.

Coins represent history. Many of our nation’s coins have an historical significant attached to them.

Lincoln Cent - Obverse

Lincoln Cent - Obverse

Take for example the Lincoln cent. First minted in 1909, it commemorated the birth of Abraham Lincoln in 1809. Designed by Victor David Brenner, the bust of Lincoln on the obverse has remained mostly unchanged for the last 100 years.

This is one of my favorite coins to collect. With a hundred years of production, and from three different mints, the Lincoln cent can turn out to be a very large collection. And finding the older varieties in a high grade can be quite challenging. This is a collection that may take years to complete: to find just the right coins that catch the eye, and look great in my album. It’s a challenge worth the effort to complete.

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An Unnamed Blog

Here we go.  This is my first, bumbling attempt at a blog.  I guess we will see just how well this goes.  As with most new attempts at journaling in my life, my guess is this will last or a few weeks or days, and then fade away, left by the wayside, abandoned for reasons unknown… unless you can count procrastination as a reason.

The funny thing is, I spent more time this evening searching for and editing the perfect photo for my header.  The shot of the mountains that you see above is a photo I took about sunset while we were on our family vacation in Como, Colorado.  I set up my camera and tripod in an overgrown field at Camp Como, fighting of mosquitoes the size of my hand (ok, maybe they weren’t that big…).  As the sun set, the mountains turned various shades of purple.  It was worth the wait.

As I waited for the light to fade just the right amount, I was overcome with a sense of awe at God’s creation.  And to think, this work of his hands, this was made for me.  Overpowering thoughts cascaded through my mind as I sat in wonder at God’s majesty.  Simply amazing…

Update…
Since transferring my blog to this new domain, the picture in the header is no longer there. Here is the image:

Old Blog Header Image