I finally got a taste of that delicious Argentinian beef I've heard everyone talk about. It's good! This picture doesn't have any beef in it because I already ate it when I decided to be touristy and take pictures. The people here at YWAM Buenos Aires are really nice. Fabio picked me up at the airport and showed me around town. Im getting a lot of practice with my Spanish and Portuguese and mixing it all together. A whole bunch of people from this base left to do an outreach in Sao Paulo, Brasil. Mmm.... 30 hour bus ride; I couldn't fit in their luggage. =) Tomorrow I go to the embassy here and see if I can get a visa to Brazil and go on my own. As usual please pray for me.!

Im in Atlanta now waiting for a flight to Buenos Aires.

Argentina doesn't require a visa so going there will be a lot simpler than getting into Brazil. First stop in Argentina is visiting the YWAM base in Buenos Aires. I've heard good things about it via friends I met in Orkut.com. This picture here is the border between Argentina and Brasil, a set of gorgeous waterfalls that dwarf the Niagara Falls. Pray for my travel and also for clarity on what to focus on as I explore opportunities down there. I'll be coming back in 3 weeks so no need for long-winded farewells, yet.

Idea for a book. Jesus for Geeks: Jesus' algorithms for handling mankind's common problems. Do up all the teachings of Christ in the pseudocode and symbolic logic I learned in college.

He defined a simple path: Love God; Love Others. He showed me what the highest priorities were; and cleared a simple path to happiness. If I can choose to care about what he cares about and to not care about the things he doesn't care about then my life will be gloriously simple and beautiful. And that doesn't even mention his grace and mercy. He's my link back to God the Father. I've screwed up that connection like all the rest of us and he paid the ultimate price to fix that. Jesus showed me what I should care about. When I don't get sidetracked from His goals, I always experience something meaningful. More most of my life Jesus was mainly my spiritual role model. As grew my understanding of salvation, then Jesus became my Savior.

I've uploaded a rough draft of the googleopoly gameboard.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the deed cards that I've been making in Photoshop. http://www.darianhickman.com/googleopoly/   Look into http://www.darianhickman.com/googleopoly/deedcards to get the psd files you can use to create the additional deed cards.  I could really use some help with this.

I just finished having a great visit with my Dad's side of the family in Indiana and now I'm in Northern VA at JP's house. Give me a call if you're in the area. Keep praying for my visa too. I should be getting that back this week. Also I'm looking for help with making the deed cards for Googleopoly. Let me know if you want to help.

I'm headed to visit my Grandma this weekend. She's diagnosed with skin cancer and not expected to live long. She one of the most passionate Christians in the family and has already told us all that she is more than ready to go. So were not praying for her to recover but to go quickly without pain. I'm working now on a three week trip to Brazil now from January 31 to February 21, so pray things go smoothly for that visa app. Nothing much new for now, made a little progress on Googleopoly. More later....

I made a huge list of ideas, projects, and dreams yet to be implemented if ever.  Here's a beginning list.  I hope this list inspires some creativity and maybe some conversation on how to implement: Vertical Village.  Instead of mowing down farmland and forests to make way for single family homes, let's try piling everyone on top of each other in vertical villages.  Basically replace these vast spreads of cookiecutter houses and replace them with one or two luxury condo high rise towers and keep the all the extra space for farmland and gardens and parks.  Imagine having all the conveniences of living in downtown with a rural landscape. Christian Commune with high-tech community service.  I'm almost living this now with YWAM.  They are a great tight knit Christian community but I haven't had access to the really cool mercy ministry projects related to economic development. Group investing/ Investor cooperative.  I tried this back in 2005 but didn't...