My hard drive failed last week … I hadn’t yet gotten to the point of installing OS 10.5 (and hence, Time Machine) … but luckily I had backed up all of my documents a couple of weeks ago, so I wasn’t really worried about it.

Until now, that is … I just got the machine back with a brand new drive, completely void of my applications and settings and bookmarks and everything. It’s gonna be a pain to get all of that set up how I want to. Even worse, however, is the fact that I just realized that I never finished uploading a couple thousand photos from my year in China to Flickr.

Oh, man. I really hope I backed those up somewhere …

During my first year of teaching, we didn’t really recite the Pledge of Allegiance … then 9/11 happened and it quickly became part of our daily morning ritual. Now, seven years later, I often find myself on the other end of the microphone, reading morning announcements and asking our entire school to repeat the pledge with me. And, to be honest, the longer I work in American schools, the more uncomfortable I become with it.

The mere fact that 385 kids are mindlessly parroting those words, with little to no understanding of what they’re actually saying, is quite disturbing to me. The format reminds me of China, where students of all ages are required to do daily morning exercises and spend weeks of their childhood in compulsory military training. It’s mindless, robotic, and completely against the American spirit (in my humble opinion).

[Military Training, by Lance Webel]

Even more disturbing, however, is some of the content of the pledge. What’s so huge about the flag itself? What does “republic” mean? And isn’t our divisibility, the fact that we can disagree and separate ourselves, one of the very foundations of the freedoms that make us uniquely America?

I don’t get it.

I spent some time volunteering out at Pleasant Vineyard this summer … and I couldn’t resist breaking out my camera to snap some shots of the gorgeous people, beautiful landscapes, and fun activities going on.

To see all 114 images, just look at the photo set or the slideshow!

In February 2007 I visited Saigon, or Ho Chi Min City, in the beautiful south of Vietnam. I visited a couple of propaganda-filled museums, took a couple photos on the street, then put my camera away and enjoyed the city.

The photos I took (see the set or slideshow) aren’t the most comprehensive, but they still give a couple more glimpses into that fascinating world. Enjoy!

[Lance vending machine, by webel]

Check out what my nieces and nephew found during their trip to Florida … I need to get me one of those!

[Spectacles, by webel]

Something about this photo, displayed in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, really messes with me.

Congratulations, my dear friends … I’ve known each of you a long time, and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead. Onward and upward!