Pictures: Bugs, Brakes, and Ball (Football, a.k.a. soccer)

WARNING: There are large pictures of insects below - the squimish take note.

BUGS

* Here’s a cool red moth I found.

* So this one’s a bit gross, but it instills an intense feeling of pride in me like a hunting trophy. Last night there was no power, so it was by the dim orange glow of a single candle that I noticed a significant dark spot on the wall near one of the more familiar holes. Upon closer inspection I noticed that it was one of the larger cockroaches I’ve seen here. So, I diligently went to the other room to select my weapon of choice – a broom (which is really more like a bundle of straw, almost no brooms have the long handle, so when you sweep you actually have to bend almost all the way to the ground – as Lizzy let me know in India they also have short brooms, but they squat down to sweep).
Returning to my quarry, I leapt into the air and hurtled with deadly accuracy a blow to destroy any foe. In the chaotic aftermath I saw the shadow whiz into the darkness by the door. Thinking I must have dealt a mortal wound, but not satisfied to have the creature still lurking, I picked up my candle and carefully searched in cracks and within the towel hanging from the door. It’s amazing how difficult it is to shed light on something with a candle. The brightness of the candle blinds you in the dim light it sheds. Anyway, I couldn’t find the bastard.
But, that didn’t stop him from finding me with a daring fly-in-attack to my shoulder. A “Gad!” and a lightning brush reflex sent him spiraling over near my bed. Now it was serious. Time to pull out the big guns. I got out my lantern (can’t hit what you can’t see), and the ultimate weapon - a flip flop of raging doom. Thusly armed to the teeth, I set out with a red hunting diode (the small light on my watch – my flashlight has gone missing). Bathed in a blood red glow, my quarry cowered behind my bedframe, and scurried away after another blow – yes, direct hit number two and it kept going. For some reason the pictures I took don’t seem to do it justice. Maybe it’s because of the sound it made when walking, like a crab, loud clicking and scratching.
Jumping out of the way of the charging insect, I then chased it out from under my bookcase and dealt another blow flipping over and immobilizing the then powerless invertebrate. Finally after taking some trophy shots, I dealt a final smack and called it a night, battle-weary.


BRAKES

These are for Biff Dad so he can send me stuff (others take note : ). Here's two pictures of my brake pads:

* I think I was wrong that they're Shimano, but I’m pretty sure it’s a common type (as that’s what the ones on my bike in Seattle look like). Here’s what should be on the post of the brake pad: a bullet shaped top nut, a washer, and then 4 thick washers (two with bowl depressions and two that fit into these).

*My electric plug to help you find the correct one for a battery charger.

* P.S. A headlamp would be really nice too ; ).

BALL (football)

These are three good action shots from a sports day at Kayonza (hope you like them Larry Dad and Uncle Ken). It turned out that I was signed up to play as well. Didn't do that well, but had fun. As a side note, there was a deaf teacher from the visiting school that spent most of the day teaching me sign language, which was awesome! Sign language is so much easier to learn than spoken - it's so visual and "words" make sense.