James's Weblog

Day 5: A visit to the Israel Museum, including it's 1:50 model of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the many archaeological exhibits.

Day 4: Temple Mount, City of David, Davidson Archaeological Park, Jewish Quarter, Palatial Mansion

Day 3: Visit to the Negev Rift Valley: Masada by cable car, En Gedi, Qumran and Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea

The second half of day 2: Lion Gate, Bethesda Pool, St Anne's Church, Stone Pavement (Gabbatha), Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Garden Tomb.

Day 2: Mount of Olives, Dominus Flevit, Gethsemane, Kidron Valley

First evening in Israel: Transfer coach to Jerusalem, check in to hotel, and an evening walk to the Western Wall

As part of my sabbatical, I've had the chance to spend 10 days in Israel and Palestine. I'd highly recommend it.

Edit: November 2021

For some months now, I've not found a single retailer not on other cashback sites listed on KidStart. Where retailers are on both, cashback rates are consistently higher on the other sites. I can therefore no longer think of a good reason to use KidStart. Use TopCashback, and if you want to give your cashback to your kids then go ahead - they'll get more that way anyway than if you do it through KidStart.

I often hear it said that if you join a local church, you haven't just joined a branch of the church, or a part of the church. You are a member of the church. Each local church is the church. At the same time, the church throughout the world is one.

One thought just struck me that makes this clearer.

In the book of Exodus, the people are told how to build a tabernacle, a tent in which God can live. One of the pieces of furniture in that tabernacle is a golden lampstand. It symbolises that God lives amongst his people.

After over 10 years of development, SuperTuxKart has released version 1.0.

It's been a long road. In December 2009, the long task of porting over to an entirely new codebase, Irrlicht, was complete. In December 2014, a new version was released with a new graphics rendering engine that made the 3d graphics faster and a lot more realistic. But still the versions were numbered 0.x.