Portage Fire and Police Departments Host Bicycle Rodeo

Kids showed up 30 minutes early Saturday morning for Portage’s annual Bicycle Rodeo, hosted by the Portage Fire and Police departments.

Angela Rosales, who brought her two boys Christian, 8, and Alex, 6, said, “We’ve been counting down the days until the bike safety day. They wouldn’t let me forget! And of course, I want my kids to be safe and to learn the rules of the road.”

The Willowcreek Middle School parking lot was transformed into a simulated city, complete with road signs, obstacle courses, pedestrian crossings, railroad crossings, and one-way streets. Firefighters manned the course, giving guidance and safety tips in key areas.

One highlight of the course was the Portage Police’s radar trailer, which showed the kids how fast they were riding. As kids smiled and pumped their pedals as hard as they could, some reached 15 miles an hour, highlighting the need for helmets.

Continue reading this story at The Times.

100 Things I Love About Korea: #68: Kakao Talk

If you have a smart phone, you can use one of the coolest new programs out there: Kakao Talk.  This is a Korean program, but it is available in English and Japanese.  Kakao now has some 10,000,000 users in 216 countries - so basically everywhere. 

I'm not a techie, but this is a cool app.  Here's what I like.

1. You can create a group chat, where everyone is chatting in the same window and can see everyone's comments.  I use this with the pastoral staff to set meetings and to solve issues that involve multiple people.

2. It recommends friends to you.  You don't have to go hunting and requesting friends.  As soon as someone in your phone contact list becomes a Kakao user, the system invites you to add them as your Kakao friend.  This is hugely convenient.

3. It's free - almost.  You have to pay for data transmission if you're not in a wifi zone.

4. There's no character limit.  Your messages can be as long as you want.

5. Virtually every smart phone user in Korea is on it.  That greatly reduces texting fees.

You can also share photos, videos, files, and links, but I don't really do all that stuff.  Like I said, I'm not a techie.  I use it for simple communication - kind of a hand-held modification of email, texting, and chatrooms.  You can download it for free at the istore or android market.

This is a repost from May 3, 2011.