Keller Family Blog

In general Corn Flakes have been the best mass market mainstream gluten-free, soy-free breakfast cereal that we could buy. Well not the leading brands. All of the name brand version of Corn Flakes contain Barley Malt. So no Kellogg’s or Sanitarium here. There are a few health food branded corn flakes but they are over $5 for a 300g box or so. But IGA has had two lines of their store brands that have been Barley free and since they are their normal store brands they are affordable. This makes Corn Flakes one of the products that we drive out of our way to go to the Ritchie’s IGA in Mount Waverley (http://www.ritchies.com.au/) to buy.

But when Coles (http://www.coles.com.au/) recently reformulated their store branded Corn Flake recipe to eliminate Barley Malt I just had to try it since it is so much closer to the house.  Basically eliminating the Barley makes them safe for Jaden though they still have a “may contains gluten” warning on the side of their box. Well I snapped up a box pretty quick as they were about $1.99 for a 500g box. This also makes them cheaper than the IGA Signature Corn Flakes we had been buying that were $2.49 for a 415g box or the IGA Black and Gold version which is $1.99 for 415gm.

Well my first impression was OK as I popped a few in my mouth, but then I put them in a bowl and added milk. At that point my opinion changed sharply. They go soggy extremely fast, much faster than the IGA Signature Corn Flakes or the IGA Black and Gold corn flakes. So based on their sogginess I am going to still go to IGA.

Now why IGA Signature over the cheaper IGA Black and Gold?  Well by inspecting the packages side by side they definitely show signs of being made in the same factory and likely on the same line. But I still prefer the IGA Signature. Not only is the recipe a tiny bit different, but it also seems that the Signature version also has larger flakes. So there you have it. My preference right now is for the IGA Signature Corn Flakes followed by the IGA Black and Gold variety.

My recommendation: Buy IGA Signature and avoid the new Coles branded version.

What can you do with corn flakes besides breakfast? Well that is for a future set of posts.

So today we had Jaden tested for the fresh fruits on his list of allergens and pine nuts.  All I can say is wow.  He had NO reaction to pineapple, avocado, peach nor the pine nut.  However he did have a pretty severe reaction to Cantelope / Rockmelon.  The doctor was quite amazed at the Cantelope. He said, “Of the one I figured would have been the safest he is reacting to.” I agreed. Going into the tests I would have bet that Jaden would have reacted to the Pineapple and to none of the others.  So over the next few weeks we will be introducing one of these fortnightly on a very rigid way. We will start by placing the food on his lower lip the first day and waiting ~24 hours before giving him the first rice grain size piece. Then we will double each day until he is eating a full serve for his size.

We did this with pecans after the last test before today and he had NO reactions! So this is a very encouraging time….at least allergy wise. A note that he started having some reactions when we tried the walnuts, but we are tending to believe the reaction was from something else. We will restart the walnut as soon as his present cold has passed, then on to pineapple, peach, almond and pine nuts.  Avocado will be much delayed since it is what put him in the hospital twice. Plus avocado was a delayed reaction so it may not have shown on the skin tests. We will take it very cautiously with this one.

Jaden and I went shopping today. I was determined to buy some Cocoa Butter in an attempt to make chocolate from scratch so that my son could have some chocolate candies for Easter like nearly every other person in this country.

While in the Health Food store which we have shopped before which has many foods for those with allergies and food sensitivities, the twenty something sales lady asked Jaden if he knew what he was allergic to. Jaden immediately replied. “Wheat, soy dairy, eggs, avocado, peanuts, nuts, avocado, pineapple and rockmelon and sometimes cherries….”  The lady had a common reaction which I have heard many times with a twist. This was the first time I heard someone ask Jaden directly, “What can you eat then?!?!” Jaden with his cute smile without missing a beat answered “Anything that doesn’t have those things in it.” As if the lady should already know it. I was not only impressed that he rattled off most of his list of allergens quite well even if he repeated avocado and left off the rest of the glutens but also with his nonchalant  answer.

Jaden is handling his life with allergies quite remarkably and makes his father proud.

So last night I was on FB and a friend popped up in chat…now really this is a wife of a friend and I would likely have interacted with the husband more…which does say I was a little more curious as to why she popped up to say hey. I quickly surmised it was a person that had hacked her FB account and was trying to scam friends to send money. So I thought I would have a little fun.  Below is the transcript minus the last 10 min of stuff where I was delaying until I saw FB take the account offline.  During those 10min was really trying to make sure the person on the other end had an opportunity to hear the gospel. To report something like this to FB go to https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=420 and report your friend’s account on money scam entry. Provide relevant info and about  10 min after report FB should have the account locked.  It would be worse if they had hacked her actual email as that may have made it harder to keep it sorted.  While this chat was happening I also emailed her husband and called his work and left a message for when he got into the office since it was a bit early and didn’t want to wake them yet.

Anyway here is a partial unformated script. Sorry it doesn’t have who on either side of the conversation is talking.

——————————————————————–

9:53pm

hey

are you there?

Yes….why hello

how are you doing?

ok

i am not okay by the moment [first clue something is probably not right...grammar doesn't match what my friend would use]

what’s up

I’m stranded in London at the moment [ <- At this moment I knew it was a scam. Had receive email of simililar situation from another friend a few months back]

really what happened?

i got mugged at gun point last night

have the police been helpful?

I reported the incident..but no positive response yet

all cash,credit card and phone were stolen

bummer

It was a terrible ordeal

good thing you have insurance

are the twins ok? [to further confirm the deception]

Thank God i still have my life and passport safe

Right now Kent I need your help..

how so?

my return flight leaves in few hours but having
troubles sorting out the hotel bills

Contact our friend nate in London

wondering if you could loan me some few $$ to sort out the hotel bills and also take a cab to the airport

nate can help you…you don’t need me for that

will def refund it back

I can’t get hold of any one now

why not?

Cos i don’t have access to phone now

how are you talking to me?

all i need now to get our bills settled is 1,350

I’m in a local library

front desk should help you on the phone thing

There are not helping

strange….londoners seemed so helpful when we were there last

Kent i don’t have much time here

are you helping me or not?

of course, I figure you are in a bit of shock and trying to help you think clearly

how can you help me get the money here ?

talk to nate

take a few weeks for a check to make it to you from me

and you would be home by then

I think you can help me have it wired via western union money transfer to my name and present location

western union is closed here.

for the night

It’s the fastest means to get money across

Well they will open in aprox 8 hours.

you can have it done online with your credit cards

You know I don’t use credit cards.

omg!!

I will explain to the hotel manager to please give me some time

good idea

but for the mean time let me give you my western union information on how to get the money to me when the W.U is open

sure fire away

right now I figure the best thing for you is to remember how much God loves you. Has anyone ever told you about how to Know God Personally?

Receivers Name- [name scrubbed]
Location- London,United Kingdom

got it..?

receivers name in london. Is that all they need?

yes

don’t I need to know which wu place or is that all?

No

so no address to give?

there is

here it is

address of 7 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4HQ, United Kingdom.

ahhh

back to my question now….about the knowing God part?

yes…I really need to know God

Wait I just realized by the time WU opens up here you should be on a plane heading back. Do you want me to send to the hotel?

No..I’ll reshedule my flight

here is the website that I work with: http://www.everystudent.com/features/gettingconnected.html

how can you reschedule without a credit card?

Can you see that or will it take you away from our chat?

NEVER MIND

never mind what?

Oh yeah

I’ve seen it

what do you think about point 3?

I will check on it as soon as am back home safely

figure this will give you some thing to do while you wait. What time is your flight?

ok

I really owe u alot

but you owe God a lot more…He died for you to set you free

yes..I agree with you

here is my personal email

friendsname51@popular free email site [redacted this line to protect identity]

Email as soon as you’re done with the western union transfer

send me a text mail now

Just sent you one from my address book

———————————————

So after got the address and email address contacted FB for the stuff.  Went on here telling them I would be right back after my wife needed me to do something…which she did. And talked a little more about Jesus. They were saying they hadn’t received my email yet…which I didn’t want to send one and expose my email address if they hadn’t already figured it out. So I mentioned that perhaps our corporate servers weren’t working right now….since I used to manage them I know that occasionally like 1-2 times a year they are taken down for some maintenance so it was the first thing I could think of to delay.  They were more irritated that they hadn’t gotten my email yet as the conversation went on and they they went offline and I received an email simultaneously from FB telling me they took action.

Thanks to mutual friends that I went to Purdue with, we have made some new friends in Australia. We took them to the snow on Saturday for a great day of playing in the snow. Such a novelty for us Americans to play in snow in August while all of our friends in the USA are baking in the heat. You can check out their pictures at: http://wilkincr.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/sledding-in-a-rainforest.html

My alma mater is bringing back the University Choir!  That is wonderful. I have great memories and think of many of my friends from U-Choir over the years. And to make things better the come back page has a picture of one of the choir years I was in.  Of course it is so small it is hard to see all of the people in it to identify everyone.  Anyway congratulations Purdue Musical Organization on bringing back the U-Choir.  http://www.pmojo.com/uchoir/

To bad I am no where near them to come and see a performance.

We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens today with Rachael and Nate and her parents.  As we were re-entering the park after a bit of morning tea, Rachel noted a little boy crying as he came out of the park. As he was walking through the crowd, Rachael wondered if he was lost. We kept an eye as he passed several families that could have been his. Rachael and Karlissa then took off toward him as he was getting to the road. I headed into the edge of the park with Jaden looking to see if we saw anyone frantically looking for a child.

Crystal and the girls followed as they crossed the street and headed to the memorial monument. The boy looked to be about 5 and they didn’t know how his english skills were when they tried to ask him about his family and stuff. (He was of Asian descent). They found some guards that the monument and a park employee who had a radio.

Meanwhile Jaden and I watched the park. I prayed that we could find his family. Crystal and Shay did too. I approached one Asian lady who told me that she wasn’t looking for anyone. I spotted a lady talking on a mobile phone walk toward me and then then look back and walk away. I spotted her a few minutes later talking to some older ladies and one walked away saying something over her shoulder in . I approached the lady and asked her if she was looking for a little boy. She said “YES” and confirmed he was wearing a blue shirt. I said he was with a friend and my family. Since we saw him leave the park alone. I called Crystal to let her know I had the mum and to ask where they were.

Rachel said as he was walking to the memorial that he kept saying “Mum here” something so she assumes that they were at the war memorial earlier in the day.  They with the park employees started walking toward us and we walked toward them. We were probably about 500m apart when we started toward each other. Needless to say there was quite a joyful reunion for the mum. The boy looked scared still. (Probably wondering if he was in trouble) We let them hug and we left. I had hoped for more conversation but knew that we had fulfilled the part God wanted us to in the reunion bit.

Well, I started an upgrade. As you can see from our  blog that it looks a little bit different.  I need to get the image of us (or an updated one) back on the top, but too tired to finish that now.

Looks like my site is broken…No matter which thing I click on I come back to the home page.  Guess it is time to upgrade Wordpress…Been putting it off while doing other things. Perhaps later today or on Monday.

In all of the tragedy surrounding the fires here in Victoria, we have had a small chance to help. Crystal and Karlissa two days ago went to church to help at a memorial service for a mother and her sons.

But I just learned of a story from the fires that was quite incredible. I thought I would share it with you. I just saw this article today. In the article it talked about a son hiring a helicopter and sending it to pick up his parents. The son was using Google Earth on his PC to pass the cooridinates to the pilot as the clearing was obscured by smoke. Incredible story.

Wow.