Have you ever had the feeling that someone else is living your life?

In a moment of random curiosity, I did a google search on my name. (trumpet fanfare) "dan holcomb" brings up waybread.blogspot.com as the first result. wayyyyyyyy cool. (other interesting results: some guy named Dan Holcomb was shot and killed in West Virginia, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court there...whoa...)

but to continue. I saw a site with my name on it (no shocker, common names...there's a Daniel Holcomb who sells real estate in Lansing, Michigan...shudder. I will never sell real estate). I did a double take. The title of this site was in Kiswahili...strange. There aren't that many people in the world choosing website titles in Kiswahili. It's not exactly a language that everyone gets a chance to learn. I had to check it out. After all...I also speak Kiswahili.

Voila'!

I ended up at publicpixel.com, on a page entitled "matunda ya macho," which featured a number of short films including one entitled "The Dan Holcomb Experience."!!! Can you believe it...there is another white Dan Holcomb out there who cannot dance but refuses to admit it, speaks swahili, and says things like "baba yangu ni mulevi." And is an internationally aware Christian!

AND...this publicpixel.com, I discovered, is a meeting place for internationally-minded individuals with commentary on international happenings and links to hundreds of webpages, including one on "Ukimwi"--the Swahili word for AIDS. Aware of social justice issues...I'm beginning to feel a kinship here...

Well, further research discovered (I get excited just thinking about it)...

www.danielholcomb.com

I'm serious. Try it out.

Well, I had to learn more. One of the other links off of publicpixel.com was RVA's (That's Rift Valley Academy, to those of you non TCK-savvy individuals) graduating class of 1997 webpage. A quick search revealed the incredible truth:

In 1997, I graduated from the Rift Valley Academy, in Kenya (!?!), with Heath Arensen. The brother of Blake Arensen, my Swahili teacher last year here at Houghton College, and the nephew of Dr. Jonathan Arensen, my anthropology professor with whom I studied in Tanzania for four months earlier this year. Who taught me most of the swahili that I know. Do you want proof? here. Check for yourself.

So let's recap. Daniel Holcomb grew up in Africa, went to the Rift Valley Academy (a name that lives on in reverence by all jealous non-TCKs) during the Arensen/Adkins dynasty, speaks Swahili, loves rock climbing, works at a camp, has a bitter sense of anti-pop-Christianity evidenced through humor, and now travels the world including Egypt. Wow. That's stinkin amazing. Throw on top of that the fact that publicpixel is his webpage, and he is a much more incredible photographer and web designer than I ever will be. And he's chillin' out and doing pretty cool-looking things in the northwestern United States. I'm a little in awe...

So the real question is now...

do I email him?