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12-2-09
I went for a ride last night at Oak Flat. My first really cold ride of the year. It was maybe 29F. There was snow here and there. Most of the mud was frozen so my bike was surprisingly clean at the end of the ride. I have been doing mostly urban rides lately, riding in alleys and parks, and I kind of forget what I like about cycling, being out in the woods and all. It is snowing in town this morning. I guess it is winter now.
Me demonstrating high wheeler mounting techniques. :)
Alex has a super cool high wheeler with a 36" pneumatic tire. One cannot help but smile while riding it.
11-29-09 I was at the mall tonight and they were playing "God Rest You (Ye) Merry Gentlemen," It was an instrumental version as the words are too religious for a big secular corporation that is trying to be all PC. So, I thought it would be good to place them here in all their hyperreligiousness. Note that they do not only mention God but also mention a real devil which about as un-modernist as you can get. I have mentioned this before, but to me, believing in a devil is kind of a test for orthodoxy. Any new-ager or liberal Christian out there will tell you that they believe in God, you will have a hard time finding one that believes in a real devil.
The Wikipedia article states, and it makes sense, that the "ye" is incorrect, as it is a subject pronoun. I never really knew what this line meant until I looked this up. I had thought that it meant "May God give rest or peace to you gentlemen who are (already) merry." I think it is closer to "May God give you rest in a state of merryness, gentlemen," which makes more sense with the next line.
1. God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day,
To save us all from Satan's pow'r
When we were gone astray:
O tidings of comfort and joy,
comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
2. In Bethlehem, in Israel,
This blessed Babe was born,
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn,
The which His Mother Mary
Did nothing take in scorn:
O tidings ...
3.From God our heavenly Father
A blessèd angel came,
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same,
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name:
O tidings ...
4. The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoicèd much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway,
This blessèd Babe to find:
O tidings ...
5. But when to Bethlehem they came,
Whereat this Infant lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His mother Mary kneeling,
Unto the Lord did pray:
O tidings ...
6. Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All others doth deface
O tidings ...
| 11-13-09 Here are a few more pictures from OK. Since cross races are usually not at 8am I have been able to go to church when I was out racing. I went to a Baptist |   |
11-11-09 Pix are as follows: Typical trunk contents in CX season. Several fall hikes, in kind of chronological order. There are a surplus of aspen pix this time of year, but I could not resist. A TNCX in Sept near Oak Flat. It is funny the things one notices seeing a photo. My hands are in different positions, which I did not realize, the right gripping normally and the left extended to feather the rear brake. (photo Aaron Wilson, more pix from the race here) The last two are pix of me racing in OK. I wish I could say I had great legs that day, but I kind of bonked with about 15mins to go. I love the little bits of turf from my drifting rear tire caught suspended in air.
10-7-09 Pro-lifers growing. I was listening to the Dianne Rehm show on NPR on 10-5. It is kind of a moderate left wing talk show, about average for NPR. You can listen to it if you want on her site. Anyway they had a guest from the Pew Research Center, which had run a poll a while back showing an apparent movement in public opinion towards the pro-life side. Thinking there might be some error they ran another larger poll of over 4000 people. Some of the larger changes observed were among white practicing Catholics and white practicing mainline Protestants (such as myself.) Andrew Kohut, the guest and the director of Pew Research, mentioned the Catholics specifically on the program. He also said that some of the movement may be linked to the polarizing effect of a new pro-choice president. In this poll, and also one by Gallup it appears that more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice for the first time. In looking at the Gallup poll one would have to imagine that about 5-10% of the US population has has changed their mind about abortion maybe in the last 15 years. Also if you look at overall gains since the mid 90s it is very positive.
9-23-09 Cool pix of a dust strom in Sidney from the BBC.
9-19-09 Things have been busy. I think of things to write, and then forget them before I ever get them written out. Maybe that is God's way of keeping me from writing stupid things.
I actually won a race in Witchita Falls. Above is a pic of me there in my new TNP skinsuit. Below are some misc summer hiking pix, 2-4 are of the hike mentioned in the previous entry. I wish the quality were better on the Red River group pic but it is a little washed out.
7-24-09 I went to a classical concert Saturday. It was the Albuquerque Philharmonic's "Mostly Mozart" concert, a freebie at Keller Hall. I do not think anyone likes all classical music, nor do I, but some of it lovely. I went with David Wilde, who knew the violin soloist. It is strange that I go to a classical concert with all those people playing live and end up spending half the concert with my eyes closed. It is like the music is different when I close my eyes. It is like a dream, a dream that is moving along, and as soon as I close my eyes I snap back into the dream. In the dream I imagine these giant shapes moving around, but my eyes are closed and I cannot see anything. It is something that I visualize without seeing, as if perhaps the shapes were invisible or moving in total darkness. Maybe it is just the sounds coming into my brain. Anyway it is very cool.
When I open my eyes it is interesting to watch all the trained motions of the players. It makes me think of cycling, especially on the mountain bike where riding is more of a skill. It is the only thing that I can do like that, a collection of precise, practiced little movements. I can't play anything.
I went hiking today with Doug and Luis and found my first few mushrooms of the year, a couple of boletes and a lot of oyster mushrooms (the first I have found), and a few others that I will need to research a little more before eating them. I will try to get some pix up.
7-22-09 I went on a ride in TX just before I left Tuesday and rode around the trails by the dirt jumps on 9th in Amarillo. There are a lot of little technical sections. I think I managed to clear out every spider web in the area. Most of them fortunately were cleared by the front tire. The last one I could see the little spider, about the size of a bean. It was too late of course and I crashed through the, and the spider immediately disappears, though you know he (or she) is there somewhere. About a minute later just exiting the trails into the parking lot I looked back and saw it off my left seatstay calmly (I suppose) abseiling down to the ground. I went for a nice ride with Casey Cook last night. He had a stick catch on his foot which somehow forcet his foot out of the shoe and sent him over the bars. Fortunately he landed on a very soft spot.
7-5-09 I went to my own church (Redeemer) this morning. I have not been for a while because I have been on this little quest visiting other churches. The pastor was talking about freedoms in America. He then asked what was the most important freedom that we as Christians in America have. My brain started thinking about freedom of worship. He went on to say that the most important freedom we have is the freedom from sin that Jesus gave us in dying on the cross. It was encouraging to me in that there are a lot of worries about changing laws with a new regime here, but our most important freedom is beyond the power of the government to take away. It is in God's hands and God is over this world, and over this world's governments.
6-8-09 I was thinking about Lewis' Last Battle today, the last of the Narnia books. Probably not one that they will make a movie of, or if they do they will change it a lot. I was thinking about how it seems like kind of a sad story as it goes along, a story in which no happy ending can be easily seen. Things just get worse and there is nothing that the heroes can really do about it. There is this underling thing about using a little of the truth to make a lie stronger. And in the story as in real life it seems to work. It basically ends with the heroes arriving in heaven. There is no "material" happy ending.
There is a scene in the end in which one of the pagan warriors finds himself in heaven. Not a horde of them, just one. This is probably one of the more controversial things in any of Lewis' books. The idea is that he served his pagan god Tash faithfully and knew no better and ends up in Aslan's (the true God allegory figure) heaven. I think it is important that he does not go to a neutral heaven and is told that Tash and Aslan were the same after all. This is not the case, Tash was always evil, Aslan was always good, there were not the same.
Looking at this as a theory, which I think is the intent of writing it, I think that there is something to it, that perhaps some of the pagans will go to heaven, but not because all gods were the same after all, but through the Blood of Christ like the rest of the people that are there. One has to throw out large sections of the New Testament to come up with the idea that there is some means of salvation aside from the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins. Obviously some people do, but I do not agree with them. I do, I guess, leave room for God to be merciful. To say that they are all the same though, is to me an evil idea. This is taking a little from what is true, that God exists, and mixing it with with the idea that (more or less) all the other gods exist as well and that they behind it all are the same, using a little of the truth to make a lie stronger. I think of this book a lot when I hear this sort of thing, which sadly is pretty often. The book and hearing these things have something like a similar taste, if feelings can have a taste.
6-3-09 I had a nice little MTB ride tonight. It is always so hard to get oneself out the door, get the bike into the car, get the tire changed and actually drive up the the mountains to ride, but it really is nice once one gets up there. I very rarely drive home regretting I went. It was so green and pretty up there. I am glad I live where I do. I rode my the little trail down from the ski area to the "Other Faulty" trail and left over to the Placitas road. I am still a little timid descending, but I hit some sections pretty well. I cleaned the little uphill switchback towards the end. I got through and thought, Wow did I actually pull that off in my middle ring? Pretty cool. The pix are mostly from driving back from TX, of hiking at PD. Also I am organizing a Thursday Crit in Amarillo on 6-11.
5-22 It has been cloudy in Albq of late. I have been pretty busy it seems. I am kind of going back and forth between Amarillo and Albuquerque. We had a really neat day last Saturday whan the wind was blowing like crazy from the east and made these cloud formations that looked like the crest of a foamy wave coming over the Sandias. I am afraid that the photos do not do it justice. I went to the Greek Orthodox Church Sunday, which was very interesting. They give the communicants wine with a spoon, which seem really strange, though there is nothing of course theologically wrong with that. I have got a few little carbon repair jobs, which should be interesting. I will work on them in TX. I am heading over there Sunday, Lord willing. I have been sewing carousel seat belts among other things, such a weird bunch of projects. I am organizing some Tuesday Road Races in Amarillo, starting 5-26.
4-28 I went kliming with Doug in Manzano down by Mountainair. I havent gone kliming forever. I felt like I made a fue deesent muvze dhoe, wich wus kule. Sum of dhe liemstone wuz sueper sharp. I due not generalee think of liemstone beeing dhat sharp. Wun sexhun wood hav bee good with gluvz.
2-4 I am bak in Albuquerque and hav poot up sum nue pix! Thay aar kind uv out ov order. The fortth wun is Al contimplating the Tarzan move. The ielund iz ware wee staed for a kupul of days. The wuns from the kow on aar frum Costa Rica, and those befor aar frum Panama. I fele a litul like these pix aar a bit ideeulistik, there wer a lot of pore and durdee ereeyuz as wel.
1-25 I got intue San Jose, Costa Rica today, it iz kind uv kool here maybee 68. It was raening erlier. It is kind of stranj after beeing in Panama ware it is soe hot. It is going to bee tue hard to uplode pix, so I wil try to write a litul wen I can. I will poot up pix wen I get home. I am editing directly into the html code. I went tue evening mas at a modern Catholic church dountoun. The priest was Spanish, which was kind of interesting. I kood understand most uv wut was sed if I consuntraeted. I hav a nue favorit song, "Aly walk with me" by the Raveonettes. I found it in some fielz my bruther gave me. It looks like I would probublee have moral issues with sum of ther music, but this song I really like. Yue can lisen tue it on the rite. It iz reeulee one of those songs that wun shood lisen tue on witth hedfonz, kind uv loud, in some quieyet place. It alternates between this drone and two kaotik bridges. They rezembul lisening to a jet engin tthrue a konch shell, but all tthrue them, the droning bete is stil tthare, baereed, seeming soft by compaerisun. I am shure yue wil not like it az much az I due, but that iz the way things go. Thare iz sumthing about it that I iedentify with, it sounds like loneleenes feelz.
1-13 I am down in Panama and wil try to write a litul here when I can. My brother and I rented a caar and hav bin exploring around, looking at shoping mals. Traffic is bad and ther aar lots of won way streets. The wether haz bin nice thoe. We did a little hieking totay and saw a sum huej trees and a lot of leefcuter ants. My brother iz posting a lot of pix that he took witth his Iphone to his Facebook account. I think you can see it if you link into it from my profile. At least you can try. If not I will try to put some pix on this later.
1-9 Here I am with my monthlee blog update. I wil bee in Panama the rest of the month, looking for caroesel loecaeshuns. Things hav bin bizee. I gradueaeted last month, see pik of mee in my sillee red sute. I spent a weke and a half in Amarillo over the holidays. I hav bin going to a diferent church almost every Sunday for the last ate months. It is kind of a proeject of mine. The last wuz a LCMS church in Amarillo.
Hiking with Eliada, Chris, Jancy/Truchas/me
Alex/Flash and Alex climbing/Alex in cave at PD Canyon/pillar PD
Swallow's nests/hiking makes me sleepy/Gabi PD/Thor with bow
2013 blog (not much there, new baby and all)
2012-2011 blog
2010 blog
2009 blog with Panama pix
2008 blog
