What is This?

Took a sick day. Home from work.

What happened to Drew Carey? And I thought Bob Barker looked ill.

After just a little checking, it turns out Drew Carey lost weight.

Can you watch The Price is Right online yet? We're thinking of getting rid of our sat TV and getting all of our entertainment pleasure from the WWW. I also want to rid myself of a land line and go 100% cellular, iPhone 4 probably. We'd save about $60 a month in the deal, though we may have to get a plan with more minutes, which would cut into the savings. I do think I'd miss the football games. It's not readily apparent to me that those are streamed live.

A few weeks ago when I was talking about skeptical pod casts I failed to mention a couple of others that I think compliment the skeptics nicely. One is Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul, and the other is Unbelievable with Justin Brierley.  Unbelievable is excellent. Brierley gets believers and unbelievers of various ilks together to debate a particular topic. The debates are always well cultured and subdued. Not at all what you would find on American radio with everyone talking over each other. I assume that's because most of the guests are British chaps.

Speaking of believers, what is this?

Here's the article.

I saw this reading the bikesnobnyc blog.

Excerpts from the article:

In order to remain relevant in this new landscape, many evangelical pastors and church leaders are following the lead of the hipster trendsetters, making sure their churches can check off all the important items on the hipster checklist:

• Get the church involved in social justice and creation care.
• Show clips from R-rated Coen Brothers films (e.g., No Country for Old Men, Fargo) during services.
• Sponsor church outings to microbreweries.
• Put a worship pastor onstage decked in clothes from American Apparel.
• Be okay with cussing.
• Print bulletins only on recycled cardstock.
• Use Helvetica fonts as much as possible.
• Leverage technologies like Twitter.

I didn't realized hipsters hated serifs so much, but OK.  Here's more:

Hipster Christianity's attention to shock value manifests in others ways. Some churches hold their services in bars and nightclubs—Mosaic in L.A. meets in the Mayan nightclub, and North Brooklyn Vineyard in New York meets at a place called the Trash Bar. Some churches, like Grace Chicago, host wine tastings or schedule outings to microbreweries. I even attended an Anglican church a few years ago that sponsored a cookout with fine wines, beer, and a selection of cigars from the priest's own humidor. Other churches focus more on the shock value of sermons, delving into touchy subjects such as homosexuality, child abuse, sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and so on, sometimes with an f-bomb or two thrown in for good measure.

Another distinguishing mark of hipster Christianity is the music in its worship services. In keeping with the overarching "avoid doing what everyone else is doing" motif of hipsterdom at large, most of the hipster churches I visited seemed done with the U2- starry-rock style that now dominates megachurch evangelicalism. Rather than contemporary praise choruses, many of them favored centuries-old hymns.

If hipsters cannot completely overthrow the structures that bind them, they can at least destabilize them by engaging in hedonistic behavior: smoking, drinking, cursing, sexual experimentation, and so on. It's about freedom, partying, and transgression—not in the Jersey Shore, frat-party sense (unless ironically), but in the "bourbon cask ales taste good and I don't care if I get drunk" sense. Hipsters ridicule bourgeois concerns such as "cigarettes cause cancer" and "drinking should be done in moderation," opting instead to recklessly embrace such vices with "why not?" abandon. If you aren't willing to engage in at least some of this "subversive hedonism," you will have a hard time maintaining any hipster credibility.

Dude, I am totally converting to Hipsterism.

Hermann Cyclocross

Hey, got fourth place in my race at Hermann!

OK, there were eight riders, in the beginner men's race. But I was pleased as punch to get that fourth place. Again, I show up with the only bike that costs less than $250. And I'm not talking about the frame. I'm talking the whole bike.  There was one other guy that had "regular" pedals. The rest of them had their fancy clipless pedals and actual 'cross bikes. I had a Schwinn.

They started the beginner men, and then thirty seconds later they started the nine beginner women. Two of the women beat all of the men.  I finished behind the fourth place girl. That was Saturday.

I was supposed to race Sunday as well, but Saturday night the park flooded, so they canceled Sunday's race. Dang it! After it started raining I was looking forward to racing in the mud.

It was fun while it lasted, though once or twice I thought my heart was going to explode.

Later, my wife and I made an evening of it and ate German food and sampled Hermann.

Now, here are some pics.

I'm Training for Cyclocross

Well, not really. Not in a real way. My training is pretty pathetic.  I read these blogs about people going out on these 1,000 mile bike rides in the morning and I think, "I don't really know how to ride a bike, do I?"

It's hard to train for a ride when you don't know what the distance is.  The race is in Hermann, MO at the city park. There are some stairs to climb. Other than that I don't know anything else.

I have practiced jumping off my bike, picking it up, and then carrying it over an obstacle.  So far, no one's seen me do this.  I'm sure they'd think I was crazy. To add to the crazy, when I do it I act like I'm in a big hurry. So I can only imagine what that looks like.

"WTH?! What's that boy doin'?"

In my neck of the woods there's this old road that is closed off. I presume they closed it sometime after they built the dam. At any rate, it is subject to flooding, which leaves all kinds of debris in the form of logs scattered across the old pavement.  It's quite secluded, and I've only seen someone back there once, but they were fishing off the first bridge.  I'd say the entire length of the closed road is about a mile, so once you get beyond that first bridge, you're not likely to see very many people.

Where was I going? Oh yes. So I tear down that road, hopping off my bike to carry it over the logs, hopping back on riding some more.  Wow, just reading that back it does sound crazy. Perhaps if I were in the company of other cyclists it would look more normal. Alone it appears I've got some kind of obsessive compulsion. "Must carry bike and jump over log. Didn't do it right. Must do it again."

OK, enough for now. Search YouTube for Hermann Cyclocross. You'll find it. Enough for now.

Hermann Cross

Skeptical Post

Time to blog.

Send me all the money you can if you'd like to invest in my new business venture. I will soon start a company that gives Roman history tours through Europe, Asia, and Africa. We'll see Rome, Pompeii, Hadrian's Wall, Masada, Alexandria, etc. And you'd better believe we'll be crossing the Rubicon (never mind that no one knows where that's at now). I'll use your investment money to first see all of these places myself.  Then later, once my company is formed, I'll apply that amount toward your first tour. It'll be epic!

I have discovered the skeptical podcasts. I'm not providing any links, you already know how to search iTunes.  Anyway, these skeptics' podcasts are very interesting, and as a reformed Christian, I can say amen to about 98% of what I hear on them.

The skeptics rail against astrology, homeopathic medicine, acupuncture, psychics, ESP, communicating with the dead, belief in UFOs, belief in ghosts, and a bunch of other nonsense. This is all stuff I don't believe either.  They also dismiss faith healers and other miracle workers. Again, I'm still in their camp.

I may be a Christian, but I've never witnessed a miracle.  Not even a little one. Keep in mind, my miracle standards are pretty high. For me to call it a miracle it has to be somewhere on the order of what Jesus or the Old Testament prophets did; the blind see, the lame walk, deformed limbs  made whole, the dead return.  I haven't seen even one of those things happen. So when I hear of someone saying that someone somewhere performed a miracle, I become skeptical. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying I doubt it.

The skeptics and I do part ways in some places.  For instance, they don't seem very skeptical about evolution. They are quite certain that this process they've never observed is a fact. I will come a lot closer to believing in evolution when two things happen. One, give me an adequate answer to the question, where did matter come from? Two, create life in the lab.  Since we're so sure how life came about way back however many billions of years ago, do it in the lab. It shouldn't be that hard, really.

Anyways, enough of that. If you're skeptical that I won't have a really great time with your investment money, don't be.

Hiking/Canoeing/Camping

This last weekend The Boy and I went down to SE MO.  We went to hike the Ozark Trail and canoe the Courtois River.  The plan was to check-in Friday evening and camp. Then on Saturday morning get up, drive to the trail head, leave the truck and hit the trail.  We'd hike back to camp, and then in the morning get in the canoe and float back down to the trail head.  It was supposed to be about 12 miles of hiking, and 12 miles of floating over two days.

I'm not exactly a Spartan when it comes to camping. It's getting better, though. I only had one Rubbermade tub this time.

It rained on the way down, and rained a little once we arrived, which was a bummer.  But I was mostly disappointed with where I'd booked us.  The Ozark Trail swings right by the Bass River Resort, and that is a good place to put in your canoe.  However, upon arrival I discovered this wasn't a campground, this was a party camp. I believe everyone under the age of 29 from Rolla and St. Louis was there with us this weekend, and they each carried 24 cans of beer.  I stayed on the "quiet" side of the camp, so we only had to listen to karaoke until 11 PM.

 The rain cleared up and Saturday morning we started hiking. The Ozark Trail is wonderful, at least the section we were on. At one point you're hiking with the river on one side and bluffs on the other. There were too many caves to count or take pictures of (What is this? The Cave State?). We found some impressive rock formations and some nice views of the forest.  We even saw wildlife.

 

Twelve miles may have been a little ambitious for a nine year old boy, so at mile seven we decided to take a short cut.  At this point on the trail, we had five more miles to go. But we were only one mile from the camp if we walked straight toward it.  That didn't work out so well, and I don't recommend it.  I had Camp programmed into my eTrex, and I was fairly certain it was leading us in the right direction, but it is almost impossible to walk in a straight line through the forest of SE MO.

In the end, I'm not certain we saved any time, but I am certain I ruined my wife's camera.  We already had one river crossing, which we waded across no problems.  Our "short cut" forced us to do another, so I began wading. I had my cell in my left hand, ready to hold it out of the water. Unfortunately, the river got deep and I plunged in up to my chin. My first thought was, "don't drown," and then, "swim for the other side."  The thought, "Your wife's camera is in you backpack" didn't cross my mind until I crawled upon the bank of the other side. Yes, the camera got soaked, and at last check still doesn't work.

My son willingly jumped in the river. He never passes up on opportunity to swim. We finally made our way to camp. I'll post some more pics below, but they were all taken before that last river crossing, needless to say.

Once back at camp, we sat around for a couple of minutes and decided to get in the canoe and get to the truck that evening. We started hiking at about 9:30 AM. We got to camp around 3:30 PM after hiking/swimming approximately eight miles. We got in the canoe around 4 PM, and I think we were getting in the truck about 7 PM. It was supposed to be 12 miles of floating, but my eTrex said 10 miles, downstream. A very good day (except for the camera). I am proud of The Boy for doing it.

Sunday morning, once The Boy finally woke up, we had breakfast, broke camp, and headed down to Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest point in Missouri. At about 1,776 feet above sea level (depending on which reference you look at), we both stood on the top of Missouri. It was very gratifying.  Very close by you can find Mina Sauk Falls. Not to be missed! Impressive! You should see it! Unfortunately, I can't show you.  My wife's camera was drowned, and my cell phone battery was so run down it wouldn't let me take pics.  Do a Google image search and you see what I'm talking about.

At that point, we were done.

Here are some other pics of us on the trail:

Luckily we brought enough sunshine to drink.

Another Boring Race Report

Last Saturday I completed the Windsor Tribute Triathlon. 500 yard swim. 18 mile bike. 3.1 mile run. It was a lot of fun and I'll probably try to do a couple more races next year.  I might have said earlier that I've always wanted to do the Shawnee Mission Tri.  I intend to sign up for it again next year. I still need to finish that thing.

Anyways, back to Windsor. 12 minutes something coming out of the water. Pathetic. An hour and two minutes on the bike. 24:47 on the run. 1:42:04 officially for the whole thing. Nothing to brag about. Middle of the pack for my age group.

It's easy to be intimidated when you show up for one of these things. There's a lot of athletic-y looking people there with great bikes and cool spandex outfits.  I don't have such a great outfit. At my last tri I had a hard time getting my bike jersey on, so this time I cut the sleeves off of an old Old Navy tee shirt and wore it with my bike shorts. Perhaps not so cool, but I got that shirt on a lot faster.

One more thing. The girls at these races are very fast. I got beat by two of them. I can tell you though, at Shawnee Mission I would've been bested by scores more.

Enough about that. I have my eyes on another race.  There is a cyclocross race in Hermann, MO in September. Time to start training.

First Triathlon Race Report

My first triathlon ever was called due to rain and lightening.  Bummer! To be fair it was a heck of a storm.  It followed us back home to Clinton and blew over a bunch of trees and limbs, including a large maple tree limb in my yard.

Probably the best way to do this is using the Socratic method. I will provide the answers.

Q. So, overall, how did it go today?
A. Well, I didn't die, if that's what you're asking.
Q. No, just trying to get a general impression. Um, how was the swim?
A. Horrible. The water was a hot eighty-some degrees, which I'm sure sapped my strength, causing me to almost drown two times.  I did finish in like 27 minutes or so, in spite of the thick water in SM Lake.
Q. Thick water?
A. Yeah, I wasn't used to it.
Q. OK...let's talk about transition one.  Had you practiced transitioning from swimming to biking during your training?
A. Why would I? I already know how to put on a shirt and shoes.
Q. So, you didn't have any problems with T1?
A. Well, actually, it took like 15 minutes to get my shirt on. My torso was wet with that thick lake water, and all my shirt wanted to do was wad up in my pits and above my nips. It was embarrassing.
Q. Wow. So on to the ride. Were you able to make up any time after dealing with the, uh, you know, thick lake water?
A. Actually, again I was at a disadvantage. Everyone else had high dollar bikes with clipless pedals. I got passed like an arena league football.
Q. So do you think you should've trained differently?
A. I said they had clipless pedals. Did you not hear me?
Q. How was the route?
A. The route was up hill the whole way.
Q. I thought it was a loop.
A. It was.
Q. Hmm. OK, I'm done. Goodbye.

And there you have it. Just like the race report, the race ended when I was on the bike. I really wanted to finish, and I think I could have.  The swim was harder that I expected, the biking about as hard as I suspected it would be. The run? I'll never know.  Oh well, I have another race in two weeks in Windsor. See you there!

And now for some pics:

We celebrated our anniversary in Overland Park. Here's a view from our hotel. We stayed overnight since I had to be at the park so early.

Trying to be brave, before the swim.

My wife tried to get a shot of me swimming. That's me under the surface of the water, drowning.

Transition 1, and The Lotus.

How do these pedals work?

Weeeee!