A Horrid Forward

One of the most ridiculous e-mail forwards I've seen in some time:

*Three **Bullets*
>
>
> **With God all things are possible*-Matthew ** 19:26 *
>
> There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat.
> He had an old rifle and three bullets.
> So, he decided that he would go out hunting
> and kill some wild game for dinner.
>
> As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit.
> He shot at the rabbit and missed it.
> The rabbit ran away.
>
> Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel but
> missed it.
> The squirrel disappeared into a hole in a cottonwood tree.
>
> As he went further, he saw a large wild 'Tom'
> turkey in the tree,
> but he had only one bullet remaining.
>
> A voice spoke to him and said, *
> 'Pray first, aim high, and stay focused.*
>
> However, at the same time, he saw a deer
> which was a better kill.
>
> He brought the gun down and aimed at the deer.
> But, then he saw a rattlesnake between his legs about to
> bite him,
> so he naturally brought the gun down further to shoot the
> rattlesnake.
>
> Still, the voice said again to him, *
> 'I said, 'Pray, Aim high, and Stay focused.'*
>
> So, the man decided to listen to God's voice.
>
> He prayed, then aimed the gun high up in the tree,
> and shot the wild turkey.
>
> The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer.
[huh???]>
> The handle fell off the gun, hit the snake in the head, and
> killed it. [um...]
> And, when the gun had gone off, it knocked him into a pond.
>
> When he stood up to look around,
> he had fish in all his pockets, [Well, of course.]
> a dead deer, and a turkey for his family to eat.
>
> The snake (Satan) was dead simply because
> the man listened to God. *
>
> Moral of the story:* *
>
> Pray first before you do anything,* *
> aim and shoot high in your goals,* *
> and stay focused on God.*
>

I guess I give them credit for resisting the urge to tack on a bunch of guilt-tripping at the end about "If you love Jesus, forward this. If you regularly slaughter babies as satanic sacrifices, delete it." I guess this e-mail was originally written by someone who thought it would be inspiring??? And here's the kicker - apparently there are some people I know who DID.

I can't take this kind of thing before 11 on a Monday.

Music

So I'm wondering what's new in the music world that's worth a listen. If anyone has input, feel free to contribute.

One of my youth group guys just discovered "Falling Slowly" a song from the indie film Once that won the Oscar for Best Original Song this year. I still haven't found the film, but I would like to. The song is decent, and the premise seems promising. (A promising premise! Eh? Eh?) [update 1/8/09: I got the film on DVD for cheap, and it's pretty great. Lots of f-words, but I think that's because Irish people say f-words just to make sure they're still breathing. Great plot and some very funny moments.]

Ben Folds' newest effort is a fine one, but then whaddya expect? One of my favorites was the collab with Regina Spektor called "You Don't Know Me." It's quirky and fun. Beware the language though...

Speaking of Regina Spektor, the soundtrack from Prince Caspian also contained her song "The Call." She didn't write it, but her performance is meltingly lovely. Her voice is doing some pretty technical stuff and making it sound effortless.

On the strength of those two songs, we got Spektor's latest album Begin to Hope. It's a bit esoteric at times, but her musicianship and songwriting are pretty impressive. That, and she draws on her eclectic heritage as a Russian-born Jewish-American for inspiration. "Apres Moi" is one of my favorites on the album. We got the iTunes version, which includes a few bonus tracks.

One of the surprisingly good albums I've found lately is Chris Rice's newest, What A Heart Is Beating For. Despite the fact some precise personalities might insist that a more correct title would be That For Which A Heart Is Beating, this is a good album. Even more encouragingly, it's getting no radio play on KLOVE that I've heard. "Here Come Those Eyes" is great stuff for romantic occasions, and "Punch Lines and Ironies" has some of that great lyric and melody combination I love about Chris. "So Much For My Sad Song" is a warm tune that Cindy refers to as "anti-emo." I think the world could do with a bit more music of that description.

Not especially new, but still good, is the latest from Sanctus Real, We Need Each Other. This guy's voice is one of the best, and their songwriting is very solid. This is a band that I would hit the road with as a touring keyboardist tomorrow if they called. From the offbeat timing of the opening rocker "Turning on the Lights" to the solid ballad "Lay Down My Guns," this album is in danger of getting over-played on my iTunes playlist.

I could go on ad nauseum, but I'm curious about your input.

Too Soon...

Today, the day after Halloween, Wal-Mart is playing Christmas music in the overhead speakers. Also, it's the "Jingle Bell Rock" variety, not the classy jazz/orchestral type. I have not the words...

Funny stuff

This blog entry had me chuckling:

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/05/208-christianizing-your-facebook.html

The rest of this blog is pretty consistently funny as well.

Coffee Shops

El Dorado Springs has a bit of an odd tradition. For decades the elderly gentlemen of the town (and the surrounding area) used to meet every morning at a ridiculously early hour to drink coffee, read the newspaper, and express opinions on all manner of topics at a place colloquially known as Clem's, or just "the coffee shop." The official name of the place was Casey's Honeybee Restaurant, but nobody called it that. The coffee was cheap and good, and the regulars and semi-regulars could count on reliable service and Clem Casey, the proprietor, keeping the flow of conversation going. Then Clem retired and sold his restaurant to a couple rumored to have moved to town from California. Within two months, the place had closed its doors, and has now sat vacant for more than two years.

The odd thing is that since Casey's sat next to the local McDonald's, and since McDonald's offers decent prices on a cup of coffee for senior citizens, the older gentlemen have unofficially shifted their early-morning custom to McDonald's. And now, when you hear one of these pillars of the community talk about going to "the coffee shop" in the mornings, they are actually talking about McDonald's. But McDonald's is only called "the coffee shop" in the early mornings. After about 9 am, they refer to it as McDonald's again like the rest of the world.

I have mixed feelings about this phenomenon. On the one hand, I am in favor of any tradition like this where people can gather and share a sense of community. On the other hand, something in me rebels against a major national chain serving as a host to this kind of thing. I even typically eschew Starbuck's or Caribou coffee in favor of local establishments. Clem's was never a coffee shop to fit the modern definition - their idea of innovative variety was to brew both regular and decaf - but I respected the culture and local flavor of the place. And there are other local establishments in town that could serve as "the coffee shop." I wish McD's weren't getting that revenue.

The McDonald's corporation has absolutely no idea what great fodder for advertising they have here. They're trying to introduce the coffee-shop vibe into their restaurants in several test markets, including ours. They're redecorating, including in several cases constructing separate rooms with couches and coffee tables to promote the atmosphere. If they realized what is going on with the elderly gentlemen in our town, I'm convinced some advertising wheeze at the corporate level would just turn backflips of yuppie glee.

Still Lazy After All These Years

When I was small, my mom told me over and over again that if I just sat around reading and daydreaming and if I just spent all my time riding my bike and pretending to be the Lone Ranger or Michael Knight or a secret agent or a sea captain, I would never get my homework done. She was a cruel, cruel mother who forced me to practice my piano lesson - sometimes up to an hour per day! She consistently squelched my creativity and crushed my spirit by regularly assigning such drudgery as putting away the dishes from the dishwasher, mowing the lawn, folding laundry, vacuuming the carpet, and (horrors!) putting my toys away!

I remember one incident in particular where I was lounging in the recliner and reading an Important Book, probably from the Sugar Creek Gang series. There were various items of dubious origin scattered across the living room floor, and my mom told me to come and pick up my things. I said "Okay," and of course returned to my Important Book. By the time thirty seconds or so had elapsed, I could no longer even remember the conversation, except for a vague nagging sensation that I needed to remember something when I finished the book. When she returned after a few minutes and saw me unmoved from my literary repose, she let me know that the time was now. "Come and put away your things RIGHT NOW." I decided to take the obvious blame-shifting maneuver. "But, Moooom!" I wailed, "NONE of this stuff is MINE!" My mother's response to that brilliant bit of rhetoric will shock you. The Dorothy Purtle that most people know and love have never seen the side of her that so despises Important Books that she would resort to what Stuart Scott so insightfully diagnoses as "playa-hatin'." She began walking around the room, picking up all the things that actually did belong to me. Some of these things were very important to me, like Woofy the stuffed dog, my lever-action Daisy toy rifle that sounded and kicked almost like a real gun when fired, and others. My mother took all these items into her room and put them on the top shelf of her closet. She told me that I would get them back the day I turned 65 (or some other date equally distant in the mind of a ten-year-old - it may possibly have just been a week). A heartless woman, my mother.

She even went so far as to tell me that if I developed the habit of being lazy, I would be lazy when I grew up, and it would be difficult to cope in the "real world." Well, most of the "real world" I've experienced has been much kinder than the one for which I was prepared. You don't get fired from your minimum-wage job if you show up a couple of minutes late. You don't even get fired if you just don't show up one day, as long as you only do that once a year or so. But my mom was right about one thing: I am still lazy. I turned thirty on Tuesday, and I now officially have no excuses for not behaving as an adult should. But I'm still lazy. I have to pretty much zap myself with 110-volt current to get myself to wash dishes or vacuum floors. But I am pretty energetic and motivated when it comes to my job, and that's something only a small percentage of the global work force can claim.

I haven't really gotten much teasing about starting my fourth decade. This one is probably not as annoying as the big four-oh. The most depressing thing about my age is that I can no longer hear the "teacher-proof ring tone." The typical teacher-proof ring tone is about 17 kHz, and my hearing now tops out about 14.5 kHz. As recently as two years ago, I could still hear it. Where does your hearing top out? Check here. (Remember that if you have cheap computer speakers you probably won't be able to hear anything above 15k or so. Try a good set of headphones.)


In other news, my hot wife had Governor Matt Blunt visit her Calculus class on Tuesday. He was coming to observe Cindy teaching using her new SmartBoard, which his METS education initiative helped to fund. Cindy was very nervous, but when the governor showed up, she just coolly taught Calculus and used the SmartBoard to its best advantage. The governor stayed for about fifteen minutes and made the class nervous. Then he and his entourage left. Everyone laughed, because they were relieved and because of how silly it was to pretend that it was just another normal Calculus class with The Governor standing there and a dozen cameras in the back of the room. Cindy gets extra kudos for putting up the giant "Don't Panic" sign, printed in large friendly letters on the wall over the SmartBoard.

Tonight, we're planting flowers, the kind that you plant in the fall. I have no idea about that kind of thing - I'm just going to dig where Cindy tells me to dig. I dig flowers.

More Hiking Stories

Last month I achieved a personal first, a landmark achievement in my outdoor adventuring career. I'll get to that in a bit. First, I have some much-overdue accounting to give.



In April of this year, I did something I had been wanting to do my whole life. I went backpacking in the Grand Canyon. I don't remember how old I was the first time I stood on the rim of the Canyon, but I had been to the South Rim at least five or six times in my life. I always thought the walk up to the rim was well worth the trip. No matter how many pictures, Circle-Vision Films, or 3-D IMAX films of the Canyon you've seen, none of it captures the sense of vast, enormous distances you get when you first walk up to the rim and look for yourself. I had seen this several times, and strolled about a mile down the Bright Angel Trail (the most popular trail into the Canyon for hikers and mule trains) a couple of times. But I always wanted to hike all the way to the bottom of the canyon and back.

In late 2007 my friend Travis Sayler and I began making plans to do just that. We requested a backcountry permit from the National Park Service in December (the earliest possible date to do so) and got a prompt reply informing us that our permit was approved.

I told my dad about it, and he pleasantly surprised me by asking if it would be okay for him to tag along. Travis and I invited several of our other minister friends to go as well. After numerous commitments, cancellations, and substitutions, finally our merry band of adventurers came together: Travis Sayler, Brandon Speak, Kevin Askew, Andrew Ryan, my dad, and me.

I must confess that all through this process of planning and training, I would occasionally have an extremely undignified giggle fit. I was actually going to backpack the Canyon!

We decided to do a four-day backpacking trip below the rim. We planned the trip so that if we were feeling saucy, we could take a shot at going from the South Rim all the way to the North Rim and back. We trained hard, loading our backpacks with old textbooks and running stairs and hiking the steepest trails we could find close to home.

Then in mid-April, we piled in a rental van (with Sirius radio and multiple screens for the DVD player - super-deluxe!) and headed west. The evening we arrived at the South Rim, we set up camp and then walked up to the edge just before sunset. For several in the group, it was the first view of the Canyon. Drew Ryan and I stood on the rim for probably ten minutes, just looking and chuckling and saying inane things like, "Wow! Whew! That's awesome." For two guys who fancy themselves to possess at least a journeyman's grasp of English vocabulary, it was a shameful performance.

The next morning we did our final pack checks, strapped everything down tight, and started from the South Rim, hiking down the South Kaibab Trail (a 4,780-ft. descent) the first day to the Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River in the bottom of the Canyon.


The hike down was surprisingly easy, even accounting for the fact that we had gravity working in our favor. All six miles down the South Kaibab I was also charged with adrenaline. I kept looking around and snapping pictures, and that insane giggle fit would occasionally rear its undignified head. Most of the time I just let it out. The trail was well-populated, but there was still sufficient solitude to allow for some unrestrained fits of childish delight. When I was within sight of the tunnel approaching the Black Bridge (the footbridge over the Colorado River that the South Kaibab crosses), I started wondering why my knees and leg muscles weren't hurting much. I couldn't figure it out then, but now I think it must have been a combination of giggly adrenaline and the fact that my pack was much lighter than it had been in any of my training hikes.


We got to the Bright Angel Campground about lunch time. We ate, then explored around a bit. A few of us stuck our feet in the Colorado River (bone-chillingly cold at this time of year!) to ease the tender spots the descent had rubbed raw.

That evening, as we all spent a leisurely time sitting in our campsite eating high-carb, high-salt, high-protein foods and gulping quarts of water at a time, the giggle fits came again. Some of my less charitably-inclined readers are probably beginning to question the state of my sanity at the repeated mention of giggling. Others who have known me longer will not begin to question my sanity due to the fact that they abandoned the last shard of hope for my mental stability years ago.

Then the next day we arose betimes and asked ourselves the question, "Do we feel saucy?" We were much more stiff and sore from the previous day's descent than I had expected, but after moving about a bit we worked out some of the kinks. We decided we felt saucy. We would hike up the North Kaibab Trail, and some of us would make a bid for the North Rim. It would be no lazy day of strolling: the North Kaibab Trail runs 14.5 miles from Bright Angel Campground to the North Rim, and the North Rim is 5,816 feet higher in elevation than the Colorado River. Other features on the trail include Ribbon Falls at about six miles, Roaring Springs falls at ten miles, and the Supai Tunnel at twelve miles.

It was an awesome day of hiking, but none of us quite made it to the North Rim. For one thing, the North Kaibab Trail was still being repaired from spring flooding and ice damage, and there were some spots that were a bit dangerous still. Also, it was just a brutal ascent after the previous day's toll on our knees. Kevin and Drew made it the farthest: they turned around at the Supai Tunnel, a scant two miles short of their goal, when they were worried about losing their daylight in dangerous washed-out sections of trail. Travis and I made it to Roaring Springs, a beautiful spot where we stopped for lunch and then headed back. Brandon (who had slightly injured his ankle in one of his ninja tournaments a few weeks before) and my dad turned around at Ribbon Falls.


Ribbon Falls is a spot worth visiting. It's a gorgeous little hidden spot off in a side canyon. The snow-melt water splashes down onto a large mossy rock, and there's a spot where you can walk up behind it and even walk out into the icy water if you take a notion. I didn't take a notion, but while I was standing by the water to get my picture taken, the wind suddenly changed and completely drenched me in water the approximate temperature of liquid hydrogen.


Even in the ninety-degree-plus desert heat, I shivered for almost half an hour. Then we pushed on.

That evening, after all of us had finally returned to camp (Drew and Kevin well after dark), a few of us walked over to the Silver Bridge, also known as the Bright Angel Trail bridge. The moon was nearly full, and with no artificial light the Canyon was breathtaking. The most distant rock towers and mesas were picked out in ghostly silver detail. The cool wind scooting down the river gorge from the West and the surround-sound white noise of the current made the whole scene even more dreamlike. Conversations were restrained, voices low. A part of me wanted to cut loose with a whoop at top volume, but the rest of me knew that it wouldn't be appropriate - it would be like reacting to the beauty of a cathedral by exclaiming loudly in the chancel during vespers.

The next day we packed up and headed South again. Our descent had been via the South Kaibab Trail, a steeper, shorter trail. Our ascent would take the Bright Angel trail, the most popular trail that is, at 9.3 miles, longer than the South Kaibab, but also less steep. Also, we were going to take it in two chunks. The first chunk would be a bit easier: just over 4.7 miles, but only 1400 feet of our total ascent of 4,500 feet (for those of you keeping track, yes, the Bright Angel trailhead is slightly lower than the South Kaibab trailhead). The Bright Angel Trail is a bit more heavily traveled by mule trains, so the watch-your-step factor is increased as well. After that first chunk, we stopped for the night at Indian Garden Campground, which is on the lower Canyon plateau in an oasis on the otherwise-arid terrain. We set up camp in the early afternoon, ate, and relaxed for a bit. Then we walked out to a place called Plateau Point, just in time for sunset.

(Plateau Point, looking West at sunset)

Plateau Point was one of the highlights of my life. We were 1,500 feet above the Colorado River. Thus, it was like being at the top of the Royal Gorge (plus 300 feet) and still having 3,000 feet of canyon walls and rock towers above you all around. And when the sun went down, the moonlit dream sequence from the previous nights repeated itself, but in wide-screen, hi-definition glory. I took some time exposures with my camera, but they fail to capture the scene.

(This picture is the same view as the previous one, but lit only by stars and moon)

There was quite a crowd at Plateau Point for sunset - perhaps thirty or forty people at first. We lingered long after everyone else had left, using our backpacking stoves to brew coffee and hot tea on the rocks. (Backpacking stoves are the only kind of cooking heat source allowed in the canyon - a campfire will earn you a rapid community lynching.) The surprising thing - at least to Midwesterners used to a more humid climate - about being in the desert is that a day when the temperatures climb over a hundred degrees quickly cools to downright chilly after the sun goes down. This phenomenon was in full effect that evening, and I was grateful for my Smartwool hat and Icebreaker shirt. (I'm not compensated in any way by either company - though I'm definitely willing to discuss offers! - but I highly recommend both their fine product lines for any and every occasion.) The walk back in the dark through the cactus and desert scrub was a bit spooky - I was imagining scorpions and rattlesnakes holding a union meeting or planning the perfect ambush on the trail around the next bend.

That night was our last in the Canyon. The next morning we left as soon as we could get packed after sunup, trying to complete our ascent before the heat woke up for the day. This was the steepest part of the ascent, and after the previous days' cumulative toll on our leg muscles, the most difficult. Of course, the fact that we had eaten almost all of our food had lightened our loads considerably. Also, we had planned well so as not to have much heavy trash to haul out - and you do haul out ALL your trash in the Canyon. (If you don't hit one of the composting toilets on the trail, you even have to haul out your used toilet paper. Violating this rule can result in triple-digit fines and immediate revocation of your backcountry permit.) We spread out into our typical trail formation - Travis and Brandon usually in the lead, with Drew and Kevin somewhat behind, and my dad bringing up the rear in the best Purtle-Turtle-Tortoise style. My most comfortable pace is somewhat slower than Kevin's, and on this trip I tried to stay within a reasonable line of sight to my dad, until about halfway up when I felt like I got a second wind and really started stepping out. Drew had been playing the Hare role the first few days, though, and this last day he played it to perfection, his legs paying the price for his abuse. I caught him a little over halfway up and decided, hey, no sense slowing down when I've got a good rhythm going - I don't have to walk any more for the next few days after I get to the top.



Reaching the final switchback and seeing the trailhead above me was quite a rush. I started my insane giggle again, and kept it up until after I got to the top. I talked to the other guys for a bit, then ditched my pack and walked the quarter of a mile (over flat land!) to get the van and pull it up to the trailhead. By the time I got back, Travis and Brandon had walked down to meet my dad, and he was nearing the top of the trail. He came around the final bend and got his trademark mustachioed grin on his face. When he reached the trailhead sign, he simply said, "Oh yeah." Walking over to the van and the other guys, we all had one of those moments of shared triumph that men sometimes experience when they have overcome a great challenge together. It's a moment that sometimes involves a chest bump and a good deal of fist-pumping, but in this case it just consisted of some handshakes and quiet congratulations being passed around. The tired-and-grimy-but-very-proud expressions on our faces would have been the main indicators to anyone looking on that this group of guys had done anything out of the ordinary in the previous few days.

Then we showered, piled in the van, and drove to the Cracker Barrel in Flagstaff, which we proceeded to divest of its entire stock of foodstuffs.

The entire trip more than fulfilled my expectations, elevated though they were. It ranks as one of the best adventure accomplishments of my life. It is true that some crazy trail runners go rim-to-rim-to-rim in less than twenty-four hours, and our trip took four days, but I'm very proud of what we did. And now, I'm planning for the next time.

But last month came another accomplishment, the personal first to which I alluded at the beginning of this post. At the end of the summer, just before school started, Cindy and I went with her friends Candace, Lucinda, and Emily to hike the Taum Sauk Mountain section of the Ozark Trail. It was a quick overnight jaunt, decently challenging and satisfyingly scenic. The most exciting thing that happened was when Cindy was stung twice - Candace once - by hornets when we walked through their nest. Fortunately, neither of them had an allergic reaction to the stings. I happened to be wearing Ex Officio "Buzz-Off" pants and shirt - they're impregnated with Permethrin insect repellent, and work better than drenching yourself in Deep Woods Off! Again, I'm not getting any compensation from Ex Officio (although I am eager to discuss offers), but I highly recommend their product for summer hiking in buggy terrain. The fabric is light, dries quickly, and I haven't been bitten at all while wearing it. And as I've discussed in other posts, usually I'm known as an insect god - they follow me across the face of the earth, longing to taste my blood.

But my great victory was this: I carefully gathered the driest firewood I could find (not easy considering the recent rains), painstakingly built a firelay, and struck a match to it... and it BURNED ALL EVENING, on that single match. No chemicals, no paper, no accelerants of any kind were used. I'm an Eagle Scout, but this was the first time I had ever accomplished this momentous feat of outdoors acumen.

And then I brewed up the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

Folks, it just doesn't get much better.

Scams

Disclaimer: This post will be very boring for most of you.

One of the greatest college classes my wife took was a class called (I think) "Logic and Critical Thinking." I wish I had had the opportunity to take the same class. The most interesting part of what she learned was the list of fallacies in reasoning.

Fallacies in reasoning differ from factual errors. A factual error simply getting the facts wrong, like saying, "The capital of the United States is Poughkeepsie," or, "There are seven feet in a yard," or, "The moon is flat." These are clearly not errors in reasoning or judgment. They just have the facts wrong.

There is a long list of logical fallacies, and I find them to be very interesting, because many of these fallacies are commonly used in political campaign advertising, in e-mail forwards and scams, and (unfortunately) even in sermons. For example, an ad hominem fallacy is an attack on a person, instead of on his arguments or their premises. For example:

Joe: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque is one of the finest barbeque establishments on the planet.
Mo: You're a dirty liberal environmentalist, so I don't believe you!
Joe: But don't you agree that their brisket is one of the most perfectly-seasoned delicacies you've ever tasted?
Mo: It don't matter. You're a tree-huggin' granola-faced pansy boy, and therefore you're wrong!

The ad hominem fallacy shows up in political advertising all the time. One candidate claims that his opponent cannot possibly be correct on any questions of foreign policy, because she was involved in anti-war demonstrations in the sixties.

Political advertising can blend all sorts of fallacies into one grandiose fallacious cocktail. One advertisement might, for example, use "straw man" arguments, ad hominem arguments, appeals to fear, appeals to emotion, and false dilemma simultaneously. For example:

Candidate 1: Candidate 2 has stated that his biggest priority is the future of our children. But Candidate 2 voted against children last year when he refused to vote for the "No Child Without an Internet Connection" bill. [straw man] Candidate 2's obvious disregard for our children's future makes him a poor choice to be our state's attorney general. [ad hominem] If Candidate 2 is elected, he will destroy our children's future. [appeal to fear] If I am elected, our children's future will be secure. [appeal to emotion] On election day, will you vote for Candidate 2, or will you vote for our children? [false dilemma]

The sappy pseudo-Christian e-mail forward I got just this morning admonished me:

"If you believe in God and in Jesus Christ His Son .. Send this to all on

Your buddy list. If not just ignore it. If you ignore it, just remember that Jesus said. ‘If you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.’"

"If you believe," then send to everyone? If you ignore it, then you're somehow denying Jesus??? What if you have serious problems with the substance of the e-mail and believe it to be based on serious misinterpretations of Scripture? This is a dozen or more logical fallacies at once. Besides, it's just common bullying.

It's even more unfortunate, I think, when preachers, Christian authors, and Christian teachers fall into these logical fallacies. I'm trying to examine my teaching these days to make sure I'm minimizing this. I don't want to be unintentionally scamming anyone.

Crying

Here's an issue that I'd like feedback on from both of you who actually read this. What makes you cry? My observation of my own lachrimosity suggests that tears are a poor indicator of my emotions. I apparently cry at the slightest provocation, while on some occasions when I've been desperately sad, my tear ducts were like Tucson in August.

I find that Cindy and I are both non-weepers, as a rule, in funerals. I've been very sad in funerals many times, but I can only remember two where I cried (out of perhaps a hundred or more funerals I've attended), and in both cases I think that was because someone else was crying copiously at the time.

In general, I cry a lot more than Cindy does. She mostly cries out of extreme frustration, whereas I cry for the dumbest reasons.

I'm completely random when it comes to which movies make me cry. Here's a list of some that did:

Blood Diamond
Lord of the Rings (all three)*
The Constant Gardener (GREAT movie, but watch it with someone who knows where to cover your eyes)
Amazing Grace
The End of the Spear
The Passion of the Christ (obviously)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Saving Private Ryan
Amistad
Letters from Iwo Jima
We Were Soldiers
The Patriot
The Green Mile
3:10 to Yuma
Mad Max
Man on Fire
... and many more.

And some movies that DIDN'T make me cry that made several "Top Tear-Jerker Movies" lists I googled:

A Walk To Remember
Autumn In New York
Little Women
Man in the Iron Mask
Armageddon
Romeo and Juliet
Moulin Rouge
A Beautiful Mind
Hope Floats
Bambi
Lion King
Gladiator
The Notebook
Titanic (Aside from the amazing effects, awesome recreation of the ship, and attention to historic detail, this movie was horrible. Absolutely worthless plot.)

And some books that had me crying:
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
Lord of the Rings (all three, again.)
The Magician's Nephew (oddly, this is the only one of the Narnia series I remember crying while reading - it's the part where Digory wants the apple to heal his mother)
The Reverse of the Medal (by Patrick O'Brian - one of the Aubrey/Maturin series that includes Master and Commander)
Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

What about y'all? I think I want some feedback on this one.


*A note on this: I don't really cry at the death scenes (except for Boromir's in Fellowship - I mean, of COURSE). The Lord of the Rings moment is like this pressure in your chest, a swelling pride. It comes when the elves march in to help at Helm's Deep, or when Rohan Charges at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, or when Aragorn gives his "...but it is not THIS day. Today, we fight!" speech. It tears you up from the glory and virtue and sacrifice and the sense of standing with them and staring death in the face without backing down. I got that feeling the most of any movie when Private Ryan tells Captain Miller that he's staying at that bridge. Some of you will scoff because I'm somehow equating LOTR with a WWII movie. LOTR to me perfectly captures in epic mythic form all of the great struggles and sacrifices of the "Greatest Generation" that won WWII. Take issue with that if you will.

And now, for something more substantial...

Do you change your voice based on who you're talking to? (See, if I'm writing that sentence thinking that my mom would read it, it would have been thus: "Do you change your voice based on the person to whom you're talking?") Do you change your vocabulary or even your accent? Obviously most of us talk differently to small children than we do to adults. Most of us also subconsciously edit our speech for more sensitive ears. For example, if you're talking to a nice ladylike woman, the phrases "screwed up" and "that sucks" are conspicuously absent in most cases, right? If you don't do such editing, do you edit other more explicit words?

I change my voice quite a bit when I'm talking to people of different ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. In fact, my prejudices about a person probably evidence themselves somewhat by my voice, vocabulary, and accent when I address them. That's a bit embarrassing. But on the more amusing side, Cindy can almost always tell who the person is on the other end of the phone conversation with me. It's more pronounced with some people than others: I have a distinct voice I use when talking to my grandpa. There's another one for when I'm talking to my mom, and another for my dad. My sisters get a completely different voice.

Also, I have a theory that may be a bit spurious, but I think it has some basis in fact. I watched a DVD of myself teaching in a Sunday morning worship service here in El Dorado Springs, and I think I can tell with a fair degree of accuracy which group of people in the congregation I'm looking at at any one time by the change in my voice. If I'm looking at one of the old-timer Missourians, my southern Missouri drawl thickens and I draw a bit of my vocabulary from my dad's Tennessee roots. If I'm looking at youth group members, I do a lousy imitation of a surfer dude. If I look at Aaron Ash or Randy J. Bland, my vocabulary suddenly improves.

What's with that?

A bit ashamed...

It has been entirely too long since my last post.

And I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles... Thoughts in Praise of Gallivanting

This last weekend I made a long road trip. It was actually a touch over 1000 miles each way to Central, South Carolina, where my cousin's wedding was happening. Central, South Carolina, as it happens, is in northwestern corner of South Carolina.

(I can only imagine the Seuss/Ice Cube mashup:

She came from south-central
Central, South Carolina
Up in the Northwest corner
Where tha honeys is mo' finer.

Yeah, we rock it
South-central Central, northwest
South Carolina style.
Yeah. whaaaaaat!)

The wedding was good - my cousin Bobby successfully married a really cool girl named Heidi, which was the important part. My sister Karen played the piano magnificently - she's really good at preludes and postludes where you have to fill like an hour with appropriate music. I played and sang a song, and got through it with a satisfactorily low number of mistakes.

The road trip itself, though, was what got me thinking. I like long road trips. I love the changing terrain, the sense of freedom. I especially love long road trips where Cindy and I take off and just go, with only the essentials firmly planned and everything else flexible. This weekend, though, was a bit frustrating in some ways. I drove 2000 miles, and my only non-essential deviation from the route was to visit the REI store in Nashville. I saw some very beautiful country - we crossed the tail of the Appalachian alligator north of Chattanooga and the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers east of Sikeston, MO. But Cindy had to stay home. And besides that, when the trip odometer rolls back over to all zeros at least once in your journey, it's a little maddening to be forced to stay on target, with no leeway for gallivanting about the countryside.

Gallivanting is one of my favorite activities. Whether in a car or far out in the back country on foot, I recommend gallivanting highly to anyone. www.m-w.com gives two definitions for "gallivanting":

1 : to go about usually ostentatiously or indiscreetly with members of the opposite sex
2 : to travel, roam, or move about for pleasure

Now while I'm mostly referring to the latter definition here, my experience has certainly shown that the quality of my gallivanting has improved considerably if I take Cindy along and incorporate the former definition into the latter. She is an excellent traveling companion, despite the fact that she's absolute rubbish as a driver for more than about an hour or two at a time (car trips are her Ambien).

When gallivanting on foot, I've discovered many wonders. In the wilderness I've found hidden waterfalls, crazy rock formations, weird flora, rarely-viewed wildlife, and unexpectedly spectacular views. In cities I've found the best Bubble Tea and Bulgogi place ever; the hot-dog-stand guy in New York who piled the toppings higher than any other; a place in Naples, FL that served me a cheeseburger than can only be described as epic; and many small parks, pleasant nooks, and awesome used bookstores.

My car-borne gallivanting has been no less satisfying. Cindy and I were in California two summers ago and randomly decided to deviate from our plan and drive down the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo... gorgeous.


It was also while gallivanting about in the car that I discovered the best coffee shop in Topeka, the best Carne Asada burritos in Kansas City (warning: "colorful" use of language in this review), and a very cool little overlook just north of the Kansas City River Market.

My dad is also a talented gallivantist - once on vacation in a town where we'd never been before, we decided to eat supper at Applebee's. I offered to look it up in the phone book and get directions. He said, "Oh, let's just go see what we can find." Without benefit of a map, Yellow Pages, or any other navigation aid, he drove straight to Applebee's. He is also the master of finding the lowest gas price in six states, just before his tank runs dry.

So the moral of all this is, I think, that we all need to leave ourselves a little gallivanting room. Make your plans, but abandon them and gallivant a bit if the opportunity presents itself. Celebrate when the odometer reaches a pleasing symmetry or when you reach the top of a tough climb in the trail. Other advice I'll leave you to find for yourself. Get out there and gallivant, but don't run out of gas or drinking water.

Great pasta and other things

I think resolutions of any kind are counterproductive for me. Some time around the end of September, I had been journaling and blogging fairly regularly, and it was a good exercise of the writing muscle, besides all the intangible benefits. It was going well, so I decided to make a resolution to journal every day and blog every week. Ahem... My journal's last two entries are dated 9/26/07 and 12/12/07. And you can read the dates on my blog entries.

So no talk of new year's resolutions for me. Cindy does great with them - in 2007 she read at least one chapter of Proverbs every day except for the TWO days she missed. A 99.45% success rate is not too shabby. My wife makes me depressed sometimes. But then I buy her a box of Fruit Gushers candy and watch them disappear, and I feel better. Petty? Yes. Spiteful? Certainly. Sadistic? Now, now, let's not venture into hyperbole.

On another topic, I sometimes can't believe how materialistic I really am. I feel an inordinate protectiveness and affection toward my iPod and other gadgets. Large speakers and beefy amplifiers make me grin like a mean kid who's just been handed a BB gun. I even have a shamefully unmanly soft spot for our pots, pans, and dishes. But here's the worst one - I hoard random audio and video cables, adapters, and sundry computer-related doo-dads like Nixon hoarded hair pomade. If I go help someone hook up their new computer or DVD player or TV, I use the minimum number of the cables that came in the box, and then casually say, "Well, it's ready to go. You got any use for these extra cables?" I try to modulate my look and tone artfully so as to indicate that these "extra cables" are certainly NOT something they have a use for now, and are highly unlikely to be useful to them at any time in the future. I also try to communicate with my body language and other appropriate means that "these extra cables" are not only an unnecessary inconvenience to them, but are also likely to become a dangerous hazard to pets and small children, and might even be forming a union and plotting the overthrow of the management structure of the home. My subtlety is usually rewarded with a "Oh, no, I don't need them. Do you want them? And can you let go of my shirt collar now?" At which point I invariably begin to feel a Gollum-like sense of possessiveness toward the widget in question. Whenever anyone needs to borrow something, I narrow my eyes at them. I give the hardened, distant look of a seasoned veteran of many battles with electronics, and I exude a heavy skepticism that this rookie standing before me really has a need for the serious adapter firepower I have to offer. Ideally, I send my supplicant off with an admonition to make do with what he already has. But in some cases I do decide to loan the requested whoozit. I slowly open my cables-and-adapters-and-widgets drawer. I carefully remove the desired item from its nest, but with many a doubtful glance at the requester, as if mulling his pedigree with distrust. I hand it over slowly, hesitating just as he starts to reach for it. I pull back for a moment, a look of fond nostalgia in my eye as if recalling the time that very cable fixed the bad connection in Bono's microphone receiver just before he went on stage at Live 8. Then, with a resigned wilt, I release my treasure into the care, nay, the stewardship of this person who has had the audacity to occasion a breaching of the sanctity of my cables-and-adapters-and-widgets drawer. With any luck, next time the guy wants a stereo RCA cable, he'll go to Radio Shack and pony up the $2.79.

I'm also ridiculously fond of backpacking gear, but that's another story.


In other news, Cindy made some amazingly good pasta the other day. It was from the Quick Recipes magazine my sister gave her, in their section on the best ways to prepare leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. It's called Next-Day Turkey Primavera. Cindy approaches recipes like a jazz musician approaches a music score, so she substituted grilled chicken for the turkey, whole-wheat rotini for the penne, and green peppers and broccoli for the asparagus. She also monkeyed with the sauce a bit, but she can't remember how. It was amazing.

Speaking of food, if you're in Nevada, MO any time soon, find the Cherry Street Grill and eat there. Any of the pastas will make your day, but if you're feeling saucy spend a little more and get a steak or some grilled mahi-mahi. And if you're lucky the owner (who fits the word "jolly" better than Kris Kringle does) will walk out in his puffy chef hat and offer you free seconds on your soup. It's pretty standard procedure. And the atmosphere has both classic charm and hipster cool. In a place like Nevada, MO, that's a rare find.

Lastly, if you're not familiar with Car Talk, I'd recommend that you check it out. Even if (or perhaps especially if) you're not a car person.