Recently I learned that there is something we all add to our food that makes salt, pepper, MSG and curry powder completely irrelevant. It makes food addictively tasty, and not adding it leaves most foods unappetizing, or even disgusting. I recently discovered the amazing powers of this incredible additive when I failed to add it.
By now you may have some guesses regarding the identity of this additive, but in case you have not, I will supply a few more clues.
A few days before my discovery we took Maxine and some of her school friends swimming at a big, indoor water park. It was very fun for the kids, and I had fun as well. I swam a couple of laps in an Olympic sized swimming pool, which wore me out. The next day my neck and jaw hurt. I figured that I had overdone it on an exercise that I don't do regularly enough. I stretched as much as I could, but the next day the pain was worse; it hurt to open my mouth wide enough to eat, and the sides of my face were red and puffy. I looked like me two years ago before losing more than 30 pounds.
Horyon was guessing that I had mumps, but I was pretty sure that the mumps was a disease out of history, like polio or the black plague. She was actually pretty close: I had a viral salivary gland infection, which is a good description of mumps, only this wasn't mumps.
The doctor prescribed medicine, and I started looking on the internet. Unfortunately, the virus must have been looking as well, because it figured out what it should have been doing: blocking the production of saliva. Of course, saliva is the one thing we all add to our food, the moment we take a bit. And until you have tried eating without it, you cannot realize what a difference it makes.
Of course soups are fine without saliva, as are a few other naturally wet foods: watermelon, oranges, ice cream, But pretty much everything else takes a quick detour from dessert to desert; it was like chewing on a mouthful of cotton. And so with every mouthful of food I took a sip of water. Sounds like a good solution, but water is most definitely not saliva. My food was moist, but not flavorful.
I spent almost a week not really tasting much, struggling to chew, and swallowing with difficulty. As it happens, God was simultaneously using this disease to not only give my immune system a workout, but to give me a physical reminder of the daily spiritual additives that I need: prayer and reading the Bible.
I am embarrassed to write this, but when summer vacation started I completely lost my routine of reading and memorizing scripture. As it lost this additive, my life also began to lose flavor and moisture, but in a more insidious way than my food did. Instead of the Bible, I spent time reading other books, watching some videos, and playing a few computer games. Like sipping water with my food, it sufficed. Unlike food without saliva, I quickly grew accustomed to my revised (non)spiritual diet. Once my kids went on vacation, I didn't even think about making Bible time, it just slipped in occasionally.
Thankfully God keeps looking for me, the shepherd seeking that one foolish lamb that keeps wandering off. I needed a reminder that my daily bread can easily lose its taste.
On a final note, thanks Mark Pedal for asking me how the Roblog is going. Gave me the impetus to sit down and finish this post. Because if you can't stay up until 2:40 during vacation, when can you?
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When Three People Ask... (Faith Journey pt. 1)
On three consecutive days I was asked for the same story by three friends, each from further back than the last. The first made me happy, th...
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Why I Ride
Today I rode my bike with Maxine to her school. It is oddly inspiring to ride behind her, watching her scrawny legs pump away, her bike wiggling like she does, the sidewalk racing by. Any day that we eliminate two trips in the car (because I have to go back to pick her up) is a good day for me, and knowing that I am building healthy habits for both of us makes me feel better as well.
After dropping her off, I rode up Igi-Dae. I tried a new route today that ended up being more mountain bikey than I like. I ended up carrying my bike over some steps and pushing it up some nasty bits. However, I was inspired by the scenery, and decided to stop and try to capture the feeling of my ride to better communicate it to my readers. So here are the pictures I took. I didn't take pictures of the more urban bits. Sometimes they are beautiful as well, but I often feel rushed in the concrete jungle.
After dropping her off, I rode up Igi-Dae. I tried a new route today that ended up being more mountain bikey than I like. I ended up carrying my bike over some steps and pushing it up some nasty bits. However, I was inspired by the scenery, and decided to stop and try to capture the feeling of my ride to better communicate it to my readers. So here are the pictures I took. I didn't take pictures of the more urban bits. Sometimes they are beautiful as well, but I often feel rushed in the concrete jungle.
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| Map of the park. My route followed the orange line along the shore. |
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| A view from the first summit of Igidae. |
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| First glimpse of Oryukdo. |
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| Riding doesn't seem so hard when you can look around and see sights like this. |
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| Man made frame for a natural view. |
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| Closer view of Oryukdo. |
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| Now I'm climbing on the railing in a most unsafe manner. JK! |
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| Wave for the camera! (Sorry) |
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| Bumpy, but ridable. Though not for long. |
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| Looking back down the track. No little green bag. |
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| Yeah, I rode this. I need a mountain bike for days like this. |
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| The actual shore is out of sight, but the sense of a boundary is here. |
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| Sea and stone, permanence in motion, permanence at rest. |
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| I had to get off and push up this one. |
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| Made it to the rest stop, map and vending machine! |
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| I chugged me some Gatorade and got some shade and rest. |
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| The sea side exercise area near our home, my cool-down ride. |
Friday, July 05, 2013
Summer Movies!
Summer is movie season, though for me that hasn't been true for the past few years. This year I'm making up for lost time. I've seen four movies in three different theaters in the past month! And at CGV this summer, movies starting before 1:00 are only 5,000 won, a great deal for people capable of getting out of bed early enough. I'm eating way too much popcorn and drinking way too much Coke, but I am having a lot of fun. I'm enjoying myself enough that today I'm just going to write about the movies I've seen recently. I'll be dropping spoilers on "Iron Man 3", "Star Trek: Into Darkness", "White House Down", and "Man of Steel", so if you are even slower than I am to get to the movies, you might want to skip this bit. If you are interested in more deep thoughts, this might not be the post to read.
Horyon and I saw Iron Man 3 on opening day. This was not a deliberate attempt to be a fan boy, but a confluence of circumstances: Horyon had the afternoon off, most of the movies available were Korean. I enjoyed the original Iron Man, but hadn't seen IM2 or The Avengers. It didn't hurt. I watched them on video later, and they filled in some gaps, but the movie was still enjoyable. I just had trouble with the ending: I don't care how rich Tony Stark is, breaking all those suits was just plain stupid. Once you realize that you are in a world with hostile aliens and Gods that stop in to visit and the Incredible Hulk, it just doesn't make sense to throw away your best defense in a fireworks display to propose to your girlfriend, who just sort of became a superhero. I've heard that Robert Downey Jr. has agreed to be Iron Man again, so I guess he'll make some more suits.
A couple of weeks ago I saw "Star Trek: Into Darkness" with my friend, Lewis. I had to go to two different theaters, but I caught it on the big screen! I saw it in regular old 2D, missing out on both 3D and 4D, but at least I managed to find one of them fancy theaters with the color projector. The movie itself was very good, better than the previous one. Of course, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan was better than Star Trek 1: The Motion Picture, then it went downhill. Hopefully the new franchise will not follow that trend. Ideally it will spawn a Star Trek tv series with the same cast. There were some good action scenes, great special effects, and not too much technobabble, but there was also some serious character development in this movie. Spock and Uhura's relationship was fleshed out more, Kirk's There were some scenes that were in homage to The Wrath of Khan; tastefully done, and not so hooked on those scenes that new viewers would be confused. I liked bringing Section 31 (the Federations secret service) into the big picture; this rebooted federation is a lot darker and more paranoid than the old version. I don't think Gene Roddenberry would be too happy with it, but a government that keeps secrets and prepares its own weapons of mass destruction feels not only possible, but somewhat inevitable. It is very interesting to see the Star Trek material being treated by people who grew up watching the originals, yet are not so attached to it that they can surprise the audience.
Yesterday Horyon and I saw "White House Down." My goal was to see the new Superman movie, but it had moved on. I might have picked "World War Z", but Horyon told me she didn't want to see a scary movie. I bought tickets to "Big Picture", a drama about a man who takes the place of his murder victim and learns some kind of lessons about himself, but turns out it is a French movie with Korean subtitles. We walked out after the opening credits, and the theater people were kind enough to exchange our tickets. Luckily, we were in time to sit through all the advertising again. The movie itself was entertaining enough. If you haven't seen it, you might consider just watching the first couple of Die Hard movies, because this could have been a sequel: The hero's name was John, he was divorced, he was the lone opponent of a big group of bad guys (until the President joins him, because couldn't you kick more ass if the president was helping out?), he stripped down to his undershirt, he took way more beating than he should have been able to, the bad guys were ridiculously well armed and planned, the hostages included someone John loved (his daughter), there was some classical music played, there were explosions. Lots of explosions, and shooting guns, and Black Hawk helicopters and a tank and... I wasn't too thrilled with their characterization of the President. Jamie Foxx played President Walker. He was a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but maybe that's realistic for a president who is not a combat veteran. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but maybe I'll go see the zombies get nuts next week.
I saw "Man of Steel" this morning all by myself today. It was produced by Christopher Nolan, who directed the latest Batman trilogy. Like Batman, Superman has become a character with more depth than we are used to seeing (with apologies to my comic-reading friends, who will no doubt lecture me on the advantages of their medium of choice). I liked that the movie started on Krypton and stayed there for a while. It very much emphasized that Superman is an alien. True, he's from a planet that just happens to have people who look just like us, a very Golden Age of Science Fiction approach, but let's face it: it is very generous to put Superman in the SF tent. Flying? Heat vision? Absorbing strength from the sun because it is very young compared to Krypton's? Fine, I'll take them all, because I like fantasy too. I was there for the story, and was not disappointed. It felt like the most realistic application of Superman's powers that I've ever seen: he is just casually aware of everything nearby, seeing through anything in front of him easily, but sometimes missing things coming from behind. The super-speed thing got annoying at times, hard to follow, but I suppose that real super speed would be that way. I thought that the reactions of normal people to the idea of a Superman were well done, as well. It took an alien invasion for him to go public, and now that he is, everyone is just going to have to deal with it. I did find one thing disturbing: I wish that they had more directly addressed the hundreds of people who must have been killed in the background while Superman fought with Zod. Seeing what Nolan did with Batman, it is likely that he is taking this into consideration for the sequel, which can't come soon enough for me.
I had the feeling today that I am living in a good time for movies. Special effects have become cheap enough that movie makers are no longer relying on them alone to make their movies work. However, there is one boundary that has been hard for Hollywood to cross: main characters who are good guys don't die. White House Down was a bit exceptional. There were a slew of characters with names and some backgrounds at the beginning, but once the action started most of the "old friends" didn't last long. Two made it more than half-way through the movie, long enough to make a bit of an impression. Not bad, Hollywood. We're starting to see the Game of Thrones effect, to a very minor extent.
As I mentioned, in Superman the body count must have been in the quadruple digits: multiple building collapses in Metropolis, gravity tricks (that only affected cars and stuff, but not people? Oh yeah, fantasy, almost forgot), super battles at street level, bad guys who are already working on a genocide project so don't mind squishing some humans on the way there. But the Superman origin story has the death of Pa Kent, it's expected. In Man of Steel, this death was brought to the screen in such a meaningful way that I cried a bit, even though he was played by Kevin Costner.
Iron Man 3? Nope. If anyone (other than black-hat dudes) died there, I'm afraid that I don't remember. I'm sure there were casualties, but at least the final battle was in a shipyard at night.
Star Trek is last for two reasons: first because it's Star Trek. You can't kill the regulars: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, they have to make it. Carol Marcus was thrown into the mix in this movie, and I think they will keep her around long enough to have Kirk's son because that's an emotional lever you can't afford to not pull at least once ("Klingon ba**ard killed my son!"). So I wasn't expecting to see anyone die, and it would have been a cheap shot to have Carol Marcus die, because the non-Trekkie audience wouldn't have seen it as a big deal. The second reason is who they didn't kill: Kahn. They put him back in cryogenic suspension, foreseeing the need for a plot device in the future. Because he was an awesome plot device. He crashed a starship into San Francisco because it was the easiest way for him to get from orbit to the ground. It bordered on unbelievable that Khan didn't escape, but it helped to emphasize that Kirk and his crew are working together well and becoming more awesomer. Khan is a worthy foe, and if we can see him again after Kirk has more experience under his belt, it could be quite a match. So the lack of death can be forgiven. Of course, by "lack of death" I mean other than all the Klingons (oh yeah, it had Klingons!), a room full of captains and admirals, and whomever was unfortunate enough to be in the path of the starship that Khan slammed into San Francisco.
So in conclusion, I love my new job. It gives me time to go to the movies!
Horyon and I saw Iron Man 3 on opening day. This was not a deliberate attempt to be a fan boy, but a confluence of circumstances: Horyon had the afternoon off, most of the movies available were Korean. I enjoyed the original Iron Man, but hadn't seen IM2 or The Avengers. It didn't hurt. I watched them on video later, and they filled in some gaps, but the movie was still enjoyable. I just had trouble with the ending: I don't care how rich Tony Stark is, breaking all those suits was just plain stupid. Once you realize that you are in a world with hostile aliens and Gods that stop in to visit and the Incredible Hulk, it just doesn't make sense to throw away your best defense in a fireworks display to propose to your girlfriend, who just sort of became a superhero. I've heard that Robert Downey Jr. has agreed to be Iron Man again, so I guess he'll make some more suits.
A couple of weeks ago I saw "Star Trek: Into Darkness" with my friend, Lewis. I had to go to two different theaters, but I caught it on the big screen! I saw it in regular old 2D, missing out on both 3D and 4D, but at least I managed to find one of them fancy theaters with the color projector. The movie itself was very good, better than the previous one. Of course, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan was better than Star Trek 1: The Motion Picture, then it went downhill. Hopefully the new franchise will not follow that trend. Ideally it will spawn a Star Trek tv series with the same cast. There were some good action scenes, great special effects, and not too much technobabble, but there was also some serious character development in this movie. Spock and Uhura's relationship was fleshed out more, Kirk's There were some scenes that were in homage to The Wrath of Khan; tastefully done, and not so hooked on those scenes that new viewers would be confused. I liked bringing Section 31 (the Federations secret service) into the big picture; this rebooted federation is a lot darker and more paranoid than the old version. I don't think Gene Roddenberry would be too happy with it, but a government that keeps secrets and prepares its own weapons of mass destruction feels not only possible, but somewhat inevitable. It is very interesting to see the Star Trek material being treated by people who grew up watching the originals, yet are not so attached to it that they can surprise the audience.
Yesterday Horyon and I saw "White House Down." My goal was to see the new Superman movie, but it had moved on. I might have picked "World War Z", but Horyon told me she didn't want to see a scary movie. I bought tickets to "Big Picture", a drama about a man who takes the place of his murder victim and learns some kind of lessons about himself, but turns out it is a French movie with Korean subtitles. We walked out after the opening credits, and the theater people were kind enough to exchange our tickets. Luckily, we were in time to sit through all the advertising again. The movie itself was entertaining enough. If you haven't seen it, you might consider just watching the first couple of Die Hard movies, because this could have been a sequel: The hero's name was John, he was divorced, he was the lone opponent of a big group of bad guys (until the President joins him, because couldn't you kick more ass if the president was helping out?), he stripped down to his undershirt, he took way more beating than he should have been able to, the bad guys were ridiculously well armed and planned, the hostages included someone John loved (his daughter), there was some classical music played, there were explosions. Lots of explosions, and shooting guns, and Black Hawk helicopters and a tank and... I wasn't too thrilled with their characterization of the President. Jamie Foxx played President Walker. He was a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but maybe that's realistic for a president who is not a combat veteran. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but maybe I'll go see the zombies get nuts next week.
I saw "Man of Steel" this morning all by myself today. It was produced by Christopher Nolan, who directed the latest Batman trilogy. Like Batman, Superman has become a character with more depth than we are used to seeing (with apologies to my comic-reading friends, who will no doubt lecture me on the advantages of their medium of choice). I liked that the movie started on Krypton and stayed there for a while. It very much emphasized that Superman is an alien. True, he's from a planet that just happens to have people who look just like us, a very Golden Age of Science Fiction approach, but let's face it: it is very generous to put Superman in the SF tent. Flying? Heat vision? Absorbing strength from the sun because it is very young compared to Krypton's? Fine, I'll take them all, because I like fantasy too. I was there for the story, and was not disappointed. It felt like the most realistic application of Superman's powers that I've ever seen: he is just casually aware of everything nearby, seeing through anything in front of him easily, but sometimes missing things coming from behind. The super-speed thing got annoying at times, hard to follow, but I suppose that real super speed would be that way. I thought that the reactions of normal people to the idea of a Superman were well done, as well. It took an alien invasion for him to go public, and now that he is, everyone is just going to have to deal with it. I did find one thing disturbing: I wish that they had more directly addressed the hundreds of people who must have been killed in the background while Superman fought with Zod. Seeing what Nolan did with Batman, it is likely that he is taking this into consideration for the sequel, which can't come soon enough for me.
I had the feeling today that I am living in a good time for movies. Special effects have become cheap enough that movie makers are no longer relying on them alone to make their movies work. However, there is one boundary that has been hard for Hollywood to cross: main characters who are good guys don't die. White House Down was a bit exceptional. There were a slew of characters with names and some backgrounds at the beginning, but once the action started most of the "old friends" didn't last long. Two made it more than half-way through the movie, long enough to make a bit of an impression. Not bad, Hollywood. We're starting to see the Game of Thrones effect, to a very minor extent.
As I mentioned, in Superman the body count must have been in the quadruple digits: multiple building collapses in Metropolis, gravity tricks (that only affected cars and stuff, but not people? Oh yeah, fantasy, almost forgot), super battles at street level, bad guys who are already working on a genocide project so don't mind squishing some humans on the way there. But the Superman origin story has the death of Pa Kent, it's expected. In Man of Steel, this death was brought to the screen in such a meaningful way that I cried a bit, even though he was played by Kevin Costner.
Iron Man 3? Nope. If anyone (other than black-hat dudes) died there, I'm afraid that I don't remember. I'm sure there were casualties, but at least the final battle was in a shipyard at night.
Star Trek is last for two reasons: first because it's Star Trek. You can't kill the regulars: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, they have to make it. Carol Marcus was thrown into the mix in this movie, and I think they will keep her around long enough to have Kirk's son because that's an emotional lever you can't afford to not pull at least once ("Klingon ba**ard killed my son!"). So I wasn't expecting to see anyone die, and it would have been a cheap shot to have Carol Marcus die, because the non-Trekkie audience wouldn't have seen it as a big deal. The second reason is who they didn't kill: Kahn. They put him back in cryogenic suspension, foreseeing the need for a plot device in the future. Because he was an awesome plot device. He crashed a starship into San Francisco because it was the easiest way for him to get from orbit to the ground. It bordered on unbelievable that Khan didn't escape, but it helped to emphasize that Kirk and his crew are working together well and becoming more awesomer. Khan is a worthy foe, and if we can see him again after Kirk has more experience under his belt, it could be quite a match. So the lack of death can be forgiven. Of course, by "lack of death" I mean other than all the Klingons (oh yeah, it had Klingons!), a room full of captains and admirals, and whomever was unfortunate enough to be in the path of the starship that Khan slammed into San Francisco.
So in conclusion, I love my new job. It gives me time to go to the movies!
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Now that's a pretty big Pinocchio.
As I was coming to work on May 7th, I saw something unusual.
It was a bit surreal, seeing the wooden boy who longs to be real, fully realized in bronze, and laid out like a prizefighter.
I was very happy to come back the next week and see that P. was on his feet.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Ride and Embarrassing Moment
Today I rode with Maxine to her school, came home, got my act together, then rode to my Tuesday class. It's only a 15 minute ride to the Centum City campus. My other classes are all across town, probably a 90 minute ride on six-lane streets with cars and smog and yech.
After class I rode up the river a bit, then went to Costco. I've been needing real cheese for some time, but not enough to pay the high prices for imports elsewhere. I got a block of sharp cheddar, monterey jack, and a bag of shredded Mexican cheese (yeah, I'm sure Mexico is proud of that one). I also got a three pack of bacon, because a house without bacon is like... not good.
So I'm checking out with about 40,000 won (~$35) worth of food, and about 70,000 won in my pocket. Surprise! I need to renew my membership! Taking my total up to 74,260 won. I have exactly 74,000 in my wallet, so I did through my backpack to find the coins needed to finish this transaction. I don't usually spend much time wondering what other people think of me (as my friends well know), but this time I had extra time on my hands: I had to pull my pants out of my backpack and unroll them, then dig in the pockets for change, roll them back up, and pack pants, cheese and bacon into my bag. I was imagining the thoughts going through the cashier's mind as she smiled at me and rebuffed my apologies:
"Wow, this crazy American has NO idea what he's doing, he barely has enough money, he's disorganized, he smells bad, and he's buying a bunch of bacon and cheese. Stupid Americans."
My only consoling thought is that she might have assumed I was a Canadian.
The good news is that I saw a giant Pinochio...
and a giant onion thing...
with a disco ball inside.
Life is sweet, is it not?
After class I rode up the river a bit, then went to Costco. I've been needing real cheese for some time, but not enough to pay the high prices for imports elsewhere. I got a block of sharp cheddar, monterey jack, and a bag of shredded Mexican cheese (yeah, I'm sure Mexico is proud of that one). I also got a three pack of bacon, because a house without bacon is like... not good.
So I'm checking out with about 40,000 won (~$35) worth of food, and about 70,000 won in my pocket. Surprise! I need to renew my membership! Taking my total up to 74,260 won. I have exactly 74,000 in my wallet, so I did through my backpack to find the coins needed to finish this transaction. I don't usually spend much time wondering what other people think of me (as my friends well know), but this time I had extra time on my hands: I had to pull my pants out of my backpack and unroll them, then dig in the pockets for change, roll them back up, and pack pants, cheese and bacon into my bag. I was imagining the thoughts going through the cashier's mind as she smiled at me and rebuffed my apologies:
"Wow, this crazy American has NO idea what he's doing, he barely has enough money, he's disorganized, he smells bad, and he's buying a bunch of bacon and cheese. Stupid Americans."
My only consoling thought is that she might have assumed I was a Canadian.
The good news is that I saw a giant Pinochio...
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| With the arrogance born of high stature, he stode the city, a giant among men. |
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| It would be so cool if we got some translucent plastic and made a giant onion! |
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| We could light it up at night and have dances inside! |
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Bicyclist in Training
On Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 Maxine and I rode our bikes to her school in the morning, then back home in the evening. The distance for our route is about 4.5 km (2.8 miles), keeping to bike paths, wide sidewalks, and very occasionally riding on roads when there is no other choice. It took us a bit over 40 minutes to get there. Thursday we cut it down to 35 minutes.
Maxine's teacher told me that Maxine was not as active as usual in the morning, but seemed fine in the afternoon. I'm guessing that if we do this regularly, she will become a monster, with just as much energy as before after taking 20 minutes to ride to school. Now I have to slow myself down to keep down with her (is that a proper expression?). She maxes out at about 20 kph (12 mph).
This makes me unbelievably happy. I want her to enjoy biking like I do, so that we can bike together, and so far we are on target.
But Thursday night Maxine was wiped out. She is normally somewhat moody, but that night she was just a mess. In hindsight, we should have aimed to put her in bed by 8 or so, to give her body a chance to recover from all that bike-muscle building, but we didn't. I had to go teach a class and didn't get home until 9, Horyon came home at her usual time, around 7, so the kids had dinner late and didn't get into bed until after 10. Horyon was frustrated with Maxine's moodiness, and her own moodiness kicked in, and she handed down a ruling: No biking to school two days in a row. Probably a good idea, at least until she builds up some endurance.
I'm a bit sore, after two days in a row. After dropping Maxine off, I did some riding of my own on both days. Wednesday I rode Igi-dae, my old warm-up ground. I consider it a baseline of sorts: if I can make it all the way around the car road without having to stop and push . I did it. Minor woop. So on Thursday when I got up to the walking trail (that is mostly paved, and has some seriously steep slopes), I decided to give it a go.
I had to get off the bike three times to push it up hills that were calling me a sissy boy and stealing my lunch money.
So now I've got two goals to work towards:
1) I will get back my hill-climbing biking body, legs, lungs and head.
2) I will get Maxine on her bike as much as she can take, and give her the life-long love of it that I had forgotten for so long.
And my other goal, of putting random pictures with every blog post, is coming along nicely, thank you.
Maxine's teacher told me that Maxine was not as active as usual in the morning, but seemed fine in the afternoon. I'm guessing that if we do this regularly, she will become a monster, with just as much energy as before after taking 20 minutes to ride to school. Now I have to slow myself down to keep down with her (is that a proper expression?). She maxes out at about 20 kph (12 mph).
This makes me unbelievably happy. I want her to enjoy biking like I do, so that we can bike together, and so far we are on target.
But Thursday night Maxine was wiped out. She is normally somewhat moody, but that night she was just a mess. In hindsight, we should have aimed to put her in bed by 8 or so, to give her body a chance to recover from all that bike-muscle building, but we didn't. I had to go teach a class and didn't get home until 9, Horyon came home at her usual time, around 7, so the kids had dinner late and didn't get into bed until after 10. Horyon was frustrated with Maxine's moodiness, and her own moodiness kicked in, and she handed down a ruling: No biking to school two days in a row. Probably a good idea, at least until she builds up some endurance.
I'm a bit sore, after two days in a row. After dropping Maxine off, I did some riding of my own on both days. Wednesday I rode Igi-dae, my old warm-up ground. I consider it a baseline of sorts: if I can make it all the way around the car road without having to stop and push . I did it. Minor woop. So on Thursday when I got up to the walking trail (that is mostly paved, and has some seriously steep slopes), I decided to give it a go.
I had to get off the bike three times to push it up hills that were calling me a sissy boy and stealing my lunch money.
So now I've got two goals to work towards:
1) I will get back my hill-climbing biking body, legs, lungs and head.
2) I will get Maxine on her bike as much as she can take, and give her the life-long love of it that I had forgotten for so long.
And my other goal, of putting random pictures with every blog post, is coming along nicely, thank you.
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| Maxine and her posse be workin' the wild strawberries, yo. |
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| Horyon takes the best pictures of the kids. They just look extra cute for her. |
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| Maxine is quick to lead the way up the trees. |
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| And Quinten is following in Maxine's footsteps as far as climbing goes. |
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Memorizing the book of James
My good friend Elaine (over there at the Bear) started this process a few months ago, I believe with the same book of the Bible. She has claimed that it has rocked her spiritual world like nothing else, and challenged our small group to try it. One verse per day was her recommendation. I'm falling a little short, but I'm a beginner at this, so I'm not discouraged.
In fact, I've already had cause to quote this bit of the Bible that has been bound to my forehead, so to speak. This morning Horyon told me that when the kids get sick she tries to think that at least we aren't fighting the sinus infections that we suffered through in 2011. I started in on James 1:2-3 "My brothers and sisters, count it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance."
Now maybe I am the guy with the hammer who sees every problem as a nail, but I don't think so. I think that God is sending me a message: that God's Word is worth the investment of time and effort. It bears fruit, and helps to make sense of the world.
That said, I don't expect to start memorizing big chunks of Numbers any time soon, but I want to make memorizing big chunks of scripture a regular part of my time with God. And I think that God approves. Has anyone else out there tried this? I'd love to hear how it has gone for you.
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