i have no idea what this quote is supposed to mean. it is on the sign of a pub on post road. i would love to know what they are trying to communicate with it. i guess i’ll just have to stop in and ask them.
any ideas?
the week in tweets – 2009-12-19
- as of today noah is now a 13 year old. what did i ever do that is bad enough to deserve two teenagers? HAPPY BIRATHDAY NOAH! #
- @KenNichols – we had a 4 point and an 8 point buck in our backyard today so they have grown and apparently multiplied. in reply to KenNichols #
- just had a very enjoyable run because the weather has warmed up to 19°. warm weather is nice every now and then 🙂 #
- according to the commercial i just watched "all i need is love" and apparently love=a blackberry phone. who knew? #
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advent sketches
an interesting set of moleskine skethces from paul soupiset via jonny baker.
winter running
when it gets as cold as it is right now (3°F at noon) i always struggle with what to wear for running. fleet feet sent out an email today with good suggestions for cold weather running attire. i thought i would share it. you can find more info on fleet feet’s winter gear suggestion page.
General Rules of ‘Numb’
- Dress as if it is 20 degrees warmer
- Think layers of technical fabrics to wick sweat
- Zippers at the neck or gloves you can adjust will help you regulate as you heat up
COLD
- 30 degree weather: 2 tops, 1 bottom. Long sleeve base layer and a vest to keep your core warm. Tights (or shorts) for you polar bears.
- 10-20 degrees: 2 tops, 2 bottoms. A jacket over your base layer and wind pants over your tights.
COLDER
- 0-10 degrees: 3 tops, 2 bottoms. Two tops (fleece for the cold prone) and a jacket. Windbrief for the men.
- -10 to 0 degrees: 3 tops, 2 bottoms, an extra pair of mittens, 1 scarf or neckwarmer wrapped around mouth or a balaclava.
COLDEST
- -20 degrees weather: 3 tops, 3 bottoms, 1 balaclava, sunglasses.
turns out that the above list actually came from runner’s world. fleet feet just republished it. you can find that article here.
the week in tweets – 2009-12-12
- after being stranded at the dog park and ruining our family plans to go buy a CHRISTmas tree my car now has a new battery. #
- @meganckelly – she did in reply to meganckelly #
- http://twitpic.com/smn8l – my old water bottle has been mia for some time. i just replaced it with this cheap, bad boy. i'm drinking from a #
- @johnthemember – they are no where near as annoying since the packers are winning 🙂 in reply to johnthemember #
- Let's stick together on this. If you get wind of anything, call me on my radio. Channel three, code word is "Santa's got a brand new bag" #
- "my angry god is punishing them. it's a christmas miracle." #
- oh yeah it's been a pretty manly day. i bought a "new to me" shotgun, diagnosed and fixed a problem with pam's minivan, and cut down a tree! #
- @bCodySmith – nothing special. a remington 870 a good, reliable shotgun. i've been shooting a 20ga for dove for yrs but duck are bigger. in reply to bCodySmith #
- @dhaltom7 – i bought it though in reply to dhaltom7 #
- @dhaltom7 – it is true that i am always envious of @joshcausey in reply to dhaltom7 #
- going to buy the ingredients necessary for jambalaya for "hot drink night." i love "hot drink night." it's 0° and i will be cooking outside. #
- @johnthemember – i wish. that would have been great. i wish my mind worked like yours. in reply to johnthemember #
- http://twitpic.com/t8gzd – st had the 6 point buck in our backyard. he was about 25' away from our backdoor. #
- http://twitpic.com/t8h3j – just had the 6 point buck in our backyard. he was about 25' away from our backdoor. #
- @KenNichols – yep but this guy is just for watching. at least as long as he stays within the village limits. in reply to KenNichols #
- finishing the jambalaya and just discovered that we have FLYING SQUIRRELS in our backyard. they were after our corn not the jambalaya. #
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the boys gingermen
pam found out that the above photo is what happens when you ask an almost 13 year old and a 15 year old boy to help you decorate gingerbread men. starting from the bottom and going clockwise they are":
- the gingernator
- drowning gingerbread man
- dissected gingerbread man
- karate gingerbread man
- picasso gingerbread man
there were others but they are nsfw.
fall from grace?
today i heard someone use the phrase “fall from grace” in regards to all the stuff going on in the life of the tiger woods family. i don’t really care to write anything about what has happened with tiger & elin woods. i do, however, want to talk about that phrase. “fall from grace” seems to imply that we are “in grace” when everything is going great and we are doing everything right. in the case of tiger woods he was apparently living “in grace” when he was a billion dollar athlete with all those corporations wanting to use his skills as a golfer to sell their products. then he apparently “fell from grace” when he lost all that? at least that they way i understood the use of the phrase.
seems like that is the way the phrase is usually used. its said when someone’s perfect life is destroyed by their own screw ups and the public is no longer in love with them. someone has an affair, gets caught doing something crooked, or giving into what they shouldn’t and they have suddenly “fallen from grace.”
except that’s not what grace is about. grace means receiving the very thing we do not deserve. we are in grace when we have been and are being forgiven of the very things we don’t deserve to be forgiven of. we have the opportunity of “falling into grace” right at the moment that we realize that we have really screwed up. i guess the way we really “fall out of grace” is by rejecting the forgiveness that is being offered to us. grace is not something that we “fall out of” when life is falling apart. instead, it is at those very screwed up moments that we actually have the opportunity to fall into the arms of grace.
i hope tiger (and all of us) “fall into grace” because grace always seems to have a way of lifting people back up.
they laughed at me
i love running in the snow!
as most of you know , i m not a fast runner. i don’t usually beat very many people in the races i enter. i’m thrilled if i’m in the top 50%. therefore, i rarely ever really feel like a runner when i talk about the speed at which i run. i know people who can speed walk faster than i can run. while i don’t run very fast i am very committed to running. this is why i love to run when it is raining or snowing. the uncomfortable times are when other people usually will not run and therefore i usually feel like a real runner for being committed enough to run even though the environment isn’t very conducive for a positive running experience. it’s times like this when i feel like a real runner.
since we had a storm moving in last night (in fact A BIG STORM) i couldn’t miss the chance to run right when the snow began. i went to the plover river trail to run on it before the snow got high enough for cross country skiing (the point area has the best trail system and it is very rude to mess up the groomed cross country ski trails once there is enough snow to ski). it was an amazing run along the plover river with its edges icing up.
yet the truly fun part began when i started to drive home. you see i had been running in winter tights and a jacket. it works perfect for running because its just barely warm enough. while it is great while i am running it is not really something i want to wear into stores and around public. it is also very cold if you are not running. on division street (the main drag from point to plover) my radio died. i thought that was a little weird but it came back on so i dismissed it as static electricity resetting the radio. then it happened again and all the lights on my dashboard came on and immediately blanked out. at that point i was fairly sure that the alternator in my car was dying. i figured it out for sure just about the second that my car stopped running. i was stuck on the busiest street in stevens point during lunch hour and the beginning of a snow storm. i was going to have to get out of the car and push it on division while wearing just running tights and a jacket.
i desperately thought that i might be able to get someone to stop but apparently people don’t respond well to tall guys in tights. three guys finally had pity on me and came over to help push the car to a safe place. i’m not real sure why they laughed constantly while they were pushing the car.
i caught you a delicious bass
i drink a fair amount of water. i prefer to do this from a waterbottle which is why i usually carry one around with me. i had a perfect steel one that i had gotten off of amazon for $6 last year. about 4 weeks ago it went missing. i’ve looked all over for it and i can’t find it. where ever it is i hope that it is as happy as a well loved bottle bottle can be.
saturday i found the above cheap, bad boy at fleet farm (we love fleet farm). it was $6.94 and has the pattern of a black bass imprinted on it. i’m not sure there has ever been a better water bottle. i am very happy.
i love the world, except for all the people
i recently watched “running the sahara,” which is a documentary about three ultramarathonners running across the sahara desert. it really is an impressive accomplishment and a pretty cool documentary but that is not what i want to talk about. instead i want to talked a quote from the movie.
toward the end of the documentary one of the runners says that they wanted to run the sahara because they “love the desert and the love the people.” this was a pretty ironic statement because it came right after he tore into his two remaining support team members. the group had started out as six and slowly the team began to disintegrate because of one of the runners who continually chewed out anyone he thought had not met his unstated expectations. the irony was that this came from the same runner who said he was running the sahara because he loved the desert and the people. of course, i don’t know the whole story but from what i saw in the documentary it appears that he loves all the people he doesn’t know and not the people who were actually helping him run across the desert. i haven’t run an ultramarathon yet (hopefully i will in spring) let alone across a desert but i do know from my marathon experiences that you don’t make it that far on your own. it’s a team effort. you may be running but other people are providing for your needs.
it is far to easy to love “people” in the generic sense rather than actually loving specific individuals. when we love specific individuals it must be accomplished in actions. when we love in the generic sense it can be reduce to nice words and platitudes.
this reminds me of two quotes.
- the first is from men at work’s song “dr. heckyll and mr. jive” it says “he loved the world, except for all the people.”
- the second is from deitrich bonhoeffer’s book “life together” page 27 – “he who loves his dream of a community more than the CHRISTian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions my be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”