On tires

I got out my bike the othern day

I used it to sort of explore the neighborhood. I rode it down all the paths around our house through the parks and everything to figure out the lay of the land in our general vicinity. It was a sort of a scouting mission for future bike rides and walks. I'm pretty confident now that I won't get lost on a walk in the future. And I pretty much always know the fastest way to get home.

Anyway...about halfway through my bike ride I noticed that my front brake wasn't working. I hadn't hooked it up on arrival...I took the front tires off our bikes to make the move and save space in the truck. But I didn't worry too much about it. It was a pretty leisurely ride. I didn't have any reason to need a front brake.

So yesterday I was going to take another ride. This time I rode down to a park that is a couple miles from the house where there is a little trail that kind of winds around the park for mountain biukes. I thought it would be fun.

So I decided to hook up the front brake before I left, but I couldn't get it to work. The two parts just didn't seem to want to meet up across the top of the tire...which is weird because it was hooked up and working fine up until I loaded it into the truck. So after fighting it for a good 15 minutes down on my knees in front of the bike, nose to the tire, I had had enough and I just went. I figured I could deal with it later.

So I got down to the park and had a good time. I have decided however that when talking about bicycle tires, hybrid really means neither. I got these tires a couple years ago that were supposed to be a cross between raod and mountain tires. I have found over the last couple years that they really don't work that well as road tires...and I found yesterday that they really don't work very well as mountain bike tires...my rear wheel kept slipping (which wasn't good since I didn't have any front brakes.)

As I was on my way back I noticed that the front wheel was making a sound I had never heard before. Thgen I noticed that it still had those little rubber things that new tires have but that generally wear off pretty quickly...then I noticed that it was an actual mountain bike tirem not one of the hybrid tires...then I realized that the reason my brakes weren't working was that I had put AAdrienne's front tire on my bike and hers on mine.

On Evolution

The $27,000,000.00 Creation Museum was recently opened in Kentucky. I find this a bit depressing for a number of reasons.

1. Its foundation is ignorance. "Creation Science" is the easy way. It is the tempting way. It says here, you don't really need to pay attention in biology class. Just read this one chapter in the Bible and you will know all you need to know. A deeper study, however, of both the Biblical account of our origens and of the explanations offered by science leads to a much better understanding of the issue.

2. It is based on a lie. The fundemental reason for building a museum dedicated to Creation is a false dichotomy set up by certain members of the Christian community between creation and evolution. The idea that they are fundamentally incompatable was first posited by athiests in the late 19th century. It is a lie designed to do damage to the church. Creation and evolution are not incompatible. They can, in fact, work quite nicely together.

3. It is destructive. Religious debate is a very tempting thing. The idea that I can somehow convince you that this is true is alluring. It even works from time to time and can be a good thing. But it is often addictive and destructive. When our goal becomes to prove ourselves right rather than to discover truth, this type of debate destroys relationship and faith. And it is precisely this that a Creation museum encourages. "Here is how you can prove to others that they are wrong."

4. It is wasteful. When Jesus told the story of the sheep and the goats He didn't say "I thought I was once a monkey and you convinced me otherwise." He said "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me." Think about how much $27 million could help advance one of these goal. It could be a serious endowment for longterm ministry projects around the country or world. Instead it goes to a fance museum. That doesn't even include the 5 million a year they hope to raise in ticket sales. (or for that matter the millions spent every year on phillip Johnson books)

5. It is exploitive. Taking $20 a person as an entrance fee to a second rate museum is just wrong.

It is really the fourth that gets to me the most. You can feel free to believe what you want to believe and argue about what you want to argue about. I don't think your salvation hinges on what you belive about creation/evolution. But I just don't understand how you could see this as the best use of 27 million dollars when there are so many people in the world, starving, naked, thirsty, without shelter, enslaved, refugeed, etc. I think it is sick that someone could be so blinded to the mission of the church. We are called remember, to make this place better, and to help those in need...not to get into petty arguments.

On horses

So we went out to dinner with Grandma and Poppy and Sarah and Mark and Roger and Caroline. We went out to Dexter and saw the shop and then went to the pub next door. It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, the subject somehow turned to horses, and Grandma and Poppy told us an interesting story. Apparently the desire of their son at one point was to become a doctor in Montana and ride from call to call on horseback. I'd never heard that one before, but from what they said that was the goal of medical school at one point. Then everyone agreed that he has, in fact, always loved horses.

It's always interesting to see a new side of your parents. I can see it though. I wonder if it's true. I wonder if a certain occasional commenter on this blog could shed some light on the veracity of the story.

Incedently...welcome back from your trip

on Wal-Mart

I was having a conversation recently and the person i was talking to said something like...Sam Walton is the Devil. Now there are all sorts of arguments for this position...Wal-Mart doesn't allow unions...they don't provide health care for employees...they drive product quality down...it drives small businesses out of business and destroyes local economies...etc...

Now I personally am not a big fan of Wal-Mart. The products tend to be a little cheap, they don't last as long as i would like them to, the stores are busy and confusing, and its difficult to get anyone to help you. So i don't really shop there much.

But arguing against Wal-Mart on principle, and trying to outlaw "big-box" stores is a pretty arogant thing to do. Wal-Mart is popular...even though the rich, well-educated people I tend to hang with and who tend to read this blog won't admit to liking it, it is popular. You don't get to be the biggest retailer in the world with a company bigger than the entire economy of Germany, without doing something right. WM provides a service that a whole lot of people want.

And the important thing to note is that it is very popular with lower-income people. It is popular with people who don't often have a say in public policy or opinion. But it is popular. So in saying "Sam Walton is the devil" basically what you are saying is that all those people who shop there and who make WM into a successful retaIler are too stupid to make decisions for themselves, sop we should just tell them what to do.

The thing is, WM has never forced anyone to shop there, or forced anyone to work there. They have never held a gun to my head and mugged me the way the government does every day. In fact WM has been harrassed, bullied, pushed around, insulted...by local, state and federal agencies across the country. Sam Walton actually seems like he must have been a very nice man. All he did was recognize a need and fill it. He did far more than anyone I know to feed the hungry,, clothe the naked, give shelter(I'm speaking of providing affordable goods for sale and bringing all sorts of products within the price range of normal or poor people.)...etc...than most people I know. And all he gets for it is people with their noses in the air saying things like "Sam Walton is the Devil"

On Michigan

I played soccer yesterday. I don't re,e,ber the last time I played soccer on grass rather than dirt. It was interesting, something I didn't really have in Arizona. A group of people you get together every week to play a game. It's great excersize... and nobody kept track of the score. We just played until everybody was tired then we took a break and then we played some more. I'm definitely out of shape. It was the hardest i've run in years. I don't really have a second gear when it comes to sports. I pretty much run myself ragged. Even when I'm exhausted and can hardly breathe I find the energy to chase down the ball. I don't really save my energy very well either. So i was worn out well before the end of the game.

It was a good time though. I think I'm going to play again next Saturday. I also found a park to ride to and ride around...there's a little trail there.

hmmm

Did you know that Mexico is so mountainous that if you spread it all out flat it would cover Asia.

That sounds incredible, but i'm not sure if it means anything. There are a lot of mountains in the US. If you spread us out like butter would we cover the world?

On the end and a new city

The end is near. I finished painting the last couple rooms today. Our place looks great. We're down to the last few boxes to unpack...mainly decorations and things that really can't be unpacked until everything else is in place. The living room is green. The kitchen is blue (the same shade that we used for the stripe in out bedroom at the old place. Then a very light brown starts in the kitchen and winds its way along the wall that separates the living room and kitchen, and winds up in the office, where one wall is a darker shade of brown. The bathroom and bedroom are both a light beige color. It's really quite nice.

Now all that reamains is to put everything away. Tomorrow we're going down to the MVD to get new driver's licenses and lisence plates and such. It's funny to me that you can't be a legal resident as far as the school is concerned for tuition rates, but if you don't change the plates on your car its big trouble.

So in Ann Arbor, if they fix the sidewalk in front of your house they charge you for it. I've never heard of that before. Do they do that in Arizona? My grandparents actually had to go out and find someone to fix the sidewalk where the city marked it. And in another case the city decided to improve a road. They paved it and put in sidewalks and hooked everyone up to city water and sewer. They didn't ask any of the residents. They just did it. Then they sent the bill to the people that live there. To the tune of 80-100 thousand per house. Some of the people liked the dirt road and the taste of well-water. On top of that city property taxes are astronomical...where's all the money going. It's hard to believe it could be corruption in a place like this...I just don't get it. Maybe city hall has gold-plated toilets or something

Where have all the bloggers gone

So apparently everyone is out of town or just not writing at the moment. Steven is the best with a measely one in the last ten days. Mark hasn't posted since I was in Spain. As it is written "and the pot shall call the kettle black"...you're all bums

So let this be an encouragement to you. Write more.

On consumption

IKEA is the consumer's dream (or nightmare) come true. We are a consumeristic society, at least some people think so. So we usually don't think twice about buying things. But there are those of us who try to limit our consumption to conserve resources (like green paper).

In most stores spending more than you intend takes a fair amount of justification ($200 isn't that much, right, and we really do need a pink laundrybascket that sings christmas carols) . It is usually only when we walk into a store that sells something we are passionate about that we go off the deep end.

But in Ikea it is all so easy. Walk into the store and you will soon need things you didn't know existed. Everything in the store is so...practical...and cheap. It's almost impossible to say no. You suddenly need everything. And it all seems so cool. It's like a little club. Everyone there is in on the secret (we're going to spend a lot and consume a lot because it feels good, makes sense, and...) And so you find yourself wrestling a cart full of heavy boxes and lots of little packages filled with all your new cool stuff. Then you begin to realize...wait theres no way a dresser could fit into a box that small.


2 hours later you're on the carpet in you living room surrounded by piles of little pieces--screws, nails, brackets, gizmos, gadgets, slats, slits, slices, slabs, hunks, doodads, and a hundred other things.

The breakdown begins...yeah it was cheap, but not if I pay myself $20 an hour to put it together...I might as well have gone to a real furniture store. Whats this piece-oh that's nothing...where is that darn piece...oops...it doesn't look like the picture...is that drawer suposed to go there...

Then it ends up in the dumpster...true consumerism. You didn't even have to use it to buy and discard it. The ironic thing is they have this program where they try to get you to buy reusable bags to save the disposable ones...ha, one more thing for the trash.

On Michigan

We're here. We unloaded everything on Wednesday and took off for the cottage. We had a great time up there. I will probably post more on our time there including pictures later.

Now we're back at the house and I am using the laptop to piggyback off someone else's wireless internet. Adrienne is painting with Lori. Eric and I are hanging out unpacking boxes and stuff. they're actually almost done with what they're going to paint today.

Moving is a lot of work. Not only do you have to deal with all the obvious stuff--boxes et cetera. But yo9u also have to deal with all sorts of other stuff. Geting internet and phone service...setting up[ a new bank account...getting a new driver's lisccense...registering a car...learning your way around a new place...meeting new people...

But we are doing well....so far

Moving

The last few days have been a flurry of activity. Packing, loading, cleaning, packing, loading, trying to spend every possible second with friends and family.

Thursday we went down to Nogales and saw Mom and Caroline and Dad and I got my physical done for Medical school and we had a great lunch and then talked for a few hours.

Friday we got the trucka and started loading it after using it to deliver a few articles of furniture to friends around town. Mark came over for dinner and we went to the Seneca house for dinner then went to Lori and Eric's place and played a game.

Yesterday Ryan and Ron came over and helped me load up the moving truck. It's a very large one, big enough to fit two of our houses in. Eric came just in time to see us done and brought lasagna for us to eat. Then Mark and Steven and Dad came over for a while. Then we went to the Seneca house for dinner with Eris and Sue, and Kevin and Ginger and Lori and Ryan and Ron and Michael (Eric had to work). It was a great time. We sat and talked until late then swung by to see Eric before Starbucks closed.

Today we found that loading the last 10 % of the house takes about three times as long as the first 90 %. I spent most of the day in the truck or shuttling between the house and truck. Adrienne's dad came down and helped us all afternoon. We got to see Steven at Starbucks this morning which I enjoyed. At church they prayed for us and Ron read a poem that he wrote about us which was great. Then we finished loading the truck with a lot of help from our friends.

And tomorrow we're leaving. It is a sad day, full of mourning. We will miss this place and these people. I think it is good to name them.

Steven just so you know since you didn't come over to get your duvel glasses, Ron has them so just call him if you think you can handle having them in your house again.

Dad, there's some dogfood on the back porch that you should take home with you. Also the bolts for the bedframe are in the dresser drawer, as is the box that you are mailing for us, and if I remember to put them there tomorrow morning the spare keys.

Happy 4th of July

May your burgers be juicy
and nights full of light
but don't forget the day
that gave you the right
to slurp that watermelon
without fear or fright
and forget not those men
who are ready to fight
to keep you from harm
and protect your birthright
So wave that flag high
and with all of your might
for we've a great country
that turned out all right
so remember the day
as you take that first bite

On Blood and Diamonds

I wrote about the movie Blood Diamond several months ago and was fairly critical of the concept behind the movie. Well I finally got around to seeing the movie today.

What I said before holds true. The buzz surrounding the movie, the lessons drawn from it, and the underlying intended purpose of it are misleading. The idea that war in Africa is a result of our indulgence is ridiculous. And the idea that if we didn't buy diamonds...or gold or oil for that matter...from Africa, the wars would go away is even more so.

That said, I enjoyed the movie. Suprisingly the blood diamond theme was relatively subdued save for a few highly charged dialogue scenes. It is a story of evil and redemption. It does portray war in Africa in a manner which, to my understanding, is accurate. War in much of Africa is a horrible, horrible thing (though I suppose the modifier "in Africa" isn't neccessary) that tears the social fabric apart and is tremendously destructive. Massacres of entire villages are not uncommon, children are abducted and transformed into monsters, taught to destroy and kill and even deny their own parents. Refugee camps overflow. Government forces are often no better than rebel forces.

And the fire of war is fed, not by ideas...freedom, nation, oppression, exploitation...but by the personal gain acheived by the leaders of the war. When war is conducted in this way there is no incentive for peace. The oppressed, the poor, the good, are displaced or killed, and the rich, powerful, and evil are left to suck the life out of society for their own personal gain.

The plot of the movie is also engrossing. It is led by Leonardo Dicaprio who, in my opinion, does an excellent job. The transformation and redemption of his character is painfully slow, and advances two steps forward, one back. But it is completed and in the end, as in any good story there is a degree of justice served.

All in all it was an enjoyable movie. A warning though...it is a tremendously violent movie with some incredibly disturbing scenes including but not limited to impromtu amputation, village massacres, the indoctrination of children and their subsequent vicious behavior, lots of death, the sack of a city, and several firefights.

On June

June was officially my most prolific month ever--16 posts.

It followed May, during which I posted exactly once.

The Trip: Cordoba Part 3

The mosque is the main attraction of Cordoba. Beyond that there is not a whole lot worth seeing. There is a crumbled Roman Temple, and a relatively interesting Castle. The castle was built by the Reyes Catolicos Fernando and Isabela (Ferdinand and Isabel) when they were conducting their campaign against the Moors in Granada. It later became a center of the Inquisition in the south for a few hundred years, then a prison. It has some beautiful gardens and you can climb up in the towers.













There are also a few museums dedicated to the Jews and their history in the city. They made it a center of learning in the 10-11th centuries. Incidentally noone guessed Maimonides as the Jewish Doctor/Philosopher I mentioned in an earlier post. His epiteph reads "From Moshe (Moses) to Moshe (Maimonides) there is no one like Moshe." He had to flee Cordoba when an intolerant group of Muslims came to power and eventually landed in Egypt where he was renowned as the greatest physician of his time (at a time when Arab physicians were the best in the world). He was also perhaps the greatest Jewish philosopher.



















The highlight of Cordoba, outside the Mosque was the riverwalk. We say the statue of a man bathing in the river. I wonder what happens if there is a droght.












and got a great view of the city at sunset. The building in the center is the mosque with the cathedral rising out of it. To the right is the bell tower, within which is the old minaret. It is a beautiful city, go if you get the chance.

The Trip: Day 18 Part 2

Bullfighting is an old tradition in Spain. It was passed on to much of Latin America, and is even practiced in parts of France (or so I'm told). It began as a way to prolong the festivities surrounding the killing of a bull and the party that followed.

The first bull fighting ring was built in the mid-18th century in Seville.


From there it spread. Every step in a bullfight is ridgidly controlled and dictated by tradition. It is often likened to a dance, an alaborate ritual that will lead to the death of one or the other of the contestants. Each step is announced by the band and controlled by the president of the bullfight.

The first players are the Picadors. These are men on horseback with long pikes. When the bull charges the horse they stick it to make it bleed and thus weaken the bull. Before they added the protective covering many horses were killed by the bulls.


Next come the banderilleros. These in my opinion are the craziest of the bullfighters. They run right at the bull, jump up to reach over the horns and stick these colorful sticks into the bull's shoulder. This is to add to the show, and to make the bull mad.

Then it is the turn of the matador. He is the star of the show. There are three per bullfight and each fights two bulls. The most famous are household names throughout Spain. They guide the bull with their red cape. They display their bravery in two ways, by guiding the bull ever closer to them, and by moving their feet as little as possible. As they guide the bull the crowd gets more and more into it. There is a fine line however, because if the matador plays with the bull too much the bull may tire and not be a worthy adversary when it comes time to kill it.

The last step is the killing of the bull. The goal of the matador is to drive the sword into the heart. If done correctly it takes no more than a few seconds for the bull to die. Occasionally they miss the heart. This results in a failed bullfight and dishonor. Generally though the thrust is successful.

After the fight it is up to the President of the bullfight to decide if the matador deserves a trophy. To earn a trophy the matador must have fought well and put on a good show. The audience participates in theis process by indicating that they enjoyed the performance by waving wight flags. When we went one matador earned a trophy. The trophies that they earn come from the bull. A good bullfighter earns an ear...a great bullfightes earns two ears, and the best earn two ears and the tail.


All in all we had a great time at the bullfight. I have wanted to go for a long time. I enjoy tradition and ceremony.

The Move: Day 3

As anyone who is likely to read this blog knows, Adrienne and I are moving to Michigan next Monday, July 9. It is a difficult process packing up the house. There are so many memories tied up in it. I sometimes find my memory triggered by some random thing I am packing up and I am carried down memory lane. We have lived here for two years now--our entire married life.

It is hard too because we didn't expect it to be this way.

The house is a wreck right now. It's a good thing nobody is coming to look at the house. There are boxes everywhere and our things are strewn about the house.

Most of the packing is done. When you start packing for a move the boxes all have order. They contain a certain class of things and are all neatly labeled--"books-fiction-A-F", "Things from David's desk", "Pots and Pans". As you progress the labels become increasingly vague and tend to be labeled by room--"Leftover books", "Random office stuff". By the end they lose all coherence and labels become irrelevant--"Sort it out when you get there", "Stuff I couldn't fit in other boxes".

The Trip: Day 20...and 21....and 22....and 23

We left Spain a little after 11 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday. Our plan was to arrive in Phoenix about 20 hours later at 10 PM and then drive down to Tucson.

The flight to Miami went well, but then things began to go wrong. I reported a passport lost a few years ago, and so when we showed up at the port of entry they shuttled us off into the little special room to await special questioning. They asked us all sorts of questions and generally pestered us. Of course my passport does have stamps from Cuba, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan...and it turned out to be an invalid passport. Inadvertantly I must have found the passport I lost and lost the new one I got and never realized the switch had been made (if you are familiar with my filing methods you won't be suprised). So they were a little suspiscious and kept us there for hours making us stand on nails, and dripping water on our heads, and giving us deep-muscle massages the old-fasioned way...actually no that's a lie, they just punched a hole in y passport and sent us on our way. They didn't even ask for another form of identification...no wonder terrorists have no problem getting into this country, though I guess my wife was a little scantily clad for the wife of a fundamentalist muslim...but it could all be a big hoax to fool the Great Satan.

Sorry I'm Rambling

So we continued on to New Orleans, where we were promptly told that our flight to Dallas was cancelled and we would have to wait in line to schedule another one. Two hours later we had a flight scheduled for the next day, but no place to stay, no vouchers for food, or accomodations...in short nothing that a reasonable company would offer. As we sat inline we watched the other airlines' flights to Dallas take off despite the weather.

We found a halfway decent place to stay, walked to Sonic for dinner, and bedded down for the night. The interesting thing about New Orleans is that no one makes any sense. They never tell you this when you see news reports...they all manage to find the one person in the city who can speak English. Most speak, Spanish, or French, or Creole, or English that is so mangled that I am confident most linguists would classify it as a different language.

We got to the airport the next day and waited for 6 hours as our flight was delayed, and delayed, and delayed...then we got up in the air, circled over Dallas for two hours, diverted to Austin, then halfway there, turned around and came back to Dallas where, upon landing we were informed that our flight to Phoenix had been cancelled. Again, no offers of explanations, or assistance, only the long wait for a new flight. Two hours later we had a flight scheduled for Friday afternoon and were comfortably ensconed in the Radisson. Thursday, we hung out all day, went down to the mall, hung out in Barnes and Noble, ate in the food court and watched Ocean's Thirteen...like the other two it was a humorous, and entertaining movie careful not to stray from the light side of life...and then returned to the hotel. In an interesting contrast the hotel shuttle was 15 minutes late picking us up at the mall so they offered us free dinner. I recommend the Radisson. We went swimming, ate dinner and turned in for an early night.

Today we got to the airport and got on the airplane with out a hitch and the pilot came on the intercom to say that there was a problem with the tire and a maintenance guy was going to come check it out. 30 minutes later the guy arrived checked the tire and gave us the ok to take off...it seems like in the world of modern aviation you would be able to get someone to the plane in less than thirty minutes...I mean there's a maintenence guy attatched to that gate or small group of gates.

Now we're here.


Moral of the Story: 1. No Passport, no problem...this is the United States
2. Never fly American Airlines