Calm Before The Storm 2?

Well, I'm about 30 hours or so from running a youth event at the college and I'm surprisingly pretty relaxed. I have about a 100 high-school aged youth and 20 chaperones/sponsors arriving on campus tomorrow late afternoon. I'll have about 60 or so college students running different activities, leading worship, & taking the youth on different opportunities for service (soup kitchens, drop-ins, etc). My job is to coordinate the madness of programming, so that people can grow in their relationships to others and ultimately with God.

So today, I'm doing my best to rest before the chaos hits. I am not really a details person but for the most part the details seem to be taken care of. That is thanks to the details people around me and admittedly I have a fair amount of experience of running these types of events at colleges & camps. It's the unknown aspects of such events that are scary and obviously hardest to prepare for. We'll see what happens but in all honesty, I can hardly wait for next Tuesday and the official release of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb by U2. If I survive till then, I can make it through the chaos. I hope to escape to the wilderness for a short mtn bike ride and find some peace there as well.

G

Go Packers!

It was a close & exciting win by Green Bay over Minnesota! Brett Favre led the Packers with 4 touchdown passes and dominated the first half of the game. Culpepper responded and tied up the game with less than 2 minutes to go but thankfully the Packers clinched the game with a fieldgoal bringing them back on top of the NFC North after a 4 game winning streak! See the NFL Standings for a full NFL report!

On a side note, Packer's fans once again (3rd time) have clinched the top clicked donations for Cambell's Soup "Click For Cans" contest of all NFL team fans. Soup will be donated via Campbell soup to a needy soup kitchen determined by the GB Packers!

Yep - I'm wearing my Favre jersey!

Escape

Another great autumn day in the Sandilands! This time round Pat & I were joined by our wives Darlene & Wendy. Wendy & I dropped off Chelsea & Aimee at the grandparents and made our big escape! Our goals were simple - take a leisurely hike along one of our mtn bike trails and construct a new descent that joined up with a trail we marked out earlier in the week. So armed with machetes, pruners, & a couple rakes we made our way to our biking paradise! Admittedly, I was pretty stoked that our wives joined us and that they actually seemed to enjoy helping us with the trail. We worked a solid couple hours and I'm guessing the trail will be ready to ride with another couple hours of work. Hopefully, the snow holds off till Christmas! Wishful thinking but it has happened in the past.

The trail itself follows a pretty high ridge and rolls along singletrack through some poplar stands and makes a steep descent across our original trail (x-country ski trail in winter) and heads down through some willows and into a cedar stand with some very cool twisted & gnarled trees. The ground unfortunately is very spongy by the cedars but we are hoping it will firm up after some riding. If not, we will have to build it up with some split logs or something (a mild north shore attempt?).

I'm looking forward to taking my bike down the steep next week sometime!

Chain Breaker

Hey - another mountain bike blogpost! Pat & I hit our Sandilands X-country Race trail again and had a blast. My conditioning is a little off but it still was a good ride. We stopped to do a little trail construction near a cedar stand but the ground needs to be raked and then hardpacked before it is really ridable. Also found a couple cool downhill runs off a ridge near our main trail - hope to develop them as well. Managed to twist my chain on one of my descents through some brush - glad my chain breaker was with me! Riding conditions were perfect, it was a balmy minus two degrees Celsius.

I'm enjoying the two U2 Vertigo singles (which Wendy graciously picked up in the Peg yesterday!) and admittedly I've had a listen to the Atomic Bomb rough tracks currently online - very, very good! Looking forward to the full-album release on the 23rd! I'll be picking up collector's edition complete with DVD & a booklet!

Later!

G

Benchmark

Well - it has been six months of blogging and what have I learned? As an experiment into self-reflection it has been quite rewarding. I used to journal back in college but I always struggled with making consistent entries. With this whole online journaling thing, for whatever reason, I've managed to consistently make at least 2 entries per week. I think that's pretty good.

I've also appreciated some of the dialogue that other posters have contributed the musings of my wandering mind. In some ways, I wish I had more interaction but perhaps that it is an unrealistic expectation. I have learned though that generally speaking, when one responds on another's blog - often that blogger will respond to your site. I'm not sure if that is a courteous expectation or if it just happens randomly. My guess though is that we are all curious as to how others percieve our thoughts, however random or unique or mundane they are.

What has happened in my life in the last six months. Well, I'm living in a new house and operating a new computer. Wendy and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on June 14th. My family has expanded from one daughter to two! Chelsea will be three years old on the 17th and Aimee will be three months old on the 8th! I am in the midst of module three in my third year of college teaching and I still am surviving more or less.

The summer flew by way too fast, and it seems autumn is likewise. Has blogging been worth it? I think so - we'll see where we are at another six months from now and I'll be a yet better judge.

G

Beautiful Day!

It was a beautiful day! That's right I went on a three hour ride with three of my former high school friends, Pat S., Kent K., & Reg F. We made arrangements earlier in the week to leave around 7:30am and drive out to Ingolf, Ontario about 1 1/2 hours from here for an epic mountain bike tour d' trail! Pat and I on full-suspension cross country and Reg & Kent on free-ride bikes...different styles of riding but considering the technical nature of the trail we actually stayed pretty close together for the most part.

The trail provided plenty of excitement, rolling granite, some minor drops, some good climbs and dicey descents! All in all - very rewarding! Plus with Reg & Kent along - guaranteed laughter! Unfortunately, there was a lot of rain in the last number of weeks and a number of sections of the trail were submersed making the travel a little wet at times. The weather was perfect - somewhere around 12 degrees C, no wind, no rain!

At one point, we met up with a guy in his thirties making a campfire along the shore of the lake. He was making lunch for himself and his 2 year old son, who happened to be hiding behind a nearby boat. Apparently, the boy (who kind of looked like a hobbit) was a little intimidated by 4 mtn bikers. The father had travelled by ATV with his son & dog. Pat decided to interact with the dog and picked up a big stick. He chucked it and his unfortunate aim ended up heading for the little boy - who basically retreated under the boat for cover. Thankfully, the stick bounced off the overturned hull of the boat but we decided to leave shortly thereafter, thinking we had outstayed our welcome. So we grunted our way up a good climb back on the trail, trying to contain our laughter at what had just taken place. Admittedly, I was probably getting more of a workout from laughing than the actual climb at that point!

All in all - it was a great ride complete with a little blood loss and scar on my arm & shin! I made some very technical climbs that I wasn't expecting to make and the steep descents complete with some loose rocks made for some good times as well. It was good to be back on my bike and hanging out with friends, but man I'm feeling pretty wiped right now!

G

Quotes of the Day...

I was replying to a post on a blog focused on culture and this first quote came to mind, so I thought I might as well post it here as well and see if it causes any nibbles or responses:

"Music is Worship; whether it's worship of women or their designer, the world or its destroyer, whether it comes from that ancient place we call soul or simply the spinal cortex, whether the prayers are on fire with a dumb rage or dove-like desire...the smoke goes upwards...to God or something you replace God with...usually yourself." - Bono from his introduction to "Selections From The Book of Psalms" Grove Press, 1999.

My other quote comes from www.billycorgan.com

"...a kid said to me the other day, 'like, I heard you found God and stuff, is that true??' uh, no, I didn't find God...you cannot find something if it has never been lost...ok, maybe, in that thinking, God found me? It is not important, I am Billy, spirit made flesh, word made whole, insanity made mainstream, love made lover...life is good!!! Jesus people, please save someone who needs saving, there are many who are in greater need than I... I will never be a puppet for man's vision of the whole deal..." - Billy Corgan from his website post entry 10.24.04

Jump!

I just got back from the last concert I will ever see at the former home of the Winnipeg Jets - the Winnipeg Arena which is scheduled to be torn down in the next little bit. Van Halen played for just over 3 hours of pure adrenalin...they haven't lost much if any of their energy & playing ability. Last time I saw them play was in 1991 and I distinctly remember the same ringing in my ears following that show! They played all their hits as far as I can recall - Panama, Right Now, When Its Love, Jump, 5150, Can't Stop Loving You, and You Really Got Me...

Off to bed I go...

Art

Quote of the day, "Art is not the truth. Art is a lie which enables us to approach the truth." - Pablo Picasso. After reading the quote, I wondered what other words we could replace art with...how about music? story? theology?

Just a thought - sometimes we need open doors to see what is in the next room.

G