tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90015392392245290552024-03-14T08:32:50.864-04:00THE DARKROOMDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-30142542759920240372016-05-04T04:00:00.000-04:002016-05-05T10:22:14.489-04:00Attempt #2 at The 30 Days of Biking<div style="text-align: center;">
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The, <i>30 Days of Biking, </i>ended this past Saturday and I'll be upfront with you, I didn't ride my bike. I walked by it about a dozen or so times on the way to doing something more pressing, but never had the chance and by the end of the day, I didn't have the energy or desire to put together any sort of a ride, but maybe that's why I like this challenge. The challenge is to ride your bike thirty times in a month. There is no mileage goal or pace demand. It's just get on your bike and ride. I need that kind of simplicity. Yes, it'd be ideal if you really could actually do that or it would be a real biketopia, if you lived in a place full of bike shops and a huge bicycling community that was hosting events where you got together and really got in some great and fun rides. And maybe add to that the idea of living in a place where you could realistically ride your bike to work or use it for some meaningful errands on a daily basis. But that is not what I imagine most people live around nor is it the usual experience of most folks; despite what'd you see on social media or read about in bicycling publications. Yes, there are the Boulder, Colorado's and the Austin, Texas', but for everyone one of those types of places there are hundreds of Tifton, Georgia's and Orlando, Florida's. I would imagine most people are like me and work 10-15 hour days, far from home and get home exhausted and either get a super small window to ride around the block or the occasional longer ride and then that is that. And if you are busy like me, then when it comes to hobbies or "extras", I guess beggars can't exactly be choosy. I am not complaining, but rather stating the facts.<br />
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<i>The gear.</i> </div>
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Last year, I participated in the Fifth Annual Version of the, <i>30 Days of Biking, </i>and you can read about it <a href="http://jdaviddark.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-30-days-of-biking-challenge.html">here</a>. And so, when I saw something about the Sixth Annual Version pop up on my Facebook feed, I knew that I wanted to do it. It's one of the easiest things that one can be apart of. It's free. The lone requirement is that you get on your bike and ride it. There isn't even a required distance. It could be around your house or even just around in your garage, if you have one, or up and down your driveway. You don't have to ride a 100 miles on your carbon bike in full time trial regalia. You just have get on your bicycle and ride and it's really that simple. And if you can't ride everyday, then at least try to ride nearly thirty times during the month. I know as my April starting filling up quickly from morning till night, I just made it a goal to try to ride the majority of the days. And to top the whole challenge off, it's for a very good cause.<br />
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<i>A place void of kickstands. </i></div>
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<i><a href="http://30daysofbiking.com/">30 Days of Biking</a></i>, is a nonprofit group that has two main goals: get people off their behinds and onto a bike and help raise money for the World Bicycle Relief Fund. It didn't officially become a nonprofit charity till this year when several big name sponsors jumped on board after the annual events past four years of exponential participation and success and they formed a board of trustees to lead the charity.You should look up all the information about the, 30 Days of Biking. It's all pretty neat. In my lowly opinion, we need a lot more stuff like this and less of most everything else.<br />
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<i>A view from the top. </i></div>
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And if you don't know much about <i><a href="http://www.worldbicyclerelief.org/">World Bicycle Relief Fund</a></i>, you should go check them out too. They're a really great charity that was begun by the co-founder of SRAM, the maker of all things gears and drive trains for bicycles, and with a lot of help from the founders of Trek and Specialized after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. They provide bikes to folks in Africa, South America, Asia, and in the Caribbean that live lives where their only mode of transportation is walking and where being in that position limits someone in every possible way. You should look them up too. I will probably throw together a post about them, but for now, clicking the above link will have to do. And without saying too much, I have a really big idea that I am cooking up that involves this charity. Be excited. I am. </div>
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As I alluded to earlier, I had originally planned to carve out the smallest of pieces of each day and try to fit some sort of ride into that smallest of spaces. I really I figured I could do it. I was mentally setting the goal of trying to ride at least a mile a day if I could find the time. And then all of my April things came together, conspired against me, and exploded. It almost looked like Jackson Pollock designed my daily calendar. School bled into track, and track bled into work at home, and work at home bled into extra-curricular obligations at school, and those bled into church obligations. And all of those things made it pretty hard to summon the mustard to ride a little each day. Maybe, I should get an electric bike or get Mel or FH to pedal me around. </div>
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<i>The very best type of riding. </i></div>
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<i> </i>Even though, I didn't get to ride each day, I still found the time to get on the bike somewhere around 18-25 times. I recorded about 18 rides through Strava, but I then took a few very short rides here and there and left my GPS watch and phone at home. I was also able to ride around 90 or so miles. I'm very glad I attempted the thirty day challenge and will most likely do it next year. I can always use some excuse to get outside and get on my bike and go for a ride; even the shortest of rides. Next year, why don't you join me and we'll have a little friendly competition.</div>
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Happy riding,</div>
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-36037584285940474982016-04-25T02:00:00.000-04:002016-04-25T02:00:22.892-04:00We Salute Your Shorts....My Life is a Whirlwind<div align="center">
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I have had a very stressful last couple of weeks. At times, it has been almost more than I can handle at different moments and I have had to cope in little ways like going for short walks through a little breezeway near my classroom and reminding myself why I teach and coach or I have gotten home from work and left my phone and practically everything else in my car or inside and FH and I have just walked down our road and through the woods and stayed out till past dark because the weather is just perfect right now and I will never get to live each day that goes by with Mel or FH again.<br />
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I know we all live these maxed out lives and I really do wish I knew how to do it better or what I really wish is that I knew a way to opted out in a reasonable way. I am not pretending like I lead the busiest or hardest of lives, but it does blow my mind that in the last month or so, I have been to NYC, coached almost a full season of track, taught for over 20 days, graded over 500 papers, proctored the ACT, read, studied, and took a test to be certified to give the SAT, read two, 200+ page books, ran 100 miles, driven over two thousand miles, broke a tooth, got it repaired, worked on our house, ridden my bike around 200 miles, changed the brakes in my car, and a hundred other little, everyday things. I could keep listing things, but that is enough. You get it because you have your crazy list too. It is just mind-blowing. Or at least it is to me.<br />
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I am also not saying I want the opposite. I see the opposite too often. It seems like a miserable existence whether it is self-imposed or forced. I know of several folks who are so lonely or bored and sit at home where they look forward to one event for months at a time because that is their one chance to get out of the house for the whole Spring, but I would like things to go and be a little slower.<br />
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<i>What I feel I am seeing when I look at my calendar and then at our family calendar and then go to do something and realize that I can't do whatever it is because that something is broken or something of the like, but also know that I can't just not do what I needed to do.</i></div>
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I am writing all of this because I love writing. And I really love and look forward to writing and preparing the posts that I do end up publishing for this blog. However, I just don't have the time to do the long posts that I used to put out, but I also am completely unwilling to quit this place and let it die. So, I have racked my brain trying to think of some sort of solution where I can live my fast-paced life and have a blog that I update more than two times every five or six months. And I think I have come up with some sort of solution.<br />
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It'd be easy to just quit blogging and it would mostly make sense for me to do so. I really don't have time to do it and I don't really want to hear that saying about people having the time for the things they care about or are important to them. That may sound good on paper, but in life it looks more like when you have to choose between getting five hours of sleep or finishing a blog, or making a little money for your family on a Saturday or sitting behind a computer screen and finishing a blog post, or grading some papers or writing a blog post. Those are not great choices, but they are little choices I have to make on a daily or weekly basis. I am in no way complaining or expecting any sympathy because it really isn't that big of a deal. I love my job and am so grateful to God for allowing me to live a life where He supplies for me and my family in such great and miraculous ways and that allows me to work in a vocation that I feel called to do. And I love my family immensely and cannot and do not want to imagine a life without them. But I also want to have a little time each week to write.<br />
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So, in an effort to do all I want to do, I have come up with a little solution. I came up with the idea about a week while looking for a new book to read on our bookshelves. One of the books we own is titled, <i>"By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades".</i> I haven't had the chance to read it completely, but I have liked the little I have had a chance read. It is a book full of newspaper blurbs and little short articles that Hemingway wrote as a newspaper and magazine correspondent that he was throughout the majority of his career. And it got me to thinking about why couldn't I just write these short little posts where I can knock it all out in a couple of sittings or maybe just write all I can for twenty or so minutes and double check it and then let it go.<br />
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I have made mention of doing something like this in the past, but instead of doing so, I either didn't post at all or worked up these super long posts and took two weeks past forever to do them, and to be honest, most of them are still sitting my, <i>Drafts</i>, section of this blog spot. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to post here more often and doing these short, little blurbs about what is actually and currently happening in my life right now are the only way I see this place not becoming just another blog that never gets updated and then becoming a place where no one goes. I don't want that.<br />
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So, here's to the future. May it be full of short, yet informative, yet witty, yet appealing posts that you enjoy reading and I enjoy writing until the day I have time to write long and good posts.<br />
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Thanks for reading. Thanks for following.<br />
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-8093270447545471932015-10-19T08:36:00.000-04:002015-10-19T08:36:00.083-04:00The Quest for the Perfect "All Rounder"<br />
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<em>The 91' Trek 930</em>.</div>
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In the past decade or so, I've been the very proud owner of some pretty good bikes. None of them were in anyway pricey steeds, but they were a pride to ride. There was the $25 steel road bike from the 70's that I sadly got rid of in search of a speedier ride. I really should have kept it. There was the Wal-Mart road bike that got stolen off our front porch while I went to run a quick errand. Then there was and is my Trek 1000 that I paid payments on and in the end someone, who still remains a mystery, paid off the majority of it and it is still a bike I ride on a weekly basis. And lastly, there was the Biria CitiBike 7 that I bought using almost exclusively the change I gathered each day out of the huge car wash vacuums when I worked for a car wash when we lived in Macon. Each bike was great for so many reasons, but each was lacking in something, and a few were lacking in several ways. And without knowing it till about two years ago, I've always been looking for a bike that has been dubbed the title, "all rounder".<br />
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If you've never heard the term, "all rounder". Join the club. To be honest, I hadn't heard the term till around two or three years ago. I guess its because that's not an idea that goes well with a modern marketing scheme. And to make it as simple as it's supposed to be is than an "all rounder" is a bike that can seemingly do it all on. You can put skinnier tires on it and head out for a fast club ride, or you can put some knobby tires on it and hit some mountain single track, or you can throw some racks on it and take it on a cross country tour or to the office. And it makes perfect sense for there not to be bike companies out there running around trying to design the perfect bike to fit this scheme. That would be silly. Why would a company who could sell you three, four, or even six different bikes rush out to design a bike that could sort of do it all? They wouldn't and they aren't. <br />
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Well, I should be quick to say that most aren't. In the past three to five years, as the, "gravel grinding" and cyclocross trends, have heated up, many companies are sort of jumping on board. Sort of. And many companies like Velo Orange, Surly, and Rivendell Bicycle Works have put out bikes that could fall into the "all rounder" settings; with Rivendell having really been putting out the type of bike that could do well in most all biking scenarios since it opened it's doors in 94'. But it all fairness, it was the Bridgestone Bicycle USA company of the early 1990's, that put out the now infamous and heavily-envied, XO-1, designed by the great Grant Petersen, who opened Rivendell Bicycle Works in 1994 when Bridgestone USA shut it's doors and Grant P. was out of a job. He came out the following year, 1995, with a Rivendell model, named, The All Rounder. It was marketed, if you could call what Rivendell does, as marketing at all, that was supposed to be the bike to end all need for other bikes. And for some, it was and is. And since 1996, they have designed about 10 different models, but for the most part, the basic design has been to have a bike that with just a few changes here and there, you'd have a bike you could seemingly do it all on. And no...not in the extreme cases, but why do we always go to the extremes when we read something like this. No, you couldn't race against the elite racers on the Tour de France on a Rivendell nor would you try to win the X Games riding a Rivendell. Hopefully, you get what I am trying to say. Sometimes, I mean well, but don't write so well. <br />
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<em>The Bridgestone XO-1.</em></div>
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<em>A Rivendell All Rounder</em>.</div>
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Bicycles are like most hobbies in that you can spend a lot of money on them and in the end not really get your money out of whatever you purchased because you just knew you needed whatever it was that you bought. I read this funny article about how hunting makes the meat worth something like $10 a pound; which is double or triple what it costs in the grocery store. Or how someone might pay $3000 for a bike to save money on gas when they really would have only spent about $1800 on gas for a whole year. I feel like this could be said about most hobbies. You can pretend that isn't true, but we all know it is. Everyday, I drive a $4500 Subaru to work and everywhere else and everyday I look at bikes that would cost me near about the same, but would not get me to work and do all the things my car does. I would think twice about buying a car that cost about $5000, but wouldn't think twice about a bike in that price range, if I had that kind of money. This may not be true for you, but it is at least true for me. I guess it is a very good thing I don't have much money! </div>
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<em>The Biria CitiBike 7. I thought it would be my "all rounder", but it just wasn't meant to be.</em></div>
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<em> </em>Finding the perfect bike is a hard task unless you jump to being very specific. The best bike for the beach is a beach cruiser. The best bike for a road ride is a road bike. The best bike for an inner city commute is a commuter bike. However, most people don't ride bikes like that AND most people don't have enough money, or energy, or space in their garage for a whole stable full of ultra-specific rides. And most people don't have the time to maintain 5-7 different bikes in hopes of riding in 5-7 different scenarios during a year. I know I don't and when I think about most of the people I ride bikes with, they don't either. So most people are stuck riding a bike built for one thing, but they typically not riding in that scenario; like most of you who ride your mountain bikes around your paved neighborhood and peddle your little hearts out trying to keep up with the person you are riding with who has a bike with a tighter frame and skinnier tires who is riding 30 feet ahead of you, but is coasting. I know you've been there because I've been there. I've also been the guy bogged down in the mud on a road bike off-road or getting my insides shaken to the limit trying to ride a road bike on some single track. Yes, you can ride any bike anywhere, but it usually results in a not so pleasant of a ride and sometimes it results in a broken bike. </div>
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My 1970's road bike was a great bike, but it was steel and so very heavy. I should have kept it, but was under the illusion that a lighter bike would make me so much faster and that is not wholly true. I could have made it into a pretty reliable all-rounder, but instead sold it to buy a lighter, newer road bike. My Wal-Mart road bike was an average bike at its best, but if you tried to ride on something other than newer asphalt, then it was a less than perfect bike. My Trek 1000SL is a great bike and I have ridden it somewhere around 9500 or so miles on a whole host of places, but it is a road bike first and foremost and has done well in other scenarios, but I have also blown a lot tires and broken a few components putting it in situations it was not built to handle. I have even used it for many a miles for some light touring and some pretty heavy commuting and it has handled well, but it also sounds like it is struggling. Two years ago, I bought the Biria CitiBike 7 (pictured above) in an attempt to buy a bike I could do it all on and thought I had chosen well, but then we moved to the country and found out over a three month period that I had in fact not chosen well. In a short matter of time, I had blown threw several tire tubes and broken the rear tire twice. I don't think poorly of any of these bikes because most of their failures or shortcomings came when they were put into a situation they were not designed for. </div>
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I guess a good question to attempt to answer is why I, or for that matter anyone else, would want an all-rounder bike and not just keep two or three bikes around and use the right one for the right situation and just be happy! And I guess that the only good answer is that you could do that, but most people don't ride in a single scenario even in a single ride unless you jump straight to the very specifics or the extremes, but even the elites on a Grand Tour have three or four different bikes they ride during the Tour depending on the type or style of riding they are expected to do. Take my usual ride for instance, it includes at least three to four different types of terrain even if I just take a short ride. My driveway is clay and soft sand. The road out of my driveway is newer asphalt and if I get off that road, I will be on clay road, soft roads, dirt roads, old gravel roads, fire roads, sidewalks, mulch paths, and pine straw. I need a bike that can handle each of these surface changes without bogging down, or incurring too much friction, or sliding around, or sliding out from me, or crashing with me on it. I also need a bike I can strap a rack that can hold all my stuff without hurting the frame too much. And since Mel and FH refuse to follow me around on every ride carrying several different bikes, then my only real choice is to find a bike that can fall as close to possible to the all-rounder definition. An all-rounder that I could actually afford until I win the lotto or something and get some real folding money!</div>
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<em>My "new to me" 1991 Trek 930.</em></div>
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<em> </em>And so after much thought, maybe far too much thought, many internet searches, thorough readings and re-readings of a few key books, a few looks at my finances, I came to the realization that my current bicycle line up was not one I wanted to continue on with. I sold my Biria to a nice lady who was moving to the ATL and wanted to rid herself of her car and become a bike commuter. The Biria was and is an excellent bike for that. Had I stayed in Macon or moved to an equal or larger city, I would have kept that bike, but that was not my situation. I then spent a lot of time on Craigslist and other like places, both on and off the internet, searching high and low for an older, shock-less, hardtail, mountain bike, one that was built in the USA, that could be overhauled and revamped for less than a small fortune. A bike I could turn into my perfect all-rounder. </div>
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Finding a bike to fit this definition may sound like an easy task, but I'll tell you it is far from that. I know this sounds hard to believe, but vintage mountain bikes are in high demand with folks like me. And there are more people out there like than you want there to be. The hard part is finding a bike that affordable AND still in good shape. Bicycles are not usually treated well. They are usually mistreated, kept out in the rain, stored in wet garages, rarely maintained, fixed or repaired the cheapest or easiest way, etc. And once owners need to sell them, they begin by asking the price they paid for them 10,15,20 years ago. And if they happen to be a "rare" bike or model, then the owner wants 2-3 times what they paid for them no matter what condition they are in. I found myself in this predicament during the whole time of hunting for the right bike. Most mountain bike, even high end models, cost around $200-$400 in the late 80's and early 90's; a time most American companies were still producing high quality bikes in the USA before they started sending jobs to China and Korea. If you do a quick search on Craigslist you may quickly notice that bikes that are 20+ years old are still being sold for almost $200 and may be missing some parts, rusted, broken, etc. It is crazy, but it is true.</div>
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Well, after many, many failed attempts and many, many emails to sellers in three different States, I settled on a 1991 Trek 930. The seller originally wanted $150, but after having not sold it for a long time, he gave in and kindly sold it to me for $75. The bike was in Orlando, Florida, so my parents graciously met the Craigslist killer in a Target parking lot and got the bike for me. And they lived to tell about it, so that was a huge plus. I was so happy to get the bike that when they brought it to me, I rode it in a hotel parking lot in order to get in my first "official" ride. And it did not disappoint. </div>
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<em>A few of the components I'll be using to remake my new all-rounder.</em></div>
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I have had the Trek 930 now for about six months and I've ridden it about 200 miles. It is a great bike and I'll be quick to admit that it is also a pretty bike when you really take the time to look at it, but most of all, it's a fun bike. I'll also be quick to admit that it also isn't finished yet. Fixing up a bike takes a lot of time and a lot of money and those are two things I don't usually have. I sold my Biria for $250 and that money went quickly into paying for a past repair on the Biria, the price of the new bike, and several of the components that are picture above. One weekend near the end of summer, I disassembled and reassembled as much of the bike as I could using YouTube videos and a great maintenance book my mom gave me. I put a new stem on the bike, new handlebars, new tubes and tires, bottle cages, a kickstand, a bell, and peddles. And that is where the project sits. I tried revamping the brakes, but really made a mess of things. I'd like to buy some new handlebar grips, a set of brakes, and install a good front rack and the new gearing I have already purchased and then the bike will be as fixed up as I want for now. I get pretty excited just thinking about how great this bike is going to be once I'm finished with it. Don't worry, I'll probably do a short post on it, but for now I'll just settle for looking at the bike, riding my road bike on dirt roads and having to walk it some, and finding things I don't use anymore to raise the last bit of cash. </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-6125485848925059932015-08-01T14:11:00.002-04:002016-08-06T12:12:32.770-04:00Summer in Full Bloom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">― </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">F. Scott Fitzgerald</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">, </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">The Great Gatsby</span></span></i></div>
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I fully realize that it is the first of August, but I still wanted to put together a quick, or at least as quick as I can put forth, update about us and just what we've been up to the last two and half months. I also realize that my last post was somewhere in early May. What can I say? We've been busy. Crazy busy. I can't say that I've had a string of days where I had time to sit down and type and if the time was there, the desire was to be elsewhere, far from the confines of a screen and a keyboard. There is too much of that during the regular part of the year and when it's summer and you're a teacher, you've got to suck the very marrow out of the time you have off because just as the time off has begun, you can almost hear it ending like a huge freight train way off there in the distance. And I don't care who you know, who you read, or what you really think, but teaching is, in my humblest of opinions, one of the hardest professions out there, except that instead of pay compensation and complete respect, all you really get is more requirements from the school, or the state, or both and a longer list of people who think you've given up on life, which is why you're teaching, or a very long list of people who think you're lazy, which is why you teach, and a very, very long list of people who think you are getting paid too much to just work a few hours each day and then get a, "two month vacation…man, I wish my job gave me two months off…". I'll gladly take your engineering gig that's 50 hours a week where you sit at a desk and wonder at times if you can stretch your latest project out a little longer in order to have something to do with my classroom of 20-30 kids, all at different learning levels and abilities, for even just 50 minutes and you are responsible for EVERYTHING that goes on in that room. I'll even "settle" for your week off where you are off and can afford to go somewhere. Most teachers go for the ole' "staycation" because being at home is affordable. I'll end my little rant for now. Hope you enjoy the post. You're probably reading it at work and getting paid by the hour. I hope for you it's overtime pay. My brother in law makes about $30+ an hour during these times. I usually work about 15-20 hours of overtime or weekend time, but my time is considered an investment in the future. I can only dream of being paid for this type of investment. I know, I chose this vocation and I was not in it for the money, but I'm sure you'd get this feeling too if you worked so very hard, made so very little, and then had to hear at least once a week from someone one of the above things and then had to hold your tongue after they told you of being bored at work.</div>
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BUT…I guess before I dive into it, I'll say one more thing. Mel, FH, and I had one sole and single goal for this summer. We had, as Mr. B. H. Obama, says so often about so many different things…."we had a laser-like focus"…on this one, solitary goal. (One a side note, it must be a dangerous place at the WH to have so many lasers pointing around.) And the goal was this: Make this summer 100% better than last summer. That may sound like a hard task, but when if you knew what a special piece of the hot place our last summer was, you'd quickly realize that we could do almost anything and it be a full 100% better than last summer. Don't get me wrong, we had so much help and so much generosity, etc given to us last summer, but no one wants to work basically 6-7 days a week for three full months completely ripping out everything in a house and building it back again and doing about 90% of the work yourself and be fresh off so many other personal and emotional traumas and just have to put those on the back burner so the work can go on and at the same time attempt to fill out somewhere around 250-300 job applications in all your 'free time" and then try to shower quickly and scrub paint off your hands to look nice for an interview and then leave the interview, knowing that you had to have a job, any job, because money was low and your last paycheck was going to soon run out, and head back to work. It really was a fresh piece of hell. I'd wish it on no one. So…we just wanted a better summer. We needed it. We had to have it. It was a need and not a want.</div>
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<i>Apollo 12</i></div>
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I ended my first year at Tiftarea Academy and God was so gracious and faithful to us, as usual in spite of our great unfaithfulness, and had them ask me to stay for another year. A huge gigantic sigh of relief was had here at the Otter Creek Camphouse when my signature was on the new contract, that contained a small raise, my first in over seven years, and it was handed in. But the end of the school year resembled the reentering of one of the Apollo space modules back into the Earth's atmosphere. No, I wasn't one of the semi-terrified astronauts who hoped the space capsule would hold together and splash into the ocean. No, I was the space capsule burning. Or at least that what it felt like. With track & field finishing up and me bearing the brunt of the responsibilities of head coach as an assistant, and exams, and last minute meetings, and budgets, and inventories, it seemed like every day brought with it another checklist of things I was suppose to finish before I left, but would take me so long to finish even a single line of the lists. And I haven't even mentioned the grading of the exams, but I'll let you do the math…say you have 115 students and each exam that is given has over 100 questions on it and most of them are not multiple choice and private schools don't have scantron machines, how many questions do you have to grade in about fourish days? The answer is around 11,500 give or take a few. But the main thing is that I finished. Barely. I crawled out of my room and limped into the car and drove home. Your first year of teaching is so very hard and if you begin teaching in a new place, you get to live that first year again. I have moved schools four times. I just maybe a professional idiot. </div>
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The above pic is not me, but of the never-aging Mark Harmon, of CSI fame, but I followed the end of school with…you guessed it: more school. I was asked to teach summer school and I jumped at the chance because the money was pretty good and we need all the extra money we can get because we are doing everything we can do to pay off all of our debts, save, be wise, etc with the money God has given us. And so just a few days after school had ended, I found myself back in a classroom with three kids who had failed a subject or two. I usually teach science, but they had asked me to teach Algebra I and II. I won't say too much about my summer school experience except that all that you see in the movies or on tv may have a lot of truth to it. The kids are super, super unmotivated. The teachers are there for money or obligation and are also unmotivated. There is literally no one else at the school. It feels too weird. You make the kids obey the rules, but really if everyone went crazy, there is no one there to say they did. I used to believe that teaching and grading math would be easier than science, but after my little eight day stint as a math teach, everything I thought was wrong. Typical. I really know nothing. Grading math is super hard. After I graded about 2000+ problems, I knew I had been so very wrong in my ignorant assumption. It was one of the most tedious things I've ever done. If I ever had a chance to punish an enemy of mine, this will be my go-to. </div>
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<i>The Otter Creek Camphouse in March about to get painted. </i></div>
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<i> </i>During Spring Break, or SB2K15 as the cool kids were saying, we bit the bullet and laid out the cash because of a paint sale at our local Sherwin Williams and began to paint out house. We, as usual, thought we'd just knock it out over the next five or so days and call it a job well done, but we only finished about 70% of the job and then I went back to school and then track went into hyper-drive and the paint stayed in the shed and we did not go back to it. This summer, we wanted to finish what we had started. That sounds a lot more mincing than we are, but when you are painting an old brick house that greatly lacks character in South Georgia and the thermometer stays in the 90's from 8-9 and the humidity sits above 40%, you really try to psyche yourself up and pretend the sun is really not burning you, and making you think weird things, and that, that little bit of paint in your eye actually helps you see better.</div>
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<i>Our house mid-March, we didn't get much farther than this.</i> </div>
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<i>Inside my father in law's shop. A pre-stain pic of our great shutters.</i></div>
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<i>Our house as of a few days ago. </i></div>
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<i> </i>Overall, we spent about two weeks outside priming, painting, and trying to finish up what we began in March. I will be quick to say we weren't smart about it. We'd sleep a little late, drink several cups of good coffee very slowly, read a few things, play with FH, and then find ourselves looking at the clock around noon saying to each other that we'd best get to it. Smarter folks would have gotten to "it" about six hours earlier and painted before the mercury sat in the high 90's. But we've never claimed to be smart or wise! We've finished about 98% of the painting, my father in law helped us build some shutters that Mel found on the NET that weren't too hard to duplicate, which really added so much to our little house, and we removed the last of an ugly awning that had been put up. Our house looks so much better or at least we think so. We still have a couple full days of touch-ups and last things, but we're so proud of how the house looks. We've done so much work over the last year, but we feel so accomplished knowing in that about a year's time, we completely gutted the inside and rebuilt it and have now painted and redone the exterior as well. It is really beginning to feel like home now in all the right ways. And by "we", I mean my kind and extremely patient and talented father in law, my brother in law, Mel, and a cast of other characters. Just Mel and I could have never done so much in such a small amount of time. And I know some of you watch who too much HGTV and think it only takes about 30 minutes or so to redo a full house and I'll only say that is only true on TV; except in order to be honest, it probably actually only takes about 20 minutes if you subtract the commercials. It'd be good for you guys to stay in that blissful place. It is less painful and much, much cheaper. Sweat equity is no joke. And if Mel were writing this post, you'd get much better pictures and less snarky commentary.</div>
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<i>A beautiful and big crepe myrtle blossom. Our little driveway is lined with about 15 of these trees. We didn't plant them, but we are growing them and hoping they'll really add to our place. </i></div>
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<i>A little boy, a fishing pole, some terrible fishing tactics, and some mud all add up to some really good times.</i></div>
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One of the greatest parts about living here can best be summed up from just looking at the picture above. When we lived in Macon, our house sat about 40 feet or less from a very busy road and we were constantly worried about where FH was and what he was up to. But now we live almost a full half mile off the road and are surrounded by open fields, a few ponds, a creek, woods, and a few dirt roads. I cannot honestly think of a better place for a little boy to get to grow up. I know as a little boy, I was fortunate enough to spend many years of my life on just a little bit of this and I loved every second of it and to be honest, I still do. Little Fordy loves the outdoors and as a parent, it seems he gets in so much less trouble outside. He loves the dirt. He loves the bugs. He loves the cows and pointing to so many different things. It is such a blessing to be outside with him. It allows both Melissa and myself to remember how truly awesome it is to be made to explore and to "see" again the wondrous and complex nature that surrounds us. As Mel so often says to those who ask the size of our home, is that what it lacks for in inside space, it fully makes up for in outside space. And as far I am forever concerned, I'd rather have big outside space than thousands of square feet inside. We three people love fresh air and seem to need more and more of it as the days go by. And there are few better ways to end a long day of any type of work than to get to walk down a dirt road with a little boy who stops every few feet to show you something that you'd have been too busy or too shallow to see. If you were to ask me the key to life, I'd have to tell that observation is one of the keys and FH is teaching us to do that again. It is a gift to be taught again to see. We have spent a lot of time outside this summer.</div>
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<i>A sunset view from one of the many clay and dirt roads near our home. </i></div>
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<i> </i>One of my favorite parts about summer is that it stays so light for so long. And one of the things I've really loved doing this summer and some of last is to wait till it is about time and then throw FH onto the back of our bike or in our old truck and try to find the steepest hill to catch the sunset and watch the sun go down. It is truly a magical experience and one of the only times we get to see the real color of the sky. This summer, we have chased some pretty great sunsets and each one, even those we only were fortunate enough to catch the tail end of, were more than worth it. Each time it feels as if time slows for a few moments and it is just FH and me at the edge of the horizon. I know how that sounds, but you should give it a try. It is a truly wondrous thing to sit on the top of a hill on the side of a bike or on top of a truck tool box and watch that great big ball of fire descend and have a little boy sitting there sharing it with you. If feels like something you should have spent your whole life doing. Or at least it does to me. We have chased a lot of sunsets this summer and each one was worth it. </div>
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<i>A little boy, a bike, and a ball of fading light. </i></div>
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<i>My new to me ride, an old Trek 930. </i></div>
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<i> </i>I'm working up a little post about it, but it is far from complete and I wanted to say a few things about it here, so here it goes. Several months ago, I came to the realization that I needed a different type of bike for the riding that I was doing. Yes, I had a great road bike and the awesome bike I get to ride FH around in, but we live in a very rural area and just to get to the paved road is a half mile ride on clay and some very soft sand. If you've ridden a road bike, you know they can do it, but they just aren't built to do so. I had originally thought my Biria Citibike would be the trick for my multi-terrain life, but after breaking not one, but two spokes on my back tire and a few other components merely riding down some back roads, I knew I had to make a move or spend too much money buying new parts. I sadly sold the Biria, but that gave me the money to buy the above bike and a few of the items I am using to change it into my all-rounder bike that I want and need. It is from 1991 and is a Craigslist deal. My kind parents went and met the "craigslist" killer in a Target parking lot in Central Florida and picked it up for me. It is, or at least I truly believe so, going to be just the type of bike I need for the riding I do around here. I've already ridden it about a hundred miles or so and it rides so well. I can't wait to finish rebuilding it and have really enjoyed learning, or at least trying to learn, how to work on my own bike this summer and have even gotten comfortable doing a few things I used to pay someone else to do. </div>
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<i>I tried to do one of those neat pics I see on Instagram and other places where one lays out all their gear or in this case, all my new bike components. I laid out the gear, but then my little helper brought over his magnetic fishing pole and rearranged the items before I could snap a pic. I could've posted the other pic, but this is what my actual life is like. </i></div>
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<i>Pecos, our little cow. </i></div>
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Last summer in the thick of everything else, we adopted a little cow. He had a sad back story. We are suckers for that. Big time. His mother had been sold off without her owners realizing she had, had a calf. He went a full week without food or care. He then was rescued by a farmer who tried his best, but in reality didn't feed him enough. And then enter Mel, FH, and me. A few over-eager, poor, mostly ignorant folks who know less that zero percent of what you should about most things and in the end you have us reading the directions on the side of a cattle milk-replacement bag trying to know how to mix it and then feed it to a severely hungry bull calf. Flash forward to this summer and we have about a 400 lb bull calf. We, in theory, are now in the cattle rancher game and Pecos is our game piece. It is a great game to be in and one of the many reason we moved from our life in Macon. We want to farm. We want to have a little, sustainable farm and use the land we have been blessed to live on and near well. And Pecos was a good way to start. It is a real blessing to know where your food comes from. We are working towards knowing exactly where it comes from and have the answer be our own house and land.</div>
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A few weeks ago, we waved goodbye to Pecos and sent him off to the livestock sale. It was sad and I didn't get a picture as we worked him through the shoots, and weighed him, and loaded him in the cattle trailer. I thought about it, but it seemed weird. We sold him and it was hard to do, but it wasn't hard to put the money he sold for in our savings account. We have a goal with the cows on this land and we hope to have enough money saved up to buy a cow in the nearest future. And from that cow, several others. It is a good thing to have cows. It is a fulfilling and good thing to work livestock . It is hard, but there is something, older, than I think we'd be willing to say about working cows and being close to cattle or any type of livestock or farm animal. It is very hard work, but it is also very calming and rewarding. It is also humbling to stand beside an animal who weighs near a ton. It is something we are all interested in. And it is joy to get to actually to do; even in small ways. So…goodbye Pecos. You'll always be remembered here by us. You were our first. We'll miss you. We appreciate the start you gave us.</div>
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<i>Air FH on the Fourth of July</i></div>
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<i>Another shot of my father in law's shop. </i></div>
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After we had finished up most of our painting, I went and worked for my father in law for 12 days. His business is named, Hunter Industrial Bag Repair. The "bags" he repairs are really these great, big, two-hundred pound behemoths that are made of rubber and are used to line the train cars they use to carry carbon black. Never heard of carbon black? Think of something black that you use. Paint? Ink? Toner? Tires? Brakes? All great products that are made of carbon black or use the product in the process it takes to make them. These giant bags used to break, just like a tire tube in a bike tire does, and then they were thrown away and replaced. My father in law, Mark, devised a way to fix them instead of just throwing them away, test them, and reuse them using a several step process. It's a green business, but he'd probably not own up to it in that way. People that are actually doing things for the environment aren't usually the types you see screaming about it on CNN begging for attention or credit. His little company also fixes the gates and the gate covers that sit under most train cars that haul any type of product and the gate allows anything from sand to corn flow from the car to somewhere else via the bottom of the car. I have worked for him for about a decade on and off. He's a great boss and the job is a good change from my main one. He pays really well and it really helps us each time he has a space for me to work. This summer was no different and I'm so thankful to have this opportunity. Yes, it is really hot in the shop with the temp. sometimes reaching near a hundred. Yes, you get very, very dirty and at times extremely tired and exhausted. Yes, it is manual labor. BUT…where else could I just ask to work and then someone say ok? Where else could I work sometimes and then not most of the time? Not too many places! Where else could I work about a mile from home and be able to come home for a quick lunch with Mel and FH each day. Not really anywhere here. And the best part, is that he works four days a week with each weekend being a three-day one. I should be quick to say that he works here four days a week, but while I spent those three-day weekends resting or working around our house, he was working elsewhere. I'm just glad I have the chance to work there.<br />
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<i>Our garden spot. </i></div>
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<i> </i>I have always been nothing less than honest here at this blog and I felt I needed to post the above pic. I had previously posted a pic of us plowing under the above spot and there were more shots of tractor harriers and rich, dark dirt. Flash forward to now and all you have is the above, except this pic is a little old and the weeds are taller. We didn't even plant one, single seed. We plowed. We waited for a bit to let things dry out and we plowed again. We bought a full bag of great seeds. And then I got super busy with school and track and Mel and FH did too. We had big dreams of a garden, but this was just not our year for it. We should have started small, but we're not that wise. We are planning a very small Fall garden. I can promise it will be planted; even if we have to do it at night. </div>
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<i>My people. Bae 1 and Bae 2.</i></div>
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<i>FH is one of his most happiest of places. </i></div>
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At the end of July, we got to go to the beach. My very generous and kind parents gave us a week at the beach for our wedding anniversary. We really wouldn't have gotten to go if it hadn't been for that. Weeks at the beach are such a great blessing and so much fun. It is a gift my parents have been giving me for most of my life. Most folks have to get their "beach" in over a single day or a three-day weekend, but since I was about ten or so, I always gotten a chance to spend a full week at the beach. Going to the beach was fun then, and then very fun when Mel and I were dating, and even more fun when we were young and just married, but now that we have FH, it is really too much fun. Going on any trip with a young child is hard and going for a week trip will at times leave you wondering if it is really worth going at all. There is so much stuff to plan, pack, unload, carry into the hotel, remember, etc. However, the moment we see little Fordy so happy to be playing in all that sand and all that water it instantly makes all the preparation and work worth it. </div>
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We had a wonderful week at the beach: Ormond Beach. We ate so much seafood and other great food items. We napped. We watched movies. We played on the beach from the morning till almost nine at night. We went out to eat. We played in the resort pool until our hands looked like raisins. We built a thousand and one castles that FH knocked down. We walked on the beach at night. We got to enjoy being around family. I rode my bike on some great rides. We tried to catch a crab that bit my older brother. We ate ice cream twice! And Mel and I went out on a great date the night of our wedding anniversary. We ate hot food and only fed ourselves. We ate slowly. We talked. You know, crazy childless things. It was amazing!</div>
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<i>This guy. </i></div>
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<i>My people. </i></div>
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We've been married for nine years now and been together for 13. It mostly feels like I am saying that wrong because it doesn't feel that long and then at times it feels longer. I am so thankful for Mel and who she is and who she has become. She has been so strong through so much. She has been so loving and caring through so much. She has never been too tired to help me or to be a good mom for Ford. I am richly, richly blessed. Our pastor preached a great sermon on marriage a few weeks ago and uttered the phrase that, "marriage continually shows us God's kindness and goodness to us". It really stuck with me. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Yes, marriage is hard. Yes, marriage at times feels impossible. Yes, there are at times so much more hard and bad things than good and beautiful. But when I think about Mel and the last nine years, all I can really see is how good, faithful, kind, and caring God has been to us and and to me through Melissa. At times, I'm an ok husband, but there have been many times when it would have been a thousand times easier for Mel to walk away from it all; especially in the last couple of years. Lesser women would have, but Mel did not. She is strong. She is so wise. She is so loving and caring. She is the wife who stops what she is doing to help me with anything, or to walk down the road, or play catch, or go on a bike ride, or most of all, just listen to my super-long and too-detailed stories of my day. She is the wife is goes without so we can afford other things. She is the mother is sacrifices daily so I can do the job I feel called to do. God has blessed me over and abundantly. I do not deserve Mel, but God gave her to me. </div>
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I'll end for now. We have had a great, great summer. It throttled last summer and it's not over! I began XC last Monday. I had forgotten how hot and sweaty I can get while running. It is slowly beginning to feel like the last days of summer are here, but we've still got some time left. Hope you enjoyed your summer Hope you enjoyed the post. I enjoy writing here. </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-60688603069159638252015-05-06T08:48:00.000-04:002016-04-25T08:58:56.866-04:00The 30 Days of Biking Challenge<div align="center">
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<em>The Trek 1000 and our pond in the early morning hours on a quick ride before work.</em></div>
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It is now May and this post would have been best posted near the beginning of the previous month, but it wasn't. A part of me wishes that I could be better about posting here and updating as often as I would like, but the other part of me is just thankful to get through one day at a time during this busy, busy part of the year. I also know that the audience for this blog is super small, so not so many folks are checking here, so I really have nothing to worry about, but still I like to post and wish things were slightly different, but it is Spring and I'm a teacher and a coach, so I leave work only for these short bits of time that many would call dinner and a short nap. I'm also thankful to have run across this little challenge and glad I attempted it and made it into the saddle for even the shortest of rides during each day of this past month. In Grant Petersen's book, <em>Just Ride</em>, he has a little part of it titled something along the lines of there being no such thing as too little of an amount of time for a ride or no such thing as too short of a ride to be worth it and goes onto to say if all you get to do is ride five minutes each day, then that is enough. I value this kind of thinking. It seems pretty rational and very realistic, but also highly hopeful. </div>
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I cannot physically or mentally name ten complete items that I find more joy in than getting on a bike and riding it. I'm sure if you follow this blog or my Instagram account you know this already. You may even think you know it too much and wish I would branch out. I also cannot fully say why being on a bike brings me so much joy. I know that may seem a little odd, like it should be a very easy answer, but just think about something that brings you joy. Is it just a simple answer of what exactly about that item or action brings you joy or does it get a little murky when you try to zero in on a single answer? If you are the type of person that is great at getting to the root of things, great. I'm not that type of person. If something brings me to some sort of emotional ending, then it's usually a heterogeneous mixture of items and I cannot plainly see the separation of where one part of the joy blends into the next or the overall joy. I hope everything you love or find joy in is like that for you. <br />
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And being on a bike is that for me. No, it's not the thing in my life that brings me the most joy and it's not something that hasn't brought anger, or frustration, or disappointment to me. But if you can think back to when you first learned to ride, the joy that it brought you, the smile on your face, the satisfaction, the wind in your face, the joy of powering your whole body into motion, and the freedom that comes from movement then you can remember that joy and the simple wonders of it. Now think about how you felt when you got together with a few friends for a ride from one place of play to the next and all the places in the middle. Remember those feelings. Do you miss them? Well...there is some really good news. You can still do that. It's not just for kids. You, yeah you. Yes, you too. It doesn't matter if you are 8 or 88, you can jump, climb, load, crawl, etc. onto a bike and ride around the block or down your driveway and still have those same feelings. It can be any bike. It doesn't have to cost you three arms and your first born and it doesn't have to have shocks or be aerodynamic. It can be old and rusty or right off the Wal-Mart shelf. And then add a few friends who are also in the market for this type of action and you still get the same feelings or at least as physically close as you can hope. <br />
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You may have to leave those friends who need the "grind" of a long ride where you don't talk during the ride and sit in sweaty spandex afterwards talking of cadence, pedal rotations, rpm's, racing weight, racing wear, aerodynamics, etc. while leaning on a car or truck in a parking lot in a small state of disappointment because you're just not riding how you think you should be and how the pros do. They'll be sure to ruin the moment. Now you should still race your friends to the next power pole or home. It was fun when you were a kid and its still fun now. And you should still take your hands off the handlebars and ride with them held in the air down a hill. It feels the same as it did when you were a kid and it is just as exhilarating. If a fellow adult yells at you from a car or shakes their head from their yard, or tells you need to get serious, ride as fast as possible away from them. Those serious things are waiting for you as soon as you step off, or you are like me and ride most of the time with a little one behind you, the serious things are behind you. And as Ernest Hemingway is credited with saying that when you stop doing things for fun, you might as well be dead. I completely agree. <br />
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And this brings us to this post. I know this challenge is over, but I still wanted to put something out about it. <a href="http://30daysofbiking.com/">30 Days of Biking</a> is the brain child of Patrick Stephenson. He found himself where most unmarried guys find themselves soon after college and that was gaining weight, bored, wasting time on video games and caught up in the cycle of not knowing how to fill those few hours between work and being back at work again. He had a friend around that time that biked and shared the joys of biking with him and this shared joy got Patrick off the couch and into the saddle and when he heard another friend was doing a 30 day yoga challenge decided to see if he could ride his bike for same 30 day period and thus the, 30 Days of Biking, was begun with the hash tag, #30daysofbiking. His enthusiasm caught on quickly and the challenge spread throughout the country and then into the world at large pretty quickly. The first year, 2010, there were only a few and now in 2015, there are almost 10K cyclists. The two friends, Patrick S. and Zach Schaap, decided to make all this passion and enthusiasm count for more than just a mere hash tag and so they teamed up with, <a href="http://fb4k.com/">Free Bikes 4 Kidz</a>, and several other sponsors who told them they would donate one bike to a kid without one for every 30 pledges to ride each day in April. This year almost 300 bikes were given away. Not too shabby since just a few years ago Patrick Stephenson was stuck on a couch playing, <em>"Call of Duty".</em> <br />
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I saw this little challenge last year, but wasn't really sure what it was and it seemed a little like a scam, so I never looked into it much, but this year, I looked it up and did a little research and found out quickly that it was all on the up and up and that if I would just pledge to ride my bike each day in April, I could help donate a bike to a kid who didn't have one. What really pulled me in besides the bike donation item was this whole idea of just having to ride for a small amount of time each day. There were no mileage requirements, hour requirements, finding sponsors, etc. It was just pledge to ride and then carve out a few minutes each day and ride. That was it. And I was in. <br />
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I pledged sometime late March and by the end of April, I had ridden a few miles short of a 150. Yes, I got in some good, longish (in my standards) rides by myself and with FH, but there were also many rides where I only had time for a super quick ride down our driveway and back. But I never felt like I was really slacking because all you were required to do was just get on your bike and ride for a little while. I will admit that I did not ride every day of April. There were five or six days were it was really rainy, stormy, or just one of those days where I had to leave home a little after 6 am and didn't get home till almost 11 pm and there just wasn't a single free second, but I did make up for those times by doubling and sometimes tripling up on other days. The main idea was to just be able to ride for a little while each day and I did and it was always worth it no matter how short the ride was. </div>
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I will look forward to this challenge next April and may try to do this in other months this year as well. I really liked looking forward to the chance of getting to ride each day. It made even the busiest or hardest days seem like there was a little extra light in the day. I think all people should do this sort of thing; install something small in each day that they look forward to no matter how small it may be. You may not always get to do it, but when you do, it makes it so much better. Getting to start my day on my bike or take a quick ride before I got to read to and put FH to bed was a bright spot in each day. </div>
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And when I think about hobbies, that is how I think they should be thought of and pursued. I know this has a slight tinge of sadness to yet, but it is wholly realistic. Yes, it'd be great and ideal if I could load up my bike and head off into the horizon and that is where I think most people leave their thinking at. It is where my thinking stayed for such a long, long time until very recently.They just sit and wish for those days, but those days don't exist. I think we often look at hobbies or those who live life solely by them and are lifted up as idols as the ones who are really out there and "living", but we forget to think about our commonplace lives and remember that, that too is living. If I were touring the world on a bike, think of all of my life that I would be missing, even the parts that seem to be pure drudgery. I think we are too quick to see what others are "getting" to do and label that as living while forgetting that we too are getting to live our lives too; that if I were in Patagonia on a bike then think about all of my current life of Mel, FH, teaching, coaching, life lessons, relationships that I would be completely missing. I would hate that. I wouldn't want that. </div>
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Happy reading and happy riding, </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-62529083880260315132015-04-27T15:55:00.001-04:002015-04-27T15:55:39.681-04:00A Very Happy Birthday Wish to My Dear Boy FH<em>*This was supposed to be posted yesterday. I'm not sure what exactly happened. I'm going to chalk it up to user error like most things in my life that go wrong. My sentiments are the same though and I still wanted to post.</em> <br />
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<em>Our first day back at home as a little family sitting on our porch swing. A place we would spend so much time together in the following years. </em></div>
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<em> </em>Your birthday was yesterday. The following was supposed to be posted yesterday, but alas it wasn't. I will tell you that as we loaded the cars up to heads towards your party on Saturday, I glanced up on one of the many trips from the table to the car and saw the picture above the china cabinet of you at 18 months holding onto our hands and teared up some. I know. I know. Pull it together. Be a man and all that. But that is all a lame definition of a man. David in the Bible wept and he was a warrior. I cried a little as I woke you up and dressed you for the party and tried to take in every second as we rode in that old, crappy truck to meet your Aunt Amy, Jackson, and your Nana to ride to the party. I kept looking over as you talked about all of your things and as we talked about your coming party. There you were sitting in your seat talking to me and asking me questions; just a couple of guys talking in the front seat of a truck Except we weren't just a couple of guys talking. I was your father and you were my son. I am the father to a three your boy. You had already lived three full years of your life. And all of it made me think about all that those three years had contained and made me think about when your sweet mom was pregnant with you and when you came to us. I am pretty sure that I will feel the same when someday we are driving down the road in some other old, crappy car or truck and you are a young man and I am much older. I will still be your father and you will still be my little boy, but you will be grown and I will wonder where the time went. </div>
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<em>Pancakes and chocolate milk: the breakfast of the happiest of champions. </em></div>
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And so, I'm not exactly sure what to say to you, my dear little boy. Three full years ago, I stood in a room holding onto your dear and brave mother's warm hand waiting for you to arrive. We had been in that room for hours. I was so very excited and yet, I was so very scared. I was not ready for you. I knew nothing about being a father and didn't know if I had what it took. I was so very nervous because I love your mother so very much and was not sure my heart had room to love someone else the way I love her. I was not sure if I could it all right. and then you arrived at 10:06 am and they handed you to me after I'd cut the umbilical cord and I looked at you and tried to see who you would be and wondered what I'd be and who I'd be in light of you. I will never forget those moments. I still feel as if those moments are still happening. </div>
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<em>In the co-pilot seat.</em> </div>
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And I remember those first few days and what it felt like to put that seat into the car and then take you out of your mother's hands and place you into the seat of the Subaru and then help your mother in and then go sit in the driver's seat thinking that we'd never really drive another foot as just two people, but now we'd be three and how odd it was that when you go to have a child you come with two people and leave with three. I know this sounds like the dumbest things to think about and they may be and I'm sure everyone has it figured out long before, but I never do. I remember driving back to that house with you and your mom and spending most of that ride looking in the rear view mirror checking you out and being so excited to show you your new room and hoping you'd like it. <br />
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<em>One of the many great meetings of the Saturday morning breakfast club.</em> </div>
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I also remember so many things from those first few days. It is a very surreal feeling to live with someone for six full years and think that just two people can make a family, and that may be, but then have a third person suddenly come to exist, and live, and share those walls with you is a strange and wonderful thing. I remember all those many nights when you wouldn't sleep so well and cry out and you and I would sit in the swing or walk around the block in the darkness of the night and I would hold you close to me trying to tell you that everything was ok and that sleep would make you feel better. I would try to rock you on that porch swing and sing to you songs that I love so much, but never really remember the words to and now each night I lay beside you and read you little books and cannot really fathom how that little baby grew into the little boy who is next to me. So much has happened and I feel so much has changed and yet it feels like no real time has past and at times I too feel unchanged, but I know that isn't so. </div>
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<em>Love sharing the breakfast counter with this guy.</em></div>
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<em>I have truly never smiled so much nor laughed as hard</em>. </div>
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And now today, you are turning three. As I type this, I can't believe its real and many of my feelings are the same. I'm still wondering if I have what it takes because I still do not know about kids and I still don't know how to be a father. I still hold onto your dear and brave mother's warm hand and look at you and into your big brown eyes and try to see who you will be and who we will be in light of you. I'm often tempted to feel inside, but worry it is too sacreligious, that I must echo the Great God who looked down upon His Son and said, "this is my son, in whom I am well-please". I hold you and you seem to make all things better even if just for a brief moment. You bring your mother and I so much joy and happiness. I used to wonder what life would be like with you and now I often wonder how we did life without you. </div>
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<em>A little clowning around.</em> </div>
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So, I wish you the best of birthdays. I wish you a wonderful third year of your life. I look forward to a full year of life with you. I am sure I will be sitting here doing much of the same when you are getting ready to turn four. I love you very, very much. I am both humbled and honored to be your father. Hope you enjoy your party and enjoy the cake! </div>
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<em>My brown-eyed boy.</em> </div>
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Your Dad </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-3593898813005130122015-03-31T19:10:00.001-04:002015-03-31T19:10:10.610-04:00Our 2015 Garden-Part 1<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><i>“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.” --Wendell Berry, The Art of Commonplace Essays</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">“One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"> --Wendell Berry</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> If you have been a follower of this blog for any length of time, you probably know that we find great pleasure in trying to grow a garden, working at growing our own food,</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> and have tried our hand in several different ways at trying to do so. We have been very successful at times and other times, if we would have had to </span></span></span><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">survive on the food we grew, we would have starved to death. Literally. We have attempted to grow food items in pots of a variety of sizes with some success and we've attempted to grow things in raised beds and we've mostly had great successes. I was always and am actually still so surprised by the amount of food one can grow in a raised bed in the smallest of yards. I often think that some people don't try to grow food for themselves because they think their location is a huge limiting factor, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth. We grew almost a year of certain food items for our little family in a little 4x8 raised bed. And in a small 4x4 bed, we grew enough herbs for over a year. I think that's amazing. </span></span></div>
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<i>Our garden spot before any harrowing was done. </i></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"> And if you've been following this blog, you've probably seen more Wendell Berry than you've wanted to see. And I feel like I've used the above quotes before, but they are too good not to use and reuse. We</span><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> really love Wendell Berry. Between the both of us, we've read many of Berry's essays, poems, and novels. I'd easily say that in my highly under-read opinion, he is one of the greatest and most important writers of the last fifty or so years. And between Mr. Berry and John Seymour, of England, I am very tempted to unplugged from much of modern society and attempt to become as self-sufficient as we can be here at Otter Creek Farm, but don't worry, we're not there yet. We'll settle for a small garden spot, a few cows, and several chickens for now. </span></span></div>
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<i>The harrow plow doing it's thing. The soil turned out to be much darker and healthier than we'd anticipated, so we're all pretty excited to see what it can grow. </i></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> One of the many benefits from our move to South Georgia was it would provide us with the chance to try our little hands at farming. We have loved our little escapades into urban farming with our four chickens, may they rest in peace, and our raised bed garden spot that grew a little larger each year. Last year, we didn't have much of a chance or desire to grow much of anything. We were in survival mode and the fact that we're all still living, Ford is about to turn three, Mel and I are still married and loving each other, and we are all talking, existing, laughing, and moving forward is the very picture of God's goodness, great mercy, abundant faithfulness, and grace towards and for us. BUT…we are far from that point and we are itching to get our hands dirty and we are already talking about how good our meals are going to be this summer when whatever we plant comes in. </span></span></div>
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<i>The finished spot. We still need to go through it one more complete time and then it'll be ready for planting. </i></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> So, about a week and a half ago, when Mel's dad offered to bring his Case tractor over and help us plow up this year's garden spot, we jumped at the chance. We were planning on starting off small, but after the final run was made with the tractor and plow, our "small" garden spot turned out to be big enough to grow food for several families. He came over and FH and I jumped on and we all made the initial several rows with the tractor, but then after about twenty minutes, he and FH got off and he turned it over to me. I will only say, he made driving and plowing or harrowing up the ground look very, very easy and it is far from that. I had the poor tractor up on two wheels several times and had smoke coming from the exhaust a few times, and did not do that great of an overall job, but I am learning. Slowly. Just remember and know that when you drive by a guy/girl on a tractor and they look like they have it all under control, that you're looking at a highly skilled person in complete control of their work. If you could ever see me drive, then you'd see the opposite. </span></span></div>
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<i>There is something inherently peaceful and beautiful about driving a tractor and plowing through a piece of land. The dirt smells so good and when you plow up the dirt, you can see all the colors of the dirt and how they contrast with the grass or weeds that once grew above it. I know that sounds odd, but it is true. </i></div>
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<i> </i>We have yet to plant anything and actually we still need to run through the garden one more complete time with the harrow plow to sift through the soil. We are waiting till the ground dries out a little more, but we'll probably do that within the next several days. And then we'll start planting the items we've agreed upon. I know we're going to plant tomatoes, green peppers, squash, zucchini, several types of flowers, onions, potatoes, and maybe some corn. We also have a lot of herbs in mind, but we may need to plant them elsewhere because most herbs need a spot where they get some sun rather than full sun, but we'll see. We have the room for probably 20+ rows of different things. I had originally thought we'd have a 50x50 garden, but what we plowed under is more like a 200x100 foot spot. I'm not sure how much we'll plant or if we'll actually use the whole space, but we'll see. A garden, no matter how small, is a lot of work. It requires you to do something each day and a garden this size is going to be a lot of work. It'll be worth it, but I also don't want it to get out of hand. And I don't want to waste anything that we'll have planted.</div>
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<i>It turned into something much larger than I'd originally planned, but I believe it is going make a very fine garden spot. </i></div>
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I'll close for now and we'll keep you updated on our garden. We have a lot plans for our life here at Otter Creek Farm. We love knowing where our food comes from and we love the whole farm to table movement that is slowly becoming quite known. Before we left Macon and before we decided to move to Fitzgerald, we almost accepted a position to help start a farm that would supply several summer camps with fresh food in Northern Alabama, but felt God wanted us here and we hope to take full advantage of this place and our time here. We have little Pecos the Bull and we may soon sell him in order to get a cow to start breeding. We also have a large chicken tractor in the works, mental for now, for us to start a pastured poultry business in the future. And now we have this garden going. It all takes time and it all takes a lot of work and money, but it is well worth it. You always get more from it than you put into it. Or at least that's what it seems like to me. </div>
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Happy reading, farming, tractor driving, and hopefully good eating, </div>
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DAVID</div>
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PS: Let us know if you want to get in on this garden. We could grow you something and then sell it to you later! </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-9758995808452636982015-03-23T16:44:00.004-04:002015-03-23T16:45:19.417-04:00A Few Thoughts for A Monday<div align="center">
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<strong><em><u>Book I</u></em></strong></div>
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<em>Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.</em></div>
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At our new church, <em>New Life Presbyterian Church,</em> during the Sunday School hour, we are studying an overview of <em>Church History</em>. I will confess that on our first real visit to Sunday School, I sat there in prideful disdain wishing the topic be anything other than that and was thinking I didn't really need to listen because I had graduated from Mercer and had sat through my fill of Biblical and Church related history classes and had done well in them. I feel bad about this. I will only say, I am not a good person; even at my very best. But the more times that we've gone and the more I've listened, the more I'm so very thankful that I am there. And I think I've come full circle into the realization of why history as a subject is so important. In every age. In every time. In every subject. For all people. It is only a fool to be involved in anything and not be fully interested in the history of whatever it may be. And the level of importance of the event, club, movement, etc, then the level and need to know it's history should also increase. </div>
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In 2015, it may be widespread where you see so many who want to cast off the burden of history and walk free from it, but that couldn't be anymore foolish. As it is known and quoted often, to the fools who refuse to learn and acknowledge history, their punishment is to repeat it again, or worse, have to live through it again. I know so many people who hated their history classes and I know why and get that. Most history classes focus on dates and people, which are important, but miss the opportunity to teach movements, patterns, and thoughts. And this last part is so very important for one major reason, humans from Adam and Eve till now have and will not change and it is so very interesting and vitally important to study the men and women that came before us. Each generation becomes absorbed within itself and the time it lives within and so quickly forgets what came before them and becomes historically egotistical. We all become this. It is all too easy to be. It is easy to look around and say that no time has ever been so progressive, free, burdened, evil, loathsome, critical, etc. and forget that as time moves forward, all times within history have been exactly the same because the main element within human history, humans, have remain unchanged. No, we don't speak exactly the same, or look exactly the same, or for that matter do anything exactly the same, but we are humans and humans have basically remained the same. All I'm really saying is that the thoughts you have today, were had by someone of the same status hundreds of years ago. Yes, that is weird and no, they weren't exactly the same, but they were at their very core the same. I'm in no way making light of those thoughts. They have been thought too many times to think that way about them. They are the very thoughts of humanity. It should be what binds us so wholly and closely together, rather than divide us. </div>
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And that is the very importance of history whether you hear it spoken of hundreds of times or for the first time. History is what binds us. The greatest thing that confronts us in this modern age, in my smallest and unimportant opinion, is not weather changes, drought, loss of freedom, governments, economics, extremism, or anything of the sort, but rather it is this ever increasing need for individuality in the face of all circumstances. It is an impossible task and one that is nothing short of a true fools errand. In the heat of battle, there are no individuals. In the middle of the greatest of joys, there are no true individuals. In the greatest of defeats, there are no true and bold individuals. And in the greatest victories, there are no courageous individuals. There are only humans left standing there and either winning or losing, or laughing, or crying. There is only the community. There has always been community and there will always be community. </div>
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I know this is starting to sound like a, "<em>one people, one world</em>", post, and that is not the point. The only point is we all need our histories and people's histories are no different than anything else. There are those moments when we rise so very high and become the greatest visions of that part of Creation that was formed within the image of God and then there are the moments where we too would have lost the right to exist within the Garden and become the vilest of human beings. And this is why we must listen and study the history of who we are and what we are involved in. We are slowly, but ever so rapidly becoming what we will be remembered for. And that is true for us as individuals and for us part of larger wholes. And just because we decide we are not part of a certain part of history does not mean that, that is actually true and it is also true that all people are forming history. We cannot exist without it, be removed from it, or act separate from it. There are all those who came before and what they did, they said, how they acted, or didn't act, what they wrote, what they struggled with, what they used their power to do, it all means something and it all effects us in all we do. We are all shapes of what has come before us. </div>
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We must not forget what has come before us or we forget who we are. We must not look at those in the past and wonder why and how did they struggle so. We must not look at them in our present lenses of life and history and say how wrong and blind they were. All of those things will be thought about us by those who are coming. We are currently shaping who they will be. That terrifies me. </div>
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We must not also join the hordes within the current Church who look back at all the tragedies, fights, schisms, crusades, racism, sexism, etc. and question why and how could they have been so and attempt so hard to distance themselves from the past and try to pretend like they can exist alone in the here and now while all they claim to believe and support came about at the hands of men and women who struggled and fought and disbelieved and had faith in the process of what it takes to make a movement. And these are the same things we are struggling through and amongst. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to believe something or put faith into something that wasn't a struggle. If you were wise, you'd quickly say you wouldn't be interested. This is our history. And a lot of it is ugly, but it is all so very important. There has always been this giant and monumental struggle to attempt to shape an earthly version of God's Kingdom on earth. It has been done wisely at times and it has been done with the most sinful of ambition and motive. We cannot and should not separate those items. There are very valuable lessons to be learned from both and neither side is perfect. There is only one true Kingdom and it is here and it is coming. We the ones who wander and attempt to live in the already and not yet. And we are not alone in this. This has been all humanity that has been and is yet to come. </div>
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Augustine of Hippo wrote, <em>The Confessions</em>, sometime between 397 and 400 AD. They were applicable then. They were applicable a thousand years later. And now 1617 years later, they are still a wealth of wisdom that we so badly yearn to hear today because we have not changed. All truth is still God's truth and it is still so very hard to contemplate and think about higher thoughts and it is a struggle to contemplate truth, beauty, goodness, love, etc. within the realm of the constantly changing definitions of a modern world. It was hard for Augustine. It was hard for Luther. It was hard for Spurgeon. It is hard for us. It will be hard for all those who come after us. They shaped us and we are shaping them. May we struggle to do it wisely and carefully. </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-47919879946722822742015-03-12T10:03:00.000-04:002015-03-13T20:36:44.889-04:00My Night with the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers<div align="center">
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This past Monday night, FH and I headed out to meet up with a group of folks who call themselves the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers. They are a running group, but not the type you'd ever find training around an oval track, running repeats of any sort, comparing race times, talking running shoes, bragging about training techniques, discussing the Daniel's Formula, or ever even using the dirty "r" word: race. "Hashing" as it is called is not about racing, it is about chasing. Hashing, or at least the game it was modeled after, is a very, very old pastime; older in fact, than the very country we live in. Hashing was derived from the game, "Fox and Hounds" or "Hares and Hounds", that was played in England, Ireland, and Scotland as early as the early 1700's. Those games became somewhat official in the early 1800's and hashing was officially founded by an Englishman in 1937 who was stationed in Malaysia.<br />
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<i>The Ben Hill Hash House Harriers gather, sip, and gab before the hash. </i></div>
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If you have never had the privilege of playing chase, I'll say sorry first and then I'll give you a quick primer. One person takes off and everyone attempts to catch that person. In the case of "fox and hounds" or "hares and hounds", one person plays the role of the fox or the hare and takes off marking their trail in some noticeable fashion, with paper, flour, leaves, paint, etc. and in due time, the "hounds", the other people, give chase and attempt to find the trail and then in the end attempt to catch the fox or hare. Hashing follows the same basic format. And in most places the trail is marked by flour. And each mark is left behind with a certain purpose to tell the pursuers something specific about the direction in which they are going or should be going. Here is an example of a few known marks:<br />
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In the case of marking the trail, the fox or hare will attempt to lead the pursuers in a totally wrong direction and hoping they lose their way or "lose the scent". And if you've ever watched an animal, except a raccoon, or actually hunted an animal, they do not choose a linear path or one that is easy to follow, it is a trail that goes in, around, over, through, and under anything and everything. It is a path or trail of pure fleeing. And that is the type of path or trail that is marked by the proverbial fox or hare. <br />
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<i>The first mark at the beginning of the hashing trail.</i></div>
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Hashing isn't exactly the same as the old game of fox and hare, but it is very close. Hashing is a mixture of running and socializing; much more socializing than running and it is never a race. And training for the hash is greatly looked down upon. Hashers meet weekly or biweekly and run a course that may vary in length, but usually ranges from about three miles to some over five or six. There are thousands of hashing groups around the country and around the world. Each hashing group that affiliates themselves with the "hash house" title attempts to affiliate themselves with the original hashers who were far away from home and tried to find community and oneness in around a national pastime. The "house" part refers to an old English tavern frequented by expatriates, where they would meet up in Malaysia and the "hash" part refers to the food served at the tavern. I think this part is really neat, but I'm a sucker for traditions like that. The modern hashers that continue to meet, run, and socialize today are really only doing what the original hashers did almost a hundred years ago. <br />
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<i>A flour mark showing us we're on the right trail.</i></div>
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But...I will be quick to add that hashing is not for the faint of heart, or the closest Baptist in the room, or your favorite Prohibitionist. It is a social running club like no other. One of the tag lines I have seen used to describe hashing is that they are a drinking club with a running problem. The closest thing I can compare it to is maybe if a whole bar went running one night and brought the alcohol, the music, and the craziness with them. And if the drinking doesn't offend you, then the route of the hash will make you double-think about why you are there. The hasher that is chosen to mark the trail usually chooses the hardest, muddiest, wettest, thickest, oddest trail they are able to mark. They will bypass many easy and accessible ways in order to make those who are chasing them crawl under trees, through briars, through creeks, over fallen trees, across rivers, over rock ledges, etc. The only let up from the chase is that for all the hard chasing, there will be a beer stop about every mile or so. And at the end of the trail, there will always be a party of sorts to enjoy. <br />
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<i>FH riding shotgun on the craziest jog we have ever gone on. </i></div>
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And all this brings me to last Monday night, but as should be expected, it goes back further than that for me. When we moved to Fitzgerald in June, I was driving my car through town one night as it was getting dark and came up an odd group of adults running through people's yards and one guy was carrying a flag and I rolled my windows down and tried to follow them for a bit and see what they were up to and they were yelling and whistling to one another and seemingly trying to follow something I just couldn't see. I should have looked down instead of around. I probably would have seen a small patch of flour nearby. I went back home after the group disappeared into a dense section of woods and asked my inlaws about the group and they tried to tell me a little about the group, but made it sound like Mowgli from the Jungle Book had started a little running club and I guess that really isn't that far-fetched. I kept asking around and eventually stumbled upon the name of the club and after some internet searching came upon the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers; who were founded in 1985 and have been dedicated to hashing since then. And later that summer, while on a bike ride with FH and some students, came upon the group assembled in full fashion getting ready to head out and chase the trail. <br />
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<i>This is the point in the hash when FH and I moved into second place and were heavily into the chase!</i></div>
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I really wanted to join them someday, but between school, XC, and just life in general, I never found the time and then this past Monday, that changed. FH and I had a free night and Mel had a few things that she had to have finished before the next day, so we loaded up the jogging stroller and headed to the meeting place. Every two weeks, the Ben Hill Hash House Harriers meet downtown Fitzgerald behind the Modern Appliance building at 6:30 pm and then head out together to the head of where the trail has been marked. FH and I got there on time, but had to wait around till around 6:50 before a soul showed up. A few cars showed up and then had us get back in our car and follow them to a place called, "The Brewery". It was actually more a shed where some beer was brewed a long time ago by a bored bachelor, but rumor has it that they are going to get brewing there again soon. The crew had already assembled behind The Brewery and were talking of past events and money was collected for the beer that was to be shared. And with the talking and catching up also came the first of many beers. I found this to be very funny and very odd. I have been running for almost twenty years and I can honestly say that save milk, beer, may be the beverage I hope to never have to drink and then be made to run. But beer is almost a central character to a proper hash experience. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBp3tR4uKxO-yzpDkB9s8FrUa78iAUdBLzyZ4u3tTgTB-XeSTYa5dJrDZXkAKh1cxgsVWp4_ny0fZSxPCdtO-b8O3MYai6k8GSsJOw-E5GblXc-o_glC8dlbWXctBEdcrpQcaG5gepfig/s1600/IMG_3548.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBp3tR4uKxO-yzpDkB9s8FrUa78iAUdBLzyZ4u3tTgTB-XeSTYa5dJrDZXkAKh1cxgsVWp4_ny0fZSxPCdtO-b8O3MYai6k8GSsJOw-E5GblXc-o_glC8dlbWXctBEdcrpQcaG5gepfig/s1600/IMG_3548.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<i>Short cuts and more advantageous paths are not frond upon during a hash. If you are behind and see where the leaders are running, nothing says you can't cut a lot of corners and head them off. Trying to be first doesn't benefit one during a hash much. We learned this the hard way! FH and I were first several times only to be dropped by those behind us. </i></div>
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After the leader, known and referred to as, The Grand Marshall or GM, decided all had arrived that were coming and the last of the initial beers have been polished off, the GM sounded off a whistle that he carried around his neck and the group assembled in the front of The Brewery and the first point on the trail was arrived at and they all yelled, "On Hunt" and the chase was on. FH dove into his stroller and we just tried to keep up. The trail went up one street, crossed a busy highway, went down a muddy alley, through a field and into a parking lot, through a church lawn, through a high school practice field, over a creek, through a little league field, behind the town's radio station, down the side of another busy highway, through another church yard, through another field, but this one was very muddy, over and through another creek, and through some of the thickest brush I have ever run through, over three fallen trees, down a muddy dirt road, and right to a barn known by the group as, "Mr. Bill's Golf Cart Barn", and then we stopped, whistles were blown, and odd things were yelled by the GM to those hashers who had taken the false trail. I was sweaty, dirty, wet, and out of breath. Pushing a stroller through all of that was crazy! And FH looked at me like what had we really gotten into, but the barn we stopped at was more of a golf cart graveyard than anything else, so he got out of the stroller and took a look around. While we sipped some water and looked around, the rest the hashers made it to the BN, or the beer near spot, and more beers were had and more stories were told. One of the men there was telling some great stories about him getting older and then they all kept laughing about one guy who wasn't allowed to come for awhile because his wife had laid down the law because he had really overdone it at a previous hash. FH and I listened in as we climbed on an old trailer and drank our water. <br />
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<i>Follow the leader; especially if he is called the Grand Master and also serves as a standard bearer for local Civil War reenactments. </i></div>
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<i>Calling in all who had gone the wrong way on a false trail. </i></div>
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After about 10-15 minutes, the whistle was blown by the GM and again the chant of, "on hunt" was shouted" and we were off. The trail followed a muddy dirt road, and then through several people's yards, and down the side of another busy road, through the parking garage of a nursing home, and after about a little over a mile, another BN marking was spotted and the group stopped for yet another round of beers and conversation. FH and I joined the conversation, but we also walked around the place we had stopped checking out a few things and then we finished our water while we climbed on yet another golf cart. We had run almost 2.5 miles at this time of the chase. And at this point you maybe thinking that only old "frat" guys who haven't grown up yet partake in this type of stuff, but you'd be very wrong. Within the BHHHH group and most all hashing groups a wide age range can be seen as well as both sexes. And this also goes for the socioeconomic status of the hashers as well. This night there were two women, pregnant no less, and guys ranging from their 20's to their 70's. <br />
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<i>The beer, laughter, and stories were flowing at the first BN spot. </i></div>
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After about the same duration of time, the same whistle was blown, but this time, the chant of, "On In" was shouted and signaled. "On In", means that the hashers are to make their way back to the beginning of the trail by whichever path they'd like to follow. FH and I cut through several yards of people we know and made it back to The Brewery first. I'm sure that attitude would be looked upon. I loaded the stroller up and we went inside The Brewery for a time, but all that was left of the hash was the party aspect and FH and I headed home to eat dinner with Mel. I am pretty sure that was for the best. <br />
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<i>Our leader leading us well. It is about the chase, not the race. </i></div>
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I am not really sure how I feel about my whole experience. I'll definitely go again. I'm not sure I'll bring FH, but I probably will. I will say it was fun. And it was very different. And it was also oddly refreshing to join up with a group of people to run, but have the focus be on other things. It was as if the almost four miles we ran was a distant side product of the night. I don't love the drinking aspect, but don't find any harm in it for now. I am not a beer or drinking kind of guy, but I'm also not offended by those who are. Some people are beer people and I happen to be an ice cream guy. <br />
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<i>The infamous, BN, mark signaling that the beer is near. </i></div>
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I don't know if I'll ever really get into the whole hashing scene, but I definitely liked the whole chasing and following the trail aspect. I also loved how the trail wasn't linear or fixed. I liked the running through water, over trees, through backyards, and through the woods. It reminded me of how kids run through the woods. It also reminded me of the old type XC races that used to be put on. XC is quickly becoming a sport where the courses are becoming more and more manicured and less challenging so the times can be faster. I'm not a fan of that. I'd much rather watch a kid run a 25 minute three mile race knowing he or she had to jump trees, cross through water, and run a quarter mile in knee deep mud and was still able to keep up an eight minute mile rather than watch a kid trot a 14:50 5K on a gravel path with no real hills or obstacles. The latter is a little boring. It's why they have a whole sport called track. And it's also why no except those who have to be there comes to a track meet.<br />
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<i>Time to take it to the house!</i></div>
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I plan on being back behind the Modern Appliance building at 6:30 or so in two weeks and I'm looking forward to it. Don't worry, I won't write another post about it. That is unless something amazing happens. Well, I believe it is time to chant, "On In", and take this post back to the house.<br />
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Happy running, hashing, and reading,<br />
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DAVID<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Primeval Ambulations</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Light into darkness,</i><br /><i>Aurora into obscurity,</i><br /><i>Dayspring into eventide,</i><br /><i>Breathe into vapor,</i><br /><i>Sound into silence,</i><br /><i>Motion into stillness,</i><br /><i>Footprints into dew-laden grasses,</i><br /><i>Life into the quietly awakening,</i><br /><i>Words into emotions,</i><br /><i>Seconds into moments, </i><br /><i>Beginnings into endings,</i><br /><i>Rising into setting,</i><br /><i> Future into present,</i><br /><i>All things into the past.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> --February 2015</span></i></div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-77998322790985163952015-01-28T10:27:00.000-05:002015-02-02T14:12:08.274-05:00The Official Coffee of The Otter Creek Camphouse<div align="center">
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I have liked in or many cases loved coffee for a very long time. Now, I won't claim to be a coffee connoisseur or anything of the sort and I definitely won't claim to have the sophisticated palette necessary to be a paid expert in the act of coffee cupping (or "tasting" to us lay folks). I'm pretty sure my palette couldn't even spell sophisticated if palettes could spell. It likes Waffle House too much to be able to do that. But, I do love coffee. I will also say that I really do wish coffee tasted<br />
like it smelled; that would be truly amazing. However, I have never found that to be the case no matter the place, price, roasting or brewing technique, etc. I will also quickly say I don't know everything about coffee, but I do know a little about how it is grown and what is required to grow it, but have read in the past few months about people growing it in places where I never thought coffee would grow. I also know a little about how the coffee bean is harvested and then how it makes it's way from being a fruit, the coffee cherry, into the very recognizable "bean" that we all know. <br />
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<img src="http://www.hawaiilife.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/kona-coffee-farm-for-sale-31.jpg" /></div>
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<em>A coffee orchard in Hawaii.</em> </div>
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And for those who don't know much about how coffee makes its way from where it is grown to the confines of your morning cup, I'll give you a very quick and simple primer. I picked most of it up from reading and listening to things here and there over the years, but here are several neat "coffee" websites: <a href="http://www.coffeecrossroads.com/">Coffee Crossroads</a>, <a href="http://www.coffeereview.com/">The Coffee Review</a>, and <a href="http://fairtradeusa.org/products-partners/coffee">Fair Trade USA</a>. And if you already know about coffee, you probably know much more than I do. Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia and has been enjoyed by humans since the tenth century. Most all coffee is grown at high altitude, in rich, dark soils, that receives plenty of rainfall, but not all coffee has to be grown this way, but most is. The main variable for growing coffee is that it must be grown in a region where the temperature doesn't vary too widely or where there are no weather extremes. However, most coffee is grown in South America, mid-Africa, and several parts of Southeast Asia with the country of Brazil producing the largest crop in the world. </div>
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<img height="266" src="https://everydayexcursions.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/coffeetree.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<em>A clump of ripe coffee cherries.</em><br />
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As seen in pictures above, coffee is usually grown in a grove, much like oranges, apples, pecans, etc. A tree, of either two main varieties, produces a fruit referred to as a cherry, several times a year. And odd item about the coffee tree is in how often the cherry is produced on the tree. A mature coffee tree can produce ripe cherries as often as 3-4 times a year, so it is possible for there to be blooms, developing cherries, and ripe cherries all on the same tree. The coffee tree is an evergreen and holds onto its large, waxy leaves all year long. And as already mentioned, most coffee farms or plantations are in places where the elevation is above 1000 ft. The famous coffee's of Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Hawaii, and Costa Rica are all grown in the regions of those countries that contain its highest mountain ranges.<br />
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<em>The interior of a coffee cherry. The "bean" we roast and brew our coffee from is actually the seed or pit of the coffee cherry.</em> </div>
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The fruit that is produced by the coffee tree is called a cherry. It is an edible fruit and in the countries where coffee is grown, they also use the cherry to produce juices and other food items from the edible fruit. But...But...But this post is not about that really. It is about our official daily coffee, so I'll try to get to that a little more quickly! But let's finish the harvesting bit first. </div>
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Once the cherry is harvested, it is either chosen for it's use as a fruit or it's to be used to produce the beverage we call coffee or in Spanish, café. Once it has been chosen to be used for coffee production, the cherry is washed and then dried out in several different ways. And once it is dry, the outer part of the cherry is discarded and the seed or pit of the cherry is saved. This is very similar to what we all think of when someone eats a regular cherry; except that the pit is saved for growing a new tree or thrown away rather than for use to make coffee with. The seed of the cherry that is produced by the coffee tree is what will eventually become the "bean" that we all equate with the beverage we call coffee.</div>
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<em>A sample of dried and roasted coffee beans. </em></div>
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<em> </em>Once the seed has been removed from the fleshy part of the cherry fruit, it is set aside and put through another round of drying techniques which may include time in a drying oven. And then depending on the brew that the coffee will be used for, it is roasted till it appears burnt, which is what gives it that classic, dark appearance that we are all familiar with. The darker the bean, the longer it was roasted, but this does not actually mean anything when it comes to bean's caffeine content. The lighter the bean or the lighter the roast, the more caffeine content that the coffee will hold and vice versa. This last bit is not what we usually think; especially since espresso comes from one of the darkest roasts for the coffee bean, but the caffeine content of espresso has to do with proportions and brewing techniques rather than roasting procedures. <br />
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My love for "coffee" products has traveled the taste spectrum as far as coffee products are concerned, but I would say that I've been a coffee lover since I was in elementary school. Now when I was in those elementary school days, I wasn't guzzling that cup of joe every morning as a ritual, but would occasionally get to drink a cup while staying with my father's parents and always felt so grown up when I held my cup and drank it with my grandpa in the early morning hours before everyone else was awake. My coffee consisted of milk that had a hint of coffee in it and it sort of stayed that way for a longer period of times than I'd like to say. After those days, I drifted into the sweet and flavored drinks that also had a hint of coffee in them, but about five years ago or so, my desire for flavors and sweet tasting coffee fled me and now, I'm a dash or so of half and half and mostly coffee guy. I don't think I'll make it to the "strong and black" stage that a lot of people pride themselves as being, but I do like the coffee to be strong and taste like it is supposed to rather than the many favored varieties than many people like. And I'm not a decaf guy like so many I know. I don't actually get this, but I also don't get the non-alcoholic beer thing either, but that isn't a topic in this post. Caffeine never really does much for me really. I just like a hot beverage in the morning or with dessert. I could drink an espresso and then go to sleep, but that could be because I have a two and half year old and nothing to do with caffeine content. <br />
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Coffee is actually very important to us and is how we, Mel and I, like to begin each day. The days we look forward to the most are the days that contain the slowest of mornings where we can leisurely drink several cups of coffee a piece and move into the day rather than dive headlong into it and sprint the whole day through. 99% of the time, we live in the second type of day. And, we are also pot coffee people. I know the trend has been the Keurig machines where you can choose to have that wonderful single cup of coffee, but we don't drink a cup of coffee, we drink cups of coffee. And to add to the specialness of coffee, we actually went to a coffee shop after dinner on our first "official" date. Mel ordered hot chocolate and I ordered some drink titled something like, The Edge, or something like that. It was a flavored coffee. My how things have changed! <br />
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Ever since we have been married, I have been on the search for the perfect coffee brand to call "our" coffee. And believe it or not, I have tried to be somewhat methodical about my approach to this in the same way you'd attempt to study something using the infamous Scientific Method. I started out just sort of buying this brand and then another one after we had gotten married and when money was a little easier to come by. I originally made it my goal to buy a pound of coffee from independent coffee houses we would go to and enjoy their coffee, but this isn't a normal thing for most people or at least people where we live or have lived. Rather, most people are stuck with the brands at their nearby grocery stores. So, I guess, I'll finish this post in much the same way I make my students write out their "Scientific Method Projects" each year when we study it. Here we go:<br />
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1. <u>Problem or Observable Phenomenon</u>: <br />
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Mel and I like coffee. We enjoy drinking it seven days a week. We need a coffee that you can be purchased in a larger quantity than a single serving, can be found in a wide variety of places, and can be found at an agreeable price. <br />
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2. <u>Questions</u>: <br />
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How much coffee do we actually go through in a week? A month? How much can we afford to spend? Can we find this coffee in a wide variety of places? Is there a brand that offers an economical coffee that isn't roasted and prepared the same way as brands like Folgers's, Maxwell House, etc.? <br />
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3. <u>Hypothesis</u>: <br />
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Knowing that we like the darker roasted coffee varieties and knowing that we usually go through about 2-3 lbs. of coffee a month, I believe we would need to settle for an economical, espresso or French Roast varieties. I'm not completely sure about the brand that we'll like, due to the large quantity of brands at the local supermarket. <br />
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4. <u>Tests and Collection of Data</u>: <br />
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I have tested this for over six and a half years. When we were first married, we bought coffee at will and price was not really a concern. When we moved to Macon in 2008, we had decided that we'd like to buy at least a pound of coffee a month from our favorite coffee shop and it cost us about $16 a lb. I tried so hard to get us to like Community Coffee because it stood out as the lone, "Southern" brand, but Mel and to be honest, I did not take to it. We both love Starbucks (go ahead and snicker, we're typical white folks drinking our "Bucks" and driving our single child to a state park in our Subaru.) and our favorite blends of theirs are, French Roast, and their, Pike Place Blend. However, not everywhere sells Starbucks coffee and as of two years ago, it seems a little crazy to spend almost $30 a month on coffee that we brew at home. We also really like Jittery Joe's coffee, a small Georgia coffee company, but their pound coffee is almost $15 a pound. I have also had Intelligentsia Coffee and it is very good, but it should be at almost $20 a pound. <br />
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So, after many years, and many, many purchases, we finally settled on the type of coffee that fit all our needs and wants. If I were to go with you to your local supermarket, somewhere like Publix, Kroger, or Wal-Mart, I really could tell you how almost every variety of coffee that they offer tastes or which other type it could be compared to. I'm in no way bragging. I am only trying to let you know that we really did try almost every brand that is offered at a normal grocery store; so much so that Mel begged me about a year ago to just settle on a single brand. And so I did, and the brand we chose is....<br />
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<em>The bright yellow bag of Café Bustelo!</em></div>
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5. <u>Conclusion</u>: </div>
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We chose Café Bustelo for a variety of reasons and here are a few. Café Bustelo is a dark roasted coffee made from Arabica coffee beans. It brews a strong, robust beverage that is medium to high in it's caffeine content. And the price is just right, at around $3-$4 dollars for 10 oz. ,it is a great deal. It is one of the cheapest coffee varieties on the coffee aisle. And actually right now, you can buy 2.5 lbs. or 40 oz. of Café Bustelo for just shy of $20 at Wal-Mart. I know, I know, evil Wal-Mart. I'll start shopping somewhere else when teachers in America start making the same as shift managers at McDonald's or Chic-fil-a. That's a great price considering it is just a few dollars shy of a single pound of your favorite Starbucks variety And often times, you can catch a, "2 for $6", sale or sometimes even cheaper. And although, Café Bustelo is made from Arabica coffee beans, like Folgers's and Maxwell House, just from a single cup, you can tell that a higher grade of bean was used in its preparation. And to sort of seal it's acceptance as "our" coffee, Café Bustelo can be found in all three grocery stores in the town we live in and when we lived in Macon, it could be found in every grocery store there save one. <br />
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And to make things even better, Café Bustelo has a pretty good history. It is coffee that is labeled a "Cuban" coffee, which describes how it is roasted and the rich and dark brew that it yields, but it could also be called that since it was founded by a Spanish immigrant who went to Cuba to learn the coffee business, married a Cuban lady, immigrated to New York via Puerto Rico, and started his own coffee business in the area of NYC known as Spanish Harlem using the methods he had learned in Cuba. And by 1931, Café Bustelo had fans that reached far past the perimeters of East Harlem. I'm not sure if its popularity had reached The Peach State, but I know it has today. <br />
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<em>Café Bustelo is for lovers, right?</em> </div>
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I'm pretty sure we'll keep using Café Bustelo for quite awhile. It is easy to find, fits our budget, tastes great, is consistent in taste and price, and beats the majority of coffee's of equal or greater value. If you ever stop by Otter Creek Camphouse and find a warm mug of coffee sitting in from of you on a lazy Saturday morning, you can probably rest assured that it's Café Bustelo and there is a whole pot of it waiting to be drunk and plenty more of it to brew in case one pot is not enough. </div>
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I know there are many other varieties of coffee. I know because we've tried them once or probably, more than once. Yes, Publix brand coffee is great, but you can't get it cheaper than $6. Yes, Starbuck's roasts great coffee, but a pound is going to run you at least $8 if it's on sale and $8 won't buy you anything where we live. A pound of the ole' Bucks starts at $11 where we live. And yes, you can buy 30 pounds of Folgers for about fifty cent, but tell me the last time you've enjoyed a cup of that. And please don't tell me about the fair trade varieties. Yes, I'm a believer in that, but I'll jump straight for a cup of fair trade coffee when I see you at a rally marching for the fair trade of Apple products, J Crew clothes, or your Kavu purse. Give Café Bustelo a try. I know you'll like it. And if you don't, then you're only out $3; which is $6.50 less than your last movie ticket on the 300th installment of the Fast and Furious or the Expendables 35. I'm pretty sure they brought John Wayne and Charlie Chaplin back for that one, but it actually would have been better if they'd had done so. </div>
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Happy reading, happy brewing, and happy, slow Saturday mornings full of coffee, good food, and time to watch more than one episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or time to eat a long breakfast outside and let the morning fade into the afternoon. </div>
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-1984399018743494582015-01-26T05:00:00.000-05:002015-01-26T05:00:03.489-05:00A Funny Discovery *<em> I told you, my loyal readers, that some short post where on the way. Here is my attempt at putting one out. Enjoy and if you don't, at least it's short. </em><br />
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<i class="fe-icon-ganadora-descalificada-por-tramposa-en-un-maraton-de-estados-unidos"></i>Ganadora descalificada por tramposa en un maratón de Estados Unidos</h1>
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<span class="resumo">La corredora debería haber batido el récord mundial de media maratón en la segunda parte de su carrera para hacer el tiempo con el que ganó.</span></div>
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The internet is an odd, odd thing. I know you can say that about a billion times and then a billion more times. A few nights ago, my own sweet Melissa was using our home computer and I had just published a post here and I was trying, in a very narcissistic way, to find out if anyone had read it yet and I was doing so on my phone and I typed in my blog address into the address bar and instead of going to the address, it went to Google and up came a search of all things: <a href="http://www.jdaviddark.blogpost.com/">www.jdaviddark.blogpost.com</a>. There were 5750 of these. How is that and why is that? Many of the items didn't surprise me to see. There was my actual blog and one of my recent posts and then there was my old Twitter account that I can't remember my password for, for the life of me. There were also several links to Pinterest where folks had taken pics from my posts and "pinned" them. This kind of made me feel good. And there were somehow links to far too many of my Instagram likes. This made me feel a little sheepish about "liking" photos on Instagram for a small moment. There was also a link to a company called, <em>Alexa</em>, which keeps track of the amount of traffic coming to your site and found out that of all the sites on the internet, my blog, <em>The Darkroom</em>, is ranked 2,405, 924th out of all the websites on the world wide web. I think that's crazy and it makes me a little happy. Who would have thought! As you can see, I celebrate even the smallest of things. I have to and you should to. However, the oddest or most laughable item that I saw on the first few pages of links was the above. It came straight off a Spanish website, <em><a href="http://www.atletas.com/">Atletas</a></em>. The title, intro, and picture from a little story about marathon running and the experiences of two Latino runners who ran the 2010 Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon; the same marathon I ran that same year. But the picture is not of them at the race, it is of me finishing the race. I'm the guy in white on the left. I got the Spanish teacher at the school I teach at to read the story to me and some of the lines they used were oddly similar to what I wrote in my recap of that race on this here blog. I'm not offended or anything of the sort. I just think it is pretty funny that Spanish speakers the world over who might read that story have to see a pic of me running that my wife took and sort of read my words. I think that is pretty funny and a little odd. There was a also a similar Spanish website called, <em>bodygeek</em>, that used a lot of my post about Plantar Fasciitis, for their post about the same thing. I don't mind, but I once again, think it is odd and funny. <br />
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I guess the best thing I could really say to end this post is for those of you out there blogging away and "surfing" the Net: be careful. You never know where your words or opinions may find themselves being used at or by whom. I know I'll be thinking about that for sure. But it will also make me think that someday, one of my posts may be read by some person in Argentina and they may be reading my words on some other site, "written" by someone else. We live in a weird, weird world! <br />
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Happy reading and even happier writing,<br />
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DAVID<br />
<br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-1144991241570993962015-01-24T05:00:00.000-05:002015-01-24T05:00:01.630-05:00New Year, Old Me<div style="text-align: left;">
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<em>*I had every intention of having this blog out somewhere near the beginning of the new year instead of 24 days into it, but I began 2015 with a GI virus that kept me from doing almost anything for almost 10 days and sent me to the ER instead, It wasn't a good way to begin a new year, but it is what it was. And now I'm back. Enjoy the post. </em></div>
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Although, it is never easy to know what a new year may hold or what may be around the next turn, I've always been a fan of the idea that a new year is a fresh start because by the end of the year, I'm always in the need of one and although I've never been a fan of the, "New Year, New You", shenanigans that seem to appear on every magazine and news source come January of every year. I could do a whole post on the latter, but I'll save you from that, but just to give you a little taste know that I miss the old me and would love to see a cache of articles about how to get him back and explain just where he's been hiding and what he's been up to, but I don't think they exist and people look at you like you're a lunatic when you bring up anything of the sort. I don't want to get to know or try to shape a new me. I'm not Madonna or Cher or Lady Gaga. I don't want to or need to reinvent myself. I want a lot of the old me back. No, not the past mistakes and no, not the guy who hasn't learned through experience, but a lot of the old me. I want the past energy. The past enjoyments. The past metabolism. The past youth that I'm slowly, but it feels so fast to me, losing. And oh yeah, the full head of hair I used to have. That old me. The guy who had whole afternoons to read or weeks to go hiking. The guy who had whole weekends to date this super fine brunette named, Melicious, instead of a few minutes or hours here and there. I'd like that guy back. But...as usual, I digress. This is a post about my 2015 goals. </div>
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And here at the headwaters of this year, I'd like to set a few goals. Unlike years past, I'd like to attempt to set them a little more realistically this year. I know the importance of setting goals and trust me, I know or have heard all the little sayings and read all the little banners about the opposite and to be honest all of those things really give the largest of all tingles. All that, aiming somewhere is better than nowhere and setting small goals is better than having no goals and all of that. That kind of stuff, really gets the best of me sometimes. I'm sure the guy who gets shot from a stray bullet isn't the first one to be proud of the his shooter because, "at least he had the courage to pull the trigger". I know this sounds very pessimistic of me, but trust me, I'm actually an optimist, so much so, that I've been called illogical many times by those closest to me. And for a change, I'll get right to those goals. And even though they'll be in a list, they really don't come in any order. </div>
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<u>My 2015 Goals:</u></div>
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1. Join a church and start giving to it emotionally, financially, and with the gifts God has given me. Yes, we miss FPC Macon, but I need to get my wife and my son and my person in church and we need to give back. I miss this part of our lives, a lot. </div>
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2. Stop putting things off, or just sort of plan for them and then not follow through with them. But actually put them in front me and do them. Yes, life happens, but there are some things I just have been putting off and there's no reason for it. Take for instance, the shelves, or to be more specific, lack of shelves in our hall closet. All it would take to finish them would be to put paint on one board, make three large cuts, and make a single notch in each of those three boards, and then then nail them into place. This task has been on my list since August. It's time to do it. It's actually far past time to get it done, this and about a hundred other things. </div>
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3. I want to read 10 good books. This may sound easy, but I read so slowly these days and I only get to read at night and I usually only get about a page done and then fall asleep with the book on my chest and the light on. Oh, of course, if this were a kid's book, I would have already met my goal quota, but those don't count. FH and I get in about 5-6 a night. I love reading and really have some good books in mind for this year. I hope to get to them.</div>
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4. Really get back into running again. I'm not going to put a real number of miles down, but I'm shooting for no less than 1000. This past year, I peaked out at around 450. My lowest total in over six years. Yes, life was crazy and hard and super busy and extremely stressful, but not so much that I couldn't have gone running twenty minutes each day. If the rumors are true, I'd like to follow this up by running the "supposedly-planned" Jeff Davis Marathon to be held about 20 minutes from my house. This may not happen, but I am going to shoot for it. </div>
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5. Ride my bike 2,000 miles. I'd love to make this happen and know it will be harder since most of the 1450 miles I rode this past year were due to my almost daily bike commute and then a lot of city miles running errands and cruising the streets with FH, but I have some plans and we'll see how it goes. And one of these plans is a very crazy idea, but I really think I can make it work. Yes, there'll be a post about it. </div>
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6. I want Mel and I to really get our financial lives out of the toilet. Neither of us are good with money which isn't good when you don't have a lot of it, but we do have enough of it; especially in our new life here in South Georgia. We've already begun this a little and I'm really celebrating our small successes and Mel's hard work. We're now in the third full month of having a budget and living by it. We're starting to see a little progress. Things are looking up. Now it's time to start taking the very hard steps to rescue our credit score. It's about nine levels beneath crappy. That is mostly my own fault, but I also want it to be our "fault" that it gets much better. </div>
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7. I want to start hitting some dates with my bride. This is one of the many things I took for granted before FH was born. We didn't go out enough. We should've gone out 3-4 times a week, but as Mel and I have said since FH was born, we laugh so hard now when we see couples with no kids posting pics or status updates and titling them as "date night" because now it seems that every second when you're childless is a date. I know that sounds stupid, but if you have kids, you get it. Thanks to my gracious in laws and our proximity to them, we've already started begun this and just the few we've gotten to go on has let me know how much we need to go on more. I love my sweet Melissa and don't know where'd I'd be without the love and care she has given me through good times and some very, very dark times. I love spending time with her and have really missed it. She's a great date and I look forward to going on some good ones this year. </div>
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6. I want to really get the "farming" side of our lives going again. I loved growing our little garden when we had one in Macon and I loved owning the four little chickens we had and taking care of them. Yes, they all add work, but we live in a great spot for this now and it wouldn't be that much to really start taking advantage of this aspect of our new lives in Fitzgerald. We live in a beautiful place with a lot of good, free land that my father in law wants us to use. As it get closer to time, I'll keep you updated, but there is a big garden in the works and some chickens to be purchased. I'm so excited to see this all take place. </div>
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7. I want to keep this place up and running. I love having a blog. I love putting forth the effort and writing these little posts and I get a lot of satisfaction knowing that someone in some place out there is reading them and getting something out of them. I published 14 posts in 2014. I know why. But this is a new year and I'm going to try to double that. And if you're keeping count, this is already post numero tres for this year. </div>
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8. I want to go camping. Long before this blog, I loved to go camping and hiking. I still love this, but truth be told, I haven't been camping in several, several years and let's not even bring up hiking. I'm done with thinking there'll be this time in my life when I can set everything down and hike the AT or some other long trail. I'll have to save this for retirement if that's even a thing anymore. But to be even more honest, I don't really want to do anything like that anymore. I don't want to leave Mel and FH behind and go marching off into the proclaimed wilderness looking for something. I'd be just as happy to set up a tent in the yard and build a campfire, cook something on the fire, and then fall asleep in a little tent with them two of them. This is happening even if it can only happen once, I'd still be happy. </div>
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9. Begin writing again. I love writing. I have about 15 little Moleskin journals scattered around my house and in my classroom and most them have the tid bits of a story or poem I started and just didn't finish. Each year, I think that this just may be the year where I suddenly have all this time to sit down and write the short story collection that I've been mentally planning to do for years and years, but this year, I'm not going to say or even think that. But I will say this, I'm going to finish writing a single story this year. That is my goal. Yes, I'd love the time, energy, and inspiration to sit down and finish all the little stories that I've started, but I know this isn't going to happen. I'm not a writer. That isn't my vocation. I am a mediocre hobby writer at best, but that doesn't mean I don't get a lot of joy out of it. The story I am going to write this year is called, <em>The Server</em>. </div>
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10. I want to begin learning some skills that I do not know. First on this list is that I want to learn to fix my bike. I've been looking around and have found a mechanic class and am hoping to get to take it, but we'll see. I know this may sound odd, but if you take a few moments and look around in hope of finding places that teach you skills that you usually pay for, they just aren't around. I feel like this say volumes, but I'll leave the interpretation up to you. </div>
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I'll stop with ten for now. I'd like to add a few more and maybe I'll have a midyear review and add them then, but we'll see. Reading through them again makes me seem overly ambitious and not very realistic, but even if I only accomplish five of them, I'd be proud sitting at the end of the year and looking back. Thanks again for taking your time to read. Let me know your 2015 goals. And if you don't have any, maybe you could make one to help me accomplish mine because I'm fully confident I'll need help with mine. Hope your new year is going well. <br />
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-10819084910576023452015-01-22T12:00:00.000-05:002015-01-22T15:45:33.072-05:002014: A Year in Review-Part B<div style="text-align: left;">
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<em>*What began as a sort of longish post that made an attempt to recap our year, has turned into a very long double post. I apologize and will throw you guys a few short posts in the nearest future. All I'll really do for now is thank you for taking your valuable time to read the previous post and now this one. And the saddest part is that I really did leave out so many things. And don't worry, I have learned my lesson for now. 2015 will most likely get a highlights reel instead of the play by play. </em></div>
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<em>The newest member of the Dark Family: Pecos Bull</em></div>
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Sometime midsummer, through a series of events, we acquired the little guy above: Pecos Bull. My father in law let a friend of his keep about 30 cows on his land during the summer thanks to a bumper crop of millet. The fellow who was borrowing the use of the land is a great guy, but is one of those guys who has more money than time and in a series of unfortunate events, mistakenly sold off the mother of Pecos at a livestock auction and didn't realize that he had done so until about a week after the fact, which is a very sad fact considering Pecos was only a few weeks old. And during this week, no other cow took him on, so the fellow had an orphan cow on his hand. He was going to sell it, but somehow gave it to my father in law after attempting to bottle feed him for about a month. And my father in law knew we were wanting to get into the cow business, but greatly lacked the necessary funds and knew that we're suckers for a needy cause and so after a full day of home renovation, we met beloved Pecos in our cow barn, took a lot pictures, and then later that evening began our life as cattlemen and cattlewomen when we mixed up a bottle of cow formula, took it to Pecos, and fed him his first of what seemed like 1000 bottles. Raising a bottle calf is no joke and really does take a lot out of you financially and physically. You have to feed them on a schedule and have to be about 98% consistent with the set schedule and no matter how close the calf is to you, it still takes about an hour or more each day to feed the calf and that is if everything goes ok. I'm sure there are more efficient ways to do it, but efficiency has never been one of our talents. But having and raising Pecos has been very good for us and hopefully, in the long run, it will be good for us financially. If fact, we are contemplating saving up to buy another bottle calf because if you lack money, getting a bottle calf is about the cheapest way to get into the cattle business. Beef prices are very, very high right now and it doesn't look like they'll drop anytime soon. A heifer is around $1600 for a cheap cow and a cheap bull will put you back $2000. A bred heifer will put you back $2400 or so. A bottle calf will put you back a little over $100. However, for me, for FH, and for Mel, the best part about having Pecos has been the idea of investing in our future and the fact that he slowed us down and this may seem super odd, but there is something very calming about bottle feeding a calf and hearing him or her breathe. It forces you stop. It gives you a few moments to think. And I'm becoming more and more thankful for things like that. <br />
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<em>Pecos' getting his evening feeding. And for the record, he's the only mammal I've seen accomplish what is dubbed, "The Milk Challenge".</em> </div>
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<em>A little clowning around during a renovation break sometime at the beginning of August.</em> </div>
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<em>The infamous Periodic Table in my new classroom. </em></div>
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When we left Macon, I had every thought, and to be honest, intention, of leaving the vocation of teaching. I had every plan to try to get on at a nearby factory where I'd be paid by the hour and receive a full benefits package. It was in no way easy to come to this, but I did and as I already stated, it felt like a piece of me was dying. I did not choose to become a teacher based on the days off or the fact that I just love young people or want to "invest" in the future. I felt called to be a teacher. I know this sounds pious and I wish it didn't, but I really felt God pushing me into the profession. And as I always say to people who ask if I like teaching, I do love the job, but it is harder than anything I've ever done for money and I've had some pretty hard jobs; digging footers and pouring concrete in the Florida summers for around 70+ hours a week is no joke. What makes teaching so hard, you say? I'd easily say everything about it. You aren't always respected by parents, kids, peers, etc. Your pay stinks and if you teach in a private school, it really stinks. Yes, I know you get so much time off, but because of the pay, you spend that "time off" at a second or third job trying to make up for what you don't get paid. And the benefits....how do I really say that there aren't any real benefits; especially when you teach at a private school. Yes, there are those wonderful benefits of relationships and seeing students learn and mature and succeed, but those have never paid a single bill. And I know I talk to so many people who "guffaw" when they hear I teach and they tell me that they wish they got paid all year to work nine months. And all I'll really say to that, is that I wish I did too. I've heard of teacher who make a lot, but they don't work in the South and I've heard about great benefits packages given out to teachers at mostly public schools, but I've never been at a place like that. Generally, I work about a 50-60+ hour week. I get paid for 40. I work a lot of Saturday's and there are many nights when I work at night after working a 10+ hour day. I'm expected to attend school activities and be a chaperone. I usually, if I'm truly lucky, get around a 20 min lunch that I spend supervising students. I know I've read articles that said teachers have the real good life of getting to work at 8 or 9 and getting to leave at 3. I'd love that too, but I'd have to get a job at my bank, not the school I work at. I'm sure this sounds like a rant against all the things I hate about teaching, but it really isn't. All I'm really trying to say is that teaching is hard. Very hard. But I really don't mind it. And after 10 years of it, I don't know what I'd do with a different schedule. I know I work a different job in the summer that has an hour lunch built into the day and I eat so quickly that I really don't know how to spend the other time. And I didn't go into details about the lack of benefits, but of the four schools I've been at, not one of them offered health insurance at no cost to you and only one offered anything that resembled a retirement plan. And for the last three years, we've gone without both, but couldn't qualify for anything because I "made too much money". It sure didn't feel that way. </div>
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<em>It is always so weird to see my name like this.</em> <br />
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Anyway, enough of that. Teaching is so very, very hard, but I do love it. It is a part of me. And when we left Macon, I did everything I could do to acquire a job somewhere else. I applied for something like 20+ jobs in a time frame of a few weeks. And nothing came of any of my applications, my emails, the tests I took to apply, my face to face meetings, or anything of the like. It felt like everyone had job openings, but no one was hiring. And being the almost sole breadwinner for my little family and looking down the road and seeing no real job to speak of and knowing the last time I'd get paid was at the end of the summer was nothing short of a constant and daily heart attack. I knew God had a plan and I knew he'd be faithful, but I also worried like it was my job. You can quote Scripture at me if you'd like or remind me that "worry hasn't solved a single problem yet", but I'd like to set you where I was several months ago and tell you not to worry and to sleep easily next to the pile of bills you won't be able to pay next month and I'm sure you'll be the perfect picture of the trusting follower.</div>
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I knew there was a private school nearby, but when we arrived in Fitzgerald and I began my job search, I kind of didn't give them a look and when I did, they didn't have any openings. Midway through the summer, they had a part time opening and I applied and interviewed, but told them I couldn't really take it because I needed a full time position. They told me they understood and that it was only a part time position. I put no hope in getting the job because I knew I couldn't accept it and it's not usually a good thing to tell an employer that they need to meet your needs. And I was getting out of the teaching profession and attempting to follow Dave Ramsey's advice when he says there is nothing wrong with just making money and supporting your family as God has called us to do. I was ready to work in some factory or job where I got paid by the hour and had to work a year to earn my one week of vacation because I'd actually get paid for my time and I'd actually be given health insurance along with my pay instead as included in my pay and I'd actually get to put money into a retirement account where the employer matched what you set aside. I was ready for this life. I was ready to be a "cog in the wheel". I know this sounds like giving up on a calling, but there is a lot to be said about resting in the fact that there is enough money, and going to bed each night knowing you are supplying for your family, and knowing that you aren't going to break the bank by taking your wife out to dinner at Olive Garden. I was ready for this life. BUT...God had a different plan. Several days after my interview, I got a call from the headmaster and she told me they'd made a full time position for me and that she wanted me to come back to school to talk about it. I drove over there with a list of the reasons the job wasn't for me and I drove home several hours later knowing God had provided me with a job. </div>
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Being a Christian is not easy and I don't think it is suppose to be. I'll never claim to be a "good" Christian and I'm not attempting to be humble. I'll be quick to admit I'm not even a mediocre Christian. However, God is so very good to me. I don't know why. If the shoe were on the other foot, I'd drop me pretty quickly. But I will also be glad to quickly tell you that God always is faithful to me and gives me not only what I need, but most of the time, He gives me something I want. No, it doesn't come exactly like I want it to and it never looks like I think it should, but it comes and it is pretty amazing. I left Macon thinking my teaching days were over and that I'd have to turn my back on what I thought was a calling and the silence I felt from God felt like a thousand pounds on my back. Now, I sit at a desk in a classroom where I'm the new Physical Science, Advanced Chemistry, and Physics teacher at Tiftarea Academy in Chula, Georgia. I'm also the head Cross Country coach and assistant track & field coach. God once again gave me what I thought life had taken from me. I'll never think it was me who won the administration of this place over. God gave me this job. That's the only way I can look at it. When it looked like I couldn't even get a job working as a janitor at Lowe's, God gave me a job doing what I've loved doing for the past nine years. And so on August 14th, I began my tenth year as a teacher. I am still surprised by what led to my job. No, the school isn't perfect and the position is far from ideal, but it is a job, with a paycheck and a pretty good salary, and health insurance that I don't pay 100% for, and the comfort of getting to do a familiar job. Yes, it is hard and the classes I teach make me work a lot and the 100+ students I have keep me on my toes every minute of every day, but God gave me this job. When I thought every door was closed, He opened this door to me. </div>
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God is always the Great Deliverer even when deliverance doesn't seem possible. And although deliverance is assured to us, often times we wonder why it hasn't come to us yet and when it does come we often wonder why it cost us so much. The deliverance receive is never promised to be painless or to cost us nothing. This is something that is so hard to understand and to receive. God has delivered me so many times and each time it takes me by surprise, both by it's drastic necessity and for what it does cost me and how I'm always unworthy of it's arrival. This time was no different in every area. </div>
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I like my new gig. Tiftarea Academy is a good school. I'm glad to be here. It's really, really different from the schools I've had the opportunity to teach at in the past. It is almost the polar opposite of the school I just left. It is an odd thing to be the "new guy". I have often heard that your first year of teaching is the hardest, but I'd be willing to say that your first year at a new place is just as hard as that first year when all of your ideals run into the realities of the classroom at about 500 mph. I have now had four of these "first" years and I'll say it is so very hard to learn all the nuances of a new place. Every school I've taught at has a handbook, but most of the machine of the school day is run on 90% of what is made up of word of mouth items and unspoken rules or expectations that you don't know about until you've been somewhere for a couple years and made about 100 mistakes a week. And as with all places, the exceptions to the "rules" are always too many to count. I'm still learning most of them. They are sometimes hard to catch onto and most of them don't make sense. One that is taking me awhile to learn here is that 7:30 means 7:20 and so if a meeting starts at 7:30 or a game and you show up five minutes early, then you'll most likely be about 5 minutes late. I know, I know, this makes a ton of sense. I'm learning this new place and am so glad and thankful God gave me this job. </div>
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<em>My varsity and junior varsity XC teams at a XC meet in Warner Robins</em></div>
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<em> </em>Part of my job here at Tiftarea Academy is that I'm the new Head Varsity and JV XC coach. It is a step up for me in the coaching world and I was a little nervous about the step up at first. At my first school, I was the head coach, but then followed that by six years of being an assistant varsity and head jv coach. Here I'm both. And it really is a lot. You plan the practices. You manage the practices. You plan the season. You register for the meets. You arrange the travel and send home the travel plans and directions. And sometimes, actually, most of the time, you are the travel (i.e. the bus driver). You basically do it all and all for around ten cents an hour. I love it though. In my opinion, there is no better sport and I love begin a XC coach. I look forward to the XC season all year. And I'm so glad that part of my job included a chance to get to coach XC because I thought when we left Macon that, that was one of the many things I was having to leave behind, but I was surprised by God once again and given something I didn't deserve. </div>
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<em>The start of the Varsity boy's race in Hawkinsville.</em> </div>
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I inherited a great group of kids, but in reality, it was a team and a program in semi-shambles. It had gone through its glory days as most programs do, but even the fumes of those days were gone. The boys team won the state title in 2006, but that had been one of the last years they had excelled and the girls team had qualified a few years here and there for the state meet, but had never been real contenders. Please know that I'm in no way downplaying the accomplishments of the former coach and the former runners.The program at my current school was begun and carried on by a very charismatic and gifted coach and they had a lot of great success. They had several region and state titles under their belts as a program, but those years had passed and that is where I came in. Morale was low and the desire or hope for success was really low or seemingly, from an outsider's point of view, non-existent. Making the kids I had actually want to come to practice because they actually believed we could do something better than mediocrity and then talking kids who had either quit the team altogether or who had given up the sport were two of my biggest battles this season. </div>
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XC is an odd sport and generating interest in the sport is almost 70% of the battle for a coach. Add that to the fact that south of Atlanta, there is only one sport and its name is football. Students would rather sit the bench for a losing football team or cheer for that losing team than wear a state championship ring from another sport. I don't understand that and probably never will, but that has been my experience for the past nine years. You have some exceptions, but those exceptions come from years and years of a coach or a succession of coaches really spending a lot of effort building what I always call a "culture" at a school. My first school in Macon was like this. In a big football city, the XC team at the school was very popular because two coaches had begun the program with a lot of spirit and had carried that excitement into the kids and then into some winning seasons. That doesn't always work, but it does in some cases. My first school was the exact opposite. The XC team had region and state titles and when the Fall sports program came around, the XC team was usually left completely off. </div>
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I took over the team in mid-August and began training them the same way I had helped train my previous two teams with a set weekly regime of workouts. I will easily say that there is much about running I don't know about and that there are a multitude of theories and an even greater multitude of workouts that people have designed to to make every runner better, but in my small bit of experience, there are four main workouts that you cannot skip if you hope to get better and those are: the long run, the speed work, the tempo, and the heavy, heavy enforcement of having easy days. No matter what you've heard, you can't give 100% every day. No, I'm not condoning slacking, but if think about a motor or some other machine, if you attempted to put them at max capacity every day, they'd be quick to burn out no matter the manufacturer. The human body is no different and XC is a sport that is hard on the body. Daily running, high mileage, mostly super high temperatures, pedal to the metal races (sometimes 2x a week), and lack of good, easy days or rest days can really take a toll. Yes, other sports are really hard, but take football for example. Yes, it is very hard and requires a lot of physical skill and prowness and also takes a lot of mental skill and prowness, but the next time you are near a football practice or game pay attention to how much they are actually working or actually playing. Yes, a college football game may last 3-4 hours on tv, but the players are only playing an hour and not every player is actually playing that much time. In soccer, they'd still have another half hour to just be on the field. But during a XC practice, you are moving towards running or actually running the majority of the practice and you are usually covering somewhere between 30-50 miles a week on a high school team; jump to college and the mileage alone jumps to somewhere between 70-110 miles a week. Some people don't even drive their cars that far in a single week. And to add to that there are no time outs in XC. </div>
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In an attempt to make a super long reliving of the past a tad bit shorter, I will attempt to summarize. I got a team that had almost given up on winning even the small meets and had arrived at a school where XC had become a "has been" sport. I took over, added some folks from here and there, pushed them really hard, did every workout right along side them (the #1 way to really motivate a team. It never fails. They may complain at times, but they'll soon cease and never accuse you of being unfair. Crazy, yes, but never unfair.) added some "funtivities", threw in some ultimate Frisbee, and pushed them through a pretty difficult seven race schedule that including two public school races, a first for the private school I'm at, and we began a slight reemergence of the sport at the school. We took home four trophies from four races. We came very close to winning a few of them. The morale is up. The love for ultimate Frisbee has caught like wild fire. We took home two third place finishes in our region and qualified, both varsity teams, for the first time in three years. And my JV squads were contenders at our state meet. We accomplished a lot. I'm very, very proud of the runners and I am really looking forward to a great year next year. I think and know there is much left for us to accomplish and my desire is to have a plaque sitting behind my desk that says, "Coach of the Year", in about 2-3 years from now and a state title trophy sitting in the case from my years here. We have much, much work to do, but we've begun that work. I'm just glad I get to be apart of it. </div>
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<em>The best little cowboy around...</em></div>
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After school began, the rest of 2014 went by in what seemed like a supersonic blur. Teaching and XC had me busy from early in the morning till late at night. In addition to all the new items, I had begun having to drive 66 miles a day as opposed to the 8 miles I used to drive. Mel and her father had to pick up my slack when I went back to work so that we could move out of my in laws home and into our house. Mel also jumpstarted her business, <a href="http://www.melissadark.blogspot.com/">Greener Grass</a>, again and she has begun trying to figure out what having a business looks like when it is far away from your intended audience and trying to figure out how to generate a new audience while holding onto the old. And FH is trying to figure out just what his new life on a farm and in the country looks like. I know this sounds like hyperbole or more me than him, but he does know that things are different and things have changed. I don't know exactly how much he knows or feels this, but when we moved to Fitzgerald, it took him several months to begin acting "normal" again and get into some sort of normal schedule for him. We are still trying to get him to see that our new house is his new house and that it is where we live now. He is coming along, but he did notice that everything was different. We are just blessed that we got to make such big changes when he was young as opposed to older and more in tune with what really occurred. <br />
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What was left of August went by in a flash followed by a very busy September. By September, we had moved into the house, but were still living in, and out of, and around boxes as we attempted to set up house in a place that was 300+ sq. feet smaller than our house in Macon and completely lacked an attic. We sorted, and resorted, and moved more and more items into piles to give away or attempt to sell. Late August and early September, FH got accepted into a program for children with developmental delays, struggles, or lapses and we were and are so very thankful. Ford has always struggled with a swallowing and eating lapse and a delay when it came to a swallowing and sensitivity delay. He had a hard time nursing, didn't start eating even baby cereal until he was over 9 months old, and still at 2 and half struggles with eating. It is a huge concern and worry for us, but due to his acceptance in this program gets to work with a speech therapist to help him move past his delay. He has progressed, but is still lacking. But he is getting better.<br />
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September finished and blended into a very hectic October with Mel cranking up her sewing jobs and classes, trying to and eventually making her business to become and LLC, and XC hit into overdrive with me having an out of town meet about twice a week every week of October. October also saw Mel celebrate a birthday and me too. I also got chosen to be a lead chaperone for the 8th Grade class trip to Savannah which landed right on my birthday. It seems like every year that I teach, I spend my birthday somewhere odd, like in a bus headed to a XC meet, or at a Zaxby's, surrounded by people much younger than me, singing me birthday songs, just so they can get a piece of cake that someone's mother was kind enough to bring. At the end of October, we celebrated Halloween, with the little cowboy from the above picture. I'm not a real fan of Halloween for a lot of reasons, but right now, it is very fun to sort of let FH choose something he wants to dress up like and let him go get some candy. And this year was especially fun since it was the first year that FH really started to understand a little or in some cases a lot of what was going on. He was slow in wanting to approach folks he didn't know in one of our arms or holding onto our hands, but after a little while he caught on to the fact that if he said, "trick or treat", to the right folks, they'd give him M&M's. He realized its a pretty good scheme and though it is now January, he'll still occasionally say it in hopes of getting a "lil' treat". <br />
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October bled into November and we saw a few things change. We fed Pecos his last bottle; a fact he's still not too keen on, and we finally got some cooler weather and the gnats left us. I've been a lot of places, but South Georgia has to be one of the hottest places I've ever lived. Florida gets hot, but there seems to always be a breeze. Alabama gets hot, but the gnats aren't that bad. Fitzgerald is hot and there's no breeze and the gnats hover in swarms looking for people to get. It is sometimes to the point of driving me absolutely crazy. But...November brought cooler weather and when the temperature is in the upper 90's, the day it drops to 85 is a very good day. We celebrated a good Thanksgiving in Fitzgerald and FH really got into telling folks, "Happy Turkey Day", and talking about pumpkins and making the sounds of a turkey. November also spelled the end of XC season and I started to get to come home before 6 pm and that is always a blessing. I love XC very much, but I love coming home earlier and spending more time with Mel and FH about a 1000x more. </div>
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<em>In December, FH joined my Physics class in our Mexican Bowling night. He loved the kids and they were very kind to him. He also really loved the bowling alley and with the help of this super neat apparatus got to bowl with us. He even bowled three strikes and really got into the celebrations of a good bowl. I'm seeing a Dark Bowling team in our future and I could not be more excited. </em></div>
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November sprinted into December and we were left sitting and thinking about how much "life had taken place in 2014. I had gotten a second job. We had completely moved and begun a new life. I had applied for and acquired a new job. FH had turned two. We had sold a car. We had gutted a house and completely renovated the insides all in the span of three months. Mel had restarted her business. We had moved twice and that is only a few of the largest items of the year. But we survived and at each turn, even when things we very dark and seemed like life would never get better, there were small joys and sometimes large ones too. I think that is one of the great surprises about life too. There is always joy to be found. It may be almost invisible, but it is there. Trust me. </div>
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<em>FH and me at the Tifton Christmas Parade. Easily one of the best nights for me in the whole year. We followed the marching band (one of FH's favorite things in all of life) through the whole parade route and then ate from street vendors and rode a few of the free rides and had a lot of great laughs. I will remember it my whole life.</em> </div>
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We had a pretty good December. Life was starting to feel a little more normal. Our house was feeling a little more like a home. We had found a small PCA church and had gone to it several times. And FH fell in love with Christmas and it made it's coming so very wonderful. He loved everything about it. He loved the carols. He loved the characters. He loved the decorations. He loved the treats. He loved the parades. He loved it all. We had so much fun watching him enjoy the Christmas season. Everything was good and he was so funny about it all. To be honest, it is January 22nd today and we re-watched that old Frosty movie staring Andy Griffin just two nights a go. FH does wonderful impressions of the characters on those old holiday shows. It is really too funny. At every bend in the season, FH would do something even more funny or sweet than he had previously done. On the night before we celebrated Christmas with my in laws, my mother in law tried to get Ford to lay out cookies and milk for Santa under the tree, but a few minutes later, we couldn't find FH anywhere and he had crawled under the tree and begun quietly eating the cookies and drinking the milk. I'm still laughing at that. </div>
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<em>Mel and FH enjoying the light in Mt. Dora, Florida.</em> </div>
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We finished our December and our year with me finishing up my first semester at Tiftarea and then a trip to Florida to visit my parents and celebrate Christmas with them. It was so good to see my family and spend the holiday with them. My family is so spread out that it is really hard to get everyone together. It is a very sad fact of life right now and a very rare thing to see my family all at one place even once a year with us being spread out from Florida to Chicago to Texas and all having lives so very full of obligations that are not so easily left for later. But we got to visit with my youngest sister and her husband who live in Chicago for now. Ford had only seen them a total of three times in his whole life and we got to spend time with my other sister, her husband, and their sweet son, Jackson, who quickly became fast friends with FH and who now Face Time's FH or FH Face Time's almost every day. We got to do a lot of very fun things in Florida, everything from bike rides to a riding a real train, and the weather was beautiful and warm and it was a good way to end the year. We made it back to the Fitz. to finish the year out. </div>
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If someone were to ask me, what I thought the hardest thing about life was, I'm not exactly sure what I'd tell them, but I feel one of the things I'd try to tell them would be about trying to find one's truthful and right place in the world. Two years ago, I would say that Mel and I sort of knew our place or at least what our world looked like. I was a science teacher who coached XC and track. Mel was a worker of many odd and part-time jobs and a woman of a multitude of varied talents. We had a church. We had a new child and were learning how to be "new" parents. We had a circle of friends and places we called our people and places. We knew where our home was and had a great affection for our lives and all that made it up. I'd say we are not there anymore and are busy trying to relearn our place. I'm learning everything I can about a new school, new subjects, a new schedule, new bosses, new kids, and new attitudes. We don't have a home church yet and we don't really have any friends. We have a house and it is only now beginning to feel like we actually live there. Mel is trying to find her place in a town she no longer feels apart of because she has changed and the town has changed. We are still learning how to be parents. We, maybe mostly I, still don't really know how it is all suppose to feel and look and I definitely don't know how it is all suppose to work and fit together. We have much to do and much to think about and an even greater amount to pray about. 2014 was a good year, but it was also jammed packed with hardship and we had some pretty dark and hard days and even harder choices to make and go through. I'm sure 2015 will be full of those items too, but I feel so hopeful about the year. We've made the necessary changes to allow for things to improve. We've done the hard stuff. I know more will follow, but we are in a great place to grow in every facet of our life. We're in a place to begin living by choice again. We're in a place where we can move beyond were we had slid. I have such great hope for the new year, but my greatest hope is that, "He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it", and, "all things will work together for the good of those who love God...". I now am beginning to get those verses a little better and there is a great and triumphant hope in that. We haven't exactly found our new place, but I'm beginning to see the outlines of it for now. <br />
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Thanks again for taking your precious time to read my posts. Shorter posts are on the way. I promise. <br />
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-77225585855119763702015-01-15T05:00:00.000-05:002015-01-15T05:00:05.102-05:002014: A Year in Review-Part A<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>FH leading the charge in early June at our new home.</i></div>
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Some people are great at looking up ahead and seeing the lay of the land and seeing how every thing blends into the bigger picture or issue. My wife is this kind of person. I envy her. And some folks are great at looking back and seeing the goodness that lies amongst the hard won and hard learned lessons of the past. I wish I were one of these people too, but must confess I'm neither and I wish it weren't so, but it is. So, as I sit typing this many days after the start of this new year, I try my hardest to see exactly what type of year 2014 was. I had such great expectations for 2014 because 2013 had been so tragic for myself, my wife, and my little family, but in life, I'm learning that one doesn't just leap from tragedy to triumph in a single bound; that the phoenix did rise, but that rise was still covered in burnt debris and charred ruins. Lazarus did rise, but he had to walk out of a tomb. I believe that is what I'm slowly, oh, how ever so slowly, learning. That loss and painful tragedy are still there when we rise and always will be. It is not rubbed out. We are all Jacob walking with a limp. We've defeated the angel, but now will carry that wound wondering many times if the blessing was worth the everyday pain. We are the wounded warriors; not the valiant, courageous, untouchable warriors we once thought we were. I know there are all those great quotes about the "honor" of being wounded because we have had to chance to really live life, but in life, at least for myself, that wound or wounds, feel so much different and don't exactly feel like inspirational poster material, but feel like experiences that I may choose to skip if I had to go through them again. I know how this sounds and that is ok. I'm not counting myself even amongst those branding themselves as wounded warriors. I'm cowardly at best and most of the time wish the line from that Patty Griffin song, <i>Top of the World</i>, "...I wish it would have been easier, instead of any longer…", were true rather than just a line from a really good song. I'm only being honest to you and if you know me, you already know that. I have and do tackle challenges, but only those challenges that seem easy and pleasurable and in the end just prideful; running a marathon is easy compared to having a right relationship with my wife and loving her as Christ loves the Church, biking 50 miles is easy compared to using my resources wisely on a daily basis, etc. And I have a wife who is highly patient and very, very forgiving and my resources are small and should be easily manageable.<br />
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So….looking back at 2014 and wondering just what type of year it was isn't exactly easy from where I am sitting. 2014 was begun with us just trying to hope that the nightmarish way 2013 ended would not follow us and wondering if we could or if we would survive and if we did end up surviving, would the two people at the end even remotely resemble the two people who were at the beginning. And I was really doing this same thing last year about this time. I was only trying not to lose what I had left and seemingly living every facet of life in what I can only call survival mode; which is really no way of living really. I feel maybe the best way for me to explain the year to you is through the lessons I began learning and from a few pictures. I'll begin with the lessons and end with the pictures. No matter what, I'll apologize early for a post that is going to be too long and too sentimental for most of you, I'm sure. And I'll refrain from saying the lessons are ones that I've learned and understand because I know this isn't even close to the truth. I merely know that I am beginning to see the foundation of the lesson and will spend many moments and the rest of my life attempting to understand all that has occurred over the past year.<br />
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I have begun learning anew that God is completely faithful in the very face of my complete and almost hourly unfaithfulness. This is more humbling each time I have to learn this. I am forever the prophet Jonah cursing the shade tree that God has provided for me amidst my grumbling. I've learned that the most precious possessions that I have are not possessions at all, but rather gifts that were and are given to me on a daily basis whether I deserve them or not. I've learned my wife is more forgiving, humble, wise, and stronger than I ever guessed or imagined her to be. I've learned once again that silence is the loudest when an answer is about to come right at you. I've learned that beginning again isn't so easy and has to be stronger than a few moral platitudes. I've learned that holding my sweet boy in my arms is the greatest feeling in the world and one of my only true refuges. I've begun learning that the things in life that slow me down are the things most worth doing and paying attention to. I've learned that family, both biological and inherited, are so very forgiving, generous, faithful, helpful, and so very hard to live rightly with. I've learned that growing up is nothing like you beg for when you are too young and unwise to know differently. If you knew what it really was like, you'd scream for someone to protect you from it. I've begun learning again the sufficiency of God's Word and of heaping upon that Great God Jehovah all that I can no longer carry. I've begun learning that even in the darkest and most trying times, there is still a small glimmer of light and it is so very hard to hold onto it. I've now begun to finally see that there are two ways to live life, by choice and by circumstance, and am working everyday like crazy to regain the privilege of getting to live by choice. I've begun learning that the amount of items in this world that I do not know about or understand greatly outweigh what little I do know. I've begun learning what the real me looks like and enjoys. I've begun learning that saying you believe something and actually living like it couldn't look anymore differently. And lastly I am beginning to learn that I'm never enough and that I'm never suppose to be. I know this is a lot and please, please know that I am in no way saying this is all I have learned. I will spend the rest of my waking days attempting to learn all of this and probably will die not really understanding all of this and that is fine. All I am saying is that I have begun anew learning so many things and 2014 was the reemergence of this.<br />
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<i>FH and I getting in a little "no" time before we realized how cold your hands can get. </i></div>
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2014 began with cold and more cold and then snow, real snow and I had to miss something like 6 days of work because of it. During the snow, trapped in a house with a little toddler who didn't understand why we couldn't go outside for longer than a few moments because he is restless inside like his father, I wished for warmer days, but now 12 months away from those moments, I'd give up a lot to spend those moments again with Mel and FH and watch him experience his first snow and hear him look around in awe and keep saying, "no", "no" which is how he sounded when he tried to say snow. </div>
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<i>FH and I chasing our shadows late in the day downtown Macon.</i></div>
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2014 was when FH and I really hit our stride on the old, steel wonder horse. We rode around 550 miles give or take a few. We rode early and late and warm and cold. We rode so many places and I had so much fun; fun I'd forgotten you can have on a bike going about 10 mph. We rode and rode and rode and sometimes we even got off and found some pretty great places to play, explore, get muddy, eat snacks, and even take a few long autumn naps. I hope my memory never lets me forget any of these moments. </div>
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<i>My home away from home from February till June. </i></div>
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2014 was the year I didn't coach track for the first time in eight years, but instead got a second job. We needed money. It was funny to make the Walter White comparisons with those who felt the need to do so, but I will easily admit it was very, very humbling to change out of a coat and tie and leave a place where I was the head of a department where I was completely respected and then change into a t-shirt and pants and vacuum cars and trucks and then detail them for hours on end in the cold and in the heat for a few dollar bills in order to pay the bills each week. It was also a very odd feeling to be on your knees wrist deep in the nastiest of cars and look up and see the spires of the college you used to once study at in what felt like seventeen lifetimes ago. It was humbling to wash the cars of people I knew, or of students I taught or had once taught, or vacuum the cars of people who we were friends with. For the past several years, I have often said that I, like my dream literary and life mentor, Wendell Berry, believed all work was good work and when done with integrity is highly worth doing, but this job at the car wash made me slam up against this at about 1000 mph and although I still will say this, I only now actually believe it and understand it. and I'll probably never say it out loud unless asked about it. It is an odd thing to be treated like trash knowing the "low class" people I'm working around are far better people than the man or woman who thinks its okay to treat people who are serving them poorly. I respect and look at people in a much different light and learned so many things about myself and life during the 4.5 months I worked at Fountain. I actually miss that place and would work there again if I had the need or the chance. Yes, it was hard and extremely humbling, but it was also an education and at times very satisfactory. </div>
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<i>The ole' Trek waiting patiently in the tunnel at the car wash. </i></div>
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<i>The Biria loaded down with a day's worth of belongings. </i></div>
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2014 was also the year I got a new bike and attempted to become something I'd wanted to be for a very long time: a bicycle commuter. I had ridden my bike for errands and to work on and off over the years, but nothing to really speak about or count myself amongst the rank and file of bike commuters, but I really gave it a go in 2014. I used my bike to go to both my job at Covenant and my job at the car wash and to just about everywhere in between for around 100 days in 2014. I'm not exactly sure about that number, but I feel it is pretty close and may actually be a little small. I could write a lot about this and I'll spare you, but all I really say is that I loved just about every second of it. Yes, it is really hot when it is hot and yes, it is really cold when it is cold and yes, there are about 100 downsides to being that guy who rides his bike everywhere, but the next time you are sitting once again at a red light or stuck in traffic or thinking about how you could just get a little exercise if you didn't spend so long in the car or the next time you begrudgingly pay for gas, think to yourself that you could skip all of that if you just rode your bike to work. I know everyone can't do this. I'm back in that situation again myself, but I'm so happy that for many months of 2014, I got to be that guy who rode his bike to just about everywhere. And I'll leave you with this thought and with the knowledge that I'm actually not so great on the bike, but my job at the car wash was exactly 5.5 miles from my classroom door at Covenant. In the car, that trip took me about 25 minutes on a good day. I could make it on my bike, loaded down with all my things, in about 15-20 minutes. If I could, I'd gladly give up my car for a bike as my main mode of transportation in almost any situation. </div>
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<i>A basketed Biria enjoying a quick ride after work on a back road somewhere in Ben Hill County in July.</i></div>
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What about the new bike, you ask? Well, I won't bore you with too many details about the bike. There's a full post on that waiting in the wings. I will tell you it is an olive green Biria CitiBike. It is just about the most fun bike I've ever had and ever ridden and it has helped me really change how I think about cycling. I know those folks out there that are very financially conscious are wondering how a guy who was working two jobs just to make ends meet can afford a new bike and is maybe thinking that if I spent money on wiser things than stupid bikes, I wouldn't have to work two jobs and all I'll really say is thank you for judging me without knowing the full situation and to please ease your fears; nothing is ever as it seems. I bought the bike just like this. The bike came to a grand total of $401. My brother in law gave me a $150 doll hairs for Christmas. I laid this money down at Cherry St. Cycles in February. And almost every single day at the car wash, I did what no one else wanted to do: I cleaned out the filters and the lines of the industrial vacuum cleaner that ran the 12 hoses at the car wash. And everyday, these filters and lines contained piles and piles of change that had been sucked up. And each day, I sifted through hair balls, moldy food, finger nails, insects, dirt, dust, skin, and every other disgusting thing you can imagine to get the change that lay in there and each day I walked away with around $2-$20 in change and I'd put it in a glass jar at home and when that jar was full, I'd take it one of those Coin Star machines and get dollars for the change and then go make a payment on the bike. And I did just that for most of February, all of March, and three-quarters of April until I walked in one day in April, laid my last payment down and walked out with a brand new bike. I have changed several things on the bike and there'll be posts about that too, but this is a great, great bike and I'm so glad I sifted through all that crap just to get it. It was well worth it. </div>
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<i>Our group standing in front of the NYC skyline while visiting The Statue of Liberty.</i></div>
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In March of 2014, I got to chaperone the class of 2014 at Covenant Academy on their Senior Trip to NYC. I could spend many posts talking about this trip, but I won't. I'll only say that although it was very hard to spend a whole week away from sweet little FH and dear girl MelBelle, I'm so glad I got to go on that trip; especially since 2014 was my last year there at Covenant. It was a trip for the mental history books. We left Covenant at 5 am on a Monday morning in Macon, Georgia and for the next five days we did not stop and it was amazing. I had been to NYC nine previous times, but never gotten to go like this. We did just about everything one thinks about when talking about a NYC trip. We rode the subway, went to Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, toured the Met and the Museum of Natural History, jogged (for a about a half mile) in Central Park, saw where John Lennon lived and was killed, ate out a lot, worked at a food pantry in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem, saw a show on Broadway, went to Macy's, shopped in China Town, ate in Little Italy, went to Tiffany's, ate from street vendors, toured the Statue of Liberty, walked through Time's Square, saw the NYSE, and visited about a dozen famous churches, and walked through Greenwich Village. We did a lot other things too, but those were the main items. The trip was truly wonderful and the Covenant students were exceptional. I was always proud to be with them and they made me look good. I could type a lot more about that too, but I won't. The trip was amazing and I made memories with the other two teachers and the 21 students who went that I'll be thinking about for the rest of my life. </div>
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<i>FH and I at Covenant Academy's 2014 Prom. </i></div>
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<i> </i>2014 was also the year, that FH and I really started to go. I've always taken him with me just about everywhere I've ever gone, but this year, we really started to get out of the house and take off. I love this little guy more than anything in life save Mel and it gives me so much pleasure to have him around. Yes, it makes everything take longer and yes, I have to bring many more items than I sometimes would like to bring, but having him around and getting to watch him experience everything anew is something worth far more to me than all of those other items. We went to breakfast on Saturday mornings on the bike and in the car, we went to countless sporting events, we went to XC practices like it was our job, we went to church and to concerts, we went out to eat, just us guys, we went to the grocery store and to Lowe's and Ace Hardware, and we even went to Prom 2014 and he stayed till 10:30. I am so proud to be FH's father and hope he shadow's me his whole life. He's a great boy. Yes, he's bad, but I love having him around. </div>
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<i>FH sampling his cake before he blew out the candles!</i></div>
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In April, FH turned two. He was addicted to the, Itsy Bitsy Spider, at the time and to be honest, he still kind of is and sweet Melissa threw him a really cool Itsy Bitsy Spider party. The house we were renting was transformed into a really cool and hip spider web and we partied for hours! My mom came up from Florida and my in-laws came up from Fitzgerald and so many of our friends in Macon dropped by to help us celebrate. FH loved his cake that his Lulu (Mel's mom) made for him and loved having everyone over at his house to play. I had a good time, but the really the only thing I could think about at the party was that it was really hard to believe that my dear boy FH was already two. How had it already been that long since he was born? I will never understand time and it has never made that much sense to me and having a child has not helped that at all. I cannot believe so many times that I am married and have a child and often times it feels fake and then to get to give your son a party for being alive for two years of living, you have to step back and bite the insides of your cheeks because it can't all be so real, but it is. I will say that FH is the third best thing to happen to me behind my salvation and then my marriage, but he has changed me. I can't believe that I foolishly walked around and claimed so many times that having kids was not for me. I love being a father. It is so very, very hard and takes so much out of me and leaves me frustrated and exhausted so much of the time, but everyday all it takes is getting to hug my sweet boy or get to read him a few books, pray with him, and put him to sleep and all of that makes up for the "hardships" of being a dad and they seem to fade away and it all becomes worth it. I'm not claiming I know anything about being a father or that I'm a good one because I know that isn't true. I've made all the mistakes one can make from ages 0 seconds till the age that FH is now and I'll continue to do so, but I love being FH's dad. It is a true honor. </div>
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<i>A quick pic on the porch before the party began. </i></div>
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<i>The "ole' gettin' about town car", the Forester. </i></div>
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Around the end of March and beginning of April, we had to sell a car. Our in laws had graciously given us not one, but two of their older vehicles and we were a two driver family with four cars sitting in our driveway and on our insurance bill. When we had only two cars sitting in the driveway, it was already almost too much to keep two cars on the road full of gas and everything else and the added two cars were not helping us. You know that verse where Paul says that he boasts only in the grandness of God, well, I'd like to follow suite in a small way. God does big things for me and for us. No, we're never, or I'm never so good at remembering this, but He does. He sold our house in Dothan in two weeks when the housing market had just crashed. He gave me my first teaching job in Dothan and they hired me with no experience and 0 hours of education classes. He gave us the house we rented after we lost our house in Macon the very day we needed it. He gave us not one, but two Subaru's when both of our other cars had seen their last mile. And in 2014, I put up the Forester for sale for exactly what I had paid for it and a guy drove up, gave me exactly the price I asked for in cash, and drove away without almost asking a single question about the car. God sent him and God sold the car. We tried to sell the other car and it just wouldn't sell no matter what we did or who came to see it, but God didn't want it sold because He knew we'd need it shortly. It was sad to see the Forester go. It had been mine since 2006. It was a great car and I'll always remember it. It was a member of the family.</div>
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<i>My sweet family at "the happiest place on Earth", The Magic Kingdom</i></div>
<i><br /></i><em> </em>After some pretty intensive internet research by our sweet Melissa, we loaded up the car and headed south to take FH to Disney World. My parents had invited us and had given us two tickets to us as a present for FH's second birthday. We love Disney and my parents live about 25 minutes away from the place, so half the battle of finding a good place to stay is something we never have to do. And due to the proximity of where my parents live to Disney World, I grew up going to Disney a lot, mostly because we knew so many people who worked there and one of the perks of working there is they give you a certain amount of passes for you to use every month. I don't know the actual number of times that I've been to Disney World, but to throw out a number like 200 wouldn't be too crazy, I don't believe. If that sounds crazy, know that in the last seven years, I have been to Disney around nine times and I currently live 5 hours away from the place. Even if I just kept that pace up, I still would have gone to Disney almost 30 times if I only had the chance to go for 20 of the 35 years I've been alive. Please know that I'm not bragging. I'm only telling you facts. Most of the times, like 98% of the time, the reason I've gotten to go is that I was a chaperone, a coach, or a child getting his way paid for by someone else. Anyway, I greatly digress. Mel and I love Disney. My mom and sisters do as well. And it was a real treat to take FH there and watch him react to the place. Mel did her best to indoctrinate him in all things Disney before we arrived and I'll say it was mostly a success. We had a great day there and FH was a true trooper and did amazingly with everything considering he is two and that it was almost 90+ degrees and extremely crowded. We got to go with both of my parents and FH loved the rides we went on and the big parade. I won't say he understood the idea of waiting a half hour to ride something for about a minute, but that isn't something most people can grasp. I do look forward to bringing him back as he begins to understand characters and stories more. I believe he, like his mother and me, will end of really loving the place. <br />
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<i>FH trying to take in all things, "It's A Small World".</i></div>
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There is a blog post sitting in the "Drafts" section of this place that I stole the next several pictures from and it hasn't been published because I still haven't gotten my mind and my emotions around it all. At the end of the 2014 school year, we made the very hard and excruciatingly painful decision that if all things stayed the same, we could no longer afford to live in Macon anymore. I had been looking for a new job for three years to no avail and had applied for around 200+. I had asked for raises, but life in Macon is pricey and considering our place, financially and emotionally, we just couldn't do it anymore. We were forced to make a change in order to continue to exist in a good way. To be honest, our credit after foreclosure was shot, and renting in Macon isn't even close to ideal and there are no in between places there. There are the scary places that we could afford and then there are the just "mostly" scary places that we could almost afford to live for around $700-800 a month and then there are the nice, safe places that you could live in for over a $1000 a month and that is just something we can't afford to do. And so, after being at Covenant Academy for three years and in Macon for the last six and four more during our college years before we moved to Dothan, we had to walk away from almost everything that had been our life there for almost a decade. I cannot express in words how terrible this was and is. I was almost completely sure that my days as a teacher and coach were over and when you realize that an era is over for that part of your life that makes you who you are, it is not an easy pill to swallow and to be honest, I'm still chocking it down. Saying goodbye and driving away from Covenant and then saying goodbye to our lives in Macon was and I think will always be one of the hardest things I've/we've ever done. Covenant Academy isn't a perfect school by anyone's picture. It has about a thousand things wrong with it, but I love that place and am so glad God placed me there. It is a fine institution. The teachers I got to work with are amazing people and the kids, for the most part, are the finest overall students I've had a chance to teach. I would let FH go to school there. It is the only place I've taught that I feel that way about. Covenant took a chance on me and loved me, loved my wife, loved my son like he was theirs, and gave me three wonderful years as a teacher and I will remember them for the rest of my life. </div>
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And so on June 3rd, for the fourth time in as many years, we backed up a van to our front door and loaded our lives into it and several other cars and attempted to move. Mel had worked tirelessly for several weeks earlier with almost no real help from me, due to my working two jobs, and while being a mother and packed up everything we've acquired over our eight years of marriage and beforehand into boxes and expertly organized and labeled all but the last few. My gracious in laws and my mom came and moved us. We once again moved in a single day, but this time was a little better since we weren't seemingly fleeing something that is still shameful and scary to think about. A few nights before we left, Mel came to the realization that in the period of less than a year, we will have moved and fallen asleep and attempted to make a home under four different roofs. No, that is not good and I hope it is no one's normal and if it is, I cannot say I'm sorry enough. I have been there once and I hope to never enter that zone again. I also cannot tell you enough how much my in laws have rescued us, both figuratively and realistically, over the past two years. When it was known that we would in fact lose our home, they came and moved us and all of our stuff without almost a single word of judgment and wrote us a check for money we needed and had no way to get. And when we came to the realization that we needed to move from Macon, they were the first to offer help and were at our door helping us. They have been a constant blessing to me/us and have humbled me by their kindness, care, and acceptance of me in the greatest failures that I've gone through of my adult life as of yet. They are highly imperfect people, but have shown kindness to the most imperfect person I know of, myself, and have done so when it would have been far easier, both emotionally and financially, to leave me behind. </div>
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As I've already stated, I cannot, nor will I ever be able to put into words what leaving Macon was for me and for us. It has been six months already and my feelings haven't changed that much. I spoke to my dad on the phone as I was driving to Fitzgerald in a truck full of our junk following a full U-Haul and had my mom following me and I sort of cried to him saying that it was so hard to not wonder if the best of what life had to offer had happened already and had now passed me by. He was very kind and very understanding in his reply, but even now, it is still something that I contemplate. And sadly, I think this is a question that is a part of growing up because often times you look at your current life right square in the eyes and it seems to mock you a little with the joys and happiness of the past and kind of lets you know that those times are gone and will never more be. It isn't exactly true because there will be true joy and happiness again, but it will not be those same joys and happiness that once were. When we left Macon, I thought I was leaving behind a large portion of who I was, we left our friends, some of them were people we've known since college, we left our church, we left almost everything we knew, loved, depended upon, and valued and headed towards a house we had only been inside of for less than ten minutes and towards a great fog over every other facet of our lives. I didn't have a job. We didn't know of a church. The house that was there needed an overhaul. And that is only a few things we didn't have answers for. I sat in the cab of my old Dodge truck and almost shook from the anger, sadness, bitterness, and everything else I felt about leaving Macon. It felt like a whole piece of me was dying or getting ripped from my being. I know that sounds too strong and Macon isn't that great of a town, but it is where we went to college, where we met, where we fell in love, where we got engaged, where we bought our first home together, where we remodeled a place and made it a home, where we grew into adults, where we became members of a church family, where our son was born, where he spent the first two years of his life, and where a million other things happened. We love Macon. It was part of us. And it desperately hurt to leave. </div>
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<em>The Trek taking in the surroundings of our new "hometown".</em></div>
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And so on June 4th, 2014, we woke up in the third bedroom in the house of my in laws and it didn't feel like all that had transpired had really done so, but they had. And we also woke up not as visitors to Fitzgerald, as we had done countless times before with a place to return to, but were now in the place that was our new home. And it is a very strange feeling to look around you at a place where you didn't specifically choose to be and had never visualized yourself being and attempt to see past your nose and see the future in your surroundings. As I have already admitted, this is not my strong suit, so as I helped to unload our U-Haul truck and then as we began to work on what would be our house and as we started living as residents of Fitzgerald in those first few weeks that quickly became a month, I will say that I would travel the emotional spectrum each day. I'd wake up and see so much hope for carving out a really good life here, but by the end of the day, I would have been angry and so very bitter about where my mistakes had gotten us and so very angry about how could God have made us move there and then so very sad about where we were and then we'd finish some job, or the sunset would be so pretty, or I would watch the joy on FH's face as he really got to play in the open spaces of our new home and I'd be so mad at myself for feeling any differently than graciously thankful and so happy to be there. I know how this sounds and it is what it was and is. I will also say that I will never read or think about the story of Abram the same. Yes, he got to have God choose him and he got to see God do miraculous things, but he still had to leave "his kindred and his home". I now know this is something I'll never simply gloss over. I now have done this in a round about and small way and I now know in a small way how costly this is. Yes, God gave Abram so much, but it also coast him so much and just because someone wants to point to an end point and almost ignore the passageway to get there doesn't negate its existence. Please know I'm in no way saying I completely understand the story of Abram, nor am I saying we went through the exact same thing because that couldn't be farther from the truth, but I have felt great affection for a place and have had to leave that place. </div>
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<em>Day 1 at what would be come our new home.</em> </div>
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I will not give you a line by line detailed account of our full scale renovation of what we have dubbed the, "Otter Creek Camp House", but I will say that for the rest of my life or at least for a very long, long time, I'm completely uninterested in home renovation. On the afternoon of June 4th, we made a little trip over to what would be our new home and did some little jobs around the house and then for the better part of the next three months give or take a few days here at there we worked on that place day in and day out and for many days, we'd work anywhere from 5-14 hours a day at the house. We had originally thought that we'd just do a bunch of smallish things like paint and pull up carpet and we'd save the really big things till much later, but that changed quickly as we began working at the house and what was suppose to be a small "fixer-upper" operation blew up into almost a full gutting and rebuilding of the inside of the home. This may come across like we really know our way around home construction, but that is also the wrong idea. I will say Mel has great vision and is more talented and gifted than you can really think about and I can occasionally get something right, but this was a daily task of love and extreme patience by my in laws. My mother in law spent the better part of three months watching little FH as his parents left the house in the morning and came back in the evening and she fed us, washed our clothes and everything in between. My father in law and brother in law did everything from take us to Ikea to pick up our kitchen, to rip out whole walls, to build new walls, and countless other jobs that seemed like countless other nightmares rolled up into one. We could not have ever done most of the work that was done without them and we'd still be living in that third bedroom had we not had their help, their talents, and most of all, their patience. </div>
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<em>Looking at the front door area of our house. It ceased to look exactly like this after June 5th. The place is drastically different from what it was</em>. </div>
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I have included a few pictures of "before" and "afters" for you, but they really do not do the renovation much justice. What began as a really sort of nasty house where we were unsure about letting FH walk around there turned into a place that looked like it fell out of a magazine. We redid, or reworked, and completely rebuilt almost every area of the house from the inside out. We did about 85-90% of the work ourselves and as already noted, when I say ourselves, I'm including Mel, my father in law, my brother in law, and myself. We tore down walls. We ripped cabinets out. We took out electrically items. We primed and primed again. We sanded. We painted. We rewired. We built new walls. We made a thousand trips to Lowe's, Home Depot, and the Fitzgerald hardware stores. We planned. We threw tools. We cut our hands on the saw and hit them with our hammers. We got angry at each other and grew very irritable with each other. We gave each other the silent treatment. We started to see the daylight. We made bad cuts and tried things over until it worked and in the end, we saw it taking shape. I will say nothing was easy and nothing went like it was supposed to go. And there were many days where I would have been very happy to take a loan out somehow and begin living in a used camper trailer and never look back and there were even some days that I would have gladly bombed the place and even some days that I began thinking that knocking that place down all together and starting from the dirt would have actually been easier. </div>
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<em>The front room on the first day we began working on the house; nasty red shag carpet and orange shellac walls and all.</em></div>
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<em> </em>In hindsight, it might have been wiser to complete one room at a time and feel our accomplishment in that, but we didn't do that at all. We just went in and ripped everything out and attempted to work on every room at what felt like at the same exact time. That was very, very hard and I wouldn't advise it, but it is what we did. And I'll also say this about doing it that way and that is when you are getting near the end, it is actually the end for the whole place and not just a single room and that is really rewarding. As I've said, we redid or reworked every room in the house completely. We sanded the walls, primed them, and painted every inch of the interior of the house. We took out two closets and reworked/rebuilt the hallway and a whole wall in our bedroom. We ripped out the entire kitchen and built a new one. And when I say ripped it out, I mean that, including two of the four walls. We ripped up the carpet and put down new flooring in about 90% of the house. We put up all new fans and lights and reworked the electrical flow in the house. We ripped out the three window units and installed a central heating and cooling system. We did all of this and about a thousand other small things. And as I've said, we did about 90% of the work ourselves and the only things that were done by someone else were the drywall jobs, most of the electrical work, and then the central heat and air, but we were there when those jobs were being done and were quick to lend a hand and some days it felt like we were actually doing those jobs ourselves. </div>
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<em>The transformed front room</em></div>
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The house is about 95% finished on the inside for now and we got to move in near the last weeks of August. It is hard to really know how to know how to feel or think about the house, but most of all, the house is a blessing; a blessing of the type that almost no one I know is given. We lost our home and didn't have even a small place to call our own and now we have a whole, nice house that we are working so hard to call our home and it is a home that we can never lose and it is a place that we did not have to qualify for or pay for. Yes, it cost us a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and yes, it initially cost my father in law a lot to help us pay for the renovation and we've begun to slowly pay that back, but we were not required to "buy" the house. And that is a gift and to be honest, I'm never so good at receiving gifts at first, but have to slowly ease into the idea of it. We've now lived in that place for a little over four and a half months and it is beginning to feel more like where we are supposed to be and less like somewhere we are staying till the storm blows over. The ideas that Mel had and that we all worked so hard to attain really paid off. The house, when it is clean and sometimes even when it isn't, is really something to behold. No, it's nothing that shimmers or really blows you away, but it is an almost completely transformed place and went from being a coldish, very dark, and dingy place to a place full of light, color, and warmth. I'm proud of the place and the drive up that half mile drive way at the end of a long day is starting to feel less like I'm lost and much more like I'm headed in the right direction. It is starting to feel like home.</div>
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<em>The other side of our living room/dining room that makes up our big front, main room.</em> </div>
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<em>My two favorite people in the world at one of our favorite places: the beach. </em></div>
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Sometime near the end of July, we packed up our bags from what little we had that wasn't in boxes sitting in a storage shed and headed to Ormond Beach. In all reality, we really shouldn't have gone and didn't really have the time or money to do so. We were beyond knee deep, it felt more like throat deep, in our all-consuming house renovation and we really should have stayed put and gotten in another week of good work. However, it was so very good to get away from everything and my very kind and generous parents gave us a full week at the beach as an anniversary present and it more than hit the spot. FH is a lucky guy because he, at age 2.5, has already gotten to do so many things and go so many places. This was his third trip to the beach and I'm so glad we got to experience the beach this past year with him. The first time we went with him, he was a month old and it really was a living nightmare and in all honesty Mel faced most of this nightmare by herself. And two summers ago, we had to be so careful with everything and really had to watch him and he really didn't get beach life, but this year was really awesome. We just set up the tent we borrowed from my parents, lathered FH up in sun lotion, and let him do it all and he loved every second of it. We'd get out there early, hit a nap when it got hot, and then head back out to the beach in the late afternoon and stay till almost 8 pm. We loved it all and FH cried each time we had to go in because he loved the beach so much. There were even a few times that, even though we knew he was so tired, we let him stay and he'd almost fall asleep in the sand trying to keep playing. He loved the sand. He loved going out into the waves. He love chasing birds. He loved looking for shells. He loved eating snacks under the tent. He loved trying to catch those sand fleas. He loved the pool. He loved it all and so did we. And after all we had been through and after living with my in laws for the better part of two solid months, it felt so nice to be by ourselves and just rest amongst each other and do everything on our own schedule. It felt nice to skip a meal or eat later or stay up late or get up early. It felt nice to just get to talk to FH alone or to get to only talk to Mel and FH during a meal or to make a little family pile on the couch and watch "our" shows. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that it felt so nice to just be "our" little family again. We had so many great moments when we are at the beach and I'm already looking forward to a possible 2015 beach trip and FH really is. Sometimes, he'll go to our closet and bring me a towel and ask if we can go to the beach and it is really, really hard to explain how we can't just drive there. Or sometimes, he'll lay down in the sand that's in our driveway and ask me to play "beach" with him. FH is ready to hit the beach again and so are we. We love it there. </div>
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And so for now, I'll close and ask you to be looking for a Part B to this post. I thought I could just summarize our year in a somewhat longish post, but I also don't want you to have to spend the better part of an hour trying to read a post here. Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for reading. </div>
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Looking forward to a great 2015 with a lot of hope, </div>
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-74414140090638502792014-12-17T12:02:00.002-05:002014-12-17T12:02:37.107-05:00The Mystery of Blessing<div style="text-align: left;">
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This began as a "Thanksgiving" post, but as is the case these days, the time to finish even the shortest of posts was just not furnished. I wrote some ok things, I guess, but I have deleted those words and have begun again. I have read and heard that this a great writing process. I'll let you be the judge of that. I'd just like to have the time to sit down and punch out a post in a single sitting. I have a few friends who rise very early each morning and accomplish amazing things (physically, spiritually, and academically) before the sun rises and in my mind and heart, I'd like to be like that too, but I just don't see it happening. For the whole month of November, I took time with each of my classes and each day had each student name something that they were thankful for. Most of the time, my students were thoughtful, but sometimes it was as most exercises like this done with kids, it went south pretty quickly. I do not find fault with them. It's easy to judge kids, but it's better to remember that they lack so many of the things that life teaches us over the years. I'm in no way saying I'm an expert about kids. I will easily say I know very little, but I do know the kids I see each day because I used to be that age and have not forgotten my own experiences. </div>
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Each morning as I drove to school in the cool dawning's of each new day, I would spend a good amount of my thirty minute commute thinking about what I was actually thankful for and the more time I spent thinking, the more I kept ending up with the idea that I'll try to explain in this post. I'm sure I'm not the first person to have such thoughts. There are probably great essays or even books about the idea and I just don't know them. If you do, maybe you'll be kind enough to point them out to me and I'll enjoy reading from someone who is a much better and more adept writer and thinker than me. </div>
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The more I thought about the items in my life that I'd admit to being thankful for, the more I kept coming back to the idea that I am completely sure that we, or maybe it's just, I, do not understand blessing. We use this word for so many things that I feel it's meaning is lost somewhere between everyone telling everyone they're around that "they're a blessing" or asking the "blessing" before a meal, or every deal or break we get is such a huge "blessing". I am in no way making light of these cases, well, maybe the first example, but not the other two, but I'm only trying to say that we use and abuse so many terms nowadays that their meanings begin to lose something. I feel I know the reason for that and that is we had reduced our language to such a small amount of known words that we're left with few options. It is a bad feeling to be lacking in the language to explain something, but I believe that is where we are at and it has happened so quickly. I'm in no way pointing fingers at those around me. I'm to be included in that horde of folks "lacking in language". </div>
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I kept coming back to this idea because I keep having this plain picture in front of me each day and that is of an event that happened around this time last year. And I'll tell you. To be honest, it is a bit uncomfortable to tell because I'd love for you to see the best in me and I'd love for us to be all able to pretend that all is well and beautiful and always has been and always will be, but we all know that, that is not the case. It was about a year ago that we lost our home. The hurt that came with that is still very present in me and in us. It's not something I love telling people. It's more of something I'd love to hide from everyone; even myself. It was during my Christmas Break and we were staying with my in-laws and Mel and I were attempting to enjoy the holidays, but so much was lying just underneath the surface and so raw inside each of us. Behind closed doors at night, we'd attempt to communicate to each other what neither of us could or were doing well. She needed a leader and she needed answers and I was rudderless and was drowning. I am not a good husband. I will tell you this freely. It is not something I'm proud of. I want to be and attempt to be, but always fall short. I do not lead my wife well, love her well, provide for her well, disciple her well, etc. And she simply and gracefully, asked me what was our plan. I did not know our plan. I had a plan and it had slowly and then quickly and so fitfully unraveled. To be more specific, it exploded. I fumbled around with really nothing to say and then lied down, but sleep was not really going to happen, and so I stood up, changed clothes, grabbed my jacket and attempted to go for a walk. I walked for a very long time that night. I feel that I'm perpetually in this motion every five years or so. I'm out walking late at night hurling words and thoughts into a clear sky because I'm once again at a place where I know nothing and have no idea about what comes next. Many moments later, I found myself sitting on the bank of a small pond in front of an old, small brick house begging God to show me what I needed to do. All I truly felt was anger, bitterness, rage, deep sadness, and severe regret. I sat there for a long, long time hoping for some direction, any direction, and all I ended up with was this numb feeling that comes to me so often when my emotions reach their max. It is an odd thing to type this out and to think that now I live in that small brick home and eat my morning meal looking out at that pond. And yet, all these moments, all these emotions, all these spoken words, all of everything wrapped together, was what I'd like to relay to you as, "the mystery of blessing". I will say I'm deeply grateful for all of this, but will easily say I do not understand even the slightest bit of it. I am continuously surrounded these days by constant mystery and I do not understand most of it, but spend large swaths of time rolling all of it around my quickly balding head. </div>
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In times of ease, it is so easy for me to look around and be quasi-thankful for everything that surrounds me. I can very casually nod this way and that and give you a little inventory of my all of my "blessings". I think back to years like 2010 when my life just about as close to perfect as I think it can get here on Earth and I would leave for a run in the evening and come back to lights in the windows of our home and a happy wife inside and I would pause for a moment a thank God for my life and in all honesty, I was, but I was also completely oblivious to all the blessings that made up my life. Or I think back to 2006 when I had just gotten married about brought my new wife back to the small home I had purchased and begun to remodel and begin attempting to live a life that was for two instead of one. I was so happy and it was easy to look at my wife or see my life beginning to take shape and stop briefly and attempt to be thankful. Or I think back to 2012 to the very first moment that I got to hold my son and although I was so very thankful for a healthy wife and a healthy, precious boy, I do not believe that I wholly understood the depth of the blessings that were being given to me. I could list so many other moments, but those are enough. And I will not say I wholly understand them now, but am slowly coming to the outline of their true meanings. Please do not get me wrong, I was truly thankful for those moments when I was swirling amongst them like a speeding gaseous particle, but am only now coming to terms with the blessings that were being given to me at the speed of life. </div>
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However, when life is throwing you a multitude of curve balls and there seems to be a very dark cloud hovering above you, I am the first to go blind to all these blessings and instantly draw up my laundry list of grievances. I am so quick to forget the blessings that are being given to me. And no, I'm not talking about just the good things. I'm talking about all things; all the facets of every moment that I'm living in and amongst. All things. One of my favorite Bible verses is Romans 8:28 because I love to know that truly, "all things are working together for the good" for me, but the older I get, the more I also know that I also have very little clue about what is truly "good" for me. And am slowly learning that most of what is good for me ends up costing me so much physically, emotionally, financially, and relationally. It is for me in these terrible, painful, and costly events that have come to me where I believe that this "mystery of blessing" truly lives. No, I have not become a true pessimist or some crazy sort of masochist, but rather just a slow learner. My mother's father, my granddad, nicknamed me Pokey so many years ago and it is so true in many, many ways. </div>
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I'm sure, if you've read this far into this post, that you're saying this is really nothing new. I get that. Everyone knows all of life, the good and the bad, is all the "stuff" we're suppose to be thankful for and know if you're like me you've heard many sermons about this and heard many people tell you much of the same. But what I'm trying to say is that but that God is in a constant state of blessing us, but much of those blessings seem more like curses. And I'm in no way saying that God curses us because that couldn't be more untrue and I'm also not saying that I throw a party for bad thing that comes my way. I guess to be honest, I am not exactly sure how to end this post except to say that I'm only beginning to see the very outline of the true mystery of blessing and to see those Biblical accounts where blessing is being showered upon a person, a people, an event as maybe they really are. How truly terrifying it must have been to be Abraham being blessed to be the father of a great and mighty nation. Or Mary to be blessed among all women. Or to be Jacob and be blessed by an angel who just maimed you. I feel I have glossed over those stories my whole life without really thinking about the imagery and idea of blessing in those stories or so many others. I am also guilty of glossing over the stories in my own life in much the same way. I still have much to think about and maybe you feel that you have just spent some of your valuable time reading nothing. I apologize. I will only say that I'm a blessed man and I only partly know what that means. I have lived a blessed life and will continue to do so. It is really not in my power to not. And hopefully, I will begin to understand the blessings that come my way. </div>
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<em>"Come thou fount of every blessing,</em></div>
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<em>Tune my heart to sing Thy grace,</em></div>
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<em>Streams of mercy never ceasing,</em></div>
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<em>Call for songs of loudest praise,</em></div>
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<em>Mount of God's redeeming love..."</em> </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-73303066094532797722014-11-19T07:00:00.000-05:002014-11-19T07:00:03.188-05:00Of A Milestone and The Great Steel Workhorse<br />
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I know I write too often about bikes and I was going to give you, my faithful readers, a small break, but FH and I hit a little milestone in our two-wheeled lives and I am just so proud of it, not for the number of miles or for the exercise benefits or anything of the sort, but for many reasons that I don't really feel I could or can fully express thoroughly enough with just words. I wouldn't normally share it if it were just numbers, a distance, or a goal met, but because it's not, I feel a small necessity to share because I'd like you know a little about it. It may be my age or that I've moved past the mileage game, but I no longer feel the need or desire to tell of my runs or rides in terms of distance or speed, but rather in terms of what I've gained mentally or emotionally from these times when I escape to a world of simple tasks and am able to leave so many things behind and only hear the wind passing through my helmet or my seemingly always labored breathing. I still love to compete, but it feels that I am losing the desire to compete in the things I call my hobbies. Now, don't get me wrong, if I'm out on a run and see you up ahead, I'll still do my best to run you down or if I'm out biking and you're up ahead, I'll still try to catch you and attempt to pass you. That will always be in me. <br />
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Ever since FH turned one and we were allowed to legally and weight-wise ride with him in a seat behind me, the whole act of riding has changed for me. Before this, riding was exercise and I was getting on the bike to try to become a more proficient rider hoping to one day become good at it. I have these visions, albeit delusional, of me being lean and great at riding like some of the guys I know. Guys who can ride a hundred miles in under 5 hours. Guys who are sponsored. Guys who ride hundreds of miles each day training for things called <em>"Tours"</em> or <em>"Giros"</em> in places like France, Italy, and Australia. However, from our very short and nervous ride to our last Sunday ride a few days ago, riding has become a true escape for me. The bike has and still continues to be a place were my life becomes composed again, even if its just for a short moment, of simplicity. And it is this simplicity that I crave so much these days. <br />
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Little FH was born a little over 2.5 years ago and it is no secret that our lives have been drastically been altered during this time period. Our little family has gone through more stress, loss, frustration, loneliness, and bitterness than I truly care to dwell on for long and this bike: a 1982ish Huffy Bay Pointe 3 Speed Mixte has been the exact opposite of all of that for me. No matter what is going on or has just taken place, I can grab my sweet boy FH, put a few things in our basket, and just ride. We never really have a destination and I've only ridden once when I cared anything about how fast we were going. There is never spandex, speed cadence meters, heart rate monitors, guilt from lack of mileage, etc. There isn't the stress of no burning enough calories. There is only a little boy, a diaper bag, a bottle of water, a few snacks, and me. And sometimes, our sweet Melissa rides with us and it is just three humans and four wheels smiling with the wind through out hair and everything feels right. And it is always enough. And I cannot say that for any other area of my life. Every other area of my life feels like I am never enough or that I don't have what it takes. But sitting in the saddle of this Sears bike, it feels like I always have enough and that I have what it takes. I know this may sound lame or sound too sentimental, but I am only trying to write how I feel. <br />
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And so about two weeks ago on a short and quick ride before dinner, FH and I headed out into the twilight hours, or what I've heard referred to as of late, as the golden hour, and attempted to hit a small milestone and after riding for about 25 minutes came to a stop in the middle of a small, heavily-rutted back road and had a brief and minor celebration. I celebrated the milestone and FH celebrated the Goldfish and cold water we shared with each other and the goats nearby. As of that moment, FH and I had ridden 500 miles together in 2014 in a wide range of places and on an even wider range of terrain. </div>
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We have had early morning rides and night rides. We've ridden on bike trails and down busy four lane highways. We have ridden down city streets surrounded by a couple hundred thousand people that live there and we've ridden places where there the only sign of human existence was the small dirt road we were riding on. We have seen sunrises and sunsets. We've seen people kissing and fighting. We've crashed once and fallen off once. We've gotten four or five flat tires. We've had to call Melissa twice to come get us. We've run out of diapers a couple of times. We've laughed, tickled each other, cried, and both gotten angry at each other and situations. We've spotted animals, flowers, and once even rode in the moonlight next to a few deer who seem to be running with us for a few moments. We've been chased by dogs and cows and even once rode over a rattlesnake. We've picked up turtles, weeds, flowers, and fruit. We've been waved out, yelled at, cussed at, stared out, honked at, chased, and once even stopped and told to never be seen riding on a certain road. We've ridden inside and outside and once used the bike as our shopping cart. We've sweated and shivered. We snacked and even stopped several times to take a nap. We've played on more playgrounds that I can recall. We've even ridden and competed in a bike race and even came in first. Two guys on two wheels can see and experience a lot. And I wouldn't want to spend my time doing anything less. </div>
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500 miles is a long way, but it feels as if I wish it weren't so short. It seems to be not enough. Our longest ride has been a Sunday afternoon 21 miler and our shortest is less than a tenth of a mile. We average about 10 miles an hour, but sometimes, it is more like 8 or 9. The ride is always what it needs to be and I never think later on of how we could have gone faster, longer, or how I could have ridden the ride or a section of the ride better or more proficiently. It is always enough. I'm sure you could ride that distance faster and with more grace. I'm sure your rig is nicer or cost much more. I'm sure you could ride that distance in far less time than it took us. I'm sure of all of all those things. But I care about it not at all. I respect your ability and FH and I'll cheer for you when you pass us with gusto. I'm sure about all those things because I know that you may be a better rider, on a better bike, but I also know that you don't have as good of a co-pilot as I do. And I wouldn't trade that component for anything. </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-39511153016516420562014-11-11T16:23:00.001-05:002014-11-11T16:23:29.833-05:00Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap<em> * There are currently 20+ drafts sitting in the wings and someday I may finish them, but with how my current life is going, I'm not so sure of when that "someday" may be. It has taken me over three sad weeks just to finish this measly post. BUT...BUT...I really want to update this place. So, my plan is to just put out some quick (haha), short (hahaha) posts and maybe you'll enjoy some of those and I'll feel good about posting. So, here we go. </em><br />
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Many months ago, I read a description of this soap on a website I check a little too often and knew I had to, in the very least, buy a bar of it and give it the old college try. (What does that last little bit mean any way?) I went ahead and bought two bars just in case I loved it and upon the arrival of my box, I immediately became oddly infatuated with the whole concept of the soap and became that precocious kid who is walking around asking people to smell and touch whatever the newest thing that has caught their fancy. I made just about anyone who came over at least smell the box and some would be brave enough to get the bar out of the box and handle it. I, even went as far as, to bring the soap to school and show it to all my students who in return, for the most part, thought I was even weirder than previously thought. But some also became quickly attached to the smell and have sense told me that they too have made the same purchase. <br />
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And as with most things with me, the whole idea of using the soap went from semi-normal to blown way out of proportion. I've been called an extremist before and all I'll really say is that I get it genetically from all sides of the gene pool and some from my surroundings. I began, in my mind, and then to my students doing these little advertising bits for the soap and with each bit, the soap and what it does got more and more absurd. And they sort of went like this:<br />
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<em>"Have you ever been watching a John Wayne movie and wondered what a man like that used for soap or smelled like....</em><br />
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<a data-ved="0CAgQjRw" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAgQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cowboysindians.com%2FCowboys-Indians%2FJuly-2009%2FJohn-Wayne-classic-films-family-memories-30-years-after-his-death%2F&ei=Pp5GVOvKKtLMggTdkoDwCw&psig=AFQjCNGXMfkjcdbYUZ1M3bk_ksb7ATm-8Q&ust=1414000574789451" id="irc_mil" style="border: 0px currentColor;"><img src="http://www.cowboysindians.com/content/articles/2009-07/wayne/patch_big.jpg" height="400" id="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="313" /></a></div>
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<em>"...then use 'Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap'."</em></div>
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<em>"Have you ever wanted to be the type of man that walks with bears and claws their lifestyle out of the wilderness like Jeremiah Johnson...</em></div>
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<em>...then try 'Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap'."</em></div>
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<em>...then try 'Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap'."</em></div>
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You get the idea. I know, I know, it's just a soap, but the soap sort of emits this strange amount of strength from it and it's not just the heavy pine tar scent. It seems like once you begin using it, it feels as if you are going in the complete opposite direction as many of today's male grooming and metrosexual goops and lotions. It is as if you are using a soap you bought off a guy who was with Lewis & Clark or is best friends with Daniel Boone or de Vaca. All of which seems just as absurd until you give the picture of "Grandpa" that's on the box a good look in the eye and dump the soap out into your hand and give it the once over; even going so far as to run some warm water and wash your face with it for the first time. After that first washing, all of the above won't seem so far fetched. </div>
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And as the back of the box claims, it has been known to be good for everything from shampoo to shaving lotion; each of which I've tested and can say that it is a sufficient shampoo, but it is one of the best shaving lathers that I've ever used. And the soap has also been known to help people who struggle with dandruff, Psoriasis, Eczema, and many other major and minor skin irritations. I'm not sure about any of those, but I will say that it does do a great job of cleaning and when you finish your shower, you do feel fresh and clean. </div>
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In all honesty and putting most of the absurdity behind me, <em>Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap</em>, is a really good soap. It does smell and when I say that I am VERY serious. You can just place it in your bathroom and minutes later, it is the only smell that you will experience when you go near or in the bathroom. The smell grew on me, but it did not grow on my wife. The only thing that I can tell you that it smells like is that of a campfire. Many others who smelled it compared it to everything from beef jerky (disgusting) to dog food (even more disgusting). I only think it smells like the fires that smolder days after they've been set or break out like in a state forest or when they are clearing land. I happen to like this smell, but others may hate it. And you may like it, but just not want to smell it in your shower. I will say that after bathing with it, you do not smell like it for even an hour after you bathe. </div>
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It is a great soap and an even greater shaving lather. It is an efficient shampoo, but if you have thin hair like me, then it'll make it feel really dry. I have a read a couple of places saying it makes a great deodorant, but from my single day experience, I can say that either it isn't or South Georgia is not the place to try that out. If you have normal skin, I don't think there is much resistance to it, but if you have sensitive skin, then your skin may fight you a little. If you have marble or granite fixtures in your bathroom, the soap does leave behind an odd film, but most bar soaps do too, but unlike we'll say <em>Irish Spring, "Grandpa's", </em>washes off easily. And if natural soap is your thing, then look no further that this soap. It only has seven total ingredients and three of those are water, pine tar, and salt. This is a far cry from 15+ ingredients that make up the bar of my usual, <em>Irish Spring</em> soap, that most people who didn't take Organic Chemistry II could pronounce or know what they're referring to. I'm not knocking, <em>Irish Spring</em>. I love that soap. I've been using it since before middle school and I plan on doing so until something better comes along, but I was just showing the differences of ingredients. </div>
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Since the summer and my fateful box containing two bars of <em>Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap</em>, I have since used both bars and do not currently have a bar, but one should arrive tomorrow. I enjoyed the soap and will keep using it. It won't be a monthly thing, but merely just a special thing. The lone drawback for me, besides the fact that my bride doesn't just love it, is that each bar can put you back around $6. And when it comes to soap, that is quite a bit. I can sometimes find other soaps, soaps my bride and I both like, for far less and get multiple bars. I would encourage others to buy a bar. I will say that this is the first summer and XC season in which I didn't have to go to a doctor to get my biannual shot for a severe poison ivy breakout. I'm giving most of that credit to the soap and for me that's worth more than $6. </div>
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Go get some Pine Tar Soap and as FH would say, "lather up, lather up",</div>
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DAVID<em></em></div>
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<em></em><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-14431883835296002552014-06-24T00:38:00.001-04:002014-06-24T00:38:17.999-04:00"The Times They Are A-Changin"--A Blog Update<div style="text-align: center;">
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The Catch-22 of having a blog is that you actually need to write blog posts. And there are a few things about writing blog posts that you need to have. You need time and a clarity of mind; neither of which I feel like I've had for quite sometime. And the other thing about having a blog is that you need to keep them it to date or by the time you sit down to finish that post begun so very long ago, the event has passed you and what occurred had its effect and your life has moved on at a vaporous rate. And that is where we're at right now. I have a cache of drafts sitting in the wings waiting to be finished, but the moment has passed and in some cases it has long passed us. I still want to post them and still may, but it also may be better to just let them sit for my own viewing pleasure. But we'll see. I may post them to let you in on something that meant something to me many months ago and will, I'm sure, conjure those once felt feelings, the moment I sit down to finish the post.<br />
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As I've said many times, I love this little blog. I may never write a decent post and I will most likely never strike it big writing, but I will always remember the day I learned about the idea of having a "blog" and then going about to set one up for myself. I felt as if I had discovered something so special I could hardly describe my exact feeling and I remember how grand it felt to "publish" my very first paragraph long post. It felt as if I was making history and doing something more monumental than just writing. I realize that everyone and their pets have blogs these days and that many people who became famous or well-known due to a blog have moved onto other mediums like <i>tumblr</i> and <i>instagram</i>. And that is fine. I still like knowing in the back of my mind that I write a little blog that a few people read. I like knowing that at different times during each day there are people all over the world looking up little things and somehow their fingers and their mouse find their way to words that I once wrote. I hope my words are both meaningful and helpful and that they guide the eyes and minds reading them to something more and something better.<br />
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And so, I have made little resolutions in the past to publish a post once a week and I've made others to just write more often and this post is sort of another attempt to tell you that I'm still here and that I still have the desire to write and continue to have a blog. However, I'm not going to tell you that they'll be many more posts coming and then write a few, publish them, and then fall off the wagon again. I know that'll be the case, but as the title says, things here are changing. My sweet little family has been living in and amongst a raging storm over the past three years and we've made it work, but nothing has been easy. I'm in no way saying that its all been terrible, or that God has left us high and dry, or that there haven't been many moments within those three years where we wanted to stop the very earth on it's axis and freeze the time and suck the marrow out of it, because that would be far from the truth. God has seen us through so many things and I'll write about those in time. I will say that everything I've ever thought about life is wrong and has been rearranged, broken, shuffled, and then rebuilt and there is much that it may take the rest of my living days to ever truly understand. And for now, all I will really say is that God is good, true, severely merciful, savagely faithful, and ever-present. And for right now in our lives, the most true verse in Scripture is, <i>"Be Still and know that I'm God.</i>" (Psalm 46:10). And being still is so very hard when you feel as if life and the earth itself is about swallow you whole and pull with you everything that you once held dear. But we've reached a safe harbor right now. And I cannot fully explain to you the respite that we feel, but to attempt to even come close to describing how it feels is that it feels that we are alive once again thrown together with the sensation of getting to breathe good air after feeling as if you were suffocating.<br />
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I'm in no way saying that the rest of our lives will be easy because I'd lay good money on the fact that it won't. It's not suppose to be. How could we long for heaven and the great return of the Christ and be raised on wings of eagles if life were easy and all was smooth. However, we've reached a place now, mentally and physically, where the waves are no longer crushing us and the wind is not driving us away from where we've been trying to push towards. We've reached a place where we can once again begin having a the peace we once had. And I say all of this to let you know that there will be many more posts. I have seen it attributed to many different writers, so I'll not award it to anyone special, but there is a quote about writers and it says something to the effect that writers always write; they have to because its in them. Please know I'm in no way saying that I can write or that I have this great hidden talent to put thoughts into words, but I will say that words and ideas are always floating through my head and that I'll someday be wise enough to record them before I've allowed them to be molded into something I no longer recognize and spend the next great amounts of time trying to remember the beauty and cadence with which they first came to me.<br />
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It is late now as I write this and new day has already begun and my sweet wife has gone off to bed and my dear son lays so quietly at rest in his "big boy" bed. I cannot fully write of the blessings that God has bestowed on my head in what little of this life I've lived. I have been living day to day in this great wilderness where it has been so very hard to look for that cloud by day and fire by night and it would be false to say that many times I've felt as if the Great Jehovah was not there and that He had long grown weary of my prayers. I am the faithless man who prayers and often feels as if I'm hurling empty words into the sky. And I've walked countless miles, physically, mentally, and spiritually, in what F. Scott Fitzgerald so eloquently described as the dark night of the soul and have woken the next morning ashamed that I fell asleep and still no answer has been arrived at, but I've not quit praying and hurling those words into the great night sky, but all I've prayed is wrong, but Jesus the Christ has translated my words well. In the words of the author of Streams in the Desert, I've piled high onto Jehovah and Jehovah has answered my prayers in a fashion that I would had asked them if only I knew past, present, and future and was in all things and the maker of all things, but I am far from that.<br />
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So….where does all of this lead us. It is a very long attempt to say that there will be future posts about all the things that make up my life. I hope you'll continue to read them. I hope that my life continues to allow me to post. Be on the look out. They are coming and I can't wait to publish them. And as always I can not say thank you enough for taking some minutes out of your day to read what little I have to say.<br />
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DAVID<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” --Wendell Berry</i></span></span></div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-54678643272248309322014-04-07T11:59:00.001-04:002014-04-07T11:59:11.072-04:00The Wald 137 Bike Basket--A Product Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"A bike without a bag or basket is a eunuch, a race bike. If you don't race, your bike should be usable, able to carry something, so the first thing to do to a bike is to junk it up with a bag or basket. Baskets are harder to mount, but easier to fill and unfill… .Get over the "clean" look of a useless bike, and learn to love that useful look of a bagged and basketed one. The added weight doesn't matter. You're not racing, you're living a bicycle life, and that means riding a bicycle that's useful."</i></div>
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<i>Grant Petersen--The Twentieth Catalog, pg. 62</i></div>
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I know. I know. There hasn't been a post in awhile and all I'm giving you is another (ANOTHER!!) post about something to do with bicycles. I know. I'm sorry. There will be other posts. Different posts. They're coming. Trust me. I've got some lined up and mostly ready to ship out. I've got some old ones that I've been meaning to post and there are others; some about books, some about music, one about running, and a few odds and ends, but this is all for now. Things have been busy here. No, not busy, like you tell people when you feel them getting ready to ask some obligatory favor that involves time, money, smiling, hugging, etc, or they invite you somewhere you'd rather go watch paint dry than go, but really busy. It is the Spring semester at school and if you teach, you know how busy that is. I'm currently teaching 7 out of 7 periods a day. And on top of that, for the last month and a half, I've been working part time at a local car wash here (I'm not skipping that, but it is just too much to tell about now). And….And…And, two weeks ago, I spent the whole week in NYC with the senior class from the school I teach at. It was an awesome trip. I'm still recovering. Maybe one day, I'll have a few moments and I'll write a little something about it. To be honest, I'm still trying to digest all we did. It was a whirlwind trip; one of those once in a lifetime type of trips where one moment you are standing in front of a real Monet and the next you are watching a Broadway musical. That kind of trip, but let's get on with this post. For those of you who write with music or to music, this post is being written to two of my newest musical purchases: Kathleen Edward's, <i>Voyageur</i>, and Andrew Bird's, <i>I Want to See Pulaski at Night</i>. They are worth a listen if you like a music. If you don't, then stay away. You'll hate it. If you love Top 40, you'll hate it. If you like strange music with strange titles so you can look down your haughty nose at others, you'll hate it too. Well…to the post. </div>
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<i>Wald. Enough said. Really.</i> </div>
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If you don't have a basket on your bike, I get it. I was there about 2.5 years ago. Baskets are lame. They are girly. They are only for those weak sauce beach bikes that you are forced to rent when you're at the beach. You know the one's with the Hawaiian flowers and huge handlebars. They take your man card away from you (when did this become a thing and when can it quickly become a non-thing!). I get all of that, well, except the last one. Pretty sure I never want the guys from Men's Health and Spike TV and such to NEVER define for me what a guy is or what makes a guy. Anyway. If you have a bike that is basket-less and the thought of putting one on there makes you cringe a little, or a lot, I get that. I was there. However, after using my bike as my second main mode of transportation over the last 2.5 years, I am not the same guy when it comes to bikes, baskets, bags, and just bike riding in general. </div>
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If you use your bike for more than a Saturday ride with the guys who are going to put the hammer down for 30-60 miles wearing spandex and trying to one up each other every couple of miles and then load them up on their Nissan Xterra's, Toyota 4-Runner's, and Chevy Z-71's, and drive home thinking they could have done more if only they had a more expensive bike that weighed less, then you are probably going to be carrying a little more than a bottle of Gatorade and a few of those nasty energy gels. You will probably have a lot of stuff and you're probably going to need somewhere to put it. You could wear a backpack. That's what I did. And it works. Sort of. I say sort of, because it sort of works. If you sweat at all when you ride and if you live in somewhere real then it's probably hot (somewhere above 65+ degrees) for most of the year and if you're pedaling farther than a mile, chances are you'll sweat and if you're heading to work, you'll probably not have access to a shower. That is what I needed, but never got. I would get to work really sweaty and would have to settle for a quick change of clothes and a quick "bath" in the staff bathroom sink. You don't want that. Just take the plunge. Get a basket. Load it up. Say good-bye to a sweaty back. Sure, you'll get made fun from time to time, but that would happen sooner or later for one thing or another. That's why there is a saying out there right now that is pretty good: "Haters gonna hate". Too true. Let them hate. Get to work, the store, XC practice, church, home, without carrying an over-packed backpack and arrive without a sweaty back. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIVgQ9zOCPhcVURdo0TCWr-u3dYpStHFoUsS-SUJ8GeMlYFeFJ1mXFPfIHokO6qaABnzbreq97zq1Nt8HdrXWmSnvw9oKVRO74oSjXcWJ3jDzvHdw5BD_qI6FoVueuvVWFJ3V4nPYfFs/s1600/IMG_0173.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlIVgQ9zOCPhcVURdo0TCWr-u3dYpStHFoUsS-SUJ8GeMlYFeFJ1mXFPfIHokO6qaABnzbreq97zq1Nt8HdrXWmSnvw9oKVRO74oSjXcWJ3jDzvHdw5BD_qI6FoVueuvVWFJ3V4nPYfFs/s1600/IMG_0173.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<i>The front view. Unloaded.</i> </div>
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And if you get a basket for your bike, make it a Wald basket. There are a lot of companies that make bike baskets, but just go ahead a buy a Wald basket. It'll be worth your time and it isn't going to cost you anymore than some other brand and you'll probably have to replace that one a few times for any number of reasons. <a href="http://www.waldsports.com/">Wald Sports</a> has been making bike related things since 1905 and doing so in the USA. Their current operation is in Maysville, Kentucky and has been there since 1924. Their first product was a bike repair tool, but they moved on and now carry a variety of components, but all of them are built here in the US and they have quite a reputation for building things that last. I've seen Wald baskets from the 1950's on bikes that people are still using. In an age where it seems all things are being made to just last a little while before you throw them away, this means a lot to me. It feels good to buy something that I will still be using 20 years from now. If I'm not using it, least it will still be around. Sort of makes it feel like the money I'm spending means more or is worth more. If you don't believe me, look them up. Buy a basket. Test it. If you hate it, then email them and tell them all about it. They'll actually answer you back within a few days with a personal email message and try to remedy your problem. I'm trying to think of another current larger company that stands behind their product without making you jump through fifty hoops and I'm coming up blank. Apple is awesome, but I've also spent the last 2 months trying to get my iPod up and running. In that time, I've gotten three small and personal emails back from Wald after I sent a mere question to them. </div>
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<i>A side view. Unloaded. </i></div>
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<i> </i>After FH and I smashed our previous basket, we needed another option. I tried to convince Sweet Melissa into burning the midnight oil for us a few times and come up with something that could attach to FH's bike seat that she/we could sew/build that would carry all of our crap, but nothing seemed to work out. Buying another basket was the only really option for us. So, we scoured the inter web for bike baskets and read review after review and our sources kept making us come back over and over to Wald Sports. Now, Wald Sports makes about 11 or so different basket models, but the most popular models are the Wald 137, the 139, and the 133 Quick Release. Sweet Mel bought me the 139 for Christmas, but we haven't found a real use for it because it is HUGE. I'm pretty sure I could put our lab Jack in it on the front of our bike and ride. This sounds absurd, but I feel it is about 90% true. I know Ford fits in it. I'll put it on a bike, but it will have to be a different one than any that we currently have. So, FH and I ordered two Wald 137's and then waited with baited breath at the front door for the UPS man. It set us back exactly $32. We could have just bought one basket for $16, but ordering two just felt right. I had plans of using the second one on my Trek 1000 SL, but alas the handlebars were a few inches too narrow. RATS! If you're wondering, Mel and I spent around $20 for the cheaply made (in China) basket that we smashed. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiW2kMsX7MhiVjsHDBOYcepC78bTBE4H5UvThTEzLXErTLwPg0BlugSf4Q-YUz-kaUO_WqhS7S9SyZ38nIh4vnACGorlfLFge46VS7VwYOWgsKymJG7CtdY5jECQD_DRZumPtwzFAai8/s1600/IMG_0175.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiW2kMsX7MhiVjsHDBOYcepC78bTBE4H5UvThTEzLXErTLwPg0BlugSf4Q-YUz-kaUO_WqhS7S9SyZ38nIh4vnACGorlfLFge46VS7VwYOWgsKymJG7CtdY5jECQD_DRZumPtwzFAai8/s1600/IMG_0175.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<i>The legs that can attach to any kind of hub and can be adjusted to fit 18''-22''. </i></div>
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I feel like I could say more than I really should about the Wald 137, but I won't bore you more than I already do. The basket itself weighs 2.2 lbs. and is 15in x 10in x 4.75in. This makes it the perfect size for carrying most of what you've got. I can't find the limit on how much you can or should carry in the basket, but since it is attached to the bike in four places, it seems to handle weight pretty well. But it would be good to note that additional weight in the front does change the steering ability of the bike; not by a lot, but you can feel the difference between an empty and loaded basket. The 137 comes with legs that will and can attach to any type of hub and allow you to have the basket at either 18'' or 22'' above the hub depending on where you need it. These legs are a recent, but very nice addition to the 137 model. Without them, I'd had to have bought a pricey front rack and had it installed. The legs saved me around $130. The basket also has two clamps that allow you to secure it to the handlebars. Altogether, I think it took me around 20 minutes or so to put the basket on the bike, which didn't feel that long or that difficult. The 137 model isn't a model that comes off the bike for you to take into a store or inside your house, but that isn't something I wanted. Our previous basket did and FH and I never used that feature. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8RUQQWGmppWOtde-vY50kaEoznM0nInCoBocqsEJn67XLopS0jJL_Ho1ProgswrAZwQBigaXq4-ypqBg-1nYV9kseMKkgG2tevb1jofaB5Jr3IwBvqexs_sqpLrvDYyRGHFFP4vxrWY/s1600/IMG_0176.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8RUQQWGmppWOtde-vY50kaEoznM0nInCoBocqsEJn67XLopS0jJL_Ho1ProgswrAZwQBigaXq4-ypqBg-1nYV9kseMKkgG2tevb1jofaB5Jr3IwBvqexs_sqpLrvDYyRGHFFP4vxrWY/s1600/IMG_0176.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<i>A cockpit view. Unloaded. </i></div>
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The one draw back from the basket size is that I wish they had a size that was actually a middle size between the 137 and the 139. And I only say this because FH and I always seem to have SO MUCH stuff. The 137 carries it well, but on the days when we carry FH's diaper backpack, some snacks, and a stop at a grocery store, it seems that the basket just isn't quite big enough. I know this sounds like TOO MUCH stuff and I would agree, but if you have a toddler you know what I'm talking about. It is always so much stuff to haul around. I love the Wald 137, but there are times when I wish it was a tab bit larger. Not super big like the 139, but just bigger.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQzmivpU1_Jfad755PEbQapqU9XBBX1DAYPzn2Qnyau-8ezR30wp38v4wdkknOOLNekyOy94F3rlKRlgzQQfV-Ye-Cgi6cW2jaOewms5SwledMkTsZqPiwqRK4y9-sbpy_IzLEJoXFzl4/s1600/IMG_0177.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQzmivpU1_Jfad755PEbQapqU9XBBX1DAYPzn2Qnyau-8ezR30wp38v4wdkknOOLNekyOy94F3rlKRlgzQQfV-Ye-Cgi6cW2jaOewms5SwledMkTsZqPiwqRK4y9-sbpy_IzLEJoXFzl4/s1600/IMG_0177.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<i>A look from the front. Unloaded. </i></div>
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I can't say enough good things about this basket. It was most definitely worth the $16 that we paid for it. And we bought a small cargo net ($7) off of Amazon to go over the top of the basket and help us keep all the things in place. FH and I have made good use of the basket and we've carried everything from groceries (4 total bags!) to cameras and jackets in it. We've also brought mom home some breakfast from our Sunday morning rides along with dinner a few nights from places not too far from us. And I've even brought home a few drinks home with refills. It is a great addition to our bike and I'm so glad we sprung for it. It is so nice to be able to carry all that we need to with us or to know that if we went somewhere and got something that we'd have a place to carry it home with us. And aren't those two of the drawbacks that most people have with biking somewhere as opposed to taking your car? I feel like that is pretty close to being true. I'll end the post with several pictures that I've taken over the last several weeks since we've had the basket on our two-wheeled beast. It's a great basket. It's useful and it looks about as neat as a basket can. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmfwVJ1JBLRw9x8XEQz6ymFuGLgnWzH1ABYg_ARD2g5jGJZtPv8nB2R37J4VRpEoM6ZHFHGZcAGNAfJOFJJ0Vx5x7tiiQiDEJlAXOCisPVaniZL6DwkSFW62AdhrmuCMhDzmDjqkS3uO4/s1600/IMG_0054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmfwVJ1JBLRw9x8XEQz6ymFuGLgnWzH1ABYg_ARD2g5jGJZtPv8nB2R37J4VRpEoM6ZHFHGZcAGNAfJOFJJ0Vx5x7tiiQiDEJlAXOCisPVaniZL6DwkSFW62AdhrmuCMhDzmDjqkS3uO4/s1600/IMG_0054.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>A view from the bottom side. Fully loaded. FH and I put in over 20 miles this day and took a 45 minute nap in a local park. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. </i></div>
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<i>A view from the top. Fully loaded. Taking a few moments to look at some daffodils. </i></div>
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<i>FH's backpack and a view from the top. Fully loaded. We were headed to church. </i></div>
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<i>Proof that it is a very useful addition. It definitely carries its own weight at the grocery store. </i></div>
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<i>FH, the fully loaded basket, and the bright lights of our local Kroger.</i></div>
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Get a basket. Make it a Wald. Install it on your ride. Make your life easier and better. Leave the car at home. Save on gas. Get some fresh air. Don't be stuck in traffic. Ride down a hill with no hands. Remember as Hemingway is credited with saying, "<i>When you stop doing things for fun, you might as well be dead."</i>. </div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-32662729310133602812014-03-19T22:13:00.002-04:002014-03-19T22:13:29.157-04:00Returning to An Old Habit<br />
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If you were looking for some sort of confessional, you had better move on. I just have rediscovered an old habit and have really enjoyed falling back into it again and wanted to clue you in; the faithful lot here at the Darkroom. To make a short story a tad bit shorter, I'll cut to the chase and just shoot you straight: I have started carrying a pocket knife again. I took a hiatus; pretty close to a decade hiatus. I quit for a reason, but now I can't quite remember why I really stopped. I guess I thought carrying a small pocket knife was for a certain type of person and I wasn't going to be that type, but that was also when I thought I knew a few things. Now I would pick the habit back up for a hiking or canoe trip, but then put it back up once the adventure was over. No, not a Bowie knife or some crazy switchblade straight out of Harlem or Compton. Just a simple one function knife. I know they sell those behemoths that have something like 73 functions, but I've never used all of them. I'm a pretty simple guy and a simple knife fits all my needs. I just found myself running into at least one situation every day where I'd think to myself that I wish I had a knife and one day I finally pulled out the drawer of my bedside table and found the little knife and put it in my pocket as I headed to work.<br />
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The knife isn't fancy either. It's just one of the base models that Kershaw puts out. I like Kershaw knives. They're an American company and even go as far as to make a few of their knives in America. There are several great knife companies out there right now and I own a few of their products that I've gathered over the years, but over the last several years, I've really felt the need to support American companies that are bringing work back here. It's a risk and they should be rewarded. Kershaw is one of those companies and I've been a big fan of their knives since I bought my first one over the Wal-Mart counter in Ft. Payne, Alabama in 2004. The model I'm carrying now isn't that knife, but one I purchased back in 2006. It isn't made in America. Maybe, I'll move up to that one, but we're taking things slower these days.<br />
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And the knife is special. It was the knife I gave to all my groomsmen the night before I married my Sweet Melissa. That is a nice thought to have as I feel it in my pocket and use it throughout the day. I guess that's how knives are for me when I really get to thinking about them. Maybe that's part of why I'm so glad about stumbling into carrying one again. My granddad carried a knife. I've got a few of his old ones. I'll never carry them, but I look at them from time to time. It is odd thing to hold an item that you remember someone who has passed away using. It is as if you get to jolt yourself back for a small moment. My dad carries a small knife and I believe his father does as well. It's a nice thing to follow in the line of something like that. It makes me feel as if my meager actions in that quiet time before the sun rises as I approach my day are no longer just a routine, but rather a ritual and the hands I stuff the knife into my pocket with are the hands of my father's and his father's and the actions are those of the men who've come before me who also sat in that brief time when all thoughts are calm and the sun is making its slow rise and the dew is laying softly and all the day is spread before you and you leave knowing that today is the day to make it count.<br />
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Happy reading,<br />
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-79412153119041133502014-02-26T11:00:00.001-05:002014-02-26T11:23:40.818-05:00Happy Belated President's Day<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: left;"> I know I'm exactly 9 days past when this post should have gone out, but I make no excuses. Life is life. You live it too. Thanks for taking part of your busy daily routine to check my blog. Updating it just may be one of the things I look forward to doing all the time. I just wish I had more time to do so. I got this picture from an email from </span><a href="http://www.publicbikes.com/" style="text-align: left;">Public Bikes</a><span style="text-align: left;">. They have a great site about bike design, commuting, city design, and just plain having fun on two wheels. Well, Happy Super-Late President's Day. I know we haven't had a good one in quite a long time, but try to pray for them instead of complain. God is listening and in control. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.</i></span></span><br />
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-62189892751666610302014-02-11T12:40:00.001-05:002014-02-11T12:40:32.014-05:00Sabbath Morning Breakfast Ride<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">“A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the most joyous day of the week.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">― </span>Henry Ward Beecher</i></span></div>
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<i>The rig of glory</i> </div>
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Ever since Ford turned one and was old enough to ride the bike with me, one of my favorite rides is our Sunday morning rides to get some breakfast. I've dubbed the ride, "<i>The Sabbath Morning Breakfast Ride</i>", and I look forward to it all week. I wish we got to go every Sunday, but sometimes it just doesn't work out and I always wish that we'd somehow pulled it off no matter the reason. I love the ride so much because Sunday in Macon is what I imagine it is like to ride a bike in places where the car is only a type of transportation used, not the main mode. And Macon may be a town with a population of around a 100K, but on Sunday mornings, it feels like a very small town. It always feels as if you have the town to yourself and the only cars you pass are the kind people trying to get to that 9:30 Baptist Sunday School class. They don't honk at you or scream at you for having the audacity to ride a bike on their rode. They wave and move on and you do too. It is almost the only time you feel as if you are actually sharing the road. It is just plain nice and I'll even go as far as saying it is pleasant. </div>
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On weekend mornings, I'll wake up early, go get Ford, who is already awake and is the reason why I woke up, put on some coffee, change clothes, change Fordy's clothes, grab a few necessary things, and head out the door. I love taking care of Ford on the weekend mornings because the other five mornings of the week are days where I still get up early, but then I have to leave for work instead of staying with Mel and Ford. And if you have small children, you know that those early morning hours are very special and sweet times. Little Ford is very snuggly and cuddly on most mornings and it is so nice to get to have a slow morning and not to have to rush off to work. No, I'm not ignoring the fact that it is early, or that there are diapers to change, mouths to feed, mountains of laundry to do, or that many times Ford is alternating between crying and begging for the food that I'm trying to make for him, but my time with Ford is limited and I don't want to miss more than I already have to. That is all I'm really trying to say. I'll say the rest in a few words and several pictures. </div>
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<i>Why so sad, little Ferdie? I dress this guy as quickly and as warm as possible and then we're off. He normally looks a little more happy, but this pic was taken just a few seconds after we had to get little FH to understand that telling daddy, "no", is really not an option. </i></div>
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<i>We go several places, but our favorite place to come is Jittery Joe's. We've hit the "Buck's" and we've hit the Waffle House, but Jittery's is our best place and we've been coming here for the past year. It is a little over three and a half miles from our house, but it is a good little ride and I really enjoy pointing things out to FH and now FH points out things to me and we make animal noises, sing, and make crazy noises when we ride under bridges because they echo. Jittery Joe's is in Mercer Village. A place that I wish would have existed when I was a wee college student. </i></div>
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<i>This is a bike rack. Mercer is working with several non-profits that have the main goal of revitalizing Macon. I'm pretty sure Macon would not be where its at without MU making it a better place. And one of the initiatives that they've been working on is making Macon and especially what they call the, "The College Hill Corridor", a place that is bike and pedestrian friendly. They want to do this because places where people bike and walk are more healthy and places where people really support local businesses; two very good things for any community. Car transportation often leads to businesses leaving a town. These racks and slowly appearing bike lanes are two ways that Mercer is trying to get bikes into their "Corridor". They also do this really neat bike share program where you rent a bike for something like $40 a year.</i> </div>
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<i>The sign for our current Breakfast Mecca. Although, I miss our beloved Joshua's Cup of days gone by and do wish I could have taken Ford there more than once. Jittery's offers a nice alternative. And on Sunday mornings FH and I usually have the place to ourselves or pretty close to it. There may be a few college kids there pretending to study (aka: looking at Facebook or Instagram) or one lone med or law student actually studying, but usually it is just us and we go crazy. And if there are people there, I feel like I'm a living PSA announcement for the college kids there. </i></div>
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<i>The menu at the Joe's. Who doesn't love a chalkboard menu.? They change it. They add little clever items and funny doodles. It is a great little menu and they seem to have something for coffee lovers and haters alike. And the prices are pretty reasonable. </i></div>
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<i>The display case that FH has titled the, "Yummmm!, Yummy!, Yummmm!" case. We always order the same way each time. I get two cinnamon apple scones for FH & me, a cup of water, and a cup of regular coffee with room (lots of it) for half and half. It sets us back about $6 or so dollars, but to me it is money well spent. The other baked goods are just that good, but scones are where we pitch our taste bud tent. They are big enough to just need one and FH likes them the best. When he was much younger, he shared one with me, but he has quickly grown up to eating almost a whole one himself. Most Sunday's, we order two of their great (and big) breakfast sandwiches to go and Mel, FH, and I eat on those as we get ready for church. Our church starts at 11:15 and that is a huge blessing. And to be honest, if it were earlier, I'm afraid we'd just not make it most days. Yes, we love God. Yes, we think it is so important to not forsake the community of believers, but we also have a 21 month old who wakes up early and by the time it is time for Sunday School/Church, is already needing to lay down for his first nap and if he misses that will usually not make his afternoon nap and if FH misses both naps, he usually won't go to sleep till 11 or 12 pm no matter what "putting to a child to sleep" method you proclaim to use. </i></div>
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<i>What would an independent coffee shop be without a hint or more of nerdiness, smugness, and that oh' so easy to do jab and "The Establishment" that Starbucks is in the land of coffee houses? FH wishes that would lose the nerdiness and just draw animal shapes; especially spiders, snakes, and elephants. </i></div>
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<i>The Sunday morning selfie. </i></div>
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<i>Sometimes, you just need the big cup of water. </i></div>
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<i>The Sunday morning breakfast meal du jour.</i> </div>
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<i>The very delicious and edible cinnamon apple scone. We get it warmed up so it is soft to eat. FH is glad they have started giving us two forks. You get more of the scone when you control the input. He gets that part of economics. </i></div>
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<i>Most mornings there just isn't time to both talk and eat, so we just eat first and then point at things. </i></div>
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<i>The Jittery Joe's Breakfast Club. Move over Emilio and Judd, FH and I are here to stay. </i></div>
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<i>Maybe this is how most of the people who know me feel. I have talked them into doing something that they really don't want to do and then are caught in the middle of it and really wish there was some way to rewind the moment and begin again by telling me that they're afraid that they just can't make it to....I love the breakfast ride, but from the looks of it FH wishes that things were different. I promise that he does like it or at least the riding part. He's only a ham sometimes in front of the camera. Or maybe, he's like me and wishes that the bike ride home didn't always feel so short. </i></div>
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<i> </i>As you already know, I love riding with FH on the bike. Each time is a great and happy time for me. Each ride is special to me. I hope when he is older he will remember our rides. I hope we will get to ride together for a very long time. I always love the Sabbath. It is my favorite day. I can't wait till FH gets older and we can really start establishing some Sabbath day traditions. We've already started a few and they are great. </div>
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<br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-74414142571864490022014-01-31T07:00:00.000-05:002014-01-31T07:15:56.665-05:00Snow in the Sink and Some Other Creative Titles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgzWkXaLbxDhH9CsJgLFpUGzDs5tLM53RABGqhi2mBAIhWpWBIQPywcAxHhWgc9XUOJT6f-C5IXo-GzGi0laCfLZOGjS8h8I2W-9CY2Ph_wKibT5ya0vMyZmLepBeD5eKXhFHMYYMIN5o/s1600/h49C63FAC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgzWkXaLbxDhH9CsJgLFpUGzDs5tLM53RABGqhi2mBAIhWpWBIQPywcAxHhWgc9XUOJT6f-C5IXo-GzGi0laCfLZOGjS8h8I2W-9CY2Ph_wKibT5ya0vMyZmLepBeD5eKXhFHMYYMIN5o/s1600/h49C63FAC.jpeg" height="362" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, you're bored...we get that. It's snowing and literally below freezing outside and there's not that much to do inside. And the shaman (aka weatherman) says it's here to stay! Well, there is a lot to do, except you've got yourself a toddler, so doing much of anything is out of the question. We get that too. We're right in that special spot with you. And you've got that feeling that hits you between the eyes when your spouse leaves you at the table with the in-laws and everything has already been talked about and they ask about work again, or your boss makes a joke about something controversial, or you decide to eat a dairy product before you hit the hay forgetting how costly that was last time. We've been there too. And we know you've watched so much Curious George that you're starting to think that the Man in the Yellow Hat must be a trust fund baby and that there seems to be more going between him that lady scientist that he is telling little George and that Dr. Pizza may be a smart guy, but not exactly doing science on what most people call the up and up. And we know probably you're looking online for jobs on the island of Sodor because you can be vain AND cheeky and still be considered useful, fun, and lovable too. We know because we are too. So...it is time for a plan of action and we've got one for you. It's fairly easy and we'll outline all the necessary steps in order to make it a success. And remember to make mental notes of anything funny or anecdotal that happens and file it away in the file you have to return to when your spouse leaves you at the table with their boss and co-workers to use the facilities and the conversation has come to a standstill. Well, here we go:<br />
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<b><i>Step One: Find Several Good Snow Sources.</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZciS2umzXsdwRq6qUB-Lpfp-hJQmDUUy4KXnh1utvf0zoBgYWcH2Rx5zPyMnFb8MsOAC504HH7nfZii1JzYcggSROakUdx35BOesKM7xOTwbP-Ox6bHlJbea0GqZF81i3IbMUxm0nSTg/s1600/IMG_3226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZciS2umzXsdwRq6qUB-Lpfp-hJQmDUUy4KXnh1utvf0zoBgYWcH2Rx5zPyMnFb8MsOAC504HH7nfZii1JzYcggSROakUdx35BOesKM7xOTwbP-Ox6bHlJbea0GqZF81i3IbMUxm0nSTg/s1600/IMG_3226.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 2: Locate Meddling Toddler.</i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjGidMbyUgbQi0DsTzK03bUPuu5cgbdvr-cDmGyFx9Q0Vl_wksFeAhEetuk1WHKiWwVdq0mEdxYxIzS2DuHpF68vOGhwvczQy-wjkwMV78ubhfp8nfSZnyMdOJuJ8JnSIsOT6cIqungA/s1600/IMG_3234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjGidMbyUgbQi0DsTzK03bUPuu5cgbdvr-cDmGyFx9Q0Vl_wksFeAhEetuk1WHKiWwVdq0mEdxYxIzS2DuHpF68vOGhwvczQy-wjkwMV78ubhfp8nfSZnyMdOJuJ8JnSIsOT6cIqungA/s1600/IMG_3234.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 3: Stick Meddling Toddler In Front Of A TV So Close And Tell Him The Engines Have Something Special To Tell Him, But He Has To Be Close To Hear It. </i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqQ2W7v8lZbXjLDw1w1c5_romosUFRLjSDL1uwgJOW13ehCdXK1lctKyIUUnB-2pKNWV5ne_MN0LU0Y3VJX5YkvcWN660R65z2QDtud-QMLtcm53WRSOy6q6Y7oJD8pHXa3VwT2kk1SQ/s1600/IMG_3236.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqQ2W7v8lZbXjLDw1w1c5_romosUFRLjSDL1uwgJOW13ehCdXK1lctKyIUUnB-2pKNWV5ne_MN0LU0Y3VJX5YkvcWN660R65z2QDtud-QMLtcm53WRSOy6q6Y7oJD8pHXa3VwT2kk1SQ/s1600/IMG_3236.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 4: Round Up A "Snow Gathering Apparatus & Container". </i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHFP2B3VfBjnW18TT405j3rivNXOf7UQbOCYVf_mo4mxjbcaCm9UaquCvx4sDD2Y5mvgcZxG3G1W3cNVK-XTo8meiC0wr6r63PbDESTtGIXjcoZukk_XAok-XH3rWkS5sENEN306wjaM/s1600/IMG_3227.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHHFP2B3VfBjnW18TT405j3rivNXOf7UQbOCYVf_mo4mxjbcaCm9UaquCvx4sDD2Y5mvgcZxG3G1W3cNVK-XTo8meiC0wr6r63PbDESTtGIXjcoZukk_XAok-XH3rWkS5sENEN306wjaM/s1600/IMG_3227.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><b>Step 5: Fill Container Full & Empty It. </b></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIcvRYzLpm5GMY03c_qH85RVQxG_4vXaQxKBDQe0m78-b0PutR6vGPYOHw6RD_CYMoavgTE8riRfBHtjVgtxK1dDkVJ96K1a4JItuCocS5ztKQyN87WbPKREJfjNf1q3RIleRgxBuZ3E/s1600/IMG_3228.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIcvRYzLpm5GMY03c_qH85RVQxG_4vXaQxKBDQe0m78-b0PutR6vGPYOHw6RD_CYMoavgTE8riRfBHtjVgtxK1dDkVJ96K1a4JItuCocS5ztKQyN87WbPKREJfjNf1q3RIleRgxBuZ3E/s1600/IMG_3228.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 6: Wear Weather Appropriate Footwear. </i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEuBBx5KCF32alLCWquwpvA58IALYasDmAA_AeKC1UQsQy21-pxaUTYyvW2Gb9zAcMXn2NAUDm4UgB3YsTiVmajjE4nZAYdsVr3_EQZ3o7TW6JNHHfsLbeo2QE1KOgtJ6USz0kWSexyNU/s1600/IMG_3233.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEuBBx5KCF32alLCWquwpvA58IALYasDmAA_AeKC1UQsQy21-pxaUTYyvW2Gb9zAcMXn2NAUDm4UgB3YsTiVmajjE4nZAYdsVr3_EQZ3o7TW6JNHHfsLbeo2QE1KOgtJ6USz0kWSexyNU/s1600/IMG_3233.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 7: Find Larger Container.</i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigrZsOZWNXy4ioAfAm9wxkNk-SYSPoRdzF6AXUzYNnX1GrHOJW0oBq6iJSOb7CUqTH4K3mqa9U6_roKIslOSr9x2wVWriE1D2Kj-Lu5S2HJ6pxzHdQYqMUT62C08KzwEFB025S7gd7cmU/s1600/IMG_3229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigrZsOZWNXy4ioAfAm9wxkNk-SYSPoRdzF6AXUzYNnX1GrHOJW0oBq6iJSOb7CUqTH4K3mqa9U6_roKIslOSr9x2wVWriE1D2Kj-Lu5S2HJ6pxzHdQYqMUT62C08KzwEFB025S7gd7cmU/s1600/IMG_3229.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Step 8: Fill It Quickly While Repeatedly Checking On Meddling Toddler Who Is No Longer Watching Engines, But Rather Crying At The Front Door. </i></b></div>
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<i><b>Step 9: Empty Container Into Sink. Make Sure Sink Is Surrounded By Dirty Dishes. </b></i><br />
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<b>Step 10: Locate And Set Up OSHA Approved Staging Area. Allow Meddling Toddler To Climb Unsupervised. </b></div>
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<b><i>Step 11: Get Your Favorite Pandora Station Dialed In And Make Sure Meddling Toddler Dances To The Music. </i></b></div>
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<b><i>Step 12: Pour Yourself A Tall Cup Of Highly Caffeinated Coffee. </i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGwQQm-unJM3F_iGimf4TcFck9rTeeqGw7Uag3Ix9rC4-cIVRp3E37jvLFp6YG7Tjb0B2u_yNnqCTjdhY7vXST3vNvfsiu7JSxk8K0feGazxXpq2C9x8pf621Uh5mTt7KKLC-l1PpCsx4/s1600/IMG_3255.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGwQQm-unJM3F_iGimf4TcFck9rTeeqGw7Uag3Ix9rC4-cIVRp3E37jvLFp6YG7Tjb0B2u_yNnqCTjdhY7vXST3vNvfsiu7JSxk8K0feGazxXpq2C9x8pf621Uh5mTt7KKLC-l1PpCsx4/s1600/IMG_3255.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><b>Step 13: Explain To Confused And Meddling Toddler How Fun It Is All Going To Be. Make Sure He Is Surrounded By #3 Days Worth Of "Snow Days" Dishes. </b></i></div>
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<b><i>Step 14: Place Meddling Toddler Onto The Ladder Just High Enough To Make His Mother Whence. Face Him Towards The Snow. </i></b></div>
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<b><i>Step 15: Give Him A Multitude Of Cooking Utensils To Play With. </i></b></div>
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<i><b>Step 16: Prepare For Quick And Abundant Avalanches Of Quickly Melting Snow. </b></i></div>
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<b><i>Step 17: Pour Yourself A Tall, Cold Glass of Apple Cider. </i></b></div>
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<i><b>Step 18: Monitor Meddling Toddler's Hand And Measure Their Redness. </b></i></div>
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<b><i>Step 19: Add Cups, Cars, Tractors, And Other Toys To Increase Longevity Of "Snow In The Sink" Time. </i></b></div>
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<b><i>Step 20: Use Your Surroundings To Heighten Level Of Enjoyment With Snow.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Step 21: Blame Melting Snow On Global Warming And Pretend To Be As Angry As Al Gore. Maybe Blame An SUV Or A Republican Or Both. "W" Always Seems To Be Enough. </i></b></div>
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<b><i>Step 21: Move Onto Next Activity Unit When Meddling Toddler Moves Away From Snow And Onto Driving Supped Up Bulldozer On The Back Of Chair. </i></b></div>
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Happy reading and even happier fact that I just got to spend three full days with my sweet Mel and my sweet boy and not at work,</div>
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DAVID</div>
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9001539239224529055.post-64873889642930014182014-01-27T07:00:00.000-05:002014-01-27T07:00:06.541-05:00The (Not So) Big Crash of 2013<br />
When you have a ride like this, you don't leave it in the garage or in our case, the shed. FH and I have really been tearing the streets up the past eight months. We have put about 250-300 miles on the bike since we first put the seat on the back of the bike and had it tuned up by the great folks at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cherry-St-Cycles/111017915576344">Cherry Street Cycles</a>. And for those critics out there, that is not hyperbole, but rather something very close to the truth. If you do the math, that comes out to about 31 or so miles a month or a mere 7 or so miles a week. Our longest ride is 15 miles and our average is around 2-3 miles. Right now, we are living in what Mel calls the "polar vortex", so the mileage is at a slight stand still. We have gone out a few times, but we usually end up with a Fordsicle and we don't want that. Know we aren't really cruising along at high speeds, but we do keep it around 8-10 miles an hour and we plan on keeping that speed up. Let's just say we've got a three speed internal hub system and we know how to use it!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz0cOcWa6w0mOO0XIIw8x8cUEreD7TAO_pSTfDUUog-VZ7Q9d269yfbN5bhVErg8mJqItdxr6t7xM_PpI24176zYoUpjZFoQy4ZNThsvhkcKK_QaBtlQntPZ8ANk-nX8MGkx_H2Dw9ZI/s1600/IMG_2680.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz0cOcWa6w0mOO0XIIw8x8cUEreD7TAO_pSTfDUUog-VZ7Q9d269yfbN5bhVErg8mJqItdxr6t7xM_PpI24176zYoUpjZFoQy4ZNThsvhkcKK_QaBtlQntPZ8ANk-nX8MGkx_H2Dw9ZI/s1600/IMG_2680.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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And if you ride long enough and consistent enough to really get around it is almost a given that you will crash in some way. No, it won't be (we hope) getting hit by a car or totaling your bike in some near fatal wreck, but you will wreck. It is a given. If you ride exclusively on bike trails away from the trials of the city and motor traffic, then this is a very rare occurrence. But when you are riding the streets like FH, Mel, and myself do, then you will probably wreck the ole' two-wheeled stallion. It may be quick and almost harmless, but you will fall off, be thrown, get your tire caught in a rut, or just plain run into something. It won't happen often, but it will happen.<br />
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Riding a bike may be something that can be picked up rather easily as the old phrase goes, but if you've ridden for any length of time, you, like me, wonder where that phrase came from. You may never exactly forget how to ride, but riding alone is no piece of cake and chauffeuring a toddler ain't exactly child's play. I'm not in anyway complaining or making it seem anymore serious or technical than it actually is, but a cyclist must be on constant guard; even if it is just a five minute ride around the neighborhood. There are cars, trucks, SUV's, high school drivers, private school moms, delivery drivers, rednecks, college girl drivers, police, 18 wheelers, etc and they are all paying attention to something else and most of them don't want you sharing the road with them. Throw in a couple of bad paving jobs, potholes, broken glass, elderly drivers, dogs, and trash cans on the sidewalk and you have yourself a place ripe for a mishap! And all of that finally caught up with FH and me.<br />
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<i>The way the great beast looks now. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL86YtvuOCLTwFLC7W95ybED1rpJ9V0MsJ-oLTd2EbxLKFT_1OKkb_Isc0nqosMSFsChhLN7CeHap5H4hY6JCIgWGO1aWcd1IjBro11lrpIwvNSuVPvIpd81e3HkGdUJDLnVoqgkKpw0I/s1600/DSC02156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL86YtvuOCLTwFLC7W95ybED1rpJ9V0MsJ-oLTd2EbxLKFT_1OKkb_Isc0nqosMSFsChhLN7CeHap5H4hY6JCIgWGO1aWcd1IjBro11lrpIwvNSuVPvIpd81e3HkGdUJDLnVoqgkKpw0I/s1600/DSC02156.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>The way the great beast looked. </i></div>
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And so it finally happened to us. I used to wonder how it would happen and hoped it would be practically painless and far way from heavy traffic and to my surprise, I got all my wishes. We were heading home at the fading of the twilight hours and I was pointing out some lights to FH and all of the sudden my knee hurt like mad, the bike stopped, we lunged forward, and FH let out a very loud, "uh, oh!". We didn't lay the bike down and we didn't have the bike on top of us and we didn't have scrapes on our helmets. We had just run into the back of a solid black trailer that was parked on the street. Our grocery basket had saved us! We wouldn't have been so lucky had we fallen prey to the laughs of those we pass at times, but we kept the basket on and it saved us; all except my knee. Here are a few shots of the basket. You can see we dented it pretty well, but that's what happens when you crash an aluminum basket into a steel trailer at 11 mph. If you were wondering, we didn't even put a scratch on the trailer. </div>
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<i>From the side. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLSEo5sj69hC8X0ePHDRBCGVSrGbJsw_qhMTarFjGWFtbU2mH2Kjl-1YPkiUdz8fPaRXSvlWhA20xo-Yu1PM9CYl8CwZy579Lp7VekOBjzHFf-KWubUumuGK4rvzxkKpPDkeo0VCnBvs/s1600/DSC02207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLSEo5sj69hC8X0ePHDRBCGVSrGbJsw_qhMTarFjGWFtbU2mH2Kjl-1YPkiUdz8fPaRXSvlWhA20xo-Yu1PM9CYl8CwZy579Lp7VekOBjzHFf-KWubUumuGK4rvzxkKpPDkeo0VCnBvs/s1600/DSC02207.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>The shattered apparatus that attaches to the handlebars and that you attach the bike to. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbrEbIMY_exdf8MWtw00nOpGzfug1zeobxCZ5XEt4fJVyXedECIevJBisYJ0SRoySEAOnfQ8EjxmLEjcUtzd67C7NBDWDd8e-144BjTDDNZMyLw22nntH3cDLcnnh9JUxRscWsILCtHRY/s1600/DSC02208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbrEbIMY_exdf8MWtw00nOpGzfug1zeobxCZ5XEt4fJVyXedECIevJBisYJ0SRoySEAOnfQ8EjxmLEjcUtzd67C7NBDWDd8e-144BjTDDNZMyLw22nntH3cDLcnnh9JUxRscWsILCtHRY/s1600/DSC02208.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A top and angled view. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYD-WXzKwvQFgFcMtJxy4G1n5_jeLZASvmoZP7Av3nG1cWSKYVvDYs6Rn-Nf70gDom0EIVKlXHARR5w9ahyiOrV3PW_v5-nzMxaRVVE-fBvX7TkhQhxgkQhzCUW6JUOHBgIUOQY3H7d3Q/s1600/DSC02209.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYD-WXzKwvQFgFcMtJxy4G1n5_jeLZASvmoZP7Av3nG1cWSKYVvDYs6Rn-Nf70gDom0EIVKlXHARR5w9ahyiOrV3PW_v5-nzMxaRVVE-fBvX7TkhQhxgkQhzCUW6JUOHBgIUOQY3H7d3Q/s1600/DSC02209.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A view from the top down. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCioDDP6wfjriDJLZLs2O4HAqPkckrRQmaIenwOhPRB6d_tb86ELGTfW70bTjrhC7Iikiw1HJwQ3p_tqzHeX2WUgX2KcHIoPAvxuLOqyXL3X9RXvlhCTPE0L_0JQIIAJ0i3N3HhxVbUgo/s1600/DSC02210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCioDDP6wfjriDJLZLs2O4HAqPkckrRQmaIenwOhPRB6d_tb86ELGTfW70bTjrhC7Iikiw1HJwQ3p_tqzHeX2WUgX2KcHIoPAvxuLOqyXL3X9RXvlhCTPE0L_0JQIIAJ0i3N3HhxVbUgo/s1600/DSC02210.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A front view. </i></div>
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We are fine and we've been fine. The scrape on my knee didn't amount to much minus a few days of pain and a surface scratch. FH was unharmed and thought it was funny. We threw the basket away and are riding with an old, steel locker basket attached with green speed ties at the moment (Locker basket 55 to be exact). Another front basket is in the works. Once you start riding with a basket and use it on a regular basis, then riding without one is hardly an option. Where are we supposed to carry our snacks and do you think we were going to leave home without them? FH and I hardly think we're going to be doing any such thing. You are free do so, but we aren't leaving anywhere without a few necessities and we surely aren't going to start wearing a backpack or something. We are basket men and we plan on staying that way. Our next basket is going to be a Wald basket and we're going to sport it with pride. What do you think?<br />
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<i>Silver or black? </i></div>
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Happy reading and happy, but safe riding,<br />
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DAVID<br />
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Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03191529886279873453noreply@blogger.com1