Done: KM Goals for May

Last night I passed the 550 km mark for May and this morning I passed the 950 km mark for the year. The means I'm in synch with the plan. That's good news cause even though we didn't get the traditional freak May snow storm, we did get wet cold weather at the start and end of the month and I was still able to hit the 550 goal. The best month I ever recall was 585, so 550 every month is a challenge, but that's what I was looking for.

I had some fun yesterday taking pics of me ridding through some water on the trail in Fish Creek. Click on the pic for a better view.

- Peace

Relax and Receive

Eugene H. Peterson on Contemplation

The imposibility of evaluatiom, at least self-evaluation, releases us into a great freedom as we read these Holy Scriptures and struggle toenjoy and receive them. We will not try too hard. We will not set outselves perfectionist goals. We won't take over. We won't inist on themeasured progress. We won't compete. Having read and meditated and prayed and continuing to read and meditate and pray, we will step backand bless, love and obey, and breathe "let it be to me according to your word." Relax and receive.

Eat This Book, page 116.

- Peace

Park, City, Sky

Things I learned from watching the Davinci Code

1. I miss the X Files, I really do
2. A triangle is never just a triangle
   
3. The Church and Women in general would be better off if we just embraced ritualistic sex

- Peace

Jesus' First Miracle

The first Miracle of Jesus recorded in the Gospels is when he turned water into wine at a party. The text refers to this as "the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." I've heard this referred to as Jesus' first public miracle, but never stopped to wonder about his private miracles. I think the story implies that there were things that happened before from how Marry acts

When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."

"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come."

His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Marry just expects her son to be able to deal with this, and that he will have the servants do things. Many of Jesus' miracles involve a pattern of people following instructions. It seems Marry is acquainted with this pattern already. If this is Jesus' first public miracle, I can't be the first to think along these lines.

Just a thought that hit me on Sunday. I have no particular significance to attach to it, other than I hadn't thought of it that way before. Oh the random tangents that can occur to me during a sermon.

- Peace

Mike's New Song - Will you love?

Will you love one another, give to your brother
Pray for another when he is not strong

Will your enemies find you forgiving, know for whom you’re living
We pray your will on Earth as in heaven be done

Let Your love live in our hands
Let Your love live in our mouths
Let Your love live in our hearts
If we’re spending eternity together
Now’s a good time to start.


Now the world needs a sign, you say.“It’s about time”
How ‘bout “Not my will but thine”, how ‘bout a little sacrifice.

It’s not a typical revolution, but if you’ll follow this resolution
It will be the solution, they’ll know you belong to Christ

Let Your love live in our hands
Let Your love live in our mouths
Let Your love live in our hearts
If we’re spending eternity together
Now’s a good time to start.

~~~~

So what do you think?

Sunset Cross

First Mosquito Swallowed

Must be summer, it's quater to nine and it's 24°C (75°F) out side and I swallowed my fist mosquito for 2006 on the ride home.

- Peace

Gnostics and History

Eugene H. Peterson on the formation of the Bible.

Not everybody agreed on what was done: the vote was not unanimous. There were factions that wanted nothing to do with the old Hebrew scrools. They argued that the God inevidence in those old books was not even remotely connected with the God in revealed and preached by Jesus. And there were other factions (various groups of gnostics) who wen to the other extreame - they wanted to include anything that looked good, that promised an "inside" message, from amonght the many spiritual texts being written. "Insider" and "uplift" spiritualities were as popular then as they are now. But bit by bit the Christian community sifted ot the sensational and the silly and were bold to designate their consensus as God's word.

p 25 Eat This Book.

In high school a friend loaned me The Gnostic Gospels, as she thought it would challenge my traditional beliefs. While an interesting read, it wasn't much of a challenge as the book freely admits the gnostics were not interested in history, nor was the author of the book. The Gnostic s are hot again with National Geographic doing a big feature on the 'Gospel of Judas' and Davinci Code Movie being released. So I apreciated reading the above section in Eat This Book as I haven't looked into the Gnostics since high school and I was wondering if my assement had been off. The material I read on the 'Gospel of Judas' seemed to fit with my earlier understanding, but it had been many years ago. It's nice to have someone you respect and trust come along and say something you were thinking.

- Peace

Slinky Photo Fun

see the rest.

- Peace

Best Time to Work this Year, first time under an hour

I made to work taking only 56 minutes of riding. For comparison, Tuesday's ride was 64 minutes. Today I had 19.1 km/h average speed, last year I only made it over 20 km/h average once. There was a 5 km headwind, so it's not like it I had a great tail wind. I think not riding yesterday had a lot to do with it. Giving my body a break after doing 100 km in three days seems to have done wonders. I'm still feeling the endorphins :)

BTW I'm at 192 km for the month and 569 km for the year, so unless something goes horribly wrong I should be able to catch up with the plan.

- Peace

Optical Ilusion

It looks wider at the top than the bottom.

Freaky eh?

- Peace

100 Top Living Song Writers

Paste is building a list of the 100 best living songwriters. Here are the ones I chose from the list:

• B.B. King
  
• Bill Mallonee (Vigilantes of Love)
  
• Bob Dylan
  
• Bruce Cockburn
  
• Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes)
  
• King's X
  
• Leonard Cohen
  
• Loudon Wainwright III
  
• Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)
  
• Peter Case (The Plimsouls)
  
• R.E.M. (Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe)
  
• Sufjan Stevens
  
• T Bone Burnett
  
• Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)
  
• U2 (Bono, Edge, Mullins, Clayton)
  
• Van Morrison
  

I felf the need to write in

• The Choir,
  
• Steve Taylor,
  
• The Alarm
  
• Terry Scott Taylor
  

Who would you pick?

- Peace

Listening to The Alarm

The Alarm, a welsh band who was big on the alternative scene at the same time as U2 - pre Joshua Tree. U2 released Joshua Tree, ticked off their alternative fan base and went on to be one of the biggest bands in the world. The Alarm released Eye of the Hurricane, ticked off their alternative fan base and faded into obscurity after one Top 40 hit from their next record. That said I just picked up The Alarm best of cause I can't find any of my Alarm cds and it's filled with great alt rock anthems from back in the day.

yeah, I'm getting old.

- Peace

Goat Creek June 3rd, Are you in?

Rawleigh and I are getting our act together and will be riding Goat Creek Saturday June 3rd. Goat Creek runs mostly down hill from the Mountains just south of Canmore to Banff. Then we plan to take the highway back to Canmore. This makes for an easy 45 km trip, mostly double track nothing overly technical. If we took the trail back to Canmore I hear there is a 6km stretch that's really tough. I'll want to try that some time, just not this time.

I have the Element and with the bike rack can take three others with me. Only caveat is that my rack assumes a somewhat standard frame. I also have a bike rack that we use on the Carrolla, and it will fit a standard car, no hitch required. I'm willing to lend that out. Rawlie has his pick-up and can take one other person and a couple of bikes.

It would be good if we had enough extra capacity so we could leave a car in Canmore so we don't have to get a cab to take us back up to the trail head. It's at 1200 foot climb up a gravel road, no thank you. I will check with a cab company and see how much it would be if we need to.

Plan is to meet at the Alberta tourism centre at the North West End of Canmore at 9 am. The Tourism Center is just south east of the last Canmore exit off the Trans Canada. We'll then head up to the trail head and hope to be on the trail by 10:15. Ride into Banff is 19 km and will take a couple of hours. We stop, talk, take picutres etc. We'll then head back to Canmore via the highway and that's 25km, that will take about an hour and a half. We should be back in Canmore by 3 or 4 pm. We'll then dispatch the drivers to get the cars from the trail head and then head out for a bite to eat before heading back into Calgary.

If you're interested please let me know, if you have a car, need a ride. Please note while this is 45 km of mostly down hill and I describe my pace as hike and bike, this should not be your first ride of the season, unless you are in really good shape.

Your can see the satelite view of Goat Creek Trail on Google Maps.
Last year Rawleigh and I made the trip twice, check out the June and October pics.

If you'd like to come along leave a comment or drop me an email: djking@gmail.com.

- Peace

Calgary Tower

400km down, three days late

Passed the 400km mark on the ride home last night. That puts me past the 10% mark of my 3800 km goal and three days behind the plan. Looks like I may have to do some riding in December.

- Peace

Non-Compliance in an Economy of Exploitation, or...

...An Alternative Reading of the Parable of the Talents by Mike Todd. Interesting, can't say that I buy it. Jesus uses the harvest metaphor in plenty of places and ways so I don't see that the main argument works here. What did resonate is that he places the story in context with

It’s very interesting that this parable leads right into the Judgment of the Nations, otherwise known as the parable of the sheep and goats.

It trigger the thought that the sheep and goats gives a picture of what invtesting in the Kingdom looks like. Thanks Mike. BTW While I don't 'buy' the alternate reading, it's a good read and worth pondering.

- Peace

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content

Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.

A fascinating article from usability guru Jakob Nielsen. I wish more developers understood that people don't read, they react. Design is about helping people react well.

- Peace

Sarah

Despite some snow in the air we attended the Calgary April Flickr Meet Up on Sunday. This shot of Sarah is by The 10 cent designer.

- Peace