Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, October 31, 2002

Clueless

Ok, so I haven't ranted in a while but I think it may be time to go off a bit. What ever happened to the idea that there is a world outside of person's own little bubble. I am amazed at how unaware many people are as to what's going on around them. An example is going to WallyWorld. I mean I'm navigating my buggy (that's what they call them down here in the south...a buggy...not a cart...a buggy) down some isle of shiny junk when someone pulls out of side isle right in front of me. Now I recognize that this sort of thing is going to happen from time to time. What gets me is that the person doesn't recognize that I'm there and then stops, effectively blocking the entire lane while they examine the shopping equivalent of their belly button lint. A softly cleared throat or excuse me does nothing to remedy the situation. The person is totally in their own little cosmosphere receiving no input from the rest of reality. Usually I find myself amused the first time this happens. What gets to me is when it happens for the fifth, six and seventh time. I'm not making this up. Everytime we subject ourselves to the mind-wrenching experience of 10,00 sq. feet of consumerism this occurs. Why are people so clueless?

In some ways it's worse here at the school. If I attempt to walk to a class in an enclosed hallway at any pace slightly greater than glacial crawl I inevitably encounter a couple of students walking side by side talking about the lastest episode in the residence halls. Repeated attempts to gain their attention only results in an uncomprehending stare. Worse is the prospect of going up and down stairs. Frequently you get people who decide to stop and deliver entire Shakespearian monologues to their companions while the traffic snare of others trying to get somewhere piles up around them. Only after several people push around the pair that are stuck like pieces of human cholestorol to the academic artery do they begin to realize that their prolonged mental vacation has the traffic helicopters circling overhead warning of 45 minute delays and road rage of homeric proportions. I understand that most teenagers think the world revolves round them but we seem to have moved to idea that there is no world around them. The world consists only of their experience. I'm sure a philosopher would have a field day with the implications of that.

If you have any insights as to why this has happened, feel free to help me come to grips with this.

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Wednesday, October 30, 2002

LabTime Fun

I'm hanging out with my Physical Science class while they learn about motion. They're moving in front of the motion detectors and there are a lot of smiles and a lot of laughter. Regular students, learning physics, having fun. Who would have thought it. A big part of the fun is due to the computers and interfaces that allow them to graph their motion in live time. They get to see what their moving produces without all of the math getting in the way. This stuff, combined with a simulation package that we'll use in a couple of days, will get them feeling good about motion. Hopefully, they'll begin to get an intuitive feel for distance, position, speed and velocity. In time they won't think it's quite so much fun but the happy faces are good right now.

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Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Digging Around in the Greek

Over the last week or so I've begun digging around in the Greek that makes up the Bible and I'm finding the exercise really interesting. The motivation for the study is a devotional I write for the Christian college group I'm the Faculty Advisor for. A couple of weeks ago I started to work through Chapter 12 of Romans (Therefore, offer yourselves as living sacrifices...). As I got to verse 9 I relaize I really wanted to know the meaning of a specific work in the text. So I went to my favorite on-line greek resource, www.greekbible.com, to check it out. Well one thing led to another and all of the sudden I'm retranslating the text because I don't think the NIV really gets at what Paul is trying to say. Now, I'm workign my way through the restof the chapter seeing what I can find.

While I'm not ready to say that the NIV or some other translation has gotten it wrong, I do wonder how much they took context into account when they put things together. Now, I'm not a linguist or a Biblical scholar or anything like that so you probably shouldn't put a lot of stock in anything I say, but I'm really beginning to wonder if some of these guys got it right. When I look at what Paul wrote, I see that he's got a lot more going on that the translation seems to convey. It's hard to give an example right now but I think I'm going to have to sit down with a Ancient Greek-English dictionary and work through the entire passage to see what I come up with. It's almost like there are two paths Paul could have been wanting his readers to take with the passage. Probably he really wanted us to consider both paths but that feeling's totally lost when the Greek gets turned into English. There also seems to be a lot of wordplay in the writing that is lost as well. Its hard to say though as the original Greek is all in capitals with no spaces or punctuation (you'd think a culture as sharp as the Greeks would have invented the space, of course you'd also think the Romans could have invented real numbers and a zero but they missed that boat too).

Really, really interesting stuff.

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Thursday, October 24, 2002

Uh-Oh

Blogger/BlogSpot seems to have issues again. Actually it seems to be BlogSpot now. I can post but any changes I make seem to be not making it to the web page. Hmmm....this could become annoying.

Whoops...things seem to be better now. Weird.

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Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Back to Where I was Before

Hey, Hey, Hey! As you will notice, things here at Run the Race central are back up to snuff. Thanks to the fine work of my wife, the comments section and the links are up for your browsing and commenting pleasure. One of these days I'm even going to get around to making the archives available and you'll be able to relive some of this forum's finest moments.

A brief weekend update for those here in the central Georgia area. If you get a chance to visit Dauset Trails, take the opportunity. If you get a chance to take your mountain bike along for the trip, do that as well. If you can take your wife, I also highly recommend that. Kids? I'm not experienced along those lines, but I'm sure they would be fine too. Pets? Those are right out. Anyways, the place is really, really nice. The mountain biking is as fine as any you'll find in the area. The trails wind through some amazingly beautiful real estate, right up there with anything I hiked through in Oregon or Colorado. Throw in the wonderful fact that there is a trail for every skill level and you understand why I want to go back on a weekly basis. As with all of my MTB rides I did bleed a bit and I did ride through some water (I got off the trail unintentionally) and I had a great time. Top it all off with some great eats in High Falls and Saturday was just about as perfect a day as I can ask for. The only drawback was flatting out the front tire on my bike without a spare tube but that was near the end of the day and so wasn't so bad.

On a related note, the new Specialized M4 Stumpjumper is a dream. Wow. I don't think I've ever owned the top of the line anything before and I can see how people might get addicted. Especially if you can get it at a middle of the line price. Kudos to Nate at Bike Tech of Macon for the recommendation and the setup. At 21 lbs, the bike has handled everything I've thrown at it. When I finally get decent at riding the thing, I'll be "The Monster". Actually, I've been thinking about a cycling nickname. All the greats have one. Lance is "Big Tex", Eddie was "The Cannibal", Pantani goes by "Il Pirata". The problem is that you're supposed to wait until someone gives you a nick. I don't feel like waiting. I like the name, "The Fox" I think. I like the chase of a good bike race, especially when I'm being chased. I like running through the woods all fast and quiet and strong. I like that I can be cunning and clever. I like the lyrics in the Nickel Creek tune, "The Fox", where the fox sneeks away with the prize and feasts. I like wearing and riding red and silver and black. Who knows, maybe someone will bestow me the nick.

Finally, I think I may need to change the name of my road bike from The Steed to Frankenbike. I've mixed and matched some many different parts I think it's starting to get scary. I've upgraded the triple ring to a double. The new carbon fiber fork from Roberto is weave black and is from a Bianchi frame (labels taped over). I've got one silver pedal and one red one from two different sets due to breakage. I've got a black stem attached to a silver bar. I wonder if I need to hook the bike up to a couple of lightning rods to fuse it all back together. The amazing thing though is that the bike still has the same soul, just lighter and faster. Maybe Frankensteed then.

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Friday, October 18, 2002

Template Woes

OK, so I've been gone from blog land now longer than the Democratic party has spoken with a coherent voice in National politcs. Well, maybe not that long, but a long time anyways. It seems that Blogspot, the fine host of this collection of rants and ramblings, decided to hate my wonderful template. I'm not sure why it decided this, but it did. This state of emnity between the template code and the host rendered me unable to post. You gotta hate it when that happens. Worse than unsightly nose hair actually. So, I decide to troubleshoot the problem and when I try to load the template to poke around with it, blogger hates it even worse. I mean, at least blogspot will continue to show my old template with my old posts. I just can't add anything new. Blogger, the place that actually lets me write and modify things, won't even load up the template to begin with. My template and Blogger were acting like Mathra Stewart and Oprah in a "Good Thing" death match over napkin folding patterns (only with fewer fake smiles between the jabs and barbs). So, Blogger offers me the alluring option of choosing a new template. This is exciting! Like a new car, only cheaper and without all those sleepless nights that come with financing worries. So I choose that option and am given dozens of options to pick from. It's really like getting a new car now, lots of different makes and models in zippy colors and beautiful lines. Well, actually, most of them were pretty ugly. Big blocks of color seem to be "in" right now. I thought the Bauhuas movement had died stylistically but I guess no one told the folks who run Blogger that. So maybe my choices where not as varied as I had thought but surely I'd find something new and exciting to breathe new life into my blog. As I looked over the offerings though, lo and behold, what do I come across but my old template. And you know what? I still liked it the best. It just fit me. I mean, it's not what I would design for me but hey, picking one of theirs meant a lot less work for me. So, I'm like good to go and so I do. Click on the template and things are fixed until I notice that I've lost my links to other blogs. And then I notice I've lost my comments thingy too. Bummer. Oh well, at least I'm able to post again. I'll work out the rest soon. For now, enjoy the new and freely flowing content.

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Thursday, October 10, 2002

Odds and Ends
It’s been quite a while since I posted a missive to this well intentioned but somewhat misguided forum. I don’t really have an excuse other than to say that life has a way of getting busy from time to time.

A Mile(anhour)stone
Those of you who are either bored or mentally derainged enough to read this site on a regular basis will recall that I set a goal of riding a time trial at 25 mph. A couple of weeks ago, I took an important step in that direction. After a month of focused time trial training I went out and tested my fitness using the same method as Lance Armstrong. I rode two three mile time trials at maximum effort with a ten minute recovery period in between. The first (outbound) stretch resulted in a 25 mph average. After the recovery time, the second (inbound) stretch was ridden at an average of 26.2 mph. While these distances are short for a real time trial (usually between 7-10 miles for Cat 5 riders) I’m pretty encouraged by the speed.

Healing Slowly
Another update is that I am healing up from the injuries suffered during my recent foray into mountain bike racing. Progress has been slow with my rib just now not hurting everytime I roll over in bed. Just a word of advice: Try to avoid cracking a rib when doing those things that seem like they’d be so much fun before you do them. I have gotten back on the MTB and had a good ride at Camp Thunder but I need to go slow. I felt like I had set my recovery back a week from all the pounding I took.

Hurricane Watching
With all the tropical activity over the last couple of weeks, I feel as if I’ve become a hurricane junkie. First Hanna stopped by for a somewhat soggy visit. Apparently, word got out that we weren’t very hospitable here in Central Georgia (at least as far as large spinning conglomerations of tropical energy are concerned) as Isodore played coy soon after. Finally, Lili almost completely ignored us for the more inviting environs of Louisiana. During this time though, I spent enough time looking at NOAA forecasts, NWS prediction models and NHC discussion synopses that I think I should earn an honorary degree or something. Now that things have settled down, I’m wondering what on Earth I’m going to do with all that time.

Halloween Costumes
As Halloween approached, my wife and some of our students have begun the yearly quest for a really cool costume. While observing this activity with only somewhat restrained amusement, I have begun to wonder what I shall be for this most overdressed of occasions. When I ask people what they think, their first response is something like, “You could go as a cyclist.” I thought the point was to pretend to be something you’re not. My wife and I toyed with the idea of going as Christian and Satine from Moulin Rouge. I thought that it might be cool to do the poor Bohemian writer schtick. Kathy, however, found a really cool bat mask so that idea is now out. I could look to try to do the very ultrahip Matrix look, complete with black hair dye and long, dark trenchcoat chic. I’m afraid that no one will get it though. The Matrix, at least until Reloaded comes out, was so 1999. So I’m at a bit of a loss. Whatever shall I be? Feel free to leave helpful/nonsarcastic suggestions in the “unburden yourself” section of our program.

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