Marathon Traveling and Marathon Running

At precisely 4:56 PM last Monday I began a journey of 6,000 miles via plane, train, and automobile.
First, I packed up and drove the Mazda to my parent's house in West Virginia.

I camped out here for a day before my mom and sister dropped me off at the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. There were about 30 Amish folks there traveling en masse to Chicago with me and well got on the same car.


Elkhart, Indiana...minutes after being involved in an Amish pillow fight.


Union Station, Chicago


Milwaukee, Wisconsin


Near Madison, WI...1st amber wave of grain sighting.

Wisconsin Dells,WI...getting ruraler...train is temporarily stopped due to small herd of badgers.

 

Winona, Minnesota...Downtown Winona Minnesota...the...um...business district of downtown Winona.

Fargo, North Dakota

 

Rugby, North Dakota

 

Little house on the prairie.

More evidence of human overpopulation in North Dakota...if you look closely you'll see an old house about 5 miles away.

 

Perfectly flat dirt roads for dozens of miles. This is perfect training ground for ultra-marathon training and crop-circle making activities...still in North Dakota.

 

Train Literature, fascinating reading.

 

Havre, Montana...dinosaurs used to live here. Thank god and extinction they're on vacation.

 

Shelby, Montana

 

Columbia River, Washington.

 

(I didn't take any pictures whilst in Idaho as I was overcome with sleepiness)

 

Bingen-White Salmon, WA

 

Vancouver...the American one...we're getting closer.

 

Random Note#1: Dear Conductor-There's an old fellow snoring like the London Philharmonic warming up. My psychologist tells me I've Chronic Snoring Syndrome that causes me to go into violent spams of senior citizen choking yoga (his words, not mine). I propose we ditch him at Walla Walla where he can snore happily ever after.

Windmills on the Columbia River early Friday morning.

Mt. Hood, Oregon


Portland, OR...I shall

Random note#2...Amtrak baggage guy's name tag reads 'Hi...I'm Gregory Peck.' I think he's lying.

Finally, after nearly 60 hours on a train I arrived in Seattle.

 

In celebration of the up-coming election season I have decided to post some sentences from this neat random sentence generator I discovered whilst preparing a kiwi fruit/vanilla ice cream/ginger smoothie for dinner.

Ahem...

The drunk bird reiterates a wisest hobby.
When will the immortal flip beside the overall disco?
Inside your astronomy reacts the justifiable sauce.
The sitting beer fears the handy chicken.

The accountant grinds against a mailbox before the incapable cheek. How will the energy dictate after each wee cow? The inconsistent piece devastates a rot opposite a restricting elitist. Throughout the functioning midnight fails a cracking rag. Some of these, especially after drinking a third Monster Energy drink, seem almost mystic and carry hidden meanings.

One month from now you will find me standing in a crowd of 26,000 people wearing orange Adidas shorts and blue Adidas shoes. I'll be wearing sunglasses and chanting my private mantra,

"What the heck was I thinking, What the heck was I thinking, What the heck was I thinking."

Over and over again to the tune of the Beatle's Yellow Submarine.

At precisely 7 AM, I will commence running 26.2 miles through downtown Seattle and hopefully finish before collapsing somewhere near Pike Place Market. Come to think of it, I might just purposely collapse there since I love good seafood.

Seafood being defined as any creature with fins and scales. I don't consider lobsters, crabs, mussels, shrimp, or oysters as seafood. These creatures are called bait.

I do, however, like chicken livers...fried and sprinkled with organic goat cheese. Some people call chicken livers catfish bait, but I think they're confused. Why would a catfish eat a bird that inhabits hen houses? Bait is generally something that a creature would eat under normal circumstances. Bait for a human, for instance, would be a bacon cheeseburger. Women seeking husbands secretly know this which explains why at some point in every relationship a woman will drag a man into the nearest Arbys... is she's really interested in him.

My marathon training is going well. I'm running from 7-13 miles a day and vomiting, on average, every 8 miles. The synthetic thyroid hormone I'm taking every morning has made a pretty good improvement in my health. It does make one quite aggressive though.

Number of miles run today: 17
Number of carrots eaten today: 8
Amount of mg of caffeine consumed today: 300
Number of dairy cows that chased me today: 7

Dental Loot

The best thing about visiting the dentist every six months? Two words. Dental loot.

An Experiment in Carrots

"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution."
--Paul Cezanne

A wave of inspiration hit me today. An abstract wave, not a concrete aqueous one. I decided to start a revolution. Why? Umm..it’s a nice day out so,…I gathered many spices and herbs. Baptised them in olive oil. Mixed the solution with chopped carrots and baked them at 400 degrees. Twenty minutes later I burnt approximately 757 epithelial cells (commonly called taste buds…and in Mennonite Ville Central Virginia…taste friends) while tasting them.

On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being absolutely horrid and 5 being manna-from-heaven-delicious, I would give them the tangent of 74…in other words a B+.

Pre-herbed carrots.

Random Carrot Fact #1 The Spanish word for carrot is zanahoria, which also means nerd.

All the players

Mixed herbs and spices. I find it is best to use a tin can that was once used to store green tea. And if it has a picture of Jack Casady impersonating Buddha...so much better. (Atmosphere you know)

The final product. Note: I prefer to cook using cast iron skillets. The theory being when you cook, iron molecules are transferred from the skillet to the food, thus increasing the healthiness factor.

Random Carrot Fact #2 If cows eat too many carrots their milk tastes bitter.

I am spending my days reading philosophy/physics/theology books and pondering my role in the cosmos.

Am I really here?

Am I really just a compact mass of photons interacting with the fabric of space?

Lately I've decided that we're all 4-D actors running around on the stage called Earth while under the direct supervision of higher sentient beings. The ancients called them names like Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Gabriel, Michael, and Melchizedek. We don't believe in these fellows anymore because they're not empirically verifiable creatures and don't fit into our worldview. I like to think we are their pet creatures and like all pet owners know, you never interfere with a cat's life.

Last night I had a dream I lived in a trailer, with a pick-up truck, and a dog. In the back yard, beside the chickens, sat one of those stone giants from Easter Island...guarding the premises...intimidating the neighbors...basically just doing the 'speak softly and carry a big secret' thing. I don't know exactly what caused this dream, but I recall towards the end of it, there was a small earthquake and the Rapa Nui head fell onto the trailer. It was a total loss and I was forced to become an alpaca farmer in Idaho.

I have been to Idaho once. I don’t recall much about it as it was a dark and stormy night. Boise would be alright, but wintertime I'd have to migrate to southern CA and prune grapes or drive a bread truck or something.

Do you believe in fairy tales? You should. They are more true than you think. I see myself living in a house rather like this some day. There is something 'Wind in the Willows' about it.

Art is important

"If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed."

--Vaclav Havel, former President of Czechoslovakia and writer

Fan Talking

On hot days like today, what better to do than talk into the fan to hear your voice change?

Come on, we all did it when we were young...

Anxiety is a sign of spiritual immaturity. While I've not been feeling anxious, I have been feeling restless lately in my spirit. It is hard to say exactly why, but I feel like I need to make a significant change in Life...and fairly soon. I have spent the past few years (decade really) living a somewhat reclusive Robinson Crusoe type life. And although it is quite peaceful, I feel that I need to be around other people on a more consistent basis. I think (this is a little hard to admit) I am a bit too opinionated and interacting more with others will help. Perhaps living in a slightly different culture??? Hmmm...I wonder how my brain would react to hanging around some hippy California people...or living with a band of gypsies in Romania...or...hmm...becoming a gold prospector in Bolivia.

I must think about this.

A Day on the C and O Canal towpath

Yesterday. Westernport, Maryland. 18-mile-hike. Much walking. Much tiredness. Good weather.



One of the many small arches associated with the canal. This arch reminded me of the ruins of a medieval castle in Scotland and it got me thinking...All homes should have a rocky wall to give the place a sense of history.



Map of the Four Locks. By the Potomac River stands the remains of four lockhouses used to keep prisoners. For a few dollars one can stay overnight in one.




The sign reads, 'Danger-Dam Upstream' I could not help but think, 'As to the blessed upstream? Hmm...something strange is afoot on the Potomac...'




Reason #108 why people don't go on extended hikes with me.



The trail was literally covered with these blue flowers which looked like minature trumpets.



Close-up view of one of the blue trumpet flowers.







The road less traveled...except for week-ends and summer holidays.





Funky fungi on a Sycamore tree.





Waterfall over a dam. It looks like a minature Niagara.

"Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?"

"So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober."


— from a conversation between Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night

"Monarchy can easily be debunked; but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut; whom no rumor of the polyphony, the dance can reach—men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison."

— C.S. Lewis, from his essay “Equality” in Present Concerns

God requires of us what He has created us unable to effect without Him.
--George McDonald

God's ways are not our ways. We say we want to do right, when what we really mean is we want people to think we are right and feel good about ourselves.

People want to be in their right minds, but when they are at their most lucid, they sense the deep hollow cavern within the deepest part of their being and rush to fill it before sadness and regret wash in.

Men are not made to be evil. To be evil is un-human. Suffering and regret are what causes us to acknowledge something is seriously wrong with us. They are the functional equivalents of a computer virus. The laptop can run, but is never truly 100% reliable and liable to break down at any time. It needs a computer programmer to take the hard drive out and debug the system. The laptop is unable to de-bug itself. The best it can do is acknowledge a software glitch after running a systems check.

Creations and inventions of creators and artists cannot mend themselves. Paintings are created for art lovers, not for other paintings. To have a painting compare itself to another painting is meaningless. Art lovers give paintings their meaning and purpose, not vice versa.

Rare inventions have a specific purpose. The more quirky a gadget, the greater specificity it's job. Some jobs require a mind that is curious about everything. The same minds usually have a unique perspective into reality and show great influence over many people. Do-gooders and well-wishers often tell the quirky mind to settle down and join the crowd, but curiosity will prevent the quirky mind to restlessness with the status quo. They must travel, and explore, look for kindred souls to dance as partners in the Dance of Life, and of course they must capture the moments with pen and brush.

Why DO writers write and Dreamers dream? They have to. They must. Writers write to live. Something compels them. Some unknown force fans the the flame of their spirit and they must pick up the Z-grip medium black pen and scribble furiously.

It's breathing. It's food and exercise for their spirit man. For this were they made. What are words but useful tools to describe experiences that cannot truly be depicted. The spirit of a man knows more than the body and soul knows. The intuition, providing the spirit is in sync with the Holy Spirit, will always be correct. It is the mind that confuses things--especially if the man is overly rational. This is why overly educated people take forever to make a decision.

Women are more intuitive than men, are more in touch with their spirit, and more often than not know when a good decision should be made. I think men know this and are secretly happy to receive a women's advice even if they do not say in so many words. A Christian woman is infinitely valuable for her spirit is congruent with the Holy Spirit. And being much more intuitive and sensitive to the Holy Spirit can urge and nudge her husband (if she is married) into situations and places he should be going. When a man discovers such a woman, it would behoove him to acknowledge he's discovered a pearl of great price and (if he has any sense) try to win her heart. The tricky part is--the man knows the woman has infinite value and will rack his brain trying to come up with ideas to woo her...and probably become over-bearing and say non-sensical things. Hopefully, the woman will see through his short-comings and use wisdom to deal with him.

2012

This summer go on an urban picnic.











You'll need one of these from these people.

They also have an extraordinarily neat blog.

Thoughts in Solitude

No man appreciates hospitality more than the shipwrecked traveler stranded on a deserted island.

Art requires movement

Art requires movement.

Muses are carnivorous beasts who only strike at moving targets. They're like sharks, and to borrow a Woody Allen quote, (who compares sharks to relationships), they must keep moving forward lest they die.

One's calling in Life is like this too. People must do what they love because of their love for doing it. Doing something for money is to worship Mammon and will lead to an early grave. Besides, it is a rare person who can do something with excellence when money is the only goal.

In other news: the synthetic thyroid hormone I've been taking for the past ten days has given me more energy, a slight improvement in my appetite, and my skin is a bit smoother as well. Yesterday I went on a 6 hour hike on the Appalachian Trail and felt good. Normally I would feel completely exhausted and sleep 12 hours straight like someone in a coma. So, things are definitely looking up.



This is a map of yesterday's hike. I parked at the Humpback Rocks Visitor Center, which has it's own pet raven lurking around the parking area eating tidbits from visitors, and proceeded south for 6 miles.



There is also a farm from the 1890s by the visitor's center. This is one of the restored houses.

Inspiration and how not to be a dragon

The first step to receiving inspiration from something is to simply watch it.

Observe it closely as if you were a child again. Children have no pre-conceived notions about the laws of the universe and are pleasantly surprised by everything that happens.

Every experience is a novelty and a date with adventure. As we grow older, we become set in our ways. We get callouses on our eyes and ears and filter reality through dirty glasses. We grow scales that in time harden.

More scales. More time. More hardening of the heart and soul.

We turn into dragons. We forget our true nature as soft fleshy creatures with a passion for things unknown. We lose our curiosity for mystery and adventure and retreat to our caves. We horde over beds of gold we call treasure.

The Creator of Life wants us to shed our dragon skin and become real humans. If you ask Him, He will be more than happy to remove it for you. But be prepared. Removing dragon skin can be quite the lengthy process and be a bit uncomfortable. But after the scales are removed, you will be free to travel and discover again.



Picture is from the Xinwei Ancient Life Fossils Museum in Anshun, Guizhou, China.

Connections

Sometimes I think God made the stars to be used as points of direction. Connecting the dots will lead directly to Him. And then...

A Letter to a Friend

All things were once thinks, but not all thinks become things.

To think and not do...to merely daydream...is like promising your girl a vacation window-shopping along the streets of Paris but never buying the plane ticket.

A maker of things from his own thinks is called an artist and a writer.

To think and construct is to reveal the hidden things of reality that the Creator has secretly revealed to your spirit. This is the purpose of the artisan and lover of words.

Not everyone has this gift. It is rare, and like gemstones hidden in the bowels of the earth, quite valuable.

They see pictures in their minds and transfer the abstract reality to the concrete world of atoms and molecules and in doing so, reveal a tiny part of the complex personality of God. The world, even in their fallen nature, recognize their broken-ness, perhaps are not able to articulate exactly why they are broken...they just sense something is terribly wrong within them and things can and should be much better, and are attracted to the works of the artist/writer and hence to the Creator.

You are more important than you think you are.

Workin' Man

As you can tell by the picture I'm hard at work now.

Actually I'm finished and munching on tacos and watching the thunderstorms roll in whilst Zeus throws lightning bolts around to liven things up a bit.

Fortunes in sugar and flour

'Don't pass up a once-in-a-lifetime offer'

This was in the little fortune cookie I received this afternoon.

I'm in Berkeley Springs, WV for a couple of days this week for work. Tiny town. One main street and some side streets. It's sandwiched in between two state parks and some Civil War battlefields. Its peaceful here. Quaint. Rustic. Homely. And there is a small castle nearby to boot.



Castles are the perfect homes. As long as they're properly furnished with rugs, tapestries, libraries, statues, paintings...

I'd like to be married in one--someday.

picture from wallpapervortex.com

Christians are a different species of man. And this may sound spooky, but they glow. They radiate light from their spirit. It's true. You'll have to ask somebody who studies theology more than me to explain why, but here's what I think happens. When a person gives up (and this can be nearly impossible without help) their life to God--completely--their spirit somehow gets re-ignited--hence the glowing. After a time, the spirit of a man gets restless and turns naturally towards the purpose he was created. He cannot help but do otherwise. He will also be drawn towards others whose calling is similar to their own and desire to walk in parallel with them along Life's journey.

The Artist: Evelyn Underhill says in her book 'Mysticism'...stick with me here...the purpose of the mystic is to 'actualise within the world of time and space, perhaps by great endeavours in the field of heroic action or by small ones in the field and market, that more real life, that holy creative energy which the world manifests but indifferently.'

I like this. She also goes on to say...and I'm paraphrasing from the last chapter of the book...and have made it a sort of motto for life.

-work for mercy, order, beauty, and significance
-mend where you find things broken
-make where you find the need
-bring the Real Presence from it's hiddenness and exhibit it before the eyes of men

'For the teeming life of nature has yielded up to your loving attention many sacramental images of Reality, it is far more significant than what you supposed. So proclaim by your existence the grandeur, the beauty, the intensity, the living wonder of that Eternal Reality within which, at this moment, you stand.'

When I read this yesterday, I hurriedly scribbled down the words (since I felt like she was speaking to me) and consider it good and useful advice. It's one thing to wander about all creation like a hermit, seeing things others don't. But some time sooner or later you've got to use your talents lest they dry up and turn brittle.

Life Lessons

Some lessons in Life are hard to deal with. One of the lessons I've learned is that if you gaze at a beautiful woman long enough, she turns to stone.

Another thing I've learned is tyrants do not respond to words alone. Force must be used.

A third thing I have discovered is this: one must practice one's talent, and practice, and practice. For the day may come when somebody will need help that only you can provide. And if you are rusty and dry the other person may go to sleep before their time.

Eternity

“Eternity is with us, inviting our contemplation perpetually, but we are too frightened, lazy, and suspicious to respond; too arrogant to still our thought, and let divine sensation have its way. It needs industry and goodwill if we would make that transition; for the process involves a veritable spring-cleaning of the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental furniture, a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild birds beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with wonder and freshness, and drown with their music the noise of the gramaphone within. Those who do this, discover that they have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a world of morning-glory:where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, and every thrusting bud is charged with the full significance of life.”

― Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People

Lunch

Pecking at the possible is the fare of mediocre men, but God expects us to be diners at the table of impossibility.

Day 5

This is the fifth day since I have been taking Levothyroxin (synthetic thyroid hormone) and I haven't noticed any significant changes. I do feel a slight bit better but this may be because I know I'm ingesting a chemical my body doesn't make much of anymore. I am also decreasing my daily runs to every other day and walking or bicycling the other days.

Does this mean I will have to cancel my big Seattle marathon plans in June? I think not. I may run the half-marathon instead...or simply run half the standard marathon and walk the second half. That will be a game day decision.

One effect I have noticed is the ability to concentrate better. Its a little odd knowing you've spent the last few years constantly forgetting small things like the location of your car keys. Once I even lost a pair of shoes...

I thinking writing every day helps mentally. Putting words down on paper exercises the brain and forces it to make neuronal connections that would otherwise never existed. Its like going out into the woods with a bulldozer and building new hiking paths for future explorations.

More later...

Repeating History

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

--Socrates...2,400 years ago...apparently history does repeat itself

Marriage = Man + Woman

'Gay marriage' to me is like having a surgeon surgically implant a tail on somebody's backside so they can change their species from 'man' to 'ape.'

Hoppers and Snakes

3:11 P.M.

Just returned from another 7 mile run/walk/slog through the Virginia countryside. I saw the first grasshopper today and a second dead snake in the road. This definately confirms the arrival of Spring.

I also discovered yesterday I have pretty bad hypothyoidism and have started taking synthetic hormones to replace the ones my body has decided to stop making. This would explain my somewhat depressed behavior the last few years and my extreme lethargy where I would feel like I was camping out on Mt. Everest. Hypothyroidism means your metabolism is basically half that of normal. Even thinking is hard. (Hopefully) the thyroid hormones work and the fogginess lifts from my brain. I don't promise these posts will become more normal though. I still intend them to be quirky...and hopefully more lucid.

Read the Bible

Contrary to popular opinion, Noah's wife was NOT Joan of Arc...

Running

Running is hard.

No doubt about it.

I ran 7 miles today and coughed nearly the entire way. I'm training for a marathon see. Twenty-six miles and 385 yards on foot on pavement through downtown Seattle in June. I have been running and walking for a minimum of 1 hour/day. Believe it or not, I've not lost any weight. This is somewhat a mystery to me as I only eat twice a day.

Tomorrow I've a doctor's appointment to see if I have hypothyroidism. This is an underactive thyroid gland. Some symptoms include low red blood cell count, high cholesterol, depression, lethargy (like you're living at 15,000 feet altitude), and a very low metabolism. I hope this isn't the case, but if it is, it certainly is not the end of the world.

It's also the first day of spring. I can tell because yesterday I saw the first dead snake in the road for this year. Dead reptiles are generally how people in Virginia tell when Old Man Winter goes north for the next 9 months.

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily."

--Zig Ziglar, as seen in one of my daily work e-mails

Rune Stones

I discovered these strange runes last week whilst hiking on the Appalchian trail. I have no explanation.

The Eve of the Eve of the Ides of March

In celebration I ran 7 miles on a hot dusty road bordered by grassy fields that smelled of cow manure and fertilizer under the watchful eyes of many horses and a herd of dairy cows.

And for those of you who still read this blog...I ate two cinnamon pop tarts stuck together with peanut butter and a half quart of pomegranate-flavored green tea for breakfast. And for lunch/dinner I ate a plate of whole-wheat spaghetti using turkey as the meat instead of hamburger.

And if you still are here, reading or clipping your nails, I am wearing black adidas pants with a black long-sleeved cotton shirt and chewing blue gum.

I'm procrastinating, of course, and simply am posting these words until a wave of inspiration hits me in the back of the forehead...or the front of the forehead or...

I just remembered. I read the last half of Lance Armstrong's book It's Not About the Bike this morning.

OK. Times up. I'm through procrastinating.

One March Twenty-Twelve

Once upon a time I used to update Puddleglum's Wigwam with something close to regularity. Then I got writer's block which is merely another name for linguistic constipation. The l.c. caused my cerebellum to undergo a depression in which all looked dark and bleak, with the sun a mere memory. I purchased some fluorescent bulbs to stimulate my neurons into believing I was vacationing on Mercury.

This did not work.

Fluorescent bulbs only emit light along a small wavelength...like a laser, not actual daylight, and the depression continued. I grew more depressed and considered my life in this great cosmic consciousness called the Here and Now.

"I have come quite a ways since the There and Then," I said to my Id. "And what do I have to show for it? I have been grokking merrily in circles in 4-D reality and seemed to have come to a dead end."

A book of quotes told me a dead end is a rut and a rut is a trench and a trench is a coffin with both ends cut out. I thought long and hard about this maxim and briefly considered a career in professional luging. This is the sport where you lay prostrate on a piece of metal and careen madly down a long icy rut until you come to a screeching halt into the nearest Coke machine.

I chose not to pursue this field.

I considered joining a Buddhist monastery and meditating in the lotus position for eight hours...channeling and focusing...trying to reach bliss. Bliss is another name for Nirvana. They say its the spot you come to after you completely empty your mind of all thoughts. They also say Nirvana is not all it's cracked up to be, in fact, its a little like Cleveland during winter. Nirvana also sounds uncannily similar to watching late night infomercials...with all the channeling and focusing.

Not good.

The journey continued.

I explored facial yoga. One of the exercises required me to hold the toothbrush in a stationary position with the bristles resting against my teeth. Then, I proceeded to defy all societal norms,(with the notable exception of this neat little alchemical society in Luxembourg I discovered later), and rotate my jaw bone to and fro like a jig-saw.

Dizziness ensued.

According to Martha Stewart Living, the magazine-not the actual Martha Stewart, the best cure for dizziness is ginger root. The root, sold in powdered form at Wal-Marts everywhere (thank Sam!) is taken orally by mouth or mixed with herbal tea 2-4 times daily. The result is a complete lack of dizziness and a whole lot of sleepiness.

I tried it. I liked it. And shall continue to use it.

Even if it does make one feel like Cleveland...in summer.

Hieroglyphics

I wonder what it would have been like in ancient Egypt to woo a woman using hierglyphics...

Finally!...Finally!...someone has created something more important than the wheel and better than sliced bread.

Somebody give this inventor the Peace Prize.

Falling in love is the most dangerous thing in the world. Not falling in love is the second most dangerous thing in the world. Either way you look at it, your life will have danger so you might as well enjoy it. And take plenty of notes so somebody else can read your story long after you're gone.

We need more of these on the streets of America.

Write right now.

Marathon Training

When you've been running outside so long that when you see a herd of cows...and forget cows are called...cows...and in your mind you call them 'shaggy fur beasts'...it is time to go home.

"Storytelling is always relationship. It is the means by which we both-the teller and the told-enter into it and experience the same thing."

--from The Art of Story in Mars Hill Review 19, page 60

Image courtesy of Joel Robinson

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

--G.K. Chesterton

Running 101

In exactly 22 weeks I will run this race.




In this city.




With these people.

When I was 4-years-old, Santa told me his name was also Jason. Christmas was never the same after that.

Some Hip Hop Diggedy Coolness

Item #1 + item #2 equals much goodness when mixed in item #3.

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience.

--C.S. Lewis in ‘Letters from Malcolm’

"Cock your hat - angles are attitudes." --Frank Sinatra

Journals are detachable appendages and everybody should have one.

--Jason Michael Shuttlesworth

"Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field."

--Yann Martel, 'Beatrice and Virgil' pg. 114

Too true.

Letters I sent the newspaper but never never got published (part 2)

Dear Sir who owns the dog that tried to bite me as I was running down the road this morning,

Benjie is dead.

Due to a freak accident involving my car, a piece of hamburger, and an unforeseen twitch in my arm just as I was driving past your house, the dog formally known as the Fauna of Mordor is now laying peacefully in an unmarked ditch resting contently.

Yours Truly.

Letters I sent the newspaper but never never got published

Dear Young people Under the Age of Thirty Who Don't Trust People Over the Age of Thirty,

It is never polite to refer to your Christmas gifts as 'loot and booty.'

I know, I know-you say it is what it is, but what it is is not necessarily what you think it is. Loot and booty generally is stuff that is captured by pirates, heathen pagan warlords, and the occasional uncircumcised Philistine. Swords and eyeliner must also be worn.

So please, stop the madness.

Sincerely,

A Person over Thirty.


And now-some news.

I went to West Virginia over the week-end to celebrate Christmas and my birthday. WV is the only state where you see an sign on the interstate that reads, 'moonshine-Exit 135.' I also saw a full grown camel that a fellow apparently has as a pet.

Page 32.5

“You will contact me as soon as he arrives then,” said Lt. Jones.

“Yes Sir.”

Lt. Jones turned on his heels and returned to his office.

The fact that Maurice was not at work the very day he went to see him seemed odd. Upon arriving at his own office, Lt. Jones checked the employee database for Mr. Blue’s first name. No such name existed in Z-Tech’s M.O.B. computers.

‘Was it possible Ms. Skipper lied to me?’ he thought. ‘Surely not. Lying is specifically forbidden under section 43C-2M of the official Z-Tech Employee Handbook.’

One of Lt. Jones’ secondary functions in the M.O.B. was updating the Rules and Regulations of the handbook as well as adding new ones. When he began the job, the handbook consisted of a twenty page folder that collected dust in a dark corner of the M.O.B. employee lounge. Workers sometimes opened it just long enough to rip out one of the ‘intentionally left blank’ pages for use as a coffee filter. The current edition consisted of 457 pages of crisp, clean, double-spaced, MLA-formatted, waterproof, tabbed, 32-lb, 100% cotton paper complete with an atlas, glossary, and partial concordance.

In his free time, Lt. Jones was working on a final section concerning his suggestions about how employees could optimize their own free time while on company time-thus saving the company time by shunting personal time to work time. The new section would be called ‘Ponderations’ and was to be written in a manner similar to a telephone directory/Aesop’s Fables hybrid. It was a work-in-progress requiring his own specialized expertise that he believed…well who knew what the Lieutenant believed. I’m only the writer of this story and Lt. Jones was in another world.

Racin' cows

Just had my first (unintentional) race with a Holstein. I won, but now she has a crush on me. (note: pic is not the actual cow. Actual cow had earring #42)

Mediocrites

Mediocrites was the name of the trash collector in ancient Rome. One day he got a job at the Circus Maximus with the only caveat being he had to change his name from Mediocrites to Media. His new job required him to give trash away rather than collect it. He became quite popular since most Romans rarely received trash and thought it was a gift of the gods. It wasn't long after this Rome fell.

Slavery

I don’t know why people, most people, insist on doing the wrong things in Life. Take slavery. Why is it still alive and well? Seriously? What goes on in a person’s mind that makes them force another human being to do things against their will? It can only be supreme selfishness, and even then selfish people are not truly happy forcing others to satisfy their cravings. The slave holder is not satisfied, can’t be, because they’re not doing what they’ve been designed to do in Life. If you’re doing something that is wrong, there is no possible way for you to be happy and fulfilled-even if it is a good thing. Even the good things in Life are bad if done at the wrong time and the wrong place. But in slavery, one forces another to do something against their will in order to do something that is truly against one’s own will-a double whammy.

Everyone intuitively knows the difference between Right and Wrong…at least in the big things. We all know, intuitively, we shouldn’t torture babies. It’s one of those things we simply cannot NOT know. What, I think, happens is the slave holders repress what is intuitively obvious…rationalize it using Darwinism…and keep on doing this until their conscious becomes seared.

Once the conscious is seared, they’re disconnected from the Creator and Sustainer of Life and it is only a period of time before they lose their humanity. They turn into a mere beast, become a feral human, ruled by their immediate sensations and feelings. And then…go completely insane.

This is why it is nearly impossible to convince slaveholders of their error using words alone. They need a word picture, a story, something artistic to jolt them to their senses before it is too late. For after a time, the only thing that will work…the only way to deal with slavery…is to use force.