The Unseen Sea

This video captures best one of my two favorite things about living here. (The second is big and painted "International Orange" and I can see it from my window, as long as the stuff in the video below doesn't get in the way)

And this really, really, is worth waiting and watching in HD.

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

This one's also from the same guy and pretty cool too.

Steaming City from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Lust for Power

Men, as a gender, generally have an obsession with anything that gives us a disproportionate amount of power to the effort we put in. I wiggle my foot a bit and the car goes 0-60 in a few seconds. Woosh. I retract my finger just a bit and BOOM! A gun/bigger gun/or explosive device is launching 50 lb vegetables into the air for everyone's enjoyment. Summary: I invest a few sugar molecules to contract a few muscle cells and I get gobs of power suddenly released at my disposal.

Like that

Leif is currently fascinated with planes, trains, and cars, but especially trains. If he hears the slightest background roar of an airliner overhead he stops whatever he's doing, points up and says something like "Erpane!" He watches Thomas the Train constantly (it drives me crazy, the endless yammering of the narrator and his voices is some of the most obnoxious droning I've ever heard). And he shouts "Caw!" anytime he sees a toy with wheels. At least he doesn't know about guns yet.

Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?

The sad thing is that we don't use this disproportionate effort-to-power ration to much productive use. We blow stuff up just purely to see it blow up. We drive fast, just because we can and it's exhilerating. We threaten, lie, steal, cheat, bully, cajole, and belittle, because it increases our perception of the "power" we've gained by it. It gives us something for nothing... or for very little.

Even subtle things: I have music playing a lot and spend lots of time on the computer. It gives me a very large return of entertainment and education for very little effort.

Chicks for free (I can get this on MP3Panda.com for a dollar. Eat that iTunes!)

Sugar and high calorie foods are the same. Kids don't eat Cookie Crisp for breakfast because its part of a complete breakfast. They eat it because it tastes good because the tongue, brain, and body know that it's a disproportionate amount of calories to effort and in a body that was made to deal with scarcity, it will ALWAYS want extra calories when it can easily get them. And extra calories come in two flavors: carbs and oils. Sugars and fat. Especially fructose and saturated fat. Throw some free amino acids and salt in there to trick you into thinking you're eating lots of protein and minerals and you're done for (read: glutamate, MSG, hydrolyzed soy/yeast protein/isolate/whatev) Just a little bit of chewing to buy a lot more time surviving the hostile wilderness of....today's supermarket-fast food-hostess laden society. Disproportionate food to effort.

Men aren't the only ones like this either. Women, generally (of course generally, no one get your feelings hurt now, ok?) shop and shop and shop. Discounts and hyped-up sales to feel like you're taking advantage of the seller. Or talk and talk and talk to gain an edge over social rivals. Novels to stimulate the mind without having to contribute back. Whining, flirting, manipulating to achieve sympathy or gifts.

Now we're just negotiating a price...

Whether or not we exercise our power over others, we like to have the power, just in case we need to. Just in case. I could argue it's for security. Or emergency. If that were the case, noone would ever know our abilities except in emergencies or when called upon. But we're not that kind of a society, so mostly it's to intimidate others so they won't even THINK about trying to take advantage of us or seek power over us. Sometimes it works positively in inspiring others to competition and improvement.

Don't think so? Prove it

Oddly, even giving up all power and strength is a form of power exertion. For some religiously devoted it is a sign of heavenly strength to give everything up and prove our personal righteousness to the world. Like meekness is spiritual wealth we flaunt. We think to ourselves that because we're poor or suffering we are focusing on what's REALLY important, not like those rich people who obviously are not.

Or we convince ourselves that because we gave it up we could have the power at any time but we chose to get rid of it. I'm powerful enough to be submissive. This isn't true. Giving up such ability, strength, wealth, or power only removes our power, thus taking away our choice to be submissive. It's just as foolish to think that giving up our agency gives us more freedom. It's reminiscent of the Orwellian idea: slavery is freedom.

I'm not sure why students are for this sort of thing, but I do recognize this isn't a shirt. It's a rectangle.

The trick is to remain "submissive" (humble, penitent, open-minded, soft-hearted, etc) while hanging onto every bit of strength we have. Christ wasn't giving up a single shred of power to those who crucified him. He had that power at every second they nailed him to the cross. It could have ended at any moment by his desire. He's kinda a unique case. If I were in his place, I would actually be losing all power and freedom and that might not be a wise use of the abilities God gave me.

So, what do we do? What level of strength do we display or flaunt? I have no clue. That's for you to decide, and I'm only gonna complain or get in your way if it's bothering me.

or if you take up 5 parking spots

Inarticulate

Tonight, a worker from Family Builders came to our apartment for a few hours just to meet and visit with us. She asked us a few questions about ourselves and adopting a child through them. I let Emily do most of the talking. Whenever I tried to answer questions I didn't have much to say. I have a habit of being to the point and it often doesn't leave a ton of room for discussion (I blame my Danish heritage entirely). I'll tell my stellar question-answer in a minute, but for now I feel like pontificating, so allow me a few moments.

if you've read many of my posts, be prepared. If you're like most of my readers, keep going, I know you just skim over everything else i write

With most people, conversation dies if I do much talking. Most of the time the other person or people just nod in agreement and give mmm-hmms and say, "yeah, that's right/so true/I never thought of that." It's pretty boring. When I teach Sunday School, I hate talking. I like axing questions and having other people do all of it and steering it by appropriate questions. When I feel like interjecting my thoughts into the lesson, the class stares at me with the look like I just killed an interesting debate and the show is now over, leaving me floundering over something to get them talking again.

I think if I ever wrote a book, it would take me a few decades to write. It'd start out concise enough to fit onto a few pages and I'd have to BS and fill out the rest just to make it interesting.

this would be most of my story

If you know me, personally, you'll know I enjoy a good discussion. Either the mutual working together to solve a problem through conversation, the sharing of new ideas and information that enlightens the participants and/or listeners, the fair and open-minded sharing of opposing ideas to reach a middle ground, or to present an accurate picture of everything that is in play in a sticky situation. I will love you if you disagree with me on the condition that you can back up your disagreement. If I disagree with you, it means I really like you. I never debate with strangers. You could be telling me the earth is flat, but if I don't care about you, I'll keep my mouth shut. If I'm trying to get you to like me, I'll ask questions that make you back up your position and prove your point or make a joke out of the tense situation. If I really like you, I'll share my thoughts as nicely as possible, but bring out the big guns if the situation desperately needs it.

it's sort of complicated, really

I'm not one to get emotional during a debate, but it happens. It's natural. Some have a lower threshold for emotional control than others, that's fine, but I will encourage you to slow down and discuss the topic rationally. I appreciate passion and emotion. It means there's something the brain has worked out that's important to our identity/survival/safety/self-interest even if we can't consciously articulate it. I like helping people figure that out and pull that jumbled massive cloud of firing neurons into an organized, step-wise sentence coming out of the mouth. That's essentially what an emotion is: a brain-wide response to a stimulus of some kind. A smell of a rose can trigger a bajillion memories in the cortex, sending off huge waves of visual, tactile, verbal, auditory sensations linked by other neurons and portions of the brain to huge chunks of life that have promoted our well-being (or injury and hinderment to some) and create an emotional response that result in our hearts fluttering, our skin flushing, and pull grandiose words out of the language center of our brain.

this is what happens when i'm on my bike and a driver doesn't use their blinker to cut me off suddenly

If you asked me why I like my favorite smell, I might just say, "It smells good." But there would be so much going on that formed that opinion. As Emily and I read these adoption books, they strongly emphasize the power of associations and warn of possible negative associations abused and hurt children may have with even simple things. The smell of cookie dough might trigger memories of anger and pain if associated with something traumatic that happened while freshly-baked cookies were in the house and once the reaction is discovered, it would be wise to act appropriately in the future to help resolve or avoid (if necessary) the situation.

cookie dough seems innocent, but it has a dark side no one wants to talk about

I find that these adoption books really contain amazing advice for dealing with everyone, not just hurt-children, and push me into being a better parent to my biological children. I also see a lot of it in the people I talk with at school, my patients, classmates, etc.

yes, i am judging you, don't be surprised. and don't deny you're doing it, too

It's impossible to fight emotion with emotion. Even well-articulated truth gets lost in the angry sea of anothers temper or sadness. Progress is made (ie, people are brought closer together) when both sides act rationally to some degree, and made closer the more rational they become. When emotions can be focused and organized, then the engine of our life can be useful, not just exploding vapors of combustible fuel. If our emotions are the engine, the steering wheel is our rationality. Both are required to move forward in consciously-decided directions.

'nuff said

So, as we get ready for the in-depth and very personal questions that'll be put to us by this worker over the next few homestudy appointments I'll have to prepare myself to answer well and not emotionally. The other day, I responded to someone's comment about a topic by talking about some triggered memory that probably seemed random to them at the time and cause them to think about me "What is WITH this guy?"

Tonight, when she asked us why we want to adopt a foster child, I said, "Because I think it's a great thing to do for someone." A few cricket chirps later, I tried to fill out that answer with some reason that didn't come out coherently, abandoned it, and restated, "It just seems like it's something great we can do for someone else," and deflected the question over to Emily with a panicked look on my face.

After thinking about it some more, I still can't come up with a better reason or answer, but it's not very exciting, is it?

the teacher finished 15 minutes ago. the girl at bottom right just has nothing else to do

Sorry if you came by earlier and the interwebs warned you my opining might be bad for your computer. Not sure what that was about, but I borrowed a picture off of Google Images and it got all jumpity on me.

More quotes

I just spent way too long writing a comment that probably doesn't make sense to the author of an "activist atheist" blog I stumbled upon while looking up C.S. Lewis quotes.

Here's some favorite quotes from "Mere Christianity":

“We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract ‘such awful people’. That is what people still object to and always will.”

"What can you ever really know of other people’s souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles?"

“Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.”

“Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection.”

“The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath. And in a sense it is quite right. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all of its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.”

“He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others - not because He has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.”

“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.”

“If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.” (Does this mean that if I think I am conceited, then I'm not?? LOL)

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.”

“If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep. It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another: unchastity is not improved by adding perjury.”

“If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.”

“In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a reason ’in order that he may have something to give to those in need.’”

“An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons - marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.”

“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or- if they think there is not- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”

“Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we are inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”

Flexibility

I'm reading "Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow" by Gregory Keck.

The chapter I'm reading gives various thoughts and strategies for coping with control issues and letting the hurt child give up some control so they can become more attached to their parents.

I like this exerpt:

"If you can't make the child change his behavior, make his behavior what you want. Sound confusing? It's not. If your child is having a temper tantrum, telling him to stop is pointless. Instead, say something like, 'Oh, a tantrum. I think I'll get some iced tea and make myself comfortable while I watch.' Or, if you're feeling particularly brave, say something like, 'You can do better than that, can't you? I'll bet you can scream loud.'

"If the tantrum continues, it seems like compliance. The child now has two choices--to stop or to keep going and do what you want.

"One family, inspired by the Olympics, had cards printed with the numbers 1 to 5 on them. When their child's tantrum started, everyone in the family held up a card to judge it. The rest of the family had fun, and the power of the tantrum was decreased."

This example sounds like something obnoxious I would have done to my siblings when I was a kid, but I can see a lot of wisdom in using it with children who have trouble trusting and attaching to adults.

It's a great book with lots of insight. After this, I'll have to read "Parenting with Love and Logic" as recommended by so many (including siblings, Emily, this book I'm reading now, and the Foster/Adoption agency we're working with). Too bad they don't have a Kindle edition for me to read on my iPod or laptop (or Emily's Kindle!)

Cartoon Time!

Just watching cartoons online. Today's is from Avatar: The Last Airbender is known is "The Great Divide" (The embedded video may not show up in Google Reader, go to this posting itself to watch the episode, it's a good one)

Vezi mai multe video din Animatie

And yes, that title right there ^ is foreign because it's from some other country, because this is probably some sort of copyright infringement being out on the internet.

Thank Heavens for little girls

I would like some input from all y'all.

Grace has a tendency towards something. Always has, and a good example of it happened recently. The other day she was playing with Leif and they got in a scuffle over a toy. She grabs the toy away from Leif and then pushes him down and he begins to cry. I saw this happen and intervened. "Grace, don't grab away toys like that, and we don't push, ever."

So, what does Grace do? She cries. Not just cries, she screams and wails for 10 minutes. Long after Leif had stopped crying, she's still bawling her eyes out. And she's angry at us. She's still lurching after the toy we took away and kicking and screaming at us like its our fault she's in trouble.

The truly sad part of the story is that Grace's outburst consumed so much of our energy, that neither of us were able to see to Leif and comfort him and make sure he was okay. Though Grace was getting into trouble, she succeeded in maintaining our attention on her and away from him and away from the wrong deed that was done. Her strategy worked and in the end, she won.

Once she did this to Emily at the mall, and while Emily is taking Grace out to the car Grace screams out and shouts "STOP HITTING ME!" although Emily was simply carrying Grace as calmly as possible. With people around, Emily's only option was to put Grace down, step back, and show the world she's not in need of Child Protective Services. Grace's outburst won here as well. Despite being the one in the wrong, her tantrums and drama overpower all else. Timeouts and lectures were plentiful once home, but it was a shallow victory to the whole ordeal and not after tainting Emily's appearance to those around her (only marginally was it a good thing everyone around her was a stranger, we hope). Even the apologies she says later are hollow, having only occurred with prompting.

Now, Grace is a wonderful and usually sweet, thoughtful, little girl, but she's incredibly smart and adept, and right now not able to recognize how devious and dastardly she is behaving in emotional moments like that. Any suggestions?

Introspective and Supremely Satisfied

That's how I feel right now. I'm not entirely sure why. I just got back from a show down in the Mission district. It's one of the busier grittier parts of SF. It's not just gritty, its nitty-gritty. An old roommate was playing a show with his band. We were roommates for just one semester a long time ago, but man, I had a great time in that apartment. I've kept in touch with him just a bit and he lets me know how he's doing from time to time.

A few years ago, he formed a band and they got an album out. Just a few months ago they got their second out. Cool. It's a great band. Indie-tronica is a great way to describe their style. A few months ago he emails me to tell me they're going on tour and would like a place to crash in SF and could they sleep on our floors/couches/etc. That ended up being last night. 5 of them. They were all really nice and fun to talk with. Tonight, at their show I got to catch up with Kael and his wife, Heather, a bit more and their friend John. All, really impressive people. Kael works for his brother's company writing music for TV commercials and other stuff (if you have an AppleTV and you listen to the startup music, that's his, or the power-on sound of several Palm phones). His band actually gets a lot of fans because of one car commercial he did.

People on the internet go looking for it, find out he wrote it and has this band that he writes the songs for. I overheard some fans tonight coming to them and telling them they found the band through that commercial. Awesome. He is allowed to make it available but not to sell it. (John says it's kinda frustrating that Kael writes all this great music, but they can't use it in their band :-)

Heather just finished her first year at UCLA's medical school. Their friend John, is a new English Professor at Yale. Crazy. Buncha smart people. All on breaks from jobs/school to do this tour with their band. With them is Kurt and Sebastian.

I feel all weird tonight, like I had an amazing time, but not excited amazing, just uber satisfied amazing. Maybe I liked the attention, or because of the novelty of being out late at a rock show (a small one, but cooler for it), or that I felt cool being in some small club in the Mission listening to a bunch of cool bands and having an inside connection with one of them. Maybe it's just a bit of hero worship and admiration. Maybe I feel just a little bit cooler because I'm hanging out with REALLY cool people. One fan was getting autographs of everyone in the band on the CD he bought tonight and he tries to hand it to me to get me to sign it. "Oh, wait, YOU haven't signed it yet!" Funny, a bit awkward, but funny.

As I drove home, all I could think about was how great a time I had and how lucky I am to have what I have and know what I know. Holy crap lucky. Blessed, fortunate, whatver. I couldn't stop thinking about Emily and Grace and Leif.

I was also reminded of how slow I am, socially. Trying to say what I meant and be entertainingly conversant. Like the awkward statements I make, or comments that don't add to the conversation and probably drag it into the many awkward silences that abound around me. I did make some friends tonight but I lack the resources and strategies to maintain them and feel bad about it.

What was fun was helping them load their equipment into the van while another band was still playing and the show was still going. I was going in and out of this small club and while others were showing ID's or whatever to get past the doorman, we make eye-contact, give each other the little nod and I just walk past. Yeah, that's how important I was tonight. (So stupid, I know, why does this stuff go through my head??)

In our small conversations we nabbed when we could, I'm not sure how much they learned about me. I'm guessing our little family looked like the perfect, quaint little nuclear family. Emily even made them all waffles and banana bread muffins (which they all commented to me tonight how great they were) after I left for dental school on my bicycle. Grace was the ultimate little girl and in love with all of them and cried and screamed when she had to say good-bye. Leif was just his charmingly cute and shy self. They don't get to see our depth, what makes me look at my life and feel like it is fantastically awesome. And I'm okay with that. I'm judgmental of other people who seem shallow or superficial (whatever they are doing good or bad) and I realize I don't think less of them, so why should I care if others see me the same way and probably don't think less of me?

I got to see them at an exciting moment in their lives, and it was fun to be a part of it. I highly recommend checking them out. They are Faded Paper Figures. The other really awesome band I saw tonight is We Landed on the Moon. "Boats" is a great song.

Grace and I like watching FPF's music video but I think the robot weirds her out:-)

I'm probably condemning myself by my words

I was in a mood for scribing some prose of a fashion, and while I pondered on the subject, I became awakened to a quote by the honorable theologian, C.S. Lewis. A simple query of a handful of key words from this pontification led me to the source of such profundity. A book, entitled "The Weight of Glory," was the fountain of wisdom embodied by the magnificent statement and led me to find a numeration of similarly astounding manifestos. I will proceed to recant a collection of personal delights from this rare clutch of spiritual gold.

Whew, that takes some brain power to write like that. In case you didn't catch it, I realized one of my favorite quotes ends up coming from a book by C.S. Lewis I wasn't familiar with. Now that I am, I'm going to snag a copy of it and read it and while I'm at it, I'll share some gems that I found on various websites devoted to the book. (Now I've got to find a copy and read it, I must have included half the book here already. Lol)

"He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only."

"The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation."

"When humans should have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch."

"It may be possible for each of us to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden, of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare."

"All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal, Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or ever lasting splendours. "

" Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. "

"I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can."

"And that is enough to raise your thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride… Perfect humility dispenses with modesty."

"At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in."

The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last."

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward … promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased."

"I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.
That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen, …patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused."

Childhood memories

I can't come up with a very good way of writing about this. You really just have to watch.

Basically, some writers for Rocko's Modern Life (one of my favs) tried for years and finally got Disney to pick up a show they created and call it Phineas and Ferb. Here's links to some excellent samples of both shows, separated by about 15 years.

RML (~1995)

Hey, Nice Melons. High Five? and Part 2 "Chewy Chicken is People! Chewy Chicken is People!"

"Look, a blizzard!" and "Feel the strength of my two-ply!"

P&F (~2009)

"I wouldn't want to be getting one of those rejuvenating sea salt scrubs right now. The stinging would be unbearable!"

"What are the two most popular things on this planet? Country music and western music!"

--Funny enough, the creators are the uncredited voices of Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram. Ol' doofy pretty much makes the show.

If this post looks ugly, it's because it's really late/early and I don't care enough right now.

Adventure! It's a wonderful thing!

After Emily dropped me off at school this morning, she took off heading south to spend a couple days with her family for her brother's college graduation. Since it was raining this morning and since she dropped me off, I didn't bring my bike. So, I figured I'll have me a little adventure. I'll bring some extra clothes to school and leave my bag and computer at school and RUN home! Oh man, what an awesome idea! If my knee acts up (which it does, still) I can walk or catch the bus. It'll be great. Now, I'm feeling lazy. And a little hungry. And I need some new cheapie headphones. So, here's my plan, leave school in the next 20 minutes, stop by Best Buy on Geary, go the extra mile (literally) and hit up Gordo's Tacqueria for an awesome $5 burrito and jog or limp the last mile home and make it by 9:30, just in time to read for a bit and go to bed.

So its not REALLY adventurous, but it's a little intimidating because my knee is pretty unpredictable. I did figure out a few weeks ago that I'm (either due to genetics, an accident, or simple habit) slightly pigeon-toed in my left foot. When I keep it straight/slightly outward like my right foot I can keep the knee in control, but that's easier said than done since it feels like I'm running crooked. I haven't pushed it more than a few miles since then, either.

Since it is getting dark and it will be busy city streets, I'll forgo the barefeet tonight and put a little rubber between me and the pavement, at least until I get into the Presidio.

Lookamee!

Look, look! I'm famous, this made it onto the school's front web page! This is awesome, it's like being in the High School yearbook in pictures that make it look like you were social or cool! I'm available for autographs if anyone would like. They WILL be worth something someday!

See? See? That blurry figure on the left is most definitely me. Here's the story:

http://dental.pacific.edu/News_and_Events/News_Archive/Dental_School_Participates_in_Bike_to_Work_Day_2010.html

Incidentally: I ride my bike almost every day, so this was like, "Hey, free stuff for doing what I normally do!" Amongst the free stuff was a thermos, a tote-bag, a mini First Aid kit, a tire repair kit, a pack reflector that also lights up (which the kids have commandeered as their new cool toy) and a bunch of pamphlets and newsletters about cycling around San Francisco, 90% of which was geared toward the people in the trendy parts of the city that ride up and down Market St. and use "The Wiggle" to get around. (Presidio residents have our own wiggle for getting through Laurel Heights to the Arguello Gate, so nyah!)

Quotations

From Benjamin Franklin that I thought were fun to read.

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," &c., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this, — and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down to future Ages.

The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof. This type of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than one might think. It demands a great sagacity generally above the power of common people. The success of charlatans, sorcerors, and alchemists — and all those who abuse public credulity — is founded on errors in this type of calculation.

Tidbits

Glorious days! I can run again! Let me tell you my story, at least of the past week.

Did a couple of little trail runs barefoot and in the vibrams, single-track trails through bushes, stairs, and some very mild rock climbing around the Presidio and above Baker Beach, stuff to keep me changing direction a lot, hoping that my form would have to correct itself when more was demanded of it in short bursts and if I gave it the freedom to be corrected. After 2-3 of these, I noticed that I'd started landing on my left foot different than seemed intuitive (even after watching those videos I posted a few weeks ago) landing on the inside of my foot as much as possible right behind the big toe. It's more accentuated in the vibrams but barefoot, it still feels like the outside of the foot is touching ground first with the ball behind the big toe taking almost all of the weight. My heel either doesn't touch the ground at all (most of the time) or just barely with every step. The arch feels like it's being stretched out and the bones feel bruised at first, but it goes away after a couple runs. I still get small blisters, but I don't mind them much.

I noticed this just happen on it's own to my left foot, so I've made my right foot match. It feels awkward and my calves are the muscles most sore when I'm running now, but they also recover quickly and don't usually hurt while running (trotting, really), only when walking after a run.

When I figured out my knee wasn't hurting, I ran 4 miles, just cuz. It felt great. A few days later, my wife pushed me into 9 miles. Then 3.5 while pushing a stroller with 2 kids. Then we did 5.5 yesterday while pushing the stroller. Not fast, averaging 10-11 minutes a mile. We're both just happy we can run at all (considering that an 8 minute run just 13 days ago had me limping for several hours). It's becoming our new hobby of choice, and we get to do it together as long as the kids are ok inside the stroller.

A word of caution for hopeful trail runners: If you see a plant that looks like this, and you brush up against it, it will start to itch like crazy one week after the encounter and last for 2 more weeks. Yes, this is my second occurrence of poison oak since being here and I know the exact moment I got each. Not out of ignorance, just accident, there's tons of it here.

Here's my running log since hearing about barefoot-style running and getting hopeful.

Date Length Notes

1/27/2010 0.6 BF, blood blisters, rainy, poor form, first run

2/4/2010 0.6 vibrams in rain

2/6/2010 1

2/6/2010 1

2/13/2010 1

2/14/2010 0.5 w/ Em, stroller

2/15/2010 2 BF, bruised feet bottom

2/15/2010 0.25 BF, KNEE PAIN, minor blisters

2/20/2010 2.5 BF, no pain, blisters

2/24/2010 5 BF, knee pain near end, blisters (not painful)

2/25/2010 0.5 walked 1 mile, strained peroneous brevis tendon

3/6/2010 1.25 BF on sand, Baker Beach, knee hurt after 1 mile

3/25/2010 1 DR, used vibrams, knee hurt after .5 miles, limped back

3/26/2010 1 trail ran w/ Vibrams in Monte Cristi, no pain

3/28/2010 2 trail ran, walked, climbed around BB, BF & VFFs

3/30/2010 3 VFFs, hiked, climbed, ran around BB, use inside of left foot=no pain

4/1/2010 4 jogged, VFF's around BB and Lincoln, no pain if landed behind big toe

4/2/2010 1 slip-on Vans, no knee pain, soreness on walking

4/3/2010 9 pain only when forget technique !!!!! some walking and a pit-stop

4/6/2010 3.6 jogging stroller with kids, no pain if technique good, barefoot last 1/4mi

4/8/2010 5.5 vibrams and BF at end, no pain, just sore calves, recovered by next a.m.

Just a little of this and that

It feels great to be home. So great, that I left my empty apartment within 30 minutes and took off hiking and trail running around Baker Beach for a few hours: ignoring "Stay off the cliff" signs, watching spring water form little deltas on the beach, dodging waves on the backside of Fort Point, and spending a while sitting on top of one of the batteries perched into the hillside talking to Emily, who's in Philadelphia with her brothers for a few more days. All this, barefoot or in the Vibrams. I gotta say, it felt amazing to go barefoot on the trails. Like the best foot massage ever every step. I can now handle most of the trails around the Presidio barefoot for a little while at least, but put on the Vibrams for rock-hopping and climbing. I still can't run more than a mile or so, though, before my knee forces me into a limp, but I can last a bit longer on trails than on straight pavement or even sand.

I'm gonna guess that what's more interesting than my barefoot habits is how the last week went, so I'll change subjects.

It was crazy cool (pics in the link). We got to help a lot of people and make a lot of friends with the best kind of people also volunteering their time. As part of the Orphanage Outreach Health Corps we didn't spend much time interacting with the kids at the orphanage, but spent 4 days helping people in the small communities scattered throughout the giant banana plantation to the south.

View UOP Dental Mission to the DR 2010 in a larger map

It was interesting seeing the differences in people from one community to the next, like each had it's own distinct personality. Our 3rd and 4th days saw a large number of Creole-only-speaking Haitians. We did some fillings and cleanings, but it was mostly pulling out what was left of bombed-out teeth or the remains of roots still infected and sitting in the bone. 4 other dentists and some of their staff were there as well and we all took turns working with them throughout the week.

Our dorms were wood frames with metal roofs and chain link fence and tarps/boards for partial siding. Inside were rough metal bunk beds with mosquito nets. Despite the open air, I didn't sleep under even a sheet for half of the week, and for the other half, a sheet was plenty. Showers were cold and limited to wetting and rinsing (turn water off to soap up). The hired local staff were great and the food was delicious and plenteous (lots of rice, beans, and fresh papayas and pineapples).

Orphanage Outreach is a fantastic organization. Very well organized and very efficient. They have been able to expand a small one-roomed orphanage (managed by a local minister) into a large two-story building with a wall around the property and lots of care for the orphans. They also recently purchased an old hotel in town and it is used as an English Institute for any children in the community. O.O. has also expanded to another orphanage in the town of Jaibon, not too far away. Everything is done by volunteers and donations exclusively. The leaders sign up to volunteer for 1-2 years at a time. Our group leader, Bryson, was terrific.

Our last day was spent seeing sights in Monte Cristi including a gift shop, supermarket, clocktower, museum, ice cream/motobike parlor (weird combo, I know), and the English Institute before spending the afternoon at a beautiful beach just north of the city.

Our own group also forked out a bit of our own money (only $80/person) to go a day early and spend a night in a resort at Puerto Plata. It was an interesting experience going from a sterile, isolated, resort-complex to the poorest of poor. Even most of their clothes are from donations. Our flight back to New York was delayed 3 hours, so we missed our connection to San Francisco. Delta put us up in the Double Tree near the airport for the night and booked most of us for First Class this morning. First class was really nice, but almost a bit silly, like placing table cloths over the tray table for the gourmet style meals they provided. So, this week we got to see luxury and poverty. I gotta be honest, the luxury was nice, but working hard and getting a few good times at the end was way better.

Everyone worked hard in the hot weather and it was an intense week. It was great to be working so hard for someone else's benefit, who would otherwise have no help dentally or medically. Most came to us with pain and just wanted the cause of the pain out.

I'll have pictures on Facebook soon. It was being finicky on me tonight. (Update: If you missed the link above, they're here).

Off to uncharted lands!

I sent out letters to everyone and their goldfish asking for help to go on a dental mission during spring break. I got a great response and want to thank those of you reading this who could help out. But for those of you who didn't get the letter, or I don't like enough to send one (seriously, you'd have to be on my hate-for-all-eternity list to not get one... or it got lost in the mail or something, no worries), here's the haps:

Groups of students get together and plan dental mission trips during school breaks. They're not school sponsored, but most are through an external charity organization of some kind. Some of the trips are vacations with a couple days of service, others are intense week-long slave labor clinics (the group that went to Jamaica worked 10 hours/day for 6 days or something, but did get to stay in a Sandals resort at night with all-included restaurants and stuff), so when I saw the itinerary for this trip to the Dominican Republic, I got excited. Arrive Saturday, work Monday through Thursday, spend Friday doing "cultural" things like visiting a nearby national park or large market, and fly home Saturday. And it's a third cheaper than the more popular vacation-y trips. It's through Orphanage Outreach, who arranges for volunteers of all kinds to come and help out. It's in the small town of Monte Cristi on the northwest coast of the DR and we'll be spending a lot of time in the open-air clinic helping the workers/families living on the banana/sugarcane plantations. There will be about 18 in our group and some other dentists from other places coming next week. Since it fills up our break, most in the group wanted to get there a day early and just hang out/relax, so we're leaving today, immediately after our last final. (Like, get out of the final and run to the school's housing 10 blocks away to leave at 12:15).

I'm excited about going, but I don't travel much and am more nervous about the traveling than anything. I've left the continent once, to Hawaii, and only left the country to Canada and just inside Mexico, so this is a bigger jump for me. We will be in New York for about 8 hours, in the middle of the night, and we have no plans to fill that time (sleeping in JFK airport does not get good reviews) so I've got a bunch of audiobooks and movies on my ipod to kill time in between naps. I've got lots of bugspray and sunscreen, as well as my own pair of Vibram Five Fingers (for the adventures and fun stuff), and my very first official pair of scrubs (pants at least, they give us shirts to wear while there). I just realized I don't have a hat or sunglasses. Dang it.

I've got the camera and will try to take LOTS of pictures. As for the rest of the family, they're in Utah at Emily's parents. Today, Grace is going skiing for the first time.

True Believer or Fake Imposter?

This guy from Vermont spent 5 years immersing himself into extreme Muslim society in Yemen and Saudi Arabia in order to get to know the culture better. Hopefully, close exposure would remove so many of the fears Westerners have in radical Muslims. Turns out, it didn't. Close exposure only made him more worried. If I were this guy, I'd hire full-time body guards for the rest of my life.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100308/al-qaeda-yemen-islam-convert

Knock me out like a ton of bricks

In our pharmacology class we've been learning the basics of general anesthesias. To start off this section we watched this episode of NOVA made in the 1970's on the history of anesthesia. Pretty crazy. What impressed me most were the lives lost or ruined by and during the development of anesthetics. Not just patients, but the doctors and scientists who experimented mostly on themselves, often becoming addicted to the substances or worse. And since addiction was not understood really at all yet, they often faced severe consequences for their research. A classmate found the video online and shared it with the class. I thought it was fascinating and some of you might like it too. It's about an hour long, but the first 11 minutes give a nice backdrop to the story. It was the two dentists portrayed here in the beginning that separately discover the first two general anesthesias. Their stories are pretty interesting as well.

There is no charge for awesomeness

I shall direct your attention to my sister in-law who was an exciting story to share with you all.

http://talesofanordinaryhousewife.blogspot.com/2010/02/resistance.html

Now, I shall get back to my exciting Friday evening of scrounging for Futurama episodes online. Good night.

If anyone sees this tonight, feel free to give me a call, I'll probably be up late. Life is delightfully boring when Emily and the kids are out of town (helping my sister with her newborn and stuff). Serio, delightfully boring. That's the perfect description.

Update: Please, stop calling me, I can't keep up with the ringing phone! (No, I'm not adding this just to make me look popular and compensate for my loneliness)

2nd Update: Ima just gonna keep updating this through the evening. Here's a great site, if you're confused at all by the other episodes, start at the beginning:

http://www.piggymoo.com/futurama/?episode=01x01

My mind was just blown

I'm up late working on a research paper assigned to our class. My topic is on Low level laser therapy and wound healing. It's actually pretty fascinating. I've had to sort through gobs of research on the topic and I'm trying to gather a big picture. It's all broken down into specifics of laser type, wavelengths, energies and stuff as well as it's effects on various tissues and wounds (or lack thereof). When it comes to powerful radiation it's the more destructive, ionizing, free-radical creating bands like UV and X-ray that take top spots. Even Infrared gets a lot of credit for the perception of heat we get from it. Visible light has some nifty effects, but outside of vision it doesn't get much credit for molecular effects. As I am finding out, visible light does some pretty crazy stuff, like regulating which genes get turned on and regulating all sorts of biochemical stuffs, the vast most of it apparently beneficial and supportive of life. The most common frequencies I'm coming across in these studies are in the range of 632nm or 830nm, which happen to be the frequencies made by convenient Helium Neon lasers and the like.

This may seem way out there and Doc Brown-ish (Jumping Gigawatts!), but I got curious, what color is 632nm? It's orange-red. That's peculiar. Why would that have such crazy benefits to us and our tissues? Oh wait, what wavelength is strongest from the sun? Right about the color put out by Hydrogen at 650nm but it puts out the most of its energy in that general range of orange. Woa!

We're floating around this universe that's flooded with all sorts of radiations. X-Rays are generally destructive in appreciable amounts. UV rays send electrons flying about. Infrared rays tend to speed up the movement of whole molecules, speeding up molecular reactions. Too much infrared (too hot) and biological systems as we know them quit working or work so fast that it can't be properly controlled or used. So there's our Sun. A nice medium-sized star that puts out the majority of it's radiation within the visible spectrum. A nice middle range for life to flourish. And under this unique spectrum flourish it does! And our systems are SOOOO adapted to it that our primary source of information comes from the visible spectrum, our systems are put together in such a way that the peak of this visible light we get is beneficial to us-- even dependent on it--, and our planet is put together so perfectly to filter out most of the destructive other radiation.

This may still not make much sense, but the gist of it to me is that this universe was created for life to thrive. Life is not some niche that has squeezed its tiny foothold into the universe, but the sole purpose of this universe is to support life by properly supporting the atomic properties conducive to life. Of course it can be argued the other way, but my own personal experiences and research, backed up by theindependent experiences, studies and research of millions of others show that there is a God and that he loves us and that his greatest work is to bestow life into this universe.

Now back to my paper. I want to get this thing done tonight even if I have to stay up all night. I don't have much demanding my energies tomorrow so I'll be ok and it'll be really nice to have it out of the way and still have a day to refine it before Friday morning. Wish me luck.

Update (5 min after original posting): The burning of organic material (wood, wax, oil, etc) tends to burn at 1000 to 1100 degrees Celsius which also happens to give off mostly deep orange light!

I just felt like running

I came across this article and later this one a few weeks ago and showed it to Emily along with this blog, and suddenly we're hooked on the idea. She instantly bought the bible of barefoot running and read it in a couple of days. If I took the time to run more, I'd do it, but as of now I've only done 3 1-mile loops around our neighborhood barefoot, but we did find some returned Vibram Five Fingers at REI and I've jogged just a little bit in them and wear them around. For some reason now, I run barefoot to and from the dumpster when I take out the garbage. I gotsa say, I like it and will let you know if my knee starts hurting. My best recommendation: like they say, start slow, don't run on your toes, and don't start on wet, freshly-rained pavement (learned all those in one shot).

The rationality of emotion

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I was laying in bed pondering about the role of Logic and Reason in our lives. I don't do this often, but sometimes when I get thinking, it really goes off.

I was musing about the tremendous importance of these things and are they the most important objects to allow to govern our lives? What about emotion? What about the delight in chaos and disorder? I think logic, rationality, and reason still trump them all and I will try to expound but will probably trip myself up along the way.

This was sparked by a documentary we watched this evening on an aspect of alternative medicine. It was a terribly unscientific and unprofessionally done film. Not that it didn't try to promote a valuable treatment that showed promise, but it constantly cried out against "the establishment" keeping this treatment down. I had to admit, if I were "the establishment" and could so readily find flaws in their statistics, their logical reasoning, I'd dismiss it too. Not out of greed, but out of lack of concrete reason. Emily and I discussed the science and decided to check out what Pubmed had on this treatment. Quickly we found some statistics that did promote this treatment as beneficial to cancer patients vs. no treatment. Not a perfect treatment by any means, some of the survival rates for severely metastisized cancers were 39% 5-year survival using the prescribed method vs. 6% 5-year survival for no treatment. Sounds great. But what are the 5-year survival rates of the same cancers using conventional medicine? We didn't bother to look it up, it was late. But such an important set of stats as this would change everything, yet the movie hadn't used it at all. It spoke anecdotally to only survivors. They could find lots of them who'd used this method, but somehow couldn't similarly interview those who'd died. Nor did they compare numbers against conventional (i.e. "the establishment's") treatments. To me, it doesn't really matter at this point, because the treatment involved such modalities as eating a plant-based diet (they actually advertised veganism, but that discussion I'll save for another time) and everything I've ever learned agrees with this, so it's a moot point in my life, but the evening was a stimulating exercise of logic and reasoning.

Back to this idea of emotion. How does it play into the progress and improvement of life? Or better yet, how does it improve our existence? Sadly, I think it safe to say that the incredible majority of problems in this world arise because of abused, uncontrolled, or unchecked emotions. Yet it is checked emotions, properly controlled by reason and logic, that provide almost all production and improvement on this planet. What is emotion? I define it to be the set of physical and mental reactions which our immeasurably complex environment and our collected set of memories and intelligence exert on us. Sounds robotic, dry, and lifeless, but let me give an example: there is a windy stretch of road near our home. Close to the side of the road is a steep and high cliff dropping to the beach and ocean below. The road itself is fairly steep and the sharp corners can be hazardous at high speeds. The scenery is reminiscent of romantic views of Mediterranean vistas. The ruggedness of the terrain is unusual for any city of comparable size. I get an amazing rush of pleasure riding my bicycle as fast as I can down this street. Enough of a rush that if I have the time, the energy, and the weather on my side, I'll ride an extra 100 feet uphill and a mile out of the way to barrel down on my way home from school. I have occasionally passed cars doing this. This creates even more of a rush.

This ride produces strong and temporary emotions. Thinking about it, that emotion is created partly by the amazing scenery, the stimlulation of wind on my face, the forces pulling on me as I speed around the corners, and a great deal because of the slight loss of predictability of my outcome. I let go a little bit of the control I have over my life. It is scary. When I don't die or get hurt (which has been every time, knock on wood), I feel terrific. That additional bit of chance I throw into my life sparks emotion.

The possibility of disorder or lack of control is what creates emotions. When an outcome goes against our predictions we become sad or angry. When it unexpectedly goes right, we become ecstatic. When we enter into a relationship with another person our emotions become tied to their actions as we give up control of some portion of our life to them. This creates very strong emotions.

As we learn about our emotions, we become more rational and logical, and in maintaining control over them we are able to produce, to create.

So, thinking eternally, how does God experience emotion? He knows everything, can do everything, and in perfection would never knowingly endanger his position or give up any of his control to anyone else? How does our eternal Father have any room for emotion? If he wanted the rush of a risky activity, he would give up attributes and qualities that make him God such as perfect logic, rationality, and reason. If he didn't know the outcome of everything, he wouldn't be God. His emotions are intimately and eternally tied to us, his children. He has achieved perfection and glory. The risk and chance he takes are the risks and chances we take on ourselves. We are disordered and chaotic. We are learning and growing. We choose our eternal futures. Some of us will choose to model him, will receive ability and power, and thus achieve glory, adding it to his and giving him a source of pleasure and joy in achieving the desired outcome. Others of us will not and squander their positions, properties, and abilities, and fail to retain our own control over ourselves. The desired outcome is not achieved and sadness for us is felt in him.

This seems like a perfect spot to be in. Relinquishing no control he didn't previously have (the exercise of our will) and completely avoiding endangerment to himself (he loses nothing of his own since our free will was never his to begin with) he is able to experience all realms of emotion in his control over this amazing universe. Managing the complexity of innumerable planets of billions of his children, trillions of life forms, and uncountable interactions of matter and energy all while having the capacity to monitor and care for each one should provide a ready source of physical and mental stimulation along with all accompanying emotions to keep someone like our Heavenly Father working and doing for an eternity. To cease acting would create a loss of these emotions and so in selflessly working to produce to give us power and control, he is rewarded by us. Enough desirable emotion that he would continue to do it.

This makes him an integral part of the universe. Always maintaining the ability to cease, but in never doing so he becomes everlasting and eternal. Not even matter and packets of energy can tout these qualities and yet he is infinitely more complex than the universe and life in their entireties.

Thinking this way provided some relief to a troubled spot in my mind: What would you do with all of that time and ability after a couple of eternities have passed? I admit, I don't feel satisfied with the written explanation I've given, but it worked out better in my head an hour ago when my emotions were running stronger and before I had to sift out the rational parts that fit into simple text.

Check these guns out, I think they're broken

So, I'm just gonna type for a while and see if it helps my forearms out or until the number of typos I make drives me crazy. For some reason, they've been killing me for the past weekend. No exercise, no strain, no trauma, just killer sore muscles and no grip strength. I can't even squeeze shampoo out of the bottle. I tried to open the plastic flip-up lid of sanitex wipes down in the clinic this morning and it took both hands. Typing is awkwardly dumb. What's really weird is that I feel slightly out of breath when I do try to use it. I can use my arms just fine, but fingers and grip are deadzorz. Not even numb or tingly, just weak and sore-muscle-y. I tried looking up possible causes on the internets and all i could find are serious things like cancer and auto-immune diseases that affect, like, 1 in 5 bajillion people or something. I told one of the oral surgeons about it and he tells me, "If you hear hooves, you think of horses not zebras." True that, Dr. Sachs, true that. I probably just slept on it funny. Both arms....is that like hearing stripes coming at me?

Update: My arms are now feeling fine, but it took about 6 days to go back to full normal-ness. Best theory: must've done something in my sleep (dreaming) and stressed 'em out like crazy.

Point Reyes National Seashore

MLK Weekend 2010

On Saturday, Emily tells me it's up to me to decide where to go. I had some ideas but they seemed far. So we start driving north and get off the 101 in San Rafael at Sir Francis Drake Blvd, going west. This takes you scenically through San Anselmo where we stopped for Boba Tea, then through Fairfax, Samuel P Taylor State Park, and finally into Point Reyes National Seashore. It's a fairly majestic place. Feels really out there. Lots of little Bed N' Breakfasts, a few small neighborhoods, lots of restaurants and tourist centered businesses. We kept driving out to the lighthouse. Since leaving our house, we drove through redwood forests, mountainous roads, marshlands, along deep inlets, and through rolling hill grasslands that resembled windswept coastal Ireland in the overcast and gusty weather with bright green grasses, rocky outcroppings, and rough forbidding oceans and sea cliffs. And there's the 10-mile long exposed beach to one side of the point and estuary-filled Drake's Bay to the other side. If it were ever clear enough there is a straight 32-mile line of sight to our apartment, it sticks out so far.

It was worth the trek. It was breezy and overcast, but the lighthouse really is cool. There's a good climb of stairs to get down to the rocky perch where the lighthouse sits, and there's a rich history to the place that's eerie and admirable at the same time. The house clocks 2,000 hours of fog a year (the most of anywhere on the west coast by official records) and hasn't had a year without gale force winds since recording started. The stories of the old lighthouse keepers in the 1800's are amazing. It took 140lbs of coal an hour to keep the steam engines going to power the fog horns, and one year there was a 9-day solid stretch of fog. That's about 15 tons of coal. I don't even know how they got that much coal way out there.

The weather went downhill just as we were walking out. Fog, wind, and rain all rolled in just before we got to our car. We headed back through the rolling hills of the numerous historic cattle ranches still in operation and signs pointing to turn-offs for oyster farms, Elk ranches/preserves, and trails of all kinds.

BBQ oysters are the culture out there and it was tempting to try some, but at 14 bucks for half a dozen in the restaurants we decided to wait for later. We explored a few of the very small towns around Tomales Bay and headed out another way towards Petaluma and Novato before going home.

Today, we ran a few errands, including stopping by Fort Point to see the waves of the Heavy Surf Warning hitting the coast. 8-10 foot waves (out at the beach they're ~20ft or so right now) wrapping under the Golden Gate Bridge while torrential downpours flooded the streets and some sidewalks. We sat the car in the splash zone for a couple of big ones (scaring the garbage out of Leif, who was happily sucking his sippy-cup when the first one nailed the car) having a great time. We stopped by a grocery store and bought a couple of non-fresh atlantic oysters and drove out to a VERY windy Muir Beach and ate them raw at a picnic table. They were OK, but had the aftertaste of a stale tide-pool (it was all for comparison's sake, a scientific experiment of quality, if you will). Further up to Stinson Beach, Bolinas Lagoon, and back to Inverness for another try at the marginal Busy Bee Bakery. Then before we left, we had to try locally fresh barbecued oysters at a restaurant, unable to contain the curiosity. THEY WERE AMAZING!! Perhaps it was the unique mango-bourbon flavored sauce they used, but those oysters were fantastic. We understood why those-who-know (check out the pictures) drive all the way out here to buy several dozens of these bad boys right from the farm with their friends and buddies with their grills and cocktail sauces. We have to come back and do the same.

All-in-all: Highly recommend Point Reyes National Seashore. Too much to explore in one weekend, and all of what we saw was great.

Important Note!!: If you or the little ones get car-sick, it would be wise to keep lots of fresh, cool, air going through the car as well as lots of snacks and drinks in the car. We also took a few breaks from driving the windy roads to get out and run around a bit. During one of these, Grace and I snuck under a barbed-wire fence, climbed a small hill, and chased a family of black-tailed deer.