Bear's Blog: Man Vs Wild ...Season 2!

Even though I don't have cable TV this is my new favorite show. Bear is amazing and he has a great story too. Check out his blog. I think he actually writes his own blog which I really think is cool.

Bear's Blog: Man Vs Wild ...Season 2!

I like this....

Portrait of a Greek Teacher
Edmund Wilson, The Triple Thinkers: Twelve Essays on Literary Subjects (London: John Lehmann, 1952), p. 224:

I have found out from later experience that it requires a rare blend of qualities for a man or a woman to teach Greek well: he must have a real taste for Greek (which seems rarer than a taste for Latin), a real feeling for its luminosity and subtlety, its nobility and naiveté, a lively imaginative picture of the civilization behind it; and he must, at the same time, be capable of insisting on the high degree of intellectual discipline that is needed to keep the class up to the effort demanded by the difficulties of the subject--difficulties which do not consist merely of the more or less automatic application of formulas one has learned, but involve, along with accurate memory, a certain precision of feeling, in which one can be trained by an adept but which cannot be learned by rote. Mr. Rolfe was the perfect Hellenist. He made you get everything exactly right, and this meant a good deal of drudgery. But one was also always made to feel that there was something worth having there behind the numbered paragraphs and paradigms of Goodwin's Greek grammar, the grim backs and fatiguing notes of the Ginn texts 'for the use of schools'--something exhilarating in the air of the classroom, human, heroic and shining. The prospect of knowing this marvellous thing lent the details excitement--and so it did the daily contest between Mr. Rolfe and you, which eventually became quite jolly. You felt that he was not unkind, that he merely wanted people to learn Greek, that teaching people Greek was an exalted aim to which he had devoted his life, and that he only became really unpleasant with students who did not want to learn it.


# posted by Michael Gilleland @ 3:27 AM

Check out what Bernard and Jena Borah are doing..

Good Measure International

Ahh Sweet Teaser Trailer

Riding the Bus

I like riding the bus to work for a lot of reasons. I can sit and stare off into space and ignore everything. I can watch people. I can listen. Sometime I should take a microphone with me on the bus. The sounds are the best part of the ride.

Today, there were two men sitting behind me speaking beautiful Spanish. If I had to guess I would say one was from Spain and the other from Latin America. The one that I imagine is from Spain looks like a professional soccer player to me. He is tall, with very dark hair and eyes, and he has a 5 o'clock shadow at 8:00am. He appears to be very fit. Also he often wears soccer jerseys, which helps the image. The other fellow is shorter with broad shoulders and nose, and has a similar shadow to his face. He has the legs of a soccer player, but not the jersey. He seems to pronounce his "s" sound differently too. Still in a clear elegant fashion, but not with the "th" hint that speakers from Spain and southern France have. As they spoke it seemed as if they were singing a secret to one another. A whispered melody, kept secret by my ignorance of their vocabulary.

Their's was not the only song I heard today. In back of the bus a black man was recounting some exciting news to a friend. I couldn't hear his content but I recognized the tune. It was spiritual. Had the words been foreign I would have thought he was singing. His cadence started low and landed with emphasis on the punctuation of his sentence. Each time he arrived at the same tone. I was staring off out the window when I first heard it and I honestly thought someone was singing. Then I realized what it was and I was more delighted than if it had been a song.

There are other sounds too. Like the relieved report of the rear door when it opens for someone getting off the bus after a long day at an awful job. There is a humble groan to the hydraulics when they kneel to accommodate a man in a wheelchair or to ease old knees out of the coach. I like the bus for all these sounds and for a dozen more.

Monkey Business

http://totebo.com/mko.php?c=pEorrrosrotBForFBoUBoUEoqUpto.O7YosrFr

The Glove is down... Beat that whipper snappers!

08.03.2007

What can I say... It's an illness.

Lessons from a 1000 year old man

While watching the talks of brilliant people on http://www.ted.com/tedtalks
I came upon a man named Aubrey de Grey. I first heard of Mr. de Grey in an issue of Popular Science magazine about 2 years ago. The bottom line: Aubrey de Grey proposes that humans will and should live to 1000 years and beyond. Hmmm, No thanks. (Gen 6:3)

seriously...

Morninging

You may be wondering why I don't blog so much anymore, or you may not. Events of the last weekend make me think that there are some of you out there that actually read my blog, which I find entirely shocking. Let's just look at the reasons that this blog is not crankin out blather as regularly as it could be.

Setting: It's early a bit after 5:00am. The floor in my kitchen is cold and there is practically no light peaking in the large window overlooking my kitchen table. The coffee pot can be heard gurgling. It smells good. AM 580 is whispering NPR in the background, probably something about why the war sucks, or why eating organic food is good. (I find this comforting.)

After stumbling around to make the coffee, I fire up my, now aging Mac laptop. I click on Cap's blog, Brant's blog and anything that looks interesting on my News-Gazette and BBC news RSS feeds. Usually by the time that I've read what these sources have to say I realize that I have nothing creative or insightful to offer you, my blog reader.

So, as you can see, as with most things... It's not my fault.

IRAQ

Ok.. Let's talk about this Iraq thing for just a second. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get mad about the conversation in one direction or the other, but I'll just deal with that.

Let's set aside the question of whether we should have started this whole thing or not, and talk about: Is it possible that this thing can end well? I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around a way to "win" this thing. Win here meaning that everybody stops killing one another and moves on to living as, at least, psuedo-reasonable people. Again I don't want to here about why we shouldn't have started this... But I do want to hear your thoughts on how to end it.

Some options I think of: (not that any of them are possible or would work)
1. Everybody that's not supposed to be there just leave.
2. Everybody in the free/psuedo-reasonable world sends 100,000 troops in and the craziest marshall law since the Roman world is commenced.
3. Mind controling drugs in the water...
4. Other...

Grace

One the of the great things about getting married is... that if you
are really lucky you, get to marry into a grandma or 2 that you didn't
have before you said I do.

One of the great things about the grandma that I married into, is that
she loves to get her family together. Even though we don't all live
close together, in fact, she lives on the the other side of the
country, there's one thing you can be sure of... When grandma is in
town everyone is going to get together, at least once. And at least
once we're all going to share a meal together. Probably at one of
those big ole' all you can eat buffet houses.

And when you get there it doesn't matter if they take checks or
plastic, or if you've got any cash on you. The only thing that
matters is that you belong to grandma. Because if you do, you're in,
and all the graces of that house food are yours. But the best part is not the
meal its the time, what it means, and the way it meshes us together as
family, even if your just married in..

A Tuesday

This morning I got up early. No surprises there I get up early
most every morning. Today however is a Tuesday. On Tuesday's I
run. After stumbling out of bed and decidedly not flushing the
toliet (I'll touch on the reason for that in another post) I picked up my cell and called the WCIA Time and Temperature line.

TIME: 5:08
Temperature: 08 degrees
Wind Speed: 14 MPH
Wind Chill: -2

When you're fixin' to go run outside those are not encouraging stats.
I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to run today. So I did what anyone might do I got in my nice mostly warm (I'll touch on that later too) minivan and drove toward my friend Scott's house via the route that I knew he would be walking. It's just right around the corner. As I rounded the corner I saw a mid-size sedan performing a perfect drivers ed worthy 3 point turn-about. Could I be that lucky?

Sure enough. I rolled down my window. He rolled down his.

Scott: "Let's go to breakfast."
Me: "Great"
Scott: "I'll meet you at your house."

Breakfast today equaled Merry-Ann's diner on Neil and Kirby. I got the #1. I put lots of salt on my hash browns. I overheard the waitress say that she had run a marathon, and that she wanted to learn Hebrew, but was having a hard time finding a teacher. She found a Russian class but not yet Hebrew. She had a nose ring.

Squirrels in the Ladies Room..

Sometime ago I started a post with the above title. It was the week before Christmas, and a family of squirrels found its way into the 2nd floor ladies room of Mumford Hall. All the screaming and running that you are likely imagining actually happened. In addition they tore up quite a bit of the wood work. My momma told me to never trust a squirrel.

All I want for Christmas.

Forrest Gump's mama didn't quite get it right.

Life is actually like asking a 3 year old, "What do you want for Christmas? You never know what you're gonna get."

We bravely asked this of our little shaver. His answer was as sweet as his tone in saying it.

"I want a Christmas Tree."

He had a look on his face just like Cindylou Who as he spoke.

Last night we put up the tree. Despite being warned about breakable ornaments and having to endure my explanation to him that "Christmas trees are not so much for hugging" he seemed to have a fantastic time.

And then..

This morning he toddled from his room, gave me a big sleepy hug and sat down right in front of the tree

....just to look at it.

"Daddy, can you turn on the lights?"
"Sure sweetie."

Marathon

Marathon runs in my family. My great-grandfather worked the oil boom for the company that later became Ohio Oil (maybe Standard Oil), which later became the Marathon Oil Company. My grandfather worked the oil fields straight out of high school and worked his way up to regional managment of the oils fields of Crawford County/Southern Illinois and Indiana. My dad, one year and 3 three months after I was born returned from Military service to work for Marathon. A few years later my Uncle, (my mother's brother) got on with the Marathon Pipeline. I come from a strong race of Marathon men.

I remember in the 80s when Exxon Moblie was threatening to buy out the company and everyone I knew gathered around the county courthouse for a parade/demostration. I was young, but I remember it as vividly as the bright red shirt and hat I was wearing. The shirt said in large white letters (My Dad and Grandpa Work for Marathon, and the back I think it said "and uncle too") I remember the feeling of solidarity and deep and abiding purpose. Of wanting whatever it was that everyone else wanted...so badly!

My granddad has since retired, My dad has over thirty years in with the company (now Marathon Ashland), and my uncle spends much of his time at the company headquarters as a trusted advisor to the big cheeses. While I don't have pumpjacks, injection wells, and tank batteries in my future, I have recently joined their ranks....

Growing up I remember that the gas station on the corner of Adams and Main in Oblong had a large oval sign with a half naked Greek runner on it. The sign said; "Marathon Best in the Long Run." That runner was Pheidippides the runner said to have run the 26.2 Miles from Marathon to Athens to bring the news of the battle. As I understand it he died. Thankfully I didn't

Today I ran 26.2 miles as a participant in the Chicago Marathon.

Now I'm a Marathon Man too...

Space...The Final Golden Calf

I decided to click on my own blogger profile today and I then decided to click on the book "The Man Who Was Thursday" by GK Chesterton.  I wanted to see who else in the world listed this book as a favorite.  I found a German twenty something who likes punk rock and heavy drinking.  But I also found someone named Stacey...  From Stacey's profile I found a link to something called - Solomon's Porch - http://www.solomonsporch.com/

Dig this quote:  "Solomon's Porch is a community seeking to live the dreams and love of God in the way of Jesus. As part of this effort, we maintain a meeting space at 100 W 46th Street in South Minneapolis. While we use our facility for Sunday evening worship gatherings, Bible studies, meals, internet café, art exhibitions, and events, we are very aware that our community exists wherever the people of Solomon's Porch find themselves. In this way, our Christian lives are not limited to what we officially do in our meeting space, but are expressed through our lives."

What other Spaces are limiting the way I do life?  Causing me to unnecessarily compartmentalize things that were intended to be a healthy part of the greater whole?

Cut to .5 by Darth Vader

"Nothing could be better for an entrepreneur then to have their company shut down by Apple or Microsoft. It's like Obi-wan getting cut in half by Darth Vadar with the knowledge that you'll come back stronger. Apple cuts your startup in half and you're made for live--you were killed by Steve Jobs. Wear it like a badge of honor."
--Calacanis

Trying Something New

This is my first shot at using Windows Live Writer to write a blog entry.  So far it's kind of cool. I am about to hit publish and we'll see how it looks.

Just call me Pheidippides (kind of)

On May 6, 2006 I ran 13.1 miles through the streets of Indianapolis, Indiana. Here are some key points.

1. 13.1 miles = exactly 1/2 of a marathon, which = 26.2 miles, or the distance between the ancient Greek city states Marathon and Athens.

2. It is important to note that I was not being chased by a dog or coerced into doing this.

3. I finished in 2 hours 47min. Slightly ahead of the old ladies brigade carrying their Oxygen tanks.

4. I"m actually considering doing it again, and maybe even the whole distance instead of just half.

5. I'm the guy in the blue shirt on the left.

English is tough stuff!

Dearest creature in creation,

study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

make your head and heart grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear,

so shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

When you correctly say croquet.

rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,

scenic, Arabic, pacific,

science, conscience, scientific,

tour, but our, and succour, four,

gas and alas and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

psalm, Maria, but malaria;

youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,

neither does devour with clangour;

soul but foul, and gaunt but aunt,

font, front, wont; want, grand and grant;

shows, goes, does; now first say finger,

and then singer, ginger, linger;

real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,

marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

neither does fury sound like bury,

dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth,

job, Job, bosom, oath;

though the difference seems little,

we say actual but victual;

refer does not rhyme with "deafer,"

foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer;

dull bull; and George, ate, late;

mint, pint, senate and sedate,

barn but earn, and wear and tear

do not rhyme with "here" and "ere."

Seven is right, but so is even,

hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;

monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,

ask, grasp, wasp; and cork and work;

doctrine, turpentine, marine;

dandelion with battalion;

sally with ally, yea, ye,

eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay;

pronunciation -- think of Psyche!

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won't it make you lose your wits

writing groats and saying grits!

-cut and pasted from: http://esperanto-usa.org/?q=node/84