This Pilgrim's Progress

Outdoor Tech

Last night our family made a raid on our local REI store for new outdoor gear for this summer.

My daughter and I found new boots (both Montrail btw). My old vasque boots weren't providing enough support. Last summer I hiked totally in my Lowa low-cut hikers. They are great shoes, but I'm planning to backpack this summer, and I needed something with more ankle support and robust sole protection. I think the Montrail will do the job very nicely. This one had a steel shank with a sturdy vibram sole and gore-tex lining.

Then we spent quite a bit of time figuring out which backpack to buy. I was kind of focused on an Osprey brand, because my daughter liked hers last summer. I tried on their "Crescent" model loaded with sand bags and wandered the store for 15-20 minutes until I convinced myself it was the one I wanted. Actually I think it will work very well. I was able to adjust it at the store and it keeps the load away from the back which will be especially good for me. I sweat a lot, and having the air circulation around the pack will make for a more comfortable load.  It has a heat-moldable belt, which I'll need to bring back when REI has their oven plugged in (they are in the middle of a big remodel job right now). It also is hydration system compatible, and has a convertible fanny pack (which will be useful for my Fall backpacking trip with my church buddies).

Then we picked up some odds and ends: trekking poles (they are really necessary for anyone over 45 years of age), titanium cookware, spork, water bladder,  nalgene bottle, some dehydrated dinners to test-drive (we'll report on those later).

Heidi signed up as a coop member, so we got 20% off on the pack (special members sale, 20% off the largest ticket item, one per member). I had used my 20%  on my wife's sleeping bag (we got Marmot down bags for the whole family), so it was nice to get that bit of discount. By the time we get outfitted, I calculated that our outdoor gear will run a little over $2000.00 for the whole family.

But I consider it well worth the money for 2 big reasons: 1) Good equipment means a good outdoor experience, which in turn means 2) great memories of time spent in the outdoors with our family enjoying God's incredible creation.  We live in one of the most scenic countries in the world and we enjoy exploring it's beauty. Plus it's fun to get the latest gadgets and gizmos for the outdoors and try them out. The technology has come so far in the last few years, and it really works!! The technical clothing industry has especially made incredible progress, and it really is worth the investment. One big help in sorting out the incredible array of possibilities is Backpacker magazine. They have very helpful and exhaustive gear guides and a lot of information especially for the beginner trying to figure it all out.

Progress Report

Well, this pilgrim managed to catch his wife's cold last weekend, and I still have it.  Unfortunately, it involves a sore throat, so it's also painful. At least the mold infection didn't give me a sore throat!! I'm supposed to go back this coming week for a follow-up lab on my lungs and with the chest specialist. But with this new cold, I'm wondering if I'll catch pneumonia again!!

So, it's been a pretty dull weekend, mostly reading and watching the tv. I haven't done any further work on the yard drains since last weekend, so that's putting me behind schedule. We did get some bids on the gutters, and they were very good bids. But I want to have the drains almost done before the gutters are installed.

I went to church, which was good, but didn't stay for Sunday school. I'm also staying home while the rest of the family goes over to the in-laws for Easter brunch.  Heidi played her violin with two other violinists during the anthem. It was pretty, except the sound wasn't balanced. The organ was blasting out the choir AND the violins. We have high-schoolers doing the sound board, and usually they don't quite get it right. The prelude was a bit strange, drums and amped guitars didn't blend well with the rest of the music.  But I guess they were trying to offer a little bit of something for everyone.

I finished Tommy Franks book "American Soldier" yesterday. It's a very good read, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history or the Iraq war.  It's a very fascinating look at how the military is run at the higher echelons in our country. The evolution of strategy and tactics is also very interesting, Franks being a big part in helping the Army become more manuever and speed conscious. The "joint operations" concept is also another one that Franks has helped develop to a high degree. I think military men will be studying the Afghan and Iraq operations for many years to come for lessons in these concepts. I was also struck by how God blessed this country with men like Franks who serve in such incredibly important ways at crucial points of our history.

Survivor (Yawn!!)

We watched Survivor last night. Is it me, or is this season kind of boring??? They tried to spice it up with some twists, but really it's becoming pretty predictable. Even worse, there's nobody on this season who I particularly like or hate. Last season we could cheer on Rupert and boo Rob. Before that we could detest "johnny-fairplay". This season is just not catching my attention very much. I think it has become to predictable and familiar. They need a major revamp, maybe live-fire reward challenges or full-contact immunity contests. I think the intra-group dynamics of the whole thing has gotten kind of tired and not very interesting. It would be nice to see the teams actually act like teams and achieve some sort of real or significant success in a real and significant task.  I think that's why the "Amazing Race" is still very watchable, the people have a real object to achieve and they must work well as teams of two.

I also started to watch Alias (generally one of my favorites) but the cold I have made me so drowsy (or was it the Survivor episode that I watched) that I went to bed. I read some more of Tommy Franks book, before finally allowing myself to fall asleep. Had a great sleep, but woke up still sick.  Oh well, another day!

Miscellany

Well, it turns out that my co-worker and I weren't totally responsible for our database server's demise. Seems it was a fiber-card failure. So now we are waiting for the vendor's tech support to come and replace the card. Hopefully that's the only problem and we can get back to work. These things always happen when you are actually trying to get something done!!!

Miscellany

I've not been very consistant with my posting lately. But since my co-worker and I managed to kill our database server, I decided to take a break to write a post while our server-dude trys to resuscitate the poor thing.

First of all,  I and my whole family are sick from a bad cold. I'm at work, but not very motivated due to the stuffed up head and general lousy feeling.

We got a couple of bids on rain gutters for our house. There was a difference of about $200.00, which is a pretty large variation. We'll go with the lower bid I think.

It's raining again, unfortunately we haven't dried out from the last deluge, so it will cause a lot of problems with soil movement and flooding around our area.

I'm reading Gen. Tommy Franks book right now. It is a very well done tome and a fascinating look at how our military operates at the upper echelons of command. Franks is a of man of strength and ability that our country continues to be blessed with to help us through our perilous times. 

The Terri Schiavo controversy is such a tragedy for our society. To think that our culture has come to this point where it's even a debatable issue as to whether or not to keep her alive is a deep, deep shame. To use this woman's life and her parents as a punching bag for liberal dogma is disgusting me too. I feel that if the courts let this woman starve to death, it may well spell the end of their reign. I hope that such a back-lash occurs that it restores some sanity to our nation and it's culture.

It's great to be a Dad. Even of teen-agers!! Both of my kids have been a special blessing to me the last few weeks. I've been pleased to see how wonderfully they are developing in their personalities and character. All through God's grace!!

"Back in Action"

"Back in Action" by Captain David Rozelle is a inspiring biography of this young officer's career up to the present. He loses a foot from a land-mine during the Iraq war, and the last half of the book tells about his struggle to recover and rehabilitate himself to return to duty in the Army. While an inspiring story, I felt he could have used an editor to clean up his language and tone down some of the over-the-top, gung-ho flavor of his writing. I would recommend this book as an interesting look at one man's career in today's army and his experiences in the Iraq war. I only wonder if he decided to write this too soon and maybe should have waited until after his next tour of duty in Iraq. But time will tell, and I pray for his safety and for his family as he bravely serves our country like so many others of our military.

"Adams Rib"

I tried to watch "Adams Rib" with Tracy & Hepburn the other night on TCM. It was so painful to watch I switched to something else after enduring 20 minutes. I guess my tastes have changed over the years. I remember watching this when I was a teenager and liking it. But now the dialog is so corny and the whole "battle of the sexes" thing is so trite. I didn't think the acting was particularly well done, and the script was full of cliche's. But maybe in 1949 the jokes and humor was more fresh and original.  I'm not a fan of these two actors in anything that they were in together. I think they were much better as actors in many different films. Maybe their love affair and chemistry attracted audiences of 50 years ago, because it was different and a little exciting in a slightly naughty sense. But I guess I've absorbed too much of our post-modern culture to appreciate it now. It is considered to be a classic and one of their better films, but I'm at a loss as to why!!!

"Ray"

"Ray" is an excellent movie about the early life of the great Ray Charles. Jamie Foxx did a great job of acting in this movie. It was a fascinating look at the recording industry over the years through the life of this innovating artist. It doesn't gloss over Ray's many faults, but it does pay tribute to the man's unique genius. It was fun to see how his art progressed along with the history of this country and it's pop culture in the last half of the century. The soundtrack is awsome as is the cinematography. I would say this is a dvd worth buying and owning as a wonderful piece of cinematic art.

"We Were Soldiers"

We saw "We Were Soldiers" on cable TV the other night. It was a Mel Gibson movie that I hadn't seen before. Very Well Done. The movie is about the first battle between US forces and the North Vietnamese Army.  I liked the focus on the men involved and the tactics of battle. They attempted to show us scenes from the enemy's point of view to give us a more rounded picture of the battle. I liked the way Mel's character was developed and how they showed both his professionalism and his concern for the men under his command. I also liked the way he portrayed the man's faith and the role it played in his life as a professionl soldier. The 'broken arrow' scenes were rivetting, and I thought it was pretty accurate. The Vietnam War is a hard one to write about and make movies about. This is one of the best in that it portrayed the truly human sacrifice that our military makes when called upon to do so. It also avoided both super-patriotic jingoism and PC anti-americanism, by portraying the enemy in human terms and not simply as a caricature.

Swim meet

Saturday Andrew and I were at a swim meet. It went pretty quickly and we were done around 1:30 p.m. or so. Andrew did very well, drop 6 seconds on his 200 free-style and 1 second off his 50 free. Just for the fun of it I tried to take a picture of him swimming with my camera phone. It didn't work very well, the sunlight made it impossible to see the lcd display and the resolution is so poor you really can't tell what you are looking at!! We had our standard celebratory Rubio's meal after the swim meet. Later in the day we both started to feel the effects of catching my wife's cold. By Sunday Andrew and I were feeling pretty crummy. I stayed home from work today (Monday) and took a 4 hour nap.