"HOW SHALL WE THEN LIVE?" Francis Schaeffer

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Dr. Sanity: VICTIMHOOD, THE UNKNOWN IDEAL !

Dr. Sanity: VICTIMHOOD, THE UNKNOWN IDEAL !

Excellent post.  There ARE real victims but declaring yourself a victim/survivor because you attended a church that you felt uncomfortable with, that's pretty pathetic "victimization."

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

DEEMABLE TECH

Fascinating podcasts regarding modern tech stuff; Windows, Mac, Iphones/Droid phones, and all things deemable.  Deemable Tech; your chance to keep current with some funny guys.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

6 a.m.

It's early Sunday morning and I'm at my cubicle getting ready to start reviewing files.  The 3 story building is totally empty but it's secure and the quiet doesn't bother me.  I like working when it's quiet.  I do enjoy the people I work with but my focus is better when it's just me.  Since I'm a "contractor," I don't have set hours, I can work when I want as long as I can get into the building and the computerized system isn't down for repairs/upgrades/time-outs.  We'll see how much I get done this a.m. before I head off to church.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

BICYCLE SEATS

I've owned a number of racing bicycles over the years and even more racing bicycle seats. They LOOK uncomfortable and frankly they are to a greater or lesser degree. But it is the narrowness of the seat ( which is inherently uncomfortable ) that makes it possible to sit atop it for hours at a time without destroying the flesh of one's inner thigh.  They are far more comfortable than they used to be and a good expensive seat uses high tech materials to both give and hold shape conforming to the rider's buttocks.  If you find a comfortable seat, you'll hold on to it as long as you can.  But eventually they lose their elasticity, become ever more uncomfortable until you give up; go to the local bike store and plunk down a hundred or so samolians in the hopes of buying a little more comfort.  ( You can't buy a quality bike seat at Target or Walmart.  Ain't gonna happen.)

Over the years; you adapt.  I no longer know what a truly comfortable seat is like because on racing bikes, they don't exist.  You simply become accustomed to permanent discomfort and reach the place where you simply don't think about  the pain unless you're on a several hour ride.  Then you just live with it.

Two items that are immensely helpful are the black, spandex biking shorts with  an insert in the crotch.  A couple of decades back, the shorts were made of wool and had a real, honest-to-goodness chamois in the crotch.  You can still buy them but they are mega expensive. But now the spandex shorts come with just some synthetic fabric that is a figure 8 shaped pad of sorts.  ( No, you don't wear underwear under the shorts.  Underwear has hems, which can chafe you, and are  also likely to become creased, which can also chafe you. It's just you, the insert and the spandex.).  The pants make a HUGE difference in the comfort level of the ride.

A second helpful item for the long rides is something called "Butt-R."  It's a lubricant that theoretically keeps the pain down.  It works for awhile.  I always found the name quite clever.  "Butt-R" indeed.

So there you have a brief post on the seriously uncomfortable, but totally necessary, narrow bicycle seat.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Bicycling thru Life

I lived on a little semi cul-de-sac in an L.A. suburb when I was growing up.  There were 13 boys within 5 years of my age on this one little street and we were always playing something.  Everything I learned about sports and arguing I learned on Helmer Dr.

My mother, wisely, thought that little boys with too much privacy might find trouble so her iron-clad rule with me was; you can't be in anybody's house and you can't be in their back yard.  Stay in the front yards or on the street and ask before you go up or down the street.  By the time I reached 14, I was absolutely sick of this rule.  I still had to ask Mom if I  wanted to go down the street.  Then my older cousin, Tom, gave me an old bicycle of his.
[It was actually a strange bike; it had the racing type frame and the narrower tires but it was a 1 speed.  Who ever heard of a one speed racing type bike?  But I digress.]

My parents began to let me ride around the city.  I STILL had to ask permission to go down the street but I was now able to get on my bike and ride all over the city without telling  Mom in advance where I was going; often I didn't know.  So with my cousin's bike, I discovered freedom and mobility.  My love affair with the bike had begun.
Now my Dad, raised under a less suspicious regime, had spent his boyhood riding all over Los Angeles with his cousin and best friend Bill Bailey. So when I showed an interest in riding around, he ultimately supported me against my more fearful and concerned Mom.  Then when I was 14, I talked them into letting me ride 30 miles to my grandma's house in Hermosa Beach one summer.  We are talking L.A. when there were NO bike lanes, No colorful spandex to warn others, NO arroyos to ride, only big cars and wacky drivers and life threatening smog.  Even now I'm astounded they let me do that.  I remember being rather frightened on the trip because I had only ridden to Grandma's sitting in the back seat of the family sedan so I was pioneering a new route to Grandmas not at all positive where I was at any one time.( I'm pretty sure I had a map but at 14, who knows how to read a map?)  I was quite relieved when I got there without getting lost.  (This pre-dated the cell phone age by several decades, I'm not sure I could have handled a public phone to even tell anybody I was lost.  I was  that sheltered.)

But I got to Grandma's spent the week body-surfing and then rode the bike back home feeling like I had outpointed Christopher Columbus in the conquest of the unknown and the exhibition of bravery and daring-do.

Many decades later, I'm still biking.  It's still an adventure, it's still fun.
More biking tales to come perhaps.

Monday, June 18, 2012

UPSET CHRISTIAN (and NON CHRISTIAN) BLOGGERS

THE SPIRITUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR BLOGS NETWORK

No Longer Quivering – Vyckie Garrison

Roadkill on the Information Superhighway – Calulu

Love, Joy, Feminism – Libby Anne

The Phoenix and the Olive Branch – Sierra

Wordgazer’s Words – Kristen Rosser

Incongruous Circumspection – Joe Sands

Permission to Live – Melissa

Baptist Taliban and Beyond – Cindy Foster

Past Tense Present Progressive – Latebloomer

Dispelled: One Girl’s Journey in a Homeschool Cult - Chandra Bernat

Hopewell Takes on Life!

The Way Forward – Bruce Gerencser

Quiver Full of Information

Rethinking Vision Forum

Wartburg Watch

Beaverton Survivors

SGM Survivors

SGM Refuge

And so many more.

These allegedly Christian blogs are always upset at somebody or something. There commentors constitute an Amen chorus of upset people who are "shocked" "sickened" "stunned" "troubled" "horrified" "furious" "shaking"  etc..

Reading the blogs one tends to think that the authors of the articles and authors of the comments just learned that mankind has a bent towards sin; even those in the church or ministry.

As for spiritual abuse; apparently it didn't exist until this century - at least that the impression you get if you're reading the blogs and their amen chorus.

Oh well, Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the son."  I suspected the people under his kingship
also were  "shocked" "sickened" "stunned" "troubled" "horrified" "furious" "shaking"  etc..  



Friday, June 15, 2012

Friday, late afternoon

It seems strange to have nothing on my agenda for the next several hours.  I taped last night's NBA final but since my team lost, I'm not going to watch it.  I like watching games where I already know the outcome and my team has won.  It relieves a lot of stress.  It's more efficient that way also.  You get to skip the commercials and the fouls and the quarter/half-time reports.  You can watch a 2 hour game in an hour.  That's a plus.  But as I noted; my team lost so I'll just erase those two hours.


Saturday, June 09, 2012

GERRY RAFFERTY

I hate it that Gerry Rafferty drank himself to death at the age of 63.  As I'm writing this I'm listening to his last single, LIFE GOES ON, released in 2009.  Obviously, at the end of his life,  he could still write music; beautiful music and great lyrics. The one battle he didn't win was with himself.
They say his father was an abusive alcoholic; Gerry had at least one child, Martha, and she maintains the official website and has only nice things to say about her Dad.  One thing of note, she says he had a serious work ethic; was always working on his music.  He slept during the day, did his music at night, perhaps it was in the dark lonely hours that he drank.  Apparently he hid his alcoholism quite successfully from people who knew him but it ultimately owned his soul.

I heard Gerry believed in Karma; which would fit in with his hit single, If You Get it Wrong You Get It Right Next Time.  But his funeral was in a church in Scotland, a rare sunshiny day.  He had friends, they mourned his passing.  Holy Writ says, "It is appointed unto man once to die; then judgment."  There is no "second chance" to redo one's life.  Life doesn't go on.

Gerry will never again give the world a tune to hum, a musical story to sing, a vision of love to believe in.

I hate it that Gerry Rafferty drank himself to death at the age of 63.