here’s life

So, it was friday, and I hurried out of work, and jumped on the turnpike, heading for KC. My flight was leaving about 4 and a half hours, just enough time to get there. I got a call from my mom. My destination in Ohio was getting snow, and flights were being canceled. My dad was in one airport. My grandfather was stuck in Atlanta. Well, I figured I’d just keep driving, and see what I could make of it. But when I got off the phone with my Mom, I had a voicemail, saying that my flight was canceled. Ok, so I dropped off the next exit, paid my 30 cents, and headed for home. I could go back to work. I could try to find a flight from somewhere that would get me there. Sometime, maybe tomorrow….or…
I called up Aduma. “What are you doing this weekend?” “I’m on a mountain, snowboarding. Tomorrow we might go climb a 14er”. An hour later, I had more warm clothes packed, and was heading west instead of east. I drove. And drove. Western Kansas is pretty, but it is long. At dusk I passed a wind farm—fifty turbines spinning slowly. Then it got dark, and all I saw were the white lines. And then, suddenly, I was there, and found a bed, and went to sleep. Well, it wasn’t sudden, but I did have some meaningful times of prayer and singing while riding in my radio-free car.
We got up early, and headed for the mountain. Not quite early enough, it would seem. There was lots of traffic. Well, alot compared to my little big city. And when the right lane ended, all the selfish jerks were driving past everyone on the right, and then merging in, slowing the whole thing to a crawl. I didn’t have the nerve to be a jerk back, so didn’t pull into the right lane and stop. I did try to run over some people who merged in because I wasn’t fast enough to close the gap. Yeah, about that. My car does ok in Kansas, where there is lot of air, and not much hill. But, you get out to the mountains, and it has a hard time. It may have been trying to skip 1st gear, but it would take a while to get going. On the interstate it just annoyed the other drivers. But once we got onto the mountain trails, it became difficult to manage. It was too curvy and slick to go fast enough to keep the turbo pressure up to give the engine enough power to get up the hills. At one point we had to get out and push because the road was too slick and steep, and full throttle just made smoke. Eventually, we got to the parking lot—well, it was where we parked, since the road was blocked with a ten-foot pile of snow. We were a couple miles from the trailhead, and we gave up on climbing the mountain. Instead, we walked up the road (and railing on the road that was level with the snow) and the followed a snow-shoe path to a hill where we did dive-rolls until we were worn out and covered with snow. The trip down was much easier. Except that the car in front of us almost slid sideways into an oncoming car. They both stopped in time, and I was able to run into the drift at the edge of the cliff and stop before running into them. We passed a hydro electric plant with lots of wires, and not much water or drop. Not sure how they managed it. We got milkshakes at the bottom of the hill, in the little town. The lady who ran the milkshake place wasn’t as good at it as the normal lady. Even if she had been doing it all her life, she’d only have gotten a few dozen shakes done. But not to worry because Becky had some spaghetti for us that evening. We had a good time hanging out, and Discussing Important Stuff. Like a name for my car. It earned the title “The Bloviator”. It blows alot of black smoke. But also, in a more sophisticated sense, it looks like an impressive luxury car, and it says alot about driving, but when it come down to it, it didn’t go anywhere. So, it is pretentiously contentless. About that time, we decided to watch UHF. “oh, yeah…they really hate it when you do this!” Shake, Shake, shake.
Sunday we went to church, and heard another excellent message—that makes two out of two. We went for a walk in the afternoon, in the “Impressive Backyard”. I needed to leave, but stopped to get icecream with the others on the way out. But, it was late, and I’d be driving tired, and we wanted to climb another hill in the morning…so I didn’t leave after all. I called a coworker and said I wouldn’t be in. We spent a while wandering around downtown, while part of our party waited for the train. Then aduma and I got supper, and talked about Life. Now I know what to do with my future! I’m going to go live in the woods and eat squirrels. Maybe some rabbits, after the first frost.
Monday started out like another other day. Getting up before sunrise, and heading off—oh, wait, not to work, but to 10732 ft. ASL and then hiking up a snow packed path, and picking our way through unmarked drifts and boulders, and finally summiting at 11722 ft. The view, like all weekend, was excellent. I mean, Kansas is great. It has some nice flat stuff, and some good grass-covered hills. But, it’s not quite like looking down on angled slopes covered with snow-covered trees, and looking over and seeing peaks that are coated with snow. And gazing off the cliff, resisting the urge to jump, hoping that this time, I’ll learn to fly. It sometimes takes a little bit to get the hang of it. Then, it was back down into town, more of the perfect weather we’d had all weekend, and this time I really left. Once aduma got my car started, cranking while I pumped the primer pump. The Bloviator was off and running! I took a scenic route across eastern Colorado, on a two lane that flew past farms and paused in little towns. It was good to see the heart of the communities along the way. It was also a pretty lonely road. I think I went about a half hour without meeting another car. And I drove and I drove. With my sunroof open. And I thought, and I tried to stay awake, and I troubleshooted a kludge of two wireless routers that a friend uses to steal wireless from the neighbors and re-broadcast it. (unplug them both, and then plug them in in cascading order, Does it work now?)
It was dark by the time I got to the windmills this time. They each had a red light on top, and nearly all of them blinked in unison. There was one light that was about half a blink slow. I was driving in the dark and I looked up at the bright stars–so much brighter than in the city, and I inhaled, and smelled…snow. What’s that? Why do I smell snow when I look at the sky? It doesn’t smell like snow in my car if I look out the windshield, but the sky looks like snow smells. It made me think of this page which I read about 4 years ago. It suggest that humans can sense infrared, with lets us see the temperature of an object at a distance. Well, we all know we can tell if some thing is hot or cold without touching it—your skin can easily say “I am in the sun” or “I am in the shade”. But, no, this is something different—or at least feels different to me. That smell of rain or snow. I think it was that I was “seeing” the deep cold of space. Space doesn’t radiate much at all—-sure there are stars, but they are really small compared to the coldness of the nothingness of space. And why do I sense it most when I inhale through my nose? It could be that I am in the habit of associating smells with inhaling through my nose, or it could be it gives me a sample of ambient air to use as a reference. Suppose I have sensors in the skin below my eyes that can tell th e temp of an object straight ahead by checking for heat radiating from it. Now, it might get confused because there is also heat conducting out of the air, throwing off the sensor reading. But if I knew what temp the ambient air was, then I could calibrate the sensor to accurately see how much heat is radiating off the object I’m looking at. And since that is the only way that we ever notice this sense, we think of it as a smell. Maybe we all have special superhuman powers…but we don’t know it. I guess if we all have it, then it’s not superhuman. Oh well.
Well, gotta get to sleep so I can get up and save the world! There are a bunch of planes in a file at work that have my name on them.

Today I went and picked up my new car. This is the first car I’ve actually picked out—the others were just sort of there, and available when I needed transportation. Not this Mercedes. It is the car I have wanted for quite a while: a 1984 diesel 300SD. I drove back from Kansas City without incident—except for the black smoke when I accelerate hard. My brother said it was some valve someone must have disabled, which made me feel better about it. By the end of the 3 hour trip I was pretty comfortable with the car.
On my Mazda, I’ve been ignoring most maintenance and upkeep that is not totally necessary. Things like vacuuming it out, or replacing parts instead of just removing them. But I plan to do a little more to this car. As a gesture of goodwill, this evening I wiped down the interior, cleaning the layer of dust off of it. It is still going to have some tears and dings, but it will be a little less dingy.
This car is sturdy. I was looking at it’s structure—the word that comes to mind is “tank”. The undercarriage looks like you could drive over flaming engine blocks without a problem. Not that I plan to do that, but I could. It isn’t impervious to damage, however. The drivers-side doors are slightly bent where it ran into something. I have another set of doors, but they would need repainting to match the rest of the car (dark silver with pealing clear-coat). And I would need to repair the rear door sill where it has been bent inward. But, I’m not sure if I want to do that much work to it. But I do plan to clean the floors, if I can find an outlet to plug the vacuum into.

In other news, last weekend I went, with some people from church, down to Turner Falls—a place in Oklahoma where a creek runs through some mountains. In fact, it seems to be the best place Oklahoma has where cool water and rocks meet in a picturesque way. Which is probably why we couldn’t get in Sunday midday when we arrived—they had admitted 5000 people already, and had closed the park to any more. So, we went to the cabin where we were staying, and played in a different river. This one was warm and red. It was, as they say, “to thin to plow, to thick to drink”. You couldn’t see the bottom when you cupped the water in your hands. But, all this silt piled up along the edges, and made nifty “quickmud”. You could walk on top, but if you stamped your feet, you would sink in above your knees. It was kind of tricky to get back out of once that happened. The river rushed along very quickly—I could barely hold my own in a slow area—standing waist deep, or swimming against the current. But a lot of the 100′ wide river was only knee-to-waist deep. And the bottom was very hilly. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. As it got dark, I wandered around the 70 acre hayfield between the river and the cabin where everyone else was sitting around a fire. It was quiet and peaceful in the country. I sang “The Spacious Firmament” as the stars came out.
After eating s’mores, we all found places to sleep. There weren’t enough beds to go around, so I slept outside, on a round bale. The bugs bothered me some, so I brought out the DEET and sprayed it on until they all went away. Then all I had to deal with was the fact that a bale is shorter than me by about 2 feet. And, my single, thin blanket was pretty chilly as the night wore on. Other than that, it was pretty ok, out under the stars and the dew. And it was more like camping than just living in “cabin.” (It actually was a house, and other than lacking an oven, was nicer than my own.) Next time you need to sleep on a haybale, here’s what to do:

• Bring a warm blanket. Even in the summer, the nights get cold
• Stack bales together. One bale is too short, and lying crosswise is only comfortable for a little while.
• Bug spray. Bugs live near bales. If I hadn’t had it, my life would not have been much fun.
• Have something between you and the hay. Even if you aren’t allergic to hay, you don’t want in all over you.

So, if you have a choice between a hard floor and some bales, go with the bales. But, roll two bales end-to-end. Or better yet, flop two or three on their ends, so you have a flat platform to lay on. You won’t feel like you’re camping.

Oh, then the next day we went to the Falls, scrambled around on some rocks, and went swimming in the cold water, swam under the falls (we weren’t supposed to) and ate lunch in a trashed-out, overcrowded picnic area. The water was full of minerals, so it was milky, and deposited rock, gluing the creek bed together. After lunch we went down to a big dammed-up pool area where they had a slide and diving board. It was fun. And about as crowded as the Y. Unlike the Y, no one was there telling people not to go down the slide head first. Or when it is safe to follow the next person.

Next time I go, I’m going to Missouri. I guess Turner Falls would be more attractive if my previous swimming experience was in a pond full of cows.

Oh, and this is an awesome video of the sun: http://www.orbitingfrog.com/blog/movies/SuninUV.mpg

Cecil, my car, seems to be nearing the end of his life. For nearly 3 years I have driven this car, and it hasn’t ever stranded me. Sure, I’ve gotten some nails in the tires, and I’ve had coolant leaks, but my normal way of repairing Cecil has been to remove the offending item. The latest hose to spring a leak was easily fixed by cutting off the end of the hose, and reattaching it. Sometime Cecil won’t start—just a click, but no crank—so, I jiggle the battery terminals, and it’s back to normal. For the $500 I paid for this car, and the lack of maintenance I’ve put in, I’d call this semi-miraculous. Sure, the Japanese engineers that built this thing had a hand in making it indestructible, but God has had a hand in keeping it running. And I think He will continue until it is time for me to get a different car. But, I got a warning recently that makes me think I should start planning for imminent failure.
I flew east for Christmas, but due to some mis-management by both me and the airlines, I ended up flying home, but with my car parked in a nearby state. This worked out ok—I had a bike, and friends, and before a week had passed, I had caught a ride with a returning grad student, and got my car back. Well, almost back.
When I pulled away from the Toll Booth 3 miles from home, there was a scraping, thumping, dragging noise and feel. Cecil hardly wanted to move. I let him rest a couple minutes, pumped up my tire, and tried to get the Center Dif Lock light to go off. No soap. So, I decided to just limp home—what was I going to do? Call a tow truck? The car did go, so I just drove slow, with my flashers on. I tried driving fast, but that just made the thumping faster. Going over bumps seemed to shake it back to normal, but only for an instant. I was halfway home when there was a loud THUMP! and I instantly checked the mirror for dropped parts. Nothing fell off, but everything was as smooth as normal. Once again, I saw my car get me home. However, this showed me that maybe it is time to get a different car. And there does seem to be another whine at high speeds.
Like my car, I often feel that I am invincible, at least sort of. In college it became obvious that I could go out and play football, throw myself at the ground over and over, (I only missed once—that was an odd feeling) and come back no worse for the wear. The odd thing was, I’d come back, be walking down the hall with my hands in my pockets, bump into some decorative trim, and gouge my hand. I would often do things that should have maimed normal people, and didn’t get more than superficial scratches. This I also would class as semi-miraculous. I have certain “natural abilities” that make me good at keeping from getting hurt, but where did I get those abilities? You guessed it! I was given them, just like I am given everything else. So, I am postulating that I cannot be harmed until God decides it’s time.
I have an instantanious replacement awaiting me when my body finally breaks, but my car does not, yet. I am heeding the warning signs, and do not intend to venture to take it on anymore long trips. It has served me well, but the time has come for it to be replaced.
Now I have a problem. I am planning to get a different car. Will it be as reliable? Maybe, maybe not. I have often sarcasticly poked fun at people when they have trouble with their cars. “Your new car not working right? Too bad you don’t have a nice reliable car like me!” “Oh, too bad about your car! I could lend you mine, it only has a quarter of a million miles on it…” Now I could be one of those people whose cars are always breaking and requiring hundreds of dollars to repair, people I have looked down upon because I have been given something that they do not have. It’s always a bad idea to be arrogant about something that is not your doing—and what do I have that I haven’t received? And what do I have that can not be taken away?

So, I went to the SStore, and got me some stuff. Found several dozen 8 foot rods that looked like 3/8″ rebar but was much lighter. Turns out they are carbon fiber, coated with epoxy mixed with sand. Not sure what they are for. I also got a crate:

Mr. Cecil doesn’t like that. The guys at the SStore were rather dubious.

You may wonder why I got it. The reason is scrawled in the upper left of this picture. You can also see where it came from:

I took it apart, put it back on my car, took it to church and turned it into parts of Bethlehem. Here’s a shot of me untying it at church. Only one side of the car was visibility challenged: