Runalong

Runalong (the blog) will be in a deep trance the next six weeks while Runalong (the Magnificent!) is traipsing around Europe with his wife and daughter.

After visiting with missionaries in London and Madrid we will join up with our missionary daughter in Germany's Black Forest. From there the three of us will take trains and buses around Switzerland, visiting the German, Italian, Romansch and French sections of the country. We will be hiking and staying in hostels and barns and farms. One three-day hike will take us from Liechtenstein into Austria and then into Switzerland; our final two week trek will begin in France at Chamonix and follow the Haute Route to Zermatt, Switzerland with views of Mt Blanc and the Matterhorn.

I won't be taking my computer or cell phone or checking email or blogging- I'm one of those people who believe that the best vacations are those that provide the greatest breaks from "normal" everyday living.

Lord willing, I'll be back in early August with lots of pics and videos and stories; tanned, rested and ready for action!

So I was preaching on Psalm 32, one of my very, very favorites and I came to verse 2 which declares the blessings of the man whose sin has been covered. I was explaining the meaning of the word "covered" and of the word used here for "sin", which means to miss the mark or to come up short.

Great truths in a great passage with great comfort and great application. What wasn't so great were the words that somehow came out of my mouth:

"Blessed is the man whose falling shorts are covered by the Lord!"

Click on the pic:

Billy Graham's wife is celebrating the day she's been waiting for for a long, long time. After a long illness she has found complete healing in the presence of the Lord today at age 87. She was, in every respect, the great woman behind the great man. I look forward to meeting her someday. Pray for Billy; I'm sure he's looking forward to re-uniting with her.

If you don't "know" Ruth; read this and this.

Adolescents should never be allowed to have unrestricted access to the internet. Speaking from a male perspective (as is my usual habit), the flood of sexual hormones that CONSTANTLY course through a teen boy's immature body are too strong for reason or the best of intentions to overcome. And habits that are picked up during adolescence are very, very, very hard to overcome later in life (thank God there was no internet when I was a boy!).

While there are several good blocking software options, many parents just don't get around to buying and installing them. So here is something you can RIGHT NOW, without spending any money, to protect your children. You should do this before they reach fourth grade, or asap. I promise you, your sons will thank you for this when they are older (and will probably resent you if you do not!).

Link

"Children are so cocooned by their parents that they rarely venture far from home and have little concept of space, volume and how the world actually works, David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said yesterday.

The area in which children were allowed to range freely by their parents was a ninth of what it was a generation ago, he said."

Adjoining my home is an undeveloped tract of about 700 forested acres where I do a lot of running. Many children live in the adjoining subdivisions but I almost never (maybe a few times a year) see any boys out there riding bikes or exploring or playing the way we would have done almost daily when I was young. Some of it is overprotective parents, much of it is simply a lack of imagination brought on by an excess of indoor entertainments.

I never cease to be deeply saddened by this loss: children today are so impoverished, and unnecessarily so. They have more stuff, but fewer and narrower experiences (despite greater travel and multiple organized activities).

More here.

I just KNOW some wild-eyed Christian bloggers are going to (probably already have) attack this as some sort of evil, demonically-inspired coalition.

Sigh.

But I'm in.

How about you?

Matthew 25:31-46

Go here. Now. Thank-you.

Actually I've been leaning toward Fred T; but this video might just sway me to give Mitt another look:

Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is a former Baptist pastor, a social conservative with a compassionate heart, a warm and engaging fellow... why is he languishing in the polls? Some think it speaks to the demise of the religious right but I think the real reason can be found in the following, seemingly irrelevant quote:

"The majority of an independent-voter panel that watched last night's presidential debate expressed serious concerns about the Democrats' ability to fight the war on terror," the Post reported Monday. "Doug Schofield, 36, a benefit accounts manager from Franklin, said the terror issue could push him to vote Republican --although he's gay and more in tune with the Democrats' liberal social agenda," the Post said. Americans want to elect an un-Bush in 2008. But we also want to elect a grown-up who will protect us.

Not that Huckabee (or the Dems in question) aren't "grown-ups", but of the Republican candidates, Mike doesn't seem like the kind of tough, experienced, hard-nosed guy you would look to in a time of crisis. If a bunch of bullies attacked you, you'd rather have Rudy or McCain or Fred at your side than Mike Huckabee or the lovely and talented John Edwards. Like Bill Clinton he's from Hope, Arkansas and he reminds me a lot of a Republican Clinton, ca 1992. The Bill Clinton of 1992 wouldn't be able to get elected today, post 9/11. In the 90s we wanted nice guys for president. Today Americans want someone who isn't like Bush, but who nevertheless is manifestly strong.

I'd be happy to have Mike as my pastor or best friend, but for Commander-in-Chief I'd prefer someone more like Fred.

Well, I for one was sorry to see the recent immigration bill defeated. Lots of conservatives opposed it, but many supported it for the same reasons I did.

To get bills passed in a divided government, compromise is necessary. That means each side gets some of what it wants and gives up some of what it wants. Generally, when the final bill comes forward for a vote, purists on both sides denounce it because of the compromises.

My view is generally more pragmatic: we are never going to pass a bill that has everything we want and none of what our political opponents want. IIf the proposed compromise bill passes would we be better off than if we stayed with the current state of affairs, or would we be worse off. In other words, don't compare the bill to a perfect bill we will never see, but to current reality.

Some conservatives opposed it because they thought it would be worse than nothing. But most seemed to oppose it because it fell short of the ideal. Now we're stuck with the mess we already have and little hope of any change. If you don't like "amnesty", guess what? We've got de facto amnesty right now, just as we have had for a long time. If the Republicans who opposed this bill will come up with changes for the better that the Democrats will support (without which, nothing will happen), I'll say I was wrong. But I fear we're stuck with the current mess now for a long, long time.

Here's a good analysis: Link

A friend called me yesterday to ask if I wanted to go on a long run in the Trinity Wilderness. Seems he had been "attacked" by a bear a few nights earlier while camping. He needed to go back and retrieve what was left of his newly purchased tent and sleeping bag and see if anything could be salvaged. Usually I'm swamped on Fridays but this week I was able to clear the time and go on this unexpected adventure.

He was awakened in his tent at 2AM by a bear trying to get in. He managed to get dressed while the bear temporarily backed off and grabbed a few items including his gun (my friend, that is, not the bear). He fired two warning shots but the bear did not back off and continued to act as if it was going to attack. He left and came back the next day to find his tent and bag shredded. He collected a few items, including the stove and cup shown here but wanted someone to go back with him when he collected the rest.

I successfully kept the bears at bay on our 20 mile journey. It was a beautiful day and an enjoyable run.

"Everyone wants to save the world,
No one wants to help mom do the dishes."

The good news is: I'm an investing genius!
The bad news is: I'm bragging about it.

Just checked my retirement portfolio and for the year to date my investments are up 13.8% vs 7.8% for the S&P 500 (not including dividends reinvested). From 2001 - 2006 my IRA was up 160% overall, while the stock market rose 80% during that time. My investment choices are somewhat limited in that all of my 403b money (same thing as a 401K) is restricted to Vanguard funds and Jeanie's deferred comp is restricted to a few index funds. So on March 21 I set up a pretend portfolio of how I would invest $1million, if I had a mill and could invest it however I chose. That portfolio is up 15.7% since the first day of spring, during which time the stock market is up about 6.5%.

Wait! Come back! I'm not done!

I got thinking about this because I played a stock market game put on by Smart Money that lasted six weeks. Since I tend to hold stocks for a long time, short term trading really isn't my gig but just for fun I entered- but instead of making trades every day like most players I just bought my eight stocks at the beginning and held them throughout the game. I finished 110th out of almost 1800 players.

And finally: I also joined the Motley Fool CAPS group: nearly 30,000 strong. After a month and a half I am ranked 1,889th. (I gave up watching Criminal Intent reruns late at night to play CAPS instead). In each venue, with different picks, I've been stomping the market; "stomping," I say!

The CAPS thing is kind of addicting: I've gone months at a time without checking my actual portfolio, but I check my CAPS score every day. I don't care if my retirement fund dwindles away, as long as I outscore the other CAPS players!

(Disclaimer: For those of you who don't know me, the way I deal with my pride is by mocking myself.)

We now resume our regular programming.

Just a few of the pics I took Saturday:

I'm not running Western States this year as I'll be in Jolly Ol' during the race (June 23-24) but I found a nice video promo on YouTube:


But I do hope to run the HURT 100 next January in Hawaii. A few years ago Monica Scholz ran 23 or so 100 mile races in one year. I ran with her for awhile at Western States a couple years ago and she told me that HURT is her favorite. And, you guessed it, I found HURT on YouTube also (Paul Sibley's inspirational tale):

About time: After living here for a quarter century I finally climbed Mt. Shasta yesterday. Bob, who's been up it several times, took Stu and I on the 7000+ foot vertical climb to the summit at 14,262. We got up at 2AM after being awakened by other groups beginning as early as midnight. You need to start early as it takes most people 8-12 hours to summit from Horse Camp (where we camped) and it's best to start heading down by noon as the snow starts to get real slushy and the chance of thunderstorms increases in the afternoon.

Our route, via Avalanche Gulch, is visible in both these pics. The arrowhead-like rocky section in the middle is called "the Heart". We went up the snowchute to the right of the heart, through a gap in Red Banks (above the heart) and then left up Misery Hill to the summit.



Due to a dry winter there wasn't much snow this year. The plastic boots I rented weighed about 400 pounds each (conservatively) and were as uncomfortable as they look. We left camp at 2:45 and summitted just after 10:00. The altitude was hard on me and I was really struggling to breathe. I got a nasty altitude headache that didn't quit until we got back to Redding. Bob hardly seemed to break a sweat. We met another ultrarunner at the top, Kevin Sawchuk- he and his group had come up from Bunny Flats, where we were parked, in 5:05. But then Kevin IS fast, and he wasn't wearing big plastic and lead boots.

The route is very steep and crampons are essential and there are some great, long glissades coming back down. Above Red Banks, many hikers leave their packs behind for the final ascent. I kept my pack on and Stu asked if I had brought my waist pack. At least, that's what I thought he said. He was really asking if I had brought one of the "waste packs" issued to us by the USFS when we got our summit permits (for making doo-doo on the mountain). He was having some stomach issues. Thinking he wanted to borrow a small WAIST pack for the summit ascent, I said, "no," then Bob said "yes, you do," and pulled the WASTE pack out of my mesh pocket. I hate to think of what would have happened to my WAIST pack if I had brought it and offered it to Stu!

The rest of the story is best told in pictures, the reason these pics are so good is because I didn't take them (thanks, Bob!).

Rapid Weaver automatically archives each month on the first day of the new month. To read more exciting and life-changing recent entries, click on "May 2007" in the sidebar. Remember kids: "Runalong with Pastor Mark: It's Blogoriffic!"