Love

I have been having a hard time with some stuff recently, mostly being caught off guard by random things and then spinning into a a cycle of bad thoughts and bad memories. I talked to a good friend of mine, Josh, and he had some good words for me.

Basically, I see, hear, or smell something that comes out of nowhere and puts me in a tailspin. To try and beat this, I have spent the past few months building a shell around myself. The theory being that if I protect myself from everything outside me, and don't let anything or anyone come inside, nothing can hurt me. That works, to an extent, but has a very heavy price. The price of that is that I'm not really living, just existing. Turning myself into a fort is a short term solution with some long term costs I have begun to realize, and decided I can't accept.

What Josh reminded me of is that this world was built of love. His words to me were when I start spinning, rather than throwing up my walls, which does nothing but trap me with my thoughts and demons, to give thanks and blessing to God, for the love He has for me, and to ask His blessing on the reasons for the spin.

It's a long process of tearing down and opening up, but it's nothing I can't do with His help. His love surrounds me and heals me. This seemingly elementary thing is something I had let myself bury and deny.

It's been a long day, and this is what I'm left reflecting on tonight.


lane

Pub?

I was just watching a show on the History Channel about Einstein and his Theory of Relativity, and it set me thinking.

Right at the end of the show, a montage of pictures of Einstein came up and there was one picture that struck me. It made me really want to hang out with him. Think about it, I bet Einstein would be real stinkin cool to chill with. I'd love to go to a pub with him, I bet it would be awesome.


lane

Road Rash FTL

Here is the scene, Lane on his brakeless fixed gear, riding down a hill that dead ends into a busy 4 lane road, without a care in the world. He is hopping his bike, to scrub speed and avoid losing control.

Suddenly, his fixed gear begins to freewheel. For those of you who have ridden fixed, this is the worst thing that can possibly happen. In a surge of adrenaline, our hero looks back to see his chain off the rear cog, happily spinning away on just an axle.

Remaining calm, he evaluates his options; try to make the turn at the bottom of the hill and coast to safety up a gentle hill, or bomb down the hill into said busy intersection with no control of the bike. Clearly, it's no contest in favor of trying to make the turn. He takes a deep breath and goes for the turn. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be and he was unable to turn as tightly as needed. A curb found its way directly in his path, which causes a whole sequence of events involving alot of sliding, flipping, rolling, even a bit of bouncing, culminating in a lack of forearm skin and a set of slightly bent Nitto HB4005 bullhorn bars.

For whatever reason, the bike gods have been striking at me recently with all the pent up fury of a pissed off cobra whose charmer just dropped his flute. Not particularly fun, but to me it just means I need to step my game way up. Hopefully my luck turns soon.


lane

Snow Day?

For something ridiculous like the 7th time in ASU's history, all classes were cancelled today. It was pretty dang nasty out, easily the most snow I have seen in three years up here. We got between 10" and a foot of snow, starting Sunday morning and going up until very late last night, possibly this morning a wee bit.

Anyway, as one can guess I was overjoyed at the prospect of no class. Even more so since I had a midterm that was pushed back to give me a few extra days to study for it. So, naturally, rather than doing anything productive with my time, I went and played in the snow.

I spent all afternoon sledding and frolicking in a winter wonderland. Actually, I guess it was more sledding than anything else. I did watch some other people frolicking, but I was preoccupied with the hill in front of me.

It was great. I had forgotten how much fun sledding is. Aside from almost biting through my lip and possibly having whiplash, there were absolutely no ill effects. As usual, I was the only one that got hurt at all. My friends conferred and decided to get me a full body armor suit, since anytime something remotely dangerous and a group containing myself cross paths, I am invariably the only one that get hurt.

I love three day weekends. And I love surprises. So basically a surprise three day weekend is the best thing that could have happened to me today.

Oh yeah, and I had an un-birthday this weekend. It was really great, my family came up, I got to hang out with friends and all that good stuff.


lane