The Parks

Another news story for you today. Buzz Magazine today had an article in it addressing an issue that I had just heard about this past weekend. The Governor of our fine state of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, has passed down a ruling closing 11 state parks and 13 state historical sites. These sites are primarily in the heart of our great state. Some are in our very capital, and are old stomping grounds of the inspiration for the state motto, Abraham Lincoln.

Now, I am all for small government, but one of the things I really do enjoy about taxes is the resources they give us and help protect. There are plenty of other ways to cut our bloated government without taking away valuable resources to the heartland as well as historical sites to help us remember how we got here. Obviously, I am definitely affected by this myself by the closing of Weldon Springs State Park, a favorite place to go for day camp and in evenings with my family.

Now, I definitely believe a couple of courses of action are required. While I definitely am disappointed at the ruling of Rod, I believe that we need to pursue all avenues. The first is to petition to him. To show to him that the heart of this state matters. The fact is, as Governor of Illinois, he doesn't even spend his time in the capital of Springfield, but rather in his Chicago home. This is intensely disagreeable and disregards a standard asked of a public servant. A public servant who is to serve the ENTIRE state. If he will not budge, and allow for a funding solution, then I believe it is the call of those that want a park, to push for a park in their own means. Perhaps this means charging user fees, but it will allow us to preserve the nature we so dearly love, and the outdoor recreation we need. As Barack Obama is encouraging parents to tell kids to turn off the tv and go outside, we are, in Illinois, taking away the outside...

Please consider writing to the Governor with me as this person has. Take the initiative to help preserve the entire state of Illinois, from the Northeast, which gets most attention, all the way to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Email Governor Blagojevich here.

Bow Fishing

Bow Fishing

I went bow fishing in one of my last nights in Alabama. This is a sport in which you go out on a boat, typically with a regular boat motor and a fan on top for really shallow water. You float around really shallow water and look for the fish that the game fishermen don’t want to catch, cuz they aren’t tasty and they are a nuisance. Then you shoot them with a bow and arrow. The arrow is attached to a string and a reel which you use to reel in your fish once you have pierced it. The people I know who do it will catch upwards of 30 fish a night, and then give them away to somebody that actually likes the way they taste.

I had never heard of this sport before I came to Alabama, but let me tell you something, it fascinated me to no end. I wanted to go, and when I finally got invited and it worked out, I jumped at the opportunity. So here we were, in a simple fishing boat flying across the Tennessee River to the murky swampland that is stereotypical Alabama. After being given a crash course in the equipment, another intern and I tried our hands at hitting the fish, while our host guided his boat through lily pads and brush. It took a while to finally see the fish, even with the aid of intense spotlights. Once I saw one, I lined it up though, and fired away. Stuck in the mud…

I thought to myself, this is no big deal. It was my first shot. I reeled my arrow back in after struggling with it in the mud. Resetting the arrow in the bow, I scanned for more targets to hone my skills on. This lasted for 2 hours. And I don’t mean the fishing, I mean the process of shoot, miss, stuck in mud, pull out, reset. It was a frustrating experience. Even after accounting for the refraction of the light and placing the fish a bit lower than I saw it, I still whiffed about 15 times. The other intern was no luckier, and we rode back to the south side of the Tennessee River a bit bruised in the ego department.

What made it even more striking is how good people actually are at this sport. Our guide told us he has about a 95% accuracy and when he sees a fish, he almost always is able to shoot at it too. Just amazing to me. Perhaps I will get a chance to try again, but what I know now is that I have a LOT of respect for somebody that does that

The Environment

Having been in Alabama all this summer, I’ve wanted to experience the place, and not just settle for living in a bubble. This experience definitely added to it, as the terrain we were in was absolutely surreal. With our floodlights shining on, you could see the murky water, lily pads that let water pool on them, but not drown them, trees sticking right out of the water, and shallow enough regions that our guide had to jump out and get his feet we to push us out. This was all accented by it being night time the frog sounds, the turtles bobbing their heads, and the herons flying around. It definitely felt like a true southern experience, at least what I imagined it to be.

The Analogy

How could I go fishing without having the stories of scripture regarding fishing go through my head? I guess pretty easily, but for whatever reason, my mind was struck with all sorts of analogy from the night of fishing. The first point I want to make is that I would have struggled as a fisherman in Biblical times. I probably would have been the tax collector who was converted. That job seems easier. I love that agrarian stories and parables come so much more alive when you experience them for yourself. When Jesus talks about Fishers of Men, I see how difficult it is and how patient we must be. I even think it is interesting how there is a difference between the fish we want and the fish we expect to get. As we rode back across the Tennessee River to our dock, there were fish just jumping out of the water right in our boat's wake. They were not the ones we wanted, but they were the most available. I think in the spiritual world, these are the people we must minister to. The people that want to hear the message. I also appreciated the nighttime calm that was around us as we fished. It really helps me to appreciate the retreating to quiet lonely places that Jesus loved so much.

Climate Change or Scare Mongering?

If you live in America, and you pay attention to the news, you've probably heard of a little thing called global warming. And if you're a decade or two older than me, you've probably heard about global cooling. Scientific speculation about the human influence on the world has been far spread. We've had plenty of incorrect guesswork about how things will turn out in the coming years, and yet we continue to be so sure of ourselves in how science will go. One of the biggest problems in my mind with the global warming scare is the assumed correlations between CO2 and temperature of the earth. In science, we're always making simplifying assumptions or bold predictions and hoping that they line up as correct. Then, when our theories don't pan out, we are all of a sudden dealing with ways to justify our original theory with newer ones.

This Bloomberg article speaks of a new theory that the oceans will cool us for a while until global warming strikes up again. And of course we KNOW global warming is occurring because we have the highest temperatures on record. I mean, let's not forget that we don't have temperature records for thousands of years back, and shoot, if you believe in the 5 billion year old earth, we're missing out on a LOT of history. Who are we to say that we know the cycles of our planet? What makes us and our short 120 year max time here able to know it all? I believe God made a far more complex and robust planet than we could totally screw up.

Now, is this to say I think we can do whatever and it will be fine? No. What I am saying is that I believe science makes a lot of bold predictions about things we shouldn't worry about. I mean, remember when Deep Impact and Armageddon (speaking of, the Christian Armageddon, rather than the movie, is referred to on wikipedia as "in Christian mythology" (my emphasis). Oh what perspective brings to the table) came out? I'm pretty sure everybody was sure we'd be hit by a meteor as a planet by now. And it hasn't happened yet. Sure it COULD, but we can't prevent it from possibly happening. Now Al Gore has used similar action movie footage to create a stir. I mean SURE, the planet could be getting warmer, but is it our doing? What if what we're doing actually will eventually lead to global cooling or suffocation or nuclear war?

I believe that we need not worry about global warming itself, but I do believe that we need to be good stewards of the world we have been given. This means that we should be watching how we pollute, and in a holistic way. I mean seriously, have you considered that electric cars are just taking electricity made by coal power plants (just as nasty pollution in the air)? The 'green' movement is a good thing, but the way we go about it is paramount. And let's not worry so much about the temperature, but instead about things like the amount of visibility in our cities and beyond, the quality of our drinking water, and the health of our planet as a whole.

Something I'm Glad is Back

fresh cut grass, originally uploaded by kris10cas10.

The smell of fresh cut grass


Smelled it today whilst walking on campus. Oh spring did I miss you so...

Sledding Photos

Well, this could potentially be my last Facebook photo upload...maybe. I just got a Flickr Pro account for my birthday, so I'm uber-excited. But, until that is officially active, here are my pictures from my Facebook album of a glorious afternoon spent sledding.

Album Link

Longs Peak

It's that time of the summer again. That time when people deprive themselves of sleep so they can walk 15 miles in a day. That's right, we got to do Longs Peak. What an awesome hike it is. You leave from the trail head early in the morning, typically well before the sun rises on the East Coast. We left from 2 am to do Longs Peak in this atmosphere of little sleep, headlamps, and lightning in the distance. You hike about 2 miles before you find yourself above treeline. There you can see the lights from the state of Colorado. Almost literally. You can see the lights from Boulder, Longmont, Denver, and more towns around the eastern part of the state. Up there I took a picture with extended exposure of the cities. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hold the camera steady. But what I was able to do (completely accidentally) was get a picture of people walking past with headlamps. The coolest part is that all you can see is the headlamps looking like bolts of lightning. Incredible.

We continued another 4 miles or so to the Boulderfield. There the sun was starting to peak over the edge of the Earth. In that twilight I took the picture of the base of Longs. It's such a powerful peak. We continued up to the Keyhole to try to catch sunrise.

We were very close to the Keyhole (below) as the sun began to rise. The morning light brings out the most amazing colors in the rocks and I am just floored by it. Finally we crossed over into the other side of the mountain. This is where it turns from a hike into a climb. It's so fun but slow going. We arrived at the summit in still pretty good time. It wasn't even 9 am when we got to the top, even though it felt like the afternoon.

The final picture is our group on the summit. It was myself, Jennee, and Devin. Going back down wasn't the must fun however, as it is so painful on the feet. When we got back, it was bedtime. That was of course after a burger at the 14ers Cafe in Estes Park. We ate there satisfied that we had gone that high up (14,255-14,259 feet depending on who you talk to). I slept from 5-9 and it was incredible. I woke for a bit, did some work, watched a movie, and then conked out again for the night.

It really did end up being an incredible trip and was just as good as I remembered it the first time I did Longs two years ago.

Mummy Mishaps

This Wednesday, I had the intention of hiking the Mummy Marathon. This is a group of six peaks in the Mummy Range in the north central part of Rocky Mountain National Park. We left the YMCA at 12:30 am with the intention of returning probably 20 hours later. We started hiking about 1:15 and we were off. It was pitch black, but as we hiked, the stars started to reveal themselves and made for a beautiful night. As we hiked across the barren grassy tundra, we ran into the eyes of a few creatures. One of which was most likely a bobcat. Soon after that, we went up Chapin Peak. Chapin is about 12,500 feet tall. The view was neat, as we could see the lights from about a billion different cities. Maybe not that many, but you could definitely see Estes Park, Loveland, Longmont, Fort Collins, and Denver. It was pretty breathtaking to be honest. After that, we hauled our way up Chiquita Peak. That was a tough one. At this point in the hike, I was feeling the weight of my pack. I was carrying more than I should've and it was just weighing me down. I was by far the slowest up and I felt just crummy knowing I was the weakest link. The pair in front of Jennee and myself kept rushing ahead because of their sheer excitement for the hike. When we made it to the top of Chiquita, we sat behind a rock wall protecting us from the wind for a while. It was intensely windy and cold up there. At night, with no trees to protect you, the winds are ridiculous. As we headed towards Mount Ypsilon, we started to catch some twilight. As Jennee and I reached the false summit of Chiquita, we got to see the sunrise. It was breathtaking, as you can see. It completely was worth getting up that early. When we got to the summit of Ypsilon, naptime was in order. So we took naps, signed the register of who'd been to the top, and decided what to do next...

This is where the hike got frustrating for me (as if it wasn't enough). I knew that it was going to be rough for me, and Jennee knew even better. With the pair in front going fast, and myself going slow, she was really torn about what to do. I told her that it was up to her what she did. We decided to go back, while the other pair went forward. It was a tough thing for me to do. My pride totally was like, "this is stupid! Let's go!" But I was feeling the sickness of the last week and a half or so and the weight of my backpack. So we went back at a leisurely pace. We ended up back at the trailhead at about 10:30, 9 hours after we started. It was a long day already, but it had just started (at least time wise). As we drove down, I realized more and more how frustrated I was to not do the other peaks. Even now, I look at them from the YMCA and wonder what it would've been like. It ended up being a good decision not to go, but it still ate at me. I'm really learning how to recognize my pride and hopefully tackle it. So I didn't do Fairchild, Hague, or Mummy Peak.

My pride is a HUGE thing for me. Many times, I'll let it control me. It could be anything from school work, to hikes, to leading small groups, to racing somewhere, to competing harder. A lot of my pride comes from my competative side, and I'm not even sure where that comes from. It is pretty odd. It feels like I should not be prideful :) (duh!) I really need to learn what causes it. Even when I don't do something, I can compare and say, "Oh, I did THIS instead." It's ridiculous. I need to just kill the pride, I'm just not sure how. It seems like I really need to be conscious of when I am doing stuff that is prideful and to really take the extreme and stop myself. Even if that means doing nothing to make sure that I can humble myself.

1 Peter 5:5 says, "...All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'"