Where, Oh Where?

I have no wife.  I have no kids.  Therefore, I can go anywhere I wish for vacation, with no regard for the concerns of others.  East, west, domestic, international...the world is my oyster (well, as long as the oyster is cheap enough).

So, in the next week or two, I must decide where to go for my spring vacation.  Problem is, I'm drawing a blank.  I can't decide where to go or what to do.  So I'm soliciting advice, suggestions, thoughts, what have you.  Here are the guidelines:

• I tend to shy away from cities as destinations.  New York, Chicago, London, etc.  don't necessarily interest me.


• I don't want to go anywhere too cold.  I don't want to snow ski or hang out in Winnipeg.  I don't mind chilly, but no snow.


• I like to camp, I like to hike, I like scenery.


• Recent trips have been to Northern California, Big Bend and Southern Utah.  I could repeat one of these and be just fine, but I'd love to hear of some new places.

That's it.  If you have a suggestion, go ahead and let me know.

A Lot to Learn

If I dwell too long on the chasm between who I am and who I wish I was,  I start to cry and whimper.  OK, that was a little over the top.  To be honest, I'm quite pleased with who I am and where I've been.  God has blessed me in many, many ways (family, friends, material things) so I have little to complain about.

But I could be more.  So, I thought I'd put together a list of some things I wish I did but don't.  NOTE: the things have to be possible for me to do...no "run the mile in 4 minutes" kind of stuff.

I wish I...

• Spoke an additional language or two - Spanish and Ki-Swahili would be perfect.


• Appreciated (and understood) poetry.  I feel I'm missing a significant portion of the world's great literature.


• Dated.  I enjoy my own company, but it's getting a bit ridiculous.


• Could sew.  When you're 5'8", it would be handy to know how to hem pants.


• Could cook.  I can't...at all.  I can heat, I can microwave, I can boil, but I can't actually combine ingredients and make dishes.


• Play the guitar.  I don't have many creative talents (can't paint, can't sing, can't make mixed-media sculptures), but playing guitar would be a good skill to have.


• Worked out regularly.  For someone who has a Master's Degree in Exercise Science, I'm a pathetic excuse of a slug.


• Was a morning person.  Can't do it.  Waking up before the sun comes up seems un-natural to me.  In fact, waking up before 8:00 a.m. seems wrong.  But I'd like to be a morning person.


• Had my pilot's license.  I've always been fascinated with flying, and would really enjoy being able to fly a plane (especially if it were free).


• Traveled much, much more.  There are so many places I want to go.  As soon as I hit the lottery...


• Was involved with a good church.  It's a drawback of living in the sticks.  Or I'm just lazy.


• Knew how to kayak.  Weird, I know, but it looks like fun.

There's more, to be sure, but this is a decent sampling.  I'd be interested to hear what would make your list.  Don't be shy.

Under Pressure

A previous post focused on the heavens, the world above us.  It is unfathomably large, with no edge, and thus no center (not considering the esoteric theories of multiple universes).  It's everywhere there is a "where," without edge, center, border or (bizarrely) dimension (no up, down, east or west).

What lies outside this universe?  Likely nothing, because there likely is no "outside."  And what about the content of this unimaginably large universe?  Well, the "billions and billions" of stars popularized by Carl Sagan is just the beginning.  The number of stars and rocks and lanes of dust and only God knows what else is so large as to have no meaning, really.  Go ahead and add more zeros, it doesn't matter.

But we shouldn't forget to look down as well as up.  If you've ever been SCUBA diving, you'll know what I mean: there is a fantastical world just under the surface of the seas.  Sea anemones, eels, octopi, sharks, barracuda, coral of every color, clown fish, lobster, puffer fish, starfish, whale sharks, shrimp, sea snakes, angel fish, cod, crabs...the list goes on.

But when you go deeper, much deeper, things get very, very bizarre. Physically, two big things happen.  First, all light disappears.  Complete and utter darkness, as if light never existed.  Secondly, the pressure.  As any SCUBA diver can also tell you, every 33 feet of depth in water equals "one atmosphere" of pressure (the weight of the column of water above your head at 33 feet weighs the same as the column of air above your head at sea level).  As I sit here typing, I'm experiencing just slightly less than 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch - one atmosphere (it would be right at 14.7 lbs/in² if at sea level; since I'm slightly at altitude, the column of air above me is shorter and, thus, not as heavy).  If I descend 10,000 feet into the ocean, the pressure on my body goes from 14.7 lbs/in² to almost 2.25 tons/in²!

If you think back to your favorite physics or chemistry or physical science class, you'll remember that liquids are practically incompressible.  Therefore, anything made of liquid thrown into such deeps would escape destruction.  You could throw a water balloon overboard, let it sink to 10,000 ft., and pull it back up intact.  Different story, though, if air is involved.  Air is highly compressible and such pressures would reduce any volume of air into a tiny space.  If you were to take a big gulp of air and plunge into the depths, your lungs would collapse long before you reached even a tiny fraction of 10,000 feet.  All the air in your lungs (and in your sinus cavities, joints, everywhere) would just compress down to nothing.  At those pressures, air is lethal.

(This is why submersibles, which travel to extreme depths, are such sturdy vessels.  The air inside the vessel - one atmosphere - must withstand the crushing force of tons/in².)

The consequences of such extremes pressure on living things are both microscopic and macroscopic.  Microscopically, cells and membranes, even chemistry, is affected.  Life processes work differently.  Creatures of the deep don't do well at low pressures (say, at the surface) as their bodies just aren't set up for it.  Macroscopically, these animals are pretty void of air or other gasses.  They are mostly small and oddly shaped, many without eyes (there's no light by which to see).

But, for the purposes of this post, the point I want to make is this: these seldom-seem creatures rival anything in the heavens in terms of their bizarre, exotic, wondrous nature.  Things we can hardly imagine exist down in the deeps, fantastic cartoons of nature.  God really went all out with these deep dwellers, and truly rewards those who make the effort to get down there.  Here is a sampling of some of our sea-floor friends (I particularly like the one labeled "species unknown"...how many things are down there we've yet to see?):

(Click on any single photo to launch a slideshow...it works better than clicking the "show as slideshow" method.)

[nggallery id=6]

Up and Running

I took a picture of Travis, our IT guy, as he installed our new server:

New Server Going In

Just kidding....

The Abode of Light

Science fascinates me.  Well, certain types of science.  One realm of science that intrigues me is any science about the very small, very large, or very fast.  Such science pulls the curtain back on things normally out of reach, things we can't see, hear or, in most cases, barely imagine.

Consider lightning. I live in a part of the country that receives more than its fair share of lightning storms.  I've stood outside and watched hour long strobe-light shows of lightning many times.  In fact, some of the most active lightning storms in the U.S. take place right over my head.  However, thanks to some sort of super high-speed camera, I can see lightning in a whole new way:



Pretty awesome, isn't it?

Here's lightning from space (you certainly don't need to watch the entire clip):


A news story led me to think about lightning. The story was about "sprites," high altitude electrical phenomena associated with common low-altitude lightning.  I've read of sprites before but had forgotten how fascinating they are.  Only recently discovered, sprites are very large, very fast and very high flashes of light.  Sprites are poorly understood - how they are created or even what they are - but they are suspected of catalyzing chemical reactions that help sustain our  atmosphere.  Interesting...after all of our scientific advances in the last 500 years, we know next to nothing about something that might very well be a key player in allowing the Earth to support life.  Nonetheless, here is a link to an amazing video of a sprite (NOTE: this video runs at a frame-rate of 10,000 frames/sec.  According to what I've read, sprites flash at an amazing 1/10 the speed of light (18,600 miles/sec.).

Link to sprite video.

Let's not overlook the fact that these phenomena - "sprites" - were named after a certain type of faerie that supposedly ruled the air.  Elusive, mysterious...the name certainly fits.

Finally, one of the reasons I love science is it reveals to me the majesty, the power, the mystery of God.  Whether it's the inner workings of the human brain,bizarre deep sea creatures, or giant flashes of mysterious light high in the sky, God has found countless ways to announce Himself to those who listen and look.

Job 38

¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹ "What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?

²⁰ Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

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²⁴ What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?