A new side to the abortion issue.

I was reading through a couple new blogs this morning and came across this from Dr. George Grant. I think you should read the whole blog but here's a short excerpt:

A UN agency contract researcher says the prevalence of abortion and infanticide targeting girls has caused a critical global gender imbalance--with a disparity of more than 200 million worldwide. According to his report, delivered to international health officials this past week, the girls are “missing” because of a practice he calls “gendercide.”

I did some searching after reading Dr. Grant's article to find some information about changing birthday celebrations to the day of conception. I once remember hearing that in some culture this was the case, which is why I did the search. All I discovered in my search however, was that some people like to celebrate their day of conception and there are even birthday cards for such occasions. I think it would be a wonderful idea if we all made the decision to switch the meaning of birthday to conception day. Sure it would mess up the definition of the word birthday but if our mindset could change to accept this switch I think it could make a huge difference in this "gendercide".

GL

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Snowy U.S. Thanksgiving Run

After about three weeks off from running, I wait until it's -8C, snowing and quite windy to get started again. On top of that I brought my boy Jonah too. That Chariot stroller is great for just about any weather though. Jonah even slept for about 30 minutes!!
The interesting thing I've found about running is that my first 10-20 minutes is quite often the hardest. It's almost like I'm not totally warmed up until I've run two miles! That's especially true in weather like this.

Happy Thanksgiving my American friends and aliens!!

Even if you don't live in the U.S., any excuse to be reminded to be thankful is always good. I heard a great sermon about how we really don't deserve anything we have. I'm not going to go into it anymore than that because I'll likely ruin the point but having an attitude of thankfulness and not an expectation of receiving what you deserve, always goes over better. So think about what you are thankful for, even the smallest things, and give thanks to God, the giver of everything.

GL

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Welcome To The Other Side and HDTV

Welcome everyone who used to visit me at myblogsite. Boy, am I glad to not be using that anymore! ha ha. Seriously, it's great to start all over again here. You'll find all the old posts here from my other blog, however, the comments didn't make the switch so I'm sorry about that. So make sure you select "add bookmark" right away, before you forget.

While working on html code and giving myself a headachelast night, I watched the Toronto Maple Leafs (aka The Leafs) play a really bad hockey game. The hockey was bad, for the Leafs anyway, but watching it on Dad's new HDTV in HD was unbelieveable. Hockey looks amazing in HD. I'd seen football before and that looked great but moving to HD for hockey is a huge difference. So we watched the Leafs in HDTV on TSNHD. Then I noticed Dad was watching CSI in HDTV on CBSHD. I think I know what all those letters stand for . ? . ?

GL

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Great Expectations and MyBlogSite

First things first, myblogsite is shutting down which means I have to move. In fact my access will be done as of Nov 30th!! I guess that’s what you get when you’re not paying anything. No big deal really except for the time it will take to move all my posts over and the fact that I don’t want to lose any of you who read this regularly. It looks like I’ll be moving over to blogger like most other people. I’m in the process of setting it up right now so I’ll post my new address once I’m ready to go.

Thanks for coming to my blog and over the past few months! I never expected to get as many hits as I have. Here are some stats that myblogsite gives me. It’ll be interesting to see how much they change when I switch to blogger and a new stat tracking system.

Average hits per day: 180-220 (a guess after viewing the stats)
The most hits in one day: 457
Most hits in one month: 7,995 October 2005
Just to see how much it has grown April’s average daily hits was about 100 and for the month of April I had 3,332 hits.
Thanks everyone!!!
Most people come to my blog from Sherri’s blog, the Downhere blog, Jeremy’s blog and Dale’s blog. Also there are unusual amounts of people that reach my blog when they search for Thermopylae.

On to other things . . .

I’m halfway through Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. I enjoy the writing even though I have to concentrate harder to know what’s going on. There is something I appreciate about all the details he gives even though they may not be necessary. I find that Dickens can likely get away with writing the longest sentences that don’t qualify as being run-on. It’s quite an ability I think. I would get halfway through a sentence and not remember how it started because he had taken it to such a different place. The story itself hasn’t been super interesting to me which is why I’m not picking it up to read whenever possible. This likely has to do with growing up playing video games and watching TV the way it is now. We’re just so used to things happening fast and in Great Expectations it goes by pretty slow. While in a Barnes and Noble I picked up one of those condensed notes version of the book and read through parts of that. This really helped me to understand the characters and the story better and got me back into the book. I think I’ll do that again on my next “classic” reading book. The bad news here is that I’ve renewed it once and I guess that’s all the library is giving me on this one even though I’m only halfway through. So I’m on to my next book The Tipping Point.

Oh yes, almost forgot. The new Harry Potter is excellent! Lots missing from the book but hey, it was a long one. They got most of the important stuff. That’s another blog.

GL

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Inhibited

I’m sitting in a hotel in Valdosta, GA after a spending a great weekend in Florida with a bunch of middle schooler’s and some highschooler’s. We were at a United Methodist Camp/Retreat center, which was surrounded by a lake. It was quite pretty and the weather was perfect, especially for a Canadian in November. You can check out some pics of our good times at our road manager Jessica's blog.

There was a guest speaker there from Minneapolis named Bob Stromburg. He was a speaker/stand-up comedian/physical comedian/actor/hand shadow-puppet master. He did a great job with these students and kept their attention the whole time, which is no small feat for a speaker. He certainly held my attention.

One thing that stood out to me was his lack of inhibition. I think being a comedian and also being an actor makes it necessary and also allows him the freedom to be inhibited. He did some pretty crazy stuff that if he just pulled it off on a street corner somewhere you would likely think something was wrong with him mentally. He also memorized quite a big section of text from The Message (the sermon on the mount) and reenacted that sermon being preached as if it was today. Not something he could have done if he was an inhibited type of person.

This all just reminded me of my own inhibition and how it bothers me. I was talking to my wife about this tonight and she kinda feels the same way. So I figure we’re not the only ones. I bet some people who read my blog feel like this too! So . . . what to do? I’m not sure. I’m thinking maybe some dance lessons, or acting lessons, or acrobat lessons, or . . . I don’t know. Anyway, these are just some random thoughts going through my head tonight.

Some other lesson options: Tae-Kwon-Do . . . Karate . . . Judo . . . Sumo . . . clown . . . Santa . . .

GL

p.s. Sorry about the advertisements at the top of my blog. Sometimes they are a little inappropriate. Booourns to myblogsite when that happens.

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Running Map Pics

Fargo, ND - It's Really Nice

I found this really nice path along the river and through some parks. Anytime I can find a run that takes me past a river, a lake, or any sort of body of water it seems to satiate my aesthetic appetite. I saw a sign that said "Welcome to Fargo, the city of parks." I was really impressed with the city. If you have seen the movie it kind of takes away from the fact that it's actually a decent town.

You can see at the bottom of the map where I cross over the river at 1st ave. At this point I had no idea where I was going, I just followed a rough map on my GPS. It doesn't tell you where streets are but it will show you where you started and from that it's possible to navigate your way back to the beginning. So you can see a bit of weaving in and out of streets through the downtown area after I crossed that bridge. 6.3mi in 58:00. Not too impressive but hey at least I'm running!!


Lakota, IA

The first of four running maps made with my Garmin Forerunner 201 GPS watch. I used the data from the watch and input it into GPSVisualizer.com to come up with the maps I have here.

Jeremy and I had run through the flat country of Iowa. You can't really tell from this picture but we were out in the sticks and it was beautiful. It was warmer than usual for this time of year which meant we were still able to run with shorts on. Making the switch to pants is always depressing. Running in the country on a cool, not too windy day is always great.


Chanhassen, MN - Run #1

We had about six days in the Minneapolis area last week with most of them being off days. We spent some time at the Mall of America and also got some time for running. So this is the first run I did. Jeremy ran with me for the first half of the run then turned back to get some lifting in. This is a really pretty area. Lots of lakes and nice trails to run on too. A guy passed me on what looked like cross country skis with wheels on them and there were lots of dogs out for walks too. I also passed a man who was walking his cat in a little wheeled cage! Weird.

This run was 9.56mi and 1.5hr. My watch tells me I burned 1179 calories! I think that's low. That was my longest run in a while and it felt great!



Chanhassen, MN - Run #2

I decided to try another route this day. There was a nice paved trail along the road which worked out great. Not quite as nice as running along a river or anything but it's always good when you can avoid running on the road. It's funny looking at the map because I only remember seeing one of those lakes while I was running. There are so many bodies of water up there!

I didn't have a planned route to run when I left but with the help of my little Garmin Forerunner 201 I was able to run pretty much the exact distance I wanted to. Totals for that run were 7.43mi in 1:10 and 1004 calories.

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One Down

The Secret Garden was great! I finished it during two days of traveling. I’ve heard that there is a movie too so I will have to check it out. I am glad however, that I did read the book first so that I was able to use my own brain to create the images in the book before I see what the movie creators saw in their mind.

It was almost as if I had read that book when I was kid based on the outlook on life it presents. Or at least who I am today really agrees with the story. I look forward to reading this one to Jonah for sure when he’s old enough to sit and listen to a book without pictures. I’d like for him to grow up believing that he will have more life if he surrounds himself with life. And that being outdoors and watching the plants and animals come to life and the season’s change is a very healthy thing to do. In our time of TV, computers, sports, and everything else we manage to use up our time doing, I really want our children to enjoy just going outside and playing for a few hours. Hopefully if I read this to them while they are young enough I can brainwash them into this belief.

There are many timeless things and timeless ideas and I think that even though this story was written so long ago, before there were all the distractions we face today, the idea Frances Hodgson Burnett presents still can apply to us today.

I’ve started Great Expectations now by Dickens and it looks like that will be a slightly slower read. It’s not quite as easy going as The Secret Garden but it has been enjoyable all the same. It makes me feel as if I have been transported back in time fifty years.

Looks like all the writers I enjoy seem to at least start out in England. Interesting. Maybe we should move . . .

GL

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