Lift Up Your Hearts!

We were exhausted after our return from Switzerland, and our trip was a lot shorter and easier than Janet's will be, so I'm sure she'll appreciate your prayers.  She has four flights, ground transportation between two airports in New York, long wait times, and about 24 hours of travel—if all goes well—to look forward to.  Good thing she's younger than we are.  :)

It sure will be good to see her!

Last year's small garden yielded only half a dozen tomatoes, some chives, and a good supply of basil, largely because it got no water during a critical dry spell when we were attending to a much more important affair:  Noah's birth.

This year we were late in planting, but have already eaten better with promise of more to come.

Basil, chives, hot pepper, and cilantro 

Tomatos and marigolds 

Peppers—obviously not the sweet green peppers the label said they were!  Any ideas?  They're not hot, but do have a noticeable bite.

Bougainvilla

The May 21, 2007 issue of Computerworld has an interview with Amory B. Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.  Talk about RETHINKING—who would have thought industry had a good use for slush?

You advocate using, of all things, slush to cool data centers. Can you explain that? We recently did a design for a high-tech facility in a temperate climate that was originally going to have over 20,000 tons of chillers, and by the time we got through, the number was zero.

We found we could meet about 70% of the load with the coolness or dryness of the outside air using either air-side or water-side economizers, depending on the time of year. The rest [came from] a mountain of slush sprayed out of snow-making machines into a hole in the ground on a few cold nights and used to provide 32-degree Fahrenheit meltwater all year.

Twenty thousand tons of chillers originally planned; zero used.  They use snow-making machines to generate the slush; perhaps the next step should be finding a way to use the mountains of snow urban areas are always struggling to dispose of in the winter.

The July issue of Reader's Digest has an advice column called "Ask Laskas."  Here is the first question:

Q,  It was my idea to have a family reunion, and I called my younger sister.  She loved the idea and then, without consulting me, ran with it.  The next thing I knew, the party was planned down to the napkins.  I asked why she didn't include me.   She said if I don't like it, I don't have to come.  I'm fuming.  Should I stay away or go?

A. Oh, go and have a good time, secure in the knowledge that you had a great idea.  Getting credit is nice, but a united family is worth a little swallowed pride.  The next time you have a brainstorm, however, think twice before you share it with Sis, who seems to be suffering from younger sibling syndrome.

Huh?  My younger sister knows that if a family get-together is going to happen, she's probably going to have to organize it—and the rest of us are exceedingly grateful when she does.  This lady has a good idea and then is upset when someone else does all the work?  Whatever "younger sibling syndrome" is, I'm glad my sister has it!

Each family has its own Thanksgiving traditions.  Friendly swordfighting is part of ours.  Here Noah and Jonathan demonstrate their eagerness to carry on the custom.

       

Every once in a while the Orlando Sentinel publishes a comics survey, in which they ask readers to rate the comics they read and suggest new ones for the paper to run.  Not a bad idea.  I've been considering revamping the Morning Coffee section of my Sursum Corda home page.  Since I know that several of you visit it regularly, it seems only fair to get your input.  In fact, one person already suggested a new comic—which was the inspiration for this post.

So...what do you like?  Not like?  Do you use any of the other links on the page besides the comics?  What else would you like to see?

Thanks, all!

Round Ireland with a Fridge, by Tony Hawks (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2000)

This is Janet's book, given to her by a friend when she graduated from college.  I try to treat other people's books with greater respect than I do my own—and that's saying a lot.  Nevertheless, I must confess the damage done to Round Ireland with a Fridge when I spewed a fresh mouthful of iced tea all over one of its pages.  It's the kind of book where one loses control of the laugh reflex.

In 247 pages, Tony Hawks amply demonstrates both the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption and the truth of Don Aslett's assertion that those who make their paths and projects public are likely to find an abundance of help coming their way.  Awakening one morning after a night of partying, he found a note by the side of his bed:  "I hereby bet Tony Hawks the sum of One Hundred Pounds that he cannot hitch-hike around the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month."  Although his friend graciously offered to release him from the bet, Tony took it on as a challenge.

Tony won the bet, though it didn't even cover the cost of the fridge he bought to take with him.  In the process he saw Ireland as no tourist ever has, and discovered that it is actually easier to hitch-hike with a kitchen appliance than without one.

It's not a profound book, and certainly not a perfect one.  There are few sexual references and some language I don't care to hear, as well as a whole lot of drinking—but it's far too funny to be offensive.

I believe Janet lent me this book before she went to Japan, which means the reading process took me me more than 20 times as long as it took Tony to make his circuit of Ireland.  Once begun, however, Round Ireland with a Fridge is actually a fast read and a fun one.

Porter laughed through it too, so you can have your book back now, Janet.  Complete with tea stains.

Yesterday we thought we'd do a few short stretches of trail to cover the northernmost portions of the Cross-Seminole Trail and the Seminole Wekiva Trail.  We thought it would be shorter than it turned out to be, and before we were done I was regretting not having been more generous with the sunblock, but we managed to avoid sunburn anyway, despite the unshaded nature of much of our ride.

We parked at St. Peter's Church, which is located adjacent to the trail and provides a convenient rest area with tables, bike parking, and potable water for weary travellers (a generous interpretation of Matthew 10:42).  We headed north briefly, soon coming to the end of the line and turning around through a cemetery.

Then straight south for a while, crossing Lake Mary Blvd. on the new overpass, and taking the tunnel under Greenwood Blvd.  This trail will eventually connect to the section of the Cross Seminole Trail we traversed two weeks ago, but for now ends abruptly at Green Way Blvd.

We reversed course back to St. Peter's, from which we crossd over I-4 on the pedestrian bridge that connects to the Seminole Wekiva Trail.  We've done the route south of the overpass many times, but our goal today was to get to the northern end, which actually involves going more west than north.  After reaching the Markham Trailhead, we turned back and took a detour to Sylvan Lake Park, where we walked to the fishing pier and saw a bird that may have been an eagle—or maybe an osprey.

Porter is ever adventurous, and I follow.  Accordingly, we veered off the trail on onto Markham Woods Road, thence to Lake Mary Blvd., intersecting the trail again at Panera Bread.  Perhaps Porter was less adventurous than hungry.  We enjoyed a chicken tomesto sandwich from Panera accompanied by a Vinnie del Rocco from the nearby Planet Smoothie, then somewhat stiffly remounted our steeds and returned over the bridge to St. Peter's.

The total trip was 22.4 miles by my bike odometer.  Thanks to Gmaps Pedometer, you can follow our path.  Zooming in and out, and turning the mile markers on and off will make it clearer.  This was my first time playing with Gmaps Pedometer, and I'm quite impressed by the accuracy of the mileage measurements, given the inaccuracies inherent in the data entry procedure.

I'm mailing a package to France, and as always it amused me to check out the "prohibited" list.  You are not allowed to send any of the following:

Arms, ammunition. Cigarette lighters using butane gas. Feeding bottles. Funeral urns. Goods bearing false marks of French manufacture or origin. Imitation pearls containing lead salts and any articles of jewelry made with pearls of this type. Measuring instruments marked in units not complying with French law. Perishable infectious biological substances except as noted in Restrictions below. Perishable noninfectious biological substances except as noted under Restriction below. Radioactive materials. Saccharine in tablets or packets. Live plants and animals. Arms and weapons. Human remains.

Okay, so much of that makes sense.  But feeding bottles?  If I didn't know better, I'd say that France must be extremely pro-breastfeeding.  Measuring instruments marked in units not complying with French law?  Maybe they take their metric system very seriously.  Saccharine in tablets or packets?  Quart jars are okay then?  Interesting to have baby bottles, rulers, and sweeteners in the same category as ammunition and radioactive materials!

In honor of Flag Day, I give a salute not only to our own flag, but also to those of our ancestors (so far discovered).

                 

These aren't entirely accurate, as they represent modern countries that did not exist when our ancestors came here (e.g. Germany), but it's a good general picture.  Also, some of the flags represent countries that were separate but are now joined.

If I'd known how big a project book cataloguing would be, I'm not sure I would have had the courage to start, but now that it's done, I'm quite pleased with it.  There's a link to it here, and on the sidebar, and on the Sursum Corda home page.  I'm not yet ready to leave it open to any and all web crawlers, so there's a small amount of security associated with it.  Family members can get in the same way you access the Family News page.  If you're a friend who happens to want to browse in this library, please e-mail me, and I'll be happy to open the door to you.

C. S. Lewis once quipped that the only books we will have in heaven will be ones we gave away or lent on earth. This is a lending library; if you see something you'd like to read that's not in your own public library, please ask!

The effort ended up taking over a month of pretty steady, hard work.  I made much of that for myself, I'll admit.  If I had been content with the content the software downloaded from the Internet, it would have gone much faster.  But I wanted the information to be correct and reasonably complete, though even so I ignored many of the less important data fields, such as cover price.  Even more time-consuming, I insisted on having a cover photo for each book, which required a lot of scanning, because most of our books are too old to have their cover photos online.  No, it's not necessary, but it looks nice!  I know how much I appreciate being able to browse books visually, as well as by title, so I'm assuming others do, too.

The last room to be done was my office; I had saved the hardest for last.  On the one hand, there are more modern books here, so I could use the barcode scanner more effectively.  On the other hand, there are more old books, too—just plain more books!  I offer some statistics below for your amusement.  They are only approximate, because sometimes I let one entry do for an entire series of books, but they're interesting nonetheless.

• Total number of books: about 1800


• Number of books in my office: nearly 900


• Top 10 authors: George MacDonald (77), C. S. Lewis (49), Patrick O'Brian (22), Charles Schultz (22), Dorothy Sayers (21), Arthur Ransome (19), Miss Read (Dora Jessie Saint) (18), Robert Athearn (16 - all in one set of American history books), John Montroll (15), Isaac Asimov (14)


• No, we haven't read all the books.  Some, like cookbooks, aren't meant to be read through.  Many, many others came our way when my father moved from his big house, and I mean to get to them, someday...

Why did I do this?  The most important reason is that a book isn't of any use if it stays on a shelf.  There's no point in having a book if you don't read it (or at least plan to), and you can't read it if you can't find it.

Moreover, we have a great treasure here, and would like others to be able to share our bounty.  That's why the list is online—so others can browse and borrow.  The Book Collector software comes with the ability to keep track of books lent out, which has heretofore been a problem for me.

Some people might recognize books of theirs that made their way into our collection, and say, "Aha!  So that's where my book is!"  Stranger things have happened.  I once lent two books to Person A, and never got them back.  I told you (see above) I have a problem with keeping track of what I've lent to whom. By the time I got around to asking, it was so much later Person A had no idea where the books were, so I wrote them off.  Not without some sorrow, but I try not to lend any books I wouldn't be willing to give away, if needed—for just such occasions.  Much later, a dear friend, Person B, died, and I was one of the people who helped sort through her books.  Lo and behold, there were my two missing books!  I knew they were mine because of the inscriptions, and of course I was given them back.  But no one could at that point explain how they had ended up where they did, and it's still a mystery.  Okay, I will give in to a trifling vanity and reveal Person A, because it's amusing to be able to say I lent books to R.C. Sproul.  I also once gave a dime to a Rockefeller who needed change for a pay phone. :)

With a nod to hurricane season, which began in the middle of my efforts, all this documentation should help if we ever need to file an insurance claim.  Not that any of our books are worth much, in an insurance-company sense, but if they express disbelief that we really had 1800 books, I can reply, "Yes, sir, we did—I counted them."  Not that I want to lose a one of them, after all this work

And finally, when the time comes, if our heirs want to fight over who gets what book, they can do it much more conveniently this way.  :)

While working on my book cataloguing project, I came upon an old church mission report, stuck in an even older Cruden's Complete Concordance.  Those of you who are interested in history might enjoy this glimpse into our country's past, and those of you who have are accustomed to reading modern church mission reports may be amused at how little some things change.  Unfortunately, parts of the report are missing, including the date.  Remember to click on the picture if you want to see the whole thing.  (I also have to use "CTRL +" to make the print large enough for me to read it comfortably.)

  

   

   

You'll see a better video almost anywhere else, but here is a bit of natsukashi for our expatriot Floridians!

You can't see the bright orange flame on the video, but those of you who've experienced this stunning sight before can lean on your imaginations a bit.

Shuttle video, view from our driveway

Today's Frazz:

Janet wasn't the only one of our children who made musical instruments.  This is a Heatherin, or rather the Heatherin, the only one in existence, and I'm not sure if it actually exists anymore other than in photographs.  Heather made it when she was nine.