Halloween

I hadn’t planned to dress up for Halloween this year for two reasons:  I’m out at a client’s office for work, and Debra is out of town at the Lone Star African Violet Council’s annual convention.  But Wednesday I learned that I’d be at my normal office for the next 10 days or so, and I got an invitation to go to a friend’s Halloween party.

For the evening’s party I resurrected a costume that I first wore back in 1999.  This, I think, is the best Halloween costume I’ve ever done.  The effect in dim light is truly frightening.  My friend had a little “haunted house” in his garage, and when I showed up looking like Scary Death Guy he put me to work.  I’d crouch silently in a dim corner and try to keep from laughing when just the sight of me there would cause somebody to scream.  The most memorable was a kid of about 10 who backed up into the wall with his eyes as big as saucers, shrieked like a little girl, and then after regaining his composure said, “You didn’t scare me!”

I love Halloween!

Religion (again)

See October 28 and October 29

From time to time people try to drag me into religious discussions, and they aren’t satisfied with my standard “I choose not to discuss my religious beliefs” comment.  They’re left unsatisfied, because in my experience those types of people aren’t interested in my beliefs except as a way to either bolster their own, or to make me look stupid by ridiculing what I believe in.  How do I know this?  Because they use the same arguments I used when I was trying to do that.  But since I’ve gone this far here, I guess I might as well go all the way with it.

The Old Testament describes a jealous and vengeful God.  I want nothing to do with such a being.  The New Testament describes a more reasonable being, but there’s still that threat of eternal damnation hanging over my head.  To compound the problem there’s no real proof that either Testament (or any other “sacred” text for that matter) is the actual “Word of God.”  A God who would set me on this Earth without an instruction book and expect me to follow rules that I have no way of determining is a cruel jokester who doesn’t deserve my respect, much less my devotion.  If the only feedback I get is my final score, then I choose not to play the game.  If I had some way to determine the rules, things would be much different.  But until somebody can show me objective proof that God exists and evidence of the rules I’m supposed to follow, I’m quite happy to continue with the kind of life I’ve lead for the last 20 years, hoping to surround myself with others of similar disposition.

I have more to say on the subject, but it’ll have to wait until I sort out my thoughts a little better.

Religion (continued)

(Continuing yesterday‘s topic)

I approached my study of religion perhaps a little bit too logically.  After giving the Bible a quick read I attacked the religion section of the school library.  There is an astonishingly huge number of religious beliefs out there.  I read through many of them, perused a few others, and finally gave up.  I was looking for logic and all I found was superstition and bizarre rituals.  The best piece of information I came across during that study was Pascal’s Wager which, simply put, says (and here I’ll use Jeff Duntemann’s words from last May, because he summarizes it much better than I could have): Absent any rational proof of God’s existence, it makes sense to live as though God is really out there.  That’s a strikingly clear piece of logic for Pascal’s time when the only known religions of consequence were Catholicism and Judaism.  But given the plethora of “mainstream” religions these days it suffers from a serious flaw.  Bowing to the logic of living as though God exists, what kind of life should I lead?  To what belief structure must I subscribe in order to be well received in the afterlife, assuming that one exists?  Worse than having no answer, the question has way too many answers that cover quite a range of behaviors.  Faced with a question that appears to have no answer, I did the only logical thing.  I gave up trying to find the answer.

In his May 26 entry, Jeff says:

If God does exist, what would He want of us? Some people who embrace Pascal’s Wager profess faith in Jesus Christ to meet the wager (though I wonder if this could be considered genuine faith) while others simply pursue a life of gentleness, generosity, and love…and figure that any God who matches the template will be content with that.

That “life of gentleness, generosity, and love” is how I decided to live my life, but not out of concern with what might happen to me after I die, but because the people who live that kind of life are those whose company I value most.  The existence or not of God was and remains irrelevant in that regard.

I’ve heard it said that agnosticism is intellectual cowardice.  I ran across a quote one time, attributed to a religious figure, who said he had more respect for atheists than for agnostics because at least the atheist believed in something.  I’ve never understood that position.  That the existence of God is and has been such a hotly debated issue over the centuries means to me that there is no generally accepted observable evidence either way.  Belief or non-belief requires a leap of faith that has no rational basis.  Based purely on observable evidence, agnosticism is the only rational position.  My honest answer when pushed (and somebody would have to push hard) is that I don’t have enough information to make the determination.

Religion

Back in May, my good friend Jeff Duntemann began an ongoing discussion of religion (specifically, his religious beliefs) in his web diary.  At the time I had been rethinking (again) my own beliefs, and we exchanged a few email messages on the subject.  He recommended that I sort out my thoughts and post them here.  Some things take time.

I was brought up Catholic, although a somewhat toned-down Catholicism.  We went to Mass every Sunday and Catechism classes on Wednesday, said a blessing at each meal, and we all received our First Communion at the appointed time.  I even served as an altar boy for a few years, but that was about it as far as overt religion was concerned.  My grandparents were much more involved in the religion, and I clearly remember them saying a Rosary every night before bed when they came to visit.  My grandfather had a very deep voice that carried well through the walls of the bedroom and throughout the house.  I stopped attending Mass regularly when I went off to military school at 14.  No way was I going to get up on a Sunday morning—the only morning I could sleep in—to catch a bus ride to the church.  Especially not after a very frustrating exchange with a priest who had no patience for a 14-year-old kid who had the effrontery to question the Church’s teachings.

I had a friend who attended the local Baptist church every Sunday morning and was really getting into it.  When he mentioned that lots of girls attended and that they were very interested in talking to us clean-cut military school boys in the rec hall after services, I figured I could give up some sleep.  Oh, boy, was that a shock.  The difference between a Catholic Mass and a Southern Baptist Sunday service is really something.  Like the difference between a symphony orchestra and a Grateful Dead concert.  And the sermons?  I left there every Sunday in mortal fear!  Those people were crazy!  Even though the girls were pretty, plentiful, and friendly, I just couldn’t embrace the religious beliefs that were being shoved down my throat.

So I drifted.  For a while it was fashionable to claim to be an atheist, and I made a good one:  arrogantly and ignorantly proclaiming the non-existence of God to anybody who asked and many who didn’t.  I got a perverse enjoyment of baiting people of faith, laying little logic traps for them and gloating when they fell in.  It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the reason they stopped discussing religion with me wasn’t because they weren’t secure in their beliefs, but because my arguments were childish and illogical.  Atheism was my religion, and I followed it as blindly as any caricature fundamentalist.  I was 20 years old before I figured out that I should keep my beliefs to myself until I had something intelligent to say.  When I finally did have something intelligent to say, I was wise enough to keep my mouth shut..

Birthday

It was a subdued birthday celebration.  Debra treated me, my brother Jerry, and our friends Mike and Kristi to dinner at La Magarita’s here in Round Rock.  Then we went home for birthday pie (apple pie is so much better than any kind of cake) and ice cream.  I hope somebody got some enjoyment out of the waitress putting a silly sombrero on my head and snapping a picture.  It’s all in good fun, I know, but it was a bit annoying.

Debra did surprise me by ordering a Kenwood TH-F6A tri-band handheld radio.   It’s a little handheld job that transmits on the 144, 220, and 440 MHz amateur bands, and will receive everything from about 100 kHz to 1300 MHz.  That includes AM radio, amateur HF and 6 meter, FM radio, Aircraft, and VHF and UHF TV (although why I’d want to listen to TV on my radio is a mystery).  I’ve had my Ham radio license for a little over 10 years, and this is the first new radio I’ve ever had.  I guess it’s time to get involved now.

Overtraining

The biggest risk one runs when preparing for an endurance event, or even just exercising to “stay in shape” is overtraining.  Some people call it “burnout.”  The cause is simple:  doing too much too soon.  Some of the symptoms include persistent tiredness, heavy feeling in the legs, inability to complete scheduled training rides, sleep disturbance, lack of appetite, constipation or diarrhea, anxiety, depression, irritability, loss of enthusiasm, and an inability to concentrate.  The cure is to stop or severely curtail your training.  Ask anybody who’s tried, though.  Cutting down on your training when you feel the need to do more and more is very difficult.  It’s best not to get into the trap, and most books on running or bicycling will give you hints for avoiding overtraining.

I was starting to experience some symptoms of overtraining (loss of sleep, especially), and during today’s 38 mile  ride my legs were uncharacteristically sore and heavy.  So this next week I’ll be doing the miles, but at a much lower speed in order to let my body rest a bit.  I’ll see how I do on next week’s ride, and decide then if I need to rest a little more.

This is a porn site?

My friend David Stafford sent me email from the public library in Greenville, South Carolina.  The library’s filtering software had blocked access to my Web site because the N2H2 database had it classified as pornography.  I sent them a friendly note asking them to review my site again, and within a day it was no longer classified as pornography.  Debra was glad to hear that, as I think she was a little nervous living with a porn merchant.

N2H2 claims to employ a full-time staff of real live people who review and classify submitted sites.  If that’s the case, I wonder how I this site ever got classified as pornography.

Smuggling banned items onto airplanes

Surprise, surprise. Somebody smuggled some banned items onto a commercial airliner.  Go here for the details.

I caught early reports of this story last week, but then went into my normal weekend news blackout and didn’t get an update until today.  I wasn’t at all surprised when I heard the early reports of box cutters and other banned items being found on commercial aircraft.  I’ve long held (and pointed out here) that the “increased security measures” are just hand waving by Congress, FAA, TSA, and everybody else that is designed to make the traveling public think that “something is being done.”  Aircraft and airports are not noticeably more secure today than they were before September 11, 2001.  It’s simply not possible, in my opinion, to beef up security in any meaningful way without reducing the number of travelers and tromping all over some of our basic freedoms.

What did surprise me was that the perpetrator, a college student named Nathaniel Heatwole, stood up and said “I did it,” knowing full well that he faced some rather stiff penalties.  I suspect many of us have wanted to carry a banned item through the checkpoint and turn around to say “see what I did,” but the thought of being pounced on as a terrorist by an airport full of nervous travelers and security personnel is enough to deter me.  I have to admire the kid’s courage in facing the consequences of his actions, and thank him for demonstrating the inadequacies of the new security systems.  It’s one thing to perform an anonymous act of “civil disobedience” and then try to weasel out of it when you get caught.  It’s another thing entirely to act in full view and stand your ground when faced with the consequences.  Unfortunately, I suspect most young people today will learn only the lessons they want to learn—it’s okay to break the law if you have a good cause—and not the more important lesson:  regardless of your dedication to a cause, you must face up to the consequences of whatever actions you choose to take.

Round Rock Outlaw Trail Century

Training for next spring’s ride to South Texas continues. According to the schedule, today’s “long ride” was to be 34 miles at a moderate pace.  But the weather was uncharacteristically warm and the Round Rock Outlaw Trail Century was being held at Old Settler’s Park just down the road.  So I decided to splurge and do the 40 mile tour (I’m not anywhere near in shape to do a century) of northeastern Williamson County.

The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department has learned a few things about how to host a ride in the past 15 years.  There was plenty of parking, registration was a breeze (although kind of expensive at $30.00), the route was well marked, and the aid stations at approximately 10 mile intervals were well stocked and manned by very friendly people.  Weather was almost perfect:  low 60’s to start (8:00 AM), and getting up to 80 or so by the time the century riders finished.  And, of course, there were plenty of nice-looking ladies in their cycling garb—plenty of incentive all in itself to go for a bike ride.

I pushed myself during the second half of the ride and finished slightly faster than I’ve been averaging recently.  I was tired, but not completely exhausted.  I know I could have gone for 50 miles, but it’s not a good idea to push that hard this early in my training.  I’ll be doing long rides of 70 miles and more soon enough, but jumping that far ahead is a sure way to sustain an overtraining injury.  No thanks.  I’ll build slowly.  Next week I’m back to the standard training schedule.  The “long ride” next Saturday is only 38 miles.