I know, I know…not a very imaginative title, and on top of that I’ve been ignoring this blog in a big way. Anyway, took some early morning photos today – enjoy!
Hit the “Read More” to see the rest of the photos… Continue reading
2010 in review for “A handful of quietness”
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 13 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 114 posts. There were 100 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 24mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was April 1st with 34 views. The most popular post that day was If there had been television in 1517.
Repairing a bent derailleur hanger on my Salsa Fargo
The roads and bike paths are still slick from the snow and ice that hit Spearfish this past weekend. I know this for a fact, and I have the bent rear derailleur hanger to prove it!
Bent hanger on my Salsa Fargo
At the end of my pre-dawn ride this morning, and with about a half-mile to go, my concentration lapsed just long enough to allow my wheels to slide to the left and my Salsa Fargo and myself to land on our right sides. I’m fine — landed in a small snowbank — but the Fargo’s derailleur hanger took a good hit and ended up nicely bent. I was able to ride it home, although the end of the derailleur cable was hitting the spokes, reminding me of the noisemakers that kids sometimes put in their bike spokes.
As it turns out, I happened to have a Park Derailleur Hanger Alignment Gauge in my toolbox and this was my first opportunity to try it out. Ten minutes later (not counting the time to take photos along the way) the hanger was as good as new. According to the alignment gauge anyway. Not sure how many more realignments the steel in the hanger is going to tolerate before it snaps, nor do I want to find out!
Continue reading for more photos in the post… Continue reading
Testing the Post by Email feature on WordPress
So I have this blog that’s been idle for a few months, and an Android phone that does all sorts of cool things, and I thought I’d combine the two and see if I can get more mileage out of both. Seems like one way to do that is turn on the "Post by Email" feature for the blog and give it a whirl. So here we go…
Another very cool moth this morning
The detail and intricacy in this moth are staggering if you take the time to observe it. Another fine example of a creative Creator at work.
Mickelson Trail – Chilson Bridge to Minnekahta Trailhead: thunderstorms, Bullsnakes, and cattle drives
On Sunday afternoon, May 16, we completed the second stage of our Mickelson Trail project, riding from Minnekahta Trailhead to Chilson Bridge and back again to the trailhead. We started under threat of thunderstorms off to the north, but they kept moving north and east, while we rode south to Chilson Bridge, though we did encounter a few raindrops along the way. Besides those raindrops, we also met a couple of Bullsnakes who were engaged in multiplying their species, and got caught up in a small cattle drive – seems that the lower parts of the Mickelson are designated as a multi-use trail!
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Mickelson Trail – Chilson Bridge to Minnekahta Trailhead: 8.34 miles (16.68 miles total)
Mickelson Trail – Edgemont to Chilson Bridge
One of our goals for this summer (spring/summer/fall) is to ride the entire 109-mile Mickelson Trail as a family. If we complete this project we’ll actually ride it twice, since we take one vehicle and ride out and back each time.
Through a series of events on Sunday afternoon, April 18, we ended up in Edgemont and started riding north. We were going to ride somewhere closer to Hill City, but scattered thunderstorms kept pushing us south, and we finally decided to just drive to Edgemont and get it over with! As you can see in these pictures, the far southern Black Hills are not as desolate as some think they are, despite rattlesnakes, poison ivy, and lonely canyons.
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Mickelson Trail – Edgemont to Chilson Bridge: 6.74 miles (13.47 miles total), 193 feet of climbing.
(I took some or most of the photos while I was riding, so cut me a little slack on the quality of these images!)
Oh, and I’m trying a relatively new feature on WordPress.com that lets me display these 30 photos as a slideshow – no more scrolling down a long post of photos. Send some feedback my way if you like or dislike the new way to handle photos on this blog.
Google Earth images
A photo tour of the northern Black Hills at the end of March
While it’s probably not quite over, winter is on the way out, and we’re in a transitional period here in the northern Black Hills. There’s still enough snow around to make hiking and biking somewhat difficult, though we did notice this morning that the grass in our front yard is turning green and there are buds on one of our trees. Saturday afternoon we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, but due to the amount of snow that’s still up in the hills, we ended up doing a driving tour of Spearfish Canyon, Terry Peak and the Wharf open pit gold mine. Here are some photos from that tour.
Bridalveil Falls, Spearfish Canyon
Mid-march snowpeople
I’m not sure who made the two smallest snowpeople, but the others were made, from left to right, by Kelsey, Libby, Jessica, and Maggie. Note the differences between Libby’s and Maggie’s. . . . even though they are twins, their “art” is radically different!
Spearfish Mountain wrapped in clouds
I took this picture back in December, and am finally getting around to posting it. Not the greatest shot, but the clouds wrapped around Spearfish Mountain looked pretty cool that day.
A gnat’s toot in a hurricane
This post was in my draft folder for the past year, and I thought it was time to set it free. (I also posted it over at the Black Hills Web Works blog.)
Amy’s website and blog about human trafficking and modern-day slavery
Amy started blogging about human trafficking and modern-day slavery back in November of 2009 , and about a month ago I convinced her to let me build a new Joomla website and matching WordPress blog to spread awareness more effectively. You can find her website at www.aheartforjustice.com, and you can follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/aheart4justice. Check it out, read about it, and leave her a comment or two.
Advent Conspiracy 2009 Thank You – new video from Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International
If you had a part in Advent Conspiracy this year, have a look at this video to see some of the amazing things your dollars made possible. If you didn’t, have a look anyway and know that there are still millions of people in this world who do not have clean drinking water, and you and I can help change that.
At the manger. At the cross. In His Kingdom.
This is an electronic version of the Christmas card we received this year from Make Way Partners, and I thought I’d pass it on to you. Make Way Partners is actively working to end human trafficking in places like Sudan and Romania, and they are an organization that we as a family support. In their own words, they are “going to the most vulnerable and least protected to end human trafficking – through prevention.
Christmas [is] changing the world: latest video from Advent Conspiracy
This video is “hot off the press,” and tells the brief story of a team from Living Water International drilling a well in the jungles of Peru by hand. Not digging a well, drilling a well by hand. They started work on December 8, 2009 and had clean water on December 12, 2009. Yeah!!
Excuse me, Jesus, but who’s my neighbor?
I wrote about this on Facebook earlier this week and thought I’d include it here too. What you see below are my Facebook status updates and comments, unedited. Not a typical post, but hey, why not?
We’ve got this neighbor, 59-year old man, unemployed but trying to find work, has arthritis, out of money, hocked his car title at a pawn shop and needs between $300 – $400 to save his car. Anybody want to pitch-in and help?
As a follow-up to this thread for anyone else who’s watching this unfold, his name is Brian, and I’m going to suggest that he’s not going to be able to pay anyone back. But then Jesus said not to expect that to happen either.
We’re going to invite him to join us on Thanksgiving day for all he can eat, and even though this has been our worst economic year out of the past ten or so, we’re still going to help him keep his car.
And so I’ll ask again: anyone else want to help out?
Update to an earlier status: Our neighbor, Brian, just called to see if our church was going to be able to help him out. Told him I didn’t know yet, but a friend had heard about his plight here on facebook and donated to the cause, which brightened his day.
I also asked him to join us for Thanksgiving day dinner and he turned me down at first – said he didn’t want to impose his lifestyle on anyone or take their food away from them. I said that’s ridiculous and there will be plenty of food. He then said he hadn’t been invited to something like this for 20 years and started to get emotional…and then he finally agreed to come over.
Looking forward to it.
(If you’d like to help, let me know by commenting on this post. If you don’t want the comment published, let me know that too.)
The incredible irony of Black Friday
Does it seem ironic to anyone else that the day after Thanksgiving is now known (in America at least) as Black Friday? A day dedicated by many to the full expression of greed and materialism that our Christmas holiday has become. Christmas – the holiday when we typically remember that Jesus was born. In the fourth gospel the apostle John said this about Jesus, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4, 5) This is the same Jesus whose light still shines today, even in the darkness of a land where days like Black Friday are among the “holiest” of days. And the same Jesus who told us not to lay up treasures on earth, but in heaven.
Here’s an earth-shattering announcement: You don’t have to join in the commercialism that Christmas has become. Watch the video again, and then decide to help someone who is far less fortunate than you are this Christmas season. Someone, for example, who has to get their drinking water from a mudhole.
To learn more about the Advent Conspiracy, click here.
If there had been television in 1517
This comic showed up on one of our tests in The History of Western Christianity back in Bible college. Thanks Dr. Bierma – this is classic!
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