Blindside lyrics...

I had a dream the other day that was really powerful... this song seems
to remind me of it every time I hear it... Maybe it will speak to you
too: (video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei8Rh_cxh4w ... not what
I thought about when I hear the song, but it will at least give you a
tune to follow for the lyrics...)

That boy is gone
Sometimes I miss the way he wept at night
To be still and not run
To be rocked to sleep in your light
These days there is not much that will bring tears to my eyes
But when I remember who I am and who you are
When I remember
A cloud moves in, rain falls, thunder strikes, and sunshine breaks
through the clouds

I am walking blind
So distracted that I don't even feel when you hold me
When did I grow such thick skin
You are my sunshine and rain
My joy and sweet pain
I'm a spotless stain
That boy is gone
But nobody moves me like you do
When I remember

A cloud moves in, rain falls, thunder strikes
And sunshine breaks through the clouds
I can cry out of sorrow and joy
Every drop of rain turns into a crystal in the sun
So wash my eyes, my clothes, my skin, my bones, my soul
My feet, my love
I'm not forgotten
I'm in your thoughts cause I feel sunshine in the rain

To this day nobody moves
Nobody
Nobody moves me like you do

On Top of Old Smoky!!!

Alas, no cheese.

It's a smoky day in Fairbanks. About eleven this morning the smoke got
pushed into town, and it's just stayed now for a few hours. Hopefully
the wind will blow it out of town soon, because, as you can see from the
rough stitch photo, visibility (and thus breath ability) is fairly
limited today. I guess this is another sure sign of summer in Fairbanks.

I didn't have a good summer photo from the hill on campus, so you'll
have to contend with this stitch of the Sunrise Service on April 12th of
this year. But, I think you can tell that it's not just fog that you're
seeing...

Alaskan Summer

Well, here we go...

I got stung by a bee/wasp/hymenoptera on Tuesday while working on
removing some saplings for a guy I know from church... I didn't think
much of it, other than "ouch". I took an antihistamine, but just one...
that was my downfall. When I woke up on Wednesday my hand nice an
puffy. Not at all what you want to see first thing in the morning. So,
it was double doses of antihistamine for a few days until it finally
caught up enough to get my hand back to normal Saturday night.

I also had an eye appointment on Friday morning where I found out that
my upper eyelid/contacts have been scratching away at my eye and it
needs to heal... a lot... so I can't wear my contacts for at least two
weeks, and I have to put in these strange eye drops every two hours...
(good thing my watch has a repeatable timer.... <beep> <beep> <beep>
<beep>... drop - drop... ahhhh...

Then Friday night I was brushing my teeth and flossing like a good
little boy should, when a tooth started hurting and bleeding around the
gums... AHHHhhhh... ouchy. So, I'll be making an appointment for the
dentist this coming week... Why is my 27 year old body falling apart on
me? Why?!?!

So, Saturday I had a little melt down trying to figure out what I was
going to do (about paying for all this stuff without insurance right
now... I was supposed to be in another country by now...) and realized I
hadn't read my Bible much (ok, at all) this week... Solution? I sat in
the warm afternoon sun (why get up any earlier on a weekend?) and read
for several hours... just enough to have a nice, if slightly pinkish
glow. No, I'm smart enough (I think) not to get burnt, but that would
have made a great story.

What did I learn? Well, I read about Moses being called to lead his
people out of Egypt... "Don't pick me... Me words no gewd... Not it!"
And just laughed because I know that He's picked a path for me, and it's
the one worth following in life.

So, even though I don't know how to fix anything, I know I don't need
to. And even though I'm in Alaska, and not PNG, there are still really
neat things to see and do.

This afternoon I went with the Youth Group from my church and we played
disc golf on Birch Hill... The first time in probably three years that
I've played. I'm proud to say that my team had the lowest score of the
lot, and everyone had a good afternoon.

Then while driving home, I saw two moose next to the road that let me
take their pictures. You know what? Alaska's an ok place to be.

E-Book reader!

I've been thinking over the last few days/weeks/months, that when I get
to PNG, I might like to have an ebook reader so I don't have the weight
of tens of books to carry around with me. This lead me to start
investigating the prospects of ebook readers on the market currently.

The first one that I knew about was the Amazon Kindle
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle) The electronic paper that
is used on the high end ebook readers looks sharp, and leads to long
lasting battery life. However there were some complaints from the user
reviews that didn't like the new Kindle 2 because it doesn't have the
expansion slot for SD card and that the contrast one the '2' was worse
than the original... not the direction you'd like to see out of and
updated version. Then of course is the price. At $359 for the Kindle 2
makes it pretty hard on the pocket book... You do get ebooks downloaded
for free over 3G networks when you download/buy books from Amazon, but
that won't work in PNG... so, final verdict? Let's see what else is out
there...

The next ebook reader that looked good was the Hanlin V3
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlin_eReader) which gets re-distributed
under various other name brands, here it's called the "Astak EZ Reader".
There is also a V5 version that is out/will be out shortly. The cool
thing about the Hanlin is it says it has battery life based on page
turns... somewhere between 1,000 to 8,000... unfortunately quite the
wide range, but it probably has something to do with rendering pictures
and the like. It has a slot for an SD card and an internal memory of
512Mb. The biggest problem that I've seen is that it's so hard to tell
the differences between the versions. Not much was updated from the V3
to the V5, and the prices are still about the same. ($299 for V3 & $250
for V5... yeah, you got me on that one) I haven't been able to locate
where to buy the V5 yet, but this website is a great one for looking up
information on ereaders: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Hanlin_V5

Anyway, the V5 is still more than I was hoping to spend on the
conveyance of reading my books on an electronic device. Well, lucky for
me there is another option...the XO laptop: (http://laptop.org) Since I
happened to participate in the Give 1 Get 1 a few years ago, the
opportunity to use this computer as something special has just come to
mind. It is a low power laptop for kids in developing nations around
the world... A cool project with a lofty goal of delivering a laptop
for every child in the world.

The XO laptop has a Gb of storage, and can lower the back light to a
gray scale for outdoor use, a full keyboard (although very small for
anything but a child's hands), wireless networking (802.11b/g/s), and an
SD slot... The downsides of using it as an ebook reader is that it's
rather large and the interface is a little slow compared to a device
that is built for a dedicated purpose. However, I already own this
one... ;-)

Would I guy it just for an ebook reader? Nope... Would I buy it again to
support the G1G1 project? Yeah, but unfortunately that program isn't
going on right now. You might just have to wait for the XO2...
http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo2/

Here's a review of the XO as an ebook reader:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/with-some-polis/
and the XO website: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO

Happy reading!

Far North BMX

I've been attending (and raced once) the Far North BMX race track over
the last few weeks. It's a fairly well maintained track that the kids
of Fairbanks can race around in a constructive manor. But what was
really fun was to take photos of the races. I took over six hundred
photos in the one hour the races lasted. I think there were about nine
moto's, and I'm not sure how many riders there were, but needless to
say, the little buffer on my camera got quite the workout, and even was
full for a few of the shots... Too bad too, because I know that I missed
a few good shots while it was churning away.

The class that I raced in (the one time) was the cruiser class... for
non-BMX bikes... but it was a nice change of pace from the downhill
mountain biking that I usually do. Now, this doesn't mean that I was
any good at it, just that it was fun to try once. ;-) What was really
nice was I didn't gash my leg open, or break any bones... or worse...
What's worse? I dono, but it didn't happen to me on this course.

Not that the page is all that exciting, but here is a link to the ABA site that tells you about the track in Fairbanks.
Russ (the guy that runs the track) is a good friend of mine that goes to
my church as well... Zion Fairbanks.

Paul