The Majesty

Pondering…

I’ll start with a poignant poetic selection.

The tail of the underqualified Longboarder…

Ouch. Some would say the hill was small.

Ouch. And not so very tall at all

Ouch. So tell me then why did I fall

Ouch. And scrape my hip and my foot’s ball

Ouch. The board jived left and I flew right

Ouch. Which was the reason for my plight

Ouch. It doesn’t help that I’m not light

Ouch. The fall is greater when you’re tall

One ouch

2 ouch 3 ouch

Dr. Haugen is on the case

Don’t let any fool ever tell you that home is not where the heart is. Last week my “physical” heart parts were in Loma Linda, but the important fact is that the rest of my heart bits were there as well. The reason my whole heart was at home in Loma Linda is simply this, many people who I care about deeply were there. Some of them reside in that fair place and others flew from afar to see me, but they were there, it was heart warming (both bits), and I thouroughly enjoyed it. I am practicing getting better at saying these sorts of things in person to people like: Justin, Sarah, Mom,  Dad, Jess, Jake, Brenden, Tim and others… but writing it will have to suffice until I see you all again. I love you guys heaps and thank you for being such a great: brother, sister-in-law, mom, dad, sister, friend, friend, and friend… respectively.

My mom and Brenden

The California King himself

Now for something I’m starting to love in a different way. Yosemite. The place is ethereally majestic. If we’re going with movie comparisons (which I often do) parts of Yosemite, like the Mariposa grove,  remind me of what I imagine Lothlorian to be like (some will get that, others…sorry). Sometimes the place made me want to reach for a revolver, jump on a horse and ride into the sunset. And lots of the time it made me want to just sit and think as deeply as my feeble mind allows about how awesome the creator  that made THIS place must be.

We spent most of our time at Yosemite in an Adventist summer camp known as Wawona. Let me just say firstly that the people that run that good camp are saints, and if I was catholic I’d see to the canonizing myself. Anthony Handal also tells me that people are shirking their agreements to come and visit, so get up there people, I can vouch for the hospitality. Here’s a commercial. “Wawona. They may only have a Half Dome, but it’s the heart that counts anyway.” Good? Maybe it needs some work.

One final noteworthy experience happened just before Wawona. Crack climbing in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Now for those of you who don’t enjoy pulling yourself up vertical rock using chalk and rubber ballet shoes, you won’t understand this next bit. I happen to enjoy that activity immensely, and I thought I was slowly becoming better at it, until… crack climbing. At times it felt like I was trying to climb a porcelain wall. It’s like learning to climb all over again. Having said that… I want to do it again as soon as physically possible. It’s as addicting as… well… crack I suppose. For those who are sufficiently lost, crack climbing is when you climb a vertical crack in a rock without the aid of many features on the face of that rock. You have to jam your hands and feet in to the crack, pull yourself up, rejam, and so forth until you reach the top. Now I realize that to most sane people this might sound a bit bizarre and even counter intuitive (just use a ladder), but I assure you it’s good fun.

Sunbeam (our car) checkup: She’s pulling 30 mpg. She’s got a slight brake rotor wobble (nothing serious). She recently had some steering column plastic surgery (panels were falling off). She’s running like a champ.

-Weaveroftales