For those curious, I am 10 days in to my 30 day 300 mile challenge. I have only ridden 52 miles. So… It’s not looking good. On the other hand, I’ve ridden over 50 miles in the last ten days. Go me!

Oh! And my time is steadily improving. Yesterday, on my ride home, I made my record time… 16 minutes, 47 seconds. And that includes the pause I had to make for the guy to yell at me about riding on the sidewalk.

A friend at work was telling me about his daughter’s search for bathing suits for her daughters (his grand-daughters), and how they were all very revealing. He didn’t want to say the word “sleazy”, but it’s what he was saying.

And so his daughter came up with a term for how these sorts of clothes make kids look… Prostitots.

I think that one would make Doug Wilson jealous.

If anyone is interested in my progress, last week I took the week off, so I didn’t ride to work at all. The previous week I rode Monday (like I said), then Tuesday, took Wednesday off, and then rode in again Thursday. I didn’t go to work Friday, but I did ride to a prayer meeting in the morning.

Then I rode today. So, I’m still on the… wagon? Cart?

In fact, I signed up for a challenge today on MapMyRide.com to ride 300 miles in the next 30 days. That means I will have to put some miles on outside of my commute. We’ll see if I pull that off.

The girls have developed a game while riding in the car. There’s a sign in town that has a big shark on it, and when we pass it they shout, “Shark!”. Similarly, when they see flowers growing, they shout, “Flowers!”.
Ashley, in a successful attempt to further develop the game, made the following rules,

• When you see a flower growing on a tree, you shout, “Tree!”
• When you seea flower growing on a bush, you shout, “Bush!”

Upon hearing these new rules, Fiona decided she had a good one to include… If you see a flower on a soccer ball.. a girl’s soccer ball, you shout, “Soccer Ball!”

ping is a duck.
fiona is a girl.
phin is a boy
ash is a princess.

I am geneva.
men are running to the house.

The girls were at the table yesterday, eating their lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Ashley: Isn’t it funny that it’s called peanut butter? It has butter in it.
Geneva: No, it doesn’t have butter. I think they call it peanut butter because it looks like butter.

Saturday night we headed up to Charlottesville with some friends to see Feist in concert. Lots of fun.

This weekend I dropped a pretty penny on a new bicycle. My plan is to ride it to work on pretty much a daily basis. I’ll get in shape, and also save money on gas, and also reduce those evil carbon fuel emissions. I got a Trek 7.3 FX. It’s lighter than Geneva’s Disney Princess bike.

And so, today, the first business day since the purchase, I rode it to work. Never mind that there’s a steady rain… I am going to use this bike come hell or high water! It took me 21 minutes to ride in. Depending on traffic, it’s 10-15 minutes to drive here. Not bad, if I do say so myself. That’s with me walking up part of a steep hill, and having jelly legs five minutes into the ride. I won’t list the rain as a limiting factor, because it kept me cool.

The biggest problem with the whole commuting to work thing is that I am a sweaty individual. I brought work clothes in (and deodorant!), but I still am afraid of the days when its 80 degrees and 95% humidity at 0700[1].

[1] that might be a slight exaggeration.

The announcement of the publication of the ChristianityToday.com debate together with my recommendation for a commenter to read the debate lead me to read it again, myself. I found that it is still available on the CT.com website…

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

It’s quite good and worth reading.

15 monkeys loose in Florida after escape

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The purpose of this site is to set these contemporary ‘God Wars’ in their historical context, and to offer a range of perspectives (from all sides) on the chief issues raised by the ‘new atheists’. We hope this will encourage more informed opinion about the issues, discourage oversimplification of the debate, and deepen the interest in the subject.