There are 498 blog posts for you to enjoy.
Tour de France 2017
July 16, 2017
This year's edition sees the 198 riders tackle a grueling 23-day, 21-stage, 3,540-kilometer route that takes in 23 mountain climbs and affords competitors just two rest days.
Here is a quote from the BBC website, 'Nairo Quintana is one of the few who can ride away from Froome in the mountains and the paucity of time trialling this year race will also help the 27-year-old Colombian's cause - but he needs to be more aggressive. It will be interesting to see if the Movistar rider, who has twice finished runner-up to Froome (2013 and 2015) is helped or hindered by competing in Italy's equivalent race, the Giro d'Italia, where he finished second in May.'
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Visited Usiacuri, a new kitten, expatriots
June 13, 2017
Finally, I'm updating my website. So what has been happening?
One weekend we took a day trip out to a very small town, here referred to as a village, called Usiacuri. It's about 25 miles south of Barranquilla. It's a nice little town with no large businesses of any kind. There's a park with a soccer field, and at the side of it a steep hillside to climb, and at the top of the hillclimb is a statue and a view of the historic church across the small valley. There are a few small tiendas (neighborhood grocery stores, but they are very small, usually one or two rooms in a persons house that have been converted into the tienda), one or two similar sized hardware stores, a couple similar sized restaurants, and a community arts center. Oh, and a similar sized shoe store. I didn't see any gasoline stations in the town. And the very old church that sits on top of a small hill overlooking the entire town. The town is known for the arts center, where many residents are involved in making baskets and other things from Iraca palm. The area has been populated since the early 1500's.
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Why I don't go to church anymore
June 6, 2017
First let's look at the word 'church'. Where does it come from? What does it refer to? The Greek word 'ekklesia' is the root word the English translated to 'church'. But what does 'ekklesia' mean? The literal meaning is 'called out', or 'a calling out'. It does not refer to a building of any kind, nor does it even refer to a place, or location. It refers to a group of people (Acts 19:30-41), the children of Israel (Acts 7:38), and the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 5:25, 32). In the bible ekklesia can refer to the group of believers in a particular location(1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 1:1-2), it can refer to individual believers (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13), and it can also refer to the universal group of all people who have trusted Christ through the ages (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 5:23-27).
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Some say: If you don't vote, you can't complain. The real truth is this
November 24, 2016
Some say: If you don' vote, you can't complain.
The real truth is this: If you DO vote, you can't complain.
Think about this: The person who does not vote (and does so out of thoughtful deliberation and self-education of all the issues, rather than mere laziness), is governed without his consent. This person never took any positive action to accept this "social contract". If government gets its "just powers" from the consent of the governed, then the government can have no just power over the person who didn't vote, or voted for the losing candidate. Yet the fact that the government has power over him is unfortunately undeniable, but there is no justice in that power - and so, no injustice in any actions the non-voter may take to limit or evade that power, except those actions which are, at face value, lawless regardless of the current status of the Government.
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Bogota Trip
October 24, 2016
We got home sunday in the afternoon, after a long bus ride. It must have been the milk run route - the driver stopped in just about every little town along the way. It was about 20 hours, if not more, for the trip home. We have many photos which I have posted in the photo album, just look for the Bogota album. And some videos as well.
While we were in Bogota my landlady contacted me to tell me she found my neighbors cat in our apartment. She said it appeared to have not done anything bad inside, but may have been there for 3 days, just crying to get out. The only possible way for the cat to get in is from the patio. Which means the cat had to be on the roof, then jump down to a steel-bar grate over the top of the patio, then jumped down through the grate to the laundry sink, then to the floor. I had left the patio door open just so the room would have some fresh air while we were away. But, when we got home, we found things were a bit dirtier than we'd hoped or expected. And after that very long bus ride we were mopping, 3 times, the apartment. Then I found that the toilet tank wasn't refilling with water after a flush. So, the next task was to dive into the tank and find out what was wrong there, and I did - the valve inside the tank was plugged. Not a great way to start our evening back home.
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