Psalm 42:7

I’m looking for a used 07 4Fun, if anyone has one available please let me know!

I’ll confess that I’m not die hard enough to paddle in cold weather. So it’ll be the pool this winter for me. I’m going to try to make it to pool sessions as much as possible. My girlfriend wants to learn how to kayak so hopefully I’ll be helping her with that and I’ll get some work in on my playboat. Might aim for the New Year’s Day paddle, some flatwater here in Indiana. But better than nothing. I need to use the winter to get ready for spring. Practice in the pool, but also getting into something resembling decent shape.

My brother and sister-in-law are coming to the pool session after Christmas, hoping to get them hooked. They moved to Idaho and very soon after getting there my brother asked about kayaking.

I’m trying to learn more about Eugene, Oregon. I may be moving there next year, we’ll see what happens.

I’m anxiously awaiting the new issue of LVM. I just ordered “49 Megawatts” and “Pacific Horizons” I love video from The Range Life.

I’m glad to rest for the winter, but I’m looking forward to spring and getting out paddling again.

I guess I don’t have a lot to say about kayaking right now, not much going on.

I haven’t written on this blog for a while, so I’ll post what has happened since my last posting.

My trip on the Nantahala went well.  I ran it clean from Patton’s Run all the way to Lesser Wesser.  At Lesser Wesser I missed the eddy, so I bombed it straight down the falls.  Fortunately the Mamba is a pretty forgiving boat.  We ran the top half on Sunday morning and that went well also.  However, after running the Nanty I decided to hold off on Ohiopyle and the Lower Yough until next year.  I felt like I could probably do it, but I would be more comfortable if I honed my skills on some class 2 and tried it next year.

Somewhere around here a wonderful lady became interested in joining me on some of my adventures.  She is interested in whitewater kayaking so I’ve started to introduce her to it some.  We hit a local lake for a little bit of training.  Unfortunately the weather is such that it was quickly too cold for her to hit the lake and she lives far enough away that pool sessions are difficult right now.  So she will be learning in the pool once sessions start closer to where she lives.

I did get a chance to run the Hiwassee and had a wonderful time on it.  I have to say I enjoyed it more than the Nanty.  I ran it clean without many problems.  My girlfriend paddled a ducky with a friend and they had a couple of interesting moments.  I’ll have to write later about my first time ever blowing my whistle for an emergency.  But it was a great experience and I’m looking forward to getting on that river again.

I’ve had a chance to hit Red River Gorge a couple of times, once for backpacking and once for a guy’s retreat.  I love it down there, I just wish that there was better whitewater there.

After the Hiwassee I’m done with kayaking until spring.  I still have plans for hitting the pool sessions frequently.  Last week I picked up my Jackson Super Star and I’m excited to try it out at the pool.  Whitewater Warehouse set me up with a great deal on a demo.  This week we have the kids at the pool, so I won’t get much of a chance to play.  I will in a couple of weeks.

Next week I’m off to Utah to hike Paria Canyon.  I’m excited about that.

So that’s the update on my adventures.  After Utah I’ll take it easy for the winter and get ready for spring.

So last weekend I’m up at the East Race whitewater course paddling and I got inspired.  The worst part about the East Race is that it is half a mile long.  It’s short for paddling, but when you get to the bottom you pick up your boat and carry it a half mile back to the beginning.  Usually the limitation paddling there isn’t getting tired paddling, but getting tired of carrying your boat back to the top.  Well we saw that some people had made little sets of wheels to attach to the end of their boat to pull the boat back up.  So obviously I’m thinking that this is a great idea.  So Sunday morning I go to home depot to get what I need to make my own set of wheels for my kayak.

So tonight I start working on it.  First let me say that I’m not a master craftsman.  I can build stuff, but it tends to be more functional than pretty.  I also tend to take rather odd approaches to stuff and there isn’t really a good work bench here at the house (Wing has it buried).  So it’s a miracle that I didn’t cut off a toe or something.  So I get this thing put together and try it out.  I can’t say that I’m satisfied with the results.  I guess it works, but I’m not sure it’s going to work like I was thinking it would.  I guess there isn’t really a good way to transport a 55 lb creek boat.  I need a smaller boat.

The real killer is this.  For Christmas I’ve been asking my dad to get me tools, recently power tools.  I don’t have a great need for them now, but I figure I can use them to help others and then I’ll have all the tools I need for when I get my own house.  So I get them as gifts for Christmas over the years instead of buying all of them at once.  So today I used my circular saw for the first time.  I managed to avoid cutting off any body parts or cutting the cord (don’t laugh, I’ve done it before.  OK, you’re laughing anyway).  However, I went to put it back in the case and I couldn’t figure it out.  I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get it back in the case.  I looked at the directions to see if it told me, or at least had a picture.  Finally I figured out how to get it back in there.  Sometimes I’m almost brilliant.

So yeah, Purdue called and they want my engineering degree back.  Think about it folks, I design the roads you drive on

All this so I wouldn’t have to carry my creek boat half a mile just to paddle down it again.  I really need to scrape together the money for my Super Star

But I think I’m about ready for the Ohiopyle Festival, running the falls and the Lower Yough.

I had some opportunities to learn some humility on this trip to Glacier.  I had two days where I ended up with heat exhaustion.  It really sucks.  The first day I talked with the group, after I caught up with them, about the importance of staying together.  I felt bad about it because I felt like I was giving a lecture, and I’m sure that some of it came from being hurt, but it had to be said.

In our world today there is a “survival of the fittest” mentality, a desire to be first, the strongest, the best.  What happens when the focus is on this is that when someone starts to struggle, they get left behind.  When things start getting hard, the strong charge ahead and the weak are left behind to struggle by themselves.  However, that is the time when the strong people are needed most.  How many rescue situations start by someone saying “where’s so-and-so?” and then finding them somewhere far behind on the trail?  Sometimes at that point it is too late, as in the case of a young girl who died on an Outward Bound trip recently.  This happens in hiking/backpacking, kayaking, life, and relationship with God.

This is the Glory of God, that Jesus “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8)  Even though Jesus was God, He didn’t take a survival of the fittest approach to life, charging ahead to the finish line.  Instead He became one of us, arrived on earth as the bastard son of a poor, low status family, and spent His time on earth with the people who were struggling.  His closest friends were fishermen, tax collectors (these guys were worse than the IRS), prostitutes, lepers, and cripples.  God saw the struggling and He came to help them.  He didn’t try to give them helpful advice or yell at them that they did something stupid, He walked them them and helped them with their burden, eventually taking care of the one burden they could do nothing about.

The strong are not the ones who are first to the finish line or to the top of the mountain first.  The strong are those with the strength of character to use their strength to help those who are struggling.  How many champions are a total jackass and how do we look at people like the firemen who ran into the World Trade Center on 9/11?  Often it isn’t that the strong have to carry the struggling, many times just walking with them is enough.  I know that as I was struggling on our hike that I was stronger when people were with me than when I was walking on my own.  When I had people with me I knew that I was going to be ok.

It’s really hard to be the one who is struggling.  No one wants to be the complainer and no one wants to be the weakest link.  We want to be strong and self sufficient.  But the truth is, sometimes we struggle and sometimes we need help.  Generally when backpacking I’m the one who is checking up on everyone to make sure everyone is ok and I tend to stay behind with the slower people.  It was really hard to be the one who was struggling.  I know that I went at least a mile debating with myself whether I really was in trouble or whether I was just a whiner.  I finally reached a point where I knew I was in trouble, and then I spoke up.  However, maybe if I had the humility to admit I was struggling earlier things might not have gotten as bad.  Sometimes asking for help is also a matter of whether anyone is going to care.  Many people know they need help, but they don’t know if anyone cares enough to help, so they keep struggling along on their own.  Or maybe it is a matter of someone strong being around to ask for help.  If the strong are not among the weak, there is no one to turn to for help.

The desire to be the strongest and the best permeates everything in our culture, and mostly it is glorified.  We hold up the sports champion, the successful CEO, and the celebrity.  However, what is the cost of glorifying the strong and ignoring the weak?  How would our world be different if we had paid attention to those who are hurting and struggling?  How many school shootings averted?  How many suicides, run aways, drug addicts, and people locked up in prison would have a different story?  How many of those people could have changed the world if someone had offered them the strength to make it through their struggle?

I believe that our world would be transformed if we stopped worrying about who was the best and started taking care of those who are struggling.  That’s why Jesus came to earth and that’s what the Church is supposed to do.  We’ve done a pretty poor job of it, but we’re working on it.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:10-13

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:1-3