A normalizing commute

After all the flats last week, I'm happy to report that my commute by bike and bus has become fairly routine. One funny story from one of the flats, though.

I have to ride about a mile to my bus stop after work. Given all my flats, I took off early, like twenty minutes early. Good thing I did. After less than a quarter mile, the tire went flaccid. I knew I had to hustle to make the bus, so I hopped off and started walking quickly. I watched the time and gauged the distance. I knew I was on the losing end. Once I got off the main thoroughfare, I started running, with my backpack, pushing my bike. I think I ran about a quarter of a mile this way. Keep in mind, there was a computer and a fat history textbook in my backpack. So this was desperation. I saw the bus sitting at the stop, waiting for its appointed departure moment. When I was about seventy-five yards from the stop, the bus pulled out. I kept running, but this time waving frantically for the bus to stop. Mercifully, the driver stopped. Because of all the wheezing, I didn't appreciate his snide remark until later, but he said, "I hope you can find a seat." There were two other people on the bus.

No more flats? Please?

I made it to work this morning with no flat tires after five in three days. I'm pinching myself, and my tires, to make sure I'm not dreaming.

I think my friend who worked in a bike shop nailed (so to speak) the problem for me. I have soft-walled mountain bike tires, and I was underinflating them. Hopefully that was the problem and I'll go 2000 miles without another flat, as Mark noted. (Thanks for your suggestions, Mark. I'll keep those in mind in case I do have another flat, God forbid. By the way, what's the wrong way to take the pump off? Or the right way, rather?)

In other news, my first seminary class is almost under my belt. I have to turn in my final by midnight on Friday. I haven't studied enough, but I feel fairly confident about my knowledge of the topic. I'm going to immerse myself today and part of tomorrow in European Reformations.

I got all my books for the two independent study classes I'm taking this summer (Reconciliation and the Healing of Persons/Sys Theo 2 and Christian Ethics). I have until mid-September to listen to about forty hours of lecture and read at least 2250 pages. I'll probably need to read closer to 3000 pages. Yikes. Better get on that.

Flat!

And again. And again!

Yesterday morning on my way to the bus stop, I got a flat on my front tire. Thankfully, I was close, so I didn't take time to fix it. I made it to work, and it turns out it was unfixable. The valve stem was coming loose from the tube. So a friend drove me to the store to get a new tube.

Everything was kosher till this morning when my tire went flat again, this time a little further from the bus stop. I ran for a bit (with my bike and backpack), since I needed to get this bus to make it to a dentist appointment. I didn't have the heart (or the legs) to go all the way around to the bus stop, so I trespassed through a construction area. I made it on time, thankfully.

After the dentist, I tried to fix the tire. I heard some air escaping near the valve stem (again). I took it apart again, and after putting it together, it seemed stable. I started riding up the sidewalk, watching it carefully. I made it about half a mile before it deflated again. I tried to simply pump it up since that seemed to work the last time. It wasn't working at all. A kind young woman in a Prius pulled up to see if I needed help. I asked if she could give me a ride, and she agreed. I think I'll trade my bike in for a Prius. Anybody know the trade in value?

Bus update

This morning, I actually biked the trip to WalMart to catch the bus. I made it in time, thankfully, but it wore me out!

Last night I was riding to the stop about half a mile from work, and I saw my bus driving by. Somehow, they saw fit to leave about five minutes early. I waved, and they kept going. I was about a hundred yards from the stop. Last bus for the night too. Not happy.

If I keep taking the 6:17 bus in the morning, I'll get the same driver for the rest of the month. I'm pretty motivated to keep dragging out at 5:20 in order to make this happen. She's really nice, and she even stops about a quarter mile from my workplace. Yesterday I was chatting with some talkative guys, and they asked my major in college. I noted "linguistics." This pleased the Classical Academy Latin teacher. When I was getting off the bus, the driver asked what my major was again because she thought I said "statistics" or "ballistics." She couldn't figure out why that was so meaningful to the Latin teacher.

Oh, what I could do with some ballistics training right now . . .

Baptism

This is totally not what you think it is. I'm talking about sprinkling . . . as I rode my bike into work today. Given exorbitant gas prices, I figure I'll do my part to lessen demand. So today was my first day taking the bus. I've never ridden the bus in this town, and it's not terribly convenient for me. From the house, I have to ride my bike about four miles to WalMart. Then at the other end, I will typically need to ride my bike a little more than a mile. The driver this morning was really nice and took an unplanned stop where I only needed to ride about a quarter of a mile. This was merciful given the icy rain falling. The odd thing is, it only rains in the morning about twice a year here. Therefore, I count this a christening of saving money, gas, etc. I'm just glad it wasn't immersion.

Devilish names

Michel de L'Hôpital had a similar comment to Sebastian Franck (see May 23 below) about naming others: "We must henceforth . . . assail our enemies with charity, prayer, persuasion and the word of God, which are the proper weapons for such a conflict. . . . Sweetness will achieve more than severity. And let us banish those devilish names--"Lutheran," "Huguenot," "Papist"--which breed only faction and sedition; let us retain only one name: "Christian" (from Lindberg, The European Reformations Sourcebook, p. 195.).

Word games

We had a meeting the other day where we talked about how the modern church has used numbers (i.e., chapters and verses) to help quantify the Bible. We've turned the Bible's different genres into one: proverbs. This allows us to quote with certainty some snippet from the Bible, ignoring its true point(s). My boss noted that this was a Cartesian use of the Bible. Definite certainty, no open questions, [sing along] I've got the whole world . . . in my hands, I've got the whole world [stop singing]. My verbal mind started playing with the word "Cartesian." [No, really, I meant it, stop singing!] So I noted, probably to the group's chagrin, that the Cartesian approach to Scripture is opposed to the courtesan approach, where storytelling would happen before the king by jesters or bards. No doubt, kings needed certainty, but before the 1500s, they didn't rely on Enlightenment Rationalism to tell them how to think. They were comfortable with the ambiguity of a story, where good guys could be a little bad and vice versa. [Ha! The song's stuck in your head! I'm not sorry!] This courtesan approach is much more true to life and the world than a Cartesian approach. There's room for empirical data, but when we approach life, the world and the Bible from an empirical mindset, we're guaranteed to screw it up. How do you approach the Bible? As a Cartesian or a courtesan?