Olympic Basketball

It is almost 1am and the 3rd quarter is coming to an end in this highly entertaining gold medal game.

Couple thoughts
-Win or lose, this USA is awesome. They play hard. They play defense. They play together. They play with passion. They play defense. I know that they are the biggest and the best individual players in the world but Spain has 7 NBA players of their own and have been playing together since they were in the womb.

- I think the best USA lineup is Paul, Williams, Wade, Prince, and Bosh.

- Dwayne Wade is fast (and good).

- Pau and Marc Gasol are great players (Pau is better) but they are not going to join Dwayne Wade in People Magazine's Most Beautiful People in the World list.

- Kobe is starting to act like Kobe at the end of the game. We will see how it ends.

JB

The High Sierras - Day #2

Day 2 begin with a very unexpected surprise. At about 4:45am I woke up to the not so familiar sound of a bear about 50 yards from our tent. It was obvious to me that he was chomping down on the food that we had so wisely "hidden" from him the night before. I have never been scared of bears in the past as I have encountered them numerous times in Yosemite and Mammoth. But there is such a fear of bears by Jen (wife) and by Ryan (friend on the trip) and by Ryan's wife Lauren (who I think was convinced that we were going to be eaten) that I began to wonder as I lay in my sleeping bag listening to the bear if this was it. Were all the fears, which I had previously laughed, going to become prophecy.

All of the sudden I heard him about 10 feet from the tent. I woke Ryan up and told him there was a bear. He didn't believe me. Then it growled. He believed me. It came to within 5 feet of the tent. Then we heard it rummaging around one of the packs. We started talking and it immediately bolted. Bravely I got out of the tent and checked around the campsite. Convinced that he was gone we examined Ryan's pack. The bear had ripped through the rain cover on the pack and then had opened the top compartment and pulled out some wet wipes. This bear didn't rip the compartment open. It simply unzipped it. In fact, the bag and zipper were totally fine after the bear had left.

We had not even been in the backcountry 24 hours and we had already become victim of the brilliant bears of the backcountry. They are smart (more to come).

"No cookies left! No cookies left!"

This is all that is left of our bagels, granola bars, beef jerky, cookies. Stupid bear. Stupider humans.


The rest of the day was very relaxing. We read, fished, relaxed, and just relished in the beauty of God's creation.

The fishing was tough. Really windy. No fish caught. Spirits high though

Beauty!

We ended up moving campsites (because of the bear) but staying at Thousand Islands Lake. We found a great site with some coverage from the wind and a great campfire pit.

Cooking some din-din and enjoying the fire.


We had a great night around the fire talking about life and ministry and reading from God's word. We ended the night tired yet filled with God's goodness.

Before we went to bed we still had to deal with all the trash that was left from the bear. It wouldn't fit in the bear canister. Since we had trees around us I grabbed a stuff sack and threw the trash in there. I would use all my skill and hang it in a tree. We would beat the bears this night.


I laid down rested and peaceful. I would not feel that way in the morning.

"Live" coverage

Does it bother anyone else that NBC broadcasts "live" events at the Olympics that aren't really live. Supposedly they broadcast it live on the East Coast and then call it live 3 hours later on the West Coast.

I stayed up to watch the finals of womans beach volleyball. I saw that it was "live" so I jumped on ESPN.com to check some other Olympic results before the match. Wow was I excited when I saw that the match was already over.

Stupid NBC. Congrats anyway to May and Walsh.

The 'Dres

Our church made tickets available for the Padres game last Friday night. It was one of those "Christian" events where they had fireworks and testimonies after the game (how else are you going to get people to a Padres game).

It was a lot of fun to hang out with the church outside of the church (mmmmhhhh!!!).

Peter (new high school director), his wife katie, Stephanie (newer childrens director), her two little girls (cute!), and Jen and I all cruised down to go to the game together.

We got to downtown at around 6:30, walked toward the stadium, and then stopped at Rock Bottom Brewery for a quick bite to eat. We had a great meal hanging out, sharing stories, talking about life and ministry. As we were leaving Peter and I looked at a TV nearby televising the game and we realized it was already the bottom of the 6th.

We laughed and then took off for the game. We didn't get in our seats until the top of the 8th. We were one inning late and missed the only highlight of the game; the pirates scored 1 run in the top of the 7th and won the game 1-0. Really we only missed 1 inning because the first 6 were pretty useless.

We watched 2 meaningless innings and then the game ended. We then watched an entertaining fireworks show and went home. Great night!

The High Sierras - Day #1

12:14am - We (Jen, Ryan, and I) finally got to bed from a long night of packing and hanging out. Feeling excited about the trip, it took me a little while to get to bed.

3:44am - I woke up without the aid of my alarm clock, which was set to go off at 4:00am. I got up and we ended up hitting the road at 4:15am. Ryan immediately fell asleep for the next 2 hours while I drove us north to Mammoth.

10:30am - We pulled into Mammoth, picked up a few items (tapping the Rockies, fishing licenses, Lewis & Tolkien accessories). Then we met up with my uncle who drove us to the Mammoth Mountain Visitor Center. After a quick trip back to get the fishing license that Ryan left in his bag, we hopped on a bus and headed off to Agnew Meadows.

We hiked all day, around 7 miles. The skies were clear, the sun was shining, and we were absolutely loving being in the backcountry. We spent a majority of the hours reading scripture, praying, and talking in depth about life, marriage, vocation, theology. It was so good to just walk and talk. It always amazes me how life slows down and opens up when we let it.

At the trail head, ready to go.

Ryan walking down the trail in the first mile

Here is me eating some Gorp


Our first "bump" in the road happened when we couldn't find the turnoff to Garnett Lake. The map clearly showed a trail leading west for .6 miles but we somehow missed it. Instead, we hiked an additional 2.6 miles to Thousand Islands Lake. Though we were very tired by the time we got there it ended up not being that bad because we were going to hike to Thousand Island lake the next day. This just put us a little ahead of schedule and allowed us to relax the next day. Here are a couple pics from the first day.

Kicking it at our camp site...first night.

This was the view from our tent...lakeside real estate.

Here is the lake from above. You can guess why they call it Thousand Island lake.

Making dinner

Ryan enjoying a delicious pizza bagel

What a great first day! We went to bed tired yet relaxed and happy. Oh, how that would dramatically change in only a few short hours. Stay tuned.

Into the Wild(erness)

Tomorrow morning I am driving up to Mammoth and heading out on a 4 day backpack trip from Red's Meadow to Tuolumne Meadows. One of my close friends, Ryan Miller, is flying in today from Texas to join me on the trail. I cannot even begin to describe my excitement and expectation for this trip. It has been a great desire of mine to go backpacking for a couple years now and I almost can't believe that it is going to become a reality.

There is something about being in the backcountry that makes my heart jump. I have been to a lot of cool places over the last 5 years (Costa Rica, NZ, Maui, Cabo, South Dakota) but no destination brings more life to me than the Sierra Mountains. I cannot wait to strap on the pack and head out on the trail. What freedom lies in the unknown! The wilderness strips away all the conveniences of life that are a constant distraction and allows us to really peer inside our soul. I feel such clarity of thought and such connection to the Father when I am surrounded by His creation.

I will let you know how the trip goes next week. Please pray for us if you feel led. Ryan just sent me a text while I was writing this and said, "JOHN 14:12-14."

This is the valley that we will be backpacking through on day 4.