This weekend we took our tent out for its maiden voyage. Usually the term maiden voyage is reserved for boats and other watercraft. It rained enough on the first night that our tent could have floated away but luckily it stayed firmly anchored to terra firma.
In December we shared about camping in our living room. Our tent hadn't seen any use since then and this was the first time on real dirt instead of carpet. We decided our first test run should be pretty close to home just in case we needed to bail out so we went of a local state fishing lake about 20 miles away. I was watching the weather forecast pretty closely all week. The chance of rain continued to grow each time I looked. However the overnight low was suppose to be reasonable at mid 40s instead of 25F that we had a few nights this week (including a skiff of snow one night). I figured that at some point we will end up having it rain on us when we camp so might as well test it out on the first try.
When we arrived at the lake we picked our spot and started unloading. Camping really requires quite a bit of stuff and it is tough to get everything organized and keep it that way-- even for just an overnight trip. Our tent set up went pretty quick but since it was the first time to use the rain fly we had to figure out how to tie the guylines and use the tensioners. Thank goodness for a few 3 minute YouTube videos. Through this process I learned the value of tying different styles of knots that have different capabilities. Once we were through with that we took a sunset stroll along the lake. There were a few others out camping which was reassuring that we weren't crazy. Our next experiment was testing the backpacking stove my boss lent me. His story of almost setting his dinning room table aflame had me a little concerned. We were maybe to conservative with turning the gas up and it kept going out. Finally we got it going and sat around waiting for some water to boil. We all know what they say about watching a boiling pot. We got bored before it boiled plus we just needed hot water for our hot chocolate and not boiling. Darkness had settled in by 8:30 so we settled into our tent too. We listened to an audiobook for awhile before calling it a night. I think we slept pretty well for camping. At two in the morning we did listen to a pack of coyotes howling across the lake. A few hours later at 4am the rain started. It was a steady, consistent rain and I personally slept great with the rain pattering on the tent roof curled up in my cocoon of downy feathers in my sleeping bag. I'm not sure Arthur had that experience (as he is currently in the second hour of his afternoon nap) but when I woke up in the morning he was still sleeping soundly. Everything outside was drenched and the rain continued to pour. We were nice and dry due to waterproofing technologies which still amaze me. However we decided that instead of boiling water in the rain for hot chocolate and oatmeal we should just pack up and head into town for breakfast at IHOP. While it may not be roughing it, the fajita omelet and raspberry white chocolate pancakes were a great idea. Omni Vincit Amor.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Rememberance
This week churches around the world are gathering to celebrate Holy Week. This is a time to reflect and remember the events of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection about 2,000 years ago. Of course the original Holy Week occurred during the Passover Festival in Jerusalem remember the events of the Exodus from Egypt-- about 1,500 years before Christ's time. The main event in our Holy Week preparations has been hosting a Seder. The term seder refers of the order of the Passover meal. Our meal reflected on the roots of Israel and the Exodus from Egypt but also recalling the fulfillment of the promises with Christ's death and resurrection and then looking forward to Christ's return.
We chose to have a Seder for several reasons. Often times celebration is listed as a spiritual discipline. I feel that this is a neglected discipline.
We chose to have a Seder for several reasons. Often times celebration is listed as a spiritual discipline. I feel that this is a neglected discipline.
We naturally forget God's goodness or that we are just a piece in His Story that goes far beyond us. Most of the spiritual disciplines are practiced alone- between you and God. While I suppose you could celebrate by yourself, this discipline often involves community and fellowship of the body of Christ. The other reasons are far less spiritual. One of my New Year's goals was to cook foods from a different culture or country each month so preparing Passover food works for Israel. Also as a kid my mom would do a seder meal around Easter with us at home. She would also do it with her Sunday school classes when they talked about Passover or the Exodus. I still remember my shock the year I was in her Sunday School class and she spread ketchup on the door frame of our Sunday School classroom to signify the blood of the Passover lamb. Can you deface church property with ketchup? All great teachers know that lessons that are shocking are never forgotten. Leading me to host a seder with Arthur and the gals in my accountability group-- sans ketchup though.
To be honest the food involved in a seder really isn't that good. Hard boil eggs, bitter herbs of parsley, horseradish, unleavened bread, and a mixture of fruit and nuts that is supposed to resemble mortar. I did have some lamb in the freezer from a lamb roast this summer so I made lamb kebabs with a feta cheese dipping sauce. I'm pretty sure this broke some Levitical laws about not eating meat cooked in its mother's milk but it was the best recipe Martha Stewart had to suggest. The mortar was actually the best part of the meal. It is made of apples, cinnamon and cloves, chopped nuts, and honey. The recipe called for red wine which I didn't have so I tosses in a little sparkling red grape juice-- pretty much the same, right?
We gathered around the table to partake in a ceremony that has been preformed for 3500 years, every year. Just remembering that tradition-- it was something Moses and David and Isaiah and Jesus and millions and millions of others have gathered together to remember God's promises over the course of history. Put that into the perspective of celebrating the 4th of July for a mere 240 years. God's people have chosen to keep this tradition going for centuries (and it is not because the food is very good). What this meal lacks in good food it makes up for in spiritual symbolism. Each drink or bite of food had meaning. There were four cups of wine each symbolizing a promise of God-- freedom, deliverance, redemption, and thanksgiving. The bitter herbs and the sweet mixture of fruit and nuts reminding us that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow. We shouldn't pretend that life is always sweet and eliminate the negative but rejoice that in all things God delivers us. Part of the unleavened bread is hidden to be found at the end of the meal to remember the Messiah who is to come. The wine and the bread, elements of today's communion, are based in Christ breaking the unleavened bread and drinking the wine at the Last Supper-- that He is the fulfillment of the promises to come. The lamb is a symbol of the sacrifice in place of our own lives-- the lamb slaughter for blood over the door at the first Passover or the Lamb whose blood was shed for our sins. To close the meal we remember with the final drink that redemption is not complete and we are still in hopeful waiting that we will celebrate "next year in the New Jerusalem".
The four of us gathered around the table had limited seder experience-- we were reading the script off of our laptops and unsure when we were to drink, dip, or eat. A few may have gagged on the parsley thinking it tasted a little too much like grass or sitting and wondering when in the world we get around to actually eating the lamb kebab. We sang hymns and prayed. We discussed the symbolism and reflected on His Story. I think we all enjoyed taking part in the liturgy of a celebrating that is some much bigger than our small group.
After we were finished with the seder we ate fruit pizza for dessert to celebrate the first day of spring. I would like to think that the Israelite would have included fruit pizza for dessert if it had been available at the time. Of course there is something to be said for tradition even if it includes bitter herbs and flat bread instead of tropical fruit and sugar cookie. Omni Vincit Amor.
To be honest the food involved in a seder really isn't that good. Hard boil eggs, bitter herbs of parsley, horseradish, unleavened bread, and a mixture of fruit and nuts that is supposed to resemble mortar. I did have some lamb in the freezer from a lamb roast this summer so I made lamb kebabs with a feta cheese dipping sauce. I'm pretty sure this broke some Levitical laws about not eating meat cooked in its mother's milk but it was the best recipe Martha Stewart had to suggest. The mortar was actually the best part of the meal. It is made of apples, cinnamon and cloves, chopped nuts, and honey. The recipe called for red wine which I didn't have so I tosses in a little sparkling red grape juice-- pretty much the same, right?
We gathered around the table to partake in a ceremony that has been preformed for 3500 years, every year. Just remembering that tradition-- it was something Moses and David and Isaiah and Jesus and millions and millions of others have gathered together to remember God's promises over the course of history. Put that into the perspective of celebrating the 4th of July for a mere 240 years. God's people have chosen to keep this tradition going for centuries (and it is not because the food is very good). What this meal lacks in good food it makes up for in spiritual symbolism. Each drink or bite of food had meaning. There were four cups of wine each symbolizing a promise of God-- freedom, deliverance, redemption, and thanksgiving. The bitter herbs and the sweet mixture of fruit and nuts reminding us that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow. We shouldn't pretend that life is always sweet and eliminate the negative but rejoice that in all things God delivers us. Part of the unleavened bread is hidden to be found at the end of the meal to remember the Messiah who is to come. The wine and the bread, elements of today's communion, are based in Christ breaking the unleavened bread and drinking the wine at the Last Supper-- that He is the fulfillment of the promises to come. The lamb is a symbol of the sacrifice in place of our own lives-- the lamb slaughter for blood over the door at the first Passover or the Lamb whose blood was shed for our sins. To close the meal we remember with the final drink that redemption is not complete and we are still in hopeful waiting that we will celebrate "next year in the New Jerusalem".
The four of us gathered around the table had limited seder experience-- we were reading the script off of our laptops and unsure when we were to drink, dip, or eat. A few may have gagged on the parsley thinking it tasted a little too much like grass or sitting and wondering when in the world we get around to actually eating the lamb kebab. We sang hymns and prayed. We discussed the symbolism and reflected on His Story. I think we all enjoyed taking part in the liturgy of a celebrating that is some much bigger than our small group.
After we were finished with the seder we ate fruit pizza for dessert to celebrate the first day of spring. I would like to think that the Israelite would have included fruit pizza for dessert if it had been available at the time. Of course there is something to be said for tradition even if it includes bitter herbs and flat bread instead of tropical fruit and sugar cookie. Omni Vincit Amor.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Breadmaking
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Greetings, faithful readers, on this wondrous Good Friday! Arthur here, enjoying a work holiday that, as far as I know, few get to enjoy. Interesting to think about, really, because the sacrifice of Christ on the cross has to be as worthy of a holiday as some of the other things we get time off for.
I digress; what I really want to talk about is what I'm doing with my time off: bread making. Alex and I have been watching a documentary series on Netflix called "Cooked", and you should too. The series is broken into four episodes named after the four classic elements in Grecian alchemy: fire, water, air, and earth. The first two are fairly straightforward, fire talked about cooking with fire and water with water, and they were wonderful and worthy of enjoying and thinking about; but they didn't enrapture my imagination like the final two did.
The episode titled "Air" was really about bread making, air being a reference to the air pockets formed in bread. Back in bygone bachelorhood, I was a decent baker. I would make a recipe for Amish white bread found here, combine herbs and olive oil for a dipping sauce, and the result comprised a significant portion of my diet. So the episode made me feel nostalgic, and I baked two loaves this morning.
A good portion of the episode talked about baking sourdough bread. I was under the impression that it took something special to start up a sourdough batch, but as the episode shows, the yeast involved in fermenting flour is all around us, it's just a matter of correctly cultivating it. I was so fascinated, I decided to try to start a sourdough culture myself. After doing some reading, I decided the way to go about achieving my ends was to juice three apples (using the juicer that doesn't get used as often as it should) to make a sugary drink for my little friends, mixed it with some flour, covered it with plastic wrap (I'm trying to encourage an anaerobic reaction), and we'll wait to see if the gang takes kindly to my hospitality. My research suggests anywhere from 36 to 48 hours for any signs of life; so you'll have to stay tuned in to see how things turn out.
I find myself thinking of so many experiments I could run with sourdough. This one was started with fruit sugar (fructose), which is different from sucrose (table sugar), if I very the sugar types, do I get a more diverse mixture of yeasts in my starter? Does this diversity cause a more complex mixture of flavors in my bread? If I "specialize" my sourdough, will it get really efficient at processing flour and give me quick rises with a really fluffy texture? Soda pop is basically fructose and water, would it be a good thing to feed my sourdough? Honestly, I don't know how crazy I'll get with my experiments; there's a ton I want to learn and discover, but we'll keep you posted as we go.
Anyway, there's two paragraphs that talk about letting living things wriggle around in the food I intend to eat; that might require some further exploration (and is, coincidentally what the earth episode of "Cooked" is all about). We live surrounded by a world too small for us to see that deeply impacts our lives. When you walk into a grocery store, it might surprise you to know just how many of the food products available a made by managing the activity of these microscopic organisms. Bread, cheese, yogurt, salami, some jellies, cottage cheese, ketchup, pickles, wine, salsa, sauerkraut, kemchi, and, everyone's favorite, chocolate, is a small helping of some of the products made from the fermentation of viable food into something with more flavor and greater nutrition.
A claim in the documentary is that if I gave you the raw ingredients for bread and you never baked it, you could live off of them for a while, but you would eventually die from malnutrition, but you can live off of bread forever. The reactions involved with the metabolism of these little bugs results in products that our bodies can use to synthesize vitamins, protein, and nutrients we otherwise couldn't obtain from the flour. It's a truly amazing thought.
One of my favorite parts of the documentary is when they showed the surface of a cheese wheel at the microscopic level over time. The apt analogy used was comparing what was happening to an abandoned field in connect. The bare ground is quickly inhabited by weeds and quick grasses, and then some longer lasting grasses come in. Animals show up to eat the new food source, and other animals who want to eat the first set show up, then come shrubs and trees, and soon the bare field is a forest. The events unfolding over a man's lifetime in our macroscopic world plays out in about a month's time under the microscope.
Anyway, I started this post with a quote from Hamlet, because when I contemplate all these worlds around me, in me (the numbers of cells inside me that don't have my genes outnumber the ones that do by a 1.3:1 ratio), the life inside of soil, in the depths of the oceans, in caves, I just awe that the God who spoke it all into existence cared enough about me to come and die. What can I say, other than Omnia Vincit Amour.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Greetings, faithful readers, on this wondrous Good Friday! Arthur here, enjoying a work holiday that, as far as I know, few get to enjoy. Interesting to think about, really, because the sacrifice of Christ on the cross has to be as worthy of a holiday as some of the other things we get time off for.
I digress; what I really want to talk about is what I'm doing with my time off: bread making. Alex and I have been watching a documentary series on Netflix called "Cooked", and you should too. The series is broken into four episodes named after the four classic elements in Grecian alchemy: fire, water, air, and earth. The first two are fairly straightforward, fire talked about cooking with fire and water with water, and they were wonderful and worthy of enjoying and thinking about; but they didn't enrapture my imagination like the final two did.
The episode titled "Air" was really about bread making, air being a reference to the air pockets formed in bread. Back in bygone bachelorhood, I was a decent baker. I would make a recipe for Amish white bread found here, combine herbs and olive oil for a dipping sauce, and the result comprised a significant portion of my diet. So the episode made me feel nostalgic, and I baked two loaves this morning.
A good portion of the episode talked about baking sourdough bread. I was under the impression that it took something special to start up a sourdough batch, but as the episode shows, the yeast involved in fermenting flour is all around us, it's just a matter of correctly cultivating it. I was so fascinated, I decided to try to start a sourdough culture myself. After doing some reading, I decided the way to go about achieving my ends was to juice three apples (using the juicer that doesn't get used as often as it should) to make a sugary drink for my little friends, mixed it with some flour, covered it with plastic wrap (I'm trying to encourage an anaerobic reaction), and we'll wait to see if the gang takes kindly to my hospitality. My research suggests anywhere from 36 to 48 hours for any signs of life; so you'll have to stay tuned in to see how things turn out.
I find myself thinking of so many experiments I could run with sourdough. This one was started with fruit sugar (fructose), which is different from sucrose (table sugar), if I very the sugar types, do I get a more diverse mixture of yeasts in my starter? Does this diversity cause a more complex mixture of flavors in my bread? If I "specialize" my sourdough, will it get really efficient at processing flour and give me quick rises with a really fluffy texture? Soda pop is basically fructose and water, would it be a good thing to feed my sourdough? Honestly, I don't know how crazy I'll get with my experiments; there's a ton I want to learn and discover, but we'll keep you posted as we go.
Anyway, there's two paragraphs that talk about letting living things wriggle around in the food I intend to eat; that might require some further exploration (and is, coincidentally what the earth episode of "Cooked" is all about). We live surrounded by a world too small for us to see that deeply impacts our lives. When you walk into a grocery store, it might surprise you to know just how many of the food products available a made by managing the activity of these microscopic organisms. Bread, cheese, yogurt, salami, some jellies, cottage cheese, ketchup, pickles, wine, salsa, sauerkraut, kemchi, and, everyone's favorite, chocolate, is a small helping of some of the products made from the fermentation of viable food into something with more flavor and greater nutrition.
A claim in the documentary is that if I gave you the raw ingredients for bread and you never baked it, you could live off of them for a while, but you would eventually die from malnutrition, but you can live off of bread forever. The reactions involved with the metabolism of these little bugs results in products that our bodies can use to synthesize vitamins, protein, and nutrients we otherwise couldn't obtain from the flour. It's a truly amazing thought.
One of my favorite parts of the documentary is when they showed the surface of a cheese wheel at the microscopic level over time. The apt analogy used was comparing what was happening to an abandoned field in connect. The bare ground is quickly inhabited by weeds and quick grasses, and then some longer lasting grasses come in. Animals show up to eat the new food source, and other animals who want to eat the first set show up, then come shrubs and trees, and soon the bare field is a forest. The events unfolding over a man's lifetime in our macroscopic world plays out in about a month's time under the microscope.
Anyway, I started this post with a quote from Hamlet, because when I contemplate all these worlds around me, in me (the numbers of cells inside me that don't have my genes outnumber the ones that do by a 1.3:1 ratio), the life inside of soil, in the depths of the oceans, in caves, I just awe that the God who spoke it all into existence cared enough about me to come and die. What can I say, other than Omnia Vincit Amour.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
She said Yes
And now the grand finale to our dating saga-- the engagement. (Maybe the next slow season for blogging will be the trials of planning a wedding)
First from Arthur's view point:
It took some planning to actually choose the day that I would ask Alex to marry me. I wanted to ask her father before hand but I didn't want to leave too much time between when I visited with him and when I would see Alex again. Because of this I actually waited a couple of months later than I would have liked but finally all the pieces fell into place. I was able to take some time off from school and work so I could go to Alex's hometown and ask for her father's blessing.
I knew I would have to propose to her fairly early once she got there. I was bursting at the seams at the thought of asking her to marry me and I could never have kept it too myself for very long. So our proposal story is fairly simple. I took her on a walk around campus visiting various spots that had meaning to our relationship and then dropped to one knee in a grove of trees that offered some privacy.
I don't really think that I surprised her. Later she would admit that she knew something was up the instant I bounded out of the house like a moose who got hold of some funny mushrooms. But she said yes and didn't even have to hesitate. Then we shared our first kiss. And it was magical.
And now Alex's comments and a few more details:
For guys a proposal story boils down to getting a yes, getting a kiss, and ultimately getting the girl. Other frivolous details aren't critical to those three objectives. So my version may be a little bit longer.
Last fall semester I realized that a few girls in my class had bets placed on who the next one of us in a serious relationship would become engaged. My name was at the top of the list. On weekends when I would head to visit Arthur all my friends would ask if it was going to be this weekend that he popped the question. There was one weekend when he called me during the week stating that he was excited for my visit and that he had something very special planned. This piqued my curiosity but it turned out the surprise was that he was making grilled cheese sandwiches for our dinning pleasure that night-- I do like grilled cheese sandwiches. Several more weeks passed and I was busy with finishing up school work. We had our final comprehensive exam, a 4 hour test covering 3 years of material to study for. As we were relaxing right before the exam that afternoon my friends asked me again if it was going to be this weekend. I didn't think so but maybe. While I was under a lot of stress that afternoon taking my test I didn't realize Arthur was meeting with my father- I probably had the better deal.
The next morning as I drove up he bounded out his front door with more energy and excitement than I had ever seen before. At that point I knew something was up. We drove to campus and he pulled out a letter I had written him a few years earlier while I was in Alaska for the summer. The letter had a map of campus with numbers corresponding to some of my favorite spots on campus-- the location of our first date, my favorite trees, a building I had several classes in, etc. We visited all the spots and had a great time remembering some of our previous outings around campus. Then Arthur pulled me off the sidewalk into a grove of trees I had walked by every day as a student that was basically across the street from where I had lived for 4 years. He got down on one knee and I started smiling really big- as if I didn't know what was shortly going to follow. He asked me to be his wife. I responded that it would be an honor and a pleasure to marry him. We kissed for the first time. And we kissed again. And a few more times after that.
That evening I was staying with my cousin who graciously offered me a place to stay whenever I visited Arthur. We were chatting a little bit before going to bed and she asked, "So, what's new with you?" I coolly responded, "Well, Arthur asked me to marry him today and I said yes." At that point slight pandemonium broke out. Later, the next week I was back in class when one of my classmates noticed my ring and gave a muffled shriek during lecture. During our break in the hallway the congratulations got a little to rambunctious and the teacher in the next classroom came out and asked us to be quiet. A few more classmate walked up missing the first announcement and more commotion broke out causing this other instructor to come out of the classroom again and request that our teacher please control us. I don't think Arthur realized how much chaos he would cause with a ring on my finger. Omnia Vincit Amor.
First from Arthur's view point:
It took some planning to actually choose the day that I would ask Alex to marry me. I wanted to ask her father before hand but I didn't want to leave too much time between when I visited with him and when I would see Alex again. Because of this I actually waited a couple of months later than I would have liked but finally all the pieces fell into place. I was able to take some time off from school and work so I could go to Alex's hometown and ask for her father's blessing.
I knew I would have to propose to her fairly early once she got there. I was bursting at the seams at the thought of asking her to marry me and I could never have kept it too myself for very long. So our proposal story is fairly simple. I took her on a walk around campus visiting various spots that had meaning to our relationship and then dropped to one knee in a grove of trees that offered some privacy.
I don't really think that I surprised her. Later she would admit that she knew something was up the instant I bounded out of the house like a moose who got hold of some funny mushrooms. But she said yes and didn't even have to hesitate. Then we shared our first kiss. And it was magical.
And now Alex's comments and a few more details:
For guys a proposal story boils down to getting a yes, getting a kiss, and ultimately getting the girl. Other frivolous details aren't critical to those three objectives. So my version may be a little bit longer.
Last fall semester I realized that a few girls in my class had bets placed on who the next one of us in a serious relationship would become engaged. My name was at the top of the list. On weekends when I would head to visit Arthur all my friends would ask if it was going to be this weekend that he popped the question. There was one weekend when he called me during the week stating that he was excited for my visit and that he had something very special planned. This piqued my curiosity but it turned out the surprise was that he was making grilled cheese sandwiches for our dinning pleasure that night-- I do like grilled cheese sandwiches. Several more weeks passed and I was busy with finishing up school work. We had our final comprehensive exam, a 4 hour test covering 3 years of material to study for. As we were relaxing right before the exam that afternoon my friends asked me again if it was going to be this weekend. I didn't think so but maybe. While I was under a lot of stress that afternoon taking my test I didn't realize Arthur was meeting with my father- I probably had the better deal.
The next morning as I drove up he bounded out his front door with more energy and excitement than I had ever seen before. At that point I knew something was up. We drove to campus and he pulled out a letter I had written him a few years earlier while I was in Alaska for the summer. The letter had a map of campus with numbers corresponding to some of my favorite spots on campus-- the location of our first date, my favorite trees, a building I had several classes in, etc. We visited all the spots and had a great time remembering some of our previous outings around campus. Then Arthur pulled me off the sidewalk into a grove of trees I had walked by every day as a student that was basically across the street from where I had lived for 4 years. He got down on one knee and I started smiling really big- as if I didn't know what was shortly going to follow. He asked me to be his wife. I responded that it would be an honor and a pleasure to marry him. We kissed for the first time. And we kissed again. And a few more times after that.
That evening I was staying with my cousin who graciously offered me a place to stay whenever I visited Arthur. We were chatting a little bit before going to bed and she asked, "So, what's new with you?" I coolly responded, "Well, Arthur asked me to marry him today and I said yes." At that point slight pandemonium broke out. Later, the next week I was back in class when one of my classmates noticed my ring and gave a muffled shriek during lecture. During our break in the hallway the congratulations got a little to rambunctious and the teacher in the next classroom came out and asked us to be quiet. A few more classmate walked up missing the first announcement and more commotion broke out causing this other instructor to come out of the classroom again and request that our teacher please control us. I don't think Arthur realized how much chaos he would cause with a ring on my finger. Omnia Vincit Amor.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
The Perfect Date
Here is another installment about the years we were dating:
One of my favorite scenes from the movie Miss Congeniality
is Miss Rhode Island is asked in her contest interview to describe her perfect
date. She replies, “I would have to say
April 25, it’s not too hot and not too cold.
All you need is a light jacket.”
Later on she is upset because she had such a perfect answer to her
perfect date which would be going out to a romantic dinner and walking along
the beach barefoot while discussing books and movies.
I never got Arthur to walk barefoot on a
beach but we had a lot of fun dates.
Despite the lack of beaches we walked a lot on dates- around campus,
around the Plaza in KC, around the state fair, at Kanza Prairie, and one a 13
mile hike at Shawnee Mission Park which we deemed the “Dating Death
March”. We were talking so much we lost
track of how far we had walked and forgot to turn around. Arthur also joined me on a few runs on dates
that lead to blisters and doses of ibuprofen.
Our romantic dinner would be at Noodles and Company which meant Arthur
could be adventurous with different foods from around the world, especially
Asian cuisine, and I could still have my tried and true favorite, mac and
cheese. We also enjoyed exploring
museums together—the art museum at K-State on our first date, a few zoos, the
Nelson Atkins Art Museum in KC, and some county historical museums.
Another classic date was our decathlon
date. We picked ten events—shuffle
board, billards, bowling, 400 yard dash, 1000m on a rowing machine, push-ups,
racquetball, pingpong, HORSE with basketball, and badminton. Whoever won the majority of the events then
got to pick the movie we watched that evening.
I led early on and nosed Arthur out in the 400 yard dash but he made a
comeback to win with the strength and basketball events. We might be just a little competitive.
Another slightly unconventional date was our
interview. I had just spoken at an
alumni event and was dressed up and Arthur showed up to pick me up afterwards
in a suit and tie. We went out and got
ice cream but treated it like a job interview asking questions such as what are
your strengths and weaknesses, why are you interested in this position (i.e.
being my significant other), pick three words that describe yourself. It was a little quirky but fun and
informative as well.
We also had more
“normal” dates such as cooking dinner together and curling up on the couch
watching Netflix. The wonderful thing
about marriage is that now every night is a “normal” date night with dinner and
Netflix. Omnia Vincit Amor.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Value of Life
I (Arthur)
have been thinking a lot about the value of human life. No, this isn’t the result of existential
angst; it is a very pragmatic question whose implications have a dramatic
effect on a variety of questions. Hence,
if you care, dear reader, walk with me through my line of reasoning.
The
theological answer is that man possesses an immortal soul which Christ came to
redeem with his infinitely valuable blood, thus every human life has infinite
worth, right? If true, how do we play
that out as a society that must make constant concessions between safety and
practicality? In 1987, many states
increased their posted speed limits from 55 to 65 mph. People consequently spent less time in
transit while traffic fatalities increased by a third. Take the value of all that saved time divided
by the lives lost, and you come up with $1.5 million. This was deemed an acceptable societal cost,
and no real movement has ever gone into reducing speed limits ever since.
I work a bit
with OSHA safety compliance at work.
OSHA sets the worth of human life at $3.5 million, meaning that someone
deemed the cost of implementing each requirements is less than $3.5 million for
each life that will be saved. I don’t
know if this is the right value or not (other notable values are the FDA at
$9.1 million, the Department of Transportation at $6 million (obviously public
opinion keeps the speed limit higher than that number would give us), and the
US Consumer Product Safety Commission at $2 million), but this thinking has
given me pause each time I hear about how much regulations stymie business. I know people don’t feel this way, but isn’t
this effectively saying that the government is accessing the value of human
life too high?
One line of
thought would argue for “market based solutions,” which would argue we don’t
need the government making these decisions, acceptable risk is calculated every
day by people going about their lives making their own decisions. Perhaps that is correct, but then:
· Is a market based solution going to ensure those
reaping the benefits also pay for harm accrued, i.e., does the market ensure a
factory whose air pollution increases rates of asthma in a community will
ultimately pay for the lost quality of life?
Can the market ensure the people experiencing harm from market decisions
are the ones being compensated for their hardships?
o
Are consumer choices the thing compelling
companies to pay for caused harm or change their practices? If so, would we all be so much better off
that people are going to have enough money that they can make conscience-based
purchasing decisions? They sure don’t
now.
o
If not consumer choice, is it worker
choice? Doesn’t that place people in the
weakest financial position into possibly exploitative situations?
· Is a market based solution tenable in all
circumstances? How does fluctuating
demographics, technological advances, business cycles, and a slew of other
variables effect the balance of market solutions? Are we comfortable with the idea that
valuation of human life at any given instance will be dependent on these
variables?
· Will consumer choice really reward ethical
companies, or will lower cost goods and services garnered unethically drive
ethical companies out of business?
· Do we really expect the “invisible hand” to
value life and human dignity the same way we do? Even if everyone held high regard for human
dignity, wouldn’t market competition drive good men to strive to cut costs as
much as possible, forcing tough choices between safety, cost, and practicality?
·
Is there any historic precedent supporting this
assertion?
Perhaps the
market is truly that powerful a tool, but my current understanding of history
and economics has caused me to doubt the efficacy of a pure market-based
approach. Many good people genuinely
disagree with me in this area, but I hope we are united in our belief in the
sanctity of human life, and that our dedication to this premise takes precedent
over any ideological preferences regarding markets, or the role of government,
or anything else.
Anyway, that
has been a musing of mine for a while now.
I hope you found my thoughts on the matter interesting enough to justify
the time spent reading, and that in thinking about how our society can be the
most just, we may show that Omnia Vincit Amor.
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