Of Bicycles and Robots........

What do these two things have in common you might ask. Nothing other than the fact that they have both been competing for my time the past few days.

  

Riding has been easy....

Robots, not so much. I am not sure if it is the weather, or a culmination of the miles ridden this year but I am feeling really good these days. Still don't have any races on tap for thsi year, and of course scheduling conflicts are eliminating any chances of me doing a sure to be fun event this Friday evening. I am hoping that next year will be better for me so far as being able to do more events. Our schedule should ease up a bit once my wife finishes up her degree in the spring.

About the Robot......

There is nothing more  powerful than the imagination of a young child, and as they grow so goes the aforementioned. Their thought process, though young, hasn't the boundaries of experience and to them anything is possible. I believe that this is what sets the truly innovative apart form the rest of the herd. Somehow they are able to detract their minds from these experiences allowing their minds to perceive things differently than the rest. And far be it from me or any other adult to squash said imaginations. So when my 7 year old son came home the other day and told me that his project for this Friday was for him to come up with an invention, and make a poster describing it, I say that will be easy. But of course nothing is how it seams, and  he not only wants to make the poster, but he also wants a functioning robot. So as his excitement exudes during his description of said robot to me, how could I possibly say no.

Now I don't know how things operate in your home but for whatever reason my family has become spoiled. Not so much in the monetary or  possession sense, my last name is not Rockefeller, but in the knowledge that they can count on me to come through for them in a pinch and even at times ,when I might fall short, they know that I have given 200% effort for their cause. So a functioning robot, form stuff we have just lying around the house, in 1/12 evenings........"Sure son, we can do that." Son's response "COOL!!!"

So during this whole tirade of excitement, my mind is racing through a plethora of ideas, often times being derailed by another thought or idea fired off by my son as to what he wants his robot to do. Fortunately for me his ideas aren't written in stone and he is quite content for some of his functional ideas to be put on hold as this is only a prototype project. I wonder if he really understood what that word  prototype meant when I threw it out at him. Just in case, I explained to him that time constraints would probably only allow for a moving robot with blinking lights. Blinking lights was something he had not thought of and all other ideas went by the wayside. Which was good for me as I really don't have time for functioning arms and hands. I was also able to convince him to use the Halloween costume I had made him a couple of years ago as the body for the robot, which was easily done.

 

So the project got completed on time, and do to time constraints I was unable to have it do everything I wanted it to but the boy seems to be happy so all is good.

Riding Against The Clock....

Or at least that is how it felt. This time of year all rides seam to go that way. Shorter days mean less time for riding in the evening. 50 mile rides slowly dwindle to 20. Every day it seams to get darker sooner than the last,  and the shadows stretch farther. Quite the opposite of spring when it seams to take forever for the sun to decide to hang around and play for a while, though will admit the cooler temperatures and the smell in the air are rather attractive, in their own right. I guess it is just another part of the love affair we all have with cycling.

So maybe I was exageratting.......

A little in my last post about my cycling abilities............Or maybe not and this is just a ruse to get that link in.

Shoulda.....woulda....coulda.....

The way I am feeling these days I should have raced this past weekend. Not that I feel I would have done any better that the next guy that has not raced all season. But I think I could have held my own only for a little while. If nothing else I would have been able to see some friends I have not seen in a long time. Oh well life is too short to ponder on what could have been. I did however put in some pretty hard miles in the saddle the past couple of weeks, and have had some good quality time with the family so it all is good.

Thougth I would share this.........

I get email updates form Ransomed Heart Ministries every day and this one really spoke to me.....

True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound. Think of the posers you know-are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don't want cliches; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I've been talking about. As Frederick Buechner says,

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do-to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst-is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed. (The Sacred Journey)

Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory. As Robert Bly says, "Where a man's wound is, that is where his genius will be." There are two reasons for this. First, the wound was given in the place of your true strength, as an effort to take you out. Until you go there you are still posing, offering something more shallow and insubstantial. And therefore, second, it is out of your brokenness that you discover what you have to offer the community. The false self is never wholly false. Those gifts we've been using are often quite true about us, but we've used them to hide behind. We thought that the power of our life was in the golden bat, but the power is in us. When we begin to offer not merely our gifts but our true selves, that is when we become powerful.

(Wild at Heart , 137-38)