Apr

30

Hiking

Filed Under Events, Pictures | 2 Comments

Since Saturday was our last free weekend day until who-knows-when, we decided to go hiking at Jones Gap State Park in northern Greenville County. It’s one of our favorite places to go. In fact, a few months ago we went with Abby and Lincoln to a different part of the park.

When we got there, the park ranger told us that the trail we wanted to take was closed because of a landslide. The other possible trail was in the process of being closed, so we could take only the first half of it. We decided that would be fine (it was still at 2.1 mi hike each way). There was a neat cave at the top.

On our way up, we saw the landslide. Pretty incredible. Unfortunately, there was no good way to get a picture of it. We could see why they wanted to close the trail. There was a great gash in the side of the hill and piles of trees at the bottom.

Our trail took us about halfway up the side of the ridge and we hiked past a lot of smaller rapids (though we didn’t get to see any waterfalls this time).

I’ve added some of the pictures to the gallery (and reorganized the gallery some too)

Apr

27

Last day of class

Filed Under News, Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

Well, today is my last day of classes at BJU. Next week is exams and next Saturday is commencement.

I can’t say I’m not looking forward to being done. I did comment to Melanie that I don’t know what I might do with myself if I’m not in school next year.

A side note: four in my immediate family are graduating this year: my brother (high school), my sister (B.A.), me (M.Ed.) and my dad (Ed.D.). We’re planning a big post-commencement party for next Saturday.

One of our other family “traditions” is to go on a vacation when someone graduates. For example, when my dad got his master’s in ‘88, we traveled out to Wyoming and Montana that summer. When I finished high school, we went to Boston for the 4th of July. This year, we have only 2 weeks to do a vacation, but we’re going to repeat the ‘88 trip in part. Anthony wasn’t even born then. We’ll be leaving May 25 or 26 and be gone for 2 weeks. Of course, we’ll try to keep the blog updated with pictures and stories.

Apr

16

A couple of things

Filed Under Events | 1 Comment

On Saturday evening we went up to visit Jon and Sarah (Biddle) Abbott and their new baby, Karin Joy. It was a lot of fun. Karin was born about 6 weeks early I think, but she got to come home from the hospital last Wednesday. I’ve attached two pictures, one of Mel and Karin, and the other of the Abbotts. If you head over to Jon and Sarah’s blog, you can find a lot more pictures and information.

Also, I’ve added a link to the blogroll to Duncan Johnson and Meg Calhoun’s wedding website. I don’t know if they’re planning to keep it running after their wedding, but it’s nicely designed and has lots of information. Duncan is a GA in the fundamentalism file at BJU, and Meg works for the communication department.

Apr

12

Trip to Virginia

Filed Under Events, Pictures | 3 Comments

This past weekend we traveled up to southwestern Virginia to look for housing for next year. See the gallery for new pictures. Many of the pictures are included as links in the post below.

For those who don’t know, we will be moving to Virginia for further schooling next year. Melanie will be attending Radford University to get a degree in Speech Pathology. Andrew will be trying to find work and might begin his master’s degree in philosophy at Virginia Tech.

Radford University is located in the city of Radford, near Blacksburg (where Virginia Tech is), and Christiansburg (which is on Interstate 81), and about 30 miles southwest of Roanoke. We will probably live in Radford at an apartment complex called Cedar Valley.

Now, for the stories from the trip: Read more

Apr

11

A cultural commentary?

Filed Under Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

Sunday’s Washington Post ran a story about Joshua Bell, a world-famous classical violinist, who spent about an hour playing in a metro station in Washington D.C.1 Actually, the story was about the people who walked by — most of them ignoring the violinist.

I suppose that musicians in subways are a dime a dozen, but it seems sad that almost no one, even in a city that wants to be elite, actually recognized the music or Bell’s skill. He was playing famous stuff, and apparently he was doing it very well. It’s sad that no one seemed to notice.

The article is worth your reading. Classical music seems increasingly esoteric. As Allan Bloom has observed, taste in classical music has become academic, like a preference for some obscure architectural style. Have we lost so much cultural background that classical music appeals to less than one percent of the population?2


  1. If you want to actually hear his performance, the Washington Post has that online as well. Click here. back↩
  2. See the article for the source of the one percent figure back↩

Apr

4

Rights

Filed Under Philosophy, Random Thoughts | 7 Comments

Unfortunately, I am bound by an Internet filter that prevents me from getting to all of my friends’ blogs, so I won’t be able to see what others have said about this — at least not for a while.

Mel R. over at Chosen By Grace has posted some questions about rights. I hear about rights all the time when I am judging debate, and the level of analysis is often quite low. Sadly, even “educated” people don’t always make a lot of sense either.

What rights do we have?

This question begs another question: Where did we get our rights? Let me first take it from a non-Christian point of view. I hear debaters assert that we have a “right to _______.” I write on the ballot, “where did we get this right?” It appears that we have given ourselves our rights. We talk of the Social Contract (whatever that is) and how it is supposed to protect our rights, but we never establish where our rights come from. As I see it, we call “rights” things that we want (or expect): liberty, justice, equality, property, housing, health care, free BMWs, whatever. As long as our rights stem from our desires, there is no stopping what rights we might invent. People don’t always want the same things.

From a Christian point of view, I think we can make a better case for some rights. Mel actually asks two different questions and the Christian perspective informs both answers. First, rights are built into who we are, as bearers of God’s image. Read more