I spent a long time reading, summarizing and reviewing Sleeping with Aliens. I posted a review on the Blogcritics site, and a long commentary on this site. It isn’t kind to the New Age.
Sleeping with Aliens
Wendy Kaminer’s book, Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, The Rise of Irrationalism and the Perils of Piety is interesting. She says that her objective is to write against irrationalism but I see her book more as an examination of how the New Age is becoming, in effect, a minority religion in America.
(On July 19, 2004 I posted a review of this book at the Blogcritics site. This post is a longer and more detailed version of the review).
Offsite Material
I posted a number of book reviews in this log over the last few months. I joined the Blogcritics site. At first I simply republished book reviews from this site there, and then I tried to publish the same material on my site and the Blogcritics site concurrently.
I don’t need to publish the same post twice (although I will keep copies of the Blogcritics version of the reviews as text files, as backup and publish those again sometime if Blogcritics ceases to publish them).
So for now, if I publish something offsite I won’t necessarily duplicate the material here. I will try to post a short note with the Permalink to the published review.
2000 Kilometers
Mike and Steve both passed 2000 kilometers this past week or weekend, counting back to March. As I write this, Mike has logged 2057 after July 17, and he rode 80 kilometers on our trip to St. Francis on Sunday July 18.
I haven’t been tracking my mileage. I am probably 150 to 200 less than Mike at this point. He put in a century ride with Steve last weekend (July 11) when I was at the folk festival, and a series if short rides to work and with his neighbour. That still means I am approaching 2000 K if I haven’t also reached it.
The weather has been cool this spring, and we have cancelled planned rides due to rain. We began to get hot summer mornings a few weeks ago. It was hot and humid on Sunday July 18 and we turned around at St. Francis. We had found a favourable wind after we reached the White Horse at the intersection of Highway 26 and the Transcanada and were tempted to push on but we knew we would then have to deal with the wind all the way back to the Transcanada, and then with a cross wind most of the way home.
We weren’t sure how we might feel if we did the extra mileage for a century in the heat.
We seem to be in better shape this year. We aren’t necessarily riding greater distances although we have started getting 100 K days when we used to regard 60 to 75 K as a long ride. Mainly we are riding harder and faster. We find that a wind or 15 to 25 K is normal for prairie riding and we try to ride into the wind on the outbound leg of the journey. We are finding that our average speeds as calculated by our cycling computers are in the twenties instead of the teens. Those averages include low speeds at intersections. On the open road we seem to sustain speeds of 24-27 kph with crosswinds and moderate adverse winds, and 30 K with light favourable winds.
It isn’t the speed that the riders on the Tour de France are getting but we don’t see too many guys our age passing us any more.
July Changes
Over the last week or so, I fiddled with the design and content of the Web pages. I think I have it organized properly for now. I have some “about me” information and a links list on the Web pages, and I have links in the blog pointing back to those pages. I have a few ideas for getting some pictures and images, and to dress it up but I am going to try to leave it alone.
I closed my Typepad account which means that the old versions of the Web log will be erased.
I have started to receive comment spam. There hasn’t been much and I erased it. However one post seemed to have come from an automated source and I am concerned about getting more that that, and I took a few steps to make it harder for spammers to post to my site although I haven’t taken all the countermeasures discussed in the comment spam articles at the Elise site.
I made some changes to comment configuration. I have enabled comment registration. Once I approve a commenter, that person can post comments. I will hold and review comments from unregistered commenters which should take out the spam comments.
Don’t hesitate to comment.
A Critical Year
My wife first asked me for a divorce on April 29, 2003. She changed her mind and stayed for a near year before she told me, in March 2004, that she had decided to leave. Through that year, I faced the question of what was wrong with me, to make my wife, Jan, want to leave. While more delicate writers might speak of our discomfort with one another, she explicitly said there was something wrong with me.
I knew that I had become uncomfortable with her family and I had started to realize that she was needy, but I loved her. When I found out what she thought of me, I realized that I had to get away from her and get on with my life.
Volunteer Experience
My experience as a Folk Festival volunteer was good. It takes a lot of people to run this event – I heard that there were 1750 volunteers involved this year.
The volunteers are treated well. Perhaps I should say that we take care our ourselves and each other. A volunteer gets a free festival pass, meals, water/juice/coffee/tea etc, and backstage access. There are sections of the festival devoted to the care of the volunteers – a large backstage kitchen for instance to provide the beverages and meals.
The Enemy
Winnipeg 2004 – Sunny Sunday
The fourth day of the 2004 Winnipeg Folk Festival was sunny and hot with moderate breezes. There was rain, but it arrived overnight long after the Finale.
I arrived in time to sit in the shade outside of the Shady Grove, apply sunscreen, have a cup of coffee, and listen to a workshop with Utah Phillips, Ember Swift, Paul Thorn and Joel Kroeker.
Winnipeg 2004 – Saturday
The rain stayed away. It was sunny, and it was humid at first. A reasonably steady breeze kept things moderately cool as the temperature climbed into the higher 20’s.
The ground outside and through the main gate was well trampled and starting to smell of rotten things, and there were some wet spots in the parking lot but the site stayed in good condition.