Kayaking!

Michelle and I have been kayaking around in the rivers and lakes in NC.

This is a lot of fun and I seem to be a natural....in my own mind, anyway.Well, I know enough not to stand up in a kayak so that has to count for something!

I remembered reading about Canadian fur trappers and how they handled canoes and I remembered how they drove the paddles into the water to steer.  I also remembered how they leaned forward to pick us speed.  And there is Thucydides describing how to "back water".

You can move around the lakes and streams fairly easily and it is amazing how you can disappear from the urban jungle.  There are some spots on the map I looked at later and found I was only a few hundred yards from shopping center, but you would have never known it!

It is a good thing to get a new hobby now and again.  I was going to name my kayak Thucydides but my dad suggested "Ious Nicholau" (St.Nicholas) since he came out of the water to give fish to villagers.

Sounds familiar......

More adventures await!

France wins World Cup

I was hoping for Croatia to win since it was their first time to the finals, but France played great, winning the Cup for the first time since 1998 and their second overall. 

The French team used a lot of long range shots and eventually enough of them got in for a 4-2 win.  I was tempted to crack a joke about the French winning in Moscow in a way they could not in 1812, but I refrained :-)

Four years from now the world will get together for another Cup, this time in Doha in the United Arab Emirites.  It will be in November instead of summer, because it gets real hot in the Middle East.

Let's see if the US team can stagger in!

Siege of Jerusalem, 1099

On July 15, 1099, the First Crusade came to a bloody and horrifying end with the fall of Fatamid-held Jerusalem.  The Crusaders stormed the city and proceeded to massacre everyone in the city. Moslems, Jews, and even other Christians  The primary sources record that the blood was ankle deep in the streets.

Religious fervor, or just the feeling that everything you do is justified, can led to horrifying things sometimes.  This is a lesson that works for any era in any part of the world.  Such feelings can blind ordinarily sane people and turn into monsters

Remember this in our insane political climate.  Even in the civilized (?) twenty-first century.

Let's try to avoid a trip backwards into the Dark Ages.  It wasn't a lot of fun and people smelled.

No one wants to go through that again!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Happy Canada Day!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

Too bad the Roughriders are 1-2, but it is a long season!