I'm biking on purpose, for a purpose.

I love bicycling. Ever since I was a kid I have spent most of my free time bicycling. Our town's library was right across from our house and I used to spend hours biking around in it when the library was closed. When the library was open I would bike around town.


When I got into high school I became an even more avid cyclist. My youth group went on two cycling trips a year. We would bike 3-5 days riding 60 miles a day. In addition to that I would often bike 10-25 miles (one way) to visit various friends. Once I was there we would often go cycling.

When I graduated high school I volunteered for 3 years at my youth group and continued my biking frenzy. But in the past 22 years I have mostly rested on my biking laurels. I would occasionally go on a 30-40 mile trek but those treks became few and far between. When I moved to South Carolina in 1995 I went through great pains to bring my bike with me and then rode it a grand total of twice in 2 years. When I got married in 1998, I made great pains to make sure my bike fit into our apartments and rode it a grand total of zero times in three years.


Last year when I lost my job in July I started cycling again with some regularity. This year we made sure the whole family had working bikes. While the rest of the family has been doing most of their biking in a church parking lot on our block, I have been hitting the roads and bike trails of Kane and McHenry county. 10-15 miles at a time is now a grand accomplishment but I am finding that I still enjoy cycling as much as I did in those days of youth.


A little more than a month ago I was told by a facebook friend of mine about a bike ride that International Teams (IT) was putting together. IT is a missions organization that I was somewhat involved with back in the eighties. I say somewhat because my involvement was to train 3 months for a two year missions trip that I ended up not going on. My facebook friend trained with me and went on the missions trip. IT is very involved in sharing the Gospel in refugee camps throughout the world. They are really in the forefront of refugee ministry.


Their annual bike ride benefits refugees and refugee ministry and is aptly titled the RIDE FOR REFUGEES. The ride is being held in 3 countries over 2 continents. Bikers will ride 5-60 miles and will raise funds as well. The day I heard about the ride I had just completed my goal of biking over 100 miles this summer. Back in the day I would do that in the week, but 100 miles in 2 months is much better than zero miles in three years.




I decided I would do the ride this year. On October 3rd I am going to bike 30 miles which is 10 more than I've bike at one time in a decade. To prepare for the ride I've put on 100 more miles and have raised $260.00. My goal is $300 and anyone wanting to donate can contact me or donate on line by clicking HERE.


So to sum up, biking again after many long years away works, but making that biking count for others really works for me. To see what else is working head on over to WE ARE THAT FAMILY.





Next Time: Three Things Thursday.

Here we go: Three Things This Thursday

Greetings. I announced last week that we would officially be kicking off Three Things This Thursday at it's new home today. This is in fact today, so let's get started shall we:

1. Passing the torch.

Michelle at Psalm 104:24 had been running this wonderful event up until this past spring. She has been busy and has asked me to take it over. The basic premise is you write about 3 things (or 3 aspects of the same thing) and link them to my post. I will be putting up my post no later than 9 am central every Thursday.

There needs to be no rhyme or reason to your entries. I will be having a themed edition the 3rd week of each month. However, you do not need to meet the theme to participate. Tell everyone and anyone about this event, the more the merrier!

2. I am a former t.v. addict. When I was a kid it was very common for me to have the entire weekly t.v. schedule memorized. So, even though the only episodic t.v. that I watch is now through d.v.d.'s or over the Internet, I still get pretty psyched this time of year during the new Fall season. Most Thursday's I will make some television comment. This week I would like to say that I enjoyed last week's premier of Community on NBC. Carma over at Carma Sez panned the FIRST EPISODE. I can't say that I disagree with the points she made. But overall, I still liked it. I am not sure if this is because started my college experience at a Junior College or if it is because I am a big fan of Chevy Chase or maybe a little of both. The first episode had (for me) a laugh out loud moment when out of the middle of nowhere there was a zany reference to the Breakfast Club.

3. Last week I started going to a men's meeting at my church called Men's fraternity. It meets from 6 a.m to 7:30 each Wednesday morning. So far, I am quite enjoying it. It may also become common place for me to share snippets of what I am learning at Men's Fraternity here on Thursdays.

So there it is. A quick inaugural session of 3TTT here at it's new home. Please be sure to participate. Thanks again to Michelle for starting this up and I look forward to her participation here at Home School Dad.

Next Time: Pennies Winner.

The Man who Loved Books Too Much.

Book Stealer: Sociopath or misunderstood collector?

I have written HERE before about Library Things Early Reviewer program. It's a great program. I especially like it because it gives me the opportunity to add books to my library without paying for them. Certainly, I need to review the books to better my chances of winning more in the future. But since I am at least as passionate about blogging as I am about reading, it certainly does make for fun on a budget.

My most recent free book from Library Thing, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. It is the fantastic but true account of a criminal stealer of books, the used book seller turned detective who brought him to justice, and the author whose own obsession threatens to impede the impartial chronicling of the story and make her a character in the tale as well.

If you are the type of person who skips introductions, prefaces, and prologues in works of nonfiction.and saunters right down to Chapter 1, don't make that mistake here! Allison Hoover Bartlett crafts a gripping page turner from the first sentence of said prologue. From there she chronicles the obsessions of the 3 main characters of her book.

First is the titular star of the book, John Charles Gilkey. The word sociopath does not appear in the 258 pages from prologue to afterward, unless you contend as I do, that Gilkey is a walking definition of the word.

My Merriam-Websters dictionary defines sociopath as "see psychopath", and defines sociopathic as "of relating to, or characterized by asocial or antisocial behavior or a pyschopathic personality". Neither of those definitions prove to be very illuminating, so I ambled over to Dictionary.com where they define sociopath as "a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience." It is the last part of the definition that describes Gilkey. Here is a man amassing hundred of thousands of dollars of rare books by credit card fraud, who refers to his activities by benign words like "I got a book here," rather than saying I used bad check and stolen credit card numbers to steal those books.

Gilkey sees people in two categories 1) people to impress with his collection and 2) people to help further his collection. The problem is because of the way he obtains his books, there is no one who can possibly fit in the first category. That is, until he begins to use the author and the promise of being featured in her magazine article and books as an audience to impress.

The second obsessed character chronicled by Bartlett is Ken Sanders, the lapsed Mormon turned bookseller turned detective. Sanders is obsessed with justice. While he is very eager to share his stories of how rampant and destructive thievery and fraud is in the rare book industry, he is very reluctant to have Gilkey portrayed as anything other than twisted and depraved. His obsession with justice is so strong he often asks Bartlett if her readers will find him more crazy than Gilkey.

Finally, the third obsession is that of Bartlett, the chronicler of this tale. While Gilkey's obsession is collecting books he can't or won't pay for, and Sander's obsession is keeping legitimate collectors safe, and bring illegitimate ones to justice, Bartlett's is more difficult to define. Her obsession is with collecting their stories. In doing so she becomes so involved that Gilkey begins to show her "probably" stolen goods and confessing many crimes. He even tours a bookstore that he has stolen from with her. She gets so intertwined in his dealings that, she must seek legal advice to make sure she has not crossed the line from chronicler to codefendant. Her angst translates well to the page and adds to the readers' enjoyment.

In the books afterword (also a must read), says "this story had me under its spell from beginning to end." Many writers write stories that they are enchanted by, sometimes these stories are crushed under the weight of such enchantment. Bartlett deftly manages to mesmerize the reader under the same spell. I recommend it for your collection. I urge you to pay for it.

To see more SIX WORD SATURDAY go to Show my Face dot com. Also get ready to participate this coming Thursday in Three Things this Thursday.

Next Time: I thought we all knew the President's address.

Annoncement: 3 Things This Thursday Moving Here..

Hey There as many of you may know Michelle at Psalm 104: 24 was hosting this cool meme called THREE THINGS THIS THURSDAY. She even had this cool badge for it:

If you are unfamiliar with 3TTTm here's how it works. On Thursdays instead of people blogging about 1 thing they would blog about 3. They would then link up their posts over at Michelle's sight. Michelle shut down 3TTT for the Summer and has asked me take over the reins at 3TTT beginning this fall.

I am gladly accepting her offer. Starting next Thursday, September 24th, I will post my 3 things along with a Mr. Linky so you can link your 3 things to mine.

3TTT will basically work the same way it did at Michelle's sight. One modification I will make is to have a Themed Edition the Third Thursday of each month. This being the Third Thursday of September, I introduce 3 Badges Thursday. I have designed 3 possible badge designs that you could use on your site to promote 3TTT. Let me know which one you think I should go with.

1.

2.

3.

So those are my 3 badges this Thursday. Come on in next Thursday to participate!

Next Time: A collection of Criminals

My employers stuck me in a cubicle . . .

And said: Think outside the box.

Just another reason why I prefer being a home school dad. For more Six Word Saturday fun bop on over to SHOW MY FACE DOT COM.

Next Time: 3 Things This Thursday.