Timothy - Dog Year

America's Milestone

Go West, young man.  Few phrases capture America's youth and pioneering spirit as powerfully as these four simple words.   Americans have always been a people on the move, whether moving or travelling, speeding or cruising.  It would be difficult to find a more apt symbol for this nation than the road.  Today marks the bicentennial of America's first federally-funded interstate highway, the National Road, when President Jefferson signed a legislation authorizing the construction of this road that opened up the West (which then was the Midwest, specifically the Northwest Territory) for settlement and commerce.  For many cities and towns, the National Road truly was "Main Street," the main aorta around which businesses and churches clustered.

The National Road spanned over 700 miles in six states - MD, PA, WV (which was part of VA back then), OH, IN, and IL.  It began in Cumberland, MD (which already connected to Baltimore) and ended in Vandalia, IL, then state capital.  This busy road saw the precursors to today's common road sights - conestoga wagons (RVs and U-Hauls), stagecoaches (coupes and sport cars), blacksmith shops (gas stations), and taverns and inns (restaurants and motels).  The Road saw a temporary decline in 1850 with the rise of railroads, only to experience resurgence at the start of the 20th century with the invention of the automobile.  Today, Route 40 largely shares the same path as the old National Road, with I-70 running in parallel.

The National Road reached Columbus, my hometown, in 1833.  It entered the city from the east via Main Street, cut north on High Street, and continued west on Broad Street.  To commemorate this day, I took a series of pictures of various landmarks and sights along the road, mainly in the downtown area.  All downtown pictures were taken in midday.  The photos can be seen in the Sights and Travels gallery.

More information on this road that shaped America can be found at the Ohio Historical Society and at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Arcadia

I saw this place years ago.  I don't even know how many years.  More than five, I'm sure.

I was there only for fifteen minutes, yet how vivid my impressions are from this place even today.  All I did was leisurely lean against a parapet the whole time, looking around the amazing world surrounding me.  Long before I've ever heard of, much less played, the game Myst, I was in a similarly fantastic realm.

There, my senses were heightened.  I could see, without the aid of any special lens, the farthest distance with clarity, zooming in on the smallest details if I desired.  Every color I saw was vibrant and lively, without being gaudy or oversaturated.  Not a single cloud in the turquoise sky.  No fog.  Even the distant mountains, of all shades of browns and tans, and tantalizing as chocolate or coffee, appeared as sharp as if they were within my reach.   No smells of any kind, yet I felt no loss from that fact.  The stones on the parapet were warm, claylike without the smearing effects or elasticity.  The ground below me was firm, and I felt completely at ease and safe, despite the fact that, looking over the parapet, I could see I was standing hundreds of feet above a river valley below.

The most remarkable element there was the cool air currents, swirling all around me with a faint, almost melodic whistle.  This air was proactive, behaving like wind that moves with purpose.  It was so strong that I knew it could support me had I jumped off the mountain.  It continually flowed in and out of me, through my lungs and entire being, refreshing my mind and spirit with its every cycle.  I never breathed like that before, effortlessly, yet abundantly.  Every breath felt like a sip of icy cold water on a hot summer day.

Nobody was around me, except for a brief few minutes, when a middle-aged man resembling my dad (in his younger days) appeared behind me through a hidden door.  He didn't say anything, but looked around with satisfaction, as if he too were deriving the same sense of pleasure from everything as I.  Before returning to his place behind the door, he gave me a wide smile, a smile of approval, for what I didn't know (or care).

Standing there, I felt free.  Free from dangers, fears, depression, anxieties, interruptions, stress, expectations, needs, self-justification, displays.   A deep confidence permeated my heart, knowing I could fly as a bird anytime, to anywhere.  In this otherworldly place, conflicts of any kind were not prerequisite to meaning or adventure.

Yes, if you've figured it out a while back, this place was all a dream, a product of my subconscious.  Is it really a dream, though, when the conscious mind believes and hopes otherwise?

Possessions

Few things are more useless to a person than posthumous fame and fortune.

Conformity

A clique lasts only as long as the time it takes for all its members' values and personalities to meld into the same shade of gray.

Boomerangs

"What goes around, comes around"

• Looking down on someone?
  Don't complain if one day all you see is a grave you've dug for yourself.

• Talking behind someone's back?
  Don't complain if one day you find your friends talking behind your back.

• Feeling like everyone owes you?
  Don't complain if one day you get paid what you deserve.

• Thinking no one's more important than yourself?
  Don't complain if one day you find yourself isolated on a crumbling stand.

• Wearing a mask all the time?
  Don't complain if one day the mask falls off in public disgrace.

• Spending time with someone only when you need help?
  Don't complain if one day he is nowhere to be found.

• Surrounding yourself with thick walls of protection?
  Don't complain if one day you get no more visitors.

• Valuing quantity over quality in relationships?
  Don't complain if one day you're drowning in a sea of filth.

• Manipulating facts and figures to make yourself look better?
  Don't complain if one day you're audited.

• Needing to control other people to secure your own identity?
  Don't complain if one day you discover you're a nobody.

• Relying on others to do your dirty work?
  Don't complain if one day others force you to clean up your act.

• Waiting for someone ideal to come and sweep you off your feet?
  Don't complain if one day this person shows up and pushes you off a cliff.

Bowls, Brackets, and Buckeyes

What a disappointing end for the Ohio State University basketball teams.  The men, #2 seed, lost to #7 seed Georgetown on Sunday by 18.  The women, #1 seed, lost two evenings later to #8 seed Boston College.  Why bother working so hard to get these top seeds when you exit the tournaments in the second round?

These losses for Buckeye faithfuls will sting for a while.  Still, both teams played beyond preseason expectations.  It's no small achievement to be the first Big Ten school to win the regular-season conference play in football, men's basketball, and women's basketball all in one school year.  Both basketball teams also had the Big Ten player of the year honor, in centers Terrence Dials and Jessica Davenport.  And let's not forget the whole ex-coach money scandal that hung over the men's team the whole season, up to the tournament.

So while OSU will likely remain primarily a football school for now, the basketball teams deserve some hearty applause for all their efforts and teamwork in this past season.  The players' conduct on the court this past season shows that they will have a bright future off the court in coming years, even if they don't leave many marks in the NCAA record books.

Introverts

Do not chase after introverts - they are naturals when it comes to losing themselves in a crowd.

Mush Madness

Shocking as this may sound, March is more than NCAA basketball.  The "Last Great Race on Earth," the Iditarod, officially ended today.  Glenn Lockwood won the Red Lantern award after almost 16 days of mushing through the 1150-mile trail of ice, snow, forests, coasts, and mountains from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska (roughly equivalent to the driving distance between Columbus, Ohio and Dallas, Texas).

The Red Lantern is awarded to the last musher to cross the finish line (the "Burled Arch").  Lockwood completed his race almost a week after the first-place winner, Jeff King, now four-time champion, crossed the same arch.  Regardless of final position, every Iditarod competitor who has the will and courage to stick through this entire race is guaranteed a banquet seat in the end.   This race has always been about more than winning.  The thrill of breathtaking yet dangerous natural conditions, the synergy between man and his best friends working as one team, the retracing of a historical trail (where back in an epidemic in 1925 hundreds of lives in Nome were saved by relay dog teams that delivered serum over a distance of 700 miles in six days) - all these factors helped fuel the mushers' fire to both participate and finish.

King at age 50 became the oldest winner ever.  This race also saw the first ever finish by a legally blind person, Rachael Scdoris, who with the help of a visual guide, Tim Osmar, finished at 57th (out of 71).

Until next year, "Mush!  Hike!  Let's Go!"

3, 2, 1, He's Bach!

It's 3/21, and this year, it's the 321st birthday for arguably the greatest composer in history: Johannes Sebastian Bach.  As one who seemed to relish number plays in his works, Bach very likely would've gotten a kick from this particular date.

Few individuals in history have had as much impact on his field as J. S. Bach.  An entire art period, the Baroque, is defined as having ended in the year of his death (1750).  Beethoven called him the "original father of harmony."  A sampling of his fan club members includes Mozart, Chopin, and Mendelssohn.  His popularity has only grown in modern times, his music transcribed and rearranged for instruments from guitar to saxophone.  Simply stated, his music has influenced almost all categories, from church hymns to rock.

The life of Bach the man was, however, rather simple.  He almost never travelled.  He had seven children from his first wife and 13(!) with his second wife.   Somehow, between all the domestic duties and teaching pupils, he produced a body of organ works, fugues, canons, cantatas, chorales, and other music numbering over a thousand.  Bach didn't achieve great fame or wealth in his lifetime.  Records reveal a very humble, devout man of God.  He once said, "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."  Many of his works are postfixed with the initials SDG (Soli deo Gloria, "To God alone be the glory") or prefixed with the initials JJ (Jesu Juva, "Help, o Jesus").  From an extant Bible Bach owned we see hundreds of his handwritten annotations, pointing to someone who truly cherished God's Word and who consistently saw God's grace and presence in music.  Three-fourths of his entire output were for the church.

J. S. Bach - one of the first people I'll seek out in Heaven to shake hands with.

Equinoxes Amidst Eternity

At precisely 1:26 PM today, March 20, 2006, spring season officially begins in Columbus, Ohio.  Today for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is the vernal equinox, one of two annual occasions when the sun passes directly over the equator and day and night are equal in length. (People in the Southern Hemisphere have their autumnal equinox today.  The two hemispheres will switch equinoxes on September 22.)  Across history and cultures, the vernal equinox has always been a time of great celebration, a time of renewal of light and life.

The local forecast, though, tells a different story.  A winter storm, mixing snow, sleet, and freezing rain, is expected to arrive at 11 PM.  Ice will turn to snow, and temperatures will rise no higher than 33 degrees F throughout tomorrow.

Spring weather?  That's crazy...

For the record, I've nothing against winter or snow - I like both, despite more perilous driving conditions (and Columbus drivers are atrocious in even the lightest snow).  Yet I can picture the many people here who since winter began have been grumbling or patiently waiting for this day to come, only to be bitterly disappointed that they have to keep their heavy coats on.

Time, many argue, is an artificial constraint imposed by tyrants.  Even so, it doesn't remove the reality of seasonal cycles or anyone's inability to control them.  As time progresses, we all grow, age, gain, and lose, and more often than not, these changes come unexpectedly, no matter how hard we plan.  Time, like water, slips out of our hand, the more so when we try to grasp it.

Christians, though, know better.  We, after all, are children of eternity, aliens and passers-by in this world.  "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:8)  Death no longer has a hold on those who are heirs of God's eternal riches.  In the meantime, though, in the meantime ... how should we live?  One day at a time, goes the trite but true cliche.  "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)  More than even professional musicians and animators, Christians ought to know the significance of timing - not ours, but God's.

So let's enjoy the equinox.  Let's enjoy every day.  Each day is a gift of experiencing God, as much a gift as having countless days to live, and each day is one day closer to that ultimate equinox when we and the rest of creation will no longer groan in pain and eager anticipation (Romans 8:22).