Hertzler Outpost

[3:45 pm] It is approaching the 8 hour mark, the duration Cathy’s surgeon expected. No new updates since noon.

I read an article saying font size makes a difference to readers. Then I took a look at this site and realized that the font was pretty small. If this bugs you, leave a comment and let me know.

Audrey’s Skydive

Audrey has wanted to skydive for her birthday for a while, so when she turned 18 she did it! She amazes me. She was not scared and never hesitated.

Here’s the video. It’s big download, so it may take a minute or so before playback starts.

Cathy’s sister, brother in law, and niece came for a visit and also jumped out of the plane with Audrey. My original plan was to drive them all there and watch, but when I got there I realized it was one of those moments in life that only happen once. So I joined them and jumped, too. What a rush!

We All Jumped

The only bummer was that Cathy could not join us, but she says, “I have no sadness at all. I am absolutely thrilled that they got to go.”

We jumped with SkyDive City, and I would highly recommend them for a skydiving adventure. Great customer service, friendly staff, and a first-class, safe operation.

Audrey’s last First Day of School

Today was Audrey’s last first day of school. Cathy got up and saw her off, and I was happy to have someone else in the house awake with me that early. Overall, I think we’re all glad this is the last year of high school.

Audrey’s First Day of School 1999

This trip to Kenya with Audrey has gone well.

Our friends, Michael and Rebecca, took us along to visit two of their recently formed farming co-ops as part of their community development work in rural Kenya. This was a fascinating adventure and gave us a view of the world we had never seen before. Yesterday we walked around Nairobi with my friends, Paul and Peter, and today we walked in Kibera for a while and had another amazing day.

My New MailChimp T-shirt

MailChimp likes me. I don’t know why. They sent me a t-shirt. I’m a big MailChimp fan, so they didn’t miss with their gift.

Cathy pointed out that several businesses I have used have sent me gifts. It started years ago with a Vonage t-shirt after I referred about ten others to their service. Then Google sent me a Christmas gift, and Chipotle gave me a t-shirt. I wonder how long this string will continue.

This is a QR code that points to the Ministry category posts on http://Hertzlers.com.

If you have an iPhone or an Android phone with a barcode scanning application that reads QR codes (like Google Goggles) you can point your phone at this one, and it should take you back to our site. I’m playing around with this to see if it would be a good thing to put on a business card. So far I’m thinking not; a little too geeky for now.

You can generate your own QR code of any website using a QR code generating service like Kaywa.

Youth Group Performance
at Christ Covenant Church

Last Sunday my friend, Paul, introduced me to a Kenyan church in St. Louis, Christ Covenant Church. I was welcomed as an honored guest because my friend had set things up ahead of time, and I had an experience that I didn’t expect. For three hours I was transported from St. Louis to Kenya. At times during the service I caught myself trying to remember where I was; St. Louis, Orlando, or Nairobi? I heard more Swahili in this service than I did at Harvest Fellowship in Nairobi. Afterward we had chai and Kenyan donuts. What a great experience!

Now that I am a parent of two older teenagers, I no longer consider myself a great parent (humility is always healthy). I did my job, but now I believe that a lot less was under my control in shaping their lives than I originally thought. One of those things is the way my kids view the world. While I am sure I helped shape some of their views, much of their views came by virtue of the world they live in – where anything valuable for them is free.

There are two categories of ‘teenager free.’ One is the set of things that come to them through the largess of parents. Mobile phones, use of a car, clothes, etc. This category really isn’t free, but it seems like that to them, and we know that someday they will realize how un-free those things are when they are providing them for their kids.

The second category really is free. These are the things like email, video calls, phone calls, music, video, TV, movies, etc. Legality aside, these things are truly available for free and provide true value and may never require payment by those who use them.

Now I find myself becoming dependent on these free things as well.

I have free home phone service (after the first year of payment) that gives me nationwide long distance. I have free voice mail, a free second number, and free transcription service for calls to my cell phone. I have a free secretary that writes down any reminder I tell her to. I have a smart phone (Android) with a slew of free applications on it and a PC loaded with free applications.

Money still goes out my door, so I am paying for plenty enough things in my life, but where my money goes has shifted lately.

I’m still trying to understand how this will affect the way my kids view the world. How do you think today’s free things affect how the next generation will think?

Four characters in the wrong place caused my website not to display photos properly. This has been going on for at least six months, but I never spent the time to find the problem.

This month I emailed our prayer letter using a cool service called MailChimp.com, and it motivated me to create a subscription page. That drew my attention back to the fact that photos on our site weren’t working properly, so I finally found and removed the cause of the problem, those four characters.

If you see the MailChimp logo below, you know problem is fixed.

“The challenge today is how to educate a generation of people into a world that we, at present, only dimly imagine. … What we do know is that it will be different, and it will be difficult.” – Lord Puttnam

I had a 24 hour layover in Dubai, so I met my friend Colin and saw some of the city. We drove by the world’s tallest building, the Berj Khalifa, even though it was closed to visitors at the time.

This was an entertaining bus ride near Nairobi, so I wanted to catch some of it on video, especially the Masai Warrior music video.

Asics Hyper XCS

Running barefoot proved different than I expected!

Ironically, I am convinced it is the best way to avoid running injuries, while at the same time I was unable to condition my bare feet to run without getting injured. (Or maybe I was just unwilling to be patient enough after two months.)

The most important factor in all of this was changing my running form – from landing on my heels to landing on my forefoot. That is the biggest factor and the one that I think everyone who runs should know.

Learning to run barefoot is the key to learning good running form!

These are some marks of good running form, all achieved by learning to run barefoot.

• Plant your foot towards the ball of your foot to lessen impact and braking.
• Keep your back and midsection straight with a slight tilt from the ankles, not the waist.
• Don’t let your arms cross your midsection. That creates side to side movement, not forward movement.

After learning to run barefoot and changing my running form, I decided I wanted something under my foot after all. The water shoes worked pretty well but were not breathable, so I decided they wouldn’t work for any distance longer than about 3 miles.

So yesterday I got these racing flats. They have very little padding, so you can feel your foot hit the ground as it’s landing (and respond by having your foot and calf absorb the impact). They have no heel on them, so you have more room to ‘catch’ the impact and spread it across your foot. They seem fairly breathable, too, but they could be better in this area. And they cost $50, less than any other pair of running shoes I have purchased. If they last 250 or more miles, they will also be the best value.

I ran 5 miles in them, and they worked great! I think I’ll continue running in them for now.

It has been two months since I started learning to run barefoot. The purpose for learning to run barefoot is to avoid running injuries caused by landing on your heel each stride. Instead, barefoot running forces you into better running form by causing you to land on your forefoot and absorbing the landing impact with your foot and lower leg muscles.

Here is what I’ve learned about running barefoot so far.

• This type of running will avoid injuries because it eliminates the primary cause of running injuries; the heel-landing impact on each stride.
• Barefoot running is anti-intuitive to most people, yet once you do it you understand.
• Barefoot running uses lower-leg muscles, whereas heel-landing running uses upper-leg muscles. It took me almost a month to get my lower leg muscles (calves) in shape. It was like learning to run all over again.
• Many people run long distances in their bare feet, but I have trouble running more than a few miles in bare feet. I still don’t know if I can build endurance in my feet or if I simply need to put some shoes on.
• Even if I end up wearing shoes for most of my running miles, I will run a few miles barefoot each week in order to keep my running form good.
• I will NEVER go back to my old running form, shoes or not!
• EVERY runner should learn barefoot running form, even if they don’t run barefoot!

My longest barefoot distance on sand has been 4 miles, but my longest barefoot distance on pavement is only 2.5 miles. My right foot is bruised right now between the ball of my foot and the outer mid-sole. I think this was from landing and pushing off on the small stones on the beach in Antalya, but I’m not sure.

One thing IS sure; after running this way, I don’t feel sore the next day (except for the bottoms of my feet, of course). Usually it would take me two days to recover from a 5 mile (or longer) run before I would run again. I think I could run everyday using this form as long as my feet could take it.

Right now I’m running about half my miles in cheap water shoes. They protect my feet, but they don’t breath at all because they’re neoprene. It looks like if I want to run any longer distances I’ll need a breathable shoe. Racing flats are my next option to try.

I’ll keep you posted.

The water shoes worked. My feet were not sore after running a mile in them. My calves were very sore, but I can condition that.

Nevertheless, others insist there is no need for anything between your foot and the ground.

Vibram
FiveFingers

At my class reunion a couple weeks ago, my friend Chris showed me the goofiest looking pair of shoes I have ever seen, Vibram FiveFingers. But when he explained why he had them, it didn’t sound goofy anymore. In fact, he convinced me to learn to run barefoot.

Most of the running injuries I have experienced, and every one of the running injuries I have heard of, seem to result from the forceful impact of your heel hitting the ground and traveling up your leg to your hip. By running barefoot, your forefoot absorbs all that energy instead. This diagram is the best description I found for this school of thought.

I am near the end of my running days unless something changes, so I am willing to try just about anything I can afford.

My experience running barefoot, so far, makes me think it will remove the impact problems and injuries. But now the problem has shifted to the skin on the bottom of my feet. I just can’t see actually running barefoot on pavement without as many injuries, albeit new and different ones, to the skin on my feet. So I went in search of new running shoes in an effort to avoid the same goofy shoes as my friend.

I think I found what I was looking for: water shoes.

Nike Sneakerboat ($20 on clearance)

Generic Water Socks ($10)

After running a mile barefoot last night, my lower legs and feet are still sore, so it will take a few days before I can give these new shoes a good test run. I’ll probably post comments about how it goes on my Twitter feed, so follow me there if you’re interested. (I marked each related post with a ‘hashtag’ of ‘#LTRB’. You can search Twitter for this string, #LTRB, and it will show you all my posts.)

WCA Class of 1984 Reunion Dinner

Had a great time at dinner last night with friends from high school. 25 years made everyone a better version of themselves. Or maybe I grew up enough to enjoy everyone more. Either way, a great time.

Today we had a picnic at WCA‘s Creve Coeur campus and got a tour of the building, now much different than when we were there. It didn’t make me want to be back in high school, but it made me glad I stayed in touch with my classmates.

Here’s the rest of the pics from last night and today over on Flickr.

Catalytic converter repair, “cat” repair, as most mechanics call it, has a great range of prices for the work! Back in Orlando when the “check engine” light came on in our Chrysler van, the service station we took it to quoted $750 to fix it. We decided to pass. Then today at lunch, here in Fort Collins, the Chrysler dealership quoted $1020 to fix it. I just laughed. The work got done at Hawker’s Auto for $250 later this afternoon. A much nicer price. I have a little better insight now into why Chrysler is going out of business.

Cold Air Intake Installed

We now have an oxymoron: a tricked out Escort. Andrew installed a cold air intake, something he’s been wanting to do for a while and finally finished last night. How it works, I don’t understand, but it’s supposed to increase power and fuel efficiency by bringing cold air to the fuel injectors instead of the usual warm air that plastic intake pipes provide. Either way, it’s a cool mod to the Escort.

Last September I discovered that my blog would not accept foreign characters, and I actually needed to use some cyrillic letters. I just now fixed the problem, so I’m free to compose in 汉语/漢語 if I want.

The problem was that this website uses a database to store all its information, and that database stored everything in latin characters. I had to export and re-import all my data into a new database that stores characters in the UTF8 character set.

Andrew Bounces

On getting back home I found we had another trampoline in the back yard. Second one acquired by Andrew from his job. Trampolines are way more fun in two’s!

Dead Hamster

Cathy’s sister, Kristen, arrived today for a visit and was getting a tour of things that had changed since her last time here.

“Oh, Kristen, you have to see our new hamster!” said Cathy as she led her to the little rodent’s cage in our family room.

“Oh look, Kristen. He’s dead!”

Followed by three minutes of laughter where they can’t talk because they’re laughing so hard.

Andrew had found this hamster a few weeks ago wandering outside in our driveway (!), so Cathy and Audrey took it in and borrowed a cage for it. A couple days later we learned that our neighbors had found another hamster wandering around in their driveway and had also taken it in. We tried convincing them that their hamster was the sibling of ours and that it was only right to keep this little hamster family together – at their house – but they didn’t buy it.

And it was strangely coincidental when our white hamster died today, because we learned its brown sibling died just last weekend. Maybe they’re together now running on that big wheel in the sky.

Today I found out about an online missions trip. It’s great to see a local church understand how they can have an influence on their Internet world and the challenge others to join them in it. Good work!

…looking a bit sleepy this Christmas

This year the cousins sent us matching Hertzler University t-shirts. Pretty cool.

Here in Orlando today it was about 75 and rainy, a perfect day to stay inside and play with new Christmas gifts.