The End of Men? →
Commentary from Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr. on the cover story of this month's Atlantic.
Photos from Nate and I's trip to the Denver Museum of History and Science and the Wings Over the Rockies Museum Air Museum.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
— C.S. Lewis
319. Don't let the pictures become the event.
This is really hard for me to do.
(via rulesformyunbornson)
Long day today.
First, the Slaughter Canyon Cave Tour. The guidebook fails to mention that the last 3 miles of the drive into the park are unpaved and that the 1/2 mile hike to the cave entrance is an ascent of 500 (or more) feet. Slight omission. Then there was the big metal gate that they locked behind us as we went in...
The view of the canyon from the cave produced an excellent panorama, though, and even though the tour was more than a little canned, the company was excellent and climbing up and down the flowstone using ropes was fun. It's not a lit tour, so unfortunately a lot of the formations were harder to make out. The picture above shows you the last spot where any natural light fell, which was not very far into the cave at all.
Slaughter Canyon was followed up with a trip to Sitting Bull Falls with with seven of the others from the cave trip:
Mel(anie) and Matt - just back from four years exploring in New Zealand topped off with a seven week trip through Australia. Mel is a former caving instructor and Matt's previous job was on a dairy farm. They both had great tips on traveling, caving, hiking, and climbing.
Mark and Nicole - on their way to Miami where Nicole will be starting medical school.
Cody - "long-haired hippy". Slightly overweight Navy veteran in his early 40s. He's a musician and former Mercedes salesman, I'm sure among other things, and almost every place anyone brought up, he'd been and had a recommendation on what to do there. Has a penchant for singing, swimming, and beer. Traveled with:
Brennan - rock climber, caver, and explorer by nature. Mid-twenties. Also a self-proclaimed "long-haired hippy". Traveled with Cody and:
Audrey - super quiet girl in her early twenties. The most she ever said was "Look at all the butterflies." She was a stark contrast to Cody.
We explored the pools and the streams, then hiked up to the top of the waterfall for a good view and some really good swimming holes. The Falls were definitely a nice cool oasis in the middle of nowhere desert, but the real treat was driving NM 408 there and back - beautiful twists and turns and completely deserted except for the free-range cows. The most fun road I've ever driven on, and a half-hour each way.
Follow that up with a nice sandwich from the No-Whiner Diner and so mediocre ice-cream from Kaleidoscoop, and it's been a good day.
Off to Centennial, Colorado tomorrow, and some real mountains.
Carlsbad Caverns
As you could probably guess from the previous pictures, I toured Carlsbad Caverns National Park today.
The natural entrance is totally the definitive way to enter the caves, but they're not kidding when they say it's long and steep - about an hour to descend the 750 feet vs. about a minute in the elevator. The Big Room is a one-and-a-half-hour self-guided tour of the (obviously) big room. I also did the King's Palace ranger-guided tour, which was solid but had too many people for me to feel comfortable taking a ton of photographs. The part where they turned off the lights was worth it, though.
Back again tomorrow for the Slaughter Canyon Cave tour for obvious reasons (the ones where you crawl through stuff were sold out). But it's small, involves ladder climbing and flashlights, and has a creepy name. I'll let you know if I survive.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Carlsbad, NM
Pecos River Flume, Carlsbad, NM
Inception
I can safely say that Inception is one of the best movies I've ever seen. The comparisons to the breakthrough in action cinematics in The Matrix is well-deserved. Great plot, good acting, and a fantastic score make it truly engaging. At the end, it feels like you've been in a dream, and you don't want to wake up.
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: iTeleport →
Nice look at a company that has become successful without venture capital support. Which makes me ask - shouldn't all the good ones?