Family Promise

April 21, 2013 Timothy Price7 Comments

What does homeless bring to mind? Indigent street people, addicts and alcoholics with mental issues that are not to be associated with, like the Samaritans in the first century CE? While many of the homeless individuals you might encounter on the street have serious issues that contribute to their often perpetual homelessness, there is another, almost invisible, side of homelessness — homeless families. Homeless families tend to be “normal” people who have had some kind of catastrophic event that caused them to become homeless. Fortunately, there is Family Promise of Albuquerque (FPA) to help. FPA is made up of churches that temporarily house homeless families and volunteers who help support the families. Instead of ignoring these families, FPA, offers them life sustaining water.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? (John 4: 4-11 NIV).

Central United Methodist Church hosted two families this past week, and Laurie and I volunteered to help yesterday afternoon. When we got to CUMC, we had a pleasant surprise — there were four students from UNM playing with the kids as part of the 11th Annual Spring Storm Event put on by the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM) who volunteer in a one day service project. The students, Katarina, Jackie, David and Rudy, were wonderful. They played and played the the kids, and had a lot of fun. I was really impressed that they took a day off from their heavy class loads to play with kids — the kids were so happy, and their mom got a nice break. By giving up some of their precious time yesterday, Katarina, Jackie, David and Rudy helped make earth a little more like Heaven.

Lotus Elise

April 19, 2013April 19, 2013 Timothy Price5 Comments

Sadly, the 2013 Institute For Medieval Studies’ Spring Lecture Series is over. The final lecture was “Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings” by Janetta Rebold Benton of Pace University. Ms. Rebold Benton’s lecture was wonderful, with a lot of great photos of gargoyles and grotesques (non-water spouting gargoyles). I had never though about it before, but true gargoyles are water spouts that drain roofs, and the name is derived the same root word that gives us the term “gargle”.

We got home very late from a wonderful reception celebrating the conclusion of this years lecture series, so I only took time to process a photo of a Lotus Elise that was in the parking lot when I left the office, heading to the Lecture series last night.

Myths & Monsters

April 18, 2013 Timothy Price3 Comments

The two lectures tonight on “The Uses of Norse Mythology” by Rory McTurk, University of Leeds and “”Real’ Monsters: Medieval Belief, Wonder, and the Wonders of the East” were fantastic.

Water was turned into the irrigation ditch 5 weeks ago, and after more than a dozen attempts to irrigate, I finally got every irrigated yesterday. I had gotten up between 2:00 am and 4:00 am every morning since last Saturday, went out with the monsters, and attempted to irrigate 3 times before I got everything watered. I also got a decent shot of the Big Dipper in the pitch blackness in the early morning.

A couple of the photos are somewhat monstrous today, with a monsterously strange car with a v-twin engine in front of the radiator, but I only got a partial shot of it from a quick drive-by I snapped as I crossed Central on my way to class. I also discovered that a host of “light demons” had attacked my camera on one of my shots of the lecture of the Staffordshire Hoard on Tuesday night, after I downloaded the photos from my second camera tonight.

Medieval & Motorcycle

April 17, 2013 Timothy Price1 Comment

Leslie Webster’s talk on “The Staffordshire Treasure: Art and Power in the Seventh-Century Anglo-Saxon England” was wonderful. The Staffordshire Treasure was buried in a remote spot near the old Roman road o Walting Street near the end of the 7th century. It was discovered in July 2009 by a local with a metal detector. The stash consists of over 10 pounds of gold and 3 pounds of silver military accouterments, such as parts from swords, studs and trim for horses and saddles, buckles, crosses, helmets and so on. It’s the largest and richest assemblage of treasure from the early Anglo-Saxon Period.

Bite Me!

April 16, 2013 Timothy Price2 Comments

The tulips were chomping on a branch from a trumpet vine yesterday morning. We went to the first lecture of the Institute of Medieval Studies spring lectures series, “Medieval Myths & Monsters” last night. The speaker was Leslie Webster from the British Museum and her topic was “Myth and Mission: The Riddle of the Franks Casket”. It was a wonderful lecture. Tonight there will be two lectures. The first lecture is by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh from Harvard University speaking on “Early Irish Origin Legends”. The second lecture is by Leslie Webster on The Staffordshire Treasure. The lectures begin at 5:15 in Woodward Hall at UNM. Woodward Hall is just west of the Student Union Building, across from the Fine Arts Building. As you can see from the photo below the first lecture was well attended, but there were still lots of open seats.

Never Stop Playing

March 7, 2013 Timothy Price5 Comments

It seems to me setting up PlayStation Kiosks on campus is like dealing electronic drugs to college students.

Pipes

March 6, 2013 Timothy Price3 Comments

I was studying for the French test tomorrow while listening to the choir rehearse Messiah pieces with the Symphony Orchestra of Albuquerque at Heights Cumberland Presbyterian Church. On the way home I started thinking about what kind of effect studying while under the influence of Handel might have. Let’s say there’s a question like “Why did the south lose the Albigensian Crusade?” I could answer “They were like sheep!” and that answer would be correct.

The Choir and SOA are performing selected pieces from Handel’s Messiah this Saturday, March 9 at 7:00 pm at Keller Hall at UNM and Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 pm at Eastern Hills Baptist, 3100 Morris St NE.

Dust Off Your Dancing Shoes

March 1, 2013 Timothy PriceLeave a comment

Dust of your dancing shoes because we are starting Salsa Dance at Central United Methodist Church, 201 University Blvd NE across from the UNM March 1st from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. We will teach basic steps and style for Salsa/Mambo, Merengue, Cha Cha Cha, Samba and Swing then practice, practice, practice. The dance is free, and Laurie is bringing triple chocolate espresso cookies to liven up the party. The dance and lessons will be similar to the dance classes we held on Friday evenings at First United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2007.

Flashed of Flowers

January 14, 2013 Timothy Price5 Comments

I had fun with flashes and flowers this afternoon.

The digital sensor recorded -2 degrees F this morning, but the analog thermometer was showing -8 degrees F at 8:00 am, but I think it got a lot colder than -8, especially since the pipes were trying to freeze. When I turned on the water in the bathroom sink this morning, the water was a trickle for about 30 seconds, then it started spurting around and blowing out rusty, sandy water for a few seconds before it started running steady and clear again, which seems typical of water running through thawing pipes. The almost frozen pipes is a sign that it go much colder than -8 degrees F, because two years ago when the temperatures got down to -15 degrees F, the pipes didn’t freeze.

Classes begin tomorrow at UNM and it’s going to be more of a family affair this semester. Laurie is starting a graduate program in Linguistics, but she has to take a couple of 300 level classes to make up deficiences. Tristan is starting back to school this semester and taking Linguistics classes with Laurie, and Laurie is thinking about auditing the philosophy class Tristan is taking. Here’s the kicker — I’m taking French 385 with Laurie. That’s right silly moi is taking 300 level French. And to answer your question: No! I have never taken French before. Not officially anyway. Last Spring, the teacher for French 101 allowed me to signup for the on-line French Lab so I could do home work for the class, and I wrote papers that were assigned in class, Laurie turned them in for me, the teacher corrected them and sent them back. Other than being a virtual student last Spring, reading Tintin and watching French movies had been my French studies up until Christmas.

Laure got me a Drive-by French course and a couple of other self study guides for Christmas that I’ve been using to do a bit of cramming. The Drive-by French, which is designed to do while driving, is pretty good, but they hit you with hard stuff pretty quickly, and expect you to be able to 1) hear, and 2) remember things — two things I pretty deficient in. Now the first CD, which they call the “On Ramp to French” is pretty easy, the people speak slowly and clearly, and they have you repeat words and phrases many times over. So I was thinking this will be great! Then lesson one began, and everything changed — the instructors only say a word once, the dialogs are spoken at normal speed, and then they drop the question bomb on you — they ask a question and give you a few short seconds to answer it. Right! I’m still trying to digest the question when the answer is given, which turns out not to be anything I would have answered, so I obviously didn’t have a clue about what the question was in the first place. I felt like I should pull off onto the side of the road and put on a dunce cap. But I go back, start from the beginning, and listen again, and again, and again — each time words, phrases and questions become a little clearer and I understand a little better, but I have to really struggle to with it. I may drive fast, but I’m pretty slow when it comes to learning languages.