Ouch!

This weekend I was scheduled to do 120+ miles on the bike. Not a ton for a regular rider, but a bunch for me. Saturday was the regular shop ride. They took the long way (80+) and I took the short way (50). Nice though. I got to ride with Andy a bit. He's an old salt of a rider. I think he pointed out (again) that he's been riding this one nasty hill for over 20 years. With him by my side, somehow the hill didn't register as all that bad.

The next morning, I got up at 5:45 to get me and Joseph to the start of another ride. Since it was Sunday and Kim wanted to take the kids to Sunday School, I had to leave by bike. Did I mention that the Suburban has a bad fuel pump? We're down to the blurple van. The only bad part about that is that it only seats seven and our family numbers eight. Oh well. The Suburban will be fixed by next weekend probably. So Joseph and I had to scrounge for some headlights and leave by 6:30 to get there at the start time of 7.

Then I fell. We took a shortcut through a concrete drainage ditch under the railroad tracks to a bike trail. It's the closest way. As I came down the ditch, I noticed that there was a tree branch blocking some of the first portal under the train bridge, so I took the second. Then I noticed the slick, black sheen of scum/mud that crossed the road. Actually I didn't notice it until my wheels had left the road and my right hip had joined it. Hard. Ouch.

So I get up and notice my chain fell off. Not a bad deal. I got on the bike and started spinning and turning the shift lever for the front derailleur. I got it back on and started out of the ditch. There's a sharp incline at the end, but it's really no problem, you just stand up on your pedals and you'll be fine. Of course, if you backside is barking from falling 15 seconds before, you might be tempted to get all the way up still in your seat. Bad idea. I tried that, got to the top, and fell over on my left hip. Ouch. Fortunately it was in grass, so not so much pain. Just shock. I don't fall. The last time I fell was over a year ago and it was because my cleat popped out of my pedal on a hill. So I take a deep breath. We haven't gone a half mile and I've fallen twice. There's still 40+ miles to go.

So I get back on and start across the grass for the sidewalk bike trail. As I get there, I notice that my wheels aren't perpendicular to the sidewalk, but fairly close to parallel. Actually, I didn't notice it until my rain and mud slick tires hit the sidewalk, bounced off, and dumped me over on my left hip. Fall #3. And this one really hurt. Truly an inauspicious beginning for a Sunday morning ride. Maybe Jesus doesn't want me skipping out on Sunday School any more.

The rest of the ride was fine. My hips both ached. My left palm is swollen a bit. I discovered that I can't quite climb stairs with my left leg, I have to push myself up with my right. In fact, I am a bit concerned. Near my right hip I'm getting a nice (or nasty) bruise. But on my left side, the side that hit the hardest, no bruise. The pain is actually coming out of the hip itself.

To top it all off, this morning I wake up with a stomach virus. Oh, the sheer, unadulterated joy.

I did get to see another step on my wife's path to sainthood though. Last night she juggled on nine year old with the stomach flu, today myself and the 18 month old joined her. Kim was able to get all of us settled, and make meals, and do grocery shopping. I've said it before, I won the lottery when I met her.

Leader Bikes

It looks like I've gotten a bunch of traffic for my posting earlier this year about my experience with Leader Bikes.  I kind of went off on them for what I consider to be bad customer service.  Looking back, I still feel that way, but their frames seem ok.  Yeah, I went with the cheapo low-end aluminum frame, but it serves it's purpose.  After riding about 12-13 hundred miles on it, I have no complaints.  It is a bit heavy, but I was told that it was before I got it.  It doesn't transmit as much road noise as my previous frame.  And the area that I had problems with on my previous frame, the rear drop outs, are really beefed up.  I don't expect the same issues.  I would recommend that you take it to your local bike shop to get it put together.  Both frames have had issues with paint in the bottom bracket shell and in the head tube.  Both had to be raced out a bit to accommodate the bottom bracket cups and headset, respectively.  I might get out the camera and take some pics to do a more thorough update on the frame, but it seems to be doing ok.  I can't say anything about their carbon stuff as I've never worked with any of their carbon stuff.  In fact, I don't think I've ever ridden an all-carbon bike, nor will I at my weight.  Of course, if Leader wants to fund something like that, I'm all ears.

What a Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday and I think I had a blast. Well, maybe I should say I had a memorable birthday. It actually started on Sunday night. I knew that I had a big day at work on Monday so I wanted to go to bed early. Instead, we stayed up in bed watching hulu.com on my laptop. So around midnight, just as the last scene of Eureka is playing out, the dog downstairs starts barking. We keep her in a kennel at night. I walked downstairs to let her outside and decided to sit down in front of my computer downstairs and investigate the internet. Bad idea. Two and a half hours later, after I had delved into all sorts of news, sports, olympics, and theology, I let the dog in and went upstairs. But for some reason I couldn't sleep. Three am, no sleep. Three thirty, still no sleep. Four am, no sleep. I think I drifted off sometime after that and I got up at 7 ish.
So I get to work and start ingesting coffee. I missed breakfast. And I almost missed lunch with the stuff that had to be done RIGHT NOW! I didn't end up eating enough and by 4 pm, I had that "I've had too much sugar, too much caffeine, not enough real food, not enough sleep" feeling. It's a deep-down tummy ache coupled with a fuzzy head feeling. I haven't felt it since college. Yuck. I bumped off work a half-hour early b/c I knew that Monday night I had a Jr Bike team meeting and I didn't want to be woozy. I got home and went straight to bed. Kim wasn't there and when I asked where she was, Joseph responded with "She's gone to get... she's just gone to go do something." I recognize last second b-day shopping when I see it.
I got in a good hour or so of nap before I realized that the meeting would be starting in an hour and getting six kids there takes time and effort. I came out to see my wife taping HAPPY BIRTHDAY down the banister of the stairs. She'd only gotten as far as HAPPY BIRT. She shushed me back into my room for another 5 minutes before inviting me to come downstairs. The kids all hid (really poorly I might add) behind furniture and shouted "surprise!" On the wall, I finally notice, is a couple of clothes hangers with wrapping paper wrapped over my gift. Knowing that the only place in the world that we can afford gifts is on the Dillard's Card, I'm fairly certain that it's a couple of shirts. To my real surprise, it's a couple of Madden games for the GameCube, '06 and '07. Sweet. I've got '04, these sound cool.
Then off to the meeting. At the meeting, I discover that I am the only person that was nominated for Pres, so I'm in charge by default. Again. Then, after a lot of good discussion (too much, I only got one trip through the pizza buffet :-( ), Audrey trips over a chair leg and hits the floor with her skull. No bleeding, but then a friend and nursing student notices that one of her pupils is larger than the other. Aud also wasn't reacting in a typical fashion. She didn't even push away the ice pack. So I got to spend the remainder of my evening in the ER watching the Olympics with my other kids. Actually, for an ER visit, we might have had the best time ever. There was NOBODY else there when we arrived, so she got right in basically. The did an MRI and she's fine. There was a minimum of crying babies. Folks started to arrive as we were waiting and one person noted that she was the oldest of 12 and the her family looked like ours did when they would show up to the ER periodically. I take that as a high compliment.
All in all, we got home around 11 and I was asleep by 12. A long day, a memorable day. But I can't say if it was a good or bad day. Maybe it's best seen as something to survive, not to judge.

I'm now the parent of two, count 'em, two state champions

The last weekend of July was the Age-Based State Championship Crit. Joseph did ok, Emily got out there and worked hard. She finished last, but because she was the only 10-12 yr. old girl who pinned on a number, she's the State Champion. She's bashful about it, but that's her third race to win while coming in dead last. And those are the only races so far this year that have included a 10-14 girls competition, ok, until the TT this last weekend. She's done fine. It's hard for her to really feel like she's competing when there's no competition though. Next year, her younger sister will be turning 10, meaning that she will have that real competition. Allison is a skinny little thing (her 7 year old brother is only four lbs lighter) and has a power to weight ration out of this world. She could dominate if she has the determination. Emily really amazes me in that she can be very intense. A Sunday School teacher termed it "passionate." I don't think cycling is yet her passion (she doesn't practice much) because she has to do it on her own (nobody else there her age or gender). But if she gets going, zowie, I think she'll go whole hog. The competition thing from her younger sister might do the trick.
The race was on the north side of Denton. Nice organization. I sat down with the officials and went over the results for a good 20 to 30 minutes before we had something that I think all of the parents were OK with. Scoring a Jr. crit is probably one of the hardest things to do in cycling, something I think I've blogged about before. Very hot out there, over 100 for the later races. Joseph got 8th I think. About right for him, he felt OK out there. Special thanks to Christian Williams for following Emily on her first lap. At the last second, Joseph points out that he left his water in the car. I told Em to give him one of her two bottles, so she unclips both feet and pulls out a bottle for him. Meanwhile, another racer (hopefully a teammate) gives him a bottle and the official blows his whistle, starting the race. Emily has to put the bottle back in her cage and clip back in. Christian (the promoter) is there on his bike and rides next to her the whole first lap, giving her a little push to start and then watching over her to make sure she's ready. Props to you for being a thoroughly guy.
This past weekend was the State Time Trials down near Houston. We took seven kids from TBI plus one stowaway from another team. Got there late Friday night to my sister's house. They just had their fourth kid (their kids are 13, 3, 18 mo., and 5 weeks) and they let us crash on their floor. Thanks Leah and Chris. You guys rock. We got the kids late there on Sat AM. I parked at the old registration location instead of the new. I misjudged how long it would take us to get out of the car and get ready, and I also misjudged how many parking spaces would be available at the start/finish two miles away, so the kids all started their TT's late. Sorry guys, my bad. I think we might have had a medal in the 10-14 if we had been there earlier or if I had parked at the s/f. All the 10-14 guys were at least a minute or two behind. One of the Jr. Open guys had a nice TT, the other had a mechanical. All in all, we were hacked. We came back to my sisters, showered, and took off for pizza. Then we went to Ganter Mtn, a gigantic outdoorsy-type store. If you've ever been to Bass Pro or Cabela's, you know the kind of store I'm talking about. The guys decide to play tag there for about 45 minutes, hiding in amongst the camo gear or the fishing tackle. Amazing. We just let them have fun. We got up the next AM even earlier and parked before the registration table was set up. Those guys were ready to start on time. The older (Jr. open) team had a mixup though. Probably my mistake. The officials were determined to have four persons start the race, even though we only had three teammates there. We scrounged around and asked Avery Visser, a triathlete from Austin if she would join the team. All she had to do was roll across the start line, she didn't have to try to finish. She might have toasted some of those guys, from what I hear she's pretty good. I got her registered on the team and she was going to the start line when the Jr. 10-14 guys finished and one of them rolled across the line with the Jr. Open team. I still pitched it to the promoter to include her in the final results and I think they saved a State Championship medal for her.
In the end, both of our teams won their respective divisions and the all came home with State Championship medals. Some of them bought State Champ jerseys there (individual TT winners get them for free, and only winners can get them). I have a mind to make some phone calls to see if I can get both of them some jerseys.

Time Trial map to My sister's house

OK, the plan is that we're meeting at the Mueller's, in Arlington, at 3:30. We should have plenty of space (2 Suburban's worth) and we should have racks for all 7 bikes. Here's the map to my sister's house.

If you need to call me, give me a buzz. If you don't know my number, then I don't think I want you to call.

I'll include a map from Leah's to the TT registration soon.

Funny

I had to put this in, it's got Steven Colbert referencing torture and cycling. Definitely belongs on this blog.



Hat tip to Mark Shea who references Feddie at Southern Appeal.

I think he can hear him now...

I haven't seen this on TV, but I think it would make a funny spot. From all the TV angles, it looks like something VZW made in-house.

Oooohhh, the irony...

A plane carrying some TX congressmen makes an emergency landing b/c they are loosing cabin pressure. Why are so many TX Congressmen on the same flight? Well, they are all hurrying back to Washington to make a vote on a bill for, wait for it, wait for it...

Airline safety.

Nope, if I made this stuff up, nobody would believe it.

When the shop ride goes horribly, horribly wrong...

You see headlines like this.

Forgive me for putting this up. Language warning.

I wish I could have thought of this, H/T to Mark Shea, who had a H/T for Fr. Eric who got it from his Secretary.

This is hilarious

I check out Sitemeter often. It's a service that tells me how many hits I've had, as well as a general idea of where they are from, and how they got here. Today's hit? Ok, there was only one, but it was from someone in Germany inquiring about Leader Bikes. The link they used was from google.de, so it offered a chance to translate my page into German. To see my works translated into German is funny to me. I have to try it in French next.

Von Blogs und Bullen. It just rolls off the tongue.

When Priests just need to shut up

Tonight we went to Mass at St. George's.  It's the latest one here locally and it's a small congregation and a very small church.  Very cozy in my opinion.  I've never seen more than fifty people there and that doesn't look dwarfed by the size of the worship space.  I like that.  I like a small congregation.  I like the fact that I see the same faces there week after week.  Fr. Dan Kelley is great.  I met him when I first came to Fort Worth and he's not afraid to speak intelligently in a sermon.  He doesn't water things down and will bring in multiple scripture references to bring home a point.  Unfortunately he's away this month and they've had to rely on guest priests to preside on Sundays.  Today was a Vietnamese priest, I don't know his name (although I do know it wasn't Fr. Hoa Nguyen.  He's frickin' awesome.  And he has a sweet jump shot) and the Gospel reading was about the harvest and the Lord of the Harvest.  Fr. Whatshisname decides that his point needs to be about how Priests are needed, even if they are of different genders.  Yuck.  His logic was weak [1) Jesus was forced to choose men as his apostles, because, you know, the Lord of Creation, Time and Space was subject to that backwards, misogynist Jewish sexism and all, no way around it for him, poor guy and 2) women are the ones running all the religious ed and such and 3) if there's still people who need to hear the good news, then why aren't we getting everyone involved? OK, so women are already so involved that we need to open up stuff to get them involved ] and his personal "testimony" was even weaker (I got asked at an exit oral interview what I thought and I had to think about it and say "why not?").  But the point is not the fallacies that permeate this "logic" or the thread of clericalism that clouds his thinking (the only ones who can truly be harvesters are the ones with the white collars on) that's my real point.  He's welcome to have bad ideas.  He's even welcome to discuss them theologically to a point (although Pope JP the Great said that the matter was settled and further discussion would be pointless and, in fact, plain disobedience), but is it appropriate fodder for a homily in front of the faithful?  I'm not saying that all homilies need to be safe, or that they need to make me feel good.  In fact, I think priests should make me feel quite uncomfortable.  They should challenge me.  But when the door to discussion in formal theological settings has been closed, you don't open it up without appropriate safeguards.  You might actually consider things that I would consider quite heretical but you don't go about abusing your position as a priest by bringing them up in a homily.  There were many times I dealt with folks in churches (Directors of RE, RE teachers, Youth Ministers) who didn't agree with this or that aspect of Church teaching.  They always knew, however, that they represented Holy Mother Church and that they needed to say "the Church teaches that ..." and, if they were pressed, "well, I have to say that I believe ..., but I'm not the Church.  You have to make your own decision."  When I disagree with something my employer does, I will probably vent to my wife, depending on how it affects me.  I might discuss it at work, but you won't catch me going in front of a group as a designated representative and saying something contrary to the company line.  If they do something that I consider illegal or immoral, then yeah, I might alert the media, but I'm probably turning in my notice the same week.  When Fr. Whatshisname got up there, he was representing the Church and in fact, Christ.  If he disagrees with what the Church says, he should have free reign of conscience, but not of public action, or of plain disobedience.  Sometimes, priests just need to shut up.

Bringing home hardware

Today we went to downtown Dallas for the Matrix Challenge Crit.  Joseph and Emily both raced.  This is Emily's first weekend race ever.  She's done some Jr. races at the Wednesday night Crits in FW, but those are really short circuit races.  There isn't a corner on that course.  Today's course was all right angles in almost a figure eight.  They had only a few guys sign up for the Jr. Open so they threw that in with the young 'uns and they also had a 10-14 Girl's category.  Emily was the only entrant, so she has a foot-tall trophy to show for her efforts.  Joseph was up against 8 other guys, he got 4th, a real nice place.  He even won a prime for a set of really nice sunglasses.  Amazing place for him.  Especially considering he woke up this morning and couldn't fully extend his left knee.  I have no clue what's up with that, but I thought that he might be faking so I told him to tough it out.  He still can't put weight on it, but he can still spin so he rode fine.  Just no sprint, but he never needed it today.  Because I'm cheap, we took the train over to downtown big D and rode our bikes the last two miles and change to the race.  I thought that he would be able to work out whatever kinks he had in the knee in that slow ride.  The total fare was only eight bucks, which is less than what it would have cost in gas.  Plus we got to ride the train, which is an adventure in itself.  Even more, we were home by five.  I have been out of town off and on for the last few weekends for racing.  This is the first time in a while that we've raced and then been home the same day.  That in and of itself is a bonus beyond words.  I think I'm going upstairs to read a book.  A real book, with type on pages and everything.

Beauty, Subjectivism, and Liturgical Music

I posted on Fr. Rob's blog here. He's fairly well known in the blogosphere, and someone I hold in great esteem. I hope he doesn't find me or what I said uncharitable. I guess I just object to the idea that some specific things are, uhmmm, objective. Ooops. Didn't mean for it to come out quite like that.

It's National Ride Yer Bike to Work Day!

As part of National Ride Your Bike to Work Week, sandwiched into National Bike Month, today is National Ride Your Bike to Work Day. I'm one of two folks who do it ever at my office out of maybe 300-400 people here. It was a beautiful day. And of course, my front tire was flat. Unfortunately, one of my front dropouts was crimped in the time it was at the shop. That means that it's not fun to pull the wheel out. And the tire that I had on had a crack in it (it was old) and of course, it wasn't that easy to get off. So off to find a tire lever. And then patch the tube, put on a new tire, and then I was ready to ride. I got about a mile before I noticed something with my cleats. They felt like they were giving or stretching at the bottom of my pedal stroke. So I pulled over and sure enough, the left plate that holds the cleat on was cracked down the middle. I had to use my hand to yank my shoe out when I got here. Oh, and my phone that uses Bones in Motion to track all my miles? It has this bad habit of dying at random. I thought it needed a software upgrade, so I got that last week, but no, it still dies. Usually in my pocket. Like today. So now that I'm in this competition at work, most of this morning's miles don't count.
Yuck. It's like I have to just enjoy cycling for its own sake.

Almost had a terrific blow-out today.

A few months ago, I got a set of Mr. Tuffy tire liners. My Panaracer Stradius tires were fairly inexpensive and, with a very soft center, are prone to cuts. But they are rated up to 150 psi, which makes me and my 250 lb butt feel just a bit more safe out there. The tire liners go inside the tire between the tire and the tube. When I would inflate the tire up to 120-130 psi though, it felt like it was sliding a bit on turns. Yes, I think I was feeling the tire liner slide against the tire or the tube, I don't think I was imagining it. When I would pump it up to 140 or 145, where I normally had it, it felt fine. This morning I got out the bike to ride to work and noticed a small line in one sidewall of the tire, all the way around. They're red, but this line was clearly black with the threads of the sidewall showing. The only thing I can attribute it to was the additional thickness of the liner. Maybe if I had kept the tire pressure a bit lower I would have been OK. A quick tire change took care of it. Can you imagine what kind of catastrophic tire failure I could have had on the way to work? Nice. I'm going to check on the tire tonight, maybe I can still use it. Probably not. The thing was only $18 or so and I had spare new tires laying around so I'm not too upset. Glad I caught it in time. You have been warned.

Hagee is NOT a Hater!

So when John Hagee endorsed John McCain a while back, some Catholics really got upset. Hagee has previously said some things about the Church that are just not pleasant to hear. Mainly the issue comes with a You Tube video here. Feh. You can read all kinds of misunderstanding of Catholicism in it but it's not terribly overt. He also stated in a book, well, I can't say I've read it. But Bill Donahue quotes it as saying "In Hagee’s latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. ‘The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,’ he writes." (Google books doesn't show any previews available on the Internets, so I can't really check it.)
So then Donahue goes out and asks John McCain to tell Hagee he's bad and that he doesn't want to look bad so please shush up about all the endorsement stuff. Hagee fires back that he's not Anti-Catholic, he supports elderly nuns and all that. Then today the Catholic League publishes a letter from Hagee apologizing and saying "Them Catholics ain't Anti-Semites. That whole Whore of Babylon thing doesn't mean the Catholic Church, 'cos they'll all be gone bye-bye with the whole rapture thang." OK, it's not a direct quote. You can see the letter, complete with signature here. And Donahue makes a clear statement that "Hey! We're good now, K?" I just wonder how much of this was for McCain. As he's a Protestant, I think Hagee couldn't give a flying flip about what Bill Donahue thinks. But what the potential Pres? That might give him pause.

New clip-in shoes for the 10 year-old

OK, so the team spotted my 10 year-old some really nice SIDI shoes. Then they spotted my older son a team bike. So I turned around his bike and set it up for her this weekend and got her trying out shoes and pedals. For the non-cyclist folks, riders use special shoes with cleats that clip into pedals. They enable you to not only push down, but pull up on the pedals. They also enable you to push forward (like you're putting on boots) and pull through (like you're scraping mud off your shoe). But you have to learn to un-clip them, otherwise you fall down when you stop. We took off for a short ride up to the local community college. Along the way, we cut across a field and a parking lot. At the gravel in between, there was a bunch of sand. Sand is bad for skinny tires, especially when you are a gnat-weight, especially when you have very little experience with riding. Note the road rash on the knee in the picture. She's fine. She whined a bit at first (OK, quite a bit) but after a while she was fine. She eventually tried to attack her brother and I a couple of times (that's a cycling attack, it's legal, and encouraged). If she can harness that anger, she will go far in this sport.

The Triumph of Orthodoxy over Orthopraxy, Part II

Long overdue, I know. I have started and stopped more than once because I want to get this right and I find that I am doing more venting and ranting that right writing. Plus I'm getting very sensitive to the fact that my theology education ended after a whopping two undergrad courses at St. Mary's in San Antonio. One of which was nothing more than a Catholic version of Warm Fuzzies 101.

For proper disclosure, please note my previous post.
OK, let's be clear, orthodoxy ain't such a bad thing. It implies, in this context, right theology, true theology, or a pure belief. Without it, orthopraxy dissolves into "what feels right," or trial-and-error outcome. For instance orthodoxy is what vouchsafes for us that Scripture is true, inerrant, and the very Word of God, so this shouldn't be construed as a diatribe against dogma or doctrines. Rather it's about balance. Orthodoxy without orthopraxy becomes a dry religion, a Holy Algebra (Professor X referred to a "Jesus Logarithm" espoused by some Baptist seminary professors in a conversation a while back, so it's not just a Catholic phenomenon). Many folks accuse Catholicism of being a dead ritual instead of an experience with the Living God, and I think that they are seeing a flaw. Not to the degree of the accusation, but definitely a flaw.

In Catholic circles, I really see this in the way folks deal with teenagers. I can't say that I'm the expert that I used to think I was on Youth Culture, but I know better than to expect random kids at a Catholic Church to give a rat's patootie about Transubstantiation vs. Consubstantiation, how to pray the Angelus, or who the Theotokos refers to and how it defends against Nestorianism. And while all these things are important, they really are, they are all aspects of finer points of theology and history. None of them are vital for salvation. All of them lead adults to lament "But these kids don't know their Faith." Of course they don't. Why should they? Until they see that there's a value to them, there's no reason for them to invest themselves. Calculus is important as well, it's how we design wings that keep aircraft aloft and most kids don't know which side of the wing is the leading edge. Not unless you tell them that they have to design a wing to keep themselves aloft does calculus take on a life-changing dimension. Sometimes it's a matter of Catholicism being a cultural value instead of a living relationship with God. And for parents who have grown up "in the faith" but never invested themselves into the call that God has for them, never sensed what they were rescued from, there's little zeal.

I see it in many Catholic's attitudes toward Protestant ideas. When discussing Religious Education materials with folks as a Youth Minister, I was questioned over using Group Publishing, a Non-Denominational Christian Publisher. "That's not Catholic, can we do that?" While it's important to note that one's understanding and formation would be stunted if it were restricted to the Group Active curriculum (circa 1994), there was the understanding that the only place to find Authentically Catholic Theology of Any Sort is in something from a Catholic Publishing House. I know there's always a danger of a Catholic-Evangelical-Fundamentalist syncretism, it's something to look for, but when looking at what Group put out there vs. what certain Catholic publishing house put out at that time, it was no contest. Group had their act together. RCL, Silver Burdett Ginn, and Benziger (they're all the same house now) just didn't. Sadlier didn't. St. Mary's Press didn't. All of them had come from the wrong paradigm. They took a Catholic School text book and tried to shoe-horn it into a one-hour per week format. It still ends up being a school experience. It rarely ends up being life-changing. Kids might learn the trappings and accoutrement of faith, but somehow meeting the Author of Faith was always something left for those "primary catechists," or, as I like to call them, "parents. " Now I've been out of YM and RE for a while so to be fair, maybe stuff has changed a bit. I still doubt it. Something that was getting traction when I was leaving YM was the idea that "Our curriculum is now REALLY teaching the Catechism, better than yours, in fact." And while they could now link back their theology to specific paragraphs in the Catechism, they still had a sucky product. It was based around the idea of kids getting together and reading. "How does that make you feel?" "Uhhh, like I'm in school." Orthodoxy was catered to, Orthopraxy is ignored.

Side note -- To create a successful program, you don't have to water anything down, you don't have to make it X-TREME!!!! You just have to make it authentic, authentic to the truths of Faith, and authentic to your own story and to the story of everyone involved. Don't use a book, if you can. If you need to, send them home with a book, and a good one at that.(If that sounds a bit like Thomas Groome, that's probably true to form, although his textbooks fell into the same trap and he's a bit of a nutter Catholic. A case for Orthopraxy screaming for Orthodoxy if you ask me.)

Autism: It's your Mom's fault.

Austim linked to parent's schizophrenia, depression, personality disorders.

The oldest stereotype in Psychology is, "It's all you mother's fault." They used to blame ADD on "infant head trauma." Yeah, your mom dropped you on your head when you were a baby, it's her fault. "Tell me about yur mudder," in a thick German accent is about as stereotypical psycho-babble as you can get. Not that they ain't right on this, just that Autism technically requires a diagnosis at a young age (like < 3?). So that means that when parents are asking "Why is this happening to our child," doctors are going to say "Well, tell me about your depression/personality disorder. Do you hear voices in your head? Because this Autism, it's all your fault."