Topock, AZ

Topock is a marina/restaurant located just north of where I-40 crosses the Colorado River.  Topock Gorge, a popular kayaking run, is the stretch of river that runs southward from that intersection, toward Lake Havasu City.  Yesterday, 7 of us (5 in pedal kayaks, 2 in a canoe) did the 15 mile trip: Terry & Lisa, Louise, Roger & Lynn, Trish & I.  A big thank you to Tom & Nancy for loaning us their kayaks and shuttling the vehicles back to Castle Rock, where our journey ended:

Preparing to launch shortly after dawn. 

It was a chilly 56 degrees when we started but it warmed up nicely by mid morning.

Roger in the men's room at Topock Marina.  

It's always a good idea to take care of business before starting a long kayak trip.

The Bridges of Mohave County.  

Natural gas pipeline in distance, I-40 bridge in middle, railroad bridge above.

I-40 in this area used to be Historic Route 66.

    

Smooth water makes for great reflection pix.

Twas quite the enjoyable adventure.  No one drowned, no one flipped their 'yak, no one fell flat on his/her face upon exiting the conveyance.  It was a near thing though, at least for me.  It takes a few moments to get your land legs back after several hours of pedaling,
need to e-a-s-e into it. 

Bless Me, Father.....

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned."  Even folks not into Catholicism may recognize those words, due to all the movies and TV serials that showed confessional scenes.  In case you don't recognize them, they are the first words spoken by penitent to priest when going to confession.  Then, the confessor continues to speak, stating how long it's been since the last confession and providing a list of sins (and number of occurrences) committed in the interim.

Sins come in 2 flavors: venial and mortal.  Mortal sins are nasty: murder, rape, adultery and such.  If you die prior to confessing a mortal sin, you're going straight to hell.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.  Go.  To.  Hell!

Venial sins are less serious.  If you die prior to confessing them, you have to spend a few decades in purgatory before going to heaven.  No biggie, right?  Purgatory may be cooler than hell but nobody knows.  Purgatory may have an early release policy for good behavior but again, nobody knows.

The above is background only.  I wanted to bring readers up to speed before getting into the meat of it, which is this: how do Catholics keep track of their sins?  Do they carry logbooks and pencils at all times, entering tick marks every time they swear or lie or, God forbid, have an impure thought?

I will now confess how I went about it.  Just prior to entering the confessional, I'd think up a list of sins (all venial of course) and number of occurrences.  Realizing the priest most likely recognized my voice, I would be creative: delete an old sin, add a new one, vary the number of occurrences.

One aspect of confession always bothered me: murderers and criminals and other scumbags go straight to heaven if they confess just before they die.  However, if I died with one itty-bitty lie that wasn't confessed - with nary a mortal sin on the score card - I'm going to cook in purgatory for God knows how long.  That's a miscarriage of justice if ever there was one.

Anyway, I want to hear from others who were raised Catholic: did you do what I did when you went to confession, make up a plausible list of infractions?

FYI: I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, went to church every morning when I was in grade school, studied bible history and catechism.  But, it didn't stick.  Religion isn't my thing.

Finally, one more confession: I grossly understated the number of times I had impure thoughts in my adolescent years.  In my defense, the priest was quite old and I feared he'd have a stroke if I dropped the bomb: impure thoughts, 2,138 occurrences.  Well, gees, it had been a whole week since my last confession!  In retrospect, I could have passed it off as one really l-o-n-g thought, or even 7 not-that-long thoughts.

Pedal Kayak

This is not your mama's kayak.  It's not my kayak, either: our friend Lisa let us borrow hers while she was out of town.  Trish owns 2 kayaks, but seldom uses her older, paddle type now that she has the pedal-driven model.  I wanted to test drive the pedal type; thanks for the loan of it, Lisa.

The pedal/fin mechanism slips through the oval hole in the hull, and extends 1' into the water.  As you pedal, the fins move in a scissor-like fashion, propelling the kayak.  These are made by Hobie and are well designed.  Trish and several of our friends bought these in the last 2-3 years.

The fleet.  Inflatable models front and rear.  Hard shell models in the middle.  There are other models, too, including one designed for fishing that has all kinds of bells and whistles.  Friends David and Elaine joined us for a couple of outings; they have the inflatables.

Preparing to launch, Castle Rock in background.

The kayaks have their own wheels, very handy.

The view from the bridge.

Awesome pair of legs, huh?

Lisa, David and Trish pedaling northward from Castle Rock on Lake Havasu.  

Great horned owls, swallows and other birds nest in the rocks.

Emerging from a short, narrow tunnel that's only navigable when the Lake is high, as it is now.  It's still a tight fit, barely wider than the kayak, takes some maneuvering - but no big deal really.

David and I, north of Castle Rock.  The paddles are rarely used but are helpful if you get hung up or need to push yourself away from an obstacle.  The wheels go along for the ride.

Water,Water, Everywhere!

It was a hot July afternoon in 1954 at our farm in northern Minnesota.  Dad was in town, Mom was taking a nap and our other siblings were nowhere in sight.

We had a well that supplied water to the house, a holding tank in the barn, and a rectangular concrete stock tank.  The tank was large, 8' x 12', and 30" deep, held about 1400 gallons.  When the milk cows were brought in from the pasture each afternoon, they'd beeline it to that tank and drink their fill, leaving about 6" of water in the tank.  We had to make sure the tank was full before the cows came home.

Truthfully, I don't recall.  But, if placed on the witness stand I would have sworn on a stack of bibles, that: he started it.  Yep, the classic, time-tested, I'm-pure-as-the-driven-snow, testimony when a pair of siblings get into trouble.  As it turned out, it was a moot point.

I was 9, Gerry 3 years older.  Did I mention that he started it?  Yeah, okay.  We were standing beside the tank and when I looked away, Gerry cupped his hand, reached down into the tank and splashed cold water at me.  I quickly returned the favor and the conflict escalated rapidly from there.

Fast forward an hour.  The tank is nearly empty.  The entire yard looks like a heavy downpour had just passed through.  Gerry and I, both soaked to the skin, both armed with full pails of water and huge grins, are circling each other like prizefighters maneuvering for a good knockout punch.

And then, disaster struck: Dad pulled into the yard in his pickup.  Gerry and I beat a hasty retreat to the tank, dumped the buckets and tried to look penitent.  Didn't even bother with the innocent look, the evidence of our misdeeds, the water soaked yard, being all too obvious.  To no avail: we both got whacked, no opportunity whatsoever to declare 'he started it.'  Bummer!

Later, Dad recalled the incident with good humor and greatly enjoyed telling the story, said he saw water flying above the garage roof when he turned into the driveway, a quarter mile away.  He may have been exaggerating just a little.  Anyway, that water fight is one of my fondest childhood memories.  Damn, that was great fun!

Thermocline

People who know about thermoclines include submariners, serious fishermen* and readers of contemporary naval combat novels.  I fall into the latter category.

I'm fascinated by novels and movies about submarines and the deadly, 3-dimensional game of hide n seek they play.  Thermoclines play a large role in those games because they mess up the sonar used to locate and track other vessels.

The wavy dotted line is the thermocline.  

Radiated noise bounces when it hits the thermocline, and can only pass through

 it if at or near a 90 degree angle.  So, the destroyer can't get a fix on the sub unless the two are directly above/below each other.

Thermocline definition: a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid (e.g. water, such as an ocean or lake, or air, such as an atmosphere) in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below.  At sea, the thermocline is typically about 300 feet below the surface, warmer water above, cooler water below.  It's much higher in freshwater lakes that are 30+ feet deep.

Serious fishermen know about them because fish like to hang out in waters of a certain temperature, and those temps are typically above the thermocline.  They - the fishermen, not the fish - use depth finders to locate the transition layer.

*For several years I was a not-so-serious fisherman.  Perfect weather, chores all done, hook up the boat, tow it down to the marina, launch, motor out to where the fish are rumored to be, drop anchor, hook some bizarre-looking piece of hardware onto my line, open a beer, fire up a cigar, sit back and enjoy life.  Then, 2-3 hours later, head back to the barn, stop at Safeway and buy fish - if I really wanted fish for dinner.

Had I known about thermoclines, I may have actually caught a few fish.  Or not.  In retrospect, I was more of a boater than a fisher, just enjoyed being out on the water. 



    

Jesus H Christ

Now, don't get your panties in a bunch, you Christian folk.  I'm not swearing.  I'm not belittling.  I am simply reporting.  This question has been niggling around in the back of my mind for quite some time and I finally decided it was time to find an answer.  Actually, there are 2 questions:
1.  Did JC have a middle name that started with H?
2.  If not, where did the H come from?
I got online, checked several sources, and here's what I came up with.

The answer to the first question is most certainly 'no.'  I couldn't find any evidence or theories that His middle name was Huey or Hank or Hymie or any name starting with H - nor any name, period.

There is no definitive answer to the second question.  There are, as you can imagine, several theories though, some quite interesting.  Here are 3 of them:

1.  The Holy Monogram, ever heard of it?  I never heard it called that, but have seen it numerous times and you probably have, also.  It's a Christogram, a favored symbol in some Christian faiths, is often found on printed materials and vestments and other paraphernalia.  Here's a picture of it:

IHS comes from the Greek name for Jesus, the first 3 letters of which are iota-eta-sigma.

Sometimes the Christogram is seen with J replacing I, and C replacing S, hence JHC.  So, easy to see how H was considered to be a part of Jesus' name.  I heard somewhere that Catholics believe the Christogram means Jesus Holy Savior.  Anyway, this theory is the most credible.

2.  Another theory is that the H stands for Harold, and originated in The Lord's Prayer (The Our Father).  Most folks were illiterate in Jesus' day, so prayers were passed along verbally instead of in writing.  Apparently, many folks misheard the phrase "hallowed be thy name", thought they were hearing "Harold be thy name."  No, I did NOT make that up!

3.  Last, and in my view, least, is the term 'haploid.'  It means having half the chromosomes normally found in a given organism.  Jesus allegedly had no biological father, so technically he was a haploid.  Jesus Haploid Christ?  Give me a break!  Who the H came up with that one?

Lick it up!

Dad was Irish.  It's rumored that folks of the Irish persuasion have quick tempers.  I'm here to tell you, in Dad's case it was no rumor.  Look up 'hair trigger' in the dictionary and you'll see his portrait there - eyes staring straight at you, wearing an expression that makes you think I don't want to mess with that guy.  He has another portrait there, too, beside the word 'impatient.'

In my early years, I was terrified of the man, as were my 7 older siblings.  No rod was spared, no child was spoiled.  It may be that by the time I came along, the hair trigger had become slightly less hairy, worn down by time and the rigors of coping with the first 7 kids.  Can't say one way or the other.  Can say it was still hairy enough to make me pee my pants - which, I actually did.  Once.

Mealtime was generally enjoyable, more so if you were seated on the far side of the table, out of  Dad's reach.  If his temper flared up, you got whacked, no matter where you were - but being further away felt safer.  The older kids got the best seats of course.  The younger you were, the closer to Dad you sat, and since I was the youngest, I was stuck in the pole position for the duration.  Lucky me.

Mealtime was definitely not enjoyable if you spilled something, especially milk.  Dad was all over it.  I swear: the milk from the tipped glass would still be flying through the air, hadn't even touched the table yet, and Dad would roar, "Lick it up!"  And, lick it up we did.

Ah yes, just can't beat those warm, fuzzy memories of the good 'ol days.  Truthfully, I do have to grin when I think back on the lick-it-up days of my youth.  Well.......some of them, anyway.