i prefer pi

As I left Albuquerque on Wednesday morning, Clare recommended that I check out El Morro National Monument. I wasn’t that interested initially, but I looked at the atlas and it wasn’t too far out of the way, so I headed south on Highway 53 just past Grants, New Mexico.

It had snowed the night before (I caught a little bit of it on the way into Albuquerque), and it was just barely above freezing, so there was still a dusting of snow on the fields and scrub and mountains as I headed up. I’d always heard that there was skiing to be done in New Mexico, but I think that in the back of my mind, New Mexico and Arizona had always been desert states covered with sand and dunes and copies of Monument Valley. In reality (at this time of the year, at least), it’s among the most beautiful parts of the country that I’ve ever seen. I passed through half a dozen National Forests (at least) along my trip, and if you’re ever heading this way, El Malpais and Cibola are not to be missed.

I crossed the Continental Divide at 7,882 feet, marking the separation point at which water flows west to the Pacific or east to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico — the real Gateway to the West.

El Morro is just a little way beyond the Divide. I pulled off, pulled my hiking boots on, pulled my tripod out of its box, and went in. I decided to Support [My] National Parks, so I bought a National Parks Pass, because I’m going to hit at least eight along the way. Unfortunately, the trail up on top of the mesa was closed due to the snow and ice, but the path around the base where all of the inscriptions are was easily traversible.

The first thing that I noticed once I got up to it was how gloriously silent it was. I was the only one there for most of the time, and the highway is far away and mostly blocked by the monument. It’s so still that you can hear birds flying overhead — not just the flapping of wings, but you can actually hear the feathers ruffling as the wing cuts through the air. I saw prints in the snow, and I could hear things moving about in the brush, but I never actually saw any of the rabbits or small foxes moving around.

El Morro is a monolith with a deep pool of water, a scarcity in the middle of the arid mountains, which drew Native Americans, travellers, and emigrants, many of whom left their mark in the sandstone rock face. There are inscriptions from the Civil War, the Forty-niners, early western surveyors, the Mission builders, and conquistadors dating as far back as 1605 (whoop), and then there are ancient Puebloan petroglyphs going back much farther. Many of them are very ornate and very well-preserved — I’m surprised that a rock that can be carved so easily hasn’t have given them up to the erosion of wind and rain and snow long ago.

After taking an hour and a half or so at El Morro, I jumped back into the car and headed back up to I-40, listening to Mark Driscoll, the senior pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, exposit on the life of Abraham. I could rave about Mars Hill and the teaching there forever, so I’ll leave it at this: each week, Mark and the other teachers give exegesis, preaching through books of the Bible, pointing to Jesus on every page, usually for an hour or more. Five thousand come every week and nearly a million listen each year online. They don’t dodge the parts of scripture that your pastor would usually leave out of his sermons, they don’t tell you what you want to hear, and they don’t boil it down to three points with a nice alliteration scheme. I promise you that if you check it out, love it or hate it, you won’t be bored. Back to my trip:

I got to Petrified Forest National Park about an hour before they closed, so I didn’t really have time to do much more than drive through. While I was there, I discovered that the lower bound on operating temperatures for my camera was somewhere around 35 degrees Fahrenheit — autofocus and everything else would function, but the shutter itself wouldn’t snap — so I just took in the sights and didn’t take many photos.

If you ever find yourself travelling south on Arizona 77, heading toward Phoenix, make sure that you stop in Snowflake at the Trapper’s Café and have the apple pie. Then make sure that you get back in your car, turn around, and drive back up to the Interstate, because the shorter distance isn’t worth your while, especially at night. It’s a solid hour and a half of winding turns, elbows, switchbacks, halfbacks, quarterbacks, and every other kind of back you can think of, all just to shave 15 minutes off of your trip. I can’t really complain, though, because at one point I pulled off the side of the road at a turnaround, cut my lights and my engine, and looked at the frozen stars. High elevation, no city lights and no moon, cold air, and low pollution — it might have been the starriest night sky I’ve seen since that one on El Cototé in the middle of the Amazon basin in Bolivia six and a half years ago. On second thought, it’s a vista worth the drive.

Well, I didn’t run into traffic leaving Dallas, but that’s because I left at a quarter ’til noon. Oops.

My last forty-eight hours in forty-eight words:

Headed northwest out of DFW on 287; took that to Amarillo. Sky was on fire. Hooked west on I-40; rode into Albuquerque in snow flurry; crashed on Clare’s couch. Left Wednesday morning, took a detour on Highway 53 to see El Morro. Hiked, took photos, became a National

Okay, that was silly to even try. The drive to Albuquerque was uneventful, with the exception of a twenty-minute snow flurry and me nearly falling asleep at the wheel — I stopped and rested and got there a bit late but more than a bit alive. A lot of the small towns along 287 are great — if you ever head that way, be sure to catch Harrold and Claude and the one where the liquor store on the town square is bigger than City Hall.

There was one perfect photographic moment that evening. I’d been heading toward a storm front since about 3:00 that afternoon, and there was heavy cloud cover by about 4:30. They didn’t extend to the horizon, however, so there was a band of sky in the west growing golder and redder as the sun sank. I’d pulled off a few times to take photos of the scenery, and I’d just gotten back into the car after one such stop when I got a voicemail from my Aunt. I got back on the road and called her back, and while I was waiting for the call to go through, I looked to my right and saw what was perhaps the most breathtaking Texas scene ever. The sun had just dropped into view in the west, so off to the east, the gently rolling west Texas hills were golden, with deep purple clouds and sky above, a blood-red monolith thrusting up into the background, and the blue water of an irrigation runoff stream cutting through and reflecting everything. I pulled over and stopped, but by the time I got off the phone and got out to take a photo, the sun had dipped behind another cloud, and the light was gone — it couldn’t have lasted more than 90 seconds altogether. Since I’ll never have that shot again, I’ll leave you with this quick one from the Arizona road-side.

I’m not dead gone yet. Errands to run today and a good night’s rest, then I’ll be on the road early tomorrow morning (in time to beat the traffic out of Dallas). I’m aiming for a longer first day (getting as far as El Paso or Albuquerque), and a more leisurely pace toward Phoenix after that point.

In the meantime, though, I’m collecting mailing addresses, so if you’d like a postcard, send me yours.

I’ve been studying Genesis, “the book of beginnings,” lately, and I pored over the first part of the account of Noah and the Flood (Genesis 6:5 - 8:22). What a profound and profoundly disturbing passage. It is inconceivable that we should make up saccharine songs about this event and teach them to our children.

People should justly read this passage and say “What kind of a god is this?”

Let’s fast-forward. Our grandparents are wasting now or already in their grave. Our parents die. I die. You die. We have children and they die. We care for pets and plants and they die. By the Lord’s grace we have life and time and breath and joy during our living days, but everyone dies. In the newspaper’s obituary section today there is a list of people who died — there was one yestreday, there will be one tomorrow, and there are hundreds, thousands, millions of these lists in every newspaper in every city in the world, and we don’t care because it’s a few at a time.

We console ourselves in the small numbers and the distance and desperately try to forget that these were real people, that this is our fate, that our days are finite and numbered and small. We change the channel when the news talks about coal miners or Darfur or Turkey. We take refuge in our families and in our iPods and in our President and in our armed forces and our books and in our cookware and in our cable news network. And at times, the Lord removes His protection and ordains that Today There Will Be Many, and we have a complete and utter breakdown. Twelve on November 18, 1999. Three thousand on September 11, 2001. Three-hundred thousand in a Tsunami. Six Million. In this Flood, everyone’s day came.

Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.

Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth.

The elderly who couldn’t flee. Young men waiting to be married and aching to be with their beloved. Mothers who climbed with their children onto the roofs of their houses, hoping, desperately praying that the waters would stop rising. People, trusting in their strength, fleeing into the mountains, climbing with bloodied hands and bloodied feet; people, trusting in their strength, clinging to debris; people, trusting in their strength, until their strength gives out, until their last desperate gasp of air, until their life is over. Everyone dies.

Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

But.

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

Why? Why Noah? I have this tendency to look at the world and separate it into two camps: the Good people and the Bad people. There’s an equal temptation to look at the Bible and say “Oh, Noah was a righteous man; I’m like him and not like everyone else.” This notion is utterly unfounded. There are no Good people; there are only Bad people.

I am Cain — I have brought offerings to God with unbelief in my heart; I have been jealous and reacted with violence; I have allowed frustration to drive me to the dark point of desiring that someone were dead. I am Lamech — I have lusted for and desired to have more women than I think I can count; I have tried to dominate and control when I should have led with humility; I have pride in myself and my own ability to take care of myself. I am everyone who died in the Flood.

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”

But.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

Before Noah was a righteous man, the Lord had grace upon him and showed him favor. Before Abram’s faith was “credited to him as righteousness,” the Lord had grace upon him and showed him favor. Before we could have any relationship with the Lord, the Lord had grace upon us and showed us favor.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That’s what kind of a God this is.

What a profound and a profoundly disturbing passage.

Taken from actual conversations!

So… what’s going on?
Not much. You?

Why haven’t I seen you in class/church/lab/the dorm?
I haven’t been there. I moved out of A&M and withdrew from my graduate program in December in preparation for moving to Seattle, taking a full-time job with Microsoft, and finishing my Master’s degree in computational linguistics at University of Washington.

Why are you leaving?
This is a pretty long answer, but the short of it is that I loved Seattle and the work that I did there this past summer, I realized after getting into this semester that A&M wasn’t the place where I wanted to finish my Master’s, and I came to the realization that it was time for a change.

Have you ever met Bill Gates?
Yes, twice — he has graduating interns over for dinner at his mansion during the summer. I’ve asked him a few questions and shaken his hand. He’s very personable and humble and expresses a strong desire for social justice.

When are you leaving?
If all goes well, I’d like to shove off on Tuesday, but I have a lot of flex time, so I’m not in a complete rush.

Are you taking all of your Star Wars stuff with you?
No! If you want something, let me know.

Wait, do you even have a car?
I’m planning on hitchhiking my way up there, actually.

No way.
Yeah, you’re right. I’m a pedestrian no longer — I bought a silver 2000 Honda Civic yesterday.

What are you going to see?
Welll… I’m not planning too much, but the skeleton is to head west to Phoenix, go northwestish a bit more to get to LA, then head north until I get to Portland, and swing around to Seattle. Have any suggestions? I’m checking out websites and books &c.

Do you want me to ask if you can stay with my cousin in [somewhere]?
Please! Free lodging is great — I’m housetrained, and a spot of floor is all that I require.

Can you send me a postcard?
I’d love to. Send me your mailing address (and if you have a preferred originating locale), and I’ll hook you up.

What’s your mailing address?
I don’t have one for Seattle yet, but my school address is forwarded to me right now, and I’ll update it (and you) when I get up there. It is:

Caleb Bell
P.O. Box 6584
College Station, TX 77844

What’s your road trip music? C’mon, you have to have some bitchin’ tunes.
Well, I think that the Forrest Gump soundtrack will get me about an hour or two down the road, and then I have the complete Counting Crows collection (picked them all up at the Half Price Books mothership in north Dallas). For old times’ sake*, I’ll have to put the first Jars of Clay album on repeat somewhere between Van Horn and El Paso. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess what the iPod will serve up. I have some audiobooks from Audible from this past summer that I haven’t listened to yet, and then I have about 13 days worth of sermons, lectures, and presentations that I haven’t listened to yet — I don’t think that I’m going to run out any time soon. Got any suggestions?

What are you going to be doing for Microsoft?
I’m joining a group working on a product called “Jolt.” My official title will be “Software Design Engineer in Test,” or “SDET” or “Test” for short — it’s the position that I had during the previous two summers when I worked on DirectX and Avalon.

What is Jolt?
(For computer people) This past summer, I worked on a project whose working name was “Avalon” (now called the Windows Presentation Foundation, or WPF for short). It is the presentation (UI) side of WinFX, the new Windows API, running on the new version of the .NET framework — usually, I tell people that it’s “the look-and-feel (or UI) for the next generation of Windows programs.” One feature of Avalon/WPF supports things called “web browser applications” (WBA), which have the rich UI experience but can be run and launched from within a web browser. Unfortunately, “web browser” meant “Internet Explorer on Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2,” and there wasn’t so much “reach” with those “rich” applications. Therefore, there’s a subset of Avalon being developed to run on unmanaged code (i.e. .NET framework not required), so that designers and developers can create rich applications for the web and know that they’re usable on other platforms. They demoed a prototype version of this on OSX (Macs) at the PDC in the fall, so yes, this does work.

(For people who don’t really care ) It’s a lot like Macromedia’s Flash product.

Are you really going to be working on Windows Longhorn?
No! I refuse! Actually, “Longhorn” was just the codename for the new version of Windows; the actual product is named “Windows Vista.”

Whaaat?
Seriously. I think it’s a pretty cool name.

Can you get me a (discount on a)[n XBOX] 360?
No, but I’ll let you in on a secret — if you go to Best Buy and tell them that you know a guy who works for Microsoft and you have $400 to give them, they’ll usually let you have one.

What are you making?
Computer software?

No, like salary?
It’s better than flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Do you know anyone up there?
Yeah, I have a few contacts from my time up there — I know two or three full-time guys from both work and church this past summer, I have several connections at church, and I think that there are a dozen or so former interns who I knew who are now (or soon will be) full-time employees. My friend Jacob from school is planning on starting up there this summer, and I know one person from school who lives across the Sound.

You have a church?
Well, it’s not my church, but I think that I’ll probably join Mars Hill Church, where I was involved this past summer. I’m very excited about the prospect of getting involved with the folks there again.

I heard that Seattle is really rainy/expensive/liberal/beautiful.
Absolutely. On an average year, Dallas receives more inches of rain per year than Seattle does, but Seattle has vastly more rainy days per year — I’m guessing that this year, however, won’t be like average. I heard that someone had recently rated it the second most-overpriced city in America. It’s definitely different than “Buckle-of-the-Bible-Belt” central Texas, which makes me really glad (this deserves another entry). You know me, though — bleeding-heart liberal, quasi-socialist, never voted a Republican for President, Green party, etc.

Seattle and the Pacific Northwest (this deserves a new paragraph) is absolutely the most beautiful area of the country that I’ve ever seen. People don’t put up with 7 months of rainy weather for nothing.

Can I visit sometime? Can you put me up?
Give me enough advance notice, and I’ll do whatever I can. Just try to wait a few weeks.

What is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?
Beats me. Ask Google.

Are you scared?
A bit.

Are you nervous?
A bit.

Are you excited?
Definitely.

Are you sad?
A bit.

So… am I ever going to see you again?
In the beginning, I always answered this question with “Of course!” but it’s entirely likely that we won’t cross paths again. I know that I’ll be back in townish for Eric’s wedding the weekend of June 10th, and Sarah-Jean’s graduation in August, and probably next Christmas-time. I’ll miss you, and cheer up: we’ll always have Paris Facebook.

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Keep sending me your questions, and I will keep making fun of you.

* I went on a work trip to El Paso and Juarez with my church youth group once during high school. The van only had a tape player, and the only tape that we had was Jars of Clay’s self-titled album. I probably heard that thing somewhere north of thirty times during that trip.

The 60GB iPod can store, playback, and view compressed copies of every CD I own at reasonable bitrates (>=192kbps) and all of the other audio material that I’ve acquired, along with every photo I’ve taken with a digital camera in the last five years at full resolution, the second seasons of Lost and Battlestar Galactica and a cornucopia of other TV shows, films, and movies, plus my conglomerated contact list, important files and documents, and still have empty space equivalent to fourteen times that of the hard drive in our first family computer (1.2GB, ca. 1997).

Amazing.

“Which way did you come in off of?”

I’ve been thinking about this sentence (not non-stop, but every so often) since I heard it a few weeks ago, marvelling at the fact that there were not one, not even two, but three dangling prepositions at the end, yet it still conveys a rational thought. Hardcore English constructionists can stick that in their pipe and smoke it.

Now, to rectify it.

1. Of which way did you come in off?
2. Off of which way did you come in?
3. Which way did you come in?
4. In which way did you come?
5. From which way did you enter?
6. Where did you enter?

1 & 2 are right out. I’m not sure about 3, but rearranging it to 4 amplifies the ambiguity inherent to the word “way” in this context. 6 is my favorite, but requires inference on the part of the speaker to derive the needed information, so I’ll go with 5. Note that the questioner really wanted the name of a street, but “way” can denote either “street” or “direction” (or “manner”, in the case of 3) — if she got a direction, more inference is required.

So now it’s cold again?

GMail’s “sponsored links” (ads) sidebar is interesting sometimes. From the recent weekly RUF e-mail:

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Sarah-Jean and I went to the Stars game tonight, and when we pulled out to leave, I assured her that I knew how to get home. And I did, mostly — get on I-35E, head south to I-20, west into Duncanville, etc. It’s the same route I’ve taken a hundred times. The only problem was with that first bit — “get on I-35E” — and the mess of new construction going up around the American Airlines center. After driving around for half an hour and ducking and dodging around both 35 and 75 and not finding an entry for either one, I gave up, paid $0.75 to get onto the Tollway, drove a mile, and exited onto I-35. Frustration! There ought to be signs at every intersection that point you toward the nearest free highway (there were plenty of directions to the tollway).