The Nighttime is the Right Time.

I love 4 am. It's just about the deadest part of the morning. Most of the late-nighters have called it quits, and most of the early risers aren't quite out on the road yet. There's always someone going somewhere, but from my window and the masterful view it commands of two freeways and a highway, I can see the cars are sparse. I was standing on my balcony just now, imagining the night was mine. I seemed to be the only one awake, why not take it? I was in the midst of envisioning my armies of the night stretched out before me when an actual denizen of the night came trotting into view. A coyote was daring the bright lights of civilization to hunt in the 50 foot strip of mostly unspoiled land just outside my window. He was hunting in kind of an S-pattern, stopping every now and then to dig something up and crunch it. But he (or she) was crunching pretty loud for an animal that's supposed to be a hunter. Anyway, the cat came out on the porch to see what was up and I shooed him inside, instantly filled with visions of him leaping off the porch to Coyote Doom. I think he's smart enough not to jump off, but I live a life of paranoia. Anyway, he eventually wound his way right in front of me, dared to jump into a close patch of rocks, eat something and dash out. He/she/it was cute in a "I'll savage your hamstrings" kind of way. Not much point to this post, just sharing the experience. Also, I hope to win the award for "best post between 4 and 5 am" with this one. Fingers crossed.

While I'm at it . . .

Okay, here's another un-PC comment, if you're Adventist. In the midst of the mild to serious spiritual crises in which I find myself, there is one thing that decidedly doesn't help me. The prophet of our church was hit in the head by a rock, and proceeded to have visions afterward. Hit in the head, followed by visions. If I recall correctly, this was framed as her succeeding with God's help despite the problems caused by the rock injury and then being God's instrument as his prophet and receiving his visions. Looking at it today, I have a hard time as seeing the rock injury and the visions as an un-related thing. Why didn't that ever come up when we were younger? I suppose it's a matter of greater faith to believe the visions were real rather than rock-inspired, but you have to admit, a compelling case could be made that there were no paranormal explanations needed. Of course, I'm no doctor, so I don't know if head trauma can lead directly to hallucinations years later, but it seems well within the realm of possibility. Am I remembering this wrong? I admit it's been a while since I thought about the story.

Two pluses help me here. One, while I heard a lot of EGW talk privately, church activities still seemed to be largely Bible-based. Which I approve of. If we idolized her a bit more it would be harder to swallow. Second, I actually like some of EGW's books, especially the ones she wrote later in life, because I believe she achieved some better enlightenment and became more mellow and far less strident. She may have postulated that black people came from ancestors and monkeys mating or some garbage, and tried a little too hard to make science fit the genesis accounts, but I'm willing to forgive that as the sins of a mildly ignorant and dogmatic youth. I'd like to think that as she aged she realized some of her past beliefs were some form of bullshit.

WTFWJD?

Come on, you know that's funny.

Kind of like Heaven . . .

gondola2
Originally uploaded by hbot3000.

. . . but the parking is terrible.

Riding the heavenly gondola is one of my favorite things to do at Tahoe. I got some nice pictures at the top. Josh and Lupita and I went up. We even saw a glider get towed up to a high altitude and released while we were there. It was pretty keen. Parking, driving around, and interacting with the hordes of people that Tahoe is currently ill-equipped to accomodate remains one of my least favorite things to do.