Birthdays

August 15 is an interesting day for three people I know (and it shares this particular distinction with a day in May). On this day in August three people I know have their birthday.

One reason this is interesting to me is due to the Birthday Paradox. Essentially this paradox states that in a group of 23 random people there is a probability of greater than 0.5 that two of them share a birthday. Yesterday three people I know shared a birthday. I know these three people are not a random grouping of people and the three are taken out of a group much larger than 23 but I find it intriguing when mathematics creeps into my day to day life.

I am also a dork.

For Those Keeping Track At Home

For all of my many faithful readers (you seven know who I’m talking about) may have noticed a change in the title of this blog. From my blogs inception it was titled “I Think I’ll Try That.” It was a fun title and it gave the blog a fun premise.

Over the years I’ve blogged under that title I realized a few things about myself.

1. I am an inherently curious person and will always continue to try new things; it’s one of the primary means that I engage the world. So having a blog for the express purpose to prompt me to try new things seems a bit redundant.
2. As I’ve grown a bit of my pretension (just a bit) has begun to leave me so I have begun to feel the need to promote myself wane. This maturing has also found me thinking of myself less as an individual and seeing myself more as a part of a community.
3. Because of this I’ve begun to embrace my roots more. Specifically myself as a Sharpe.

For all intensive purposes this blog will look the same. I’ll write something about my hiking trips and the books I read. Occasionally I’ll mention movies and records. I guess my foundational point of view has changed and with that comes a change in name.

Pepper

The last few weeks (and for one more) I’ve been taking care of my friend’s dog Pepper.

Growing up my family always had animals running around the two acres. First I remember the dogs (Sailor, PJ, and Spot) and chickens and then the plethora of cats (my favorite was Digger). After a puppy died once PJ left us my father did not want any more dogs. He grew very attached to them and did not want to lose another. Even still I’ve always wondered why people have dogs.

Life these few weeks taking care of Pepper have been entertaining, to say the least. This morning I woke up around 5 to the sounds of Pepper’s leash bumping up against the wall on the other side of my bed. I’m not sure why he was climbing behind the couch but I took it to mean he needed to do his business. So I let him outside.

Within a few minutes I heard Pepper barking, at 5 AM this morning, so I ran outside and whistled for him. I could hear him but not see him. Finally I looked up and he was on the deck! I finally got him down and brought him in. Soon we both fell back asleep.

In the midst of this, and other silliness, I have actually grown attached to the dog. It’s nice to let him in and pet him as I’m winding down in the evening watching television. Even though he’s not a person it’s something that likes me.

I know he only likes me because I feed him. Even still it’s nice and I think I’m beginning to understand why people own dogs.

He's in his bed!

Reasons to Believe

Earlier this year I attended a film titled A Purple State of Mind by two Davidson alumni whose lives intersected in college, diverged and then came together again at a class reunion. One became entered Christianity and the other left the faith. Reasons to Believe is authored by the gentleman that left Christianity.

Through this book he explores American Christianity by criss-crossing the nation and spending time in different Churches and visiting with various believers. In it he presents many reasons to believe in both Christianity and his own beliefs.

I always enjoy reading memoirs. Frederick Buechner’s memoirs were the first I enjoyed and are among the greatest books I have read. Because of that I continue to read them with the hope that I will be able to see myself in their story.

Some of the ways I see myself in Marks’ story are in the ways he encountered the faith during his research. The most meaningful ways I have experienced faith have come in unexpected ways. From a random friend unknowingly visiting me in the hospital to an unsolicited phone call these small things point me to a more thankful faith.

Marks’ think of these as either grace or coincidences. I think of them as grace.

Summer’s Slipping Away…As Usual

My time off of from work this summer is flying by at a pace a little quicker than it should but it always seems to behave in that manner.  Most summers I find some work to do which keeps many of my week days busy but this summer I am only homeschooling one student (and that doesn’t begin for another week).  This is due to my little injury.

Back in March I left a forty mile hike along the Appalachian Trail after two days because of numbness in my right hand.  After a few doctors visits the carpel tunnel was discovered in my wrists and next week I get to have surgery to correct it.  That should be fun.

The carpel tunnel has kept me from working and taking a class which has forced me to relax.  Unfortunately I’ve grown bored with relaxing.  Thankfully with the pending surgery and work paired with the many, many books and one final summer hike my last few weeks of summer will leave me with little time to be bored.

These should be good weeks.

A Road More or Less Traveled

My last year teaching in Tennessee I shared a house with two other gentlemen. Chris and I had planned on getting a place when he came back to Clarksville to finish up his degree at Austin Peay and the house we found had three bedrooms. My friend Elisa’s fiance was moving to town and looking for a place to live so we offered the extra room to him. Soon Colin (Applejack) joined us in 401A.

He had recently (the prior November) finished a southbound thruhike of the Appalachian Trail with his friend Steven (Futureman) and as we shared the house many of their stories were told. The ones that were not shared found there way into a book they were writing, A Road More or Less Traveled, that was recently published. I just finished reading it.

I enjoyed the book but I also know I’m biased towards it seeing as how one of the authors is an old friend. It reminded me of two other books that I have thoroughly enjoyed, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig and Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller. But a little more like Donald Miller’s book. These books share a story set during a trip but the story is not necessarily about the trip itself. Instead is about the journey of the individuals taking them; about who they were and who they are becoming.

I like those stories.

6 More Beyond 6,000

Last week Joe and I decided to condense three trips to the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains to climb seven beyond 6,000 foot peaks into one trip due to the rising gasoline costs.   We left Charlotte early Tuesday morning for the Great Balsam mountains and left Thursday from the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.

Tuesday
This day we were summiting Reinhart Knob and Richland Balsam.  These climb of these two peaks is described as the easiest and hardest hike in the Southern 6,000 Challenge.  We began with the harder climb of Reinhart Knob.  This consisted of a complete bushwhack from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Mountains-to-Sea trail.  We traversed the Mountains-to-Sea trail until we found a blazed path to the north which took us back to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then we were off to Richland Balsam. Richland Balsam is the highest point in the Pisgah Forest and it was quite easy to climb.

Wednesday
Around 9 AM Wednesday we arrived at the parking lot for Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway and we began our trip to summit four more 6,000 foot peaks.  This day we were hoping to climb the peaks in the Plott Balsam mountains which consisted of Waterrock Knob, Mt. Lyn Lowery, Plott Balsam, and Yellow Face.

At the summit of Waterrock Knob we found the trail to Mt. Lyn Lowery and Plott Balsam.  Calling this a trail is a bit of a stretch; it’s an overgrown man-way that is essentially a bushwhack.  On the way to Mt. Lyn Lowery we walked through countless thorns, climbed over and crawled under trees and eventually made it to Lyn Lowery.  This two mile walk took a mere three hours.

After we ate lunch below the cross marking the summit of Mt. Lyn Lowery we decided we didn’t have time to make it to Plott Balsam so we decided to head back to Waterrock Rock but instead of heading back on the trail we opted for a little adventure.  We took the road down the mountain on the assumption that it would take us down to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It eventually did…after we walked about four miles down the road and got a ride for the next four miles.  Once we got to the parkway we were about seven miles from our car and after walking for a mile on the parkway we got another ride and made our way up Yellow Face.

After the first part of the hike I was dreading the climb up Yellow Face.  Thankfully there was only a few trees to climb over and we made it to the summit quickly.

Thursday
The last day of our trip found us climbing Mt. LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  This is one of the tallest peaks in the east and had an actual trail so we were quite excited to hike for ten miles without rummaging through thorns.  It took us around three hours to climb the Alum Cave Trail and make it to the High Top of Mt. LeConte.

On the way down we stopped at the LeConte Lodge for a spell and lunch.  Here I took a lovely nap in a rocking chair for about an hour and we were off.  We took a break at the Alum Cave Bluffs on the way down and we eventually made it back to the car.

On the way out we stopped at the Ranger Station to get cleaned up and into a clean set of clothes and I found a jar of pumpkin butter.  I was pretty excited about that.

A Waterfall

Yesterday I tagged along with Julene, Porter, and Jenny as they were preparing for a hiking vacation for a little jaunt in South Mountains State Park.  We left after Church Sunday morning and were soon walking along the Shinny Trail making our way to the waterfall.

This particular park may be one of my favorite state parks.  Like all parks there is an attraction, a waterfall, and most people only go to it with its plethora of swimming holes.  The six miles of walking before we reached the top of the falls surprisingly we saw no one.  Once we reached the falls we met up with loads of people and found a nice pool to relax in for a spell.

9 x 9 x 9

Tonight I joined Katie and Jessica at Theatre Charlotte for an evening of nine short nine minute plays (for nine dollars) by emerging playwrights. This was my first visit to Theatre Charlotte and other than one blaring glitch (it took around 3 minutes per ticket purchase at the gate) and one poor play it was a great evening.

Several of the plays were quite good. Two stick out in my mind…

Blood Iron
This play told the story of a couple who both were enamored with a charismatic Christian faith. The wife first and the husband second. The version of the faith portrayed was a type that was very manipulative. For the wife it led her to take their son off his medication and then accidentally kill him. The husbands response was to force himself on his wife to bear a replacement son.

I was struck by the way violent faith can manipulate ones perception of reality. The characters felt their actions were out of love but in reality they were quite selfish. It very much reminded me of the book I recently read, Under the Banner of Heaven.

In the Waiting Room
Here two people are waiting in a veterinarian’s waiting room, a young woman with a puppy and an older man with a dying cat that he is having put down. As he tells his story of how the cat came to him and how the cat became part of his life for seventeen years the young woman was struck that he was ready to let the cat die. She was pushing him to get a new cat and he responded I can only deal with what’s presently on my plate.

I was stuck here by how he described the cat becoming part of his family. The cat came to him. This reminded me of how the cats came to my family during childhood. My earliest memories of animals at the house were dogs and chickens. Eventually this transitioned to dogs and cats and eventually we only had (and my parents still have) cats. We never bought a cat but they came and we all began to truly enjoy them.

The Century of Self

Tonight I finished up viewing The Century of Self at the NODA Film Festival. The NODA Film Festival is one of my favorite events in Charlotte. It comes around a few times each year with different themes featuring films from that particular genre. This time the format was different in that only one film, The Century of Self, was shown.

This particular documentary was in four parts that explored the development of the all encompasing self in the twentieth century through the application of Sigmund Freud’s theories about the nature of human desires in marketing and politics. As presented in the documentary Freud’s theories were applied after World War I to the general population, first in America but then broadly in many democratic nations, as a means to control people. Essentially creating people that found fulfillment within themselves apart from any sort of community.

I’ve long understood myself as one that has been and is presently completely influenced by the things that enter into my mind. Be it through television, movies, books, or relationships everything has created and continues to create me. If those in power have used psycho-analytic theories to influence humanity how can I be surprised?

All in all I enjoyed the documentary. The point of the film festival was to show the lack of community in present democratic societies and then present the festival goers with means to engage in the local Charlotte community.