Ummmm ... God?

I know the Bible is full of mysteries and things that we won't understand until later. But sometimes I wish he'd just given us a little more detail. (If it was a space issue, maybe he could have left out a few of the details in Deuteronomy and Numbers to address stuff like this.)

From Genesis 5 ...

5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.
8 Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died.
11 Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died.
14 Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years, and then he died.
17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895 years, and then he died.
20 Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died.
23 Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.
27 Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died.
31 Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

So here's what I want to know ... what did that really look like? I mean physically. What was their development process like?

When you live for 600 years, when do you reach adolesence? At 150 years old?

Are you in puberty for, like, 50 years? (ugh ... NO thank you.)

Did they reach adulthood in their 30's (like we do) and just spend the next few hundred years as an adult?

Or maybe each stage was proportional to today ... so childhood was about 10% of their total life, adolescence another 10%, young adulthood was 20% and then finally adulthood.

And what about the physical aging? Right now, at age 80-90, most people's bodies have pretty much been worn out. But if you still had to live for hundreds of years, it would be pretty miserable if you had to do it like most 85-year-olds. Obviously Noah still had it after 500 years (vs. 32) so he can't have been too decrepit.

Seriously, I want to know. Anyone have any insight? (Skip, I know you gotta have something on this.)

This is definitely going on the list of things to ask God when I see him.

Mt. Herman, for reals this time.

Remember a while back when I wrote a post about hiking Mt. Herman?

Well I lied.

We actually didn't hike Mt. Herman, we hiked in Mt. Herman Open Space. (I should have known that seeing as the entire hike was flat.)

Yesterday my friend Jamie and I hiked the real Mt. Herman. It was definitely not flat. In fact, here is a picture of the mountain. The trail goes straight up the back of it.



I, being brilliant, figured that since it was supposed to be 75 degrees I could hike in sandals. I'm dumb.


Here's the view from the top. See the horizon line? That's Kansas.


And here is Pikes Peak, our Fourteener. Beautiful, as always.


Havana, looking regal.

The Boy

I'd like to introduce you to my brother Chris.


You may have noticed the link to his blog over there on the right. [It's the link called "The Boy" which is how he is known in my family.]

You should read it. Seriously, he's funny. And I'm not just saying that cause he's my brother. He used to call me "Hecky Becky" and put Tabasco Sauce on my retainer. I owe him nothing.

But he will make you laugh. For instance his post from a couple days ago made me laugh out loud. More than once, actually. So stop reading mine immediately and hop over to his blog.

Oh and in addition to his ability to contort his face like Jim Carrey and astound you with his wit, he also happens to be an extremely talented graphic designer. You can check out his stuff on his web site, Tscha*ching Design.

The Dellie and the Bellie

I promise to stop inundating you with pictures soon, but first ...





I'm gonna be an aunt and I can't wait!!!

Northwest Airlines is a joke.

Hey all. I'm back to beautiful, warm Colorado. My time in NY wasn't long enough, but I'm glad I got to go, nonetheless. (I love that word!) And I'm even more glad to be home and done dealing with the airline industry for a while.

If you thought my trip out was rough, wait until you hear what happened on the trip home. The whole experience was such a joke you'd almost think I was making it up.

Almost.

I arrive at the airport 1 hour and 20 minutes before my flight. Albany Airport is small - it only has two concourses - so that was plenty early. I get in line to check in via the kiosks and while I'm waiting they make an announcement that everyone should stop checking in because our flight is an hour delayed so they need to rebook us so we wouldn't miss our connections.

Soon I get to the front of the line and step up to the counter. A couple of guys in orange vests are standing behind the computer. Quite obviously baggage handlers, not booking agents. They take my ID and start squinting at the computer, muttering back and forth to each other. One of them types something on the keyboard, then the other says something like, "No man, it's up arrow, up arrow, THEN enter. No! Go back to the other screen. Now L5 then tab. Dude, let me do it."

Not instilling me with a lot of confidence in their flight booking competencies.

Then they proceed to argue with each other, right in front of me mind you, about whether or not putting me on a certain plane will push it over it's weight limit. They tell me to put my bag on the scale. Then they look at the weight, size me up, shrug at each other and say, "Well hopefully we're okay." And one of them says, "Yeah we took 50 people with 2,500 pounds yesterday. The weather is decent so we should be okay." Then one of them says "A luggage tag should be printed out somewhere." Then they look around for it, grab one, and with barely a glance, stick it on my suitcase and toss it behind them.

Ummm ...

With no choice but to trust these two goons, I head up to my gate. After about 30 minutes of waiting, they make an announcement about a gate change - now my flight will be boarding out of Gate 1, which is down the escalators, basically in the airport basement. So I grab my stuff and head down there. Every few minutes I glance up at the screen to see if it is updated with our flight info, but it never is. As far as anyone can tell, they sent us down to the basement and forgot about us. There are no agents. No airport staff at all down there.

Eventually a plane arrives at the gate and passengers enter the airport. However, it's past boarding time and there is still no gate agent ... no Northwest people anywhere. Finally, a girl comes inside wearing an orange vest, knee pads and ear protection. She walks up to the counter, yells, "Everyone can board" and then proceeds to look at each ticket, write down the seat number on a piece of paper and then motion us to the plane.

As passengers board the plane, it's chaos, with people sitting in other people's seats, and total gridlock in the aisle. No one can move and more and more people are trying to board. By this time passengers have started to get a little agitated with all the disorganization and the lone flight attendant, an older lady who has been trying desperately to get help from the non-existent gate agents, has a nervous breakdown. Literally. She starts screaming at people. Passengers, crew, everyone.

It was unbelievable.

We eventually got off the ground, and our flight attendant pulled herself together and apologized via intercom for her "outburst" and said it usually takes a lot to get her riled up.

I can't blame her, though, for getting overwhelmed. I felt horrible for her. Northwest Airlines is a complete and utter mess.

(I hope their PR people read this post.)

Schenectady, Schmenectady

I'm in upstate New York right now visiting my sister and her husband. My baby sister. Who's very preggers at the moment. I flew out here now because:

1. I wanted to see her with a big ol' baby belly and I'll be in Hawaii when she actually has the baby. So unless I see her now I wouldn't get to see her pregnant.

2. I wanted to give her a baby shower. I feel like it's one of the big sister "official" duties and even though I live thousands of miles away, I didn't want to miss out on it.

I had a hellish trip out here. American Airlines' problems are causing all sorts of chaos with the other airlines trying to cover for them, so even though I wasn't flying American, it didn't matter. Then there was a medical emergency on the incoming plane we were supposed to depart on so that made us leave 1.5 hours late which meant I missed not just my original connection, but also the connection they rebooked me on. Then I met Ms. Grouchy Pants, the Northwest Airlines ticketing agent who was unbelievably rude to me and told me she couldn't help me because she was supposed to go on break and how on earth could I have managed to miss both flights ... etc. I was so tired and frustrated by this time that I just started to cry. I couldn't help it. You would have thought that would soften Ms. GP a little, but nope. Not a smidge. I'm normally a very patient and understanding traveler, but this was a hard trip.

In the end I made it to Albany. I flew from Denver to Minneapolis to Atlanta to Albany. But I made it.

And even though the weather people predicted rain for the whole time, so far the sun's been shining.

Waldo Canyon