It's After Midnight...How about a Post

So besides being a religious jerk this week, I hosted a German meal for 7 friends, I went to Community Group, and I worked on my "little slice of the promised land".

Please be kind.  I am a bachelor.  I live with two other bachelors.  I have actually never hosted, planned, and executed a party on my own before.  I had no idea what I was doing but Amy, Nick and Peter were very gracious and helped me in the food prep.  Nick actually built a sous-vide device for the bratwurst and it totally worked! His machine was amazing and a total success. My goal was to cook a German meal so that Peter and Amy could at least taste a little of home while they start their 13 month unpaid internship with Mars Hill. I kinda succeeded.  Well you decide. My meal consisted of:

• Bratwurst on Sauerkraut with Curry and Ketchup (don't ask it's a German thing)
• Broccoli with Cream Sauce
• Asiago Scalloped  Potatoes
• Plated Fresh Vegetables (cucumber, carrots, and red bell peppers)
• Fresh Fruit (mango and black grapes)
• Spaghetti Squash with Curry and Soy
• Pear Meringue Dessert (from Mora)

This meal could have totally used a woman's administrative touch.

I admit it really wasn't all that German...and my timing kinda sucked (I was 25 minutes behind schedule on getting all the food out). I would arrogantly call my little dinner party a low-scale success.

Oh well, at least we had great conversation; my friends Mora and Erik attended and Mora spoke high German with Peter and Amy.  Mirella and Josue also attended and seemed to have some fun.

Last night at community group, David our fearless leader, who just got his green card, led us to 25 minutes of silence to ask the Holy Spirit to convict and reveal our hearts in several areas. These are the questions and what I heard.

1. What is God's heart/will?
• God is Seeking Worshipers and he invites me to participate in that joyous task.
2. In light of Pastor Fairchild's vision to bring the whole Gospel to the whole of West Seattle, how does my life currently reflect this?
• I really have not pursued my little corner of WS in the 5 weeks I have been here.  I don't know my neighbors and what their needs are. Where is my heart? It is apathetic towards my lost neighbors.
3. How is Jesus calling me to repent?
• God's will is taht all my neighbors would come to have a relationship with Him. God wants my heart  to change from indifference to compassion so that I would respond to the Gospel by being intentionally pursuing them for friendship.
4. what are my skills/gifts/talents and how can I use them to pursue that vision?
• I am hospitable, organized, and a little kingly, and every once in a while I am generous so putting all these together, maybe Peter and I can invite the neighbors over.

I loved getting a little quite time in community with God.  We them broke into small groups to discuss what we had been praying about.  Jack, who as I have said before I look up to and want to emulate, spoke life into Peter, Amy, and myself in his fatherly way. We shared and prayed for each other; it was awesome.
And the last thing I have been doing is working on my house.  It is going well, I hope to start spraying paint tomorrow.  The siding company left all kids of voids in the caulking so I have spent several days correcting their work.  But as a pleasant surprise, I got to meet one of my neighbors!  I prayed for God to give me an opportunity, and he totally provided.  His name is Dave and he lives across the alley in the red house.  I learned about his struggle to fix up and fail to sell a house nearby and how he is struggling to financially get by.  He is a little older and lives alone with his wife.
When I have painted my house all of you are invited over...Well I am the only one who reads this, so I'll just invite myself over.  Maybe me and I can hangout and eat French Truffles and Drink Ice water while we sit out on the deck and hang out with Andy the neighborhood welcome cat. Gute Nacht!!

40 Years of Marriage? Really?

On Friday I had the high honor of attend a 40th Wedding Anniversary and Vow Renewal.  I have never been to such an event.  Bill is a Mars Hill elder and Julis is his amazing wife who just shines with kindness and grace. As an example, at Mars Hill West Seattle, I make coffee.  Who am I? There are 650 weekly attendees here, and I am just some random single man.  Julis gave me an beautiful invitation, with my name hand-written, to their celebration. Who am I?  They had PRIME RIB and Cabernet at the event!  And I didn't have to pay!  Who am I?  I received the grace of seeing two people who love each other even more than they did on their wedding day 40 years later. They spoke of sex and an all-encompassing unity and total connection that has been nurtured by Jesus over the decades in front of 250 people with no shame and no embarrassment.
I mean I am a kid from a family where unity never existed and the marriage exploded not even 9 years in, looking at Bill and Julie and hearing they obvious love for one another, seeing their three amazing kids and their 10 grand kids, hearing their candid explanation of the horrors they have weathered, and the incredible legacy of the hundred plus couples who they have loved and served as marriage councilors and pre-marriage councilors; I think how can this be?  How can a man love and woman and provide well for her and sacrificially serve her and be a good dad and be an exemplary yet imperfect man and an amazing grandfather and an elder in a church and a man who I deeply desire to emulate?  Again and again they pointed to one answer, Jesus.  They are God's grace to me.
Oh and Driscoll was there to honor them both.
Observations jotted down during the celebration:
-Julia's children rose up and called her blessed - just like Proverbs 31:28
-There is hope for me that my marriage rooted in Jesus can last for 40 years
-God please help me to eventually be a man like Bill
-He is such a strong manly man yet he is still broken by the honor of being Julia's husband
-She spoke well of him and showed him great respect
-When she had big strife with her family he protected her
-10 grandchildren and he will leave a legacy for all of them - just like Proverbs 13:22
-My response, tears and sadness (for my parents) and a yearning for something like that for my future
-40 years is hard but it can happen, in Jesus
-Josh, make sure you dance with your daughters at every wedding and every single special event with dancing - be like Aaron Easter
-Be okay with making an idiot of yourself for your wife, even in public

Confession of a Religious Jerk

Another break from Alaska Posts.
So I had a chance to go and wish my good friend Elliott farewell at a party in his honor.  He is one of my oldest friends, a gentleman and scholar.  He departs for Tierra del Fuego in two days in his anticipation of the end of the world (or perhaps merely the end of civilization as we know it) come December 12th 2012.  He will ride his bicycle from his home of Seattle down the west coast to and through Mexico and on to Panama where the road ends.  He will take a boat to South America and ride its spine to the end of land approximately 9,348.61 miles later.  Truly I say to you this is an Epic trip and Elliott is a man big in heart and strong in soul for such a feat.

Cheers to you mate!! HERE is his awesome blog where he will try to keep us appraised of his progress as Internet connections allow.

So at this party there were 7 people with whom I attended Garfield High School.  The rest were strangers or loose acquaintances. After chatting with Elliott and wishing him well, I settled into a chair under the stars next to Collin. We hadn't seen each other since the times we ran into each other in the UW weight room when I was in grad school. He had had a bit of bourbon and He brought up theology after I mentioned that I had recently completed a brief internship with the "infamous" Mars Hill Church. He mentioned that Mars had a good influence on his buddy who attended briefly but Collin didn't like Pastor Mark.  I asked if he wanted to hear my story of how Jesus got a hold of me; he said yes.  So I told him the whole crooked tale in about 2 minutes.  All the sin and the depression and the hopelessness.  He stopped me several times to say, "What the **** man?  I used to sit next to you in Band class, I switched chair so I could sit next to you and chat.. I didn't know you were hopeless and in that place."  I told him that appearances can be deceiving.  I finished up with my mountain top and Jesus grace.  I really don't like to share my tale, but the reactions are always priceless because it can tell you a lot about where a listener is at. Collin is a deist of a sort and sees Jesus as a good moral teacher, and his reaction to my tale was a nod, silence, and a deep swig of bourbon.
I caught up with Jared later and he told me that he respects Pastor James Harleman from Shoreline and used to attend the Ballard Church before other Mars Hills were started.
So as I sat around the circle of chairs I felt a sadness that these eclectic and beautiful people, from the phone sex worker to the computer programmer, gathered to enjoy Elliott and his adventure are lost and in need of help just like me.
So as I shared my story  with Collin, a gal across the circle overheard a sentence where I mentioned Christianity and said, "Yeah that's stupid." So my ego took a hit and I realized that my religious side was coming out.  Throughout the evening I found myself getting all arrogant!  Seriously?  How can I compare myself to these folks and be all like, "I've got my stuff all together? You need to clean up your act."  Apart from Jesus, I am living the same exact life as everyone else at the party.  The only goodness in me is from the hand of God; all my religious activities are worthless for salvation! My religiousness is always crouching the the door waiting to rule over me like Cain of old.  God please help me.
Each person was looking for saving grace in causes, in relationships, in intellect, in their own pursuit, in the approval of their mates, or in the cosmic consciousness.  Each of the 15+ different conversations I initiated and the 5 that others initiated with me all revealed that they know something in themselves, in their families, or in their world is broken and inevitably they theorized either directly or circumspectly a possible solution. Such a beautiful opportunity to share a little hope with amazing people. Random and likely pointless aside: Even the fact that I initiated any conversations is a grace from God.  Before Jesus grabbed me at age 20, I would only initiate a conversation with people I knew well.  No, liquid courage was not involved!  But my 107 Old Weller Whiskey on the rocks was enjoyable with Daniel's amazing cookies. Last night I knew that the party was not about me being comfortable or just relaxing, it was about the 25 other people, it was about Elliott, and it was about the Kingdom.
Two great conversations and good convictions and repentance, a nice night under the stars on any date on the calendar.

Oh yeah Peter, Amy, Ryan, Nick, Matt, David, and myself went into the woods. Nick and I had the privilege of sharing a little American Culture with two Germans and a former Australian Federal Police Officer. It's nice when you can convert a young lady from uneasy fear of firearms to a little bit of a gun nut just by letting her shoot a 12 gauge (with low recoil rounds, I take 1 Tim 5:2 literally, so I try to be considerate).
And here's a recent video with no context. (I did have a clean back stop) LINK

Alaska Day 6-7

Miles: 2,715.7

Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 12
Alaska Beards: 6
Miles Hiked: 8.6

Wow Community Group was epic tonight.  First off, the Menashe Family saw me down at the Morgan Junction and gave me a ride down to Brandon Street.  They are an amazing couple; in fact I would "do a back flip off my roof" if I mature into half the man Jack is when I hit his season in life. David (pronounced Dei-vid 'cause he's a Brit, hmm I am too, but I don't call myself Jaw-shua, I respond to Josh, or occasionally "Hey Penguin!", or even "Hey Bone!"), our community group leader, left a note on the front door telling everyone to enter in silence and take a seat.  We sat down and waited.  At 7:30PM, Cole suddenly read Luke 21:29-38 and David invited each of us to set aside all the crap from our thoughts, all the worries and weight of what we are so easily distracted by and take 30 minutes to pray to our Father in quiet reverence. I sat on the floor and prayed to my Dad.  He reminded me how good he is and convicted me that I need to cut out KassemG from my 1 hour a week media time. I love that my God is so specific and takes the time to open my eyes to my blindness. We then transitions to small clusters to talk about what we had heard from God and prayed specifically for each other. After we closed in prayer, I got some time with David and Jack one on one and got some amazing advice from godly married men about how to honor one of God's daughters.
Oh and one more thing before I transition to Alaska, I worked at a Golf Tournament this last weekend.  It was the Boing Classic over 50 PGA event. You know how golf is really really really...not that exciting on TV?  Well it's just as "enthralling" in person.  Still I got to volunteer and help raise money for a hospital and enjoy a really big manicured garden and all the free soda and granola bars I could eat.  I also went to the volunteer appreciation dinner afterwards and I won a prize from Tiffany & Co.!!  You know the really fancy stores  with the vault doors in the malls that sells jewelry? Yeah I won a pair of Tiffany beer glasses!? Yeah they make those, and I now have some.

Alaska:
So I believe I got my days mixed up so I really don't remember what went down on day 6....So on to day 7 I guess.  Maybe what I thought was day 5 was actually day 6.  We might have taken day 5 off and just relaxed all day, I can't really remember. Sorry.
Day 7 was awesome because the day before I picked up our bus tickets so we awoke early and were on the very first bus at 5:15AM. It went from our campground out to Wonder Lake 90 miles down the road. We piled into the big green bus in row 4 and 5, that way were were near enough to the front to hear from the driver but not too far forward as to be uncool.

Funny aside...or maybe just lame you be the judge:  I had no formal education before 6th grade (except for one 5th grade math class at Highland Park Elementary).  So on the first day of 6th grade, I got on the school but for the 40 minute ride to Washington Middle School.  I took one look at the bus after boarding and took the seat closest to the driver because everyone on the bus was huge and very angry looking (I was the smallest and shortest kid in he whole middle school 6th-8th grade).  I huddled close to the driver for 6 months before I worked up the courage to more to row 3. In 7th grade, I made a few acquaintances and moved to row 5. By eight grade I hit my maximum coolness by sitting in row 6.  Through the next three years, before I dropped out of high school, I never developed sufficient coolness to moved father back than row 6. i don't know how that related, but whatever.
So we set out from Reilly Creek and our soft spoken but eagle-eyed bus driver spotted and stopped for these beautiful animals:

So we stopped briefly at about mile 50 on the bus ride, and Josue got to experience life as a Caribou:

So we continued out to Wonder Lake which is 90 miles from the park's entrance. On a clear day, this place has the best views of Mount McKinley, unfortunately there were too many clouds. We actually left the park without ever seeing the peak.  No big deal, we found other ways to entertain ourselves.  We walked down to Wonder lake and we practiced out walking on water skills. Notice the lack of ripples, these pics took real skill to give the illusion of the miraculous:

Man I love to skip rocks and I think I imparted a little knowledge to Josue.

We then went for a short hike into the endless blueberry fields.  I had my bear mace and kept my head on a swivel because we have seen no less that 5 grizzlies on the way out.  We only ran across a chipmunk city, but there was plenty of fresh bear poor broadcasting the big guys' presence.  The berries were tasty and were everywhere.  We came to a peaceful creek and we stopped for some food.  I challenged every one to make their own boat for a little boat race. The Rule was that you had to make it only from what you could find naturally occuring and your boat has to have an occupant. Some builders employed grass and used a little daisy as the occupant.  My strategy was the aerodynamically stable stick with a blueberry passenger.  I came in second, and I think  Tina won the big race.  We ate ravioli out of a steel can cooked on Nick's MSR stove. it was awesome.

The race track...the finish line was the little island in the creek.

We made it back to the bus pickup location and took some silly pictures near the sign:

We rode the bus back toward Reilly Creek and saw some more sweet animals, but this time much closer in:

It was amazing. We got back to the campground and enjoyed some hot dogs and canned corn.  We ended the night playing a Epi game of UNO. We let Tina make up the rule to the game and it was awesome.  She totally messed with us and we all ended up laughing all over ourselves.  I actually cried I was laughing so hard. 

So, Day 7 was another stretch of beautiful blacktop on my life's road trip.  I had the honor,  no the high honor, of sharing it with Josue, who taught me so much about what it might look like to be a dad, Yulia, who encouraged me and showed me what it looks like to just live the Christian life in a state of quiet expectant joy, Tina, who challenged me on my endemic self-deprecation in a gently mocking way, Nick, who helps me to see every situation in a new light and whose sarcasm jarred me to laughter again and again, and Mirella, who excellently modeled motherhood and kindly encouraged this childe Roland on his lofty quest to ride this life until the wheels fall off and reach the end to see Jesus.

Alaska Day 5

Miles: 2,715.7
Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 140.71
Bears and Wolves: 5
Alaska Beards: 5
Miles Hiked: 6.4


On Sunday we awoke with a plan, we wanted to see the sled dog kennels and the Visitor Center.  We had oatmeal and struck out with some snacks and water bottles.  We walked the 1.1 miles to the Visitor Center. Along the way we had some fun:

I even got to share my affection for rose hips with everyone.  The Visitor center was amazing complete with $100,000 in solar panels that will pay for themselves in about 95 years. What's a national park without massive government waste? Sorry for my economic analysis, Nick (who is intimately aware of solar technology) and I just had to laugh at the idiocy of the expenditure.

This last photo is of my friend Alicia posted at the entrance to the Visitor center and her old bass Joleen. Inside, Josue and Mirella enjoyed a movie about predators in the park.  Later, we gathered in the cafe to eat a light meal before heading out to the dog kennels.  We took a longer trail out just to stretch out legs and some kind stranger took this picture:

We enjoyed the first of Denali's famed blueberries. They were awesome, but not a good as the ones out in the wild, I'll tell you about them later.  Oh and I loved this picture:

Yulia is doing her Russian Spy thing, Mirella is doing the hood thing, and Tina doing the Uma Thurmon from Kill Bill thing.

We made it out to the kennels later and I got to meet Alicia's old friend Chulitna. She is seven years old, which means in another year she gets to retire from her faithful sled dog service. In the winters, only sled dogs are used for park ranger patrols.  They work hard and pull together as a team as show in this video:

She was the oldest dog on the team.  It was funny she was biting a 9 month old new dog team member like a drill instructor who beats on a new recruit to make him into a good soldier.  The Alaskan Sled Dog breed is actually a mutt breed with very little genetic homogeneity.  Each dog there had their own look, some were long and lanky, while others had more square frames.  The only commonalities were in their large paw size, their long side fur, and in their high energy.

It was so much fun to enjoy the demonstration and just spend a few moments with Chulitna.  I whispered in her ear, "Alicia sends her love from Seattle."

After the dogs, we walked back to the Visitor Center area and back to our campsite. I had a totally mental idea to bread our chicken and deep fry it.  Mirella worked her magic and made my idea a reality.  We first cooked up a lot of bacon and kept the grease. They using crushed Cheddar Ruffles, Bisquick, eggs, and spices Tina breaded the chicken.  Nick then deep friend each piece in the lack of molten bacon fat.  It was truly amazing. The chicken was done to perfection and with a little corn it made the best meal of the whole trip.  We were all a little goofy and our little six person family laughed and laughed. Then we made Bacon marsh mellows  Nick's WiFi router is called "baconmarshmellows" so he wanted to make them. And it took little persuasions for me to jump on board.  After all, we had a whole bunch of recently cooked warm bacon and whole bag of jumbo camp fire marsh mellows.  So I broke out the bamboo sticks and we wrapped bacon around our marsh mellows.  We made s'mores with bacon and chocolate.  It was like a sweetly bacon-aded trip to a land of honey gram cracker men who laugh and dance all day and sing all night about how amazing glorious bacon is while doing back flips and sipping bacon grease cocktails!!

Totally 'Mazing.

I know here we are cooking hot dogs but imagine they were bacon marsh mellows.

As a was looking forward to a blessed night of dead sleep, Tina came back from the bathroom. We were the last folks awake. She shared her struggles with faith. So for the second time in as many days I shared the story of my shameful past of sin and idiocy.  I shared details when she protested that I really was a good guy. I laid it all out for her to see.  Again I felt naked and heard the echoes of shame haunting my mind.  She was silent as I shared. I concluded with my meeting Jesus and how hard that was and all the sweet pain afterwards as he dropped bomb after bomb on my idols and my foul religion. She shared her story and again I got pissed my fists clenched and un-clenched (I hate it when women experience suffering), and I cried for her.  I told her that my heart broke for her. I asked for her permission and then prayed against the enemy, his servants their lies, their works, and their effects. I prayed for her family. We must have spoke from 11:45PM until 3:30PM. I was happy to trade away another night's sleep for the privilege to talk about the Good News.

Many thanks to Fugazi and Ratatat for their Musical contribution to this blog post...but Fugazi your economic theory is freakin' dumb. k thx by

Alaska Days 3-4

A little update from my life, Peter has moved into my house. Very exciting.  He flew in last night from Stuttgart, Germany and will spend the next 13 months as an unpaid intern for Mars Hills' West Seattle Church. He is a nice guys and he seemed excited when I invited him and Amie (sorry if I misspell that) to go out shooting this Saturday.

Miles: 2,548.3
Average MPG: 19.3
Gallons: 136.04
Bears and Wolves: 4
Alaska Beards: 3
Miles Hiked: 0

So I believe sufficient time has passed to continue to write about Alaska. I am not a historian, I really don't need to wait until all the participants' grandchildren die of old age before enough distance has passed to yield sufficient perspective.
So we drove on to Denali from Fairbanks. The rolling hills of the plains slowly gave way to the more rugged and more lush landscape of the highlands.  As we entered and cleared Healy the massive peaks of Denali National Park came into view. Clouds hovered ominously not unlike the fly-in scene in  Jurassic Park. We cruzed into the park and hit the Mercantile.  I booked 6 nights in Reilly Creek Campground. Unfortunately there was not an open site that night (total fail on my part, I should have called ahead).  So we packed ourselves back in the Traverse and headed South were there was sure to be a good campground.  There was it was called Grizzly Bear Recreation Area and RV Park. Think about that for a second...a recreation area for grizzly bears.  Hmm most folks might realize the not-so-subtle implication about staying at this place, but that didn't phase us.  After some shenanigans, we got a remote campsite over-looking the Nenana River and setup the mondo-tent (Thanks Erik) and a smaller tent.  After we all had our showers, we retired. I failed to sleep in the Traverse that night.

I woke first and started cooking some Bisquick pancakes and some bacon.  As we all awoke, we found the previously mentioned hood ornament (see the song bird). After leisurely packing up, we drove up to Denali NP and picked out our campsite for the next 6 nights.  We reset our tents and decided we needed to go out and buy some tarps since the weather forecast called for rain for the next week.
So I asked for any volunteers to go help me find some tarps.  Yulia stepped forward, so the two of us struck out. I drove past Healy AK without even noticing it and we ended up in the city of Anderson. As I look at Google Maps to assist my memory, the military base near Anderson looks suspicious. A large gravel mine, few barracks, and one heck of a radar array and some odd looking buildings, LINK. So the tarps, the poor navigation, and clandestine facilities aren't the point. The point is that I had the chance to share my whole messy story with Yulia. All the sin and my odd and resistant journey to Jesus. She asked probing questions and showed me grace when I named my sin and described who I was before Jesus. As an aside, I don't like to share my story, but I hate living in secret, so I pursue transparency, even though it feels like being stripped naked before a stranger as I hear the accusations echoing through the long abandoned corridors of my memory.  If I don't reject the lie against my identity in Jesus, then I spiral into despair.  But the truth is that I am forgiven, adopted, and cleansed and all my sins have been taken away.
So as Yulia (and Tina too) later told me my story sharing prompted them to share their own struggles and their own story.  Yulia is a woman who has been through hell, but knows her identity. I admitted I gritted my teeth as she shared, nothing gets me angry like foolish men who are dishonorable. So I eventually admitted my own folly as we looked at the map.  We swung back to Healy, bought two inexpensive tarps and roared back to Denali.
Nick had already been busy with some 550 cord (parachute line, and the exact same line that I used in my little picnic several weeks later). We ended up covering the picnic table and laying tarps under the tents. We had a lazy night as we cooked some of our beef in a A-1 and Ketchup sauce with some instant mashed potatoes.  We totally feasted on some s'mores.  We retired early-ish, and I tried to sleep again the the Traverse, but only managed a few hours.

Mount Adams We meet Again...For the First Time

Miles: 598.6
Miles Hiked: 13.1
Miles Glissaded: 3.5
Group Size: 10

I apologize for interrupting the Alaska account, but I just got back from Mount Adams (the same one I summitted twice in a week last summer) and it was a whale of a time! Well, it was more of a large volcano covered in loose ash, pumice, basalt, and ice; kinda less like a blubbery mammal.
So with 5 days notice on Facebook and The City, I got 9 other folks to join me on a summit attempt. I just got back from Alaska, so I didn't promote very well.
Matt and I left Seattle at 10:30AM on Friday after packing up. We pounded a Monster and Code Red and plunged into Eastern Washington, stopping only to marvel at a Super Wal-Mart. We arrived at the Ranger Station for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest at 4:30PM and got our fancy Human Waste Bags (you must pack out all your "contributions" from the national forest) and paid the $15 fee for all 10 folks.
On the access road out to the trail head, we pulled over and performed conflict resolution tests on an unsuspecting tree. My ears rang until after we got back from the hike.

After getting turned around, we finally got to Cold Springs Camp Ground and setup the tents. We spent an hour-and-a-half gathering wood and had a massive pile ready for when the 2nd and 3rd wave of hikers arrived. We then wandered off and decided that we had better use the axe we brought. So we tried to fell a dead tree. We tried 4 different trees and failed four times. This forest is not a tall forest, but rather a tough forest that is buried under snow 9 months out of the year. Conditions like this ensure that only trees with superior toughness survive, thus the cellulose fiber composition is particularly dense...At least that is what I told myself when I failed to fell the fourth tree. I am kind of like a Corgi, my torso is average size (except not), but I have itty-bitty legs; not unlike Ray William Johnson. Those proportions don't lend themselves to logging.

 So after failing, Matt and I lit the fire with a little "cheating juice". We then laid on the ground and watched 4 satellites sail across the sky and 3 meteorites burn their way across the moonless night. Once I knew the 2nd wave and 3rd wave folks were close I started the bacon...We cooked 8 pounds of bacon (1/2 a pound was lost in a friendly-fire event) and enjoyed every severely or moderately scorched piece. Mad props to Michael Frank, he totally rocked his bacon. The grease fire raged, but his came out perfect.

We retired with a little wine, and I starred at the tent's ceiling for 5 hours until it was time to wake up, but the insomnia gave me a nice opportunity to pray through some stuff.
Saturday morning we hit the trail at 7:37AM (after pictures and my little overview of the route). We made great time up to Echo Bowl (with the non-existent wind the echos were particularly good) and shouted "Echo!, Are you ready to Rumble?!, 'Merica, A British Tar!" for a while.
Nick set his own pace and nine of us jumped ahead to rest at Lunch Counter (9025ft). Joel found a Tungsten wedding ring sitting in the wind shelter. Either some recently divorced dude chucked it or a raven snagged the shiny "Ring of Power" off a rock while someone was applying sunscreen.
Once we broke the break, I was the first one on the slog-slope. Now let me tell you about this slope. It is nasty. It is cruel and it is mean. In about 1.5 miles of travel, you gain about 1,950 feet on slippery compacted snow and ice. You are completely exposed to the wind and the glare off the pure china-white combined with the noon-day radiance usually come together to fry, freeze, and exhaust even the most avid hikers. For a sub-par hiking pretender like myself this slope destroyed me. Now let me brag on God, he totally hooked all nine of us up, there was NO WIND!. Seriously none, I cannot emphasize how rare that is especially at 11,000ft (3,352m for my British cousins).
So even though I left first, I arrived 3rd to last. I was wrecked by that slope. Greg and Melissa decided to enjoy a lovely nap at Piker's Peak instead of summitting, I can't blame them, the windless false summit at 11,657ft might be the most romantic place in North America to spend an hour-and-a-half visiting with your beloved.

The story with the name for the false summit is kinda like those demotivational posters you might have seen.  Nick's favorite is this one:

7 of use tried for the summit and we all made it. Matt gave me some kind encouragement as he passed, and I really needed it. On the last 900ft from the valley between the false summit and the true summit I became enraged. Some freakin' joke of a man was cussing out his wife (or girl friend, or sister).  He started swearing at here after they had passed me and were 300ft below and descending. Man I get so angry when a man rages at a woman. He was blatantly violating 1 Peter 3:7 (a verse I have been meditating for a few weeks), he showed no honor and was not understanding. I'm not gonna lie, I prayed that 1 Peter 3:7b come true for that piece of...  Imprecatory prayers, wow. Man, nothing gets my back up like violence (physical or verbal) directed at a woman.
Anyways, I was dead last up to the summit (and nearly dead). I was at least 10 minutes behind every onle else (my concept of time was skewed because I was totally focused on making the next step and trying to slow my heart-rate down). I prayed for God to give me the grace of reaching the summit, but more importantly for His will to be done.  But God came through and totally hooked me up (Oh, the Gatorage "GU" gell is a crock, it didn't have any noticeable effect on me). At the 12,281ft top there was a infinitesimal amount of wind, maybe 2 mph.  That is unheard of!  Both of my previous summit here were greeted with bone-chilling 20-35mph wind gusts with a minimum of 15mph sustained. Again it was an unparalleled day to summit.  There were NO clouds only haze on the horizon allowing an unrestricted 360 degree view of Rainier, St.Helens, Hood, and Jefferson peaks.
At the top, the other guys were crazy gracious waiting for me before taking THE summit pics.  Apparently, their tradition is the "Skin Shot" at the top of whatever they climb. It's not a bad tradition to start for Volcano Summits.

As soon as it was time to partake of the summit toast (1oz of Mango Rum, 1oz of Coconut Rum, 2oz of Courvoisier VSOP Cognac (my favorite was the cognac, mmm mmm)), Matt Behr led us in a rousing manly rendition of Doxology:

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!
Praise Him All Creatures Here Below,
Praise Him Above All Heavenly Hosts!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

The tradition of the summit toast is longstanding for Nick and I. Man, I missed him up there. His knee was just not willing to let him summit. There is just something right about a little alcohol to celebrate the assent to a peak.
All 9 of us sledded down in record time.  I went from 11,657ft to 9,754ft traveling 1.2 miles in 8 minutes!!! All sliding down a 28% grade. It was a blast!

And here is my destroyed Sled:

We hustled down the mountain and we saw this beautiful sunset near the base.

I was feeling like crap from the False Summit all the way down.  I had vertigo, nausea (but I held it in), blurred vision, very little lung capacity (I was coughing like a chain smoker if I took too deep of a breath), and a plaguing cramp on the inside of my left quad.  I kept praying the formal and pietistic supplication "Dad Fix it!" Yeah, if you guys heard how I pray you'd totally roll your eyes and shake your heads. We got to the campsite after dark and quickly packed up for the return trip to Seattle. We all shook hands and agreed the hike totally kicked tail.
Matt, Nick, and I all hit up a truck stop for some food and Nick had to drive back to Seattle, I was in no condition to drive. For the second night in a row I didn't sleep only shut my eyes and lost myself in the morass of my mind and semi-stochastic musings of what God's will may be. Some kind words kept returning to mind, "Love God and do whatever you please" -Augustine. Yeah but you don't understand, if I actually trust that whatever God's will is will be accomplished when I delight in him first, then I don't have any control over the course of events....*wink... sarcasm and conviction go hand in hand*
So the three of us hit Seattle around 4:35AM, and I was showered and in bed by 6:20AM...only to get up at 7:35AM to get to church.  Right now it is 12:45AM the next day And I have slept 1.75 hours out of the last 66.25 hours.  I may be considered "sleep deprived". Pftt! That's nothing, my personal best was 87.5 hours of continuous consciousness, and the last 8 hours of that I drove from Oregon to Seattle along the Coast. Um bragging about not sleeping, now it should be obvious why the Bible has nothing positive to say about young men. Not one thing. But you say what about 1 John 2:14?!  Well young men are strong (well most of them are, the pictures above rule me out of this category). So the young men can be terrorists...that's not necessarily a complement.
Ooh one more thing to crowd this already sesquipedalian mess of a blog post.  In church the Holy Spirit totally used my fatigue by opening my mind/gut to this amazing little song my Kelsey Bernheisel. I don't even know the name of the song but here are some quotes excerpted: "We are broken, shipwrecked in the storm" "Father you set us free" "Father you are our hope" "Jesus you are all we have" "Father come and fill us up take our idols".  I know without the lyric sheet these seem pretty generic, but it meant something to me and broke me up inside.
Um I think that's all I want to type. Typos are all intentional. Yes even that one that's still bothering you.
Random Pictures Without Explanation:

 This spastic writer thanks Rodrigo Y Gabriel for their invaluable riffs and harmonies which contributed to the overall tempo of key strokes.