Bank of America today said it will add Android Pay support to some 5,000 ATMs around the country. Bank of America customers who have added their BofA debit card to the Android Pay app will be able to tap their NFC-equipped phone to compatible ATMs to withdraw cash and perform other account interactions. The company plans to start with 2,400 ATMs, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, and eventually expand to 5,000. The idea is to allow BofA customers to access their account and cash without their actual debit card. Users will still need to enter their PIN code to earn access to their account. Bank of America tested the technology in Boston, Charlotte, New York, and San Franciso earlier this year.
FOCUS has been featured on multiple TV stations in Ferguson, MO, where its St. Louis Center and FOCUS Director, Eric Shanburn, have been working to embody the “U” in FOCUS, which stands for “United” and “Understanding.”
“Eric and his team of Orthodox volunteers have spent time in Ferguson promoting discussion and understanding between the police and protesters,” said Larissa Hatch of FOCUS. “On Saturday, August 23, FOCUS hosted a community cookout that brought local shop owners—many of whom were victims of looting—protesters and authorities together. In the past few nights, protests have been peaceful and there have been no arrests. Police and protestors alike have expressed their gratitude to FOCUS and Orthodox Christians for their role in reducing tensions.”
FOCUS hosted the meal to act as a turning point, sending a message of peace at a time of unrest.
“An important part of our work at FOCUS is promoting understanding,” Larissa said. “FOCUS in St. Louis has always been deeply active in building community and relationships through our many programs that create jobs, provide housing and help homeless and disadvantaged children stay in school,” Larissa said.
FOCUS North America is a national movement of Orthodox Christians, united in faith and joined by a desire to provide action-oriented and sustainable solutions to poverty in communities across America. FOCUS has operations and youth volunteer experiences in more than 25 cities in the US. To learn more or to donate, visit www.focusnorthamerica.org or visit FOCUS on Facebook and Twitter.
Bishop David with EPA members who met with the delegation.
On February 25, 2014, His Grace Bishop David of Sitka and Alaska participated in a news conference sponsored by Creation Justice Ministries with the Bristol Bay area organizations fighting the Pebble Mine Project. [See related story.]
The group also went to the William Jefferson Clinton Building complex to meet with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], Gena McCarthy. Although she was unable to attend the meeting, her staff expressed her deep concern with this issue. People from Bristol Bay presented a large amount of petitions to the EPA asking for them to make a final decision on the mining project.
On February 26, 2014, Bishop David will meet with Alaskan Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and Alaskan Congressman Don Young. In addition, he will meet with representatives from the National Park Service.
The proposed Pebble Mine would have an immense negative impact on the subsistence lifestyle of native Alaskans both in Bristol Bay and throughout the interior—a way of life that is a necessity for survival in the villages throughout the region and one that Native Alaskans have practiced for thousands of years.
I wish that I could have gone up in a glider the very first time I heard about them. This is neat.
A friend of a friend flies gliders at the Ulster Gliding Centre down the road. I was encouraged to visit. "He used to race bikes. He restores old planes. The place is amazing, you'll love it."
Terrified of flying and armed with only the vaguest notion of what gliders actually are, I nonetheless head over there one evening. The phrase "restores old [fill in the blank]" proves to be excellent bait. In honor of the occasion, I ride a 1938 Tyrone Flyer, handmade in Northern Ireland.
Astride the 75-year old machine, I race down the winding coastal road, at length turning onto a narrow lane toward the Lough Foyle. I ride past pastures, chicken coups, a thatched cottage, and a field of parked caravans, until finally a meadow comes into view - spread out along the water's edge and littered with small aircraft. From a distance the scene resembles a vegetable patch.
By the hangar, Owen waves me through, bike and all. We exchange greetings and straight away his eyes are on the bike.
Owen used to race 100 mile time trials. He was good, right up there at the top. Then he stopped. But I can see the cycling has not left him. If he sees a bike, he can't not look at the bike. Then it's my turn to look at the planes.
A hangar is basically a garage for aircraft. This one is dome-shaped. The interior is well illuminated. There are little planes everywhere and I wander through them as if through a forest, stepping over tails and wings as if they were felled tree branches. Some planes are colourful and others are white, some fairly new and others quite old. Owen restores the old ones.
I ask about the materials, the paint, the provenance. Most of the machines are British or German, WWII era. We talk about plastics, and how they've changed over the years (a topic I'm familiar with from my fountain pen collecting days). Then he shows me the cloth used for wings - stretched so tautly and painted over so smoothly, I would never have guessed it was cloth.
The planes are so light and small, they seem toy-like. "I could take you up in one of these if you like?" I shake my head in horror, which I quickly try to disguise as a polite "I wouldn't want to impose."
So what exactly is a glider? Put simply, it is a small airplane without an engine. A non-motorised plane. Visually, gliders can be distinguished by their lack of propellers (although there are also motorised gliders, which do have propellers) and their unusually long wings.
Because a glider does not have an engine, it cannot take off under its own power and relies on a tow-plane to bring it up to the desired height, then release it.
Once airborne, the glider uses streams of rising air (thermals) to prolong the flight, as the pilot steers it. In this manner, the glider can stay up in the air for hours and even travel cross-country. "Cross country without an engine?" I said, growing interested in the mechanics of the thing.
Long story short, I ended up in the glider. Owen - as most of the pilots there - has such a steady, reassuring manner about him, that the more we chatted the more it began to seem like a good idea - just a normal way to spend an afternoon. "There's no engine, so nothing can go wrong, you see. It's a bit like cycling really. Take your camera!" Yes, it would be like cycling.
I was feeling pretty good as I approached the glider, until another pilot - Gary - handed me a parachute. "Here, put this on." I must have turned white and begun to inch my way backward (OMG why do I need a parachute??), because Gary sort of held me in place and swiftly began to put the parachute on for me, cheerfully instructing me on its usage while gently nudging me into the glider. "There. It's like getting into the bathtub."
In fact, the thing is sort of canoe-shaped. The pilot/instructor sits behind the student/ passenger. There are duplicate controls. There is very little room, and once the top is down, you feel sealed off from the rest of the world. Once I was in it, my attitude was - If you're gonna do it, do it. Otherwise don't do it. No point being scared now.
As Owen began to rattle off a series of mysterious control-check messages into the radio, Gary grabbed the rope attached to the glider's nose and connected it to the tow-plane.
This is what it looks like to be towed along the grass runway. We are taking off toward Lough Foyle.
Here is the rope.
The take-off is quick and painless. Before I know it, we are being towed through the air.
View from the ground.
Finally, the rope is released. The tow-plane returns to the ground and the glider - well, it glides. I am in a small plane. Everything is completely silent. We are floating, coasting really. I am feeling fine. Calm, downright serene.
The landscape spreads out beneath. Familiar places from an unfamiliar vantage point. In that sense, it really is a bit like cycling. In an abstract sort of way.
We fly along the coast, then turn inland and head to Binevenagh Mountain. Owen explains how to work the controls to make the plane bank, turning it around. It makes sense and I give it a try. The plane turns. And there is Binevenagh, half submerged in shadow from a low cloud, half illuminated by intense sunshine. It looks quite tame from here, flattened out against the landscape. My heroic climbs and descents hardly seem like an accomplishment now.
On the very top of Binevenagh is a mysterious lake. It is up a rough gravel road and I've only made it up there once so far. The lake is eerie, prone to mists and unusual growths around its edges. When you're standing next to it, it looks as if it is about to pour off of the edge of the mountain.
But what you don't see from the ground, is that the lake is distinctly heart-shaped. It is also nowhere near the edge of the mountain when viewed from an aerial perspective.
My camera is with me in the glider. There is a small window that slides open to stick the lens through. I've no experience composing aerial photos, and my 50mm lens is all wrong for the task. Even as I take them, I know that my pictures will look generic, uninteresting. But they are mine and I take them with the same genuine enthusiasm as anyone would.
The sun fades gently in the silence. Over Magilligan Point, we see another glider in the distance and wave to them. Everything is beautiful. "You all right?" Owen asks. Yes! This is wonderful. "Want to try a Chandelle?" he says. "Oh. What's that?" It's a maneuver. A bit of fun. Not quite aerobatics, but almost. "All right!"
The glider does something that is part spin, part freefall and part loop. I see clouds. I am not sure which way is up. I feel pressure in my temples and my vision starts to go dark. A split second later, I am drenched in a cold sweat and hit with a wave of nausea. I sit very still and take deep breaths. "How was that?" Owen asks from the back seat. "Mmm hhmm hhmm!" I reply, mouth closed, worried I will puke all over the nice glider if I try to form sentences. Point taken. No more aerobatics. As the sun sets, we descend.
On the ground, I am soaking wet - hair, clothes, everything. Weird, the physical reactions we have. I don't remember feeling scared, but my body must have decided otherwise. We have a laugh about it. Then we steer the plane down the grass runway toward its next tow.
Is gliding anything like cycling? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe the feeling of landing is similar to that of a long descent. The view can be similar too. But on a bicycle everything feels open, whereas in a glider you are closed in, closed off - a bit claustrophobic for me. Not that I don't want to do it again. But perhaps no Chandelles just yet. It could be a useful skill, knowing how to fly light aircraft.
Some day. But for now I get back on the Tyrone Flyer. I pedal uphill, coast downhill. That is more my style of gliding.
I might want to take a 3 wheeled bike to this for the trip home.
Here’s a sneak peek at one of the video projects we’ve been working on. Oregon is about to launch the nation’s first state-wide bike friendly business recognition program targeted specifically towards bike travelers. This is huge! With a new study that cites that bicycling contributes $400 MILLION dollars a year (a little more than a million dollars a day), Oregon is getting serious about making it even easier for people to come to the state and recreate by bike.
We’ve been tasked with interviewing businesses who are bike friendly (and have seen the economic rewards of welcoming cyclists) and creating a piece to inspire other businesses around the state. We’ve had a chance to sit down with business owners large and small, from a B&B in Salem to the VP of operations at Chris King to the head roaster at Stumptown. Although we’ve got a few solid interviews in the can, we really want to knock this video out of the park. It really is becoming a passion project. So if you’re a business in Oregon (specifically a lodging property, restaurant or retail) that is bike friendly, contact us for a possible interview!
Old man porn is surfing Craigslist for a motorcycle.
No, it is not "mid-life crisis". I had my mid-life red Bugatti twenty five years ago.
It is almost painful to admit my life was such a cliche. (Probably still is, but I'll figure that out in retrospect yet again if I live long enough and don't end up with dementia.)
The Wifey says The Bike is my second childhood. She's right, of course. My last bike was 44 years ago. I paid $625.00 for it brand new. A Yamaha two stroke twin. I couldn't afford the "Widow Maker" Kawasaki triple. I still can't because now they are ten times the price they were in 1969.
I found a killer deal on a Suzuki 650 single. Low maintenance, cheap to fix, easy to remodel. I've done a little chopping and cutting on it already.
It is hard to look "hard" in a blue pinstriped shirt, Dockers and a backpack with oatmeal cookies and a peanut butter sandwich in it.
Hell's Orthodox? Maybe I should wear my "Neo" cassock. Better that than tight leathers at my age. (Yes, I do wear a helmet, it is under my arm with the 3-bar cross on the back of it... I couldn't resist.) I've thought about getting a "My Little Pony" or "Rainbow Bright" backpack to wear while I'm riding but they don't make them in adult sizes. Oh well.
So, in other news, the Wifey and I celebrated our twenty year anniversary this week. She's still a beauty, and mellows nicely with only one Long Island Iced Tea. In spite of how I've treated her over the years and all the things she's discovered about me that weren't so clear in the beginning, she still loves me. I'm a blessed man.
I've been married now 40 years, but not in a row. I still wrestle with guilt and "what-ifs" for the divorce. It is a hard trade off to know your own happiness and contentment caused so much grief and pain to others. I know intellectually I couldn't forsee all the consequences. I know intellectually neither can I prognosticate the outcome of a different decision. Life's threads can't be that easily unraveled and rewoven in retrospect. Joy and pain get magnified by years as the incomprehensible consequences continually manifest themselves. And yet, intellectually, who does not live so regardless of any decision we've made?
This is where I start sounding like my parents.
My one year "pre-existing condition clause" on my school insurance expired this year, so I've begun getting all my aches and pains of 30 years of construction work checked out. So far:
Sleep study done to find out why I fall asleep in 30 seconds, at the wheel on the freeway, at stop lights, and during sermons. It would be nice to email all those preachers and tell them, "It wasn't you..." though I think it was. (I get the results next week).
Heart stress test done. After 30 years of fast food for breakfast and lunch, 250+ cholesterol count, high blood pressure and a red meat, bratwurst and pulled pork diet my heart is clear. Physical labor and the miracle of red wine, I suppose.
Speaking of hard labor. The podiatrist walked into the exam room and stood at the door and said, "I bet those hurt... you don't need to be a podiatrist to know your feet are messed up."
My big toes are fused from arthritis. That changes how you walk and causes knee, hip and lower back problems. Duh. I will need joint replacements in both my big toes.
I went to an orthopedist to check out my knee, neck and shoulders. I need a right knee replacement. It has been "bone on bone" for quite a while he says, and is riddled with arthritis. My neck has arthritis that causes the upper back pain, but can be managed with cortisone shots. My shoulders have arthritis and possibly rotator cuff damage. An MRI next week will confirm. The doctor said he will probably have to snip some tendons on my biceps to relieve some of the stress on the front of my shoulders.
Basically, I will be in a boot, in a wheelchair, on crutches, or in a sling for the next three to four months.
They always ask, "Why didn't you get this checked out when you hurt yourself or noticed the pain?"
Well, I suppose the true "Art of Manliness" is, if you don't have insurance, are the sole income feeding a wife and six children, and can't take 2-3 months off to rehab, you take six ibuprofen, drink two beers and go to bed. Yeah, it was hard. But, even if it was my own damn fault, even if I would have had to work and feed someone regardless of a divorce or not, I can look back and say "I manned my post." No brag. But no regrets, at least in that arena.
If you are vigilant and honest with yourself, you would see that your life is a web, a huge network of such small but significant wicked moments, which comprise a significant part of your existence. If we ignore this, thinking that this is all normal, this means that you have not yet begun to live the Christian life.
A friend of a friend flies gliders at the Ulster Gliding Centre down the road. I was encouraged to visit. "He used to race bikes. He restores old planes. The place is amazing, you'll love it."
Astride the 75-year old machine, I race down the winding coastal road, at length turning onto a narrow lane toward the Lough Foyle. I ride past pastures, chicken coups, a thatched cottage, and a field of parked caravans, until finally a meadow comes into view - spread out along the water's edge and littered with small aircraft. From a distance the scene resembles a vegetable patch.
By the hangar, Owen waves me through, bike and all. We exchange greetings and straight away his eyes are on the bike.
Owen used to race 100 mile time trials. He was good, right up there at the top. Then he stopped. But I can see the cycling has not left him. If he sees a bike, he can't not look at the bike. Then it's my turn to look at the planes.
A hangar is basically a garage for aircraft. This one is dome-shaped. The interior is well illuminated. There are little planes everywhere and I wander through them as if through a forest, stepping over tails and wings as if they were felled tree branches. Some planes are colourful and others are white, some fairly new and others quite old. Owen restores the old ones.
Here is the rope. 
The take-off is quick and painless. Before I know it, we are being towed through the air. 
View from the ground.
Finally, the rope is released. The tow-plane returns to the ground and the glider - well, it glides. I am in a small plane. Everything is completely silent. We are floating, coasting really. I am feeling fine. Calm, downright serene.
The landscape spreads out beneath. Familiar places from an unfamiliar vantage point. In that sense, it really is a bit like cycling. In an abstract sort of way.
We fly along the coast, then turn inland and head to Binevenagh Mountain. Owen explains how to work the controls to make the plane bank, turning it around. It makes sense and I give it a try. The plane turns. And there is Binevenagh, half submerged in shadow from a low cloud, half illuminated by intense sunshine. It looks quite tame from here, flattened out against the landscape. My heroic climbs and descents hardly seem like an accomplishment now.
But what you don't see from the ground, is that the lake is distinctly heart-shaped. It is also nowhere near the edge of the mountain when viewed from an aerial perspective.
My camera is with me in the glider. There is a small window that slides open to stick the lens through. I've no experience composing aerial photos, and my 50mm lens is all wrong for the task. Even as I take them, I know that my pictures will look generic, uninteresting. But they are mine and I take them with the same genuine enthusiasm as anyone would.
The sun fades gently in the silence. Over Magilligan Point, we see another glider in the distance and wave to them. Everything is beautiful. "You all right?" Owen asks. Yes! This is wonderful. "Want to try a Chandelle?" he says. "Oh. What's that?" It's a maneuver. A bit of fun. Not quite aerobatics, but almost. "All right!"
It is almost painful to admit my life was such a cliche. (Probably still is, but I'll figure that out in retrospect yet again if I live long enough and don't end up with dementia.)
I've been married now 40 years, but not in a row. I still wrestle with guilt and "what-ifs" for the divorce. It is a hard trade off to know your own happiness and contentment caused so much grief and pain to others. I know intellectually I couldn't forsee all the consequences. I know intellectually neither can I prognosticate the outcome of a different decision. Life's threads can't be that easily unraveled and rewoven in retrospect. Joy and pain get magnified by years as the incomprehensible consequences continually manifest themselves. And yet, intellectually, who does not live so regardless of any decision we've made?
My big toes are fused from arthritis. That changes how you walk and causes knee, hip and lower back problems. Duh. I will need joint replacements in both my big toes.
