Flew over the Grand Canyon yesterday; probably one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. Seeing it from the air makes you realise the true scale. It’s totally vast. From the tourist vantage points on the ground you just get no real sense of what an amazing part of creation it really is.
It was a very long day, and we were looking at some of the geological thinking behind the theory of how the Grand Canyon was created. Challenging stuff, and certainly it was a good opportunity to think carefully about questions.
More than anything it reminded me more than anything how much your world view can affect your understanding of factual evidence. In many ways though, attempting to debunk elements of certain scientific theory within the Creationist spectrum is doing things in reverse. Your foundational understanding or assumption of how the universe initially came to be will surely affect your understanding of the physical world around us.
Enjoying being stretched though, and looking forward to what’s coming up today. Rumour is that we’ll be taking a trip on a boat…
Food report: W burger at Wendy’s, really good, 7/10. Tasted really fresh.
Went to a hilariously small town Pizza Hut franchise in Lake Mead. This was a $10 meal box. I nearly died eating a tiny amount of it. Greasy. 3/10. Lived up to all the American food stereotypes!
I’m going to try and cover every meal I eat here in the States over the next few days; here’s meal number one.
A Chicken Sourdough Club Combo meal from Jack in The Box, which was actually really good! 7/10.
Mr ‘D’s Frozen Custard. The name made it sound great, the reality was just some really, really solid Mr Whippy. Disappointed. 3/10.
Coming to the end of a very long day, so I’ll write more tomorrow, but for now just some pictures.
If you didn’t know already, I’m about to fly out to the US for a ten day road trip. I’m going to be taking part in a BBC 3 Documentary about creationism and evolution. Quite a bit deal! You can read more about it here, but for now I just want to put down how I’m feeling and what I’m expecting to happen.
By no means am I an expert, and from what I can tell the other people on the trip are from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and beliefs about the issue.
I came down yesterday to Gatwick, and my flight was delayed by two hours, so I’ve had a bit of time to collect my thoughts. I’m flying out to Las Vegas, a long flight but hopefully time to relax and think through what’s going to be happening over the next ten days.
I’m going to take some pictures along the way (it sounds like I’ll be visiting some amazing places!), and I’ll try to give a day by day (or close enough) account of what goes on.
I’m nervous but trusting God, and prayers would be much appreciated.
The first mix I’ve done in over a year. Really enjoyed planning this, I hope you enjoy it.
In their series ‘silent world’, paris-based, franco-german artistic duo lucie & simon use tricks of the photographic trade to render the world’s busiest cities free of cars and even people.
Neutral density filters allow photographers to limit light entry without closing the aperture or increasing the shutter speed. The higher the F-stop reduction, the greater the effect, allowing for super-long exposures which make moving objects like people and cars essentially invisible, while only immobile structures remain. extremely high level filters are used by NASA to analyse star patterns.
In the ‘silent world’ images, lucie & simon leave just one or two people visible in the photograph:
’small intrusions [whose] disconcerting presence disrupts the majestic calm of the streets and squares.‘
Rear three quater to match the sketch render I did the other day.
