W&OD Conquered; Mt. Vernon Trail >50% Conquered

Posted July 26, 2008, 11:34 p.m.

So the weekend ended up a bit more busy than I had really expected, but it’s going pretty well. I realized though that I had neglected to update you all on my effort to conquer the W&OD bike trail. Status: Success.

Last Thursday, I pushed myself to [and perhaps slightly beyond] my limit, setting off from the 16 mile marker on the trail and riding all the way to the 0 mile marker, and then all the way back for a total ride of 32 miles. My limit, in case you’re wondering, was around 25 miles ;-). I survived though. In the last 3 or 4 weeks, I’ve ridden the entire 45-mile length of the W&OD trail in both directions.

Today, I did have a couple of free hours so I started a similar exercise on the scenic 18 miles of the Mount Vernon Trail. I did a 10-mile ride from it’s northern terminus to a spot just south of the Beltway, then back again. Sometime in the next week or so, I’ll start from the southern terminus and ride 10 miles north (which will complete the whole trail, with a couple miles of overlap in the middle).

Hopefully soon, I’ll do another 30-miler and not feel like I’m about to die at the 25th mile ;-).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

The child’s right to life is inalienable and must never be violated. No amount of legal, political, medical, or philosophical argumentation can usurp the child’s rights or God’s sole sovereignty.

God reigneth. All is well.

We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around.

We may amuse ourselves with names; but the fact is, men will be governed by the motives and temptations that surround their situation. Political evils to be guarded against are in the human character, and not in the name of patrician or plebeian.

God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor.

If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.

Nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with it.

In its sharp protest against Catholicism, Protestantism [discarded] the mysterious, mythical, and mystical aspects of the faith. In that sense it has impoverished religion.

Countries don’t compete directly with one another in economic terms. When Singapore or China gets richer, America does not become poorer.

[My father] gave me a piece of advice that I have always remembered, namely, that, if I was not going to earn money, I must even things up by not spending it.

We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.

Regardless of its hypothetical virtues . . . the implementation of Marxism was a disaster everywhere it was attempted. . . .

It’s easier to donate a few thousands to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement.

Papers say: ‘Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.’ I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.

Are we so much better than the people of other ages and of other countries, that the same allurements of power and greatness, which led them aside from their duty, will have no influence upon men in our country?

Prices determined in a free market are a form of free speech.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves that he has no brains of his own!

An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old.

We tend to think that humans distinguish themselves from animals by greater knowledge and awareness, but the most typical difference is that, unlike animals, we are almost constantly tormented by a lack of knowledge.