Former professional mountain biker Marla Streb, who earned her M.S. in Marine Estuary Environmental Science from UMBC in 1991, is featured in the Baltimore City Paper’s “bike issue” this week.

To quote the article:

She became a world-class contender in single-track downhill—in which, just as in downhill ski-racing, “you start at the top of a mountain and they time you as you go down, one at a time, a very treacherous course with jumps, and you get to the bottom in about five minutes,” she says. In her 16-year career, she won three national and two world championships, broke 24 bones, and wrote two books about it—a training guide and a memoir, Downhill: The Life Story of a Gravity Goddess.

Since returning recently to Baltimore with her family, Streb says she plans on working with city planners to make biking more accessible to all.

Read the full story in the Baltimore City Paper.

Avocado & Chickpea Salad

My mom randomly came up with this salad combination and I have just fallen in love with the combination and texture.

• cucumber
• lemon
• black pepper
• onions
• avocado
• chickpeas

This easy salad can go well with some rice or some chips! The lemon adds the perfect tangy flavor to this salad.

This is the perfect snack/ meal that you can whip up in the comfort of your dorm room!

Thanks to Wikicommons.

Ancient Arachnophobia! Largest fossil of a spider discovered.

Trigger unhappy! Six year old brings gun to school accidentally injuring three.

Were not with them. High ranking Republicans attempt to shush Obama’s birther critics.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

Pilot-less drones used to be fixtures in science fiction movies. Now they are stars of the US military arsenal.

Drones are currently playing a leading role in America’s shadow war in Pakistan. Unsurprisingly, many in Pakistan take a dark view of these dangerous weapons.

A governing body within Pakistan has called for the end of US drone strikes within the nation. They argue these drones hurt more than help America’s war on terror.

US relations with Pakistan are tense. Drone strikes have been known to kill innocent people thus further complicating relations with this important ally.

How do you stop drones killing the wrong people?

By offering CASH PRIZES, OF COURSE!!!

That’s right, The US Air Force is offering a contest to create a method of identifying age and gender of people at a distant. The winner of this contests gets a cool $20,000.

For poor bloggers like us, 20 grand sounds like a lot but Sam Biddle at Gizmondo notes

For a governmental entity that’s requesting $170 billion in funding next year, twenty grand is like something you give your daughter a dollar to go buy an ice cream cone.

Whether or not this is the solution, there is no doubt that the growth of unmanned vehicles on the battlefield is changing warfare.

England’s Ministry of Defense has gone so far as saying that drone ethics must be analyzed before we are on a “journey towards a Terminator-like reality.”

So what do you our readers think? Are drones making war cleaner? and is this a good thing?

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV 2010)
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Reflection:
In this section of the chapter, Paul is revealing what the Corinthians ‘story’ was not. It is an invitation to once again look deep within and ask what truly is our plot for the story of our lives together as church? Christ loved the cross-way and excellently wrote out our lives within this reality. Each description of love we find here is actually a dynamic expression of the cross-centered life and story. We are invited to keep writing our church-story in this plot.

Responding to the Transmission:
Let’s look at each of these descriptions of love and think of how it applies to our lives right now. How does it speak to our hearts? As we receive and embrace this cross-way of love, may it re-shape us (as individuals and within our churches), deepen our missional groups, and transform our campus ministries into this story of God’s love in our time and our places.