A Place of Brightness: kroton

Monday, November 2, 2015

Milo of Croton--A Model for Crossfit...

Making the rounds in Crossfit Circles for a number of years has been the story of Milo of Croton picking up a bull calf at infancy and then picking it up every day until it was fully grown, an apparent lesson in the ability to incrementally increase weight lifts until they are extraordinary.

Milo of Croton is essentially an ancient Greek Paul Bunyan. He is very probably an historical person around whom incredible tales of physical prowess collected.

Very interesting to me is the story of how he met his demise. Milo reportedly came upon a tree trunk split into wedges. When he inserted his hands to split them, they somehow shifted and crushed his hands, trapping him. Unable to escape, he died, devoured by wolves.

It's the ultimate tale of hubris followed by dike, judgment.

There was very likely a great athlete named Milo from Croton. However he met his end, rest eternal upon his soul.

In Saecula Saeculorum, the 4th Novel in the Valquist Series

In this fourth novel of the Valquist Series, Andrew Valquist is retired (?) from the National Security Agency and teaching Latin at a Classical Academy in the Washington DC area. But in the world of espionage, looks can be deceiving. He's not necessarily happy with the role he has played in all this, but the school was actually a joint NSA/MI-6 Project in which four young people have been unwittingly prepared for a mission to travel back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information from a library that may save the modern world from certain destruction. They know they have to at least try to save humanity, but can they also save each other?

Next Stop: Spanish, the 3rd Novel in the Valquist Series

This third novel in the Valquist Series can be read as an espionage action-adventure in its own right, but also you can use it as a way to either brush up on your Spanish or learn functional Spanish for the first time! John Valquist needs to learn Spanish. But he's in luck, since his uncle Andrew is a language expert and a former (?) spy who is taking him on a vacation to Spain so he can study the language. In Next Stop: Spanish, you have the chance to see and study the words John studies, and then watch him add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses. During this vacation, they get pulled into espionage intrigue (why do these things always happen to the Valquist family?). In the dramatic conclusion, John will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Amor Vincit Omnia: the 2nd Novel in the Valquist Series

In this second novel of the Valquist Series, Keith Massey takes you into the halls of the National Security Agency, where he himself worked for four years after 9/11 and an Arabic linguist. You follow our hero Andrew Valquist, as he starts work as a new recruit at the NSA. Little does he know that on his first on the job, he's about to fly off on an unexpected overseas assignment. He'll be even more surprised when he learns that his background in ancient Latin will be crucial to the mission!