Walking, Dirt Rag Publishing

Its Tuesday night and I'm coming off a 4-day weekend. Monday was Memorial day, and I took today off as paid vacation. The weekend was just long enough to impart a small taste of that sweet freedom that an extended break offers, yet short enough to swiftly snatch away the treat. I am, however, glad for the 4 days, they were nice.

On Monday Sabrina and I set off on an epic ride with the intent to explore Larrabee state park. With intoxicating memories of past epics spinning through my brain we set off into a beautiful, sunny, warm day. It was about a 12 mile ride to the park with about 9-10 of it being on a trail which was great. We passed though a couple small mountains. Under the old growth forest everything simply glows green, it was incredible really, I had visions of the 'scenic route' in Hilo, Hawaii, the similarities were just uncanny. Eventually we reached the park and snaked our way down a small trail and onto a little beach were we ate lunch and relaxed for a while. After drinking in the sun and water we started a two mile up-hill ride to Fragrance Lake. There were spots where Sabrina thought she was going to die, but with much encouragement her endeavors bore fruit and we arrived at the top. The ride down however she impressed me. The road was loamy, with a soft gravel base that took some skill to track through, yet she was never far off my back during the ultra-fast two mile downhill. There were even a couple spots were I thought I was going to blast right off the mountain and fearfully gazed back only to see Sabrina successfully navigate the corner. At the bottom we were all smiles, laughing and talking about how much fun it was. From there we had a nice ride back to town and even stopped at a local ice cream store to enjoy a reward.

This weekend I even took my beloved prophet up to Galbraith for the first time in a few months. After hitting a tree and completely blowing off the trails a couple times I remembered how to ride and remembered why its such a fun bike. Today I took the Ironhorse out and marveled, once again, at how well it goes downhill.

I received an email today from someone I had forgotten about, Karen the editor of Dirt Rag! She announced that they are now ready to publish my article in their next issue (hits the stands July 1). I will be occupying the very last page of the magazine, the "Last Chance for Gas" section, which ironically is one of my favorite sections to read in the mag. Cool!

I haven't done this for a while, but now that I've finally got something to post take a look:

5-28-2007 Weekend in Pictures

Update

Not too much going on lately. I haven't had any harrowing close calls like last week, and for that I am relieved. My basic road philosophy is that each and every driver is a potential, even likely undertaker. Their collective incompetence keeps me motivated to stay ever vigilant when I'm out there sharing the road. I treat each one of them with complete distrust even to the point of assuming that they never see me at corners, stoplights, or intersections and while this may seem like paranoia, I believe it is the reason I'm still here riding and preaching the pedal-power revolution.

I got my hair cut this weekend, and when I say 'I got my hair cut' I mean that I took a pair of .99 cent dollar store scissors, stood in front of the mirror, and started going to work. Its no masterpiece, but I accomplished my goal; making it shorter, and I saved 20 bucks! (or whatever hair people charge).

I've recently purchased Sam Harris's book, "Letter to a Christian Nation", a short follow-up book to his very potent "End of Faith". Harris is currently study neuroscience, but has an academic background in philosophy so I can appreciate his analytic style and method. He writes in the same style and vein as Richard Dawkins and I would definitely compare his two books to Dawkin's most recent powerhouse, "The God Delusion". I hope to write book reviews for all these books and post them in the future.

Work has been normal. I do my best to not think about, talk about, or concern myself in anyway (unless asked) with my job when I am not on the clock. While I would say my job is decent, and tolerable, the bottom line is that I'm only there for one reason, to make money. I can think of a hundred other things I'd rather dedicate my life to, and if I didn't have such pressing financial concerns I wouldn't be there. Hopefully in the near future, given that I have a future, such things are not certain, I'll be able to pursue some of my dreams.

Bike to Work Week

First, this is National Bike to Work Week, and Friday is Bike to Work Day!


I didn't go to work Friday. I could tell Thursday night that I wouldn't be able to wake up in the morning, so I emailed in sick and enjoyed the sheer bliss of sleeping as long as possible, on a weekday. The weekend afforded good times riding the local hill, a fact to which my sore legs can readily speak to today, however the feeling is good, it is a sign I use my body.

I was reading some statistics recently that I would like to share:

1. 60% of Americans lead completely sedentary lifestyles (1998 report of the American Medical Association)

2. About 40% of all trips are shorter than 2 miles - a 10-minute bike ride or a 25-minute walk (1995 NPTS)

3. Air pollution contributes to the deaths of 60,000 people nationwide. In urban areas with poor air quality, asthma is becoming a more significant health concern. (Harvard University School of Public Health).

4. The cost of operating a car for one year is approximately $5,170, verses $120 for a bicycle (AAA Mid-Atlantic)

5. Approximately 70%, or 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese (AOA, 2002)

So, according to empirical studies, 70 percent of American adults are overweight, and 60 percent are completely sedentary. I should, for the sake of clarity define what the common definition of 'sedentary' is: activities which do not result in an elevated heart rate, increased perspiration, or increased respiration. Basically, a sedentary life involves nothing more than sitting, and maybe brief periods of walking (most likely to the car or fridge). Clearly there is a correlation between the 60% of Americans who live sedentary lives and the 70% who are overweight, the causal connection is at first obvious,
and under closer scrutiny undeniable; If you don't use your body, there is a very good statistical chance you will get fat.

Well anyway, I'm happy with the new site design so far, I just gotta keep dumping content into it.

Site Upgrade

I've been planning on doing this for a while now, but tonight I finally buckled down and did the job right. The amount of content on the site has been growing weekly and the old design was getting a bit cumbersome according to some viewers (Mom!). As you can tell, the feel is a bit different which is due to a technology called "cascading style sheets" or CSS. Basically CSS will let me create new pages a whole lot easier because I can save all my font, table, and link preferences in a single .css file which is then referred to by each individual html file. The language is different than html so I've still got a bit to learn, but I like it so far.

The site will probably looks a little plain for a while but I really want to make it nice to look at. Also, because of the labor intensive nature of the job, it'll be a little while before I can pull all the older style pages into this new format.

A new addition to the site is the "Critical Thinking" page which will house small (and maybe a couple big) papers on a variety subjects which I believe need a critical examination. Our world, for all its scientific and philosophical advancements is still largely shrouded in magical and mystical thinking so I'd like to throw a few of my own proverbial punches into the fight.

Weekend Update

Its Sunday night and a new week is just on the horizon beckoning us forward into new and unexplored territory. The past week was fine; work was normal and the weather was on par with yearly May averages. I was able to sneak a few rides in at the mountain which is always calming, however my knees have been bothering me a bit, not really pain but more of a pressure feeling. I'm not sure why but I'm trying different things to see if I can reduce it.

Yesterday Sabrina and I walked all over downtown spending our time peeking into small shops, enjoying parks, trails, and the gentle spring weather. We need to do this to help rest our minds, our neighbors have been getting louder lately, it seems the effectiveness of my method (standing on a chair and banging on the ceiling) isn't as potent as it once was. I'll probably end up talking to the landlord about it. I also haven't been super excited about the people I've been seeing more and more around the area either. The amount of police sirens right outside the apartment and in the general surroundings have been increasing as well.

*** News break! Right as I was writing that last paragraph I heard, you guessed it, sirens! About 7 police vehicles swerved in right next to the apartment and from what I could tell they are targeting the Mexican house across the street. There are police cars stationed at the road entrances to the ghet.. I mean neighborhood, so I wonder what they are doing, and who they are trying to keep in.

Any ways, here are some pictures: 5-6-2007 Weekend in Pictures

Story Time

I'm putting up the second part to my old story an Uncertain future. It is far from finished, and to be honest I haven't worked on it for a while, but I do know where the story is going and what the major plot twists will be. I'm not sure when I'll be finishing it though as I've been mulling over some other ideas lately. I'm interested in creating a story which utilizes some of what Joseph Cambell called the classical 'hero' archetypes - these stories are familiar to all of us because I think at some level we all aspire to heroic ideals even if we never put them into action. There is just something about a good hero story that resonates with the human condition and is quite possibly rooted in our pysche from many thousands of years of story telling; we admire heros, we idolize them for their sacrifices and independence and on some level we all wish to be a hero. So, I'd like to write a story in which I can infuse a lot of my beliefs and dreams and do so in a Cambellian vein.

For now, I give you the 'Uncertain Future' series:

Uncertain Future Part 1 - circa 2001

Uncertain Future Part 2 - written in 2007

Finals Week

Well, I've broken down yet again and my conscience has forced me to update my pitiful page once again. It is hard to imagine taking the time to do this during finals week, but I've left my papers by the wayside and have decided to take some time to ramble my inner musings. School ends in less than a week for me and summer will finally begin, this will mark my first summer in a very long time where I have few responsibilities and can spend time hiking, biking and camping rather than working. Sadly however, this will be my final summer where I have these opportunities as well, so I must make the most of it. I have overhauled my bike again today, getting it ready for an entire summer's worth of adventure and thrashing. Tomorrow perhaps, I will overhaul Sadie's bike as well, making sure that everything is ready to go for next weekend, when I plan to go on our first camping adventure, just her and me. It was supposed to rain today and it hasn't yet, rather it is sunny and warm, with a few pillowy clouds scattered about. As I get ready to leave for school however, I can't help but to think that they were probably right and that it will rain, but as I am biking home. Commuting has gotten much easier in the last few weeks, I guess it is because I dont race as fast as I can for all six miles to and from school. Now, because it is nice out, sunny with a light breeze, I slow down to a paltry 15 mph and enjoy the day. In harsher weather, for most of the winter, it was hard to just get on the bike and ride, to fight the cold for 22 minutes while my hands and toes slowly enter the numbing stage, and re-emerge into sharp pain as I wonder if they will fall off completely when I get home. No, those days are past, and now, I look forward to each days ride, ready to fulfill my 40 minutes of increased heart-rate that stops fat from congealing in my veins and being deposited on my tummy.