Dr. Forbush Thinks

When I made the transition from the University world to the Industrial world I was introduced to the concept of the “trade show.” The idea with a trade show is to gather the key players in your industry or area and sell each other your products. In academia there is a similar concept called the conference. An academic conference does the same thing as a trade show in that it gathers all the key players into one location. However, the academic conference is based on the premise that everyone is sharing their ideas. The truth of the matter here is that at an academic conference everyone is “selling” their ideas.

Human nature works the same in both the academic and industrial worlds. People like what they are used to using. They would like to continue to do what they are used to doing with the exception that they might like to do it a little faster and a little more efficiently. Most people are not willing to jump on the band wagon of any new technology without proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the new way is worth the trouble of changing.

When I joined EDC we had a monopoly on the equipment that we made. The premise of sticking with what you know worked very well for our company. When the occasional player tried to break into the market we could easily introduce something into our product to compete with any potential advantage that might challenge us. Customers tended to stick with what they already knew - namely our product.

With the success of our company we made several attempts to expand our business. In order to expand we needed to create a new product using a new technology. In doing so we normally ran into the problem of coming up against established products and trying to overcome that inertia from the other side. In one case we came up with several improvements on the existing technology in the semiconductor industry. However, breaking into the semiconductor industry proved to be extremely difficult and we fell back on plan B, sell the technology to someone already established in the semiconductor industry.

The point of all this introduction is meant to establish the need for trade shows and conferences. When you get together with people in the field conversations begin and mature. Walking the trade show educates and informs. Trade shows bring customers to venders, but it also brings people and ideas together.

As we developed our biotech equipment we needed a way to get our product out into the public. To us it seemed liked people would just “need” our equipment once they saw what it could do. How could anyone prefer the “old” technology when we had this “new” technology that was so much better? The answer of course was that the old technology worked adequately for most applications being done at the time and the potential customers weren’t so sure about the new technology. Most people were unprepared to look a couple of years down the road to the new applications, mainly because they hadn’t been thought of yet.

Our job was to show potential customers how wonderful our product is. This had to be done with the standard tests that our customers use to verify that their current equipment works. In other words, in order to break into an existing market we needed to make our equipment do the same job that the current equipment was doing. People weren’t prepared to redesign everything and put our equipment into the new setup. And, the best place to learn what the current customers think about “new” equipment is a trade show.

In the biotech industry trade shows and conferences are merged into one thing. There are talks and presentations as well as booths for people in “the industry.” This means that you need to make your point academically as well as economically. A new technology needs to pass “peer review.” In other words, your product will only be accepted if the majority of the people in the community agree that the technology is worthy. And so, even though scientists don’t like to admit it - social relationships play a role in the industry.

Well, EDC BioSystems first presented our technology at this trade show about five years ago. And, over those five years we have presented our argument to the community every year since. And, slowly the community has warmed to acoustic dispensing and EDC BioSystems as a company. Hence, every year in this decade I have made that trip to the desert, either for learning about the industry or for presenting our equipment. And, always to build those important business relationships.

This year the conference/trade show was held on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I flew in Sunday and left Tuesday afternoon. There are certain rituals that have been established over the years of attending trade shows. One of those rituals is the “business dinner.” Other rituals are “walking the show,” “working the booth,” “scoping the competition,” “meeting and greeting old friends,” “reading the posters,” and “finding the golden nugget.”

These rituals have gradually evolved by trial and error. The rituals need not be performed in any specific order, although they all do need to be done during the show. Some are performed throughout the duration of the show, while others are done once and abandoned. Each of these rituals have social interactions involved and the rituals foster social relationships.

With all of these rituals to follow there is hardly any time to do anything on your own. Well, there is one personal ritual that I have begun in recent years. I get up early and go for a run. I did this for the first time three years ago. Of course whenever one is in a strange city it isn’t that easy to know the best places to run. So, on my first trip I just took off running down the street at 5:30 in the morning. This first run wasn’t an ideal run, mainly because I ran out into the desert before the sun had risen. It was dark and I had no idea where I should go. I had looked at a map before hand, and it seemed that I had a good trail to follow, but there weren’t any sidewalks and it was bloody dark. Well, on subsequent runs I found better and better places to run. And, I gradually began my run a bit later so that I could run as the sun came up over the desert. This is how these rituals evolve.

This year I did the same thing. I woke up and began my run at 7:00 AM. I thought that I might try something a little different. On the last day of the show last year I found out that there were trails on the mountains that surround Palm Springs. These steep rock piles that surround Palm Springs shoot up about 3000 feet into the sky and influence the desert climate that has people returning year after year. These naked rock piles have very little vegetation because of the lack of rainfall and consistent 100+ degrees weather most of the year. In the winter the weather is much more hospitable. At 6:30 AM I took off toward the mountain to the west of the city. The base of the mountain was about a mile from my hotel, but I had no idea where the paths began. I thought that I might just run along the foot of the mountain and discover where the path might begin.

As I ran the mile toward the base of the mountain I saw a fellow runner heading in the same direction. Then I saw a couple of runners running in the opposite direction. I sensed that I might be going the right way. As followed the runner ahead of me I saw him scramble up to a road that ran along the base of the mountain but at about 10 or 15 feet up the side of the mountain. I followed him up to the road, and then up further to a sandy path that seamed to climb further up the side of the mountain. I followed him as he ran up the side of the mountain. Running up hill requires a bit more effort than running on flat ground, but if one slows down one, then one can still find a good pace based on effort. Of course the guy that I began to follow was faster than I was, so he was soon out of sight somewhere ahead of me on the path.

I continued to follow the path up the mountain. I traveled at a good pace, breathing heavy on the steepest sections of the path. As I climbed I saw a beautiful city stretched out before me. As I climbed I saw that the trail was actually marked with little spots of white paint on rocks. After about 25 minutes I emerged at the top of this small mountain. It was the first foothill, with taller ones directly behind it. I estimated that I had climbed about 1500 feet and to my surprise there were six very sturdy picnic tables placed at the top of this climb. Just as I emerged I saw the runner that I had followed up the mountain. For the first time I noticed that he was about ten years older than I am. He complimented me on being in “good” shape. He said that he was Swiss, so of course he was used to doing this. Then he took off running back down the mountain.

Been there, done that! I circled the picnic tables and then I also took off running back down the mountain, and back to my hotel. The total round trip was about 55 minutes - a good workout for the day.

The next day I decided to do the same run, but I thought that I might explore the top of the mountain a bit before a returned down again. I also decided to leave a few minutes earlier in order to catch the sunrise over the city as I climbed the mountain. And, I discovered a loop that ran around the mountaintop. And, on the way down I ran into the same guy I had followed up the mountain the day before. I had realized that he was also in town to go to the same trade show. Finally as I was running down the mountain I passed another runner who asked me if I knew how to find another path that lead to the south end of Palm Springs. That was the first that I had heard of it. But I guess next year I will look for it as this running ritual continues to evolve.

In the end Man vs. Nature is the ultimate conflict that we all end up losing. This is because nature is the environment that we all live in. Nature encompasses everything we know. Other men, society, and ourselves can all be reduced to nature itself because all of these are products of nature. In literature when we explore one of these so-called non-nature conflicts we are only peeling off one subgroup of conflict in order to examine it more closely.

Man is always in a battle against nature. This was obvious in ancient civilizations when every danger lie just outside the campfire circle. But, even today the diseases that we fight - be they bacterial, viral or even cancerous - they come from nature in various ways to damage our bodies and age them little by little. Even oxygen and the sun age our bodies little by little. Nature eats away at us every day and no matter how we fight it - we will ultimately loose that final conflict.

We don’t like to think about this fact of life. But, every once in a while death comes a little closer than we might like. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Yesterday I took on nature by choice. Like I did last year I chose to swim from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to San Francisco. The famous island lies about 1.25 miles north of San Francisco in the cold bay waters normally between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit. In these waters hypothermia is a real threat, but swimming hard for less than an hour will generate enough heat for most people to counter this problem. I survived this swim last year with some major chills and shivering, but nothing life threatening. I can normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes - 30 minutes would be a lazy pace. So, I wasn’t very worried about this swim at all.

But, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

About 650 people joined me on a one-way cruise out to Alcatraz. I had no fear, because I had done this before. But, looking back on this short trip out to the island there was some foreshadowing. I began to talk to some of the experienced swimmers. Last year I worried about everything, where to site, how to pace myself. This year I made the sophomore mistake of throwing worry to the wind. Of course most of the swimmers wore wetsuits. I didn’t wear one last year, why would I need one this year?

I met a few guys who also chose to swim “naked” as they call it. Two of them worked out every day swimming in the Aquatic Park. Another guy told me that this was his twentieth crossing. I asked him if there was anything that he had learned from all of his experience. He told me, that the most important thing was that every crossing was different. And that sentiment is still bouncing around in my head today.

As we traveled across the bay, the boat was being tossed around. Someone noted that there were whitecaps on the waves. And, another guy said, “This is going to be challenging.” I began to wonder what he meant by challenging.

Last year it took me 40 minutes to swim this short distance, mainly because I needed to occasionally stop and look around. I was also slow off the boat, which I believe added to my official swim time. This year I was quick to get toward the front of the line. I wanted to get started. Why wait? I jumped into the water, pushing the button on my watch in order to get the perfect boat to beach time.

I swam ahead away from the boat, following the crowd of swimmers that had jumped before me. Like most swimmers, freestyle means front crawl, the easiest and most efficient swimming stroke. I saw the swimmers in front of me and I kept up with them as we began to swim for the shore. Then a large wave hit me. I got my breath, but the wave slammed me into the water hard. I stopped for a second, picked my head up, and swam a few strokes of breaststroke. With my head above the water I could see the waves coming, but of course my progress was much slower. I put my head back in the water and continued on with my front crawl. I was hit by waves again and again. I was slammed into the water again and again. This was different from anything I had experienced before. Then a wave hit me in the face and I sucked in water. I coughed and gagged. I picked my head up and once again began breast stroking toward the shore.
Well, I tried to swim front crawl a few more times, but the waves were killing me. One well-placed wave just might drown me. The safest thing to do had to be breaststroke, but I didn’t do just regular breaststroke, I swam breaststroke with my head up. This was slow and steady, but at least I wouldn’t be drowned by those stupid waves. This was obviously “real” open water swimming. I saw other swimmers around me. One person had their hand up signaling a boat. The boat was a few feet away. They had told us if we needed any help that we should signal the boats that would be along the course.

The waves must have been about three feet high. This might not seem like much, but it was just enough to get you high enough that I could survey the swimmers around me. I felt better knowing that there were other swimmers around me. Last year I felt like I was alone in the sea. I couldn’t see anyone around me until I got pretty close to the finish line. This year I could see heads bobbing all around me. I felt pretty good that I wasn’t alone. But, people were passing me as I did breaststroke, and somehow these people were able to swim front crawl in all of these waves. I imagined that I must be like a runner that grew up in Kansas running quite well on all the flat roads that run around the cornfields. Suddenly I was placed in the Rocky Mountains and told to run a 10K. I’d be dying on every up hill, and trying to slow myself down on every downhill. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for this swim.

I stubbornly pushed myself forward. Breaststroke wasn’t fast, but the swim wasn’t only about winning a race. There wasn’t much chance that I was actually going to win the race. This was Man against Nature now, and I was going to win this battle. This swim started out an idea that I would beat my time from last year. And, this time I was going to run after the swim was over. The race was actually to swim from Alcatraz, then run seven miles over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. It certainly didn’t sound impossible when I started, but it sure was taking me a long time to get to the beach.

Nature, being what it is, isn’t about just one thing. Nature in the traditional sense is about aggressive wild animals, storms, lightening, volcanoes, mountains and more. And, nature in my case wasn’t just about nauseating waves. It was also about the cold water. Putting two things together, the lack of a wetsuit and the much slower pace that I was making due to the waves I was beginning to take quite some time to make this crossing. Occasionally I would panic a bit and begin to push myself a little harder. This was not necessarily the best strategy. I was already doing my best to fight the waves, did I really need to fight the exhaustion. Wait a minute, swimming at the pace I was with my head up avoiding the waves was already exhausting me. The extra time that this swim was taking was already exhausting me. And, the cold water was exhausting me.

I was thinking to myself that I was certainly in better shape this year than I was last year. What would have happened if I had to battle these same waves last year? This could have been worse. Maybe I should have worn a wetsuit? It would have been my insurance policy, giving me the margin that would have made the difference. I was certainly getting colder and my hands and feet were beginning to tingle. I could see the shore that I was aiming for, but it sure seemed to be a long way off. I struggled and pushed myself but it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress. I even tried to swim front crawl again. But, in my tired condition, even the smaller waves near the shore took their toll on me. With about 300 yards to go I finally realized that I should have been swimming sidestroke instead of breaststroke. I got a nice strong scissors kick going, and I started to pass the person swimming next to me. I felt like I was making some progress again. But I was already in a state of hypothermia.

I got out of the water and I ran to the place that I was supposed to change into my running gear. My wife met me there, and she was crying. I had taken an hour and twenty minutes to make this crossing. It took me 40 minutes last year. The difference was the waves, but my wife had seen an ambulance drive up, and she thought the worst. Even after seeing that I was OK, she was still upset, because someone wasn’t. In fact, a 51 year old woman who was swimming this same race had died. They found her floating in the bay and they didn’t know what had happened to her.

I don’t know any other way to explain how I felt after that swim, except that I had “fog brain.” I couldn’t think clearly. I knew that I was supposed to run seven miles, but didn’t know if I could. I probably needed some fluids, but I didn’t feel thirsty. My wife was trying to help me, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I had hoped that by running I would generate some heat and all of this would correct itself. At least that was the plan. I put my shoes and socks on and my wife and I started running. We ran slowly, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. My fog brain wasn’t going away and I was going into shock. I knew that this was bad, and my wife knew that it was bad. We turned around as we realized that this was just not worth the risk. The race was for fun. I could have run back and drink something and tried again. But, I knew that that would just be stupid. I was sad and dejected. Nature had won this one, but I had lived to fight another day. The fight goes on, even though we all really know that nature will win in the end. We just don’t know when.

First off, I don’t care to gamble. Actually I do like to gamble in certain ways, take risks and expect returns on those risks. But, Las Vegas style risks are high, and the odds for a payout are low, so it doesn’t make much sense to risk my hard earned money on something that has very little chance of offering a return. In fact, if I really cared about making money I would buy stock in companies like Wynn, Bally’s, Harrah’s and the like, because the return on investment is more likely to be positive on that side of the table.

I’ve been told by a number of people that Las Vegas isn’t only about gambling. It’s about entertainment! There are so many things to do up and down the strip that you can go to Vegas and not gamble at all. It didn’t seem likely to me, but I had been to Vegas a couple of years ago and didn’t gamble. So, I knew that a gambling free Las Vegas vacation was possible.

Last time I was in Las Vegas I brought the kids. My daughter was dancing in a dance competition that occupied a large portion of our time. The extent of our time on the “Strip” consisted of driving up and down the strip, going to see a show, and walking around a casino or two. We didn’t really “do” Vegas.

This time was different. My wife and I left the kids at home and we ventured off on our first childless vacation since our oldest was born. Our vacation wasn’t about destination, it was about re-connection. It didn’t really matter where we went; it mattered that we went together and to share the experience no matter what else happened.

We decided to take an offer from a time-share company who would put us up for a week on the “Strip.” A free hotel no matter where it was located was all that we needed. We had never listened to a time-share spiel, so we even looked at that as an experience to share and talk about. The point of the vacation was not about “location,” it was about “destination.” How bad could listening to a two-hour spiel be? We had the rest of the time to ourselves.

Well, we arrived in Vegas Monday evening and realized that the trip might not be as easy as we had imagined. The first floor of our Hotel was a smoke fill dungeon of a casino. The smell of cigarette smoke filled every nook and cranny of this hotel making life miserable at first. The smell brought back memories of times when smoke filled many more aspects of my life. But, since California had made cigarette smoke illegal in so many locations, it was rare for me to even smell it at all for years at a time. My wife had it even worse than I did. Her sinus cavities had swollen shut and she had a massive headache that drugs couldn’t cure. Monday night was miserable as we tried to sleep with the smoke from seven floors down making its way up into our non-smoking room.

The next morning we couldn’t wait to get out of the room. We thought that we might benefit from a little run down the Las Vegas Strip. We figured that the distance from Circus Circus down to Mandalay Bay was about four miles. So, an early morning run of eight miles seemed to be a good way to get the day started.

At about 6:15 AM the strip was a different place than the night before. Most of the people outside at this time of the morning were fellow joggers and a few people looking for a breakfast buffet. A run up and down the strip is an excellent way to see it for the first time, in person and up close. Running early in the morning also enables you to miss the crowds in the streets that block your way later in the day or even late at night.

As we started our run we quickly saw that jogging the Las Vegas Strip was a quite popular thing to do. We passed quite a few people, as quite a few people passed us. Joggers of all sorts came toward us a well. We easily saw over a hundred, and surely there were many more running on the street that we didn’t see. As I saw all of these joggers running the Las Vegas Strip I started to think about Las Vegas in a different way.

What is Las Vegas all about? It is more than gambling, even though gambling has given Las Vegas its power and influence in American culture. But it is a mirror to American culture. But, that mirror isn’t flat. A curved mirror focuses the light, and Las Vegas is a curved mirror that focuses American culture.

There are two questions that I’d like to try to answer here. The first is how does Las Vegas focus American Culture? And, the second is why does Las Vegas focus American culture? The how and the why questions actually tell us a little about American culture itself, and more.

When you run or even walk down the Las Vegas strip you see every aspect of American culture that you can imagine. Actually, “culture” might be modified by the adjective “popular.” The strip contains every aspect of American popular culture. The appeal is to the masses, exaggeration abounds and truth is hard to find. And, it is impossible to find a bookstore or other form of culture that might be associated with something other than popular American culture. Las Vegas mirrors the world as Americans believe that it is, not as it is in reality.

One example of what I am describing is seen at the Venetian. In St. Marks square in Venice, Venezia Santa Lucia in Italian, there is a famous clock. By American culture the clock is strange, because it is a 24-hour clock instead of a 12 hour clock. The clock is reproduced at the Venetian is numbered with twenty four roman numerals, like it’s cousin in Venice. But, the hands on the clock assume the imaginary 12 hours of traditional American clocks. American culture has forced a false reality on the reproduction of this clock. Why? I can only assume that it is because Las Vegas is about encouraging American fantasy, rather than teaching reality to those who would like to learn about other cultures.

The reality of Las Vegas is that it is created for Americans to see the world the way that they believe that the world is. American’s love the circus, and Circus Circus focuses on the activities and entertainment found at a circus. Americans love New York City, and New York, New York focuses on what America culture assumes what New York City is like. American popular culture views Paris, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and Venice in a distorted way in which the Paris, Luxor, Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian Casinos do.

Las Vegas is what happens when capitalism rules without a check on its power. People want to see it, then Las Vegas offers it for the masses to view the way that the masses expect to see it. This is because the masses are willing to spend their money in places that represent what the masses expect to see. People are attracted to the casinos by what they expect to see. Americans want to see a fake replica of the Eiffel Tower, the Paris offers it to the masses. The people expect the people in Paris to be aloof, speak with French accents and charge a lot of money for French type food, then the Paris once again fits the bill. And, all up and down the Las Vegas Strip it is the same.

How did Las Vegas get trapped into this facade of a world reflection that Americans want to see? I would guess that it must have to do with what attracts people. Obviously sex, food and money attract people. Comfort and familiarity also attract people. And, if you own a casino they are the elements one must use to attract the largest number of people to their casino as opposed to every other casino on the strip. So, the Las Vegas business mantra is “give the people what they want and take their money in return.”

The only thing that Las Vegas doesn’t give people is money. But, instead of keeping money out of the equation, Las Vegas offers the chance, the hope, and the possibility that you might win some free money. The truth is that the casinos exist because the casinos take much more money than they give away. So, the casinos take money off of the free give away table and offer hope instead. That is what gambling is all about.

So, in an effort to offer everything else and in order to take the money of the masses Las Vegas has learned to appeal to the sense of expectation, comfort and familiarity. But not all people know what they should want or desire. And, that doesn’t matter, because Las Vegas tells everyone what he or she should want and expect. It is an enormous feedback loop that tells everyone what American popular culture believes is the most important thing today.

So, by capitalizing on popularity Las Vegas attracts people who are attracted to what the culture has proclaimed to be popular. And, as we know, marketing has jumped in front of this line in order to both proclaim what is popular, then they do everything in their power to convince us that they are right. And, Las Vegas is the center of the universe in the grand scheme of things.

But, as I ran down the Las Vegas strip I began to wonder again. If Las Vegas uses all of this marketing, declamation and appeal to our basic desires, how do all the joggers fit in? No one in Las Vegas is going to claim to insight these people to run up and down the strip. The joggers don’t bring money to the casinos when they probably don’t even have money on them while they are running.

I believe that there is one additional aspect to Las Vegas. That is the addictive nature of gambling. Most people have addictive behaviors. Some people are more compulsive and have more natural tendency toward addictions. Gamble in Las Vegas is the ultimate goal for a person with a gambling addiction. But having one addictive behavior means that one is also likely to have an addictive personality. And, it is clear that all those smokers in the casino of my hotel had another addiction. And, the percentage of smoking gamblers in that casino was much higher than what I perceive to be the national average of smokers among the general population. And, I began to think about other addictions. And, I couldn’t believe how many obese people that there were riding their little scooters up and down the strip, and how obese people moving slowly along the strip.

So, Las Vegas is American pop culture in a nutshell. This is initialized by the casinos use of whatever they can to attract the mainstream popular masses to the city, so that they can take as much of their money as they can. The addicted gamblers come back again and again and bring their addictive behaviors with them. And the people attracted to the pop icons bring some of their own habits and popular culture with them, and the addictive behaviors fill the open space, like smoking, over eating, and even jogging.

All I can say after all that is my Las Vegas Vacation was certainly a learning experience.







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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Exercise is never easy. Lying in front of the TV, pool or beach - that is easy.

The only thing worse than motivating yourself to exercise is trying to motivate yourself to exercise when you are sore. After my first triathlon last weekend I woke up the following morning to a stiff back, aching quads and cramping calves. I must have pushed myself or some of my muscles a bit further than I was accustomed.

My normal routine is to wake up, go work out come home and get ready for work. Having this routine almost unbroken for three years allowed me to become fit and trim, and now I am worried that breaking the routine will lead to the slippery slope of lying in bed sleeping and waking up at a reasonable time.

So, as I lay in bed Monday morning contemplating whether I should go work out I began to rationalize. I postulated that I had just done a two-hour triathlon the day before. I did deserve a break, didn’t I? But my paranoid side suggested that it might take me several days to get over the soreness. Shouldn’t I move in order to work out some of the kinks and cramps? Well, after a few minutes I came up with a compromise. I would go work out, but I would do an easy pace and work out the kinks and cramps. I was fooling myself with this disillusion because I knew that once I entered the water I would begin to push myself a little harder and the workout would be more than I had talked myself into.

Motivation always seems to be a major hurdle. Even when I know that I enjoy running now I always dread that first mile in a run. Recently I have begun augmenting my exercise routine with running at work a few times a week. I began by running a 10K on Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunchtime. But, lunch is the hottest time of the day, so I kept making excuses and putting off running until it would be too late to have enough time to run and shower and get back to work. So, I talked myself into running after work instead. This way the sun needs to set before it is too late to go running. But, the most annoying thing about all this is that I have to fool myself into starting the run.

Once I get through that first mile I am ready willing and able to do 5 more without a problem.

Yesterday I was still a bit sore from the race, so I had to convince myself that it would be a good thing to run a 10K after work. It was Tuesday and I normally run after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Once again I started to beg for mercy because of my sore legs. They weren't nearly as sore as they were the day before, but somehow I thought that I would be able to talk myself out of running. But, 5:00 rolled around and I quickly grabbed my running stuff and got ready to run before I had enough time to talk myself out of it.

The route that I run has some unconventional points were I take splits in order to estimate how fast I am running. This is important because I know that if I take my pace out to quickly I will eventually need to give up and slow down. I am in pretty good shape now, so I don’t need to walk, but I do need to slow down to a 10 minute per mile pace if I take it out to fast.

Yesterday I ran the first 1.75 miles in 14:00 minutes even. That is an 8 minute per mile pace, which is a bit slow for me now, but I was sore and I was just working out the kinks and cramps from the race. I knew that an 8 minute per mile pace was just under 50 minutes for 6.2 miles or a 10K. So, I talked myself into keeping that pace so I could at least run a 50 minute 10K. But I thought that I could pick up the pace ever so slightly so that I could create a safety cushion of a few seconds just in case I got tired toward the end of the run. This is just another psychological method to get me to push myself a bit harder. And, sure enough I saw that my next 1.75 miles was 13:28, which was about a 7:42 minutes per mile pace. I felt pretty good, much of my soreness was a thing of the past. After this point I have a couple of short legs that usually take me 3:10 to 3:30 to do depending on my motivation and attitude. I don’t usually push these so much. I do, however, try to pick up speed from mile 4.5 to mile 6. These are two legs of .75 miles each. I try to go fast on the first one, then I try to negative split the last one. Then I coast to the end of the run, the last 0.2 miles.

I ran 5:41 for the first 0.75 leg and I beat it with a 5:29 for the second leg. I finished with a 47:42 even with waiting a couple of seconds for cars so that I could cross the street at the end. So, I guess I was able to run under the 50-minute challenge.

The weird thing about this entire escapade are the mind games that I continue to play with myself in order to motivate myself to run a little bit faster. I would feel defeated if I were to say that I was going to run under 48 minutes before I even started to run. I would talk myself into the difficulty of not being able to do 47 anything, even though I have run sub-47 10Ks before. Keeping the pace is important, because if I run too fast, 6:30 minute per mile I would not be able to keep up the pace for the entire 10K. I would quickly lose my motivation if I became exhausted from running too fast.

Motivation is such a delicate balance. No wonder people have such a difficult time sticking to an exercise program. No one is easily motivated to go out and inflict pain on themselves. Even if they do feel better afterward. Climbing that mountain only because it is there only works for some people. For most people they would rather turn on the TV and watch a video made by someone else who actually did the hard work and actually did climb the mountain.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Logically I know that no one is immortal. Personally, I know that I am not invincible. But, sometimes something gets into your head and you do something that your rational self would never let you do. Then after the inevitable disaster strikes you realize how stupid you were for not listening to yourself.

Well, this happened to me about a month ago, in grand form. I have been too embarrassed to write about it, but now I have come to look back on it and laugh.

When the kids were off from school for Easter break we decided to take in some family activities. We did things that we love to do, but generally have a hard time finding that time to do them. We went to the beach at low tide and hunted in the tide pools for starfish, sea urchins and other interesting sea life. We went to the Art Museum to admire the talent and imagination that humanity has to offer. And, we went ice-skating.

I actually hadn’t been ice-skating for about ten years. The last time we went the kids that we did have were very young and unstable on the ice. I spent most of my time holding them up and pulling them around the rink. Now, however, I had teenaged children and a new body that could do some of the things I couldn’t have imagined doing ten years ago when I was over weight and out of shape.

As our family emerged out on the ice most of us were quite wobbly. One of my daughters had more experience out on the ice than the rest of us, because she had spent a few hours at a birthday party held at a skating rink. I slowly began to remember my balance, starting and stopping skills. I actually hadn’t done a lot of ice skating as a youngster. However, I did my share of roller-skating throughout the years, so the ice wasn’t completely new to me.

As I became more stable I began to try some of the things that I had done when I was in High School. I slowly increased my speed and I started to skate backward around the rink. I was being a responsible adult among a sea of kids, until a couple of teenaged hockey players came out on the ice in their pads and helmets. They began practicing some speed drills and quick stops. Unfortunately I began to watch them more carefully and it looked like it might be a lot of fun.

I began to do some quick starts and stops. Of course, as I increased my speed I became wobbly once again. I practiced this a little, but I kept adding speed. I hadn’t fallen, so I figured that I wasn’t too far off the mark After all, how can you improve if you don’t reach for your limits. This rationalization made sense to my brain that was already critically warped by speed.

Once the dominos were all lined up there wasn’t anything that could stop me from falling down. I started out going around the end of the rink picking up speed. And there was a long straight away as I came out of it. “How fast could I go?” I thought to myself. I picked up speed and my heart began to pump. But this was a breeze for someone who could now run a 10K three times a week. Unfortunately finesse and aerobic fitness do not come in the same package. My skate began to wobble and I over corrected. My body went flying forward through the air. Fortunately no one was in front of me. I landed hard right on my elbows. And both of my elbows hurt quite a bit. I got up and looked around. Everything was blurry. Did I bang my head? Did I have brain damage? No, I just lost my glasses. I turned around and saw them lying on the ice. They were bent, but not broken, just like me. After that and some previous exertion I noticed that I had become quite warm, so I removed the jacket that I was wearing. I skated around the rink, found my wife and told her about my wipe out. I pledged to slow down and concentrate on finesse instead of speed for a while. My sore elbows emphasized that desire.

I skated around working on my backward skating and I talked to my wife. I lost my need for speed, and I was happy but my elbows continued to hurt. Some ten or fifteen minutes later my wife suddenly said, “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“I told you about the crash and burn on my elbows. Why?”

“Well, your shirt is covered in blood.”
I began to wonder how I could have cut myself. I was wearing a leather coat. So even if I hit something sharp on the ice, how could I have been cut without ripping my coat? I wondered about that as I went into the men’s room to look at the damage in the mirror. I had a gash about 0.75 inches long and about a half inch deep. I put a paper towel on it and left the men’s room. And as I watched the kids continue to skate for another 45 minutes. But my arm continued to bleed. When the public skating session was over my wife, the CERT in the family said, “It hasn’t stopped bleeding in over an hour. You need stitches.”

Of course I became embarrassed immediately. How could this small indiscretion, my need for speed, turned into a trip to the doctor? I wrestled with the concept of getting sutures for a tiny cut like this. Being on my elbow, it would continue to open every time I bent my elbow. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. Obviously there was only one solution that made sense. And, since it was now After five o’clock we opted for a trip to the urgent care.

I didn’t want the doctor to laugh at me, but I knew that when I told him what had happened she would. Maybe if a nurse checked it out first? Then he would just put a Band-Aid on it and be done. No, she just said that it looked like it might need sutures, but the doctor would decide for certain. He took my vital signs, and discovered that my pulse was 43 beats per minute. He asked me if I exercised regularly. To which I told him that I did. “But, is your pulse normally this low?”

“I have seen it this low before, but normally it is a bit higher. Maybe 50 or so.”

I was told that I needed a tetanus vaccination, which would be painful. Like I didn’t have enough pain already! But, better do what the doctor (or nurse) says. Right? Well, the doctor wasn’t quite available yet. I’d just have to wait. And, a few hours later I had two sutures in punishment for my little indiscretion. Maybe the social conservatives are right. Maybe people should be punished for their indiscretions.

No, that doesn’t make any sense.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a peloton. Of course I didn’t know what a peloton was, but I was able to infer its meaning from the context of the conversation. The invitation was to ride our bicycles across town and up some incredibly steep road, then stop, and watch as the cyclists from the “Amgen Tour of California” come racing up the hill.

As I have written here several times in the past, I am in much better condition than I was just three years ago. I am aerobically fit, from my daily workouts at the pool and my weekly jogging expeditions. But, my experience on a bicycle is not very recent. About 15 years ago my bicycle was my main transportation to and from work. I road a couple of miles on the bike trails in The Woodlands, Texas. And, I road a couple of miles each way to work in the rains of northern Germany. But the bike riding wasn’t really enough to keep me fit, because I managed to put on a few pounds even with the cycling. I rode, but I never made the trip a challenge, cycling was just another mode of transportation.

Since I hadn’t ridden my bicycle for quite some time I knew that it needed some maintenance. A quick look showed me that my tires were basically rotting on the rims and one of my brake cables was about to break. I bought new tires and inner tubes, but the little piece of brake cable wasn’t a standard part at the “big box” sporting goods store that I visited. The salesman suggested that I visit a “bike shop” to find the piece that I needed.

One might want to reflect on this little incident, if we remember that the “bike shop” is having difficulty competing with the “big box” sporting goods store across town. The “bike shop” is actually a neighborhood sporting goods store that also repairs bicycles in the back of the shop. The “big box” store has only been in town for about a year. I ended up buying the tires and the inner tubes at the “big box” store and then traveled across town to see if the “bike shop” had the piece of cable that I needed. I spent about $20 at the “big box” store, and the bike shop had the small cable piece I needed for $2. They also had the tires and inner tubes, but I had already bought them at the “big box” store. Obviously if other patrons behave the same way that I did it is easy to read the writing on the wall - the “bike shop” really isn’t going to survive. When I realized what I had done I looked around for something else that I might need. And I found a $20 bicycle pump that I thought that I might like to have, and I bought it. But, this was a charity purchase that I didn’t really need to make. Most people don’t even think in those terms, so I began to lament the demise of the “bike shop” before it has happened. We will all loose the ability to find those “little pieces” that the “big box” store won’t keep in inventory because they don’t sell that fast. We’ll end up needing to go online, find these things, and order them “next day” delivery instead.

With all the parts in hand I attacked my bicycle. I tore it apart and then put it back together again. I even used the new bicycle pump to fill the tires. I petitioned my family to go on a bike ride so I could test my handy work. Of course I was greeted with a blank stare questioning my sanity. My wife, feeling guilty, joined me on a short ride of about ten miles. The bicycle seemed to be in working order - ready for the peloton.

My brother-in-law works at a big “bike shop” that actually sells high-end bikes to professional racers. His store sponsors at least one race a year and maybe more. He sent us a professional bike-racing shirt that I thought would be appropriate to wear on this journey across town and into the world of bike racing. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I figured that bike racing wasn’t really as popular as the Super Bowl or the World Series. I figured that we would ride up the hill that was blocked off from automobiles and we would find ourselves alone, as I expected the typical overweight out-of-shape Americans to stay at the bottom of the hill and root from there if they even decided to watch the race at all.

I was slightly surprised when I met up with our peloton and discovered what cycling enthusiasts they were. Two of them had also wore their cycling jerseys. Three of them had very nice bikes, where mine was at least 20 years old with about 20,000 miles on it. At least it had new tires on it.

Well, as we started off I felt at ease knowing that these guys had major cycling experience. They used cycling hand signals to worn us of potential dangers, like cars. They knew how to ride through traffic and signal to the cars. And, I just followed their example. All of my cycling experience was basically on bike trails or in bicycle friendly countries. So, I followed, watched and learned.

We rode for several miles until the hill emerged ahead of us. I anticipated the hill looking forward to testing my ability to climb it with my bike. Of course the riding became slower and my heart pounded harder as we began to climb. And eventually I stopped and walked my bike a short distance up a very steep section. Then I hopped on the bike and pushed ahead a bit more. Then I was completely embarrassed when one of the experts in our group asked me why I didn’t down shift my gears. Well, I had down shifted my rear gears, but I completely forgot to do the same in the front. And, of course that made things much easier.

We rode about 1 mile up this hill and found a sharp turn in the road where we could wait for the professionals to race by. And, to my surprise the crowd had not thinned out on this stretch of the course. People were crowded and they clutched their cowbells. In fact, as we rode by many of the people rang these cowbells “just for fun” as they waited. The crowd was quite large. I imagined that the number of people crowed along this mile up the hill was larger than the number of people that gathered for the last parade that I attended. And, the people seemed to be more excited than the crowd at the last parade that I attended. Many of these people had chalked messages on the road as they waited. “Floyd was Framed, ” “Go Levi,” and “Super Fan” were some of the messages that I remember. But, the road had hundreds of these. I couldn’t imagine that any of the cyclists would even read them, but you never know.

The particular spot where we stopped had a Fox News TV camera set up on a tripod. At the time we had no idea who owned the camera, but later in the evening some footage showed up on the local Fox News affiliate taken from that vantage point. It also helped to have “Super Fan” choose this spot to root for the cyclists.

Super Fan is a guy who wore a big fuzzy wig, a red, white and blue jump suit and a red, white and blue cape. The guy was obviously an attention seeking person possibly with a mental disease. (;-}) And, he managed to get himself on the evening news acting like a loony, so got some of that attention that he was seeking.

We waited for over 30 minutes to see a couple of minutes of bike racing. First we saw a few cars and motorcycles traveling the course 10 to 15 minutes ahead of the cyclists. Apparently they are looking for loonies like “Super Fan” that might decide to disrupt the race. Super Fan got a lot of coverage on the local TV station, but he didn’t have a message. Perhaps if he were protesting something or making another statement the advance cars might figure out a way to detain him before the cyclists were to reach that spot. Behind these advance cars were several units of police, on motorcycles and in cars. These guys yelled at the crowd that walked into the street as we waited for the cyclists. More motorcycles and cars came through until finally the first group of riders came riding through behind a motorcycle that stayed just in front of the leaders.

Well, I certainly appreciated the effort those cyclists made as they pumped their way up that hill after my earlier attempt. It was amazing to me how close those guys hung together as they climbed that hill. The skill they demonstrated to me went beyond the simple ability to power that bike 650 miles across the California landscape. Controlling that bike, in that pack of cyclists pushing up and then racing down the hills, is certainly beyond my ability. Being there and witnessing the actual event is difficult to put into words, simply because so much was happening that made the event and writing about it can only be done by excluding so much.

After just a few minutes the cyclists had passed and we were on our way to the next vantage-point. As it turned out the cyclists went up the hill and around a loop. In about 30 minutes they were due to pass by once again. So, we rode back down the hill to another place to wait for them to come around their loop. And, as we waited it got colder and I began to freeze. One of the guys in our peloton made a break away and decided to ride the five miles from where we were to the finish line. But, I decided to wait instead of ride basically because I had a meeting back at work that I didn’t want to miss.

As we waited the Girl Scouts came by and sold us cookies. As I imagine this phenomena 20 years hence I see businesses exploiting this by selling soft drinks, hot dogs, ice cream and more. Once they identify the “hot spots” where all the people come to wait for the racers fly by the venders will fill in the vacuum.

The ride back afterward was fast. Most of the ride was down hill, except for a short segment uphill and into the wind. Most of the ride was effortless, aside from that little climb that I pushed hard against. But, that little fight just before arriving at my destination brought back memories of those professionals climbing that hill. My struggle made me want to fight harder. But, I wondered how long I could keep up that fight. One quarter of the way up that hill was tough, but the professionals had ¾ of the way more to go up that hill after almost 100 miles of riding. Wow.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Yes, I have been to a nude beach. Or, as the signs around the beach proclaim, “clothing optional” beach. To my surprise however, not many people that I know have actually participated at a “clothing optional” beach. So, the mystique of nude beaches persists through our culture.

Now, of course my experience was many years ago quite far away from where I live. It wouldn’t be very likely that I would go there again, even though I enjoyed the experience quite well. That being said, my experience and my expectations at the outset were quite different. And, I believe that the expectations, false or real, are at the root of the misconceptions surrounding the whole idea of nude beaches in American culture.

I expect that many Americans who happen to go to nude beaches do so because of expectations, or in a way similar to my experience. I never planned to go to a nude beach, it just happened. I was on a trip and a group of people that I knew suggested that we go swimming. It was summer, and we had several breaks through out the day for lunch or other things. So, the time to go swimming was available. However, since swimming was not on the agenda for the trip it, most of us hadn’t brought swimming suits, or even shorts for that matter.

As we began to complain about not bringing the normally required attire, one the members of the group explained that there was a clothing optional beach within walking distance. Since our group was coed I had expected sigh of “Oh well.” Instead I was surprised that the group was in favor of giving the beach a try at lunchtime. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe it was curiosity or maybe it was the expectation of something forbidden, but all of us got together to trek to the beach at lunchtime.

I had known the people I was with for some years by this time, but I had never seen any of them naked. At the time I wasn’t in top physical condition, but neither were they. Curiosity and expectation gripped me, and so I never thought much about embarrassment. Like Popeye said, “I yam what I yam.”

We actually had to climb down a fairly steep sea cliff in order to get to the beach, which was secluded from the road above. Trees grew high up and down the cliff, so there was no possibility of a casual observer being surprised by what was on the beach. And, furthermore signs along the path warned that the beach was clothing optional.

When we reached the bottom of the cliff I didn’t pause to contemplate the situation. I quickly found a place to put my clothes and I took them off and piled them up. We all carried towels from the hotel we were staying in, but no one rapped themselves in it. Instead we did what anyone who goes to the beach does; we put our towels on the beach and sat down.

The perfection of the experience must have been with the people I was with. No one acted embarrassed or insecure. Everyone continued to talk about the things we had talked about as we continued to watch the people around us. After a while some of us decided to sun bathe while others went in the water for a dip. In fact, I don’t remember exactly what I did moment by moment. Instead I remember the experience as something exotic and unusual.

My expectations might have been along the lines of something potentially erotic, but the reality of the situation was more along the lines of something freeing. Of course that sounds like some type of liberal mumbo jumbo, but the experience is easier to experience than to explain.

Maybe painting a picture would help to explain the experience. There were about 100 people on the beach, maybe more. Most of them were sunbathing, but some were swimming in the chilly ocean waves. The weather was warm and comfortable, not windy at all. There was a logging company a short way up the beach in one direction, but there was little activity taking place there. There were several seals in the area, many of them were climbing huge stacks of logs and jumping into the water. They chased each other around the piles and we all watched them from time to time. As I sat down and looked around I began to notice the people who occupied the beach. It was easy to spot the regulars, because they were the ones who were completely tanned - no tan lines at all. One of the regulars was a woman, in her thirties. She walked up and down the beach selling drinks. She carried a cooler but covered nothing what-so-ever. It was obvious that she rarely if ever had worn a bra, because her mammaries hung low, much lower than anyone else’s on the beach.

In that first hour at the nude, or clothing optional, beach I began to enjoy the freedom to observe and freedom from the restriction of clothes. The novelty of the experience hadn’t worn off and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had actually done something that cultured society doesn’t normally approve of. We spent a week at this meeting and we skipped several lunches in order to go back to this special place. The weather cooperated and we had a great time.

But, like with anything there are always problems normally unforeseen at the outset. Imagine for a moment what happens when a male is erotically stimulated. Now, imagine a beach full of erotically stimulating females. Trouble can happen in the form of embarrassment if one isn’t careful. Actually, this is in one form a relief for some females at the beach, because they may have some insight into the men that she may encounter on the beach. On the other hand the men on the beach need to put some restraint or control on any fantasies that might happen from time to time. I found that this wasn’t as big of a problem that I had imagined, which surprised me in a strange sort of way.

Some things can not be controlled. And, on a nude beach I found this out as well. As I opted to sunbathe on one occasion I drifted off to sleep in the nice warm sun. And thirty minutes later when I had awoken I discovered an artist sketching my anatomy. Apparently I had a mildly erotic dream and an artist had taken his opportunity to draw me in my pose. I wasn’t upset, after all there wasn’t much that I could have done about it. And, what difference did it make to me. But, it was certainly not something that I had expected when I had thought about the potential of going to a nude beach.

Over the years since this experience I have often thought about it in the light of experience. One thing is for certain; I appreciate the functionality of clothing more than I had before my experience. It has also allowed me to separate the difference between nudity and eroticism that is based in reality. Before this experience I had imagined a quick jump between naked bodies to sex. Instead I appreciate the important human relationship aspect of the whole process. Of course, I am not saying that I appreciate human relationships because I went to a nude beach. Instead I am saying that this experience lead to a different point of view that assists in drawing the whole picture. Relationships are tricky, and any insight into how they works seems to be a good thing from my point of view. And, if nothing else, the experience showed me that the crazy religious right that is afraid of nudity because they think that it will automatically lead to sexual promiscuity have their facts wrong. There were no wild and crazy sex orgies on that beach. There wasn’t even one couple making out on the beach that I saw. In fact, I would say that nudity may have prevented some of those things because of the embarrassment factor I mentioned above. So, if I have any words of wisdom from this experience they would be, “Try it yourself, you’ll be surprised. If you ever have the opportunity go to a nude beach and experience it.”






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

When I lived in Texas I had a 1966 Ford Mustang without air conditioning. I loved the car, but I was almost permanently sweat soaked whenever I went anywhere. This, of course, was because the weather in Houston is almost always 99 degrees and 99 percent humidity, or at least that is how it felt. This is the way I remember it, but I also remember being 100 miles from home and realizing that I was going to freeze to death unless I went to Sears and bought a coat or a sweater. The weather in Texas wasn’t always predictable. My first year there I was caught in a sudden downpour and soaked to the bone as I tried to walk from the classroom to the car to drive home. It must have taken me a couple of years to realize that I needed to be wary of the weather.

The weather is one thing, but it isn’t the only thing when one thinks about Texas in comparison to the rest of the country. Or, from my perspective I was comparing Texas to my most recent experience with life in Ohio. In Ohio I could drive on the freeway and never be more than a mile from the next gas station. Or, at least in the Urban areas of Ohio where I spent most of my time I found this to be the case.

By having a 1966 Ford Mustang in Ohio I was not normally at any great risk if my car suddenly decided not to go. I had coasted off the freeway and into a gas station several times before, and it wasn’t such a big deal. The worst case I had had in Ohio was when I hadn’t quite made it into the gas station and I needed to jump out of the car and push it into the gas station. The car had a heater, and I never needed air conditioning in Ohio.

In Texas, I still loved my car. It was a fun little ride, but it also provided me with some unexpected adventure. Now “unexpected adventure” is a euphemism for an unplanned unexpected undesired unwanted unpleasant experience that sometime later, perhaps twenty years or so, one can laugh at when the story is re-told. And, my car certainly brought me quite a few “unexpected adventures” before it was stolen and most likely taken to a chop shop and distributed to other Mustang owners around the country. I like to think that the spirit of my car is still alive and well in someone’s car somewhere.

One weekend when my car was working my future wife at the time and me took a trip from Houston to Dallas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this trip, it takes about four hours along a major freeway. This means that the typical problems of Texas driving through small town speed traps and the like are not so problematic. The trip is relatively simple, but a bit longer than most of the trips I had taken when I lived in Ohio. But, by this time I had made this trip a number of times and it was “old hat.” By this time we normally stopped at the same places on the way there or the way back and the whole trip was almost automatic. In fact it was so automatic that I actually forgot to fill up for gasoline for the trip home. By this point in the life of my car the fuel gage no longer worked properly, so I normally needed to remember to fill up the tank on a regular basis based on the number of miles driven rather than the position of the needle on a gage.

Well, you guessed it, we ran out of gas at night in the middle of nowhere on a Texas freeway. There were plenty of cars around, but neither me nor my future wife had ever hitchhiked before. We knew that we were nearly 10 miles in either direction from a freeway exit and we believed that a truck stop was the next exit further down the road.

Being stuck in the middle of nowhere creates an exaggerated sense of fear and hopelessness. First, one fears that some unknown person may descend upon you and take advantage of your situation. And, second the you look at the long walk ahead of you as a hopeless task taking an enormous amount of time only to result in buying the sought after fuel and then in carrying that enormous weight back the same distance again. Then there is the fear of the alternative plan where you risk hitchhiking and being picked up by some unsavory person who could take advantage of your plight and make matters even worse for you. And, finally there is the fear that by leaving your car unattended for some length of time it just won’t be there when you return. And, as these fears and hopelessness take hold you begin to imagine some things that are in the extreme category of unreasonable fear.

So, as we began to long walk to the truck stop that we believed existed a few miles down the road we were caught completely off guard when a truck pulled over and motioned us to hop into his cab. Both fear and thankful gratitude bubbled to the surface. Was this just some Good Samaritan, or did he have an evil intent?

We took the risk and jumped into the cab. And, it was a very nice truck indeed. The cab was less than a year old. It was spacious and the seating was as comfortable as a living room sofa. I could have ridden for hours in this cab without even knowing that the time had passed. The cab was nice, and the driver was nice as well. He was friendly and kind, and he dropped us off at the truck stop without a hassle.

That trip was unexpectedly easy. The truck stop was a good place to get gas, but unfortunately we didn’t have a gas can and the truck stop unexpectedly didn’t sell gas cans. Of course, even in the state of Texas it was illegal to put gasoline in an unauthorized container, but it was late and we were willing to take the risk. But, was the attendant willing to take the risk and sell us the gasoline? Fortunately we found an old anti-freeze container and we were able to fill it with gasoline. The attendant didn’t seem to care what we put it in. With our gas in hand we wondered how we were going to get back up the freeway to our car. We asked a couple of the truckers at the truck stop, but they were headed in the wrong direction, so we thought it might be more productive to just walk to the freeway and hopefully catch a ride with a trucker already headed in our direction.

My future wife became delirious with our good fortune. She knew for certain that the first truck by would pull over for us, and we would be on our way to our transportation. But, I’d been through this type of thing before (maybe not hitchhiking exactly, but hoping for the kindness of a stranger in general) and it didn’t always work out the way we hoped. But instead of becoming disappointed when the first truck passed us by she came to the conclusion that the trucker didn’t see us. So, when we saw the next truck coming down the freeway she jumped out into the road and waved her hands to make sure that this guy saw us. And as he got closer to us she moved over to the side of the road. And, to my surprise the truck pulled over on the side of the road.

As we walked to the idling truck I yelled to my future wife, “What the Hell are you thinking?” And, she replied, “I thought that if he saw us he’d pull over, and he did.” And we both trotted down the road to our next ride carrying our open topped make shift fuel container.

“Could you give us a ride up the road to our car?” we asked the guy. He motioned us into the cab that was almost exactly the opposite of our previous ride. It was a dirty, smelly old cab. I wasn’t quite sure what he might be hauling, but I thought that it might have been something to do with agriculture. The guy talked to us, but I suspected that he might have had some mind-altering substance in his circulatory system. He grabbed his cigarettes and pulled one out. I placed my hand over the open fuel container. He told my future wife to put the window down and pass the pack of cigarettes to his brother who was driving along side. Caught in a bit of shock and dumbfoundedness, she hesitated in taking the cigarettes from our driver. I interrupted saying that our car was not very far from where we were. And, in a couple of minutes we saw our car and told him to pull over so we could get to our car. For a moment I believe that we both thought that the trucker might not be so obliging as to drop us off, but as we got our message across to him he pulled over and we were dropped off only slightly past our car.

For a short moment it seemed a bit hotter there in Texas. We didn’t know if our “idiot” driver was going to blow us up with his ignorance about the combustibility of gasoline. Or, perhaps his attention might have been distracted by his antic of passing his cigarettes between trucks at 65 MPH. Or, maybe he just wanted to take us along on his trip for “company.” Maybe, just maybe, it did matter who picked us up. Maybe, just maybe we shouldn’t have forced the trucker to “see” us when we were looking for a ride.

In fact, I was thinking about this after the event. The first trucker reacted out of his sympathy for our plight. He saw that we were starting out on a ten-mile hike and he felt empathy. That empathy resulted in his offer of a ride. The second driving saw a crazy person flagging him down. Perhaps he was in the mood for some crazy fun and he stopped for us expecting some crazy people. If we had acted crazy, would the first driver have stopped? Or, if we looked like we had just begun a long trek would the second driver have stopped? I’m guessing no to both questions, but then again you never know.
It turns out that our “unexpected adventure” resulted in a happy ending. But it also made us think about the possible unhappy endings that could have happened. Most of the time most of the strangers that we meet turn out to be quite nice. However, I have also met some strange people as well that have questionable moods and questionable motives. Risks can be interesting, risks can be fun but risks are risks no matter what else they are.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I am not a medical doctor, so I certainly don’t know the intricacies of what happens in my body. But, I am a scientist and I do make observations for a living. This being the case I often wonder why my body reacts the way it does. For example, when I get sick I observe the symptoms and note how they correspond to the symptoms that my family members had days earlier when they were inflicted with the same virus. By knowing how a virus developed I begin to anticipate what I am in for.

Over the last few years I have gradually increased my stamina, lost weight and become generally more healthy. So, when I think about the changes in my body over these last few years I still have memory of what life was like before this happened. I remember the struggle I had trying to climb the cinder cone at Lassen National Park, which in my mind was the initial event that sent me in this direction.

One of the striking changes in my body is how it responds to temperature. Four years ago I sat outside on a cool fall night here in California to listen to a concert. The outdoor temperature was in the low 50s, and I was unfazed by the temperature. Some of my friends were also there and were obviously quite cold in their buttoned up jackets, but I remained comfortable through the concert. One of my friends commented about how the temperature didn’t seem to bother me. I told them that I had effective insulation.

On another day a few years later I found myself struck in traffic in the Texas summer heat without air conditioning. I sat there praying for the traffic to break up so I could get back to my apartment to cool off. And, while I sat there I remembered my first trip to Texas where the high heat and high humidity weren’t quite as uncomfortable. At the time I wondered why I had become less accustomed to the heat. But, today I realize that I had also put on some extra weight between those two events. Insulation is a good thing when you want to keep the heat inside, but it is a bad thing when you want to get rid of the excess heat. My body certainly works this way.

But I also know that body heat is more than just insulation. It is also about metabolism. Metabolism has to do with how a body uses energy. For example, when a body burns calories it generates heat. This happens during exercise, but it also happens in an effort to maintain body temperature. And, when a body has an excess layer of insulation it doesn’t need to generate as much heat to maintain body temperature. And, so the body learns to conserve energy and slow metabolism. Or, at least that’s what I’ve observed in my body. The ramifications of this is that as someone puts on body fat they increase insulation and no longer need to burn as many calories to maintain body heat. If one eats the same amount and exercises the same amount, then they are likely to produce less heat and have a lower metabolism rate. Of course there are certainly other factors here and I am not making a blanket statement, but this seems to be the case with my personal experience. But, the interesting thing is that by exercising one increases their metabolism for not only the period during the exercise but for some time afterward.

This is something that I personally noticed. When I started exercising I did not exercise regularly at first. But I did go to work everyday regardless of whether I exercised or not. So, I woke up, exercised then went to work or I woke up did not exercise and then went to work. I noticed that on days that I exercised I was much warmer in my office than on days that I did not exercise. My office temperature was basically the same temperature, so my warmth was related to whether I exercised or not. I made this observation over many days and thought about whether I ate differently on different days at breakfast or at lunch or during the day. The fact that I exercised in the morning had the most important effect, until I lost quite a bit of weight. So, the fact that I exercised and burned calories in the morning was part of my weight loss equation. I also boosted my metabolism so that I continued to burn more calories during the day as well.

When my body fat percentage dropped, I became more sensitive to temperature. Of course I had less insulation, or fat to burn. So, at this point it didn’t matter if I exercised or not I was still cold in my office. As I thought about this I wondered what would happen if I ate something for lunch. I soon found that by eating a high calorie snack I began to feel warmer. Putting the sugar in my blood stream tended to increase my generation of body heat. Of course, this made quite a bit of sense.

Any way, those are just a few observations on my personal physiology…



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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Exercise, Health

First of all, I don’t really have a clear answer to the question: “Why Blog?” When I write I search my mind for the information that I know, believe or understand from my personal experience and observations of the world. I make no claim that I have done any painstaking research on any particular topic. I write in response to what I read or hear or see. So, the question becomes, “Is what I do worthwhile if I don’t do research on every little fact or opinion that I write about?”

I know for certain that I don’t think that my opinion is above anyone else’s opinion, when it is opinion. My opinion is based on observations, which have my personal perspective and could possibly be in error or a distortion of reality, as anyone does. And, my opinions also have some basis in fact and other people’s observations. I try to point all of these things out and if someone calls me on any of these things I gladly provide facts, data or point out that it is my opinion and why I believe what I do. Hopefully this makes me informed or knowledgeable, but not high and mighty. Please differ with me where you see this differently. I am certainly willing to talk with anyone and I respect other people opinions and thinking on all issues.

But, even if my opinion is not a fact I find value in it for two reasons. The first is that when I construct and explain my point of view I pull together thoughts and ideas that have floating around with no certain anchor point in my mind. In the act of pulling these things together I clarify how I understand these things in new contexts, which hopefully strengthens my overall understanding of the world we live in. The second reason I find value in blogging is that I believe that my personal view of things is not the same as everyone else’s. It might not be the one and only view of life the universe and everything, but it is another point of view. It makes sense to me and it sometimes makes sense to others that read what I write. The sharing of my point of view hopefully draws questions and comments from my readers and that interactions helps me to grow further in my understanding of the world as others point out some things that I have most likely missed. And, because of that I welcome anyone’s point of view, especially if his or her point of view differs with my own. It doesn’t mean that I am going to change my opinion, but if someone’s different outlook causes me to think I grow as a person.

Of course what I dislike are parrots. I know when I hear parrots, because I hear the exact same story reprinted again and again. A recent example is the Mark Foley scandal. Republicans simultaneously began to bring up Democrat pedophiles from 20 years ago. Chances are that these people are simply parroting back something that they read at “Little Green Footballs” or some other conservative blog. Obviously the people parroting this back in the great Republican echo chamber of the Internet felt that justification for not doing anything about a sexual predator in Congress was to be found in the same disgusting behavior on the Democrat side of the aisle. Its hard to imagine that so many people would come up with such a lame justification based on events that happened so long ago.

And, the same echo chamber plays its part in spreading the lies of the Bush administration. When the truth comes out, sometimes many months or years after all of this misinformation is spread around the net honest people realize that what they once knew is no longer true. And, when they realize this over and over again they must come to the logical conclusion that they have been lied to. If this is the obvious case and people don’t admit that they have been lied to, then there must be some other explanation for “staying the course.”

If my writing makes you feel uneasy then I hope that it is because it makes you question what I am saying. I also hope that you question your other sources as well, because no one person has a monopoly on truth. The problem is that every person has their observations clouded by their personal opinions and experiences. Sometimes these experiences thrust you to have extreme reactions and become disillusioned or enamored with a “new” idea. But, the key is always to take everything with a grain of salt. Nothing is the answer to every question no matter how much we wish that it were.

The idealist inside me hopes that the act of blogging is a conversation with the world. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and I don’t expect to get all the answers either. Instead bringing up topics, observations and political issues offers people to read what someone different than themselves thinks about the issues. They may perhaps strengthen their own point of view or change their point of view in relatively minor ways. In the long run we all have these conversations with each other in a web of interactions and perhaps out of this mess we understand the world around us a little better and this understanding will spread to everyone. (Or at least maybe it will spread to a few more people.)



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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Politics