Category: Big Ideas

Big Ideas – Do

Reading through Wired’s “Rants and Raves” today (Second Item), I caught a bit that really clicked with me:

I am weaning myself from the (media – movies, TV, copyrighted music) addiction: I don’t watch television (at all — no cable, never will) and use my Netflix account less and less. Sure it’s extreme, but I use the time to read with my daughters, take walks with my wife and think on life a bit. Heck, I don’t know where I’d find time for TV. I have found I like “doing” much more than “watching.”

It’s kind of a mental response to the “Fast Food Nation” syndrome. As a lot of the RBF is discovering, the only barrier to improving fitness is getting one’s butt out the door. I’m guessing that the correlary is that the only barrier to doing pretty much anything you want is (picking up a pencil, going to the library, dusting off the camera, asking for help…). Go meet your neighbors (something I still need to work on)

I’m still working on “doing” more than “watching”. Luckily, it’s a self-reinforcing feedback.

The more expensive and restrictive existing media industries make mass-produced content, the more satisfied we will be with brew-your-own. What’s waiting inside you?
(And again, it’s a shameless ripoff of Brogan’s “Big Idea” meme. While I’m at it, this impacted directly a project at work. Thanks)

Lunchtime – Mmmmmm, sweat

Ran at lunch for the first time in a while. Good stuff.

I’d kind of intended to take a rest day today, but with a beautiful, summer-like day in the offering, that wasn’t going to happen. So, being in the market anyway, and having my shoes still in the car, I picked up a new pair of shorts and t-shirt, found the socks I didn’t find yesterday, and ran the Navy Base again. Absolutely beautiful – nice sea breeze keeping everything cool. I kind of zig-zagged around to add mileage and hills, and ended up going for about 45 minutes – 5+ miles. I walked a little bit at the end, but HEY? such is life.

And I’ve been completely enamored with the RBF lately. Quality posts really keep me going. Warren’s getting the cycling jones. I’d offer him tips on immunizing himself, but, nah. It’ll be better when he’s part of the spandex’d and lycra’d cycling collective. All his base are belong to me. My only fear is that he’ll go for the tri bike, instead of drop bars. Speaking of tris, Wil (who most definately is not a guy) did her marathon last week in preparation for an Ironman later this year. Her rundown starts here with quite possibly the best bit of internal dialog I’ve read in a while. Wil also wins my vote for Best Consistient Use of Pictures in a Fitness Blog.

And all the good thoughts I can spare are headed down Houston way for Christian as he learns how to cope with mosquitoes that can carry off small children, and steel himself to head out and face the heat and humidity, even at oh-dark-thirty, when AC and good food are the other choice. ” I feel like twig boy out here, especially when I go to the pool.” I’m still at least 10 lbs above where I should be based on BMI, but 15 lbs ago, even I looked somewhat fit at the pool in Houston.

Finally, Fixedgear worked the US Pro Cycling championship last weekend. Great pictures, and an amazing race – US cyclists finished 1-2-3 for the first time in a while. AND, it’s an excuse not to feel bad about being beaten down by the heat. Out of the field of 200 guys who do outdoor cycling and stuff for a living, way less than half of them finished the race.

So, thanks to everyone.

ran, ran, ran, ran, ran

Also known as “A Heartbreaking Tale of Relying on the Kindness of Others”

Monday, I’d written a post so breathtaking, so stunning, so mind-bogglingly beautiful that I seriously considered not posting it. It had pathos, it had descriptions so true to life that the woman walking behind me while I wrote it had to be broken out of her reverie with old-school smelling salts. I was contemplating the “Post Me” and “Delete” buttons with equal consideration after I heard our IT guy sobbing tears of enlightenment while reading it, and heard his computer’s overload pop when the screening software recognized for the wonder of modern literature that I had created.

As I recognized that the clouds were going to part and pass a heavenly chorus to touch the earth, and I was going to hear the angles sing, I decided that I had a moral obligation to share my enlightenment with the world. Anticipating the slew of book offers and speaking engagements about to be hurled my way, I grabbed a box into which to pack my personal effects as I knew I would not have a chance later. I ran a comb through my hair and chomped on a mint, then made sure my shoes were tied so I could outsprint the women who were sure to begin to throw themselves at me once the post went live.

With a deep breath, I hit “Post” on the Blogger interface.

“We’re sorry, but we’re experiencing technical difficulties. Our software engineers are working diligently to correct the problem.” Whaaaaa??? I wondered?

I hit the Back Arrow on Firefox to see if I could salvage the post, but all that remained was a blank page. “Nooooooooo!!!!!” I screamed.

For a heartbeat I considered attempting to reconstruct the post, to pass on my enlightenment to you, the unwashed masses. But the moment had passed. Truth and Beauty, only seconds ago framed on my laptop’s screen, had again passed into Reality. And my lunch hour (and a half counting actually eating) was past and a meeting awaited.

So I apologize. And I promise I will use pen and paper next time if my beloved iBook is not handy, with MacJournal fired up. (Seriously, MacJournal is quite possibly the best bit of software I’ve run across in a while – interfaces with MT, Blogger, WordPress and a bunch of others if you want, and works like a champ as standalone. PC’s may have a million applications, but the 10,000 for Macs are much higher quality). But don’t worry too much – my muse seems to have headed north; you can get most of the gist over at Brogan’s Blog.

As for me – I’m going to switch to WordPress or something similar (There’s a scandal brewing over the guy who runs WordPress’ page gaming Google to increase their AdSense revenue, which kind of bums me out – the Complete Running blogs are all beautiful, and the package looks easy to use) next week, once I’m done with taxes (not my fault, I’m waiting on the Navy to fix a bad W-2). I can’t bash Blogger too hard, after all, I got far more than I paid for from their free service. But, I’ve been meaning to learn some server-side stuff, and this seems to be a great way to do it.

Oh, yeah, RUNNING:

Re-focusing this week seems to be working. Monday I banged out 5 miles in 42 minutes (average of 8:22/mile), and felt good. I tried the whole “running on my toes” thing, but it felt like I was scraping the bottom of my shoes when my feet would touch down. It’s a good thing on the bike, since pushing forward at the top of the stroke is adding power, but in running my guess is that the little “Shhhhhsh” sound with each step is wasted energy that’d be better used to go faster/farther. So I fiddled around with my stride, easily avoiding striking my heels by virtue of a dull ache remaining in my right heel from my incident at the pool. List it as a good run.

Today, I scraped out 3.75 miles in about 32 minutes. Yesterday’s run took more out of me than I’d thought, plus, I really pushed the first two miles (15:05 for the two). I started out kind of sore from Monday, but running again today did wonders for stretching out the muscles. But it was beautiful, and there was NO WAY I was spending lunch indoors.

I’m still chasing the Runner’s High – somehow I haven’t found it the last couple of months, but I keep getting closer.

Oh, and I’m cycling tomorrow. A guy from one of the other contractors and I kept “meaning to” ride together all last year; this year, we’re not taking excuses.

Wow. I didn’t realize exactly how great things were going. The bluebird of happiness seems to have arrived with shorts weather. Hope y’all are doing as well (Don’t think CT is going to completely beat Texas out of me; besides, English is sorely lacking a second person plural pronoun, and y’all is much better than “youse guys” or just “you”. Try it.)

And no lie – go read (or re-read) Chris’s post on FOCUS. Chris, as always, rocks.

One more on the topic of bikes

velorution caught a sensible bit from a London cyclist about how to make cycling more mainstream. It’s a great read. I’m generally a complete free marketer kind of guy, but this bit and the Morning Edition bit on London’s serious traffic tolls to enter downtown have me wondering if there isn’t more local governments could do…

I’m doubtful that much of this could work in the US – we’ve just accepted huge distances as a fact of life. Much as I’d love to bike to work, it’s not happening at my current job. But there is more I can do to include cycling in non-commuting activities.

Anyway… Here’s my take on a couple salient items:

I am asking you to Embrace the Midstream. We must convince responsible citizens –those with good manners, good grooming, and regular attendance at the polls– that cycling is a civilised mode of transport.

The importance of this can’t be overemphasized. We’ve gone to treating cycling as something that’s exceptionally hazardous, done only by athletes, and requiring huge investments in money to do “right”. It’s not. And it shouldn’t be.

Ban Lycra and DayGlo colours. Convincing people that cycling is civilised is a job that calls for natural fibres and earth tones. Lycra is comfortable, and day glo jackets minimise your chances of being mistaken for a parking space. But Lycra is, with few exceptions–and none of them in my age bracket–unflattering. And day glo colours are equally repellent. You can’t expect to be taken seriously when you’re riding around in the sartorial equivalent of a sausage casing and wailing car alarm.

There’s a couple of corollaries to this, though: First, build roads with adequate shoulders. One of the great things about Connecticut and Rhode Island roads is that most of them have literally feet outside of traffic lanes for cyclists. So it’s not quite as important to be day-glo to avoid being run over. The second is to put the visibility on the bike – cheap lights go a long way to making the cyclist visible.

Case in point – my lovely wife has resisted my pleas to get her on a bike more regularly mostly out of fear of pulling on lycra. Until she saw this skort in the LL Bean catalog. Yep, it’s got supportive lycra. But she also could see herself walking around downtown wearing it.

But as we thrive on our status as victim and underdog we unwittingly intimidate a large number of well-adjusted people who would like to enjoy the advantages of riding. Fake it if you must, but the sooner we start looking and behaving like ordinary commuters, the more we will be accepted as and then joined by ordinary commuters.

This, I think, is just a smart course of action in all areas of life.

The more people we can persuade to identify with cyclists, the more people will become cyclists. Of course there is a need for better, safer facilities, and more government-funded incentives. But we can’t underestimate the cultural obstacles and our singular ability to help others overcome them.

Amen, brothers and sisters.