The Financial Crisis and Survival of the Species

On Wednesday, I went with my friend Tom to Dharma Field to hear one of the teachers speak on what was called Physics, Philosophy and Prajna and ended up being a reasonable exposition of the idea that the Buddhist concept of Mind renders some of the more paradoxical and confounding findings of physics unsurprising if not entirely expected. I will not pretend to begin to be able to relate, let alone explain, what was discussed. Suffice it to say that the physics topics covered were things like Schroedinger's cat, the Double Slit Experiment and the horror of the Pythagorean theorem (i.e., this side is 1 meter, this slide is 1 meter and this side is... Oh, my God, how did that become an inexpressible number?). 

I'm also reading The Hidden Face of God by Gerald Schroeder (I assume no relation to the cat guy, but possible, I guess), in which I was reminded again that, given the amount of nothing within and between atoms, we really should be able to walk through walls. The universe is a painfully obscure place when looked at through the lens of science. I'm reminded of Douglas Adam's contention in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that if the nature of the universe is discovered, the entire thing will be destroyed and replaced by something more incomprehensible and the competing theory is that this has already happened several times. 

Perhaps this all has me in the place of "there are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy", but it's heightened my awareness of our interconnectedness as a species. We have collective joy and collective anxiety. Just look at the current economy and the nature of bubbles within markets. Irrational exuberance and irrational gloom. I believe there is more at work here, however.

One of the consequences of the current economic situation is the reduction in consumption of fossil fuel and consumption in general. A quite unintended impact, then, of the current financial and economic situation is a reduction in our impact on global warming. It's given us a breathing space. We are immersed in the projected horror that justified our refusal to join the industrialized world in the Kyoto protocol. It works in reverse as well: reducing greenhouse gas emissions impacts your economy; tanking your economy reduces your greenhouse gas emissions.

Which brings me to my point. Are we, on a collective subconscious level, going through an exercise of self preservation? Our conscious, intellectual mind abdicated it's responsibility for the long term survival of the species by pursuing, without consideration for the consequences, short term gain. Has our collective subconscious orchestrated the excesses that lead inevitably to a fall, forcing us into a situation where considering actions that benefit our long term survival also produce long term gain?

Blogger?

I'm clearly not one. 5 months. Wow. I think my life has changed so much that I don't know what to say or how it relates to what I've said in the past. But I love the name of this blog and I'm not changing it. So there.

I've started riding again with the goal of riding a consistent 7 - 10 hours a week and doing some racing in 2009. I love to go fast and I think I finally have the idea down that I need some base to really enjoy it. I had a good base the first two years, so going hard was great. Gotta get there again.

First two weekends in December are Invocation concerts. I love the performing, but the last couple of rehearsals getting ready are always stressful and draining. Dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Somehow I have to balance doing school work with Hannah, work, cycling, singing, spiritual life and of course my new effort at figuring out how to provide fresh, sustainably grown food to families that could not otherwise enjoy it to help break the cycle of food driven health care costs.

Day two

I'm not blogging about it. Every time I do, it curses me and I quit. I'm not blogging about it.

Corned Beef

So what if it's not really eaten in Ireland?

I went to a St. Patrick's Day party on Saturday and had some home made corned beef that was simply outstanding. It has nothing to do with the stuff that shows up on a Ruben at Applebee's. Totally different food. Tender. Tasty. What else can I say? I washed it down with a little Tullamore Dew, my favorite Irish Whiskey. It doesn't have the complexity of a good Single Malt Scotch, but it's smooth and creamy tasting and wonderful.

The Corned Beef was so good that Deana and I were both still craving more on Monday. So we did the only thing we could do; went to Hackenmeullers and bought a nice piece of homemade Corned Beef Brisket. I just finished off the last left overs. Wow, that's some yummy stuff. And all that protein is great for rebuilding muscle fiber. Now if I could just train hard enough to need it.

Big Man on a Little Bike.....

One more view from my hotel in Boise.

Boise, in a not-so-bad way

All day my status message has been "Boise, but not in a good way". Hannah asked what a Boise was. I'm not sure I know the answer to that. The point is that I'm in Boise, ID. I got here last night at 11:45 p.m. local time, about 2 1/2 hours after I normally go to bed, only to discover that the hotel where I had a reservation, guaranteed with the standard IBM issue American Express card, was full. I.e. there was no room there for me. Much to my comfort, they had taken the liberty of getting me a room at the Holiday Inn Express at the "bottom of the hill". Sadly, the first thing that crossed my mind was that when I did my expense report, I was going to have to answer the questions "Did you stay at an IBM approved hotel" and "Did you get the IBM negotiated rate" with "no" and "how is that possible, given my answer to number 1" respectively.

Fortunately, I found the hotel quite quickly; it was less than 1/2 a mile away. The desk clerk asked me what the rate was that I was going to pay at the other place and charged me that rate. I have no idea if that was higher or lower than she would have charged me otherwise, but at least I can confidently answer "yes" to question number 2 above. After giving me the obligatory two room keys (what's with that? Tthere's one of me so either she figures I'm smuggling another person into the room or I'm planning to get lucky), she says to me "Let me know if you need anything. I'll be here all night". I contemplated what I might need after midnight from someone whose hair style resembled either an Whoville escape or a show-cut Yorkshire Terrier as I walked to my room. It was warmish and stuffy and it was too dark to see outside. So I just went to bed.

The next morning after a 7:00 local time call on store security, I walked downstairs for the continental breakfast and realized it was stunning outside of my hotel. Here's the view from the front of the hotel:

Nice, huh? No complaints there. Of course my room was on the back of the hotel. Let's just say I'm glad that when they asked what floor I wanted a room on , I chose something higher than 1.

In any case, everyone I told I was going to Boise said to me "You know they still have snow at Sun Valley..." as if I had time or inclination ski when when I had a 2:30 meeting and still needed to prepare.

But the meeting turned out well and I had a great dinner at an unexpected little local restaurant called Cucina di Paolo. The website doesn't do it justice. I even got a "tour" of the 4 cases of lasagnas and entrees and desserts. And I quote: "I plus I make deviled eggs because I have this devlied egg plate and I love it, so I don't want it to just sit around". But the Chicken Breast stuffed with presuto, mushrooms and spinach in a tomato sherry sauce over fresh fetticcini more than made up for it.

The Velodarma

I know there aren't exactly a lot of people reading this blog, but for those few who do and don't already know it, there's a benefit for the NSC Velodrome happening on Saturday at One on One in Minneapolis. Here's some of the details:

VELODRAMA
Saturday, March 1st
7 - 11 pm
One on One Bike Studio - Minneapolis Warehouse District
Admission $10
Silent Auction
Cycling fashion show
Alleycat sprint races (sign up at the event)
Beer by Rush River Brewing Co.
DJ Millions Billions

Come out and support the 'drome of you can!

The last 500 Meters

Trying to motivate yourself to really go all out when riding on a trainer is not easy. There's no competition. There's no wind in your face or pavement under your wheels. There's no surge with pedal strokes or balanced tension you feel when both wheels are spinning. Music helps, for sure, and I built a play list so that I could alternate intervals and resting with each song. But even the most aggressive songs don't allow me to sustain an all out effort for longer intervals.

So visualization is a requirement. On the road, I can find a spot to sprint for, or visualize trying to close a gap. On the trainer that doesn't work. I have to go for the track. There's 500 meters left and I'm off the front, but not by much. Don't look back. Just keep it buried and try to accelerate even though you can't. I can see the black line and the red line and I can hear the boards and feel the press of the banking.

Visualization works. Now I just have to keep myself from hurling.

Why gaining 5 pounds was the best thing that ever happened to me

For the first time in at least 12 and probably more like 18 months, I'm looking forward to doing intervals. I know that's crazy. When I first started bike racing in 2005, I did intervals in the spring with vim and vigor. I loved the hurt. I looked forward to the screaming lungs and legs. I relished the time I spent above lactate threshold. But I was afraid. Afraid I'd loose it. Afraid I'd slip backward, so I never really took any kind of break in the fall of 2005 and decided that if I really wanted to be competitive in 2006, I needed to seriously up my mileage.

And so in the winter I did. I rode the highest volume that I ever had. Long rides on the weekends (and some Friday afternoons as well). Up to 2 hours of Tempo on the trainer. And it payed off. I won the Masters 4/5 group at Ken Woods and I was feeling pretty darn good. But I was also feeling pretty tired. I did some track racing and got upgraded to Cat. 3 on the track. Also good! Then I crashed at the track. Not so good. It took me a long while to recover mentally and was much harder on me physically than I thought. So I went into 2007 still feeling worn out, still afraid of loosing my fitness.

I trained pretty hard during the off season, and then I got this nasty flu. I was off the bike for 3 weeks+. And I was horrified. I knew that I had lost it. But I wasn't exactly being rational at that point. I just started bailing on everything. Opening night at the track. I didn't race. Ken Woods. It was 70 degrees! and I didn't race. The summer wore on and I tried again and again to get to the track for a race night and I just couldn't do it. The truth was I just wasn't motivated.

Then fall of 2007 rolled around. I had been doing some intervals and training over the summer, even though I wasn't racing, thinking I'd stay in shape. The first snow hit in November. I wasn't going to ride outside, and I just couldn't get myself on the trainer. I did some cross training with weights, but I was down to 3 hours a week maximum training. Then over Christmas we visited my family in Maryland and I didn't exercise at all. For almost 2 weeks. I ate great food and gained 5 pounds and a notch on my belt.

Then in January, things started to change. Maybe I'll ride outside some. Maybe I'll hit the trainer, just for an hour. Maybe I'll spend 30 minutes on the rollers. Maybe I'll do some weights, just to get back in shape. In a periodized training program, that's called the preparation period, even though I didn't realize I was doing it. So by February, I was ready to try something harder again. And I started doing some intervals and trying to get longer rides in on the weekend. Wow, now I'm suddenly psyched about intervals. Weird. And I'm looking forward to doing some racing.

Turns out that I needed to really, deeply recover. But now I'm back. And I may not be as fast or competitive as I was in 2005/2006. But I'm sure as hell going to try.