May 31, 2007
~ reasonable morality ~
Everyday around the noon-hour, I take a brisk walk around the downtown area. It's a great way to remove my person from the stresses and irritations of whatever might be happening at work, to get the heart rate up a bit, and to zone out and reflect on whatever I feel like. On this day, I began my walk by thinking about how an acquaintance recently went on a tirade to me about her "weird" cousin, the agnostic. It irritated me, the tirade, for a number of reasons, including this acquaintance's assumption that I am a believer. Somehow, I have a number of acquaintances that I see on a regular basis who are believers, and because of their regular need to discuss with me their belief and how they feel non-believers or people who believe differently than they believe are "weird", I've opted to not share much personal information with them. Somehow, the mere idea that they would have the gall to judge me if I indicated that I am a stone cold atheist irritates me beyond words. When the acquaintance was telling me all about her "weird" cousin, the agnostic, I wanted to articulate something about agnosticism being a pinnacle of reason, but the idea that she would then go and whisper to the other believers about me simply infuriated me. I'm still trying to figure out why it bugs me so much that believers would judge me, after all, I judge them.
I surmise that part of what bugs me is that, when one suggests to a believer that one is not, the believer tends to always want to know "why?" And when one responds, "Science and Reason" the believer challenges that assertion as though they are things that people just pull out of their butts and call "Truth." Truth, schmuth. Why should we not believe? Because in the state of nature, we are born and we die and we have an opportunity to do some stuff in between. Then someone comes along and tries to get us to believe, and it doesn't make any sense. Not that everything has to make sense and not that it's possible for us to know anything, but I'm not about to believe in anything unless there's reason and proof behind it.
Which gets me to a 'reasoned morality'.
Despite my being a stone cold atheist, I don't define myself by my lack of belief. After all, I don't identify myself as a non-this or a non-that in other areas. 'Secular humanist' is a nice term, but I remain ambivalent about it. Anyway, one of my major peeves is the association of belief and morality. Despite the semantics, I place a high regard on 'reasoned morality,' or ethics, or doing the right thing, what have you. I have a feeling that a lot of believers have what they call 'morals' by which they judge other people. That's one of the other things that really bugs me about the thought of a believer judging me: 'morals'.
As a non-believer, I feel very strongly about life. Not as defined in the abortion debate, but as defined as the opportunity to exist between the space of time when one is born and when one dies. That opportunity is where I place morality. In this way, 'immorality' occurs when one reduces someone else's opportunity. Anything else, I have no opinion (qualified, I have plenty of opinions, but they don't revolve around the concept of 'reasoned morality'). During my noon-time walk today, I was thinking about how strongly I feel about the environment, and how I feel environmentalism to be a pillar of 'reasoned morality'. Despite being a 'secular humanist', I seem to care less about humans the more and more that they ruin the environment. No other human atrocity makes me more sick to my stomach than global warming. And by 'sick to my stomach' I refer to the overwhelming feeling of foreboding and impending doom. It's different than the desire to throw up everything I've ever eaten when I think about the violence that humans do to each other.
I don't call myself an environmetalist because 'doing the right thing' is so obvious it should be a given. That very same acquaintance who has the 'weird' agnostic cousin also, for some reason I'll never understand, does not believe in recycling. This is a total dumb generalization, but I frequently wonder if believers reap more havoc on the environment because they care more about some fantasy world than this real world. ...Which, I reiterate, is a dumb generalization, but I find it hard to respect any belief system that relegates the physical world below some sort of quote/unquote "spiritual world." I think that physical pleasures are wonderful, and I don't merely refer to something like the scent of opium at an orgy. 'Earthly delights' have a negative connotation...and I have no idea why this physical world is seen with disdain by some believers. I'm working towards some kind of assertion about my atheism being directly related to my passion for this world.
Back to the environment. Just to get on my soap box for a moment, I've been thinking about how I view many of my lifestyle choices not only in terms of promoting a quality of life for myself, but also as a way to comply with my beliefs about environmental responsibility. Part of the reason that I live so close to where I work is because I never ever want to come close to even considering driving to work. Being able to leisurely walk to work in the mornings is not only promoting a quality of life (by not having to spend time commuting in traffic every day), it's also part of a social and environmental responsibility that I firmly believe in. I know that not everyone is able to find a residence and workplace that are so closely located, nevertheless, I find myself becoming absolutely sick to my stomach when I think about so many people driving on a consistent basis. I've been reading a lot about people turning to bicycle commuting, and the constant theme is how easy it is. All you need is the right gear and a good route. End soap box.
Anyhoo, I could probably continue to blather on with some more logical inconsistencies and irrational generalizations, but I've got work to do. Which is why I shall end this post with a brief ride report. And by 'brief', I mean the opposite of that.
On Monday evening, Josh and I did about a 12 mile mountain bike ride up and down Robie Creek Road. The first part of the ride, I was thinking would be a good route for a beginner to learn a few novice mountain biking skills on. The downhill part of the ride was amazing fun! The top half of the road has a decent grade to it, so riding down, I was able to go pretty darn fast. It was also a good opportunity for me to practice my disc breaks without being afraid of dying. But yes, I was a bit of a speed demon.
Then on Tuesday, we rode out the Greenbelt and went up some dirt road that I don't know the name of. It was okay, good for having consistent riding.
Yesterday after work, I was taking a nap, when Josh called to ask what I wanted to do that evening. I said in a sleepy, confused, groggy way, "I want to go on you with a bike ride." Instead, I went on a bike ride with him. It was a super fun 10 mile ride over the Boise front. We met at the skate park near Reserve, rode up Central Ridge, down some connector trail, through some singletrack through the trees, over to this other connector trail that has a super steep and loose sand section (which I rode over with no problem), took Freeway over to Sidewinder, up and up to the top and back down Sidewinder, back down Freeway, down Red Sands, and then on that other connector-type trail through lower Hulls Gulch. It was a wonderful ride with lots of ups and downs and bits of challenging stuff. I've now had enough good rides to distance myself from that bad ride where I fell a bunch of times, and I've done some good solid work with re-wiring my brain on my braking technique (so as not to throw myself over the handlebars). After the ride, we went to Lucky 13 for some beers. I said I'd buy, so as I was ordering two beers, the bartender said that for only $3 more, I could get a whole pitcher. I thought about this, thinking about how I was just coming from a ride and my metabolism was such that anything I ingested would go directly into my blood stream, and how I did not need to get wasted on a school night. YET, the pitcher was clearly the better buy! There were some dudes behind me who were pressuring me to get the pitcher, saying that they would buy the extra beer from me. Ultimately, I purchased just the two pints of beer. It was a difficult decision.
May 30, 2007
~ Happy Holidays! ~
I have been getting the distinct feeling that not a one of you, my readers, cares a rat's about that which I normally write about. Namely, mountain biking and knitting. I try to infuse a bit of interesting snippets here and there that some of you may find humorous, yet I continue to hear snarky comments suggesting that no one has any interest in that which excites me. As I ponder this, I wonder what I should write about that would capture anyone's interest. Not that I care what ya'll think, but part of the reasoning behind posting something that is public is to share things that people might have an interest in reading about. Which is why, for this Hump Day post, I will compose something that doesn't have anything to do with my hobbies or interests.
How about them Mets? The other day I was wining and dining at a restaurant and there was a television displaying a basketball game. My partner directed my attention to a relplay of a slam dunk, which I viewed with little interest. Boo-ya!
And yesterday, my female coworkers got into a big discussion about their weight. The thin ones were talking about how fat they are, and the not-as-thin ones were becoming irritated with the thinner ones. I walked away as quickly as I could to get away from that asinine conversation.
Over the weekend, I was at a coffee shop and I witnessed with disgust a female popping a huge gross back pimple on the guy sitting next to me. barf! Also, several weeks ago, Josh and I were eating spagetti on my porch when one of my neighbors stopped by and began telling us about how her dog was severely constipated. Somehow, we lost our appetites.
I've also been watching a lot of bad movies lately. For something over a year now, I've had a strict policy of only going to the dollar movie theater. And, each and every time that I exit the theater I say, "That is why I only go to the dollar theater." My most recent bad movie experience at the dollar theater was to see that movie '300' which was truly terrible. It did, however, provide my movie watching companions (Josh and his roommate Eric) with some good fodder for humor during the commute home. Before that, I saw 'Bridge to Terabithia' which was nothing more than an afterschool special, which I wished that I had walked out of. I had expected it to be more imaginative and fantasy-like, not so much about how it's okay to be different if you're a kid. Josh and I also saw that 'Casino Royale' thing, after which Josh said that he felt like he'd been raped. Also, 'Flushed Away' which was just stupid. I did enjoy seeing those two magician movies, 'The llusionist' and the other one with Wolverine, even though they both had obvious endings. I have had this policy of only going to the dollar theater for over a year, but it was only after seeing the second 'Pirates of the Carribean' at full price, hating it, and walking out before the ending, that I decided to be firm and strong willed with my policy. Unfortunately, the dollar theater doesn't seem to show the movies that I might actually like seeing. Josh and I have had better luck with renting films. We recently saw 'Science of Sleep' in the comfort of his apartment, and I thought it was an absolutely fantastic film. We also recently saw 'Pan's Labrynth', which I liked quite a bit even though it totally creeped me out. But that's getting into things that I'm interested in, so I better leave you now with all of these things that I'm not excited about.
May 25, 2007
~ lounging ~
I've been doing a lot of lounging around lately. It's nice. Nice to not have to stress out about doing a bazillion things everyday and nice to have lots of relaxation. I've cracked open a Murakami book for personal enjoyment, and am having very strange dreams because of it. Also doing a lot of walking about, enjoying the urine-free air and the nicely-swept sidewalks.
In other news, I'm thinking about participating in some free mountain biking skills workshops that are held weekly for beginner and intermediate level riders. Also? I'm thinking about finally joining up with some group rides.
I'm looking forward to this weekend. Three days off! And the weather is supposed to be glorious. Yay.
My birthday is close at hand and I bet that everyone is eagerly anticipating celebrating the anniversary of my arrival on the planet earth. I have yet to decide what I want to do, however, and it's one of those decisions that is gnawing away at me. One of my ideas was to go spelunking, but I have a problem with claustrophobia so that's out of the question. Or hangliding, except for my incredible fear of being suspended high above the air. Or bungee jumping, excpet for my insane fear of falling head first to the ground. Or rock climbing, except for my fear of plunging to my death on rocky cliffs. Other than those ideas, there seems to be nothing else to do in this world. So recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
May 23, 2007
~ these are the flaws of my lives ~
It has been glorious being back in Boise. Except for whatever is creating stress for my immune system. The main issue has been the crazed sneezing and my inability to regulate my temperature. I'm constantly overheated and cold sweaty and feeling on the verge of fainting. But Boise is glorious. Why the rest of the world does not live in this paradise, I will never understand.
At my place of employment, I'm spending all my time working on a creative venture. However, my inspiration is gone for the day. I find myself staring blankly at my computer screen for extended periods of time. The feedback on my preliminary work, however, has been very positive. And I quote: "You are REALLY good! It is awesome!" Also? In super top secret news, there might soon be some fantastic changes to my position. Specifically, I might become Something Else with a new JD. Apparently, this whole "trying to be good at what one does" thing pays off...quite literally.
This leads me into a small discussion about some thoughts I've been having recently about perfection, and how I find that I have conflicting and possibly hypocritical views on perfection. It's something of a complex topic for me, so I'm sure you'll understand and recognize my tendency to ramble with little point.
For starters, when we're talking about my work at my job and school, I am extremely Type A. I am unforgiving and extremely damanding, having high expectations and am easily frustrated and disappointed. I have found, after quite a bit of experience with myself, that this aspect of my personality tends to detract from my ability to have an overall high quality of life. Clearly, it is good to put in one's best effort, but sometimes certain stuff just isn't a big deal and one should go and get a life.
For post-starters, however, I am not much of a perfectionist in other areas of my life. And I ascribe that to my having placed a value on a high quality of life to the detriment of flawlessness. I suppose that in order to articulate a full and complete version of that which I am pondering, I should include a detailed definition of what I consider to be a high quality of life for myself. Don't worry, I won't and we'll all have to be satisfied with my incomplete and vague musings.
Anyway, I've kinda forgotten what I was going to go on about because I'm currently multitasking this insightful whatever with my creative venture and more of my mental energy is on the latter. If memory serves, I was going to point your attention in the direction of certain parts of my life which nitty-picky types might get their panties all sucked up into their sphincters. Like the state of my apartment, which I do a pretty good job at maintaining a general level of tidyness, but which I would not recommend sliding one's tongue along because there's no guarantee when the last time I actually cleaned was. More importantly, however, I wanted to mention something about flaws and imperfections providing my life with interesting amusement. Perfection, after all, can be so dull. If I make something, a sewn skirt or a knitted sweater for examples, or if I fall repeatedly on a mountain bike ride, the cute little imperfections actually make me smile...in a wincing sort of way. Also, I find that I can be exceptionally charming and witty when I discuss my own unimportant mistakes and errors. It's one of my strong points, really. Given my casual attitude about the flaws that make up my existence, it's only natural for me to extend that casual attitude onto others. Since I am such a flawed individual, I certainly wouldn't want to surround myself with people who are the opposite of myself and never make mistakes. Making mistakes, and learning from them, is one of those great things about life. Obviously, I do not refer to mistakes such as shooting someone in the face and learning to take better aim.
Over the weekend, while I was on the airplane flight from New York to Boise, I was reading the UK Marie Clairre fashion magazine and was reading the advice column on how to make one's relationship work. The example dysfunctional couple was composed of this female who is very relaxed and calm about stuff, like me, and this male who is extremely nitty-picky anal retentive about every little thing. Apparently, they drive each other crazy. The male was illustrating this ridiculous pattern of their malfunctioning relationship by way of example of a blanket on a sofa. In his view, the blanket must always be perfectly arranged, without creases, on the sofa, and he regularly sits on the floor to avoid getting creases in the blanket. The female, by contrast, does not view the blanket on the sofa as a form of decoration, and rather understands it as a functional item that can provide her with warmth and comfort while snuggling on the sofa. As you can imagine, the male regularly comes home to find the blanket in disarray on the sofa and has a big cow.
As I view this problem, I see it not so much in terms of their relationship not working, but rather that their world views are juxtaposed in such a way that they might find less integration of their daily lives benefitial to resolving their woes. What I mean is that people who are so different, and have such particular demands, should not live together. There must be some reasons that they are a couple in the first place, and reverting to a state of enjoying eachother rather than faulting eachother may in fact be a recipe for relationship success. So you see, perfection is ridiculous and demanding other people to be perfect is unrealistic. Figuring out a way to enjoy a person that allows you to not hate them might be a good harmonious move so that you can have your blankets ajusted perfectly to your taste and other people can snuggle in their blankets as they like.
Surprisingly, I somehow managed to ramble way off topic from my original intent. Tra-la-la-la-la! ...hrm, I think that I was about to reveal the secret to world peace and total human happiness, but I lost it after becoming distracted by something in the real world. It's weird how I'm in such a fantastic mood during my state of ill feeling. Also, I'm feeling particularly awesome right at this very moment because I'm about to leave work for the day. You'll notice that the time on this post is set at 9:00 this morning...which is because it's taken me all day long in between creativity to compose this piece of brilliance. I must say, I am quite excited about this evening!
May 21, 2007
~ I <3 NY ~
New York City made me sick! Literally, as I have a miserable flu, complete with a sore throat and body aches. Until yesterday evening, I thought that my ill feeling was due to over-exhaustion. As I began to feel worse and worse, I asertained that I was truly under the influence of a maladie acquired some time during the tour-de-force which was my vacation.
Step one: Complain.
New York is a stinky, dirty city. Everywhere I went, particularly the underground mass transit, I inhaled the smell of urine, feces, and vomit. Seeing someone's discarded soiled pants at the subway station was hardly worth noticing, as the grime and grossness were all too common. I determined that the reason I smelled urine and feces everywhere was because of the quaint tradition of not offering public restrooms in the city. All week, the practice of going to the bathroom became an exercise in offensive strategy. Also, the urban wildlife was remarkable. I've never paid much attention to those stories of rats in the subway, but they're true! Rats the size of small cats! And the honking of car horns...never stopped. I spent the duration of the week unable to completely relax because of a lack of establishments for rest and recuperation. The coffee shop experience is THE staple of my quality of life. Who knew? that there are no coffee shopes in New York as I know coffee shops?!!
Step two: Fondly Remember
New York is a very interesting and stunning place. It was unlike anywhere I've ever been. Even though I took 150 photographs, I felt that I wasn't photographing much at all, because New York is an over-photographed place. And I've seen the city so much in photos and movies that I recognized most everywhere that I went.
Seeing old friends: By far, the best part of going to New York was the opportunity to see some friends who I haven't seen for a long time. Lola, who lives in Astoria, and Zach and Corey who came up from Massachusettes...ah, it was as though I saw them just yesterday, nothing had changed. The great thing about me is that I've got great taste in friends, who have excellent senses of humor and keep me laughing and laughing. Josh also had the opportunity to see his brother Seth, who lives in Brooklyn.
Eating: One of the nice things about having local New Yorkers, Lola and Seth, around was that they took us to some fantastic places to eat. My favorite was an Indian restaurant in the East Village called Panna II, followed by a Japanese sake bar on 47th street where we drank sake from a box.
Sight Seeing and Activities: Josh and I walked and walked and walked around the city. We hopped onto a boat which took us around the southern part of Manhattan, which allowed for us to gain a good perspective on the city. We went to a Broadway show, Spamalot, based on Monty Python's Holy Grail, which was too funny! I had the opportunity to visit the Met and MOMA for free, where I took in some art. Josh and I travelled to the top of the Rockafeller Center for a view of the city. We spent a bit of time in Central Park. We got to see Noe Venable play at a small venue in the East Village, and it was a wonderful concert. We went by the United Nations, saw Ground Zero, and marvelled at some really huge buildings. We saw the East Village in depth. Soho was overpriced and disappointing. The Meatpacking District was overpriced, but had some good galleries. We saw a photo shoot for a high end fashion magazine there. I saw some celebrities in Greenwich Village. We saw Newt Gingrich in Midtown.
Man, I've got a lot of stories from the trip. But I'm tired and I have the flu.
If I had it to do again: I would have liked to spend more time in Central Park and Brooklyn.
Feel free to navigate my photos on flickr. Josh has also posted photos on his flickr deal. I will leave you with a shot of myself and Josh, at night, with the Chrysler building in the background.
May 10, 2007
~ back to the ol' drawing board ~
At present, I am working on a mental hump that I need to overcome. If memory serves you well, you should recall a mountain biking accident that I sustained a while ago. And how, since then, I've been a bit tense on the downhills. Well, if you comprehended what you read in my last post, you should have gathered that there are a few things about my new bike that need to be tweaked. The breaks, for one, and the pedals, for two. These two things, my tension on downhills and those items needing tweaking on my bike, were directly responsible for my having crashed, not once, not twice, but THREE times on my mountain bike ride yesterday. Unfortunately, the majority of my injury was mental, and not physical. Physical injury is relatively easy to heal, at least with proper treatment and whatever. Mental injury, not so much.
Anyway, I had resolved that I didn't want to discuss it at all, because I just feel so severely lamed out and disappointed in myself. But, these people around me seem to have noticed that I am not my normal sunshiny self, and have pressed to know what is the matter. Also, I think I just need to get it off my chest, as this might take some time to get over....and I know how important it is for all of you people out there to understand the minutia of my existence.
So, yesterday, I spent the whole day being excited about taking my bike out on her second ride. I rode one of my favorite routes, Shane's to Three Bears and down Central Ridge. The climb was great, I absolutely LOVE the bike.
FALL NUMBER ONE: I was riding down the trail that drops Shane's into Rocky Canyon Road. There's a sudden technical section of the trail that always gives me a hard time. I had to stop and walk my bike on this. When I got back on the bike, I couldn't get my right cleat clipped into the pedal. Shame on me, this was clearly taking up more of my concentration than was the trail. So, I tipped over and flew down the side of the mountain. This has always been one of my greatest fears. Amazingly, I sustained little damage. I scuffed up my right forearm and my right shin. I had landed in a sandy section with a lot of sage brush. I had sand everywhere, in my shoes, in my shorts, in my mouth. I was also wearing a lot of sunscreen and had been sweating, so the sand stuck to every inch of my person. Sand also got imbedded in my water bottles, which I found rather unpleasant. Also, the scratchy pokey sage brush...I am allergic to sage brush, and I've got tiny welts on my skin to demonstrate that fact. At the same time, for having fallen down the face of a mountain, I felt that I was pretty lucky to not be really hurt. I don't remember a thing from my physics classes, but based on my experience of mountain bike crashes, it seems that the steeper the grade is on which one crashes, the force of the impact is less. In this way, falling down the face of a mountain should not be among my greatest fears.
FALL NUMBER TWO: Despite my crash, I decided to continue with my planned ride. I stopped by a creek and attempted to wash away some of the dirt from my person, to no avail. So I proceeded to ride up Rocky Canyon Road, connect with Three Bears and come down. Now, there is a particularly gnarly, steep, and rocky section on the Three Bears trail coming down towards Boise. As I approached it, I felt my tension increasing, my body becoming more rigid and wary. I rode a bit of it and bailed. I stood there for several minutes, trying to get up the courage to try and ride it. I was thinking about how the only way for me to improve is for me to challenge myself and try to do things that are uncomfortable and scary. I took a deep breath and got back on the bike...and bailed. Except this time, my bike started leaning to the right instead of to the left, where my cleat was unclipped and ready to step to the ground. My right pedal is set up particularly tight. And I couldn't get my damn foot disattached from the pedal and I tipped over onto some big rocks. I sustained a small but deep cut on my leg and a deep bruise. When I stood back up, I was fuming with frustration. I walked the rest of the way down feeling like a pathetic lame-o.
FALL NUMBER THREE: I proceeded to ride down the trail. I've been telling myself over and over that it's all about attitude. I was trying desperately to convince myself that I was having a good time, that I wasn't afraid of falling, that even if I did fall that there was a good chance that I wouldn't get too hurt, that I was glad that I bought my new bike. And then I turned a corner to begin my final descent on the off-camber, sandy, washboardy, steep section of trail that marks the end of Three Bears. The next thing I know, I am flying over my handlebars. The sensation occurred for me in slow-motion - - I was thinking about how I better not get hurt three days before I leave for vacation. After I landed, I stood up, saw the blood squirting from my knee, saw my bicycle lying off the trail, its poor handlebars twisted around and the chain having fallen off, the derailleur scratched, looked around and saw that there was no one anywhere near to me, and I started crying. Like a big baby. I felt so frustrated. I had no idea what made me crash this last time...I thought that all was going well and then was flying over my handlebars. I looked around on the trail to try to figure out what had made me fall. As I indicated, it was an off-camber, sandy, washboardy, steep section, but I've ridden it plenty of times with no problems. As I went to wipe away the tears that were streaming down my face, I wiped the sand from my first crash into my eyes. I plopped down and felt myself becoming overwhelmed with discouragement. I decided that I was a crappy bike rider, and what was I thinking, that I was good enough to upgrade to a nice full suspension bicycle. As I started to calm down, I realized that the best explanation for what made me crash was my mal-adjusted disc breaks. I've never ridden on disc breaks before, and these ones...yikes. As I mentioned in my last post, the tension is not adjusted equally on both. It's not REALLY unequal, but the disparity becomes very noticeable on the downhills. Also, there is a great distance that one must pull the break levers before attaining any breaking effect. Once there is breaking effect, however, the breaks are extremely sensitive. All throughout the ride, I was paying close attention to my breaking, but I must have forgotten their sensitivity as I came around that corner and pulled the levers as I would have with my old bike. And over the handlebars I went.
Soon, I'll be off to take the bike to the shop to see if they can adjust it betterly. My wounds are healing. The knee is oozing wound goo, but is not painful or significantly swollen. My deep cut looks black (if it was longer, I'd say that I need stitches, but it's so small that it would only fit one stitch), and my allergic welts from the sage brush are coming down. It's the mental trauma that is bothering me the most. I've decided that I need to take the bike onto some super mild beginner trails to get my confidence back up...but even the thought of bunny trails makes me uneasy. Anyway, I'm sure I'll keep you posted.
May 8, 2007
~ behold the glory ~
It has finally arrived, my brand new Gary Fisher HiFi Deluxe GS women's specific full suspension mountain bike. I have been awaiting this day for months, and quite frankly, I thought it would not come for several more weeks, what with it apparently being unavailable in the country. But yesterday, Josh from The Bike Shop called to say that my "special order" had arrived. I had already scheduled to take the afternoon off of work to study for my stats exam, which is this evening, so I had something else to take my mind off of studying.
For months, I've been pouring over online reviews (such as this one from a female mountain biker) and mountain biking forums (such as this one) drooling over what I hoped would soon be mine. My skill in articulating overly verbose explanations of things fails me when it comes to the complexities of mechanical dealie-bobs, so for engineering design details I will refer you to the above linked review and forum where those sorts of things are expounded upon at length. I am still working on understanding them myself, so I read them regularly. See, people have different strengths, and wrapping my mind around mechanical dealie-bobs is not one of mine.
Yesterday, Josh and I spent some time in the back of the bike shop after he got off of work, tweaking the fit and whatever else on my new bike. It turned out to be more of a procedure than I anticipated. I've become much more mechanical-oriented in the past two years, so while Josh was switching out the handlebars, I successfully performed complex mechanical operations such as installing water bottle cages and removing the tires and tubes from the wheels. When I thanked the owner of the shop for the special deal on my bike, he said that now I'm charged with the responsiblity of teaching Josh how to ride a bike. I suspect that he was impressed with all of the grease on my fingers and the finess with which I handled the allen wrenches. Once the bicycle was set up to the fern-specific specifications, we set out to ride Hard Guy.
Interestingly, Josh and I rode Hard Guy the day before, on Sunday, when it was windy, windy, windy. There were times during the descent that the wind was blowing so hard against the side of my person, that I was concerned about being blown off the trail. Josh described what he saw as "the leaning tower of fern" while I was attempting to counteract the forces of the wind by leaning into it. There were times when it felt as though my helmet was acting like a parachute - - the wind was lifting it from my head and I had to make something of an effort to pull my head down.
Last night, the wind was a gentle breeze that just plain felt good. This past winter, I didn't stay in cycling shape, I hypothesize, because I performed my exercise on the elpitical rather than in spinning class, so my legs haven't felt up to par. I expect that this will change quickly and that I will be up to snuff, and exceeding my past snuff in no time. Also, I've had a bit of difficulty relaxing on the downhills ever since my crash...I've been a bit tense.
Anyway, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi. It is wonderful having so much suspension under my person. My ascent and descent last night on Hard Guy was significantly smoother. Also, I've heard that there can be difficulties with full suspension bikes being heavy and squishy, thereby reducing power and speed on climbs. The HiFi is pretty light (27 lbs) and I didn't notice any squish. I found that the mid-level setting on the rear shock was quite nice - - the washboard sections were easy on my sit bones, but firm enough so that there was no bobbing. The front shock doesn't have a lockout, which I do think is a shame. While we were riding up Bogus Basin Road, I had the shock turned to the most-firm setting, and there was a significant amount of bobbing when I stood up. I am considering having the pressure increased to compensate for the lack of lockout...after all, there's a lot of room in five inches of suspension.
I'm not the biggest fan of the disc breaks. At the moment, they're not adjusted to my satisfaction. There is a great distance that one must first pull before experiencing any breaking effect, but once the breaking effect is achieved, they are ridiculously sensitive. Also, the front and the rear break seem to be adjusted slightly different, which was very noticable on the descent, as I periodically almost hurrled myself off the front of the bike. Luckily, these are all things that can be adjusted. And I'd also like to state for the record that I am not complaining, instead I am observing. As already articulated, I absolutely LOVE my new HiFi.
After the ride, Josh and I went to Lucky 13 for some beer and cheezy garlic bread. When we arrived, the establishment was filled with gads of other mountain bikers drinking beer. It was truly astonishing the number of bikes leaning against the outside benches and trees, unlocked and perfectly safe under the watchful eyes of all the enthusiastic cyclists. I perched my HiFi along the bench on which I rested, and attached joy to it being out in the world and having a great fun time. Here's a photo of the sweet HiFi in its new home.
May 2, 2007
~ frustrated or fascinated ~
If you're anything like me, you have a pretty negative outlook on the world and your pessimism can frequently overwhelm you, enabling you to ponder the extermination of the human species as a quick and easy way to get it all over with. Well, let me tell you something, trying to have a positive attitude can make all the difference! Yesterday, while I was writing my blog post, I wrote a big paragraph about how lamed out I have become with regular reading of the news. I deleted the paragraph because it cast a shadow of negativity onto the whole post, and I'm going with this new thing of trying not to be a downer all of the time.
What I'm getting at harkens back to something that a colleague of mine said to me awhile ago. She said, "Jennifer, rather than getting frustrated about everything, you should be like me and sit back, detatch yourself, and consider how fascinating it all is. When everything goes wrong, just think about what a fascinating experiment life is."
I find that I am surrounded by a lot of negative people in my daily life. Coworkers, mainly. In this, I feel that I have dug my own grave, because I have frequently complemented people on their snarkiness and witty bad attitudes. Having a bad attitude can be so much fun! Case in point, at the office we have this printer that somehow we acquired for free and it always refuses to function when we're in a huge hurry to have something printed right at this very moment. I started calling it Lucifer's Concubine and now there's several people in the office who articulate their frustration about the malfunctioning equipment through the use of negative phrasology. I think it's a nice way to bring humor into a really frustrating situation. The problem is that sometimes the line between humorous negativity and negative negativity is foggy and I frequently feel that it is so easy for us to slip into this deep dark negative space that can border on mean and it's difficult to get out of it.
I have observed numerous times that I tend to be a sponge in that I easily absorb the attitudes of those around me. I'd like to think that my identity is not as malleable as this sounds, but time and time again it is shown that if everyone around me is negative and in a bad mood, then so will I. Currently, I've decided to try this new tactic of ignoring all of the negative people around me so that I can endeavor to maintain a more positive attitude. This tactic is most likely alienating me from those around me and making me seem even more antisocial than I am, but quite frankly, I'm tired of all the negativity.
The other week ago, Josh and I were drinking beer on my stoop and we got into a conversation about negativity. I cannot remember his precise wording, but he said something wonderful about negativity being profoundly immoral, and (now the memory is really foggy) that it is imperative for everyone try to have a positive attitude. Except, more eloquent than that. I have been pondering this and have determined that, even in my own small corner of the office, if everyone made a little effort to infuse a positive attitude into their day, all of our days would be consistently brighter. And that's nothing to shake a stick at.
So, yesterday, as I mentioned, I wrote a paragraph about how I want to die everytime that I read the news. Pretty much everyday, I read about all of these people being killed in horrible ways, children being abused and mollested, and how humans are ruining the environment, and sometimes it makes me feel so overwhelmed about what a horrible world I live in that I could just jump off a building. What makes me feel worse is how powerless I feel. I mean, hey, I recycle and I endeavor to cause no harm, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on what others are doing. Even on a "close to home" scale, I have no effect on the dude a mile away who went on a rampage and killed all his roommates and hid the bodies in the crawlspace. It can be very frustrating if you're a sponge like me...or, fascinating as another element in the complex experiment of life? In this way, if we tried to create joy and have a positive attitude, we might find ourselves being less miserable, and just maybe, more consistently happy.
In other news, Josh has posted a photo of me wearing my Nantucket Jacket that I finished knitting. Isn't it awesome!!! The yarn is Berroco Pure Merino in Gooseberry, and it is glorious. It's supposed to have buttons, but I have no buttons, so at the moment, I am fastening it with a gaudy brotch.
May 1, 2007
~ but seriously ~
One week to go. I stayed up not-really-late last night working on my final paper, yet I find that I lack the passion to spend much time on it. I'd rather be out walking in the sunshine, in the lovely 84 degree weather, in my flip flops, absorbing some vitamin D. Not sitting in front of my computer screen, typing out some BS about whatever my boring topic is. ...belch.
What I'm more passionate about is how I will be inserting my person into an aircraft in thirteen days to travel to the distant land of New York City. I plan on engaging in typical New York activities, such as walking around and doing things. I also plan on throwing some dollars down on articles of clothing and shoething. Unfortunately, the excitment has been hardly noticible due to my focus on other things...like my boring paper.
In other news, I'm at the exciting stage in the knitting cycle of trying to figure out what to knit next. In the spring issue of Interweave Knits, there was a pattern for some Entrelac Socks which I think are AWESOME, yet I find myself wanting to make something less involved, like some legwarmers or, yet another, scarf. I'm also leaning towards a chunky knit sweater that might give me more instant satisfaction. ...Though, this isn't really sweater-weather. I have a pattern for a lacy thong, and I might modify it to make a banana hammock for Josh. Yet, that may turn out to be a waste of time. I have been dreaming, for several months, about a patchwork fair isle felted scarf. The end result, which is contained in my head, is truly amazing. The idea would be to knit several panels of fair isle in Cascade 220, with different motifs, felt them, and bind them together in some sort of thematic order (kinda like a quilt!). ...hrm, that does sound like a lot of fun.
At the same time, I'm hoping to pull out my sewing machine again soon and work on some projects that I've had plans for for several months. School kinda put a lot of things on hold. One of these projects is to make a knee-length pencil skirt from a hiddeous oversized man's sweater that I purchased at a thrift store. I've made one already and I love it. It has these horrible wavy stripes that are awesome in skirt format. The untouched man's sweater is truly horrid - - with early 1990's knitted ugliness that is too wonderful for words. I laugh just thinking about its revolting colors and patterns. I also have plans for a clashing plaid skirt - - wherein I will sew together two different clashing plaid fabrics with a complementing fabric in the middle, that I expect will be simply atrocious in a wonderfully fugly way. Homemade fugly skirts are the wave of the future. Pure genius.
