So, I’m keeping a gratitude journal. :) I realize that may sound cheesy, but somebody close to me encourage me to do so recently, and so here I am, journalling! Every day I spend just about 5 minutes - usually over breakfast - writing down a few thoughts. It’s really been easy and cathartic and maybe even fun. It’s kind of nice just writing by hand the old-fashioned way, and even better that I know nobody has to read it if I don’t want them to, so I can “sound stupid” all I want. I do journal about being grateful about something, but also plans for the future, memories from the past; whatever comes to mind. I do it right before I meditate and that, plus the meditation, really does clear my mind. I think I had hang-ups about “doing it right” in the past that kept me from starting, but now that I’m just going for it and keeping it short and sweet, I find I really am doing it every day.
Today I got to cook for the first time with a “meat substitute” at home. We still don’t have Impossible Meat in our groceries out here - although they keep saying it’s coming soon - so I bought some Beyond Meat. So, how did I like it? Well, that depends on how you look at it. It was not a home run. In particular, the experience of actually opening the package and, uh, spooning out some to turn into a patty needs a little work. It reminded me uncomfortably of dog or cat food. I realize that makes it sound awful; it wasn’t that bad, but still, the smell wasn’t quite right and the feeling wasn’t quite right. Now, some might say that’s because dog and cat food actually is meat, and that’s true, so I guess that’s good? It’s just not really what I expected or wanted. However, once I started to cook it the situation improved greatly; it smelled good while cooking, looked tasty, it’s a lot easier to cook than ground beef, and it tasted really great actually, very satisfying and meaty. Reminded me a bit more of like a meatball than a true burger, though. So I would (and will) buy it again, but I’m also really looking forward to the Impossible Foods version because this isn’t quite the meat replacement I was hoping for.
Yesterday I published my first iOS app that I’d written in quite some time. I used to do this regularly and I’m trying to get back into it! My first effort might not appeal to most of you who might read this; it’s a quiz and training app for an online game that I enjoy called Teamfight Tactics. It helps you learn all the myriad quantity of data in the game in a graphically appealing format. I wrote it because…well, just because I wanted to! Because that’s the best reason to create new things. If you happen to be one of my gaming friends and want to check it out, there’s a link below. It was a lot of fun to write and now I have to see about posting it out on the great World Wide Web and see if anybody gets a kick out of it! More to come now that I’ve broken through the creative dam, so to speak!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tuft-quiz-for-tft/id1486468556?ls=1
TL;DR MC Frontalot has a new album out, and it’s all about his disenchantment with the Internet, and it’s good. I enjoyed it.
For those who don’t know, MC Frontalot is a nerdcore rapper; one of the originals who started the genre, in fact. I started listening to his music really early on because he was one of the first who spoke to me; his songs were about being a dork. He’s never been a programmer or a full on science geek but more of a “geek enthusiast” who loves playing old text-based video games but has enough style and grace to perform on stage as a rapper. A winning combination in my book.
His most recent album, “Net Split”, is a series of stories about a man who has fallen out of love with the Internet. He’s arranged it as sort of a “break up” album, leaning heavily into the metaphor of a relationships that’s on the rocks. In “Never Read The Comments” (a great song title by the way) he writes “Guess I might \ have had enough \ of these posted fisticuffs \ to discuss with the posters \ their and my shared neurosis”. He correctly puts his finger on the worst thing about the modern internet; the tendency to focus energy on negativity. “A single toe dipped in the fester-hole subjects to undertow, as if to know your worth itself became debatable, as if anything could be wonderful enough to be unhateable.” That’s the thing, right? Nothing on the internet is unhateable.
This is a concept I can relate to. Obviously I still love pieces of the Internet, we all do. But many of us who were around in the early days; the BBSs, Usenet, etc., kind of miss the way the Internet was. Frontalot plays with this concept, though, exposing the hypocrisy in songs like “Internet Sucks”: “you were made of everyone everywhere. \ Or so I imagined! Actually, just a bunch of me-types”. Boy is that ever true. The uncomfortable truth is that one reason the internet seemed so, well, civil is that it was a giant circle-jerk.
But, still, one can’t help but feel that something has been gained but something has been lost. Yes, it’s a much more inclusive place, and that’s good, but it’s a much more angry place, and that’s not so good. So excuse me while I boot up my Hayes modem and dial into this CD.
Today the fire alarm went off in my apartment complex; fortunately not in my exact building or I would have had to leave (it’s earsplitting!) but close enough. The ironic juxtaposition here was pretty awesome :) since I was in the middle of meditating; not only that but the teacher was specifically teaching a lesson on motivation. Many people (I’m not one of them anymore) when they are new to meditation are afraid that meditating will make them “lose their edge” and get complacent, and so he was addressing that, and he mentioned that worrying about things is OK as long as its productive and we’re aware of and in control of our worry. It’s when we run away with our worry that it’s not helping us. And it occurred to me that although this earsplitting fire alarm was going off, nobody seemed all that worried, and precisely nobody was acting as if there was an actual fire. I hear car alarms on my street all the time, and the one thing nobody ever does is act as if somebody is stealing a car. So my takeaway: worry can be like that. Just a alarm blaring in the background that the rest of our life isn’t paying any attention to. And modern life is like that for a lot of people these days; just noise, accomplishing nothing and signifying nothing! So yeah: worrying without purpose is as annoying and pointless as a car alarm.
A couple of days ago, I put my money where my mouth is and invested in something I hope will keep me more focused and more intentional: a Light Phone 2. This is a device long in the making - yes there was a Light Phone 1 - that started as a kickstarter (actually, I think IndieGoGo). I’ve heard about it several times, but always was scared away by the price tag - it’s almost $400 after taxes, and it won’t even ship for another month. But I increasingly find that, as I evaluate my smartphone experiences, they bring me less and less happiness. Not just in the long term sense, but even short term; I’m just not enjoying a lot of my interactions with my phone. Now, of course there are things that I do enjoy that make my life easier, and that’s the trick that I’m hoping the Light Phone folks can pull off; how to have just enough phone. As of this writing, the only apps it has are texting, calling and an alarm. It doesn’t even have email. Now this is too small of a feature set for me (hey, the first Light Phone only had calling). But Light claims that by the end of the year they will have maps, taxis and music. For me, personally, I will still probably wish it had email. I don’t find email that distracting. But the big thing is no social media on the phone. And, no camera. I look forward to carrying a separate camera, actually, for when I really want to take some pictures and engage in photography, instead of just instagramming.
I realize this idea isn’t for everyone. I’m not sure I’ll be able to use it as my primary phone all the time, primarily because of work. I suspect what’s going to wind up happening is that I will have to carry both phones from time to time; the Light Phone can act as a hotspot, or I may switch to AT&T, where they have a service where both phones can share the phone number. When it shows up in early December, I’ll update this with another post about how it goes and how I’m enjoying it.
http://www.lightphone.com
TL;DR I’ve been listening to a new musician/rapper that I like a lot, and if you’re into rap but more of an adult, you might want to check him out. His name is Crypt and there’s a link below.
For many years I have been into rap music. I love words, and wordplay, so it’s a natural fit. But I never liked traditional rap topics. If you haven’t noticed I’m white and also a computer programmer and so I have little in common with gats, or the hood. When I was a kid that meant the Fresh Prince, but as I got older there started to be this weird little niche called “nerdcore”, with artists like MC Frontalot and MC Chris. A characteristic of these early rappers is that - although they were talented - they were often gimmicky and wrote about extremely nerdy topics, on purpose. A few artists, such as Jesse Dangerously, tried to split the difference and wrote songs about, for example, pacifism. But by and large these were nerd rappers, not rappers who happen to be nerds. But finally, in 2019, there are such things, and one of them is Crypt. I found Crypt because I was looking for reaction videos for Epic Rap Battles, and he did one, and it was really popular but I didn’t know who he was. Following his channel though quickly led me to understand that he was, himself, a rapper. His songs were good, but recently he released an album, and I think it’s finally time to recommend him. It’s great. In particular, there are a few songs that hit me, the best by far being “I’m Not Okay”, which is really well done and touching, and not really at all about being a nerd per se. But the guy is clearly a nerd. He likes video games and Mountain Dew and sometimes worries about girls and is very white and grew up in the ‘burbs. But he doesn’t play off of that, there’s no schtick. He is unironically a rapper and goes on tour and does rap about being awesome and having a big dick sometimes. (Not a lot of shooting people, though, and easy on the misogyny).
Anyway, I liked it. Check it out.
https://youtu.be/a64YRBmjM-4
Today, while in the car driving to work listening to NPR, I heard a special about a research study which is asking people to intentionally give themselves the flu. The way it works is, you show up a clinic, they blow flu viruses up your nose (literally), then you sit in a clinic for a week while you - presumably - get the flu and they measure a million things about you. On the surface of course, this seems absurd. I mean, you do get paid, but at first glance most people would think “who would volunteer for that?” But it’s an interesting measure of the world we live in and my mental state that my first thought was “gosh, that sounds relaxing”. I honestly had a moment where I felt like it might be nice to just sit and have the flu for a week. No responsibilities - illness, since childhood, has represented a type of freedom. You can get nothing done and nobody faults you for it. And I am not alone - one of the two broadcasters said the same thing, that it sounded nice. Think about that: we’re so busy, and so obsessed with being seen as productive, that being sick becomes appealing just because it gives us permission to slow down. The right answer of course is that we should be able to get the benefits of being sick without actually making ourselves physically ill.
Here I am again! Seattle! So many great things about today; finishing, the ride itself, but possibly the best part was seeing Tony and Jennifer, my friends from the Northern Tier ride I did in 2017. Seeing them kind of closed the loop for me and made the whole experience worth it. Saying goodbye to some new friends would’ve been harder except that I will get to see some of them in a few weeks when I join up the Pacific Coast for a couple of days.
As I rode into Snohomish’ soccer fields, I had a sense of deja vu - I’ve already been here! I forgot that when I came out for the 10th anniversary party/celebration for Bike the US for MS, I rode out to Snohomish to ride in with the team on that last day. This time around, we had much nicer weather, and the sprinklers never came on! We’ve begun our “victory lap”; the ride was pretty easy and flat into Snohomish, and we were there before we even knew it. Sully (Larry Sullivan) joined us at the rest stop, and brought a ton of delicious food and beer for us, all of which we plowed through while sitting in the shade and filling out our “cards”; sheets of paper where we each wrote something that we wanted to leave our fellow cyclists with. It’s no secret that I didn’t bond with this group as much as I have in the past, but it still is awesome to share an experience like this with a bunch of fellow adults, and I think I made or cemented a few relationships that will last me moving forward. People we care about from other rides have started to trickle in, and that’s what’s fun: this has become more than a single ride for me, it’s become representative of a community, a community of people of all ages from all over the US; people I would never have met otherwise that have become friends.
As a sad side note, we rode past Oso, the town where in 2014, a landslide killed 43 people and buried a small town. A reminder of the power of Mother Nature.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get around to updating the blog! Today we rode into Darrington, which is a small logging community near Seattle. Some of our more Seattle-familiar folks were surprised that we were staying there; there’s basically nothing there, but it made a handy stopover point. Last night everything I own got wet and dirty, so I was really glad that we had at least some space inside a church to lay down. We had a big wide open field so we played frisbee. Nick showed us his Mongolian Rap music (!) and Nick S. sprained his ankle, but by and large it was a pretty low-key kind of day. I can’t believe the ride is so close to ending.
Oh! I should also mention that we ran into 4K for Cancer again at Newhalem, the company town for Seattle City & Light. And that I rode with Emily and Ginger to Cascadian Farms and had an afloggato, while we watched an incredible downpour!
Today was the last of the climbs, and it was a doozy - two separate climbs to about 5400 feet and then back down and back up. Also, it was really pretty down at the lake, with the aquamarine water.
But enough about that - it was BROM! Brom is a thing we do near the end of rides (usually) where we just get all dressed up in thrift store clothing we find along the way and just play drinking games and have a good time. I love it. This year I dressed up as the Masked Cyclist, defender of justice and the cycling way.
Another day, another dollar! 71 miles, another 4000+ feet of climbing. We’re getting away from the desert slowly but surely, and today is Winthrop, a western-themed tourist trap of a town which still managed to be pretty fun. We swung by Twisp and had some baked goods, and then Ginger took us on a route to Winthrop that the cars take, which put us back on Highway 20, and there was a grain fire in Winthrop that the first responders were going to, which sent fire trucks barreling past us at 100 miles an hour sirens blaring. So that was a thing. Two old friends of mine, Brian and Ernie, joined us today because they are going to be route leaders on the next route, the Pacific Coast. It was great to see them both. I love it when this whole thing I do feels like a community. Today was fairly low key; everybody knows that tomorrow is the last of the big climbs.
Nothing interesting happened today. The end.
OK, OK, I guess I need to write something. Well, today I tested out my newfound sense of self peace by choosing to make a hard decision and stand up to a situation I thought was wrong, and that went well, so good news there. Also, we rode 43 miles, and dropped into the central Washington desert, where Kelly said it looked suddenly like the Southern Tier, all sagebrush and rock and sand. Not a huge fan of this climate or terrain so I’m sitting in their very pleasant public library (public libraries rock!) blogging and escaping the heat!
Starting to become real that soon this is ending. :(
Today was maybe one of the most important days of my life. At about 10:30 AM, outside Colville, WA, I had something of a spiritual experience. For just a moment, I had this sudden moment where I realized that I was going to be OK. It’s hard to describe, but the closest I can think of is the feeling when you’re watching a scary movie or a documentary and a friend walks in and tells you that the main character lives happily ever after. It’s like, “Oh, OK, I guess that’s OK then.” Douglas Adams tells an anecdote about an alien making the trek to find the meaning of life, and when he finally finds it, he just says “Oh, I think I’m OK with that,” and just dies. Not that I’m in a hurry to die. But it was one of those moments.
Riding-wise, today was a mountain to climb. Literally. The dominant story of today was the 4200 foot climb up to Sherman Pass. It was, predictably, exhausting.
First off, Mill Creek isn’t really a place; we’re back to camping in the wilderness now and stayed near Mill Creek road at a place called the Beaver Lodge, where I ate lunch and dinner. Some of the folks; Julia, Emily and Kelly especially, are filming a “music video” using the song “1000 miles” by Vanessa Carlton but substituting our own lyrics and they had me sing, which was fun, I hadn’t done something like that in a while.
Today was the day we left our 4K for Cancer friends so I wanted to talk a little bit about that. They are all younger, and the idea is that it was started by a younger guy (19) who got cancer and wanted a support system for research about cancer specifically in young adults. They have an age cap, and I think I understand why. It was like summer camp on wheels; they do morning dedication, which is a set of rituals including a song, a chant, a mosh pit, and a reading about someone they know who has cancer. Everyone dedicates the ride to someone; either the person in the reading or their own choice. They had a lot more togetherness than we do; some of it forced, of course. It really was like a parallel universe. I sort of hope we run into them again or groups like them because I think there are things we could learn from them and we shouldn’t be so afraid of togetherness.
On a final note, I rode for 7 hours today with Kelly and we talked about so many things; relationships, life, passions, family. I really cherish these long conversations and this one in particular was something I needed at that moment, it was very grounding.
There were 2 cool things today: kayaking, and meeting the 4K for Cancer ride. From a cycling standpoint, today was only 36 miles, much of which I had a tailwind for and was on a bike path. So that’s not terribly interesting. Kayaking was great; Sandpoint is actually the kind of place I could see hanging out in for vacation, between the food and the beach and the kayaking; I went out with Nick A and had a fun time with him hanging out on the water; this time I put on sunscreen!
We also got to meet the 4K for Cancer ride; I’ll have a bit more to say about that tomorrow, but I’ve never had that happen in 4 years, to have another team come and stay with us at the same time. The 4K for Cancer ride is, of course for cancer and it is a ride that only allows people up to 26 years old. They were really nice to hang out with but one of their riders put it best; encountering them was like seeing into a parallel universe. They’re roughly headed our way but they are going down to Spokane whereas we head more due west and go camping.
The town we were in, Newport, was a nice place, with an old-time soda fountain and a really nice five and dime store; right on the Idaho border, in fact Idaho and Washington split the town. Because of this, there wasn’t a Washington state sign!
OK, lots of interesting things happened today but the thing you really want to know about is axe throwing, so let’s get to it. Is it fun? Hell, yes it is. There’s something primal about hurling a hand axe into a wooden board. Am I any good at it? Well, I came in second on the team, behind only Nick A who got 9/10 because he is some kind of robot. Also, the tavern we did the axe throwing at is 101 years old and is an awesome dive-y place where we met the owner, a guy named Russ who goes around saving dive bars. He only charges $5 (!) for a whole group of folks to throw axes, just to cover his costs. (I checked: in Berkeley it’s $29/person). I’m definitely going to do it when I get back, though. It’s fun. I may even buy my own axe, which is not something I ever would have thought before.
Sandpoint is much more touristy than I realized. I spent a portion of the day out at the beach - an actual tourist beach with families and beach balls and suntan lotion. The water was amazing. I also spent a good deal of time in my hammock, reading a new book by one of my favorite authors Jack McDevitt. It was good. And then more philosophical conversations with Ted about being a teacher and a dad. All in all, a good day.
Well, we left Montana! Idaho seems nice; the country has gone back to being a bit more farmland and not quite so wild, and Sandpoint definitely seems a bit touristy. I can’t say I like it quite as much, but that’s OK. I’m a mountain-pine-tree-wild-country-rivers-and-lakes kind of guy, I suppose. Today we rode 94 miles. Sometimes when I write that, I forget that to other people that might seem kind of crazy, like the kind of thing they do once in their lives. To us it was just Thursday. My body is holding up OK; I’m tired but I can handle it. I’m really glad today is a day off though, and tomorrow is apparently only 36 miles. Had a good conversation about the meaning of life with Ted last night over a fantastic burger and homemade Idaho potato chips and a beer at this local brewery. I asked the waitress to tell me something about Idaho other than potatoes and all she came up with was kayaking. So, Idaho: It’s potatoes and kayaking.
Oh, and we got to go see the Kootenai falls, which were very nice - but even cooler was the swinging bridge across the river, which must’ve been 100 feet long and was newly rebuilt. Very fun. Makes me want to go explore the jungle.
Oh, and note for the future: the guy who takes the awesome photos is Nick Angelidis. He’s very cool.
The story of today is the story of Forest Development Road 288, which we rode for a good 50-55 miles of our 75 today. I’ve never been on a lonelier road; for the first 40 miles we saw a total of 3 cars, one of which was a Forest Service car and one of which was our van. It wasn’t the most remote place I’ve ever ridden; the Lifetime Achievement Award for that goes to Middlegate, NV forever. But even in Middlegate we saw occasional cars. This was literally the middle of nowhere. A beautiful ride along the dammed Kokanee River which reminded me a little bit of Lake Tahoe. My body is exhausted; the regular riding is leaving me a bit more exhausted every day, and tomorrow is a cool 94 miles which to be honest I’m a bit scared of.
