Monthly Archives: August 2011

19

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Another birthday. And so two characters exit the stage, Fifteen and Eighteen, and two enter, Sixteen and Nineteen.

I’m at a stage in life, most likely late-middle, where I don’t take mine or other close friends’ or family members’ birthdays for granted. Increasingly I think of birthdays as celebrations of another year of life together.

After writing warm fuzzy posts about the GalPal and youngest daught, there’s real pressure to deliver more warm fuzzies this time around.

I know I should write about how Nineteen is also blossoming on her own at college. About how helpful she’s been at home this summer. About how she salvaged a summer of unemployment by hustling together odd jobs in the hood and a half-time internship. About how nice it was that she invited me to go to Portland with her for a Sara Bareilles concert (that fact that her mom didn’t want her driving home alone after midnight might have factored in too).

Can’t though because a part of Nineteen’s blossoming is continuing to get faster in the pool. When she got faster than me at the 500 freestyle, I consoled myself by thinking at least I own the shorter stuff. Since that’s no longer true, I figured well I can still sing “Look at Me Now” to myself as I pull away in open water. Then Mel, her, and I dove into Ward Lake last Saturday afternoon. I used to be able to pick her out when looking back while breathing. Now I have to lift the chin and tilt the ol’ noggin forward.

So since this is what it has come to, her showing no respect for her elders, I’m going to tap that middle schooler in me that does the opposite of whatever I’m supposed to. Stopping right here sans warm fuzzies.

And as Sara sings. . . Who cares if you disagree? You are not me. Who made you king of anything?

State of the Blog—August, 2011

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It’s been a long time since I’ve pressed pause on Pressing Pause.

I’m assigning myself an “F” in terms of my goal of creating a “virtual seminar”. Consequently, I’ve updated the tagline and “About This Blog” link. It’s okay because I understand people’s passivity since I rarely comment on the blogs I read. Nor do I write reviews of anything I purchase, actively participate on forums, or ever reply to the annoying “Is this advertisement relevant to you?” pop-up. I don’t find the Facebook execs (or Peter Singer’s) argument that privacy is obsolete the least bit convincing. Apart from this blog, I’m net-passive, so lurking be cool.

Sometimes people email me comments and talk to me in person about my posts, both which I really appreciate. Even if you don’t want to comment publicly, don’t hesitate to email thoughts, suggestions, or ideas for posts. Whatever. Any feedback is appreciated.

I’m focusing more on the process of writing substantive stuff and thinking less about readership stats. However, I have to confess to sometime envying (what commandent is that?) the five or six bloggers I regularly read when they receive more comments per post than I receive readers.

The bofo blogs all leverage social media in ways my Facebook-less self doesn’t and they tend to fall into three categories with some overlap: 1) non-stop bloggers that post several short, smart, informative, sometimes provocative posts every day; 2) bloggers without boundaries who grab you by the collar and pull you into their daily lives through truly excellent, highly specific, deeply personal writing; and 3) photog bloggers that skillfully use pics to compliment their substantive, solid writing.

Why don’t I just imitate them more?

I don’t want to blog fulltime while eating cake frosting because then I’d get dropped on Tuesday/Thursday night training rides and the GalPal would leave me for some hunkier dude. Then I’d have to join an on-line dating club which would preclude non-stop blogging.

I would like to self-censor myself less, but I don’t want to try to be provocative just for the case of being provocative because that would defeat the purpose of being more authentic. Also, I don’t know how to write more personally on-line without sacrificing the privacy of family and friends who never signed up to be blogging fodder.

And that leaves photography. As you can tell, I’m pretty hopeless there. Saturday I rode up the back of Mt. Saint Helen’s via Windy Ridge and Norway Pass roads. 57 miles, 5,577′ of climbing. Truly off the charts beautiful, even by Mt. Rainier/Cascade standards. It reminded me of Grindelwald in Switzerland. At the last minute, I tossed the camera in the gym bag in the car because I was already carrying three water bottles and some nutrition and I didn’t want the extra weight. Selfish I know. I think the minimalist in me is partly to blame. Even with the simplicity of digital data storage, the degree to which some people document their daily life via cameras and cam-corders strikes me as an odd, modern form of clutter. And I wonder if my ride may have been slightly less special if I had been thinking about documenting it for you and therefore stopping more frequently. Obviously there’s a large middle ground and I regret not having taken a few pics to share. I’ll try to do better.

To summarize, feedback in any form is greatly appreciated and I’m going to continue focusing on the process of writing as much stuff I want to go back and read later as possible.

Wednesday. . . another birthday tribute (of sorts).

Thanks for lurking.

Getting Bin Laden

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When’s the last time you talked U.S. foreign policy? The merits of the Afghanistan mission? Our increasing use of drones to kill from the sky? Famine in the Horn of Africa? Syria?

Most people are preoccupied with making ends meet and related challenges in their daily lives. When afforded a little free-time, they discuss the stock market sell-off, the return of the NFL, Justin Timberlake’s newest movie, and maybe the debt ceiling limit.

Has there ever been a time when U.S. citizens have paid less attention to things foreign? Props to you for getting this far in a “foreign policy” post.

Getting Bin Laden is the title of a New Yorker essay by Nicholas Schmidle.

Reading it, I couldn’t help but think my hawkish, conservative friends who have zero respect for Obama, would probably finish it with a modicum of begrudging respect for him. In contrast, for me, it was somewhat disillusioning. It’s increasingly obvious he’s cut from very similar cloth as the Republican and Democratic Presidents before him.

He’s authorized eight times more drone missions than Bush. Apparently, he pursued Bin Laden with greater zeal than Bush. When asked, he told the military brass responsible for planning the Bin Laden mission that it was okay if they had to kill some civilians in the process.

The first person killed during the 38-minute long mission was Bin Laden’s courier who, in the months prior, unwittingly led the U.S. military to the compound. The second person was his wife, standing near him, unarmed. It’s unclear to me, from the description in the essay, why she was shot.

Hawks will say what they almost always say, heat of the battle, collateral damage.

If our drones and daily Abbottobad-like attacks are making us safer in the short-term, what about the medium and long-term?

The GalPal has a marine biologist friend whose master’s fieldwork took place on an island off the coast of Mexico. Her team’s goal was to rid the island of non-native animal life. The first specie, rats. Apparently the challenge is getting every last rat because rats have a built-in reproductive instinct that kicks in when being culled. The more you kill, the more the survivors speed up their reproducing.

What types of lives do children who watch their parents killed by the U.S. military end up living? China is close to developing drones. What are we going to do when that technology spreads to other countries, some that we’ll likely meet on the battlefield?

Counter the prevailing isolationist mentalilty and read The Looming Tower. Iman al Zawahiri was an Egyptian revolutionary intent on overthrowing what was in his eyes the too secular Mubarak government. Imprisoned in a crack down, he was tortured mercilessly for a few years; consequently, he left prison deeply radicalized. Watching your parents get killed must be torture.

When it comes to military might, where is the point of diminishing returns? Was Ghandi right, eventually, does an eye for an eye make the whole world blind?

16

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Happy b-day to my favorite tall, slender, pale, whispy blonde high school fashionista. A sporadic reader of the blog, right now she’s completely unplugged at church camp near the Canadian border. That means I can call her “pale” and write whatever I want.

I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. Right before she ceremonially set her phone on the kitchen counter and departed for camp I naively asked, “What are you going to miss more, your cell phone or me?” Hope she doesn’t mind if I assume her on-line identity and jump right in to her friends’ texting torrent. Maybe I should update her Facebook page for her.

I’ve always been skeptical of conventional wisdom about teens. Yes, there’s her post-Katrina bedroom, shrugs and grunts over breakfast, and occasional attitude, but the big-picture parenting challenge is to remember that’s superficial stuff.

Scratch below the surface and ask her about her faith, the death penalty, her surviving middle school, her desire to live in another country by herself after college, the five (soon to be six) kids she regularly babysits, or her desire to someday have her own medium-large family.

She’s blossoming into an increasingly competent, thoughtful young woman with nice friends with whom she can be her quirky self. For instance, how many Sixteens rank their friends’ driving? To move up the list she advises, “Don’t be oblivious or careless.” Words to live by.

When it comes to 16, I’m proud of a lot of things including her work with young children and her remembering, when it comes to peer relations, what it feels like to be on the outside looking in.

Watching her blossom is a great joy.

2011 RAMROP—Ride Around Mount Rainier In One Piece

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After five hours of sleep, woke at 3:28a, drove about as far as I hit a driver down the hill to Danos at 4:00a, and arrived at Enumclaw High an hour later.

Cloudless and weirdly light given the sliver of a moon. High 40’s, maybe 50. End of life turtle neck base layer under the jersey, $5 full-fingered running gloves. Dano, who claims he’s from Minnesota, was sporting girly shoe covers.

Lathered my bits(1) with the poor man’s chamois creme, ten year old Noxzema, and was off at 5:47a.

Some context. Lance’s ex, showing no concern for my well-being, pulled a last minute legal stunt and so we were a man down. I knew Gordon was going to be way too fast for us mortals, so it was Dano, me, and the masses. Among other things, Dano is also know as Supplement. Dude had plastic bag after plastic bag of pills of every size, shape, and color.

Supplement is relatively new to cycling. Said he may “have gone a hundred once as a teenager”. Performed admirably on an 80 mile mountain training ride a few weeks back. Learned how to draft. Gained fitness. And confidence. Coupled with the pills, and my stellar coaching, piece of cake.

I knew he had the necessary mental make up. An experienced marathoner, he disappeared one weekend four years ago. Decided to celebrate his 50th with a 50 mile run. In serious heat.

The goal was to make like Malcolm X and help Dan around the mountain by any means necessary. The plan was to ride the flats together and regroup at the top of the three climbs.

I was a firm taskmaster. Let’s bridge up to that group. Pull for no more than half a mile. Don’t forget to drink. I insisted he holler if the pace got too quick. He never hollered. Long story short, he surprised me by riding very steadily all day long. My mountain top waits were shorter than expected. Didn’t even fade over the last 25 miles. Maybe there’s something to the pills.

We rode out of town with Gordon and enjoyed his company for about 5-6 miles until he launched. Beforehand, I predicted he’d finish a few hours before us. Climbed nearly 10,000′, over 152 miles, at 20mph. 7:58 total time, 7:35 ride time. He joked it was a “recovery ride” after last week’s stage race. Sick. Look for him to turn some heads in the Leadville 100 on August 14th.

For the first hour we gradually descend, through fog-strewn farmland, and it was flat out cold. At mile 16 I decided I needed to warm up, so I went to the front of the slowish pace-line we were in and settled in. Sixteen miles later we reached a T-intersection. I was aware of two shadows behind me, but cracked up when I realized my train was about 15 people long. I was not going fast, but still a personal record “pull” nonetheless. At the 33 mile food stop I did some press and signed some autographs.

Then Dan and I took turns gently working some rollers. The early morning cold coupled with my enlarged prostrate (2), made for a bad combo. Despite whizzing at mile 33, at 40 I told Dan I had to take a quick nature break. We were facing 15 miles of a 1-2% grade to the park’s entrance. We were being disciplined about spinning easily, but as I was relieving myself on the side of the road, a beautiful 20 person pace-line materialized out of thin air. “Go! Catch on! I’ll catch up!”

Doing his best Tony Martin impersonation, Dan bolted right by the peloton and then sat 100 meters in front in no man’s land. I had to go get him and drag him back. The people on the front were perplexed. “We’re drifting to the back.” In no time at all, we were nearly at the park. A few pills, peanut butter and honey bagels, cookies, and bananas later, and were ready to begin the ride in earnest.

We climbed together to Longmire, regrouped at the top of Paradise, and descended together. Well, until Dan got stuck behind a slow swerving, human impediment disguised as a rider. Road is pretty sketchy so my top speed was only 40.8 before the Garmin quit at mile 94. I felt great all day and climbed well leap frogging from rider to rider.

One wanker had the nerve to pass me near the top of Cayuse. But he was tatted up and so was obviously more of a bad ass.  Mountain was at its most beautiful, mid-50’s, to maybe lower 60’s in the p.m. Breeze coming off the snow, natural air-conditioning. Ditched the turtle neck base layer at mile 88.

The last 30 miles can be a slog. The key is to leave the last food stop with as many other people as possible. We failed, leaving nearly alone. Turkey sandwich charged, Dan caught onto one guy and the three of us settled in for 3-4 miles. I saw three people about three-fourths of a mile ahead and decided to bridge up. Yes a large gap to make up at that point in the day, but I did it over the next 4-5 miles.

After finally making contact, I signaled Dan forward, and sat in back and recovered. 3-4 miles later we were passed by about 15 guys. I didn’t think our lead rider would hook on, but fortunately she did. After sitting in the back for about 10 miles, I was getting annoyed that only about three guys were doing all the work. Feeling the best I’ve ever felt after 130 miles, I went to the front. They wouldn’t get on my wheel despite my slowing down and then passed me shortly afterwards.

Whatever. When the road turned up and the headwind picked up a bit, I went forward again. After realizing I was stronger than all of them, I said screw it, and rode away. That was serious fun. Riding away from about 16 guys after nearly eight hours in the saddle. I waited for Dan at the Mud Mountain turnoff and four of us rode in together. I pushed the pace over the last few miles to get us in under ten hours (9:57, ride time probably 8:50-9:00).

(1) Learned recently that the British sometimes use “bits” to describe male privates. I’d appreciate it if someone from the other side of the pond could explain if “bits” translates more as “balls” or “genitals”. If genitals, I should not have used it in that context.

(2) TMI?