Physical Intimacy

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

Three hundred plus posts in I’m sufficiently warmed up to take on the taboo. Well, in a half-ass, “what if my daughters stumble upon this” kinda way.

Heard a report on Seattle’s NPR station recently that said the average adult in the U.S. has sex 85x/year. Previously, I had heard or read it was 2x/week, so I guess people are less intimate than previously. Washington Staters are lagging at 72x/year, mostly because of the guys I run with, but we lead the nation in outdoors sex. I can’t think of any other factoid that has done more for my self esteem. Makes sense, moderate summer temps, no bugs, and we love our mother earth.

I got very excited recently when I saw a rubber cord tied to the headboard. Turns out it was for physical therapy purposes only.

You’ll recall a while ago that I learned any self respecting blogger is supposed to be helpful to readers, mostly via sporadic, specific advice. So here goes.

Maintain the spark by maintaining an edge. Por exemplar, when the galpal saw this picture of me giving it to the man by breaking the speed limit, she took me by the hand and suggested we go outside.

Blurry because of the extraordinary speed

When Good Things Happen to Good People

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

June 2004. A favorite student and I are talking about meeting up after the US Open at Pumpkin Ridge Country Club where her family are members. My family and her family plan to meet afterwards at a restaurant for dinner. Coincidentally, within 60 seconds of walking the course, I bump into her. She says “change of plans” and “can you please join us at the house for a barbeque instead”?

Turns out they were hosting a young player, Katherine Hull, from Australia, fresh out of Pepperdine where she set an NCAA record with a 64 in one tournament. Hull hadn’t qualified for the Open, but like Lance Armstrong pre TdF, she was walking the course, doing reconnaissance for future opens.

I was amazed by her selflessness, personality, and maturity. Despite staying in other people’s houses all the time, she interacted with everyone for the entire meal, talking to A and J and eventually signing golf balls for them. I learned she took up golf kind of late and is a committed Christian.

Truth be told, she made a more lasting impression on me than the double X’s. Probably in part because they have never fantasized about playing golf for a living. Long story short, I’ve followed her career ever since. Last weekend, she shot 65 on Saturday (low round of the day) and finished tied for 7th. Career earnings, $2.2m+.

She was incredibly grounded in 2004. My guess is her success and the money haven’t gone to her head.

Footnote: How much is the LPGA struggling? Hull’s tied for 7th paycheck, $24k. Last week’s tied for 7th PGA paychecks, $199.5k.

300th Post

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

Quite a few don’t you think. Thanks for reading and sometimes commenting whether online or in person.

You’ve probably noticed I’ve been switching templates lately. The problem is the best designs have the smallest, least legible fonts. Within wordpress, to get a larger, more readable font, you have to sacrifice on the design front. I’d like to customize things, but need someone more tech savvy than me to volunteer to help. Yeah, yeah, I know, why specify “more tech savvy” when that’s most everyone.

As always, I’m open to suggestions.

As I think about the topics I’ve written about, I’m struck by how wide-ranging my interests are. I’m sure blog consultants would say too wide-ranging. I could TRY to narrow my focus, but that would mean posting less often. Right now at least, I’m more inclined to accept the limitations of my decidedly generalist orientation.

Speaking of consulting, I would like to do more going forward and would appreciate any leads you might have. Primarily lectures and/or workshops on: 1) reinventing high school teaching and learning; 2) the high school to college transition; 3A) internationalizing curriculum; and 3B) teaching about globalization. In April, I enjoyed helping a university faculty at an Iowa college (on 3A&B) and I am looking forward to speaking at a college in Illinois next spring (3A).

I’m looking forward to being on sabbatical during the 2011-2012 academic year, although I may need to tweak that in light of other departmental colleagues on the same timeframe. I intend on using my sabbatical, whenever it occurs, to prep for and seek out more consulting opportunities.

Team E

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

If you’re not careful, you learn something almost every day. Following the Gore’s separation, a bevy of social scientists materialized to suggest that the institution of marriage isn’t necessarily meant to last fifty plus years. Normal for things to run their course. People develop different interests (global warming, massage therapy), resentments build, with adult children, no harm done if both people want to ride into the sunset solo.

These modern, progressive notions were swirling around in my head when I visited with Uncle E recently. UE and Aunt E must be pushing 60 years of marriage, well past what some social scientists would expect.

I hadn’t seen Team E for three years and they had aged seemingly more than that. UE detailed his most recent health setbacks, all serious, and truth be told, I felt very fortunate to be talking to him after a particularly tough fall 2009. I doubt he would have survived it without AE’s friendship and loving care.

After the medical update, the conversation turned to three of Team E’s loves, University of Montana athletics, family, and travel. The order of the “loves” isn’t accidental. I seriously doubt there are more committed Griz boosters. Some social scientists argue that like Marx’s thinking about religion, sports are the opiate of the masses. They serve as a diversion from widening class differences and pressing social problems. I’m sympathetic to the argument. How can we maintain a vibrant democracy when we spend 99 times more time and energy focused on LeBron’s next team as compared to what’s happening in Afghanistan?

Yet, listening to UE, I couldn’t help but think a lot of social scientific theory is complete bullshit. Griz athletics are part of the glue that have held Team E together. They look forward to games, sometimes traveling long distances to attend them, they sit side-by-side, AE tolerates UE’s barking at the refs. Win or lose they leave with another shared experience in the memory bank. Griz athletics are an important part of the glue that holds Team E together. It’s a wholesome diversion from global politics, chemotherapy, pending bills.

AE talked excitedly about the planned family reunion this summer and both told alternate chapters of last summer’s 1,700 mile + car trip to every corner of Big Sky Country.

It’s a touching, inspiring love story that fortunately challenges the modern paradigm in myriad wonderful ways.

Random Acts of Kindness

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

Example one. In February, I wrote about a fellow passenger rescuing L and me from a stranded Amtrak train in Portland.

Example two, also in February, admittedly more subtle, but still a kind, selfless gesture that was also greatly appreciated. A short simple phone call from a colleague across campus during an especially difficult work experience.

Example three, Wednesday, June 23rd, Mount Rainier National Park. Three maniac cycling friends and I have climbed from just inside the Nisqually Gate to the top of Paradise, past a partially melted Reflection Lake, then through Steven’s Canyon, Box Canyon, and back. The maniacs extended it to Ohanapecosh and back, so I was climbing solo, trying to ride each mile in about six minutes.

My two bottles of gatorade were still in the freezer where I set them during breakfast to get cold (note to self—ride checklist). A friend lent me a bottle, and I had some electrolyte pills, but there was no water after topping off at the Visitor’s Center. So there I was with about 8 ounces and 8 relentless miles of climbing left. Not a good ratio.

An angel disguised as a shirtless 23 year old pulled up next to me in a purple Buick with New Jersey plates. “How YOU doin’ on water?” “Not so good actually.” “I’m going to pull over.” No where to pull over, he stops in the road, jumps out, grabs a gallon jug of water from his back seat and tops me off. “You didn’t look so good.” Well hell I thought, I didn’t feel so good. “Man, I really appreciate it, you’ve got good kharma today.” “Training for anything?” “Ah, no, not really.” I should have got his picture, although as an angel, he may not have been visible. I kept giving him a thumbs up while he was taking pictures along side the road, in one case while standing on top of his hood. Pictures like these.

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The Negative Utility of Losses

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

At present I’m privileged to be working with twenty-eight hard working people who just completed a year-long teaching internship. Beginning teachers typically fall into a common psychological trap. Hell, what am I saying, I still do it too and I’ve been at it for a quarter century. All but the most callused teachers fall into the trap of letting a few negative student encounters shade one’s thinking about an entire class or course.

For example, when I think about my sixteen writing students last semester, I know at least twelve learned a lot, improved, and had a positive experience. One to four, probably not so much. One of my current students is the mother of one of my first year spring semester writing students. She confided in me that her daughter said, “He doesn’t like the way I write.” Insert knife. Twist. I really work hard to help students develop more positive attitudes towards writing and to develop self confidence so that really bummed me out. Then my thought process becomes, “Nevermind loser that the majority of the class had a positive experience, a few didn’t.”

Why is it that you can have a neutral or positive working relationship with nine students, but the negative one with the tenth takes away from the entire teaching and learning experience?

I was wondering this while reading The Investor’s Manifesto by William Bernstein, page 108 specifically. He writes, “It makes little sense that we should care about a bad day or a bad year in the stock market if it provides us with good long-term returns. But because of the importance of our limbic systems, we care—very, very much—about short term losses. We cannot help it: That is the way we are hardwired. Behavioral studies show that, in emotional terms, a loss of $1 approximately offsets a gain of $2; in the unlovely language of economics, the negative utility of losses is twice that of the positive utility of gains.”

Or five or ten times that depending on how negative the teacher-student relationship.

Conceptual convergence. I love the phrase “the negative utility of losses” because it helps me better describe the abstract psychological (or actually biological) phenomenon that plagues most teachers.

My natural tendency would be to strategize on how to combat negative utility of loss thinking, but if it’s biological is it inevitable? Is resistance futile?

Lessons in Bahrain

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

What a beautiful, hopeful essay.

Why Exercise?

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

I once had a colleague, a smart scientist, who said research showed exercise extends people’s lives the same amount of time spent exercising. If that’s close to correct, and if you excercise 5 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for forty years, that’s an extra 13 months. If that seems paltry, he’d agree, which was why he chose to be sedentary.

I don’t exercise to extend the length of my life as much as I do to improve the quality of it. Most of the time I enjoy the activity itself, the swimming, running, and cycling, especially since I have great training partners. Long story short, exercise improves the quality of my life on lots of levels.

Last Sunday I was traveling all day and on Monday and Tuesday I wasn’t able to squeeze in a workout. Felt completely out of whack. Finally rebooted with a 5 mile run along the edge of Storm Lake Tuesday night. Travelled all day Wednesday, so four days, and one five mile run. Salvaged the week by hitting it hard Thursday-Sunday.

Sunday’s ride was especially nice. Longest ride of 2010 thus far. The numbers, 63.27 miles, 3:34:11, 17.7mph avg, max 42.5, 2,954′ of elevation, 4,057 calories. Morning resting heart rate, 48, 52 in the middle of church (so I drifted during the sermon, what else is new). Great riding with Lance except for the hills he added on. His front tire exploded mid-ride. Loudest flat ever. Embarrassing the lengths he goes to to force rest.

The pictures.