aletown

I was exhausted. I had slept maybe 3 hours and the previous two days of work had chewed me up and spit me out raw. “I’m so tired,” I said to nobody in particular, maybe the cat. “2:30am is no time for an alarm to go off, Heather left the car – I can just leave the bike here and drive to work. That way I won’t be late.”
Then Coach spoke up, quite literally out of nowhere, “C’mon Will, we both know that it only takes about five extra minutes for you to bike to work these days. Besides, being late might put an extra little zing in your pedals and shave a minute or two off even that. Just do it, you can thank me later.”
Coach was right. I got to work in record time that morning and felt way better about my situation by the time me and my squeaky brakes came down the hill to the warehouse.

I didn’t know “Coach” existed then. I didn’t even consider the construct until this evening. I was all set up to go run with the NoPo Run Club meetup group, but declined at the last minute because a) New social situations that involve lots of sweating while doing an activity I’m not sure I’m good at followed beers at a bar are both right up my alley and a little scary and b) This club runs on Thursdays at 6:30pm and school will probably bar me from joining them much until the distant future. Anyhow, I finally decided I’d still run a bit from home to (I guess) prove to myself that I was doing it for the above reasons and not because I’m lazy. Anyhow, I put my stuff on and opened the front door and…

It was raining. Dammit. I was going to get wet if I ran in that. Like really wet. And my phone? Really wet. So I turned around to go back into the house guilt free and….

“You do know it rains for like five straight months in this town, don’t you?”

Umm…well…yeah?

“And you were probably thinking you wanted to keep up this running thing you’ve got going over the winter, yes?”

Well, yeah, I was kinda planning on it…

“Well, then how in the hell are you going to run in fucking January when it’s rained for fifty straight days and it’s 45 degrees and you’re tired of riding to work and running in the shit every day if you don’t run now, in September, on a day that was otherwise lovely until this little downpour?”

I…I dunno, Coach, I guess I…

“It’s settled then, put your phone in a plastic baggie and grab something to keep you from thinking you’ll be cold and meet me out front in five. It’ll be a blast once you get warmed up, trust me.”

And you know what? Coach was right. It was pretty fun running in the rain. I just…wait…Coach? Well, at least Coach is what I’m naming it. “It” in this case being the part of myself that makes me do the tough thing when the rest of me wants to do the easy thing. I keep trying to think if there was a moment where that part of me got strong enough to get its way and I can’t. I don’t remember the turning point, but I do know lots of mornings where I had the bike ready and it was raining or cold or I was tired or late or what-have-you and some of those mornings I’d get on the bike regardless of excuse. Some I wouldn’t, but the ones where I did I always felt like I slayed a dragon of some sort within myself. Those were the ones where I felt like a man of character.

As with all things, I want to take credit for how far I’ve come, but I’m obviously not the only one in my life who deserves to be called my coach. Danny has been awesome, both with actually coaching me in boxing and with his commitment to whatever form of exercise he does…the man is an animal as well as an inspiration to all fatties who want to quit being fatties. I also need to give props to my other friends who work out with me, like Seth and Lisa and Chris and also to all my friends who are interested in what I’ve been up to…that breadth of accountability is huge. Also, coworkers are great because they’ve seen both Big Will and Medium Sized Will and respect what I’ve done. And, of course, there are actual coaches I’ve had in sports who send echoes of (sometimes tough) encouragement from more than a decade ago. Finally, gotta give love to the wife, Heather has really coached me quite well – she’s my chief cheerleader and encouragement giver. So yeah, my whole community is a part of “Coach” in that way. I like it. You’ve all helped me do what I needed to do to go from being Old Will to becoming New Will and you all deserve my gratitude. Thanks Coach!

This all makes me think of two “coaching” terms: Conditioning and Training. When it came to fitness, I’ve always thought of both terms in their physical applications. Conditioning is essentially a code-word for running-for-no-reason and training is anything you do to hone a particular skill or work on particular parts of your body. However, it dawned on me tonight that these terms apply just as well to fitness and sport when taken in the psychological sense. Conditioning my body to run every day is actually not that big of a deal. Conditioning my mind to actually put that body in motion? That’s the kicker. The body is just a series of nerves and bones and meat, it’s the brain’s anticipation of fatigue and pain that needs to be conditioned to perform in adversity. By the same token, I sometimes feel like I need to train myself much like I would a dog. If I want to be someone who runs in the rain, I have to get out and run in the rain consistently until I’m trained to do it automatically without complaint. Going faster? Gotta have Coach crack the whip when I get lazy. The first quarter to half mile is terrible, but I have to train myself to push through it then…it’s all gravy. And speaking of gravy? Gotta be on the food part of things, too. Coach can look over your shoulder when you’re reading that menu and give you a solid “Really?” when you’re thinking a little too hard about that deep fried thing with all the cheese in the middle.
Training and conditioning: It’s not just running anymore, it’s everything.

So I don’t know if it will help anyone else, but the next time you look out that door and are overwhelmed by lethargy, ask Coach what he (or she) thinks. I think you’ll be putting one foot in front of the other in no time.

If you know me,  you know I’m a huge advocate of commuting by bicycle.* Somehow bicycle commuting manages the perfect mix. It’s exercise that’s accessible for nearly everyone. It gets you somewhere in a reasonable amount of time under your own power without getting you too sweaty because it’s crazy efficient. And in the summer you get the sun and the breeze and a nice little endorphin kick. Above all, it’s also pretty attainable – nearly everyone can scrape together a few hundred bucks and buy the essentials of a helmet, a lock and a used old bike and no matter how hard you look you won’t find a place to pour $4/gal liquid into it.
I feel like I get three huge benefits from it: I get somewhere, I get some exercise and I get the well being one gets from being out with the wind in their hair. That doesn’t even include the considerable side benefit of leaving my gas guzzling ’71 Chevy at home where it won’t cost me money.

*Mini Rant: If you’re a ‘cyclist’ you really have very few tangible dangers. There are trucks and cars, wet leaves, gravel and people cornering you with stories of close calls with rogue cyclists. Seriously, EVERY DAY at work someone sees my helmet and launches into a tale about how this or that cyclist did this or that dangerous thing and could have caused themselves or someone else to have been hurt or killed. All of these stories pit the cyclist as daredevil villain and the storyteller as defensive driving superstar. Just to set the record straight: Something like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 cyclists is a total jerk who thinks he owns the road. This is the cyclist who gets remembered by drivers. Not the 15 people they passed easily and didn’t think twice about or the other guy in the Camry that cut him off 5 minutes earlier. I know this because mentioning I used to drive trucks outside of the industry usually elicits a similar story about close call with a truck. It’s like hearing a story about one of your asshole brothers every time someone finds out your last name, except you have A LOT more brothers so everyone knows one.
Anyhow, my response to this is simple and it should resonate because I am a hybrid driver/trucker/cyclist/motorcyclist/runner/walker person, so I have a wide perspective here. Cyclists are people. Drivers are people. Pedestrians are people. And what do I know about people? Some of them are jerks. Some are inattentive. Some are having bad days today. No matter how you cut up humanity – by friend or foe, by skin color, by political affiliation, by favorite team, by transportation mode, by sexual orientation, by neighborhood, by home country or region, etc. – you will likely find that some percentage of those people make the rest look bad. And I feel that if there were some magical way to measure those people, you would find that there is surprisingly little variation in percentage from group to group. So yeah, some cyclists are assholes or inattentive or not very bright and it is not because of some sort of self selective cyclist problem, but because they are people and people everywhere exercise daily their inner potential for being unwise, inattentive assholes. The problem with those cyclists is that they’re intolerable AND they’re a hybrid road-user so they’re super-noticeable when they are. Okay, end rant.

I enjoy riding my bike and for a long time it was my primary method of exercising, but I don’t use it for exercise anymore except in the context of transportation. Over the last year I’ve moved my exercise regimen away from cycling and have been learning boxing and learning to run. Now, I’ve made some fanfare about enjoying running, but until very recently I’ve considered running a mildly enjoyable and nicely portable method of rigorous exercise. I’ve also always believed that running was one of those things in life which is really good for you in spite of how bad it is for you. Running decreases heart disease and diabetes at the cost of plantar fasciitis and gamey knees; what medicine doesn’t have a side effect, right? And I still believed that wholesale up until the point that I picked up Chris McDougall’s Born To Run.

Now, Born to Run came to me well recommended. I purchased a copy as a gift for my friend Seth and after he finished reading it he gave it back for me to read as soon as he could. I could write a whole other blog post on the content of this well written and potentially life-changing book, it’s pretty freaking awesome. But for today I will only remark on the one super-crazy idea in the book that has lead me to my own super-crazy ideas: Human beings aren’t just capable of running, we’re actually designed for it! Running is one of the key developments in our species that gives us an evolutionary advantage? Mind blowing. Our feet are a strong and efficient system to be exploited not coddled? Crazy talk.

So this is how Captain Overboard goes overboard. If running isn’t bad for me (particularly running in the method that I already do – springing on the balls of my feet as opposed to heel-to-toe), then why can’t I run to get places the same way I bike? I mean, I might not be in ultra-marathoner form or even capable of such feats of endurance, but I’m in pretty good shape and if that potential is in the design of the human body than some amount of that potential is in me. And if humans have been running with what they own on their backs for hundreds of thousands of years, why can’t I run to work with what I need for the day?

So it was with that thought in mind that on Wednesday morning I left my bike at home. I stepped out my front door in running shoes and 20lbs of messenger bag* on my back and just ran to work. Not fast, of course, because I’m not fast, but a nice easy pace for the 5.5+ miles to work. I gave myself enough time to get there and arrived pretty much how you would expect: Sweaty and completely pumped full of endorphin high and foolish pride. It wasn’t epic, I’ve run longer distances before (though frankly not that much longer), but it was the first time I ran and I got somewhere I needed to be because of it. Running as transportation? Maybe not every day, but I could do this. Heck, even after work I had enough energy to run across the Burnside Bridge, catch light rail and then run from the stop the little mile and a half to Heather’s work, bringing the daily total upwards of 8 miles – which is a personal high.

*Note: Next time I do this I will leave my gigantic thermos of coffee at home. I am seriously really dumb sometimes.

And yeah, that’s it. There seems to be plenty of benefit to it, even though I realize that my particular employ is ideal for it and unlike biking I’m not telling everyone to run-commute. But all day I was in a really good mood despite being in the middle of a pretty brutal work week. I also felt like having a bag on my back made me run smoother in order to limit its weight crashing down on my shoulders with every step. And the biggest benefit for me is that I got the miles in without terribly mucking up my schedule, now I know I can just leave for work about a half hour earlier than if I were riding my bike. And if I were to add in the run home? I could reasonably pack 20k into a regular workday at the net cost of an hour, how great would that be?

Anyhow, in practice this is mostly just something for y’all to think about if you would consider using a bicycle as transportation. If biking somewhere sounds like a pain, and it can be, it’s still a faster, far more efficient and less sweaty way of getting where you’re going when you compare it to running, which I can now say isn’t even all that bad. If I could bike to work when I was at my worst (and later, I did a 100-mile ride still weighing 270) and can run to work now, still hovering around 220, then anyone can ride a bike a reasonable distance to work or school or to the coffee shop. It’s not easy to get somewhere under your own power, but it’s great…and that’s better than easy.

Look, I’m going to start this straight: I’ve discovered through much trial and error that I am absolutely awful at moderation. Show me a buffet or an open bar and I can show you some pretty amazing feats of consumption. When I have a good book, I can read through the night without regard to sleep or sanity. I watched the first season of The Wire in a day. And have you ever seen me drink a whole pot of coffee at breakfast? Yikes. Thank you Erin for putting it best when you told Heather, “Will’s kind of an all or nothing guy, isn’t he?” Yes, the more I think about it, the more it would appear that I am.

I don’t really care to be that way, though. From a personal philosophy standpoint, I adore moderation. I love the golden mean, I firmly believe that all things can be good in moderation and I might even go as far as to say a little bit goes a long way. But regardless of what I think or believe in…practice I’m pretty binary. I can go without food or I can binge; I can show temperance or drunkenness; I can exhibit sloth or over-exertion. 0…1…0…1 Look at Will, the amazing digital human!

Some things show my capability to go overboard in sharp relief, and alcohol is certainly one of them. I can’t say I ever really start an evening feeling some sort of need to be drunk, but at some point I’ll be having fun and the next beer sounds like just as good an idea as the previous one and one more turns into…well it turns into trouble and I hate that kind of trouble. Up too late, I sleep too late and wake up feeling like poorly cured meat and that combination cuts into my ability to accomplish things that I needed or wanted to do with my time the following day. And that failed accomplishment turns into shame and self-loathing and those don’t look good on anyone but a very special few writers and musicians.

The Strengths Finder book advises to focus on embracing our strengths rather than flail at correcting our weaknesses. I mean, why be only passable at what you’re not that great at when you could be excellent at what you’re already good at, right? So I ask myself: Should I take a pass on moderation? Should I work on embracing  and developing my binary, all-or-nothing nature instead of fighting it and failing? Moderation gets some good press, but all-or-nothing gets stuff done. The elite of athletes and artists and activists aren’t moderates (generally in any sense of the word when I think about it), these are people who go to the extremes of excess and deprivation. So why shouldn’t I acknowledge my weakness and act to improve on my strength: By embracing my muse and going all out on those things that are worthy of it AND by avoiding completely some things that are negative in excess.

There’s a weird sort of freedom that comes from abstaining. When you don’t do a certain thing, you’re able to see more clearly the other possibilities available and that abstaining creates choices that wouldn’t be there otherwise. I “broke up” with potatoes and found that food choices are easier not harder. Being a practicing vegetarian doesn’t make eating healthy easy, but it usually removes the least healthy options on any menu. Isn’t that simplicity what makes fundamentalism so attractive? Now, fundamentalism in general is scary because it removes real responsibility from individuals. And while I would hate to oversimplify my thoughts or beliefs in that way, simplifying some decisions by thinking about them beforehand is actually pretty awesome.

Adam Carolla says, “If it doesn’t make you happy, or make you money…then let it go!” If there’s something extraneous in my life that doesn’t bring me or my family a net benefit, then why keep it around? I feel like I’m a fairly busy guy, and I can’t waste my time and resources on things that don’t make me better. And this brings me to the crux of this blog post: I’m quitting drinking alcohol for the most part. I’m not joining AA or anything and I will still have the occasional dinner beer or glass of wine. And, yes, I’m still my customary “all-in” when the time comes for Septemberfest or Vegas or camping…I like to think I can recognize when and where excess is appropriate. But that’s it, I’m simply not interested in going overboard anymore, it doesn’t fit the person I want to be or the life I want to live. Everything I want to do, from homework to a long run, is that much harder to do when I wake up late and hungover. And I’ll admit it’s a little sad, because I think I’m fun to drink with and I’ve had a great time going for it from time to time. And I can’t think of anything truly regrettable I’ve done when I’ve overdone it, at least nothing some 409 and an apology couldn’t fix. But I feel like the ledger doesn’t come out straight for me or for the people who count on me, and it’s not worth balancing the books to me at this point. And besides, I think I’m pretty awesome sober and buzzed Will is not ostensibly better in any real way than sober Will anyhow. And believe me, I’ve given moderation every possible opportunity on this one and it’s plainly not my gig. Frankly, it’s just not worth beating myself up over when I get carried away.

So I hope you’ll support me in this endeavor and I hope you’ll still invite me out for drinks, just don’t feel awkward when I down a gallon of iced tea instead of a gallon of beer. And since I’m generally on my bike I’m sort of a built in DD, so there’s that also.

Cheers,

Will

I often overestimate my fellow man, I’m sure it’s a trait that people close to me find endearing. But sometimes even I can doubt humanity based on the action of one person.

Today is one of those days.

After a fairly nice day at work I came home to something I’d only expect to see in an Oatmeal comic. My yard debris container was full of anonymous waste. And what’s even better was to even find out that the container was full I had to deal with the mess filled tarp lashed to the top of can with a combination of tow-rope, a severed segment of seatbelt and a fair length of battery cable.

Why? Really....just why?

I stood there, just staring at it for awhile. I felt hurt and confusion wash over me like a wave. Followed by the the complicated set of emotions that Fry from Futurama would call “absolutely angry with rage.” And in that state of heightened aggression another thing occurred to me: Why didn’t this unknown person use our spare second yard debris can instead of turning the first into a Quasimodo of crap?

Also: If I were to call the contents “yard debris” it would be a stretch. Sure, the content was mostly bramble, dirt, moss and leaves, but there was also a fair amount of Mountain Dew empties, used Domino’s sauce cups and plain old american garbage mixed in as well.

So I spent the better part of a half hour pulling apart a disgusting mess and trying not to howl in bloodlust. Because it’s one thing to fill someone else’s yard debris bin with yard debris, which is an asshole move in its own right, but to not respect the instructions on top of the can? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be completely surprised that the person who did the one thing would do the other, but it angered me more as I filled my garbage can and recycling bin at the same time as two yard debris bins.

But I was just taking it. Someone had wronged me and had purposely done a shabby and mean thing. And I was angry with nothing to focus on. But even if I had the guy in front of me, what would I do? Hit him? Scold him? Back down at the first sign of conflict? It’s that feeling of helpless, unempowered modern manhood. I’ve seen it for years in the face of my father and the verbal backpedaling of my boss. It was cowardice in the face of nothing and it was in the air like a fog.

Anyhow, Heather came home and relayed the story. She went and asked the neighbors if they saw anything, they hadn’t. And then an image jumped into my mind: A full yard debris can a block south of us that I saw when I was stomping and fuming (in between separating dirt, leaves and cardboard) in front of my house.

Then it turned into a video game. I was out of the door without a word. Heather, confused, followed behind me as I walked with purpose down the street. Sure enough, there was a full yard can with a similar contents to what I had sifted through earlier. The house next looked like it recently had its yard cleared.

Rage. I knocked on the door. I saw where moss had been scraped off the sidewalk, moss that I had recently picked out of a nasty ass tarp. I walked toward the street, not expecting whoever would do this to answer the door.

But someone did. The resident came out, looking rather confused. This was not the guy. Still, while I had my nerve, I made my case, presenting my circumstantial evidence. Dude’s eyes were wide as saucers. He explained that he had just hired a guy to clean his yard and that he might not be the most scrupulous of gentlemen. I made some comments on not hiring him again and that the neighborhood suffers and that we notice this shit. It was very noble, Heather assures me.

And yeah, that’s it. I feel like I took my house back, at least in part, and some of my manhood as well. I mean, it’s not like I stood up to a bully, but I feel like I stood up for myself rather than wallowing in helpless anger like it seems. So, just like that, what I lost as far as faith in humanity I gained in faith in myself.

For me, life is a series of half-started and half-finished goals. I lose sleep at night composing well thought out plans at execution of one goal or another. One look at my journal and I seem nothing of a writer, more-so someone who organizes their life by spreadsheet – even away from the computer – as a way to focus their dissonant interests. A lot of these goals never see the light of day, some flame up and flare out and some rise to the surface after years of simmering underneath. But this is all nothingness. Here’s some content.

Me: I’m always open to inspiration. It’s one of those strength-and-weakness things. I get a huge catapult out of the chute until I get deflected in some other direction. So knowing that, guess the next part of this choose-your-adventure-story:

You listen to a boss at work talk about how his brother-in-law did an Ironman triathlon for his fortieth birthday. You have always been fascinated by triathletes and are an amateur cyclist. You need inspiration and goals to lose weight and get in shape. You turn 30 in two years, which seems a reasonable amount of time to train for such a triathlon.

If you want to acknowledge the man’s strength of character, dedication and endurance and then move on, please go to page 335.
If you want to try to train for an Ironman yourself for the year you turn 30, please go to page 231.

If you think I turned to pg 231, you’re absolutely correct. I decided then and there that in 2012, I would compete in an Ironman triathlon. Not to win or anything, just to finish. Flash forward to my cut body hobbling toward the finish chute, it’s so emotional and triumphant and…I’m way out in front of reality here. Hold on.

For those who don’t know and haven’t looked it up on wikipedia yet, the classic Ironman triathlon is a 2.4 mile open water swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride, which when completed is followed up by a standard 26.2 mile marathon run. And, mid-race cutoffs notwithstanding, contestants have to finish in 17 hours. If I use the term “Impossible Goal” to refer to the race, well you probably get it.

So here’s me, having never run a whole mile (this is before I ran that mile I mention in the last blog post), being an ugly, ugly swimmers whose technique/strategy in the pool is mostly to avoid drowning, and who has ridden 100 miles on a bike in a day once…in 10 hours…last fall. Also: looking in the mirror, my athletic build is best described as “Clydesdale” at the moment.
But hey, I have two years right? All of that can be accomplished if I completely change the way I live and take up running and swimming and workout 15 hours (at least!) a week. Not setting myself up for failure at all, am I?

Well, it’s been a month since I’ve decided to do this crazy thing and yes, some things have changed. First, I do want to take boxing seriously and while that’s not entirely at cross purposes with triathlon training, I’m also in school half-time and working full-time and I like my wife…there’s a finite amount of time available for me to do what I want. Maybe I start to waver on getting that ovular “140.6″ sticker to put on the back of the car, maybe an Ironman really is too much.

So my Ironman gets downgraded, maybe I go half Ironman (1.2mi swim, 56mi bike, 1/2 marathon) which isn’t as scary. And there are other lengths, too. The Olympic tri is a 1.5k swim (.93mi), a 40k bike (24.8mi) and a 10k run(6.2mi) which seems almost reasonable in comparison to the Ironman and Half Ironman. And the Sprint Triathlon, which is essentially a 1/2 Olympic, I could do tomorrow given proper nutrition and motivation, understanding that the swim part would suck beyond bad and that they’d probably drag me out of the water for causing danger to the other swimmers with my thrashing.

So all these maybes add up into one Iron-maybe. Here’s how I feel about it: I want to train like I’m going to do either a half or full Ironman in 2012. If I succeed I’m a huge stud and will have a story to tell my grandkids. If I fail I will be a very fit failure. Win-win, if I come up short I’ll still end up looking long and lean. And if the inspiration only carries me as far as it has already, which is to be someone who runs 10-15 miles a week, then it’s already done me a huge service. In the interim, maybe I hit a sprint or Olympic and maybe I love one of those distances. And hey, maybe I’ll see you at Couer D’Alene in 2012 running down that victory chute. After all, I’ve heard it’s an easy Ironman course.

Running and I have had a long, unhappy history. For much of my life I’ve either been fat or a smoker, so I’ve never come close to enjoying running. Oh yeah, I also have bunions (thanks dad), so my body just loves to run. Hell, I can honestly say I chalked up anyone else’s love of running to some mild form of insanity.

A few of my “running memories” should shine even more light on this:

• The mile run was a big part of “field day” at my local elementary school. Even when young and skinny, I was not speedy. I’m not sure I ever came in last, but I never finished far from it. I remember one year where I was 2nd to last: I finished before a girl who walked the whole way. Lots of walking for me, too.
• 8th grade football practice. My buddies and I still remember an assistant coach (and another player’s father) driving me to keep running even though I was obviously not in shape to continue. They thought he was going to kill me. Needless to say this is not a pleasant memory. Heavy breathing, shame, lung discomfort. I was a chubby 8th grader and this was not a good way to encourage me to exercise.
• In high school, I played football my junior and senior years. I became convinced that Coach Clemens (his body type would be best described as “scrappy”) hated me because of how he drove me during conditioning. I felt like he was mocking me, and since I distinctly remember him running circles around me during jingle-jangles on occasion I can safely say he actually was mocking me. I know now that he didn’t hate me, he just hated that I was fat.
• I ran from home to the train when I was late once. It was the first time I could recollect that running didn’t suck. It was also the first time I tried running while not being a) very overweight or b) a smoker.

So recently I got an idea (more on that later…maybe) and decided to start running. As is my custom on such whims, I went and bought running shoes and shorts and socks and thought: Hey, maybe I’ll do it this time. I also thought: Hey, maybe I just wasted a bunch of money on crap I’ll never use.

On a Saturday afternoon, July 31st 2010, I went with my buddy Seth on a 3-mile walk/jog. We ran the whole last mile, it was the first time in my life I’d ever done such a thing without stopping, and I have to say…it felt great. And that’s the oddest thing I could’ve ever imagined.

Over the past three weeks I’ve kept it up, even ramped it up. Not everyday, but enough. I even woke up at 4am last Tuesday to run 3 miles before work. On Thursday, I ran a very slow 5k. Not only do I think I like it: I think I’m an addict. I think *gulp* I’m a runner.

I don’t know what it is, but I’m not a fan of the run/walk thing. I like to walk and stretch, do my run and then cool down. Also, it should be noted that when I say “run” I’m doing what most people call jogging. But for me: It’s a big deal.

There’s still the creeping doubt in my mind, though, that my wretched history of poor follow through will eventually catch up to me on this. But I think I’m somewhat reformed in that respect now. 2010 has been a good year for that. I’ve managed not to crap out on school after these three terms. I haven’t had a cigarette for almost 9 months, I’ve lost almost 40lbs since the start of the year and I’m still riding my bike almost every day (today I hit 2000 miles since I got her) and not only are those things indicative of a new attitude, they all put me in far better shape to succeed at running. Add that I’m also falling in love with boxing, and running “roadwork” is a huge part of the conditioning process for that, not to mention the impossible goal (like I said, more later) I may have set out for myself, I think I have the inspiration to keep it going as well.

But I guess we’ll see, until then it’s just one foot in front of the other.

It’s been a long, rough spring. At some point, I quit biking to work because I just couldn’t bring myself to put on waterproof clothes at 5am. I don’t mind the rain much during the winter, but when you’re breaking precipitation records in May and June? I’ve had enough.

But now, sunshine. The Fouth of Freaking July. Fireworks, barbecue smell and girls on bikes.

This town loves summer. And summer loves it right back.

Now, I’m sure summer in Paris is great. I’ve heard very good things about Denver. I’ve done New Orleans and Atlanta, Chicago, L.A. and Seattle and summer is nice all those places (Note concerning N.O. and Atlanta: Not if you’re a heavy sweater.) but I’ll be honest…I don’t think I’d trade.

So I’m asking myself here: Why is summer in the Rose City so…rosy? At first I figured it was just straight contrast. After all the months and months of gray and gloomy a warm day is like a drug here. There’s this smell of the trees heating up, the sun warming your skin. All of a sudden people are everywhere, wearing clothes that haven’t seen daylight in 8 months, and they’re all smiling in their sunglasses. The city looks, feels and smells like a different place.

And then it hit me: Summer in Portland has an entirely different color palate than Portland Winter. Just watch on a partly-cloudy day as the shade turns to sunlight. The trees are suddenly greener, the murals more vivid, the river gleams, the bridges and buildings all jump.

Portland is a beautiful city, even at its rainy/gloomy worst. Then the sun comes along and makes it even more beautiful. Imagine a woman or man that you find very attractive, then imagine something happening to this person that makes them 100x hotter. This is what the sun does to Stumptown.

That’s a huge part of it, but the nights are different too. The roll up doors come up and the chairs and tables come out at all your favorite places. Summer brews, crisp meals and patios. Mmm…summertime goodness.

And like that, there’s cloudcover. Happy Fourth all.

I love you flaky, beige and beautiful.

I love food. I’m a “foodie” even if I think the word is insipid. I love the good things in life; I enjoy good food, good drink and a life filled with art and love and all that. I can run off a list of my favorite restaurants in this town from southern comfort food (Screen Door!) to Asian infused gourmet (Chameleon) to pub grub that is many levels of awesome (Saravesa, home of the pasty). I love flavor, I love spice and savor, I love the color of spring vegetables and I love fresh, locally grown, organic produce. Mmmm.

That said, I absolutely adore oatmeal. It’s certainly not my favorite food by any means, but it’s likely my most commonly consumed food (in a dead heat with Apples); I eat it nearly every day. Not only do I eat it every day, but I don’t even sweeten it anymore except when I put a little honey in it on the weekends. So why wax poetic over this flavorless gruel? Because it is awesome. That’s why.

First, I bike to work most days but I don’t really need a ton of energy to bike 5.5 miles, so I don’t need something that will be readily available to my metabolism. What I do need in the morning is something warm and good for me that’s easy and takes zero time. I don’t mess with a pot and don’t have a microwave, so I just boil up some water and pour over some quick-oats and let it cook up while I’m getting all my shiz together for the day. Bam! Warm, nutritious meal in seconds.

Second, oatmeal is close to the least expensive breakfast in the world. Winco has it in the bulk section for 47 cents a pound. Note: A pound of oatmeal is a lot of oatmeal. Note also: That pound of oatmeal is going to last me at least a week, maybe two. Cold cereal is way more expensive, requires milk and more than likely has a crapload of preservatives and crap. My morning meal has two ingredients: Rolled Oats, Water.

Finally, this gruelly wonder is absolutely amazing for you. For starters, it’s low in calories and fat and I’ve heard that’s pretty good. It’s got decent fiber and protein (2 and 3 grams respectively), but more than that it basically undoes everything bad you’ve done to yourself. It’s been shown to lower choresterol and blood pressure (think of it as edible angioplasty, but less uncomfortable) and might even reduce the chances of type II diabetes, three things that (due to family history and a bit of hedonism) I’m a little worried about. Add in a pretty good spread of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and such and I’ll say “take that acai berry, like to see you cost me less than fitty-cents a pound” and neither Oprah or the acai berry can say anything about that.
Oatmeal is the yoga of food, no wonder old people love it! (Also, it’s possible that there are so many old people eating oatmeal because the ones that don’t eat it die at a higher rate…research should be done.)

So imagine with me if you will, the ideal breakfast. What would it be like? What do you want out of your morning meal? What if it were…

1. Fast and easy, taking very little time or effort.
2. Filling and satisfying, giving energy for hours.
3. Not terribly high in calories or fat.
4. Proven to give tangible health benefits to its eater.
5. Hot and warming.
6. Inexpensive
7. Delicious like candy or pizza.

So, other than not tasting like Eggs Benedict or a fruit pie, oatmeal has everything you could have ever wanted in a breakfast. This oatmeal nay, this SUPERFOOD, overcomes it’s lackluster flavor by being absolutely awesome in every other imaginable way. And it doesn’t taste bad it just doesn’t taste much. However, even if I take the stuff straight, you don’t have to. A little brown sugar and cinammon? A sliced banana? Raisins? All make oatmeal marvelous. I even went through a period where I’d put a fried egg in with my oatmeal (don’t hate, a fried egg truly does make everything better but that’s another blog post) for a tasty super-duper breakfast.

So yes, I love me some oatmeal.

I am not ashamed to say that I love this city. I can wax poetic about Portland, it’s proximity to the outdoors, the good people, decent civic government and fantastic food and drink.

That said, I get an itch sometimes at night to go out and do. Do what? I’m not even sure necessarily, but I get an urge to do ‘mischief’ sometimes. And it’s not even really mischief since mischievous actions sound either scandalous or vandalous and I’m not really up for ruining my marriage or my spotless criminal record on a given night. So what do I end up doing? I hop on my aluminum steed and drink beer at a dive bar on a weeknight, often alone. Exciting, eh? Sure I’ll meet an interesting person or get a decent story out of it most nights, but it’s mostly just hugely predictable.

But really, what else is there? Sure I can give a buddy a call and see if he wants to have some beers at his house or a bar, but that’s more of the same. It’s nice, but it’s not wild. A couple of beers with a buddy when you want wild will get you stone drunk in a strip club at closing time, which isn’t the end of the world but it’s just not that great.

I’m not saying alcohol is to be tacitly avoided, it should just not be the function or you’ll end up a) drunk, b) broke and c) unsatisfied/bored. I don’t have the inclination to go into this now, but I feel like those of us who go out and get drunk every once-in-a-while overstate the fun we’re having in order to somehow explain our actions, perpetuating to ourselves and our friends that it’s the thing to do. I’ll expand on this at some point, but I’m four paragraphs into this thing and still no idea on what I’m supposed to do this Wednesday when I have $15 and four hours to burn at eight or nine at night.

I also have too much on my plate with school and work to commit to a weekly activity. I’d love to do a softball league or some other fun regular activity, but that’s just not in the cards. So whatever I do, it has to be drop in friendly.

The solution methinks is planned spontaneity of some sort. I have heard of ‘possibilities calendars’ and I’m creating one with google calendars right now. I figure to put in weekly things like trivia nights, karaoke, upcoming cheap shows of interest. Stuff like that. Yeah, most of that will be in bars anyways but this is Portland, where else do we do stuff?

Note: So far the possibilities calendar is a psuedo-solution at best. But it’s really all I can think of right now. Word.

mmm...gadgety

I’m contemplating buying myself a pair of Bluetooth headphones. As with most gadgety purchases I have to ask myself, “Will this make my life better?” I think it will.

For me this is a not a simple yes or no question, though, it borders on the existential. I’m caught between loving technology and despising its stranglehold on our lives. Every time the nerd in me gets giddy over something, say…terabyte broadband internet for instance, the Luddite in me tells me to “get my ass outside and live a little, dammit!” However, that luddite nature has never had to work in a coal mine or plow a field with a team of oxen or ride a horse more than once. Plainly my Luddite nature is an all-talk pussy.

All joking aside, the question is a serious one to me. Will this moderately priced, attractive and useful device make my life better or just more complicated? Just for reference, here’s some examples of some things already in (or out of) my life compared to this standard…

• My Phone. The G1 has the FREAKING INTERNET ON IT HOW SWEET IS THAT!? OMG! SRSLY! Honestly, my phone is awesome. There are some design flaws that I’ll touch on later in this very post and the battery life is pretty weak, but having the internet at my thumbtips is lifechangingly awesome.
  Does it make my life better? I’ll say yes.
  More complicated? An extra monthly cost and a pretty high timewaste rating aside, the G1 actually ends up making my life less complicated. It’s an mp3 player, research library and organizational tool in one moderately clunky package that I’d be hauling around anyways because it’s my phone.
• My Bike. The bicycle is not nascent technology, but my aluminum soldier has all sorts of cutting edge gadgetry from reflective tape and a speedometer that I’ve put on after market to the pure-love that is Shimano 105 components with index shifting. Also, there’s a lot of gear to keep me from getting soaking wet and/or freezing to death while commuting.
  Does it make my life better? Cycling makes me happy. It’s good for my body, my attitude and my tree-hugging-heart.
  More complicated? Yes, but in a way that Luddites everywhere can appreciate. I might have to plan my trips and buy specialty clothing, but at the end of the day I’m not riding around in a dinosaur-burning metal and glass box.
• My computer. At this point, having a PC with internet service is a borderline necessity for most of us. It is beyond ubiquity now. I consider a working computer a home appliance, perhaps not as important as the stove or the fridge, but given the choice between owning a computer and owning a dishwasher I wouldn’t even think a minute. And I hate doing dishes.
  Does it make my life better? Mostly. School would be hard and the internet is really useful.
  More complicated? The internet is the cause and solution to all of life’s little problems. Computers at the best of times are cranky, inconsistent machines prone to intermittent problems and time-consuming workarounds. Add that I don’t use anything from Microsoft or Apple and you have a recipe for a time vacuum.
• My old Palm T|X. Man I thought that thing was sweet. It was going to make me organized! It was going to make my life easier! It’ll replace my mp3 player! Wifi in my pocket! None of this was true. I never had it with me. It was bulky and awkward, the headphone jack shorted-out halfway and I never got it fixed. I was able to check baseball scores from my bedside on the “mobile web” and the sudoku app was killer.
  Does it make my life better? If paying $250 for glorified pocket sudoku is wrong, I don’t want to be wrong.
  More complicated? Yes, nothing has been more complicated than trying to convince my wife that any gadget purpose is worthwhile when she can just pull out “but didn’t you think that about your palm-thingy?” It’s like a local version of Godwin’s Law: If Heather and I talk about a prospective purchase long enough, eventually she’ll bring up my Palm Pilot.

So, we were talking about headphones at some point weren’t we? Anyways, my rationale for these is pretty simple, here goes.

What makes me think “Bluetooth Headphones” will make my life better?

1. Wires suck. Whether biking or bussing, my messenger bag weighs a pretty penny. Whenever I put the bag on or take it off over wired headphones I pull them out or they tug against my ears. I know it sounds like I’m being a little bitch, but do this 5 times over the course of a public transit commute and you get a little bitter about it. Also, I have no idea how it happens, but headphones must run around a maypole while I’m not looking or something because I’m constantly not just untangling my headphones, but undoing countless unintended knots as well.
   Sounds like a problem easily solved by a bluetooth headset. Bonus: Not having to wire myself under my jacket to hide my hideous earbuds with the phone mic on them.
2. The G1′s glaring design flaw. Okay, go find my friend Danny and ask him about the headphone jack or lack thereof on the G1. Go make a pot of coffee. Go to Papa Murphy’s and buy a pizza, go home and bake it. After you eat it go back to Danny and listen to the last 1/2 hour of his rant about the G1′s single mini-usb port. It’s pretty bad, I’ll admit. You can’t charge it and use headphones at the same time. It requires an adapter to use your own headphones, and apparently the adapters are prone to breakage. I have the actual headphones that plug in from the old model and they’re large and ungainly.
   Imagine not only charging my phone and using headphones at the same time on my phone, but imagine me walking around unfettered within a short distance of my phone. Not unforeseeable that the next time Danny gears up for his rant I can reply calmly that they must have had a headset like mine in mind when they made their terrible design mistake. (I don’t understand why more commercials don’t use this setup, it’s effective.)
3. Hello, Oregon’s hands-free law, meet my sweet bluetooth headset.
4. Hello computer, glad to know you have bluetooth operability, I’ll be sure to not carry my other set of headphones with me all the time.

Well, I’m convinced. What do you guys think?