Things Ive Learned the Hard Way

"You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run."
- Kenny Rogers - The Gambler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5W9G8s9YQ

Bike Touring is 33% physical, 33% mental and 33% logistics. I have the physical down pat. The other two I'm very lacking. So out the gate, alone, I'm down 66%. My wonderful wife makes up my missing 66%. Without her, I'm doomed. The Super Tour I did a few years ago had the logistics worked out already, and the mental was there a bit in that it wasn't so crushingly lonely.

California was ok, the ride up to Sacramento was really nice and I met a wonderful couple that took me in the first night and fed me. The next day, I stupidly didn't get water before heading up Mormon Emigrant Trail to Hwy 88. It started hailing and raining and I took refuge in a tree and shivered. A kind soul stopped and gave me a 1/2 gallon of water. I made it to a hotel that had rooms for 267$ a night and they were kind enough to drive me back to the RV park up the hill where I spent a freezing night not sleeping. I met a very nice backpacking couple and we shared stories over dinner.

Nevada was 'another thing.' I had heard it was lonely but so was I and the combo didn't go over well. The climbs were ok (all 47 of them) but the plains were brutal, cold, boring, windy and loooooong (all 47 of them). The little towns along the way are sort of nice to blow through at 70mph but I had to stay in each and every one of them. In a lot of them, my loneliness was all the more apparent. During the particularly cold and rainy parts, I seriously wondered what I was doing there. Heading into Ely off the pass was 18 miles of solid, cold, driving rain. You really begin to wonder why in the world you are doing this, especially in Nevada on Hwy 50 where there is nothing much to see.

On the last pass before Baker, NV, I met a woman that told me about Moab and Baker, and made me feel better. Baker was a jewel in the middle of nothing. The Lectrolux cafe owner let me sleep in his backyard free, and let me borrow his mountain bike to go tooling around the small town. Lots of fun kids were there working for the National Park and I met the two women that were heading to Miami. I rode up the Lehman Caves and got a semi private tour of the caves by flashlight.

Utah was something else entirely. The headwinds were incredible 25mph sustained and 40mph gusts. Coming into Cedar City I had a hard time controlling the bike and it was 50 miles of unrelenting wind. My plan was to go farther but the wind was unforgiving.

Finally the ride into Zion National Park along Hwy 9 was what I was looking for. Beautiful scenery, mild wind, sunny day. I stopped in this cool cafe with live music and couches to have a root beer. The patrons treated me like family for the 15 minutes I was there. Zion is unbelievably beautiful and I decided to have a rest day. That night the wind from the canyon was brutal and my tent was totally inadequate. I was up all night trying to lash the tent to tables and trees to keep it from falling over.

The next day I did an early morning ride into the canyon (the absolute highlight of the trip so far with indescribable beauty and almost no one else around). I had stupidly left food in the tent and when I came back there was a squirrel inside the tent, having chewed a hole in the netting, that I had to shoo out. I also noticed that the tent was covered, inside and out, with a fine red dust, from the battering it took the night before. I threw out the food and sealed up the tent as best I could. I spent the rest of the day hiking the small hikes around the canyon and although it was nice, I really wished my family was there. When I came back to the tent, I found the front pole was snapped in half and unusable. I was only able to get a cheap, crappy tent at the local supermarket and bunkered down to another sleepless night in the brutal canyon winds. I decided that night that it was time to end it, cut my losses and head home. The next day I was in Vegas by 1:30 and home by 6pm.

I'm very happy to be home. There was no equipment to be had in Zion and I didn't relish heading into the high desert with a supermarket tent. Ive learned I'm only good at the physical aspects of touring and need someone else to handle the other 66%. I've learned that ultralight touring doesn't cut it when the conditions are unusually harsh and brutal but I don't want to *be* touring at all when the conditions are unusually harsh and brutal. I've learned that what might an interesting place to blow through at 70mph is not that interesting when you have to stay there. And although I knew this before, headwinds suck.

Thanks for all your good wishes and concerns. I am happy to be safe and at home.

Understanding Exxon

Today I got my haircut by a woman that had such a thick Asian accent I could barely understand her. I think her grasp of English wasn't so great so she could barely understand me. That made us even.

Ive been thinking a lot about Exxon and how we can possibly, as a people, let this kind of things happen. I know the reason but I forget it sometimes.

It was obvious that I biked downtown, I was wearing a helmet. I sat down to get my hair cut and asked her how she got to work today. After some labored communication, I gleaned she drove. This hair cutting place is 100 yards from a BART station so I asked her where she lived and how close she was to a BART station. She responded Oakland, and about 5 minutes away from the Fruitvale station (walking). So WHY in the WORLD doesn't she take BART? Well the answer is fear, but not in so many words. First she told me there were 'black' people. As she said this her voice lowered a bit in case someone in homogeneously white wealthy upper-middle class village might overhear. Then she proceeded to tell me (I was prodding) about her cousin who worked in a veterinary office getting robbed, and some stones that she found on her car. Or this is what I heard after very difficult back and forth. For example, the vet office had 'catch' which I finally figured out was 'cash'. It was dark when she got home but I gathered that 'bad stuff' could happen any time of day.

Now I think this is somewhat valid fear she has, but she could easily take BART and still doesn't due to fear. Im guessing, based on my experience with people making excuses, that if it wasn't the fear, there would be something else.

This woman is not rich, she works hard, probably raises a family and lives in a place that she fundamentally fears. Its naive to stop at "but people would lose jobs" because scratching the surface even further, its a culture of constant fear and its no way to live. But we keep driving and Exxon makes billions while the rest of the country burns.

Raping the Rich

I was having a conversation about the recent financial bailouts and we got into the age-old topic of "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor." Liberals favor taxing the rich, and conservatives ... umm ... don't.

I made a silly example like this:

• You make 100K you get taxed 20% and take home 80K


• You make 1M and get taxed 50% and take home 500K


• You make 10M and get taxed 75% and take home 2.5M

I was told "raping he rich" is not going to help. I thought about this a lot and I think Ive figured out where this might come from.

First there might be a misconception that like Robin Hood, the money is actually stolen from the rich and handed to the poor. But taxation is more like going into the general fund where, theoretically, everyone benefits in some way.

Second, I cant tell if every conservative thinks they are "rich" and will be taxed heavily. When liberals are talking about taxing the rich we are talking about the Oil companies, the Pharmaceutical companies... the obscenely rich. We are not talking about taxing the dwindling middle class.

Finally I think it might be an example of "forest for the trees" thinking. The conservatives are limited to thinking about themselves having 1M dollars and how they fear the big bad liberal government taking that away. It takes a a very broad perspective to understand why its ok to "rape the rich."

Lets start with a very simple example that highlights the broad perspective. Lets say I am the owner of a coal mine and Ive been mining it myself. Lets say that I am able to mine 10K worth per year and that Im a lazy worker. I get the brilliant idea of hiring a less lazy worker that can generate 12K worth for me and I can pay them 5K and make 7K. This assuming it costs nothing, which it doesn't, to get the coal. Im making less money but doing no "work." I hire another non-lazy worker and am now getting 24K of coal, making 14K profit, and paying out 10K to my workers. I sit back making money doing nothing and they make money doing work. Everything is good.

The missing piece is the "cost" of doing this coal mining. We assumed that it "cost" nothing to mine the coal because the only tool I used is an old spoon. The hidden costs are the health cost for breathing in the coal dust (masks are too expensive) and the environmental cost of the mining operation. These hidden costs are hard to measure but lets assume that they are "high." Lets just arbitrarily say that the health costs are 1K per year of breathing in coal dust and the environmental cost is 1K per year for every 10K worth of coal mined. So the "rich" coal mine owner should be paying 2.4K to the health care general fund and 2.4K to the environmental fund. So now my 14K is more like under 10K. That's not raping the rich, that's not subsidizing (or ignoring) any of the costs of the business.

In reality the costs to human health and the environment are probably much higher than that. With no subsidization its probably not even economically viable to mine coal in this fashion.

A lot of companies have huge environmental costs that are totally being ignored. How much would an iPod be if Apple had to figure out how to recycle 100% of the materials rather than just putting last year's hottest "thang" in landfill? Now add american working wages rather than overseas working wages and zero emissions and that iPod is 500,000 dollars in adjusted cost. Bottled water is the same thing. How much would the bottle cost if they couldn't just dump them in landfills? Since AFAIK its technically infeasible to completely recycle that plastic, you wouldn't even be able to be in the bottled water business.

So its not raping the rich but rather paying ALL the costs. In reality its just saying pay more of the costs since no one could possibly live with out their iPod (that is so last month) ... sorry I mean iTouch ... sorry I mean iPhone ... and on and on and on.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I was at the intersection of Ashby and Claremont this morning and I was waiting at the red light to cross Ashby and continue on Claremont down to College.

http://tinyurl.com/66s2oc

I was in the lane where the white car is with arrows pointing right and straight through. AFAICT there is no legal requirement for me to move out of the way and let cars turning right, turn right. If I was a car going straight through there wouldnt even be a question. But an impatient car behind me honked and said some unkind words when I declined to move out of the way. If there is a legal requirement for me to move, then I apologize to the impatient driver, and the bicycling community for fostering bad karma.

When he passed me within millimeters of me and my bike, he asked "what the fuck was wrong with me?" and made his right turn and drove off.

Well maybe its the whole week of dealing with the crap roads, exhaust, and traffic. Maybe its the fact that they closed a mile of my normal route up and down Old Tunnel for a 6 ft. stretch of repair and the dirty looks I got when I forgot Monday morning. Maybe its all the stupid gasholes that are STILL talking on their cell phones. Maybe its the three times this week I was cut off and some idiot in an SUV turned right in front of me (at this point I can tell when its going to happen so I dont get scared anymore, just tired of it). Maybe its the psychopath driving his white Miata up Pinehurst at unsafe speeds every single day (4WCZ643) Maybe its how every friggen day I deal with cars in my way that dont move. Maybe its the fact that if Im not courteous once in a month, I ruin it for everyone but the drivers are not even aware of how inconsiderate they are ALL THE time. Maybe Im tired and just dont want to
move if I dont have to.

Or maybe there is something wrong with me.

Any way I feel bad about ruining it for all cyclists and making THEM hate us even more and I apologize.

All Advil, No Brains

Advil has a new ad campaign where beautiful people playing tennis and engaging in all kind of activity are telling us that they are now taking Advil for all their pain. What they are trying to convince us of is that before they were taking all kinds of pain killers for each specific pain they had. Shoulder pain medication for shoulder pain, butt pain medication for their butt pain.

First of all why do they have so much pain, and second, is there anyone still alive that thinks medication can target a body part?

The other thing I don't like about this campaign is that it makes it seem like you should take Advil all the time, for anything that might not feel just 102% perfect. Well lemme tell ya, life hurts. You are going to have aches and pains and creaks and groans. Be a man about it and push through it. Don't pop pills for every little thing, ya big wusses.

Sealed Envelope

Somehow this Foley thing just seems too damn convenient. Im frustrated with the Democrats because all they do is keep asking me for money. I am going to vote against the Republicans even if the democratic candidate is a can of tuna but that doesn't change the fact that all the Democrats can do is say how bad a job the Republicans are doing (which I know) and being reactive rather than proactive. I started thinking, "how would the imminently proactive Republicans use the Foley disgrace to their advantage?"

On my list of Sealed Envelope predictions were two things.

1. There would be a terrorist attack on U.S. soil within the next couple of months
2. The Republicans have the elections in control despite public "whims" since they "own" key districts.
   

Number 1 would put the sheep back in their constant state of elevated fear and succumb to any inanity. Number 2 allows the powers that be to remain in control.

If you believe that Number 2 is possible then think about this. Foley is a patsy. The last bastion of potential anonymity is on the internet. With the Foley scandal it would be trivially easy to convince the majority that anonymity on the Internet is a "bad" thing and that Yahoo, MySpace, Google, AOL, and all the other players to hand over their account information and allow tapping of all internet chat.

Add Number 3 to the list. A bill to allow the all watchful eye of government to monitor our every move on the internet in case there are other "terrorists" like Foley.

Asleep

In the Matrix, everyone was asleep in their pods being sucked slowly dry. I think most people are in the same situation. I fight everyday to stay awake but sometimes I feel completely alone. Here are some signs you might be asleep:

• You drive an SUV
  
• You have an iPod
• You believe what you hear on the news and read in the newspaper
• You think the government is doing a good job
• You take any life style drugs (cholesterol, antidepressants, ED)
• You've "asked your doctor" about any drug marketed to you
• You live in a constant state of fear
• You live or strive for the "american dream"
• You think corn or potatos are vegetables
• You don't like green vegetables
• Most of what you eat comes out of a package
• You think killing 99.99% of bacteria is a good thing and need more than soap and water to do that
• You think your kids need drugs for their behavior
• You "hate" in the name of religion

Im so tired of seeing people caged in their giant cars talking on their cell phones. I had to write something. Wake up, dammit. WTF do you think you are doing?