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Times They Are A’ Changin

Okay, first off, I’m not a huge Bob Dylan fan. I just like the name of the song.

Secondly, I’m in a quandry. Most of you know I’ve been commuting to work on my bike (pedal powered, not a motorcycle, it always irritates me when people call their motorcycles “bikes”).  In a word, it’s fantastic. I’ve lost weight, gotten healthier, and I actually enjoy the trip to work and back (being at work is a different story entirely). Most of you also know I’m a huge car nut… I love fast cars. I own a sports compact car, which I love to bring to the track and abuse. It’s somewhat of a drama queen, as nothing on it is cheap to fix, and it is rather fickle. And did I mention it’s ridiculously fun to drive? However, it’s paid for, and I’m not really tempted to sell it.

Except that I am really tempted to sell it. Less than a year ago, I was at the point of almost having to sell it, because we just couldn’t afford the cost of owning it for very long… however, we managed to pay it off, and our monthly bills dropped more than $300. I was ecstatic. I didn’t have to sell my fast car. My dream didn’t die. Continue reading “Times They Are A’ Changin”

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Finished My Second MS150

A few weeks ago, I finished my second Multiple Scleroses 150 mile tour. A good friend of mine came down with Multiple Scleroses last year, and so I rode a custom chopper bicycle for the tour in 2009. It was a blast, but the bike was really slow, and I only made it 115 miles before tornado warnings stopped us.

This year, I decided to use a “faster” bike. Unfortunately, the fastest bike I had was a Schwinn hardtail which I use to commute. Of course, I couldn’t just ride a road bike like everybody else there. Oh no, I had to do something different. Why not ride the commuter, and pack my bags too? And hey, why not a Hawaiian shirt. They’re cool. So that’s what I did.

There were more than 1200 riders, and they raised more than $500,000 in donations for the National Multiple Scleroses Society. I had a great ride, and finished both days strong (though not fast).

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The Workings Of An ADD Brain

Anybody who knows me knows that I’m seriously random at times, and I know all sorts of random facts and things. I’ve been asked several times if I’ve applied for the game show Jeopardy and to be honest, I don’t know why I haven’t yet. For instance, on my lunch break today, I went on a Wikipedia binge that started with Hot Fries, and ended with Frankenstien and Martin Luther King Jr. No, seriously.

Here’s how it went:

I treated myself to a small bag of Hot Fries, which are spicy fried corn and potato snacks. I always read ingredients, and I noticed this bag has 100 calories, and contains MSG.

I look up MSG and find it’s Monosodium Glutemate, the artificial salt version of glutamic acid(which is a naturally occurring checmical in things like seaweed, soy sauce, etc). It was invented by a Japanese scientist in 1907. I’m curious about what exactly makes up a “salt” and so I click the link.

I learn about different kinds of salt, and how they’re extracted. I also notice the article “salt” mentions the famous Mohandas Ghandi, as one of his peaceful acts of civil disobedience was making salt when the British government forbid it so that people would pay their salt tax.

I do some reading on Ghandi, and find that he was heavily influenced by a paper written byHenry David Thoreau, who was a non-violent activist from America. I also find that he was known for reciting the Percy Shelly poem, “The Masque of Anarchy” which was in response to thePeterloo Massacre.

I do some reading on Shelly, and find out that his second wife was Mary Shelly, who wrote the novel Frankenstein. I also find out that the Thoreau paper (“Civil Disobedience”) was one of the major influences on a young Martin Luther King Jr, who then became an advocate of non-violent protest as well.

So there you have it, in the span of less than 30 minutes, I went from Hot Fries to Martin Luther King Jr. I could have gone farther and looked into MLK day and various black history dates, which would have led me who knows where.

Just goes to show, ADD is good for something!

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Interesting Fact Of The Day

The largest bomb ever built and detonated was AN602 (Tsar Bomba) in 1961. It produced an explosion equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT. The fireball was 5 miles wide, and the blast radius was more than 22 miles, capable of destroying even the largest city in a single blast. In comparison, it was 2400 times stronger than the bomb used to destroy Hiroshima, and due to a triple-stage fusion-boosted process, was about the same physical size. The mushroom cloud was 7 times higher than Mt. Everest. Even though it was detonated 4 miles above the Earth’s surface, the seismic shock measured as a 5.25 on the Richter scale, and traveled all the way around the planet 3 times. Atmospheric focusing carried the blast damage to more than 600 miles away from ground zero. It generated 1.4% as much energy as the sun itself. The entire explosion took less than a half a second.

It was the single most powerful device ever created by mankind. And do you want to know the scary part?

They only ran it at half yeild; it was designed to yeild a 100 MegaTon explosion.

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Music Looping Hardware

I’ve been tossing around the idea of looping with hardware for quite a while, basically since I first heard of it a few months ago. It would allow me to perform music with much more flexibility than just me playing a single instrument, and it is a lot of fun, too. I am now at the point where I have to decide what kind of setup I want to use, and work on getting it functional in my setup.

If you’re interested in this kind of thing, there’s three routes you can go: a dedicated looping pedal, an analog tape delay (or equivalent), or a computer with software. Here’s a brief look at the three, and why I chose the last one.

Looper Pedals

These would include pedals by Digitech, Boss, Line6, and a few others. Each company makes a few different models, each with more buttons/features than the last. The two most popular are the Boss RC Series, and the Digitech JamMan series, both of which come in different sizes and with different features. Continue reading “Music Looping Hardware”

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Inconvenient Truth

I was recently involved in one of those wonderful “phone survey” calls from someone reading from a script. It didn’t take long to realize they were working for British Petrolium, and it was quite obvious the way the questions were worded that they wanted to skew the results to say what they wanted. By the end of the call, I was disgusted. It went something like this:

Them: “Who do you think is doing a better job of cleaning up the oil spill, BP, or the Federal Government?”
Me: “Neither one is going to clean up the oil, once the cameras leave, they will forget all about it and we’ll be left to fend for ourselves, just like after Hurricane Katrina.”
Them: “Sir, you must pick one or the other.”
Me: “No I don’t.”

It went on like this for a half an hour. None of the questions were really helpful, but I gave the most honest answers I could. Too bad you can’t fit opinions into “Very, somewhat, not very, or not at all satisfied.”

It made me think about the basis of our country, such as it is. It made me think about the Federal Government/Corporation. It made me think about the mega corporations that run everything now. It made me think about how much America has traded its soul for the convenience of cheap LCD TV’s. It made me think about the hypocrisy of the common person. It made me think about how people aren’t allowed to think anymore.

It makes me want to cry.

The “Inconvenient Truth” is this: we no longer own America as a country. We spend “money” that is backed by nothing tangible, to buy things we don’t really need. We eat food that is bad for us, drink water that is poisoned, take vaccines that could kill you, buy things without thinking where they come from, and take medicines that do more harm than good. We read things that serve no purpose, we watch things that reenforce amoral behavior, we listen to idiots who say what we want to hear, and gosh darn it, we’re happy about all of this. Why? Because our masters told us so. Or maybe it’s the lithium they’re planning on putting into the water supply.

People don’t care enough about anything to get involved anymore. They’d rather be comfortable, even in prison, than have to deal with doing anything on their own. They are sheep, fodder for the machine that will spit them out like so much waste when their monetary usefulness is expended. The few people that speak up against it are silenced, ridiculed, and in some cases, killed.

Is it stoppable? Not if things continue the way they are now. If you’re mad about the way the government is letting companies and lobbyists destroy our country, are you mad enough to do something about it? Are you mad enough to live intentionally, and learn about what is going on in the world around us? Are you mad enough to stop pumping money into mega-corporations for no reason? Are you mad enough to make your voice heard?

Live intentionally. Shun consumerism. Think objectively. Love deeply. Fight for justice.

Our country, and your freedom, depends on it.

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You Know I’m Lazy When…

Cause it’s taking me forever to finish editing my book. Yes, I “finished” writing it in November of last year. However, the ending was horrible. I decided to redo it. That re-write of the last 4 chapters has taken me close to 8 months to complete.

If you follow writers, this shouldn’t surprise you. They rarely write a book (worth reading) in less than a year. It’s just a massive feat, and anybody who says otherwise obviously hasn’t tried it.

However, I’m actually finishing mine up now. It will get sent to a few select readers who can give me unbiased eyes, and I will do the last few corrections… and then it will be ready to format for print.

Holy cow! It’ll be finished just in time for November, when I’ll have to write another one… :P

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Commuter Report: Week 1 Finished

I really enjoyed biking to work last week, even though I had to bail on Thursday and Friday afternoons because of the torrential downpours. Fret not, as I now have fully functional fenders and lights on the BlueBike, and I’m ready for anything. Well, not anything per se, you know, not a tornado or volcanic activity, or a tidal wave or a Cat 5 hurricane. But as for dark and rain, I’ve pretty much got that covered. I’ve got all my stuff in waterproof bags, so even if it rains, I’m ready to go.

Yes, I’m still scared of getting run down, but not as much as I was. In actuality, the rides have been a lot better than I thought they would be. I’m still curious as to if/when I’ll run across local law enforcement, and what they’ll tell me about riding in the street… Thibodaux, LA doesn’t have the greatest track record for bicycle-friendly law enforcement. It would do those guys some good to actually patrol on bikes and see what traffic is like without the protective bubbles of their plush cruisers. Heh, that’s wishful thinking.

Anyway, the ride has gone mostly fine. I had a rough day today, but I am reminded that last week went really well. My lighting system performed perfectly after I realized I had hooked the battery up wrong! The taillight I use only works when the polarity is correct, it’s made of LEDs and doesn’t have a rectifier in it. (Hmm, another project I could do one day) The bike is riding fine, the fenders worked great. Everything seems to be going perfectly.

I still need to get a better tire solution for preventing flats. The Kenda tires I have ride well, but are cheap, and they seem to like to eat up bits of metal like Cookie Monster eats cookies. Maybe I could try some tire liners, like Mr. Tuffy brand.

As I sit here typing this, it’s raining outside. I don’t know if the rain will be done by the time I get off of work, but I’m looking forward to riding home in the rain, to see what that will be like. No, I’m not crazy… I spent money on quality fenders, I want to see how well they work!

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Commuting To Work

So I finally decided instead of riding 14 miles every morning, and then driving to work, I’d just ride the 8 miles to work instead.

You’re probably thinking “That’s a no-brainer!” but it’s more complicated than that. On my normal morning ride, there’s no traffic lights, very little traffic, and only one stop sign. To get to work is a shorter distance, but requires navigating a dozen stop signs, busier streets, and at least two traffic lights and a bridge. Also, I will have to carry myself (and my stuff) back home in the heat at 5:00, which I don’t have to deal with on morning-only rides. I also have to figure out how to carry a change of clothes, any food I need, my laptop, and anything else (including lights and a battery) on the bike, while on my regular rides I don’t need any of that stuff.

Don’t forget that buying a bike and everything you need for a commute costs money! It’s healthier to get exercise, yes, but it’s still not free. With recreational cycling, if you get a flat, you don’t have to ride. If something breaks, you can wait to fix it. If it’s too rainy, too dark, or too whatever, you don’t have to ride. With commuting, you pretty much need to ride every day, unless you have a car on standby at all times. I do happen to have a car, so this is less of an issue for me.

So is it worth it? It depends on how dedicated you are to it. Believe it or not, you will save more money by riding when it’s convenient, because you will not need things like lights, fenders, panniers, or specialized clothing. You won’t get as fit, though, if you don’t ride on a regular basis.

So whether or not you will get benefits from cycling to work depends on what kind of retuns you’re looking for. So far, I’ve lost close to 20 pounds just cycling and eating right. Commuting will actually increase my mileage compared to my normal 13.5 mile morning jaunts, up to 16.5 miles total a day. Not a huge difference, but it eliminates the extra time I spent riding in the morning… I can actually get up and leave laterthan I normally would if I had ridden and then drove to work.

Time will tell how things go long-term, but for how good I feel riding my bike, I’m going to stick with it.